The Grand Weave

When I regained consciousness, I was met with a sharp, ringing pain in my head. It felt like the world took an icepick to my brain and jangled it around. After a few seconds of incoherent groaning, I channeled my mana and activated my skill. Áine appeared a moment after and immediately slapped her tiny hands onto my skull. While small in stature, the obvious concussion I was suffering made her double slap feel like hammers. Thankfully, the effects of her healing touch soothed most of the pain away with a cascade of green-tinted mana soaking into my body.

Once I felt good enough, I sat up slowly and looked around what used to be a living room. The front entrance where the exploding blood beast appeared was caved in completely. The roof must have fallen in the explosion and blocked off the entranceway. Looking around, I found Xertalus helping sit Matias up and start moving fallen debris off Sam's body.

A brief moment of panic and worry flashed through my mind until I let out a sigh of relief after I heard her let out a loud groan of pain. I'd rather have an injured Sam than a dead one.

"Thanks, Áine. Go heal Sam and the others."

With a swift boop on my nose, she flew off to tend to Sam. After seeing that Sam was receiving medical attention, I channeled more mana into chest and activated Resplendent Inferno. Zharia popped into existence and flew out the window to scout the outside. Thanks to how familiars worked as a skill, Zharia already knew what I wanted from her and didn't have to waste time following out my orders. I still caught the tail end of her mentally shaking her head at her master for getting knocked unconscious again.

"Not my fault!" I argued.

She chirped and sent more of her disappointment but I tuned her out.

"Where's Petraeus? I don't see him anywhere," I asked.

"Heeeere! Damn gods-cursed beast!" Petraeus yelled.

I swiveled my head across the room but couldn't find the man until I spotted his leg sticking out from underneath the overturned couch. If I recall correctly, he was standing in front of the sofa before the explosion, meaning he must have hit the long furniture hard enough to flip it over himself.

I stood up, and Xertalus joined me in carefully lifting the couch off him and letting the poor elf scramble his way out. Relatively, he looked fine, all things considered, but he did stand while leaning heavily on his left leg. A mental prompt to Áine saw the injury quickly healed, and Petraeus let out a small sigh of relief.

"Thank you, spirit, that feels much better," Petraeus said with relief clear in his voice. Áine responded by booping him in the nose before disappearing back into my chest. He looked around the room and waited till Sam and Matias came closer before speaking. "Good, everyone's okay. We need to get out there quickly and carefully. That damned monster was unexpected, but it will not happen again." The last words were grounded out, and I could see Petraeus' shoulders stiffened.

"What's the plan then? If the village is under attack, we need to protect the town hall. And honestly, I'm not that useful without my bow," Matias remarked.

"Master, the town hall is under attack. The angry cat people and the humans are defending it." Zharia mentally chirped.

"Is the outside of the house clear? And describe what kind of blood beasts are attacking. And give me a rough estimate of how many there are," I sent back.

Petraeus and the others must have noticed me communicating with Zharia since they were all silent and looking at me. I held up a finger and waited for Zharia's response.

"Gross eight-legged bugs. Slow metal man crushed one with his shield, but it exploded into a wave of smaller bugs. They are shooting gross sticky stuff out of their butts!"

I could feel the her revulsion through the connection.

"Thanks, Zharia. Go ahead and fly to Orsk, ask him where he wants you, and help the others."

"Yes! They will burn! Bugs should learn their place. They are food, not the hunters!"

I could already envision her feathers fluffing up at the beasts' audacity.

"I'm assuming you were communicating with your other familiar. Any news on the situation?" Petraeus asked.

I frowned slightly. "How did you know I was done talking with Zharia?"

"It's not super obvious, but you get a distant look in your eyes. Like you're only half paying attention to what's around you," Sam cut in.

I sighed. That could end up biting me in the ass one day.

I'll have to work on my poker face. Just another item to add to my ever-growing list.

