I found myself stuck, unable to slither away. The mother Aridae continued to drift down on her shimmering thread, its arrival as inevitable as the Great Core’s victory.

Or at least, I hoped the Great Core’s victory was inevitable.

I prayed for it, because otherwise things were looking extremely bad right about now. I hissed weakly, chastising myself for my lack of faith. Unfortunately, that was the extent of what I could do. My entire length had gone numb and lifeless, from the tip of my tail to my head. The slow-venom had spread its cooling touch, grasping me with icy hands that were just as powerful as that of the female Coreless.

I couldn’t move.

I could only pray.

The giant Aridae touched the stone floor of the alcove. Her many, many legs flexed, cushioning the impact. Before I knew it, she was waiting next to me.

Her enormous set of fangs pierced through my scales; the sensation was heavily numbed by the infant Aridae’s slow-venom. I was thankful to the Great Core for that mercy, as I could see my lifeblood beginning to pool around me as if to challenge the beauty of the nearby mana-water.

The crimson fluid glinted, reflecting the light of the glow-caps that reached into the alcove. I could see my reflection in it as well; I could see the same image that I had earlier, reflected in the brilliant blues of the mana-water. An orb inset into my head-scales, looking as if it were the Great Core itself.

That gave me some comfort. Despite that, I was cold.

So, so cold.

Any thoughts that I had of escape were quietly erased, eased into their helpless passing by the combination of blood loss and the slow-venom.

I found myself wrapped up in shimmering white threads; they were soft and rather warm, providing some small comfort against the chill of my thoughts and body. I could still see slightly through the gaps in the threads, allowing me to watch as the mother Aridae pulled me upwards, hauling me up the walls with a connecting thread and seeming entirely at ease. I could see it; it did not feel threatened by me. It did not feel threatened by the chosen creation of the Great Core.

The thought was like a flame, burning me from the inside out. It fought against the chilling slow-venom that had iced over my thoughts; it warred against the numbness that held dominion over my body.

Slowly, I opened my mouth, letting out my tongue and hissing in defiance. It tasted good. It tasted right.

The Aridae had made a mistake in challenging me. More importantly, it had made a mistake in challenging the Great Core’s wisdom. The Great Core had selected me as its sole defender, and had given me great potential to go alongside that position. Whatever it took, I would ensure that it would learn of its mistake. However long it took.

I wriggled slightly. It wasn’t much; my length barely jostled, my bindings hardly moved. It was a start.

Before I could manage to break free, we reached the cavern’s ceiling. It was a different world, viewed from this high. I would not have imagined that the glow-caps would look so small, that the giant pool of mana-water would appear so...limited.

The Aridae had pulled me into a vast network of shimmering white threads, stringing across the distance between massive stone-spikes. The threads twisted together, forming themselves into great bridges, easily allowing the giant bulk of the Aridae to travel across. I imagined that even I, without the many legs of the Aridae, might be able to slither across their lengths.

The giant bad-thing stuck me onto a bundled mass of the threads, thicker than some of the others. I could see others, bad-things that had lost in battle to the Aridae, bundled up in threads of their own. Some wriggled and thrashed, fighting against the bindings that held them. Others were limp and still, having suffered either the deaths of their bodies or of their wills.

I wriggled again, refusing to be one of them. The slow-venom fought against me, but I wriggled once more, bouncing on the threads that I had been attached to.

The Great Core blessed me for my conviction.

The thought-light flickered.

Resistance: [Venom Resistance - Basic I] Increased.

[Venom Resistance - Basic II] Acquired.

A portion of the numbness left my mind and length. I wriggled with greater force, fighting against the slow-venom’s effects. Still, the shimmering threads of white held on tightly.

I kept trying. The thread bundle thrummed, vibrating under the force of my struggles. The mother Aridae came back.

Desperately, I pulled most of my remaining venom into my mouth.

I spit.

The threads in front of my mouth blocked much of my attempt; droplets of venom splashed back at me, searing my eyes. I was not immune to my own venom, as I had always known. Despite that, I was willing to endure the pain if it meant that I could punish the bad-thing.

Globules of venom, those that were not blocked by the threads, splashed onto the mother Aridae. It twitched, as if only annoyed by my attempts to harm it.

Her fangs pierced my scales again.

The numbness came back, ushered in by the flood of slow-venom. My resistance to it had increased, but that managed little in the face of the amount that had been poured into me. I fell limp once more, my length dangling uselessly from the network of threads.

I felt weak. Slow. Powerless.

I hung like that for a long time. Hours. More, maybe. The slow-venom was losing its effect, but it didn’t matter. It was too late.

The wounds from the Aridae, both infant and mother, were too much. A few times, I tried to bend enough to reach my tail. I knew that if I could do that, I might be able to heal enough to resist.

Each time, my struggles alerted the mother Aridae, and I was turned helpless once more.

Each time, I lost a little more blood.

Each time, I lost a little more faith.

Each time, I prayed a little less.

How was this happening?

Had the Great Core abandoned me? Had it chosen to let me die?

Because I was dying.

I had seen enough of death to know that. I had seen the way that injured bad-things fell limp and quiet as blood burst from their skin-flesh. I had seen the way that they had struggled at first, desperately fighting to survive. I had seen the way that they had given up.

Just like me.

It felt strange to feel a connection to those bad-things. I had always considered myself as something above them, something greater than them, because I knew it to be true. I was created by the Great Core. The thought-light told me that I had great potential.

I knew that I would be great.

Why, then, was I dying?

Where was my greatness?

Where did it go?

Where?

Where?

Where?

My thoughts were weak. I was weak. The threads that wrapped around me had been dyed crimson with my blood; it dripped down to the cavern below, forming tiny red splotches that I could only faintly see. Whether that was due to the droplets of venom that had seared their way across much of my eyes or just the distance, I wasn’t sure.

It didn’t really matter. Nothing did.

The thought-light appeared once again.

Resistance: [Venom Resistance - Basic III] Increased.

[Venom Resistance - Basic IV] Acquired.

I knew enough to not care anymore. It was not the first time that it had happened. The increased resistance beat back the numbing grasp of the slow-venom, but that wasn’t enough. I had tried to escape time and time again.

Each time, my struggles only brought the mother Aridae back.

Each time, they only brought the fangs back.

Piercing resistance had increased at one point, as well. That, too, did little to help.

I would not escape from my threads of red. There were no sacred fast-spots here to speed my escape, no slow-spots to block the Aridae. The Great Core had abandoned me.

There was no reason to struggle.

Drop by crimson drop, my will faded. My length went numb - not with slow-venom this time, but with pure lethargy. I was tired of struggling.

In the end, I faded as well.

In my last moments, I imagined that I saw the light of the Great Core again, as strong as it had ever been. I imagined that the thought-light flickered. I imagined that I felt hope.

Condition Met.

Core Skill - [The Endless Cycle] Activated.

Returning To Start Of The Cycle.