Dahlia barely had time to register the movement before Blaire was already gone, dashing at her, Otto, and Emilia with a sharp burst of speed, her claws slicing the thick air.

  She braced with her hammer instinctively, her body locking up as a pulse of tension hit her nerves, but she wasn’t the only one moving. Emilia and Otto’s reactions were so sharp, so in sync with Blaire’s attack that there was no hesitation between them. The crack of gunfire rang through the cavern just as Emilia let out a piercing, high-frequency screech—the kind that made chitin shudder and exoskeletons crack—but neither attack managed to hit Blaire, because none of them were aimed at Blaire.

  Time seemed to slow as Otto and Emilia whirled as well, the three of them directing their attacks at something behind Dahlia.

  It wasn’t enough.

  … What’s behind me?

  What are they trying to hit?

  Dahlia got her answer a moment later as claws, bullets, and sound waves bounced off hard chitin. They did no real damage, but they forced the looming humanoid shadow behind Dahlia back, distorting its silhouette as Dahlia whirled around a second later than everyone else to see…

  A recovering humanoid spider already dashing back in, six arms sweeping down at the four of them like scythes.

  The silver threads showed in her eyes, showing her the paths to unmaking, but the world seemed to slow even further. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. None of them could as they watched the arms arc down towards them—

  And then something yanked all of them back.

  A force coiled around her waist, and before she could look down, she was pulled. Her boots skidded across the slick, organic floor as a sharp red thread wrapped around her waist, and the same glow surrounded Otto, Emilia, and Blaire, all of them wrenched away from the attack and flung deeper into the cavern.

  The pull stopped just as suddenly, leaving all of them stumbling back as they landed on they rears, breaths unsteady, hearts hammering. Dahlia’s fingers clenched the handle of her hammer as she steadied herself, eyes snapping up.

  Alice stood before them, her crimson flower-patterned cape billowing in the wind coming from deeper inside the cavern.

  Dahlia didn’t need to see the Arcana Hashrana’s face to know there was no grin. No lazy amusement. No mocking playfulness.

  She was serious as she started weaving four blood thread weapons in her hands.

  Alice…?

  What are you doing here—

  But her mind barely had time to process Alice’s arrival before another impact shook the cavern, heavy and visceral, a deep crack of force meeting flesh. While the humanoid spider at the mouth of the cavern recovered from its missed slash, the Fool dropped down from the ceiling, falling straight onto her like a comet.

  The two locked together in a brief clash, one leg straining against six armoured spider limbs, but Dahlia felt the shift in power almost immediately.

  The Fool was losing.

  The spider was too strong. Too large. Too overwhelming.

  With a sudden twist, she stepped to the side and let the Fool fall past her, and then she grabbed his ankle, throwing him to the side of the cavern.

  All four of them participants flinched as the Fool crashed through the cavern wall with a deafening, meaty crack. He’d been flung into it so hard that the fleshy surface dented, swallowing his entire body into its organic mass.

  There was no way he wasn’t already dead.

  Now, without anyone in her way, the spider moved forward with an unsettling humanoid gait. Her six arms flexed as she rolled her neck, one of her shoulders popping into place with a dry crack. Her heavy, plated feet sank into the damp ground, leaving shallow imprints as she moved. Eight eyes, three metres tall, and brown-plated with sharp spine-like hairs covering her entire body—Dahlia didn’t know why she knew the spider was a ‘her’, but she just knew.

  “... What a pain,” she muttered, brushing dust from the armoured ridges of her arms. “Even the Fool and the Hangman couldn’t notice me hiding in that cicada’s aura.” Then her dark, many-eyed gaze swept across the five of them, narrowing on Blaire. “So how did you, little girl?”

  And then the spider’s killing pressure hit.

  Dahlia’s breath locked in her throat. Every muscle in her body screamed to recoil, to fold inward, to stop moving, stop breathing, stop existing. Emilia stiffened beside her, jaw clenched so hard she was shaking. Otto’s fingers twitched toward his gun, but the three of them knew—they all knew—that nothing they did would matter against what stood before them.

  Inside Dahlia’s head, Kari’s voice cut through the haze of terror.

  [This cannot be.]

  [That is Apocia, an F-Rank Spider God, and one of the Seven Spider Spinners.]

  [What is she doing here?]

  Her stomach twisted into a knot.

