Chapter 116: The Black Widow Spider

Chapter 116: Chapter 116: The Black Widow Spider

The next day, the film crew took the morning off so the props and backstage technical teams could set up the invisible suspension cable system on the twenty-meter-high cliff face beside the waterfall, preparing for the next sequence.

Today was also the thirtieth day since Liam had given birth, the full-month celebration of the little darling.

At the crack of dawn, Liam was already sitting cross-legged on the bed, holding his hand out in front of Benjamin and Theodore, resolutely demanding his two smart watches back. The chibi Light of Time and the little sprite Sunflower had barely been powered back on when they lunged out to hug Liam’s fingers, bawling and pouring out their grievances, denouncing the string of days spent locked inside a dark, sealed box without getting to see the light of the sun.

Strapping the two familiar watches back onto his wrist and skimming through the string of revenue notifications from the fish sauce plant, the Cryomollis silk weaving mill, and the Sirius tourist area ticking upward non-stop, Liam felt as though he had just been resurrected back into the civilized world.

"Have the two of you decided what to name the boy yet? Today is his full month, his name has to be updated into the household registration system of planet Altair now." Benjamin asked as he tidied away the watch box, his gaze discreetly glancing toward the man standing in the corner of the room mixing milk for the baby.

Naturally, given Noah’s current situation where it was not yet convenient to publicly reveal to the rebel faction on the Capital planet that he was still alive, the baby would certainly take Liam’s Martinez surname and be registered under the Martinez household registration.

Liam looked at the little one lying in the cradle; after a month of being raised on milk mixed with Spiritual Dew and bathed in his Daddy’s grade-3S pheromones, the boy’s skin was fair, rosy, and smooth as a glutinous rice dumpling, his two tiny hands clenched into fists waving back and forth in front of his chest, his dark-blue eyes identical to a certain someone’s wide open and round, staring unblinkingly at his Papa.

"Let’s name him Sane. Sane Martinez." Liam gently poked his son’s chubby cheek, saying: "Always staying clear-headed, calm, and strong in the face of every storm."

Noah, who was testing the temperature of the milk bottle against his wrist, heard this and stepped over, his gaze looking at father and son full of tenderness: "It is a very good name. Sane... suits him very well."

Liam shot him a sidelong glance, taking the milk bottle to feed his son himself, saying flatly: "What does it have to do with you. Once he finishes drinking his milk, stay home and watch him to help Auntie Camila; this afternoon I have to go out to the set to watch the scene where Elijah’s true identity is revealed."

In the afternoon, the sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere of planet Sirius softened slightly, the mist rising from the waterfall forming a thin layer of smoke hovering among the pine forest.

At the film set at the foot of the waterfall, Elijah had already been fitted by the costume team with an ultra-thin mechanical suspension harness around his waist. To authentically recreate the half-human, half-spider form of the Insectoid King when revealing his true body without relying entirely on AI compositing effects, Liam had asked Alexander’s mechanical workshop to custom-build a frame of eight mechanical spider legs out of ultra-light titanium alloy painted a glossy black, attached directly to the waist harness beneath Elijah’s black silk garment, combined with bioneural sensors so Elijah could control them to flex and extend nimbly with every thought.

"Cable team, pay attention to hoisting him up at the twelve-second mark! Aerial camera, fly along the lifting trajectory of the cables! Scene 19, sequence 01 - Action!"

Benjamin’s shout had barely ended when the on-set sound system immediately played back the rolling thunder and falling rain picking up from last night’s sequence.

Beneath the cliff face, Ray was still gripping both of Elijah’s wrists tightly, his reddened eyes pressing for the secret Elijah was hiding.

Suddenly, Elijah let out a soft laugh. The youth’s clear laughter rang out amidst the falling rain, yet carried a cold, sharp resonance like metal clashing together.

"Do you truly want to know what I am, Major General?"

As the words fell, Elijah’s two slender wrists twisted in an eerily bizarre circle—a supple joint-dislocating angle that an ordinary human body could never manage—slipping easily out of Ray’s tight grip!

The very next second, from behind the thin back beneath the youth’s tattered black silk garment, a dry "crack... crack..." like the sound of a cocoon shell splitting open rang out. Eight spider legs over three meters long, glossy black and razor-sharp like eight spear blades, suddenly unfolded wide from his back, plunging deep into the rock face behind him!

The invisible cables engaged, combining with the mechanical thrust and Elijah’s skillful back-arching movement; his entire body swiftly slithered backward up the sheer cliff face, hanging suspended amidst the snow-white web of silk at a height of five meters, bowing his head to look down at the man on the ground.

Ray stumbled back two paces, his whole body stunned as he stared at the half-human, half-insectoid creature hanging on the silk web above his head.

Beneath the blood-red glow of the studio lighting effects, Elijah’s upper body remained that of the breathtakingly beautiful youth with long black hair falling across a snow-white chest, yet his eyes had turned completely into the blood-red color of the Insectoid race, while behind his back eight gigantic spider legs were slowly tapping against the rock face in time with every breath.

A thin thread of silk shot down from Elijah’s fingertip, wrapping tightly around the collar of Ray’s military uniform before yanking hard to hoist Ray straight up into mid-air, pulling the man close in front of him!

Elijah hung upside down from the main silk thread, his bewitchingly beautiful face pressing close to Ray’s face in an inverted posture, his sharp fingertip gliding lightly across the man’s moving Adam’s apple, his voice at once seductive and cruel, mingled with the deepest sorrow:

"Look clearly, Marcus... I am not the human Beta you imagined. I am an S-grade Black Widow Spider Insectoid King, the monster species that your Legion swore to eradicate down to the last root!"

He leaned down close, his plump red lips stopping a mere millimeter from the man’s lips, his icy breath blowing against Ray’s face:

"In the instincts of my race, after mating, the female devours the male for nutrients to nourish the offspring; whereas if a male Insectoid King like me takes a mate of another species, the reproductive toxin inside my body will corrode my mate’s internal organs from within, while I myself will also exhaust my life force and die! Because I feared death, because I did not want to become food for my own kind, I fled to this desolate planet! Loving me means walking straight to your death... Now, do you still dare say you love me, my Major General?"

Under the camera lens zooming in for a tight close-up, no disgust or horror appeared on Ray’s handsome face as Sylas had predicted.

After a few seconds of initial shock, looking at the blood-red teardrop rolling upward across the forehead of the youth hanging upside down in front of him, the pain and heartache in Ray’s eyes were even greater than the fear of death. He finally understood why, throughout the past two months, this person clearly loved him yet always trembled and pushed him away.

The soldier’s firm hands did not draw the gun at his hip at all; instead, they slowly rose up, regardless of the sharp spider legs pressing close enough to his neck to draw blood, cradling the icy face of the Insectoid King as Ray actively craned his body upward to press his lips against those cold lips:

"If loving you means having to die... then let your toxin kill me right this moment."

"Cut! Perfect!"

Benjamin shouted out loud, his voice cracking with excitement.

This scene of revealing the true identity and the upside-down kiss beneath the spiderweb was so beautiful and stunning that all the staff in the film crew stood dazed for several seconds before erupting into thunderous applause.

Liam, sitting watching beneath the rest tent, had to smack his lips and exclaim to Nirvana inside his head as well:

[This segment of hanging upside down to kiss each other on a silk thread is both horrific and romantically bizarre; once it hits the cinemas, it will be strange if the young audiences do not go crazy over it!]