Edward didn’t want to let it recover, so he stopped his fall, forming aura steps under him and forcefully enduring the change in direction to jump back at the spider. His joints protested but held on, his enhanced physic able to endure the strain. As he was reaching the Arachne, it regained its bearing. A gleam of determination flashed inside its eyes, and it detonated its aura armor, a tangible blast of aura emanated with the spider at the center and hurled Edward away.

He was only a few meters above the ground by the time he managed to stop his fall. The Arachne was still standing in the air, shaken, but unharmed. It stared at Edward and spoke up seething with rage. “Do you think you have already won? Let me douse your expectations, even if you manage to beat me this is far from the end.” In front of Edward’s baffled face, it explained further. “This world is doomed since long ago. Ever since the Damkinans tore the veil of reality to explore other dimensions.” It laughed wickedly. “What they didn’t realize is that by tearing reality over and over, always greedily adding other portals toward other dimensions, it weakened the veil between this world and the others, making it more accessible. And that’s not all, as portals were made between dimensions it only drew them closer together even attracting others they weren’t intending to reach. By the time they noticed, it was already too late. As the worlds were coming closer, mana was only continuously increasing, making it harder to close portals to worlds they would have preferred to leave alone.”

“What are you trying to say?!” Edward interrupted angrily, the joy of his opponent bothering him as dread slowly took hold of him. The part about increasing mana, in particular, made him think about the current situation.

The Arachne laughed even harder. “Let me explain in simpler terms. Old wounds are easily opened anew, the worlds are coming close once again. This portal is far from the only one.” She paused calming down. “To be honest once the portal to the Andherians world opens, even I won’t dare to stay.”

Edward was frozen stiff. There are other portals. The spiders had invaded this region and turned it into an alien hellscape, exterminating the local life. Even now, he was still struggling to push back the spiders. Portals leading to worlds infested with monsters than ever the Arachne doesn’t dare to fight. Edward was conscient that he was the only one in this region of the world to be strong enough to face the spiders, if he failed humanity would be erased from this region. But he wasn’t invincible. I’m already at my limit. What will I do if stronger monsters are invading? Is this world already doomed? He gazed at the Arachne lost in thought and noticed the sheen of aura armor on its body. Raged sparked in his mind as he noticed that the creature was only buying time to reform its armor.

“YOU FILTHY LIAR! YOU WERE ONLY TRYING TO BUY TIME!” he roared in indignation.

The Arachne shrugged, smiling. “It’s not like any of what I said was false.” It grinned. “As for buying time, you can only blame yourself.”

Edward gritted his teeth, this monster was right that he had gotten distracted, but with the gravity of the information it had disclosed no one could blame him. He let out a slow breath, focusing back on the task at hand, the fight wasn’t over yet.

With cold eyes filled with determination, Edward resumed the battle. He didn’t lose any time running upwards toward the Arachne but rather teleported high above it before dropping down and gaining speed. The spider was already used to Edward’s style and was expecting spatial shenanigans. It reacted in time to Edward’s attack, parrying the stabbing daggers while retaliating with a claw. It missed as Edward didn’t stop but instead continued to run downward gaining even more speed. His aim had been to gather more speed from the start, the first hit was only meant as a distraction for the true attack. With sufficient speed, Edward teleported once more above the Arachne, moving as a flash in its perception.

The monster was unable to react to his momentum and wasn’t able to stop him this time. Edward’s dagger hit true, biting into the spider’s aura armor. However, it had the time to form fully once again while Edward was distracted listening to the Arachne, one hit wasn’t enough to break it.

Edward continued with the same tactic, gaining speed before teleporting with the acquired momentum to outstrip the Arachne reaction speed. The Arachne moved as fast as him even while he was using his acceleration, and the advantages of its many limbs meant that he wasn’t able to land hits in the normal way, he had to rely on his teleportation and momentum to gain an advantage. But building speed took time.

As Edward was readying for another dive, the Arachne’s aura armor already fluctuating from the repeated attacks, he suddenly felt his aura perception dwindle. He looked around. While he had been busy fighting the Arachne, the wasp spiders had already achieved their task. Edward and the Arachne were in the center of a giant cocoon. The hole that had let some sun reach this haunted forest and the ground were both covered in webs anew. The wasp spiders had even erected walls of webs on the side, cutting all escape. Already the mana in the area was decreasing.

They didn’t stop there however, they were now busily thickening the cocoon’s walls, slowly reducing the space available for Edward to fight. Shit, this is bad, they were faster than I expected. How many of them are even here? There is not a single free square meter of web, they are covering it from top to bottom. Everywhere you look it’s just crawling with spiders. He glanced at the sneering Arachne. I hoped I didn’t have to behave recklessly but I don’t have a choice now.

