The two main parts of the spider separated. If this had been the result of one of their strikes, they would have rejoiced. But as it was, Dominic couldn’t feel anything but apprehension.
It quickly turned out that his trepidation was justified. The injured legs molted off the head end and new ones rapidly started growing, as did another abdomen. The bulbous abdomen from the original spider started growing a new head section with its own set of legs.
With horror, Dominic realised that shortly they would have two large spiders to deal with. And he doubted that the injuries they had caused to the original spider would be replicated on the clone.
‘Attack them before they fully form!’ he ordered the pride with a hint of panic. The lions and amesheks leapt forwards before he’d even finished speaking. ‘Go for the legs of both of them and the head that’s emerging.Try to stop them from fully growing.’
He didn’t need to tell them twice. Without need for discussion, he and Sekhmet gravitated towards the one which was growing a new head and the other three fighters attacked the one with the hopefully still-broken fangs. Lionel hovered in the background attentively, using the time to Consume more of the carcasses around him to refill his Healing Cloud.
Sekhmet continued striking and biting at the broken bits of the spider’s abdomen while Dominic ripped and bit at where the new head was forming in an attempt to destroy it prematurely. He injected venom, spat acid, and dedicated stamina to Bleed to pile on the debuffing effects which showed as a red droplet above the spider’s health bar. A small number below it indicated how many he had stacked. At present, he was only managing to get two or three stacked if he was lucky, but he could see that it was having an effect nonetheless.
What Dominic soon realised was that the defence values were lower – that was the only explanation for the comparative ease with which his blows were getting through. And it wasn’t just him. Sekhmet’s Powerful Swipe attacks were carving through the abdomen’s chitin with every blow. When he chanced a look over at the other group’s efforts, he saw that they had managed to detach three of its eight new legs already. But their grace period was rapidly running out – every blow seemed to do less and less damage even as their own stamina started flagging.
‘It’s getting stronger!’ Dominic exclaimed. ‘Go all out then retreat to Lionel if you need more stamina.’ He personally leapt away for a moment just so that he could repeat the strike which had done so much damage to the spider even when at full strength, aiming for its body.
His tail-mace slammed down on the spider’s abdomen, cracking the chitin even more. But, as he realised with dismay, not with as much impact as it had done before. Could the spider slowly be gaining even more defences as time went on?
Pouring stamina into Powerful Swipe, Quick Strike, and Rapid Attack, he struck again and again at the new crack in the abdomen. In between times, he used a Tail Strike, slamming his mace into the spider’s chitin. By this point, Sekhmet’s own attacks were as useful as striking the spider with a feather, but she doggedly kept attacking, drawing the spider’s attention to allow Dominic to do his work and accumulating more and more bloody wounds on her body as a consequence.
Fortunately, their determined assault proved successful.
‘We’re almost done,’ Dominic said to Leo with relief as the spider’s health bar got down to about five percent. He’d finally got fully through the chitin and into the pungent and ichorous flesh of the spider itself.
‘It seems like it,’ answered Leo, though he seemed uneasy about something.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Dominic, panting as he ripped his way into the soft meat of the spider’s insides.
‘Can’t you feel it?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know.’
Dominic was about to scoff at the lion, but he realised that he did feel something. An unease which got stronger with every second that went by.
Alerted, he quickly noticed when the flesh before him suddenly stopped moving even though there was still a sliver of health in its bar.
‘Sekhmet, get back!’ Dominic shouted, his wings automatically moving to shield himself even as he jumped backwards.
The lioness didn’t argue; she leapt away almost as quickly as Dominic did. It was just in time.
The spider abruptly exploded into a wave of green smoke. Dominic realised that it wasn’t just smoke as pain peppered his wings – it included sharp fragments of chitin. The shrapnel tore away several feathers and sliced into the thin skin to which they were attached. A green tinge coloured his bar and a single green droplet formed above it. Whatever that was, it had poisoned him too.
Fortunately, the poison didn’t seem particularly strong – it only ate away at a couple of Health Points per second, easily manageable when he wasn’t fighting. But he wasn’t the only one injured.
‘Lionel!’ Dominic called out seeing that Sekhmet’s health was down to the merest sliver – and ticking downwards. Hurrying towards her, Dominic dropped a carcass on her paw and urged her to Consume it. She did that just as Lionel drew abreast of the lioness and started healing her with his Cloud.
Relieved to see that her health was picking up, Dominic looked over at the other group’s progress. They were almost to the same point that Dominic and Sekhmet had reached before the spider exploded, so he warned them to hurry towards him as soon as the creature went still, urging Fang to move now since he was on the far side of the spider.
The Pride defence shield had come off its cooldown so he put it up over all six of them – just in time for it to deflect both the billowing wave of smoke and sharp fragments of chitin.
