Samson fell from the ceiling and began making a series of what felt like the riskiest decisions of his life.

Despite the actual objective qualities of his situation, he felt somehow at peace as he fell. He was dropping into a sea of stabbing blades and stomping feet, interrupted only briefly by his mother shooting a burst of venom at his attackers, but he had a sense that this was where he was supposed to be. This was how this was supposed to go.

He boldly pulled all his mana back into his core, deactivating the physical protection that shone brightly around himself. In this situation, it actually made him more vulnerable to use mana, because it made him a bright, visible object in the darkness for the assassins.

A few boots hit him and crunched down on his legs, and Samson left a few of those legs behind, but he was blessed that the Goddess had given him eight to start with.

None of the blades struck anywhere near him. It seemed as if the assassins were more worried about stabbing each other than they were about failing to kill him, so they were always too slow and tentative with their moves.

He couldn't help but think that maybe that was why the Goddess had incarnated him as a small creature, a member of a naturally tiny species.

As he dodged blows, Samson was also paying attention to the extent that he could to what was happening to the Dessians and the Royal Family.

Things didn't look good.

Frederick, William, and Carolien were stabbed and slashed over and over again. None of them were keeling over dead, and they killed an assassin or two every ten seconds or so. They were also healing most of the surface injuries they received with magic every chance they had to take a breath.

But the brothers were too close range to use their lightning magic effectively, and when they tried, half the time, the enemy managed to intercept it with those shields that seemed to absorb anything magical thrown at them.

The healing was of even more dubious effectiveness. Carolien had mentioned at the beginning of the fight that the assassins used poison on their blades, and the healing magic didn't seem to be counteracting it. King Alistair had been afflicted with complications related to poison throughout his last days, and he had been of a reputedly extremely strong constitution.

The Dessians and the Queen were probably not quite as strong, and they were being exposed to a much greater amount of poison at a rapid pace.

Samson had enough distance to consider that the healing magic might even be making the effects worse for the brothers and Carolien, because it was causing more blood and tissue to move toward where the poison was, perhaps spreading it through their systems faster.

In any case, he perceived Carolien, Frederick, and William, especially William, slowing down as the fight progressed.

Unless something changed, it seemed impossible that they might attain victory against these numbers. There were dozens of bodies on the ground already, but the assassins still had a massive numerical advantage, and their back lines of fighters were fresh. Even if the Dessians and Carolien did escape from this, Samson wasn't sure how they could outlast hundreds more slashes, each one injecting a little more poison into their bodies.

It would be the worst kind of pyrrhic victory if they dropped dead just outside their escape tunnel.

Samson grasped everything that was going on with a strange kind of equanimity.

He felt that he saw the bad future coming, he knew what factors would cause it to continue down the dark path, and he also saw the way to avert it.

In a moment when the assassins seemed to have forgotten him, Samson pulled on a tiny, slender, almost invisible thread and quickly pulled himself back up to the ceiling. There he could enact his plan without risk of being crushed underfoot.

Then he focused on his mana and went instantly into that inner world where his mana core sat.

He found himself in that great field of darkness once again, illuminated only by the little orange orb of mana that Samson had cultivated in the short time he'd been alive.

The orb that wouldn't ever grow any bigger now, he imagined.

Samson retraced steps quickly. His memory had never been anything special, not like Adon's was in this life, but his previous experience in the dark place seemed to have left its mark on him. Last time, he had found the place by getting lost.

This time, his feet found their marks perfectly, and his body made its way to the hazardous figure in the darkness on purpose.

The entity whose appearance in this place resembled that of an optical illusion. Seemingly benign if you didn't know what you were seeing.

Last time, he had just touched it, but as he approached to do so, he heard a voice. It spoke as if it had not used its vocal cords—if it had such things—in a long time.

"Seeker of power, you have returned," it said. "This is rare. Clearly no accident. Why?" The entity spoke in a strange rumble, halting or slowing at the wrong places, but it was still easily comprehensible to Samson. He only realized after he had digested the words that it wasn't using Claustrian or any language he recognized, but some form of pure communication that simply reached into Samson's brain and expanded upon its meaning using his own thoughts and vocabulary.

"My friends and my family are about to be killed," Samson replied quickly. "I'll give my life force to you, so help me save them. Let me direct your power. Drain the ones who want to kill them, and spare my loved ones."

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"This exchange is… acceptable." The voice spoke with obvious relish. "Reach out."

Samson extended his limb and touched the figure, and he felt instantly as some of the mana went out of him.

Then it was as if he was transported a great distance away from his body, and the drain was happening to someone else, far off. His field of view changed, and Samson was no longer in the dark field of mysterious magical figures. He was in the cave, but not the cave as he had left it. His vision had changed so that he now sensed each living thing in the cave as a lump of mana, like thermal vision observing the shapes of things based on the heat they gave off.

