Chapter 19

  I felt like an idiot for not considering this possibility. Whoever said important things had to be on the same ground level as me?

  There wasn’t any use lamenting my lack of foresight now. Ideally, I would finish up here before tomorrow arrives, and I did have Fleur to help speed things up.

  “What should we do?”

  She looked to me for advice.

  “...Don’t suppose there are any moles around here?”

  I look around half heartedly, already fully aware no such lucky developments would be occurring.

  “It could be that a cave system lies below us.”

  Fleur suggested helpfully.

  “Hm. That’s true… give me a second.”

  I lay prone on the ground and pressed my ear to the ground. I didn’t know if this would let me detect hollow spaces like in the movies. Realistically speaking, I was grasping at straws here.

  And as expected, I didn’t hear anything. But it turned out I didn’t need to.

  “Myaaa”

  Tiara popped out from my satchel and began swatting at my coat pocket.

  “What’s up, baby?”

  She reached her paw in and scooped out the spider-ball Clink gave me, swatting it back and forth on the ground with large eyes.

  I watched her with a smile, but soon realised why she suddenly wanted to play with it. The ball was vibrating on its own, not like before, though. Now, it looked like the spiders inside were violently struggling to get out.

  I shooed Tiara back and carefully twisted the two sides of the ball, opening it up and quickly dropping it before I got bitten.

  As Clink had said, the ball was filled with small spiders that burst outward. I expected them to scatter and hide, but their behaviour caught my attention.

  I stood up and grabbed Tiara before she could start eating them all.

  “What are they doing?”

  Fleur came up to my side and looked on curiously.

  “Dunno. They’re really eager to get down there though.”

  The spiders were spinning in circles, and some were trying to use their legs to burrow downward. I tried using Primal Soul to connect my soul to one of them, but it bounced back immediately.

  The largest spider suddenly stopped, raised its two front legs, and started running in one direction. The others immediately began following after it.

  Fleur and I look at each other and shrugged, silently deciding to follow them. I kept losing sight of them in the grass and had to rely on Fleur’s superior elven senses. Our eight-legged friends suddenly took a sharp turn and went down into a small hole beneath the roots of a tree.

  The hole was only large enough for me to reach my hand in, and it was too dark to see anything inside.

  “I suppose we will have to find another way.”

  Fleur had already given up on this entrance and began scanning the surrounding area. But I wasn’t going to waste time when a perfectly serviceable entry point existed.

  “See you back in camp.”

  I smirked and looked at Tiara, still tucked into my arm. Our eyes flashed, and we combined, staying as small as possible.

  “Unless you find another way in, of course.”

  Fleur looked at the talking cat with her mouth hanging open. I grinned, revealing my sharp teeth, and jumped into the hole.

  With Tiara’s vision, I could see clearly even in this tiny, dark tunnel, and I caught sight of the spiders rounding a corner.

  I followed quickly. Luckily, the passage did not take long to widen. My slim, flexible body was no longer being squeezed on all sides, and I could run properly now.

  Unluckily, however, the spiders disappeared into an even smaller side passage. Not even I had a method of following them now.

  Instead, I oriented myself, trying to follow the winding, multi-branching passageways in the direction I thought the source of corruption was.

  Tiktiktiktik

  The sound of spider legs running started coming from every direction, audibly larger than the ones I followed here. I pushed myself against the wall and remained still.

  Sure enough, I saw all sorts of different arachnids passing by. There were all sorts of different species that didn’t belong here, either due to being underground or because they were solitary hunters that usually preyed on other spiders.

  I was confident in my stealth, but some of their legs definitely landed on me to use as a foothold. Yet they did not so much as pause in their frantic advance.

  Trusting myself to my luck, I moved forward and followed the stream of spiders. Sure enough, none of them acknowledged me.

  Descending further and further into the earth, we continued our march. The passages became larger as we went, as did the newcomers in our little parade, to the point some of these spiders were larger than my normal form.

