Might as Well

For a moment, that seemed like an eternity, the giant spider’s leg just hung there as a very macabre caricature of a woman tantalizing their guest from behind a room divider in a saucy movie flick.

Then the silence was shattered and the spiders sitting up high, like spectators in a gladiator match, began to screech and chitter, creating a sound cavalcade that Sam would call cheering. Then the leg began to move again.

Slowly, one leg emerged, the hairs on it gently waving in the almost nonexistent breeze. Then another leg tipped in an impossibly sharp claw, and then two more joined it.

While their target slowly extricated herself from its comfy nest, Sam took a look at the others. Katie was staring openmouthed and Puffball’s mouth was overflowing with saliva.

Dan was busy looking around, his head on a swivel, taking the entire scene in, though Sam could see him shudder a little every time the segmented legs of the giant spider moved.

Clarissa simply closed her eyes and was murmuring something under her breath. Keeping an eye on the environment and the giant spider that was seemingly taking its time, he shuffled a little closer to her to hear what she was saying.

“…I’m on a beach. Nice waves. Very warm beach. I’m at the ocean…”

Sam kept the chuckle in at hearing that and turned his attention to the very dramatic boss monster. For a moment, he considered unleashing their arsenal on the emerging monsters, but he honestly wasn’t sure if it would cause the gathered smaller spiders to give up on spectating and rush at them like a deadly tide of arthropods.

In his inherited memories, there were countless visions, of the original owner of said memories watching dungeon raid fails, where the teams went in all guns blazing and got obliterated for their troubles either by some hitherto unknown environmental hazards or those monsters that were deemed set pieces by the players.

Not wanting to chance it, he said nothing and watched as the giant spider emerged. Thankfully. it wasn’t an Arachne, a monster with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a spider. They were famously crafty and hard to deal with as they commanded considerable magics, mostly favoring blood or shadow magic.

The spider was enormous. It dwarfed them by a considerable margin, and worst of all, its eight eyes were full of malicious intelligence. And even worse, all blood-red colored eyes were directed at them, its pincers opening and closing with saliva dripping down from them. The moment the mucous liquid touched the dust-covered ground, it began to sizzle, demonstrating its acidic properties.

For a second, they stared up at the giant monster, and Sam did not doubt that the others, with the possible exception of Katie, were questioning their life choices rather vehemently. Honestly, he had no arachnophobia, but the sight of a gigantic spider that could snack on school buses made something primal in the back of his mind quiver in fear. Fortunately, the inherited memories had inoculated him somewhat against the monsters of Magic Unbound, though it was definitely different seeing them in his mind and live. The developers definitely did a bang-on job with the graphical details.

Then, as they were staring at each other, the gigantic spider reared up, its two frontal legs raising in the air along with its head, and let out an earth-shattering screech. The shield cast by Clarissa previously instantly shattered under the assault, dispersing in dim white motes around them. The healer, proving that she was indeed one of the best healers in the game (or would become) reacted with surprising speed. Buff after buff flew off her staff, enveloping the entire team. By the time the screech ended, their shields were at their previous levels.

However, the unpleasantness didn’t stop there. The moment the screech finished, several spiders high up began moving. At first, Sam was afraid they would be besieged by another wave of monsters, but then the smaller, but still considerably big spiders simply turned around and began firing stick threads of silk all around the chamber. In a matter of moments, filling the area between them (and behind them) with an inescapable maze of sticky threads. No doubt, a tactic used many times to hinder their next meal, while their queen leisurely hunted. This was confirmed when he looked back at the enormous monster and could see the anticipation of the hunt in those eyes that were closer to rubies made of blood than biological matter.

Luckily, Sam had a plan. It was not a smart plan, but undoubtedly it would look extremely cool.

Hopefully…

Smirking to himself, he turned to Katie. “Use your greatsword as a springboard, launch me, then all of you follow.” Doing a simple stretch, keeping an eye on the monster that was waiting for them to move, more than likely waiting for them to get stuck in the threads, he continued to give out commands. “Dan, just nuke everything that has more legs than two and Clarissa, keep them alive!”

Not even waiting for acknowledgment, he took a running start, right at Katie. The young woman looked at him with bewilderment for a fraction of a second, then she moved with speed and brought up her sword, showing the flat side of the jagged blade toward him.

He jumped toward her, his feet landing squarely on the blade, and the girl let out a giggle and swung the sword as if she was swinging a baseball bat, launching Sam toward the enormous spider up in the air, his speed boosted by his Wind Movement skill.

Sam flew through the air, straight towards the spider queen, and for a moment activated his Discernment skill and took the monster all in.

His multitude of skills related to mana, and his own competence with mana control, allowed Sam to gauge the mana level in that precious second while he was in the air.

The monster was, well monstrous. Both in strength and mana. It lived up to its title of dungeon boss. However, he could also see its weaknesses. He smiled, satisfied, and the moment he touched the first thread, he activated one of the skills that he had been wanting to try.

“Wind Blade Storm!”

Instantly, a maelstrom of blades appeared around him, shredding the threads crisscrossing the cavern, as he continued flying toward his goal. As he reached out and grabbed hold of the magic of the spell and kept it running, making sure that the rest of the team had enough space to follow him.

The spider had a moment to realize what happened before Sam, still surrounded by the swirling blades of wind, slammed into its face.

It let out another screech, reared up, and Sam had to sink his blade into the carapace of the monster to hang on.

The rest of the team followed after him, with Dan blasting fire everywhere and Katie slashing at anything that tried to get close to them, with Clarissa in the middle of the two, clutching her staff.

