The escape boat bobbed aimlessly in the vast, grey expanse of the Endless Sea. The adrenaline of the battle had faded, replaced by a suffocating silence.
Bo sat at the helm, his face pale. He wasn't seasick this time. He was terrified by what he was seeing.
In the center of the boat, Kaelen knelt beside his mother, Lyra.
She was shivering violently. Her skin, which had been pale in the tank, was now turning a translucent, sickly grey. Veins bulged on her neck, glowing with an angry, rhythmic red light.
Thump... Thump... Thump.
It wasn't a heartbeat. It sounded like a countdown.
"Boss," Bo whispered, afraid to break the concentration. "Is she... is she turning into one of those monsters?"
"Quiet," Kaelen commanded. His voice was strained.
Kaelen's hands were hovering over Lyra's body. He was using the Dragon's Insight to scan her internal organs.
What he saw made his blood freeze.
The Doctor hadn't just experimented on her. He had booby-trapped her.
Inside Lyra's heart, wrapped around her arteries like a poisonous vine, was a Blood-Lock Seal. It was an artificial parasite made of Spirit Qi and mechanical nanobots.
It was designed to do two things:
Suppress her immense Solar Bloodline so she wouldn't explode.
Kill her instantly if she was removed from the Eclipse's control frequency.
"They turned her heart into a bomb," Kaelen hissed through gritted teeth.
Lyra gasped, her eyes snapping open. They were wild, unseeing.
"It burns..." she moaned, clutching Kaelen's arm. Her nails dug into his flesh, drawing blood. "Arion... it burns... take it out..."
"I'm here, Mom. I'm here," Kaelen whispered, ignoring the pain in his arm.
He knew he couldn't remove the seal. Not yet. If he ripped it out now, her heart would stop. He needed the Resurrection Flower to sustain her life force during the surgery.
But the flower was on Dragon Bone Island, still two days away. The seal would kill her in two hours.
"I have to buy time," Kaelen decided.
He looked at Bo.
"Bo, tie the rudder. Keep us heading North. Do not stop. Even if the sky falls."
"What are you going to do?" Bo asked, sensing the dangerous shift in Kaelen's aura.
Kaelen didn't answer. He sat in the lotus position behind his mother. He placed his palms on her back.
"I cannot remove the poison," Kaelen said to the wind. "So I will become the filter."
Abyssal Dragon Art: Life Transfer.
It was a suicidal technique. Kaelen connected his meridians to hers.
He began to suck the "burning" energy of the seal into his own body.
SSSSS!
Smoke rose from Kaelen's shoulders.
The pain was instantaneous. It felt like he was drinking lava. The Eclipse's seal reacted to the foreign intrusion, sending shockwaves of necrotic energy into Kaelen's veins.
"Ngh!" Kaelen grunted, blood trickling from his nose.
But as he absorbed the pain, Lyra stopped shivering. The red glow on her neck faded. Her breathing became peaceful.
"Boss!" Bo screamed, seeing Kaelen's skin turn grey. "Stop! You're killing yourself!"
"Keep... steering!" Kaelen choked out.
For the next ten hours, the small boat became a silent battlefield.
Kaelen was waging a war against a microscopic enemy. Every beat of Lyra's heart was bought with a drop of Kaelen's vitality. His hair, usually black as night, began to turn white at the tips—a sign of overdrawing life essence.
Rai, the hawk, watched with sad eyes. He hopped onto Kaelen's knee and nuzzled his hand, trying to share his small warmth.
...
Two Days Later.
The mist cleared.
"Boss... wake up. We are here."
Kaelen slowly opened his eyes. He felt heavy. His cultivation had dropped from Spirit Ocean Level 1 back to the Peak of Body Refining. He had burned that much energy to keep her alive.
But Lyra was sleeping soundly, a faint pink color returning to her cheeks.
"Worth it," Kaelen rasped.
He looked ahead.
Looming out of the sea was not an island.
It was a Skull.
Dragon Bone Island was literally the fossilized skull of an ancient, titanic dragon that had died millions of years ago. Its massive jaws formed the harbor. Its eye sockets were caves. And on top of its head, a dense, dark jungle grew.
