Chapter 138 Futility of Struggling

“No, no, no…!”

He frantically swatted his arm in a panic, backing away and picking himself up before slipping right into a curtain of webs.

“Gah…!”

It certainly wasn’t there before; the net of webs that entangled him as he thrashed his limbs about. The cobweb was made out of scarily powerful threads; they were adhesive, sticking to his clothes and skin as his physical strength alone wasn’t enough. In fact, it seemed the more he tussled, the more he was caught in the webs.

As he got himself tangled in the colossal cobweb that stretched from the grass and between trees, fuzzy arachnids the size of his head began closing in on him.

“…Hell no!” He yelled.

Finally resorting to the usage of magecraft, he unleashed a blind blast of fire off of his position; it was unfocused and simply let out with the intent of burning the webs. Though he was freed, it seemed that the heat peeled the webs from him, but didn’t burn them away as he stumbled away, swatting himself as an itchy sensation crawled all over his skin.

As he slapped himself to rid his body of the ‘itchy crawlies’, he looked back at the webs, perplexed by their durability.

…The flames didn’t burn them away? What the hell are they made out of?! He questioned.

Bringing his gaze up, he found himself meeting eye-to-‘eyes’ with an eight-legged horror that was hanging upside-down in front of him. It had a red belly and black skin, covered in jet-black fuz as it wriggled its abhorrent legs in front of his face.

It had to have descended from a far-above branch, as he wasn’t standing near any trees.

It was roughly the size of his own head, and much past ‘large enough’ to warrant a reaction that was less than composed.

A girlish shriek left his mouth as he jumped back, pointing his staff forward as he unleashed a condensed stream of orange flames against the creepy-crawly.

As the catalyst-born flamethrower quelled, he caught his frantic breath as he looked towards where the hanging arachnid was, finding nothing.

The truth was, Emilio had an extremely high-level case of ‘arachnophobia’; after encountering the face-sized spider, he began to realize what was happening as it seemed unavoidable to run into more arachnid situations.

…It’s the ‘Unending Nightmare’! It’s as he said: it manifests your deepest fears! He realized.

It was confirmed once again as when he turned around, he saw an army of dog-sized spiders crawling towards him from several meters away.

“Gah!”

Without any hesitation, he bolted in the opposite direction, diverging from the path of the park and deeper into the trees.

The further he delved into the sea of trees, the denser the webs came that carpeted the grass and clad the cedar.

In his aimless run, he once again found himself crashing right into an obstacle–

“Wah…!”

A thread was suspended between two trees, serving as a tripwire that he ran straight into, causing him to flip over as it tangled itself around his ankles and hung him upside-down. The disorienting shift in motion caused him to drop his staff.

What the…?! A trap?! He thought.

His wooden catalyst was out of reach on the ground; he was suspended a good few meters above the cobweb-layered field.

As he subtly swung back-and-forth upside-down, he struggled to look up as he found the web around his ankles to be different from the others around the park: it was more silver than pale-white, like a pristine platinum.

On the trees above him, which the platinum web was attached to, he could see spiders traversing the branches and closing in.

…I’m not dealing with this! He thought.

Just as he attempted to manifest a wild burst of flame magic around himself–nothing came. Instead, he felt a sudden rise of weakness throughout his body like a rapidly-spurring sickness that spawned from his gut.

Wh-what is this…? He thought.

Whatever the sudden sickness was, it made it feel impossible to control his mana as if it was distorted inside of him, swirling inside of him and unable to be condensed.

As he strained himself to look up, he found the likely cause: the fangs of a pale-brown spider had sunk into his calf. When looking at the fiend in question, he could feel the enigmatic venom pumping into him as his veins became apparent in the place of the injection.

“…I’m off-limits!” He said through clenched teeth.

Swatting his leg, he managed to make the spider jump away, but the deed was done; the venom took hold of his body as he was left dizzy and utterly discombobulated.

