SAGE'S POV

The afternoon sun greeted us as we rushed toward the open courtyard. My eyes immediately roamed across the devastation, and my jaw tightened.

Holy hexes.

The place was crawling. Countless spiders swarmed the area, infesting tunnels, windows, walls, roofs, grounds, and corners, spreading like dirty cockroaches. I grimaced at the sight, a wave of revulsion washing over me.

Gross.

These were no ordinary spiders. They came in all sizes—small, midsize, and massive—each one more gruesome than the last, sporting angry red eyes and eight thick, furry legs. They were literally flooding the place, overtaking everything.

"Oh—sh*t, this is bad!" Via yelled, relentlessly crushing the arachnids surrounding her.

Around us, the other students kept their focus entirely on the endless onslaught, throwing spell after spell to keep the swarm at bay.

Tsk.

Raising my silver dagger, I slashed viciously at a spider that lunged toward me, cutting it down before shifting my gaze. A crowd of students was pouring out of the castle doors, huddled beneath glowing shields conjured by the faculty.

"Move now!" one teacher shouted, straining to maintain the barrier for the fleeing lines. The stone groaned above them, the intense heat from the defensive spell searing into their palms as the castle wall trembled, dozens of tiny fractures splintering outward like veins of ruin.

I fought to keep my composure. This is getting out of hand. I'd be dead if I choked on some freaking spider falling down my throat.

Suddenly, the light posts circling the courtyard blazed a piercing red, signaling an emergency broadcast.

'The Consilium is mobilizing the East Wing. Headmaster Salem calling for extraction and rescue teams!'

"LOOK UP!"

Instinctively, my head snapped skyward.

A deafening boom echoed from the east, followed by sharp, cracking noises. Thick smoke billowed from one of the four specialized towers—the classified halls of the Animoras—partially obscuring the structure from view.

"Freaking omens?!" Geo froze for a second, his voice trembling. "I think it's coming from Alchymia! Something's been destroyed!"

I swallowed hard, scanning the horizon. The courtyard was in complete disarray. Dozens of students stood frozen in shock, staring at the rising smoke, while others frantically cast spells to fend off the smaller spiders bubbling up from the ground. My eyes darted between the four distant Animora buildings—Elementum, Lychinus, Nocturnus. All of them were intact. All except for—

"The Alchymia!" a student pointed toward the heavy smoke, shouting over the din.

"Don't tell me—is this the fault of the Alchemy witches?!"

"No doubt, it's coming straight from Alchymia!"

"If that's true, there are still witches trapped inside!"

An eerie silence fell over the courtyard. The fighting ground to a halt as every witch locked their gaze onto the clearing smoke.

Slowly, the thick haze parted, revealing a strange silhouette rising from the debris. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd.

"EEEEEK! A MONSTER!"

My eyes widened.

A colossal, massive spider emerged from the ruined Alchymia building. It unleashed a high-pitched screech that sent a shiver straight down my spine. Its spindly legs glistened with a viscous red substance, shifting the heavy rubble beneath its weight as it moved.

"Oh, COME ON!" Geo complained, throwing his hands up.

A chaotic mix of screams and panicked protests erupted among the students. My mouth hung open as I stared at the monstrosity.

A s-spider that big?!

Are the students in that building even okay? What about Cerise and Kane? Weren't they supposed to go there? I hope they're okay there...

"We have to stop it before it hurts anyone else!" Ashriel exclaimed. He was breathless but steady, his eyes sweeping across the scattered crowd.

At that moment, the field shattered into a chorus of battle cries. Witches charged toward the collapsed building in a desperate surge. Bursts of wild, multicolored magick lit up the entire battlefield. Cloaks were cast aside, weapons materialized from bare hands, and the rapid murmuring of incantations filled the air. The ground trembled under the weight of stamping boots crushing the arachnids beneath them.

I paused for a second, momentarily struck by the sheer scale of it. It's like we're in a war. I've never been involved in anything like this until now—woah...

Everything became a dizzying blur of light, steel, and spellwork as the witches answered the call. But in the middle of my advance, I skidded to a halt. My thoughts raced as I stared back at the giant arachnid.

Everyone is fighting... but why do I feel like something is completely off?

"OI, BLACK WITCH!"

I furrowed my brows and snapped my head toward the voice. It was some random student I didn't even recognize.

"What?! Are you just going to stand there?!" he barked. "Is that how all Noxis witches are?! Always lagging behind?!"

He threw the criticism right in my face before rushing past to cast a spell, finishing off another group of spiders.

He should honestly thank his lucky stars that I'm busy right now. If I wasn't, I would have hexed that attitude right out of him! Tsk.

I just shook my head.