  A Spider God.

  Alice had told her once before that two Arcana Hasharana were equal to one Insect God, but she’d just watched the Fool get turned into pulp against the wall, and now Alice was the only one standing between Apocia and the four of them.

  Her fingers curled against her palm. Her eyes flicked, just for a second, towards Blaire.

  Blaire hadn’t been trying to kill the three of them. She’d saved them.

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  She saw something even two Arcana Hasharana couldn’t see.

  How?

  Apocia didn’t give any of them to think.

  One instant, she loomed twenty metres ahead, six arms flexing casually. In the next, she blurred forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat.

  “The jig’s up,” she murmured. “I can’t hide anymore.”

  The sheer speed of her approach sent a shockwave through the cavern. Dahlia and the others only just now managed to stagger onto their feet before that massive, plated body was upon them.

  But she never reached them.

  Because Alice was already there.

  A streak of crimson silk, a flash of fluid motion. Alice intercepted her in a single impossible leap. The mess of threads on each of her palms shifted in an instant, silk-woven constructs morphing between forms: blade, axe, spear, and whip. All four met Apocia’s six giant arms, each one slamming into an arm with wind and force howling outwards.

  The ground beneath them cracked and split. Loose chunks of rock split from the ceiling and plummeted. Alice only chortled—a sharp, knife-like sound, half grimace, half wild exhilaration.

  “Don’t mess with the trainees,” she drawled. “I still haven’t forgiven you for running away that time in the abandoned town.”

  And at that exact same moment, the ground beneath Apocia’s feet burst apart. A twisted mass of dried organic tissue ruptured, and like a corpse rising from a grave, half a man shot up from the ground to grab one of Apocia’s legs.

  The Fool.

  He tilted his head, readjusted his glasses with his free hand, and grinned up at Apocia.

  “Hello.”

  And across the cavern, the battle between Alice, the Fool, and Apocia raged like a storm.

  Alice moved like a streak of silk herself, constantly shifting, her weapons weaving into existence and unravelling the moment they were no longer useful. She was on the offensive. Her cloak and wings fluttered behind her like a confusing dress as she darted around Apocia, striking from multiple angles at a time.

  The Fool, in contrast, barely moved. He played defense for Alice like it was a game, his lazy grin never wavering as he tanked Apocia’s attacks head-on. Whenever one of her clawed arms were about to cleave clean through Alice’s chest, he’d yank Alice back and let her arm bisect him completely—and then his body would simply knit itself back together, clothes included. The regeneration was so quick his wound started sealing before Apocia’s arm even finished going through his body.

  But Apocia was relentless. She was a spider. A tarantula with spiny hairs, Dahlia could tell. Three metres tall, all six arms a blur of claw, chitin, and spines, her beady black eyes darted between the two Arcana Hasharana with inhuman precision. She may not be half as agile as Alice, and she may not even be a fraction as enduring as the Fool, but none of Alice’s blades, glaives, spears, whips, and axes were punching through her chitin plates. She wasn’t just keeping up.

  She was winning.

  Dahlia’s grip tightened around her hammer.

  This wasn’t a fight half-fledged Hasharana could interfere with. This was too much.

  And yet, Emilia gritted her teeth.

  “... We have to help,” she said.

  The decision was made, and they all had shared the same thought. Clenching her stomach, tightening her arms, Dahlia rushed forward with Blaire, charging into the fray while Otto and Emilia stayed back.

  It wasn’t hard to see the silver threads running from the tip of her hammer to Apocia’s limbs. The entire cavern was practically filled to the brim with them, each outlining an opening, a vulnerability, a target she could strike and weaken. Apocia wasn’t really dashing around as she fended off Alice and the Fool’s relentless strike, and a mostly unmoving target was just what Dahlia needed to make herself useful.

  She gritted her teeth as she neared Apocia’s back, both her and Blaire coming in from a blindspot. A flank. She adjusted her grip on her hammer again, and right as she got in range to swing at a blooming silver flower on Apocia’s back—

  The threads vanished.

  A tidal wave of killing pressure suddenly fanned out, slamming into her eyes and wiping them out.

  And while both her and Blaire winced, missing their hammer swing and claw slashes by a wide margin, all of Apocia’s eyes snapped onto them.

  Dahlia froze.

  So did Blaire.

