Chapter 600: Appearance

[TL: Asuka]

[PR: Ash]

Carl shoved Aard at his enemy. The spider-like monster flew back, but the moment it fell, it quickly flopped around like a fish out of water and jumped back up. Outside the dorm, twelve werespiders spread across the battlefields like a pack of wolves, attacking the witcher in every direction. Veins popped on their faces, black slivers of smoke swirled around them, and they displayed speed and strength far beyond the capabilities of children their age.

The werespiders’ limbs were turned around, their heads and backs facing the ground, their eyes shifting between white and black like old-school film. In a pose much like an arch bridge, they ran on all fours, their speed rivaling a steed’s. As they ran, they muttered vague incantations under their breath, as if praying to something.

Carl did not look happy at all. As the decoction’s effect started to wear off, exhaustion from staying awake for two days washed over him like waves, robbing him of his strength. Even with his strength intact, he couldn’t bring himself to kill the out-of-control orphans. He sheathed his blade, smacking the turned orphans with the sheathed sword. He swatted off one with short black hair and punched another assailant away. The witcher gave him a kick that sent him flying into the air. The assailant fell onto the fence, snarling and howling.

Letting out a guttural roar, the witcher leapt through the crevice between two werespiders and rolled on the ground, picking up a pine tree branch as he went. The witcher charged toward the prayer room, swinging his weapons around.

It was a short journey from the statue to the prayer room, but it felt like an eternity for Carl. Werespiders pounced on him from both sides. Carl managed to hit five with his weapon, but two managed to pounce on his back. One held his shoulders, while the other grabbed his leg.

The iron-clad grip numbed the witcher. He fell forward, his head hitting the freezing snow. As the witcher lost control of his body, five werespiders held his limbs and neck, holding him up.

Carl was facing the roof, his eyes going wide. An invisible wave of strength blew the roof of the prayer room away. Out leapt a giant silhouette the size of half a house. It had eight legs, covered in black fur and sharp as scythes. The legs landed on different parts of the roof, jumping around like springs.

A few werespiders came rushing out the front door, prostrating themselves underneath the creature. The creature stood on the roof, looking down at its subjects.

From where Carl was looking, the creature was like a wolf spider enlarged by a thousand times. Its spindle-shaped abdomen rested upon the beams of the roof. Patterns of gold-green rings gleamed under the sun. In the place of what was supposed to be a spider’s head was the visage of a misshapen lion’s head. It had eight eyes, all gleaming emerald, like swirling whirlpools sucking in the souls of those who stared at them.

Slivers of black smoke billowed from the creature, spreading into the air around it. It felt as if an invisible hand in the skies were controlling the creature like it was a marionette.

Is that the omen god? The Lionhead Spider? Transfixed, Carl stared at the creature’s maw. A thread was hanging between its fangs, and on the end of a thread was a white cocoon shaped like a human. “Acamuthorm!” Carl shouted. “Wake up!”

The lionhead spider scanned the young witcher and quickly tilted its abdomen up, revealing three pairs of spinners jutting out of its rear end. The monster shot a patch of half-liquid thread at the witcher, but once the thread touched the air, it turned into threads as thick as ropes.

As the thread started sticking itself to Carl, the werespiders let go of him. They prostrated themselves before their god, while Carl was dragged to the roof by the thread. His legs, torso, and head were getting drowned in threads. Stubbornly, he stretched his left arm out. As he closed in on the other cocoon, he quickly made a sign.

Igni! Carl shouted with all his might in his mind before he was turned into a cocoon. The magical fire flew through the air and slammed into the cocoon. The spider’s prison fell, its top half melted away by the flames, revealing a dazed Acamuthorm. In his shivering right hand was a crystal. Snapping out of his stupor, Acamuthorm held the crystal tight, as if he’d taken destiny by its throat.

“Go to hell, you eight-legged monster!”

And the crystal was crushed. A drop of blood flew into the air, spinning and hovering. It gleamed like a ruby, gaining everyone’s attention. At the same time, on faraway Skellige, a silhouette woke from his meditation, his silver eyes snapping open.

