Chapter 37 — The Spider, the Knight, and Several Very Bad Ideas
The wind still screamed between the ruined towers when Caelan lowered his lance and regarded the creature who had very nearly eaten Yuto. The city smelled of scorched silk, poison and old stone, which was an unpleasant combination even by the increasingly unreasonable standards of their journey. Arachne stood upon the broken remains of a skyscraper as though the destruction around her were merely a disappointing change in interior decoration. Eight long spider limbs rested delicately against cracked masonry, her crimson dress shifting in the wind while her silver-white hair streamed behind her. She looked elegant, composed and entirely too pleased with herself. Caelan had met people like that before. They were usually either aristocrats, murderers or both. Behind the closed visor of the Azure Knight armor, only his golden eyes could be seen, and those eyes moved briefly from Arachne to the smaller figure standing several rooftops behind him beneath Archoniel's enormous radiant shield.
Yuto had stopped crying, but that did not mean he was all right. Betrayal had a peculiar way of leaving wounds where swords could not reach. He stared at Arachne with the expression of a child who had discovered that monsters did not always arrive with fangs visible. Sometimes they made you dinner first. Sometimes they read stories. Sometimes they tucked blankets around you and remembered what food you liked. Caelan knew enough about reading people to recognise that Yuto was trying desperately to decide which memories had been lies and which had merely been tools used by someone who had never cared whether he lived afterward. Caelan stepped toward him, the heavy boots of the Azure armor clicking softly across fractured stone, and crouched until the narrow opening of his visor was level with the boy's face. "Stay behind the shield," he said. "Don't chase anyone. Don't leave the protected position even if you think we need you closer." Yuto swallowed and nodded, fingers tightening around his Resonance Linker. Caelan glanced toward Archoniel, whose white-and-gold wings filled half the rooftop behind them and whose sword burned with enough holy light to make the surrounding webs curl away. "Use whatever strength you have left to support Michael. Keep his temporary evolution stable. If you can maintain the defensive field as well, do that. Nothing heroic beyond that." Yuto gave him a watery look. "We're fighting a giant spider queen in a dead city." Caelan considered this. "Fair. Nothing additional heroic."
That earned the smallest laugh, which was precisely what Caelan had wanted. Yuto looked toward Archoniel, then back at Arachne. "Promise we won't let anyone else get hurt because of her." The question struck harder than its volume suggested. Caelan did not make promises he could not guarantee, and the habit had only become stronger after spending the last month in a world where something attempted to kill them roughly every third afternoon. He placed one armored hand carefully on Yuto's shoulder. "We'll do everything we can to stop her," he said instead, and there was enough certainty in his voice that Yuto accepted it. Archoniel spread his enormous shield between the boy and the battlefield, celestial circles turning over its surface, while Yuto's Resonance Linker began to glow. Hope answered him with a softer golden radiance, flowing through the bond and into Archoniel. The Elite angel's wings snapped wider, his posture strengthening as fatigue retreated just enough to matter. Luminel floated down beside Caelan and stared at the boy for a moment. "I'll keep an eye on him." Stormmane, standing nearby with his one remaining hand resting on the hilt of his sword, gave Caelan an offended look. "And me?" "Try not to lose the other arm." Stormmane's ears flattened. "You are never going to stop saying that, are you?" "Not soon."
Arachne watched the exchange with a smile that became increasingly unpleasant. "How touching," she called, one pale hand resting against her cheek. "The little morsel still believes in everyone. Even after learning what trust earns him." Yuto flinched, and Archoniel's sword brightened so violently that several nearby windows cracked. Arachne laughed. "Oh, there it is. That delicious little spark. Do keep encouraging him. Hope tastes so much better when it has suffered first." Caelan rose. The motion was slow, but the change in him was immediate. The first points of the Myriad-Star Fate Body appeared beneath his armor, blue-white constellations spreading through the seams of celestial plate until it seemed a night sky had been trapped inside silver metal. Arachne's many eyes followed the pattern with genuine curiosity. Caelan rolled one shoulder, settled his lance into both hands and said, "You spend a remarkable amount of time discussing food for someone who hasn't managed to eat anybody." Stormmane made an appreciative sound. Luminel muttered, "Please stop provoking the ancient spider." Caelan's eyes remained fixed on Arachne. "I'm learning her habits." "Her habits include poison and cannibalism." "Useful information."