  Their bodies refused to move. The sheer, paralyzing force of Apocia’s focus locked them in place, suffocating, overwhelming—

  The Fool’s voice snapped through the cavern like a whip.

  “You fools!”

  The Spider God's many arms bristled with new, jagged spines, and without warning, she flicked a volley of spikes at Dahlia and Blaire.

  Dahlia barely had time to even raise her firefly bracers before a figure moved in front of her. Alice. In an instant, the Hangman’s hands wove crimson silk into a shield, the threads twisting into a dense barrier. At the same time, the Fool threw himself in front of Blaire, physically taking the brunt of the attack without hesitation.

  The sharp thuds of spikes burying into flesh and fabric echoed across the cavern.

  There was no time to check up on Alice and the Fool. Emilia yanked all four of them back with a sharp inhale, and they didn’t stop flying until they reached the jagged, uneven ground near the other end of the cavern. Across, Apocia stood unmoving as new spines regenerated all over her body, bristling like thorns and ready for the next attack.

  Though all four of them landed on their feet in battle-ready stances, Dahlia saw the blood. Scarlet drops splattered across two of Alice’s arms, soaking into her cloak. A few blackened spines jutted from her skin.

  Venom.

  Alice—” Dahlia started, her voice tight with guilt.

  “I’m feeling great!” Alice chirped, waving off the concern like it was nothing—but there was a faint crease in her brow, a slight tremor in her fingers. “A little bit of venom won’t kill me!”

  A ‘little bit’. Dahlia clenched her jaw, her grip tightening on her hammer. Alice had taken that hit for her. If she’d been faster—stronger—she wouldn’t have needed saving in the first place.

  A sharp, chittering laugh cut through the cavern. Apocia tilted her head, multiple glistening black eyes narrowing. “So there really were Arcana Hasharana shadowing the participants, huh,” she mused. “In that case… my little sister is probably dealing with the archer.”

  Dahlia stiffened.

  Little sister?

  Apocia’s gaze swept over them, appraising, unimpressed. “You two were sneaky,” she said, addressing Alice and the Fool. “But not sneaky enough.”

  The Fool didn’t reply right away. Instead, he yanked out the dozen or so venomous spikes from his chest, his arms, his neck, tossing them aside without so much as a grimace.

  “You're the sneaky one,” he said, rolling his shoulders, cracking his neck. “It’s almost like the entire Swarm has undergone simultaneous evolution… some kind of camouflage gland that makes all of you harder to detect. I for sure didn’t sense you coming until the Plagueplain Doctor moved in.”

  “Same,” Alice murmured, rubbing the edge of her sleeve against the corner of her mouth. “You guys are getting really good at hiding your auras, huh?”

  Apocia only chuckled. “Who knows?” she said, malice dripping from her voice. Then her grin stretched wider, revealing rows of serrated, gleaming fangs. “Either way, I'm not quite willing to fight all six of you at once," and she tilted her head at the Fool, “especially with you here. The Sun and the Hangman are one thing, but there’s no winning when it comes to fighting you, is there?”

  Then she lashed out again. Three arms' worth of poisoned spikes fanned out in a lethal wave, aimed straight at them.

  The Fool didn’t move. He simply stood his ground, an unmoving shield, but Alice moved. She spun another crimson-thread shield, this one large enough to cover all six of them. The shield thickened in an instant, woven tight with layers of reinforced silk as the spikes struck—embedding deep into the shield, shuddering but not breaking through.

  When the last spike hit and Alice unravelled her shield, a heavy silence fell over the cavern.

  Apocia was gone. No trace of her remained. No shifting shadow. No lingering movement.

  … Dahlia barely registered it. Her pulse was still hammering in her ears, her fingers tightening and loosening around the grip of her hammer. She forced herself to take a breath. Another. Beside her, Blaire wiped sweat from the side of her mask, Otto adjusted his rifle with stiff, deliberate movements, and Emilia’s expression had turned unreadable, lips pressed into a thin line.

  Dahlia exhaled, but it wasn’t enough to steady her. Her hands still shook as she turned to Alice first, her voice unsteady.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered. “What are we—”

  “Apologies,” the Fool interrupted, clapping his hands as he turned towards all of them, “but the Hasharana Entrance Exam is going to be postponed for a little bit. Right now, this exam has turned into an extermination mission.”

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