In her loss, Shai turned to the spider, but Marvel was way younger than her, and it was impossible for her to come up with something Shai couldn’t in this regard. Shai decided not to burden young Marvel with such matters, as it was her issue to deal with.

“The council has decided,” Shai said. “We have deemed you do not offset the balance.”

“Then?” Javi asked. Even though Shai didn’t have [Concept of Empathy], she could feel hope brewing inside him.

Why are these emotions? Shai complained inwardly. I’m a savage creature. What is the need for such emotions?

Shai felt her silence would be enough for an answer, but Javi kept on asking, latching onto the straw thrown at him. Shai was torn between creeping away without replying and crushing the boy’s spirit, spilling the last bit. Either way, it was inevitable.

Abruptly, another presence brushed against her mind, as Marvel screamed out, a spark of spirituality radiating from her being.

“Solace!” A barrage of delightful empathic pulses.

Shai’s first thought was to hide, but there was no place to conceal herself. Not that she was given any time. Oddly, she didn’t discover any spark or halo of aura anywhere, until she found a harmless white glow approaching them. That hardly reassured her, as Shai had suffered enough to believe her instinctive completely.

“Solace! You’re here!” Marvel’s spirit lifted with the presence.

“Oh dear, you look awful,” a caring voice answered her call. “Come on, I came here to take you away.”

With that, a long string of web shot towards Marvel and latched onto her, pulling her upwards.

“But the punishment?” Marvel didn’t resist the web lifting her.

“Your discipline will continue,” the elderly voice continued. “But this isn’t the way of it. The younglings are too impatient in their disciplining. But don’t blame them, after what happened to Midnight.”

Marvel’s silhouette disappeared into the darkness as the string pulled her up out of the hell chasm, leaving Shai alone to contemplate her options.

Shai wasn’t sure if she should celebrate getting rid of the spider or be sad. But before she knew it, another string of web latched onto her and pulled her upwards.

Shai fought against her instinct to not struggle with the lift. She let the web pull her up, her distress growing with each passing moment.

They weren’t that deep in the chasm, as it barely took a minute for her to reach the top even with the web lifting her slowly. But that wasn’t important anymore, as a figure of a colossal spider came into her view, dwarfing Marvel, who stood next to her.

She was missing an appendage, but Solace, the elder empathic spider, cut a domineering figure, a metre taller than all the spiders she had met. Moreover, her entire figure was pristine white with small silver and grey rune marks covering all over her body—some of them were runes she recognised, most she didn't.

[Solace - Elder Empathic Spider - ??? ???]

Stolen story; please report.

“Thank the Great Mother that the corruption hadn’t affected you extensively,” the Elder spider said as she checked on Marvel, though Shai could feel a pair of her eyes focused on her, examining her.

Shai felt a deep chill in her spine, even though she detected no threat from the elder spider. The thought of fleeing returned. Unfortunately, she would need a better opportunity to try. Shai refrained from making a spectacle of herself.

“Come on, let’s get to my dwellings,” Solace urged the spider as she turned. “There’s hardly a point staying here in your state.”

“Solace! What about—”

“Dear, you can bring your friend as well,” Solace said, continuing on her path. “I’m sure we can find accommodation for her as well.”

“Friend?” Marvel repeated, a spark of ambiguous pulse radiated through the link. “She’s not my... Come on, Shai.”

Shai exchanged a look between Marvel and the elder spider and understood it wasn’t a request. She considered for a second. Going with them would very likely entangle her more with the spiders, which wasn’t something she would like to be involved in, considering her strength was minuscule compared to these elder spiders.

Hell, Serenity was already close to a hundred level, but this elder Spider might be double of that. Moroever, Marvel mentioned all the rune constructs were created by Solace… This elder spider…

A weird notion came to her mind. Can I ask her to teach me?

Shai calculated her chance of escaping without being fatally injured. The chances were...not that great. Hmm, why am I thinking of escaping? This elder spider didn’t seem bad...

Unwittingly, Shai crept closer to the two spiders, unsure how her mind eased up readily. Let’s not take chances for now, Shai thought, her tension waning somewhat as she came to a decision. I’m sure they won’t kill me outright. They had opportunities to do that before... And Marvel is nice, if only a little pompous.

Right, I will have all the time to make plans and escape.

“Both of you need an abundance of sleep to recover your mental faculty,” the elder spider transferred to them. “I’ll keep the explanation to myself until you can think clearly.”

Yeah, she seems like a nice granny. I’m sure she won’t eat me.

The spiders took her to their dwellings, and for the first time inside the dungeon, she saw lights. It was a pit similar to most others in size, though the inside was vastly different, with dozens of light constructs brimming with gentle light, giving a civilised feel.

It had been days since she last saw light, so even if the lights weren’t natural, Shai was delighted under their luminance. Furthermore, it wasn’t just light; the air was fresh, the spirituality in balance, with the minimal aura of any particular elements. Shai already felt her exhaustion waning just being there.

The elder spider didn’t speak to them after reaching their dwelling; she began tinkering with a lot of constructs, leaving them to observe. Marvel became bored within a minute, while Shai’s reaction was exactly the opposite. Her eyes blazed with amazement as she barely understood what the elder spider was doing.

The way the elder spider was tinkering with the runes was something she had never seen. Solace spell-forged dozens of complicated scripts in thin air effortlessly and started to lay them together with array flags to make a formation.

Shai’s interest was piqued instantly. Although she recognised the runes as simple alterations of the 64 common runes she learned from the pit, she didn’t recognise the script at all, nor could she tell what they were meant to be used for. Fascinating.

Marvel couldn’t endure the silence anymore and asked the granny spider. “Solace, what’s that for?”

The elder spider answered when she was done with the formation. “A tool to help you sleep,” she said and surged out with a peculiar power of a concept—no, two concepts; one was light, and the other was something she couldn’t tell—infusing the unique aura into the formation.

Shai’s eyes narrowed on the array of flags floating in the air, swirling in a circle. They blazed in a dreamy white light, as they moved to surround them.

“Alright, it’s time to sleep,” Solace said as the formation completely surrounded them into a ball of white forcefield.

“Solace, what is this?” The spider’s effort to keep her lucidity became nigh impossible.

“A custom Grand Dream Formation,” the elder spider said offhandedly. “It’ll help you expunge all the signs of corruption and foreign will from your being as you rest. Come on, no time to dillydally, I have a lot of work to do…”

“Hmm, I don’t...” Shai let out a hiss of exhaustion and fell flat on the ground in deep slumber within moments.

“Don’t resist. Have a nice dream. You need it.”