+ Reid +

After elite orb weaver spiders came guardians. Deja-vu of the Salamander fights aside, Reid figured it would be a good thing that the system gave a standard set of ranks to denote who the strongest forces were inside of a beast's group. For most, knowing the foes you were fighting were near the peak of power for the given quest or area would be a comforting thought.

For Reid, it was just an additional indication that he was getting close to the top of the mountain - and his real foe.

The guardians went down in single blows. The only functional difference, to Reid, between the elites and the guardians is that their larger size meant the guardians made more of a mess when they popped. They did seem to secrete more of the caustic venom than the elites, though. Instead of just coming from their fangs, it dripped down out of additional structures inside their mouths like saliva. Finding that out was less than fun, but Reid was dedicated to the task of understanding his enemies and understanding his fights. He was also slowly, surely getting desensitized to spider mouths. His two consistent companions were to blame for that.

Or, well, one consistent companion.

Reid was still learning many things about how the awakened cosmos worked. He understood new stuff all the time, and there was plenty that he knew he was going to be a bit ill-informed in until he experienced it for the first time. Nyx had promised to let him have those understandings and learn from them, so she wasn't coloring every part of his life.

His two captives were spiders, and he'd been feeding them. Meat at first, then other spiders, then elites, then guardians.

Someone else may have asked or wondered at the question - how do beasts get stronger? How do they level up? Is it killing that gets them that additional strength, or is there something else to it? Maybe something like eating other strong beasts? Would you be able to see if that happened - say, if you held beasts captive, fed them things, and remembered to use identify every so often to check their levels?

But Reid had not asked or pondered on those questions. He just kept feeding highly nutrient and energy rich remains to his two lower leveled arachnids. They both leveled up.

One - the one in his have-a-heart trap - gained enough that it morphed from a regular orb weaver into an elite.

Elites were bigger.

The size of his have-a-heart trap did not change.

It was an ironic twist of fate that the trap ended up causing the arachnid's physical growth to strain against the hard bone until it essentially popped.

Reid cleaned his face and his armor, internalized the lesson, then promptly stopped feeding his last remaining captive anything that could conceivably give it more levels.

#

A few dozen guardian orb weavers and another day and a half of travel took Reid within sprinting distance of the peak. He was tired of this climb, and feeding a damn arachnid. So, he went for it. Reid dead sprinted up the final section of the impossibly large mountain.

What met him at the top was not what he expected.

He wasn't sure what he expected.

Until now, Reid had just seen the spiders. It was all about them ambushing him in the woods. There were no webs - none of the intricate, delicate creations that the orb weavers were known for. He'd let himself ignore that he hadn't seen any.

The 'peak' of the mountain was a basketball-court sized section of mostly flat terrain, devoid of the plant life that coated everything else in a thick layer. On the side of the slope he'd climbed, a rolling green sloped slowly, impossibly far down to the ocean.

On the other side, there was a more violent drop - and webs.

Powerline-thick white strands were anchored to the mountain with small branching mounds of a similarly white substance. They sagged slightly as they stretched down towards the forest floor, creating a miles-long and miles-wide web that was, honestly, a pretty amazing sight.

Reid couldn't see through the foliage to where the other anchors held the structure to the ground, but he could see the fate of some animals that had managed to get entangled. Dozens of guardian-sized spiders flitted back and forth over the web, moving white cocoons. At least one smaller spider towards the ground made a catch as Reid watched. It flew up and at a large, coral-colored bird and managed to drive it down into the web. As soon as the bird was stuck to the white threads, the spider pounced, bit down with its caustic fangs, and then spooled webbing around the creature as it started to melt away in real time.

That answered the question of whether some beasts might be alive inside the cocoons. Reid suppressed a shiver.

There were more captured prey stacked up closer to the summit, but Reid didn't see his target there. He swept his gaze around again, and a small waving strand of thin white silk caught his eye. It fluttered like a ribbon high in the air, slowly stretching out in the distance.

Fun facts found their way to the front of Reid's mind as his gaze traced over the silk line. Spiders - including orb weavers - often used a thinner strand of webbing to start new webs. These thinner lines would get picked up by even light winds, and as soon as they stuck to something, the spider would then go and anchor things with a thicker, reinforced thread.

At the end of the ribbon, almost directly above him, Reid found the domain lord.

It had the same, glowing rings on its long legs as the guardians. Its body was larger overall, and it hung stationary in the air as it watched its webbing drift in the wind.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Of course, the flying spider would be flying.

Reid shifted and grabbed marrowbombs with both hands. Thanks to Venator and other achievements, he was still unnoticed by the lord, and its minions. He decided to use that to its full effect.

An ivory sphere sailed straight skyward at impressive speed. The domain lord it approached was a proud being, sure in its superiority over the land it claimed as its own. It feared nothing on the land, and so never looked down.

It failed to notice the object until the impact.

The projectile exploded with a massive snapping noise, and released incredibly hard shards into the surroundings. The pieces met air - and arachnid. The domain lord screeched as large portions of its body were torn and shredded. It lost three legs outright, and another was intact but nonresponsive. As its magic control faltered and it began to fall out of the sky, a second projectile hammered into it.

The explosion of bone from the second projectile finished tearing through the spider's abdomen and popped it. It obliterated the bottom half of the beast's head, and tore a long rend in its sternum. The notification came quickly.

You have defeated Domain Lord of [Dayo], Volitant Orb Weaver - lvl 75. Experience Awarded (+5,000,000 xp)

Two shrapnel bombs.

That was all it had taken to kill a creature 5 levels above him, and he was fairly certain that if he hadn't thrown the second one, the beast would have died from its injuries.

