Chương 383: Chapter 366

The fracture itself was nothing to write home about. They simply followed the river of lava deeper into the fracture while more and more lava spiders emerged from the molten stream, intent on consuming them. Thankfully, Clarissa's mighty Anti-Spider Laser ensured they ceased to exist moments later. Beams of light lanced through their bodies, turning the creatures into sprays of molten rock and splashes of lava. Every time one of the giant spiders exploded apart, Clarissa let out a small laugh in celebration.

It was a bit creepy. Then again, spiders were creepy too, so Sam couldn't really fault her for it. Katie and Isabella were visibly bored. The fracture was basic enough that the only action they got was occasionally deflecting lava globs spat by faster spiders or shielding the group from rock shards launched by the explosions. Sam mostly walked alongside the team, occasionally raising a shield to intercept falling lava or stop stray rocks from pelting someone in the face. Dan, however, was in heaven.

He spent most of the journey manipulating lava, shaping it into different forms, launching blobs of it around, and excitedly babbling about heat transfer, insulation, and countless other topics. It wasn't plasma, but the curious properties of the lava were enough to keep the muscle-bound scientist entertained. Sometimes he stopped to scoop up lava with his bare hands, completely unaffected by the heat, kneading the molten rock like putty while muttering theories under his breath.

Sam knew Dan hadn't done any serious personal research since graduating – the game was simply more profitable – but the excited plasma scientist still followed current research obsessively and made sure his knowledge stayed up to date. Though what exactly he expected to learn from squeezing lava, Sam had absolutely no idea. Meanwhile, the spiders kept crawling from the river as they pushed onward toward its source.

They had agreed that whatever secret this fracture held, they would probably find it where the lava originated.

"That's a big one…" Katie said, shading her eyes with a hand as she looked up. Before them stood a spider larger than a townhouse, with dozens of smaller lava spiders clinging to its body like parasites. Its maw was immense, lava dripping from between jagged fangs as it stared down at Sam and his team. Eight eyes – each one a giant ruby – rolled in their sockets, malice and hunger visible within them. Clarissa reacted almost instinctively.

A golden-white lance burst from her staff and struck one of the enormous spider's joints. Rock and magma blasted outward, but when the smoke cleared, the wound was shallow at best.

"I need a bigger laser…" she stated flatly. She raised her staff higher, and the crystal at its head began glowing brighter and brighter.

"Cover me."

"Yes!" Katie threw a hand into the air and launched herself forward. Within seconds, she reached the creature, jumped onto a rocky protrusion along one of its legs, and used it as a foothold to propel herself higher and higher until she landed on its back. Only to be instantly swarmed by lesser spiders. Katie, as usual, didn't care. She celebrated it. Raising her greatsword overhead, she let out a roar of excitement as yellow-black energy erupted around her.

Shockwaves rippled outward, cracking the giant spider's rocky hide and blasting nearby spiders off its body. Sam had to admit that they made rather funny sounds flying through the air. Dan leaned against his club and watched the scene with mild curiosity.

"Should we help her?" he asked while Katie transformed into a tornado of violence. Sam shrugged, carefully avoiding looking directly at the increasingly blinding light gathering beside him.

"Dunno, man… She was really angry last time. We should probably let her do her thing." Dan nodded solemnly.

"Yeah, listening to her whine isn't my favorite activity either." Meanwhile, the giant spider violently shook its body in an attempt to throw the berserker from its back, completely forgetting about the rest of the group as increasingly large numbers of lesser spiders emerged from the lava river and rushed toward Katie instead. Isabella just rolled her eyes.

"It's not that bad, guys…"

"Easy for you to say, Izzy. You can shut her up much easier," Sam said with a grin and a wink. Isabella immediately looked away, cheeks reddening. BAMM Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Everyone snapped their heads upward as a thunderous explosion interrupted any further conversation, as yellow eldritch energy tore through the creature's rocky shell, launching molten fragments and pieces of smaller spiders high into the air while Katie's now-familiar demented laughter echoed across the fracture. The enormous spider staggered from the damage, each movement sending tremors through the ground beneath them, though none of the team seemed particularly concerned.

Then Clarissa grunted as the spell she had been preparing finally reached completion. The giant orb of golden-white magic gathered at the top of her staff suddenly burst apart, sending multiple beams curving through the air toward different sections of the spider's body. Each lance of magic punched through stone and magma before erupting outward in violent explosions, rapidly covering the giant arachnid in wounds until only the largest beam remained.

That final lance of magic surged forward moments later, accompanied by a pulse of energy powerful enough to distort the air around it as it slammed directly into the creature's head. For several seconds, the spider remained standing despite the absence of its head, its body swaying slightly before gravity finally asserted itself and sent the enormous corpse crashing forward into the fast-moving lava river below.

Katie rode the collapsing body down with an excited squeal while continuing to carve apart surviving lesser spiders, her sword leaving glowing arcs through the air as waves of lava splashed onto the riverbanks and rapidly cooled into fresh layers of obsidian. Only moments later, Katie came running back toward the group with a grin stretched across her face.

"That. Was. So. Awesome!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"Can we do it again? Can we?" Sam was just opening his mouth to answer when another roar echoed through the fracture. The surface of the lava river bulged upward as another giant shape rose from beneath it while countless smaller spiders flooded outward around it, turning the riverbank into a tide of legs, rock, and molten spittle. Without hesitation, Sam reached forward, grabbed Katie by the head, and physically turned her around.

"Sure. Go have fun."

