Chapter 114 THE FINAL PHASE AND THE THIN LINE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

The word "enough," as it slid from Arachne’s lips, sounded like an iron gate being locked from the inside.

One second later, the entire arena shook.

Arachne’s upper body straightened, becoming far taller than before. Her waist lengthened with a sound of shifting bones that turned my stomach, and from both sides of her ribs, four additional arms jutted out like wings of silk, each ending in glistening thin claws. The six eyes on her forehead blazed a deep red without blinking. Her spider abdomen split open at the center, exposing a yellowish-green core the size of a human head that pulsed slowly like a second heart.

[Arachne, Weaver of Murkwater - Level 50 (Area Boss / Phase 3)]HP: 1,120,000/3,200,000Type: Mutated Humanoid/InsectDescription: A swamp weaver who has lost her patience. The entire arena is now her loom.

[System: Phase 3 begins - Loom of the Silent Moon!]

Then tens of thousands of threads erupted from her entire body, sweeping the arena in a single breath. The threads wound around the mangrove trunks and sealed the gaps in the canopy that had still allowed pillars of moonlight to fall to the ground, and one by one, those silver pillars went out.

Darkness fell like a wet blanket.

"Hey! Who turned off the lights?!" Yuuki shrieked, all three of her tails standing upright.

"She did," I answered flatly, as system windows chimed in rapid succession at the edge of my vision.

[System: Area Effect - Moonlit Sight disabled.]

[System: Area Effect - Party-wide accuracy -40%.]

[System: Area Effect - MP regeneration halted. Moon’s Blessing disabled.]

I ground my teeth. Sight range, accuracy, and MP regeneration. The three things that had been the backbone of our strategy for two phases, stripped away all at once in a blink.

"This is no coincidence," I whispered. "The system reads our habits. Phase one tested attack patterns, phase two tested coordination, and phase three tests what happens when all those comforts are taken away."

"Lumina, your MP?" Yuna asked without turning.

"Twenty-seven percent," Lumina answered in a thin voice. "And now it isn’t going back up, Master."

"My shield is at forty percent," Yuna growled. "Dragon Scale Guard is still on cooldown."

"I can’t see anything, but fire can still burn!" Yuuki flicked her three tails, and a faint blue glow lit a three-step radius around us. "That’s enough to see each other!"

I took a deep breath and gripped the Moon Bow. The silver glow along its curve pulsed softly, and in this total darkness, it shone like a lighthouse.

Unfortunately, I realized that huge mistake three seconds too late.

"Everyone, don’t look at me! I’ll cover..."

SRET! SRET! SRET!

Five Silk Needles streaked out of the darkness straight toward the point of silver light in my hand. I threw myself into the mud with [Wind Walk] igniting half a second too late, and one thread grazed my left shoulder with a piercing cold touch.

[HP: 120 -> 74.]

"Syl!" Mira screamed from the darkness.

"I’m fine!" I crawled behind a large mangrove root and pulled the hem of my white robe, folding it twice over the bow’s curve until its silver glow went out.

The world instantly lost its last light. The only thing I could hear was my own ragged breathing.

"Idiot," I hissed at myself. "A Legendary bow, and you made it a spotlight for the enemy."

Arachne’s first attack in this phase was entirely different from what I had memorized. Ten Silk Needles at once, from eight different directions, with none of the twelve-second intervals I had been counting. It was as if the system had discarded all the data I’d gathered in the previous two phases and replaced it with a random algorithm.

"Watch left!" shouted Mira. "Two... no, three!"

Her Blood Sense was still working, and I was grateful for that. The faint red glow from Mira’s eyes was the only direction marker I could trust now.

KLAAANG! KRAAAK!

The sound of metal colliding echoed from the left side, followed by a long cracking sound that made the hairs on my neck stand up.

[System: Yuna’s Shield - Durability 22%.]

"Damn it!" cursed Yuna. "My shield won’t last ten more attacks!"

"Use [Provoke]!"

"Already did! She doesn’t care!"

Of course. Arachne’s aggro system in this phase was no longer taunt-based but damage-based. And the only one who had fired hundreds of thousands of damage into her body was me.

A thick thread shot from the darkness, wrapped around my ankle, and dragged me across the mud at a speed that made my head spin.

[System: Silk Tether - Syl is pulled toward the Boss!]

"Sis Syl!" Yuuki screamed. "[Fox-Fire]!"

