Edward left the remains of the battle behind him, desiccated bodies, cinder, and the broken cocoon the only vestiges of what had happened. He watched the webs blocking the sky, recognizing the threads’ alignment in a split second and orienting himself to leave the nest area. The breakthrough also improved his body and his senses. With a glance he was able to differentiate the threads from each other even from this distance, if he gazed at something for more than one second it appeared magnified in his sight, revealing all of its details.

He started to run, one stride propelling him several meters forward. He rapidly gained speed until he was moving so fast that he was generating his own wind, the webs flapping behind him from the displaced air. He laughed while running. This is going full bananas. I must be moving as fast as when I was using my acceleration before. I wonder how much kinetic energy I’m gathering. Each of his steps was leaving a gouge behind him. And on the plus side, I’m not crashing into random trees so my perception and reflexes must have been improved as well.

I wonder how fast I can move if I add my acceleration. He licked his lips. Let’s enhance my reaction speed first. “Rèng khwāmrĕw”. The world seemed to slow down for a brief instant before he used his acceleration as well. The flapping of the webs seemed to slow down in his perception but increased in amplitude and Edward felt as if his body was gaining weight. Although he had never moved this fast before, he felt heavy and had difficulty adjusting his trajectory, his joints protesting under the strain. The gouge under his feet was deepening, but what was even more remarkable, was that they continued to deepen even after he had already left, the force propagating through the ground slower than his moving speed.

He was too slow to adjust his trajectory and formed aura armor before barreling straight through a tree, leaving splinters and broken web fragments behind him. This wasn’t enough to stop his course. Ok, this is ridiculous, that’s enough for today. He canceled both his acceleration powers, running only at what was his new cruising speed. I guess that answers the question about kinetic energy. I had hoped that moving at high speed would be more enjoyable but I suppose you can’t cheat with physics. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the thicker thread showing the way to the portal the Arachne had come from. It’s about time to settle this. He shifted his direction, aiming straight for the portal.

At his current speed, he didn’t have to run for long to reach it. However, as the cocoon containing the portal appeared in his field of vision, he recognized a monster he had forgotten. The last tarantula had watched the fight with the Arachne from afar and had left as soon as Edward became victorious. Thanks to its teleportation, it had already been able to escape all the way to the portal. It appeared it was done with Edward and preferred to run back home rather than risk encountering him again. Edward smirked. Look at you. Do you think I will let you go just like that?

The tarantula shrieked in horror as it sensed Edward approach with the speed of a hurricane. It formed a teleportation portal on the ground attempting to escape while it still could. Edward, some three hundred meters away, was too far away to reach it in time. Oh no, you don’t. He used his teleportation, appearing right behind the spider. He used his domain, teleporting the tarantula into the air before it could crawl through its portal. The monster had its aura armor on, but Edward took out his dagger, manifesting a condensed aura around it in an instant. With one upward motion, he struck at the helpless monster, the blade reaching under its thorax, struggling against the armor. For a brief moment the spider was suspended in midair the blade stopped by the armor. And then the armor gave up, and Edward’s blade impaled the spider. The tarantula thrashed helplessly, its life leaving its multiple eyes. Edward was holding the blade with a single arm, carrying the monster’s some two hundred and fifty kilos. He watched it die before flicking his wrist, sending the corpse crashing to the ground and freeing his blade.

He put a hand above the dead spider, forming an aura tendril to suck its essence. Even though the amount of blood essence provided by tarantulas hadn’t changed it felt considerably lesser. His total amount of essence had skyrocketed with his latest breakthrough, now the amount that a tarantula could provide him was far less in proportion. I wonder what kind of monsters I will have to hunt from now on if even monsters that can use aura feel somewhat lacking. This made him remember that he was now stepping into unknown territory, nobody knew what was waiting further onto this path, nor if the path was continuing. It is fine by me if I’m not able to progress further, as long as the world stays safe and monsters stop invading it and growing in power. My level of power is already insane. This even exceeds what I could dream of.

Edward focused back on reality, he stood in front of the cocoon entrance, the portal was kept unguarded, and a dense flux of mana was leaking out accompanied by violet light. He stepped inside with determination, the mana density now barely affecting his perception of time, making things seemingly move slightly slower than normal. He stood in front of the portal, a literal tear in reality.

