Chapter 755: Firing Line

Alex felt his anger rise.

The commander was firing into the thing Lolth had come to recover. Whether the next shot destroyed the organ or fed it, everyone still trapped in the city would have to endure the result.

He moved toward the ship’s forward side, staying above the abandoned street rather than crossing over Dorian’s position.

"Your attacks won’t reach her real body!"

His voice carried toward the ship through his qi.

The weapon continued turning.

Mingyue caught his arm and pulled him off its line. The next beam passed close enough for heat to burn against his face.

It struck the light woman again.

"They’re still aiming at us," Mingyue said. "Get out of their firing line."

Alex looked toward the bridge. He couldn’t see the commander through the hull, and he had no way to know what orders the crew were receiving.

He stopped trying to approach.

"Dorian, move our people beside the lower buildings. Don’t let them gather in the open," he told Vesa to relay.

"The falling walls are a danger too," she said.

"I know. Use the side away from their guns. We’ll stop what comes down."

It was a miserable choice. Out in the open, they faced the fleet’s guns; beside the buildings, they risked being buried. With Lolth at the service yard and the red-eyed army still attacking, Alex had nowhere safe to send them.

Alex turned toward Mingyue.

"I’ll watch the ships."

"I’ll keep the broken tower off them."

She released his arm and moved toward the ice holding the debris. The ice beneath the largest slab was cracking, and the fighting below shook more fragments from the wall beside it.

Thepes emerged through the falling dust.

His chest was sunken where Lolth had struck him. Blood moved beneath the skin as the shape slowly returned, and the damaged blade on his arm dissolved.

He looked toward the yard.

Alex expected him to rush straight back at the light woman. Instead, Thepes looked upward, following the pale strands beyond the fleet.

He glared past the fleet at the distant white body.

"Come here yourself!"

The light woman did not answer.

Thepes drew his blood into several spears and sent them toward her from different sides. He followed the lowest one, keeping the others between his body and her raised hand.

He changed his approach before she could repeat the strike.

One spear pierced her waist. Another crossed behind her head.

Thepes came up beneath them, his hand closing toward her throat.

The light woman took one step.

The space between them lengthened.

His fingers closed on empty air. He kept moving, carried past her instead of toward her throat.

Alex had been watching for the shift. Thepes had aimed correctly, but Lolth changed the distance before his hand reached her.

She caught his wrist as he passed.

Light entered the blood gathered around his arm. Thepes tore himself backward, leaving part of his forearm in her hand.

The torn flesh dissolved into drops before she could close her fingers fully. They returned toward him, though some remained hanging beside the pale thread at her wrist.

Thepes’s gaze lingered on the remaining drops. Alex suspected he was studying how the thread held on to them.

The light woman opened her hand, leaving the remaining blood drops hanging from the thread, and looked toward the ship that had fired at her.

A second light body appeared beside its bow.

The vessel’s forward guns turned to meet it. The first shot passed through the figure’s head, scattering the light across the hull.

The figure re-formed against the ship’s barrier and pressed one hand toward it.

The barrier bent inward, and the vessel tilted. Its engines flared as the pale line beneath it became visible from end to end.

A deep sound rolled across the city as metal strained inside the hull.

Alex looked past the ship toward Lolth’s distant body. Through a gap in the smoke, he could still see the white legs against the sky, unmoving while her manifestations fought below.

The fleet had divided its weapons between the two light women. Thepes had recovered enough of his arm to form a hand again. Neither attack had forced her true body closer.

Mingyue returned to Alex’s side as the last large section of the tower settled into her ice.

"She’s reaching from outside their battle line," she said. "They’ll keep shooting what she puts in front of them."

"And everything they miss lands here."

A blast struck the street beneath the second manifestation. The shock broke windows farther down the avenue and sent a cloud of stone across an Imperial squad.

Those soldiers withdrew behind a fallen wall. Red-eyed vampires pursued them, then stopped when the new light body turned its head.

Dorian’s nearest fighters started after the retreating Imperial squad. Their commander crossed in front of them and pointed back toward Selene.

One soldier hesitated, his weapon still raised toward the humans who had been attacking them. Dorian caught his arm and pulled him toward the wounded instead.

"Our wounded first! I’m not losing vampires over a handful of human stragglers."

Alex left Dorian to it. Chasing the squad might have cleared the wall, but it would also have scattered their small force across another street. They needed to stay together with Lolth reaching down among them.

For a brief moment, the fighting beneath that ship faltered.

Alex could feel the same pressure that had made him want to put more distance between himself and Lolth at Karthos Reach. The people below did not have that option. Even the stronger cultivators had to defend themselves while trying to understand what had entered the battle.

The light body at the yard raised its free hand.

More strands appeared between the warehouses and the lowest ships. One passed across the broken street, low enough to touch the blood gathered between the stones.

Thepes watched the descending strand. Alex moved down toward his army.

"Vesa, tell Dorian to keep the troops together. If one of them gets caught, I need to know immediately."

"Understood, King."

The light woman turned toward him again.

Alex stopped above the roofs. Mingyue stayed on his right, both swords ready.

"Your daughter is in that yard," he said. "We aren’t stopping you from reaching her."

Lolth looked down at the fighting soldiers.

"Then move."

A pale strand descended between Alex and the street where Selene was moving the wounded.

He brought his hammer across its path.