Rustle-!
In response to the sudden emergence of the small monster in the shape of some kind of oversized rat, the surrounding royal cave spider guards all rushed forth with killing intent. Instantly descending upon the poor monster before it even had the chance to realize what had happened before countless sharp spider legs descended from above with speed that made it impossible to dodge-
Screeech!?
Ptsh-!
And with only a surprised screeching sound coming out of its mouth before the spider legs reached it, the little monster was soon skewered by the sharp spider legs. Dying without being able to put up even the slightest bit of resistance in front of this group of overpowered spiders working together in perfect synergy to dispatch of their target in the fastest and most efficient manner possible.
Rustle~
Not long after, the spiders quickly returned to their former guarding positions. Ignoring the dead body of the monster they had just killed off, as two smaller and weaker spiders soon emerged from one of the nearby tunnels. The first picking up and carrying off the dead body, while the second crawled into the recently created hole in the wall and began patching it up to prevent any other monsters from making use of it in the future.
Of course, Scaly could see all of this as she silently drifted along the stream that carried her deeper into the lair. Making her feel extremely thankful that she hadn’t ended up facing these terrifying spiders herself, as they not only had numbers on their side, but were also extremely proficient when it came to teamwork. Leaving her with no chance of winning in case she really attempted to face off against them.
Although, it did leave her wondering just what she was going to find at the end of the stream, though she already had some idea after seeing just well these spiders worked together on defending the tunnel.
From what she knew about the ruler ranks among the monsters, through her inspection of the gnolls in the past, she knew that the ranks of rulers among monsters were divided into four distinct ranks.
Titles differed a bit, but for gnolls, it was divided into Chieftain, Lord, King and Emperor. Chieftain being the lowest, while Emperor was the strongest.
So far, the only monster she had encountered with king in its name was the Cloud Nest Bird King, but although it was strong, she had a feeling that it couldn’t be considered a true king so to speak in the terms of rulers among monsters. After all, she had met it back when she had been descending from the second floor of the dungeon to the third and had been able to deal with it at the time.
Given the strength of the lord rank monsters, she had encountered after that, she highly doubted that the cloud nest bird king could be considered a king in rank and it was most likely just a name for its evolution and didn’t have any meaning beyond it.
Of course, the reason why she thought about all of this as she drifted along without moving a single muscle as the royal cave spider guards disappeared behind her, was because she suspected that the one in charge of the cave spider lair might very well be a spider that had managed to reach the king rank.
Not just because of the large number of spiders that fell under their control, but more so because the strength of the monsters had far exceeded any faction of monsters she had encountered so far... And for monsters, the only way for them to establish a proper rule would be through overwhelming strength. At least that was what she had gathered from her experience inside the dungeon so far. Outside the dungeon things might be a bit different from what she had managed to learn through inspecting different monsters so far, as there seemed to be a clear distinction between monsters inside and outside a dungeon.
Then again, it wasn’t much for her to worry about for now, as she was still living inside the dungeon and didn’t really see herself leaving the dungeon any time soon. Not just because it would be extremely dangerous considering the entrance of the dungeon was controlled by humans, but also because it was simple for her to find monsters and increase her own strength by staying inside the dungeon.
The only reason she might leave in the future would be when the monsters inside the dungeon became too weak to have a real impact on increasing her strength.
Feeling her thoughts wandering freely as she peacefully drifted along the now once again gentle stream of water, Scaly observed her surroundings in depth... And after finding that the tunnel was completely empty for the first time, she decided to discreetly poke her small mouth out of the water to take a deep breath for the first time in close to twenty minutes. Ensuring that even if she encountered a situation like the blockade earlier, she would have some time to think about a solution to the problem.
However, before her thoughts began to wander again, a bright light appeared in the distance, as she could barely make out that the tunnel she had been moving through for so long was finally coming to an end. Not just that, but the gentle stream was also ending in a larger underground lake. The light from the larger cave opening up at the end of the tunnel illuminating the silent yet beautiful underground lake that was being supported by countless other smaller streams of water that came in from different tunnels connected to the larger cave. Almost certainly also guarded like the one she had gone through, once again making her realize just how terrifyingly powerful this cave spider lair truly was.
A belief that was only further strengthened when she realized that the stream she had been following wasn’t the largest, but instead a relatively normal sized one, with the largest stream not really being a stream, but more so a small river flowing into the lake.
Undoubtedly, the strongest royal cave spider guards wouldn’t be the ones she had encountered, but the ones in charge of guarding that small river, as it presented the greatest threat to the interior of the lair that they had been guarding.
As for why this location with the underground lake was so well protected?
Rustle~ Rustle~ Rustle~
[Cave Spiderling, lvl 1]
[Cave Spiderling, lvl 3]
[Cave Spiderling, lvl 1]
[Cave Spider...]
The answer presented itself openly to her as she drifted into the underground lake, as countless small spiderlings could be seen swarming all over the place. Tens of thousands of them being gathered inside the underground cave at the core of the cave spider lair.
The location she had found herself in was none other than the main hatchery room of the cave spider lair where their young were located, but also the location where they were slowly brought up through intense battles to the death where only the strong emerged, as she saw clearly how the weaker ones were consumed by the stronger ones.
A quick glance around made it clear that this process would last until they had ended up killing and consuming enough of their siblings to reach level 5 and go through their first evolution, something that happened every few minutes due to just how many cave spiderlings were present.
Under normal circumstances, this kind of situation of countless spiders crawling all the place murdering and consuming each other might have been terrifying, but in Scaly’s eyes it was an unprecedented opportunity that made both of her eyes shine brightly.
Even though these small spiderlings wouldn’t provide much experience at her current level, they would still provide some and tens of thousands of them would be more than enough for her to reach level 30 and start preparing for her next evolution.
The only problem was that the spiderlings weren’t the only spiders present inside the cave, as she did spot a few royal cave spider guards lingering around the place to watch over the bloodbath from afar to ensure nothing went wrong.
Although she did manage to avoid running into the ruler of the cave spider lair that she had originally expected to encounter at the end of the tunnel, it wasn’t exactly easy for her to kill off the countless spiderlings without being noticed by the royal cave spider guards watching over the place... And even though the number of royal cave spider guards weren’t enough to make her feel the slightest bit threatened, she understood that the second they discovered her, the other royal cave spider guards guarding the paths into the spawning chamber would rush over to help. At which point, there was no chance of her getting out alive.
The only real solution she could think of was securing a safe way out and finding a way to kill off all the spiderlings at the same time, something far more difficult than going on a rampage with her water magic amidst the spiderlings like she had originally wanted to do when first seeing them...