Chapter 768: Did you Find?

Mingyue followed him out after drawing her second sword clear of the ice. The restraint kept its shape beneath the runes. Thepes watched the altered join as they left.

Blood stained Mingyue’s left sleeve. She had closed the surface of the cut, but her forearm still shook when she changed her grip.

His own right side hurt with every deeper breath. The puncture had stopped bleeding freely, and he could move his left arm, but neither wound had finished healing.

A pale strand stretched across the street beyond the broken tower. Behind it, the green smoke over the service yard thickened around the red glow at its center.

The light woman was still there.

Alex looked toward the wounded behind the low buildings. Some were sitting up now, but they could not leave while the surrounding roads kept changing beneath Arachne’s web.

"We need the thing she came for," he said.

Mingyue followed his gaze toward the yard.

"You want to take it from her?"

"I want a reason for her to stop reaching toward our people."

"She may answer by reaching harder."

Alex watched the light woman raise one hand toward an Imperial ship. A pale line drew the vessel sideways, forcing its neighbor to turn away before their hulls struck.

"She already is."

Mingyue looked back at the avenue.

"I’ll keep the road between the patients and the yard open. You look at the formation."

Alex nodded. He wanted her beside him when he approached the organ, but Dorian’s soldiers could only keep the red-eyed attackers off the road. If Lolth’s strands crossed it again, they would need Mingyue.

"Call me if you need me."

"You too."

She went toward the junction. Alex stayed along the ruined buildings, approaching the yard from the side the Imperial guns had already broken open.

Dorian met him near the last wall.

The commander’s left arm was wrapped tightly. He held his weapon in the other hand and looked past Alex toward the pale light over the warehouses.

"We can keep the bodies off this side," Dorian said. "The humans are pulling back from the next street, but they’re still firing from above."

"Don’t follow them. Keep a path behind me."

Dorian glanced toward the human troops withdrawing beneath their ships.

"They leave us their wounded and keep their guns on our heads."

"Then keep your people under cover. I need that path."

"Yes, King."

Dorian signaled to his nearest fighters. Two took the mouth of the street while the others moved along the wall, facing the scattered red-eyed attackers. He remained at the exposed corner with them.

Alex stepped beyond them.

The smell reached him before he could see the flesh clearly. He stopped outside the green haze. It drifted through the broken warehouse wall and spread over the paving, gathering where the ground dipped toward the center of the yard.

"Vesa, I’m at the formation."

"Keep outside the smoke until you know what it’s carrying."

"I haven’t touched it."

The organ moved within the red barrier.

It was larger than a human heart, covered in thick veins that swelled with each slow pulse. The flesh had been separated from a body, yet it still held enough power to draw the attention of a Progenitor beyond the clouds.

Alex looked for the place where Lolth’s thread had lifted it earlier.

One pale line still entered from above. It rested against the red flesh, while the darker formation lines held the organ over the broken paving beneath it.

The light woman stood at the other side of the barrier.

She turned her face toward him, and Alex stopped.

For a moment, they looked at one another through the smoke. Then another Imperial shot crossed the yard, and she raised her hand to meet it.

Space bent above the wall.

The beam passed beyond the organ and struck the ruins farther away.

Alex crouched beside the nearest visible formation line and set a small rune against the stone beside it. He kept his own power outside the path leading inward.

The line brightened with the organ’s next pulse.

His Cognitive Matrix followed the change across the marks he could see. Some drew power toward the flesh. Others held its position and supported the barrier around it.

The feeding lines and the supports crossed beneath the organ. That explained why Lolth’s pull had lifted the paving and stretched the veins. The flesh was attached to the apparatus that kept feeding it. She could take the stone with it, but the wider ring would come up in pieces unless someone separated the joins first.

Alex followed the pattern along the broken wall.

The damage from the fleet had already exposed several outer lines. He could reach those without entering the green smoke or putting another attack directly into the flesh.

Breaking them would be easier than taking the organ out intact.

He placed his hand above the stone and considered where the first strike would go.

The light woman’s pale thread tightened.

The organ rose a little, and one swollen vein stretched against a red line beneath it.

Alex took his hand away from the stone.

She had called it her daughter. Those remains were what she had come for. Destroying the formation and everything it held might end the lure, but it would also destroy the thing she was trying to recover.

Alex looked at the ships caught above them.

Lolth did not need the organ to keep those vessels inside her web. She already had her own power and the people she had caught since arriving.

Burning the flesh with the apparatus would leave her here, angry and with no reason to listen to him.

Mingyue’s voice reached him through their bond.

"What did you find?"

"The support and feeding lines are joined under it. I can break the outer formation, but taking the flesh out whole will take more work."

"Does she know you’re looking at it?"

"She’s watching me."

A pale thread descended toward his shoulder.

Alex raised a barrier between himself and the line. It pressed against the runes without breaking them, close enough for him to feel the strain through his hand.

The light woman lowered her gaze toward the organ.

"Leave it."

Alex kept the barrier in place.

"I’m looking at what holds it."

"You are close enough."

The pressure on his runes increased.

"I see it," Mingyue said through their bond. "If I leave this corner, the next strand reaches the patients."