acaswell
patreon
Chapter 319: Speed - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2024-11-15 09:45:14 +0000 UTCThe first step was simple. I created a water clone, using the smallest possible amount of my soul that I could, and then sent it into the Spatial Fair with an instrument. This instrument sounded kind of like someone banging a metal bat against a bag of marbles. However, even though it sounded awful, it was noisy. That was all it needed to be. As it walked into the spatial fair, the clone strummed its instrument.
Meanwhile, it also used dimensional vision with reckless abandon. It would shorten its lifespan, since every second of dimensional sight cost essence.
I didn’t care.
All I needed the clone to do was to use the tarot deck before dying.
Much like before, the silver spider took a few minutes to track down my clone. However, with the help of my dimensional vision, and my heightened [Perception], I was able to spot the spider before my clone died. I only saw a brief glimpse of it, but I saw a silver bullet speeding towards my clone about two seconds before impact. The moment I saw the silver hand-sized monster, my clone started activating the deck of Tarot Cards. It was a close call, but a fraction of a second before death, it managed to pull three cards off the top.
Then my clone died. As my clone’s head spun away from its body, I could make out the three cards I had drawn. The Lovers, Judgement, and The Tower.
The spider seemed to sense something. It glanced at my deck of tarot cards, and then vanished from sight again. My last image of the spider was of the monster pulverizing my deck of tarot cards.
As my clone collapsed back into water, I felt a pang of regret.
Items only repaired themselves when we returned to the Market - not when we left. In other words, my tarot deck was now useless for our next world. I would probably be better off replacing it before we exited the Market. Still, it had done its job. I had managed to get the curses off. If I could exchange my deck of tarot cards for access to the inner district, it was an amazing trade.
After my clone died, our group settled in to wait for my soul to recover. We had no idea what other tricks the spider had up its sleeves, so everyone decided to make sure we had every card available. After all, this was an inner district. It would be surprising if speed was the only power the spider had.
After several hours passed, I finished recovering. We moved to the edge of the Spatial Fair, before I split off another clone. This time, I used a much larger chunk of my soul. I would need a week to recover, but I wanted my clone to have more essence for this fight.
The clone marched into the inner district, much like its predecessors. I expected it would take a few minutes before the spider reappeared...
I was wrong.
This time, the spider seemed like it was waiting for my clone. Mere seconds after my clone entered the Fair, a blur of silver appeared. However, the spider seemed slower than before. Last time, I had barely been able to track it with my eyes. This time, while its speed was still overwhelming, I could at least see it as it moved.
Odd.
However, even if the spider’s speed had dropped, it was still far too fast to handle. It moved like a raindrop in a hurricane. Its movements were rapid, erratic, and hard to respond to. Even though the creature was slowed, fighting it head-on would still be hopeless.
And then… I saw the three curses in its body. I grinned when I saw the first curse activate.
The first card, the Tower, glowed brightly, before an image of a tower appeared in front of the spider. The spider slammed straight into the now-solid object, and nearly bounced off. Unfortunately, the spider seemed more pissed off than wounded. A moment later, I saw a flash of movement, and the top half of the small tower collapsed into a pile of rubble. The spider launched itself out of the rubble again… which was when the second curse came into play. The Lovers. For a brief moment, the spider froze in midair. It was as if the creature had simply… halted. For some reason, it reminded me of a regular insect flying into a pane of glass.
The creature strained against an invisible bond, and after another few fractions of a second, it broke through the invisible bond. It was free.
But that split second was long enough for my clone to get an extinguish off.
A drop of deadly water materialized in midair, and touched the murderous arachnid's body. The flame of life in the eight-legged horror's body dimmed slightly, and it squirmed in agony. It hadn't done much damage - but I confirmed it this time. The furry abomination was slower than before.
As the creature sailed through the air towards my clone, I felt a burst of relief surge through my body. After seeing my extinguish hurt it, I confirmed something. The monster’s stats weren't all ridiculous. Its speed was incredible, and whatever it used to decapitate my clones was also deadly… but its other stats were weaker. It still had an advantage over us in every aspect, but it was less overwhelming than I had thought. Its life force was still ludicrous, but it wasn't overwhelmingly resilient. It was beatable.
I stepped into the Spatial Fair with my real body, and my friends followed behind me.
I pointed towards the spider with my real body’s index finger, and activated another extinguish. This time, I put 90% of my alteration essence into the attack.
