124 King Spider

Ed's flames kept the closest spiders at bay. Slowly, their screeching came to a halt only to be replaced by eerie silence. The king spider pointed one of its sharp legs at Ed, as if challenging him to a proper duel.

'What kind of mess did I get myself into.' He sighed as he began walking down the web steps. 'Maybe I can con Tai out of a few more purple mana-cores if I manage to save him...' He entered the arena and stood directly across from the spider, though he looked like an ant in comparison to it.

'It probably doesn't have as much golden faith energy as me... but I can't control mine at all so that doesn't really matter. Will it have elemental powers? Or be limited to elemental webbing like the other spiders?' Chimera scales covered his body as he readied himself. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. The tension was so thick that it could be cut with a knife.

The king spider roared as it stood on its hind legs, lifting its front legs up towards the sky. It quickly crashed back down, piercing its sharp front legs into the web covered ground. The glowing black and white threads of web lightly fluttered into the air and started whirling around Ed, looking much like a yinyang symbol.

Ed stared at the swirling symbol with a deadpan face. 'Why does it feel like I'm fighting Yuki?' He wondered. Refusing to wait any longer, he released his purple flames in all directions. Shockingly, the flames bounced right off the spinning webs, likely due to the centripetal force. 'Great...' He thought as he looked for another exit.

Suddenly, the webs beneath his feet began to spin as well. The swirling webs started to shrink, slowly enclosing him within a smaller space.

'It wants to grind me to death?' He concentrated on his recently opened meridians, pulling out as much purple mana as he could to fuel his flames. Unfortunately, the most he was able to handle was keeping the webs at bay. He failed to break through the ceiling, walls, and floors, leaving him completely trapped. He didn't even bother trying to use his mana-batteries since they hadn't worked on the weaker spiders' webs.

Several minutes passed, and they were still in a stalemate. 'Am I really going to have to blow up my mana-batteries again?' He wondered. There was little doubt that an explosion of that level could allow him to escape and defeat the spider. But then he would be without mana-batteries for the rest of his journey to China. Not to mention that he had just gotten around to replacing them. 'No.' He shook his head. 'I can't always rely on external power. More importantly, I don't feel like replacing them again.' He frowned as he searched for a solution. 'Actually... I just opened all of my organ meridians and filled them with mana. My mana capacity is literally three times what it was just a few days ago... Can the spider even outlast me in a battle of endurance?'

Convinced that he had found the solution to his problem, he sat down cross-legged despite being in the middle of the fight. His purple flames continued to blaze and hold the webs at bay. "Humph." He snorted. "Let's see who lasts longer." He closed his eyes and entered a partial state of meditation, focusing on using his powers as efficiently as possible while also attempting to speed up his mana recovery.

Minutes turned into hours as the battle between the two continued. Ed's breathing had grown rougher, but he was still holding on just fine. 'I bet I could keep this up for an entire day if I had to.' He smirked.

The spider was faring much worse. Its mana was limited to whatever it was born with. Even if the spiders had evolved as an intelligent species, they lacked proper training. Much like how Ed's peers in America would likely remain several steps behind him if they didn't learn any cultivation techniques, the king spider suffered from the same fate.

Slowly, the king spider's webs began grinding to a halt. They lightly fell to the ground as they lost their source of fuel. Enraged, the king spider charged forward, preparing to stab and crush its enemy to death.

"Finally." Ed smiled as he leisurely stood up from the ground. He didn't wish to wait for the spider to gain momentum, so he rocketed himself into the air using his purple flames. He looked like little more than a speck when he neared the king spider, but that didn't deter him in the least. Instead, it made him more confident that he was a difficult target to attack.

The king spider appeared clumsy as it failed to swat Ed and continuously missed. It was similar to watching a human try to swat a fly, always just barely missing at the final moment.

The wind stung Ed's face every time he narrowly avoided the king spider's legs. Fortunately, he was far more agile than it. 'Heh, I bet it wishes it could shrink its body like Tao.' He finally managed to get close to the spider's head. Eight golden eyes several times larger than himself glared angrily at him.

