[center][color=yellow][h3]Mad World[/h3][/color] [@zarkun][@lazo][@kapuchu][/center] The more substantial weight of Wrath on the happenstance platform of vines caused the entire tangle to bounce perilously, but Souta was grateful for the help. Even a direct blow to the head, mitigated by the lack of resistance it found when the victim teleported away, did not discourage the car-sized creeps for long. Initially Souta's fighting instincts served him well enough, but as it quickly became clear that the fight would not be decided at a rate even resembling fast, he transitioned into a more restrained, defensive style. He kept his warhammer constantly in motion to avoid leaving any openings, making sure that his means of survival did not stray too far from him at any time. With a Nephilim beside him, he could take some focus off protecting his back, but he could not afford to relent for even one second lest the combined pressure of both squadrons of spiders take him down. Two or even three at a time, the creatures would warp forward to attack, but even as they vanished and reappeared the predictability of their fighting style meant that Souta never found cause to panic. All the same, and though his training with his favorite weapon maximized the efficiency of his movement, he felt himself growing fatigued. An intense trip through the Hanging Jungle prior to the fight didn't exactly leave him topped off in terms of energy. The next moment, he both felt and heard something that set his hairs on end, and he could not help but look up. Several meters straight above his battleground, two spiders had teleported into empty air and slammed together. A smirk attempted to emerge on Souta's face out of contempt for the stupid things, but in the space of two seconds a dozen more spiders converged on the exact same spot, locking legs to effectively create a living wrecking ball that now plummeted his way—death from above. Souta released a yell that he hoped would draw Wrath's attention to this little problem as two skeletons manifested beside him. They caught him as he made himself into a sitting position and worked together to bodily hurl him away from the vine intersection, just in time to escape the enormous, vile clump. He, hearing the clacking mandibles and horrific hissing noises of spiders leaping out to follow him, made no bones about calling on his Walking Armory style to summon a Trawler hook in his off hand. Its length wrapped around a vine nearby, and the man's inertia allowed him to swing out of harm's way for now. Unfortunately, the extreme slant of the vine to which he had adhered did not permit the chain loop to hold for long, and the grip began to slide. The sensation of losing his purchase scared Souta badly, eliciting a panicked bellow, and a skeleton popped into existence hanging from the slanted vine. With blood pounding in his heart and head like the many impacts of a hammer on metal, Souta stretched out his hammer toward the ghostly apparition, which grabbed it just in time and yanked weapon and smith alike toward safety. Using the Trawler, Souta managed to pull himself onto the vines top to slide down it rather than suspended from it. At the first opportunity, he pushed off from the surface to tumble onto a net of fibrous, steely plant matter stretching between vines. Not a second after the smith determined that this place provided very poor footing, a half-dozen spiders showed themselves in his field of vision, dutifully warping between vines to land not twenty feet away from their prey. Souta looked around; the others might have been several hundred feet above him, give or take. One intrepid spider made its move, teleporting into melee range. Calling upon his weapon's charge technique, Souta slid across the net, his warhammer's spike extended to penetrate the monster's tiny head. When it came, the voice of Panoptos almost threw off his aim. [color=50C878]”Having trouble, human?”[/color] he asked cheerfully, watching the weapon slide through the spider's tender carapace and reduce its head to mush. The knowledge that these spiders couldn't shrug off slicing or stabbing attacks as easily as blunt-force strikes interested Souta deeply. The distraction provided by the Watcher did not. [color=teal]”Can't you see I'm busy here?”[/color] Even as the one arachnid's corpse slipped away, two more appeared to take its place, one on either side of Souta. With speed powered by fire he whirled to strike at each one, knowing that if he telegraphed a move or overswung even a little, his life could be squandered. Gliding around, Panoptos clasped his spindly fingers together. The spiders appeared to shy away from him. [color=50C878]”I always find that interviews under pressure are the most fascinating. So, by the looks of it, you've realized that using crushing attacks isn't working. That's a decent start. Basic of basics against agile foes, of course, but who's keeping score, am I right?”