The humans screamed as they burned in her silk.
Thalisa moved through the ruined streets on eight crimson-tipped legs, her massive lower body crushing stone beneath her as villagers tried to crawl away from the web-lined walls. Their homes had been split apart, webbed shut, dragged into silence. The moment they broke formation, they were prey. Her prey.
One screamed for mercy.
She didn't grant it.
Her fangs punched through his throat and snapped clean through the spine. Blood spattered across her silk-draped chest, but she didn't flinch. Her mandibles clicked softly as she looked to the next trembling figure—a woman, older, holding the charred remains of a child.
"You should have run sooner," Thalisa whispered, her voice smooth and eerily calm.
She skewered the woman through the stomach with a leg and moved on.
