Drake willed his boomerangs to move and they flew around the arachne. The arachne moved four of its eyes to track the boomerangs and saw that they were going to attack from behind. It turned around in a flash and used its claws to block them once again.
“Hmph!” Drake snorted and poured mana into his boots. Lightning covered his feet.
Shadow steps!
Drake increased his speed to the max and appeared above the arachne in a second.
“Chain lightning! Water bullets! Solar barrage!” He shot all manner of attacks at the arachne’s exposed back. The arachne turned its head and spat out several spiderwebs. The spiderwebs intercepted a lot of the attacks but they were quickly destroyed, and the remaining attacks still landed on its back.
Ssssccccccrrrrrrreeeeeeeeccccccchhhhhhh!
The arachne screeched even louder this time, its voice filled with pain. It swung its claws and swatted the two boomerangs away before turning to face Drake. To its surprise, Drake was inches away from its body, with one hand behind his back, emitting cold killing intent.
Instinctively, the arachne stepped back and raised its claw in defence. But this just caused Drake to smirk. Drake raised his hand and his index and middle fingers were glowing with mana.
“Finger. Thrust!”
Drake bashed his most powerful martial technique against the arachne’s already cracked and weakened claw.
Boom!
An explosion rang out as the cracks widened, quickly covering the entire claw. The arachne screeched in pain but Drake was relentless.
“Hammer fist! Hammer fist! Hammer fist!” Drake pounded the claw which was on the verge of destruction, punching it dozens of times in a second. The arachne was in too much pain to react. It screeched helplessly as Drake battered it over and over, until, its claw shattered into pieces.
Drake jumped back, rotating in the air and landing elegantly on his feet. He watched the arachne shuffle around randomly, writhing in agony as pain exploded from its arm, and touched every part of its body.
Farisa and Elwin were in shock. Everyone else had also been keeping an eye on each other’s battles and were equally stunned. Breaking the black iron ore shell of even the warrior class demon centipedes from earlier was a challenge, let alone these arachnes. After all this time, none of their attacks had managed to crack the defences of any of the arachnes, yet Drake shattered its claw on his own with only a few attacks?
‘Since when was he so strong!?’ Farisa gasped in shock. However, now wasn’t the time to be standing there, frozen. Elwin and Farisa made their moves again.
“Spears of winter!” yelled Elwin as large icicles formed behind his back.
“Crushing maelstorm!” exclaimed Farisa, sending her hammer swinging towards the arachne.
Drake raised his hand and poured mana into his glove.
“Solar barrage!” Over a dozen large fireballs appeared and shot towards the arachne.
Facing so many powerful attacks in its weakened state, the arachne felt fear for the first time. Not wanting to repeat its mistake of facing the attacks head-on, the arachne tensed its legs and disappeared, before reappearing several metres away.
“Tst, coward,” spat Drake. However, he and the others just continued shooting more attacks in its new location. The arachne dodged again, and then again, but they were relentless. Eventually, the arachne realised it had no choice and decided to stand its ground. It raised its other claw and blocked as many attacks as it could. However, this claw was also full of cracks due to Drake’s black iron boomerangs so each collision made it wince in pain.
At the same time, Drake willed his boomerangs to attack the arachne from the back. The arachne turned its head and shot spiderwebs towards them. However, Drake easily willed his boomerangs to evade the attacks, and they continued charging towards the arachne.
Screeeecccchhhh!
The arachne screeched in pain as the boomerangs dug into its exposed back. At the same time, cracks rapidly spread across its remaining claw, bringing it to the verge of shattering as well.
Seeing it scream, Drake, Elwin and Farisa poured even more mana into their attacks, increasing the pressure on the arachne.
The pain from its back filled the arachne’s mind. Its movements slowed, allowing more of the attacks through to collide with its body, causing it even more pain. The arachne twisted and turned and flailed like it had gone mad. However, it was all in vain.
Boom!
Another explosion rang out as its remaining claw shattered. At the same time, the two boomerangs pierced through its back and sprang out the front. Two lines appeared on its torso which quickly filled with blood. The light dimmed from its eight eyes as its body split into three, which all fell to the floor.
