The [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] was both fast and powerful.

Its first strike nearly bowled Ani, Val-Kas’j, Tiesya, Nalihimatu, as well as three of Ani’s fourth-tier warriors who intercepted its blows, the force of the impact causing them all to nearly lose their balance as they had to take several steps back to stabilize themselves. Fortunately, despite all its qualities, the creature was rather light in weight, and the laws of physics still applied to it. It was similarly thrown several meters back from the combined impact.

Before the creature could land, Esperanza and Dali struck from its sides – Legisvula and Gordy had failed to react fast enough to intercept it in mid-air – but their attacks were stymied as the creature whirled its eight legs around like a propeller and spun its body, using the momentum to swing its arms to intercept their attacks.

One of its scythe-arms even left a narrow gash at Dali’s side, though the wound was not deep. Esperanza's best efforts only resulted in getting two of her limbs severed, while only one hit out of the few she landed even left a mark on the creature. It was the strike she made using her crescent dagger, which left a shallow mark on the monster’s carapace, while her other strikes did nothing to it.

Not even her [Soul Armament] did much to the creature. Through her [Soul Sight] she could see the skill seep into the creature’s soul as her blades made contact with its body, but they failed to cause even a ripple to form on the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s soul. Clearly, the creature had good resistance against soul attacks, maybe even skills to guard against it.

Either that, or its Soul stat could just be much higher than hers, which was not an unlikely possibility given its far higher level compared to Esperanza.

“Mierda,” she cursed as she landed on the ground. The severed limbs were not particularly damaging to her, as she just sent the part still attached to her body to meet the severed part and re-absorbed them within seconds, but the ineffectiveness of her attacks was a serious issue. Dali had similarly failed to cause any real damage to the creature.

In the blink of an eye the creature clashed towards the larger group once more, as it apparently saw Ani as the largest threat out of them all. The half-breed warrior woman was almost sent flying from the impact and took a light cut to her cheek, whereas the rest of her warriors helped her share the burden of the blow. The creature itself was sent flying away once more, towards the side.

Gordy attempted to tackle the creature before it landed, but failed to catch up to it as the creature extended its scythe-arms towards the floor and used them to throw itself to the side. It nimbly landed on its eight feet and sprung towards Ani once more, its claws wide open and aimed straight towards her head. Perhaps because she was the highest in level, the creature chose to prioritize her as its target.

Ani barely managed to block the blows from two of the creature’s arms with her spear, while Val-Kas’j and Nalihimatu blocked another two for her. The last two arms were intercepted by two of her warriors, but even with their collective attempt, one of the claws still nicked Ani’s shoulder and left a bleeding wound there.

Resitia and Tiesya took the chance when the creature clashed with those at the frontlines to strike at it, but to their dismay, found that their blows were mostly ineffective. Tiesya’s blades only left white marks on the creature’s hard carapace, while Resitia only managed to create a tiny notch with her spear despite already activating one of her active skills.

The creature had not taken the blows silently either, as it used its legs to strike at the two. Tiesya managed to defend herself and retreated without taking an injury, but Resitia took a couple hits that left bleeding wounds on her chest and left arm, though fortunately the creature didn’t have time to make the injuries worse before it was propelled away by the impact.

Ilavakide and Dai’vasy attempted to hit it with their arrows and magic, but the creature weaved around their attacks in mid-air, rendering their efforts a waste. Before it could land, Dali, Legisvula, and Esperanza pounced at it from the sides and back, all at once.

Legisvula’s blade struck the carapace on the creature’s back but failed to pierce through – or even leave a mark for that matter – while he himself was forced to disengage when two of the creature’s legs swiped at and nearly disemboweled him. As he retreated he saw how the tip of his blade had cracked and chipped from the impact of the blow he delivered, yet it only left a white mark at the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s carapace.

Dali did something different this time around, as he baited the creature to strike at him instead of striking at it directly. The creature’s left pincer-arm went for Dali, only for the dog to vanish and leave a shimmering portal behind where it used to be. The top half of the creature’s pincer went into the portal as it couldn’t stop its strike in time, and right at that moment, Dali snapped the portal shut.

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That elicited the first hiss of pain from the creature as the top half of its left pincer was severed cleanly by the spatial gate.

It also caused the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] to be briefly distracted, and allowed Esperanza to land more strikes on its body. Unlike previously, where she formed her limbs into tentacles tipped with bone blades, this time she morphed the bone blades into cylinders that tapered to a needle-sharp point, encased in a sleeve of muscles with only its tip showing.

The wider rear ends of those cylinders were affixed to muscles that Esperanza fashioned into biological springs, which wasn’t too difficult as she used a similar setup to thrust out the tongue-like appendages she previously used. In essence, she turned the tips of her tenebrous limbs into a biologically former piledriver, and as they slammed against the monster’s carapace, the muscles reacted and pushed the bone stakes out with great force.