I started running toward the epicenter of the chaos, relentlessly trampling the smaller spiders swarming beneath my feet without a second thought.

From afar, my eyes unintentionally landed on some familiar faces. Geo was hurling massive rocks to crush spiders. On the other side, Via was supporting the wardens on the frontline, aiming her disorienting spells at the giant spider. Meanwhile, Ivory and Ephron unleashed blasts of magick, and even Damona leaped into the fray, finishing off every spider lunging toward them.

My focus sharpens as I spot another human-sized spider charging towards me.

I drew another deep breath, tightening my grip on my dagger. When the spider suddenly lunged straight at me, I instantly thrust my weapon forward. The blade cut clean through the spider's abdomen with a sickening crack.

Blood sprayed red from its decaying body.

Too red. Not ooze. Not ichor. Just... blood.

I looked down at my own hand. In my palm, the blood was sticky and dripping.

"Spiders don't bleed..." I whispered, recalling what I'd once read in Cerise's entomology book.

They only had haemolymph—pale and blue, nothing like human blood. And yet, the smell—metallic, warm—told me otherwise. It was thick, bright red, and hot to the touch, sizzling faintly against my palm.

I winced at the sensation. "S-strange..."

"PLEASE DON'T!"

My train of thought shattered when I heard a desperate scream from another student. I snapped my gaze toward him. I didn't know him or his name, but he looked completely distressed.

Unlike the others, he wasn't fighting. He was shouting, violently struggling to push his way through the crowd. His voice was completely ignored, and several witches threw accusatory glares his way.

He grabbed another witch by the collar. "Stop attacking her!"

The other student roughly shrugged him off. "Rory, dude. That thing's not your familiar anymore! THAT'S A MONSTER!" he snapped back, shoving the boy named Rory away.

My lips parted in shock. What?! His familiar?!

I turned my gaze back to the Alchymia building. That giant thing is his familiar?!

My thoughts raced, colliding with one another in my mind. I intensely scrutinized the colossal spider, which was still violently thrashing and tearing the whole area apart. It kept wrecking the building, growling loudly as it spat out bloody webs.

I frowned as I observed it. Every growl it let out sounded agonizing and endless. It was writhing in pain from the barrage of attacks the witches were throwing at it.

Huh... it doesn't seem to be in its right mind—

Wait.

Not in its right mind?

My eyes widened in realization. As I kept staring at the spider, shadows suddenly curled around the corners of my vision. Right after, a heavy, suffocating energy radiated from its direction.

I could feel it.

I shifted my attention back to Rory. I wasn't entirely sure what to do, but the crushing weight radiating from his direction was growing stronger by the second.

If that's the case, then maybe... I just have to approach him? Something is deeply wrong here, and I need to find out what.

"H-hey..." I began as I finally reached his side.

He spun around to face me, tears streaming down his face. "Are you Sythria? The Black Witch?"

I nodded slowly.

"Y-you can sense it, can't you?" he asked desperately.

I stared intently into his eyes. As I felt myself being drawn in, I detected absolutely no hostility in his gaze—only sheer, unadulterated pain.

"Arachne's pain?" his voice cracked completely on the question.

I pressed my lips together, unsure how to respond.

"She's not like this! Something's plaguing her—twisting her!" he cried out, on the verge of breaking down completely. "She's not a monster!"

My eyes flew from Rory back to the giant spider. I felt my chest tighten as I stared at it. The sensation was suffocating, and for a fleeting second, I thought I saw a faint, black mist clouding around its massive body.

I closed my eyes tightly. I believe Rory.

That spider is Rory's familiar. And familiars... they don't just follow orders. They bond with us. They share what we feel—and what we want. So whatever that spider is doing... Rory knows. He might even know what it truly wants.

Rory is right. Killing that giant spider won't solve anything... but how do we stop this?

I glanced briefly at Rory before scanning the entire field. Unknowingly, my gaze found Ashriel, who was fighting right at the forefront. At that exact moment, our eyes met across the battlefield. Then, without a single word, we both ran straight toward each other.

I was completely out of breath by the time I reached him.

"You felt it?"

"Yeah, I do too. That's why I keep ordering them to just defend," he replied instantly, gesturing toward the WICCA wardens. "The faculty and the others are doing their part. Evacuating the wounded, warding the walls, keeping the whole school from collapsing." He paused. "The Headmaster and a handful of high-ranked witches are near the source right now—trying to contain the surge that's feeding the spiders. They're cutting it off from the inside. The headmaster trusted us to hold the line until someone could stop this for good..."

At that moment, through the blur of flailing limbs and sizzling spells, I saw two professors limping out of the cracked Alchymia doors, supporting a coughing student between them. Blood was smeared across their uniforms as debris rained down behind them.

