Soul of Blades - Chapter 26: The Black Mass (Patreon)

Chapter 26: The Black Mass

Alex sped off at speeds they could not hope to follow. Careful not to damage houses as a Phoenix Leap sent him soaring. He figured if people were dying, the sooner he arrived, the more chances he had at saving their lives.

As he arrived at the town's border, a harrowing sight befell him. Houses were aflame or crushed. Checkpoints and gates alike were shattered.

Everywhere he looked there were spiders. Giant spiders, swarming the area.

Masses of giant spiders, varying from the size of a child to that of several adults, engulfed the area. About 200 I'd guess, maybe 300, he thought, it's not that many and the Arachne don't seem too high levelled… So why do the guards keep losing?

It made no sense.

Alex was met with a bizarre scene. It was a swarm of Arachne devouring the town's outskirts stretched across the plains between the town and the forest, with more arriving by the second. Their sizes varied drastically, some as small as children, others as large as multiple men. The scene was frantic, with guards engaging in a desperate battle, their blades clashing against the spiders' carapaces, while civilians, gripped by terror, ran for their lives. The spiders, relentless in their assault, ensnared the townspeople. Alex saw the horror in the eyes of civilians– some were motionless, likely dead, while others screamed, their arms reaching out, trying in vain to escape the spiders' grasp. One by one, guards and civilians alike were being overpowered. A young guard, fighting bravely, lost his footing and was quickly seized by a spider as his comrades fought to save him. He was dragged away, joining the unfortunate fate of the others. Alex watched in horror as the spiders disappeared with their victims into deep crevices, which led further into the dark, dense forest surrounding the town. The ground was chaotic, with guards and civilians alike being overpowered and taken away, their chances of escape diminishing by the second.

Alex noticed a guard with a hammer yelling orders and crushing large arachnids with a flurry of swings, only to have his weapon snatched from his grip by a smaller Arachne that latched onto his body. The guard, a captain by the looks of things, was momentarily stunned at the sudden disappearance of his weapon before another larger arachnid clamped on his leg with powerful fangs and mandibles. It dragged his screaming form away as if he weighed nothing.

At the sight of their captain's capture a portion of the guards fled, and the ones who remained fought even more fiercely.

Alex joined the fray. He sliced through the spiders as if they weren't there, trying to save as many as he could. A sharp pain flared in his arm, but he ignored it as

he raced toward the fallen guard captain some distance away, slashing and hacking a path forward with each step. Alex surged forward with swift precision and a downward swing of his blade, severing its pincer. The guard, freed, scrambled to safety through the closing path Alex had made.

Alex searched for more survivors.

He bisected a large Arachne a head taller than he was as it pounced on an unsuspecting Spearman and moved to save more. The spearman was a civilian, or ‘adventurer’ judging by his intricate gear. The man turned in surprise and yelled “No! I have to save her!”, but could hardly afford to continue, or even continue to spare Alex a glance as they were both suddenly swarmed.

Spiders, Arachne of all sizes converged on the pair of them, and Alex thought the words ‘Mana Blade’ as the surrounding light dimmed, replaced by thick walls of carapace.

Alex swung his blade in all directions.

Each spider he cut down was quickly replaced by another. A sharp sting in his thigh momentarily caught his attention, but did little to slow him down. He countered, his blade striking an overhead spider's underbelly. The creature recoiled, then collapsed, ichor pooling around it.

He grabbed the guard, yanking his injured from the spiders' grip, and yelled at him to run back and regroup with the rest, but a thick mass of spiders separated the two, and in the opposite direction more civilians and guards were being dragged away with each second that passed. Alex needed to be there to save people and not stuck here protecting a lone guard.

He picked up a fallen warrior's sword and triggered his skill to hurl its Mana Blade as far as he could, aiming at the ground slightly ahead of the nearest batch of defenders.

The weapon created a path. It sliced through the spiders as if they weren’t there before embedding itself in a screeching creature, its mana disconnected and spent.

“Regroup!” Alex yelled.

The guard nodded sternly and sprinted, hacking at his sides as he ran while Alex searched for more survivors.

Phoenix leap.

He pivoted as he landed closer to the edge of the forest, spinning on his heel and extending his elbow to slash an arachnid and free its barely conscious captive. His sword sang, shining with the light of his Mana Blade through the mounds of twisted carapace as he freed another. One, two, three spiders fell, their ichor spraying in an arc around him. He felt another stinging pain in his thigh, this time it was the left one.

Phoenix Leap.

Alex spotted another hammer-wielding guard being dragged to his doom and shot toward him. In two strides, he was there to slice the offending pincer clean off. The spider dug its remaining one into his arm, and heat flushed throughout his limb before he sliced its head off. The guard, now released, collapsed to the ground. He lay there, limp, but his chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. He’s alive, Alex thought, good. He turned and locked eyes with the people fighting around him and pointed, urging one of them to save their comrade. A guard nodded firmly in response and moved to meet him.

More spiders were coming. Alex raced forward, and another Phoenix Leap led him to cleave a large spider in two. Saving a woman stuck in its grasp, he threw her unconscious form to land near a batch of guards he’d rescued. They stood back to back, hacking and slashing at the creatures around them. “Protect her!” He yelled. It was the best he could do. The spiders weren’t difficult to deal with, he'd killed scores of them. But saving people was. He was constantly stuck between moving to save more or defending the ones who were defenceless.

He swung his blade in an arc with one hand and tore a lost sword from the earth with the other as he imbued it with Mana Blade and hurled it into the remaining mass of Arachne, freeing a woman from another spider's grasp, and clearing a swathe of the horde.

He felt another sting near his neck and reflexively reached up. His fingers closed around a small Arachne latched onto him. As he pulled it away, his hand was stained with a mix of his own blood and the creature's ichor, the Arachne writhing violently in his grasp.

Alex killed it.

People fled as Alex fought towards the forest's edge, desperate to save more. Another stinging pain assaulted his back as he fought, and the world spun and its light dimmed. The guards aiding him fell one by one, and the ones he'd saved were some distance away, forming a phalanx of sorts. He heard screams in the distance as more joined the fray, fighting to reach him.

But it felt muted.

Alex felt a sharp pain in his arm as he slew more spiders, and heat rushed through his veins. Sound and light ceased to exist as everything became more muted.

Heat flushed through his bloodstream as the world spun and dimmed, and his movements became sluggish and distant.

A final sting sent him tumbling to the ground.

And then, surrounded by the scourge of his new world, the Arachne, Alex fell unconscious.

***

He woke up hours later in a dim cave to a flurry of notifications and the world returning to its static place, no longer swirling in his vision.

[You have defeated level 12 Arachne Pupae x7]

[You have defeated level 23 Arachne Pupae x6]

[You have defeated level 17 Arachne Pupae x14]

[You have defeated level 7 Arachne Pupae x9]

[You have defeated level 4 Arachne Pupae x 24]

[You have defeated…]

[You have defeated…]

[Level difference penalty applied]

[Level 32 > 36]

[Strength +16, Dexterity+16, intelligence+24, unassigned stats +16]

[Class milestone reached. Class milestone skill available. Please choose skill]

A final notification appeared among the rest, one that caught his attention even in his dazed state.

[Dynamic Quest - The Queen’s Lair: Arachne Queen...]

Alex attempted to read the rest of the notifications, but he was distracted by the dull, throbbing pains he felt thrumming all over his limbs.

It felt as if he was infested.