Fear and fury giving wings to his feet, Dominic was still not fast enough to reach the spider before it got to Sekhmet.
Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one who had noticed her vulnerability.
A sandy-coloured blur shot towards its side, slamming straight into the spider’s bulbous abdomen. It was enough to deflect the spider slightly sideways; enough for its fangs to miss hitting Sekhmet by a hair. As they slowed down, Dominic was able to see that it was Fang who had come to the rescue.
Now under the spider’s belly and out of range of its most dangerous attack, the lioness took advantage to swipe at its weaker areas with her claws.
Dominic arrived a fraction of a second later, turning his frantic run into an aerial strike. Leaping into the air, he activated Airborne to its maximum weight and then used his wings to force himself downwards faster. Landing with his front paws, he used the momentum of his back paws landing to swing the spiky metal ball of his tail right into the head of the spider.
It screeched, the sound piercing in a way that almost made Dominic feel nauseous. But he’d had the effect he wanted – one of the spider’s fangs had been destroyed, and the other was damaged. Four of its eyes were gone too, its head half caved in on that side.
Its health bar dropped by around fifteen percent from that blow alone – the most effective attack so far, no doubt boosted by Pounce.
The spider reeled slightly from the blow, one of its legs accidentally stepping on the lioness trapped in the web. Sekhmet let out a quiet yowl of pain as the sharp leg scraped a large furrow into her own leg. She looked half-crushed too and Dominic realised that the spider must have buckled under his weight, landing partly on her.
‘Sorry!’ he apologised to the lioness as he moved to help her. Lionel, practically obscured by a cloud of golden dust, had obviously done a good job on the two amesheks. Though their health bars were not yet completely full, they joined Fang in distracting the spider who, thankfully, had become far more sluggish. Evidently the boosting effect had worn off and, like with Rage, was followed with a period of recuperation.
Dominic started spitting acid around Sekhmet’s trapped back paw, trusting in Immunity to protect her from his acid, but not enough to spit it on her paw directly.
If the spider activated a special Ability at twenty-five percent down, does that mean it’s going to activate another one at fifty? And then a third at seventy-five percent down? If so, the spider was rapidly approaching the next reveal.
Dominic’s blows had opened up the opportunity for the others to actually have some effect on the spider. Though none of them dared to attack its head injury, not with the other fang still posing a danger, they did take advantage of its blindness on that side, the injured back legs and the two cracks he’d opened up on its backside. Its sluggish movements following its enhanced speed gave them even more opportunities to bite, claw, and vibrate the spider’s injuries.
Unfortunately, the spider wasn’t completely defenceless. Not only did they need to be careful of the spider’s remaining fang, but it probably had other Abilities it hadn’t yet shown.
As Dominic rejoined the fight, Sekhmet seeking treatment from Lionel before returning, he noticed something. A green gas was getting thicker around the spider, appearing to come from somewhere below it. A familiar green gas.
‘Poison cloud incoming!’ he told his pride members grimly. ‘Don’t breathe it in.’
Fang and the two amesheks backed off as the cloud got thick enough to make it hard to see exactly where the spider was, the gas already burning their eyes and noses. It seemed oddly fixed in place for a gas, some of it escaping into the area around, but most of it staying close to the spider itself. The spider didn’t seem interested in moving either – like the monitor lizard before.
If Dominic had to guess, he would say it was trying to use the poison cloud to defend itself during a recovery period. He wasn’t willing to give it that chance: this was the best opportunity to cause some major damage. And if he could trigger the next phase while it was still suffering the aftereffects of the previous one, they might have a better chance of surviving this fight.
‘Hold your breaths, but keep attacking,’ he ordered the pride, leading by example. ‘If your health goes below half, get to Lionel.’
Not wanting to risk running into its fang by accident, Dominic didn’t do any fancy attacks. Instead, he carefully felt his way to the spider’s abdomen using Spatial Awareness, then sank his teeth back into the crack he’d created with his second Tail Strike. While pumping in venom and using his tongue to cover the chitin in acid, he used his forepaws to scratch and scrape at any part of the spider he could reach.
He cursed the fact that he hadn’t managed to get Extended Breath from the crocodiles: this was exactly the situation where it would be useful. Instead, he just had to hold his breath until it hurt and started actually impacting his health.
He was vaguely aware of the spider trying to pull away from him and moving in response to other flickering movements in his peripheral vision and the orb of awareness around his body. The poison cloud surrounding him significantly impeded his vision, giving the fight an odd unreal quality. The green smoke made his eyes water and his mouth itch. It had an effect on his health too, though only a minor one.
Venom pumped in, acid was layered onto the chitin; his teeth sank in just a bit deeper. Claws scratched, claws scraped; claws caught and tore. More venom pumped in, more acid was layered onto the roughening chitin, his teeth sank in just a bit deeper. His claws scratched and scraped at the injured areas, tearing and digging into the spider’s flesh. And repeat.
And then he had to let go – his health was starting to drop too fast.
Quickly backing up, Dominic took a gasping breath as soon as he cleared the edge of the cloud. His lungs exclaimed their relief and his eyes slowly stopped streaming.
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Watching the fight, he saw that the cloud was starting to fade away and the spider had returned to its previous speed. It looked like he wasn’t going to get his wish – that the spider would enter the next phase still suffering the effects from the first.
The two amesheks and two lions were still attacking the spider, though their own movements were starting to show signs of sluggishness.
Looking at his own stamina, Dominic noticed that it was getting low too. Pulling out a number of carcasses, he absorbed a few and then left the rest in the foyer area next to the watchful Lionel.
