Unexpectedly, one of the nearby spiders returned his scream, almost exactly. It matched his tone and volume extremely closely, as if it was playing the scream back to him on a recorder. If anything, the scream was actually louder.
Though 6 was very tempted to have sit there and see how long their little scream off could go on, he began cutting through the middle of the cavern as he let out one more scream.
The scream echoed back to him from behind once more, making him chuckle on the inside, before he switched his tactics and began hurling insults.
He couldn't tell which spider was parroting him, but he wanted to see if it would echo back his insults when it was insulting themselves.
"Spiders are the worst lifeforms to be born as! You have no thumbs, you're all ugly, and most of you are weak and easy to kill!" 6 shouted. Either it would enrage the spiders into following him, which they would do anyway, or it would echo back at him, which would just be funny to hear.
"Spiders are the worst lifefor-" The echo started, before it was drowned out by another voice, shaking the room.
"No! No! No! Can't say, can't say tha-that!" The voice of the small spider that had presence echoed as it bounced around the room, clearly more infuriated by the spider repeating 6's words than it was by 6 actually saying them.
It was significantly louder this time compared to when it first spoke to 6, though the childish voice still had the same tone to it.
As it screamed, 6 heard a sharp sound from the passage he had left the spider behind in, like harsh intake of air.
[That sound is definitely from the direction of the spider. Be prepared to leave, I will only teleport you if the attack will kill you.]
Trusting her words, 6 focused on the best thing he could do for right now. He could prepare to defend or dodge whatever the spider was doing, but in all honesty, he never should've expected to be able to do that to a single one of its attacks to begin with.
Instead, he focused on the spiders around him, the ones following him in a train as he ran. He took in as much details about them as he could, how many legs they had, their eyes, the speed they ran and their size.
He studied them to find out as much as he could in the short time he had, trying to identify anything special about each spider.
One of the spiders had two large, concave bumps on its hairy back. They appeared to be made entirely out of hair themselves, though it was impossible to fathom what their purpose might be.
Another looked like it was actually made of at least 20 or so smaller spiders, latched out each other with webs, using their numerous body parts to move in all kinds of weird manners that made them appear as if they were straight out of a B-list horror movie.
The one 6 took the most note of was one that he only happened to notice by chance.
It was a tiny, golf-ball sized spider that seemed to be able to fly, as it zipped between the various spiders chasing him for some reason.
Despite its speed, which was definitely enough for it to catch up to 6 in a heartbeat if it wanted to, it remained back, instead fluttering among the train of spider following him.
Each time it touched another spider, it got a little bit faster. It was barely perceptible at first, but as it began touching each spider a second and third time, the increase in speed was visible to even the untrained eye.
Aside from that, the rest of them seemed to be run of the mill spiders, at least visually.
"Hey, your mother is a fly!" 6 shouted, trying to see if he could tell which spider was echoing the noise.
Surprisingly, when the echo came, this time uninterrupted, it didn't come from the train of spider behind him.
It came from his side, a distance away, as if the spider was following alongside him on the wall.
Looking at the wall however, 6 failed to spot a spider there at all.
This was because the spider was camouflaged.
Had 6 been able to see all colors in the nest, instead of it just being limited to the little spider with presence, he may have been able to spot it, but it was nearly an impossible mission otherwise.
The entire body of the spider looked like it was made out of the exact same webbing as the nest itself. All over its body, without any gaps, it was as if the spider had mummified itself for the sake of remaining hidden.
If it laid down in a ball, it would look identical to the warts that covered the ground outside of the nest.
With every second that passed, the sound the presence having spider was making was growing louder, threatening to be finished with its charging at any moment.
Whatever it was going to do, the spider was going to do it soon. It wouldn't give 6 as much time as he wanted to do everything he'd like to do before it attack.
'But if it did give me enough time...I think I'd have a tea party. Hm, I don't have any tea...a pretend tea party isn't so bad either. One of my guests can even talk.' 6 thought, referencing the echo spider.
To Trivrium's displeasure, he made sure she could hear his thoughts, even though he was pretending to be thinking to himself.
She may have bought the mistake from a fool, but she had interacted with 6 enough to know that he was well aware of what he was doing, even if he goofed off while doing it.
Despite his thoughts being entirely off in another world, picturing tea parties and spider friends, he was actively kiting the spiders following him, making them line themselves up right in the path the presence would have to attack him from.
She could only guess his intentions, but it seemed obvious that he was aiming to make the presence spider wipe out as many other spiders in one go as he could.
She could only hope that his efforts would work, as beings with presence should have numerous methods of attacking at their disposal.
In an ordinary situation, she would find it laughable to assume anything with presence would commit friendly fire that easily.
But here, something was off. The beings that had presence were strangely weak, as if they weren't complete or something.
They were slow, they had flaws, they didn't seem intelligent, and in general, they were lacking in every way, which should be impossible.
[It will be attacking soon, be ready.]
Trvirium sensed the presence of the spider billowing for a brief moment, a sign that it would soon be striking.
One of the first things most beings would learn when they gained presence would be how to control it, how to hide the movements of their presence and the signs that they would be attacking, and even hide their own presence itself.
At a higher level, they could even use the signs of their presence to betray the senses of their opponents using it as a feint to mislead and trick them.
But this spider was lacking. It couldn't hide that at all, its every intention was displayed in its presence.
Right after Trivrium warned 6, the attack began.
A physical wave traveled through the webs that made up the ground that both 6 and the spiders were running up, lifting them up and sending them into the air for a brief moment.
Even the walls and the webs strewn through the room weren't spared, the wave slamming against them and either bringing them down or warping them entirely out of shape, distorting the room itself.
Suspended in air, both 6 and the spiders were unable to move, held in place by something intangible as the wave passed through the room behind them, reaping its destruction even though it had already struck its target.
Following the wave, a blast of air ripped through the room, as if it was chasing after the wave, not wanting to be left behind.
Though the wind was harsh and uncomfortable, it caused no harm to 6. On the other hand, the spiders were affected much more than him. Several of them had their legs blown off, quite literally.
The legs flew by 6, and comically the spider that was made up of other small spiders fell apart and blew past him, tumbling as they completely lost their shape. It reminded 6 of several raccoons stacked on each other in a trench-coat, only to be discovered and scatter.
He wasn't in the clear yet, however.
Following the wind was a large, 5 meter long web spear.
Starting in the back of the long train that 6 had created out of spiders, body parts and goo began exploding outward, a gorey scene of carnage,
In fractions of a second, the spear had run through every single spider 6 had behind him, flashing to him before he could even consider dodging, though he wouldn't have been able to suspended in the air like he was.
He had closed his eyes by this point, sure that he would open them on Trivrium, or that he would never open them again. His last thought was that he would've had a chance to dodge it if he had gotten the web slinging ability he asked for.