"Our immediate area is clear for now, so we should get out while we can. The town hall is being attacked. From what Zharia described, I'd assume it's spiders. Gotta watch out when you attack them. Apparently, they split into smaller spiders," I explained.

Sam's shivered. "It had to be spiders. Blegh."

Petraeus tapped his foot and examined his brothers.

"I hate not having my weapon with me, but I can make do. Xertalus, you and I will head to the town hall and help out. Our attacks don't necessarily require weapons like Matias." He straightened. "Cyrus and Sam, I want you to head to our building with Matias and grab our gear. With your dimensional storage, it'll be faster to have you guys grab them. After you are done, make your way to the town hall and join in the defense."

Once again, we accepted our instructions without fuss and broke into two teams. With the caved-in front entrance, we were forced to cut a hole through the wall to get out. When we stepped outside, I saw what looked like red webbing covering half of the houses. It looked wet like water and carried the scent of iron, but it did not drip, and despite the wind, it barely rocked in the air.

"Let's make this fast. Our house is nearby. Make sure to look out for blood beasts," Matias said as he started jogging between buildings.

As we ran, we got closer to the town hall, and from a distance, I could see what looked like man-sized spiders attacking the rest of our team. Levin sent out a glob of acid at one of the creatures harrasing Dyllan. As it melted the giant spider into goop, the blood split in three pools. Three smaller spiders reformed and clacked their mandibles.

Before they could begin the attack, a blinding bolt of electricity blasted into the middle spider. The Chain Lightning forked and struck the other two spiders, frying all three into smoking puddles. The spiders didn't split off into an even larger group of monsters like I expected, which meant the spiders only split once.

"Earth to Cyrus, stop gawking, and let's go!" Sam called out, knocking me lightly on the head.

I shook myself out of my stupor, and we made our way between the buildings.

Matias stopped and held out a hand, causing us to stop before we ran into him. Without a word, he held a finger up to his mouth and pointed to the roof of the house in front of him. On top of the building, a massive spider crawled along a net of crimson webbing. The eight legs ended in sharp blades longer than my arm, and from its mouth snipped three pairs of mandibles.

The beast was fixed in the direction of the town hall and hadn't noticed us yet.

Matias motioned for us to back away, and he waited until we were a few meters away before speaking in hushed whispers. "That's the house we stayed in. We need to kill or draw away the monster before getting in there. Any idea on how we do this?"

Sam gave me a look that made me inwardly groan. The gleam in her eyes told me all that I needed to know. She wanted to fight the thing. Even if she was taller than the beast, it still had eight sharp legs to slice her in half.

"Come on, Cyrus, If we do it together, it'll be easy. We'll use Plan C," She held up a hand to stop me from responding and winked at Matias. "Even if we can't kill the smaller spiders, all we have to do is bide time till Matias gets his bow and arrows back. We don't have time to waste, so don't even bother to try to complain. Unless you got a better idea."

I groaned. "I don't."

"Good. That means we fight."

Magical badassery or not, a giant spider, the size of an average human, was horrifying. Not even mentioning the fact the damn beast used slime monster tactics. Matias looked curious, but he shrugged and slowly moved toward to the house.

I summoned my spear, and Sam brought out her hammer. On the count of three, I charged out of the alleyway and started making loud noises. The spider turned itself towards me but didn't move from its spot. That was not what I needed to make the plan work, so I started picking up rocks and threw them at the beast.

"Over here you overgrown bug!"

It shrugged off the hits and snapped the air. With a click of annoyance, I pulled out a metal pot from my inventory and chucked it. It sliced the pot in half with a single swipe of its limb.

I'd be impressed if that wasn't fucking horryfing.

It didn't stop the two halves from continuing the momentum of the throw. The two halves of the metal pot smacked into the beast's eyes, causing it to hiss in anger. It warbled the air and infilitrated my eardrums with a sound that no spider should make.

Still, I could feel my blood pumping in response, and I bared my teeth in a grin as it started climbing near the edge of the roof.

"That's right, beastie. Come and get me," I shouted.

The creature reared its front legs and splayed out its limbs.