‘Everyone who needs more stamina, come back and absorb some carcasses. Just don’t do it all at one time,’ Dominic notified everyone in the Pride chat, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner. ‘Wait!’ he said a moment later. ‘It’s hitting another phase.’
The spider had got down to 50% health and that indeed appeared to be the trigger for the next stage. Once more it was frozen, and its health bar was flashing.
‘Everyone, attack it with your strongest attacks, then back off back to the foyer!’ Dominic yelled, then ran in to do just that. He had a target in mind.
With the spider frozen, its head area was suddenly far safer to attack than at practically any other time of the fight. Once more using Momentous Charge, the large lion ran straight towards its insectile face.
Repeating the same last-minute twist he had done twice before, this time Dominic aimed the spiky metal ball of his tail mace at the spider’s remaining fang.
The blow hit true, practically tearing off the spider’s remaining fang and denting its face just a bit more. Even better, he knocked out two more of the spider’s eyes, and left it with only two that were working.
‘Yes!’ Dominic exclaimed at no one in particular even as he ran to join the rest of the pride who had followed his instructions to get in one more attack and then retreat.
Hopefully the spider wouldn’t repeat the same Ability as last time – his Pride defence shield was still on cooldown and couldn’t be used. But the warthog hadn’t had the same phases each time so Dominic had hope that this would be different too.
His prayers appeared to be answered. The spider didn’t explode towards them with impossible speed. But Dominic wasn’t sure if the alternative was much better.
At the tips of each of its legs, another spider appeared. The healthier the leg, the bigger the spider, ranging from a large tarantula size for the injured legs to a house cat size for the healthy legs. They all looked identical to the original spider, the black chitin with a red stripe on their backs included. They were probably venomous too.
‘Damn,’ Dominic cursed, his mind racing. As if one black widow wasn’t enough, now they had nine of them. The only good thing was that, though the smaller spiders were quick and dangerous, the boss itself had slowed down significantly again, as if creating the minions had drained it in some way.
‘What we do?’ asked Sekhmet, sounding tired and afraid. Dominic didn’t blame her – the wave of spiders running towards them was…unpleasant.
‘I’ll distract the boss. Procyon, Sirius, freeze them in place. Fang, Lionel, Sekhmet, crushing duty.’
Hearing the amesheks already begin their eerie howl, Dominic opened his own mouth and Roared too, adding his voice. He focussed the sound on the big boss, hoping that its fatigue would make it more susceptible. They needed to buy time for the other lions to kill all the minions. Then they could get to the boss again.
It seemed to work – the spider boss wasn’t stopped, but it was slowed, as if it were fighting its way through treacle and, this time around, its health took a bit of impact. When Dominic’s stamina bar started emptying too much, he cut the Roar and instead started Hypnosis again. His Roar was preferable because it did damage as well as affected the creature’s movement, but for the purpose of delaying, Hypnosis would work well enough.
Unfortunately, even that wasn’t enough. The spider minions were apparently tougher than they looked – the large ones were practically like cockroaches. The boss was already starting to fight its way out of his Hypnosis and the lions weren’t even half done. They needed more crushing power, especially since they needed to be careful of the spiders’ venomous fangs.
‘Procyon, Sirius, take a breath and swap targets. Hold the boss back. I’m going for the minions.’
The amesheks obeyed without a moment’s hesitation. Their howls were higher level than Dominic’s Roar and apparently that made a difference as the spider boss was slowed in its tracks, almost to the point of being stopped.
Dominic leaped into the fray, using Tail Strike to smash the spider minions. The lucky ones among them were only half-crushed; the unlucky ones were pulverised on the first blow. The other lions quickly leaped upon any half-crushed spider, finishing the job.
Within half a minute, the minions were all gone. Just in time: the two amesheks were completely exhausted. They let their increasingly thin howl drop in relief when they saw that the lions were done.
‘We have no more stamina,’ Procyon rumbled tiredly in the Pride chat.
‘Then rest,’ Dominic told them even as he rallied and started attacking the spider again. ‘Consume a few carcasses. You’ve done a good job. We’ve got the boss below half. We’ll probably need you when its health drops to a quarter.’
The amesheks acknowledged his words, slumping off, nearly falling asleep, to join Lionel in the foyer.
Meanwhile, the three lions did their best to whittle the spider’s health down. They were increasingly tired, but so was the spider. Although it had sped up again after the minions had been killed, it hadn’t returned to the speed it had shown right at the beginning of the fight, let alone the enhanced speed.
Fang was now distracting it by striking at its remaining uninjured eyes and trying to avoid its return leg attacks while Sekhmet and Dominic continued working on disabling it by removing its other legs.
They tried a number of different techniques, but found that the most effective was for each of them to take an opposing leg in their jaws and tug against each other with all their might.
The spider was trapped as the rope in the middle of their tug of war, too few of its legs healthy enough to brace itself against them. The leg in Dominic’s mouth broke free, the hole spurting out blue ichor.
He dropped the leg with disgust – it honestly tasted horrible – then pounced on another relatively undamaged one.
By the time they got the spider’s health down to a quarter, the two amesheks had rejoined them in the fight and were also tugging. The boss was a lot less dangerous now: it couldn’t bite them, it was slower, and even when it released its poison cloud again, they just kept attacking.
When its bar started flashing once more, all five of them piled on attacks and then backed off back to Lionel, Consuming carcasses to replenish their stamina and then welcoming the lion’s healing to top off their health. They watched as the spider unveiled its final Ability.