Soul of Blades - Chapter 28 & 29: The Lifeless Executioner / The Lost Berserker (Patreon)

Alex lay on the ground dying, in a cave based in the heart of an Arachnae colony as a strange girl held his last healing potion up in the dim light. She examined the small vails every curve and contour while peering at the liquid within, fascinated with whatever her completely bound eyes were capable of seeing.

"Hey," Alex called weakly, "I need that, hand it over, will you?" He stretched his arm toward her as she turned to face him at his words. She then knelt to study him instead of the potion. Quirking her head to the side in mild surprise as if she too had just noticed him moving and alive for the first time. The girl then eyed each of his wounds with grotesque curiosity and fascination.

She still held the potion tight.

Alex’s world lurched as the pain of his countless wounds briefly exploded through the numbness, causing him to cough up blood. "Hey. Excuse me. Hey. Hi. Hello.” He called, his voice growing louder with each attempt to grasp her attention. She didn’t respond.

“HEY YOU LITTLE SHI—" He stopped and forced himself to breathe deeply to calm down, coughing more blood in the process. No, anger won’t work here. I just need this idio- I just need this girl to give me the potion so I can not die to some weak spider babies. If she could see the potion, he reasoned, then she could see him despite the blindfold, most likely due to whatever class or skill she possessed.

He tried a different approach.

He pointed meaningfully at the potion, staring at where her eyes should be beneath the webbing and mustering as much intent as he could into his gaze before speaking.

"I need that." He spoke emphatically and outstretched his palm at the final word, splaying his fingers. Despite his attempts at reigning in his anger, his face still twisted into one filled with suppressed rage as he spoke the order.

The girl seemed to understand and dropped the potion into his hand, jerking up in surprise at his croaking but firm and demanding voice.

"S…Sorry," she muttered, speaking sheepishly in a strange disjointed accent. She seemed surprised at his pained expression and, if Alex wasn't mistaken, a little upset by it.

Not trusting his fingers, Alex held the vial pressed between his palms and downed the potion with haste, the girl completely forgotten. He felt his internal organs knitting back together, and his ravaged muscles reconnecting while other repairs took place, though not as fast as he'd like. At least my arms are working properly again, he thought as he used his healed arms to sit up, pink-red skin shining where the flesh had grown to fill in his numerous gouges. Alex glanced down briefly to see a spider's fang embedded in his flesh, a trickle of blood staining his pants. He pulled out the fang and looked around him to realize he had been lying in a pool of his own blood.

Shuddering, Alex rose to his feet He eyed his surroundings, wondering how he could've survived. The dim cave was filled with bodies- everywhere, among the rocks and around them. Many of the surrounding corpses were just bones and scarce meat, and strangely, a majority of them were empty cracked carapaces where the Spiderlings had cannibalized each other for some reason. Probably to gain levels, he thought. The babies must have eaten each other in some sort of twisted game of survival of the fittest. It was barbaric, but it would be effective. A free for all with the one spiderling from this cave gaining a multitude of levels from slaying the captured high-level humans and their kin. Alex bowed his head. So many human lives lost in such a way was a horrific tragedy, one that should be avoided at all costs, he thought solemnly. And as a result of such tragedies, each surviving spiderling would leave its cave at a higher level. Not to mention that if they operated like ants, they could perform this ad infinitum- sacrificing their members for the good of the colony; all to create high-level elites. He was starting to truly understand how much of a scourge this species was.

He would have certainly died if he didn't have the last healing potions or if a swarm of the Spiderlings returned. His high endurance stat had most likely made his skin and muscles too tough to be quickly and easily consumed. But judging by the damage wrought to his body before the potions healing, he would’ve died either way. Alex’s expression turned grim with the realization of how close he had come to a pretty gruesome death. The system reincarnating him again seemed downright impossible; the first message had said it was an 'inductee final recycle' because he died when the system first entered Earth. That implies everyone had just one, and most likely for those unlucky enough to die in the brief period of the system's initial introduction message. Not to mention the tutorial period was over, and any attempts at whatever twisted form of ‘safety’ the system employed had all but been removed. There would be no second chances. Or third chances, for that matter.

Deep down, he had known the moment he'd set foot in Pyra that the system would not give him a third chance. If he died in this world, or any other, that would be it. His fate would be sealed, and his journey would end, snuffed out like a candle.

Unless he somehow managed to mimic what Phoenix had achieved in his Dao vision; Rebirth.

