Beneath the dome of the Spider Heart Sanctuary,
black-gray webs wrapped around Legendary Mage Brun layer upon layer like living vines, forming a spider-silk cocoon twenty meters in diameter.
Crystal lamps embedded in the sanctuary walls cast a dim blue radiance, refracting the dark-red glow of web-like magical patterns across the webs' surface.
The entire space was filled with the sickly sweet stench of blood mixed with sulfur, nauseating yet carrying a deadly allure.
Brun's body was bound into a cocoon by thousands of layers of silk, with only his face exposed.
His skin bore a blue-gray metallic sheen, web-like runes surfaced across his forehead, and the dim blue flames of magic in his eyes formed a clashing halo against the black-red Abyss Power.
The Protective Barrier flowed over his body like liquid mercury. Every ripple of magical power that spread out caused the webs covering him to tremble violently.
Tiny spiders clinging to the silk slowly crawled over Brun's body. When their sharp limbs scraped across the strands, they actually tore tiny fragments of magical power from him.
The blue fragments were contaminated by foul energy the instant they fell away, transforming into black-red motes that seeped back into Brun's body and formed web-like burn marks across his skin.
Abyss Power wound upward along the patterns of the silk, like venomous snakes coiling around their prey.
Wherever the black-red energy flowed, purple-black smoke rose from the air, releasing an extremely pungent odor.
Whenever Abyss Power touched Brun's Protective Barrier, it produced a piercing sound like sulfuric acid corroding metal, leaving web-like cracks on Brun's skin.
His hands twitched uncontrollably. The bolts of magical power released from his fingertips were instantly broken down upon touching the webs, dispersing into the surrounding air, thick and sticky as liquid spider silk.
Faint