Before the Arachne could make a move, Edward teleported right on it, directly on its abdomen. He was now right on top of the monster while his teleportation was on cooldown. The Arachne hissed at his audacity and brashness. Edward being behind its back, it was difficult for the Arachne to hit him conventionally. This didn’t mean that Edward was safe.

Even as he stabbed as swiftly and as often as he could at the weakening aura armor, the Arachne extended its aura from its claws, stretching them like tentacles as they slither above its shoulders to hunt for Edward. He didn’t even try to parry the hit, relying on his own aura armor to tank the damage while relentlessly hacking at the Arachne’s defense.

Edward had far less aura than the monsters he was usually hunting, the Arachne included. Being outperformed in terms of raw power and aura quantity he usually preferred to avoid endurance contests, saving his aura to pierce through their tough armor. Engaging the Arachne in such a way was a risky tactic since he wouldn’t be able to teleport away if something went wrong, but he didn’t have the choice anymore with the cocoon being complete.

What the Arachne didn’t see, what that even while he was tanking hits and pummeling the spider defense, he was also charging another one of Leyla’s bombs. Being already weakened, the Arachne’s armor was the first to give in under Edward’s assault, however, Edward’s armor wasn’t too far off either, fluctuating widely and on the verge of breaking at any second.

That’s when Edward teleported upwards leaving a shocked spider and a bomb ready to explode behind him. The Arachne’s eyes widened in horror as it realized its situation before being engulfed by the explosion without its aura armor to protect itself. Edward had learned his lesson and didn’t leave any time for the Arachne to react, diving down even as the explosion hadn’t subsided yet.

He reached the creature as the flames died down, the spider’s body was singed by the heat, and its chitin was even broken and bleeding in some places. However, those were still minor injuries compared to the intensity of the explosion which would have blown a grown man to pieces. Edward reached the Arachne, parrying a claw hand with one dagger, letting his armor take the blow from the second hand, and beheaded the monster with his other dagger.

The Arachne’s head flew into the air, a stunned look still etched onto its face. Edward vigorously stabbed both of his daggers in the Arachne’s bleeding neck, greedily absorbing its blood essence. As the ground was still crawling with wasp spiders, he widened his aura step under him until it formed a platform supporting both his and the Arachne’s bodies, stabilizing them in the air. He let go of his acceleration, the change of perception confusing him for a moment, as the world started to move again at normal speed. It was the first time he had spent so much time in an accelerated state and his mana was reaching an all-time low. He felt the strain disappear as he canceled his power, however, that was pushed to the back of his mind as the first ebb of blood essence reached him.

There was so much power and vitality, it carried with it the pride of the Arachne, all having to bow in front of its power. It could have been mistaken for arrogance if not for the power that came with it, the Arachne actually had the strength to back it up. Edward could sense the power flowing inside of him, building back his aura and soon after, growing it. He could feel his powers and body strengthen, he just needed mooore blood essence. He wholeheartedly focused on the Arachne’s corpse, absorbing more and more blood essence from it. He soon got lost in the feeling but it still wasn’t enough to satiate him.

Half consumed by his thirst for blood essence, he realized that he was still surrounded by an army of fat juicy spiders begging to sacrifice their essence to feed him. Not fully realizing what he was doing, he reached toward them with his aura even as he wasn’t stopping from absorbing the Arachne’s essence. His aura condensed in tendrils that shuddered briefly before shooting straight at the spiders which were far too slow to avoid them. Each tendril pierced a target and absorbed its essence within seconds, leaving behind but a desiccated corpse, as their essence was gulped and gathered in Edward’s body.

Even though a dozen tendrils were shooting out of his body, it was far fewer than the number of spiders gathered in the area. The massacre didn’t stop, each tendril searching for a new target once their prey was sucked dry of essence. The scene continued unimpeded, one spider after the other falling prey to Edward’s searching tendrils. If a stranger saw this scene at this moment, they would mistake Edward for the monster. The wasp spiders weren’t fighters in the first place and they could only shiver in fear in front of this slaughter, waiting for their turn. An undetermined amount of time passed.

Finally, Edward was full. His aura tendrils retracted and power coalesced inside of him, a powerful aura blast emanating from his form, blasting the desiccated spider’s corpses away and shaking the whole cocoon. He blinked as he regained full awareness. He felt the very air around him shift under his power. He felt like a king, even reality had to bend to his will. The feeling subsided, stabilizing in a ten-meter sphere around him. He raised a hand and the Arachne’s head that had fallen below him appeared in his palm.