"Jump in front of her eyes and then cut right!" I screamed to Gwen, telepathically, as I launched myself up onto a dust covered pew.

Galadhel raised her hand violently towards me, but I was already flickering into a stream of mana before her webs could ensnare my body.

Still being carried by the upward momentum of my jump, my essence reformed a dozen feet closer to the Webspiner.

Gwen, meanwhile, had already lunged upward with her massive and powerful legs to block the vision of our enemy.

I felt the panther's mental touch flash into my own vision, to doublecheck her timing, just before she shifted her weight and veered off to the right.

My hand released the [Fireball] with a violence the moment the path between me and Galadhel was clear.

The truly massive half-spider, however, was having none of it.

Her massive milk-colored and talon-bearing hands whipped out as a hiss left her fanged mouth.

The red-moonlight caught a sparkle along the many almost-invisible strands of spider-silk that extended and reached out to meet my attack.

I couldn't quite make out how Galadhel made it happen, but my sharp eyes did catch the flashing of yet-more imperceptible webs within the air suddenly surging with a flow of mana.

The revealed cross-section of now glowing spider-web caught my [Fireball] and, to my annoyance, proved very capable of slowing it down.

Some of the webs did burn away but so too did my attack. The violent, spiraling flames of my spell were almost drained away into the webs as if they'd been absorbed and not merely extinguished.

To further complicate things, as my spell's energy seemed to be taken into the web, I watched then as the glow along the glimmering threads intensified. Soon after, the webs even seemed to start to mend and reform themselves.

"Damnit," I cursed to myself as the Webspinner then slashed her other hand towards me. Once more I saw the glimmer of webs connecting along her fingertips.

I felt a series of quickly tightening spider silks wrap around me, before I could activate [Mana Flicker] completely.

Just as my body started to break apart into energy, I felt a familiar and disorienting rebounding back into my more solid state.

Much as the [Frostblood Countess] had once done to me, it seemed the Webspinner could also restrict my use of movement granting magic within the binds of her web.

Honestly, shouldn't have been surprised.

My eyes flashed with fire.

Still, I already knew how to deal with this.

The barely burning wisps of my [Flame Cloak] rushed themselves up into an inferno. My body became but a silhouette within the spinning blanket of azure and bluing fire.

String by string, strand by strand, I felt the constricting touch of the boss monster fall away.

And, yet, I was also realizing that I was using far more mana than I felt I should've to break free.

And, to make matters worse, the more of my own energy I pumped into my [Flame Cloak] the brighter the glowing webs that held me flared with power--a power that they seemed to transfer back into the webs not directly being burned off of me.

I heard Gwen roar from somewhere off to the side.

I glanced into the panther's eyes as I felt the last of the strands of spider-silk dissolve off of me.

My friend seemed to be doing better than me. Her sharper instincts had thus far kept her from getting too caught up in the web.

I watched as the cat's thunder-charged voice spiraled out from her mouth.

A powerful shockwave ripped through the webs separating the cat from our shared enemy. And, though the roar did seem slowed by the entangling strings, unlike my [Fireball] it wasn't stopped.

The force of the thunder roar crashed into the frail-looking torso and face of the Webspinner with a thudding crack and visibly sent the boss monster's smaller upper half veering off to the left.

Seizing the moment, both me and Gwen activated our respective teleport spells.

No longer constricted by webs, [Mana Flicker] sped me towards the Webspinner.

Gwen, meanwhile, flickered into a bolt of lightning.

"I think the webs absorb part of our magic," I communicated to the panther in the half-second that followed as our mana-made forms carried us through the air rapidly.

"She controls them with her fingers," Gwen replied back from within her lightning bolt. "I can see them when she attacks."

"It's a starting point!" I shot back telepathically.

As we spoke and each carried ourselves through another dozen feet of the air, the Webspinner roared in rage and pain from Gwen's attack.

The boss monster wobbled back upright and instantly threw both of her hands up. The webs connected to each of her ten fingers glimmered once more.

I felt something constrict around my ethereal form catching the many particles of mana I had become out of the air.