Then Arachne looked at them properly.
It was not an attack in the ordinary sense. There was no flash, no movement, no wave of visible energy. Her crimson eyes simply deepened until they seemed less like eyes and more like holes bored through the world, and suddenly the ruined city was no longer merely a city. For the briefest moment Caelan saw things behind it—ancient webs stretched over forgotten kingdoms, broken worlds hanging like husks, countless creatures struggling within threads that never loosened. Stormmane's growl died before it fully formed. Luminel's wings faltered. Even Caelan felt his body react before thought arrived, some primitive part of him insisting that the thing ahead was not prey, not rival, not merely an Elite Aetherkin, but a predator old enough to have learned patience across eras. It was not ordinary fear, and that distinction mattered. Caelan had grown up among cultivators who could flatten cities and beings whose presence alone could send weaker men to their knees. He knew fear. This was closer to the body remembering a nightmare the mind had never experienced.
Archoniel did not move.
Holy light blazed from the circular markings around his shield.
A pulse of radiance swept across the rooftop.
The invisible pressure broke.
Stormmane sucked in a breath. Luminel shook himself violently and muttered several words in a language Caelan suspected was not appropriate for Yuto's education. Caelan's golden eyes narrowed behind the visor. "Mental pressure woven through her domain." Luminel nodded grimly. "The whole city is part of her. The webs carry more than movement." "Then we stop treating them like scenery."
Archoniel raised his sword.
Twelve luminous blades formed around him in a wide celestial ring.
Arachne's eyebrow rose.
Archoniel pointed.
The blades launched.
They crossed the city like falling stars, converging upon Arachne from twelve different directions. Her spider body moved with alarming grace. One limb hooked a strand and pulled; another web snapped tight between two towers. Three radiant blades struck layered silk and detonated. Two more were intercepted by venomous spikes launched from her legs. Another dissolved inside a cloud of black-green mist that poured from a grotesque mouth opening beneath her arachnid abdomen. The remaining weapons forced her upward, which seemed to annoy her far more than the attacks themselves.
Archoniel followed.
His wings beat once.
The air thundered.
"You will not touch Yuto again."
Arachne drew a blade from the darkness beside her.
It did not appear forged so much as persuaded into existence. Black metal—or something pretending to be metal—curved into a narrow sword whose edge seemed to swallow the light nearest it.
"That," Luminel said, "is probably bad."
Stormmane looked at him. "Your tactical insight remains unmatched."
Archoniel's radiant sword met Arachne's dark blade above the city.
The collision lit every remaining window.
Holy brilliance and shadow exploded outward, ripping webs from buildings and sending debris tumbling into the streets. Archoniel drove forward with the sheer aggression of someone who had discovered exactly how angry a normally gentle person could become when a child under his protection was threatened. Arachne yielded half a metre, then twisted, one spider limb striking the side of Archoniel's shield while her sword redirected his next blow. She was stronger than she looked, and she already looked like a woman attached to an enormous spider, which gave her a considerable head start.
Caelan lifted one hand.
Wind answered.
The poison cloud rolling across the rooftops suddenly changed direction as a massive current formed beneath it. Caelan rotated his wrist and the air became a spiralling gale, drawing every trace of venom upward into a tightening funnel before hurling it far beyond the battle. Loose webs followed, ripping free in enormous sheets.
Arachne glanced toward him.
That was enough.
Luminel appeared above her in a flash.
His spear struck downward.
Arachne blocked, but a burst of freezing magic erupted from the point of impact and raced across the nearest webs. Ice consumed silk, walls and entire sections of rooftop. For several blocks the spider city became a glittering frozen maze, every thread stiffening beneath layers of blue-white frost.
Stormmane inhaled.
Caelan knew what was coming.
So did Luminel.
"Cover your ears."
The lion warrior roared.
Lion's Roar crashed across the frozen city.
Windows exploded.
Ice fractured.
The very webs trembled under the sonic force, and for the first time Arachne's expression changed. Her head snapped slightly to one side. One spider leg slipped against the frozen silk beneath her.
Only a fraction of a second.
But a fraction mattered.
Caelan's Eyes of Fate were already open.
Possibilities stretched ahead.
He saw Archoniel's blade.
Luminel's next movement.
Stormmane's follow-up.