The lionhead spider sensed a disturbance in destiny. It was the scent of misfortune. It shot a thread at the drop of blood.

But it was too late.

Winds howled in the courtyard, and a black doorway appeared. The thread flew into the square doorway, but it did nothing.

Fu—

A deafening roar came hurtling out of the doorway, rattling the temple. The Shout was incomplete, and yet its power could not be denied. The strength of Skyrim’s Bones of the Earth resonated with the Shout. It had the power to shake the planet itself.

—s!

And the Shout was complete. It thundered through the temple, freezing space itself. Everything within the temple froze in their spots, their heads buzzing as if they were bludgeoned by a sledgehammer.

Even the titanic spider on the rooftop fell into a short stupor. It could only move its eyes, and it saw a silhouette leaping out of the doorway. The silhouette had black hair, silver eyes, a slender figure, and a gray cloak billowing in the air like wings. Crimson flames made of the silhouette’s willpower and desire to kill danced around him like a sea of blood crashing and roaring.

The silhouette stood in silence, yet he was like a sword out of its scabbard, glinting and striking fear into its enemies. The lionhead spider recognized this face. It harkened back to the days in Vizima’s sewers. This man was Roy of the Viper School and the one who brought ruin to the god’s cult. The cult was forced to move to different abodes frequently. Without Vizima to latch on as a safe haven, the cult’s survival was an uncertain thing. In the end, due to the hunt of the Northern Realms, the cult was nearing extinction.

The cult had to hide within remote villages, luring war orphans and merchants tainted by their desires to survive, and only barely so. The flames of hatred roared in the Lionhead Spider, but it could feel a hint of fear simmering underneath. Its instinct was giving it a warning.

Roy was not the weak witcher he once was. He quickly scanned around, seeing the Feared werespiders and the apprentices who were trapped in cocoons. The witcher gave the Lionhead Spider a bit more attention, and he knew what he was dealing with.

‘Lionhead Spider/Abigail/Daisy

Gender: Female

Age: 23 years old

Status: Cursed one, priestess of the god, avatar of the Lionhead Spider

HP: 400

Mana: 300

Strength: 30

Constitution: 30

Dexterity: 25

Will: 20

Perception: 18

Charisma: 30

Spirit: 30

Skills:

Curse of the Spider (Passive): The curse of the god is both a blessing and unimaginable agony. The victim will not gain release from their mortal coil that easily. +100 to HP. The heart is no longer a weakness.

Curse Level 5: Curses are the dissemination and transformation of pain. As the only living priestess of the god, the user is granted unimaginable power from the existing faith of this cult. She can transfer her pain to the Eternal Web, where the Lionhead Spider changes that pain into misery and misfortune. The Lionhead Spider will then curse its enemy, raining them with misery for their whole lives.

The user may also expend a considerable amount of pain and grant their followers the path to the next stage in life, where they will be gifted the shape of beasts. The more drastic the change of her followers, the higher the cost she has to pay. The werebeasts will be imprinted with the Lionhead Spider’s mark. As long as they are alive, their pain will be absorbed, and once they die, their soul will enter the Eternal Web.

Pain Absorption Level 6: Mark those who have been inflicted great pain by destiny. They are then turned into children of pain. Their agony shall be power for the user. The mark loses effect once the target falls into madness from agony.

Admonition Level 5, Adhesive Thread Level 4, Charm of Violence Level 6.’

***

Abigail. Roy was reminded of something that took place years ago. This was the priestess who controlled fleders and rekindled Adda’s curse. A woman who was innocent on the outside, but…

This is destiny, perhaps. Roy stared at the Lionhead Spider from afar. Abigail, priestess of this evil god, this is something you can never escape. Roy quickly flicked his fingers and crossed his hands. He shoved a gleaming double cross into the air, and a gleaming, humanoid illusion leapt out of the blue curtains. Then, a frost atronach, covered in icy armor, came out of the indigo doorway of Obsidian. Finally, a mutated longhorn beetle the size of a lion came out of the double cross. It was covered in black exoskeleton, and its antennae looked like snakes.

