Edward headed out, following the threads’ alignment to find the nearest nest. He had been in the open for only a few minutes when he spotted wasp spiders above him resting on their webs. They had never attacked him until now, only taking care of producing more webs and maintaining the existing ones. They weren’t a danger, but having spotted him, Edward knew that trouble would come soon. He hurried up, air pressing against his face as he was moving fast enough to generate his own wind.

Not long after, wolf spiders squadrons went after him one after the other. However, Edward found them somewhat slower than usual. The one coming from behind and from the sides had trouble catching up to him. Did something happen to them or have I just become faster? Edward wondered. Anyway, this is fine for me. I don’t have the time to fight them all. I’m here for a bigger fish. And seeing how many there are and how quickly they reacted they must have been on the lookout for me. I only have limited time before the Arachne comes for me.

Even for the spiders coming from the front, Edward didn’t bother fighting them, instead only slightly raising his altitude and running in the air above them. The spiders swiftly adjusted their tactics, climbing on trees to reach the webs above before dropping on him as he was passing under them.

Edward didn’t have to use his acceleration yet, he was able to adjust his aura steps to avoid the falling spiders while killing them with a quick slash of his dagger. The forest was teeming with them, the webs only visible between the space separating one spider from the other. Although to be fair, their number was lower than it seemed since they were using illusions to add copies of themselves.

This didn’t stop Edward to aim for the nest. He was already committed, there was no falling back now, with this many spiders after him he wouldn’t be able to ditch them and hide. It is fine if they want to follow me. It will only make a bigger firework when the nest will explode.

As the nest appeared in sight, the tower connecting the webs from the ground to the ones covering the sky, a portal opened on a tree in front of Edward and a giant tarantula emerged from it. They are already here. This was earlier than I expected. I will have to deal with them, I can’t enter the nest while they can portal anywhere near me.

Edward rushed at it, but the spider disappeared inside the portal only to reappear further away. It is not daring to fight me by itself. The surroundings were full of spiders, but both the tarantula and Edward knew they were nothing more than cannon fodder. Only monsters able to use aura presented a real danger. Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to chase it down if the tarantula wanted to escape, Edward gave up on it, he didn’t have time to waste. Instead, he headed back for the nest, wanting to force the spider’s hand. It was a dangerous game since he needed to enter the nest for the bomb to be effective, and the closer he was to the webs, the more effective the tarantula’s ambushes would be.

However, as he approached the nest, he realized that it was covered by wolf spiders, even the cocoons on it were beginning to split open, spilling head-sized spiders to complete the picture. I won’t be able to cut the webs and dig manually into the nest. Edward whipped his rune flamethrower, aimed at the nest, and poured mana into it, not caring about the amount of mana he was spending. The spiders burst into flames with crackling noises, their burning corpses falling at the bottom of the tower. But the flames were barely able to reach the nest itself, more spiders were rushing into the flames at the same time that the previous ones were dropping to the ground. Other spiders even jumped from the nest to reach him, forcing him to slice them apart with his dagger in his other hand. Edward clicked his tongue in annoyance. He didn’t need fire to kill those spiders, he could handle them with his daggers alone. By jumping into the fire they were throwing their life away, but managing to stop him by doing so. Only a few centimeters of the nest had been burned.

As his artifact was growing hotter by the moment, and since the results of the assault were so meager, Edward decided to fall back. Just at that moment a portal opened on the nest, and the tarantula shot out of it. Being too close to avoid the spider properly, Edward was forced to teleport away, letting the spider fall to the ground and disappear in another portal on the same occasion.

I can’t stop. I have to destroy the nest before the Arachne catches up to me. Otherwise, I’m as good as dead, fighting it in a one-on-one will be difficult enough. Fighting it in a sea of spiders is suicide. Edward gritted his teeth. Time to go all out.

“Rèng khwāmrĕw”, he used his acceleration. He rushed back at the nest, throwing aura blades left and right to clear the area of spiders. Before they could regroup, he whipped his flamethrower again and burned at the nest in the same spot as before, which was now free of spiders. He stood sideways, one hand holding the flamethrower aimed at the nest, the other fending off the spiders that were started to come back. Luckily, with his acceleration, the spiders were moving in slow motion and he was able to chop them into pieces before they could reach him, even while using a single hand. As he dug with fire inside the nest, the opening from where the spiders could come reduced and made his work easier.