The little spider felt power flowing through him, rich and intoxicating, from all those around him. The experience was incredibly intense and pleasurable, and the mild pain and fatigue in his body from being stepped on and having used up some of his own mana earlier seemed to recede away to nothing. Acting as a funnel of energy from others came with the ego boost of feeling almost infinitely powerful himself, even though the mana flowed out of him as quickly as it flowed in. He had become relevant, finally, able to stand by his brother's side as a useful ally, not a mere burden.

He almost lost himself in the euphoria of the moment, before the entity's voice spoke up again inside his head.

"Direct me," it said. "Choose those to consume and those to spare."

As he both spoke with the entity and felt its power in action, at his command, Samson felt as if he finally had a true, pure sense of what this figure in the darkness was.

Every figure in the darkness represented some kind of magic that mankind could harness with the right approach. The proper method depended upon the nature of the entity that one was trying to connect with. Adon had found healing, and it had eagerly embraced him with a touch. Its nature was to be nurturing.

This one was sacrifice.

Once Samson embraced self-sacrifice in the cause of requiring that others be offered up to this entity, the figure made everything else easy.

The spider guided its intangible tendrils, and those limbs of power draining reached out and touched first the nearest group of assassins—they began to grow withered and gray with age within a few seconds—and then an expanding group that wound its way ever outward, moving closer and closer to Goldie and Samson's friends.

Samson felt that there was a small drain pulling from them—the entity almost couldn't help itself, it seemed—and he forcefully cut that off.

Not them, he thought. Everyone else, but not these people.

And the figure allowed its power to be directed.

The assassins closest to Samson drained more slowly as more of their group fell into the entity's grasp, but it did not seem to matter. Everyone who was touched with the entity's existence seemed to grow still or to slow down dramatically, having trouble getting any momentum moving in any direction.

It was as if their bodies and mana became fully consumed in the task of simply holding themselves together. Samson thought that might actually be it. The entity he harnessed was not simply concerned with absorbing mana. It wanted to consume its victims' very existence.

Under Samson's direction, the entity finally expanded its circle of sacrifice to include every single assassin still alive in the cave, as well as passively absorbing what little mana remained in the dead and dying bodies littering the floor.

He was dimly aware of Goldie, Carolien, William, Frederick, and all the children at one end of the circle, but outside of its grasp. At some point, Goldie had reconnected with Frederick, who had her perched on his shoulder.

The brothers and Carolien were covered in blood, Samson noted, both their own and that of the assassins they had been fighting.

They didn't seem to understand the meaning of what had happened at first. Frederick and William hacked at the throats of the closest assassins, who were almost paralyzed in the grip of the entity. Carolien had turned to attend to her son Baltazar, though his wounds from protecting his siblings were far less serious than her own.

The assaulted assassins fell instantly under the Dessians' blows. They were unable to even dodge.

"Mine," the entity rasped. "Mine…"

Samson had to suppress the being's annoyance at his prey being interfered with. Instead of taking anything out on his friends, he funneled that reaction into draining the few dying assassins more quickly.

Nothing was to be wasted.

As the last of the killers' magical energy left them, the entity pulled on something else that seemed to be connected to it within the assassins. If mana was a glowing golden thread in Samson's perception right now, this thread was gleaming red.

He and the entity pulled on it, it passed through Samson, and he felt what it was.

Life energy.

That red energy was consumed far more quickly than mana, for some reason. Perhaps it was that the figures were already relatively close to death.

In any case, as the last of it drained from those bodies that had been ruined by the Dessians, the figures ceased to truly register in the entity's field of vision. From Samson's perspective, it felt as if they had crumbled to dust, although it was hard to tell if that was literally happening or if it was part of the vast visual metaphor that was his perception right now.

Sammy, stop! Goldie's voice reached him from a thousand miles away. You've done enough! This will kill you!

The little spider could sense that she was right on that last point. Even if it was a distant thing, he could feel how his body was slowly losing some of its own mana and life force to the hungry entity that worked through him.

It was very slow as he perceived time right now, but it would absolutely kill him.

But Samson knew he had not done enough. Not yet.

The rest of the assassins were still alive, only weakened and slowed by Samson's connection with the entity.

I have to finish this, he sent telepathically. If I don't, you guys are going to be in the same situation as before in two minutes.

He was gratified when Goldie relayed this to the others, and over her protests, Frederick grabbed a firm hold of her and one of the little girls and began running, carrying both of them, toward the light at the end of the tunnel. He knew exactly what was at stake.

I love you, mama, Samson sent telepathically. Don't regret this. I chose it! I'm happy I can do this.

He couldn't be certain whether she received the message. He had sent it as loudly as he could, but the figure whose power he harnessed demanded most of his focus. Its inner voice grew hungrier and hungrier the more it consumed.

"More. More…"

Samson would hold the entity in check as best he could, but as his life force drained, he would have more trouble ensuring that it kept to its end of the deal and spared those he cared most for. He felt proud of himself for picking up that burden.

Adon, I wish you could see me now.

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