Marvel's Princess - Chapter 71

Natasha wisely chose not to delve deeper into the topic. “You say it’s a mental suggestion, then let’s call it a mental suggestion.”

Both women turned their attention to the scene outside. They saw the humanoid spider acting strangely.

This creature had a green waste barrel in its mouth. If they weren’t mistaken, this was the same barrel that had caused the spider infestation in the town. It had been in the police station but somehow ended up in the spider’s mouth.

The dark green viscous liquid from the barrel was slowly consumed by the spider, which seemed to be carefully adapting its body to the barrel’s chemical contents, taking small sips at a time.

“Do you think I can shoot that barrel and blow it and the spider up?” Natasha asked, intrigued.

Bella was a bit speechless. “Do you think this is a game? In real life, do you think there are stupid bosses that carry explosives in their mouths?”

“I was just testing your intelligence.”

“Thanks, my intelligence is just fine.”

The two exchanged banter while firing at the humanoid spider.

Whether it was a mutation or a throwback to some ancient form, it didn’t matter how it came to be—it needed to be killed.

But this creature’s mind-control abilities were strong. More spiders kept jumping in to shield it from their bullets, and even more spiders attacked from the sides.

“Run! Run!” Bella kept urging while Natasha tried to drive the pickup out of the encirclement.

She made several attempts, but the spiders kept blocking her exits. It had nothing to do with driving skills—there were simply too many enemies.

“We need to take out that big one first! Get closer, and you shoot it!” Natasha shouted in Bella’s ear.

“No, I think that’s too difficult. It looks like it’s using the other spiders as shields, but I believe it’s deceiving us. Its own defense must be very strong!” Bella observed carefully and came to a different conclusion.

“Then what do you suggest?”

Since she had already exposed her psychic shield, Bella decided it wouldn’t hurt to reveal a bit more.

With a playful expression, Bella retrieved an RPG rocket launcher from a hidden compartment under the back seat. She loaded it, opened the pickup’s sunroof, and aimed at the humanoid spider in the distance.

Natasha was stunned. “Even though I feel this isn’t the right time to ask, I still have to. Where did you get that thing?”

“Hahaha—it was a gift from a middle-aged guy I helped out!”

Fifteen seconds later, Natasha was steering with one hand and firing with the other. She emptied her entire magazine, clearing Bella’s line of sight.

With a loud explosion, the rocket streaked toward the humanoid spider, hitting it in the abdomen and causing a massive explosion, followed by a large plume of fire.

“Is it dead? Is it dead?” Natasha asked urgently.

The explosion was powerful. The barrel likely contained some flammable and explosive materials. Bella no longer sensed the humanoid spider’s psychic presence, but they still circled around for another look.

When the smoke cleared, they saw the results of their attack.

A crater nearly eight meters in diameter marred the ground. Shattered flesh and dark blood were scattered everywhere. The good news was that the mind-controlling humanoid spider was dead. The bad news was that the waste barrel, which could have served as evidence, was also destroyed in the explosion.

Without their leader, the spiders’ encirclement quickly became riddled with gaps.

“Is that enough?” Bella asked while counting her remaining bullets.

Natasha, who prided herself on not fearing spiders, was a bit more composed. “One more round!”

The pickup circled the town three more times. Bella tied another female spider to the back at one point, playing a cat-and-mouse game around the town for ten minutes. Both women were nearing their limits.

The swarm of spiders behind them was so vast it stretched out of sight.

“We’re ready! You can escape now!” Samantha’s voice came through the phone.

They coordinated their escape without hesitation, with Natasha driving and Bella using her rifle to clear the path.

Natasha focused intently on driving, and they nearly exhausted their entire supply of bullets before finally breaking free from the town.

Tucson lay to the south, the closest city to Prosperity Town, which is why Bella had advised Samantha to lead the townsfolk there.

They, however, could not head south. Instead, they drove the pickup north, leading the massive spider army away.

They spotted a parked Ford on the roadside nearly three kilometers north of Prosperity Town.

The car door was open, and a middle-aged man in a suit lay back on the seat. The windshield was severely shattered, seemingly pierced by something sharp, which had also impaled the man.

“It’s the mayor. Why did he die here?” Natasha was puzzled.

Humans have a herd instinct, and most of the cars they saw heading north were traveling south. Few were heading north. The mayor was the first person to make it out of Prosperity Town.

“Take me home.” Suddenly, Shaw appeared behind Bella, speaking in a sinister tone.

“Who? Who are you talking to?” Natasha reacted quickly, turning around immediately but seeing nothing.

Bella was stunned, trying to process Shaw’s request while also finding a way to explain things to Natasha.

Psychic abilities were one thing, but explaining a ghost was more complicated.

“Uh, what I mean is that the mayor heading in this direction seems odd. Could someone have been sending him or protecting him? Someone taking him home?”

Seeing that the spider horde was still a distance away, she opened the car door to investigate the Ford.

“Look, there are footprints here. They look like they belong to dress shoes, and they’re very calm. Could you walk this calmly if surrounded by spiders?”

Bella used Shaw’s analysis but in her own words.

Natasha glanced back at the back seat again, seeing nothing. Her previous feeling was strange, like something had been there, but Bella’s words caught her attention.

She followed Bella out to take a closer look.

“You mean there are survivors? Or the mastermind behind the spider incident!?”

Thanks to numerous movies and a vivid imagination, Bella agreed with Natasha’s theory and found it highly likely.

Either out of confidence or believing there were no survivors left in the town, the mastermind hadn’t hidden their tracks. Following the trail, Bella and Natasha discovered a hidden door on a hill about eight hundred meters northeast.

The door did not have a handle, high-tech locks, fingerprint or retinal scanners—just a bright red button.

“What does this button do?” Bella asked curiously, her finger instinctively pressing it.

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