Heavy rain fell in punishing, freezing sheets, turning the narrow path into a treacherous trudge of mud and rotted leaves. Before them, the Great Weaver stood like a monument of nightmare. Its pitch-black eight eyes, varying in size, shimmered with wet light, reflecting Kurt’s lone, wide eye.

Kurt felt the shaking of Hope’s body against his spine. She was vibrating with a primal, bone-deep terror. He could hear her breath hitching into jagged, silent sobs against his shoulder.

"Hope," Kurt whispered, his voice barely audible over the clatter of the spider’s mandibles. "Listen to me. Pull your hood low. Close your eyes. Don’t look at it. Just hold onto me as tight as you can. I’ve got you, ok?"

He felt her small arms lock around his neck, nearly choking him, and her legs squeeze his waist with surprising strength. Kurt reached back with his left arm, hooking it under her legs to lock her against his back, while his right hand gripped the matte-black sword. The blade absorbed any flashes of lighting like a void in the storm.

The monster finally shifted. It moved with a sickening, liquid grace, its long, spindly legs thudding against the earth. Kurt began to circle, his boots sliding through the muck. Every muscle in his body was tightening; his Strengthening Magic hummed beneath his skin like a live wire ready to explode.

He took a cautious step, but the mud betrayed him. His heel came down on a water-logged branch.

Crack

*SCREEEEECH!!!*

The sound was like a starting pistol. The Great Weaver let out a high-pitched, ear-piercing screech that vibrated in Kurt’s teeth. The monster lunged, moving far faster than anything that size should.

Kurt threw himself to the left. The monster’s massive thorax slammed into the ground where he had been standing, the impact sending a spray of gravel into the air. Before Kurt could recover, one of the creature’s forward legs swung in a wide, horizontal arc.

"No–!"

He didn’t have time to dodge again. He brought the black sword up, bracing the flat of the blade with his palm. The impact felt like being hit by a runaway carriage. The metal shrieked against the chitinous leg, and Kurt, holding himself steady, was sent skidding five feet back through the mud, his boots carving deep furrows in the earth.

"I’m scared! Kurt, I’m scared!" Hope screamed into his cloak.

"I know, Hope! I know! Just keep your head down! I’m not letting go! I promise!"

*SCREEEEECH!!!*

The spider reared up on its hind legs, its pulsing violet abdomen glowing brighter. It hissed, and a mass of thick, grey webbing erupted from its spinnerets. It came at him like a weighted net. Kurt ducked, the sticky, foul-smelling mass whistling over his head and slamming into a tree behind him with enough force to snap the trunk.

’I can’t do this, not here. Not in the open. Especially with her on my back.’

He turned and bolted. He used his Strengthening Magic to its limit, his legs pumping with supernatural power as he sprinted deeper into the woods. Behind him, he heard the terrifying thud-thud-thud-thud of the Great Weaver giving chase. It didn’t matter how fast he ran; the monster was built for this terrain. It leaped between the gnarled trees, its legs clicking against the bark like hammers.

Suddenly, the tingly sensation of his Adaptation skill flared again. But this time, time didn’t slow down. Instead, he felt a violent jerk at his back.

"KURT!" Hope shrieked impure terror and agony.

Kurt spun a full 180 degrees on his heel. A strand of webbing had latched onto Hope’s cloak. The spider was perched on a high branch, reeling the silk in with its front legs, dragging the girl off his back.

"No!" Kurt lunged forward, swinging his sword at the strand. The matte-black steel struck the silk, but the webbing was incredibly dense and elastic. The blade bounced off, barely making a nick.

The spider pulled harder and Hope’s grip on Kurt’s neck began to slip.

"LET HER GO!" Kurt roared, focusing his mana into the blade.

A jagged, blue aura erupted around the sword. He swung again, and this time the enchanted edge sliced through the silk like it was warm butter. The tension snapped, and the spider stumbled backward on its branch, falling hard to the ground, struggling to flip itself back over.

Kurt caught Hope as she fell, her face ghostly pale and teeth clattering. He scanned the immediate area, desperation clawing at his throat. Then, he saw it. An old oak tree, its base hollow.

He sprinted to the tree and practically stuffed Hope into the narrow, dark opening.

"Stay here! Don’t move! Don’t make a sound!" he commanded, his voice trembling with urgency.

"No! Don’t go! Don’t leave me alone! You said you wouldn’t leave me!" Hope grabbed his bloody sleeve, her fingers digging in. "Please! It’s going to eat me! I’m scared, Kurt!"

Kurt knelt for a split second, grabbing her shoulders. He looked her straight in her eyes, his gaze a hard, unbreakable promise. "Hope, look at me. If I don’t kill it now, it will follow us all the way to the estate. I have to do this. I will be back. I swear."

