Chương 213

Orion kept his breathing shallow as his eyes flicked between the quartz formations. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that a shadow cast by a stalagmite seemed to stretch opposite the glowing light, briefly forming a silhouette. When he blinked, it was gone, and he shook his head, refocusing. Of course, Mom wouldn't just let us wander into the wilderness without a safety net.

Pauline hadn't said a word to him since she woke up in the infirmary, but knowing she was out there, slipping through the dark with her stealth on, eased a bit of the tension from his shoulders. He didn't plan to need her help, though. I'll see it as a failure if she has to step in. This mountain's ambient mana is still within the expected range for tier two monsters, and I should be able to handle any at that level.

Deep in the gloom, the screech of glass scraping against stone echoed again, and it wasn't long before they encountered the first of the cave's occupants.

"Above!" Selene shouted, her voice echoing oddly. Three large shapes detached from the ceiling, dropping almost directly in line with their heads. The fact that they had gotten so close before anyone noticed didn't bode well, and Orion wondered if the noises in the distance had been deliberately orchestrated to keep their guard down. The beings turned out to be arachnids, but their bodies were entirely made of translucent quartz, overrun by the sickly grey light of the Silence.

Dorian instinctively raised his arm, flaring his mana to summon his [Hard Light Barrier]. The golden hexagons sparked into existence, but as soon as they interacted with the ambient air, the spell fell apart. The structure dissolved into harmless sparks just as the first spider slammed into his steel shield, knocking him back several feet.

"Either focus on your Knowledge before casting, or don't bother!" Orion ordered, stepping back as a second spider lunged at him with scythe-like forelegs. He had barely managed to affect the silence with his Tier Two magic. For his friends, who could only cast Tier One spells, it was essentially impossible to use any in a place like this. Reaching into his lab coat, he pulled out a small amethyst.

He had spent a long time impressing a [Slowed] spell matrix into many gems after leaving the hospital wing and realizing just how useful they would have been, and it finally seemed like the right moment to use them. The crystal broke apart, and a pulse of [Gravity Cannon] expanded in a three-foot radius, slamming the spider onto the cavern floor. Its quartz armor shattered, and thick, gray ichor sprayed across the rocks. Its legs twitched one last time and died. +9.

300 Exp Luna seized the moment of surprise to cast her own spell. She had been holding it back since they entered the crystal cave, so it was still at full strength. It did mean that her next cast would require much more time and effort to charge, but the spider she'd aimed her wand at probably wouldn't survive to benefit from it. With a shout, she fired a bolt of red light, dense enough to pierce the dampening field with sheer speed, and blew a smoking hole through the spider's thorax.

Selene mirrored the tactic, using a [Silver Burst] to break the third spider's legs before Dorian crushed its head with the rim of his tower shield.

"These damn things are fast for being so heavy," Dorian panted, keeping his steel shield raised.

"It's the crystal carapace," Orion analyzed, kicking a severed leg.

"They've adapted to the environment. The Silence doesn't bother them because they don't use any active magic, and their biology is enhanced enough to make that irrelevant. Keep moving, we don't want to get surrounded." They pushed deeper into the cave, moving in a tight diamond formation. Every few minutes, more spiders ambushed them from the glowing crevices, but the team's strategy held.

Orion used his stored crystals to disrupt their footing with localized gravity alterations, while Luna and Selene struck them with instantaneous bursts of light, from which they recovered during the downtime, and Dorian bore the brunt of the monsters' physical power. It would probably have been faster if Orion had handled the attacks directly, and he could have done so easily, but this was a good opportunity for the others to gain experience.

He also got the feeling that whatever they found at the end of the cave wouldn't be something that could be defeated with a simple trick as they used on the ancient treant. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. As they walked, Orion spotted a spider crawling quietly along a blind spot above Luna. Before he could throw a crystal, the monster suddenly jerked back, its abdomen cleanly pierced by something completely invisible.

It dropped silently into a chasm below, vanishing too quickly for anyone else to see. Or rather, Selene had, but he hadn't expected to pull the wool over her eyes. Luna looked back, confused, but Orion kept his eyes forward. Thanks, Pauline. Eventually, the narrow tunnel led into a large, domed chamber that resembled the heart of a geode. After walking in darkness for so long, the dull gray light it emitted was blinding, but unlike before, it wasn't just coming from the walls.

A massive web stretched across the entire ceiling and hung down to the floor. After the surprise passed, Orion quickly noticed that the threads weren't silk but razor-thin, nearly invisible strands of corrupted crystal that connected with the natural formations. How that was even biologically possible, he didn't know, but he suspected a process similar to the crystal lizards he found under Valderun's ability to absorb light mana; only this time, it had become a vehicle for the corruption to spread further.

At the center of the web hung the canister they'd been searching for, but this time its brass casing was cracked open, and its contents were already fully drained.

"Is it empty?" Luna asked.

"Yeah," Orion answered.

