Chapter 756: Weapon

The thread bent around Alex’s hammer.

Mingyue saw it touch the blood along the haft. Pale light spread toward his hand, much faster than the strand had descended toward the street.

"Let go."

Alex released the weapon.

She brought her twin swords across the space between his fingers and the hammer. Purple light followed the edges, cutting off the thin connection before it could close around his wrist.

The hammer dissolved, and most of its blood returned to Alex. A dark patch remained beside the strand, caught where the weapon’s head had been.

He looked at his empty hand, then toward the soldiers beneath them.

The descending thread had stopped, but two more were moving around it.

Mingyue stepped in front of the nearer one. Frost spread over its surface while Alex’s white flame reached the section beside her sword.

The strand snapped.

Its loose end withdrew above the roofs. The other continued downward, forcing her to turn before she could follow it back toward the light woman.

She cut it with Alex’s help, opening a gap above Selene’s position.

"Move them now," she said through their bond.

Alex passed the order to Vesa.

Below, Selene brought the wounded past the mouth of the street. Her soldiers carried two of them while a recovering Sovereign helped another walk. They crossed beneath the gap before pale light began gathering around its edges again.

Mingyue stayed there until the last pair passed.

Only a few strands, and they had already pinned her to this street. If she left to attack Lolth, the next threads would reach Selene’s group.

Lolth could reach farther than either of them could defend.

Across the roofs, Thepes sent another spread of blood spears at the light woman beside the service yard. She turned toward him, leaving the other manifestation to face the fleet. He was keeping her attention there, but Mingyue would not count on him doing it for their sake.

A violent roar came from the sky.

The ship caught beside the second light woman tried to climb. Its engines burned brighter, pushing the bow above the neighboring vessels.

For a moment, it gained height.

Then the lines around its lower hull drew taut.

Mingyue could see them against the fire from the engines now. They ran from the ship toward other strands among the fleet, extending far beyond the light body the guns were still attacking.

The ship’s movement pulled a smaller vessel sideways.

The smaller vessel turned before the hulls collided, but the maneuver tightened another line. It began to roll instead of moving clear.

The first ship stopped climbing.

Its engines kept burning.

Metal broke near the rear of its hull. Fire burst through an opening, and pieces fell toward the city. Several cultivators flew out through the damaged section, only to stop abruptly between the two ships.

One struggled against something Mingyue could barely see. Pale strands thickened around him.

She felt the change in his presence as they closed around his body. His qi flared once, bright and desperate, then weakened.

The light woman beside the bow became clearer. Mingyue’s mouth tightened.

She remembered the cocoons at Karthos Reach. Every living being connected to that enormous web had become a source for Lolth’s power.

The web above Proxima spread as the trapped ships pulled against it. More strands caught the cultivators trying to escape.

"Alex, the ship crews."

"I see them."

One of the fleet’s weapons struck the light woman from behind.

Her upper body scattered. The ship beneath her tilted farther, and a beam from another vessel passed through the empty space she left.

The pale strands remained.

Light gathered along them and formed her head again.

Mingyue looked past the clouds toward Lolth’s real body. They could cut the light woman apart over and over while the Spider Progenitor stayed beyond the fleet, feeding her through the web.

Reaching that distant body would mean fighting through the threads while their wounded remained trapped below. She could barely keep the strands off them from here.

Alex glanced upward too.

Before either of them moved, Vesa’s voice reached them.

"Selene has someone caught."

Mingyue turned downward.

They reached the street together. Selene stood beside a wounded soldier with one leg pulled off the ground. A pale line stretched from his ankle toward the roof behind him, while another soldier held him beneath the arms.

"Don’t pull harder," Mingyue said.

The man stopped pulling. His wounded companion clenched his teeth and pressed both hands against the thread at his ankle, but his fingers found nothing solid to grip.

Mingyue crouched beside him. She could feel the tension in the small stretch of space above the stone, but she could also feel his power moving along it.

Alex had cut through her ankle to free her from a restraint at Karthos Reach. This line was already drawing power from the soldier. She did not know how far its connection had reached beyond the place she could see.

"Cut it off," the wounded man said.

Selene looked at him.

"My leg. Just cut it off." He tried to push himself away from the roof, and the pale line tightened. "I can feel it pulling something out."

"Stop moving," Mingyue said.

He went still, though his hands continued shaking.

She remembered the moment her own ankle had come apart beneath Alex’s blade. The pain had mattered less than the knowledge that they were still trapped. This man was asking her to make the same choice without knowing whether it would free him.

She needed to slow the pull and find out how far the connection reached. Cutting off his leg would only weaken him further if the thread remained attached.

"Hold him here," she told Selene.

Purple frost gathered along one sword. She placed its edge across the strand a short distance from the ankle, keeping the frozen section away from his skin.

The pull slowed.

Alex put two fingers against the stone beside her blade. Runes spread beneath the thread, and white fire burned across the isolated length.

The man’s leg dropped. Selene caught it before it struck the street. The soldier holding his shoulders pulled him clear while Mingyue kept her blade raised toward the roof.

A new line descended toward the same place.

Alex burned it before it could reach the ground.

"He needs to move," Mingyue said.

Selene had already lifted him.

The brief rescue had brought the rest of the group to a stop. Imperial cultivators were retreating along the neighboring street, and Thepes’s red-eyed followers had begun pressing into the space they left.

Dorian’s soldiers turned to meet them. Their line bent around the people still carrying the wounded.

Mingyue looked toward Vesa.

"Can you take them into Edonia from here?"

Vesa hovered beside the fallen wall and held out one small hand.

A dark opening began to form. Before it was wide enough for a person, a pale strand appeared across one edge and the opening stretched sideways.

Vesa closed her hand at once.

The space settled without anyone entering it.

"The web is crossing this position," she said. "I won’t move an injured person through that."

"Edonia?" Alex asked.

"Still there. The problem is this side."

Mingyue followed the line that had disturbed the opening. It continued above the roof, almost invisible where the smoke covered it.