Chapter 107: Soul Eater?

"What... the fuck is that?!"

I stared at the monster standing in front of us.

No, calling it a monster didn’t quite do it justice. This thing was on a completely different level!

The Dark Giant Spiders we’d been fighting were already enormous, standing roughly twice as tall as my goblins.

But this one?

It was easily ten to twelve meters tall, its colossal body towering over the surrounding trees like a living fortress.

Its black exoskeleton was far thicker than that of the ordinary Dark Giant Spiders. Massive plates of armor overlapped across its body, forming a jagged shell bristling with spikes and irregular ridges.

Its eight legs were absurdly long and thick, each one resembling a black pillar encased in layers of armor. The tips of all eight legs glowed with a sinister crimson light, almost as if they’d been dipped in fresh blood.

And then there was its abdomen.

A grotesque, upside-down demonic face appeared to be carved into the surface of its black shell.

At least, that’s what it looked like at first glance.

Two deep, slanted grooves formed its eyes, while a wide, twisted grin stretched across its abdomen. Jagged patterns lined its gaping mouth, resembling rows of razor-sharp teeth.

It was a hideous, unnatural smile. The sort of thing you’d expect to see in your worst nightmare, or perhaps carved into the gates of hell itself.

And when the creature shifted its enormous body, the demonic face seemed to stretch, its twisted upside down smile growing even wider.

What the hell is this thing?

A boss monster?!

Its mere presence made the entire clearing feel smaller.

...

Then, the giant spider slowly raised its abdomen.

I watched in horror as the grotesque red mouth embedded in its shell suddenly stretched open, revealing an impossibly wide maw!

Wait... What the hell?!

That thing isn’t just decoration?!

It was an actual mouth!

And then, without warning, the monster began to inhale through it.

WHOOOOOOOOOSH!!!

A powerful current of air swept across the clearing!

Leaves and loose branches skittered across the ground, while dust and debris spiraled upward. Even my goblins had to brace themselves against the sudden gust.

But it wasn’t just air being pulled toward the monster.

Something else was being dragged along with it.

My entire being trembled as I watched the corpses of the slain Dark Giant Spiders begin to disintegrate. Their black exoskeletons cracked and crumbled, breaking apart into clouds of thick, dark smoke. The smoke rose from the ground in twisting streams, spiraling through the air before being sucked into the giant spider’s gaping abdomen mouth.

One after another, the corpses vanished, leaving nothing behind.

Is this thing eating its own kin? What the heck?

But that wasn’t all.

I soon noticed something else was happening around us.

The bodies of the wolves killed earlier were still scattered across the forest floor. Some had been slain by my goblins, while others had fallen victim to the spiders during the chaos.

Unlike the spiders, however, their corpses remained intact.

Instead, faint wisps of light began rising from their lifeless bodies.

They were tiny, almost transparent, and glowed with a pale, ghostly hue. They drifted upward like flickering candle flames, wavering in the air as though struggling against an invisible current.

Then, one by one, they began floating toward the giant spider.

The closer they came, the faster they moved, until each wisp was pulled into that terrible red mouth and disappeared.

...

Wait... Hold on a minute.

I stared at the ghostly wisps, a growing sense of dread creeping through me.

Those things... are they what I think they are?

Suddenly, I remembered all the goblins who’d been killed in the Bright Red Nose Tribe.

...Oh, shit.

Everything was starting to make sense.

I’d wondered why these spiders killed so many creatures. Even the hungriest predators wouldn’t normally slaughter everything in sight without a good reason. At first, I’d assumed they were simply vicious monsters that killed for fun.

But now, after seeing what was happening right before my eyes, I finally understood.

They weren’t just hunting for food.

They were hunting for souls.

...

Damn... these bastards actually eat souls?!

A chill ran through my entire being.

The giant spider continued sucking in the remaining wisps. With every soul it consumed, the demonic face on its abdomen glowed a deeper crimson, its grotesque grin becoming increasingly vivid.

Finally, the last wisp vanished into its gaping mouth.

The monster slowly closed it and lowered its abdomen.

...

Something deep within me recoiled at what I’d just witnessed.

"B... Big Boss?"

Gopuro’s trembling voice broke through the silence.

He’d taken an involuntary step backward, his sword shaking in his grip.

"What... what is happening?" Gopuran muttered weakly.

I looked at the others.

Gopuran had gone pale, while Gopuberry stood frozen with her bow lowered, unable to tear her eyes away from the monster. Even Gopugiga, who’d fearlessly stood against multiple spiders at once, was gripping his shield so tightly that his knuckles had turned pale.

Yet none of them were suffering from a negative status effect.

[Blessing of Protection] was still active, shielding them from the spiders’ supernatural fear aura. Whatever they were experiencing now, it wasn’t the effect of that skill.

No.

They were afraid because they’d witnessed something that defied their understanding of the world.

*****

Yeah...

I understood their fear.

Because I was feeling it, too.

For the first time since reincarnating in this world, I felt genuine dread. A deep, instinctive terror that made every part of my being want to retreat.

Because even though I was technically an immortal castle, I wasn’t just an empty building made of stone and magic.

I still had a soul.

Deep down, I was still me. Just an ordinary guy who’d died choking on a damn chicken nugget and somehow ended up reincarnated as a castle in this strange world.

And if these spiders could consume souls...

Then what would be able to stop them from consuming mine?