Chapter 38 — When the Spider Finally Bled
The wind howled between the ruined towers as Caelan moved. Stellar light burned beneath the seams of his Azure armor, the Myriad-Star Fate Body driving his strength far beyond what his natural Adult body could have produced, while Stellar Movement carried him from one position to another so rapidly that the Spider Queen seemed surrounded by silver-blue apparitions. Luminel flashed between the buildings above him, hurling bolts of crackling fairy lightning into Arachne's webs and spider limbs whenever an opening appeared, while Stormmane struck from below, his remaining fist blazing with the golden force of Lion King Fist. Archoniel remained farther back, controlling his radiant blades while Yuto supported him from behind the protection of his celestial shield. Yet for all their speed and power, Arachne remained maddeningly composed. Her eight spider limbs struck against shattered walls with metallic clicks while her web spread continually farther across the city, turning streets and buildings into pieces of one enormous trap. Stormmane drove his fist into a web-covered rooftop, the shockwave breaking stone and tearing silk loose in sheets, only for a silver strand to whip around his remaining wrist. His expression changed just before Arachne yanked him bodily from his feet and sent him swinging through the air. "Is this all?" she asked, her voice barely louder than the wind. "After all that preparation? How adorable."
Caelan attacked from four directions almost at once—not because there were four of him, but because light and wind did not require him to stand wherever they appeared. Razor-dense currents screamed across Arachne's flanks while white-gold lasers formed above, beside and behind her, each aimed precisely at gaps in her defence. Another column of light descended from the clouds while Caelan himself crossed the distance with Stellar Movement, his lance driving straight for her centre. Arachne could not simply dodge the attack. She twisted aside and understood that immediately when the lance adjusted with him, Destiny refusing to permit an ordinary miss. Her answer was defence. Webs layered between them. A spider limb struck the shaft aside. Her dark blade met the point with a crash that showered sparks over the ruins, and the collision forced Caelan backward despite the enhancement surging through his body. Arachne smiled. She had learned very quickly. If Caelan attacked, she could not rely upon evasion alone, but she could block, intercept, sacrifice another body into the path or endure whatever reached her. Unfortunately, she possessed an entire city with which to do all four.
Luminel shot downward behind her and hurled another bolt of lightning. Arachne flicked one hand almost lazily, catching the attack against a spread of dark silk, then turned one spider limb without even looking. The sharpened limb crossed Luminel's path. He tried to teleport away, but the strike caught the already damaged remains of one wing before the magic completed. The wing was severed cleanly. Luminel cried out and dropped, spinning helplessly until a burst of Caelan's wind caught him several floors below. "Luminel!" Stormmane roared, clawing at the web around his arm. He tore through one layer only for three more to wrap around his torso and legs. Arachne lifted him higher, watching his struggle with open amusement. "A fairy with broken wings and a lion with one arm. What a collection you've become." Archoniel answered for them. Twelve radiant swords swept across the battlefield in a coordinated barrage, converging upon Arachne from every direction. She raised the black sword in one graceful movement and met them head-on. Light flashed. One holy blade broke. Then another. Three were redirected into empty buildings. Arachne's webs caught two more. By the time the last struck, she shattered it against her dark weapon and sighed. "This is becoming tiresome."
Caelan landed hard on the side of a fractured tower, one armored boot digging into stone. His ki reserves were disappearing alarmingly quickly. Myriad-Star Fate Body was still active, but the five-hundred-times amplification demanded an enormous price, and Arachne was forcing him to spend still more on wind, light and rapid movement. She had noticed. Of course she had. She stopped bothering to hide her satisfaction as she descended toward him, dark blade hanging loosely from one hand. "Your friends are insects," she said pleasantly. "But you are curious. Something fashioned to resemble a human, wearing a knight's legend as though it belongs to you. I think I'll discover what is inside first."
Caelan lunged.
His lance drove toward her chest.
Arachne caught it against her sword.
The impact demolished what remained of the wall beneath them.
Caelan thrust again.
She blocked again.
The exchanges became violent enough that neither bothered with conversation. The lance stabbed. The black blade parried. Spider limbs hammered against Caelan's armor with enough force to send shock through his body even when the celestial plate itself refused to break. The armor could withstand far more than Arachne could physically do to it, but Caelan inside it was not indestructible. Every collision rattled bone. One strike sent him through two floors of a building. Another caught him across the ribs and left something inside his chest decidedly unhappy. His armor emerged with little more than dust across the silver-white plates; Caelan himself tasted blood.
Luminel, still fighting despite the loss of his wing, hurled lightning into Arachne's back. Stormmane finally tore himself free and fired another golden Lion King Fist. Archoniel swept his sword horizontally, sending a broad wave of holy power across the battlefield. Arachne spun, her threads exploding around her in a silver-black storm. Luminel's lightning grounded into the web. Stormmane's attack was shredded against layered strands. Archoniel's holy wave split around a wall of silk and vanished into the ruined streets.
Then Arachne struck Caelan again.
Her black sword slammed directly into his abdomen.
