Roy stared blankly at his datapad, fingers idly swiping through a mindless puzzle game. He was doing his absolute best, his very best, to not look at the colossal, multi-legged nightmare that was Xarachnus, Korrvein's monstrous spider. It loomed in the forest clearing, a titan of chitin and shadow, easily the size of a small mountain.
Its presence made the surrounding ancient trees look like fragile, insignificant twigs. Every minute shift of its immense weight sent tremors through the ground, a constant, unsettling rumble that vibrated up Roy's spine and made his teeth ache. A knot of pure, unadulterated anxiety gnawed at his stomach, a familiar companion in these increasingly bizarre duels.
Korrvein, perched with unsettling ease near the spider's enormous, fanged underbelly, stepped into the designated center of the dueling field.
He executed a theatrical, almost mocking wave. "You'll allow my dear Xarachnus to join this little dance, yes?" he called out, his voice carrying a smug, confident lilt that grated on Roy's nerves. "A star of this magnitude deserves an audience, wouldn't you agree?"
Eryndra, standing opposite him, simply crossed her arms, her expression a mixture of boredom and steely resolve. She didn't even glance at the monstrous arachnid. "If that's what your fragile ego requires, fine by me. Makes it more fun when I crush you both."
Behind the newly designated spectator line, Zehrina moved with quiet, focused grace. Her fingers danced through the air, weaving intricate, layered runic symbols that shimmered into existence, forming a translucent, pulsating dome over Roy and the rest of Brask's astonished onlookers.
Kaelor poked a curious finger at the barrier, only to have it tingle with a mild shock. Brask watched Zehrina's work with narrowed, calculating eyes. Roy glanced at Zehrina, a silent question in his own gaze.
"Just in case," she murmured, her voice a low hum of power. With each new layer of the ward, her condescending smile aimed directly at Brask grew a fraction sharper, a silent, glittering challenge daring him to test its strength.
Meanwhile, Roy's valiant attempt to ignore the kaiju-sized spider was failing spectacularly. His curiosity, a persistent and often troublesome trait, tugged at him. He braced himself, turning his head just enough to catch a horrifying glimpse.
One of Xarachnus's gigantic, hairy front legs rose, joints clicking like ancient machinery. Roy reflexively whipped his head back to the safety of his datapad, thumbs mashing at the puzzle game with frantic energy. Nope. Not looking. Big nope. Giant, hairy, multi-eyed nope.
"Can you… can you really beat that… thing?" he called out, his voice a little higher pitched than he intended. He steadfastly refused to look up from his screen again, where a cartoon cat was currently failing to catch a cartoon mouse. Much safer.
Eryndra's voice, strong and unwavering, cut through the tense air. "Maybe, maybe not. But one thing's for sure: it won't beat me." A spark of fierce confidence glittered in her eyes. She cracked her knuckles, a sound like small explosions. "Besides," she added, a predatory grin spreading across her face, "I've been doing some… super-secret special training."
"Secret training?" Roy mumbled, distractedly trying to maneuver the cartoon cat around a digital anvil. "Serenity, any intel on this alleged 'secret training'?"
Serenity's calm, synthesized voice crackled from the datapad's speaker. "Negative, Captain. All available surveillance footage suggests she's… fabricating that claim for dramatic effect. However, she did spend a considerable duration, approximately one hour and seventeen minutes, within the Compartment of Requests several days prior. Her activity logs indicate she was intensely studying the schematics and linguistic analyses related to the original containment unit she was packaged in. It appears Zehrina provided her with a significant contextual clue regarding its operation."
"Wait, hold up," Roy said, finally tearing his eyes from the datapad, his puzzle game forgotten. "There were actual words written on that box? I just assumed it was cool-looking gibberish."
"Affirmative, Captain," Serenity replied. "The primary script was a complex, coded language, likely of advanced technological or perhaps mythical origin. The only translatable phrases my recently designed linguistic decoders could ascertain were the primary title: We Are All Blessed By Her Solicitude,' and a secondary notation that we only deciphered a bit of '70–30 SoSur Blend: S***E* ** *OD** * *** WM.' No further clarity regarding the 'SoSur Blend' has been achieved at this time."
