Chapter 765: Cut The Two Connection

The lower edge of Mingyue’s held space bent toward Thepes. Frost broke away from the boundary, and her body shifted with the force she was trying to contain.

Alex braced his outer runes against the stable upper edge and fed qi into them. He held the marks there while Mingyue brought her blades closer together beneath them.

"Keep it there," she said.

Alex held the runes in place until Mingyue steadied the space again. The two connections remained separated inside it.

The light woman’s fingers tightened around Thepes’s wrist. His forearm thinned beneath her grip, and he struck at her face with a blade formed from the blood on his shoulder.

Her head broke into light, but her hand stayed closed around his wrist.

Alex formed his hammer again in his right hand.

He struck her arm at the elbow while keeping the waiting runes in place with his left. The blow scattered the light between her shoulder and wrist.

Mingyue’s upper sword severed the manifestation’s other wrist. Frost cracked along the boundary as she returned the blade to its place.

Thepes wrenched both arms out of the severed hands. The pale line beneath the skin of his right arm stayed where it was.

"Now move back!" Alex said.

Thepes turned toward him instead.

Blood covered the artificial Progenitor’s fingers. He drove them toward Alex’s throat, fast enough that Alex had to lean aside rather than raise the hammer between them.

The claws tore through his left shoulder.

Pain made the second ring shudder.

"You think you can bind me next?" Thepes said.

Mingyue’s ice rose between them.

Thepes struck it, cracking the surface. Her lower sword trembled as she divided her strength between holding the marked space and keeping him off Alex.

Alex let the hammer dissolve. He wanted to hit Thepes back, but he needed both hands to keep the runes in place.

Blood ran down his left arm. He spent enough life force to keep the damaged muscles working, then returned both hands to the pale strand’s ring.

Thepes hit the ice a second time.

"Mingyue."

"I know."

She pushed him back with the flat of her other blade, then brought it into position again before the held space could open.

Alex used that moment to tighten the second set of runes around the short length joining Thepes to the local web. White fire gathered at the separated edge.

Beyond it, the strands above the warehouses pulled in several directions at once.

Alex stopped the fire from spreading along them.

He only needed to close the connection they had isolated. Following it outward would reach the people still caught on the roofs and between the ships.

Vesa’s voice came through.

"Keep the outer edge still. He’s moving the blood inside his arm."

Alex looked toward Thepes.

The artificial Progenitor was trying to pull his blood away from the pale line. The movement made the attachment beneath his skin shift closer to his chest.

Alex adjusted the nearest rune to follow that shift without moving the far side of the ring.

The pale strand stretched between the two edges.

Mingyue exhaled sharply. The crack beneath her blade widened, and frost broke away from the boundary in small pieces.

Her strain reached him through their bond. He couldn’t delay the cut any longer.

Alex pressed his palms together.

The white fire crossed the isolated length.

For a moment, the whole narrow space shone. Alex felt the web pull against his marks, and his injured shoulder almost failed as he forced the far edge to remain where Mingyue had fixed it.

Then the connection parted.

The end nearest the warehouses withdrew into the larger web. The pale light inside Thepes’s arm weakened, leaving torn flesh and leaking blood behind it.

On the neighboring roof, the Imperial cultivator still clung to his ledge. The strand at his chest had stopped jerking with Thepes’s struggles, but it had not released him.

Thepes dropped between them. Alex threw a broad rune barrier beneath him, above the broken roofs. The impact broke its first layer and drove the artificial Progenitor onto the flat remains of a nearby building.

The roof cracked beneath him.

He pushed himself onto one knee.

His arm was still moving. Blood gathered around the damage Lolth had left, but the torn shoulder kept drawing it away from the hand he was trying to form.

Alex looked toward the broken street.

The blood beneath the first seal remained on the ground. It stirred when Thepes called it, but it no longer rose through the closed route.

Farther down the street, blood began leaving the wound of a fallen red-eyed follower. The thin stream moved toward Thepes by a different path.

Alex sent a short line of white fire through that body’s open wound. The exposed blood burned away, and the new stream broke before it reached its target.

The seal had stopped one supply, not his ability to feed. Another source would let him restore the channels Lolth had damaged. Alex could not give him that time.

"The two marked connections are cut," Vesa said.

Mingyue released the held space.

The frost between her blades shattered. Her body dipped, and Alex caught her arm as they descended onto the intact edge of the nearest roof.

She held on to him until her feet settled against the stone.

"I can stand," she said.

"I know."

He kept his hand there until she had her balance.

The light woman re-formed above the service yard. A new strand began extending from her hand toward the space they had just left.

Alex and Mingyue lifted from the roof and moved away from it together.

They had removed her hold on Thepes. She still had ships, streets, and living people caught in the larger web, and the organ remained inside the formation below her.

Another Imperial attack flashed across the yard.

The manifestation turned to meet it. The new strand passed over the roof behind Alex rather than reaching him.

He used the brief distance to look back toward their army.

Dorian was bringing the last of his mobile fighters behind the rune fire. Selene had kept the injured away from the affected street. The corner beneath the cut remained empty, without anyone dragged into the pull they had separated.

His shoulder throbbed. He tried to close the deeper wound, then felt how much life force it would take. He stopped after restoring enough movement to raise his arm properly.

Mingyue saw the blood beneath his collar.

"You let him get too close."

"If I moved the ring, he would have pulled it into the other strands."

She looked toward the damaged roof where Thepes had landed.

"Then we keep him away from the bodies."

Alex followed her gaze.

Thepes had risen to his feet. His right arm remained thinner than the left, and blood still leaked from the shoulder Lolth had been pulling apart.

He looked once toward the sealed stream below.

Then he raised his hand toward the two of them.

A blade formed along his forearm.