[Log 3.16.2]

[XVI - The Tower (Reversed)]

Instead of a passive-aggressive response, I got a quick series of notifications this time, despite the danger of the request.

[//sudo quit Arx.exe]

{[Arx, Saint’s Embrace] HAS BEEN DISABLED.}

{Memory: 15/20 LKB RAM}

[//run ardor.exe]

[>>Now running ardor.exe…]

{NOW RUNNING: [ARDOR, VISIONARY AMBITION] v.01}

{Memory: 20/20 LKB RAM}

My vision glitched again, and when it returned, I immediately grabbed my Torch and ignited it. There were only two reasons the citizens were still alive. One was that the spiders moved cautiously, probably because they hadn’t realized the men and women couldn’t fight back yet. The other, grimmer one was that there were so many people that the spiders couldn’t kill them quickly enough to make a dent in their numbers.

Three spiders were harassing the refugees up close, tackling them to the ground and shocking them with their electric mandibles. Two more spiders, at the back, had begun wrapping people in webs.

I froze.

Dark teal light streamed along the webbing, straight into the feral’s ugly mouths.

A high-pitched noise filled my ears.

“Sultana, please!” Zephyro pleaded.

I looked between him and the spiders.

A child screamed.

The rope inside me snapped taught, strands coming apart. My breath was coming far too quickly, and all the hairs on my body stood on end. I knew that any moment now, I’d turn and run, just like in that forest—

With a piercing cry, I charged forward, fixated on the closest Feral. It was a webber, a bit apart from the crowd, with its back to me. My feet flew over the ground. My strides were too wide. I could barely control where I was going. I had crossed half the distance when a readout appeared, hovering above the Feral.

[SuwfnGmachTn-2]

[Absolute danger level: low]

[Relative danger level: high]

What was I doing?

I slid to a halt, despite the rage bucking inside me, urging me to keep going, to kill until nothing was left that could threaten me.

No. I had to think.

I staggered, trying to get a hold of myself.

Luckily, the Feral was too busy draining someone wrapped in centimeter-thick webbing and hadn’t noticed me yet. As I recovered a semblance of control, I worriedly scanned the other spiders. All of them showed the same threat rating. Absolute danger level low, relative threat level high. I couldn’t choose. My mind was swimming, teetering between exhaustion, fear, and rage like a drunkard on a 10 story rooftop.

After a horrifying moment of having to watch the Feral drain its victim, I finally managed to fall back to tactical instincts I had honed for almost a decade, and paid for in blood.

In my mind’s eye, everything stilled.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

When your enemy is already engaged in a melee, and you are attempting a flanking maneuver, the worst thing you can do is to announce your presence, giving away the element of surprise.

Tobesian strategy had still been in the “form lines, run towards each other, then bash anything in front of you until one side remains standing” phase of military history when I had arrived on this world.

Everybody had been looking at the big scary mass of troops up ahead, and nobody checked the woods behind them. Can’t march an army through a forest unnoticed, after all.

Using the forest as cover and the resulting element of surprise, twenty people with guns— even primitive flintlocks—are frightfully effective against 250 armsmen, archers, and riders. Especially when the first shot knocks the general straight off his high horse.

The screams had been music to my ears, and secured us a wide spread of land we later called Republic’s Cradle.

A scream pierced my memories and drew my fleeing thoughts back to the here and now. Your mind would do that, I had learned. If something is too horrible to look at, your thoughts will go someplace else, and leave you just standing there like an idiot. I had thought I had been beyond that stage. I had been mistaken.

I forced my eyes to wander over the slaughter before me, still struggling with that urge to just go and do something, to stop the screaming and pleading that would surely haunt my dreams for weeks, if not months. No. No rushing. I couldn’t help them if I was dead.

I told myself that over and over. As always, it didn’t help, but it kept me focused.

