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[PR: Ash]

The witcher gulped down a few health and mana potions. He looked around only to realize that his minions were all slain. The sea of monsters around him had fallen into madness from agony. They jostled against one another, their faces contorted like fish out of water. They roared, charging at the butcher who once took their lives.

Roy produced one Dragon’s Dream in his left hand and fired off crossbow bolts with his right. He leapt through the monsters, his cloak billowing in the air. Whenever he found a spot where numerous monsters congregated, he would toss a bomb into their midst and set it off with a fireball. And then, only a sea of fire was left in his wake.

When the witcher had gone through all fifteen of his Dragon’s Dreams and ten Dancing Stars, the world of death, darkness, and misery were lit up by an ocean of fire. The web was nothing but a world of hellfire, and shadows of agony fell within the flames. Even the ceiling of chaos was lit by the fires.

Roy raised his head, seeing the marked silhouette blinking away quickly. The creature could move anywhere it wanted as long as it was in this domain. Roy couldn’t even touch it, let alone slay it.

God of Omen! Roy roared in silence. If tricks and schemes are the only way you do battle, then I shall burn this disgusting world of webs down! Roy took a deep breath. A rune shaped like fire popped into his mind.

Winds roared, and elements spread across the infinite web. For a moment, everything fell silent. And then, the air was starting to scorch. Everything was heating up to unbearable temperatures.

Sparks of flames burst forth from the bones under the web, quickly turning into roiling, steaming magma. Light, flames, and the air of destruction were filling the air. Like a live volcano, a dragon made of magma was about to soar.

But then, the evil god within the darkness let out a sigh. A third bolt of black lightning cracked the skies, going after the witcher’s flesh and soul. The flames died. Roy stopped casting his Sign and blinked away, but the lightning bolt did not let up. In the end, the witcher was hit. He fell to the ground, convulsing, his hairs standing on end.

A third curse fell upon the witcher. A curse called depletion. All the witcher’s mana was drained, and every time he regained a sliver of it, a mysterious energy in the void would suck it away, giving it to the elemental plane.

“You have wasted too much of my precious well of pain. This is the end, witcher.” The evil god’s voice was filled with exhaustion. And then the cocoons lying in the web started to combust. Roy saw the werespider still singing in agony, turned into a sliver of black smoke. And he saw werebeasts converted into something similar. The slivers of smoke flew high into the air, and the spider hiding within the darkness opened its maw. Its nose contracted as it sucked in the nutrients from its followers. Its golden eyes were flaring with fury and grief. The creature had given up too much just to deal with the witcher.

Roy felt a crisis incoming. He held up his sword and fired off his bolts, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t close the gap between him and Corem Agh Tera. It was as if he’d been walking in circles within a maze.

Realization struck him. Unless it comes closer to me or I break this web, I can never capture it.

But before he could come up with a plan, a voice bellowed, and the voice echoed across the web, shaking the world.

“Destiny was born on the Eternal Web. It twists, turns, and weaves its way to misery, the only eternal constant.”

A silvery-white thread descended from the skies and fell upon the witcher’s head. It buried itself into the witcher’s flesh, spine, and soul. The thread extended into infinity, hard to observe, just like the future.

The Lionhead Spider stuck its head out from the skies, falling onto the thread gently. The power of pain flowed out of its legs and swam into the thread. Its black fur lost its luster.

Then it spoke, its voice icy, as if it were a god watching the pitiful lives of a human flickering across its eyes.

“Roy the witcher, your left leg was injured during the first battle of your life, stemming from your own inattention. You did not receive medical attention in time. Your wound festered and was infected. As a consequence, your left leg had to be amputated, and you have no avenues to heal it.”

The voice echoed in Roy’s head, and he froze. He felt some sort of power locking on to him, and he saw hallucinations. Something from the past, but also not from the past. A brand new memory formed in his mind. This was fate. Undeniable. Immutable.

The thread gleamed, and Roy fell down for some reason. He tried to touch his left leg, but to his horror, there was nothing there. His left leg had disappeared. The decoction might have numbed physical pain, but it couldn’t stop the shivers of the heart. Roy thought he’d fallen into a nightmare, the impact of the spider’s power suffocating him.

The pain in his heart was turned into a sliver of black smoke, and it flowed into the Eternal Web. The Lionhead Spider let out a sigh of satisfaction.