  Ultimately, I found myself in a wide open area with tunnels on all sides from which more clusters of spiders emerged. Giant egg sacs hung from the ceiling, and webs covered practically every inch of the place. In the very center, a massive indigo stone hummed with ominous magical energy.

  All the spiders converged around it and stopped in their tracks, as if awaiting something. Seeing the atmosphere had visibly changed, I hid once more and observed.

  The stone unfurled and rose, breaking into eight large pieces that stretched over the cave's entirety. It was only then that I realised what I was looking at. This was a magical beast, similar to Tiara and Soot. It was a spider whose carapace looked like it was born from the earth itself and infused with raw, primal magic.

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  It paused for a moment after revealing its full majesty, then a wave of dark purple energy washed over all of us. Every spider in the room glowed briefly, then scurried off in the direction from which they came. The largest and most intimidating of them remained, probably serving as a guard for this magical beast.

  I remained perfectly still, careful not to nudge a single web in fear of them immediately noticing me.

  In hindsight, this was laughably naive.

  “Come forward, you who is sought by the Stag.”

  A commanding voice resounded in my head. This way of communicating reminded me of my time in the Soul Stream. In fact, it was exactly the same. Her soul was reaching out to mine in a hauntingly familiar manner.

  I revealed myself and responded in kind.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am the one who has been waiting for you, alongside our Lord.”

  I disengaged the fusion, and Tiara hid inside my jacket, her tail puffed up and body quivering. I still had to keep her with me so I could share her eyesight.

  “You have me at a loss. What is it you want from me?”

  Resistance was never an option here. If things went bad, the best I could do was flee as fast as possible. Not even at my best could I beat a single one of these spider guards.

  “We want the same thing.”

  I felt her prodding at my soul, trying to push something into my being. I may not be able to beat her physically, but in a battle of souls, I would never lose.

  “Impressive. For a Human to rebuff me, you have passed.”

  The invading sensation backed off.

  “To think a soul that has passed once could return… I did not believe even the Primordials when they spoke of such a thing. But I cannot deny what lies before my eyes.”

  Her stance relaxed somewhat, and the guards that had been surrounding me ran into the tunnels, leaving me alone with the mysterious creature.

  “What I want is the rebirth of the Stag. And with it, the death of the gods. Blightblade, along with the Stag's soul, has been under my care for 15 years now. Come and claim it, then we can speak further.”

  She lifted her body higher, revealing a small cocoon directly beneath her body.

  I did as she commanded, and walked boldly towards it. The massive body above my head could have crushed me in the blink of an eye, but I chose to trust its owner.

  The webs pulled apart easily, and I saw a rusted sword encased within. Nothing about it looked heroic or legendary. This was the kind of sword you would imagine a barbarous Orc to swing around, and the energy that emanated from it felt like the very definition of toxic.

  Tiara sprinted away the moment the webs broke. I felt her fear of the weapon clearly.

  “Blightblade. Once wielded by Freya Wolfslied, it is said to contain all the poisons of the world, and its very existence erodes everything around it over time…”

  She recited information I was unable to find in any record this past month, but seeing the sword in front of me, I instinctively knew what she is saying was wrong.

  “...No being can survive it; it is a cursed existence used only by the most desperate. Freya herself sealed it away after only three months of use, and she never fully recovered the damage it caused to her soul.”

  I held the blade up by the handle, and just as this spider was reaching her soul to mine, I reached mine to the sword.

  Or more appropriately, the presence inside the sword.

  I immediately felt the response, a force beyond any I had felt in this world latched to my very core. This was the force that destroyed all who tried to wield it, but not because of the reasons being recited to me by the spider.

  The soul inside this blade was just a fragment of a greater whole. It was the same soul I latched onto when I was freed from eternity in the Soul Stream. The Stag Lord’s broken mind was contained here.

  “Your souls were mixed in death and bound for life. Only one who has adapted to such an immense soul can handle its existence. You, reborn soul, can wield this power and bring blighted death to all who stand against you.”

