Might as Well

There really wasn’t any time for Sam to put together a coherent plan. He just had to dodge as the outstretched hand of the arachne glowed with a sick gray light and a massive spiderweb made from the same light formed and shot toward him.

Glancing back, he saw the cobweb covering the entrance, preventing any escape unless he spent time to destroy it. Pretty hard to do when he didn’t even know what kind of mutation the arachne’s magic went through, thanks to that shard in its chest.

Even without a check of his considerable mana sense, he could tell it was from a demon. Though not from which one…

‘There will be time to figure that one out… for now, I just need to DODGE!’ he thought as he had to move once again to avoid a sickly gray projectile that struck the wall behind him, eating away the stone for a second or two.

Then the fight became a constant game of tag as Sam darted around the room while the arachne tried its best to scream loud enough to deafen him and to melt his poor body into a goo.

Thankfully, for now, the monster stayed in the middle of this… chapel he found it in, so he had some area to maneuver. However, he made sure not to touch the altar the arachne was praying at. For now, he didn’t want to trigger the monster’s berserk button.

Occasionally, he tried to shoot back all sorts of magic, trying to see which one would be the best as he hadn’t read anything about arachne in the libraries he had access to, and neither had the other Sam met any of them.

Fire splashed uselessly against the stone skin, the water evaporated the moment it got near the shadowy body and the red lightning surged out to destroy the material, lightning was naturally absorbed by the red lightning and he didn’t even try earth.

‘Well, I knew the odds of them working were low, but man…this is a bummer,’ he mused. He expected that the system set up a monster for him to fight with that was immune to his two primary elements just to challenge him or annoy him. But it seemed it was not the case.

‘That means this thing wasn’t the system’s plan but somebody else…’ The moment he finished the thought, he had to raise his Shadow shield to absorb the impact of a giant spiderweb made of lightning. ‘Or the system is playing some sort of game with me…’

Alas, he had no way to answer that. Instead, he lowered the shield and took a look at the arachne as it raised another hand, then joined by the other one; it raised it over its head where it began to gather a ball of red lightning.

Sam stayed still for a brief moment, just to make sure that the monster wouldn’t alter its target, then when the arachne flung the ball of dangerous lightning at him he waited for the last second to jump up and backward, landing on the wall where he used his earth molding skills to create a small step where he could stay and prepare.

He just forgot one thing.

His enemy was a spider. And spiders were famous for crawling on walls.

Thus, Sam had the privilege to witness as the arachne, fed up with not hitting him, covered its hand in gray mana and began skittering up toward him, the vertical wall not even slowing its eight legs down.

‘Oh, yeah… they can do that.’

He destroyed the earth shelf that was holding him up, and before the sharp-nailed arms could pierce his head, he fell.

On the way down, he reached out with his magic and used wind mana to condense a sphere of pressurized air that he instantly fired toward the still-screeching monster.

The explosion was enough to stop the infernal screeching as well as to put out most of the candles that hadn’t been destroyed by their fast-paced tag, casting the entire area in dark shadows.

The only lights remaining were the eight burning eyes of the monster, six gray candles set up directly on the altar, and the brief flicker of his own Mana Shield.

‘Wait…Six candles?’

He had a moment to realize what that meant before the monster was on him, its arms and the two legs at the front striking at him with varying attacks.

Hands covered in gray light while the legs were simply clad with red lightning. Then the monster opened its maw and instead of screeching began to vomit up stone dust, of all things.

Sam parried the hands with his sword, the legs were blocked by a shadow and windshield, and he ignored the stone dust for now. Glancing behind the monster, he saw that there were indeed two candles that were blown out. And four of the candles had visibly smaller flames.

Glancing at his timer, he saw that he still had time, thus while the monster brought its hand back, he also used his free hand to send a very concentrated ball of wind blades straight at the monster’s throat.

Sadly, it seemed, despite the demonic influence, the arachne’s spider-sense was intact as it moved its torso and neck out of the way, allowing the magic to fly by harmlessly.

Then Sam grinned and used his connection to the magic to detonate it behind the monster.

‘And the screeching is back…’

Not letting up as the arachne began to express its displeasure, he continued the bombardment.

The arachne, however, surprised him.

Instead of dodging his attacks, or even tanking them, it raised its own grayish-black shield to protect itself, while its maw opened in what Sam would generously interpret as a savage grin.

Which Sam mirrored with his own.

As the monster defended itself with a shield that slowly grew to the shape of a bubble, covering every side of the arachne, Sam simply fired a continuous stream of wind blades so as not to give the monster even a second to do anything but defend.

Meanwhile, he used his multitasking to reach out to the magic protecting the monster and slowly began to feel it out. He looked for weak points, and thankfully, he found them.

The shield, just like a real spider web, was strong and stretchable, or rather in this case, capable of absorbing a lot of power in a short time frame, but if you chose a point and overpowered it like a human would tear down a spider web infesting their home, then it would crumble.

However, before he could implement his plan, he noticed that another two candle flames began to weaken.

