The spider nest was currently in a state of unrest. Countless little spiders were crawling all about the ground in a hurried but organized manner.
A few minutes ago, the order was given by the Spider Empress to prepare for war.
This caused a great reaction amongst the Spider Queens who knew a little bit of the situation but the rest of the spiders in the nest just mindlessly followed the orders.
In their opinion, since the Empress had ordered for war, they would wholeheartedly prepare for war without any other thoughts or doubts in their heads.
Lake, who saw all this from atop a half collapsed building, was slightly amazed at the spiders' willingness to obey every order from the Empress. When Lake had first appeared in the nest, Lake remembered how hostile the spider's were to him but after only a few words from the Empress, all of that hostility regardless of how many spiders he had killed disappeared.
Lake even saw the spider whose brother he had killed turned completely submissive after the Empress had given the order. Although, every now and then he could see a flash of hatred in the spider's eyes.
Everything Lake had seen so far had left him slightly amused. In his eyes, the spiders who acted this way were more like brainwashed soldiers and although they had feelings and individuality, they were locked under the chains of the Empress' control.
Lake didn't mind this however, after all, these mindless soldiers would be under his command in the upcoming battle.
The thought of mindless, completely loyal soldiers being under his control put a smile on Lake's face.
Although he was forced into this battle due to his life being in the hands of the Empress, Lake felt that he got a pretty good deal from all this.
Once the battle started, there were bound to be casualties on both sides and where there were casualties, there were fates.
Thinking about all the fates that were about to be lined up for his collecting left Lake chuckling as he looked at his soon to be army.
At this moment, the Spider Empress appeared beside him.
Looking at Lake who was watching the army with amusement, the Empress spoke coldly, "Have you prepared yourself?"
Lake smiled lightly upon hearing the Empress' word as he replied, "I'm ready as I'll ever be."
"Good, then prepare to move out in the next hour. The earlier we strike, the better our odds of victory are."
"You still haven't told me about your plan of attack," Lake asked, "Although I'm confident in my own abilities, I can't say the same for my ability to command on the spot, so I would like to at least know what we're up against and your plan moving forward."
Hearing Lake's words, the Empress snorted as an icy smile appeared on her face, "Command? Who said anything about commanding? I think you misunderstand something here. Even if you're under the King's Pact, I still don't trust you enough to control my army."
Lake was slightly dumbfounded as he heard the Empress words. With a puzzled expression, he turned to the Empress, "If I'm not commanding, how will I use the King's Aura? Doesn't the King normally stand at the back and command his army?"
"Indeed, a normal King would do such a thing but I don't trust you in such an important position. Instead, I plan to put you on the frontline. After all, a King who leads his army into battle is the one who boosts morale the most."
Hearing the Empress' explanation, Lake felt that it made sense and nodded his head in response.
"I guess that works too," Lake replied.
Hearing Lake's reply, the Empress slightly raised her eyebrows, "I noticed this when I was attacking you earlier. You seem to have no fear of death even in the face of a stronger opponent."
Hearing the Empress' words, Lake chuckled as he spoke, "You misunderstand your majesty. It's not that I have no fear of death, it's just that there is no need to fear something that can't kill. Of course, when your majesty had almost killed me last time, I was terrified out of my mind but there was no need to show it as I felt it would have just lowered my odds of survival."
"Interesting, you do know that there will be other creatures of the second realm in the battle to come, and you will be on the frontline no less?"
"Let me ask you this then your majesty. Are the creatures stronger than you or as strong as you?"
The Empress scoffed, "Nonsense. I stand at the peak of the second realm while the rest are either in the bottom of the second realm or have barely reached the middle stages."
"Then there is no need to worry. Although I may not be able to kill them, I doubt they will be able to kill me. After all your majesty, you've seen what I'm capable of."
When the Empress heard Lake's words, she couldn't help but pause. What Lake said does make sense. From what she had seen, with Lake's strange ability to predict danger and her understanding of the rest of the second realm creatures, she doubted that any of them would be able to attack Lake if he decided to just avoid them.
