The moss gave off a luminous glow, allowing Zain and Elise to see inside the underground cavern. The further in they looked, the more white egg sacks they saw. Like small statues they were implanted in the ground and were lined up methodically.
"What the hell..?" Zain uttered the only words that came to mind after witnessing what lay before him. He scanned the field before finding the best way down from his ledge. Elise followed as well, though her complaints were more vocal compared to Zain's.
"What kind of disgusting place is this? The smell in the air is so foul!" Her nose continued to scrunch up from the apparent rancid smell in the room.
As the two continued to walk down, their feet nearly sank into the soft ground as a strange liquid started to swell up from each step they took. Wet noises continued to follow behind the two as they continued on. Zain walked towards one of the eggs and placed his palm on the surface. Despite its soft appearance, the shell was as hard as stone, and a light warmth radiated on his palm.
Thump Thump
A small heart beat palpitated from within, letting him know whatever was inside was clearly alive.
"How can you touch something so revolting?" Elise cringed away as Zain carelessly touched the object. Ignoring her pleas to stop, Zain continued on examining the object before him. Once again his eyes looked up towards the vast field of eggs before him. He then turned his head towards the ceiling of the room, noting the numerous holes and entry ways from this one room.
"How did you get down here?" Zain turns to Elise and starts asking her questions.
"What are you deaf? I said I followed my own path down here. What does it matter to you?" After hearing Elise's response Zain closed his eyes. His senses sharpened, cutting off unnecessary information and for a moment the world vanished, yet soon small lights started to enter his view. The lights grew and grew in smooth patterns, before turning violent and writhing in the air. He could sense the malevolent mana swirling within the eggs before him.
"This ain't good…." Zain finally spoke up as he opened his eyes. "All these eggs belong to a demonic beast."
"You're just now noticing that? It should be obvious with the revolting mana in the air. Black mage though you may be, a peasant is still a peasant. The first thing you should do when entering someplace like this is finding out the levels of mana. Something this thick and foul should have gotten your attention right away." Zain only continued to get angrier with Elise's less and less helpful comments before sighing. Moving past her arrogance he turned to the multiple pathways in the ceiling once more.
"Seeing as you and I both came from different ways, it's obvious there's multiple exits and entryways. My guess is these all lead to different areas of the village. Maybe even outside it."
"Like you said, this isn't good. Some demonic beast of an unknown class had already established a nest under an entire village. Having one of this size, it's clearly plotting something." Elise scanned the area before noticing the bone pile across the room. "It's feasting on the animals in the sanctuary above."
"Most likely trying to devour more mana and grow stronger."
Elise began biting her nail before turning around. "As much as I hate to admit it, what you said earlier is a good idea. We need to alert the professor. Hopefully we can call some hunters to deal with the issue before it gets too out of control."
"Go on ahead if you want. I'll slaughter them all here." Elise stopped in her tracks before turning around with confusion all over her face.
"What? Are you an idiot?! This is a whole nest of demonic beasts! You have no idea what's in those eggs!"
"And?" Looking over his shoulder Zain started to question Elise. "This is a good chance for me. This boring class just finally got a purpose." Turning on his heels Zain conjured lightning in his fist before throwing a punch into one of the eggs. Despite some resistance at first, the shell finally gave way as the creature inside shrieked before dying. "If you're gonna run away, hurry up and do it. I don't need you in my way."
As Zain turned to crush another egg, he had to move his head out the way as an icicle flew past his head. The projectile in question sank so deep it came out the other side.
"How many times do I have to tell you, pathetic commoner. Don't underestimate me!" Zain leapt out of the way yet again as multiple spikes of ice erupted out of the ground. Numerous eggs were destroyed in an instant just as Zain got out of the way. A wry smirk grew on Zain's face as he turned the other direction.
"Let's go then." Lightning crackled in Zain's hand as his whip formed once more before cutting through the buds before him. White fluids came gushing out as the infant creatures were mercilessly slaughtered by the two. As they continued, some of the eggs started to tremble before bursting out. Black figures started to crawl out, their spindly legs touching the ground before their blood red eyes turned on the two mages.
"Spiders?!" Elise turned over to the large creature as it leapt up towards her. It's mouth opened wide in anger as saliva dripped from it's fangs. In defense Elise conjured one of her puppets to intercept the blow. The fangs crashed into solid ice before clamping down. The spider continued gnawing before finally it's teeth crushed the arm of the puppet and began devouring the whole construct.
Elise reeled back after seeing her puppet's arm get destroyed. Once the spider finished it turned its attention back to Elise and charged once again. Its thin leg stretched out before growing in size and slicing at her head. She ducked in time as strands of her hair got cut off before rolling out of the way.
"Agile bastard!" Another puppet was summoned as it brought down a hammer on the spider's head, only for the beast to push it off. The attack hardly dealt any damage as it continued its onslaught against her summons.
"What are you doing?! Hurry up and kill it!" She shouted at her creations before having them finally stab a sword through the open mouth of the creature. It writhed and struggled on the sharp edge before getting pierced from the inside out. It died in cold blood before getting discarded. Though Elise's endeavors were far from over. In the time it took her to take down the one spider, multiple others from the eggs started to hatch and fight back in order to stay alive.
"Why don't you just stay in your eggs, dammit!" In desperation Elise used one of her aces and summoned a small army to attack the oncoming demonic beast. "These are clearly C-class demonic beasts, Arachne. But they shouldn't have this kind of defense!" Elise began scanning the battlefield, trying to gather what kind of information she could, only to see herself struggling at every corner when it came to dealing with the enemy before her.
"Aim for their joints!" Zain shouted from across the battlefield, causing her to look over at him. Though his face was slightly covered in spider blood, he was easily dealing with the enemy one by one. "These things have gone under some strange evolution, but their weakness is still the same!"
With each attack Zain delivered it was aimed for any joint connection on their body, be it their legs or neck. With a strong enough blow the demonic beasts would kneel over and die, and with each death Zain only seemed to get faster and faster.
'Not enough…this isn't anywhere near enough!' Zain continued to kill more of the spiders in a frenzy while looking around. 'It's gotta be around here somewhere. Hurry and show yourself!' He was desperately looking for something, amidst all the spiders that came his way, his mind was elsewhere.
The battle continued to rage on as Zain and Elise withered down the numerous spider eggs. Slowly but surely they started to take dominance over the field, but suddenly all the spiders started to horde in the corner. They raised their heads to the ceiling before shouting into the sky above them. The high pitched noise pierced Zain and Elise's head and almost forced them to their knees.
"What is it this time?!" Elise struggled to keep her eyes open as the noise clouded her mind, but she finally found something to focus on as the ground rumbled. Six black clawed hands came from one of the tunnels along with long raven black hair. A behemoth of a figure struggled to slide through the tunnel before finally landing in the wide open area. The beast bellowed, shaking the cavern walls.