Chapter 302: Impossible Challenge

"Can you see the hundreds of spiders covering that mountain?" Alex asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the distant slope.

Joseph nodded, looking in the same direction. "Yes, I can see them, although I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell us."

"Those spiders look like a fusion of trees and ordinary spiders, but the mountain itself has something strange about it," Alex explained, his voice becoming more serious. "There are too many trees covering it, and their positions don’t look quite right."

Joseph looked at the mountain again, this time paying closer attention to its overall shape rather than the spiders scattered across it.

His expression changed as he finally noticed what Alex had discovered, and he took an involuntary step backward.

"Th-This can’t be right. How could something that enormous even sustain itself?" he muttered, struggling to believe what he was seeing.

Frank turned toward him with a confused expression. "What exactly are you talking about? What did you notice?"

Alex swallowed, feeling the pressure of the creature’s presence even from this distance. "That isn’t a mountain. It’s a giant spider monster, and the hundreds of smaller spiders are living on its body."

The entire group fell silent as they stared at the enormous creature. It had apparently remained in the same place for so long that dirt and dust had accumulated across its body, making it resemble an ordinary mountain covered in vegetation, but Alex was certain that they were looking at a living monster.

The creature hadn’t moved, yet its presence alone was enough to warn them that approaching any closer would be a terrible idea.

Alex slowly lowered his gaze, considering their options before finally speaking again. "...Let’s circle around this place. We still need to find a path to the portal, and I don’t think we should risk approaching that monster just to save a little time."

The group nodded and quickly moved away from the mountain, making sure not to get any closer to the enormous spider monster than necessary. Alex continued using his Mana Spheres to monitor their surroundings as they circled the area where they believed the portal was located, hoping to find a path that would allow them to approach safely.

However, the farther they traveled, the more obvious it became that avoiding a single monster wouldn’t be enough to solve their problem.

After spending some time scouting the area, they came to an unpleasant realization. There were four Mountain Spiders surrounding the region where the portal was located, with one positioned to the north, south, east, and west, forming a perimeter around an area approximately two kilometers in diameter.

Each resembled a mountain covered in trees, and the smaller spider monsters living on their bodies made approaching any of them extremely dangerous.

Whenever Alex’s group moved even slightly closer to the portal, one of the Mountain Spiders would send a warning through an energy fluctuation that Alex and the group could sense.

The message was clear enough, and the creature warned them that it would attack if they continued approaching. After receiving similar warnings from the other three Mountain Spiders, Alex finally decided that they had gathered enough information and led everyone away from the area.

’It’s strange. Why are they warning us instead of attacking immediately? Even without the Mountain Spiders fighting personally, the hundreds of smaller spider monsters living on their backs would be enough to cause us serious trouble,’ Alex thought as they retreated.

He still couldn’t determine the exact rank of the Mountain Spiders, but he was certain that they were at least High Rank Species, and their levels were probably much higher than those of the monsters they had encountered previously.

Their ability to sense his group’s movements from such a distance was also concerning, especially since Alex had been keeping his Mana Spheres as thin as possible to avoid detection. He couldn’t tell whether the creatures had sensed his spells or simply noticed their presence through some other means, so he decided not to take unnecessary risks.

By the time they had retreated to a relatively safe distance, evening had arrived, and the group decided to stop for a meal while discussing what they had discovered. They gathered their supplies and sat together, although nobody seemed particularly satisfied with the results of their exploration.

Finding the portal had been one of their main objectives, but now that they had located it, reaching it seemed almost impossible.

"Why do you think the spider monsters are surrounding the portal?" Emma asked, happily chewing the meant of a deer-like monster they had hunted hours ago.

"Origin Energy is probably the reason. From what Alex told us, portals are a great source of Origin Energy, so it makes sense that powerful monsters would establish their territories around one," Joseph replied.

"In that case, they probably won’t let us take control of the portal, and sneaking past them doesn’t sound like a good idea either," Yulia said with a sigh.

"That’s what I’m worried about. I could try flying over the area, but since this is Hell Difficulty, I’m sure there are plenty of powerful flying monsters around here. If they notice me, I might end up attracting more enemies than I can handle," Alex replied.

Emma suddenly turned toward him, looking rather surprised. "Wait, you can fly now? Since when did you learn how to do that?"

She even looked behind him as though she expected to find a pair of wings, while the others also turned their attention toward Alex with curious expressions. Alex hadn’t mentioned his new method of flying to them, so their surprise was understandable, and he decided to demonstrate it rather than spend several minutes explaining how it worked.

He created a Mana Shuriken and began spinning it while absorbing and releasing kinetic energy in a controlled manner. As the energy pushed downward, his feet gradually lifted off the ground, and he continued adjusting the flow until he was hovering comfortably above the others. He didn’t rise very high because he didn’t want to attack attention, but the demonstration was enough to show that he had gained a reasonable degree of control over the technique.

"That’s actually impressive. You’re controlling kinetic energy well enough to keep yourself stable in the air, which isn’t something I would have expected someone to accomplish so quickly," Joseph commented as he watched Alex hover.

..

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