Arachne's defensive responses.
And the opening.
"Now."
Archoniel struck from above.
Luminel from below.
Stormmane launched himself from a ruined tower and drove Lion King Fist toward Arachne's flank, golden force exploding from his remaining fist.
Arachne's dark blade stopped Archoniel.
One spider limb intercepted Luminel.
Another crossed Stormmane's attack.
For a moment she held all three.
Then Caelan moved.
Stellar Movement.
He appeared in front of her.
Not behind.
Not beside.
Directly where her defensive structure was weakest.
His lance drove forward.
Arachne reacted instantly, silk layering between them.
The lance struck.
Caelan's attacks did not simply miss.
Destiny would not permit that sort of failure.
Arachne could block him. She could endure him. She could sacrifice something in the weapon's path.
So she did.
Twenty Dreadweavers hurled themselves from nearby towers.
The lance punched through the first.
Then another.
Then another.
Arachne's webs wrapped around their bodies, turning them into living layers of armour. Caelan continued forward, the Myriad-Star Fate Body flaring to three hundred times enhancement as the Azure lance tore through spider after spider.
Arachne escaped the worst of the impact behind her sacrifices.
Her smile had disappeared.
Caelan saw that and decided the attack had therefore been worth the effort.
"How rude," she hissed.
"You tried to eat a child."
"I fed him first."
"That does not improve it."
Stormmane landed beside Caelan. "It somehow makes it worse."
Arachne's abdomen opened.
Black-green mist exploded outward.
Caelan's wind met it immediately, but this time poison spikes were hidden inside the cloud. Eyes of Fate warned him before they emerged. He shifted the lance, thrusting rather than sweeping, each precise strike meeting a projectile with a burst of compressed air. Stormmane ducked behind him. Luminel teleported above the cloud. Archoniel simply raised his shield and let the venom hammer itself uselessly against holy geometry.
Then Arachne's webs moved.
Thousands of threads came alive at once.
The city tightened.
Buildings groaned as webbing pulled between them. Streets vanished behind silver lattices. Threads wrapped around towers and formed walls in the air. Escape routes closed one by one.
Luminel's eyes widened.
"She's turning the entire district into a cage."
Caelan looked around.
"No."
Stormmane glanced toward him.
"No?"
"A cage keeps something inside."
A web snapped across the sky.
Another crossed beneath them.
Caelan watched Arachne.
"She is turning it into a stomach."
Stormmane stared at the city.
"I liked cage better."
Arachne laughed.
Then every web contracted.
The next several minutes were unpleasant enough that Caelan decided never again to underestimate thread as a weapon.
Webs struck from every direction. Some were thick enough to stop buildings. Others were almost invisible, thin enough that only Eyes of Fate allowed him to see where they would be before they appeared. Arachne did not need to control each strand individually. The city itself responded to her intent, webs shifting and tightening like muscles in an enormous body. Archoniel cut paths through them with his radiant sword, only for more strands to replace those destroyed. Luminel teleported between allies, pulling Stormmane clear whenever the injured lion warrior became boxed in. Caelan moved through openings shown by Eyes of Fate and Path Maker, while golden-white lasers appeared across the battlefield wherever he willed them, burning precise holes through silk formations before they could fully close.
Arachne continued to smile.
That was becoming irritating.
Caelan raised both hands.
Dozens of points of light formed over the city.
Arachne looked upward.
"So pretty."
The heavens answered.
Pillars of light descended.
Not randomly.
Each formed exactly where Caelan intended: one through a major web junction, another across a cocooned tower, three more along the strands feeding Arachne's central network. The city flashed white-gold as sections of her web burned away.
Arachne's expression finally sharpened.
"There you are."
Caelan's Eyes narrowed.
She had been waiting for him to use more power.
The remaining threads snapped toward him.
He activated Time's Miracle.
The world slowed.
Webs became silver lines crawling lazily through the air.
Falling debris hung almost motionless.
Arachne's many eyes shifted toward him with disturbing awareness, still moving despite the temporal distortion, though far more slowly than before.
Caelan stepped between the threads.
One.
Two.
Seven.
Twelve.
He passed through openings that would have existed for fractions of a second in ordinary time.
Then time resumed.
Arachne's web closed on empty air.
Caelan appeared above her.
His lance thrust down.
Arachne crossed four spider limbs.