[/color] So saying, the watcher whipped out a pad of note paper from his ethereal body and scrawled upon it with an inky forefinger. [color=50C878]”Anyway, it looks like you haven't picked up on the trick yet,”[/color] he idly mentioned, not looking up from his project with the majority of his eyes. In response, Souta lashed out with his Trawler, not at a spider, but straight up. Not a moment to soon, he zipped toward a higher area, and the remaining spiders converged on the location he'd been just a second before all at once. Tsking, Panoptos whooshed after him, and found Souta clinging to a thick vine. [color=50C878]”Do I have to spell it out for you?”[/color] he asked, pointing a ghostly wisp up to the general area where the others were fighting, from which a steady rain of bug and bug parts were falling. [color=50C878]”The little girl didn't figure it out either. Sadly she wasn't as resourceful as you, but there's hopes of weeding you out yet!”[/color] Souta glared at him as he pulled himself up. [color=teal]”Shut the f*** up! Thinking's pretty hard when you've got a prick babbling on in your ear!”[/color] With a wounded look, Panoptos vanished, quite unwilling to render any more of his generous aid to the ungrateful brat. Somehow, the spiders had yet to find him here, so he stared up at the higher battlefield. He couldn't really see anyone aside from Fenn, whose distinctive size and near-constant accompanying blaze of fire made him easy to see, but he could see the vines rippling vigorously from all the action. [i]How can these wackos keep fighting when the whole place is so wobbly? All of the vines are so tangled up, I can feel the vibrations from here.[/i] He glanced at the vine he stood on, silently glad that the mottled surface of the thing provided enough friction to make the chances of randomly slipping off pretty slim. From the looks of it, all of the really thick vines had such a texture; only the slimmer ones could be slid on as he did earlier. The undulations in the great web of vines got him thinking, though. [i]The spiders still haven't found me, but they're making a beeline for the others. Now that I think about it, spiders in real life-[/i] he caught himself. [i]Spiders on earth come out of hiding when they feel something struggling in their web.[/i] He snapped his fingers. [color=teal]”That's it! Except, it's useless. I got lucky getting away, but no way all the spiders attacking the others will just give up if they somehow stop moving. There's gotta be something I can do...”[/color] His mind drifted to the 'horrors' mentioned by Panoptos earlier that also resided in the Hanging Jungle. How awful would be be if one of those happened along? Then again, Souta mused, the presence of a big fish would probably scare off all the little fish. Perhaps fighting with one large monster would be preferable, after all! Gears turned, slowly at first. Souta came to realize that a big enough vibration, one suggesting of an absolutely huge creature, might be for the spiders a warning alarm rather than a dinner bell. With his weapons, though, he couldn't come near to generating enough force. Then again... Souta directed his gaze at a vine several hundred feet away, which he estimated to be the largest one he'd seen yet. About as wide as an average two-way, two-lane avenue, it would have been great to walk across if it didn't hang at a 70-degree angle. Still, countless thousands of vines branched off of it. Wondering whether he might be able to stir something up after all, Souta banished Escre and called on Maelstrom. He barely had to take aim, but take aim he did, and one after another he unleashed a fusillade of fused fire spikes at the huge vine. As he predicted, the usually volatile spikes stuck into the flexible, fibrous surface of the vine rather than instantly detonating, and the smith took full advantage of the potentially infinite ammunition that characterized his gun to go wild. Souta made sure to adjust his aim slightly after each shot to ensure that the spikes didn't land too close, and over the course of about sixty seconds he plugged about as many of the suckers into the surface. Meanwhile, the weapon's recoil didn't provide enough force to vibrate his own line any more than the wind did, and despite the noise no spiders came his way. [i]Genius,[/i] he thought, grinning, as he fired. [i]I'm a genius![/i] So when the spiders teleported away, they weren't just preventing damage, but relocating so as to confirm their prey's location via vibrations. When Souta felt his weapon starting to give out, he held his hands steady and prepared to fire two final shots in quick succession, with the goal being to start a chain reaction and really rock the boat. Unbeknownst to him, not every spider had lost track of him. A particularly astute specimen, tracking small irregularities in vine vibrations, was closing in on the oblivious man's position.