'In I go.' He raised his arms and fired purple flames, easily melting one of the eyes into a tunnel.

The king spider raged and shrieked as it danced back and forth, shaking its head in an attempt to expel the vile esper that invaded its body. The crowd of spiders panicked and returned the shrieks, turning the dome into a noisy concert hall of horror.

'Hmm...' Ed rubbed his chin as he kept expanding the tunnel. 'The brain and mana-core should be that way... Feels more like I'm mining rather than burrowing through a living creature. I wonder if this is how tape worms feel?' Discarding his nonsensical thoughts, he continued forward. It was hard to keep his footing as the spider rolled back-and-forth, doing everything it could to shake him off. Fortunately, his purple flames sealed the spider's wounds shut as he went. Otherwise, he'd probably be covered in slippery spider gunk by now, which would make it difficult to keep from falling.

After several minutes, he reached the center of the brain. 'Good, it has a mana-core.' He nodded. 'Though I was hoping it'd be bigger.' The mana-core in front of him was about the size of his fist. It was far bigger than ordinary mana-cores, which were usually only the size of a marble. But considering the sheer size of the spider, he had half-expected a much larger mana-core. 'Maybe there's a limit to mana-core size regardless of the size of the mutant?' He theorized.

Carefully extracting the half-black and half-white mana-core, the king spider's movements came to a stop, and it collapsed to the ground.

'Here it comes...' Ed sighed. 'I really hope this doesn't kill me.'

Much like in the past with the Governor of Florida, the king spider's golden faith energy began transferring to Ed. However, the volume was much smaller in comparison to his past experience.

Ed blanked out and appeared in his unconscious space. He watched the various souls fly past, their lives flashing before his eyes. There were quite a few humans, of which about a hundred were ones he recognized from Tai's crew. The other humans were past citizens of Hawaii and other victims that had entered the island over the years. However, the human souls were few and far between when compared to the souls of the spider mutants. At the very least, there had to be a million spider souls transferring to him as golden faith energy. Fortunately, the spiders' souls were far weaker than the human and esper souls, so the amount and burden of golden faith energy weren't that much. Only a few more cracks appeared on his soul body, though that still greatly discomforted him.

'It's finished.' He sighed in relief as the last soul flew past him and into the mass of golden faith energy near his mana-core. A few seconds later, he woke up and was in the collapsed king spider's body. He pocketed the fist-sized mana-core, planning to turn it into mana-powders at a later time. Then he melted his way through the spider's flesh, returning to the webbed dome of spiders.

The screeching spiders quieted down as they stared at the victorious esper that defeated their king. Some appeared nervous and fidgety, while others seemed completely indifferent. But soon, something incredibly shocking happened. One by one, the spiders began to bow down towards Ed. It was like a wave passing through the crowd, and soon, every spider in the dome was kowtowing to him. Invisible to the naked eye, tiny traces of golden faith energy flowed towards him.

Ed stared speechlessly at the strange spiders. 'I wanted to become a ruler someday... but this isn't quite what I had in mind.'

Suddenly, a spider he recognized climbed down and stood in front of him. It was the one that had pointed the way towards the colosseum. The spider pointed in another direction and began walking.

Ed rose an eyebrow as he nodded and followed behind the large spider. They entered a dark tunnel that led far below ground. After nearly an hour of walking, Ed's eyes widened in a mix of surprise and shock. 'Another manullium mine... and it's an ordinary one for once.' Crude cages constructed from manullium ore held the prisoners inside. The purple ore wasn't even slightly purified, and some of the more talented espers such as Tai could probably still use their powers. But how would they defeat the spiders with incredible defense even if they managed to escape?

Unlike the cage and the Reef city mine, this manullium mine was like the one in New Hampshire. There was no purple lava or smoke. Large purple meteor-like objects made of manullium ore hovered in midair, allowing nothing to come near them. Traces of manullium ore were lodged in the ground everywhere. 'Hmm.' He rubbed his chin. 'If the spiders have accepted me as their king, then this manullium is all mine now, right?'