Roy stared blankly for a moment, trying to process the babble. "Solici... SoSur... what now?" He was about to ask Serenity to translate that into something resembling human language, but the ground gave another violent rumble, and the giant spider, Xarachnus, rattled his train of thought right off the tracks. A thick, shimmering strand of silk, hard as steel cable, lifted Korrvein high into the air with unnerving speed. He came to rest perched on Xarachnus's back, a commanding, almost regal figure atop his monstrous steed. From that vantage point, he dwarfed the entire clearing, looking down on them like a dark god surveying his domain.
"GIRL!" Korrvein's voice boomed, magically amplified, echoing across the dueling ground like the voice of doom itself. Runes swirled around him, casting an eerie, pulsating glow. "I heard the pathetic rumors that you wounded Brask's magnificent dragon once. A lucky shot, no doubt! But this… THIS is a different beast altogether! Scholars and mystics whisper that Xarachnus is the heir to Xarakh'tal, the Final Weaver! Not even a stone flea-bitten primeval dragon compares to her majesty!"
He shot a contemptuous, theatrical glance at the actual primeval dragon far off in the distance. The ancient beast, clearly unimpressed by Korrvein's dramatic pronouncements, merely snorted a plume of turquoise fire, a gesture of utter, bored disdain.
Eryndra remained unmoving, a rock in the face of Korrvein's bluster. Then, with a sound like tearing metal, the vents along her armor flared wide open. A sickly, dark, almost liquid-like substance oozed from the panels, viscous and oily, mingling with faint, crackling arcs of violet energy that danced across her gauntlets. Roy flinched, feeling a sharp, sudden drain on his mana reserves, as though an invisible siphon had just been plunged directly into his soul.
On his tablet quickly checked Harmony's roughly calibrated "mana-meter". His eyes widened in mild alarm. "Twenty percent of my pool… gone already? Just from her powering up? What the hell is this 'secret training'?"
"Impressive!" Korrvein's amplified voice boomed again, though a flicker of unease now touched his eyes. He clearly hadn't expected such a raw display of power. "But I shall demonstrate just how utterly unstoppable Xarachnus truly—"
He never finished the sentence.
Eryndra's boots lifted a few inches off the ground, as if she were suddenly lighter than air. The strange black liquid oozing from her vents began to writhe and coalesce, forming odd, shifting triangular patterns along the plates of her armor. The steam that had been hissing from her vents now erupted into arcs of silent, haunting plasma, casting her face in an eerie, otherworldly glow.
Without warning, she glided across the field with a speed that defied comprehension. Her eyes, usually bright and expressive, had flattened to a dead, terrifying calm. She was a ghost, a phantom, a whisper of motion. Roy struggled to follow her movement, she flickered, her form blurring and distorting like an afterimage burned onto his retinas. He felt a cold dread creep up his spine. This wasn't the Eryndra he knew. This was something… else. Something primal and terrifying.
An instant later, a sound like thunder cracking the sky apart echoed through the clearing. Eryndra's fist slammed into one of Xarachnus's gargantuan legs. The impact was catastrophic. The tip of the leg, thicker than an ancient redwood, buckled, chitinous armor shattering like glass. It crashed into two other legs, tangling them in a grotesque knot. Xarachnus let out an unearthly, ear-splitting screech, a sound of pure agony and disbelief. The entire clearing trembled violently at its pitch, loose stones skittering across the ground.
The monstrous spider retaliated, skittering forward with surprising speed despite its injuries, attempting to pin Eryndra under its monstrous, crushing abdomen. But Eryndra was already moving. She traced a tight, half-circle in midair, gliding aside with the fluid grace of a phantom figure skater, untouched by the chaos. Then she blasted forward again, a dark comet of destruction, pummeling each of Xarachnus's remaining legs with relentless, terrifying force.
Chunks of armor plating flew like shrapnel. Ichor, black and viscous, sprayed across the forest floor. One by one, the legs shattered, until the colossal spider collapsed in a plume of choking dust and debris. Its numerous front eyes, which had been gleaming with protective runes, were now dull and lifeless, hammered into oblivion by Eryndra's unstoppable assault. Xarachnus lay twitching, a broken monument to its own hubris.