Chapter 758: Thepes Counter Attack

Thepes closed his hand around the pale strand.

His own blood was still caught farther along it. He could feel those scattered drops, just as he could feel the blood he had placed inside the bodies below.

He pulled.

The drops moved toward him. The strand brightened around them, and something else entered his palm with the returning blood.

Power.

His damaged arm filled out at once. The hollow left by Lolth’s blow closed, easing the pain beneath his ribs.

Thepes tightened his grip.

Until now, he had been striking a body that repaired itself faster than he could tear it apart. The light woman had barely paid attention to him after breaking his arm. She had looked toward the ships as though they mattered more.

He had watched the threads brighten each time someone was caught.

That was how she kept coming back.

The power in the strand entered his blood. His heart beat harder, driving it through the same body that had swallowed the buried ritual’s power.

He knew how to use it.

The light woman turned toward him.

This time, he was ready for the pressure from her raised hand. Blood spread before his chest in a thick curved shield.

The first layer burst. He forced another into its place while the scattered blood returned along his arms. His shoulders shook, but the strike did not throw him back into the buildings.

A laugh escaped him.

The woman’s gaze dropped to his closed hand.

Thepes drew more power from the strand.

The shield thickened. Beneath it, he formed a spear as long as his own body and compressed the blood around its point.

He had tried reaching her throat before. She had changed the distance and made him pass beside her. He would give her less time to move this one away.

He struck from where he stood.

The spear crossed the short gap while she was still looking at his hand. It pierced the light woman’s chest and continued through her back.

Thepes closed his fingers, forcing the blood inside her outward. Her shining body burst apart.

A violent shock passed through the nearby threads. The barrier around the service yard shook, throwing green smoke over the broken warehouse walls.

Thepes felt the strand in his hand tremble.

He pulled harder. The scattered light had already begun to gather, but part of it came toward him instead. It entered his palm in a pale stream, strengthening the blood around his shoulders.

He looked upward at the immense white body beyond the fleet.

"Keep sending more."

The words came easily while the power filled him.

Alex and Mingyue had forced him away from the place where he was strongest. The ships had interfered, and this creature had struck him as if he were another soldier wandering into her path.

Now she had brought him a source larger than the ruined chamber.

He could feel how much lay beyond the little strand he held.

His blood spread farther over it.

Something moved inside his wrist, pulling against the pulse of his blood.

Thepes frowned and increased the flow. The resistance grew stronger. A thin pale line became visible beneath his skin, running from his palm toward his elbow.

He pressed his other hand over the pale line. It continued up his arm.

The power entering him had stopped following the path he gave it.

The light woman formed again in front of him. Her face was closer this time, and the spear that had broken her body hung beside her in separate drops of blood.

"Give it back."

Thepes tried to draw the blood around his shoulders into another weapon. Only part of it obeyed.

The rest tightened toward his right arm. He felt his own strength joining the power he had just taken, being pulled back through the same connection.

His smile vanished.

The dead beneath the city hadn’t been able to resist him. Soren had struggled and failed. Thepes had expected the same surrender once the power entered his blood, but Lolth’s will had followed it inside him.

She was stronger. The thought enraged him even as her power reached through everything he had absorbed and pulled in the opposite direction.

Thepes opened his hand, but the strand stayed against his palm.

He forced the pale power back toward it. If she wanted what he had taken, he would throw it out and take his hand away. He could find another way to reach the light body once he was free.

The pressure eased for a moment.

Then his own blood followed the returning power.

Thepes stopped the flow. His fingers lost their shape as the flesh beneath them thinned, and he had to spend more strength to hold the bones together.

He couldn’t separate Lolth’s power from what his body had already used. It had repaired his arm and chest, and now the pull reached through those same places. Forcing it out would cost him his own blood and strength too.

The light woman watched him struggle.

He had let it repair him. Now every repaired place answered her pull.

He drove a blade of blood across the strand at his palm. Pale light scattered, but the line beneath his skin remained. Power continued leaving his arm.

He struck again, aiming closer to the wrist.

The woman caught his other hand, and space tightened around both his arms.

For the first time since leaving the cocoon, Thepes could not choose where to move his body. His feet dragged across empty air as he tried to pull away, but his shoulders remained fixed between the two points of pressure.

Anger rose so sharply that his vision darkened at the edges.

He had broken Soren’s chains. He had killed the man who thought creating him gave him the right to command him.

He would not hang here while another creature decided what his body was worth.

Thepes forced his head forward and struck the light woman’s face.

Light broke across his forehead. Pain went through his skull, and the outline of her head scattered.

The grip on his arms did not loosen.

Her face formed again while his blood ran between his eyes.

He could feel her taking it before the drops fell.

Thepes roared.

Blood burst from his back in long spikes. They spread around the light body, striking the pale connections behind her rather than the shape holding his hands.

Several threads broke.

Others pulled tighter.

He managed to pull his right shoulder forward a fraction. He drove the spikes deeper and tried to widen the opening.