The Azure armor did not break.
The force behind it did.
Caelan folded around the impact as though a siege weapon had struck him at point-blank range. Something tore internally. He coughed blood inside his helmet and dropped to one knee.
Arachne leaned closer.
"I wondered how long your pretty shell would keep you standing."
Caelan's lance remained clenched in one hand.
Behind the visor, his golden eyes remained fixed on her.
Path Maker was still active.
And it had finally shown him what he needed.
Not a clean victory.
A sequence.
Arachne standing there.
Her confidence.
Her habit of approaching wounded prey rather than simply killing it from a distance.
Her reliance upon the city-wide web to intercept anything dangerous.
The route existed.
It was dreadful.
But it existed.
Caelan sent one thought through the ki link he had maintained with the others.
Now. Put everything into the lance.
The weapon vanished from his immediate grip.
Not truly lost. The Azure lance belonged to his legend, and Destiny Enchantment had already marked it more deeply as his alone. It manifested again several buildings away beside Luminel, Stormmane and Archoniel, still carrying the accumulated imprint of Caelan's Fate. Luminel caught the shaft with both hands and poured what remained of his magic into it. Lightning crawled across the blue-white metal. Stormmane placed his remaining palm against the weapon and forced golden power into the same point. Archoniel stepped forward last, radiant armor blazing as holy light flowed through his hand into the lance until its surface shone like a star.
Caelan remained in front of Arachne.
Alone.
She smiled.
"Lost your weapon?"
"No."
Arachne's eyes brightened.
The world locked.
Caelan knew what had happened before his muscles stopped obeying him. Her gaze had found his through the opening in the visor, and whatever ancient paralytic power lived behind those eyes slid through the body rather than the armor. His limbs became rigid. His breathing slowed. Even circulating ki suddenly felt as though it had to cross a frozen river.
Arachne's abdomen split.
A second mouth opened beneath the elegant human shape, lined with needle-like teeth wet with venom.
"Then perhaps I'll start with the part I can reach."
She lunged.
Her jaws closed around Caelan's armored forearm.
The teeth struck celestial plate.
And stopped.
Arachne's expression changed.
Caelan's eyes smiled.
The armor had never been the trap.
The contact was.
Chains of Fate.
Golden bindings erupted from the arm she had bitten and raced across Arachne's jaws, throat, torso and spider limbs. One chain snapped immediately beneath her strength.
Another tightened.
Then another.
Arachne jerked backward.
"What—?"
Caelan activated Path Killer.
The first route by which she could simply withdraw into the web disappeared.
The second route—substituting a Dreadweaver into her place—vanished next.
Arachne's many eyes widened.
She pulled violently against the Chains of Fate.
Two broke.
More tightened.
Caelan felt the technique draining him almost as fast as Myriad-Star Fate Body. Arachne was stronger. Older. More experienced. Holding her for even a few seconds was like trying to chain a storm to the ground.
Fortunately, a few seconds were all Path Maker had asked for.
Arachne looked toward the distant rooftop.
She saw the lance.
Luminel hovering beside it.
Stormmane braced against the shaft.
Archoniel pouring the last of his holy power into the weapon.
The lance had become almost impossible to look at directly.
"No."
Caelan's voice came quietly from behind the helmet.
"Now."
Archoniel released the weapon.
Stormmane added the last of his strength.
Luminel guided its initial flight.
Then Destiny took over.
The Azure lance crossed the city.
Lightning wrapped around it.
Holy radiance burned ahead of it.
Golden power roared along the shaft.
Wind gathered around the point as Caelan pulled every remaining current he could still command into the attack.
Arachne tried to move.
Chains of Fate held.
She tried to call the spiders.
Path Killer had already removed that route.
She twisted a web shield into existence anyway.
The lance struck it.
The first layer vanished.
Then the second.
The third burned.
Arachne's eyes widened.
She gathered everything she had left between herself and the weapon.
The attack did not miss.
It could not.
She could only stop it.
And this time there was too much behind it.
The lance punched through the final wall of silk.
Through her defence.
And into Arachne.
For one heartbeat the world became white.
Then the city exploded.
The shockwave tore webs from towers for kilometres. Windows disintegrated. Entire buildings folded beneath the pressure. Arachne vanished inside a storm of light, wind, lightning and holy power as the Azure lance drove through her and hurled her across the skyline. She smashed through one tower, then another, then a third before striking the ground hard enough to leave a crater of molten glass and pulverized stone.
Silence followed.
Caelan's Chains vanished.
Myriad-Star Fate Body extinguished with them.
He dropped heavily to one knee.
His lance returned to his hand.
For several seconds nobody moved.
Then Stormmane breathed, "Please tell me she's dead."
The crater answered.
It cracked.
Black ichor seeped through the broken earth.
Arachne rose.
Slowly.
Her appearance had changed.
Three spider limbs were gone entirely. Another dragged uselessly behind her. The elegant crimson clothing that had survived most of the battle hung in scorched strips. One of her eyes flickered erratically, and the Azure lance had punched a clean hole through her torso, leaving burned flesh and fractured armor around the wound. Silver hair hung dark with blood and soot.
