The spider burst from the net. The symbolic mask adorning its back mocked Noble with its malicious grin.
The three-horned embellishment terrified her. She felt compelled to avoid it at all costs. She shifted her attention back to the devil's head.
The creature raised its arms, beckoning Noble into its embrace. Despite its appearance, the spider seemed almost lonely, friendly even.
But it was another trap. Noble could feel its intent, and she had no desire to have the life squeezed out of her.
'Did it really think I would fall for that?' Noble wondered.
It must have, or else why would it have tried? It was smart, and human emotions were unpredictable. Perhaps it assumed she would mistake it for a Noble Creature?
Whatever it thought, the devil gave up on the plan almost immediately. It froze in place, and Noble knew it was on the move again. This time, it was easy to spot the moment when the demon separated from the shell of the illusion. Now that Noble knew what was happening, she wondered how she had ever been fooled.
As the Zenith finished forming in Noble's hand, the Spider scurried quickly towards the human army. If it could not get the floating Master, the creature would settle for dozens of mundane humans instead.
The humans would have no defense against the devil. Noble would not let the spider have its wish.
'Get back here!'
Noble lifted it and threw the monster onto its back. It was harder than she thought it would be. Her grip on it felt off and uncertain, even though she could see and feel it clearly.
The devil was resisting her somehow, so her toss was not as effective as she had hoped. Like the smaller of its kind, the abomination had an identical underside.
In a blink, the legs twisted to push against the ground and support the new upward-facing side.
The second silky mask on its new back smiled as viciously as the first.
The ground shook, throwing the spider and many of his companions off balance. Noble didn't need to look to know that the Remnant had crashed into the earth after jumping at the griffin.
Above her, the top of the hill glowed red, awash with mythical fire and glowing, molten stone. Roan and Aether were doing their job admirably, though she could feel that they were quickly becoming exhausted from keeping the dragon busy and engaged.
'Keep going!' Noble silently wished them well.
She narrowed her gaze. She had been given the job to clear out the abominations, and that meant killing this demon with prejudice.
The only question was: how?
The more Noble interacted with the massive spider, the closer she felt to figuring out the key. The creature had intelligence. It could have dove straight for the humans, but it seemed to be toying with her instead. While that meant that the soldiers were not being obliterated by the corrupted enemy, it made Noble feel like she was a fly being drawn into a web.
It wanted a fly? It would get a bee instead!
When the Zenith solidified, Noble could no longer wait and see what would happen. The spider was again making its way toward the entrenched humans, and it could not succeed in reaching them.
Noble dove. A myriad of stones lifted from the ground to pelt the demon. One pulled from beneath its back left foot, and the demon stumbled before recovering.
But in that half step, Noble dug the Zenith into the demon's head. It reared and bucked her, throwing her and dislodging the blade. Noble dug her feet into the spider's back, skidding across its hairy surface.
A sharp pain caused her to cry out in pain. Her foot was wrenched at an awkward angle as her backward motion stopped suddenly.
"Oh!"
She sensed movement coming from behind her, swiftly at her from the left and right. Her mind told her to stay centered to avoid the deadly spikes, but her instincts said that was the worst possible idea.
Giving into her gut, Noble rolled right, freeing her foot just as two spinnettes came down like fangs in the center of the mask.
Had she stayed where she was on the abdomen, her chest plate would have shattered, and her heart would surely have been punctured.
Trusting her instincts at the expense of her senses had paid off.
Having narrowly avoided death, Noble lifted into the air and looked down. As the spinnerets retracted and all but disappeared, the spider's head bobbed up and down, laughing silently at her incompetence. Even the symbolic mask on its back seemed to mock her pain.
Ignoring the taunt, Noble examined her injury.
Her foot was crushed, the metal of her armor inexplicably crunched. Child of Promise hissed. Her foot felt like it had been chewed and spit out.
How had that even happened? There was nothing visible on the abdomen. She could understand the hairs slicing her armor, but collapsing it on her foot to the point of breaking? That didn't make sense.
Little about the strange spider did. The spinnerettes were spikes instead of silk spinners, and they had landed in the one place they logically should not have.
The mouth, too, had snipped the net in places it hadn't reached.
Even the true location of the devil was obscured by its ability to leave a picture of itself behind. She had cut into its head, and the spider had barely reacted.
Did it have no threshold for pain?
'I'll find out one way or another.'
Noble doggedly pursued her enemy. It was exhausting.
Tossing the creature a second time yielded the same uncanny result as the first. It crashed into a few Awakened Monsters before twisting its legs to make its bottom its top and its top its bottom.
With two identical sides, was there even a top or bottom at this point? It was useless to label them.
The relentless monster scraped the ruins with its feet, barely stopping or heeding the backward push of the Master. Its red, intelligent eyes aimed for the spiked wall that it was about to overcome.
Then out of the darkness, a violet creature leapt from the battlement. The spider swiped at the glorious Symncus, but the purple carnivore flew out of the way at the last moment.
Noble's eye swirled as Helios landed just behind the spider's head. She had been using her echo to stave off the bigger creatures that came at the wall, and this one was the biggest yet.
Helios might have only been a demon, but he had no tolerance for anything that hurt his Master.
'Get him, Leo,' Noble did not need to make the mental command, but she did nonetheless. Her companion was anxious to comply.
The catlike claws extended from his soft paws, digging into the hairy chitin on the arachnid's face. The spider bucked, but Helios stayed in place, scratching and digging deeper into the creature's head.
By the time the spinnerette's bent enough to reach the head, Helios had done his work.
As the fang-like needles closed in, the echo simply disappeared in a rain of sparks.
The implements of death barely avoided adding to the damage of the Transcendent Demon.
Enough damage had already been done.
Blood poured from the wounds on the skull of the spider as one of the red eyes hung limply out of its socket.
Noble smiled.
While the attack hadn't been deadly, it had given the floating Master what she needed to know.
She knew the devil's secret.
Her eyes shifted from the mangled eye to the mask emblazoned on the creature's back.
'It's a lie…'