Hah, the Dao’s pretty much endless. That would take forever. Alex had been raised in Buddhist teachings all his life, he was aware of the endless depths of Earth's understanding of the universe. It was not something that could be grasped with ease. And that was the mundane version. With all of the progress he had made in his Dao, within his mind's eye, whenever he connected with its truths, it felt like he was a spec trying to grasp a vast galaxy of information, information too complex to even understand. It was too much for him.

But it wasn’t without its merits. The little he’d managed to glean from the Dao had already allowed him to win battles.

If the spec of dust he'd managed to grasp had given him such power, then to grasp the entire star would give him control over complete aspects of reality itself, like Phoenix. But that seemed like an impossible feat, he still felt like an ant trying to control a mountain any time he tried, chipping away at it with small bites, only gaining microscopic shards of the mountain but making no real progress.

He would need more Dao visions to truly progress, he believed. The first one had given him access to Phoenix's perspective, and fleeting glimpses of Phoenix’s endless lifetimes of truths that had expanded Alex’s awareness. This quest offered an insight of its own for him to claim. [Reward: Feat generation, E grade equipment, Insight of the imperial] It had said. An imperial insight.

Alex would finish the quest no matter what.

His thoughts returning to the present, he attempted to completely remove the webbing that mummified his form before giving up. He’d cleared a good portion of it… but it was just everywhere. There was just too much of it. It was sticky as all hell, and each movement shifted it to another part of his body rather than completely removing it.

He still had a skill to test out in preparation for what was to come; his escape. He glanced at the girl digging through the surrounding Arachnae corpses. And her escape too, although protecting her is not going to be easy. He had no idea what a class milestone skill was, but the name suggested it was pivotal in some way, and most likely powerful. Despite the implication, he'd chosen something that would allow him to escape the Arachnae colony. The quest had said he was in the ‘heart’ of the colony, and had heavily implied that escaping its heart was something nobody had done before.

Before the system.

Let’s see what my ‘executioner’ can do. Alex thought, as his eyes focused on his surroundings.

Alex’s eyes took in the carnage around him. He found a triangular shard of exoskeleton, sharp and jagged, and gripped it firmly. Standing up, he assumed a balanced stance, his makeshift weapon pointed forward, settling into an advanced stance of kendo. Focusing on a heap of exoskeleton remains to his left, he prepared to engage. He took two short steps forward, left and then right.

If his hunch about this skill worked was correct, then distance wouldn’t matter as much as it should. He could feel it, a new instinct.

Alex concentrated on a space some distance away, about 15 steps to the side where the pile of broken exoskeleton lay, and activated his new skill.

As he thought the words Sovereign Executioner, the air in front of him visibly distorted, resembling a blade parting the very fabric of space.

And in its wake a figure emerged, notably taller than Alex, stepping into the cave. The figure wore robes of deep maroon, the fabric rich and heavy, flowing down and covering its form. Along sections of the robe, gilded patterns were intricately woven, in a way that made them hard to look at directly, even when the robes were unmoving. An insignia was embellished on the robe that shared the same quality as the patterns, in that it was hard to make out, constantly blurring out of focus whenever Alex tried to discern its contents. Even looking at the insignia too sharply seemed to cause a strange discomfort.

The figure's hands, extending from the flowing sleeves, were covered in gauntlets and held a large, thick ceremonial blade. Where a face might be beneath the hood, only shadows were visible. In the shadows, traces of a jawline could be seen, eerily similar in shape to Alex's. The lips, visible within the darkness, were set in a grim expression, akin to Alex's own frown.

The figure, the Sovereign Executioner, stood some meters to the side of Alex, mirroring his movements perfectly, their stances identical.

“Whoa”, Alex breathed in surprise. So that’s what I’d look like with a few extra months in the gym and an NBA contract… He studied the lifeless features buried within the depths of its hood. Nah, I like ‘me’ better, it doesn’t have my winning smile. He smirked, and the figure he summoned smirked too, mirroring his every twitch and breath. Alex studied the skills sensations. It felt like he had an extra body, like a disembodied limb that followed his every subconscious command.

