Compared to before he left for the exam, and he and Bea only had white spiritual power, they had now both advanced and were joined by a team of red-grade Vespirae guards.
Kain was filled with renewed confidence in his strength and for a while there was one personal goal that he wanted to achieve as the ultimate indicator of his improvement in strength. He wanted to hunt the orange-grade White Widow mother that he'd been helpless against previously.
Now that Bea had advanced, while not able to kill, she should be able to greatly affect its movements unlike before. Also, now he had two pieces of 2-star enchanted equipment. Not to sound overconfident, but he didn't actually think it'd be that challenging anymore.
Therefore, after buying a space ring and filling it will supplies he went into the woods he'd previously been too scared to re-enter.
He looked down at the map he'd purchased at the gates and realized that the White Widow Spider had last been seen in her nest, indicating that she'd stopped looking for him.
He released all 7 of the remaining guards and headed in the direction of the White Widow's territory.
Surprisingly, along the way, likely intimidated by a large group of red-grade creatures, they ran into no other spiritual creatures.
"Ugh!" At some point, Kain started to occasionally feel thin invisible threads stick to his body. He reached towards where he felt the thread on his forehead and pulled it off.
Gradually the number of webs became visible due to their density. So dense that the sunlight above began to be filtered out.
The webs stretched from tree to tree like colossal, ghostly tapestries. Draped over branches, and wrapped around trunks, they formed a translucent dome that dimmed all light to a pale, sickly hue.
Wrapped around one of the tree trunks were the remnants of a once majestic creature. An enormous elk, its body suspended in an unnatural pose in the webbing. Evidence of the White Widow's past feast was obvious in the once vibrant fur becoming matted and blood-stained. The elk's limbs were twisted and bound, with eyes lifelessly staring out and the webbing covering it was discoloured from the dried blood and decaying flesh.
Screeee
One of the wasp guards got caught in a web while moving forward. Kain quickly cut it down while reminding everyone else to be careful.
From what he knew of spiders they used vibrations in their webs to detect when a prey had been caught. Therefore, it could already be on its way towards them.
To be safe, Kain released the mist in advance around them while using his spear to cut down any webs around them as they moved deeper into the spider's lair.
When they reached what Kain assumed was the heart of the nest due to the dense number of dried carcasses, he still didn't see the White Widow. Kain decided to expand the mist's distance so that hopefully a few of the droplets containing Bea's splits would make contact and give him some information on where it was hiding.
After a few minutes he received information from Bea that the absolute edges of the mist had made contact with something in the shape of a spider leg. However, none of the splits were breathed in.
'Maybe she's too far away for the mist to be breathed in?' However, Kain had already extended the mist to the limit.
Kain had already cut away all of the webs in this area to prepare for the upcoming battle, he didn't want to change the battlefield only for himself or the guards to end up stuck in a web laid as a trap.
'I need to lure her here, and I have the perfect method.'
Kain removed all of the mist covering the area for a brief moment, knowing that he was being watched.
He looked straight in the direction that Bea had sensed a spider leg in.
"Remember me?! Your kid's corpse made me a pretty penny last time. Thought I'd drop by and thank you in person!"
Screeeee!!!!!
Orange-grade spiritual creatures can usually understand humans they aren't bound to, therefore it perfectly understood Kain's words of provocation and they infuriated her!
Kain's plan worked as it rapidly headed towards him at a speed far faster than he anticipated.
'It's even slightly faster than the wind-attribute Vespirae guards.'
He immediately covered the area in a dense fog while moving from his previous location.
Good thing too because the ground he'd previously been standing on was destroyed with a violent stab downward not long later.
However, he wasn't as afraid of her much longer, once her body was covered by the dense fog, Bea's splits found an opportunity to enter. Gradually her speed lowered to a level slightly beneath the guards after Bea began to take effect.
Knowing that Bea wouldn't be able to kill her, Kain was finally able to experiment with some of the strategies he'd wanted to try in the past but couldn't due to Bea always causing a quick kill in white and red-grade beasts.
He told Bea to focus her effects on causing disorientation and impaired vision.
Kain then began to alter the density and shape of the mist in certain areas to mess with the spider.
With repeated usage of the spear, he'd already developed much better control over the mist than when he first started. He began by trying to replicate the shape of a large bear. It looked…kinda bear-like. The silhouette still wasn't perfect but it was more than enough to distract the spider with its senses and thinking ability impaired by Bea.
At the moment it was distract by the bear. The 7 wasps lying in wait from the opposite direction launched their stingers.
However, despite being distracted and the surprise attack, the spider managed to dodge most of the stingers with only 3 successfully hitting. And the ones that did hit were only at nonvital limbs.
'The orange-grade is really different. I can't believe she still dodged that!'
But although they didn't cause fatal damage, the successful hits were able to drastically limit her mobility. The future attacks should be more successful.
However, the spider rapidly turned in the direction the stingers flew from and threw up a large amount of corrosive poison. The bulk of it hit one wasp, killing it instantly, while some splashed onto the wing of another causing it to drop to the ground unable to fly.
'Damn it! Now there were only 5 guards with some combat effectiveness'
Seeing that it wanted to pursue in the direction the injured wasp dropped. Kain directed Bea to cause a headache, while Kain recalled the injured into his star space.
Screeeee
While the spider was suffering from crippling pain, the rest of the wasps moved from their original locations, while Kain continued to direct them from the shadows.