The only way Lake could possibly be injured or killed by them is if he were to purposely stand in front of them and provoke them to attack him.
As the Empress thought about this, she couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed. After all, although both she and Lake had come to an agreement under the King's Pact, she was still hostile towards him after he had killed almost half the population of her nest.
If she still had her full army, although she would have struggled in the war, she wouldn't have fallen to the level where she needed assistance from outside forces like Lake.
It was at this point that Lake had a sudden realization, if he wasn't the one in command, who was?
Thinking of this, Lake voiced his thoughts to the Empress, "If I'm not commanding, then who is? As far as I know, two King's Aura cannot co-exist on the same side or else they will just cancel each other out so you won't be leading if I'm on the battlefield."
The Empress who had calmed down scoffed again, "My daughters will be the ones leading the army. You just need to worry about fighting on the frontline and using your King's Aura to boost our allies."
Lake nodded his head in response after realizing that the daughters the Empress was referring to were the Queen Spiders. However, when Lake thought about it again he suddenly had another realization. If they were the Empress' daughters, who was the father?
Lake, being ever curious, couldn't help but ask.
However, he soon came to regret that decision as his sixth sense went off and before he could even react, he was sent flying by one of the Empress' legs slamming into his chest. Unfortunately, the Empress was smart enough to hit him lightly so the impact wouldn't do any damage to Lake, who had already upgraded the Steel Body Martial Art and wouldn't trigger the King's Pact. Otherwise Lake would have been in for a wonderful show.
An hour later, Lake stood alongside the Queen Spiders in front of the entire spider army. For this battle, the Empress went all out and summoned every spider in the nest except for those guarding the nurseries.
Lake was currently wearing a black coat and a red piece of armor with a long sword attached to his waist. A few minutes ago, the Empress had led him to a room in the nest where a set of equipment that the Empress' called "junk" was dumped. She said that these equipment were acquired from the bodies of hunters that spiders had previously captured.
When Lake had seen these pieces of equipment, he was stunned as most of them were fairly decent pieces of equipment yet the Empress had casually dumped them in an obscure corner of the nest. However, on second thought, Lake had understood why the Empress' called these equipment junk.
In her opinion, these equipment couldn't be worn or used by anyone in her nest so they were pointless. Since Lake was here however, the Empress decided to let him take whatever he liked for the upcoming battle, something that Lake felt delighted for.
When Lake had finished searching through the pile of equipment, he had selected the best pieces he could find.
He had first picked up a red piece of armor that had a few scratch marks on it. After a few inspections, Lake determined this armor to be a piece of equipment made from a Rank one mid tier beast. The armor had a leather texture with the design of a red furred beast that looked like a tiger with two long horns engraved on it. Lake guessed that this was most likely the beast the armor was made from.
The next piece of equipment he chose was a slightly torn black leather coat. This coat was made out of the hide of a Rank one low tier beast and provided an extra layer of protection over the red armor and even came with a hood that Lake used to hide his face along with the mask he had on previously.
Finally, Lake's attention was attracted by a delicately designed long sword that stood out amongst the rest of weapons in the pile of equipment. The long sword's blade was rather thin and flexible but its sharpness was extremely outstanding. When Lake was testing the sharpness of the weapon, he was surprised that the sword could easily cut through the stone wall of the cave leaving a deep slash mark on it, what intrigued him most however, was the line of runes etched along the blade. They almost seemed to glow, even in the dull light of the cave. Even after looking through fate after fate of several spiders, Lake couldn't find a single memory of the language that the runes were written in. All he knew was it felt natural to hold the sword in his hand, as if it was made for him.
With these three pieces of equipment, Lake had returned with the Spider Empress who stood in front of the army of spiders.
After a few minutes of waiting and making sure everything was in order, the Spider Empress gave the order for the army to move out as a horde of spiders, led by Lake on the frontlines, quickly marched through the ruins of Star City as they made their way towards the center of the city.