Chapter 27 #3
Slowly, carefully, Harald went wide, picking his way over golden threads, slinking from rock to rock, and making for higher ground.
The only way for him to win was to get above the spider, as the golem’s attack had shown.
So, when he finally reached the cyclopean wall that rose up alongside the ornate arch, he sheathed the Dawnblade and began to climb.
Movement. Glancing sidelong, he saw the spider drop upon the golem, pouncing like a house cat and causing the white shield to burst. The golem went down beneath its bulk, swords flashing, as the spider’s huge fangs slammed down again and again.
Harald gritted his teeth and climbed, moving laterally on occasion to avoid a golden thread.
Higher. Higher. Foothold by ledge, ridge by crack, his newly forged body allowing him to scale without effort.
The Gauntlet Golem was still fighting from beneath the spider. Damn, but it was tough. The spider was in a frenzy above him, but still the white blades lopped and slashed.
Harald reached a ledge and crabbed across it to its far point. He was a good twenty yards shy of the spider below.
This was going to be a hell of a jump.
His golem just had to hold on. Just a little longer.
Harald rose carefully to his feet, backed up all the way, and drew the Dawnblade.
Took a deep breath and then burst into a sprint.
At the last moment he leaped, soaring out into the emerald-hued air, the world fragmented and fractured and making little sense to his eyes, to fall upon the rising spider.
Rising?
The golem was picking itself up from the rocks below, its stone body fragmented and cracked all to hell, but still alive.
The spider was fleeing the fight.
And right up into Harald, who gripped the Dawnblade, point down, and dropped onto its broad teal and gold filagree back to slam the blade into its thorax right up to the hilt.
Abyssal Attunement drank deep of the spider’s essence, sending a rich pulse of power into Harald as the spider keened again and jerked about, its whole web undulating as it clung to the golden threads.
Not wasting time, Harald worked the blade from side to side, stirring up the nauseatingly disgusting spider’s innards.
A flash of white came from below, barely visible, as the golem sent up more arcs of fire.
The spider leaped to another segment of web where it shook itself violently.
His blade slid free, but before he could fly off its back, he stabbed his fist into the huge puncture wound and grasped the edge of its broken carapace from within, steadying himself enough to lunge forward and send a Demonic Edge at close range right into the nest of eyes.
The eyes burst as a chunk of its head was cut right off its thorax.
The spider keened again and fell.
Harald let out a cry of alarm as he rose off the twisting body, his one hand still buried in its bloody back, and stabbed again and again with frenetic fervor until they hit the rocks and he was thrown off, a chunk of its back coming away in his hand.
The spider’s legs curled inward so that it rolled like a giant ball down the slope, bouncing and cracking, through some of its mummified servitors, to at last fetch to a stop at the hill’s base.
Harald slammed into the broken scree, but his body hardened and insulated him from the damage. Thrones still roaring, he rose up immediately, to see the massively damaged golem turn about to study the spider below.
It was dead.
The gigantic teal ball of horror was dead.
The mummified bodies collapsed around them.
Four scales appeared over the teal corpse, each flickering with metallic hues of blue and green and salmon pink. Four Aurora Veils.
5,000 Copper Crescents’ worth.
Harald let out a bark of laughter. That was it? His shoulders slumped as he sat back on a boulder. Of course, it was. The 36th Level would only award Aurora Veils. Zenith Tides would be in the 40s.
The golem extended its arms dramatically and then let its white fire swords disappear.
It dusted its large hands together, each pass making a dry crack-crack-crack sound, and then turned to look upslope at Harald.
Thumbed back over its shoulder at where the spider lay, and shook his head in sad disappointment.
“Huh,” snorted Harald. “Sorry it wasn’t more of a challenge for you.”
The golem shrugged with sublime resignation. But it was in rough shape. The spider had hammered at its stone armor with enough force to badly shatter and gouge the cuirass, and its right shoulder was pulped into gravel.
It wouldn’t survive a second spider attack. Not on the spider’s terms, at any rate.
“Take a break,” said Harald softly, and with great reluctance dismissed the golem to heal in his Cosmos. “I’ve got this.”
Did he though? If those spiders were common and all around this place, then his sheer horror and disgust over their hairy teal bodies might defeat him just a second before their fangs tore him apart.
It wasn’t fair that they could just ignore his Tyrant’s Halo—
A message appeared in his vision.
Harald’s shoulders sagged in profound relief.
“Thank the angels,” he whispered, and read eagerly.
The abyss approves of your lust for dominance.
Your fearless nature has run out in the void.
By the decree of the Fallen Angel, you are returned to the next echelon of your destiny.
Abyssal Father 6