Roy bit his tongue. A metallic scent filled his mouth, and he snapped out of his stupor. He’d stared down death more than once in his life. Disability shouldn’t have swayed his heart so easily. He pulled the leg of his pants up and looked at the healed stump where his left leg should have been. He mused.

So this is the Thread of Destiny. One of the powers I saw earlier. This is how it changes its target’s past and drags it closer to death? It can’t change how an event ends, but it can alter its process and inflict more pain on its target.

The Lionhead Spider was hanging upside-down over the thread of destiny hanging atop the witcher’s head, its eight legs slowly rubbing the thread. With malice, the creature looked at its prey. It was also watching the scenes playing upon the thread, picking and choosing parts of the witcher’s past and changing them.

Still, it’d never run into someone like the witcher. Roy’s thread was obscured by a thick layer of mist. Most of his past was hidden in the mist, denying the spider information. But the remaining history is more than enough for me to work with.

Slivers of black smoke billowed from the spider’s body. They swam into the thread of destiny, and the spider cursed Roy once more.

“When you were fifteen, you had your eyes slashed by a ghoul, and you have been blind since then.”

Everything went dark. The web, the bones, the sea of fire, the dark skies… All of them, gone. There was only darkness. It felt lonelier than whatever curses or the void of space could throw at him. He knew he’d lost his sight, but the gemstone mark was still there. He could sense a great threat sitting atop his head, far, far away from him.

The power to change fate is a unique and broken ability. There must be a dear price to pay, especially when its target is someone like me. Someone with a powerful will and body.

Every time the creature cast yet another curse, it would have that bit more of its strength taken away. Not to mention this spider was already severely weakened. The world had almost forgotten about it.

Roy might look adversely affected from the surface, but he had a trump card up his sleeve. A trump card powerful enough to turn the tides of battle. Roy shoved all his negative emotions away and sat on top of the web quietly. He would not allow the spider to absorb any more of his pain. He would accept its curses. Roy wanted to be bait for that evil god. This was a psychological battle.

Green flames swayed. The Lionhead Spider’s eyes were filled with excitement and longing. His heart is strong. I wonder how much pain it will return once I break it.

And the voice kept talking. “You contracted a severe case of fever when you were fifteen and lost your hearing permanently.”

The Lionhead Spider kept on cursing the witcher’s fate, filling his life with nothing but agony. First it took Roy’s left leg, then his sight, then his hearing, and then his sense of smell, sense of touch, sense of taste, then his remaining limbs. In the end, he took Roy’s innards away.

“Because of the unstable nature of your mutation, the Trial of the Grasses left your heart with severe complications. You were afflicted by a serious heart disorder. Any strenuous exercise can trigger the condition and kill you.”

That was the final curse, and the spider’s voice went away. Roy was a mangled mess of his former self. He had lost his limbs and five senses. He was only left with a head and torso. Roy lay within the web like a human punching bag. He felt no light or happiness. There was only darkness, desolation, the frigidity of life, and the torment of his illnesses.

This was the worst place any human could be in, but to the Lionhead Spider’s irritation, it still couldn’t absorb any pain from the witcher. It was as if the witcher had a heart of stone. The creature had expended most of its well of pain, and only a small pile of cocoons were left in its web. Its eyes were like dim marbles, with nary a hint of light within them, and it was smaller than it used to be.

Coram Agh Tera had used everything it had. Now it had no choice but to think that Roy was a helpless piece of meat. A prey waiting to be eaten. The god scuttled carefully down the thread of destiny, landing on the witcher’s back.

The creature’s eyes were as big as Roy’s head, and within those eyes, greed and passion flared. Its body was as looming as a palace, and Roy was a hapless king residing within the abode.

The Lionhead Spider’s nose wriggled, as if it had tasted the scent of pain. Its eyes were rolling around, scanning the pale prey lying in the web. Roy’s eyes were closed, as if he were sleeping. The only hint that he was alive was the heaving of his chest.

The creature had confirmed that its prey could not fight back anymore. Coram Agh Tera revealed its abdomen and shot out a patch of white web from its spinners. The web wrapped Roy’s battered body up, and the creature held its prey up. Coram Agh Tera chomped down on the witcher’s shoulder, and blood splattered everywhere.

The last dregs of its power of pain were injected into Roy’s bloodstream as venom. A black mark of the Lionhead Spider appeared on his shoulder.