At that time, my third and final tarot card activated. I felt a wave of judgment enter my extinguish, and my extinguish changed. The drop of water turned into a miniature streak of lightning. It crackled through the air and slammed into the spider, blasting it away. The spider was knocked into the air like a baseball, saving my clone from a grisly death.
I grinned in delight. I hadn’t expected to toss the spider around like that. its candle of life hadn't gone out, but it was nearly a tenth of the way dead. That was far more than I had expected to accomplish.
Anise lobbed a grenade at the spider, while Sallia took a step forward and prepared to cleave the creature in two.
That was the moment everything went to hell.
The spider shuddered, and shed a layer of its exoskeleton. Underneath the creature’s silver exoskeleton was a dark blue layer of shell. Then, the damn thing somehow found a foothold in midair and dashed to the side, completely avoiding Anise’s bomb. Sallia was also caught off-guard by this, and suffered a nasty cut to her forearm as the monster swung past her. Only Sallia’s reflexes saved her from losing an arm.
Somehow, the spider’s soul stabilized. It recovered from all of the damage I had inflicted upon it, and even launched a counterattack.
I cursed as I realized its candle of life had somehow expanded several times. It dashed towards my clone again. A second later, my clone's head sailed into the air. The only thing I confirmed was that it had used manifestation essence to attack - but by the time I confirmed that, my clone was gone.
The creature could regenerate, shrug off damage by shedding its exoskeleton, find footholds in thin air, and use magic. It was also so fast that I couldn't see it well. Whatever had put this thing in the Market, it wanted us dead, and it wasn’t screwing around.
Sallia started to harden the air around her, which slowed the spider down a bit. The spider immediately turned towards her, and darted towards her legs.
I fired a lightning bolt at it using {Breath of the Storm}, which forced the eight-legged abomination to dance away. However, I had wasted a tenth of my absorption essence, and had accomplished nothing but forcing the creature to dodge. Sallia swung her blade at it, but she wasn't quite fast enough. Even her superhuman combat sense couldn’t make up for the raw difference in speed. The creature darted towards her face.
I panicked. If Sallia died here, she would lose another life. That would mean we only had one world to save ourselves instead of two. Any of my friends dying permanently was unacceptable. I poured my last remaining drops of alteration essence into a final extinguish. It dodged, but Felix took the opportunity to ram a spike of iron into one of the creature’s eyes. Two of them popped as the creature was knocked away.
The spider didn’t flinch, or scream, or even slow down. It caught itself in midair again, before it launched itself towards me like a shadow of death. I reached towards my absorption essence, and opened a portal right in front of me.
I didn’t have time for words, but I sent an image to my friends. I showed them exactly where I intended to open the other side of the portal - right in front of Sallia. If it was Anise or Felix, the spider might kill them before they responded. But Sallia… if she knew in advance, she might be able to end this fight.
Sallia didn’t disappoint me.
Right as the spider flew into the portal I had opened, Sallia swung a massive overhead swing at the other end of the portal. The spider fell through the portal, just like I had hoped. It popped out of the portal… and somehow managed to dodge Sallia’s sword swing. However, it wasn’t perfect. Even though the creature dodged death, two of its legs flew away.
The spider’s exoskeleton turned green, and both of its legs immediately started growing back.
<Are you kidding me?> said Felix, as the spider started to regrow its missing appendages. Felix grunted, and a large block of metal ripped itself out of the ground. It tried to wrap around the spider, like a collapsing prison, but the spider darted away. I opened a portal right in front of the creature to try to trap it in Felix's metal sheet. If Felix could squish it, this fight would finally end.
Somehow, the spider dodged the portal. Once again, it somehow found a foothold in midair, and then flung itself to the side before it fell into the portal. I tried to open another portal in front of it, to catch it, but the agile arachnid rocketed away before I my portal was even half-formed.
Its legs were half regrown now. I felt panic start to sink it, and it only grew worse when another flash of manifestation essence left the spider’s body. This time, a wave of plants tore out of the ground beneath my feet. I dodged out of the way, right before a razor-sharp vine tried to grow through my legs. I saw Anise’s eyes flash for a moment, and then the plants halted for a single second, giving me enough time to untangle myself from the area.
