Chapter 27 #2
It raced out wide around its web—which wasn’t on a plane, like a garden spider’s, but rather seemed to fill the air, allowing it to move in all directions—and came at Harald faster than he could react, ignoring the golem entirely.
“Wha—” Harald fought the urge not to backpedal, which would cause him to lose his footing, cause him to begin slipping and falling downhill. Instead, he leaned into the assault, black blade raised and charged up to meet the spider as it fell upon him like a teal thunderbolt.
He unleashed another Demonic Edge even as he swung his blade two-handed in a high, overhead sweep.
The Dawnblade cracked into one of the forelegs, sank deep, but didn’t sever it—and then the giant fangs punched down into his chest, the spider filling his vision, its eyes seeming to dance across the sharded sky, its burning golden filigree near blinding.
The blow felt like a kick from a Dungeon Plaza scale golem. It knocked Harald right off his feet, the shadow-infused substance of his chest having grown dense and heavy like an armored plate just in time to prevent his sternum from being smashed in.
Harald crashed down much farther below than he anticipated, hit rocks, his body insulating him from the damage, grabbed an outcropping, flashes of cold ripping through him as he passed through golden threads, and looked up to see the huge spider leaping down upon him—
—only for Shadowpaw to hit it from the side like a runaway horse, the hound’s timing perfect, his jaws clenching around a leg as his talons scrabbled at the huge bulbous teal body of filthy horror.
The spider was too big, however, for its trajectory to be changed. Harald shoved off and scrambled away just as it landed where he’d been, huge fangs punching into the rocks. He came up, nearly lost his balance, then spun to swing his blade in a warding arc.
Two white flashes of fire hit the gross spider from behind, and then the golem came into view, having run out to a tongue of rock high above the melee to leap into the air, twin blades drawn back.
Harald’s eyes widened at the sight, but only for a moment. He charged the spider, which was spinning around, trying to dislodge Shadowpaw, who clung to its leg and worried it like a bone.
It saw Harald coming, leaped away—but right into the Gauntlet Golem’s descent.
The golem brought both blades slamming down, its bulk momentarily hidden by the spider’s abdomen, but the way the spider’s ascent abruptly slowed and its frenzied flaring of its legs—which finally dislodged Shadowpaw, who fell away with half a leg in its maw—showed the golem had hit home hard.
The spider landed only a dozen yards up the slope, the golem rolling off its back to crash to the ground. The spider skittered in reverse into the air, black ichor flowing from the hidden wounds, and keened.
The web flared gold all around them.
Hand going to the puncture wounds in his chest, Harald gazed about, alarmed.
Mummified forms rose into view from nooks and hollows. All of them wrapped in spider silk, and in each fist a ragged blade of teal appeared, a sword of pure green energy. The mummies broke into sprints, navigating the broken terrain with terrifying ease.
“Damn it!” grunted Harald, and despite the growing weakness spreading from his chest, he turned to engage the closest figure. Tall, gangly, like a stick-insect in human form, it flowed over the rocks in a way that seemed all elbows and knees before it hit his Tyrant’s Halo’s field.
At least it wasn’t as insulated as the spider.
But it was virtually mindless—it staggered briefly, then righted itself and closed.
Harald cut it in twain with a Demonic Edge, then backed away and cut down a second.
But there were scores of them.
Shadowpaw bayed and loped forward to pounce on the closest figure, which cut a deep wound with its green sword before falling beneath the hound’s paws. The golem stomped again and again, sending up explosions of rocks beneath approaching mummies and knocking them tumbling through the air.
The spider.
They had to finish it before they were swamped by its underlings.
“Golem! Focus on the spider!” Harald ran up the slope, unsure of how best to close with the giant predator.
It watched, retreating up its golden skyweb, and the fractured state of the ground caused Harald to trip and slam into a rock.
Cursing, he twisted as a green burning blade flashed past his face and riposted a killing blow, taking the mummy’s head off.
The sound of metallic stars ringing out against the void filled his mind.
The Demon Seed Has Stirred
Your Dexterity has risen from 17 to 18
Charging the spider would only cause it to retreat before him. Harald hesitated, then ducked behind a large rock so that it broke the spider’s line of sight. Then, summoning shadows about himself once more, he began plotting a course through the broken slope to close.
It was hard work. Fortunately, the mummies also lost track of him for the most part unless they stumbled particularly close, being drawn instead to fight Shadowpaw and the golem.
Shadowpaw, despite his best efforts, was soon banished back to Harald’s Cosmos.
The golem, however, was impervious to their green blades. Its white spherical shield took the hits with shimmers of light, and it kept striding toward the spider high above surrounded by an ever-larger gaggle of mummies which it cleared occasionally with rock eruptions from beneath their feet.