Molting the Mortal Coil

It had a shiny black carapace, the sort of insectine appearance that always seemed to be a little wet. It was all sharp angles and blade-like slanted lines. It had eight towering legs that looked like obsidian spires with giant swords attaching them to the black citadel of a main body. It had many huge glassy black eyes, only the spherical shape and higher reflectivity of their surface making them seem anything like any other creature’s eyes. It was something of a combination of a dark lord’s castle and a certain famous xenomorph species.

A terrifying spider with legs as large as skyscrapers. It’s body hung three hundred feet over the ground, while its legs in their bent position rose to twice that height. The massive creature shrieked at the many times larger tortoise, and the statue-like tortoise lost some of its docility. It had seemed like a calm mobile fortress, but at this time the flames in its eyes were re-lit and a wave of flame rolled out of its mouth. It started to move faster, and the rumbling from its motion caused the small village of tents on its back to be thrown into disorder. The Nascent Soul’s riding on top of its head quickly fled, rushing back to the edge of the shell to take care of their subordinates.

At this moment the six hundred foot tall spider was facing off against the two thousand foot tall tortoise. The turtle was more than three times taller, but the long bent legs of a spider always made it look much larger than it actually was. While it looked outmatched, it at least looked like it could put up a fight against the giant. It was nothing like when the mountain sized monster with feet large enough to flatten a city block was coming after a human.

For a moment, Sage was hoping the arrival of a new enemy would pull the tortoise’s attention away from him. Surely the Living Disaster would feel threatened by the giant spider and the following battle would give him time to escape. If he got far enough away, maybe Hei Bai’s side wouldn’t be able to convince the Living Disaster to keep chasing him.

Unfortunately, Sage felt that sinking feeling again and not only did the Living Disaster not shift attention away, the giant spider actually joined in, turning its many eyes in Sage’s direction. While he wasn’t caught directly between them, the Soul Clone had to change direction, choosing the route that would have him flee directly away from his two enemies. There just wasn’t enough time. He was having to make a sharp left, the nearly 90 degree turn meant that the tortoise would be able to shed quite a bit of the short distance he had left between it and himself. He either had to run directly towards the spider, or end up with both beasts right on his tail, with only a few hundred feet to separate them. Which, given how large his enemies feet and legs were, would make him only a few stretched footsteps away from death.

Since the spider was intent on him, Sage gave up any hope of sneaking past it. He had to accept the lesser evil of fleeing from them both rather than trust the spider wouldn’t catch him when he got close. He could only hope that when they were walking side by side, they’d be unable to stop themselves and get into conflict. Pretty bad that I have to hope the enemies get distracted fighting over food.

Unfortunately for him, the two giant monsters were not going to be satisfied with letting him slip away and following behind him. The Living Disaster didn’t spit any more molten stones, but it did start breathing fire, the gusts of flame reaching down to the swamp land and water in front of it, sending up a huge cloud of steam to show its fire was hot enough to boil away the water almost instantly. It swept the flame back and forth, creating a wide blockage. Across from it, a pair of the spider’s legs had lifted into the air, touching against the end of its abdomen and then swinging up into the air. They were knitting at a huge ball of webbing, moving with intricate detail, constantly touching and pushing at the web ball. Then it started to swing the web around like a ball and chain over its head.

Wall of fire in one direction and giant bolo spider in the other.

He was already rushing away from them, but they were about to catch up. He’d have to stay ahead of a wall of fire while dodging huge webs that were thrown out like a net on the end of a rope. There was no time to think about why they were after him, Sage only knew that his time was running out. That depressive feeling within him had continued to grow all this time, and just at that moment he felt something shatter. Inside the Universe Ring, the Messaging Jade that was linked to Wan Ling had broken. Wasn’t she still safe hiding in Lionheart Town? Had she already fled towards the Holy Flame Sect? What would happen that could break the Jade she kept inside her Storage Ring?

That moment of distraction was just on time with the giant spider hurling its ball of webbing. The Soul Clone moved to avoid it, but the thing spread into a net shape in the air and fell downwards. It landed on top of the Soul Clone, but thankfully the Soul Clone was not a physical being, the web passed right through it. Unfortunately, the web was not that simple. While it passed through the Soul Clone without resistance, the Soul Clone felt itself slowing down. How could spider silk slow down a ghost? Without time to figure out the why, it was more important for him to focus on the way out. They’d caught up!

The Soul Clone dove to the side at full speed, avoiding the building sized spear that was the spider’s leg. It stabbed into the swampy ground, for a moment looking like a black metal building listing over to the side. Then he had to avoid the wide disc shaped sole of the Living Disaster, having to fly out of the way of the block flattening footprint.

Boom!

Avoiding two giant feet in a row, Sage felt time running out. Three more giant spider legs were coming his way while the tortoise was picking its foot back up. He could already feel the temperature rise with the tortoise opening its mouth and aiming a tongue of flame towards him. The two monsters got closer and closer, and that wrong feeling grew larger. He avoided two more falling buildings, the spindly spider legs like building sized swords. Dipping below the surface of the water, he hid from the flood of fire that bathed the area, but that also meant when he flew back up out of the ground, he was just in time to get smashed by the tortoise’s foot.

The sky dimmed, an artificial sky fell upon him from above and the Soul Clone tried to dip into the water again, but the foot didn’t just fall, it stomped down. A huge force fell downward, aiming to smash Sage into nothing.