The three watched the powerful arachne’s lifeless corpse, wide-eyed.
“We… did it?” Farisa gasped in disbelief, out of breath.
“Drake…” mumbled Elwin, looking at his brother standing in front of him. He couldn’t believe that Drake had grown this much since the last time he saw him. His mind briefly flashed back to when Drake had accompanied Elwin on his first battle, where he fought and defeated the minotaur, followed by scores of demons, protected everyone from the demon tide, and smiled.
‘I won’t fall behind!’ Elwin promised himself.
Drake slightly gasped for breath as he observed the arachne bleeding out on the floor. He was quite surprised at the strength of black iron ore. An ordinary rank one artifact would not have been able to harm the arachne much, but since it was made entirely out of black iron ore, the strength of his boomerangs should be equal to a high rank two, if not even a low rank three artifact. Since it was the same material as the arachne’s shell, it wasn’t at a disadvantage facing it either, hence why it was able to do so much damage to it.
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While gathering his thoughts, Drake consumed a few recovery pills to restore his mana and heal his injuries and then relaxed. He turned to Ivan and saw Elwin was next to him, helping him break out of the spiderweb.
‘He should be out in a few seconds,’ thought Drake, then turned to the two remaining arachnes. Drake spotted a number of small cracks on the claws of the arachne facing Blaze, Derald and Sylvia. However, they were not deep so the arachne hadn’t suffered any serious damage. The final arachne facing Kurt, Imogen and Cain was in a similar situation.
‘We’ve wasted so much time here already,’ Drake thought. Given that they were close to the main inheritance, it is likely that more cultivator groups would be coming around soon. Some of them might end up finding these mines, just like Elwin. They had to take the inheritance here before that could happen.
‘I have no choice,’ Drake told himself and poured mana into his boots, causing them to lightly zap with lightning. The next second he disappeared, and then reappeared above the arachne facing Blaze, Sylvia, and Derald.
Sensing a new presence suddenly appearing so close, the arachne was startled. However, its eyes narrowed as it saw the ring around Drake’s finger glow bright red, emitting a powerful aura. Huge alarm bells rang through its mind and it wanted to flee immediately. Seeing its reaction, Sylvia reacted.
“Rain!”
Sylvia shot numerous arrows, blocking off any escape for the arachne and forcing it to defend. By the time it began deflecting the first arrow, a cold voice echoed in its ears.
“Fire dragon claw.”
Immediately, a large dragon claw materialised before Drake emitting a huge pressure and aura. As soon as it appeared, the dragon claw rushed towards the arachne. The arachne creaked its head above to see the giant claw become bigger and bigger in its vision. Instinctively, the arachne raised its claws to block the attack.
Boom!
Large cracks quickly began spreading through its claws as the fire dragon claw came crashing down on the helpless arachne. At the same time, its legs were unable to withstand the pressure and all eight of them were on the verge of breaking.
Screeeeeeccccchhhhhh!
The arachne screeched in pain as all of its legs broke. The arachne collapsed onto the ground. Its claws held on for a few seconds longer, but soon, both of them shattered.
Screeeeeccc-
Losing its claws caused the arachne to screech in pain once again but its scream was cut short. The fire dragon claw collided with its vulnerable torso and forced it to the floor. Its flesh caught on fire and the arachne was slowly crushed by the giant fire dragon claw.
Drake landed on the floor but stumbled for a moment. Using so much mana so quickly made him feel light-headed and disoriented. But he caught himself before he tripped and began gasping for breath.
“Are you okay?” asked Sylvia, running up to him. She knew how much mana the rings used so she could understand how Drake must be feeling right now.
“I’m fine,” Drake replied. “But we should… defeat them soon.” Drake took out several recovery pills and consumed them. As his mana slowly restored, he felt his strength returning to him. After taking a deep breath, Drake continued, “We don’t want anyone else surprising us in this place right?”
Sylvia nodded. She had been worried about this too, and everyone else. “You rest,” she replied. “We’ll take it from here.”
Drake nodded as Sylvia turned to face the arachne. She slowly walked towards it along with Blaze and Derald. Farisa, Elwin, and Ivan jogged to catch up and they all walked towards the final arachne together.