"Then that giant spider's wrath is left for us to handle," I clarified.

Ashriel nodded. "The more we attack, the more it shoots webs," he said, pulling at a sticky web sac caught on his uniform. "The poor spider familiar is slowing us down."

I grimaced as I stared at the giant spider again. My stomach practically turned now that I could see it clearly up close.

"That spider is someone's familiar," I reminded him. "Something is suffocating her, Ashriel."

He pursed his lips. "And the only way to stop it is to take away what's keeping it mad."

But how?

I narrowed my eyes at the chaos unfolding in front of us. Hmm, Ashriel can't calm the spider... his fire magick would only make it worse. Cerise isn't here, and she can't heal animals anyway...

"Oh..."

A sudden idea struck. I involuntarily bit my lower lip. Why, out of all the witches here... did she have to be the one to cross my mind?

I mean, realistically, she's the only Lumen witch I actually know in this school. Lumen witches are known for their white magick; they literally represent guidance, bindings, cleansing, and the essence of life. Right now, they're probably the only ones capable of healing or calming this creature to end the madness.

Whatever. Screw it.

"W-where's Audra?" I immediately asked Ashriel.

He blinked. "Huh? She's currently on a mission—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence because the spider suddenly let out a deafening screech. Its massive limbs twitched violently as it poised to lunge straight in our direction.

In one swift motion, I drew shadows from our surroundings. Dark tendrils began to coil around my fingers like living threads. I didn't dare pull from my allies' shadows; instead, I ripped them from the ruins. I muttered a quick incantation I had only recently learned, weaponizing the shadows directly from the battlefield.

"Fila tenebrarum."

I wove the threads as fast as I humanly could. Shadows began to crawl from the crumbling walls, the severed limbs, and the twitching spider corpses. Every shadow stitched itself into threads of ruin and chaos across the space.

The afternoon sun was on my side today. Talk about luck.

I could have pulled another thread—I could have reached deeper, drawn more darkness, and stunned every single person on the field—but my arms were already screaming in agony.

"D-dammit—" I gritted my teeth, using sheer force as I kept pulling more threads.

It hurt so bad. I bit down hard on my lower lip. But there was no way in hell I was going to stop.

With a guttural breath, I arched my fingers, and the black threads exploded from my palms, scattering across the field like gnarled branches. They quickly latched onto the spider's limbs, coiling around its swollen body and tightening their grip with every twitch.

The creature shrieked. It was a high-pitched pierce that sliced through my skull like a blade.

Let go, my body pleaded.

But I completely ignored it.

"Tsk—ARGH!!!"

My hands trembled violently and my vision shook, but I stood my ground. Yet amidst the excruciating pain, I was secretly grateful that I had at least moved in time before the giant spider could flatten us. If I hadn't, we'd all be dead right now.

"S-Sythria—you're hurting—" I heard Ashriel step closer to me, but I immediately shot him a venomous glare.

"Stay. Away." I hissed, my lungs starting to burn with every ragged breath.

At the same time, I shot a dark glare toward the others, who were staring at me in absolute shock.

"...Ashriel. Call. Audra. Right. NOW."

Another wave of pain washed over me. In a few more minutes, my arms were going to be completely paralyzed. I eyed the spider once again. This time, the energy it radiated became even clearer to me. There wasn't any rage left in her after all... just total confusion. She wasn't trying to kill. She was just trying to breathe.

Suddenly, the rhythmic click of boots against the shattered ground echoed through the area.

Tsk. Of course she just had to make a dramatic entrance.

"Well," Audra called out, surveying the ongoing chaos. "You really let things fall apart without me."

Wow. So now it's our fault? What did she expect us to do—have her teleport here while we died waiting? She is so unbelievably entitled!

Audra just stood atop a broken column like it was her personal stage, her cloak fluttering behind her without a single speck of blood on her uniform. Her silky blonde hair gleamed, perfectly illuminated by the flashing spell light. She was completely, utterly unbothered by the ongoing disaster. Meanwhile, we were practically losing our minds trying to find a solution to defeat Goliath, when all it apparently took was a pebble and a slingshot.

"Took you long enough!" Damona smirked, wiping a smear of blood from her chin.

I heard Ivory let out a heavy sigh. "Stop showing off, golden girl. Get your ass down here and light it up—"

"Heal that familiar," I interjected, cutting Ivory off. I violently yanked the shadow threads to restrain the thrashing, giant spider.

"Oh?" Audra blinked, looking thoroughly amused. Her eyes scanned my trembling form. "The noxious witch was actually here—"

"I said, heal that spider." I pointed directly at her, staring her down with a sharp, lethal gaze.