*SCREEEEECH!!!*

He heard the Spinner’s screech nearby. It had recovered. He gently pried her hands off his arm. "Stay deep in the hollow. Be silent. It won’t find you here."

He turned and vanished into the rain before she could say another word. Hope retreated into the pitch-black heart of the tree, curling into a ball and weeping silently, the sound of the storm drowning out her grief.

Kurt didn’t run away. He circled back through the undergrowth, his mana coating flickering as he tried to conserve energy. He moved like a shadow, his dark cloak blending into the wet bark of the trees. He saw the Great Weaver; it was on the upright on the ground now, its many eyes scanning the brush, looking for the "meat" that had escaped its web.

He waited for a flash of lightning

Rumble— CRASH!

’Now!’

In the momentary whiteout, Kurt launched himself from a high root. He fell like a stone, his mana-coated blade pointed downward. The spider sensed the air displacement at the last second and tried to pivot, but Kurt was too fast.

The black sword sheared through one of its primary joints. A thick, translucent violet fluid sprayed across the mud as the spider’s front-left leg was severed completely.

*SCREEESHAAA!!!*

The monster let out a sound that wasn’t a screech. It was a roar of pure, alien pain. It collapsed on one side, but its remaining legs lashed out with murderous speed.

’Oh fu–!’

BASH!

Kurt was swiped mid-air, a barbed leg catching him in the ribs and hurling him fifteen feet into a thorny bush.

"Gah! *Cough* Oww..." Kurt hit the ground, the air leaving his lungs. He scrambled to get up, but the world was spinning.

The darkness was his biggest enemy. He could only see the monster when the lightning flared or when its own abdomen pulsed with that sickly purple light. The Great Weaver dragged its wounded body toward him, its mandibles snapping like giant shears. It began to spray webbing indiscriminately, coating the trees and the ground, trying to create a sticky arena where Kurt couldn’t move.

He then dodged a spear-like thrust that missed his head by an inch. The impact caused the creature’s leg to bury itself deep in the mud. Using this chance, Kurt stepped onto the trapped leg and ran up the creature’s limb, aiming for the cluster of eyes.

The spider bucked, its thorax slamming upward. Kurt was tossed into the air again. He felt the sting of a thousand small scratches from the thorns, his blood mixing with the rain.

’It’s too tough...’ He thought as he landed a few feet away.

The monster lunged faster this time, pinning Kurt against a rock. It lunged with its stinger, the sharp, venom-dripping point whistling toward his chest. Kurt dropped his sword and grabbed the stinger with both hands, his mana coating glowing brilliantly as he fought the monster’s sheer physical weight.

The venom hissed as it dripped onto the stone, eating away at the rock. Kurt’s muscles groaned, his Strengthening Magic pushed to a level that threatened to tear his ligaments.

The acidic venom hissed as it dripped onto the stone, eating away at the rock. Struggling to hold it back, Kurt pushed his Strengthening Magic to a level that threatened to tear his muscles.

"You... are... just... a... bug!"

Kurt’s Adaptation skill kicked in one last time. He felt a surge of cold, focused energy. He redirected and twisted his body, using the spider’s own momentum to slide the stinger into the soft, unarmored joint of its own leg.

The Great Weaver shrieked as its own leg impaled the other. In the confusion, Kurt reached down, grabbed his black sword, and drove it upward, straight through the underside of the creature’s head.

"RAAAH!"

He poured every drop of his mana into the blade. The sapphire light flared inside the monster’s skull, pushing and twisting, its brain and eyes illuminated from the inside out.

With a final, spasming shudder, the Great Weaver went limp. Its massive weight collapsed on top of Kurt, pinning him in the mud.

He lay there for a long minute, the rain washing the violet ichor from his face. His body was a map of pain, but he was breathing. He shoved the heavy carcass off his chest, his movements slow and agonizing. He stood up, leaning on his sword like a cane, and looked in the direction of the old oak tree.

He limped back to the hollow. He didn’t say anything at first; he just leaned against the trunk, his chest heaving. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"Hope?" He wheezed.

A small, shaking head poked out from the darkness. When she saw him bloody, battered, but standing, she didn’t say a word. She just lunged out of the tree and buried her face in his waist, sobbing with a relief so intense it shook them both.

Kurt rested a blood-stained hand on her head. "See. I told you I’ll be back."

He looked up the path. The bishop’s estate was close now, its windows glowing like embers in the dark. The hardest part was yet to come.

.

..

...

- At the pier where the trio’s ship is docked -

SWOOSH

"So this is where you are, Rosie..."