“You’re mine.” A smile of relief appeared on the creature’s face. Its fur was dancing, feeling the creature’s delight. “You are the most powerful singer of pain I have ever collected. Now, awake. And sing for me forevermore.”

Just when the creature thought a wave of agony would burst forth, the witcher smiled. He didn’t even let out any moan of pain.

“Got you,” he whispered. And delight pierced through the nightmare of agony. A wave of crimson ripped the web apart, and the battered body of Roy quickly expanded in the ball of red light. A wave of crimson energy coursed through his veins like flames roaring higher and higher. Eventually, the wave came charging out of his body.

The Lionhead Spider felt its eyes prickling from the sudden burst of light. The ruler of misfortune was now feeling misfortune raining down on it. It quickly let go of the cocoon and tried to scuttle back up the thread, back into hiding.

The sea of blood crashed, and a crimson tentacle came bursting ahead from the waves. It wrapped around the creature’s abdomen, its suckers quickly latching themselves to the creature’s skin. The suckers contracted, and patches of star-shaped tattoos appeared between the suckers. Smoke billowed from the black fur, melting away in the red light like snow meeting the sun.

No, no! What are you, witcher? To the creature’s horror, it felt something it hadn’t felt for eons. Pain. Coram Agh Tera sliced the tentacle apart and shoved the crimson cocoon away before it could finish its transformation, but it was too late.

An invertebrate that should’ve only existed in the seas leapt out of the crimson flames. It was half the size of the spider, and the octopus wrapped its tentacles around the evil god, pinning it down on the web.

The Most High’s eyes were burning with silvery-gray flames. There was nothing but the composure of a predator in Roy’s eyes. I’m your predator.

Red and green clashed, and everything turned dark for a moment. A black spider and a red octopus were entangled in battle. Tentacles and spider legs fought and clashed. The spider’s sharp legs sliced one tentacle open, but then corrosive blood splattered the spider, sizzling the tough, rough, furry shell. And then another tentacle replaced the one that was lost.

The octopus was hanging on to its prey. As its tentacles wrapped around the spider tighter, the star patterns on its body started to shine, and beams of magic shot forth from the suckers, drowning the spider within a barrage of fire, lightning bolts, air currents, and red energy beams.

Black blood spurted forth from the spider’s wounds. Coram Agh Tera let out a howl of dismay. Black smoke billowed all around it, and it started to shrink like a block of ice being hit by the rays of the sun. It opened its maw and sank its fangs into the octopus, tearing part of it away, but the octopus’ blood ate away at the Lionhead Spider’s face.

The octopus opened its maw as well, and it munched on the spider’s flesh. Every time it bit off a chunk of flesh, the octopus would gobble it down and heave a sigh of satisfaction, just like how the evil god did to it earlier.

No, no, no! The Lionhead Spider was struck with terror, as if it could see its eternal life wilting away like a dying flower. And it started running across its kingdom, trying to escape. It moved constantly. At first, it was on the west side of the web, and the next it was on the east. Sometimes it would be high up in the skies, and then it would be among the piles of bones underneath the web.

No matter how much the evil god ran and teleported away, the octopus remained entangled with it, rolling through the web with its prey. They fought and tore off bits from their enemy.

Red and black blood rained, eventually merging into one. The Eternal Web was torn apart by the intense battle. The creatures left holes in this kingdom, and warm light from the world beyond shot into the kingdom.

Coram Agh Tera’s kingdom was starting to shake. Everything rumbled, as if it would crumble.

***

Five minutes later, the battle had reached its conclusion. The evil god had expended all its source of power, and the world had almost forgotten all about it. It was no match for the Most High’s devouring.

In the end, only a lion’s head was left. All its eight eyes were on the octopus. It was like a bloody sun, shining red.

“Curse you, witcher!” The Lionhead Spider cast its last curse in hysteria. “You shall live the rest of your life drowning in pain! You shall—”

The Most High opened its maw and devoured the lion’s head. A sensation of contentment covered its body. Its tentacles wriggled, shadows dancing across the web. Eventually, the web wilted and broke up, turning into a solitary black fang.

‘You have devoured the God of Omen. +20000 EXP. Level 14 Witcher (20200/16500).’

Darkness was torn through by light. The octopus returned to its human form.