"Well, at least it looks like this one can't teleport, which is a relief…"
While dodging the webs, Kai calmly commented to himself, noting that although the female Drider's voice was impressively 'loud', at least she seemed a bit slower than him. That would give him enough leeway to dodge and avoid using more aura and Haki. However, just at that moment, Kai suddenly sensed an imminent attack from his left.
Briefly activating his advanced Observation Haki, Kai saw that it was actually a beam of energy. Moving swiftly, he quickly deflected it with his left sword, causing the energy attack to veer away from him. But as if perfectly synchronized, he felt more similar attacks coming from different directions; at the same time, the webs he had just dodged sharply curved in midair to assault him from all sides.
"Don't tell me its way of fighting is by controlling other spiders…"
Surprised, Kai couldn't help but say this, but he swiftly unleashed several flying slashes to intercept the attacks while moving his body through the air, ending up in a somewhat awkward upside-down position with his back toward the ground. From that position, all of the attacks barely grazed him without inflicting damage. Yet, just as the barrage was about to end, one of the webs passing right by his shoulder stopped producing more strands, wrapping around his arm and right shoulder.
(Shit! That hurts.)
The instant the webs ensnared him, Kai felt a sharp pain, as they instantly began to melt his skin as though they were acidic. This forced him to completely cover the air around himself with Armament Haki while using his left sword to cut himself free from the strands. At that moment, the webs brutally accelerated—at least twice the speed they had shown before—managing to ensnare him in multiple spots.
"Sword Field!"
Although covering himself with Haki prevented the damage from being too severe, those webs still managed to make his skin sting a bit, which greatly alarmed Kai. Not only was the male Drider able to pierce his Haki, but apparently this female Drider could as well. Without hesitation, he summoned a dozen swords around him, using four to cut himself free while sending the other six to attack the female Drider.
"Sage, gather all the information you can on that female Drider. Leave the fight entirely to me."
Noticing that Sage wanted to take control of the swords to attack, Kai quickly gave the order in a serious tone, at the same time sending several flying slashes at full speed in all directions to intercept approaching attacks. In response, Sage could only reply in a serious but clearly reluctant tone.
"… Understood, Master."
After speaking, Sage shot forward to make contact with the female Drider, since her master now wanted all the information—more than just how the webs worked—something they couldn't obtain solely from its genome. It would be more effective to analyze how she wielded them. But to her surprise, the moment she approached, the female Drider jumped aside at full speed, simultaneously sending webs her way.
While darting about to evade the webs, Sage turned to look at her master, her expression filled with shock, only to see a grim look on his face. After all, this was the first time in all their lives that anyone had managed to detect her. Not even Tomoko, with her Quirk [Search], could detect her in [In] state, yet that female Drider could. In a certain sense, that made her more dangerous than All Might, since even he had never been able to detect her.
Although the incident was truly astonishing, Kai had no time to dwell on it because four spiders of a strange whitish color, with pale yellow cracks, suddenly leapt at him. They landed in front of him and began to glow with a weird yellowish hue before 'exploding' into a cloud of white smoke shot through with yellowish patches.
As he kicked at the air to rise higher and escape the smoke, Kai inevitably got caught in it. His clothes—light-blue athletic wear, already damaged and torn in several places—started to melt away like candle wax, and it even affected his eyes, causing them to burn so badly he had to shut them.
Even with his eyes closed, Kai was fully aware of his surroundings thanks to his Observation Haki, which allowed him to perceive twelve webs coming at him once again from all directions. Knowing how dangerous those things were, he released several flying slashes to intercept them, at the same time sending the swords that hovered around him at high speed toward the 'smoke spiders'.
Luckily, the smoke spiders were relatively weak, so merely being impaled by his swords was enough to inflict critical wounds and send them flying. However, this did nothing to lift his spirits, as with each passing second, more spiders arrived and instantly attacked him with all they had. Now, unlike before, these attacks truly were dangerous, since the female Drider seemed to be empowering them somehow.
[Sage, did you manage to do anything?!]
His mind split between three tasks—sensing his surroundings and dodging or defending with the swords flying around him, repelling the webs' attacks with flying slashes, and trying to assault the female Drider with his remaining swords—Kai asked his trusted assistant with a hint of urgency in his tone.
[Nothing, Master! This thing is running with everything it's got while attacking me with those webs; I haven't been able to touch it!]
Upon hearing his master's question, Sage could only answer in a frustrated voice as she turned intangible once more to avoid the webs' assault. Although, as a Nen beast, she was inherently immortal, the tests they had conducted over the years—prior to her acquiring her new form—had shown that she could, in fact, be destroyed. If that happened, Kai wouldn't be able to summon her for the next fifteen minutes.
Given her master's precarious situation, Sage couldn't afford to let herself be destroyed. She would never leave him alone, especially not in a situation like this, so she had no choice but to keep dodging and attempt to get close. Yet, that creature was extremely elusive, despite its large size, and her worry for her master grew every second.
[Then forget it. Help me push the spiders back. If this keeps up, they'll overwhelm me.]
Hearing Sage's reply, Kai quickly gave the order while slicing eight spiders about forty centimeters long and jet-black in color into pieces. Those spiders had somehow emerged from the webs themselves, as though they were part of them. Without hesitation, the beautiful fairy darted to her master's side. At the same time, her lovely pale-blue gown transformed into a set of feminine plate armor, while two Jian-style swords identical to her master's—but suited to her size—appeared in her hands.
