6 may have gotten used to dealing with these two spiders, and he was confident that given enough time, he could definitely kill at least one of them, but he didn't have the time he needed.
Though this area was relatively isolate, it wasn't like it was miles from any other spider. Any spider's nearby should've noticed a fight had started right when it did, as his movements and the movements of the spider's weren't exactly quiet.
They would've headed here right away, and even though it had only been a short period of time since the fight started, there was no telling how close they were.
In addition to how loud the rumbling of the large spider had gotten as it charged up its attack, not to mention the embarrassing sound of the spider's battering ram head slamming into him and knocking him into the wall, a huge amount of spiders should've heard the commotion by now.
Two spiders was already quite dangerous for 6.
He couldn't risk even more finding him.
The spiked spider had gotten back to its feet by now, jumping to a wall and trying to put pressure on 6, as if it could sense that he was planning to run.
Outside of lil spikey's expectations, 6 jumped to his feet and ran toward the large spider. He slid underneath its body, slicing its belly with his knife as he did so.
Unexpectedly, his knife actually cut through the spider, a large amount of goo spilling out of its body as 6 slid beneath it, coating him in disgusting goo.
Fighting the urge to retch, 6 continued moving. The spiked spider launched itself toward him as he stood up on the other spider of the large spider, but 6 was ready for it.
He side stepped slightly before grabbing onto on of the spider's spikers, cutting into his hand and dripping his own blood all over the ground beneath him.
This was his first time seeing the increased blood loss that [Intensified Blood Flow] mentioned, but the waterfall of blood spouting from the relatively small wound was definitely befitting of the skill.
Paying no mind to the pain in his hand, 6 swung the spiked spider around in his hand, redirecting it with all his force toward the large spider.
The two spider's crashing into each other, with the spikes on the spiked spider surprisingly stabbing into and crushing part of the large spider's body as it made contact.
The long range attack where it shot its head out must've weakened the large spider's body or defense in some way, but 6 fought the urge to capitalize on that realization as he needed to get away as fast as possible.
Hw ran through one of the exits of the room, one that he knew led toward an area that had been tunnels, rooms, and passages that he could use to help hide him.
As 6 ran, he made sure to make the sound of his feet hitting the webs as heavy as possible, which was surprisingly difficult as the webs beneath his feet softened the impact by a considerable amount.
A pair of shoes made with this material would probably feel heavenly.
He passed a few entrances as he ran, some of which lead to rooms or passages, but didn't turn down any of them.
After a few more passages went by, he quickly ran into one with heavy steps, before immediately switching to stepping as lightly as he possibly could, making no noise.
With a fast speed despite his changed manner of running, he immediately went back into the original passage before running into another, one that was closer to the room the two spiders were in.
Once he pulled off his quick feint, which would hopefully fool any spiders into thinking he went down a different way, he continued running down his chosen passage, which would take him deeper in the spiders nest, closer to the center of it.
His goal was still gathering intelligence rather than killing spiders, so the further in he got, and the more spiders and information he discovered, the better.
The further into the nest he got, the stronger and deadlier the spiders would be, and thus, the more valuable the information about them would be.
Out of the corner of his eye, as he passed another opening to a passageway, he saw a group of at least 20 spiders in just a few moments rush by.
He hid by the edge of the opening, mostly out of sight, as he watched the spiders go by, presumably toward the room he had left.
They were heading down a different path than the one 6 was on, but this nest was such a maze that it would almost certainly connect to that room as well.
None of the spiders he saw looked as threatening as the two he had been fighting, either they were small, lacked defining features that made them stand out, or they were simply quite slow.
In addition, although he should be slightly visible as he poked his head around the corner to look at them, not a single one of the spiders observed enough, or could observe enough, to notice him in nearly plain sight.
This group might have been a much easier target had he found them before stumbling on his chosen targets earlier, but alas, he did not.
Although he didn't manage to kill either spider, it wasn't a total loss.
The spiders in that group looked weak, sure, but that also meant they weren't likely to give him a reward, and that the information about them would be worth less.