But she remained standing.
And smiling.
For approximately three seconds.
Arachne lifted one hand and brushed dust from her shoulder with what dignity she could still gather. "Well," she said softly, though the words trembled slightly, "you almost made me—"
Her face twitched.
The smile disappeared.
"You FILTHY LITTLE MAGGOTS!"
Stormmane actually leaned backward.
Arachne screamed.
Not elegantly.
Not seductively.
Not like an ancient queen weaving doom from the shadows.
She screamed like someone who had spent centuries cultivating perfect composure and had just watched it leave through the large hole in her chest.
"LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME!"
Caelan remained kneeling, breathing carefully around several injuries.
Stormmane stared at her.
"She's upset."
Luminel, hovering poorly with only one usable wing, looked at him.
"Brilliant deduction."
Arachne stumbled forward, black ichor dripping from her body and sizzling against the broken street. "You crawling, worthless things! Do you know what I am? Do you know how long I have existed? I survived the end of an AGE!"
Archoniel raised his sword.
"And you're still bleeding."
Arachne's remaining eyes snapped toward him.
"SHUT UP!"
Stormmane's mouth twitched.
Arachne noticed.
"You think this is funny?"
"No."
Stormmane failed to sound convincing.
Caelan slowly stood.
Arachne turned toward him.
The hatred in her face became almost impressive.
"You."
Caelan rested his lance against the ground.
"You were saying something about eating me."
Her jaw tightened.
Stormmane looked between them.
"Oh, that's going to make it worse."
"It already happened," Luminel muttered.
Arachne's remaining limbs dug into the earth.
"I underestimated you."
Caelan's eyes narrowed.
"Yes."
"It will not happen again."
Black threads erupted from her body.
They wrapped around her ruined torso first.
Then her missing limbs.
Then the entire lower half of her body.
"She's cocooning!" Luminel shouted.
Arachne's wounds disappeared beneath layer after layer of thick dark silk, the cocoon rapidly hardening around her.
Archoniel moved immediately.
His sword blazed.
He did not waste power on another sweeping attack.
He thrust.
The radiant blade struck directly for the wound in Arachne's chest.
A wall of silk erupted between them.
Archoniel's sword punched deep into it.
Not deep enough.
The cocoon closed.
Arachne's voice emerged from within.
"You should have killed me while you had the chance."
Stormmane looked at Caelan.
"We tried."
"I noticed."
The cocoon pulsed.
Darkness answered.
It began as a stain beneath it.
Then spread.
Blackness flowed across the ground like spilled ink, swallowing rubble and reflected light as it travelled. It climbed buildings. Covered the sky. Drowned the horizon.
Within seconds, the ruined city disappeared.
Caelan could still feel stone beneath his boots, but he could no longer see it.
They stood inside endless night.
Arachne laughed from everywhere.
"No one leaves."
Her voice came from above.
Below.
Behind them.
Inside the darkness itself.
"Run if you wish, little insects. Hide. Crawl. I will find you. One by one."
The pressure changed.
Caelan felt it immediately.
His remaining ki was being drained.
Not quickly.
That was worse.
A slow pull.
Constant.
Unavoidable.
Stormmane's golden aura flickered around him and died.
Luminel tried to teleport.
Nothing happened.
He appeared exactly where he had started.
"Spatial suppression," the fairy muttered.
Archoniel's wings dimmed.
Yuto's Resonance Linker flashed warning after warning.
"Michael?"
The Elite angel looked down at him.
"Yuto..."
His temporary evolution collapsed.
White-and-gold armor dissolved into light.
The enormous wings vanished.
The radiant sword and shield disappeared with them.
A tiny orange-and-cream body dropped from the fading glow.
Yuto caught Michael against his chest.
Michael barely moved.
Stormmane tried to summon power into his fist.
Only a faint spark answered.
"We can't beat this," he said.
There was no fear in the admission.
Only exhausted fact.
Luminel struck the darkness with magic.
The spell vanished into it.
"We can't break the field either."
Arachne laughed again.
"Do you feel it?"
The darkness pressed closer.
"That is what remains when Hope finally understands it was foolish."
Yuto hugged Michael tighter.
Caelan stood silent.
Path Maker opened.
He asked for the path to victory.
Nothing useful appeared.
Not here.
Not now.
He changed the question.
Survival.
A route appeared.
Faint.
Narrow.
Leading away.
Caelan looked at Luminel.
Then Stormmane.
Then Yuto holding the unconscious Michael.
They had already pushed far beyond what they could sustain.
Another battle would not be brave.
It would be stupid.
"We leave."
Stormmane looked toward him.
"How?"
Caelan raised the Azure lance.
Path Maker's line remained barely visible through the darkness.
"I have a path."
Luminel floated closer.
"To defeat her?"
"No."
Caelan looked into the endless black surrounding them.
"To get out."
Arachne's laughter rolled through the Dark World.
Caelan tightened his grip on the lance.
"We retreat. Now."