Cyrus Soalris
I felt like prey trapped on this giant cosmic web, as my four captors mocked and used me as bait, dangling my dimensional my storage like an ornament.
Despite their warnings, I tried every way to move my body in the forsaken trap, ignoring the razor-thin hairs digging deeper into my body, but nothing worked.
My hands were trapped, unable to clear the water and dirt from my face. Droplets of rain pelted me relentlessly. Being at the mercy of another was an uncomfortable feeling, like insects crawling under my skin.
Unable to move my body, I resorted to using my head. I noticed that the web needed a constant flow of cosmic energy to keep its grip on its subject.
But the problem was that I couldn't sever that connection in my current state, and the students kept their distance, weary of my abilities.
From their conversations, they're confused why I didn't use any abilities related to the Asharva branch constellations. Feeling that I was withholding something, which I was.
Since they were out of range, I had no choice but to find another use for my abilities. Gravity well wouldn't work on the web; its tensile strength was stronger than I thought.
Scanning the dimly lit forest ground, I found a couple of boulders. I wondered if it was heavy enough to crush the tree the webs were tied to.
Channeling cosmic energy into my tattoo, the faint glow of magenta illuminated my surroundings. Activating my second node, I focused on the space under the boulder near the tree to my left.
The razor-thin hairs piercing my body made it difficult to focus, the dull pain seeping into my thoughts. Pushing through the pain, I put all my focus into my imagery.
I could see my imaginary hand slowly raising the boulder into the sky, undetected by my captors. My goal was to raise it above the tree and accelerate it with gravity well. But just as the boulder closed in on my desired apex, a frigid wind ripped through the forest like shards of glass.
The sudden temperature change caused me to lose focus, and the boulder crashed to the floor. "Damn," I muttered.
"What was that?" the student maintaining the web asked.
The sound of flapping wings overhead appeared instantly. "I don't see anything up here, but stay alert!"
Then, all of a sudden, I felt a large number of ripples in space, followed by whistling wind.
A thunderous thud, followed by a primal screech of a bird. I twisted my head and saw the student pinned to the outer wall of the cave, his form now shifted back into human form. Looking closer, transparent shards impaled him at all major extremities.
"Cousin!" his kin called out as he dashed out from the bushes. Rushing over in the form of a panther, the student tried to help his cousin, but a cold chill invaded the area.
Shards came from all angles, ripped through the forest. The panther student howled as its fate ended the same as his kin.
"I was expecting more from the Proteon Constellation," said a girl coming out of the woods.
"What do you expect from a clan that masks themselves with the form of others? The Morphaelis clan shouldn't even be considered a great clan." Another girl said.
With each step the girls took, the earth froze underneath, creating a runway that glistened in the moonlight. Taking their time, the girls approached me, analyzing the web I was stuck to.
"To see a Bennu stuck in the web of an Arakanos is funny," one of the girls said, their cold gaze burning a hole through my body like frostbite.
"And why is that?" I responded, holding back the pain from the web."
"The predator finally becoming the prey, that's why," she said, placing her hand on the ethereal web.
"Now, where are those two little spiders? Everyone knows that an Araknos is never far from a Morphaelis."
Out of the corner of my eye, spheres hurtled toward us. The two girls dodge them easily, but as the spheres landed on the ground, they exploded. Webs encase the ice floor, causing the girl's feet to get stuck.
Vaulting from the trees, the Araknos students sprang into action, tending to their impaled comrades.
Getting impaled pissed off the Morphaelis cousins, and the release of their cosmic energy embodied that anger. The emission of their energy was so intense that it caused the web I was on to swing and my bones to vibrate.
In a matter of moments, the two Araknos brothers and the Morphaelis cousins now circled the ice sisters.
The sisters were calm and poised, confidence radiating from the cosmic energy they emitted. Snowflakes began to fall from the sky, and my body shivered. I hated the cold just as much as I hated being trapped.
As the battle between the two teams began, I used the commotion to refocus on my original plan.
Activating my second node, I searched for the boulder. Fighting through the cold and pain of the web, I forced myself to get the boulder to my desired height.
After what felt like an eternity, I had finally gotten the boulder to the apex of the tree. Quickly transitioning to my first node, the boulder accelerated like a meteor through a tree.
Splintering into the air, the tree was no more, and the web was cut, severing its connection to the Araknos student. The web wilted, and the hairs receded.
No longer dangling in the air, I was now free.
In the midst of the battle, I noticed a familiar glimmer. It was my dimensional storage; it had gotten misplaced during the sneak attack. Perfect for me.
I dashed away from the battle toward my dimensional storage and started to make my way towards my real target. Stravos.
But just as I was about to pick it up, I felt a startling chill. Then a cold and blunt object hit my spine, pushing me away from my dimensional storage.
I wasn't going to leave without what I earned. But the barrage continued. Ice blocks hurtling towards me from all angles like a hail storm.
I tried to push forward to my device, but it was too much to handle, and I couldn't deflect all of them. My arms and legs becoming littered with bruises and freezer burns.
So I chose to cut my losses.
I cursed at the sky, punching a hole into the small tree near me. All that work down the drain.
Immediately, I ran further north, hoping to escape the onslaught. Right when I leaped over the oncoming river, I felt a violent impact to the back of my head.
My vision blurred, my trajectory changed from horizontal to a sharp descent. The next thing I felt was a hard slap of the river surface, before I passed out.