Once again I felt myself thrown back together against my will, only this time it was much more uncomfortable as the webs that the boss monster had used to catch my teleporting essence strained against my reforming body.

"Fuck," I gasped as the air was knocked from my suddenly solidified lungs.

"Does she have you?" I shot back to Gwen, telepathically, currently unable to focus enough to look through her eyes.

"Yes!" Gwen roared back into my mind; I could feel the frustration pouring through our link.

"Screw this," I said and I drew a massive amount of air into my lungs.

I unleashed the breath just as I once more forced the flames along my body to flare out violently.

The webs, however, seemed almost stronger now. It was harder to burn through them.

In fact, it became more and more difficult to burn through the webs the more of them I burned away.

In a bout of perhaps childish impatience, I redirected the majority of my mana into my right arm and freed it with my [Flame Cloak].

With my sword-wielding hand freed I then rotated and cut aggressively against the glowing binds that restrained me.

The webs came away much more easily under the assault of my flaming sword, though they did still seem much stronger than before.

I fell to the floor with a roll and locked eyes with my enemy's crimson orbs.

"Your efforts just worsen your straits," the darkness within Galadhel mocked me as she then swept her hands towards me again.

Yeah, your webs feed off of my magic, is what I wanted to say back to the monster, but refrained from doing so.

The less the Webspinner knew that I knew, the more of an advantage I would have in surprising her with a counter.

As for the moment, however, I knew what was coming now: always more webs.

But, despite being able to catch the flicker of moonlight and mana against the strings that were actively moving, the half-spider's attacks came too quickly.

If I hadn't of leveled up my [Spelldancer] perk, in fact, I wasn't sure I would've been able to see them at all.

Regardless of any perks, though, the monster's webs soon hit me like a train and slammed me back into yet another binding of invisible threads.

I grunted in further annoyance as the [Flame Cloak] along my back freed me enough to slash against the glowing threads in front of me.

For what it was worth, the more solidified nature of my [Raging Blade] seemed to mean that the Webspinner's mana draining webs couldn't seep as much power off of it as they could from something less refined like my [Flame Cloak].

The cutting edge of my sword was also much more effective at slashing through the webs, even as they seemed to grow stronger off of the mana they absorbed from myself and Gwen.

"Try not to give her anymore mana than you have to, Gwen," I shot the mental advice to my companion, "the webs just get stronger the more she drains away from us."

Gwen growled violently in response to my communication and then sent a mental flash of her cutting through a swathe of webs with her huge claws.

She's probably better off than I am at following my advice.

I knew one thing for sure, however, I never wanted to be on the receiving end of a slash from my familiar's massive natural weapons.

As for myself, even with the power of my [Acrobatics] score and with [Spelldancer] flowing through my body, I still wasn't fast enough to react to Galadhel's attacks.

I could at least see the attacks when they started, however.

And I had a trump card I'd created for situations exactly like this.

I summoned a [Fireball] into my hands and launched it towards the Webspinner.

"Catch this!" I shouted out the taunt.

At the sounds of my words, Galadhel's vision shifted from unsuccessfully trying to further entangle Gwen and shot towards me.

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The Webspinner sucked her teeth at me.

"Fool," she said and twitched a finger in my direction.

She no doubt thought I was just feeding her web yet more mana.

However, at the exact moment she moved to control her web, I activated [Accelerate Adrenaline].

I felt my world still as power and speed surged from my heart into my fingers, arms, legs, and up into my eyes to slow the world around me.

The passive boost of [Spelldancer] and [Overclocked] just further compounded the effects of the spell I'd cast.

Where before I'd only been able to glimpse a flash from the webs connecting to my enemy's fingers when she moved to manipulated them, now I watched the energy travel from her fingers and all along the web.

It was still fast, but I could track where her mana was flowing.

I smiled and reared my arm backwards.

My blade spun from my hands as I activated [Throw Sword].

The Webspinner's eyes widened in confusion and then shock as my sword met the string that she had pulled against to try and empower her webs to stop my [Fireball].