The water around the island was black and still. Broken ships—hundreds of them—littered the coastline. Galleons, frigates, pirate skiffs. They were impaled on the jagged "teeth" of the dragon reefs.
"The Graveyard of Ships," Bo swallowed hard. "They say no one who lands here ever leaves. The island is cursed. The plants eat people. The rocks scream at night."
"And the Resurrection Flower grows in the center," Kaelen stood up, swaying slightly. "Right in the Dragon's brain."
As they approached the "Jaw" (the entrance), a sudden horn blew.
BWOOOOOOO!
It was a deep, mournful sound.
From the fog, a small raft drifted toward them.
On the raft stood a figure. It was wrapped in grey bandages like a mummy. It held a lantern that burned with a green flame.
"Halt," the figure's voice was like scratching sandpaper. "The Dragon does not welcome the living."
Bo hid behind the rudder. "Is that the Grim Reaper?"
Kaelen walked to the bow. He looked weak, his face pale, but his eyes were still sharp.
"I am not here to disturb the Dragon," Kaelen said hoarsely. "I am here to make a trade."
"A trade?" The Gatekeeper floated closer. Under the hood, two yellow eyes glowed. "What can a dying boy trade with the dead?"
Kaelen reached into his spatial bag. He didn't pull out gold. He didn't pull out a weapon.
He pulled out the Dragon-Blood Tree Seed he had found in the cave back in Ghost Weep Pass.
The seed sensed the island. It began to hum. The island—the massive fossil—seemed to vibrate in response.
The Gatekeeper froze. The green flame in his lantern flared up.
"A seed... of the Ancestor?" The Gatekeeper's voice trembled with shock. "This has been lost for ten thousand years. Where did you get this?"
"Does it matter?" Kaelen tossed the seed gently in his hand. "This seed can revive the island's dying mana. I will give it to you. In exchange... I want safe passage to the Flower Garden."
The Gatekeeper stared at the seed greedily. The island was dying. This seed was its only hope of rebirth.
"The passage is safe," the Gatekeeper hissed. "But the Garden... is not."
"Why?"
"Because She guards it."
"She?"
"The Spider Queen," the Gatekeeper whispered. "She weaves the fate of intruders into her webs. If you enter, you become her prey."
Kaelen smiled. A tired, dangerous smile.
"I just destroyed a laboratory full of Chimeras and humiliated a mad scientist," Kaelen said, looking back at his sleeping mother. "A spider is the least of my problems."
He threw the seed to the Gatekeeper.
The mummy caught it with trembling hands.
"Pass," the Gatekeeper stepped aside, the raft drifting into the mist. "But be warned, boy. The Resurrection Flower requires a sacrifice. It does not bloom for free."
Kaelen steered the boat past the Gatekeeper, into the mouth of the Dragon.
"Bo," Kaelen said, checking his sword. "Do you hate spiders?"
"I hate anything with more than four legs!" Bo cried. "Wait, is she a giant spider? Or a woman spider?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes! One I can run from. The other might try to marry me!"
Kaelen chuckled. The levity helped.
They docked on the rocky shore inside the Dragon's mouth. The air here was thick with ancient, heavy Qi.
Kaelen picked up Lyra.
"Bo, you stay with the boat. Keep the engine running. If we don't return in three hours... leave."
"Leave?" Bo looked offended. "Boss, after all we've been through? I'm not leaving. I'll guard the boat. But if a spider comes... I'm honking the horn."
Kaelen nodded. He carried his mother into the dense, dark jungle of the island.
The jungle was silent. No birds. No wind.
Just the sound of sticky threads snapping.
Snap. Snap.
Kaelen walked forward. He was weak. His energy was drained. He was walking into a trap.
But he looked at his mother's face, peaceful and breathing.
'For you,' Kaelen thought, stepping into the web-covered darkness. 'I would fight the world.'
Deep in the shadows, eight red eyes opened, watching the fresh meat enter the domain.
The Arc of the Spider Queen had begun.