So it won't disappear until I make an attack, that's useful, Alex noted. His improved sense of his internal workings gave him the minute feeling of his mana constantly draining while the summoned construct of mana stood still. The sixth sense gained by Inner Focus allowed him to instinctively feel that he could keep this up for an hour at best, and then he would be completely depleted of mana. Quick strikes then, he thought, attempting to decipher the patterns and insignia on the skills robes before wincing in pain at the ache it induced in his eyes. And what's with that, anyway? He blinked and rubbed his eyes, and noted the construct mirroring him, its gauntleted hands soundlessy reaching into the depths of its hood to rub whatever lay beneath the darkness. Isn't that supposed to be MY insignia? Why does it hurt to look at it? Feels like staring into the sun, but it's burning my insides as well as my eyes, not that he had ever stared into the sun, but Alex imagined that would feel just as bad as trying to decipher whatever meaning lay being the constructs insignia. The slow ache behind his eyes quickly faded as he focused on its other features, but the pain had reminded him of the pain he'd felt when he'd chosen his class, but far less agonizing. He felt his mana dip by a fraction and decided to end the skill; he had only used about a second's worth of mana, but as much as being unprepared would be tantamount to suicide, so would wasting the energy he used to fuel his skills.

Alex lifted the shard above his head, his arms extended but relaxed, in a state of violent calm. His skillscreation stood several places ahead of him, its movements identical to his own as it too raised its sword overhead.

Alex swung. And so did his construct in perfect sync. He brought the shard down in a swift diagonal strike- a ‘Men’ strike, aiming for an imaginary opponent's head. It was a strike he employed often when ambushed, where you would wait for the right moment- when an opponent's guard dropped or they lost focus, even for a second. It's that key chance where the ‘Men’ strike would hit the head, when they're not ready to defend.

Alex’s arms blurred as he struck the air, the juvenile shard cracking in his hands under the strain of his enhanced movements. The shard sliced through the air, landing with a thud in the cave wall. The constructs arm blurred similarly some meters ahead, and sliced the tip of a large shard of cracked chitin clean off- Alex would've preferred to target the entire heap, but he could not afford to make such a large sound in the cavernous cave system, what if it attracted the swarm?

The construct faded as if it had never been there, distorted reality settling to normalcy in an instant.

And the girl was stock still, watching Alex with pure shock. He could see her mouth slightly Ajar by the slit in the webbing covering her entire face. Why hasn’t she taken it off of her face yet? I know it’s tricky, but that’s got to be annoying.

Sighing, he gestured to his only companion.

"Hey, you good?" He stepped closer to her crouched form. She had been inspecting the corpse of an Arachnae about as large as she was before Alex’s display had distracted her. Now, she broke pieces off the large corpses carapace and studied the chitin as if in a trance. “Yes.” She spoke a single word, her voice croaked and unused.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you outta here,” Alex said. “Do you know if your family’s safe? You’re parents? Were they taken too?” She looked at Alex with utter bewilderment at his words as if he’d said something strange. Something alien, even.

“Uh…” Alex continued. “You know… your mom? Dad? The people that take care of you, keep you safe?” More confusion. “The reason you're alive? They were there when you were born?” At Alex’s more detailed description, her bewilderment intensified. She rocked her head as if in a daze. Must be the venom, Alex realized, he had experienced a similar daze moments ago, but his stats had quickly evened it out. Exasperated Alex continued. “You share their appearance? Their DN- uh, I mean, you share their ‘essence’, or something like that. Their blood? Your family? They take care of you? Do you know where they are?” She brightened at his words and what looked like a genuine smile could be seen beneath her wrappings, but she did not respond. Alex’s concern for the girl began to become tingled with pity. He sighed. She clearly couldn’t remember a thing. "What's your name?" He asked, as another more poignant thought occurred to him.

"M-My name? I…" she seemed lost in thought as if grasping at memories just out of her reach. "I'm not sure…"

Poor kid. Come to think of it, how is she still alive? What's her level? He wondered.

"What's your leve—" Alex's words were interrupted by the sounds of muffled groaning from the corner of the cave. The sound was pained and muffled as if buried.

Human sounds.

Hearing the sound of a human trapped somewhere amongst the remnants of the deceased, Alex moved, rushing over to the corner of the room where a large Arachnae corpse seemed to be nestled unnoticed and hidden amongst the surrounding rocks.

It was about the size of a small bus, and its carapace strangely resembled the surrounding moss and cave rock. At first, Alex had mistaken it for a boulder.

Hold on… Alex thought, it just moved; it's alive.

The large creature lay resting above a mass of wrapped webbing in the shape of an adult human, complete with limbs, arms, and a completely wrapped head. As Alex approached, the creature seemed to rouse and rose to its feet as its eyes swivelled toward him.

That must be the victor of the battle royale, Alex determined.

He was devoid of any weapon, having lost his sword at some point during his capture. So he simply reached forward, grabbed the large arachnid's head, and pulled, while being careful to avoid its large fangs.

He tore its head clean off.

