why are people afraid of spiders?(chapter 138)

Chapter 138

With a single gesture, she unleashed waves of eldritch fire, flames infused with her infernal heritage, devouring the nothingness like a cosmic wildfire. Her magic tore through dimensions, unraveling the very threads of the multiverse to fuel her power. Crystalline spires erupted from the void, impaling the cosmic horror's form, sealing it in a prison of celestial energy. Within her domain, she was absolute. Yet it did nothing. Y'thural-Zog did not resist, did not flinch. The attacks connected, the flames seared its flesh, the chains tightened, the spires impaled—but it was all meaningless. The damage was minuscule, infinitesimal. It was as if they had thrown pebbles at the infinite. Then, the creature moved.

A single, imperceptible shift. A mere ripple through its vast form, and the entirety of their magic—Gray's godlike sorcery, Rachel's domain of celestial will—was undone. The flames extinguished. The chains unraveled. The spires shattered like glass. The sheer scale of their power meant nothing before the absolute. Gray and Rachel hovered in the void, the weight of hopelessness crashing down on them. They had fought with everything they had, magic beyond mortal understanding, spells that could shatter entire realities—and yet, Y'thural-Zog remained, unchanged, unaffected. It had not even acknowledged them.

The void stretched infinitely, the remains of broken worlds drifting in silence. The TARDIS, shattered beyond recognition, floated aimlessly in the abyss. Pangea, or what was left of it, crumbled into dust, its fragments caught in the pull of an unseen force. And at the center of it all, the horror loomed, eternal and uncaring. Rachel's voice broke the silence, quiet yet firm. "We never stood a chance." Gray exhaled slowly, his hands trembling, the remnants of his magic flickering uselessly around him. "No," he admitted, his voice hollow. "We didn't." And then, the creature turned its gaze upon them.

The moment Y'thural-Zog's gaze fell upon them, reality itself seemed to rupture. A formless pressure pressed against them, an overwhelming force beyond comprehension. Their bodies convulsed, not from pain, but from the sheer insignificance imposed upon them. Their magic, their existence—it was as if they had never mattered.Yet, even in the face of such absolute horror, Gray and Rachel did not falter.

Gray reached out, his hand finding Rachel's. Their magic surged, intertwining—not as separate forces, but as one. The fabric of reality twisted as their domains merged, forging something entirely new. Their individual essences bled into each other, fusing, no longer two distinct magics but an unshackled force that defied all logic.

A storm erupted around them, unlike anything before. Gray's magic, limitless and volatile, surged through Rachel's domain, refined, tempered, made absolute. The void trembled as their presence expanded beyond mortal limitations, rewriting the laws that bound them. Gravity collapsed into singularities that spiraled around them like predatory stars. The very concept of time unraveled, distorting past, present, and future into a singular moment. Matter ceased to be matter, shifting into pure, unfiltered potential.

Rachel's celestial radiance fused with Gray's raw destruction, creating an energy that defied classification. It was not fire, nor light, nor void—it was all of them and none of them, a force that simply was. Gray exhaled, his voice a whisper, yet it resonated across the abyss. "Again." They moved as one.

Rachel raised her hand, and the light of creation erupted, cascading outward in fractal waves that carved through the void. Gray followed, his fingers tracing unseen runes in the air, warping the fabric of existence itself. Their magic converged, forming an ethereal spear of absolute destruction, humming with infinite possibilities. With a single thought, they hurled it forward. The spear struck Y'thural-Zog, and—for the first time—the void recoiled.

The cosmic horror trembled, its form warping, shifting, distorting as cracks formed across its abyssal flesh. The very concept of its invulnerability was challenged, forced to acknowledge something beyond itself. The abyss howled, a soundless wail that reverberated through the shattered remnants of the cosmos.

Gray and Rachel did not stop.

They pressed forward, their fusion intensifying, pushing past all limitations. The spear split apart, multiplying into countless lances of destruction, each one piercing deeper into the horror's form. The void bled, ichor-like tendrils of pure nothingness spilling out into the abyss. For the first time, Y'thural-Zog reacted.

Tendrils lashed out, moving faster than thought, striking with the fury of a dying universe. Rachel's domain expanded, shielding them, but the sheer force sent them hurtling back, their magic unraveling at the edges. Reality trembled under the weight of its retaliation. Gray's vision blurred, his mind screaming from the sheer magnitude of power being exchanged. His magic was godlike. Rachel's was divine. Yet, against this thing, even together, they were still not enough. Rachel's voice broke through the chaos, firm, unyielding. "Again." Gray grinned through the pain. "Again." And they attacked once more, but before they could pull it off, they were erased from existence as the creature finally used its attack.

Finding himself back in the captain's deck, Gray didn't move for hours this time. He just spent the time thinking about a solution until the creature got close enough for Rachel to awaken. As she came running to the captain's deck, ready to fight to the death, "Gra—" before she could call him out, he shoved a bunch of memories of the previous death onto her, which only managed to anger her further. "So you are just going to sit still and do nothing?" she asked as Gray replied, frustrated, "I am thinking, Rachel," he said as she looked at him. She then looked out to the creature that was drawing closer before she decided to sit beside him as they both waited for death. "So, magic that nearly reached divinity doesn't work, nor do our domains," Rachel noted as Gray finally noticed how weak his magic was, especially since the memories of his near-divine magic were still fresh in his mind.

"Yes, magic doesn't work, and our domain gets shattered, especially mine," he said as he then realized something. "Wait, it shattered my domain the moment I unleashed it, but it didn't do the same to yours. So why shatter only my domain?" he asked as both he and Rachel looked at each other. "Is it afraid of your domain?" Rachel theorized as Gray smiled. "That might be the case, but why would it be afraid of something it can easily shatter?" he asked as Rachel smiled. "The same way people are afraid of spiders despite them being smaller," she said, making Gray reply, "Are you calling me ugly and gross?" he asked jokingly as Rachel groaned. "No, idiot, it's because they are dangerous," she said just as the creature arrived and erased them. Only to wake up again in the captain's deck, he immediately woke up and fed her the memories before they got back to work.