Oh crap!

I dived to my right as a spray of webbing shot toward me. The webbing grazed my boot but I managed to pull free. Stray string missed me by a couple of inches. The spider lowered its front legs and gripped the edge of the roof. The building audibly groaned as the weight of the spider plopped back down.

I let out a loud, boisterous laugh and grabbed another rock. The spider launched itself like a bullet from the roof before I could lift the rock off the ground. I took another dive and rolled to my feet. Bladed limbs impaled the ground, sending stray shrapnel against my leg. With slow but exaggerated steps, I started backing away slowly.

Thud.

Crap. My back hit the wall behind me. Its eyes shifted to my hand as I reached behind me and slammed the stone against the wood. A stacato drummed out, causing it to twitch.

With an agonizingly slow scuttering of its limbs, it moved closer and closer.

Sam. If you don't attack this I'm going to haunt you for eternity!

"Saaaaaaam! Hurry the fuck up!" I shouted.

I caught movement behind the spider and started banging the rock harder and harder until the rock crumbled. When the pieces fell, I slapped the wall, ignoring the pain. Just as the beast raised two of its blades , a loud crack rang out. Sam slammed her glowing, blue fist into the monster's backside. It let out a strangled hiss and started turning around.

I gripped my spear and pushed out with my right foot. With all the strength I could throw into the lunge, I shoved my spear into one of its eyes. The blade squelched as paste dripped from the socket. No wings, the shaft slid further in. The blood beast swiped at the air in a frantic bid to defend itself. More than half of my spear disappeared into its body. It stilled for a few seconds before finally collapsing.

My spear clanked against the dirt as the beast lost its form and morphed into a puddle.

For a second, I relaxed.

I took a half-step as the puddle split into three pools. Sam wasted no time as she smashed her hammer down onto the furthest puddle, splattering the half-formed creature rising up. I swiped my spear and started stabbing into the second, but the monster was already nearly formed.

I was forced to relent as Sam jumped over and crushed the thing with a Tidal Fist.

We both rushed at the remaining spider as it reared up its legs. There wasn't enough time for us to react. The webbing wrapped us together and pinned us down. Like a fish in a net, we were glued to the ground with our limbs pulled across our bodies.

"Fuck! Sam, time to hulk out and get us out of this thing!" I yelled.

"I'm trying!" Sam shouted back.

The dog-sized spider rushed at us like a charging bull. I tried to kick my legs out and flex every muscle I could, but I couldn't move an inch. The webbing was too strong, and I didn't have any leverage other than wiggling like a worm.

As it leaped into the air, I braced myself and watched as it pointed all eight of its bladed limbs down at my head.

Thwick!

An arrow pierced the monster's abdomen at the apex of its jump right before it started to arc its way down. With a small whistle, the spider exploded as visible blades of air mana tore the beast apart. The shredded remains pelted our fronts, getting blood into my open mouth and nearly causing me to choke.

Matias sprinted to us and stared at our pitiful forms as we hacked up dead blood beast.

"So, tell me again, what exactly was Plan C," he said carefully.

"Uggggh, that tastes foul. Goodbye dreams of becoming a sexy, immortal vampire," Sam sputtered, and she coughed up a glob of pink spit. When she cleared her throat, she looked up at Matias and gave him a wide, toothy grin. "It's short for Plan Cyrus. And the plan worked out exactly as I said it would."

"Don't believe her. The damn thing is actually called Plan CIB. In short, Cyrus Is Bait. We workshopped up enough ideas during our time hunting in the woods. Muscles over here gets to drop the hammer on whatever is distracted by my so-called appetizing body. And I would say that with quotation marks if I could move my arms," I answered before he could ask the obvious question.

Matias shook his head and cleared his throat.

"I could try channeling some mana into an arrow and cut you out. We need to hurry and get to the others," he suggested.

"No. I got a better idea."

With a quick flex of mana, a comically large-headed dragonling appeared and floated over my head.

"What the-"

Chomperz opened his jaws.