<{Shadow Dryad’s Eyes} are finally coming in useful,> she said, as a few more waves of vines tried to follow me. However, Anise managed to slow them all down as I escaped.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the spider fling itself towards Anise this time. It managed to avoid Sallia's interception attempt, and began closing in on Anise. I felt a surge of horror as the monster closed in on Anise. I threw another lightning bolt at the spider. It dodged it, but I bought enough time for Anise to react. She shot a {Magic Missile} at it, and this time, the spider didn’t quite dodge in time. The {Magic Missile} slammed into the creature... and did almost nothing. The spell was way too weak to penetrate the creature's bizarre, crab-like shell... but it was enough to knock it away from Anise.
Unfortunately, the spider caught itself in midair again. Its body swung unnaturally in midair, before it settled on me as a target.
It dove towards me, dodging another poorly made portal in the process. Sallia started sprinting towards me, but she was a bit too far away to react. I managed to scramble backwards… but not quite enough.
The hem of my dress disappeared, and both of my legs fell off. My eyes widened in pain as I felt two stumps where my legs were supposed to be. I flopped backwards, and saw the spider whizz towards my head. I rolled around, desperately trying to keep my neck safe, and felt a burst of pain on the side of my head as something cut into my skull. Before I had time to wonder if I was dead, I felt someone grab me and toss me backwards with ridiculous strength. I slammed into the ground, and felt my vision darken in pain - but I was away from the spider.
My head hurt, but I forced myself to focus on the battlefield again.
Felix was missing both of his arms. He was stumbling away from the spider. Thankfully, Sallia had managed to get there after Felix tossed me out of the fight. She had batted the spider away again. It was already making its way back towards us, but she had at least bought a few seconds.
<Here, stay still,> said Felix, as he dove towards me. I felt something metal clamp onto my head. Even without arms, he was surprisingly delicate when he manipulated metal with his ability. <I don’t think your head injury is lethal, but just in case, this should help keep you skull together. It definitely didn't get your brain.>
I glanced at the battlefield again. The spider was flipping through the air, flying towards Anise. However, I noticed something.
The spider was… slowing down. It had started out the fight by zipping through the air so fast I could barely see it. Now, it was still fast, but... very much traceable with my eyes. It seemed like it was getting weaker as the fight went on.
Right as Anise unleashed another {Magic Missile} at the spider, the creature effortlessly wove out of the way. I immediately mustered my willpower, and blasted it with the strongest lightning bolt I could muster. This time, I popped open a portal just behind it. I wanted to knock the damn thing right next to Sallia’s sword. I sent Sallia another image of where I was sending the spider, and she swung her sword at the spot like our lives depended on it.
At the same time, I felt Sallia burn every single drop of absorption essence in her body. The air hardened. Essence near her sword was disrupted. And most importantly, her speed increased drastically.
This time, the spider didn’t dodge fast enough. My lightning bolt, which had eaten the rest of my absorption essence, tossed it through the portal like the hand of a giant. It was flung though the portal, and Sallia’s sword sliced straight through it. In a second, the devastating monster was bisected. I watched with a mixture of terror and hope as the spider’s soul wavered… and then its soul detached from its body.
The spider, which had nearly killed Felix and I, was finally dead. I saw a few System notifications pop up, but I couldn't even muster up the energy to look at them. Instead, I sagged in relief. We had won. It had been a nightmare, and there were several moments where we nearly died, but we had won.
I used the last dregs of my absorption essence to check our surroundings, hoping to see a shop nearby filled with amazing items. Instead, I saw something that made my heart stop.
There were two more bright, silver colored spiders approaching us in the distance. They didn't look like they had spotted us yet, but something had clearly alerted them. They were heading towards us, and they would reach us in less than a minute.
I finally realized something.
The spider wasn’t a powerful guardian in this area. It might not even be a particularly strong monster. As I saw two more spiders crawl towards us, I realized that we had nearly died fighting this area’s version of a skeleton foot soldier.
Author’s Note:
Join my Discord! (I’m much more active there than in the comments section).
Comments
Touch
She sure love to panic, instead of adrenaline or many thing else
IDFree
Well, at least they survived. Maybe they should try my old idea - making lots of sound but using shaping to create a soundproof bubble around them so that the sound doesn't reach the spiders?
Arkeus
That's a lot of good intel there. I am a bit confused why they think this leads to 'inner districts' rather than a richer neighbour in a nursery, but maybe that's what they mean.
