The monstrous spider descended from the ceiling, its body swaying with the weight of its eight armored legs. Silk unraveled from its maw, coiled and ready to bind prey. The cavern shook as its bulk settled onto the sprawling web stretched across the abyss. The battlefield itself had become the spider's domain, a death trap woven strand by strand.
Connor McCloud measured it with cold calculation. The beast stood nearly three meters tall, its length three times that. Purple fire smoldered upon its back, and three jagged mana crystals jutted from its skull like a crown of hunger. Its rank hovered near thirty-eight—far beyond him. Kyle, the future within him, whispered the cruel math: alone, Connor's chance of survival was nil. Even with Sina's bow and Kyle's guidance, the odds barely scratched twenty-four percent.
Yet it was not zero.
The spider prowled the web like a tyrant. Each tremor of silk carried whispers to its senses, a network of vibration that made deception nearly impossible. Its pincers clacked as it spun thread into lethal orbs. With unerring accuracy, it spat silk across the cavern to where a stone had fallen, wrapping the space in suffocating layers. Intelligence glinted in its movements—it tested, it judged, it discarded. A hunter with patience.
Connor's gift tingled, guiding him where his eyes failed. To cross the web was suicide, for sticky strands would entrap him instantly. Yet, as spiders weave, not every thread binds. Some are neutral paths only the spider itself can tread. His gift, born of warning, marked them clear as roads of light. Step by step, the burning sting in his forehead led him past certain death.
But the beast adapted. A swing of its legs shattered the web beneath him, flinging him against stone. Visions flooded his mind—futures of his body pierced, broken, devoured. Again, his gift showed what was to come, and he twisted fate at the last instant. Where one vision showed his death, he bent his body lower, his blade answering the spider's strike. The dwarven steel sliced true, severing one of its carapaced limbs.
The spider screamed, a sound like glass grinding against bone, and thrashed with fury. Balance faltered as its weight shifted. Connor knew—cut one more leg, and the predator's grace would crumble.
But the abyss was merciless. A new vision surged: adhesive silk spewing in torrents. He braced too late. The glue clung to his armor and hurled him to the cavern floor, hardening instantly like a coffin of resin. Only his sword arm remained free. Kyle's magic worked desperately to release him, tearing fasteners apart while the spider prepared its finishing strike.
Then, a voice.
Sina Palen stepped from her hiding place, bow raised, eyes glowing with an awakened sigil. Her arrow flew like lightning, piercing the spider's open maw. It shrieked, faltering, just as Kyle's magic freed Connor from the hardened cocoon. Armor fell away like a broken shell, leaving only his school uniform between him and death.
The spider's fury reached its peak. Purple flames flared across its back. Its armored shell cracked and fell away, revealing vents beneath its legs. From each nozzle, it fired threads no longer silk but spears—projectiles so sharp and forceful they tore through the cavern walls. The air screamed as if filled with iron lances.
Connor dove for cover, rock shattering above him. Dust rained down like ash. The spider raged indiscriminately, blind to ally or prey, flooding the cavern in a storm of death. It was destruction embodied.
Waiting meant death. To fight recklessly was madness. But madness was all that remained.
He rose from behind shattered stone, blood trickling from his shoulder. His voice hardened into a vow: if the spider thrashed, then so would he.
Kyle hesitated, reminding him of the cost. The mask—the inheritance of battle instincts—risked shattering his body as it had before. Seizures, collapse, failure. But Connor's answer was unwavering. The world yet stood. To preserve it, he must survive.
Magic surged. Blue light spread across his face, twisting, reshaping. Cause and effect bent to Kyle's incantation. What was never done became what had already been done. Memory and power fused into form.
The glow deepened into crimson. Horns curved from the mask that sealed to his flesh as if it were skin. No strings held it. It simply became part of him.
Connor raised his sword, the cavern trembling with the weight of his intent.
The Mask of the Turtle Face had awakened.
And the reckoning began.