15 Queen and her lovers
After testing it on a few wood spiders, Michael discovered that their own venom combined with holy water —concentrated alcohol from church— could hurt or even kill the lower level spiders.
Due to this discovery, he was able to avoid danger by positioning himself on a tree.
He was acting as a field monitor and occasional long-distance support. At the same time, Luna and Lucifer were facing off against the family of spiders.
There were eight level-10 male spiders, who were bigger in size than the rest. At the center of them was the level-15 queen, safe inside the protection of lovers.
These spiders were polygamous and showed a few characteristics of bees and ants.
Fire and air attacks were much more efficient against them than any other magical attacks, so even though Lucifer was acting as vanguard and bait, Luna was the main center of the offense.
"Oh boy, here they come."
They had thinned their number to the point where there were only a handful of low-level monster spiders left. But that handful, combined with the eight guard spiders and a queen, looked much more vicious than a bunch of low-level crawlers.
They were deep inside their hunting territory, so it wasn't a surprise that the queen would show up herself to protect her family.
"Okay, Luna, I will take on the pawns and sneak behind them. You, wait till I draw their attention from behind."
They had no idea about how many of these spiders were left, so they couldn't come up with a concrete plan. However, they did a risk assessment and were equipped with necessary items and potions just in case.
Lucifer took out the Flaming sphere from his arsenal. It was one of the items that he came across in the treasure vault, whose property allowed him to cover its sharp part in flames at the cost of MP. It was especially effective against insects and bugs.
It was an excellent item if it weren't for the mana absorption rate. It would consume 10 magic points for every second of use. That meant Lucifer would run out of gas in less than one and a half minutes if he uses the sphere continuously.
Lucifer climbed a nearby tree and jumped at one of the low-level spiders from above. He activated the Flaming sphere mid-air and thrust it right through its abdomen.
[Congratulations! You've leveled up!]
His experience point bar was almost full, so that was only expected. He had disabled the voice notification to avoid distraction, so the message came in the form of a log.
The spider's body started burning as he pulled the sword and jumped forward. However, as soon as his feet touched the ground, he came within reach of two other low-level spiders.
He used a Flame burst to repel one while blocking the other with his sphere.
In terms of raw physical power, these spiders were much stronger than Lucifer. There was no way he would be able to hold those claws for much longer. However, right as he was being pushed back, Michael threw a poison bottle at the spider.
When the glass bottle touched the spider's rough skin, it broke into pieces. But as the liquid fell into its body, his skin slowly started melting.
Lucifer used this as an opportunity to push the spider back and shoved his sphere right through its head.
"Hey, old man, Keep that thing away from me. I don't trust your shaky hand."
"Ohh, don't worry. I drank some wine this morning. Right now, my aim is even better than yours."
The poison was powerful enough to melt the tough spider hide, so it wouldn't be surprising if it could even melt human bone along with the skin on touch. Considering that, the old man did seem somewhat careless.
Lucifer sighed. "Whatever, old man. Just don't break your back by falling from that tree. Early retirement isn't as fun as it sounds."
He then used 'Hide' to suppress his presence and move forward. As he did that, Luna dealt with the three spiders on their right using a Flame wave. It was the most powerful fire attack that she was capable of.
The attack drew the guards' attention, but before they could go charging forward, Lucifer attacked one of them from behind.
The attack wasn't powerful enough to kill a level-10 wood spider on a single strike. But it was strong enough to cause it agonizing pain. And when the rest saw one of their colleges in so much pain, their attention naturally shifted backward.
Their position was fixed as they couldn't compromise the queen's safety, so they only shifted their focus to Lucifer and chased him to a certain distance. Once Lucifer was past their reach, the guards came back to the queen's side.
This pattern of movement made the battle fairly easy for the party. They just had to alter their attacks and hunt them one after another.
Luna drank the magic potion and attacked the one in front of her with a Flame wave. The attack was powerful enough to reduce the HP of one of the guards to the point where the next flame arrow attack finished it off.
Following Luna's attack, Lucifer charged at the spider he had attacked last time. This time he used a flame burst followed by the sphere attack, which killed the spider.
[Congratulations! You've leveled up!]
The group of guards divided into two and started chasing each of them. Three came after Lucifer, while three went for Luna.
There was no way Lucifer would be able to handle them all at once. His best bet was to hope that they don't chase after him and return back to the queen once he reaches a certain distance.
However, contrary to how he had hoped, only one spider returned to the queen. The two others kept on chasing him.
Lucifer quickly put the sphere that was slowing him down into his inventory, grabbed the branch, and used it to climb the trees.
Even though wood spiders weren't that wise, they possessed all the instincts that insects possessed and could easily climb trees.
The spiders were undoubtedly better than Lucifer in climbing the trees. But as Lucifer started jumping from one tree to another using the vines and branches, the spiders could barely keep up.
Still, just avoiding the incoming attack by running away wasn't how he was going to win here. He knew that he had to fight back for the victory. But now the question was: 'how?'