Blue fire flared and severed the thread exactly two meters from Arachne’s jaws. I slammed into the ground, rolled over, my mouth full of mud. From that close, I could see Arachne’s beautiful face bending down to look at me, her six red eyes blazing, her lips curved in a faint smile.

"Brave little light," she whispered. "You are the brightest of them all."

A hand with sharp nails swooped down.

"[Provoke]!" Yuna charged in with what remained of her shield and slammed into Arachne’s arm from the side. The claw missed by a few centimeters and struck the mud beside my head, creating a small crater.

I crawled backward. My HP was down to ninety-one.

"Thank you, Yuna," I panted.

"Don’t thank me," Yuna growled as she blocked another attack. "Kill her, Master."

The next six minutes were a hell I didn’t want to remember.

I fired fifteen arrows, and not one hit the point I aimed at. Minus forty percent accuracy in total darkness was not just a number but a wall. Arrows that should have lodged in the body junction strayed to her waist, her claws, empty air. Every miss meant lost damage, and one more chance for Arachne to retaliate.

The party’s condition worsened by the second.

Lumina stopped casting [Barrier] after her MP dropped below ten percent. She used [Heal] only at the most critical moments, and her pale face was clearly visible in the glow of Yuuki’s blue fire.

[System: Flora - HP 38%... 21%... 9%.]

"Flora, fall back!" I shouted.

"I can’t, Sis Syl!" Flora’s tiny voice trembled. "If I release my roots, the web above will collapse on all of us!"

The tiny azalea spirit was holding up the silk pillars that were about to fall with all her tendrils. Her pink petals were nearly wilted, and several had already dropped into the mud.

Mira fought with movements that grew faster and more dangerous. Her Blood Veil went out and flared repeatedly, and I could feel her Bloodlust creeping up.

"Mira, drink the soup," I said.

"That’s already two bottles, Syl. Only one left."

"Drink."

She gulped it down with broken breaths.

[System: Arachne - HP 31%.]

Four percent in six minutes. At that rate, we’d need thirty more minutes to finish her, while Yuna was about to lose her shield, Lumina was about to run out of strength, and I myself was about to run out of ways out.

I pressed against the mangrove root, steadied my breath, and forced my brain to work. Think. What hadn’t changed in this phase?

Accuracy down forty percent. Moonlit Sight dead. But...

My mind stopped on one line in the skill window that I’d read hundreds of times.

[Focus (Passive): Aim motionless for 2 seconds = Accuracy 100%, Crit +30%, Weak Point Finder.]

"One hundred percent," I whispered. "Not ninety. Not ninety-nine. One hundred."

The area penalty was a percentage reduction from base accuracy. But [Focus] didn’t add accuracy. It overrode it. It set accuracy at an absolute number before any modifiers were applied. And if the system treated penalties as multipliers, that meant...

"I can still shoot," I muttered. "As long as I stay still for two full seconds."

Two seconds in total darkness, in the middle of a rain of Silk Needles, with one hundred twenty HP. An idea that was statistically almost the same as suicide.

"Everyone listen!" I shouted. "I need ten seconds! Ten seconds with no one drawing that boss’s attention away from me!"

"Ten seconds," Yuna repeated with a dry, breathless laugh. "Master, you’re asking for a miracle again."

"I’m asking for ten seconds."

"Mira, over here!"

"I’m here."

I explained as fast as I could. Yuuki would burn the green core in Arachne’s belly, so her weak point opened wide. Flora would plant anchor roots into the boss’s legs, holding her for three seconds. Yuna would be the bait and hold back Arachne’s arms with her own body if her shield broke. Lumina would save her last [Barrier] only for me. And Mira would wrap us in Blood Veil as widely as she could manage.

"One chance," I concluded. "If it fails, there’s no second."

"No second," Yuuki repeated softly, and her tails blazed brighter than I’d ever seen.

Ting!

[System: Yuuki - Fox-Fire: Tri-Burst Inferno activated!]

Three pillars of blue fire erupted at once, not one by one, slamming into the green core in Arachne’s belly and burning its protective web. The boss’s scream split the darkness, and for the first time since phase three began, I could clearly see the shape of her body in the firelight.

[System: Weaver’s Core exposed! Weak point exposed for 8 seconds.]

"Now!" shouted Mira.

I drew the bowstring.

[Focus active.]

The world narrowed into a tight corridor, and at its end, the pulsing green core became the only thing that existed. The sounds of screaming, clanging shields, and hissing flames faded. Two seconds. Two seconds in which I had to believe the number in the skill window wasn’t lying.

[Weak Point detected.]