Huh, that really worked. I mean, I thought it would, judging by the level difference between me and a newborn. But I'll be damned if that isn't the grossest thing I've ever done. He shook the ichor off his hands and heaved the massive Arachnae corpse off the writhing and waking human wrapped in spider webbing.

[You have defeated level 4 Arachnae Spiderling]

That's a bit low of a level for all of the corpses here… I was expecting more. Alex rubbed his chin curiously as the mummified human wriggled before him.

"Come here, kid. Help him," Alex called back at the girl, nodding towards the guard. Still clutching a piece of arachnid carapace, she moved towards the struggling webbed figure.

“O… Oh… Oh k-kay?”

She worked methodically, her fingers deftly pulling at the strands of web. Alex watched the girl's precise movements, his own body rejuvenated from the potion. He had initially been suspicious of her survival, but the small glimpse of soft and obviously human flesh he'd caught under her wraps each time she spoke had alleviated most of his suspicions. So for now he continued to observe, wondering as to the identity of the person trapped beneath the wrapping. Each pull from her fingers freed the bound male in guards uniform further, her delicate digits working with unnatural precision, unravelling the sticky strands effortlessly. The guard’s eyes, clouded with confusion and fear, fluttered open.

"Who are you?" the guard croaked once his head was freed, his voice hoarse. The girl didn't respond, her focus solely on her task as she moved to free his bound hands and feet. Her hands never paused."Where am I?" The bound man's voice echoed and bounced off the walls, his face laced with confusion.

“Calm down, and try not to be too loud. It'll come back to you eventually.” Alex wanted to tell him where he was, but most people didn't take well to finding out they were in the heart of an undiscovered colony of giant man-eating monsters. He didn't want the guy to cause a scene or attract attention. None of them could afford it at the moment. Better to let him realize how messed up things are slowly. Alex decided. “We’re in the same situation as you. What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked cautiously.

The man rubbed his head, trying to piece together fragmented memories. "I remember the battle... Arachnae swarming… and I… lost myself in my skill, lost track of the others."

"I'm… John," the guard said, more to himself than anyone, as he rubbed his wrists where the webs had been. "Level 19… berserker." His voice held a hint of pride despite his evident exhaustion. His hand instinctively touched the insignia on his uniform. "Third strongest in my squad."

A grin spread across his features at the memory of his strength, before other memories returned, setting his face into a grim countenance. “Oh, I see. I was fighting the Black Mass.”

Alex nodded in confirmation. “That’s right. I’m Alex, nice to meet you. Although I wish it was under better circumstances”

“It’s nice? What’s nice about this?” John gestured innocently and offered him a quizzical look at his unfamiliar phrasing. John sat up, looking at the ground, feeling the damp sediment beneath them. He then sighed and raised his head. "Do you think anyone knows we're down here?" He looked to Alex with a hopeful yet forlorn gaze.

"Hard to say," Alex replied, squinting in the dim light. "Does your… squad have a way of tracking us ?"

The girl removed the final strands binding his feet and moved closer to Alex. She had left the rest of webbing on his limbs, torso and face unremoved, choosing to leave the uninhibiting bindings on his form. Probably as not to waste time, Alex guessed. All of them were still mostly covered in webbing.

She moved to stand beside Alex. He noted her apparent dependence on his presence and guessed she would even go as far as holding his hand for emotional support if he allowed it. It was most likely the need for physiological stability as well as a need for physical protection. It reminded him of behaviour often seen back on Earth in people rescued from harrowing environments. Poor thing, he thought.

Once freed, John the guard leaned forward and made to brush off the remnants of thick spider silk on his face and uniform, before giving up and settling with only freeing his face. He sat there, swaying slightly and clutching his head in pain. “This stuff is tougher than the stories said.” He muttered in disgust, pulling at another strand of webbing. “And as far as my squad finding us; I doubt it. Everyone thought the disappearances were an orc tribe using scare tactics. Not the Black Mass, not these creatures.” He spat out the word with disgust. “No one was prepared for that. Without a… Wayfinder, or Pathfinder, it’s not possible.”

The guard then tried to stand and stumbled, his legs wobbling. Seated once more, he checked his pockets, only to find the hilts at his waist drew broken daggers and missing sheathes. Relief finally washed over Guard John's face as he discovered a single weapon still attached to his belt. He pulled out a pristine and unused long sword, Inspecting it for damage. "Still sharp," he muttered.

“Can I use that?” Alex asked, eyeing the blade. “It's better for all of us. I’m good with a blade, and I'm level 36.”

