123 Hawaii Resor

Ed, Flair, and Tao travelled north along the coast of the island, having no desire to enter inside. This was merely a pit stop on their journey, and there was no need to waste time.

Nearly an hour later, they reached an unusual ship. Like the previous ship, it was massive in size and carried no weapons. However, it was completely made of wood. 'Does Tai have a death sentence?!' Ed wondered. He reached out with his mana and felt nothing unusual with the ship. It seemed it really was just ordinary wood!

"Anyone there?!" He shouted towards the ship, but only silence remained.

'Weird...' He glanced towards the others. "Tao, guard Flair while I check things out."

"Humph." Tao snorted while nodding his head. He held his head high and proudly began marching in circles around Flair, showing her that she was being protected.

Flair knelt down and poked the crocodile's side. "Somehow he was cuter when he was smaller." She sighed, her hair waving back-and-forth as she shook her head. She knew Tao could shrink, but it seemed that the croc would only do so when he felt like it. She had no control at all over the creature.

Ed flew over and landed atop the ship, the wooden deck creaking as he landed. There wasn't a single esper or person in sight. He climbed the stairs below deck and walked through the halls. Soon, he reached the mess hall. Hundreds of tables were set up with plates with food atop them. He reached his hand towards a plate of meat, feeling that it was cold to the touch. 'Well, they've been gone longer than an hour...'

After searching the entire ship, he returned to the island, a frown on his face.

"So?" Flair questioned while petting Tao's head.

"I don't know.' Ed furrowed his brows. "It looks like they left in a hurry... or they just vanished instantly. It's strange."

"Maybe there are still espers on the island." She commented offhandedly. "After all, even if the island was abandoned by the government, that doesn't mean all the people left. It wouldn't be strange for a small group of espers and people to have survived until now."

"Maybe..." Ed rubbed his chin as he agreed. "But how strong would they have to be to make Tai's forces vanish instantly? Tai and Rubi should be enough to handle most espers."

"Well, are we going to wait for them or search the island?" She questioned. "I'm not fond of combat, so I'd prefer to wait if possible."

Ed thought a moment before replying. "Tao and I will head into the island and check things out. You can wait here where it's safer." He looked towards the croc. "Ready?"

Tao released a low growl while turning his head away and lying down.

"Tsk." Ed clicked his tongue. "The 2nd betrayal already. Are you entering your rebellious phase now that you're older?"

"Nonsense." Flair grinned as she crouched down. "He just wants to protect me. Isn't that right?" She petted Tao, who released odd purring sounds in response.

"Fine, fine." Ed waved as he left them behind. "Don't blame me when you two vanish without my protection. I'll just search the huge island all by myself."

Ed didn't bother holding back as he entered the lush forest. His silver flames easily burned through the foliage that got in his way. An obvious trail of ashes was left in his wake as he leisurely walked through the trees.

'Weird.' He thought as he continued. The forest was completely devoid of life. Forget about mutants and animals, he hadn't even seen a small bug since entering. Much like the ghost ship, it appeared to be a ghost forest.

His journey continued for several hours when he suddenly felt a chill travel down his spine. Hurriedly dodging to the side, he saw two black and white spears penetrate the ground where he had just been standing. Shocked, he hurriedly looked towards the source. 'Oh, fucking hell!' He cursed to himself. Before him was a giant black and white spider, easily five times as big as him.

Suddenly, red eyes lit up in the surrounding forest. Identical spiders of all sizes crawled out, spinning webs as they did so. Some were smaller than his fingernail, and others were bigger than the first spider he faced. It was only a matter of seconds before a cage of white and black threads enclosed the area, blocking off Ed's escape.

'It had to be spiders...' He sighed while thinking back to the memories of his awakening. One of his last experiences as an ordinary human had been being attacked by a bucket of ordinary spiders the size of a fist. 'Well, I guess those spiders were tame compared to these ones.' He threw his hands forward and sent streams of silver flame towards the webbing. For a moment, it seemed the fire was going to succeed in burning through, and it even electrocuted some of the closest spiders. However, the surrounding spiders hurriedly shot streams of threads towards the flames and extinguished them.