[Lethal Shot active.]

My arrow trembled in my grip, cold and heavy. I drew the string to full.

[Charged Shot: 1... 2...]

And I began to chant. My lips moved silently, weaving wind into the arrow’s tip, and [Incantation Compression] saved a fraction of a second now worth a life. A vortex of air swirled around the bow, and the fold of robe covering its curve whipped wildly.

"Yuna! She’s targeting Sis Syl!" Yuuki screamed.

KRAAAAK! PRAAANG!

Yuna’s shield shattered. No longer cracked, but smashed into pieces, its fragments scattering through the air like metal rain. Yuna threw herself forward without a shield, blocking three of Arachne’s arms at once with her own body.

[System: Yuna - HP 100% -> 61% -> 29% -> 7%.]

"YUNA!"

"Keep going, Master!" Yuna’s voice sounded hoarse and bloody. "Don’t look back!"

I didn’t look back. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my entire life.

[Charged Shot: 3.]

[Piercing Gale Arrow: Ready.]

I released the string.

BOOM!

A silver spiral tore through the darkness with a sound almost like thunder. My arrow was no longer an arrow but a single line of light splitting the dark, piercing the crowd of silk threads and lodging precisely in the green core in Arachne’s belly.

[COMBO CHAIN COMPLETE!]

[Weak Point Hit! Critical! Armor Ignore 20%! Wind Piercing!]

[187,300 Damage!]

[System: Weaver’s Core cracked. Bleeding - 2% HP per second for 6 seconds.]

[System: Knockback - Arachne thrown back 8 meters! HP 31% -> 25%.]

Arachne screamed. Not a scream of anger, but a scream that held something else: fear. Her massive body staggered backward into a mangrove trunk, and the silk web in the canopy swayed as if struck by a storm.

"She’s hurt!" Yuuki leapt with joy. "Sis Syl, she’s really hurt!"

"Don’t celebrate yet," I hissed, glancing at my MP, which was down to two thousand two hundred. "Yuna?"

"Still... alive," a hoarse voice came from the darkness. "Seven percent. But alive."

"Lumina, [Heal] Yuna now!"

"Already on it, Master!"

The percentage kept dropping: twenty-two, twenty, eighteen. We pursued like a pack of hunting dogs that had smelled blood. Yuna, empty-handed, finally drew the [Wyvern Bone Battleaxe] from her back and charged at Arachne’s legs with her remaining strength. Yuuki released fire without pause. Flora ensnared one leg after another that tried to leap. Mira stabbed the boss’s back joint from behind, once, twice, three times.

[System: Arachne - HP 14%.]

And suddenly, Arachne stopped.

All eight of her legs stamped the ground at once. Her six eyes turned blindingly white. Every silk thread in the arena, thousands of strands, lit up in a single pulse of green light that hurt to look at.

[Warning: Silk Nova beginning. Charge time: 10 seconds.]

[Range: Entire arena. Damage: Lethal.]

"Ten seconds," Lumina whispered, her face white as paper. "That’s a finishing attack, Master. If it hits..."

"We all fall," Yuna finished the sentence flatly.

I counted in my head at a speed I’d never used before. Arachne’s remaining HP was fourteen percent, about four hundred forty-eight thousand. One combo produced about two hundred thousand, and my MP was only enough for one more. Two hundred thousand wasn’t enough to kill her. But it was enough for something else.

"Interrupt," I said. "Every boss with a charge that long has an interruption threshold. If damage and knockback exceed a certain limit, the charge is canceled."

"And if they don’t?" asked Mira.

"Then we all know the result."

I glanced at my own HP bar. Ninety-one out of one hundred twenty. One hit from anywhere, and I’d be the first to fall.

"Yuuki, burn the core again! Flora, anchors! Mira, Blood Veil! Lumina, your last [Barrier] for me! Yuna..."

"I’m here," said Yuna, battleaxe raised and face smeared with blood. "I’ll hold her arms, Master."

"Eight seconds!" called Mira.

Everyone moved at once. Three pillars of fire reopened the already cracked green core. Flora’s tendrils coiled around Arachne’s trembling legs. Mira’s red mist wrapped us both. Lumina gripped her staff with both hands and lit a thin [Barrier] around my body.

[Focus active.]

[Lethal Shot active.]

"Six seconds!"

[Charged Shot: 1... 2...]

Arachne lifted her head. In the white light radiating from her body, I saw her face clearly for the first time, and there was something there that tightened my chest. Not anger. Not hatred. But a very old exhaustion, like someone who had waited too long for something that never came.

