Riven couldn't move.
The moment the blade-arm launched, he knew he couldn't dodge it.
No qi left. His legs trembled. His ribs burned. His left arm, still gripping the mantis-limb blade, felt like stone. The glowstone inside his robe flickered weakly, casting twitching shadows.
And worst of all—
The bloodline skill had emptied him.
Extreme Speed wasn't free.
He'd known that. He'd just hoped he wouldn't need it.
He'd seen an opening in the fight, and used it. And now he was out of energy. He wouldn't be able to use it again for days. Maybe a week. His body simply couldn't take more.
And the mantis clearly didn't want to wait that long.
SHHHUNK!
The blade shot toward him like a thrown guillotine. The air hissed as it cut through, loam and dirt trailing behind it in loose clumps. The mantis's full weight shifted forward — massive, final, unrelenting.
Its killing intent felt like a wall slamming forward.
He didn't even have time to raise the blade.
The scythe-arm expanded in his vision — impossibly fast, impossibly wide — all the little details suddenly sharp.
He could see the dried earth still clinging to the jagged edge.
The faint cracks running down the hardened chitin.
The glint of light reflecting off one serrated groove.
So this was it.
A part of him exhaled.
His eyes fluttered shut.
And for the briefest moment, a flicker of thought rose, quiet and bitter.
I'll go ahead, sis.
He waited.
For the impact.
For the pain.
For the sound of flesh giving way beneath a blade.
But none of it came.
His eyes stayed closed.
And still — nothing.
No pain.
No impact.
Just… quiet.
His brows furrowed slightly.
Where was the pain?
Why hadn't it come?
Slowly — hesitantly — Riven opened his eyes.
And the world looked different.
There, not more than a step in front of him, the mantis's massive blade-arm had been stopped mid-air — frozen in place, quivering with barely-contained force.
But it hadn't struck anything solid.
It was caught.
Held fast in something not quite visible — not quite real.
A weave of shadow and smoke had taken form around the blade's edge, threads of translucent qi spiraling outward like the strands of a spectral web.
He couldn't really make out what it was.
But at this moment he didn't care.
His eyes followed the qi drifting from it.
And its source — just ahead of Riven — stood a small figure.
Low to the ground. Legs spread, limbs braced, silk-threaded body humming with tension.
The green-tinged spider.
The same one from earlier.
The one that had helped him extract the mantis-limb weapon.
The one that had followed him since.
Somehow — without him noticing — it had reached him.
And now, it stood between him and death.
The spider made a sound.
Not a hiss. Not a skitter.
But something deeper — a clicking pulse of noise, high and sharp, layered like overlapping strands.
And somehow, Riven understood it.
"Get. Away. From. Him."
The words weren't spoken.
They arrived as sensation — intent layered over instinct. Not language, but something that bypassed it entirely.
Riven's breath caught.
The mantis responded with a low, grinding shriek — like chitin dragged over stone — but no meaning reached him this time.
Only aggression.
Only fury.
The green-tinged spider shifted slightly, lifting one front leg.
A wave of pressure swept out — sudden, silent — and slammed into Riven's chest like an invisible wall.
He was flung backward, the wind knocked from his lungs. His back struck a tree trunk with a thud, his body sliding down to the moss.
He gasped — not in pain, but shock.
What…?
He looked up.
The mantis lunged.
And the spider moved.
In an instant, its small frame expanded — a flicker of light, a shimmer of qi — and it grew to match the mantis's scale. Its slender limbs stretched long and sharp, its body swelling with dense plates of green-black carapace.
Eyes gleamed.
Mandibles clacked.
And then they collided.
The forest exploded into chaos.
The mantis's blade-arms blurred — twin arcs of green fury. But the spider met them head-on, weaving silken constructs of qi midair — partial barriers that redirected blows, cracked on impact, and reformed. It struck back with limbs sharp enough to split bark, and from its abdomen, it loosed thin threads of glowing webbing that shimmered like burning glass.
The mantis dodged. Countered. Roared.
Riven watched from where he lay, unable to rise — entranced.
This was a level beyond anything he'd encountered so far.
Greater Ferals…?
Elder Syen had warned them — most beasts in the forest were either Semi-Ferals or Lesser Ferals.
But there were some rarer, far deadlier ones.
Greater Ferals.
The next stage above.
If Lesser Ferals were comparable to mid or even late-stage Inner Essence Realm cultivators… then Greater Ferals were something else entirely.
A leap.
Not just into the next realm — but deep into it. Equivalent to its later stages.
Riven shivered.
Even if he still had Extreme Speed available…
He doubted it would've made a difference.
Not against this.
These two creatures wielded power that bent the forest around them with every strike.
CREEE!
The mantis shrieked and slammed its blade down — the spider caught it, redirected it into the earth — and both reeled back.
A draw.
They stared each other down — antennae twitching, fangs flared — then, finally, the mantis backed away.
Chittered.
Turned.
And vanished into the gloom, crashing through the trees.
Silence returned.
The spider stared for a second, then slowly turned back toward Riven.
He stared up at it, stunned — still breathing, barely.
And then—
A sound broke the silence.
WheeeeEEENNNNNK.
High-pitched. Piercing. Not natural.
Not a beast's cry.
The call.
Elder Syen's recall whistle.
The end of the trial.
The spider's head turned immediately. Its legs shifted.
It understood.
Without a word — or warning — it skittered forward and grabbed Riven by the collar of his robe.
"Wait—!" he managed, but it didn't listen.
In a blur of movement, he was hauled up and slung across the spider's back — not gently, but not with cruelty either.
Then they moved.
Fast.
The forest blurred past in streaks of green and silver.
Branches bent. Leaves whipped at his arms.
And then —
Darkness.
The glowing stone against his chest flickered once.
Then died.
His final thread of qi had run out.
No more light.
No more warmth.
Only wind against his face, and the rhythmic rise and fall of the spider's movement beneath him.
But the spider didn't stop.
Didn't slow.
Even in the dark, Riven could feel it.
The surge of momentum.
The shifting terrain.
The subtle twists and bounds as they weaved between trees.
It was like being carried by the forest itself — old and tireless.
Time passed. He didn't know how much.
Then —
Light.
Soft. Thin.
Just a sliver at first — bleeding in from the distance, pale as breath.
Then more.
Golden shafts filtered through the canopy.
The trees were thinning.
The spider slowed, steps growing less rapid — then finally stopped, just as the forest gave way to open clearing.
Light brushed against his face.
Sunlight.
And the spider lowered itself once more, letting Riven slide down to the grass.
They were close now — just a few trees away from the forest's edge.
Not directly in front of Elder Syen. But the boundary all the same.
As his boots hit the ground, Riven's knees nearly buckled.
He staggered — caught himself just in time.
The spider watched.
He stared at it, unsure what to say.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Finally, he managed a breath. "Thank you."
The spider didn't reply with words.
Just a low chitter, softer than before. But in his ears —
It meant something.
Like before, with the mantis. Only now, it was clearer.
"Of course… Prince."
Riven blinked.
"What?"
But before he could ask again, the spider stepped forward — and gently brushed its head against the back of his hand.
Right where the tattoo was.
That strange inked mark.
The tattoo?
The spider lingered there, just for a second.
Then it turned.
And vanished into the woods without another sound.
Gone.
Riven stood in silence for a long moment, still holding his side.
Everything had happened so fast, he still couldn't quite comprehend it.
What just happened here?