The weapon struck.
The entire tower beneath her collapsed.
Stone vanished beneath the pressure.
Arachne fell through the wreckage, twisted in midair and landed on a surviving strand several buildings away.
Stormmane whistled.
"That looked painful."
"It was."
Arachne flexed one damaged limb.
Stormmane's ears lifted.
"You hurt her."
Caelan watched carefully.
"Yes."
"Good."
"No."
Stormmane frowned.
"Why no?"
"Because she doesn't care."
Arachne's smile returned.
She had been testing them too.
Luminel landed beside Caelan.
"She's older, more experienced and fighting inside a domain she's spent years preparing."
Archoniel descended opposite them, shield scarred by dark poison.
"We cannot keep this going forever."
Yuto's voice came faintly through the Linker.
"Michael..."
Archoniel looked toward the protected rooftop.
The Elite evolution was temporary.
Hope could force it.
Hope could sustain it.
But not indefinitely.
Caelan knew the same thing about his own enhancement. The Myriad-Star Fate Body consumed ki continuously, and he had already spent far too much since the battle with Dark Network Eidon and their passage through the black hole. Five hundred times his natural physical ability was extraordinary.
It was also extraordinarily expensive.
Arachne knew that.
Of course she did.
She floated above them again, black blade resting against one shoulder.
"You're tiring."
Stormmane muttered, "She's very observant."
Arachne's gaze moved toward Archoniel.
"Especially you."
Archoniel's grip tightened.
"What do you imagine will happen when that borrowed evolution ends?"
Yuto's face paled.
Arachne smiled at him.
"You'll have your sweet little Michael again. Small. exhausted. helpless."
Archoniel's wings flared.
Arachne laughed.
"Oh, don't glare. I like him that way too."
Caelan thrust one hand forward.
Wind screamed into existence.
Arachne's eyes widened slightly.
The air compressed into a rotating star of blades—not metal, but layered wind spinning so densely that the space around it shrieked.
Arachne moved aside.
The attack curved.
Her smile vanished.
The wind-star followed her.
She changed direction.
It followed again.
Caelan's attacks did not miss because an opponent simply stepped aside.
Arachne understood.
"Ah."
Dozens of Dreadweavers leapt into the path.
The first vanished.
The second was torn apart.
Then a third.
Arachne raised both hands.
A silken dome formed.
Layer after layer after layer.
The wind-star struck.
The city shook.
Webbing shredded.
Dreadweavers dissolved.
Buildings split under the pressure.
But Arachne kept weaving.
The attack finally dispersed.
Smoke filled the sky.
When it cleared, she remained.
A section of her dress had burned away.
Several spider limbs were cut.
Her hair was a mess.
She looked furious.
Stormmane grinned.
"Now we're getting somewhere."
Arachne's eyes turned toward him.
Stormmane's grin disappeared.
"I withdraw the comment."
They regrouped behind Archoniel's shield while Arachne's web rebuilt itself around them.
Luminel floated near Caelan's helmet.
"We cannot overpower her."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Path Maker has shown me thirty-two routes so far."
"And?"
"Twenty-seven end badly."
Stormmane looked concerned.
"What about the other five?"
"Three end worse."
Stormmane stared.
"That's not how counting optimism works."
Archoniel looked toward Caelan.
"The remaining two?"
Caelan did not answer immediately.
Path Maker continued turning possibilities before him.
Arachne dodged.
No.
Blocked.
Yes.
Sacrificed minions.
Yes.
Used the web.
Yes.
Retreated deeper into the domain.
Yes.
Every future contained the same problem.
They could hurt her.
They could push her.
They could even briefly overwhelm her.
But Arachne possessed too many layers of defence and too many disposable bodies between herself and a killing blow.
Luminel looked at Caelan's lance.
"Then stop spreading our power."
Caelan followed his gaze.
Luminel pointed.
"One attack."
Archoniel understood immediately.
"Everything?"
"Everything we can safely give."
Stormmane looked at the Azure lance.
"And put it all into that."
Caelan considered the weapon.
His father's lance.
Or rather, the legend-born recreation of it.
The weapon had survived the black hole.
It had endured attacks that would have destroyed ordinary artifacts.
More importantly, it belonged to the Azure Knight's legend.
Caelan closed one armored hand around the shaft.
Destiny responded.
