The jade archway didn’t lead to another natural tunnel. It opened into a huge, circular colosseum carved from black fiery dark rock. The walls were lined with thousands of hollow honeycomb cells. The floor was polished smooth as dark black glass, slick with ribbons of rainbow-bright purple slime that smelled of bitter almonds and neurotoxic venom.
Standing in the center of the arena were four of the most terrifying chimeric monstrosities Arthur Vance had ever laid eyes upon: The Apex Chitin Weavers.
Each creature stood twelve feet tall at the shoulder, their horrifying anatomy combining the multi-jointed, armored cephalothorax of a deep-sea Abyssal Spider with the lethal, hungry forelimbs of an armored praying mantis and the heavy, muscled hindquarters of a black glass shadow panther. Their back shells were not ordinary hard shell. They had been heavy with sintered dark rock plates, three inches thick and polished to a dull, matte black sheen that absorbed light.
Emerging from their chest segments were four backup limbs terminating in six-foot-long, serrated razor-thin scythes that clicked together with a sound like sharpening butcher knives. From their bulbous, pulsating abdomens protruded brass-lined spinneret nozzles that dripped high-pulling, razor-sharp silk filaments that hissed as they touched the floor.