It flowed through his leg to his head like a seering dose of NyQuil; the venom birthed itself in a sensation that swapped his motor skills, making his movements mixed up.

…My body isn’t responding! It feels like food poisoning…times one-hundred! He thought.

While his foggied mind and disturbed body made magic usage improbable, he tried reaching to his hip for the handle of his sheathed blade, but the absent strength in his fingertips wasn’t enough before ‘something’ arrived.

It was a large figure, whatever it was; a shadow loomed over him as the tree branches above creaked beneath its weight.

Part of him was too afraid to open his eyes again to see whatever was hanging over him, but of course, reality must be faced.

As he parted his eyelids, he found sweat exuding his pores in an anxious perspiration at the sight of it: it dwarfed him in size by at least three times. The first comparison in his mind was that to the size and broadness of a truck.

It was an arachnid, mightier than any he’d seen before. No doubt by the stillness of the other spiders in the web-covered domain of trees was this the ‘boss’ of the crawlers.

Oh, shit…He thought.

The beastly spider was all-black with a coat of fuzzy, snow-white fur and a crimson streak running down its belly as its bulbous abdomen oozed out the platinum threads that were suspending him.

Some sort of secretion dripped from its mandibles, which were larger than his own arms as they clamped down repeatedly in hunger, flexing like muscles.

Worse of all were its many, beady eyes that stared at him like a nighttime snack.

The first instinct he called upon was flame magic, but his feverish body didn’t reply. It began to slowly close in on him, flexing its eight legs.

Crap, crap, crap…! He thought.

As blood rushed to his head while held upside down, he strained himself to reach for his treasured sword, though his fingertips were only able to gently graze the handle.

In such a precarious position with the man-eating, colossal arachnid nearing him, and many other of its spawn waiting, he felt the coldness of death trickling against his skin as his mind wanted to panic.

Remember what Father taught you…! As rigid as a mountain!–Focus! He told himself.

As hard as he tried, the weakness that set through his veins was something that willpower simply couldn’t overcome.

The fresh, painful memories of loss floated to the surface of his mind as he recalled his companions’ fate, but also the future he needed to walk on: the path ahead of him, and the others he needed to return to.

Just as the prickly sensation of the arachnid’s fuzz met his body, he managed to exert the slightest breeze of air from his fingertips; it was magic that was simply inconsequential–any other time except this exact moment, that is.

It was just enough to jiggle Silver Wing from its scabbard, bringing the handle just a few inches lower, enabling him to grip it.

“Graaah!”

In one motion, summoning everything from his body, he drew the blade and swept it through the air, using the natural arch of gravity to his advantage as the sharp steel sliced right through the platinum threads.

The swipe of the blade caused the hungering arachnids to back away momentarily.

“Waah-!”

Though he freed himself, he found himself staring down at the ground as he plummeted without the ability to land properly, instead having to brace himself for a less-than-comfortable impact.

…Shit! Still…I made it! He thought.

As he picked himself up, he breathed heavily, catching his breath into his aching lungs as he briefly looked back. The sight of the swarm of spiders, varying in size but not varying in horror, prompted him to begin running.

Though ‘running’ was putting it highly as the fever-inducing venom flowing through his body made him move like a drunken man, finding himself bumping into trees as he hurried away.

I won’t make it like this…He thought.

Even the sword felt like a boulder held in his fingertips; dragging himself along, he was short of breath as he heard the branches behind him being bent beneath the weight of the carnivorous spiders; their innumerable legs scattering over the wood.

Through his sickly state, he didn’t notice the tree root jutting out from the ground, resulting in him tripping over as his chin smacked against the soil harshly.

“Ghh…” He groaned.

Part of him was so tired that he simply felt like succumbing to it all.

But, that feeling was dissuaded as he gripped the soil, pulling himself forward as he tried to crawl away at a snail’s pace.

“…I can’t die…not yet…” He mumbled weakly.