The strand of glowing spider-silk, attached directly to the boss monster's left index finger, fell away to float in the air.

My eyes then flashed and my thrown sword exploded, thanks to the effect of my [Raging Sorcery] perk, further burning away the Webspinner's control line.

My [Fireball] meanwhile, soared momentarily unperturbed by the invisible, but unempowered, spider webs between it and Galadhel.

The Webspinner, surprised but apparently not to be thwarted, moved another of her fingers and a different patch of webs than she had originally meant to activate glowed to life and caught my spell, draining the flames into her network of silk.

But the [Fireball] had gotten much closer this time.

And I could counter my enemy now. I'd seen her tell, which had been what I'd been trying to draw out now that my eyes could catch it.

I summoned a [Greater Mana Potion] and drank it down with one hand as I conjured back another [Raging Blade] into my grasp.

"What are you doing?" the Webspinner said and narrowed her eyes at me as my [Fireball] sparked fully into its dimming death.

I smiled and stepped forward.

I was seeing, seeing just what she could do and when, but I wasn't going to tell her that.

The boss monster frowned at what I guessed was my lack of a response and my seeming confidence.

The remaining four threads on her left-hand's fingers flashed.

Tracking four mana flows, even with [Accelerate Adrenaline], was probably impossible.

Still, time was slowed enough for me to see one at a time.

I danced forward, still allowing my skill points over bodily control and swordsmanship to guide me.

Mana flowed through my limbs, extending into my summoned blade as an extension of my being, and cutting through the first of the activated webs that I tracked Galadhel's mana as flowing into.

A step. A turn. A slash.

I pirouetted forward. My feet guided my hips, my hips turned my arms and my blade cleaved into my all too confident enemy's second string.

I slashed into the third with a cut that was guided by a flick of my left quad.

The final string, however, pulled up just out of my blade's reach at the last moment and connected to an invisible piece of spider silk.

"Have it your way," the Webspinner said as her eyes flashed a violent crimson.

My own eyes grew wide and I lunged forward to try to follow and cut the final thread of silk, but it was too late.

A psychic force slammed into me and knocked me to my knees as my pre-erected thought ward struggled to hold itself together.

Mana flared from the strand and flowed into the previously invisible webs it had connected to.

For the first time, the entirety of of the cathedral's network of spider silk glowed with a sudden and powerful flash.

The screams of a million, anguishing souls pounded against my skull.

The cracks in my mental shielding spread and soon there were more gaps in it than there was solidity.

Meanwhile, frost began to shed in a thick fog from the webbing the boss monster had empowered.

Hundreds of lines of spider-silk now hummed with icy mana all the way from the lowest wooden pew and connecting to the highest archway's unfeeling bricks.

I, meanwhile, very much felt the conjured and frigid air penetrating through my weakened [Flame Cloak] and counteracting the effects of [Accelerate Adrenaline] as my muscles turned to ice.

But, despite all of that, I could feel almost none of my own physical agony through the barrage of seeming secondhand mental torment that was now washing over me.

"Gwen," I gasped telepathically through the sheer agony of the throngs of screaming voices, "help."

My vision swirled.

"Clarissa," the words that slipped through were just as ragged as my own, if not more so, as the cat sent a mental image of the Webspinner ensnaring her directly within a network of sharp and freezing webs, "I can't."

My vision blurred and then swirled.

"Die by your own absorbed mana, weaklings," Galadhel mocked us.

I watched as my hands covered themselves in a frigid layer of ice as my [Flame Cloak] died away.

My mind was shattering.

My body failing, freezing.

I felt the soul link between me and my familiar weaken.

And Gwen was dying.

I had to fight back.

The singular, determined thought once more reared its way through the sound of what seemed to be a million agonized wails shouting directly into my soul's nonexistent ears.

Still, there was too little mana to do what I needed to do.

No. That was bullshit.

I could survive. It would just hurt.

I could feel my [Frost Resistance] slowing the gnawing cold down every so slightly, which at least gave me a chance.

Still, I felt the muscles in my face freezing too greatly for me to even maintain my grimace of pain.

