One Down

The place the group arrived at was a bit... eerie.

Okay, that’s a bit misleading, it was VERY eerie.

While night had arrived, the sheer silence was borderline deafening. But that wasn’t the worst part.

It was the bodies.

More than a hundred corpses littered the ground, belonging to different demonic beasts, creatures, and even some human soldiers, each of them in varying stages of decomposition, so the smell wasn’t exactly pleasant. And these corpses went out in every direction of the Ravine for a while.

But the most eye-catching thing, however, was the building-sized spider that sat inert near the ravine wall. It’s body looked... weird.

It was almost transparent, like glass, and its limbs were far more spindly and long compared to other spiders. Moreover, at the ends of each legs, there was what looked to be... fingers, hundreds of them, sitting calmly. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Worst of all, though, was its face. Unlike normal spiders which had numerous eyes and sharp mandibles, there was just a... hole. A dark opening where its "face" was meant to be, which showed off a desolate darkness that made one’s head hurt if they stared into it for too long.

These were all superficial details, though. In reality, the instant the group appeared, they acted.

"Flash freeze." Curtis, who had already prepared his spell beforehand, waved his wand.

Immediately, an utterly frigid cold swept through the area like a tsunami of frost, baptizing everything in the area in a layer of ice for nearly a hundred meters.

In just a moment, a winter wonderland was created.

This also caused all sorts of strings which were so thin, they were almost invisible, to become visible.

And more importantly, breakable.

"Astral Rain." Falael cast their own prepared spell, and several magic circles of starlight appeared in the air before a shower of white hot beams descended like judgment from the heavens.

Instantly, the area Curtis had frozen was engulfed in terrifying explosions, the numerous bodies getting engulfed and vaporized in a moment.

In just a few seconds, the area around Big Neil had been purged, leaving the spider itself.

The group landed on the destroyed floor, and without hesitation, Xander shot towards Old Neil who was still frozen and struggling to extricate itself from the ice covering its body.

Aubrey’s sharp warning came through at that moment.

’Xander! That’s not its true body! The spider is a puppet as well!’ Hearing this, Xander’s pupils constricted, then he immediately made a decision.

Briefly tapping into that state from before, he increased the efficiency of his thought processing speed dramatically, allowing him to perceive and calculate things significantly faster.

’I have roughly three seconds before I have to dispel this state. Maintaining this efficiency for just my brain and not the rest of my body can cause an imbalance, which will be dangerous.’ He thought as he immediately focused on his surroundings, sensing the surrounding vibrations intently.

’More, increase its scope.’ It extended from his immediate surroundings, to his teammates, then further, covering the bodies and webs, and further still.

He immediately felt the strain of so much information weighing down on his mind, and in a moment, it felt as though his brain was going to explode. But he didn’t stop.

2 seconds.

’Space is warping over there. That must be the Void Raptor. It’s already approaching. It might have already been in the vicinity.’ But that wasn’t important. What was, however, were Big Neil’s web.

Not the frozen ones. Rather, another set that was practically intangible. As such, they hadn’t been affected by Curtis’s freezing or Falael’s bombardment.

Each one was connected to a corpse, and they all led to the spider’s body. However, another web extended from it in another direction.

Down.

That’s when he sensed it properly. Deep in the ground, nearly 50 meters deep in a small cavern, barely a few meters in diameter.

’Found you.’ Xander’s actions changed.

In the original plan, Xander was to engage the frozen Big Neil, then Falael would prepare another spell to destroy its body.

However, Xander had volunteered to be the one to deal the finishing blow.

This wasn’t due to anything like pride. Rather, he concluded that proceeding like such carried certain risks. Like Curtis needing to face the Verdant Boa and the Void Raptor by himself if Xander and Falael were engaging the spider together. Among other things.

This generated some worry, because while Xander was an incredible fighter, the group acknowledged that he was more of an all-rounder, and his raw damage output in most situations paled in comparison to Falael.

Xander agreed with this sentiment.

However, after his epiphany yesterday, Xander was confident. After all...

He had already integrated it into his fighting style.

Rather than reducing the efficiency of his brain, he fully entered that state briefly, reducing his waste to Zero. What’s more, his earlier perception sweep allowed him to grasp the frequencies of everything he’d noticed, including the ground between him and the creature underground.

In fact, in just the few hours after Xander achieved his epiphany, he’d already discovered several things about this state he was in.

One of the main things was that yesterday, while it had increased the efficiency of his body by unifying its frequency, his mana still moved normally. Meaning that he couldn’t use Channeling to its fullest capacity whilst in this state.

Before, that is.

Angling his blade downwards, Xander performed a downward thrust, the action appearing absurdly quick because there was no telegraphing. Thought became action.

Vibrations concentrated at the tip of the blade before it struck the ground. But it didn’t burrow inside.

Instead, the vibrations transferred from the blade to the ground.

It wasn’t anything crazy at first. However, as they traveled, they assimilated the surrounding vibrations, becoming more chaotic and destructive as they advanced, and this happened in just a moment.

Underground, in the small cavern, a spider roughly the size of a barrel only had time to look up before a destructive wave of vibrations washed over it, causing its body to be turned into a bloody mist, and shortly after, the cavern collapsed entirely.

’Rupture Thrust.’ Xander exhaled as he immediately exited that state. A moment later, the ground trembled before settling.

Meanwhile, the giant spider that was on the surface suddenly went limp, losing all signs of life, and the corpses that were outside the range of Falael and Curtis’s joint attack that were starting to rise, fell, never to move again.

Big Neil, eliminated.

Xander had no time to think about how ironic it was that "Big Neil" was actually just a small spider, though, as two things happened rapidly.

A shape first materialized next to Falael, only for a Hexagon of ice to spawn near them and endure the impact.

That same shape them materialized near Aubrey, but Xander had already reacted, having moved between them and blocking the silent attack with his sword. Granted, Aubrey had already been dodging.

The shape then materialized some distance away from the group, and they finally got a good look at it.

The Void Raptor wasn’t huge. In fact, Xander judged that it was only a little bit bigger than Raptors on earth. However, its appearance was vastly different.

It had unnaturally long and sharp claws, which were even longer than Aubrey’s dagger. And over its dark hide, space seemed to shimmer and shift unnaturally, making it a bit hard to look at properly.

’It can’t teleport long distances. It took it several to reach us when I sensed it. About 6 meters between each jump. It also can’t teleport through things and has to go around them. Keep all of this in mind.’ Aubrey instructed as she raised her bow, and the rest also prepared themselves.

They had already discussed what they would do when they encountered the Void Raptor, and the plan was fairly simple, really.

Place absolute trust in Aubrey’s call-outs, and don’t hesitate for even a moment if she gave an instruction.

Already, a green mist was creeping towards them from the distance, meaning the Verdant Boa wasn’t far off. Seeing this Aubrey took aim, and the Raptor shifted.

’Curtis, ice wall by its left!’ She let her arrow fly, and sure enough, the Raptor teleported to the side, only for it to smack into a wall of ice that had been waiting for it.

Under normal circumstances, hastily creating a construct like that without chanting would have made it weaker. However, with his knowledge on molecules, the durability of his constructs...

BANG

Was beyond expectation.

The Raptor was dazed for a moment after teleporting head first into the ice wall, so it had no time to evade when Xander sent forth a Solar-Edge Thrust that was timed perfectly with Curtis’s interruption.

But instead of hitting, something strange happened.

The thin beam of heat met the shifting space around the Raptor... only for it to go completely off course and into the distance.

Sure enough, the Raptor would be an issue to hit.

And at that moment, the Verdant Boa arrived.