In the silence which followed the explosion, a notification appeared in front of Dominic’s eyes. This one, he didn’t automatically dismiss.
[You have killed Redback Spider Guardian (Half-step Noble Beast level 40)]
[You have earned 245 PP]
Dominic breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. He waited for the smoke to clear before letting the Pride defence shield drop.
‘Not a black widow spider, then,’ he commented to Leo. ‘A redback. Isn’t that an Australian spider?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ grunted Leo. ‘As far as that goes, I only know what you know.’
Without the poisonous cloud in the way, he saw that both bits of spider had collapsed into what they had originally been – its head and its abdomen. The legs were scattered around the room and the head and abdomen were both ruptured – the source of the explosions.
Level 40… Ten levels higher than even Nyx. And a dungeon boss at that. No wonder it had been such a hard nut to crack; he was only glad that they’d managed to defeat it without losing anyone. Actually, when he compared it to the last time he had visited this dungeon, none of them had come quite as close to dying as he had then. The benefits of progress and teamwork, he guessed.
It was a pity that he wouldn’t be able to get the beast’s Core – either that duplication Ability or the one to summon minions could have been really useful.
‘Oh well, at least I’ve got a chance of gaining another Ability I want,’ he said to Leo, trying to cheer himself up.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
‘As long as it gives it to you when you Consume its body parts. And, if you want to do that, I’d let the rest of the pride know,’ Leo responded sardonically.
At his warning, Dominic’s gaze flew back to the carcasses…which Lionel looked about to Consume.
A short conversation later and Lionel backed off. He needed more carcasses to fully replenish his healing Ability, but they should be able to find more soon enough outside the dungeon. None of those carcasses, however, were likely to have Poison Cloud which is what Dominic hoped to get. Besides, it wasn’t as if Lionel would benefit more from one carcass over another since he wasn’t a chimera.
Apparently all parts of the spider were still connected to each other in some metaphysical way as, when he triggered Consume on one part of it, the other parts all dissolved into golden dust as well.
The rest of his pride waited patiently as Dominic absorbed as much of it as he could. Procyon and Lionel both took advantage of the pause to level up, the ameshek once more a level above Sirius at level 24 and Lionel joining Fang at level 19.
Checking the list of Abilities waiting to be acquired once he’d finished absorbing the dust, Dominic nodded happily.
Poison Cloud (100% to level 1) Level up to acquire Ability
Of course, even with the large number of Prey Points he’d just gained from the boss, he was still a long way off his next level.
Level: Evolved Beast Level 27 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 283/991 PP level up
Still, it was good to know that he had a good AOE attack lined up. And, sure enough, as he’d expected from last time, the Core didn’t appear even once he’d Consumed its body. That would no doubt be included in the loot for finishing the dungeon. A shame that he wouldn’t get it.
Now, time to complete the objective he’d come to the dungeon to accomplish. Dominic found himself reluctant, despite himself.
‘Don’t dawdle,’ Leo scolded him. ‘The other female was in trouble not that long ago, remember.’
‘Good point,’ Dominic had to admit, reminded of how several albuhas had so recently died. For all he knew, Jenkins and her little pride’s lives depended on them going to help sooner rather than later. ‘Alright,’ he said in the Pride chat. ‘See if you can spot any sort of stone figure or large and glowing orb.’ So saying, Dominic started searching – and not only for the dungeon Core. His heart sank more and more as he didn’t find either object that he was looking for.
‘Is this it?’ Fang asked, pawing at a sticky spider’s web that covered a large shape near the back of the room. He growled. ‘I’m stuck.’
Huffing in amusement, Dominic went over and used acid to help him get free, as he had Sekhmet earlier. Looking critically through the thick, untidy web, he thought he saw the glint of something that might be the dungeon Core.
‘Maybe,’ he answered Fang’s earlier question, spitting acid onto the web to melt it away. Once enough of the web was cleared, he saw that Fang was indeed correct. The statue holding the orb was about three times as big as last time, partly because the orb itself was clearly bigger, though not three times.
Touching it, Dominic saw several new notifications appear before his eyes.
[Congratulations! Your party has completed the F-Grade Savannah Plains Abandoned Temple dungeon.]
[You have each earned 30,000 XP]
[Congratulations! Your party has completed the Bonus Objective: rid the temple of its infestation/s ]
[You have each earned 20,000 XP]
[XP reward has been postponed to when form has XP capacity]
‘Huh, no error message this time? Has the System finally got our existence sorted?’ Dominic asked Leo sardonically. The lion declined to comment.
[In completing the dungeon, you are offered a choice:
Destroy dungeon
Access reward chest ]
Dominic gritted his teeth, so very tempted to choose the second option. But the fact was that he hadn’t seen what Selessa had told him to look for to help him with his magic – the dungeon had just changed too much for him to find an echo of his power near its orb. Selessa had been clear that it would be very obvious if he got anywhere near it – the echo of his magic would call out to him unmistakably.
