Chapter 4 – As I’ll Ever Be

"Did you see that?!” Sophia shouted as she watched the stone golem fall. The molten rock on the ground had started to cool, turning from a bright red to dull salmon colour. Titus wondered what would have happened if they'd let the golem die naturally. Would it have transformed into a lava golem? It was a thought he didn't want to put any time or effort into.

Titus turned to see Jordan and Benjamin still holding their own against the smaller spiders, beating them back any time they came too close. With Grayson not letting up in his over-the-top tirade, things were actually going quite well for the group.

But all good things had to come to an end, didn’t they?

With the smaller spiders almost entirely dealt with, the real enemy showed her face: the Matriarch Widow. The thing was the size of a horse with a large, bulbous abdomen. Eight needle-thin legs kept the spider upright, and when it turned, Titus saw that although it was jet-black, the creature had a bright red skull adorning its back. It was the stuff of nightmares, and Titus wanted no part of it.

“The Gods!” Jordan cried out as the matriarch darted toward him faster than he’d seen anything move — and that included Petra. The giant spider was on Jordan in seconds, bowling over many of its smaller kin as well as Grayson, who was still fighting them off as best he could.

The overconfident Warrior had been thrown through the air as if he weighed nothing and when he hit the ground, he wasn’t moving. Thankfully, the smaller spiders — who could have taken this chance to overwhelm the Contestant — left him be. Either he was too far gone, or they thought perhaps their mother had called this opponent for herself.

It was Benjamin who came to Jordan’s rescue. The huge Matriarch Widow had already raised one of her deadly-looking legs into the air and was about to strike when the Defender cast his Root in Place ability, causing the creature to freeze mid-attack.

That gave Jordan just enough time to leap back out of the way as the spider’s needle-point leg finally came crashing down, striking the ground where the Defender had been standing. It also allowed Sophia and Titus to join in against this new opponent.

The smaller spiders that had been swarming the arena seemed a little less active, which gave the group time to concentrate all of their efforts on the giant spider. A combination of smaller fireballs from both Titus and Sophia, along with Sophia’s blinding ability, caused the Matriarch to writhe in fury as it searched for its attackers.

Titus examined the creature again.

Matriarch Widow

Level: 12

HP: 18,000/25,000

Grayson was still on the ground though nobody had the time to help him. There were also no healers in the group, save for Titus’ roundabout way of healing but it wouldn’t do the Warrior much good here. The best they could do was end this fight quickly so everyone could get the help they needed.

Suddenly, the Matriarch screeched and then scurried away from the Contestants, who all stood momentarily still, trying to decide whether they should follow the creature to continue their attacks or not. They didn’t have much time to decide though, because just as the Widow left the fray, the smaller spiders resumed their attack, heading straight for the two Defenders again, still ignoring Grayson. Titus had checked Grayson's health, which was low but not critical, suggesting something else might be affecting him.

Titus glanced at Jordan, who understood his meaning and a second later, Titus felt his friend's Mana flow across the battlefield toward him, where it began a lazy blue orbit around him. The group then as one turned their attention back to the smaller spiders.

Titus noticed something as he was about to cast a spell though. When he checked the Matriarch Widow’s health, he saw that it was dropping - but in single-digit increments - almost like a slow trickle. And then it hit him.

“When you kill the babies, it hurts the big one!” Titus shouted. He was certain that was what was happening and as his team redoubled their attacks, the Matriarch’s health was indeed dropping in tandem with the speed at which they dispatched the smaller spiders.

“Hey!” Benjamin called out mid-swing. “We might not even have to fight the big one if all we need to do is take out these!”

But of course, he had spoken too soon. Because no sooner had he finished speaking, the large spider screeched again. This time, it wasn’t in pain or anger; this time it was an order. Every single one of the smaller spiders on the battlefield stopped and began to retreat to their mother. And then the unthinkable happened.

It was as if the creatures were being unbirthed. In swathes they re-entered the Matriarch Widow through her bulbous abdomen, and Titus' jaw dropped as he watched the spider’s health begin to rise again. It took only a handful of seconds for all the smaller spiders to disappear, and when they had, the Matriarch Widow was back at full health, looking angrier than ever.

“So what!” Benjamin shouted, clearly not knowing when to keep his mouth shut. “We beat her with the little ones, we can beat her without them too!”

“I don’t know about you,” Jordan replied, “but I’m almost out of Stamina. If the fight is starting over again then we’re in a worse position, and that thing seems stronger than ever.”

Titus couldn’t agree with Jordan’s assessment more. In fact, even with his friend’s additional Mana, he could only really do one more big fireball before he was spent. Unless, of course, he planned on revealing his secret to the other teams, which he didn’t want to do.

