The stranger brought the staff closer.
"As I thought," the girl abruptly extended the staff, revealing its sharp blade. "I haven't seen this scythe in a long time. Where did you get it?"
"You could say it was passed down from my mom."
"Mmm," the stranger returned the scythe to its owner, "so she's gone, that's a shame. But now at least we have something to defeat her with."
We couldn't expect help from Kurone, in this battle, we had to rely solely on our own strength.
After ten minutes, we were ready for battle. We left Katrina with Hilda in the hiding spot. The valkyrie hadn't recovered from her trance yet. Katrina's role was crucial – to light up the battlefield, so we could see our enemy.
Rizel sneaked to the side and hid in the shadows until we created an opportunity to attack. Rumy moved from behind, and the stranger approached from the other side. Asura and I took on the role of bait.
"The main thing is to knock her down," I nodded to the warrior and signaled to Katrina.
A chain of lightning spheres flew up to the top of the dome and erupted in bright sparks, instantly illuminating the hall. That was our signal to charge forward.
The spider's front legs were slightly thinner than the hind ones, and our goal was to sever them. Although it allowed her to wield them more quickly and fend off our attacks, severing the hind legs was beyond even Hilda's capability.
The spider lifted her legs and brought them crashing down on us. Asura, having learned from her previous mistake, deftly rolled aside. Dodging the attack, we struck back. My blade barely pierced the armor by five centimeters, and I doubt the monster even felt it. Asura made slightly more progress, but it wasn't much.
Failing to achieve success, we leaped back and attempted to encircle her. The spider reacted to our maneuver and leaped several meters back. As long as she was over the egg sac, she couldn't actively attack, so the chances of knocking her down were minimal. Our plan was to gradually force her out of the center.
"I'll still try my magic," Asura dodged the spider's legs and slid under her side. Swiftly drawing her katana, she unleashed an icy wave at the spider's feet. It worked much better than before, and she no longer needed time to prepare the spell.
For a second, the spider lost her balance, and her right legs slipped on the ice. Her body was finally on the same level as ours.
"This is my chance," Asura raised her katana above the spider's head, but she forgot about one of the creature's traits. The monster spat at the girl, and encased in webs, she was thrown back onto the rocks.
The spider lunged at her prey, turning her back to me. It was an opportunity I couldn't miss. I pushed off the nearest rock and leaped onto her back, driving my blades into her thick abdomen.
The blades surprisingly went in easily, but a foul-smelling green liquid gushed from the wound. With a hiss, it started corroding the cave floor.
"Damn, I shouldn't have done that," I rushed to free myself before the spider's stomach acid reached me, but she already noticed the persistent pain in her back.
Spitting another batch of webbing at Asura, the spider charged at me. Pushing off from her belly, I jumped back, but her leg caught me mid-air, striking my back and possibly breaking a couple of ribs. I rolled to the edge of the platform, and she quickly caught up. She plunged her front legs at me, each about thirty centimeters in diameter, creating imposing holes in the cave floor. I rolled away from her attacks, but in the end, I found myself cornered at the edge.
The spider rammed her front legs at me. Each time, she left me less room to evade, and finally, I was trapped at the edge of the platform. The monster drove her legs into the neighboring rocks and leaned over me, cutting off any retreat. Anticipating the taste of a new victim, she slowly opened her mouth, extending two poisonous fangs forward.
"Can anyone give me a hand here?" Based on my calculations, one of my companions should be somewhere behind me.
As the spider approached me, a shadow with gilded blades leaped out from behind the rocks. The blades slid downward, but the spider moved back, and they only dug into the ground.
"Damn, agile creature," Rumy withdrew the blades and promptly blocked the spider's new strike. The monster pressed against the golem with all its weight, but despite her inhuman strength, she was forced to step back.
I was caught between Rumy, who held the spider's jaws, and her legs. Concentrating fire on my blades, I hurled it towards the monster's body. The spells bounced off her armor and fell behind her.
"Krito, I'll disable her for a couple of seconds, slip under her!" Rumy regained her strength and pushed the monster's snout away, but the spider didn't get flustered and spat webbing in response. The sticky material pinned the girl's legs to the rock. She couldn't move, and I didn't have a chance to take cover either. The spider closed in on her opponent again and drove her fangs into Rumy's chest, exclaiming, "Ah, damn! Gotcha!"
The fangs pierced Rumy's body, but for the golem, they were like mosquito bites. Grabbing her blades, she thrust them into the spider's eyes, reaching as far as she could.
The monster screamed in pain and reared up on its hind legs. I jumped forward and struck at the center of her body. At that moment, our unknown companion leaped onto the spider's back from behind, and two dark figures forced the monster into the ground with all their might.
Upon our signal, Rizel leaped out of hiding and charged toward her target. While the spider was immobilized, we needed to decapitate her, but nothing could go so smoothly.
The spider recovered quicker than we anticipated and threw the unknown girl off her back. She was now out of our reach, but at least her vision was impaired. We needed to strike before she saw Rizel.
"Asura, can you repeat your trick once more?" I looked at the girl with the katana approaching the spider from behind. My flames didn't miss the target by chance; they had burned through the webbing she was trapped in, keeping her out of the monster's sight all this time. Now was her chance.
"Ice wave," Asura stood right under the center of the spider and drew a circle around herself with the tip of her katana. In the next moment, a stream of ice burst in all directions, covering a large area around her.
