Although Leon did not like the spiders, he guessed that it would be okay to add them to his undead army. But he decided to wait on that. These spiders seemed just average, so he wanted to see if there were any stronger variants that he could raise.
The group made their way deeper down the path they were taking. The other two groups of millipedes he had sent out also encountered spiders of varying numbers.
At one point, Leon’s group reached a large, circular hall. There were torches lines up all around the hall, and at the other end was a large, black set of stone double doors. A deep, dark hole was present in the center of the hall, and scratching sounds came from within it.
Over time, Leon had been noticing a pattern, and now, he was even more certain of his deduction.
‘Is this a dungeon, perhaps?’ He wondered to himself as the scratching sounds became louder and louder.
Hissssss!
The familiar sound of the Dark Spiders’ screech graced Leon’s ears as half a dozen of the large spiders crawled out of the hole. Behind them was a large specimen that looked even more vicious and grotesque than the others, causing cold shivers to run down Leon’s spine.
“Kill them all.” Leon ordered, not taking a step forward.
“Hum!” Nero hummed deeply and dashed forward, dragging a trail of dust behind him. Kaladin strode forward with a calm and confident gait. Grokus also rushed forward like Nero, his large sword already raised above his head. As for James, the assassin summon literally just faded into the background as he activated a stealth skill.
Nero collided with the first spider in his way with much fanfare. An explosion of red smoke and dust consumed himself and his opponent as they quickly got to fighting.
Grokus was not far behind. Using his insane strength gifted to him by his Orc heritage, he immediately bulldozed through his opposition, slicing the spider in two and spewing sticky, dark green blood everywhere.
Leon could practically feel the disdain for Grokus’ brutish ways radiating off Kaladin as the Obsidian Skeleton Caster sent out two large balls of fire to turn two Dark Spiders into flaming balls on legs.
Hissssss!!!
The leader hissed in anger and pain as it was scorched by Kaladin’s flames. It immediately controlled its two remaining subordinates to rush at Grokus who was rushing at it, while lunging straight for Leon. It seemed the intelligence of this specimen allowed it to control the lesser ones, while thinking much more as well.
Its legs bent outwards as it poised itself. The next second, its body shot up into the air and over Nero who had just killed his opponent.
Weng!
All of a sudden, its forward momentum was completely negated as it was pulled to the ground. It crashed down merely two meters away from Leon who stood in place, looking at it with a plain face. His eyeless sockets were plain and empty, but his aura radiated disgust in a very open manner.
With a wave of his hand, red fire shot out and engulfed the body of the spider.
Hissss!
Screeeeeee!!!
The spider struggled under the hold of Leon’s gravity domain while burning to a crisp in mere moments.
Seeing the spider struggled, Leon suddenly had a strange thought.
‘What if I combine my skills? Wind and fire magic is already simple enough. But what about other skills?’ He wondered.
He quickly selected a skill and activated it, while also conjuring a ball of fire above his open palm.
<Curse Eyes> and <Apprentice Fire Magic> were activated at the same time, with Leon imposing the effects of the Curse Eyes skill onto the ball of fire.
The ball of fire flickered violently, but with Leon’s constant activation of the skill, it remained in place. Slowly, it began to change. From an angry, red flame, it slowly began to turn into a fiery, purple color.
“Wow…” He looked at it in surprise before turning back to the burning spider. It would act as his test subject for now.
“Burn!” He tossed the volatile ball of purple flames onto the spider.
SCREEEEEEECH!!!
An agonized screech that shook the cavern walls burst out from the spider’s burning maw as the fireball exploded on its body, covering it with another wave of flames.
Instantly, Leon spotted signs of his Curse Eyes skill as the spider’s body began burning up twice as fast. Leon watched as its body turned into a head sized fragment in less than a minute before remembering something.
“Oh! Wait, wait wait! Don’t turn to ashes!” He hurriedly summoned a hose of water and began to furiously batter the burning flames. It was difficult, but he luckily managed to put out the fire by the time the body was reduced to a fist sized black ball of charred flesh.
“Phew. I managed to save something.” Leon sighed in relief. He did not know if he could revive something without there being a medium, but he wanted to keep this spider, as it seemed to be of a stronger variant than the others. While he had beat it easily, that was mostly because he was that much stronger than it.
[Dark Abyss Spider General killed. You have leveled up!]
The warm feeling of leveling up enveloped Leon once again as he received the kill notification.
“One step closer to my next Race Advancement.” He nodded to himself and turned to the remnant of the spider. “Rise, my minion.” He commanded, and sent out a wave of dark mana. The mana wrapped around the fist sized ball and began to swirl until it reached the size of the weaker spider variant.
[You have gained a new summon: Undead Abyss Spider General!]
The unusually large spider stood before Leon, it’s blank eyes staring at him. Through the link he shared with it, he could feel its reverence toward him, but he could not help the shiver that ran through him. He truly hated spiders.
Yes, an undead being disgruntled by spiders. Weird, but it was what it was.
Shaking his head, Leon turned his focus back to the hole in the center of the hall when he heard vibrations coming from it. This time, however, it was not the sign of monsters coming.
A thick, wide pedestal slowly rose out of the ground, holding up a dark cape. That was all. Nothing else but the cape was on display.
“What is this?” Leon wondered out loud and walked forward. He stood just outside of the range of the pedestal, walking around it as he examined it as well as he could. Again, he felt that this place resembled a dungeon. Killing the boss to gain loot.
Shrugging, he reached out and took the cape from the pedestal.
[You have gained Abyss Cape!]
A notification popped out, but that was all.
‘Just like that time when I got this windbreaker.’ Leon frowned to himself as he thought of what this meant. He shook his head at the lack of answers and looked at the cape. ‘I guess I can only put this aside for now.’ He summoned a millipede, rolled up the cape, and then had the millipede swallow the cape for storage.
For some reason, Leon was able to store things inside his Spirit Storage by feeding them to his summons. Perhaps it took the item as part of the summons and stored it all together, but he was not sure.
Booooom!
A low rumble drew Leon’s attention away from his thoughts. He turned to see the large doors at the end of the hall shifted open, revealing the path through the cave once again. Like before, they were lit up with torches on either side, and continued ahead.
Leon nodded and waved for his companions to follow him.
.
.
“Someone has been here before us.” Joseph said as he saw the signs of battle within the cavern where Leon had fought Grokus. Grokus’ slaves were nowhere to be seen, so the only clue the scholar was able to get was the signs of battle, but even those were enough to tell someone had gone through there.
“Do we still proceed?” Marcus, the Peak C rank adventurer asked. The large man stood beside Joseph with folded arms and a stern look on his face.
“Of course. We could gain a lot from this venture. And we have enough strength to handle whatever awaits us on the other side.” Joseph nodded at the man.
“Alright, then. Let us see what this dungeon has waiting in store for us!” Marcus cracked his knuckles with a grin on his face.