Kurt had just unleashed a series of attacks and took a step back when he noticed everyone walking towards him. The arachne glanced at its fallen comrades, and then at the large group of cultivators now surrounding it. For a moment, it felt fear, but that was quickly drowned out by its demonic rage.
Screeeeccccchhhhh!
The arachne opened its claws and mouth and screeched louder than ever before, as if it was challenging everyone. The next second it disappeared and appeared next to Blaze. All of them clashed with the final arachne as it attacked them ferociously.
Drake watched the fight as he took the defeated arachnes’ corpses into his storage pouch.
‘With all of them attacking the last arachne together, it shouldn’t be able to last very long,’ he thought as he threw several pills into his mouth. Then, he closed his eyes and focused on recovering.
A couple of minutes later, another loud screech echoed through the floor. The final arachne fell, its body littered with cuts, bruises, and all manner of injuries.
By this time, Drake recovered most of his strength. He scanned their party to see how everyone else was doing. Although the arachne were strong, since everyone was working together, none of them had exerted themselves too much and they weren’t seriously injured either.
Then, Drake focused on Blaze and Farisa. They were panting the most as if they had run out of stamina. Drake recalled Blaze’s story of what had happened to them at the hands of the dark mages after being betrayed by Cyrus.
‘Hope they’ll be able to make it through the main inheritance,’ Drake thought to himself.
After spending a bit of time recovering their strength, everyone gathered outside the right path. This was the only one left and must contain the inheritance in this place. Kurt stepped forward and began leading everyone down the path.
Even though they knew this was the correct path, everyone was still cautious. They scanned the ground, the walls, and the ceiling for traps, and paid close attention to the surroundings for any surprise attacks by demons. After a few minutes of not spotting any danger, the group sped up, eager to make it to the end as quickly as possible.
Eventually, Drake noticed a speck of light appear in the distance.
“That must be it!” Blaze exclaimed.
The group began running towards the speck of light, which became larger and brighter each second. Within a few moments, the group entered a new room.
A large, spacious enclosure, well-lit by numerous torches nailed to the wall, revealed itself before Drake and his group. It looked similar to the floors they explored above, except for two differences - it was much brighter, and littered with black iron ore.
This was a repository of black iron ore!
Surprise and elation filled everyone’s eyes at this discovery. Given its rarity, finding this quantity of black iron ore was equivalent to discovering a fortune!
“There’s so much of them!” exclaimed Elwin.
However, Drake was silently a little depressed. Since he could summon black iron ore now, this mine wasn’t nearly as valuable to him as it was to everyone else. However, he naturally couldn’t explain that to anyone so still put on a smile and mimicked everyone’s joy.
“Let’s split up and start collecting the ores,” Sylvia suggested. “And we should hurry so we can leave for the main inheritance.”
“I agree,” added Farisa.
Kurt, Ivan and Derald still looked depressed from losing their party members, however, they didn’t protest. Being the brightest of their generation in their sect, they were strong not only physically, but also mentally. Despite losing their comrades, they wouldn’t let that stop them from doing what they had to do - retrieve as much of the inheritance as they could for their sect.
With a nod, everyone dashed off in different directions and began collecting the ores.
Although Drake was less interested in the ores compared to the others, he didn’t slack off and collected them as much as he could, thinking he could sell them for a small fortune after returning.
A quarter of an hour passed.
Drake, Sylvia, Blaze, Farisa, Elwin, Cain, Imogen, Kurt, Ivan and Derald, all gathered at the centre of the clearing, after obtaining all the black iron ores.
“Something’s wrong,” said Kurt.
“Yes… we’ve collected all the black iron ores, so why isn’t the inheritance collapsing?” asked Farisa rhetorically.
“Look! There!” Sylvia gasped, pointing towards the end of the clearing, opposite the entrance they came from. A small, black portal was opening up, and the aura of several rank three artifacts was being emitted from within.
The group shared another joyous glance and was about to run towards the portal when they all felt another wave of auras - this time, coming from the entrance.
Drake’s eyes widened as he recognised every single one of them.
Dark mages!