[I'm taking control of Sword Field, Master!]
Arriving at Kai's side, Sage immediately announced solemnly through their mental link, taking direct control of the ten floating swords. Kai responded seriously.
"We're killing everything in our path while we retreat. Let's see how those webs work. I'm running out of energy; a few more final attacks, and I'll be completely drained."
[Understood, Master. I'll use the most efficient methods possible!]
Sage quickly responded as she spun the six swords attacking the female Drider at full speed, while maneuvering the others through the seemingly endless horde of spiders surrounding them, turning them into ultra-efficient meat grinders. She left the remaining four swords floating around her master, making sure to destroy anything that got too close.
Kai, for his part, now that he could leave the other swords to Sage, could focus fully on defending himself from the strange webs. This gave him enough breathing room to begin fleeing, staying fully alert and using Gyo on his eyes in case that ghostly web on his chest reappeared.
Escaping at full speed through the sky amid brutal explosions, web attacks, and a dense, multicolored bloody haze, Kai suddenly felt danger from all sides. But as he was already on high alert, he reacted in time to form a spherical defensive barrier around himself with all his might.
"Thunder Fortress!!"
At the same time, the four swords around him controlled by Sage began spinning at full speed, ready to strike at the slightest sign. But before they could realize how, Kai was once again completely wrapped in webs, as if trapped inside a cocoon—even while still within his barrier—prompting Sage to cry out in alarm as strange smoke could be seen rising from the webs.
[Master!!]
"Ahhhh!!!"
Furious at being caught off guard and in pain—pain that even reached his face, as those webs were corroding his Haki—Kai unleashed a powerful purple electric pulse from his body. At the same time, the four swords around him slashed desperately to cut through the web cocoon, freeing him after a few seconds and revealing his body.
Kai's body was in terrible shape. Massive wounds were exposed in various places, like his neck, arms, and legs. The most severe injuries were in his left shoulder and arm, where one could even see parts of the muscles laid bare and destroyed, as if a gallon of highly corrosive acid had been poured on him.
Meanwhile, his face had several deep gashes, even obscuring the scar on his forehead—a reminder of his parents' attack—and his clothing was in a pitiful state, looking like scraps of fabric clinging to his badly injured body, fused with the wounds in some places. This left both necklaces around his neck completely visible, which, despite everything that had happened, were not even scratched.
[Master, I'm going to focus on healing you now!] Alarmed at her master's condition—without a doubt the worst he had ever been in—Sage spoke up anxiously, but Kai quickly replied in a grave tone.
[Don't bother; it will cost too much aura. Just do some basic first aid. Instead, let's focus on killing that thing. Its 'conditional webs' are beyond reason. If they work the same way as that black spider, this cocoon will materialize if I leave a certain range, so I doubt I can escape without killing her. Let's do our best. I'll save just enough for a Magnetic Force!]
[…Alright, Master, let's go!] Gritting her small teeth in determination, Sage answered resolutely, and Kai spoke out loud, his voice brimming with challenge.
"Let's go all out—Inverse Flow!!!"
The moment Kai finished speaking, his electric aura and his Haki suddenly surged at high speed, quickly reaching their peak. This caused the female Drider to screech in fury before sending dozens of webs to attack him, while the horde of spiders shrieked in unison and hurled themselves recklessly at the electric human in the sky.
The ability [Inverse Flow] was essentially a technique whose sole purpose was to let Kai launch one last desperate attack. To activate it, he needed to meet several conditions: first, he had to be exhausted, having used up most of his total energy; second, he had to be in the middle of a battle; and third, there had to be an enemy attacking him.
If all these conditions were met, [Inverse Flow] would 'borrow' energy from his future self to push him and keep him at his maximum peak for up to five minutes. However, since it was a loan, it had to be repaid with interest. For every minute the ability remained active, Kai would have to endure a full day of fatigue, while his aura dropped to 30% until the debt was fully settled.
"Electric Slash!!"
Faced with what looked like a massive wave made up purely of spiders of various sizes and colors rushing at him, Kai made his purple lightning flash powerfully before charging them head-on. He unleashed a series of electric slashes at high speed, proclaiming solemnly. A chorus of desperate shrieks filled the air.
While Kai moved at an impossible speed, his purple bolts zig-zagging destructively through everything in his path, the tide of spiders soon became a sea—countless arachnids of different hues flinging themselves at him madly and fearlessly, slowly closing the distance and engulfing him. From afar, he looked like a single point of light in a hellish ocean, attacked from all directions by webs.
[Sage, help me with the control!] At the same time he swapped the Jian swords for two massive greatswords, Kai quickly communicated with his trusted assistant, who instantly responded with fierce determination.
[At your service!]
"Sword Field!!! Thunder Guillotine!!!"
Realizing he was being slowly but surely overwhelmed, Kai quickly conjured a hundred swords and sent them directly into the sea of spiders. At the same time, he switched the grip on his right sword to a reverse hold. Then he began to spin like a top in the air, soon unleashing a massive circular flying slash that tore through the spider sea like a knife through butter, rapidly carving a direct path toward the female Drider.
***
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