The instant Ophelia gave the order, the world seemed to tighten around Kenzo, as though the space itself refused to contain what was about to happen. There was no shout, no signal, no gradual rise in tension—only the crushing pressure that fell over him when the Unstable spider began to move. It advanced slowly, without the slightest urgency, its black legs sinking into the webbed floor with sharp, cutting sounds, each step echoing like a sentence being passed. The golden tips of its limbs caught the light with an unsettling gleam, and Kenzo immediately understood that something was wrong. It was not much larger than Madame, yet everything about it—its posture, the way it occupied the chamber, even the silence it imposed—screamed that it belonged to a far higher level. This was not merely a stronger Void Creature. It was something else entirely, an existence they should never have been forced to stand against.
The moment the threat became real, Kenzo activated [Serpent]. Not to strike harder, not to endure more damage, and certainly not to attempt some impossible feat. Only to survive. His body instantly entered that state of extreme tension he was beginning to know all too well, where every muscle felt ready to tear yet refused to give in, and every sensation sharpened until it bordered on pain. He could feel the webbing vibrate beneath his feet, every shift in pressure traveling up through his legs. He could track the exact position of the spider's limbs, their angles, their possible trajectories. The world did not slow down. There was no spectacular transformation. Kenzo simply became faster, cleaner, more precise, as though his body began reacting before his mind could fully form a thought.
Madame attacked head-on without hesitation, fulfilling the role Ophelia had given her. She hurled herself at the Unstable spider with controlled violence, fangs ready, legs anchored against the silk. The response was immediate, almost dismissive. The two massive creatures collided with a deep impact that sent ripples through the entire chamber, the webbed floor deforming beneath them like a living surface. Madame took the first assault directly. Her white legs were violently forced backward, her body sliding several meters before she managed to stabilize herself. Kenzo felt his chest tighten, but she held. She struck back immediately, her fangs crashing into the black-and-gold thorax of the Unstable spider. A hard, unsettling crack echoed through the enclosed space, and Kenzo saw the carapace split slightly without truly giving way. Even a direct attack from Madame was not enough to inflict decisive damage.
Kenzo used that tiny opening. He slipped to the side, his footing light and unnaturally precise under [Serpent]. White Fang traced a clean, calculated line toward a joint he had identified a fraction of a second earlier. The blade cut through, leaving a dark wound from which thick black fluid began to seep. It was not fatal, not even particularly serious for a creature like this, but it was enough to disturb its movement. Kenzo retreated immediately, refusing to remain within reach for even a second longer than necessary. Always moving. Always outside the line of attack. He had learned the hard way that standing still meant death.
The Unstable spider retaliated almost at once. One of its legs came crashing down toward Madame with nothing but raw, overwhelming force. Kenzo saw it coming, felt the air compress around the strike, and threw himself into its blind angle at the last possible moment. White Fang struck the joint with perfect timing. He did not try to block it. He knew that would be pointless. He did not try to stop it either. He merely changed the trajectory by a few degrees. Almost nothing. Ridiculously little. Yet it was enough to prevent the worst. The limb slammed into the floor with devastating force, tearing through the webbing and throwing Madame backward. She dug her claws into the silk to stop herself from crashing into the wall, carving deep grooves behind her. Kenzo's stomach tightened. Even with perfect timing, even after reducing the impact as much as he could, the force remained monstrous. Absurd.
Lucian kept retreating. He dodged again and again, his movements fast but disorderly, his breathing short, his panicked gaze constantly searching for an escape. He did not attack. Not once. His body still refused to cross that invisible line between the instinct to survive and the willingness to truly fight back. Every time the Unstable spider looked away from Madame, Kenzo instinctively moved between it and Lucian, striking just hard enough to make himself a threat again. He knew exactly how dangerous that was, but he had no choice. Madame absorbed the majority of the attacks. Blow after blow crashed into her, spreading worrying fractures across her carapace, leaving dark marks and weakened sections where the shell was beginning to give way. Yet she refused to retreat. She struck again and again, as though pain meant nothing, as though her only purpose was to hold.
Kenzo finally attempted something more dangerous. Taking advantage of a brief imbalance in the Unstable spider's stance, he slipped beneath its enormous body and drove White Fang toward the abdomen. This time, the blade sank much deeper. Black fluid sprayed from the wound, and the creature released a shrill, metallic scream that shook the entire chamber and tore through Kenzo's skull like an alarm. Its response was immediate. A massive leg, carrying the full brute force of the creature, came down toward him. Kenzo barely escaped. [Serpent] did not protect him; it simply allowed him to move fast enough not to be crushed. The limb struck exactly where he had been a fraction of a second earlier, and the shockwave hurled him backward. He rolled across the webbing and forced himself up, breathless, every muscle screaming from the strain.
That was when Lucian made a mistake. One misplaced step. A slip on a damp section of silk. Half a second too long. The Unstable spider turned its head. Kenzo understood what was coming before the attack even began. There was no time to think or calculate. He moved in front of Lucian on pure instinct. Not to block. That would have been suicide. To deflect. He struck the incoming leg from the side, trying to break the angle, to redirect the impact by even the smallest amount. White Fang met the limb with inhuman violence. The shock tore up through his arm like a destructive current. His bones vibrated, his muscles screamed, and something in his shoulder gave way with a dull crack.
Kenzo was launched backward.
His body flew through the air before crashing heavily onto the webbed floor, completely unable to control the fall.
For several seconds, he could not get back up.
Lying there, pain tearing through his shoulder and breath refusing to return properly to his lungs, Kenzo finally understood the true scale of what they were facing. [Serpent] had not saved him. It had only kept him from dying instantly. This creature was not simply stronger than those they had fought before. It belonged to an entirely different level, one that made their previous battles feel almost insignificant by comparison.
Unstable.
And infinitely more terrifying than anything he had imagined.