The Spider Queen

"Speak," Thai\'lle growled in a low voice as she approached the creature and knelt down until she was at eye level with its fleshy orifice.

"I… I don\'t know much… all I know is that the captain got a message… something about an escaped criminal in the Lo\'vrean Galaxy," the creature stammered nervously.

"The message… it said not to engage… but the captain… he… he got greedy… he wanted to take the bounty… I told him…"

"I TOLD HIM IT WAS A MISTAKE!"

The creature screamed out the last part of its confession as the multiple pale arms sprouting out of its back wriggled and squirmed violently.

"Yes… your captain was a very stupid man," Thai\'lle whispered softly as she leaned in closer to the creature and lightly bit the side of its flesh.

Her fangs sank into the creature\'s skin no deeper than one centimetre but that was more than enough to finish the job.

The creature thrashed around in pain as its veins could now be clearly visible from the outside.

A terrifying black liquid began to travel around its body which caused its organs to collapse and its flesh to rot away.

Two seconds.

That was how long it took for the creature to die.

A being who was in the qi void stage had died as easily as if it were an ant or an insignificant lesser organism.

Thai\'lle got up from the ground and paused for a moment to admire her handiwork. She still hadn\'t lost her touch…

The former princess of the Arachnais tribe walked out of the room and headed for the command deck.

The interior of the starship was badly damaged but still usable. The only problem was all the corpses that lay scattered across the ground.

She would need to clean those later… urgh… what a pain…

Thai\'lle let out a heavy sigh as she kicked a severed head out of the way and continued on her journey to the command deck.

Still… she was in a good mood.

She had done it.

She had finally managed to escape the prison complex and she had even accomplished that feat without reaching the Ascension Stage!

It had involved a bit of luck and quite some danger along the way but now she was a free woman and able to do whatever the hell she wanted.

And what she wanted was to see her daughter and lover again.

Thai\'lle absentmindedly touched the centre of her chest and could feel the familiar throb of the pink mark that had been carved onto her skin.

She could still feel the connection between herself and that handsome young human even after all this time.

Oh?

Thai\'lle raised an eyebrow as she saw something move ever so slightly under a pile of corpses stacked up against a door.

These corpses all had horrific stab wounds on their backs, a clear sign that they had been killed while trying to run away.

The former princess approached the pile of corpses and reached down with her hand to fling them off to the side.

Eventually at the bottom of the pile she saw a humanoid female whose body was covered by a thick brown exoskeleton.

The creature was barely clinging to life with an enormous open wound slashed across her stomach.

Black blood pooled on the ground below her body and her brilliant purple irises were cloudy and unfocused.

"Hmm… I must have been getting sloppy," Thai\'lle muttered to herself as she used one of her bladed appendages to finish off the job.

Stab!

Quick. Painless. Easy.

Thai\'lle hummed softly under her breath as she stepped over the corpse and finally arrived at the command deck.

Some of the consoles had been damaged but Thai\'lle quickly assessed the rest and was relived to discover that there were enough left to fly the starship.

The former princess made her way to the captain\'s chair in the centre of the room and sat down on the comfortable seat.

The seat\'s materials immediately morphed and shifted ever so slightly in order to accommodate her physiology.

"Activate AI protocol- Password Alpha Delta Seven… command override- authority Captain Harlow," Thai\'lle called out lazily.

She had picked up that helpful tidbit of information from the captain himself after a few minutes of torture.

And they said that pain wasn\'t effective!

Thai\'lle operated on a simple philosophy.

If her enemies were not giving her the information that she wanted… hit them harder.

This method worked most of the time.

The starship hummed to life and soon multiple holographic screens appeared in front of the captain\'s chair.

Thai\'lle lifted up her hand and quickly inputted a series of commands.

Her fingers were like a blur as she plotted out a course out of the Lo\'vrean Galaxy and towards the Fayera controlled territories of the Insectoid Empire.

The starship\'s engines began to rumble and a warning voice from the AI announced that the vessel was about to enter hyperdrive.

[Three… Two… One…]

[Please Remain Seated]

BOOM!

A wild grin spread across Thai\'lle face as the starship shot forward into the endless void of the universe.

Suddenly she felt a presence coming from just outside of her vision. Thai\'lle set the starship on autopilot and then got out of her seat.

She could vaguely make out a figure standing in the corner of the room. The figure\'s body was blurry and kept flickering as if it was about to disappear.

Still… it felt familiar…

Thai\'lle had felt this feeling before and it was one that she would never be able to forget.

This connection… it was the one that she had experienced when she was visited by…

Sophie!

Her daughter was back to visit her!

Thai\'lle rushed forward in excitement as the figure\'s body became more solid and her daughter\'s visage came into view.

Her precious baby looked exactly like how she remembered from their last encounter.

Very tall.

Actually… a bit too tall… were children supposed to make their parents feel short?

At least she clearly inherited her good looks from her mother.

Well… she did have a vague resemblance to her father. The subtle shape of her eyebrows bore a striking similar to Rokan\'s.

"Mom!" Sophie cried out happily as she rushed forward to give her mother a big hug. It was a bit difficult to do in her astral form but she somehow managed.

Sophie felt an enormous weight lift off her shoulders as she collapsed into her mother\'s arms without caring about her image.

She was no longer the ruler of an upper ranked noble family. She was just a young woman who missed the embrace of her mom.

Thai\'lle smiled gently at her daughter and raised up her arms to match her tight embrace. Her golden eyes became slightly wet as she blinked back the unshed tears.

Everything that she did was to see her daughter and her mate again. They were the ones who made her life have meaning.

She had lost everything except for her family.

And Thai\'lle swore to never lose them… at any cost.