Chapter 55 - Corcas Mountains Punitive Expedition 2 (2/2)
A woman who had once been cursed by the Great Earth God, turning her into a Spider Queen.
Upon seeing her reflection in the mirror, she had gone crazy and secluded herself in this deep abyss for a long time.
Although he pitied her fate, they were bound to clash since she represented one of the ingredients in his Seven Colored Rainbow Ring.
He didn’t think he could settle things this time by simply talking it out, seeing as the other party had already lost their sanity.
As they moved on to another chamber, they came across a strangely shaped spider.
[Explosive Spider]
Its bright red color made it easily distinguishable from its venomous brethren, and it also moved much more quickly.
‘This doesn’t look good.’
Woohyuk left his men behind and approached the spiders by himself.
Then...
Pung!
The closest Explosive Spider scuttled its way over to Woohyuk and blew itself up in a violent explosion.
Poisonous liquid was scattered across the area just like if a grenade had gone off, even corroding the stone walls.
‘It would have been dangerous if we just forced our way through.’
He didn’t know if they could survive a direct blow from that, but at the very least they’d take heavy losses.
Woohyuk stared at the Explosive Spiders before him, as he erected a shield with the Ghost Queen Star Serpent.
“Yoo Kayoung, cast a Fire Wall behind me.”
“Sure…”
She raised her staff and a wall of flame split the chamber in half.
It was a magic spell which he had put to great use in their battle against the Orcs.
‘I should be able to take care of them by myself.’
The spell’s true purpose was to restrict his own squad’s field of vision.
Woohyuk then summoned some of the weakest of his undead creatures. He sent them front one by one as he cast Corpse Explosion on them.
Bang Bang!
The undead monsters blew up, taking any nearby Explosive Spiders along with them.
The battle was soon over, and Woohyuk advanced once more with his men.
“Is this the final door?”
“Finally….”
Beyond the bodies of spiders scattered across the ground, were three bronze doors.
A white text floated above each of them.
Easy, Difficult, Medium
“What difficulty are you thinking of choosing?”
“Should we go all out?”
Lee Jaesung and Jung Sanghoon couldn’t even hide their despair.
Of course Woohyuk wanted to choose the middle option, but the level of difficulty didn’t necessarily mean the other two weren’t the right path.
“Let’s split up from here on out.”
In order to avoid any confusion, Woohyuk proceeded to split the troops into groups himself.
The Easy door would be tackled by a group of 120 mercenaries that were the weakest among them.
The rest of the men would be sent to the Medium difficulty.
‘It would be best if we can challenge all three.’
Separating their forces was the best way to maximize their chances of success.
He was still confident that he could deal with the Difficult path by himself. After all he had an army of undead.
Kieeeeek.
He opened the bronze door in the middle.
Sarrr
Ominous sounds rang out from the darkness.
‘Is it Arachne?”
He no longer had to rely on items with night vision properties, since his Demonic Energy more than made up for it.
There was a monster crouched in the middle of a circular space.
It looked like a spider with its several legs, but its upper body closely resembled that of a human.
It was far from ugly though.
“Why did you break into here?”
Arachne asked in a cold tone, as its red eyes narrowed.
At the same time, the bronze door slammed shut behind him, and what little light had filtered in before was now gone.
“There is something I need here.”
“I won’t allow anyone to take things from me anymore. Not a single thing.”
Arachne quickly turned hostile. As she raised her hand, baby spiders began to hatch from the eggs that had piled up along the edges of the room.
“Give him a most painful death!”
The number of baby spiders was such that they carpeted the ground, as they swarmed towards him.
As they approached, Woohyuk pulled out Verserios.
‘It’s a good chance to use my Demon powers.’
They were now in a confined space with no witnesses, so even if he cooked up a storm, no one would learn of it.
As Woohyuk stabbed Verserios into the ground, black flames spread out, melting all the baby spiders.
“Are you a Demon? That’s a surprise.”
Arachne said with a perplexed expression.
She had easily evaded the flames by climbing up to the ceiling, not taking any damage.
“While you’ve confined yourself here, the world has greatly changed. Many of the Gods have been sealed by the Creator, and the 72 Demon Kings have awakened from their slumber.”
“I don’t care what has happened, I hate this world. I wish only that everything disappears so that there are none left to lay eyes on me!”
She certainly appeared crazy.
Arachne then spun her web to create a spiderweb on the ceiling.
‘Negotiating with her didn’t seem like an option.’
Woohyuk raised Verserios without saying a word.
I wasn’t like continuing down this path would ever work.
A decisive surprise attack should be the best way to end this quickly.
Whuiiic!
Verserios ripped through the air, as it flew towards Arachne. However, now that she was on her spiderweb, Arachne’s agility had doubled and she was able to just barely dodge with some nimble movement of her slender legs.
Quazzik!
Verserviors tore through the spiderweb, embedding itself on the ceiling.
As the pieces of rock began to fall from the ceiling, Arachne spun herself a new web.
“Due to my beauty I had men courting me every single day. I had a promising future!”
Among them there had even been a handsome prince. He was quite popular, with good looks and excellent swordsmanship.
Unfortunately the prince eventually ended up marrying a princess from a neighboring country. When Arachne found out, she cursed the Earth God out of anger.
She blamed it for not listening to her prayers, and as a result she was turned into the Spider Queen.
“I won’t believe anyone. Eventually they will be sure to betray me and stab a dagger in my back!”
Having just completed her new web, Arachne cried, her words dripping with malice.
She had accomplished the task very quickly, no doubt because of her innate spider abilities.
She kept speaking, all the while looking down towards Woohyuk that was approaching her.
“Did you underestimate me because I’m a spider? Ha! But I also have a secret weapon. Take a good look at this beauty!”
The spiderweb which Arachne had spun was actually a high level magic array.
[Status Effect Magic: Petrification]
The kind of magic that can instantly turn the opponent into a statue.
Woohyuk however continued to advance unhurriedly. He was immune to most poisons as well as petrification magic, due to the Basilisk’s Set he was equipped with.
“As your Master, I command you.”
A dark energy burst out of Woohyuk's body like a raging flame. He had released the Demonic Energy, increasing its output by a whole level compared to before.
“Kill the enemy which lies front of me”