"Darling, you jinxed it!!!""Hahaha~ this is where the fun begins!" Cecil unfurled the cloth around his spear and got into stance.
"Lulu, Seri! I leave the campsite to you! I detect around a couple hundred spiderlings attacking the camp! I"ll go after the Night Plague and bring back its legs, eggs, and eyes!"
"Shouldn"t you be saying you"ll be bringing back its head instead, Cel?!"
"Nope! We"re eating this thing tonight!"
"Ewwww!!!" The two girls screamed in disgust, but they quickly pulled out their weapons and moved to defend the camp.
"Yuna, Silver, you guys go help, but unlike those two, prioritize on defending our clients and the cargo!"
"Affirmative," Yuna then turned towards Silver and said, "Let"s go Silver, it"s about time we stretch a little."
Silver let out a low growl and picked Yuna up with his tail and placed her on his back before dashing towards the central area of the campsite to defend Kil"na and the cargo.
Cecil spread his senses out into the dark forest and quickly found a large mana source deep within.
"Guess that"s my target," Cecil licked his lips and flickered into the forest, heading straight towards the large mana source he picked up. "I can"t wait to have me some barbequed spider legs!"
******
"Seri, the Murox party are in the northern area, I think we can leave that place to them, we should go back up the east and west areas!" Lucia said.
"Gotcha, I"ll take east!"
"I"ll go west!"
The two girls separated and quickly met up with the adventurer parties in their respective locations.
There were some corpses of beastmen adventurers being dragged away or eaten on the spot by the Night Plague Spiderlings. The initial surprise from the night raid had taken many off guard and claimed their lives.
From what Lucia could see, the west side had a few casualties, but it was a good thing that the party leaders were able to quickly regroup everyone together and the still standing adventurers had banded together in an attempt to at least stave off the spiders" attacks.
"Y-you! You"re that Platinum ranked girl!" A party leader exclaimed when they noticed Lucia rushing over.
"I"m here to help! Just focus on defending, I"ll take out the spiders!"
"What about the southern side?"
"My husband"s got it covered~"
"H-husband? You mean that kid?"
Lucia didn"t bother replying and quickly flashed forward with her katana set ablaze with purple flames.
She weaved in and out of the densely packed group of spiders and cut them down in droves. The flames splashed out onto the spiders that weren"t cut down and burnt them to death.
The sharp screeches of pain and agony rang through the air. It was causing Lucia to feel a little annoyed hearing these spiders screeching like that, the sound was ear-piercing and numb-inducing.
"Tsk...I have to shut them up somehow!"
Lucia jumped back out of the horde of spiders and landed behind the defensive line created by the adventurers piling up the spider corpses or crates of monster materials that they had harvested from their previous trek to the mountain.
She stabbed Shirayuki into the ground and began chanting.
"—burn to ashes, Flaming Vortex!"
Lucia used a regular medium ranked spell powered by her Solaris flame. A large vortex of purple flames sprang in the middle of the large horde of spiderlings and this time, the spiders didn"t have any time to screech since they were directly burnt to ashes.
Lucia was just about to sheath her weapons, but noticed that more spiders were still coming out of the surrounding forest.
"...tsk, looks like this won"t be easy..."
******
Over at Serilla"s side, the bunny girl was sending sword waves and cleaving away at the mult.i.tudes of spiderlings.
Just like on Lucia"s side, the adventurers had all gathered together and had effectively created a defensive line and were constantly defending and attacking the spiders. It was a relief that the casualties on this side was nil, so there were many more adventurers here than on Lucia"s side.
"The spells are ready!
"Retreat! Then fire!"
Serilla commanded before quickly flashing behind the defensively line. Once fighters retreated behind the defense line, the mages launched their attacks into the spider horde.
Wind blades, flaming spears, ice b.a.l.l.s, and chunks of earth were hurled at the spider horde, quickly decimating the ones caught within the impact area.
"It"s not enough, keep it coming!" Serilla commanded.
"You heard her! Begin chanting again!"
"Fighters, with me!"
Serilla once again led the close combatants outside of the defense line and began engaging the spiders in melee combat.
With so many people around, she couldn"t release her Intent. Unlike Cecil, she still hadn"t mastered her Sword Intent to the point where she could reel it in and concentrate it on specific points or targets.
If she were to release it, the adventurers around her would be rendered useless, so she could only settle with using sword energy for now.
When Serilla saw the large flaming tornado at the direct opposite of her location, she couldn"t help but grow envious of Lucia.
"I wish I was a better mage like Lulu...these spiders would be easy!"
"Let me help."
Hearing the familiar voice, Serilla turned around and saw a Misty Gate.
"Yuna?!"
The dragon girl popped out of the gate in the next moment and reported to her.
"Silver"s defending the perimeter in the central campsite, so I"m free to roam about and help out the other areas."
"What about the southern side?"
