Isse watched what was left of the Forest of Tusca.

Ashes. Only… ashes.

A few charred trees.

And glass.

She walked as if in a dream, Siidi silent in her mind and soul, mourning the losses of so many sisters. Mourning the loss of their soulmate. Of their [Carers], of their friends, of Makira and Aru and everyone.

She walked.

Until she reached the place where, until this night, a clearing covered in silk white as snow had been.

Right there, still standing, was Grandmother.

Her body was ice. Her face, smiling.

Issekina cried.

----------------------------------------

The System watched this scene with emotionless eyes. It wasn’t that it didn’t understand what the girl was feeling, it was just incapable of feeling emotions.

It didn’t have the time for such fickle things. It had a job to do. But now, what Class could it give her? What new Skills? Her state of mind seemed fitting for a [Condition], but which one.

Then it felt it. That strange old voice, that little whisper in the back of its mind that wasn’t supposed to be here.

Let’s not be so cruel, old chap. She’s been through enough. She doesn’t deserve such a thing.

The System heard the voice and acknowledged it, but it did not understand the concept of cruelty. It was supposed to be completely impartial, no matter what, with everyone. That arachne was part of everyone, even if she was an .

“For once, I have to agree with the… how did she call him? Oh, right, ‘old bastard’. Let’s not give her a [Condition], young friend. She’s been through enough as is.”

Another voice joined the old whisper. This one was much older. It was the voice of his first and only friend. [The Old Man by the Stars]. He’d been there for it since the day of its creation at the hands of the gods, always watching over everyone with it, giving it tips and suggestions on how to do its job better. After all, he was even older than the System.

So, because it was him who was telling it so, it decided not to give the girl a [Condition].

Still, she was going to get a new Class.

----------------------------------------

Isse didn’t realize she had fallen asleep at the feet of Grandmother’s ice statue until she heard the words being whispered in her mind:

[Last Survivor Level 6!]

[Skill - Hide Mana Signature Obtained!]

[Skill - Reduce Presence Obtained!]

[Skill - Improved Breeding Obtained!]

[Legacy - Tradition: Always, One Survived Obtained!]

[Soul Mage Level 19!]

She rolled back into a ball and went back to crying.

The old stranger looked at her with pity in his eyes.

----------------------------------------

The Grandmaster never slept.

Unexpected, considering his age, but he was the kind of grizzled old man who needed less and less sleep the longer he lived. He probably did it to hide from the nightmares that would come to haunt him when he closed his eyes. The devils knew how many things he had done to support the cause of the College, and how little of it he regretted.

He was not sleeping when it happened: the Law was activated.

He smiled, knowing full well that, by the end of this, the arachne would be dead. And, from what he knew, this was probably their last nest. How incredible it would be, to be the one to see the end of that damned species.

He spent the next hour patiently waiting in the seat of his office, a grand room with granite floors and marble walls, libraries covering the whole space. Where there were none of those, paintings hung from the walls, Memories trapped inside.

Behind him, over the window overlooking the City of Temples, sat the grandest painting of them all: a scene representing the Hunters attacking and killing arachne. The place where the Law was stored.

He waited.

And felt it when one of their Traditions was freed.

What? What’s happening?

He felt it when the chains that bound the eternal flames to that brasier in one of the nearby rooms were broken. The fire inside went out without even a puff of smoke, leaving the room dark with a very bewildered Assistant inside.

And then… catastrophe.

He felt the Law scream.

A single white spot appeared on the painting behind him, beginning to rapidly expand, eating away at the paint of the beautiful art, leaving behind only a hungry void.

No. Impossible!

But it wasn’t. This was real. It was happening. They had just lost their most powerful Law. Their greatest tool.

But surely it doesn’t matter anymore. They’re dead. All of them. They must be. They have to be!

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He pleaded inside his mind.

His old heart began beating faster. Painfully. He was too old to allow himself such strong emotions.

The Assistant slammed the door to the office open: “What is all the torture devices of Airm is happening? We just lost a Tradition, and something doesn’t -”

He stopped when he saw the painting, the words dying in his mouth.

Then: “Fuck!”

Fuck indeed. Because nothing was left of the image. Only white.

The Law was dead, eaten by something far older and hungrier.

And they both knew, with the same certainty of a man staring at his executioner hefting his axe, that the arachne were not dead.

The Grandmaster fell to the ground, clutching at his heart.

----------------------------------------

A few had survived, you know? [Soldiers], that is.

They’d been in the right place at the right time and the explosion of that massive ball of fire hadn’t killed them. Only hurt them badly.

A few of them had lost an arm or a leg. But they were alive. Alive! And that’s the thing that mattered the most.

They fell asleep in tents planted hurriedly outside the cinders of the Forest of Tusca, on the eastern side.

And the System whispered in their minds:

[Conditions Met: Soldier -> Arachne Hunter!]

[Arachne Hunter Level …]

Each and every single one of the ex-[Soldiers] got an upgrade to their Class, officially becoming Hunters.

