Chapter 209: Unraveler’s claim
The tremor came again, a slow, rolling shiver through the silk beneath their feet, but this time it wasn’t like the gentle, sensual pulses Allen had learned to control. This was heavier, deeper—like something big was moving in the dark. Xilthera’s golden eyes flicked toward the tunnel mouth, the afterglow still on her lips but the predator returning to her stare. Nyxilith shifted where she lay on her side, her spider legs tapping faintly as though feeling the vibrations for clues.
Allen didn’t break eye contact with the darkness ahead. "That’s not one of yours," he said, voice low.
"No," Xilthera answered, her lower body uncoiling from around him. Her legs clicked against the silk in a slow, restless pattern, her hair still tangled from where his hands had been buried in it moments ago. "That’s something from the Deep Thread."
The brood above them had gone quiet, every shape frozen in place, eight-eyed faces turned toward the tunnel. The silk seemed to breathe—once, twice—before a faint glow appeared, blue and pale, swaying like a lantern in a windless cave. The light was wrong. It wasn’t fire, wasn’t magic Allen recognized—it pulsed irregularly, like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to anything human.
Then came the sound.
It was the soft, dragging slide of something impossibly large, paired with the faint wet slap of flesh against silk. Fina instinctively stepped closer to Allen, one hand hovering near her dagger, though her eyes betrayed her unease. Rinni licked her lips, either nervous or excited—it was always hard to tell with her—but her knuckles tightened around the spear she’d picked up from a fallen brood guard earlier.
Syza looked like she wanted to retreat, but the web had a way of making retreat feel pointless.
The glow swelled brighter.
The thing that emerged from the tunnel wasn’t a spider. It wasn’t anything Allen had seen in this Hollow yet—it had the segmented body of a centipede like Xilthera, but its plating was slick and translucent, showing pulsing veins and twitching muscle underneath. Its upper body was vaguely humanoid, but stretched too tall, the arms long and thin with fingers that tapered into points like sewing needles. Its head was a mask of bone, no eyes visible, only a vertical slit where a mouth should be—and from that slit came the glow, pulsing with every slow exhale.
Xilthera’s lip curled. "Threadseeker."
It tilted its head toward the gathered group, and when it spoke, the voice wasn’t sound at all—it vibrated through the silk and into their bones, a cold, alien thrum. Weaver.
Allen straightened. "You’ve been looking for me."