He spent what felt like fifteen minutes trying to ignite a flame by rotating the bolt, and at one point he even managed to see a few sparks—but he couldn't get a fire going.
That was when Cuhlun realized he had no choice left but to fight.
Of course, to fight the spider.
The spider was far too powerful, and if it killed Cuhlun, he wouldn't find peace even in death. His mind would collapse, but the spider's mind would rise inside that very body.
In a fight within the darkness, the spider would obviously win—but in a fight with light, the outcome might be different.
Right now, this glowing puddle was technically a "light source," but the moment he took even a few steps away, everything became pitch black again. Winning here was impossible!
Unless he created more glowing puddles——which was impossible.
Cuhlun gripped the silver dagger with his left hand and began slashing at the darkness he couldn't even see, mostly aiming upward and at leg height.
And yes—more puddles began to glow.
He had understood the reason for this back in the Memory Realm. The puddle glowed because its mind was exposed to the spider's mind—because a spider thread had snapped and fallen into it. That was what caused the glow.
If he repeated this process on every spider thread, he could fill the entire area with glowing puddles and create a fighting environment that worked in his favor.
Cuhlun usually preferred fighting inside the Memory Realm, but that wasn't an option this time. He had already tried fighting there, and he could try again—but this time there was no Mind Eater to guard his sleeping real body. If he fell asleep, the real spider could simply walk up and kill him whi—
In the middle of his spiraling thoughts, while he was trying to spread glowing puddles everywhere, something leapt out of the darkness and latched onto his face.
Cuhlun immediately tried to pry it off with his arm, but it was no use. He didn't even know what it was yet, but his face was burning with pain—so whatever it was, it needed to come off. And he knew exactly how to do that.
Cuhlun braced himself, pulled his head back—
—then slammed it full force into the hard stone floor.
Whatever was stuck to his head burst apart, spraying blood everywhere.
Only then was Cuhlun able to pull it off with his hand, because it was now severely injured and had lost its strength.
When he looked at it, he realized it was a fly—though obviously nothing like the flies from the normal world. It had no legs. Instead, it had a massive mouth, and it used strong wing-powered leaps to hurl itself at enemies and latch onto them with that mouth.
Worse, the fly was tied with spider threads. Its spine was pierced by dozens of threads. Beneath a massive wound, its brain—encased in spider silk and controlled from outside—was exposed.
Cuhlun couldn't hold his stomach and vomited to the side. Still, food was scarce down here, so he tried not to throw up too much—he tried his best to hold it in.
Once he got himself together, he noticed the silent cave wasn't as silent anymore. Many sounds—coming from…
…the darkness.
Just one of those flies had nearly killed him. What would several do?
Cuhlun quickly moved to the center of the glowing puddles, where nothing could leap at him from complete darkness. At least he wouldn't be caught off guard.
They arrived sooner than he expected.
They came hopping out of the darkness, and with every hop the threads attached to them became briefly visible—shimmering faintly in the light.
Cuhlun exhaled lightly, then started running.
Between the tiny glowing puddles, thousands of flies were hurled at him. He could hear the endless buzzing of countless flies flooding in from the darkness.
He used his silver dagger to slice the flies that leapt at him—one by one, piece by piece…
When he spun around, he saw one coming straight for his face. For a moment he couldn't react—but he raised his right arm just in time, and with a tiny flick of his finger, he triggered the wrist-mounted crossbow.
The bolt shot forward and hit the fly dead center in its gaping mouth.
Without wasting a second, Cuhlun turned back and slashed more flies with his left hand.
When dozens of them jumped at him at once, he swung the crossbow like a whip. The bolt was still attached by an invisible thread, and through that thread he could redirect both the bolt—and the fly skewered on it.
As the bolt slowly retracted, the fly stuck on it was dragged along as well.
With a sharp twist of his wrist, Cuhlun spun the crossbow, knocking dozens of flies off balance and flinging them in all directions. The ones in front toppled, sending those behind them falling like dominoes. Still, for the hundreds left, it barely mattered. They weren't going to stop.
They were monsters built to destroy.
With that thought, Cuhlun finally activated his ability.
"Set's Way."
The glowing puddles vanished beneath a layer of mist covering the cave floor. Cuhlun's face darkened—and so did everyone else's. Actually, they weren't darkened at all; there was no physical change.There shouldn't be.
It's just that…
just that…
anyone exposed to the ability couldn't distinguish friend from foe. Everyone became an unfamiliar stranger in the eyes of everyone else. And under these conditions, the flies began attacking each other. Hundreds of them didn't know where to direct their hostility.
Even though the spider had spread its mind across the flies, each fly was still a separate being—still a separate life. Cuhlun's ability targeted life, not mind, and even if they were controlled by the same mind, their lives were distinct.
The spider seemed to be trying to maintain control, because Cuhlun was still fighting dozens of flies—they mostly chose to fight him rather than each other.
Still, considering how drastically their numbers were falling, Cuhlun found the motivation to handle the smaller groups still coming for him.
As the ability's duration began to fade, the mist on the floor started to thin and disperse. By the time it disappeared completely, the number of flies had dropped to something that could be counted on fingers, and beneath the fading mist there was no glowing puddle—only a layer of dead flies.
Cuhlun killed the last of them.The spider had surely realized his ability by now, and it would soon send stronger forces.
And of course, he knew the most obvious way to get rid of them.
He just had to finish what he started.