They rejoiced. They had survived and gotten something great out of it! Although, if it was up to them, they wouldn’t face another arachne for the rest of their lives.

They woke up the next morning and had breakfast with some of the little food that was left in the camp. It would be enough for them to return to the capital.

A few of them found themselves with a bad case of the coughs, but it was nothing a little bit of healing potion couldn’t fix.

As the day went on, the coughing got worse, and more people found out they were infected.

“Probably collateral damage from all the ash and smoke,” they told themselves. Which, you know, good assumption, they had inhaled lots of that too. Surely everything would be fixed with a few more sips of potion.

…

Who am I trying to kid? It wasn’t enough.

No amount of potion managed to fix the coughing. It only managed to calm it down for a while.

Soon, everyone was on the ground, coughing their lungs out.

Quite literally, after a while. Blood began pouring out of their lips with every cough as their lungs were filled with the normally life-giving fluid.

By the end of the day, the few dozen [Arachne Hunters] who had survived were all dead.

The last one to follow them to the grave heard something before his eyes closed for the last time:

[Curse: The Spider’s Rot Activated!]

[Note: With love, by the Witch of Spiders. Your ilk will never be allowed to come back!]

----------------------------------------

The gods sat in their rooms high in their palaces among the clouds. Or so their creations liked to imagine. In truth, they didn’t have material forms, so the place where they lived was not material to begin with. It was a construct, a projection of their selves on a plane different from the one their creations lived in.

Currently, they were discussing what had just happened.

“The damned spiders have managed to destroy our Law!” shouted the God of Skies, Flato, as he slammed his fist on his throne.

This was unprecedented, impossible! Something made by them, gone! Completely, utterly. And all because of a damned Skill!

“We must do something!” agreed the Goddess of Love, his wife. Although, the world under them didn’t know this.

“We must… discipline, the System. It’s been doing things on its own, without our guidance, for too long. What is your progress with finding our creation, Niddus?”

Niddus, God of Knowledge, sighed: “I am stumped, Flato. The only way to find him is by finding the Anchor in the Land of Dreams, but Soma doesn’t want to help us find it.”

Everyone turned towards Soma, the God of Impossibilities. The Traveller. The one who had helped them craft a better Creation for their own races. He was sitting on the ground beside his throne on a cushion, sipping from a cup of… probably tea. No one really knew. There was a good chance it was some kind of Impossible mix only he could know about.

He looked up from his cup with an expression of pure disinterest.

“I told you already, Niddus. I am incapable of location the Anchor and bringing you there. I do not command the Dream.”

“But you made it!”

“So? I am no longer the God of Dreams. I gave that title away a long time ago. I am now only the God of Impossibilities. I created the Land of Dreams out of an impossibility, but that doesn’t mean I can control it.”

“Bullshit!” shouted the God of Knowledge, pointing an accusatory finger, “Even our Creations can command your little Dream. And you made it! You’re just stalling!”

Soma put down his cup and looked at Niddus with an expression of discontent, as if they’d already had this conversation hundreds of times (well, a few dozen actually, but he didn’t care to count).

“I told you already, Niddus. The living cannot command the Dream. Only reshape it. And anyways, I gave up my possibility to command the Dream the day I let the living enter it and learn about it. Now it is no longer an impossibility, which means I cannot control it anymore.”

He stopped, before he added: “And anyways, you were the ones who told me to find a good way to hide the System away from you, millenia ago. I gave my word that nobody would ever manage to find or reach it, even you. I have every intention of keeping my word.”

Niddus seemed to be about to have an aneurism, which would’ve probably caused the sudden and inexplicable death of one of his [Priests].

Flato intervened to stop things from escalating.

“Alright, Soma, we understand. We’ll find another way.

“Now, in regards to the Law, we must give a replacement to the College. Everyone in agreement?”

Everyone agreed.

Everyone, except for one voice.

“It. Is. Denied.”

The gods turned towards the voice. A dark figure, her body covered from head to toe in a warm, black, cloak, stood at the entrance to the throne room of the gods.

“Against. The. Agreements. No. Interference. Allowed!”

The voice was raspy, as if the one talking was unused to it.

Death himself walked among the gods, its form ever-changing, her eyes ever warm and welcoming, its face, currently, not smiling as she always did for every soul he came to collect, but sneering.

“Interference. Brooks. Punishment.”

It said, and the gods shivered as they were reminded of what was Death’s view of a punishment.

After the arachne had been defeated the first time, millenia ago, the gods had pleaded forgiveness to Death. In exchange for not sending more arachne, Death requested that the gods make an agreement sworn on their very existence: that they would never again, in any way, be it direct or indirect, interfere with Creation and all its inhabitants and souls.

They had agreed, naturally. At the time, they still cared.

Now… not as much. But they still feared Death and her anger.

“Understood?”

They nodded. And Death was gone.

The gods sighed. Well, they would have to find another way to solve these problems.