Shadow Slave

As they ventured deeper into the southern reaches of the crimson Labyrinth, the situation slowly turned worse and worse.

The iron spiders that had been not too threatening to the cohort of powerful, experienced Dark City hunters at the start of it all were growing more and more deadly with each step of the way. Their numbers grew exponentially, becoming a real danger pretty soon. More and more often bigger and stronger monsters appeared at the head of the attacking beasts, bringing with them all sorts of problems.

What's worse, the spiderweb they used to trap their prey was changing, too. The metal wires from which it was weaved became so thin that it was at times almost impossible to notice it, and sharp enough to cut through armor and bone — while maintaining the resilience of superb steel.

The whole Labyrinth was covered in it, turning from crimson to dull grey.

The cohort bled much more because of the invisible webs than they did because of the spiders themselves. Of course, the iron spiders were cunning creatures, too. More often than not, they only attacked once one of the humans was caught in their nets, leading to a few really harrowing experiences for the members of Changing Star's party.

And there was a wide variety of other terrifying creatures waiting to ambush them in the twisting pathways of the crimson coral, too. What made them so dangerous was that the cohort didn't know anything about their anatomy and abilities. Every fight was a gamble, often resulting in one or several of them sustaining serious wounds.

There were three things that made the situation somewhat bearable.

The first one was Nephis and her healing flames. Although using the Aspect Ability took a toll on their leader, it was often worth it, especially if one of the members of the cohort received wounds that limited their mobility.

One thing was far more dangerous than any Nightmare Creature that lived in the Labyrinth, and it was not reaching safety before the torrent of black water flooded the Forgotten Shore, bringing inconceivable horrors with it. Thanks to Neph, they didn't have to worry about anyone slowing the cohort down.

way they hunted, a lot of creatures found their deaths in the cutting embrace of the wire spiderwebs. Finding these eviscerated corpses or cacoons containing old carcasses became a common occurrence once the party invaded the

of the Labyrinth. A lot of potentially deadly surprises had been avoided due to the cohort stumbling onto a corpse of a similar creature prior to fighting against a living one and spending some time

deadly as it would have been in the hands of an inexperienced one… the difference being that the latter would mostly

feeling of shock. That time, they were facing a large group of iron spiders led by a much larger arachnid — the awakened monster of their tribe, similar in status to a

iron armor covering their bodies almost completely. Even Caster's enchanted sword had trouble cutting through their defenses. What's worse, due to the speed with which the wretched abominations moved, it was especially hard to

two smaller iron spiders at once while the Stone Saint was butchering the third one. With his shadow observing what was happening behind his back, he didn't miss the moment when the cunning awakened monster suddenly disengaged from Nephis and dashed into his direction, its mandibles moving in anticipation of

dodge, Sunny tensed

feathers for fletching and a

his body. Even though Kai messed up his shot a bit and hit the monster in its abdomen instead

the next moment, the awakened monster suddenly slowed down and staggered. Then, it tried to lunge forward once again, but ended up losing its balance and weekly falling to the ground. Its limbs moved slightly,

iron plates, the spider's body grew taut and shriveled, like that

disturbing image, and couldn't help but glance briefly at

the Blood Weave, he might have

arm and survived, most likely. But if he had been a couple

not to

that the Blood Arrow

him, gliding through the air, Kai suddenly made a strange gasping sound. Sunny didn't know what it felt like to have your blood magically drained and then suddenly returned to your body, but he doubted