Chapter 321: 321. Threads and Spiders

Dallion continued walking through darkness like an ant on a chain. It felt as if no sooner he’d enter a chamber when it would end, and Dallion would have to spend close to a minute walking along a bridge to the next.

The next three chambers nothing happened, causing Dallion to wonder what was going on. It was only at the next one that Gleam caught a glimpse of the second guardian. It remained a mystery how exactly she managed to do so—Nox wasn’t able to sense a thing and no matter how much Dallion focused he couldn’t see anything even using his music skills. Nil had speculated that it could be due to the shardfly’s nature. Being a native creature of the wilderness, it was expected she had some sort of mechanism to sense threats and prey, so here it would be no different.

At the threshold towards the new combat chamber, Dallion stopped.

“Get ready,” he said. Within seconds, all familiars returned to his realm, ready to emerge the moment he gave the order. Until then, Dallion was going to slowly advance, making sure he spotted all the threads that the next spider had placed.

Are you sure that it’s a spider? Dallion asked.

No doubt about it, Gleam replied within his realm. They are very specific. I’ve no idea if it’s the same one. It might be a bit stronger, or weaker.

Slowly, Dallion stepped through the invisible barrier that marked the start of the chamber. A tunnel remained until there. At present, the tunnel seemed lit, although darkness continued further in.

Music and forging, Dallion thought.

Threads of various colors became visible like laser beams in an after-hours disco club. Try as he might, though, Dallion couldn’t see the effects the threads would cause when disturbed.

There’re a lot of threads this time. A lot more of them are in color.

Dallon looked some more.

Stay put, I’ll try something.

Dallion summoned his dartbow. Target markers appeared on the nearest threads. Exhaling, Dallion squeezed the trigger.

The first few bolts acted as Dallion had expected—the moment they touched the thread, they froze in place, remaining motionless in the air. That was to be expected. To his annoyance, though, there was no logic between the colors and the effects.

When the next arrow hit the thread, a blast of fire appeared, expanding rapidly.

“Shield!” Dallion jumped into a crouching position, holding the aramdil shield in front of him. On cue, the piece of equipment expanded, just as the wave of flame passed over Dallion, escaping into the open.

That was quite close, it also showed that Dallion’s original plan wouldn’t work. No matter their speed, if Nox and Gleam snapped a single thread, there was a high chance that fire or something equally harmful would follow.

Change of plans, Dallion moved the shield once the fire wave had passed. I’ll try to snap the threads with the guardian on them.

That’s absurd! Nil shouted. The only thing you’ll achieve is a path to failure.

There were no two ways about it—slowly and methodically targeting thread by thread would have proven a lot safer. The only issue was that Dallion didn’t want to remain in the sword’s realm for weeks. Rather, it was time to combine athletics and acrobatics. A new set of markers appeared, depicting how Dallion should move his body to reach the chamber’s center. Taking a deep breath, he rushed forward, doing twists and somersaults like a thief in a spy movie. The actions felt remarkably easy then suddenly a blue rectangle appeared.

ACROBATICS SEQUENCE COMPLETED

You can bend your body up to 180 degrees.

It had been a while since Dallion had received an explanation rectangle. Compared to the other bonuses for completing a skill sequence, this wasn’t the best, although it didn’t stop Dallion from using it immediately to bend while jumping in such fashion that his legs moved above his head and landed first on the spot he wanted.

COMBAT INITIATED

Breaking the next sequence, Dallion leapt towards the nearest wall, just in time to avoid the next guardian. It looked identical to the first, with one minor difference—it was half the size.

LEVEL 2 GUARDIAN

Species: BLADE SPIDER

Class: SKY SILVER

Statistics: 100% HP

Skills:

- Puncture Strike

- Thread Weave

- Cyclone Spin

Weak Spots: None

Normally, if a creature was smaller, that was a good thing. At present, that wasn’t the case. For one thing, the spider was a more difficult target, for another it could pass through the gaps between threads, activating them at touch.

A new wave of fire surrounded Dallion, this time reducing his health by half.

Lux! Dallion split into instances. In some he aimed at the spider’s legs with his dartbow. Targeting was difficult, always missing by inches.

All three familiars leapt out. Lux chased after the guardian, flying past threads in an attempt to attach itself to the enemy’s back. Once that happened the battle would be over. But as Dallion had learned from the expedition—guardians were quick to pick up things. What had worked as a charm the first time, now seemed next to impossible.

Slow, Dallion thought as he summoned his harpsisword. His familiars had allowed him a moment to play a few chords without having to constantly protect himself. However, that didn’t prevent the spider from triggering an explosive thread now and again.

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A second blast reduced Dallion’s health by another third, before the music took hold. It only created a moment of hesitation, but that was enough for the firebird to latch onto the spider’s back. From that point on, it was entirely Lux’s show.

“Avoid the threads!” Dallion shouted as he continued to play. “Smash him into the walls!”

With enough weight added to the guardian, Dallion unsummoned the haprsisword and replaced it with his dartbow.

I want a ricochet shot, Dallion thought.

