Chapter 764: The Pull

Alex placed the last rune beside the blood rising from the broken street.

It shone between two pale strands, close enough to Thepes that each beat of the artificial Progenitor’s heart shook its edge.

Mingyue held her swords above and below the short stretch of space they had chosen. Purple frost formed along the blades, then spread toward the places Alex had marked.

The blood slowed inside that space.

It continued moving on either side, feeding from the remains beneath the city into Thepes’s body. The pale connection coming out of his arm remained beside it, pulling toward the light woman and the web over the warehouses.

Alex could finally see a clear gap between them. The visible streams from the breach joined before entering the marked length. Cutting it would stop that supply, but he would still have to keep Thepes from reaching another body afterward.

"Vesa."

"The street is clear. Dorian has his people behind the next line."

Alex looked down once.

The wounded had left the corner beneath him. Dorian and the two fighters Selene had sent were holding the road farther back, keeping the red-eyed bodies from following the patients around the junction.

Alex’s earlier fire still stood between them and the nearest attackers, but it had thinned while he moved his attention here.

They needed him to finish.

He dissolved the hammer in his hand and brought both palms toward the runes.

The red stream shifted.

Mingyue turned her lower blade slightly. The frozen space tightened around the movement, keeping the blood from crossing into the pale strand beside it.

Blood ran from one corner of her mouth.

Alex almost asked whether she could keep holding the space.

"Keep going," she said through their bond. "I have it."

He did not waste her strength making her answer again.

At Karthos Reach, he had watched her look at Lolth’s fight with the black-armored representative. Even then, part of her had wanted to test herself against that strength. She had asked whether the two of them could fight if they went all out.

Now the same enemy was above them, and Mingyue was holding a small piece of space still so their wounded could remain beyond it. She had chosen where to spend her strength before Alex asked.

He could feel the strain through their bond. Seeing the blood at her mouth made him want to reach for her, even though he knew what would happen if he abandoned his own part.

"Mingyue, tell me if you need to release it."

"I will."

She answered at once. Alex kept his eyes on the two connections. He trusted her to judge her limit; he just wanted to finish before she reached it. Keeping the runes steady was the best help he could give her now.

The first set of runes closed around the feeding blood. He kept the opening wide enough for the flow to continue while drawing the marked length farther from Lolth’s strand.

At the other side of the held space, a second set waited around the pale connection.

Thepes turned toward Alex. Blood gathered along his shoulder and hardened into a spike aimed at the nearest rune.

"Stay away from me!"

The spike shot forward.

Mingyue stopped it with a sheet of purple ice. The point broke through the first layer before the blood froze and shattered against the second.

The short space between her blades shook.

Alex caught the first rune before its edge touched the web. Pain ran through his fingers as the two forces pressed against it from opposite sides.

"We’re separating you from her," he said.

Thepes pulled harder against the light woman.

The blood from below surged with the effort. Alex felt it strike the runes, trying to widen the passage he was drawing aside.

Thepes wanted more strength to break free. Every extra rush made the separation harder to hold.

Alex used the Cognitive Matrix to follow the surge rather than crush it against the web. He drew the feeding blood into the clear gap Mingyue had opened, keeping Lolth’s strand outside the ring.

"Blood is clear of the first strand," Vesa said.

The light woman turned her face toward Alex.

He had been expecting it. Thepes’s struggle had occupied her hands, but she could still reach through the web around them.

A pale line moved toward the back of Alex’s wrist.

"Mingyue, left."

She turned her upper sword toward it. A thin cut passed between his arm and the approaching thread, forcing it away from his skin.

The movement weakened the hold on the space below.

Alex drove more power into his runes before the blood could swing back. His forearms burned, and a wound that had almost closed along his hand opened again.

The light woman began to raise one arm, but a beam from the fleet struck her shoulder.

Light scattered across Thepes’s face. The blast continued through the damaged warehouse wall, throwing up stone and another cloud of green smoke.

Alex could no longer see the organ inside the yard, but its red glow remained.

Arachne’s other manifestation was still beside the ships. Pale strands tightened around a vessel trying to pull away from the damaged one, and the light woman in front of Alex turned briefly toward the yard.

"Both sets are ready," Alex told Mingyue before the light woman could turn back.

She looked at the pale connection, then at the blood held between his lower runes.

"Do it."

Alex closed the first ring.

The blood struck the narrowed opening hard enough to split the skin across his knuckles. He held the runes together while Mingyue kept the surrounding space from shifting.

The stream stopped reaching Thepes. Blood gathered beneath the ring, pressing upward against it. Alex turned the lower marks toward the ground and sealed the route they had isolated.

The gathered blood fell onto the broken paving.

Thepes drew in the last of the blood above the cut. His right shoulder jerked toward Lolth.

Mingyue was already holding that side.

The pale connection pulled taut inside the second set of runes. Frost spread along the edges of the held space, and a crack appeared beneath Mingyue’s lower sword.

Alex moved his right hand toward the waiting marks.

"Her pull is increasing," Vesa warned.

He could feel it. Without the fresh supply, Thepes couldn’t resist her as strongly. Her strand was already pulling him closer.