Finally, my mind started to obey again, and I found the weak spot I had been looking for. One spider off to my left started to radiate cyan light as it spasmed, growing additional legs. The Feral twitched in place as if electrocuted while its abdomen bulged and expanded. A large green orb, easily twice the size of its body, sprouted from its back to be held aloft on spindly, broken tendrils of welded metal. The process looked excruciatingly painful, but more importantly, it left the Feral incapacitated.

[MTghEdsIope-1]

[Absolute danger level: medium]

[Relative danger level: high]

I kept low and quiet as I approached, and Pharus’ pulse seemed equally subdued as I willed it to mark the next enemy I’d hit. I had crossed about two-thirds of the distance between us when the bright blue glow slowly softened, retreating into the insect.

I cursed and burst into a full sprint, hoping against hope that the mayhem ahead would keep masking my approach. Ten more meters. Up close, it was larger than I had thought, the top of its torso reaching higher than my head. The last remnant of cyan faded, and the spider hissed in triumph, stretching its hideous body towards the void that ate the stars above. Cursing again, I broke into a sprint. My feet hammered the mosaic. Five meters, four…

I was almost in range just when the spider froze and twitched its multi-faceted camera eyes in my direction. I broke into a slide that carried me the rest of the way underneath its bulging abdomen, and I rammed the Torch upwards, against its carapace.

[>>PROCESSES BY USER MTghEdsIope-1 are now highlighted]

The monster’s chittering was like the rattle of barbed wire against concrete, just infinitely louder. I didn’t have time to cover my ears, however, and darted to the side, already fixated on the other, significantly smaller webber, who had been alerted by the noise. It had interrupted its meal to stare in the direction of the disturbance, mouth still connected to a pulsing web like a bizarre caricature of someone eating spaghetti. It didn’t seem concerned at all and just kept draining its victim. Their screams grew quieter by the second.

For an ephemeral moment, I hoped its feeding would keep it distracted, but when it unfurled a plethora of weapons attached haphazardly along its abdomen and pointed them in my direction, it was obvious it knew I was coming. Fuck. I had hoped I would manage to get closer before it noticed me, maybe even reach melee range.

Something large and powerful impacted the ground behind me, but I didn’t have time to check what. I hoped that it was Zephyro, keeping my back, and not another Feral. Ahead, guns and aerials and sensors twitched in my direction once, twice, then the Feral opened fire.

I rolled to the right, which was a mistake. An assortment of all sorts of projectiles tore through the air, peppering a broad area around me. The spider seemed to have issues with its aim, as none of its attacks went even remotely in the same direction, the weapons spinning out of control atop their thin apertures as they couldn’t handle the recoil. Undeflected by my de-powered robe, an arrow hit my chest and dug deep into my flesh, and a dart buried itself deep into my left armpit.

[DPM integrity]

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱ 91% ▼

The attack hadn’t been too bad, but I had lost all my momentum, giving the Feral more time to fill the surrounding area with weapons fire as it finished its meal. I rolled, barely dodging a smattering of pellets, and rose like an Olympic sprinter, desperately trying to close the last remaining meters between me and the Spider.

When the beast noticed it wouldn’t be able to shoot me, it raised one of its forelegs in my direction threateningly. There was no mistaking the wicked gleam of blades running along the limb, telling me that even in close quarters, the Feral was anything but helpless.

I didn’t stop, flaring my weapon in response. The flash of teal fire reflected in the Feral’s manifold eyes.

Now forced to take me seriously, the beast finally broke its mandibles away from its webbed victim to turn in my direction. The webbing dissolved to reveal the glitching form of a crying woman, but the fact barely registered. I raised my weapon. The spider chittered its horrible noise. I gripped my mace with both hands in a vicious overhead strike, but the beast dodged backward with deceptive speed, creating more distance and readjusting its menagerie of ranged weaponry in my direction.

Then a bright blue explosion from behind me bathed everything in calming cyan. I grinned. For a second, greed and caution warred in the spider’s manifold eyes. Greed won. The Feral collapsed its weapons into itself, ducking to the side and putting on a burst of speed to get past me.

But I was not about to let it claim my prize.