A vacuum of air started sucked the webbing covering Sam and me. It detached from the ground and disappeared into his stomach.

Chomp!

Chomperz bared his teeth at Matias before flying into my chest.

"Well, that's awfully convenient. Usually, a skill like that is unable to pull in things touching your body."

I stood up and helped Sam while dusting myself off. "Good to know he can do that. I wasn't sure, but I hoped so."

I could only shrug in response. There wasn't any point in confirming or denying the question. He threw his hands up in the air and marched back to the house. It took less than a minute to gather the weapons and packs.

As we rushed to the town hall, we saw other spiders sitting on top of houses, but Matias took them down before they could ever get close. With the rate of arrows this man went through, I was starting to suspect his quiver was enchanted. He never ran out of ammo despite having shot well over three dozen arrows.

When we arrived, we rounded the layers of frozen mud walls surrounding the area. Tendrils of red-stained earth were also latching onto any small spiders that appeared and launching them into the air for Melena or Edith to finish off. A blast of golden fire alerted me to Zharia, defending Dyllan the moment the beasts got close. The area in front of the building looked like a warzone, as many of the nearest houses had gotten caught in the crossfire.

Zharia unleashed another golden plume before rushing over and zipping across my vision. "Master! Master! These bugs have suffered my fire and have been burnt to smoking puddles! Hurry up, lizard man is looking for Áine,"

I sent her feelings of pride and amazement as the excited little bird zipped off to continue helping Dyllan. Petraeus, the ever-diligent field commander, noticed when Zharia flew away from the battle line and spotted us. With a short command to Xertalus, the elf cleared a path for us to rush across the field. In the background, Caldur and the twins ran around like a roaming hit squad to any monster that came too close to the building.

As I neared, Petraeus made his way over.

"Cyrus, I need you to summon your familiar. The monsters managed to get inside and kill several of the villagers. Orsk is tending to the ones still alive. Go help him. We'll take care of things out here," he ordered.

I gave Sam a thumbs-up before opening the door and walking inside.

Holes lined the ceiling exposing the sky. People lay on the ground and in the cots, blood covering their bodies. Orsk was tended to a small girl's arm, applying bandages to her missing hand. I nearly retched., but I pushed down the bile.

Orsk didn't turn away from the crying child, but he still addressed me as I came closer.

"Good, you've made it. Your healing will be much more effective than my meager bandages and salves. Start on the ones in the cots. They're the closest to death," Orsk said.

His voice was strained. I channeled mana into Verdant Healer. Áine appeared and zipped toward the nearest victim.

"What happened? We all heard your shout, but we got ambushed by an exploding boar right as we opened the door. Next thing I know, we're rushing out into a village covered by giant spiders," I said as I kneeled down and started bandaging a woman's leg. She must have been the mother because even with her injury, she kept trying to cheer up the little girl.

Orsk finished tying the knot on the girl's bandages. He put the roll down and took in a deep breath. "That explains why you three were missing while the others arrived. But what you said is concerning. So far, according to Levin, who I have scouting the village, there are only spiders. No other forms of blood beasts were seen around the village."

"Wait, there have only been spiders? Nothing else?" I asked, but he shook his head in response. "That means I was targeted. That boar was sent to attack me. Arz'odral has to be doing something. But it can't be just me. This seems planned."

"I agree. If the demon wanted to kill us, it could have unleashed more. There is more to this spontaneous attack than what is obvious, but it's impossible to tell. Even the spiders attacking the villagers acted strangely. It would only require one to slaughter its way through them. Yet, when I heard the screaming and rushed in, the beasts were slowly, almost lazily, picking at the people. That behavior doesn't match the usual aggression we've seen so far."

"Do you think the system will penalize him? The last time he attacked, he received a warning."

Orsk paused and watched Áine heal the villagers. He reached into a bag and pulled out a mana potion before handing it to me. He waited till I knocked it down before getting up and holding out his hand. I accepted the help up and followed him to one of the cots. As he sat down, I could finally see the level of exhaustion on the beastkin. His head drooped slightly to the right, and the skin around his face was pale.

