Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands

A soft, clicking sound echoed from the high, vaulted ceiling above them.

’Click. Click. Click.’

Kaya slowly raised the oil lamp, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling hidden in the deep shadows.

Clinging to the damp obsidian rock directly above them, its eight jagged legs spread wide, was a creature ripped straight from a nightmare. It had the pale, twisted torso of a human, but the massive, bloated abdomen of an enormous spider. Its multiple glowing red eyes stared down at Kaya with absolute, ravenous hunger.

"Cutie," Kaya said, her voice dropping to a dead, terrifying calm as she slowly lowered the lamp. "We need to leave this basement. Right now."

But as she took a step backward, the clicking sound multiplied.

From the shadows of the adjacent corridors, from behind the massive grain silos, and dropping silently from the ceiling vents, dozens of glowing red eyes opened in the dark. The Rot-weavers had not come to the canyon to negotiate. They had come to feast.

The clicking echoed like a thousand dry bones snapping in the dark, a rhythmic, suffocating sound that completely swallowed the silence of the subterranean storage level.

Kaya stood frozen, the small glass oil lamp trembling slightly in her hand. The flickering yellow light struggled to push back the overwhelming darkness, but it revealed enough. From the high, vaulted ceilings, from the damp obsidian walls, and crawling out of the massive ventilation shafts meant to keep the grain dry, they came.

Dozens upon dozens of Rot-weavers.

They were a grotesque, blasphemous mockery of the beastman form. Their lower halves were the bloated, hairy abdomens of massive arachnids, supported by eight jagged, chitinous legs that ended in razor-sharp points. But their upper halves were human—or at least, they used to be. Their torsos were deathly pale, their faces stretched tight over their skulls, their mouths dominated by dripping, venomous mandibles that constantly twitched and snapped. Their multiple red eyes glowed with an unholy, ravenous hunger that had been starving in the deep marsh for a century.

"Cutie," Kaya whispered, her voice barely audible over the deafening clatter of arachnid legs on stone. "Back up. Slowly. Do not turn your back on them."

The giant bear-rabbit let out a low, vibrating growl that shook Kaya’s ribs. He planted his massive feet, his broad shoulders shielding her entirely. He didn’t take a step back. His instincts, usually so gentle, were screaming at him that if he yielded a single inch, the swarm would devour the small, fragile human behind him.

From the center of the ceiling directly above the sealed grain silo, the largest of the Rot-weavers lowered herself on a thick, shimmering thread of highly corrosive silk. She was easily the size of a carriage, her human face twisted into a horrifying, wide grin that exposed rows of needle-like teeth.

"Fresh meat," the massive spider hissed, her voice a chorus of overlapping, scratching whispers that seemed to claw directly at Kaya’s brain. "The marsh... whispered of a human. Soft. Fattened on roasted birds and boiled water. The Lord of Scars promised us a feast."

Kaya’s mind snagged on the title. ’The Lord of Scars.’

The dread that had been sitting in her stomach for two months suddenly crystallized into absolute, freezing terror.

Lord Siss wasn’t dead. She had severed his head, she had watched his three-ton body collapse, but he wasn’t dead. He had somehow survived, retreated into the absolute darkest depths of the swamp, and allied himself with the monsters even he had once banished. And now, while her army was celebrating a victory miles above, the true siege was starting from the inside out.

"Cutie, we can’t fight them here!" Kaya shouted, her tactical mind desperately trying to assert control over her panic. "The corridor is too narrow! We have no leverage! Run!"

But the Rot-weavers didn’t give them the chance.

With a unified, terrifying shriek, the swarm descended. They dropped from the ceiling like rain, their massive, heavy bodies crashing into the stone floor, completely cutting off the exit to the spiraling staircase.

Cutie roared, a deafening, feral sound of pure, unadulterated rage. He didn’t have his heavy iron candelabra or a steel broadsword. He only had his bare paws. He lunged forward, sweeping his massive arms in a wide, devastating arc.

His heavy claws connected with the first wave of spiders. The sheer blunt-force trauma of the giant bear beastman shattered their chitinous armor, sending three of the Rot-weavers flying backward into the stone walls with a sickening crunch. Green, foul-smelling ichor splattered across the floor.

But as Cutie drew his arm back for a second swing, a stream of thick, silvery webbing shot from the darkness.

The silk wrapped around Cutie’s right forearm. The moment it made contact with his thick fur, it hissed violently. The silk was highly acidic. Cutie let out a roaring gasp of pain as the corrosive webbing burned straight through his fur and began eating into his flesh.

"Cutie!" Kaya screamed.

She didn’t hesitate. Channeling her strange, weightless agility, Kaya vaulted onto the nearest grain barrel, launching herself into the air. She drew her steel hunting knife, flipping it into a reverse grip. As she soared over Cutie’s massive shoulder, she slashed down, slicing through the taut, acidic webbing.

The silk snapped, but a few drops of the acidic venom splattered onto the sleeve of Kaya’s crimson tunic. It instantly burned through the linen, searing a painful, blistering line across her forearm. Kaya gritted her teeth, ignoring the stinging pain as she landed lightly on the stone floor next to Cutie.

"There are too many of them!" Kaya yelled, backing up against the giant beastman. "They’re trying to pin us down!"

"The human is fast," the massive female spider clicked from the shadows, her red eyes tracking Kaya’s impossible leap. "But the web is wide. Drink their fluids. Leave the skins for the Lord."

Dozens of smaller spiders lunged forward, their mandibles snapping.

Kaya fought with desperate, frantic precision. She used her agility not to attack, but entirely to evade. She ducked beneath a sweeping, jagged leg, driving her hunting knife up into the soft underbelly of a Rot-weaver. She twisted the blade, pulling it free as the creature collapsed, but there was no time to breathe. Another spider was instantly there, spitting a glob of necrotic acid.

Kaya pushed off the wall, flipping backward just as the acid melted the stone where she had been standing a fraction of a second prior. She landed in a crouch, panting heavily. The air in the subterranean level was rapidly becoming toxic, filled with the burning stench of acid and the sickeningly sweet smell of spider ichor.

Cutie was an absolute juggernaut, but he was taking a horrific amount of damage. For every spider he crushed beneath his massive paws, two more managed to score shallow, venomous cuts across his legs and back. His fur was smoking in dozens of places where the acidic webs had caught him. He was using his own massive body as a living, bleeding shield, intentionally stepping into the path of acid spits and lunging mandibles to ensure nothing touched Kaya.

"Cutie, stop! You have to fall back!" Kaya pleaded, her heart breaking as a jagged spider leg slashed a deep gash across the giant’s thigh.

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