'Are these the things that captured Tai and the others?' He wondered. 'That still seems a bit farfetched...' Reverting to his old-fashioned reliance on the mana-batteries, he combined dark, wind, and fire to create huge corrosive flames. Surprisingly, the threads were completely unaffected by the attack.

'I see.' He nodded. The light and dark threads balance each other out, nullifying the majority of attack types. 'I'll just throw something stronger at it then!' He switched gears and utilized the earth and fire mana-batteries, successfully firing streams of lava-like substance from his arms. 'It's working!' He grinned as the lava melted the webbing.

Suddenly, the spiders began jumping off the webs and moving closer. Their jaws glowed an eerie black color, and their saliva corroded the ground.

'Fuck!' He cursed as he prepared to fight. He shot ice, fire, lightning, and more from the mana-batteries, but the spiders were barely harmed. Even if they died, they were soon replaced by their endless comrades that constantly came in waves. Desperate, he resorted to his silver and purple flames. The silver fire didn't do much, but the purple fire worked surprisingly well.

'Thank god.' He sighed in relief as he spread the purple flames in every direction. 'Looks like their perfect balance doesn't match up to the balance of the purple flames, and with all my recent breakthroughs, I've got plenty of mana to spare.' He grinned as he hurriedly roasted the spiders and webs.

The fight lasted nearly an hour before the spiders retreated. Ed's chest rose and fell rapidly as he gasped for air. He stood in the center of scorched earth, tiny purple flames burning throughout it. The corpses numbered in the thousands.

'Well, at least I'll have gotten some resources out of it.' He smiled as he began digging through the heads of various spiders. However, his smile soon turned into a deep frown as he furrowed his brows. "FUCK!" He angrily kicked a spider body away. He had searched several dozen spiders and failed to find a single mana-core.

The search continued, and before long, he had searched hundreds of corpses. "Not a single mana-core." He stared in disbelief. "No wonder we abandoned this clusterfuck of an island! What kind of mutants are this strong and don't even have mana-cores?! They even shot elemental threads fucking everywhere!" Ranting and raving, he destroyed the burned corpses for several minutes before calming down. Even his improved control over emotions failed to calm him, not because they couldn't, but simply because Ed didn't want to control the anger. He was fully capable of controlling his emotions, but it was far more enjoyable to release his rage here and now.

After finishing his wanton destruction, he continued deeper into the forest. As he continued to travel, the surroundings slowly changed. The sky grew darker as sunlight was blocked. The trees were covered in black and white threads. Slowly, it no longer looked like a forest. Instead, everything was only threads. Even the ground he walked on was covered in them. Every step he took sent vibrations along the threads, alerting the spiders of his location.

Red eyes glowed everywhere within the dark forest as the spiders watched him. It seemed they were now hesitant to attack. Here, they were king, and they had never been defeated before. Now that they had been beaten, they simply didn't know how to react to such an unusual intruder.

Eventually, Ed began seeing other animals. There were both ordinary animals and mutants in the depths of the spider forest. 'I don't know if I should be amazed or terrified..." He sighed to himself. The animals and mutants were actually being raised as livestock! The webs were like pens that kept them enclosed. Spiders hung by them and seemed to be managing things. They ferried food from one pen to another. Occasionally, they took some of the adult livestock away, preparing to make meals for their horde. The young and some adults were left behind so the livestock could continue to breed.

The deeper he went; the more bizarre things became. Soon, there were webs resembling homes and streets. Sure, it was crude by human standards, but it showed the potential of this mutant species. In all of Ed's time alive, he had never even heard of such terrifyingly intelligent mutants. 'Is this why the government always insists on cleaning up the mutant hordes?' He wondered. 'I always figured it was to reduce the number of mutant floods, but that wouldn't explain why they clean them up so far from the cities as well. They must be trying to prevent similar species from popping up in North America.'