"Yes!" Katie immediately took off again with yellow eldritch energy already gathering around her body, while Puffball charged alongside her with a lava spider leg hanging proudly from his mouth. They eventually reached the end of the river where the flowing lava ceased being a proper river altogether and instead erupted directly from underground in bubbling fountains of magma.

The source led into the opening of a gigantic cavern whose walls were covered in massive orange crystals that cast a warm glow over everything around them. Most of the crystals were around the size of watermelons, though scattered among them were larger formations nearly as big as people and smaller ones no larger than apples. Between those orange growths, veins of gemstones glittered from the cavern walls, with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and countless other minerals embedded throughout the stone.

Sulfuric smoke drifted through the cavern in thick layers while waves of heat rising from the lava distorted the air itself, turning the entire cave into a hazy, shimmering landscape of crystal and molten rock. For several moments, they simply stared. Despite the oppressive heat and choking fumes, the cavern was beautiful.

"Oooh, pretty!" Katie exclaimed while already stepping forward.

"Do you think we could make jewelry out of it?" She barely managed two steps before Sam grabbed her shoulder.

"Hey!" Sam just shook his head.

"Those aren't gems." Dan tilted his head while examining the crystal-covered cavern more carefully.

"Are you saying…"

"Yes. Those are eggs." Dan stared at the countless orange crystals surrounding them before asking the question everyone had immediately thought of.

"Then where is the mother?" That was the exact moment the cave around the orange eggs moved. Rocks shifted above them, dust falling from the ceiling as sections of stone opened, revealing yellow crystal-like eyes hidden among the cavern walls. Then the body beneath it all slowly rose.

A great groan echoed through the cave as dust and rocks rained downward, while a giant maw – not unlike those enormous mining machines used to carve through entire mountains – opened toward them, saliva and what was probably poison already dripping from between jagged teeth. Their heads rose together with the creature, necks cricking as they watched the monster tower higher and higher above them. Isabella looked down at Sam before poking him in the side with her elbow.

"What's up with you and giant spiders, boss? Some kind of fetish? Or is the system just having fun with you?" Sam scratched his head as the mountain-sized lava spider, complete with lava waterfalls running down parts of its body, stared back at them with unblinking yellow crystal-like eyes.

"I have honestly no idea…"

"Who the hell cares?" Katie exclaimed.

"Can we kill it?" Together, they looked back toward the monster just as it reared backward, presumably preparing to pounce on them. As one, the team pulled out their weapons and readied their magic. Clarissa's staff radiated the same white-gold magic she had been using all day. Katie was already wreathed in an erupting yellowish-black cloud of energy. Isabella began to hum, bluish-purple musical notes practically manifesting around her as they rose toward the ceiling while filling the cavern with music.

Dan simply raised his club, and the lava river behind them surged upward into giant tentacles that twisted themselves into superheated claws. Sam just grinned and readied his sword.

"Oh, look! Another pile of gems!" Isabella called out as they combed through the corpse of the monstrosity. They had gathered most of the loot on a small patch of obsidian clear from debris and lava, where Clarissa was already sorting everything into her usual categories – vendor trash, reagents, components, quest items, and valuables. To Dan's quiet satisfaction, they had managed to recover at least a few skill books related to lava manipulation.

And, no doubt to Lucy's and the guild's delight, they had also salvaged more than a dozen smaller eggs intact. Sam didn't doubt there were plenty of people who would be thrilled at the idea of raising lava spiders as familiars. Beyond that, there were piles of lava spider parts, chunks of obsidian, and neatly organized heaps of gemstones and metal ores arranged around Clarissa as the rest of the team continued dismantling the giant creature.

"Guys! I found something!" Dan called out from somewhere near the top of the mountain-sized corpse. Sam dropped the chitinous pieces he had been carrying into the appropriate pile and, with a brief flex of his power, launched himself upward beside the plasma wizard. Katie and Isabella followed a second later.

From this vantage point, they could see the surrounding cavern more clearly, including the fact that their familiars were currently chasing Lucky, with Puffball sitting on his back like some kind of miniature emperor. Both Lucky and Puffball had a spider leg in their mouth. Sam shook his head and walked over to Dan, who was in the process of prying apart a thick layer of chitin-like armor embedded in the monster's back. There, beneath the broken plates, he had uncovered something.

Sam crouched beside the hole Dan had made and studied it carefully. It was an oval shape, the same orange hue as the eggs they had seen earlier, but unlike the others, this one wasn't crystalline. Instead, it looked like amber – specifically the kind of fossilized resin he had only ever seen in museums, the kind that trapped something inside it. In this case, it was an eye. It was small – about the size of Katie's fist – and suspended perfectly within the amber-like material.

Sam extended his mana, sending a thin tendril into the object to examine it more closely. The moment it made contact, the eye snapped open. A vertical pupil stared back at him, the sclera black as the deepest night. For a brief instant, Sam froze as he felt something staring directly back through the connection he had just made with his mana. Then instinct took over. He drew his sword and brought it down in a single motion, shattering the amber-like shell and the eye within it into a thousand fragments.

Katie shuddered beside him.

"Ugh, that was creepy…"

"Very," Isabella agreed, staying close to her girlfriend. Dan, meanwhile, picked up one of the shards of now-inert material and turned it over thoughtfully in his hand.

"What do you think it is?" he asked quietly after a moment. Sam let out a slow breath and straightened, brushing dust from his clothes.

"Demons," he said firmly.

"Can't be anything else…"