“We need to be smart here,” Jordan continued. “There’s no reason for us to…”

Jordan stopped mid-sentence as everyone on the battlefield watched a new shadowy figure appear right before the Matriarch Widow. Petra had finally entered the fight. Then, beside her, the Rogue Reagan also flashed into existence. The pair had clearly taken the time to come up with some kind of plan.

Petra managed to swing her legs up and around the spider’s head and seemed to have mounted the creature like it was a horse. From there, she stabbed her stiletto into the Matriarch’s skull over and over, causing black blood to fountain from its head, covering Petra from head to toe. Reagan wasn’t as lucky. She lashed out at the creature but fell to the ground before she could find anything to hold onto. With Petra on its back, the spider lunged forward, entirely skewering Reagan with one of its legs.

Titus felt his body lurch forward and then his stomach drop as he realised Reagan had been killed. No one could’ve done anything to save her, though he wondered if his Sacrifice skill would have helped. But he knew he needed to save that skill for Jordan or Petra in case they needed it before the fight was over.

Reagan was dead, and suddenly the Matriarch Widow had a firm grip on Petra. The Widow held the Rogue between its needle-thin legs, rotating her slowly as though wrapping her in a cocoon. But it wasn't wrapping her; Petra's body had begun bleeding from thousands of tiny cuts and punctures whenever the legs had touched her. Then the pain hit Titus like a brick wall. As Petra received her myriad wounds, so did he. He fell to his knees, unable to shout, as blood stained his clothes and the ground around him.

It was almost as if the Matriarch Widow enjoyed this torture as she began to spin Petra faster and faster, until the Rogue became nothing but a dripping red blur, mirroring Titus’s suffering. Petra’s screams seemed to last an eternity, much longer than they should have until they became garbled as her will to live waned.

Finally, the spider dropped her victim unceremoniously to the ground with a thud.

Titus was hurt, sure, but he still felt the tear roll down his cheek for his friend. But then there wasn’t sadness, just anger. Anger that his friend had been so poorly treated and anger that he’d had to endure that same torture. Petra had fallen, but she wasn’t dead. It was close, just like it was for Titus, but it wasn’t quite there yet.

So he did what he’d done before: he funnelled all of his anger into his fireball spell and roared.

The Matriarch Widow had no human shield now, and Petra had done a considerable amount of damage to the creature.

The hate-filled fireball exploded directly into the spider’s face, tearing away half its head.

The Matriarch Widow didn’t even have time to screech. A moment later, it was on the ground next to Petra and Reagan, its legs curled up into itself.

The Matriarch Widow was dead. It was over.

Titus scrambled across the sands to his friend and immediately began pulling away the thin webbing that he found had cocooned her, swiftly joined by Jordan.

“That was close, wasn’t it?” Jordan muttered as Petra took a deep breath like she was emerging from water.

Titus didn’t reply, set on his task. Grayson was still on the ground and Benjamin was stooping over him, ready to pick him up while Sophia and Alexandria tended to Reagan - the Rogue party member - who’d fallen. Alexandria had remained quiet in the battle, doing her best to fight off the smaller spiders and had been as helpless against the Matriarch Widow as the rest had been.

“Vincent?” Benjamin began to call out. “Vincent! Have any of you seen Vincent?”

Titus looked around once he was sure Petra was safe. Benjamin knelt beside Grayson, looking around the arena sands, but Titus hadn’t seen Vincent. In fact, he hadn’t seen him in the battle at all. And that made him worry.

“There were supposed to be three monsters, weren’t there?” Jordan asked. “And the little spiders were just a part of the Widow? So that means…”

“There’s still one out there,” Benjamin finished Jordan’s sentence, sounding uneasy and looking about himself.

Everyone began looking around. It wasn’t like there was anywhere to hide within these sands, but the place did cast shadows.

Then, eventually, Titus’ gaze met something he’d hoped never to see again. Just beside the gate that the creatures had used to enter the arena were two dark figures. One lay on the ground, flat on his back, while the other stooped over him as if sucking out his soul.

It was a Spectral Harbinger. In the heat of the battle, it had pulled Vincent away from the group and was slowly and systematically draining his health.

“No!” Benjamin shouted as everyone else finally realised where the Contestant was. But it was too late. Benjamin charged at the creature, but Titus knew he couldn’t harm it with his weapons; only he and Sophia could.

Titus quickly readied a fireball and launched it behind the charging Benjamin. The spell exploded against the Spectral Harbinger, and the being ignited like it was made of tissue paper. A moment later, it was gone, and Benjamin came to an abrupt halt, leaving the battlefield still and quiet once more.

The result of this fight, like so many before it, wasn’t easy to call and in the end, both Vincent and Reagan had died. None of the crowd cheered this time, and everyone simply watched as Arena Hands filtered onto the field to remove the bodies of the fallen Contestants, and carrying Grayson away to the healing rooms as he still hadn’t awoken.

The group had won the fight.

But at what cost?