I would not just go quietly into a frigid death.

I poured nearly all of my remaining mana into my thought ward to seal the worst of the cracks. This reduced a few hundred-thousand of the shrieking voices to a mere head-splitting pressure pushing against the mystical barrier I'd somewhat repaired.

What little mystical power I had left, I flared into my hands with [Heat Body].

The pain that soared through my flesh as it slowly came back to life was far more agonizing than losing feeling in it had been.

If my tear-ducts hadn't of been frozen, I surely would've cried against the stinging, aching, and thudding discomfort.

My inflamed hand shook as a mana potion appeared into it, the heat of my body thawing some of the ice from my fingers.

I brought the potion to my lips and instantly expended each drop's potency as it entered me, directing the consumable's power towards bringing warmth back to my core.

Another potion appeared and then another. My thought ward was topped off and then a cloak of flame wrapped around me to further insulate myself.

I downed a final elixir and slowly began to stand, stumbling under the nearly mind-shattering pain of regaining my body's feeling.

With [Heat Body] and [Flame Cloak] firing on all cylinders, along with my [Insulated] perk, I just barely managed to stave off a good two-thirds of the blizzard swirling around me.

Perhaps thinking me closer to death, I finally had enough awareness to see that the Webspinner had foolishly redirected her attention to finishing off Gwen.

Still, despite being very much alive, I was far weaker than I needed to be. I summoned a health potion and drank it in the moment of reprieve I now had.

"Get into my soulcore now," I told Gwen, telepathically, as I drank.

"Clar--" a weak sounding grumble came back over our bond.

"Now!" I ordered, feeling no need to accept complaint, out of concern.

A low-sounding purr of defeat came out towards me.

"What?" Galadhel redirected her attention to me as Gwen's body broke away into nothingness.

As the monster was becoming confused, I felt my cat's spirit travel over our soul link and merge into my own spirit. She was still distinctly her own entity, but I could tell she was now safe.

That said, I didn't want to think of what might happen if I died with Gwen existing within my spirit.

"Get your bearings," I sent the message to the panther hiding within my soul. "I might need you soon."

The Webspinner's eyes narrowed in realization as she looked upon me. "You're not so foolish of a mage as I thought. You're more adaptable than your level might suggest."

I grimaced. "You've only got three on me, bitch."

The monster chuckled. "So foolish."

I gripped my sword into my hand. "We'll see."

Galadhel slashed towards me with her free hand.

I stepped forward and, with the aid of [Accelerate Adrenaline], bobbed and weaved through the incoming strands of quick-moving spider webs.

To my shock, as I dodged out of the way of one thread, it brushed past my hair and cut clean through a lock of it. The same thread flashed past my face with a razer sharp glistening.

Galadhel was far too versatile in what she could do to with her webs.

Seeing the steel like thread only barely missing me, I allowed my body to dissipate into mana.

I kept my awareness firmly planted on the Webspinner, however, as I now knew more of her tricks.

Staying well aware of my surroundings while using [Mana Flicker] was hard, but possible with the reality slow down of [Accelerate Adrenaline] in effect--if only just barely.

The moment the spider monster flicked her hand towards me, I rematerialized before her webs could force me to do so.

Finding my flow among the information I'd managed to gather on my enemy throughout the fight, I reappeared in the half-breath before one of her razer sharp spider-threads would've hit violently into my teleporting body.

My sword, guided by pure instinct and determination, cleaved through the weaponized control web.

"You won't get close to me," Galadhel said as if to assure her own confidence.

We'll see, I thought to myself.

A mana potion appeared in my hand as I once again used [Mana Flicker] to cross another half-dozen feet, before I became solid again mid-spin and used my blade-wielding hand to cleave through a clump of frozen webs that blocked my way.

My eyes darted in every which direction as I took in all the variables. Mine and Gwen's life depended on me not making a mistake. So I simply wouldn't.

I raised the potion to my lips and began to drink it, before ducking and disappearing a half-moment before another razer sharp web strand would've cleaved my head off of my shoulders.

