Chapter 144: killed the spider
The spider let out a screech, its blood gushed out, burning and acidic. Ren pulled out and leaped off fast. He got some blood on him, the steam that came off him smelled of burnt flesh. He did not bother looking at it this time and simply focused on the spider.
The spider turned around and proceeded to spew more venom as fast as it could, but Ren easily weaved to the side and stepped in close, his blade already moving for one of its legs. The spider pulled back fast, as if understanding that staying away from Ren was the best way to combat him.
"Tch, can you stop running away already?" Ren said as he slashed with his sword. The sword extended and curved through the air, stabbing through the side of the spider. It let out another scream in pain and tried to get away, but Ren was not letting it. He pulled his sword back and went in for another thrust.
This time, the spider seemed to know what to do to stop him, and so it raised itself up to show the girl who was stuck to its chest. Ren immediately stopped one sword fast, only a few inches from the girl. The spider thought that would be enough to stop Ren, only for Ren to produce a sphere of energy and launch it right at the spider from the side.
The attack slammed into the side of the spider with a massive explosive force that ripped apart the side of the spider. It let out an ear-shattering scream and turned to run. The spider rushed to the wall and smashed through it at full speed. The wall collapsed as it ran through and made its way to his compound.
"Why do you have to stress me this much?" Ren asked as he gave chase immediately after.
He stepped outside, expecting the spider to keep running.
It turned and attacked.
The webs came out in a massive volley, thick cables launching from multiple spinnerets simultaneously, spreading wide as they traveled to cover as much space as possible. Ren had half a second to register what was coming before they wrapped around him, binding his arms to his sides and his wings flat against his back, the adhesive grip immediate and total.
The spider turned and came at him.
Ren exhaled through his nose.
He opened his mouth, and the dragon breath came out in a concentrated stream, the crimson flames roaring forward and hitting the spider dead center with enough force to push it back a step.
The spider screamed.
Then Ren saw the girl, directly in front, the flames already close enough that the heat was reaching her, and he cut the breath off immediately, the fire dying before it finished the job.
He gritted his teeth.
The spider, still smoking from what had hit it, read the hesitation and pressed forward.
Ren snapped the webs.
He put enough force through his arms that the cables stretched and split, pieces of them falling away as he tore free, and he went straight at the spider with the Soul Eater already extended. The blade curved through the air in a wide arc coming from the side, and the spider had not fully registered the angle before it hit.
One leg separated from the body cleanly.
The screech that came out of the spider filled the entire compound, raw and wild, the sound of something that had never had a limb taken from it before and had not been ready for the information.
It backed up.
It tried to get the girl between itself and Ren again, repositioning its chest, the same move it had already used twice in the manor.
Ren flapped his wings.
The speed he covered the distance with was not the same speed he had been moving at inside the house, the open space giving him room that the enclosed manor had denied him, and he was behind the spider before it finished the repositioning, behind where the girl was, behind where any use of her as cover could help.
The spider had not understood that coming outside had given Ren exactly what he needed.
He raised his free hand.
The bolt of lightning that came from his palm was not thin or precise. It was as thick as his arm, purple and crackling, and it hit the spider’s body with a force that cracked through the exoskeleton on contact, fracture lines spreading outward from the impact point across the spider’s back and sides, the sound of the cracks audible even over the spider’s scream.
The spider thrashed.
Its remaining legs went in every direction at once, not coordinated attacks but the desperate flailing of something that was losing the ability to think clearly through the pain, each leg swinging wide and fast without a clear target.
Ren moved through them.
He read each swing and stepped around it, weaving between the thrashing legs with his eyes tracking all of them simultaneously, waiting for the rhythm to break down further, which it did, the movements becoming more erratic and less controlled with each passing second.
He found his opening.
The Soul Eater moved through the remaining legs in sequence, each cut finding the joint, each separation drawing another scream until the spider had nothing left to swing with and sank toward the ground, its body tilting and then dropping fully, the exoskeleton cracked and fractured and unable to hold the weight of what it had been anymore.
Ren walked up to it.
He drove the Soul Eater through its head.
The spider went still.
The form it had built around itself shriveled inward as the life left it, the mass of it contracting and collapsing, and as it did, the girl came free, dropping from its chest and hitting the ground softly, her small body curling on the compound floor, breathing.
Alive.
Ren crouched beside her and looked at her face.
"Alright," he said quietly. "You are okay now."