Chapter 763: Fighting Arachne

Vesa looked back. Dorian had changed his position beside the flames, keeping his wounded side away from the next attacker. A pair of soldiers moved with him.

"He has people beside him," she said. "Let her see that leg."

The nurse began opening the damaged boot. He gripped the edge of the cloak beneath him, but his eyes stayed on the corner where Dorian had disappeared again.

Vesa waited until the nurse had him settled, then lifted from the stone.

The voice in the connection broke into a few faint sounds.

With the nurse supporting him, Vesa returned toward the road. Thepes was struggling again, and the familiar trace had nearly vanished beneath the blood rising from below.

"Master?"

"I can still hear you."

He was still there. Vesa let herself listen for a moment before forcing her attention back to the battlefield.

"I missed what you said."

"Find a clear length of the blood feeding him. Keep Arachne's strand outside the space where you cut."

Alex had moved along the road while she helped Selene. He pointed toward a red stream beside the broken tower.

"There. Before it bends toward his chest."

Vesa followed the direction.

The clear length was short. It disappeared behind a pale strand whenever Thepes twisted toward the ground, then appeared again when he forced himself back.

Mingyue watched one complete movement before answering.

"I can hold that stretch steady. Dorian needs to clear the street beneath it first."

Vesa relayed the order.

Dorian glanced toward the fallen wall and drew his remaining fighters closer to the fire. Blood was seeping through the cloth around his left forearm.

He sent one group ahead to Selene and kept the others facing the red-eyed bodies pressing toward them.

Thepes's next call sent his followers toward the gap.

The nearest corpses tried to cross before Dorian's last soldiers could withdraw. Alex met them with his hammer, striking the first body into the second and pushing both behind the rune line.

White fire caught the pale threads hanging from them.

His hand shook when he lifted the hammer again.

Vesa had watched him heal his own injuries while keeping the road open. He couldn't keep spending strength on openings that closed as soon as he moved away. The next attempt had to give them time to finish this.

"Can we stop him without breaking the artifact?" Alex asked.

Alucard's answer came slowly.

"Close the routes feeding it. Keep his blood inside the restraint. But don't build your plan around destroying that body."

"We barely hurt him below," Alex said. "He's using rune knowledge from the memories inside it. The method is older than mine, but he's learning."

"Then keep changing the joins he reaches for. You need to hold the blood he sends out, not overpower everything inside him. Watch the places Arachne has torn open. If they recover, your opening is gone."

Vesa bared her fangs at Thepes.

"He's using it to kill our people. We should tear it out of him."

"While he is tangled in her web? His blood is still resisting her pull. Break the artifact open there, and who takes what she can draw from it?"

The pale line brightened beneath Thepes's skin. Vesa could see it reaching toward the place where she had found her master's trace.

"Then we cut him loose first."

"Yes. And keep the artifact intact. I need to examine what they changed before anyone pulls it out."

She wanted it back now. It had been Alucard's, long before this creature started calling dead vampires to his side. But Arachne was already drawing power through it. If Vesa rushed them into breaking the core open, she might hand the Spider Progenitor what she wanted to reclaim.

Vesa kept her eyes on Thepes.

"Keep it inside him for now, King. I won't give her Master's artifact."

"He'll still fight us," Alex said.

"Yes," Alucard said.

Alex looked toward Mingyue.

"We knocked him down below. It didn't keep him there."

"Lolth has done more than knock him down," Mingyue said. "Look at his right arm."

Vesa followed her gaze. His blood kept gathering at the damaged shoulder, only to be pulled away again. If they cut him free, they would have to act before he recovered enough to undo their work.

They still had to make both cuts with enough strength left to hold him afterward.

"The web is the other part," Mingyue said. "If we only cut off his supply, she'll pull him toward the yard."

"Yes," Alucard answered. "Have the second separation ready before the first cut."

Vesa traced the pale line from Thepes's arm toward the first place it joined the strands over the warehouses. She marked that direction for Alex through their connection.

"That length," Alucard said after she described it. "Keep your work local. Don't follow it into the rest of her network."

Alex compared the two positions.

They were close enough for the pair to work together, but the blood and the web had to stay apart while they acted. A single strike across Thepes's chest would not do that.

Mingyue pointed one sword toward each marked length.

"Place the runes before I begin. I'll hold the short stretch around both. Once the blood stops feeding him, we separate her pull before she drags him out of it."

Alex changed the arrangement above his hand.

Vesa moved to the end of the wall, where the smoke over the yard wouldn't block her view of either position. If one shifted, she would have to warn them at once.

A pulse passed through the artifact.

Alucard's voice thinned.

"Vesa, loosen the connection. Leave enough for me to answer when the pattern changes."

She obeyed at once.

"Will you still be there?"

"I'll hold what I can."

She wanted him to promise there would be time afterward. There was so much she still needed to ask about the gaps in her memories.

She almost asked anyway. Then the contact faltered, and she loosened it further rather than spend what little strength he had left on an answer she wanted to hear.

Selene called from the corner.

"The wounded are clear."

Vesa looked toward the open space behind the low buildings. The woman with the staff sat beside a bed, holding an old man's hand. The injured young man who had pushed it leaned against the wall while a nurse checked his shoulder.

Her own wounded were there too. Some watched the road. Others lay still while their companions tried to help them.

Vesa turned back toward Alex and Mingyue.

"I can relay him while you work," she said. "Tell me when the flow changes."

Alex nodded.

Mingyue rose toward the blood beside the broken tower. She stopped before entering the crossed strands and held her swords at different angles, finding the edges of the space they needed.

Alex's runes followed beneath her.

Vesa kept the faint connection open and watched Thepes's next breath.