Law of The Web - Zetro Translation

I barely had time to process the chaos in the strange marble hall before everything shifted.

One moment, I was standing there, and the next, I was yanked forward, chained to a line of other children, plunging into a yawning void of blackness.

‘W-Where am I?!’

I said to myself, a strange sense unease suddenly coming over me.

I don’t like this one bit, I am starting to feel afraid. Dying once has given me a sense of death, as if I know it was coming.

Or rather, this blackness I find suddenly find myself in brings about a primal terror, I have never experienced before.

Even in death, I was never this afraid.

‘I needtoescape… ineedtoescape…indeedtoesca… No, W-What am I doing!?’

I question myself, vividly confused about my actions.

‘What is this paranoia? I feel as if I am losing myself, keep it together Gideon.’

I said to myself, for a moment there I felt as if I was losing my rationality.

Yet by some miracle, I resist it, but even now I can feel my mind being infected by fear once more.

The glowing sigil that had been our portal vanished, leaving me in a darkness so complete that my decipher ability was useless.

The night vision I had was not working here.

For the first time since I awoke in this body, I felt truly blind.

“Ha?!”

I muttered to myself, turning my head left and right, searching for something…anything. But there was nothing to see, no shapes, no outlines, just an endless void of pure darkness, yet I know I was somehwere, I can still feel the sensation of a solid surface beneath my feet.

“Wait, wait, what the hell is going on here?”

I whispered, my voice trembling.

“I can’t see a thing! Even this weird power of mine isn’t picking up anything. What is this place? Where am I?”

“helpme, I want out…OuT yOu heAR meMemeMemememememememmeme….Ahhhhh, my head it aches…AHHHH.”

I screamed once more, the madness somehow returning once more, this time stronger, yet, I some how regain my rational thoughts.

“Shit it happened again.”

I whispered, the fear I felt took over, my mind was starting to influence my physical actions.

I could feel it breaking by the second.

But then, I started to realize what it might be.

“…The darkness, could it be?!”

I said to myself.

Finally realizing what might be happening to me here.

This wasn’t ordinary darkness, it was not just the mere absence of light. It felt somewhat alive, it sounded weird, but I can return by death, so what if this darkness is somehow making me mad.

‘Is it?!’

I asked fearfully.

But then the answers I seek present itself to me in the most horrifying way possible.

The darkness it was moving I can feel movement everywhere around me.

Brushing against my skin. The other children didn’t seem to notice, but I could feel it, slithering, coiling, like it was watching me.

Something was missing, but I couldn’t name it. The sensation was suffocating, like a heavy fog clinging to me, smothering my senses, especially my sight. It was like being submerged in water yet staying completely dry…a feeling so strange I couldn’t make sense of it at all.

The silence was just as oppressive, pressing down like a physical weight, thick and unnatural. It amplified the eerie tension until the faint, trembling voices of the other children finally broke through.

“It’s so cold…

“Mommy!?”

“Big brother, where are we?”

Their fragile, frightened murmurs cut through the stillness, each word dripping with confusion and fear, making the air feel even more sinister.

Dread prickled my skin, growing into full-blown panic. My thoughts raced.

‘What is this place? Why can’t I see anything?’

To the point I was becoming repetitive, and my rationality was slipping even further into the maws of this deep abyss, my mind struggling to hold on.

Then the screaming choir began.

The children voice’s spiraled into hysteria, their words fracturing into incoherent fragments, each more piercing than the last, like nails on a chalkboard.

“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”

“Stop! STOP! Make it go away!”

“They’re everywhere! I can feel them crawling; GET THEM OFF ME!”

The screams overlapped, blending into a vile cacophony. Hearing children scream is one thing, but hearing them scream like they were dying was something else entirely. Some wept uncontrollably, others shrieked like wild animals, their raw, jagged cries stabbing through my mind.

“I can’t breathe! I CAN’T!!….

“No! Stay away!”

