Ray and Sakura glanced at each other for a moment, and Ray lunged towards Slk. At the same time, Sakura strafed to the side. She fired a few arrows in quick succession towards Silk and her surroundings so that she couldn't dodge.
But to Sakura's surprise, Silk quickly created a thick layer of spider silk and made it into a shield that blocked all of the arrows that were aimed at her. Silk smiled a devious smile, but her smile didn't stay long as Ray suddenly jumped and punched her face from the right side.
The punch disoriented Silk, but she tried to regain her footing quickly but failed, as the moment Ray landed, he turned around and threw another punch at her face from the right side. He kept repeatedly punching her from both sides.
Silk couldn't regain her footing as the constant punches from Ray and arrows from Sakura completely disoriented and overwhelmed her.
At one moment of space she found, she suddenly let out a loud screeching sound. The sound made Ray and Sakura both disoriented. They fell to the ground and blocked their ears with their hands.
After almost two minutes, she stopped. All three of them were on the ground, panting.
Sakura and Ray slowly looked up and then looked at each other with questions in their eyes. Ray asked, "What did she do?"
Sakura didn't say anything. She started looking around, trying to figure out the answer.
They didn't have to wait long, as soon as they felt the ground shaking again.
Ray quickly got wary of his ground as he thought more ants were coming from under the ground.
But no. This time they came from the forest. A lot of spiders started emerging from the forest. There were almost every species of spider entomorph there.
Ray got up and ran to Sakura. Sakura was still on the ground. Ray helped her get up and said, "We got to run. There's way too many of them."
Sakura nodded. Both of them started running, but soon the spiders caught up to them.
One spider spun its web and threw it at Sakura, and Sakura's leg got attached to it. Sakura fell face first to the ground, and the spider started to pull her in.
Ray quickly turned around and grabbed on to her hand.
Ray yelled, "Come on. Grab onto my hand tightly."
Sakura listened to Ray and grabbed onto his hand. Ray started pulling, but on the other side, many spiders had spun their webstrings and attached them to the main web that was pulling Sakura.
Ray kept trying his best to pull Sakura out of the grasps of the spiders, but he was losing his grip.
Just as Ray was going to lose his grip, suddenly Yuri's whip came from nowhere and wrapped itself around Ray and Sakura's locked arms, holding Ray's grip in place.
Yuri too came and grabbed onto Ray and started pulling with Ray.
Ray noticed this and asked, "Yuri? Where's Mr. Vasili?"
Yuri replied, "Captain noticed what was going on here and sent me to help you. He's fighting the puppeteer now."
Ray got a little anxious and asked, "He's fighting that monster alone? Will he be alright?"
Yuri replied, with a bit of pressed grudge, "I don't know. He pushed me to come and help you."
Ray decided to stop questioning and focused back on freeing Sakura. Soon, with the help of Yuri, he was able to pull her out.
Sakura was panting really heavily. Yuri didn't wait and jumped in on the spiders as he noticed the spiders were getting really close. He started whipping the spiders in the arms and legs, severing them. After all the arms and legs were cut, he was whipping the whip once more, aiming for the neck. It would decapitate the spider. He was doing it with such swiftness that even though he was surrounded by spiders, not a single one was able to attack him.
Ray saw Yuri fighting and got mesmerized. He thought, "Amazing. It almost looks like he's dancing with the spiders."
The heavy panting of Sakura hit his ears again, and he quickly turned to her. Sakura was lying in her arms, panting heavily, almost as if she wasn't able to breathe.
Ray asked frantically, "Are you... Are you okay?" Sky turned back to his hawk form and said, "Quick boy, open her jacket chains. She's almost out of spirit energy. She needs to breathe."
Ray quickly unchained Sakura's jacket and put her head on his lap. He was getting really anxious. He said, "Please, try to breathe. Take deep breaths."
Sakura looked at him and abided. Not long after, her heavy breathing stopped. Sky said, "Nice. She's stabilising."
Ray let out a deep sigh and said, "Thank god."
Sakura tried to get up, but she failed as her whole body gave up on her. Ray again got anxious and frantically said, "Please. Don't get up. You need to rest. Get some rest."
Sakura grabbed on to Ray's jacket and tried to get up but couldn't. Ray kept insisting her to lay down and rest.
Sakura said, "I... I need to help."
As Ray saw that she wasn't listening, he made a quick decision and struck on the back of her head with his hand. This move made Sakura unconscious. Ray took her on his arm and ran to the place where he hid Yuki. He then laid Sakura down next to Yuki. Just as he got up, he saw Sky flying in front of him.
Ray said, "Sorry. I struck her."
Sky said, "No need for that boy. You did what was necessary. Mistress wouldn't be of much help in this fight anymore. Now go help your comrades. I'll look after Mistress and Silverfang."
Ray ran back as he said, "Please."
Just as he was running back to help Yuri, Katarina, in her sword form, fell down in front of him from somewhere. Just as he saw that, he also heard a bone-chilling scream.
Ray quickly turned in the direction of the scream, and his eyes almost wanted to burst out as he saw Captain Vasili's headless body fall to the ground.