"Ed!" A voice yelled in surprised delight. Tai was in a cage with many other espers. Additionally, there were many espers that Ed didn't recognize. Clearly the spiders had been raising them like livestock for the colosseum. They were probably the original inhabitants of Hawaii as well as those that had visited over the decades.

"Yo, Tai." Ed grinned as he waved. "How much are you going to pay me to help you and your men out?" He whistled as he slowly looked them all over. "It's looking to be expensive."

Tai frowned. "Don't forget that you need me and my men to properly sail away from this island. Unless you kept the ship you came here with?"

"Oh?" Ed chuckled. "And what if I just steal your ship? Besides, you're a prisoner right now. What's to stop me from just taking the purple mana-cores?"

"You can try?" He waved his hand mockingly as seven flames of different colors lit up on his arms.

"Tsk." Ed clicked his tongue. "So stingy to the guy that came to save your life. I'll just take advantage of your sect resources in the future. Be sure to become the leader someday and pay tributes to the dear friend that saved your life." He glanced at the spider. "Can you understand me?" He asked while feeling slightly ridiculous. However, he knew that Tao could understand him, so the idea wasn't that farfetched.

The large spider nodded before lowering its head to show its respect.

"Good." He nodded while pointing towards Tai. "Release all the prisoners that you captured with him. They're with me."

The spider screeched, and a moment later, dozens of smaller spiders appeared from seemingly nowhere. They quickly set to work releasing Tai and his forces. Before long, all of Tai's men had been released. They excitedly chatted a short distance away.

"What about us?!" Someone unrelated yelled as they stuck their face against the crude cage.

Tai glanced back-and-forth between Ed and the prisoners. "I won't interfere." He sighed. "Truthfully, I wouldn't trust bringing these unrelated espers to China with me. It's not like the cage where I had time to properly select them."

"Hmm..." Ed rubbed his chin while looking around the place. He looked to the large spider again. "From now on, keep feeding these espers, but don't make them fight to the death. I'll still allow you to let them fight for entertainment though." He pointed towards the manullium ore in the mines. "Each day, I want you to have the prisoners gather ore for four hours. Make sure they don't slack during that time. As for the rest of the day, just let them sleep, eat, and relax."

The large spider hesitated a moment before nodding. Releasing another few screeches, the spiders began working the imprisoned espers like slaves. If any of them slacked, a quick whack of spider webbing quickly got them back to work.

"Let's go." Ed said while looking at Tai.

"Are you sure that's what you want to do with them?" Tai questioned while looking at the imprisoned espers. "You might be able to convince them to join Harmony or something."

"There's no point." Ed shook his head. "I'd need a way to transport them to America, and then I'd need a way to ensure their loyalty despite me leaving for a long time. There simply isn't enough time to indoctrinate them. Besides." He glanced at the manullium, desire sparking in his eyes. "Who knows how much manullium they'll gather while I'm gone. Between it and the spiders, I'd say my combat forces just rose significantly."

"Maybe..." Tai half-agreed. "But faith energy is often unstable and difficult to manage. What if a new king spider rises up?"

"Ah, good point." Ed nodded while rubbing his chin. He looked back towards the nearby large spider. "Hey." He called. "Build statues of me around the entire island and make all the spiders worship them. If any spiders step out of line and worship another spider or human, all other spiders are to kill it immediately. Those spiders are false gods and must be exterminated."

The spider nodded and screeched, passing the orders to the smaller spiders.

Tai and his men followed Ed as they walked for nearly an hour to leave the dark tunnel. Almost as soon as they left the tunnel, they started seeing spiders kowtowing to black and white statues of Ed.

"It's surreal how fast they work..." One of Tai's men muttered.

"Mm." Tai agreed. "They're ideal workers to have, providing golden faith energy so easily." He glanced a bit enviously at Ed.

"They certainly make for a good source of faith." Ed nodded in agreement. "Humans would be much harder to convince. It's too bad the spiders have such weak souls though." He sighed while shaking his head. "Otherwise, I'd be drowning in golden faith energy right now."

The large group slowly moved from the forest and returned to the wooden ship. Ed glanced at Tai. Finally, he could ask the question that had been burning in the back of his mind since he arrived. "So... What's with the ordinary wooden ship?"