Otherworld Adventure

It was pretty difficult since the armor-like thread that was layered on top of its large body was acting as a good magic resistor and armor.

Cecil"s mana attacks weren"t effective at all and only by using his spear could he deal any significant damage to its thread armor. Once again, this was only its armor. Even until now, Cecil still hadn"t done any substantial damage to its body.

He could keep on stabbing and slashing away all night and still wouldn"t be able to kill the Night Plague"s at this rate.

It was the first time he was facing such a tough opponent. He found it odd that the Empire"s bestiary only labeled this as a SS ranked monster! It should be ranked SSS instead!

"d.a.m.n...this is difficult," Cecil cursed under his breath as he once again stabbed his spear into the monster"s body after cutting away the thread armor.

After stabbing down a couple of times and injecting his mana into the wound before detonating it, Cecil jumped away before a large spray of acid and webs landed on his previous spot, covering the wound he had just opened. Now he couldn"t go back and attack that area again!

"Tsk, so annoying!"

He continued this for a bit and despite the large wounds created from his mana explosions which he directed straight into the monster"s large body, the attacks didn"t seem to have fazed it even a little bit!

The Night Plague was still as vigorous as before and all the injuries that Cecil caused to it only served to enrage the monster even further.

"s.h.i.t!"

The attacks coming from the Night Plague only increased in intensity. Cecil was now dodging and running more than he was attacking. Even when he tried to attack the spinnerets of the monster that was constantly spewing out eggs and threads, nothing came of it.

He stabbed his spear into the large spinnerets and sent his mana inside and detonated it soon after, but it only caused a slight pause in the flow of threads and eggs coming out. From what Cecil could see, there was no substantial damage he had done to the monster despite seeing all the large wounds decorating its humongous body.

"What the h.e.l.l! How am I supposed to kill this thing?! Even gouging its eyes out or stabbing into its head isn"t doing anything!"

Cecil tried to dismember some of the monsters legs, but that proved to be a bust as well. When he was actually able to penetrate through the thread armor, the carapace on the spider"s legs were harder and tougher than the carapace protecting its body!

He could only leave a small cut mark on the area that he tried to slash through even when he attacked using his full power.

"d.a.m.n...this thing is definitely SSS...how the h.e.l.l did the Empire made such a mistake?! That SS Oroboros I faced back then with only my legs wasn"t even half as difficult as this b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"KIIIISSSHHHHAAAA!!!"

The spider began screeching again and Cecil moved away from it. Whenever the monster began screeching like this, the thread armor layered on top of its body would expand and engulf the area around it. During this time, the armor would be highly poisonous and corrosive.

Cecil had a small taste of this defensive attack during the early stage of the fight. He didn"t expect the thread armor to do that and accidentally came into contact with it. He tried punching through it, but all it did was cause a small injury on his hand.

He quickly healed it with his Ki healing arts before the poison and corrosion was able to spread, but the worst part about this attack was that during this time when Cecil couldn"t approach the monster to attack, the thread armor would repair itself and Cecil would have to repeat the process of penetrating the armor again before being able to attack its body.

He this happened only twice during their 30 minute fight. The wounds on its body didn"t heal or anything, but the constant repet.i.tion was getting on his nerves.

"d.a.m.n, here I thought I could take on practically any monster...but this thing..." Cecil felt frustrated, but he couldn"t restrain himself from grinning in excitement.

"This is just like back then when I was on the island... the frustration...and the thrill... Hehe, I didn"t think I"d enjoy the feeling now than feel repulsed by it..."

Cecil smirked and was just about to find a way to rush back in to engage the Night Plague in battle once more, but suddenly a familiar voice was raised behind him.

"Cel!"

"Hm?"

Lucia appeared behind Cecil and couldn"t help but gasp in shock at the colossal spider monster in front of her.

"I-is that the Night Plague?"

"Yeah, I"ve been fighting it for so long, but it still won"t fall...hehe, this is the first time I"m feeling frustrated fighting a monster! I can"t beat it no matter how many blows I"ve managed to land!"

Lucia was shocked hearing this. A monster that even Cecil couldn"t beat, just what kind of monstrous existence was this thing?

"H-how can that be?! Wasn"t this thing only rated as a SS?"

"Well they were terribly wrong! This thing"s minimally a SSS...maybe even a SSS+!"

Serilla arrived in the next instant and she quickly asked, "What"s that about a SSS?"

"Seri, you"re here!"

"Yup, the preparations for the retreating is currently underway, we can leave in a couple of minutes!"

When Cecil heard her words, he immediately spoke up, "Retreat? What do you mean?"

"The caravan"s retreating. We already cleared out the last of the spiderlings just now, and they"re in preparations to retreat! Kil"na said that they couldn"t stay another second in the area since the Night Plague actually showed up!"

Cecil nodded in understanding then said, "Yuna, you go back and tell the caravan to go ahead without us!"

Serilla and Lucia quickly turned around when they sensed a familiar presence pop out of nowhere. Yuna had just arrived through a Misty Gate when Cecil gave down the order. The dragon girl only gave the Night Plague a glance before nodding and walking back through the gate.