Unfortunately, it looked like taking the dungeon’s Core back to the Place of Power was his only option for helping his Mana Heart or Soul. And even that was a bit of a gamble.
Sighing he made his decision. At least he’d get some satisfaction out of it. His lips drawn back over his teeth, Dominic did his best to project his thoughts to the dungeon master.
‘Remember me? Remember what you tried to do to me? Enjoy whatever comes next, arsehole. Destroy dungeon.’
There was the sound of a brief and cut-off shriek as the dungeon shook just a little. The statue holding the orb shook even more than the dungeon had, its movements becoming quicker with every second that passed. Dominic quickly used his wings to again shield his head. Just in time: the statue exploded and peppered his feathers with shards of stone.
Fortunately, this wasn’t actually an attack, so the shards did little damage. Nevertheless, once again blood marked the sandy-coloured feathers when Dominic lowered his wings.
The dungeon orb lay on top of the altar-like surface, glowing and glinting with some inner light. Dominic touched it and whisked it into his storage space.
As soon as the orb disappeared, the surroundings shook again, dust showering on top of Dominic’s head. His eyes widened as he remembered a bit of the information he’d sucked from the dungeon master the first time he had run this dungeon. A dungeon only existed as long as its orb was present. There was a reason why the second option was ‘destroy dungeon’, not just ‘take core’.
‘We need to get out of here!’ Dominic told the rest of his pride urgently. ‘If it collapses while we’re still here, we’ll probably be destroyed with it!’
Not needing any convincing, the rest of the pride joined him in running madly across the room.
Instinctively going back towards the door they’d used to get into this room, Dominic swerved at the last moment into the way Sekhmet had used. There was no guarantee that the stone slab which had blocked him and the amesheks downstairs had been shifted even if they wanted to potentially swim through boiling water. In fact, it was more likely that the slab was still in place. The door that Sekhmet and the other lions had used, however….
Dashing into the room, Dominic saw the other side of the puzzle they’d worked on through his peripheral vision. He didn’t stop to look at it, though, instead running up the flight of steps on the other side of the room with dust raining down onto them all at frequent intervals. Upstairs, he crossed through a large area, entering the narrow corridor on the other side, the ceiling groaning worryingly above them.
It didn’t take too long to realise that it was a maze – hitting two dead ends in quick succession was enough to determine that.
‘Sekhmet, Lionel, Fang, which way did you come?’ Dominic demanded as his head turned frantically from side to side, trying to work out the best way to go. He was feeling more and more pressured – dust had turned into pebbles and even small rocks.
The three sniffed around for a bit.
‘This way!’ Fang exclaimed, leading the pride. He did a decent job of it, though Dominic didn’t feel so while it was happening – he only led them into two more dead ends before they were through.
Behind them, the crash of rocks crushing the maze and the rumble of the ceiling over their heads warned them that they were almost out of time.
The door, thankfully, was open, and the six of them practically flew through it and up the stairs. Outside in the clearing, it was no more reassuring. Instead of the rocks of the dungeon construction falling down onto their heads, they saw that the trees were toppling towards the dungeon as the false sky descended towards them.
‘Quick – there!’ Dominic led them towards where he saw the glint of gold through the waving and falling jungle giants. ‘Careful in case there are still some traps active,’ he warned them. Trying to give them the right example and to not create a gap between them, he slowed down a little, even if doing so was painful. Someone falling into a pit would be the last thing they needed – and possibly the last thing they ever did.
They dodged falling trees, and leaped over the ones which were already down. It was a helter skelter of increasing danger but Dominic was determined to get them all out.
‘Go, go, go!’ Dominic shouted, skidding to a halt just next to the golden archway. Sekhmet was the first through, Dominic was relieved to realise. Fang and Lionel followed almost on her tail. Then Sirius. And then Procyon brought up the rear.
Dominic took a final look at the chaotic destruction of the dungeon. The false ceiling of the dungeon appeared like a curtain which had been torn down, revealing a blackness beyond which was beyond comprehension. It felt like the blackness wasn’t just an absence of colour, but an absence of everything. And at the same time, the presence of everything.
And then that utter, incomprehensible void turned and looked back at Dominic.
Feeling like a cartoon lion whose colour had just drained out of his feet, Dominic instinctively turned and leapt into the portal, utterly convinced that death was snapping at his heels.
Shaken, it took him longer than it should have to realise the situation. His pride had leaped out of one dangerous situation and into another.
In front of them were five new threats. Yet these ones weren’t beasts. In fact, as Dominic looked at their humanoid features and pointed ears, he could only come to one conclusion.
‘Elves?!’