He must have stayed up running the wards.

"It remains to be seen. As I mentioned before, it is rare for a rift scenario to become so unhinged," he sighed. He rubbed at his eyes and gestured to the door. "You should go help the others while Áine finishes up in here. I'll be out shortly after I've rested."

I attempted a smile, but I could tell it didn't reach my eyes. I gave a reassuring pat on the shoulders and left the town hall. "Don't drain yourself too heavily, Áine. Prioritize the worst of them. We might need all that we can later."

She sent over the mental equivalent of a thumbs-up as I left the building. When I stepped outside, half of the team was resting against the wall or on raised blocks of stone. The houses sported several new holes, and the ground was entirely red for several meters out. I walked over to Sam, who was busy spitting out pieces of jerky.

"Is it over?" I asked.

She spat out shreds of chewed jerky before shoving another handful into her mouth. "Yeah. Levin and Matias are running a check through the village. They should be back soon."

Another shotgun spray of crumbs hit the ground, and I stepped back in disgust. "Okay, seriously, what the is up with the new jerky addiction? You're like Uncle Skid with his can of dip."

"The real question is why you're not reacting to the blood in your mouth. Seriously, you look like a vampire who decided to have a snack and forgot to clean up. Something about the blood beast made the aftertaste twice as strong," she scowled.

"I don't really notice it, to be honest. Maybe you got its spleen or something."

I received a middle finger in response.

Deciding to pity her, I tossed her my canteen and summoned my bag of candy. A single thin mint later, and Sam's stint as a jerky sprinkler was over. I tried to clean the dried blood off my face using a small mirror I picked up at the general store a while back. The water only ended up staining my face pink, much to Sam's delight.

Quickly flipping my hood up and flourishing my ink mask solved that issue. I was dead sure I looked edgy as hell. For the first time, I second-guessed my monochrome wardrobe.

"Remind me when we're rich. Buy colorful outfits,"

"Only if you buy me some."

"Buy them yourself."

It didn't take long for Levin and Matias to come back. They shook their heads.

The village was empty.

Whatever this attack was supposed to be, it was over. Áine eventually flew out of the town hall and took care of the team's injuries. Unsurprisingly, Dyllan was the most beat up.

With the calm and peace returned, I checked the system timer.

Protect the Village of Holmfirth

Wave: 6/10 Survived

Villagers Survived: 75%

Time remaining till next wave: 5h: 4mins: 16sec

I frowned. The villagers who survived had dropped down significantly from the attack.

Damn.

Orsk's comment about the spider's behavior came to mind. Dropping down to specifically seventy-five percent was suspicious. It was too specific to be coincidental. Arz'odral was up to something. But what?

"What's wrong, Cy." Sam asked.

I glanced over. She had her hammer in her hands. Sam hid the tension well, but her fingers gripped the hammer too tight.

"How do you even know something is wrong? I'm wearing a mask. And I know for a fact you don't have x-ray vision," I said.

She made an exaggerated hurt face and placed a hand over her heart. "You wound me with your lack of trust. I don't need to see your face to know something is wrong, dude. It's called body language. Same reason I always beat you in poker. Your shoulders stiffen, and you crack your fingers. Now tell me what's up."

"Check your timer. Orsk mentioned the attack on the town hall was weird. That, the spiders who broke in should have made mincemeat out of the villagers," I explained.

She scowled and then got that glassy-eyed stare of someone reading their status. "That is suspicious as hell."

"Exactly."

A small ding caused me to freeze. A familiar red blip in the corner of my vision made me internally groan. I shared a look with Sam before sucking in a breath and tore off the bandaid.

Protect the Village of Holmfirth

Wave: 8/10 Survived

Villagers Survived: 75%

Time remaining till next wave: 0h: 13mins: 13sec

Pr_pare you__elf, Asce_den_s. A Cha_-

Well fuck.