Sam held onto his sword as the spider thrashed under him, smashing its enormous legs into the ground, shaking the cavern with each impact while using its front legs to strike at his teammates.

Sam took in the situation and made a hasty decision. Instead of staying on the beast’s back, he swung his body around, planting his feet on the carapace, and launched himself away while at the same time taking his sword out, leaving a gaping wound on the spider’s carapace.

As he fell back, he came to the same level as its eyes, literally seeing his own reflection in them. He gave the beast a cheeky smile and a salute, then with all his strength, unleashed a Wind Drill at those same eyes.

The next few moments were a little confusing as apparently, the enormous spider reflexively swatted him out of the air with the help of one of its legs, sending him straight down to the ground.

For a long moment, he just lay there, obscured by a cloud of dust, and could do nothing but groan. The attack smashed through all of his shields, both his own and the ones Clarissa has cast on him. More than likely, without those, he would have been turned into a fine bloody mist upon impact. Instead, he just hurt all over.

Then he was blinded by a blast of light, and the aches vanished.

Following that, a hand grabbed him and he was pulled up with surprising speed, only to come to face to face with the dust and sweat-covered muscle-bound chest of Dan.

“You good?”

He let out a grunt, that any other time would have been a yes. Dan nodded and turned away, unleashing another gout of flame at several car-sized spiders that were rushing at them.

Sam shook his head, and used Healing Wind on himself, futilely trying to chase the cobwebs from his mind, then he was blasted by another white light, and everything became a little clearer. Sending a thankful look at Clarissa, he refocused his attention on the battle.

Dan was, at the moment, successfully keeping the smaller monsters at bay, while Katie was slashing away at the spider queen.

The monster was staggering a little with one leg clawing at its face, from where a waterfall of blood was falling, as he had successfully taken out four of its monstrous eyes. Added to that, the hole he had left on its carapace was also leaking a foul black liquid that was its blood. With the other leg, it was attempting to squash Katie, who was slowly chipping away at it.

“We need to do something!” yelled Clarissa next to him, as she sent another spell at Dan, protecting him from a spurt of acid that one spider managed to let loose before being roasted. “There are too many of them!”

Sam looked around and nodded. He spent a few seconds channeling mana into his Mana Shield, replenishing the first layer just to be sure, and then glanced at his sword and the monster that was slowly working through the pain of its eyes being destroyed.

“Buff me!”

Instantly, he was enveloped with several lights, and he could feel himself become lighter and stronger.

“I’m at half!” Clarissa yelled again as she instantly returned to bathing Dan and Katie in white light. “You need to finish this fast!”

Sam was about to answer when the spider queen let out another screech, though this time luckily it wasn’t a sonic attack, and with it brought down its second leg that was used to claw away at its face down to the ground shaking up the dust and staggering them a little.

Its remaining four eyes shone brilliantly with murder, and Sam was pretty sure they had managed to enrage it.

He clicked his tongue a little. A boss monster would need a much bigger team to fight against. One team to hold back the add-ons, one to tank, and one to deal with the damage. They had only survived so far thanks to Clarissa’s talent, Dan’s bloodymindedness and Katie being batshit insane.

Sam took a deep breath and began circling mana, preparing for a deciding strike. He took the mana and slowly began to infuse his sword with it. First, he reinforced the structure, then he coated it from the outside, then simply began creating more and more layers on it, shaping it into a much bigger sword. When it became the same size as he was, he maintained it, then began channeling wind-natured mana into it. He created an edge, then another edge, until he had seven edges layered on one another.

Then, with a giant effort, he switched from wind-natured mana to shadow-natured mana and weaved it through the entire construct, causing it to become wispy as if it was barely there. To him it felt like an eternity, getting together the entire construct, while to the others it looked like from one second to another a giant shadowy wind sword exploded into existence around Moonlight.

Sweating with the effort of holding the entire thing together, he exclaimed. “Lucky, help Dan!”

Instantly, there was a howl, and Lucky basically exploded from Dan’s shadow, smashing several spiders that were about to skewer the guy from behind. The muscled guy sent Sam a thumbs-up and then returned, sending waves of white-hot flames at the spiders while Lucky began to rampage between the rushing monsters. His powerful claws, shining with gentle blue light, while also enveloped with wispy shadows, rent the giant spiders apart easily.

Knowing that won them a little more time, he refocused on the giant spider queen whose attention was still being kept by Katie who was practically bathed in yellow jagged light, parrying the powerful blows from the spider legs, and slashing apart every shot of spider thread that attempted to pin her down.

She just laughed into its slobbering face.

Though Sam could feel through his Mana Sense that while she was obviously enjoying herself, she couldn’t keep this up forever. In a while, her berserker skills would give out, and then the penalties would make sure that she would be smashed to bits by the enraged spider boss.

Throwing a glance at the construct, he nodded slightly and turned to Clarissa.

“I’m going! Be careful!” He yelled over the sound of spider screeching and spiders being roasted. Clarissa gave him a nod, while continually sending out healing spells.

He turned his attention to the monster and took another deep breath.

‘I can do this!’

Then he took a step forward, then another, and began winding up his Wind Movement skill.

Another step and then another and finally he broke into a sprint, aided by the skill.

Then, before he could lose his control over the entire construct he built up, he activated Shadow Burst, letting the shadow-natured mana infuse his entire being, and with a mighty push, he launched himself forward and up... straight at the face of the spider, covered in black ichor, radiating its murderous intent.