This time, the stakes managed to crack and pierce through the creature’s tough carapace, if not deeply. More importantly, however, Esperanza had forced similar stakes out of [Soul Armament] and superimposed them with the physical stakes, and those seeped into the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s soul as the stakes entered its flesh.

Unlike the previous time, the attack punched through the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s soul and clearly damaged it, which in turn elicited another hiss of pain from the creature. Just as it landed groggily, however, Ani and Val-Kas’j leapt towards it and landed their own strikes. Val-Kas’j struck with his polearm with the force of multiple active skills behind the blow, and cracked the carapace that covered the creature’s right shoulder. He had aimed for its head, but the creature managed to avoid the blow at the last moment.

Ani had similarly called upon an active skill. The head of her weapon was coated in a thin sheet of water that revolved around itself at absurd speed and pressure, the effects of her [Hydro Pressure Lance] skill. Despite how the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] attempted to evade the blow, Ani pierced her weapon clean through its lower abdomen before she quickly retreated to avoid its counterattack.

At roughly the same time, Gordy rushed it from the side and bit hard on two of the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s legs on that side, ignoring the other two legs that gouged and clawed at her, leaving bloody wounds on her body. Dali similarly snapped towards the other side and bit the rearmost leg on that side as well.

Everyone in the group understood all too well that the most dangerous aspect of the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] was not its power, but its speed, and they quickly rushed towards the creature. Several of the fourth tier warriors who followed Ani pinned the creature’s remaining five legs one way or another, with two of them even directly grappling the legs with their bodies.

The rest of the group focused on the creature’s arms. After Esperanza landed her blow, she wrapped her tentacular limbs around the upper and middle arms on the creature’s right side, while Val-Kas’j dropped his weapons and grabbed the scythe-blade of the lower one in a bear hug, preventing the creature from using the weaponized limb in any proper capacity.

Nalihimatu similarly grappled the scythe-arm on the other side, while two more of Ani’s fourth-tier warriors immobilized the upper two arms on that side. Tiesya and Resitia harried the creature’s face with their weapons, while Ilavakide shot arrows aimed at its eyes. Dai’vasy even directly sealed the creature’s mandibles with a muzzle made out of solid ice. The creature broke it within moments, but it bought enough time for her to build up more ice on the sides of the creature’s head to encase its entire mouth area with it.

With the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s offensive means mostly neutralized, the group continued to whale on it, their blows only dealing small bits of damage to the creature, but the damage adds up over time. Everyone thought that they had the battle in hand, but none of them expected the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] to still have another move up its sleeve.

All of a sudden, the creature’s upper torso seemed to explode, showering the group with disgusting greenish ichor and bits of flesh. When they recovered from their surprise, however, they saw how the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s upper body had been sundered apart, yet its head was missing, and the amount of flesh ichor spewed out was clearly too little to account for the creature’s size.

“Above!” yelled Mel-Ivas in alarm. She had been positioned further to the back, and caught sight of the incoming attack before anyone else did. Apparently incensed by her warning, the near-transparent blur that was charging down at the group turned and rushed towards her instead.

Fortunately, Nalihimatu managed to react in time as he bowled Mel-Ivas over with his back and took the blow intended for her with his shield. The impact still sent the two tumbling a short distance back, however, and left a sizable crack on his shield. It was only then that the group saw what had struck the two of them.

What hovered in the air looked like some sort of emaciated, translucent larva, with eight dragonfly-like wings beating rapidly through the air keeping it aloft. The head part of the creature was one they all recognized, the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s, yet there were obvious cracks on the carapace there, and the head soon fell off, revealing that it was only a shell that covered what lay within.

The revealed head behind the shell had four large multifaceted eyes, as well as a small mouth from which a pair of proboscis-like structures emerged. The pair of probosci entwined together until it formed a makeshift lance, then the creature vanished in a blur once more.

One of Ani’s warriors – a third tier one – cried out in pain as a chunk of flesh was gouged right out of his left shoulder, as the man narrowly avoided death by luck. At the same time, Esperanza managed to take a glance and check the status of the creature they faced. She frowned as she read through the information displayed to her by the system.

[Emaciated Immature Arachnoid Sovereign - Impaler Archetype (True Form) (Prematurely hatched) (Haste+++) (Berserk) (Enraged) (Pain Immunity) (Soul Ward) (Penetrative Power++) (Maneuverability++) Lvl78]

The bloody thing had gone and shed its outer shell and emerged in its true form. While the true form was limited to a simplistic charge attack, its speed and agility was absurd, and its offensive power was clearly still extremely potent. The group tensed as they knew that the fight was nearly over, but they had also entered the hardest part of it at the same time.