"Moonlight..." she whispered. "I miss it."

I gripped the bowstring tighter, then drew it all the way.

"Four seconds!"

[Charged Shot: 3.]

[Piercing Gale Arrow: Ready.]

"Sorry," I murmured, barely audible. "But we won’t die here."

I released the string.

BOOM!

[COMBO CHAIN COMPLETE!]

[Weak Point Hit! Critical!]

[202,100 Damage!]

[System: Silk Nova canceled! Arachne staggered for 6 seconds. HP 14% -> 7%.]

A burst of green light flooded the arena, but not a killing blast. It was energy overflowing from the canceled charge, and its shockwave struck us like a wall of water. I was thrown three meters back, my back slamming into a mangrove root, and the world spun for a moment.

[HP: 9 / 120.]

Nine.

I stared at that number and laughed softly, bitter and nearly hysterical. Nine HP. I was still alive with nine HP in a game that could kill me with a single strand of thread.

"Now!" screamed Mira. "She’s staggered!"

Arachne writhed in the mud with her six eyes dimming. Yuuki leapt from the highest root with all three tails blazing.

"[Fox-Fire: Tri-Burst Inferno]!"

BLLAAARRR!

A giant blue fireball fell on the boss’s head, and the silk around her exploded into a sea of flames.

[Weakness Damage! 96,800 Damage! HP 7% -> 4%.]

Flora spewed out all her tendrils to hold that body to the ground. Mira emerged from the red mist and stabbed Arachne’s chest joint with both knives at once.

[Backstab x2! 28,400 Damage! HP 4% -> 3%.]

Then a large figure leapt from the darkness, covered in blood and mud, wyvern bone axe raised high over her head with both hands.

"THIS..." Yuna roared from the bottom of her lungs, "...IS FOR MY SHIELD!"

DHUAAAAAAAK!

[Wyvern Bone Battleaxe: Critical! 112,500 Damage!]

Silence.

Arachne’s HP bar flickered, shrank to a thin line, then went out.

Ting!

[System: Murkwater Swamp Area Boss - Arachne, Weaver of Murkwater, has been defeated!]

[System: First Clear achieved!]

Arachne’s massive body writhed once, twice, then the silk around her slowly crumbled into white flakes like ash. Her eight legs pressed to the ground. Her hands fell limp. And in the last dim light radiating from her body, I saw her lips move once more.

"Thank you," she whispered, barely audible. "For reminding me..."

She did not finish her sentence.

The silk webs in the canopy vanished all at once, and moonlight washed over the arena like clear water sweeping mud off a pane of glass. The full moon hung round and bright in the sky, and for several seconds no one said a word.

Yuna was the first to collapse into the mud, laughing breathlessly.

"We’re alive," she said. "We’re really alive."

"Twenty-seven minutes," Lumina murmured, staring at her notes with trembling hands. "And we were only one thread away from the death of the entire party, Master."

Yuuki leapt onto my chest without warning and rubbed her head against my chin, making a whimpering sound that clearly meant she was holding back tears. I couldn’t dodge. I just stroked her white fur with trembling hands.

"Sis Syl, nine HP," she whispered. "Do you know that?"

"I know."

"Nine!"

"I know, Yuuki."

But before I could answer further, system windows began popping up in rapid succession, filling my entire field of vision.

[System: Raid complete. All party members survived.]

[System: EXP distributed based on contribution.]

[Arachne Raid EXP Summary]

Syl: +312,800 EXP (Contribution 41%)

Yuna: +198,400 EXP

Yuuki: +187,600 EXP

Mirabelle: +168,000 EXP (Level Difference Bonus +60%)

Lumina: +142,300 EXP

Flora: +121,900 EXP

I read the first number twice.

Three hundred twelve thousand.

[Level Up! Level 37 -> 38.]

[Level Up! Level 38 -> 39.]

[Level Up! Level 39 -> 40.]

"Three levels," I whispered. "At once."

Wait. From thirty-seven.

I frowned and quickly opened my status window. The level column did read 40 now, but just before that notification, the same column had shown 37, not 35 as I’d remembered all this time. When had I gained two levels without any notification?

My mind traced back. Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. The Moon Goddess’s Baptism. All notifications had been frozen during the rite, and afterward I’d been too busy staring at my new stat numbers to check the level column.

"So that’s why," I muttered, half laughing. "Two levels vanished in the notification freeze, and I’m only noticing now."

