Chapter 181: From Getting Stuck To Being Attacked (1/2)

Loren was at a loss how to convey what he was seeing to others.

Looking up, he also saw countless bright spots of life on the ceiling, where the light of the lanterns couldn’t even reach. These surely weren’t easy opponents. They were human-sized, but could cling to such a high ceiling. To make matters worse, they had already taken them overhead, yet no one except Loren noticed it.

He could feel a chill running down his spine.

There were silver rank adventurers here, together with an Evil God and a demon – all were very capable, all first-class fighters. And they weren’t careless. They were all very cautious, and yet no one noticed the creatures above them. People generally weren’t very attentive about what was above them, but this was different. It was proof that these creatures excelled at stealth.

As Loren opened his mouth to warn the others, he saw Ritz, who was walking ahead of him, touching some spindly thing dangling down from the ceiling. Having no time to say anything, Loren charged at Ritz and pushed him to the ground.

“Loren?”

Lapis exclaimed in surprise at Loren’s sudden action, but Ritz was even more surprised. He was the one who suddenly got tackled to the ground after all. Defending against a sudden attack from an ally, and from behind no less, was impossible even to an experienced silver rank adventurer like him.

Ritz was about to shout at Loren to ask what he was doing when he saw Loren unsheathe his sword and slash at where he had been just a moment ago. The blade met something and cut it in half, causing blue fluid to splash around. Ritz’s face stiffened at the scene.

“Uwah?!”

Jack drew back in surprise, and Nim wordlessly kicked him down. Without even sparing him a glance, she immediately took an arrow from her quiver, nocked it and shot it at something that was dropping down from the ceiling.

Another dropped down. Loren shouted while severing in halves:

“Gula! Protect Lapis!”

“Alright. Leave it to me.”

Gula grabbed Lapis’ shoulders, and the two of them crouched down while looking up at the ceiling. Loren saw the lights of lives above them disappear then.

“What was that?!”

Jack shouted while Nim shot another arrow. Her aim was accurate despite the lack of light, and something was killed. Ritz watched it fall down and said  in a stiff voice:

“Insects?!”

“No. This is a spider.”

Nim calmly corrected him. Wondering if it was even worth correcting, Loren sheathed his sword. The thing he killed earlier was lying in halves on the ground, and it surely looked like a spider as Nim had said. But its size was abnormal – Just its huge belly was as big as Lapis or Quartz, the two smallest-built in their party. There was a thread attached to that belly, so thin that it was hard to imagine it came from something that huge. The spider had spat it out and used it to drop down and attack them.

“Damn! Where do they come from?!”

“They’re clinging to the ceiling!”

As Ritz got up and confirmed the identity of their enemies, he slammed his shield at a spider that was dropping down and sent it flying. The violent blow dented the spider’s body; it smashed against the tunnel’s wall with a squelch and spraying blue fluid.

“Scarlet stones, shoot at our enemies. >.”

Still in a crouch, Quartz held his staff up and commenced a magic attack. Fire orbs shot out from the staff and flew at the ceiling; they didn’t hit at one specific point but scattered caused a. The fire illuminated part of the ceiling, making it visible to their group, and the scene turned everyone’s insides cold.

The ceiling was packed full with spider-like creatures clinging to it. Not only that, but they could also see the spiders’ preys among them, probably the ones who had entered the tunnel before. They were wrapped in fine spider threads and attached to the ceiling; all looked nothing more than skin and bone.

“Gross…”

Gula unthinkingly uttered while the gruesome scene above their head became hidden once more as the fire died down.

“We can’t kill them all!”

Jack shouted as he thrust his dagger into a spider dropping down after the spell ended. It was natural for him to think so, seeing that the ceiling was packed full of spiders.

Loren also felt daunted, and he had considered drawing back for a moment. But the spiders wouldn’t let the preys wandering into their feeding ground go that easily. They crowded to the part of ceiling above Loren’s group retreat path and began cutting the threads that were attaching their previous victims to the ceiling to drop them to the ground.

Even though the victims were only a husk of themselves now, considering the height they were dropping from, their corpses would still cause quite a lot of damage to anyone they hit, not to mention that they still had their armors and weapons on. It was also extremely difficult to dodge the corpses as they were dropped one by one.

The other spiders didn’t waste any time and started dropping down.

“We can’t retreat. No other choice but to run through them.”