Destiny Enchantment.
The lance brightened.
Not merely with ki.
Something deeper settled into it, a declaration written into Fate itself.
This weapon belonged to Caelan's destiny.
No other hand could properly claim it.
No foreign will could make it betray him.
And in his grasp, its purpose sharpened.
The lance hummed.
Stormmane stared.
"That seems useful."
"It is."
Archoniel frowned.
"Even if we put everything into it, she can defend."
"Yes."
"Or use the spiders as shields."
"Yes."
"Or move."
Caelan looked at him.
"Not the last one."
Archoniel paused.
Caelan's eyes glowed through the visor.
"My attacks don't simply miss."
Luminel slowly smiled.
Arachne might move.
She might block.
She might sacrifice every spider in the city.
But once Caelan committed to the attack, ordinary evasion would not save her.
Archoniel looked toward Arachne.
"Then we only need to remove everything she can put between herself and the lance."
"Exactly."
Stormmane tapped his sword against one shoulder.
"That still sounds like quite a lot."
"It is."
Luminel lifted his spear.
"I can hold her."
Caelan turned his helmet toward him.
"No."
"I can teleport directly onto her, bind her with my magic and give you perhaps two seconds."
"No."
"Caelan."
"No."
Luminel's expression hardened.
"I have survived longer than you have memories."
"And I'd like that streak to continue."
"We may not have another option."
"We do."
Caelan looked toward Arachne.
Then at the web.
His mind returned to another battlefield.
A teacher remaining behind while children ran.
Luminel standing beneath annihilation with a barrier cracking over his head.
Caelan had already watched that once.
He had no intention of deliberately arranging a second performance.
"I am not building a plan that requires my teacher to stand inside the attack."
Luminel stared at him.
Stormmane looked between them.
Archoniel said nothing.
Caelan lifted one hand.
Golden lines appeared.
Not light.
Fate.
They extended outward around his fingers like threads of an entirely different kind.
Arachne felt them.
Her head turned.
Caelan smiled beneath the helmet.
"She isn't the only one who can weave."
Chains of Fate erupted across the city.
Golden bindings appeared around Arachne's spider limbs.
She jerked.
The first chain broke.
A second tightened.
Then a third.
Arachne's eyes narrowed.
"What is this?"
"Insurance."
More chains appeared.
Arachne pulled.
Two shattered.
Four replaced them.
Caelan felt the cost immediately. She was stronger than him, and forcing fate around something stronger was far more difficult than suppressing an equal.
But he didn't need forever.
He needed seconds.
Path Killer stirred.
Caelan looked through her future.
One escape route.
Removed.
Arachne twisted toward another.
Caelan destroyed that path too.
Her eyes widened.
For the first time since the battle began, the ancient spider looked genuinely alarmed.
"What are you doing?"
"Making your options worse."
Stormmane's grin returned.
"I like this plan."
Luminel glanced toward Caelan.
"How many routes can you remove?"
"Enough, if everyone stops talking and starts helping."
"Charming."
Archoniel raised his sword.
Yuto's Hope surged through him.
Stormmane tightened his grip on his weapon.
Luminel lifted his spear.
Caelan planted one foot behind the other and lowered the Azure lance.
Path Maker unfolded.
There.
A route.
Narrow.
Ridiculous.
Possible.
Archoniel saw Caelan's posture change.
"You found it."
"Yes."
"Victory?"
Caelan watched the path.
Arachne fighting the chains.
The city collapsing.
Yuto behind the shield.
Luminel's magic.
Stormmane's power.
Archoniel's holy light.
His own wind.
His own light.
His own Fate.
All of it converging.
"A road to it."
That was enough.
Caelan raised the lance.
"Everyone," he said, "put everything you can spare into the weapon."
Stormmane looked at the increasingly furious Spider Queen.
"And if she breaks those chains before we're ready?"
Caelan's golden eyes remained fixed on the future.
"Then we improvise."
Luminel groaned.
"I hate when that is the second half of your plans."
Caelan's lance began to shine.
"Only the second half?"
And despite the city full of spiders, the ancient monster trying to eat them, the temporary Elite evolution rapidly running out of time and the fact that several thousand tonnes of ruined architecture were beginning to collapse around their heads, Stormmane laughed.
For some reason, that made the coming attack feel slightly less impossible.