Plus, with that many spiders, the odds of one of them having soem unexpected fatal ability would be even higher, meaning it was probably overall safer that he chose the two spiders that he did, even if it ended badly for him.
With the last sluggish spider having passed by, and no more spiders on the way, 6 ran past the opening to continue down his own passage.
Finally, after a long run and a few other near encounters with some spiders, he finally found an empty room to take shelter in while he regained his breath and tended to his wound.
[Intensified Blood Flow] really did as the skill stated, the amount of blood the poured from his wound was completely out of proportion compared to the size and depth of the wound.
It could only be considering minor, but the amount of blood he lost was enough to make someone think he had a hole straight through his hand.
Though it wasn't enough to badly affect him, it was definitely enough blood to feel that it was gone.
Interestingly, the blood flow had already begun staunching, despite the fact that he had been active since he got the wound and had only been able to apply pressure to it to stop the blood from coming out.
Especially once he sat down in a corner of the room and finally deactivated [Intensified Blood Flow].
He probably should've deactivated it earlier, but between being to consumed by the need to find a place to hide and catch his breath to think about the skill still being activated, and the need to move as fast as possible when he finally did consider deactivating it, he ended up leaving it active until now.
Luckily, it seemed his hypothesis about it causing wounds to heal a small amount faster may have been correct.
With the amount it was bleeding, it should've taken significantly longer for it to stop, but it had already nearly ceased bleeding on its own accord.
The blood clotting affect of the skill might be just as useful as the physical enhancement of the skill if used correctly.
As 6 slowly and silently tore off a piece of his pants to tie around his hand, as a makeshift bandage, he considered what he had learned about the nest so far.
'Trivrium, did you notice any type of presence surrounding those spiders or anything? I don't know how all that works, but basically I'm asking if they were being controlled by something, or if you could tell if the nest was controlling their actions, anything like that.' 6 thought, hoping that the intelligence the spiders displayed was a result of the nest and not their inherent capability.
[No. Trivrium has detected the same amount of presence here, during the fight, and everywhere else you have been within the nest.]
With a bit of a grimace, disappointed by the fact that it didn't seem he could blame his loss on the nest controlling them, 6 thought 'Is it possible that the nest is, and always does, control every single spider then?'
[Trivrium would have no way to tell based off of the presence detected. You must make your own judgement on this matter.]
'Hah, right, right, that is what you're paying me for, isn't it.' 6 thought, not thrown off by the response from Trivrium.
There was never actually a thought that the nest was in total control of all of the spiders in his mind though.
If the nest was powerful enough to do that, it wouldn't have absolutely no presence or control over the spiders outside, and the spiders inside of the nest wouldn't act as free-minded as they do.
Some type of hive-mind mentality would be much more obvious, unless the nest could only take control over a small amount of spiders at a time, but if that was the case, 6 was willing to bet Trivrium would've noticed some type of change in the presence or something.
Failing that, it would probably have been obvious that something had changed about the spiders in the middle of the fight.
The only time he could guess the nest would've taken control over them based on their behavior would've been when the spiked spider first noticed him, but there was a few clues that made it seem like that wasn't the case.
Just like the spider walking into the room right now, which hadn't noticed him yet, the nest shouldn't be able to tell where he is exactly, just that he was here as Trivrium had mentioned to him
If the nest already knew he was there, and thus took over the spiders to attack him when he got close, it should've already known he was in the nest and where he was much earlier. The best time to attack him would've been when he entered the massive cavern full of an uncountable number of spiders.
The nest wouldn't even need to control them to attack him, just tell them he was there and it was game over.
Additionally, the larger of the two spiders didn't notice, or seem to notice, that he was there until a bit after the spiked spider did.
Had the nest taken control, they both should've attacked together, just as the spider which was now on the ceiling should've taken the opportunity to attack or gather other spiders to entrap him while he was lost in thought.
'Wait, a fucking spider?!' 6 realized, jolting to attention as he finally took note of the spider in the center of the ceiling, which had begun weaving webs between the walls.