Chương 8: It’s big enough to eat me alive. Literally.

Literally.

Hundreds of moths poured from the spider's shell in a living wave, filling the air so thickly the spider vanished behind them. Crimson energy swelled around Astarielle, shot up into the sky, and a meteorite fell through the clouds. In a blazing descent, it incinerated the canopy, scorched the air, and landed into the swarm, straight where the spider was. An explosion shook the valley. The shock and heat waves punched my shields, straining them. Hundreds of moths burned. Hundreds more swarmed at us.

The spider, chitin cracked and bleeding white blood, rushed toward us, three of its legs broken. Astarielle raised her hands and flung them forward. A dozen crimson bolts fired into the spider and the moths. More explosions shook the area. A whole bunch of moths burned, the spider lost more legs, but many moths still got to us. The moths completely blocked my vision, swarming all over me, trying to reach me with their stingers. My shields now glowed, absorbing all of it.

Another part of the swarm got on Astarielle, stinging her. She screamed in high pitch, her form flickering, my connection to her destabilizing as if by static. Detonate. Astarielle blew up, incinerating the moths, getting some off me, too. I instantly resummoned her. She started forming a bit away from swirling crimson flames. I really had to put her back on fast summon. The spider reached me. It grabbed me with its massive mandibles around the neck, trying to decapitate me.

My shields strained, though still blocked it. I pushed more power into them. The individual attacks weren't worth much. But with thirty moths and a huge spider on me, my mana drained fast. Astarielle reformed, raised her hand, and fired four more crimson bolts. They hit me straight, exploding, incinerating the moths, tearing off the spider's mandible. It coiled away, turning, aiming at me with its giant stinger. More moths landed on Astarielle, stinging her. Detonate.

She blew up, and I immediately started the resummon. The spider hit me with the stinger, hitting my stomach. My shields lit up. They blocked the attack, but enough force seeped through to push me back a few feet. Astarielle reformed, put her hands together, and fired a single crimson beam. It pierced the spider through the side. The monster roared. The moths sped up, swarming at Astarielle. Its broken legs regrew, and the hole in its side healed. Ah, great. I denotated Astarielle, instantly triggering a resummon.

I braced myself on the ground. The spider landed on me, pushing me into the ground, forcing me to pour a lot more power into the shield. Astarielle reformed, and the moths were at her before she managed to start casting. Detonate. Her explosion blew up the moths, and I started resummoning her a bit further away. The moths swarmed toward me. The spider turned, opening its massive mouth to devour me alive. Damn, I could have really used an offensive spell right now. Astarielle reformed.

A bunch of moths flew at her, but she released a pulse of crimson lightning, shocking them to dust. I remained focused on my shields. The spider bit, its jaws closing around my knees, my entire body in its mouth, my head pushing into its throat. White, viscous liquid covered its throat, acid by how my shields were reacting. It started pulling me toward its stomach. Damn it, what was taking Astarielle so long? Eight large crimson bolts hit the spider, their explosions blowing it apart.

Its body tore into shreds, the explosions pushing me out through its side. I landed on the ground, shields stable. Six more crimson bolts hit the spider's body, blowing it apart. Chitin and white blood rained all over the area. Where the blood touched Astarielle, it melted her skin, making her scream. Detonate. She exploded, the force clearing the blood away. Quite a bit still hit me, all of it oozing over my shields. All blocked. Once the acid blood rain stopped, I resummoned Astarielle.

A notification popped up before me. [ENEMY DEFEATED – HOLLOW BROODMOTHER (1)] [Drops: Hollow Crystal Bracelet (Rare), Broodmother Fang (Uncommon) (x2), Corrupted Silk (Common) (x4), Hollow Core (Uncommon), 2 silver, 44 copper] [ENEMIES DEFEATED – HOLLOW MOTH SWARM (712)] [Drops: Hollow Moth Wings (Common) (x1424)] The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. The loot materialized in a neat pile between us.

On top sat a bracelet made of white crystal, translucent, with faint veins of something iridescent running through it. It caught the dim light and split it into colors that didn't have names. I picked it up. It was cool to the touch, lighter than it looked, and when I pushed power into my eyes, the bracelet's magical signature was dense, layered. Whatever enchantment sat inside it, there was a lot of it. Hmm. Could I bring this back to Earth?

"Oooh, that's pretty," Astarielle said, suddenly at my side. It was. The white crystals would fit Cassandra excellently. But I was a spiritual projection here. Whatever I took would probably stay with the projected form and not be brought to Earth.

"How about you hold it for me for now?" I asked, handing it over to Astarielle. Her eyes lit up. She took it, and with a satisfied smirk, she put it on her wrist.

"This fits me perfectly!"

"Don't get too attached to it," I said, but she didn't look like she registered it. Anyway, I summoned the Lantern of Endless Suffering and drew in the souls. A massive soul tore from the spider's corpse and flew into the lantern, forming a large white flame inside. Nice.

"I don't see anything else to burn here."

"I'd still make sure." Astarielle spun, raising her hands. Two dozen crimson bolts formed around her. She flung them forward into the general area. A series of explosions shook the air.

"It should be fine now." She seemed to be all right, in spite of the moths interrupting our connection a bit. We headed back. That was slightly concerning. If they had torn the connection before I could detonate her, she would be stuck with the moths, and I wouldn't be able to resummon her. That would have been a real issue, because I had no offense on my own, and no matter how much mana I had for the shields, the monsters would eventually deplete it by continuously attacking me.