"You two, with me, we"re taking down this thing!"

"Oh!"

"Hihi~ darling"s asking for my help~"

"Enough with the jokes, get ready, the armor"s just about to patch up again. So listen closely." Cecil began to quickly explain all he knew about the Night Plague"s attack patterns and defensive capabilities to the two girls.

Once he finished his explanation, the thread armor had shrunk down onto the Night Plague"s body and the fourth round of the fight was going to begin. This time however, Cecil had two helpers.

"You both understand what to do, right?"

"Yeah, so leave it to us!"

"Yes~"

"Good, I don"t believe this thing"s immortal, so if we can damage it enough, I"m sure we"ll be able to bring it down eventually!"

Lucia and Serilla began preparing to rush into battle. Cecil looked towards the two and couldn"t help but smirk.

"Having a.s.sistance is better than going at this alone."

"Here we go!"

Cecil was the first to rush forward when he saw the Night Plague shift its body towards his location. He aimed straight for the head and threw his spear at it.

Cecil had already fused his mana, intent, and ki into the spear and activated the natural array inside it.

The bright golden mana that was swirling around the spear made it look like a lightning bolt had been launched from his hands.

The spear aimed true and penetrated the Night Plague"s thread armor and head altogether. It lodged into its head and Cecil"s mana detonated in the next instant, causing sending a large explosion straight into its skull.

The explosion caused the spear to dislodge and it flew away from the monster"s head, landing somewhere deep in the forest. The Night Plague raised an agonized screech of pain and Lucia and Serilla took this as the signal to rush into battle.

They flickered onto the monster"s large body and began slashing away at the armor. Lucia infused her flames into her sword and burnt away the thread armor. Her attacks were much more effective than Cecil"s had been.

Just a stroke of her katana and kodachi was enough to burn away a large patch of the monsters armor. Serilla would follow it up with a sword intent-fused strike onto the spider"s bare body. Her sword pierced through its carapace and stabbed deep into its body.

It was odd, but both Cecil and Serilla"s Intents hadn"t caused any effect on the Night Plague"s movements. They couldn"t help but think that this monster was immune to fear or something, but the attacks that were fused with their intents were dealing substantial damage to the monster"s body.

With Cecil"s spear flying off into the forest, he quickly pulled out his sword and rushed forwards, keeping the monster occupied by constantly attacking its head and thorax.

He kept the monster"s attention away from Lucia and Serilla. He was doing a good job at this since the monster"s attacks and attention was fully trained on him.

"Oh no!" Cecil exclaimed.

"W-what is it Cel?!"

"The eggs! The spiderlings! I forgot about them!"

During his solo fight with the Night Plague, Cecil had been sending mana volleys and mana bolts at the eggs that were dropping from the monster"s rear end, but now that he was preoccupied with keeping its attention on him, he had stopped sending mana bolts their way.

"Don"t worry! Silver and Yuna"s got that covered!" Lucia replied.

Cecil slashed at the monster"s head before backing off and sending his mana sense into the forest behind him. Sure enough, Yuna, Silver, the Morux Adventurer party as well as some other higher ranked parties were inside the forest forming a tight perimeter making sure that not one of the spiderlings pa.s.sed through it.

"Awesome!" Cecil turned his attention back to the Night Plague and flickered to its face once again.

"FALL ALREADY!"

Cecil slashed down with his sword, but this time the Night Plague raised two of its legs to block the sword. Cecil only smirked and continued cleaving down with his sword upon infusing more mana into it.

He would cut straight through it or at least push it back, however, something unexpected happened.

The two ends of the monster"s legs which moved to block his sword strike had split in the middle and formed pincers which managed to catch his sword in between.

With his sword lodged in between the pincers, his attack was successfully blocked and he couldn"t dislodge his sword from the Night Plague"s clutches and this surprised him.

"?!"

In the next instant, the monster"s head quickly rushed towards Cecil and he couldn"t help but widen his eyes in surprise. Its poisonous fangs and acid-s...o...b..red mouth were closing in and he could clearly observe the raging malice inside the remaining eyes of the Night Plague.

Lucia and Serilla saw Cecil"s plight. They immediately abandoned what they were doing and quickly flickered towards him.

"Cel!"

"Darling!"

But no matter how fast they rushed, the Night Plague"s head, which was already closer to him, would be the first one to arrive and not them.

Cecil quickly let go of his adamantium sword and kicked off the pommel, quickly putting some distance between him and the jaws of the monster. The Night Plague chased after him with its large, disgusting head and widened its mouth even further.

Cecil was prepared to take on a pointblank shot of corrosive acid to the face, but only saw the head approaching even closer.

"This thing wants to swallow me?!"

When he saw the fearsome monster"s head closing in, Cecil subconsciously pulled out the Corruption from his ring and roared.

"NOT TODAY a.s.sHOLE! YOU"RE THE ONE THAT"S GOING TO DIE!!!"

Cecil raised Corruption high into the air and cleaved down furiously.