The spiders slowly grew more numerous, but they still refused to attack him. "Humph." He snorted in disdain. 'A single defeat and they become this cowardly. They could probably overpower me if they were prepared for the sacrifice.' Despite his confidence, a hint of worry also appeared in his eyes. He had nearly reached the heart of the mutant spider city, but he still hadn't spotted a hint of Tai and the others. 'I figured they'd be made livestock... but maybe they're too strong to contain like that? Maybe they were eaten as fast food?' He sighed while shaking his head. 'It'll be a royal pain if I have to sail to China with just Flair and Tao. I can't operate a ship that size, and my knowledge of sailing is nil.'

Suddenly, a spider larger than the rest dropped in front of Ed. Its multiple eyes stared intelligently at him.

"What?" Ed questioned as purple flames lit up around his eyes. "Want to start something?"

The spider retreated a few steps back and raised a leg, pointing in a certain direction. Ed rose an eyebrow and looked over, seeing a huge web dome. It was easily the largest structure within the spider city. He had spotted it previously, but figured it was used for something official amongst the higher-ranking spiders. "Thanks." He nodded towards the spider and headed towards the towering dome.

As he neared, he spotted queues of spiders forming lines outside of the dome. Greatly confused, he entered a line. Quickly and efficiently, the spider line moved forward. None of them stepped out of queue or caused a fuss. 'Are they British?' Ed wondered as he thought back on the time one of his father's military friends had told him that the British were famous for lining up for everything.

Spiders lined up behind him as they continued moving forward. Perhaps out of nervousness or impatience, Ed accidently stepped slightly out of line. To his surprise, the nearby spiders screeched at him until he properly lined back up. "No one would ever believe this if I told them about it." He muttered to himself in disbelief.

Nearly ten minutes later, he finally reached the front. He walked through a dark tunnel made from webs and entered the other side. His eyes widened in shock at the scene before him. Webbed stairs jutted out from the walls, and tens of thousands of spiders sat atop them. In the center of the dome was a large pit, and two humans were inside of it. Their bodies flashed with elemental powers as they desperately fought to the death.

"A colosseum..." He stared in astonishment at the fight happening below. The spiders screeched and cheered whenever one esper landed a good blow on the other. Ed even recognized the two espers as belonging to Tai's forces. "Ugh." He groaned while rubbing his forehead in frustration. 'How the hell am I supposed to fix this?'

A chorus of cheers erupted as the fight finished with one esper severing the other's head. A tremendous spider lowered itself by a thread from the center of the dome. This spider was completely unlike the others. Not only was it massive, being at least 50 meters tall, it also had something that Ed shockingly recognized.

"Golden faith energy..." He muttered in disbelief.

As the spiders cheered, the tremendous spider seemed to grow even stronger. Golden light lit up in its eyes as it lifted a leg towards the dead esper. Its leg penetrated the corpse's torso, and it flung the body into the crowd. The spectating spiders hurriedly devoured the body, growing slightly bigger as they did so.

The other esper in the arena trembled as he stared at the imposing spider. Perhaps by instinct or maybe by fear, he knelt towards the spider and placed his forehead to the ground, willingly kowtowing to it. Ed could see a tiny trace of golden faith energy exit the man's body and flow towards the king spider, strengthening it even further.

'I see.' Ed grimaced as he watched. 'That's why it spared the espers. Since espers are intelligent and have powerful souls, it wants to farm them for golden faith energy. Once the espers worship it and die, their souls will be absorbed by it. What a terrifying monster.'

Suddenly, the king spider looked away from the kneeling esper. Its golden eyes locked onto Ed, and it released a screeching roar. The other spiders all simultaneously turned towards him and mirrored their leader's screeching. The webbed stairs started to vibrate in response to the spiders' actions.

'Great...' Ed sighed while examining his surroundings. 'Is it going to try forcing me into the colosseum?' Purple flames covered his body as he returned the king spider's glare, preparing himself to fight if necessary.