I didn't say anything about it, though. No need to scare her with what didn't happen. The grey had already started receding from the forest. Color crept back into the trees at the edges, greens and browns bleeding into the bleached white like watercolor on wet paper. The broodmother was definitely the source. Astarielle walked beside me, heels clicking on the stone road once we found it. She'd been silent for about ten minutes, which was either a record or a warning sign. The town came into view.

Quite a few people stood on the walls, staring into the distance behind us. I glanced over my shoulder. Even from here, a crimson fire in the forest was visible, smoke rising into the sky. Ah, well, it was going to die down by itself, eventually. The central square looked the same, the fountain running, the market stalls still set up. I glanced toward the tavern where we'd met Peace. The table was empty. No teacup, no crystal, no sign she'd ever been there. Chris and Biscuit were also nowhere in sight.

The fruit stall lady was gone too. In fact, the entire square felt quieter than before.

"The kid probably went home," Astarielle said, following my gaze. Or vanished with Peace. We crossed the square toward the town hall. We didn't make it to the door. Aldric stood outside, arms crossed, looking east. Specifically, looking at the column of smoke rising from the forest where we'd just been. He turned as we approached. His expression sat in the narrow gap between grudging respect and a desire to strangle me.

"I asked you to clear an infestation," he said.

"It's cleared."

"You set the eastern woodlands on fire."

"A wound sometimes needs to be cauterized. The fire will take care of the leftovers."

"Half the town saw the explosions." He gestured behind him.

"The other half felt them."

"I can confirm the source is dead," I said.

"The corruption is already receding. You can check the treeline yourself."

"It's also on fire." I rolled my eyes.

"And free of corruption." He glared at me for a moment longer. Finally, he uncrossed his arms.

"A deal is a deal. Follow me." He headed north, past the town hall, past the last row of houses, and onto a trail that wound up into the foothills. The path climbed steadily. The hills gave way to rockier terrain, and then to proper mountainside. Sparse trees clung to the slopes, their roots gripping exposed stone. The air thinned slightly, or at least it felt like it did. Astarielle's heels were not designed for mountain hiking. The click-clack turned into a frustrated scratch-scrape.

She didn't complain verbally, but her silence had texture to it. Twenty minutes of climbing brought us to a plateau. A cave mouth opened in the mountainside, flanked by carved stone pillars. The carvings were old. Not the same style as the town, older, with symbols I didn't recognize. Spirals, interlocking geometric patterns, and something that might have been script in a local, arcane language. Aldric stopped ten feet from the cave entrance. He turned to face us.

"Wait here." He approached the cave alone. At the entrance, he knelt on one knee. From his vest pocket, he produced a small vial of clear liquid and poured it onto the stone in a precise pattern, three concentric circles with a line through the center. Then he spoke. The language was nothing I'd heard before. It wasn't any Earth tongue, and it wasn't Infernal either. The words had a cadence to them, rhythmic and deep, almost a chant. The ground vibrated. Not an earthquake. A pulse.

Like a heartbeat, coming from inside the mountain. Astarielle stepped closer to me.

"There's something in there. Something enormous."

"In my pants, I know." I pushed power into my eyes. She snorted. The inside of the cave erupted in my mana sight. There was something inside, and its mana signature was so dense that I couldn't see through it. Like staring into a solid wall of white light. No fluctuation or any readable information. It reminded me of Peace's crystal. Metal scraped against stone. A sound so deep it registered in the chest before the ears. From the cave's darkness, something moved. A head emerged first. Steel.

Polished to a mirror finish, reflecting the golden skylight in warped curves. Two eyes, each the size of a dinner plate, glowing with that same opaque white light I couldn't read. A forked tongue, also steel, tasted the air with a sound like sword blades sliding past each other. The body followed. Coil after coil of gleaming metal slid from the cave, each segment interlocking with mechanical precision.

Scales the size of shields overlapped along its length, each etched with the same spiraling symbols as the cave pillars. It was thicker than a car, and it kept coming. Ten feet. Twenty. Forty. By the time it stopped, easily a hundred feet of steel serpent lay coiled on the plateau, its head raised thirty feet above us, looking down with those unreadable eyes. Astarielle shifted her weight on her back foot. Ready to dodge.

"That's bigger." Yeah, I noticed. Even my shields would struggle with this. Aldric remained kneeling. The serpent lowered its head toward him. It held there for a long, silent moment. Then it shifted. The massive body rearranged, coils sliding over each other with the sound of grinding steel, and a passage opened. Behind where it had been coiled, the cave continued deeper into the mountain. It never looked at me. Not once. Aldric stood, dusted his knee, and walked back to us.

"The guardian grants passage. Go straight. Don't touch the walls." I looked at the serpent. It observed me with its side eyes, or at least it felt like that. The overseer, that's how they called it, wasn't it? Trying to force one's way to the waystone meant one had to deal with this monster. We walked past it. Through the gap in its coils, close enough to see my own distorted reflection in its scales. Astarielle's grip on my arm didn't loosen until we were well past.

The cave narrowed into a corridor, then opened into a chamber. The waystone sat at its center. A pillar of rough grey stone, about chest height, with a flat top. No decorations, just a pillar with runes etched into every inch. We approached. For lack of better ideas, I placed my palm on the flat top. The stone was warm. Astarielle put her hand next to mine. Nothing happened for a breath. Runes lit up around my palm. Coordinates, I intuitively understood. I remembered them. All right.

I quickly checked the time I had left. About twenty percent. Enough time to go see the next floor. Actually, not the next floor. By the runes, I understood it as floor eleven. A smirk crept onto my face. Nice. Skipping five floors felt like a success. All right, onwards to the next floor. I focused on the coordinates, trying to command the local system to move me up. A text floated in front of me. [FLOOR CLEARED: 6] [NEXT FLOOR: 11] [1/5]