The Unmaker

Dahlia blinked.

… The slingshot?

She barely had time to react before Alice let out a delighted cackle, spreading her fingers apart like she was about to perform some terrible magic trick.

Then the Hangman ripped.

A shudder ran through Dahlia as she watched Alice tear glowing, blood-red threads straight from her own fingertips, like pulling veins from her skin. Dahlia would never get used to how it looked. The threads slithered through the air like living wires, latching onto two grotesque, fleshy masses jutting from the ground in front of all of them. Then, with a wicked grin, Alice jerked her hands back, stretching the fibers taut between her and the pulsing lumps of organic matter.

The strands flexed, tightening into a massive, pulsating slingshot, and Alice dug her heels into the ground as the rest of them continued running forward with their heads cast over their shoulders.

For her part, Dahlia vaguely knew what Alice was trying to do, but like Emilia, Otto, Wisnu, Muyang, and Blaire, she didn't stop running forward. She couldn't stop. They'd all built up so much forward momentum already that stopping instantly would fling them to the ground.

Fortunately, Alice had four arms, so with the two hands that weren't holding onto the both ends of the slingshot, she whipped a dozen strands at their backs and yanked them back into her.

Dahlia's stomach flipped as her entire body jolted.

The air roared past her ears. The thread wrapped around her waist made her hurtle backwards, and her limbs flailed in pure, animalistic panic. It lasted only for a moment though. All of them, the Fool and the Sun included, slammed into the giant thread net Alice was holding out in front of her, and while the recoil from the impact made the entire construct wobble, all of them stuck to the net like sap on young bark.

Without a second of reprieve, the Sun extended both of her palms backward, and concussive blasts of flame exploded from her hands.

At the same time, Alice stopped digging her heels into the ground and let go, releasing the tension of the slingshot, and the combined force of silk and fire sent all of them flying forward at terrifying speed.

[Ah.]

[Slingshot.]

The wind screamed around Dahlia's ears. The cavern walls blurred into warped streaks of crimson and black. Apocia and Thracia still loomed in the distance as two blurry figures, racing towards the massive, crystalline heart at the end of the chamber.

Even now, Dahlia could tell they were but mere moments away from reaching it.

"The strongest attacks you've got!" the Fool shouted. "Kill them before they reach the heart!"

Dahlia clenched her jaw and adjusted her grip on her warhammer, steadying herself midair. Her pulse pounded like a war drum. The wind whipped at her clothes. Every instinct screamed at her to focus, to strike, and to put everything she had into this one moment.

The others moved in the corner of her eye as if time itself had slowed.

The Fool reached into his coat and pulled out a thick, iron-bound tome, gripping it as if he intended to use it as a bludgeon.

The Sun tore her bow apart, splitting it into twin daggers that burned with red-hot flames.

Alice's fingers danced, weaving silk into four curved blades, one in each of her hands.

Blaire slammed a syringe into her own neck, her pupils dilating as the drug coursed through her veins. Her other hand curled into a fist, syringe claws glinting under the eerie glow of the cavern.

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Muyang braced himself midair, equipping his giant beetle helm, horn tilting forward for a devastating headbutt.

Wisnu's greatsword glistened with fresh blood, her aura seething with barely contained fury. The yellowish-orange blood on her blade stirred, morphing into a frenzied swarm of ants that immediately surged and screeched along the sawtooth edges.

Otto slid a single spiral-patterned bullet into his rifle clumsily, locking his sights onto the targets ahead.

Emilia bared her teeth, a growl forming in her throat, her jaw stretching wider than humanly possible as she readied to unleash a sonic scream.

And Dahlia inhaled deeply.

Recollection: Scourgewind, Stormlure.

The air around her shifted with Madamaron's Swarmblood Art. The swirling wind responded to her presence, thickening, gathering around her like an unseen force. She let it coil around her body, feeding it into her hammer, and then her body stiffened as lightning burst from her fingertips and danced along the snarling head of her hammer. She couldn't use the firefly's Swarmblood Art for long in fear of electrocuting herself, but if she were to channel the lightning into her hammer instead…

She narrowed her eyes on the faint, silver bloom of weak points on the Spider Sisters' backs, the petals woven with silver threads exposing their vulnerabilities.

She had to hit those flowers. As hard as she possibly could. She swung her hammer down, trailing lightning and desert wind, her entire body coiling around the weight of the strike as she followed through with everything she had. Around her, the others lashed out at the same time—fire, silk, steel, and raw force colliding in a single, devastating instant.

And then, impact.

Dahlia's warhammer crashed down, crackling lightning surging through the snarling head as it made contact with Apocia's back. The ground beneath her split, a deafening crack splitting through the cavern floor as the energy discharged, a sharp electric current rippling outward. Dust and sand kicked up in a choking cloud, swallowing the cavern whole.

For a moment, Dahlia could only hear herself panting.

Her arms trembled as she let go of the desert wind, the lightning fading from her hammer. The strain of the attack burned through her muscles, but despite her shaking limbs, her eyes managed to adjust to the wreckage under her as the dust settled.

Did we get them?

Beneath the weight of their combined attacks lay the twisted remains of the Spider Sisters, their bodies crushed and broken. Their forms were barely humanoid anymore, crumpled beneath the destruction.

Dahlia stared down at them, her breath still uneven, her hammer still clenched tightly in her hands.

… But something felt wrong.

The air was too still.

Her pulse pounded, the silence stretching unbearably long.

Then the dust fully cleared, and her stomach dropped.

She wasn't looking at the Spider Sisters at all.

The things beneath her hammer and the others' weapons were only husks. Molted, hollow remains of what'd once been their bodies, shed like old skin and left behind.

Dahlia's breath caught in her throat, her head snapping up at the exact same moment as everyone else's. Her eyes widened as she spotted them—Apocia and Thracia—standing unharmed, waiting for them at the very end of the chamber.

Right in front of the crystallized heart.

Shit.

The Sun moved first. She didn't hesitate. Didn't waste even a fraction of a second. She slammed the hilt of her twin blades together, turning them back into her bow in a blur of motion. In the same instant, she nocked an arrow wrapped in pure flames between her fingers, the string already drawn back, her stance perfectly aligned.

She loosed. The fire arrow whistled through the air, streaking toward its targets with searing heat—

But the Spider Sisters only smiled.

Their mouths moved at the same time, voices overlapping in a sickening harmony.

"Too late."

Dahlia barely had time to process the words before Apocia and Thracia plunged their arms into the base of the crystallised heart, and a deep, visceral tremor shuddered through the cavern, the very foundation of the chamber groaning under the strain.

The heart pulsed. Once. Then twice, its entire structure shivering. The half-translucent surface was suddenly alive with movement. Even more vein-like strands bulged and stretched outwards from its core, spreading like glowing spiderwebs across the cavern walls and ceiling.

It was like a circulatory system brought back to life, and Dahlia felt it before she fully understood it.

The shift in the air.

The pressure sinking into her chest.

The heat.

The blood.

Blood from the entire carcass was flowing directly into the Spider Sisters, and they drank it, their forms already shifting, already changing.