The spider tried to step back, but all her legs landed on the slippery ice, and she fell to the ground. At the last moment, Asura leaped from under the falling body and handed Rizel her scythe for the final blow.
The spider tried to stand up, but the silver blade whistled through the air and swiftly beheaded the monster.
The sparks subsided, and the cave fell back into semi-darkness.
"Finally done with it," the unknown girl caught her breath, "at least everything here is in order."
"What do we do next?" I looked around. The cave was filled with eggs, cocoons with bodies, and the huge carcass of the ancient monster, not the most pleasant place.
"I'd destroy everything here," the mysterious girl frowned, gazing at the eggs in the center of the room. "It's better for these creatures not to come into this world."
"Well, that makes sense, but in the neighboring room, there are white dragon eggs left without a mother. It's surprisingly warm in here. Maybe we can try to incubate them here?"
The unknown girl shuddered. "Hm... well, if you want to, we can try, but we should still destroy the eggs in any case."
"Hmm, we killed this monster," Rizel leaned on the spider's head, "how about taking this trophy with us?"
Rizel gave Katrina a mysterious smile.
"Hmm, I think it's worth it. Of course, it doesn't look very appealing, but as a trophy, it's quite convincing."
"Hah, adventurers. Do as you please," the mysterious girl sighed heavily.
"Ooo, my head hurts so much," Hilda regained consciousness after the spider's death.
"Of course it hurts after such a mental attack. You were luckier than many of my comrades. After the death of the host, the magic dissipated," the unknown girl looked into the princess's pupils, "it's all right, it seems they didn't manage to take control. Take your trophy and show me where the eggs are. Let's see if we can still save them."
The girl headed towards the exit. Rumy and Hilda took the trophy and dragged it into the adjacent room.
"Finally, you're back. What took you so long?" Ragni lit a fire aside from the nest, "I've dismantled the nest a bit and found some firewood. Eh? What's that creature?"
The dragoness noticed the trophy our girls were carrying.
"This," I threw a disgusted look at the monster, "this is the female, and that one over there is the male."
We placed the two heads side by side. One head was about thirty centimeters long, and the other was almost two meters long. The matriarchy's clear dominance was evident even in the animal world.
"Originally, they weren't so different. Females were intentionally enlarged using magic to enhance their venom," finally, the unknown girl emerged from the shadows, and we could clearly see her.
She was a tall girl, almost two meters tall, with a very slender build. She was dressed in a solid gray dress that covered her body from the neck to the feet, tight-fitting on the upper part with a loose bottom. The dress's narrow sleeves covered her arms, partially concealing her wrists. However, the dress seemed too thin for the prevailing cold around. From under the sleeves, delicate feminine hands with long gray nails peeked out. And finally, the girl's face emerged from the shadow. Delicate features, sunken cheeks, and a gray complexion, along with green eyes, revealed her as a necromancer. Snow-white hair was nearly the same length as Rizel's and neatly combed back, leaving a small bang in the center of her forehead. The bangs only covered the middle of her forehead, as thin twisted gray horns pointed backward from the edges. A distinctive sign of a white dragon.
"And you..." Ragni struggled to find the right words, as she had never encountered such beings before, "by any chance, a gray dragon?"
"Hmm, so our existence hasn't been forgotten yet," the girl smiled, "I wonder how long I've been stuck there."
The dragoness turned to the lair and suddenly changed her expression. If you listened closely, you could hear a faint rustling deep in the corridor.
"Did we miss the timing? Illuminate the room!"
Katrina followed the request and released a small lightning bolt into the corridor. Flying to the lair, it sparked and illuminated the eggs. In the center of the cave, there were eggs, but three of them were already empty.
"They've started hatching. Now we'll have to deal with their brood."
"And how many are there?"
"Well, each egg contains one already quite large spiderling, and there were fifteen of them in total."
"I don't really want to face such a crowd," Ragni shuddered nervously, recalling the bite on her back, "do they have any weaknesses?"
"While their carapace hasn't hardened yet, they are quite susceptible to fire."
"Great. That's right up my alley," Ragni took a deep breath.
"STOP!" I abruptly interrupted her, and the girl choked on her own flame.
"Ah, what now?!"
"What were you thinking? Do you believe that releasing fire in that confined space will fill the entire room?"
"Mm, I didn't think about that," Ragni thoughtfully scratched her chin, "So, what do you suggest? Killing them one by one? That could be even more difficult than dealing with those big guys."
In principle, there was only one opening in that room, but it was too small for breathing fire. And judging by the light, the far wall already bordered the other side of the mountain.
"Rizel, Katrina, channel your magic into my swords," I extended my blades towards the sorceresses, and their magic filled the blades. The purple power of decay and the golden lightning magic combined to provide both penetrating and destructive force.
I brought the blades together and made a sudden thrust forward. The lightning, infused with the power of decay, shot into the passage and pierced the wall on the opposite side of the cave. Incompatible magics canceled each other out, so the strike was weak, but it was enough to create a hole just over a meter in diameter.
"And now, Ragni, you can burn those creatures to your heart's content."
"You don't even need to ask," the dragoness unleashed a powerful stream of fire. Accelerating in the narrow corridor, it filled the entire room and burst out from the exit on the other side. In a couple of minutes, the spider's lair, along with the spiders and dead prisoners, turned into a pile of ash. "Phew... That really drained me."