as he had just reached the spiders' nest, Sultan hurled the last of the bee corpses intheir as he passed by, dashing forward to a corner just a few meters ahead.
There, he crouched in silence and waited.
Everything now depended on how the spiders reacted to an overwhelming wave of bees swarming toward their nest.
If they chose to defend their home, leaving it as a result and engaging the bees in battle, Sultan would have the perfect window to slip past them undetected.
If they did nothing, clinging to the shadows in fear of the very creatures they had hunted for so long…
Then he was doomed.
Sultan, of course, prayed for the first outcome.
Though it would only buy him a small window of escape, it was a far better option than hoping the stupid bees somehow located the spiders and annihilated them.
That wasn't going to happen.
Despite being outnumbered, with only a hundred or so members in their nest, the spiders were the stronger force. Built for hunting, their mechanical-like bodies were far superior. They were larger, had the advantage of long reach with their steel-like webs, and most importantly were undetectable for the enraged bees.
A battle between the two kinds of creatures might last long enough for Sultan to escape during the mayhem.
Fortunately, even before the rushing tide of massive bees had fully entered the section of the spiders' nest, the eerie sound of tapping—many pointy legs skittering against stone—began to rise. Gradually, it grew louder and louder until it enveloped the entire area ahead. The walls, the ground, even the ceiling all seemed to tremble beneath the clicking rhythm.
Then, the roar of buzzing arrived.
A flood of furious bees surged in, their collective hum drowning out the countless tapping sounds. Yet Sultan didn't worry in the slightest.
Instead, a childish grin split his face cleanly in half.
It was one thing to come up with a daring plan and force himself to follow through with it, an entirely different feeling to see the insane plan actually working.
Without hesitation, Sultan bolted like an arrow loosed from a bow, capitalizing on the brief window of opportunity while the two groups of monsters tore into each other.
He made a beeline for the nest, hopefully empty of spiders, and didn't hesitate to leap inside.
It was a tunnel, much like the others, though considerably shorter, ending in a gate-like opening.
Sultan raced through the passage, his eyes locked on the sunlit exit ahead, growing larger with every stride.
Then—he stumbled.
Something yanked at his leg, throwing off his balance and sending him crashing forward. The bright exit vanished from his vision, replaced by the rough, smooth ground.
At the last second, Sultan managed to twist his body, using his hands to break his fall. As a result, He landed on his side instead of smashing face-first into the floor.
That unintentional movement saved his life.
Not even a split second later, a silvery, slivery web whipped past his eyes—right where his head should have been.
Heart pounding, Sultan scrambled to look back.
Thanks to the light pouring in from the exit, he clearly saw his assailants this time.
Two of the cursed spiders had split of from the raging war outside to pursued him.
One had been the cause of his stumble. a nearly invisible thread extended from the grotesque creature and somehow tangled around Sultan's ankle.
The second one meanwhile had just failed to shoot his head with its web , and was already preparing another attack to correct its mistake.
Sultan, of course, wasn't going to wait for it to succeed.
Knowing that trying to cut through the steely webs would take more time than he could afford, he yanked on the wire around his head, pulling the spider toward him with all his strength.
The action was agony.
The thread dug deep into his fingers, slicing into his flesh until blood trickled down his hand.
But the gamble paid off.
The creature, thankfully, proved to be light-weighted, offering little resistance as it came hurtling toward Sultan only to be met with the waiting edge of his knife.
Using its soulless body as a shield, Sultan used the small time to sever the thread binding his ankle and forced himself upright once more.
Only to be greeted by a mind-numbing sight.
The scenery before him meant one one oof two things, Either Sultan had overestimated the capabilities of the spiders… or their courage.
Because right now, almost the entire lot of them were fleeing before the maddened bees, scattering like dust before a storm.
And their goal was obviously the same as Sultan's.
"You cowards."
Sultan hurled the spider's corpse at them in frustration before dashing the final inches of the tunnel, eventually escaping that nightmarish place.
The midday sun hung high in the center of the sky, yet if one looked closely, they might notice that something wasn't right in this simple sight.
The celestial object known for its vitality and brightness seemed… tinted. Its usual golden-yellow brilliance seemed as if it had been veiled by a faint violet hue, casting an eerie and unnatural glow across the horizon.
This oddity, however, did nothing to temper its relentless heat, mercilessly boring down it's unrivaled firry upon a rusted city of dead metal, a graveyard of corroded ruins.
The place was a ruin of ruins. The once-proud buildings forged of the finest alloy had crumpled into just a pile of corroded and decayed remains.
Yet, the complete image of carnage and desolation had a gaping hole in it, a looming wall that rose higher than the tallest mountains, blanketing a good part of the eroded town in pale shadows. As if it was immune to the deadly plague that had befallen every other construct, it remained an intact structure with an unsullied façade.
In its sheltering shade, a haggard and worn-out young man slumped silently. He was wearing elegant black leather armor lined with a few gold strokes. The rest of his appearance wasn't so sightly, though. His hair was in disarray—a bird might mistake it for its nest. His face was sunken with sweat, as if he had just crawled out of a river.
Sultan finally stood before a marble tower, sprouting out of the ground. It gave the impression that it wasn't designed to be there. Resting against the wall without any space to separate them, Sultan couldn't appreciate its impressive height since it didn't even seem to reach the halfway mark of the great wall.
After jumping over some plates of crumpled metal and climbing others, he eventually came to be a few inches away from the white marble of the spire.
"So I just simply touch the thing and say 'return,' and that's it?" Sultan asked.
"Yes. Nothing more, nothing less," the Citizen responded.
Fully expecting it not to work and already preparing his retort for the Citizen's insufferable sense of humor, Sultan laid his palm against the tower and pronounced, with evident doubt in his tone:
"Return."
A second passed.
Then another.
Sultan sighed. "I knew it was all nonsense—"
Before he could finish, the world collapsed into darkness.