‘Why are they not destroying the legs?’ he wondered as he watched the arachne also realize what was happening to its precious altar.

He saw its anger grow and used this momentary distraction to strike.

Shaping his mana into a very precise blade, invisible to the eyes, but blinding to anybody with mana sense, he struck at one of the weak points.

Instantly, the shield protecting the arachne flickered for a moment, then simply vanished into the ether as the mana structure collapsed under Sam’s precise assault.

He used this distraction to launch one really powerful wind blade, which, in turn, managed to take off one of the stone-like arms of the spider monster.

However, instead of blood – or liquid stone – shadowy tentacles erupted from the stump, only to form a facsimile of an arm, red lightning visibly coursing through it.

“That’s not good, right?” Sam asked audibly, as the monster didn’t even hesitate for a second and charged forward with renewed vigor.

“Why do I even ask these questions?” he spoke under his breath as he did his best to dodge the new assault.

The battle was going all right in Adam’s eyes.

No doubt the forward scouts of the guilds were hidden all over the place, mixed in with the solo players who thought they could snatch a few items from the loot that dropped or even kill steal.

Pity that none of them knew that what they were doing was a simple theater and the real fight was happening somewhere else.

According to Tim, the guilds were getting closer, with the Abyss Vipers coming in as strong contenders for the first one to reach them. Apparently, the Steel Lions refused to participate and instead remained focused on the Valley they had ‘found’.

Weird, but it made his job much easier.

Adam was pretty certain that the other guilds were just letting the poison-addled idiots charge in as a litmus test so that they only had to follow them and harvest the results.

Or at least, that’s what he would do…

The Eternal Light should have enough strategists on their payrolls to devise at least that basic of a plan. Though, from what he heard from Isabella, that may have been a big ask…

Thanks to Sam’s crazy suggestion, from what he was seeing on the forums and hearing from Tim (and his own scouts) most people were going crazy over the chance to snag a ‘guild-level’ blueprint. Ignoring the fact that no such thing existed.

Greed blinded almost everyone and those who saw through the ruse or questioned the validity of the rumor were flamed to hell and back.

Thankfully, the game developers were also staying silent which most people interpreted as approval.

‘Truly, avarice knows no bounds…’

But while Sam was fighting inside the pocket dimension or whatever his insane boss found and the other guilds were murdering each other for a chance to wear the king’s new pants, he had a job to do.

The fourth leg was already wounded, leaking lightning all over the battlefield as his teams ran around the gigantic rampaging monster and made sure that none of the wounds or already destroyed legs regenerated.

“How much until the next strike?” he asked without looking away from the quarry. Or at least what remained of it.

Instead of receiving an answer, he saw the process of the bombardment begin once again, different magics slamming against the hard exterior of the stone exoskeleton of the humongous monster.

And once again, two of the legs were cracked, their crystalline marrows being exposed to the air.

‘That’s eight legs… which means it’s not long before shit truly hits the fan,’ Adam mused as he gave the order for the people to reset.

With a few motions, he dialed Tim.

“Yes?” the hooded figure of the team and company’s security head showed up on a screen, the background unrecognizable.

“We are almost starting with the last two legs. Any new information?”

There was a moment of silence before Tim answered in a low but measured voice.

“Abyss Vipers are being ‘encouraged’ by the other guilds to strike first.”

“I expected as much. What about the Steel Lions? They hate the boss, right?”

He couldn’t see the top part of Tim’s face, but the lower part was visible enough to show a grimace.

“I think they realized it’s a trap. It seems even old dogs can learn new tricks…”

“Huh, that’s something… And the other guilds?”

“Gray Skull, Dark Moment and Bloody Fangs have united and plan to strike together. Eternal Light is convinced that they could sweep everyone. The rest are inconsequential…”

“How do you know that about the Eternal Light?” he asked curiously.

“Asked Isabella to ask her cousins who were happy to brag. And before you ask, Bloody Fang has been bragging about their ‘plan’ on their forums.”

Adam mentally adjusted his expectations of the guild, didn’t question how Tim got access to a private forum like that, then continued with the discussion.

“Still the same plan then?”

“Unless something changed?”

He shook his head.

“No. The moment boss stepped through the portal, he was locked down. Which means…”

“… it’s a boss fight. Heh. Our boss against a monster boss. I can’t wait to see the recording!” Tim grinned. “Any other questions?”

“No. A few minutes before the last strike then it’s fireworks.”

“Good luck.”

“You too.”

He hung up and stretched a little. Soon it would be time to fight but before that, he looked around and found the eyes of the officers that both Tim, Lucy, and him had cleared of being spies and nodded slightly.

Their eyes widened as they realized what that meant, then they all began to move, getting ready for the final phase of the fight.

He also took his sword and raised it high and, using one of his commander-type skills, he began to roar.

“Everyone! We are close! Do not falter! The enemy is weak and we are strong! Strike with EVERYTHING!”

His roar of encouragement was answered by a cacophony of roars from all over the quarry as his skill conveyed a rather nice buff to everyone belonging to his side. Usable once in any battle, but very useful in decisive moments.