  I audibly laughed, my voice echoed loudly as dry amusement bounced off the cave walls. I spoke plainly this time, not through my soul.

  “This sword is meaningless. It’s just a prison that needs to be shattered.”

  I swung it as hard as I could against the stony ground, and the blade snapped in half. A legendary blade broken by mere rock. I tossed the remains to the side and walked confidently out from beneath the massive spider.

  She did not move until I was out from under her, then she slowly settled back into the ground, her face level with mine.

  “I would have made your death painful had you made the wrong choice.”

  Her eyes flashed with respect. I think. I can’t really tell a spider’s expressions apart.

  “All that crap you were spouting, what was that?”

  I went back to speaking from the soul.

  “That was the tale they tell of this sword in the Human lands. Others before you have found this place, I kept them captive while they recited these tales for my amusement. Their bones are around here somewhere.”

  I could see where these misconceptions came from. A dead Primordial’s soul, bound to a weapon and infused with magic, would no doubt emit such power that it could affect not just the spirit world, but the physical as well. This Freya person must have been doing exactly that at some point and misunderstood what she was doing. Whoever she was, the fact that she could expose her own body and soul to such corruption for three months was impressive.

  “But why was the Stag Lord’s soul in a sword to begin with? Ah, actually, before that, what should I call you?”

  The name she gave was impossible to pronounce in any tongue. I could only understand it because the information was shared from her soul to mine. Its meaning was similar to “The first of the forgotten.” I referred to her as Arach instead.

  “To answer your other question… It was simply a mistake.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Your soul was meant to be located earlier, then brought to the Stag. However, the Stag was weak, and your location was lost for a decade. It was a servant of the First Wendigo who located you in the end. Not ideal, but acceptable.”

  The First Wendigo… Contextually, this had to refer to The Watcher in the Crucible, seeing as that strange creature from the woods seven years ago definitely came from the same place. The Watcher was just a name I gave that creepy eye for my own benefit. Nobody in that world ever explained anything, including the name of the being ruling over it.

  “That sword was simply the closest object the Stag was able to bind to at the time. It has no significance. Unfortunately, I had no way of transferring it and could only keep it here for protection.”

  “How did you find it anyway?”

  “You and I are fellow disciples of the Primordials. Just as Poggy and the She-Beast are, though I have been around much longer. I could feel the Stag's return from the realm of the gods immediately. I only allowed that Freya woman to carry the sword because the Stag acknowledged her, she still could not truly coexist with them, however, and ultimately hid it in this forest, whereupon I reclaimed it.”

  I snickered at “She-Beast” and kept that in my pocket for the next time I saw Ada. Arach continued her explanation.

  “I was born of this world soon after the gods arrived and claimed all divinity for themselves; were I born but a short while sooner, I would be one of the Primordials. I would be in the realm of the Stag, the Wendigo, and the Emerald Dragon.”

  I felt the air around her plummet in temperature as her immense magical aura intensified further. Her anger at the gods was clear to see.

  “Rest assured, fellow disciple. So long as you maintain your course and work to pull the gods from their thrones, I will be here to assist you.”

  She gave a mental command, and a swarm of spiders encircled me. They were the size of my torso and sported vibrant blue and black patterns.

  “When your soul has matured enough, I will bond to you personally. For now, make use of these children. They will be an asset to you and your... goblin friends.”

  “You even know about that?”

  “I see all through the eyes of my brood.”

  Information rushed into my brain. Arach had imparted her knowledge of these spiders to me with a thought, and I immediately understood what they were.

  As I was about to leave to rejoin Fleur, Arach called out to ask one question.

  “Has the Stag spoken?”

  I glanced at the broken sword and focused on the small, silent presence that had burrowed deep into my soul.

  “...No. But I feel them there. I will do what I can to restore them.”

  I received no response, only a vague sense of approval as Arach curled back into the position I first found her in.