The situation seemed to be turning for the better, however, Edward was tensed and on his toes ready to leave at a moment’s notice. He was now deep inside the nest, webs surrounding him from every direction. He suddenly felt his footing disappear and immediately teleported away without wasting a breath. Fangs bit into the air where Edward had stood a moment ago. A small space surrounded by webs was the perfect hunting environment for the tarantula which could open a portal from any direction while Edward had no room to avoid an attack. However, the tunnel Edward had dung inside the nest was of his size and the spider was too big to fit inside. It hissed and returned to its portal, waiting for another occasion.

“Fuck it!” Edward swore taking out another of Leyla’s bombs. His supply wasn’t unlimited, Leyla only had the time to make ten such bombs, but if he could kill the Arachne and destroy the portal he wouldn’t need more of them. Even if there were still a few nests leftovers, once the spider source was destroyed, Edward could come back later.

He charged the bomb with mana, he only managed to dig five meters inside the nest which was having a radius of twenty-five meters. He was far from the center, so using a bomb now would be suboptimal, the mana density wasn’t as high as he wanted and he doubted the explosion would be enough to destroy the nest. But he didn’t have much of a choice, he needed to clear the way. He had been able to force the wolf spiders apart to reach the nest, but once inside he wasn’t able to deal with the tarantula that could attack him anytime from any angle.

During the brief respite where Edward was charging the bomb, the wolf spiders regroup, blocking access to the nest. However, the tarantula’s eyes flashed with understanding and fear and it quietly disappeared inside a portal, not staying anywhere near the nest.

Once the bomb was ready, Edward resumed his assault, firing aura blades to clear the area, before launching the bomb in the hole that he had burned inside the nest through the different layers of webs. He teleported away, appearing a good seventy meters aside from the nest. Several seconds later an explosion rocked the tower, shaking it from left to right, as a crater formed where the bomb had been. The explosion was far from enough to destroy the nest, the mana the bomb had access to was lacking, unable to amplify the damage further. Still, the crater was ten meters in diameter, making a large opening in the nest where Edward would be able to fight more freely. Mana started to bleed from the nest into the surroundings, increasing the local mana density. Additionally, added to the length of the previous hole, he had now reached fifteen meters inside the structure and he only had a few meters to pierce to reach the heart of the nest and blow it to smithereens.

The tarantula watched warily as Edward charged back toward the nest, it took a decision and formed another portal, dropping above Edward before he could take out his flamethrower. He avoided the attack by walking to the side, but the tarantula wasn’t done yet. It continuously formed portals one after the other, harassing Edward and preventing him from progressing further. However, with a large open space, Edward didn’t need to teleport away anymore and was able to sustain the attack without retreating.

The wolf spiders once more swarmed the area, many of them had been killed by the explosion, but their numbers seemed never-ending. More coming from the environs by the second. Edward threw them a glance. There are definitely more than usual. All the spiders’ forces must be concentrated in this area. It suits me, I’ll be killing a thousand spiders in one big package. I just need to get rid of this annoying tarantula first.

Being close to the webs meant that he had to react very fast to avoid the tarantula coming out from ever-changing portals. But it also meant he was within range to fight back. As the spider emerged from behind him, jumping to sink its fangs into him, he was the fastest of the two. He teleported on its back, concentrated his aura in one blade, making it as dense as he could, and stoke with a mighty blow. The spider buckled under the blow, its armor flickering, and its trajectory altered making it miss its escape portal.

Edward didn’t chain quick blows, but instead repeated powerful impact, taking the time between two hits to reinforce the aura blade, and hitting as mightily as he physically could. Each blow impacted the spider, shaking it on its legs from the impact. Terror flashed in its eyes as it realized that it had vastly underestimated Edward’s power. Edward had improved significantly since their last fight, and this time it was a one-on-one, there wasn’t another tarantula to ambush him and force him to abort his assault.

With a few more hits the tarantula’s armor broke, and Edward’s blade impaled it, killing it on the same occasion. By this time the wolf spiders were already close enough to assault him, surrounding him from all sides.