The minions quickly split up. The frost atronach knocked down the stunned werespiders, while the illusion and beetle darted toward the trapped apprentices. Roy grasped the air, producing Gabriel out of nowhere. He held down the trigger tightly, an ivory sword in his right hand. The sword’s edge glinted icily, glimmering with the power of the many magic imbibed within it.

Roy pointed his sword at the Lionhead Spider’s head, aiming for everything down to its soul.

Inexplicably, the Lionhead Spider felt a sense of crisis welling within its heart. It could not escape this danger, as if no matter what it did, it would meet its destruction.

A bolt hurtled across the air, the crossbow string buzzing. The witcher disappeared in thin air.

The Lionhead Spider quickly reared its front legs, shooting a sea of snow-colored threads into the air. The monster swings its legs around like scythes, beating off the incoming bolts. It opened its maw, muttering the curses of fear, agony, weakness, and transfiguration. Green flames shot from its eyes.

It was less than a fraction of a millisecond later, but fireballs charged across the battlefield, Furyfire melting the sea of thread. The witcher passed through the green flames along with his bolt, yet the shield of Heliotrop was destroyed by the power of curses. When the Lionhead Spider’s curses tried to touch Roy, they were ripped apart by a phantom tentacle, their shards raining like snow.

Compared to the witcher’s flesh and iron will, the Lionhead Spider’s agony was insignificant. It was not able to twist the witcher’s body or soul.

Abigail was horrified, its eyes turning around wildly.

Roy held his sword high over his head and brought it down with the might of a thousand lightning bolts. A crimson beam of energy split off the edge of Aerondight, rampaging through the air like a stallion.

The monster’s legs were sliced off. Blood splattered the battlefield, and the monster writhed in pain.

Fear. Roy stepped into the pool of blood and sliced limbs, his eyes gleaming crimson. A ball of wriggling tentacles jumped out of the crimson sea behind him, bloody light swirling around them. They pinned the Lionhead Spider onto the roof, wrapping its legs, abdomen and head.

Tighter and tighter the tentacles constricted its prey, their suckers tearing away at the exoskeleton on the monster’s back. The obsidian fur was eaten away, and in the battle of these gigantic creatures, the roof crushed under their weight, shattered into pieces.

Dust clouds swirled. For three seconds, the Lionhead Spider was pinned between the debris, beams, and roof tiles. It tried to struggle, but it couldn’t move.

The witcher stepped into the ruins, raising the blade of judgment upon this monster.

The priestess’ ambitions to revive the cult were destroyed. Under the gaze of the Most High, the priestess of the evil god, craven and devious, was vaporized.

Howls of agony came from the Lionhead Spider as it shivered from the fear its soul felt.

Roy swung Aerondight twice. Once across, once down. The head flew high into the air, and the spider’s rear was cut in two.

Could this be the end?

***

Ear-piercing screams tore the air. As if they had their spines pulled out of their backs, the werespiders fell to the ground, spasming and frothing like they were having a fit.

A translucent soul was pulled out of the Lionhead Spider’s remains. Just when the tentacles were about to devour it, the bloodstained spider emblem sitting within the courtyard’s center shone brilliantly green.

The light pulled the witcher and his spoils of war. Everything around Roy started to spin. He was getting a sense of vertigo not unlike the sensation of traveling through portals. When he regained his bearing, he found himself standing within a dim, dark space that had the shade of chaos.

Balls of green flames floated high overhead, strobing like ghost flames. They illuminated the sticky, infinite spiderweb underneath Roy, as well as the tens of thousands of cocoons piled up in different corners of the web.

This was an insurmountable mountain, and Roy was standing at the bottom of it.

“Blasphemer. Soulstealer.” An androgynous voice spoke from the depths of the web, echoing in the witcher’s heart. Every voice it made was filled with darkness, malice, and hysteria, as if it were a curse spat by a thousand dying people.

“Welcome to my kingdom, the Eternal Web.”