“Sorry, can’t give up my main weapon,” John replied, a bit too eagerly. Then, looking at Alex with an apologetic expression, John straightened up. His chest puffed out slightly, his youthful face set in a determined, albeit naive, expression. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep us all safe, just stay behind me.”

Alex exchanged a glance with the girl, who giggled softly, a dainty wheezing sound beneath her wrappings. As they talked further, the girl moved to rummage through the corpses, both Arachnae and human, with an unsettling curiosity. She returned to Alex, and approached him, her arms extended, presenting several chipped claymores and a fresh and undamaged one.

“Where’d you find these?” Alex asked, taking a chipped sword and storing the rest away in his Inventory with a touch of his finger on each blade, four in total. The girl merely shrugged, her expression hidden behind the webbing. Alex met her obscured gaze, “Well thanks again, kid.”

She beamed, a smile clear beneath her coverings.

The girl’s curiosity seemed boundless. As they spoke she moved from corpse to corpse with ease, her actions meticulous and silent. She soon approached Alex again, this time with a handful of small marbles glowing faintly with a swirling purple light in his Outer Sense-enhanced vision.

Alex turned one of the marbles in his hand, its light still pulsing weakly. “What are these?” He ask, intrigued.

“P-power,” she replied, rolling the words on her tongue as if tasting them for the first time.

John, overhearing the conversation, explained the nature of magical cores. "It’s a core, I think. The memory is hazy, but I’m pretty sure of it.”

“Magical creatures develop them at some point, although human mages and some other living races have their hearts become mana organs instead.” He paused in consideration, and stared at his hands as if mesmerized, “Although… I guess we’re all magical creatures now, in a sense.”

His expression dimmed as he raised his head “Core's brightness indicates their power. These, though,” he gestured to the dull cores in the girl's hand, "see that? They have no glow, so they’re pretty much useless.”

Alex turned to look at the cores in the girl's palm, each soft and swirling purple light made visible by his passive skill. “So they have no power? Are you sure?”

John shrugged. “I mean, they don't amount to much. Dozens would be needed to even gain any simple effect, and only master blacksmiths found in the greatest cities can combine multiple magical cores, and they only combine the greatest of cores for the highest prices.” He waved a hand dismissively and groaned, no doubt distracted by venom-induced nausea. “So no. They have no power, no more than a Child's toy. They're worthless.”

Alex eyed the glowing cores. He wasn't convinced.

John closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as he rose to his feet as if trying to summon more memories. His eyes brightened as something seemed to return to him. “But higher beasts, the evolved Arachnae cores, those are valuable."

John stood and sighed heavily. "Great, no way to call for help." he stopped moving and stood still, breathing heavily.

“Eya save us.” He muttered under his breath. He was staring into space as if reading an invisible panel. “Have you seen this quest? Oh gods.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah. I know. I don’t know much about caves, but I figure as long as we keep heading up or find a running stream we should be able to make it out of here. We should get moving.”

At his words, John hesitated before nodding despite his fear, and all three of them made to move to the spaces exit, before a sight caused them to slow to a stop.

Four Arachnae had appeared at the cave entrance moving slowly on a multitude of legs. Arachnae slowed and stopped in apparent jerky shock as they noticed Alex, John, and the girl some distance ahead of their path.

These Arachnae are large, about twice as tall as Alex, but they were different. Vastly different. While they all had 8 wickedly sharp limbs, each as long as he was, none of them had the spider's head and fangs he’d come to expect.

Instead, above the eight muscular segmented legs the base of their bodies rose to a mound where a muscular segmented human-looking torsos sprouted, each as large as Alex was tall, and with arms as thick and long as he was. But their similarities to humans ended at their basic shape, their skin was smooth chitin with the hard jagged contours of a spider's exoskeleton, and their faces were a featureless mask, as if undeveloped. On their torsos where a collection of eyes, spread in the same way all arachnid's eyes were. Their long fingers were unnaturally sharp as daggers, all four, and each digit dripped with a strange liquid that flared in Alex’s Outer Vision.

They weren't fingers he realised. They were fangs.

The three humans stood there in shock, frozen, as a much larger Arachnae approached from behind the four entrants, looming behind its brethren with an air of scrutiny. Its face was slightly more defined, with some semblance of a nose protruding from the smoothness and even had the beginnings of a mouth. Yet its featureless segmented body was still smooth with unnatural contours of chitin plates, like a crash dummy from Earth, but monstrously large and insectile.

It stood with authority behind its four lesser kin and observed the surrounding corpses, the girl, John, and then Alex.

Then it spoke.

“Kill them.”