Assimilate All Talents

The moment Sol escaped from the claw pinning him down, he used everything at his disposal. He summoned his magical hands, retrieved his Lipon, and most importantly, smashed the tethers of the Bliss Spider with all his sheer will.

He didn’t target the creature's strongest tether, nor the ones he knew were law techniques, as he couldn’t afford to waste energy on a fruitless endeavor. Instead, he targeted all the normal tethers, which he could easily disable en masse by brute forcing his will against them.

The effects were immediate: the Bliss Spider nearly stumbled, unable to remember the movement ability it intended to use to close the distance to him. This was precisely what Sol had been counting on to even the odds.

The remains of nearby buildings rose and gathered into a sharp, dense stone spear that launched toward the creature.

However, unlike before when it would easily slash the attack to pieces, the Bliss Spider hopped to the side and dodged. It then ran towards Sol at an extremely fast speed while launching multiple gas orbs at him.

‘It’s fast, but not as fast as before. I can still follow it.’ Sol thought as he dived underground with [Burrow], avoiding the gas orbs.

While the Bliss Spider still had three law techniques and the giant tether, its lack of access to many of its normal skills that enhanced its already overwhelming speed and power allowed Sol to track its movements for the first time.

He emerged 30 feet away, and once above ground, he summoned a hundred shadow beings that charged at the Bliss Spider.

Against the shadows, the Bliss Spider gathered two gas orbs around its front claws, imbuing them with the power of bliss. It then slashed twice, sending out a yellow pink crescent of bliss.

The shadows couldn't get within ten meters of the Bliss Spider before the wave passed through them, filling them with the pinkish yellow gas and causing them to burst into flower petals.

“Yay!”

“Hooray!”

Sol heard the normally voiceless shadows exclaim in joy alongside trumpet sounds as they burst into petals. He ignored the illusory noises and repeatedly chanted his strongest spell.

“[Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]!”

The area quickly filled with black flames that launched toward the creature.

From its rear, it emitted more gas, which moved and consolidated into a thick wall that blocked the flames. Each time a flame was extinguished by the gas, Sol could hear the sound of chimes. With the quantity of flames he was launching, the chimes were so loud that they drowned out everything else.

While the Bliss Spider was busy blocking the black flames, Sol hurled a massive boulder he had created from a large chunk of stone and rubble at the creature. It broke through the gas barrier, crashing down onto the Bliss Spider.

The creature swung its rear around, smashing the boulder and shattering it, sending debris flying everywhere. The collision between the two caused the ground to rumble from the sheer force.

Through the dust, the Bliss Spider charged directly at Sol.

Earth spikes rose from the ground around the spider, but it ran through them, seemingly unaffected. The spikes only managed to slow it down slightly.

Not wanting to face the creature head-on, Sol controlled the ground beneath him to float and, using it as a platform, flew away while maintaining his offensive.

The magic hands unleashed their respective attacks, with the blue and yellow chromas combining to send out a barrage of small crescents that tracked the spider's movements. This made it difficult for the creature to dodge them alongside the other attacks.

At first, it dodged the projectiles, but they turned midair and hit it anyway. Sol heard the sound of wind chimes as the crescents struck the spider’s body, but they didn’t even leave a scratch. The attacks only served to inconvenience it.

As Sol ascended, the spider sent two more bliss slashes his way. His platform was too slow to evade them, so he jumped off and created another out of thin air just as the yellow pink slash cut through the previous platform.

The rock, cut by the bliss, suddenly flourished with bright yellow flowers that quickly covered its entire surface. Eventually, the flowers consumed the rock entirely, bursting into a flowery explosion.

The flower petals from the explosion reached Sol, landing harmlessly on his shoulder. Not sensing any danger, he grabbed one of the petals and examined it.

‘It feels real... Did it actually manifest the hallucinations into reality, or is it tricking my senses into thinking it’s real?’

If it was the latter, then it wasn't a significant issue, but if it could actually create physical manifestations, the Bliss Spider could produce much more dangerous things than flowers. He needed to remain cautious. Fortunately, he wasn’t fighting to win, only to delay the creature and buy time for Torben or the orcs to contact Orna.

Suddenly, from the dispersing bliss gas in the area from multiple failed attacks, it gathered into an orb a few feet away from Sol and shot directly at him.

Not expecting a gas orb to appear so close, he reacted quickly and kicked his platform into the orb's path. It exploded on contact with the stone, but the gas expanded like a cloud, enveloping the area, including Sol.

His senses became overwhelmed as he experienced the joys of wanderlust, seeing countless different locations throughout the world all at once. Before he could process what was happening, he snapped back to reality and realized he was falling straight towards the Bliss Spider.

‘I’m back?’ He hadn’t expected to recover so quickly.

It turned out that losing his floating platform had caused him to fall out of the gas's range before the gas could take complete hold of him. Yet, even outside the dense gas, he could still smell the ocean’s salty air and the aroma of various delicious spices, making it impossible to smell anything else, another sense was compromised.

Before he fell directly into the creature’s waiting claws, he created a new platform beneath his feet and flew away.

Seeing him escape once more, the creature screeched, sending shivers through anyone within range. Even Sol, who only heard a beautiful high pitched note, found it unsettling to know where the sound came from.

Once he regained his balance, Sol summoned more shadows and summoned back the magical hands that had been destroyed throughout the fight. He was ready to re-engage when he heard a distressed voice in the distance.

“Cap, help me!”