"I'm afraid something was hungry." Even as he spoke, his eyes followed the thickest strands of the web up to a shadowy alcove near the ceiling. Something large shifted in the darkness. Eight eyes, glowing with grey light, turned on them all at once, and he knew his instincts had been correct. There was no way Dorian and Luna could fight at this level. Hell, he didn't know if he could handle it on his own. No, don't think like that. You might have a safety net now, but that doesn't mean it's going to last forever.

Act as if this is a real life-or-death fight, or you might regret it. The brood mother descended, moving smoothly for a creature the size of a carriage. Her crystal armor was so thick it looked like a walking boulder, and her mandibles dripped with silver venom that Orion knew would be lethal.

Corrupted Crystal Arachnid - Brood Mother Class: [Web Weaver] [B-rank] Level: 101 Mind: 180 Attunement: 410 Body: 551 Traits: Internal Mana Manipulation [B-rank]; Silence Venom [B-rank]; Crystal Carapace [B-rank]; Invisible Threads [B-rank]"She's just broken through Tier Three," he warned, mentally preparing for the upcoming battle.

"Try to stay out of its range, and do not let that venom touch you. It's where the Silence ended up, and I do not want to find out if potions can heal such a heavy concentration." Pauline had only been lightly exposed to a gaseous form, yet it was enough to halt several attempts at healing her. Without an advanced healer available, avoiding bites or even just contact with it had to be their priority.

The Matriarch didn't appear willing to give him more time to prepare, and soon a glob of silver venom shot through the air. Dorian raised his shield, but Orion pushed him aside with a quick [Push].

"Don't block it!" he warned. The venom hit the stone floor where Dorian had been standing. It seemed to have no effect on the inert crystal, but Orion suspected the outcome would have been very different if there had been any mana inside it.

"She's propagating her power through the web!" Selene warned him, even as she pulled back from the chamber. Orion engaged [Hypotheticism], forcing his brain into overdrive, and realized that Selene was right; the nearly invisible crystal threads were conductive filaments. The Matriarch had absorbed the canister's contents and was pumping the Silence through her webs, broadcasting the dampening field throughout the entire cave system.

That explains how the Field could feel so muted without transforming it into a deadly environment, as the factory had been. But that also means taking down the web network should substantially lessen the effect. The Matriarch seemed to have had enough and shrieked, lunging forward. She was frighteningly quick, covering the distance in a single leap.

"Scatter!" Dorian rolled to the right, while Luna and Selene scrambled further back. Orion slid beneath the beast's massive forelegs, pulling out two stored crystals from his coat. The first, containing another [Gravity Cannon], exploded upward, punting the massive beast against the ceiling. Tremors shook the entire cavern, and Orion knew he couldn't do that again, or he might bring the whole mountain down on them.

Even Pauline wouldn't be able to save them if that happened, not when the Field was still so dampened. But that seemingly reckless action had bought him a moment to address the most urgent problem he was facing. The second gem's contents, he released toward the far wall, where Selene had identified the web's existence, and was then forced to [Push] himself out of the way, as the Matriarch dropped back down to the floor, causing another rumble. Unfortunately, the giant spider didn't seem particularly injured.

If anything, Orion thought there was annoyance in her demeanor, but that could have been him humanizing her. The creature was certainly smart enough to feel such emotions, but that didn't seem to stop her from wanting to kill them all. That was when the second gem's effects made themselves known.

Any normal spell, even those he had spent a lot of time perfecting and could rely on due to his solid knowledge, would probably have failed against the intense essence of the Silence woven through the web, except for [Gamma Ray], which he couldn't use in this environment. There was, however, another form of magic he had developed that would work very well in this situation, one that wouldn't directly affect the web at all but would still disconnect it from the rest of the network.

A [Collapsing Wormhole] opened at the center of the web, and Orion wasted no time, shouting, "[Maximize Magic]!" The small line of darkness suddenly widened, consuming a large part of the wall, and soon enough, the Matriarch was screeching as half her web collapsed, her broadcast network faltered. The oppressive weight of the Silence in the room also noticeably lessened, and Orion's connection to the Field felt restored enough that he didn't need to worry about being underpowered.

She spun around a moment later, accurately pinpointing him as the one responsible for destroying her hard work. Her abdomen throbbed, and she sprayed a wide fan of silver venom directly at him. With the dampening gone, Orion no longer needed to fear anything. [Event Horizon] formed around him, guiding the silence away from his body and letting him take a clear shot.

[Gravity Cannon] after [Gravity Cannon] echoed through the cave as he repeatedly nailed the monster, using chunks of destroyed crystals as projectiles to boost the spell's power. Yet still, the Matriarch didn't fall. It was battered, and its home advantage was gone, but it was still a tier three creature, regardless of how recently the upgrade might have occurred. So, Orion wasn't surprised when its crystalline carapace began glowing with a harsh light.

He was surprised, however, when hundreds of screeches echoed from deeper inside the cave.