“Something is crawling inside my… UUahGHHAAaaa!!…

I wanted to cover my ears, to block out the horrors, but their fear and scream only increase my own plummet,

But sadly my hands were cuffed, chained to the others.

“W-hat is happening to them? To us?!”

Panic clawed at my chest as the chaos intensified. The screams turned guttural, choking, then stopped abruptly, leaving a silence that was somehow worse.

“This is not funny.”

I whispered hoarsely, my voice shaking. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching us…something unseen, malevolent even.

But as I was panicking, a familiar voice echoed in my head, cold and uncaring as always.

“Your soul has been infected with a parasitic Soul Worm.”

I stiffened.

“What?”

My voice was barely a breath, full mostly with primal fear.

The voice continued, clinical and detached.

“Your soul is strong enough to withstand the madness and sleep effects, though not entirely. Be warned…the madness will deepen with time. Any attempt to remove it will trigger the Death Geas.”

“Madness? Sleep effects? Death Geas?”

I said to myself.

My fear finally reaching an all time high as the words being said had sent a chill through me, but I had no time to process them.

Chains rattled in the darkness, followed by the sickening thuds of bodies hitting the ground. The other children were collapsing, their unconscious forms pulling me forward, forcing me to my knees.

We where like dominos dropping against our will.

The darkness pressed closer, my own erratic gasps the only sound left.

Then, the sound of footsteps hit me ears.

Clack!

Clack!!

They get louder and closer by the second.

The rhythm of boots on stone sliced through the silence like a death knell.

My body trembled as the sound grew louder, each step reverberating in my chest like it’s own separate heartbeat. With every step came a wave of pressure, an aura of horror so overwhelming it crushed my thoughts.

My knees buckled further, my body hitting the floor with a dull thud. I tried to lift my head, to look toward the sound, but my neck refused to move.

All I could do was stare into the void below, my forehead brushing the cold, smooth ground.

The footsteps stopped… The came silence once more.

Then right after, Clark’s voice, barely audible, cut through the tension.

“Remember the drill, boys. Just kneel, greet, and for the love of God, don’t look up.”

His usual bravado was gone, replaced by something I had never heard from him, not even with Bram… At this moment I knew Clark for some unknown reason was feeling genuine fear of the highest order.

Then, light finally burst through the darkness.

Faint at first, like a distant firefly, it grew brighter, pulsing with an otherworldly, eerie green glow.

Strands of long, wild hair rippled in the light or rather it was the light, cascading like water. My breath hitched.

The hair was radiant, glowing, cutting through the darkness as if whoever this was—was the only thing that was allowed to be seen in this great unending blackness I and the other children now found ourselves in.

My gaze trailed downward, catching bare feet, despite how loud the person footsteps was, making me think they wore heel or boots of some kind.

The first thing I saw a feminine pair of beautiful feet, small with large glowing green claws at every toe.

They kind of remind me of cat claws, just way more exaggerated.

Curiosity burned through my dread, replacing it with something like admiration.

“Haaa, so pretty…

I murmured, my words slipping out before I could stop them, my sanity fraying.

Despite Clark’s warning, my eyes flicked upward, decipher registering the being despite the ropes covering my eyes. Or at the very it tried to.

But the moment I saw her face, regret consumed me almost immediately.

Her features were unearthly, a mix of human and beast. Her skin was clear, her expression stoic, as if she had no emotion’s at all.

But her eyes, four of them, glowing a dour green, pierced the darkness. She wore a gothic black dress, very simple in design, but it portray her beauty ten folds.

With green cat ears atop her head and a long green pair of cat tai’s at her tailbone, and adorned with two skull pins.

She was elegant, voluptuous, and terrifyingly beautiful, no why was a woman so perfect, so looks gorgeous yet not so breathtaking that my reaction should be valid just beautiful, yet I am acting as if she was the pinnacle of beauty for some reason when realistically she is Excellent 8/10, and not a perfect 10/10, yet my mind warp to think that she is.

She looked down at me, sensing my gaze despite the ropes.

