Chương 331: Control

The spider army surged forward, methodically searching each street. Meanwhile, our group's anxiety continued to spike. If we stayed here, we would probably die. If we moved, we would also probably die. I swapped between my soul sight and my spatial sight, to see if I could find a solution to our dilemma. As I stared at the spiders, I noticed something unusual. The spiders all had a sort of vague, rippling quality to them in my spatial sight.

It was almost like I was looking at something through a foggy window, or a cracked pane of glass. However, it was difficult to see exactly what I was missing - all I had was the impression that something was wrong. And whatever the cause of the 'wrongness' was, it seemed as if it were all around the spiders. However, when I looked at the area with my soul-sight, I couldn't see a thing. <Something is weird about the space around the spiders, > I said.

<Do you think it'll interfere if we teleport away, and then start running? > asked Felix. <I could pop us down a few streets with my group teleport, and then we could try moving faster than the spider horde. > <I'm not sure, > I said. <Miria, show us what you're seeing. I can't figure out what the problem is if you only tell us about it, > said Sallia. <Oops. One sec, > I said, as I shared my spatial vision.

Our group fell silent for a few minutes, as everyone analyzed what I was catching with my vision, before Sallia spoke into the bracelet again. <Try turning your head a little bit? Don't look directly at the distortion anymore, angle it so that you're only looking at it out of the corner of your eye - there! Stop! Don't move your eyes at all! > A moment later, I saw what she had seen. The vague, blurred bits of air seemed to hang above the other spiders…

and if I looked at it from the corner of my eyes, it looked like a giant, semi-translucent spider made of warped space. <What is that thing? > asked Felix. <Maybe it's some kind of projection spell? Or the main guardian of the skill center is using some kind of stealth ability to lead its horde? > said Anise. <It looks like a giant spider. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't find that surprising. A mother spider would be a perfectly reasonable leader for a bunch of other magic spiders.

> <I don't see a soul, so a projection spell seems more likely, > I said, as I swapped back to soul-sight for a moment. <Although it could also have some kind of way to cloak its soul, I suppose. > <Either way, it's trouble. We were already trying to find a way out, and now we learn that this thing is watching us. It probably wants us to focus on its minions, and then strike and kill us while we're unprepared, > said Felix. I resisted the urge to knead my forehead in frustration. Why couldn't things ever be easy?

I continued searching the air with my spatial sight, and after a lot more careful scanning, I spotted something attached to the giant, translucent spider. It looked kind of like the little eldritch tethers that we had found inside of the Skill center, although it was much thinner and sneakier. The other end of the tether looked like it was still connected to something inside of the Spatial Fair. <I might be able to disable it, > I said, after a few moments of thought.

I could see essence constantly flowing from the spatial fair and towards the projection, and I was pretty sure another clone could cut off the connection between the two. My soul was still injured from my previous clones, so I would need to pay a lot of Achievement to make another clone. However, if it got us out of this situation, I was fine with losing all of the Achievement I had left. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

<If you can disable it, we still have to deal with the rest of the horde or escape somehow, > said Felix. <I can only teleport us once, and these bastards are very reactive to sound. They'll probably catch us if we start running. > <I can try to teleport a few spiders around, but then the rest will get used to that trick. And I would need to take down the projection spell first. > I said, hesitantly.

The giant projection and the horde of spiders felt like a suffocating pressure, weighing down on me as I tried to find a way out. A moment later, Anise seemed to fall into thought… before she gently jiggled her bag of explosives. Felix had whipped her up a few new ones, although not many. They were mostly a guarantee that Anise could help get some assists during fights, rather than out of any strong belief that Anise would play a vital role in a fight. <I have an idea. Can you make a lot more of these, Felix?

How fast is your production with your dimensional factory? > Felix frowned. <I can… probably make about one every minute. I left you with some emergency grenades already though. Do you need more? > <I'm thinking I'll use them, as well as my sword's once per lifetime effect to create some chaos, > said Anise. <They're too fast to get caught by a regular bomb, but we could drop a bunch of explosives on them with portals right before they activate.

That might work, if Miria can take down the spell projection without a sound. That'll kill some of them, and set the rest of them into their 'heard a sound recently' boost. Then, you teleport us away, and we wait the monsters out. They won't be able to control which spiders have heard a sound recently, if we do that. They'll probably retreat on their own once their boost starts to run out of time. If they don't…

well, maybe we can teleport a second round of explosives onto them, and hunt them instead of being hunted. We'll have to hope the best in the Skill Center doesn't come out personally, but as long as it doesn't intervene, it has a chance of working. > <In that case, maybe the best way to handle it is with Miria's clone. If she makes a small one, it could teleport itself around without making any noise, then untangle the connection and drop a bomb. After the chaos settles down, we attack if they haven't fled?

> said Sallia. It wasn't a great plan, but it was better than anything I'd thought of so far. Felix thought about it for a few moments, before he turned towards me. <Miria, how long until they find us? > <At their current movement rate, and how they're searching houses one at a time, I figure we have an hour? > <Got it. Let's go with that idea, unless someone has a better plan? > Asked Felix. Nobody said anything. He nodded. <I'll make about 40 grenades then, just to make sure we don't run out of time.

Wait, nevermind - let me change the design a bit. I have an idea for how to make this work a bit more smoothly. > After that, Felix got to work. Minutes ticked by, as the monster horde kept searching houses and stores, one after another, for the slightest trace of us. I only grew more and more nervous as I watched them. The monster hode wasn't letting any sound, or any potential trace of us go.

I even watched in mute fascination as the activated spiders killed a few nearby skeletons, to make sure nothing made a sound and caused them to lose control of when their boosts activated. These creatures were even willing to kill other monsters to make sure their hunt went well. They were here for blood. Half an hour later, Felix grinned, and turned towards Anise. He handed her a single, large object. It looked kind of like an egg, but it was enchanted.

I didn't understand alchemy well enough to figure out what the enchantment did, but I could tell it was something that involved fire, sound, and light. Felix grinned. <Just hit the case with as big of a blast of fire as you can manage, > he said to Anise. <You're still planning to use your sword, right? > <Right, > said Anise. <How long do we have after I hit it with a wave of fire? > <It'll explode about ten seconds after you hit it. > <Got it, > I said, as I made another clone.

I winced as agonizing pain wrenched through my soul, followed by another thousand Achievement disappearing as my soul-injuries faded. I sighed as I dropped to 1, 905. 82 Achievement. I only had enough Achievement for one more clone. <Ready? > Felix asked. <I am, > I said. My clone also nodded. <Go. > Anise stabbed herself in the heart with her sword, and after a few moments, flames started to ripple through her body.

She slammed one massive gout of fire into the flame, while I kept an eye on the spider army in the distance. Luckily, none of them noticed. <It's lit, > said Felix. I nodded, as I saw the bomb start pulsing with energy. My clone took it, and started dashing towards the spiders. Time to see how well our desperate plan worked.