My body rematerialized and I threw the dissolving mana potion bottle into the air; the empty glass was sliced in half by one of Galadhel's strings before it could fully dissolve back to wherever the System had drawn it from.

I, however, cleaved through the same string before it could bisect me.

The battle continued like this for the next minute or two.

Galadhel would send her webs towards me.

I would teleport away from them.

She would predict my movements and try to stop me.

Having the benefit of actually knowing where I was going, I would counter her prediction and cut through whatever she was trying to send my way.

I wasn't quite winning.

But I wasn't losing right away.

The cold drained me and my defense against it used my mana.

[Mana Flicker] also burdened me with its resource cost.

My potions would run out soon.

My health would eventually break down.

My thought ward would shatter.

I was paying dearly with time I didn't really have for every foot of ground I took from Galadhel.

I was getting closer yes, but I wasn't quite sure the calculus would work out in my favor.

"Gwen," I tried to rouse my companion from within my soulcore.

"Yes?" she asked as I appeared a bit closer to Galadhel and cut through another cluster of frozen webs.

"Can you handle the psychic attack out here?" I asked.

"I--" Gwen hesitated, "I can fight."

"Nah; I know this shit hurts too bad," I said and cut through another strand. "I just need one strike from you."

I grimaced as I made my first major mistake and a strand of spider silk cut deep into my right thigh.

I slashed through the same spider silk further up from where it touched my flesh, before it could remove my leg, and then side-stepped another one.

"When I say go, shoot straight and go for the kill; don't think, don't aim once you're out here, just strike," I sent the message to Gwen, "can you do that?"

"Yes," the cat said back with a bit more confidence.

"Good," I said and dodged into a teleport once again.

"I am done entertaining your little show," Galadhel threatened towards me.

The Webspinner, for the first time since she'd activated the cold spell, moved her left hand.

The string that sent the frigid mana into all the others broke off, just as Galadhel spread her arms off to either side of herself.

Fresh silks extended out quickly and flashed with mana from all ten of the monster's fingers.

I did my best to cover as much ground towards the monster as I could in that moment, but I did only have a couple seconds to exploit. It was still hardly enough time to get me within striking distance.

The Webspinner threw both of her hands out towards me.

The webs the monster wielded came in at me from every direction then, glowing with the same energy that had proven able to catch my teleportation but also glistening like the flesh cutting cords had.

Seeing the very real danger I was in, I slammed my hand into the ground as quickly as I could manage.

My mana flowed into the stone flooring and spread out to spin all around.

Walls of flame grew up to surround me as my mystical energy sparked and caught ablaze, connecting and spinning outwards in a massive expenditure of mana on my part.

The mana-touching, body cutting spider threads, only a second later, connected with a physical force along my conjured walls of fire.

The feedback against the two mystical forces was staggering.

So staggering that I was forced to raise myself up from the ground and hold each of my arms out from myself just to try to keep my spell going.

My muscles and mana strained as I fed the inferno protecting me and tried to expand it against the wrapping and constricting touch of Galadhel's powerful silk strands as they spun and wound themselves all around my struggling tornado of fire.

The thickness of the mental assault in the air also grew much more powerful. My ward once again began to crack; things being as they suddenly were, I just didn't have the mana to keep it going for long. Not if I wanted to keep my defensive flames in place anyway.

"Gwen," I communicated through clenched teeth. "See her?"

"I'm ready," the cat told me.

Hearing what I needed to, and just as my walls of flame were pushed back to spin against my outstretched palms themselves, I groaned with exertion and used the last of my strength to force the flames back outwards and to push Galadhel's strings further apart from each other.

Thanks to my last-minute efforts, on the outside of my spell, there was now a small gap between me and the monster.

"Now," I said internally.

Gwen roared from within me and, without a moment's hesitation, she acted.

Lightning cut through the air and filled the gap I'd created as the cat emerged from within my soulcore.

Galadhel's eyes grew wide.

A half-second later, I fell to the ground, as my flames and mana finally gave way.

Next Chapter (22/09/22) - Chapter 18: Revelations