Audra raised an eyebrow. "Why not just kill—"

"DON'T!" I snapped at her. "Don't kill it. Just reach it."

I tilted my head toward Rory, who was watching helplessly from a distance.

"T-that guy over there?" I said, sweat dripping down my brow as I wrestled the spider back down, the ache in my arms growing unbearably heavy. "He's pleading for the life of his familiar! Show some goddamn mercy!" With the sheer amount of pain I was enduring, I couldn't help but let my voice rise to a yell.

"Something is suffocating the spider!" For a moment, my grip on the threads faltered as my strength began to wane.

There's no time left.

Dammit, she's taking way too long to answer! I hope she listens to me just this once, you know? We're all dragged into this mess anyway—isn't she even a little bit concerned that we might die here?

"A familiar..." Audra murmured, staring directly at the massive form of the spider. "Corrupted, but still bound. Someone did this on purpose."

I rolled my eyes. If other people had a long fuse, well, I didn't.

"Yeah," I responded listlessly. "Enough talking and don't make us wait!"

Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to snap back, but I immediately cut her off with a darkened glare.

"End this mess, bitch."

Almost everyone on the battlefield fell completely silent. Quite a few of them were staring at me open-mouthed, as if they genuinely couldn't believe what they had just heard.

"Oh, what is your problem now?" I snapped at them, thoroughly annoyed, before turning back to Audra. "And you! Drop the arrogant act. Just do it!"

From afar, I heard a loud, slow, incredibly dramatic round of applause. I sighed heavily because I already knew exactly who it was coming from.

"BRAVO! YOU HEAR THAT, ADI?! LISTEN TO MY BESTIE!" Via shouted, looking like she had just received a blessing straight from heaven.

Audra shot a withering glare right back at me. "You're really getting on my nerves, you... bitch."

I kept my sharp gaze locked onto her. Like I cared.

"Such language," Audra rolled her eyes and shook her head. Still, I could see a vein throbbing prominently at her temple. "You're lucky I'm feeling generous."

She raised both hands, and her eyes instantly ignited. A bright, white light flared in her palms, subtle as a cluster of fireflies at first. But the glow rapidly intensified, coiling into dazzling, spiraling rings of white magick that completely enveloped her.

The air turned much warmer than I was used to. A few seconds later, the giant spider finally stopped moving. My hands shook violently as they fought to hold on, until the effort simply became too much. Slowly, reluctantly, my grip failed, and the shadow threads finally slipped free.

"Return to what you once were," Audra hummed, the phrase sounding like a gentle lullaby as she pressed her hands together in a prayer-like gesture.

The light exploded, shattering into a rain of glowing petals that washed over the spider's massive frame. It unleashed one final, agonizing cry, and the creature began to shrivel and shrink. Its bloated legs retracted rapidly, the monstrous body twitching gruesomely as it curled in on itself. Simultaneously, the thousands of remaining smaller spiders dissolved into quick puffs of ash and light.

The courtyard was suddenly, completely cleared. All I could do was stare as my woven shadows withdrew, slithering back into place like snakes retreating from the light.

Audra exhaled and turned to me with a smug little smile. "You're welcome."

Oh, really? A part of me seriously considered hexing her right then and there, but I knew I didn't have the strength for it. Especially since I couldn't even lift my arms anymore.

I paused for a moment as my eyes drifted over the courtyard again.

H-huh?

My eyes widened slightly when I realized the grass around the area was turning pitch black. The once-lush purple field was now littered with brittle, darkened grass. Even the nearby vines looked completely wilted and cracked, as if something had violently drained the life right out of them.

Was this because of the chaos just now?

I was about to move closer to check, but another scream piercing through the air cut me off.

"Arachne!!!"

It was Rory. He charged toward the shrinking spider, pure desperation written all over his face—only for Via and the others to intercept him.

"Stop! You look way too sickly!" Via cried out, stretching her arms to block him.

"I-I need to—my familiar—" Rory rasped, only to collapse mid-sentence.

"And... he's out," Via pouted, watching as the others caught Rory's unconscious body.

"Looks like it's over," someone muttered nearby, but I could barely focus.

My trembling knees completely gave out. I was about to lose my balance and crash to the ground when a pair of warm arms instantly caught me.

"Got you," the words breathed right against my ear.

Ashriel held me close, cradling me gently as the rest of the battlefield dissolved into a blur of colors behind us.

"Let the others handle this," he murmured, his voice steady. "Get some rest."

"W-what about you?" I stammered. "You're covered in bites, too."

"I'm fine," he cut me off with a small, tired smile. "Don't worry about me."

He carried me away as the noise faded into the distance. I let my head fall against his shoulder, and before I knew it, a deep, quiet sigh of pure relief escaped my lips.