Reid watched the corpse fall towards him, and the mountain, and his eyes widened for a moment in realization. He quickly brought his shield to bear, just in time.

The torn and ragged spider corpse hurtled into the ground and exploded out like a water balloon, coating its surroundings in slightly acidic gore. It slammed into Reid's shield, and he breathed a sigh of relief at avoiding the remains - until the rest of the domain lord's innards started to rain down on the mountaintop, and him. He was grateful for his helmet.

He was also going to need to wash all of his armor.

Spider chunks fell onto the web anchors and a few managed to hit the strands themselves. All along the miles-long webbing, guardian beasts took notice and surged towards the top of the mountain. Reid pulled more marrowbombs from his tassets, and charged shrapnel variants. He took stock of the closest few guardians, and smiled under his helm.

It was time for a little target practice.

/-__+ Talcinor Debrine Jr. +__-\

He panted hard, knees and elbows shaking against the rough stone ground.

The explosions rippled through the city around him, and he bit his lip. It was unfair. Completely unfair.

His group had done everything right. They'd led the Belar forces into another trap, just like he had been doing elsewhere in the city. Those cheaters, those aliens had changed the rules of the game, though. Where their patrols had until now been arranged in simple formations of independent groups, there was a cohesion to the guards they faced here.

Instead of a one-sided ambush, his team had been but on the defensive as groups of Belar troops on transports flew up and to them from various launch points around the city. Those hadn't been there earlier when they scouted. Or maybe they'd been good at hiding. Whatever way they accomplished it mattered less than the current situation.

His run towards the noise and commotion turned into a desperate attempt to distract the guards and enemy forces away from his group. More than a few were already dead. He just needed the rest to get away, and then he could flee himself. Back into the city, and he could figure out new ways to win in a changed game.

Their foes weren't allowing him that. They were better equipped, and far stronger than the normal troops they had been fighting. Things were distinctly different about how hard they hit, and how hard it was to take them down. They'd even managed to survive against his attacks.

Talcinor's clothing was completely torn, and he scraped his knee against the stone as he got himself standing again.

Magic welled in his right hand, and thin silver needles materialized. He shot them forward - not at the people, but the craft that carried them. Lightning followed, and the flashing energy coursed through the sled-like craft for two full seconds before one of the engines failed. He wanted a careening crash. He instead got a slow, controlled descent as the pilot skillfully used the remaining engines for an emergency landing.

The only benefit was that the soldiers were now ground-level, where they had less angle and ability to fire their rifles and explosives on his still-pinned group.

He started assaulting another of the craft, but explosions knocked him back to the ground once more. Around him, pieces of the city crumbled away in the fight. It left a grey-brown dust hovering in the air like a haze. The same kind of cloud stuck in his mind from the betrayal. When everything was reduced to ash and crushed, it made grey-brown dust. Fires added darker soot and ash to the mix.

He felt his lip quiver, and bit it again.

It wasn't right. Or fair. Somehow, Belar were still outpacing their power. His growth and his gains were supposed to mean something. They were supposed to let him win.

He charged more lightning, and shot it out at another craft. This one dodged the attack completely with a quick movement to the side, and the riflemen aboard trained themselves on his position. The five other airborne squads did the same, and Talcinor found himself under a barrage of rifle fire. He sprinted behind a public transport, and winced as the fire tore through the two-story transport's windows, and melted through its thin frame.

Shots continued, barely halted by his choice of cover. He took a bolt in the shoulder, and bent over in pain. Another shot burned through the air where his head had just been. He curled himself into a ball, as small as he could. Just like he'd done when sharing a bed with his siblings. Curled. Small. Safe.

His ankle erupted in pain as another lucky shot hit him. His body shook - first from pain, then from an external rumble.

The very ground rattled as a crash boomed and echoed off the streets and walls. Attackers on all sides froze as the buildings around them swayed.

That shake was far larger than any Belar explosive he'd experienced. Far too large to be anything the enemies above him were holding.

A second overwhelming crash caused a few buildings to collapse in on themselves, and a section of the street away from the battle fell away into the ground. Talcinor scooted himself away with one arm and one leg. Thankfully, the rend in the ground stopped short of swallowing him with it.

His nerves rose again as an impossibly large hammerhead worm crashed through the opening. It towered seven stories into the night sky, yet still wasn't completely out of the hole in the city.

Excited shouts from Belar troops echoed off the buildings, and the craft rearranged themselves against the beast.

They didn't have time to fire.

The beast let out a deafening roar, and struggled against an unseen force. One last roar accompanied a lurch forward, and the entire worm rose out onto the surface - dragging bits of street, building, and something that looked conspicuously like a person behind itself as it emerged. It rose again, flailed for a moment, then stilled. The creature's body fell sideways into a line of buildings, and Talcinor closed his eyes as debris rained down atop him.

As dust settled, the Belar troops advanced cautiously, on their floating craft and on the ground. They ignored Talcinor, and his wounded comrades.

The center craft stopped abruptly, then spiraled out of control. Belar soldiers jumped out onto rooftops as it careened into the side of a tall building a block and a half away.

Soldiers on the craft closest to Talcinor leaned over the siderails, rifles pointed into the smoke and haze.

Talcinor tried to peer through the smoke as well - and caught an oddly intense glint, like a pair of eyes.

One of the burgundy-armored Belar soldiers with a silver eye stamped into the side of his helmet dropped his rifle, and staggered back on the craft.

His shout was loud, and afraid.

"Priority One! Need support! The Soulcrusher - It's the Soulcrusher!"

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