The targeting markers changed, showing the theoretical trajectory bounce off the wall. In the past, Dallion would never have tried such a shot. Now, it was time to do it.

Time seemed to freeze. Dallion split into five instances, each waiting for exactly the precise moment to shoot at the wall so as to hit a moving target from a specific direction. In four of the instances, the shot missed anywhere between inches to half a foot. The last instance, though, was successful.

While no damage was dealt, the bolt hit the blade spider along a free corridor between the threads. Unable to trigger any more traps to gain the upper hand, the guardian was slammed into the wall, receiving just enough damage to get shocked.

Yes! Dallion thought, as waves of relief swept through him. He had won this fight as well. There was no recovering from such an attack—five seconds inability to move might as well be five hours. The firebird immediately took advantage, thrusting the spider to a spot on the opposite wall, repeating the action again and again.

Like a ball, the guardian bounced on and on until at one point it finally disappeared, leaving nothing but a blue rectangle behind.

“Good job,” Dallion said, as the rest of the chamber lit up. “Let’s rest a bit.” He sat on the floor.

Clearing the whip blade was turning out more tedious than he thought. Rather, not tedious, but simply exhausting. The battles were more like puzzles than battles. All that Dallion needed for a victory was one good stun attack. After that, Lux could easily handle the rest. As he had seen, each next guardian would provide its own peculiarities, making the puzzle more and more difficult, but on the whole, defeating all guardians seemed within the realm of possibility.

You need to pace yourself better, dear boy, Nil said. There are five more. And that is assuming there are no changes in guardian types further on.

Right, Dallion thought, as he gasped for air. One issue with combining athletic and acrobatic skills was that they tended to exhaust him a lot faster than standard fighting. At the guild Dallion had cleared whole artifacts without breaking a sweat. Here, he needed to rest after spending two battles that lasted less than a minute each.

“Five more,” he groaned. Still, it was going to be worth it. “Do you have any scrolls on fighting with such a weapon, Nil?” Dallion asked out loud.

My original does, though not in the library ring, the echo replied. A lot of the really exotic weapons are not present in the library. Keep in mind that at the time you didn’t know neither athletic nor acrobatic skills. All you had was guard, attack, and music.

“Looks like you’re on your own from here on.” Gleam landed on Dallion’s chest as he lay on the floor. “With so many booby-trapped threads, the kid and I will cause more harm than good.”

“The kid?” Dallion raised his head up slightly, looking at the shardfly.

“Nox,” Gleam replied.

Nox a kid? Well, technically, he was, but it was weird hearing the newest familiar address him in such fashion. Not that the crackling seemed to mind. Clearly, the shardfly must have been something very scary in the wilderness, for him to accept this new role.

“I’m sure you’ll be useful,” Dallion replied. “Especially you. I think it’s time for a few illusions.”

“Nope. Won’t work here. They’ll see through any tricks. Maybe when I increase a few levels, I might have a chance, but right now, you can forget it.”

“There’s nothing you can come up with?”

“Hey, you’re the brains of the operation!” the butterfly snapped back.

She’s got you there, the armadil shield laughed. To her point, maybe that’s something you’d better use at the arena than here. People are much more likely to fall for tricks than guardians.

No Nox, no Gleam, and pretty much no armadil shield. If the destructive nature of the threads was anything to go by, a shield would be of limited help from the next battle on. There was the option for Dallion to cocoon himself and roll through the threads, but that sounded a bit extreme. Also, there was no telling how much damage the shield would suffer. Lux and Harp seemed to be the ones to win this fight.

After half an hour, Dallion’s health was back to full, although he still felt slightly tired. While resting more was an option, something drove Dallion to continue. He stood up, stretched, yawned, then continued forward to the next golden bridge.

The further Dallion went, the more unnerving it became not having any common creatures. Nil had explained that there were simply too few adequate artefacts to come to any conclusions. While some of the basics had become well known, the relation between a sphere item and the creatures within remained a mystery. The only thing that was known for certain was that fulfilling the artifact’s destiny would remove all creatures and guardians from the item, transforming it into an empty shell.

“I’m thinking of creating a connection between the observatory and Vermillion’s islands,” Gleam said. “Or better, from the dryad’s tower to the ocean.”

Dallion only snorted. He had given up reminding her that they hadn’t even claimed the sword yet.

“Better, I'll talk with Gen how to rearrange things. Your domain is rather poorly kept. Some rooms are completely empty, while others are overcluttered.”

Overcluttered? Dallion thought. To his knowledge, there were only two rooms that could be considered overcluttered, three if one considered the ring library.

“You like open spaces a lot…” Dallion muttered.

“Everything with wings likes open spaces. Especially those from the wilderness. Even the dryad likes—” the shardfly stopped mid-sentence.

Dallion immediately split into three instances.

“Sense something?” he asked. There was supposed to be quite a while before the next guardian. So far, it seemed that the guardian arenas were positioned at every three chambers. Clearly, there were exceptions.

“Yes,” Gleam replied. “And it’s not a spider.”

“What is it?” Dallion summoned his harpsisword again.

“I don’t know.”

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