Better be safe than sorry. He took out three of Leyla’s runes bombs. He had only brought ten of them with him when he started this mission, and he had already used five of them until now. That meant he would only have two left after he blew up the portal. The spiders still had others nests spread throughout the forest. But now that he was able to summon a dozen-meter-wide fire rune with his aura he didn’t exactly need a bomb to destroy the leftover nests.

He had just taken out the bombs, and they were already glowing red with all the mana they were absorbing. Edward positioned them in a triangle formation with the portal in the center. I hope this should be enough. I have no doubt the explosion will englobe the portal, I’m just worried if a physical impact will be enough to destabilize it.

Edward didn’t linger as the bombs’ glow was intensifying at a very rapid pace. He teleported as far as he could, his teleportation range now exceeding its previous fifty-meter range by a large margin. He appeared a whole five hundred meters away from the portal, he whistled in appreciation. However, his attention was immediately captured by the cocoon turning from violet to red. “Rèng khwāmrĕw”. He used his buffing perception and formed an aura armor around him. He didn’t fly away but instead chose to watch the explosion in slow motion. He was far enough to be confident in his ability to endure the shock with his aura armor.

With its change of color, the cocoon expanded, a stream of fire already leaving through the opening. Not able to endure anymore the force anymore, the webs ruptured, letting out plumes of fire that continued to expand, covering the whole cocoon and hiding it from view as it not only fragmented but turned to cinder. The ball of fire kept growing reaching the size of two cathedrals before collapsing on itself, a cloud of ashes getting drawn by the air movement and forming a cloud above where the cocoon had been.

Edward wasn’t able to see more as the air in front of him grew blurry from the incoming shockwave, at the same time he heard a deep deflagration shaking the ground itself as if it was an earthquake. The shockwave reached him in half a second and even though Edward was doing his utmost to stay in place, the force pushed him away, trenches forming in front of his foot as they were pushed back while digging into the ground.

Then the shockwave moved past him and he was able to see utter devastation. Not only had all the webs disappeared, not a hint of them visible anymore, but there was now a crater where the portal used to be. Even the few trees that had survived the spiders’ reign had been blown away, and only a vast empty space remained. Edward looked up at the bright blue sky. It was actually a cloudy day, but even the clouds above had been pushed back by the explosion. That certainly did the job. Powerful bombs are the perfect solution to blow all of your problems away.

He felt a lot more light-hearted now that the heart of the problem was solved. He only needed to take care of the remnant spiders to make sure they couldn’t recover, and he was as of now a lot more powerful. He had seen everything the spiders could throw at him, and that wasn’t enough to stop him. He flexed his arm and jumped lightly on his feet. It’s time to do some cleaning.

******

One week later. Edward stood on the mountain watching what was left of the forest. From this point of view, the previous nests’ emplacements were the things that attracted the eye first. Each nest had been blown up either by Leyla’s bombs or by Edward’s new usage of his aura to form a fire rune. Each of them was now a crater, a big hole visible in the web remnants that were still covering the forest.

Edward had already blown up three nests before facing the Arachne, he assumed the spiders would only have one or two more nests left. It turned out he had underestimated the extent of their hold on this territory. He had to destroy four more nests before being done with them. They didn’t pose a threat, ordinary spiders were annihilated within seconds no matter how many of them were coming. However, he did encounter another black widow laying more spider eggs. He was glad he had taken the time to do a round-up before leaving. If the spiders had been still able to reproduce in batches, he was unsure if the local monsters would have been able to deal with the spiders, even after all the damage he had dealt them.

Right now, the webs covering the forest had seven big holes where the nest used to be. Parts of the webs were covered in ashes, dust, and broken branches, not enough wasp spiders were left to maintain and repair them. He hadn’t taken the time to burn all the webs, he was fully able to do it, but it was a boring and time-consuming task. However, as he had scoured the forest in search of nests, he had killed every single spider he had encountered. He was certain that there were some of them still alive but it wasn’t enough to maintain their hold on the region. Maybe all the spiders would be exterminated by other monsters, or maybe they would be able to survive and become a part of the local fauna on a far smaller scale. Anyway, Edward’s job here was done.