Mythshaper
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Chapter 40 - Reptile-Arachnid Alliance
🕑 Added 2024-03-10 19:48:49 +0000 UTC“Are you suggesting we use the traps to kill it?” Marvel was quick to pick on the hints. “No, that’s impossible. Even I, a Low Copper, can escape the pit without any critical injuries, but this one is an Iron rank.”
“A misshapen Iron rank,” Shai corrected her, unsure how much her understanding was correct. “And you’re agile, trained to act under these circumstances, while eating is the only way this vile creature knows. It can’t even avoid the traps if we leave it be.”
“The traps can’t kill it.” Marvel seemed absolutely sure of it. She moved down after no more traps remained intact on that level.
“Sure, maybe,” Shai said, “but it might as well weaken it enough for us to deal with it.”
Marvel remained silent. Her empathic pulses were a jumble of mess, almost bothering Shai.
“Oh crap, I’m going to get punished for destroying the training chasm,” Marvel squeaked as realisation finally dawned on her. “Even though this vile creature did most of it.”
“That is life,” Shai told the young spider. “So what do you think about what I said? It is going to destroy the web system no matter what. Why not make it pay for doing so?”
“But then we won’t be able to flee and inform Solace.”
She had a point there, Shai thought.
“Also, I’m getting exhausted, I don’t think I can fight at this rate.”
“The Training Chasm can buy us time to recover,” Shai said, deliberating,
For an extended amount of time, they hung in silence. Only the screech of the abomination broke the silence between them.
“Still not convinced?” Shai asked.
“You’re very greedy,” the spider said. Before Shai could refute out, the eight-legged creature added, “I’m in with your plan, but first, you have to give me some of those mushrooms. You have stolen them from us, didn’t you?”
Shai froze. Of course, spiders had an omnidirectional view. She deliberated over her options and gave in. The little spider had already seen the mushrooms, dragging her into the crime seemed to be only option left to save her skin.
“Umm, sure,” Shai agreed, bringing out most of the leftovers from her inventory.
“This Concept of Space, right?” Marvel asked, her eyes narrowing on the dark hole where the mushrooms fell from. “How can a creature like you comprehend such profound principles?”
She sounded somewhat envious in Shai’s mouth. “I’m special like that.”
The growing screeches of the abomination reminded them of the desperation of the situation.
“We need to move. Help me eat them.” With that, Marvel was swinging again.
Shai slithered across the spider’s body. She clutched one mushroom with her mouth and moved towards the spider’s mandibles. Shai held the mushroom into Marvel’s mandibles as the spider ate. She repeated the process, shoving one after another into the mandibles.
Huh, with all the twisted stuff I had to deal with, this kind of looks like a kiss, Shai thought, not feeling all that repulsive. Considering how her stomach used to churn eating raw flesh in the beginning days, this was nothing. She wasn’t sure what to think of it, not that it made her feel anything.
Thankfully, the spider seemed to be oblivious to human affairs. Good for both of us.
The feeding came to an end shortly. After locating the next level where the traps were installed, Marvel stopped again, sticking herself to the wall this time.
“This is going to be fun,” the spider said, looking at the creature dozens of times her weight.
“Yeah,” agreed the snake, her predatory eyes locked onto the serpentine abomination, which was easily hundreds of times bigger than her.
***
***
The slave was the first to fall. The poor human couldn’t even bear Elegy’s assault on his mind when she was simultaneously handling two other humans far stronger than him in comparison.
Unfortunately, the other two turned out to be a little tricky. As Serenity thought, the two men didn’t care about their slave all that much. When the younger man fell, they were busy getting the hell out of their sight. Of course, she couldn’t blame them with their senses impaired, and a Herald of Death looming over them.
Nobody could tell from which direction Midnight would attack them. Even Serenity couldn’t, she could hardly guess with their mental link intact. That was how elusive her superior was in a fight.
Serenity wrapped the fallen slave completely with her webs into a cocoon, reinforcing with the power of Adhesion. She didn’t kill the human. Not yet. His corpse would have done well to work as a fertiliser for the Bloodcudding Mushrooms, but Serenity showed him mercy only thinking far off. She adhered the cocoon to the wall and joined the fray again.
Looking at the battle, her choice was right.
Using the element of surprise and her superior agility, Midnight had cut off an arm of the rat-faced man, almost crippling him. He writhed on the ground, rolling around, blood spraying everywhere. Unfortunately, the rat-faced man turned out to be a deadly Poison Cultivator. When his life was at stake, he didn’t hold back assaulting with all his mind.
A poisonous miasma enveloped where Midnight operated.
“Seal your breathing!” Midnight’s mental wave told her. “Clock yourself. There are more than two forms of poison in the miasma. Two are deadly, the third is more faint but more insidious. It’s high restrictive type.”
Serenity was about to ask how Midnight was able to discern the miasma’s properties so quickly, but a realisation dawned over her shortly. Even if Midnight was a Poison master, she shouldn’t be able to discern that all in mere seconds. “Midnight, are you?”
“Yes, I’m contaminated,” Midnight said, her tone still resolute. “Don’t worry. What is poison to the Midnight, if not nourishments?”
Serenity wanted to believe. Well, she almost believed her, but then she found Midnight locked in battle with the other man, who now hovered in the air, dark majestic wings spread across his back. Unaffected by the poison, he could flee on his own if he desired.
“Join Elegy in the mental assault,” Midnight ordered. “We cannot let them escape.”
***
After they reached the halfway point of the training chasm, the hurdle to move forward became even more apparent, with traps far harder to evade and deadlier in threat. Of course, Marvel had all the nook and corner of the chasm memorised, making their entry safer. But it wasn’t safe.
The Training Chasm wasn’t merely to train the body and reflexes, it seemed, the empathic spider clan pays great importance to the Mind equally, if not more. Along with exercising the mobility and cosmic arts of a candidate, this chasm challenged their mind as well.
There were hundreds upon hundreds of intricate contingencies. The complex combinations of traps were impossible to avoid, even with a regular candidate as a companion. Shai would know, as they had set off more than just a couple of traps so far.
Still better than the Wyrm. It moved like a wrecking ball, albeit at a slower pace, frequently stopping to free itself from the web entanglement. Regardless, their job became easier.
With the growing difficulty, they wouldn’t have to make sure the wyrm fell into the traps, as it was almost impossible for a creature of that volume and mass to not fall into them. Marvel didn’t have to trigger them anymore. The wyrm was paying for its stupidity, for following its instinct.
That left them mostly free to recover their energy. The wyrm was coming down slowly, in the slow cycle of getting itself tangled in the webs and breaking free. Of course, it was getting smashed with blocks of stones or jagged stone projectiles in between, screaming in all its indignation and grievances, much to their delight.
The repetitive cycles had gone for over an hour by this point. The abomination had no other option but to continue downwards, it found itself deep into the rabbit hole, and the only option remaining was to reach the bottom of it.
Hopefully, the young spider and the hatchling would claim its life by that point.
Bruises began to appear on its body already, though it was far from being battered, save for the holes Shai left in its body before it advanced. Its mental stability was non-existence, but Marvel was still hesitant about striking its mind, considering the torment she was put through the last time.
It wasn’t merely the instinctual mechanism, but something darker, more sinister, that gnawed at Marvel’s mind. As if a construct built only to resist her empathic power.
