Chapter 224 Jewel Hunt – Underground Cave
Flames were rampaging on one side of the cave as the monsters shrieked loudly, their hairy bodies were burned from the golden flames as they tried their best to escape. The monsters used their eight long legs to their fullest as they tried to escape the flames by any means, some ran full speed to escape, others tried climbing on the walls and ceiling of the cave while there were some that used their silk to propel themselves further away, those were usually the ones that managed to escape.
They were approximately 2.5 meters long, their strong chelicerae ( jaws with sharp edges ) that would usually be used to bite their prey and cut them apart before eating were clicking continuously as they tried to escape.
The same was happening all around the cave, Reign was using his black and white lightning while being surrounded by tens of spiders, yes, the enemies they encountered inside the caves were spiders, hundreds of them. Each of the spiders was at least level 30, but compared to other monsters of the same level they were weaker, of course, they made up for that with their sheer numbers. There were bigger ones amongst them as well, even though those were stronger, compared to Reign and the others they were still nothing much.
Reign was surrounded, but not because the spiders wanted to surround and attack him, they were actually trying to escape from him as they could feel his terrifying power, unfortunately for them, his speed was simply overwhelming and none were fast enough to outrun him. Each time he moved he would appear in the middle of a large group of spiders, his lightning was erupting everywhere some 5 meters around him, thanks to his mana organ he could actually control the lightning better, if he wished the lightning would appear in an area more than 10 meters around him, or even 2 meters. The reason why he was keeping it at 5 was that any more and the lightning wouldn’t be condensed and strong enough to deal serious damage to the spiders, while any smaller would simply be overkill.
Since the cave was enormous Beast was currently using his wind skills to wreak havoc on the spiders, against stronger enemies he would rarely have time to do that since the skills needed some prep time, or they were too weak to damage them seriously. Of course there was another reason, similarly to Reign and his black and white lightning, the AOE wind skills that Beast could use would also damage his teammates.
Right now however that was not an issue, a small tornado was formed some 30 meters from Beast as many spiders were caught up in it, not only did the tornado have great power when it came to disrupting the enemies, the wind which it was made of was incredibly sharp and would cut open the spiders with ease.
Laura was using her skills and ability to simply blast her enemies away, thanks to being in Reign’s party she never really encountered any great danger, as such she also didn’t grow as much as they did, thankfully the skills she learned from her class and her ability and memories from when she was possessed by the demoness balanced things out, still, her repertoire of skills was lacking compared to any of them.
Shadow simply used his ability to bind or pierce the spiders with the shadows, since they were underground he was able to utilize his ability to the fullest and didn’t even need to move and use his daggers. Greenie on the other hand was enjoying himself as he crushed the spiders with his hammer while occasionally using the [ Inferno Eruption, Hundred Strikes of Judgement ] to crush larger groups in a short period of time.
Tank was plowing through the spiders while his 4 soldiers were doing the same around him, since there were so many spiders he thought it was a good idea to let the four out so they can get some practical experience. Of course, nobody would be leveling up, not because there were not enough monsters to give them enough exp, but because of the complete lack of exp.
It seemed that the system thought that it would be too unfair for weaker teams if they were able to gain exp here since 1 day here was equal to 1 hour outside. Not to mention that the sheer amount of monsters was enough for them to level up multiple times. There was also the fact that they wouldn’t really die here, so even weaker players would try some suicidal moves in order to take down stronger enemies or a large group of them in order to get more exp.
The monsters also didn’t drop any gear, the only thing that would be dropped were the jewels, thanks to the huge number of spiders here they were able to get an enormous number of green and black jewels.
As the squad fought they moved deeper and deeper into the cave and tunnels. Each of the tunnels was filled with webs of the spiders which would be burned immediately by Wolf’s flames, they would illuminate the surroundings greatly which wasn’t really needed since Wolf’s flames and Reign’s lightning would do that by themselves. Contrary to other caves that the party had gone to, this one didn’t have any crystal or other sources of lighting. The spiders preferred so as they loved the dark, not to mention that it was easier for them to sneak up to any unsuspecting prey that wandered inside the cave that way.
The further that the party went, the stronger and bigger the spiders became. Their swift charge finally came to an end after entering the final area of this huge underground cave. The spiders here were already level 40 and stronger, but the true danger was at the very back as a 6-meter large spider was moving slowly towards them. Each leg of the enormous spider was 5 meters long and its chelicerae looked incredibly imposing.
[ Level 45 Boss, Giant Spider ]
The name of the spider was simple and it seemed it was just an ordinary boss, different from the Dullahan or Magokur that they had faced before. Still, this was a level 45 boss and they were definitely not going to get too complacent when fighting against it.
The enormous spider stopped while the other spiders suddenly charged at Reign and the others. The normal spiders were weaker compared to monsters of the same level, but there were some spiders that were as strong, if not stronger than average monsters as well. They were probably variants that were created by the boss spider in order to fight against any strong intruders, such as themselves.
Still, the strength of the spiders here was their numbers after all, and unfortunately for them, Reign and Wolf were their perfect counters. The spiders would either get shocked or burned heavily whilst fighting against them, Reign had already condensed his lightning area to only 2.5 meters around him while Wolf was coating himself in flames, each step he took would leave fiery footprints on the floor and the flames would burn any opponents that came close to him.
This was a new skill that he created after mimicking his armor, since the timeless fire was always there he could inspect it as long as he wanted to and figure out how it worked. Of course, that wasn’t easy as it wasn’t a skill or anything, but simply the work of a blacksmith coupled with the materials that were used during its creation. Still, Wolf was able to create something similar, the fire that burned around him not only worked as a deterrent against enemies, it also strengthened him, it wasn’t to the point of Reign’s [ Lightning body / Charge ] or Shadow’s [ Shadow Body ], but the extra defense and the fact that enemies would be hurt simply by standing next to him more than made up for it.
It didn’t take long for them to cut down the number of spiders, they had already killed hundreds of them and now there were only about 30 or so left together with the boss. Even though Reign and the others were massacring its offsprings it hadn’t moved an inch. It was only after the thirty or so spiders had backed away that the humongous spider moved, contrary to its size, its speed was great.
Reign was almost skewered by one of the spider’s legs as he didn’t expect the monster to move so fast. Before he could get away however the enormous boss sent out a huge web in order to trap him, luckily for Reign he immediately let go of any thought of escaping and attacked. The web was incredibly tough and even his weapons had trouble cutting it apart, luckily for him he had already coated them fully with mana before attacking, if not he would have probably failed to cut through the web and would already be caught by the spider.
Wolf and the others quickly charged at the spider after seeing how it attacked Reign. Wolf’s flames would be able to burn the spider’s web and neutralize the attack, however, the spider was more intelligent than they realized as all of the other spiders had attacked Wolf.
The spider’s plan was simple, use the spiders in order to stop Wolf while it deals with Reign and the others, it was able to feel an incredible amount of mana from Reign and thus it decided it was the strongest enemy. Still, the flames that Wolf had would greatly weaken its fighting power so it decided to sacrifice its spiders in order to win the battle.
Before Reign could land on the ground the spider moved again and this time, its jaw was right in front of Reign, swiftly the spider used its jaws in order to cut Reign in half..𝙘𝙤𝙢