Threads of the Soul

Chapter 443 - 443: The Weight of the World

"STOP! YOU HAVE TO STOP RIGHT NOW OR WE ALL COULD DIE!"Corvus screamed at the top of his lungs, puppeteering his body forwards. He was practically swinging across the chamber, hooking the threads in the ceiling high above and using them as an anchor point to launch himself, before shifting their anchored location.

No matter how much he screamed and shouted, however, his words never reached their intended target. How could they, when he was surrounded by a whirling maelstrom of destruction.

The air swirled around him, tearing his words from their path and tore them into tiny shreds before scattering them across the chamber, just like it did with everything else that tried to approach the Captain.

He was in his own world, letting loose slash after slash, destroying egg cluster after egg cluster, as he performed his own personal extermination effort. As well as an inadvertent demolition job.

More cracks spread, causing more tiny stones to crumble and rain down onto those down below. The dirt rain widened the cracks until finally, with one final slash, one of the cracks split open.

Instead of a few motes of dirt falling, an entire portion of the ceiling fell. A chunk of earth, as large as a school bus, cracked from the ceiling and landed with a thunderous boom that shook the entire hive structure.

That noise was finally enough to cut through the turbulent winds surrounding the Captain, drawing his attention first to the giant clump of dirt and then up to the gaping, crack surrounded hole in the ceiling.

Realisation finally dawned across his face, but by that time it was already over. That school bus sized clump was the first domino to fall, and like always, the rest were eager to follow the leaders example.

Those hiding in the tunnels had to quickly dive out, as those who did not were quickly crushed by the cascading collapse of the hive. Screams were cut short, as earth settled on top of their crushed skulls.

The ceiling rapidly crumbled, breaking into chunks of varying sizes, that immediately began to fall. However they didn't manage to fall far, as a web of nigh invisible threads caught them and forced them back into place.

Corvus grit his teeth from the ground as he mentally commanded his threads to act. His anchor point had collapsed, and so had he, but it didn't matter. Running wouldn't save them right now.

"Stop gawking and help me!"

He shouted not at the useless Captain who had caused all of this mess, but at the Spider who was still kneeling by the pool of Royal Jelly as she stared at him. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of threads erupted from his body. He pushed himself to his limit, producing as many as he could at once and extending them out rapidly so they quickly had more than enough length for their purpose.

Her long tongue crept out, licking around the entirety of her mouth, before she let out a low chittering laugh.

"Mm, So commanding~ As you wish handsome."

With a wave of her hand, Corvus' threads moved on their own. They wove themselves into an impossibly tongue blanket, woven so tight that the hair thin threads finally became visible to all that they protected.

To those below, it seemed as if the crumbling ceiling had become replaced by a thin sheet of pure silver. To them, far below, it was impossible to see the actual threads. All they saw was a singular mass of silver covering the sky itself, which began to flex and lower as it took the weight of the crumbling ceiling above.

Corvus winced as soon as the blanket formed, the entire weight of the cave-in pressing down on him, not just physically. It was a pressure on his soul, squeezing and compressing it. He suddenly wondered if this was how Heracles felt, when he took the weight of the Heavens from the shoulders of Atlas.

It was not just a test of physical strength, even if his muscles burned and screamed despite the fact he was only using his threads. It was a test of will power and of mental fortitude.

Slowly but surely, with constant groans and grunts through gritted teeth, Corvus rose to his feet. He had to drag one of his legs up, as it was still paralyzed, while the other leg trembled and threatened to give way.

He raised his functioning hand above him, his muscles straining and flexing as he held his arm bent beside his head. The threads were simply an extent of his body, so while the blanket existed it he could physically feel the entire weight of the earth above, of miles and miles of dirt, pressing down on his shoulders.

It was... heavy. There was no better word for it. It simply a concept that extended beyond the realms that humans could possibly imagine. Before the world evolved, the heaviest thing lifted was roughly around 2.6 tons, which was achieved by lifting a pair of cars with their drivers inside.

Imagine instead, that it was not cars, but semi trucks. And instead of two, there were thousands. But not just the semi trucks, they also had trailers filled with a thousand bricks each.

Hundreds of thousands of tons, was simply impossible to understand, even when it was pressing down on you and threatening to crush you. Once you got passed the realms of human understanding, things like tons stopped losing their meaning and simply became meaningless.

Things were just... heavy. Incredibly, bone crushingly heavy. So heavy that he might as well have been lifting the entire world on his shoulders. At the very least, he was lifting a small portion of it.

Perhaps then, as his mind was flailing with understanding just how much dirt was desperately trying to crush him into a royal jelly of his own, it was a gift of fate what happened next. Maybe someone was looking down on him, wanting him to succeed. Maybe his guardian angel really was looking out for him or some how he had let his Divine Energy leak to create a miracle of his own.

Perhaps... Or more likely, it was simply a coincidence and a ticking clock finally running out.

Space shattered next to the Queen bug, her head quickly lifted as she let out a ear splitting screech, calling out to all of her kin that still lived. Their home might have been ruined, but a new one waited for them, on the other side of the breach that just opened.

The American scrambled over to the breach as the bracer on Corvus' arm bleeped its own desperate signal of home. Xander's promise held true, as he led the others behind him, even stopping to make sure that no one who wasn't crushed was left behind.

Straining himself, Corvus barely managed to produce another set of threads, resisting the urge to cough up a mouthful of blood in the process. He tenderly wrapped the threads around the cuff and pulled it off his wrist.

Lowering it down, he clamped it around Astra's wrist before wrapping the threads around her paralysed limbs.

He could see the look in her eyes, the demands she was silently making as her mouth refused to obey, as did he.

"I'm sorry My Queen, but it has to be this way. I have to be the last to go, otherwise it all collapses. Don't worry, you can berate me once you get your body back."

He chuckled dryly as he lifted her from the ground and started to walk her to the breach like another puppet.

Yuan was giving him a strange, unreadable look. Mostly because he was still in his Dragonoid form and Corvus had no idea how to read its expressions.

Still, he gave him a curt and respectful nod that the Dragonoid returned, before hurrying off to help his Astra puppet through the portal.

Corvus raised his head and looked towards the portal, just in time to lock eyes with Woe. The boy was staring at him, slack jawed and eyes wide in absolute disbelief.

It was at that moment, that Corvus remembered his hood had lost its magic and his handsome face had been exposed for all to see.

It was a face that meant nothing to most, as it was incredibly unlikely that they would recognise the face of his assistant, one who rarely made public appearance and had recently been disfigured to boot.

But to Woe that face meant everything. His mouth opened and closed, desperately trying to find the words. Before he could, however, Xander grabbed Woe's hand and dragged him through the portal. Quickly followed by Yuan, Astra and the Spider.

All that were left in the chamber was Corvus and the Captain, who slowly drifted down and touched down next to the portal.

He turned to Corvus, giving him the same cold look he always wore as he spoke lowly.

"You are a good man... a rarity. I thought all the good men had died, and for good reason."

He let out a deep sigh, gazing at the ground for a few seconds, before continuing.

"You need not worry for your woman... the Thunder God seems to have taken an interest in her. I will see to it he treats her well."

The Captain thrust his hand outwards, sending a column of solid air crashing into Corvus. It threw him from his feet, sending him across the room until he slammed into, and through, the body of the Queen Bug.

His concentration broke, and so did the blanket above them. The earth that had been restrained rapidly started to crumble down, burying the entire cavern in dirt, as the Captain leapt through the portal just before it was buried along with the man that had saved him.