“Hmm… this one is awake? How the hell did a kid manage to stay conscious?”

Her voice was amused, but tired, resigned, yet that joy soon died down right after.

My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would burst. I wanted to speak, to demand answers, but my mouth wouldn’t move. I just wanted to keep looking at her, she was beautiful, the most beautiful, more beautiful than god, more beautiful than the devil, more beautiful than anything else I will ever get to look at in the future.

But as I keep looking away, too transfixed on her unmatched beauty.

She sighed, turning away.

And said something so terrifying it snapped me out my obsession but for a moment.

“Too late to ask, anyway… such a pity. This one seemed like a gem. Shame he looked at my face.”

Her voice was cold, detached, with a hint of sorrow.

My vision blurred as I tried to speak, my mind falling for her once more.

“You are so beau…

BADUMP!!

But I didn’t finish my words.

Pain hit me like a lightning bolt, swallowing the rest of my words in a horrific scream.

“AAAHHHHHHHH!”

It wasn’t just physical pain either; it was as if my entire being was been torn apart from the inside.

My mind, my soul, my everything was being destroyed.

But the Non-physical undoing didn’t show, but my physical suffering sure as hell did. My chest exploded with agony, my heart convulsing with each beat. I clutched at my chest, fingers digging into my flesh, my lips biting down hard to point I was basically bitting my own lips off.

The pain worsened.

My lungs felt like they were being filled with glass, as every breath was slicing me open from the inside out.

Blood poured from my nose, my mouth, my eyes, and every damn hole my body had to offer.

“WhaT… whAt’S HapPeNIng tO MEEEEEE?!”

I choked out, my voice a gurgling mess.

Invisible blades tore through my skin, carving jagged lines across my body. I screamed again, tears mixing with the blood and snot, streaming down my face.

“Make it stop! PLEASE!”

I begged, my voice breaking.

“KILL ME, KILL ME, KILLL MEEE!!”

I begged for death, peace, anything, I will take any reprieve if it means I can longer feel what I was feeling.

As my own body began to betray me. Bones cracked, limbs twisted into grotesque angles. My muscles spasmed, my body writhing like a broken puppet.

The woman stood there, a distant shadow to my now crumbling form.

“Sorry, kid… I can’t stop this even if I wanted to… you weren’t supposed to even be awake.”

She murmured.

My skin peeled away, curling like burnt paper, exposing raw flesh underneath. My nerves screamed, as every inch of me felt like it was on fire, after being soaked in acid.

I sobbed, choking on my own blood, my vision swimming with red and black.

“Stop… please… I’m begging you…

My words slurred, my strength fading quickly.

But it was the final blow that was truly unimaginable. My body collapsed inward, flesh and bone compacting into a grotesque mass, my screams dissolving into choking gasps, till by became a ball of flesh, that was slowly being soaked and consumed by the darkness around me.

It slowly eat my alive, it could no longer scream to express the immense pain I was going through.

I suffer, and suffer, and suffer for what felt like an eternity, each second feeling worse than the the last.

Then after god knows how long… I felt nothing, at last I was at peace.

Or so I thought.

…

I tried to open my eyes, the coarse rope still tight across them. Voices broke through, as I heard two men talking.

“Ah, more contributions from the Black Web gang, eh?”

Bram’s voice was smooth as it was cold. He tapped his monocle, a faint hum echoing as he examined us.

“It seems the young master’s request has spread far and wide in such a short time.”

I was trembling, my heart racing, the phantom pain lingering across my body. Before I could process it, the voice in my head spoke again.

“You have successfully defied fate; your Law Beast, Primordial Spider Lily has grown stronger, and as a result, so too has your soul. You have reached the third step of the Awakening Stage.”

“You have awakened a new Law ability under the Aspect of Fusion <Gore Web> This ability gives one complete control over the circulatory system of themselves. However, your blood vessels can also fuse and stick to matter like a spider web. Warning! May Cause Anemia, and drains one stamina quickly.”