"...Cecil"s basically taken care of that area. When I went back to check out the situation just in case, all I saw was the cut up corpses of mult.i.tudes of spiderlings and no other monsters came from the forest after I waited for a while."
Serilla was relieved hearing this. That was just one more thought off her shoulders.
"Phew...just leave it to darling to take care of a single side by himself~"
"Hm, that boy"s power is something else. I"m more surprised why he"s still at the Mana Sea Stage while already wielding that much power."
"My darling"s strong!"
"...Do you need help here?"
Yuna asked as she sent mist bullets into the spider horde.
"I think you should go support the northern side, we"re good here!"
"Alright, Serilla, Mas—I mean Lucia is doing okay, so I"ll go support the north side."
Yuna once again conjured a Misty Gate and stepped through it. Once she disappeared, Serilla once more began commanding the adventurers again.
"Fighters, retreat! Mages, fire once we"re behind the line! Let"s keep this up and clear this rabble!"
******
At the southern side of the camp, deep within the forest, Cecil was pinpointing all the spiderlings that were rushing to the camp with his mana sense and leisurely firing off homing Mana Volleys into the surrounding area.
"Hmmm~ come out already, my delicious spider legs! These little things aren"t enough of a warm up!" Cecil hummed as he began ma.s.sacring all the spiders inside the forest while slowly making his way deeper.
When Cecil first flickered into the forest, he had long since noticed the overly abundant amount of spiders rushing towards the campsite. He decided to use them as warm up, but the sheer amounts of spider monsters were too much that it became annoying for him.
"Tsk...I can"t just let these guys run loose...but how do I get to the Night Plague at this ra—"
Cecil quickly flickered away from his spot right as a large black spire smashed into his previous location.
"Haha! So you"ve decided to come to me! This makes things easier, dinner!"
KKIIIIIISSSSSSHHHHHIIIIIIAAAAAAA
An ear-piercing cry rang through the forest, but Cecil had long since shielded his body from the shockwave that accompanied this loud screech.
"Woah~ aren"t you a big one!"
Cecil looked overhead and saw the source of the ear-piercing cry. It was a large, black colored, monstrously large spider.
The spider looked a little weird since it didn"t abide by the normal physical appearance that a spider should have from Earth. This Night Plague Spider had 3 abdomens placed side by side connected to its large cephalothorax.
Cecil could see that the central abdomen was constantly spewing out some kind of white thread while the other two abdomens were spewing out tens of dozens of large eggs which cracked open after a few short seconds upon making contact with the ground.
Each egg had sp.a.w.ned 1 or two spiderlings at once and Cecil immediately knew why the spiders attacking the campsite were large in numbers. The monster in front of him was a freaking walking womb!
"Hmm... I"m sorry for killing your kids, but I want you for dinner so do forgive me~"
The large spider only responded with another angry screech while sending its large legs stabbing and sweeping at the boy.
Another thing that was different about this large spider was that it actually had 6 pairs of legs instead of 4.
There was an additional 2 pairs situated on the thorax and this gave the spider more legs to attack Cecil with while still having enough to keep its body upright.
As the fight continued, Cecil was having some difficulty dealing any substantial damage to the monster, its attacks were pretty tricky and there were times where he had to back off and evade the attacks rather than taking them head on and counterattacking right away.
The monster even came down to bite him with its venomous fangs and spray some poisonous mist or acidic fluids at Cecil from time to time. The Night Plague was also able to manipulate its threads to attack or try to entangle him.
It was a good thing that Cecil kept his Mana Sense up and constantly flitted through or cut apart the threads. He was also surprised to find that the threads were very st.u.r.dy, almost steel-like.
If he didn"t use any mana to cut it apart then just by relying on his spear wouldn"t be enough for it to cut through the threads because not only was it st.u.r.dy, but it was also flexible. And even then, he had to exert a substantial amount of force from his strikes to break through it.
"That would make a good material for clothes!"
Cecil immediately began running around the battlefield storing the cut off threads of spider silk into his ring.
"Hmhm~ I"m sure Lulu will be happy to receive such high-quality threads~"
The Night Plague began screeching in anger when it saw the small bug running around it and picking up its threads.
"Shut it! You"re annoying!"
Cecil aimed a Flash Canon at the monster"s head and fired. A large explosion ensued and Cecil smirked when he heard it shut up, however his facial expression immediately froze when the explosion subsided.
"Eh?"
To Cecil"s surprise, his usual finisher actually didn"t damage the spider even one bit! With his enhanced senses, Cecil was able to notice a particular detail that he had overlooked since the start of the battle.
"Well, aren"t you smart, wrapping your body with a thin layer of that thread! Looks like... I"ll have to cut it apart first!"
Cecil readied his spear and dashed straight up to the Night Plague"s body while avoiding the poison-infused threads, its legs, acidic sprays and poisonous mist.
He quickly landed on top of its body and stabbed down with his spear.
"Take this!"