"Sis Syl is level forty?" Yuuki looked up with round eyes. "I’m only thirty-six! And you gained three levels at once?!"

"Yes," I answered, and a faint smile appeared that I couldn’t hold back.

Notification after notification popped up. Yuna jumped from thirty-four to thirty-seven. Lumina rose to thirty-five, Flora to thirty-three, and Mira, with her level difference bonus, leapt from twenty-two to twenty-eight. She stared at the number with her mouth slightly open.

"Twenty-eight," she whispered. "I gained six levels from just one fight."

"It wasn’t just one fight," I answered gently. "It was a fight that nearly killed all of us."

The drops appeared as golden light flowing into the Guild Storage, and I opened the list with mixed feelings of exhaustion and trepidation.

[Gold Coins: 380.]

[First Clear Reward: Gold Coins 250.]

"Six hundred thirty," Lumina whispered. "Gold coins."

I froze for a moment. Six hundred thirty gold coins were almost enough to pay for the Prayer Hall Expansion at the Silvergrass Temple. Almost. Still one hundred seventy short. But before I could calculate how many more Elites we’d have to hunt, my eyes caught the item list below it.

[Personal Rewards: Each party member receives one Epic+ item.]

Every member. Not an ordinary Epic, but one tier below Legendary, a quality rare even for high-level players.

[Yuna - Arachne’s Carapace Aegis (Epic+)]A heavy shield made from the boss’s shell.

[Lumina - Weaver’s Veil Rod (Epic+)]A staff with an MP regeneration bonus.

[Flora - Silkdew Blossom Charm (Epic+)]A charm that strengthens roots and repels poison.

[Yuuki - Silkflame Tail Charm (Epic+)]A tail charm that amplifies Fox-Fire and makes flames spread faster across silk.

[Mirabelle - Spinner’s Twin Fangs (Epic+)]A pair of daggers with a bleeding effect that resonates with Blood Element.

[Syl - Moonthread Bowstring (Epic+)]A bowstring made specially for the Moon Bow. Installation requires a Carpenter of Master rank or higher.

I stared at the last item’s description with a raised eyebrow. Master Carpenter. One name surfaced in my head for the second time in the last few days: Master Geppetto. This bowstring seemed to be one of the modifications my Moon Bow had been waiting for.

"All Epic+," Yuna stroked her new shield with shining eyes. "And this shield is already far better than the one that just shattered."

"Master," Lumina opened her book and read the latest note from the forums, "according to the player data I’ve collected, Legendary items across the entire server still number fewer than a hundred. And even those are scattered among a few top players."

"Fewer than a hundred," Yuuki repeated, her tail swaying softly.

"And Sis Syl has two," Flora murmured from Lumina’s shoulder, her petals drooping weakly. "The Moon Bow and that outfit. Out of six people in this party."

A brief silence.

"That," said Yuna flatly, "is a rather unnatural number for a guild only a few hours old."

"One gift from the Goddess, one fusion result," I muttered, feeling my face grow a little warm. "Don’t bring it up again."

Small laughter broke out among us, and for the first time after that long battle, the tension truly melted away.

The arena’s seal opened with a soft sound like a curtain being drawn. The silk web at the exit vanished, and beyond it, the shadows of the swamp forest looked far calmer than I remembered. The green mist thinned, and the full moon lit the muddy path to StoneBrook.

"Nine HP," Mira whispered as we walked side by side, supporting Yuna, who was still staggering. "Syl, I nearly died of fright."

"Me too," I admitted quietly. "But we made it."

"I won’t let you take a risk like that again," she said, and there was something in her voice that made me turn. Her eyes were glassy, but her lips were hardened with a determination I rarely saw. "Not anymore."

I wanted to answer. To say that it wasn’t a decision one person could make alone, that in this world, risk was the price we always paid to move forward. But seeing her face, the sentence swallowed itself back down.

"We’ll talk about it later," I said at last. "After we’ve all slept."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

I lifted my face to the sky. The full moon hung round above the swamp, finally silent. In its glow, the Moon Bow on my back vibrated faintly as if breathing, and the fold of my robe that had covered its curve slowly came loose, letting its silver glow merge once more with the moonlight above us.

A small window appeared at the edge of my vision.

[Warning: 31 minutes of session time remaining.]

Thirty-one minutes. Enough to return to StoneBrook, store all the drops in the Guild Storage, and maybe visit a carpenter who now had more reason to be visited.

But that was a matter for later.

For now, I only wanted to walk home with the five friends who had just saved my life, beneath a moon that was finally shining again.