Having taken in the general state of her surroundings from beneath the water, Scaly decided to start searching for a way out of the hatching chamber before starting to think about how to efficiently kill off the spiderlings before the royal cave spider guard had the time to jump in and stop her.
Of course, given the current state she found herself in, the only place she could search for an escape path was below the dark waters of the lake, as all other paths should have long since been blocked off by the royal guard spiders.
Swish~
With that in mind, she began diving down to search through the bottom of the lake to start off with. Looking for any obvious underwater currents that could lead her to an underwater passage that could get her out of her current situation. After all, even if she didn’t decide to kill off the spiderlings, she would still have to find a way out, as staying around would mean that she would either end up dead or sneak around trying to train her swimming skill enough that she would be able to hold her breath for longer underwater... And even in that case, she would still need a similar opportunity to slip past the royal cave spider guards guarding the different water stream connected to the lake in the middle of the spawning chamber where their young were located.
No matter what, all of this was extremely risky, and she would prefer to find another way out of the cave spider lair, as this would also allow her to leave without having to waste who knew how much time improving her swimming and underwater breathing.
After all, the time she would be stuck in the cave spider lair, would also be time that couldn’t be used on hunting down monsters to improve her own strength, something she wanted to avoid at all costs if possible. Not to mention, staying inside the spawning chamber of the cave spider lair, there was also the risk of running into the true ruler of the cave spider lair and there was no saying if her remaining hidden below the water would be good enough to stay hidden at that point in time.
Whoosh~
Hm? This is- A current! And a strong one!
As her thoughts continued wandering on their own, Scaly suddenly found herself freezing on the spot, as she felt a strong current gripping hold of her... And without any hesitation, she allowed the current to pull her along, as she followed it to the source. Soon enough, she found herself floating in front of a small opening barely big enough to fit her inside.
Even though she had no idea where this path would lead her if she decided to squeeze inside and follow it, she was at least certain that it would be better than staying in the cave spider lair.
Even then, she didn’t stop her search for other escape paths, as she wanted to see if there were any other underwater tunnels connected to the lake that she would be able to escape through... And in the end, she did end up finding another three underwater paths. Unfortunately, two of them were too small to fit inside, while the last was larger than the first she found, it was covered in some kind of strange web that made it impossible to break through without destroying it.
The presence of this web underwater instantly made her aware that she might not be alone in the dark waters of the lake, there might be some kind of underwater spider present lurking where she couldn’t see!
Because of this, she ultimately decided to stop her search through the dark waters of the lake, as she feared running into this underwater spider that might lurking in some corner of the lake. Instead, she began turning her attention towards how to kill off all the spiderlings in a single move before escaping, her escape path already being chosen as the path she had first discovered.
The problem was, how to kill over tens of thousands of spiderlings in a single move with her current strength?
Although she was powerful and had strong water magic that could hit a large area, it wouldn’t be enough to even wipe out a fraction of the spiderlings inside the spawning chamber.
Her first thought was to try and collapse the underground chamber with her lightning magic. Killing not just the spiderlings, but potentially also the royal cave spider guards, but this thought was put away the second her gaze turned towards the ceiling of the underground chamber, as she discovered countless webs covering the ceiling along with even more spiderlings and royal cave spider guards roaming around up there.
Even if she attempted to bring down the ceiling, her lightning wouldn’t be able to reach it directly and would first have to shoot through the countless webs that would weaken the strength of her lightning magic. Meaning that it might not have the strength to bring down the ceiling on top of the spiderlings and royal cave spider guards.
But... Outside of collapsing the spawning chamber, she really couldn’t think of any other way in which she would be able to put an end yo so many spiderlings while still having the time to flee into the water and escape. Especially now that she had to be prepared to potentially face off some kind of underwater spider along the way.
Aaaaah! This is too much, the original plan of collapsing the ceiling won’t work and now I must find some different way to kill all of them with a single move? My brain can’t handle coming up with some kind of complicated scheme, isn’t there a simpler solution...?
Feeling her small head hurting after realizing that her original plan for killing off the spiderlings wasn’t going to work, Scaly’s eyes darted all over the interior of the spawning chamber. Looking for anything that might help her in figuring out how to kill off the spiderlings with a single move, as coming up with some kind of overcomplicated solution was far from her specialty, she was more so the type to take advantage of the situation and her environment without putting too much thought into things. Acting mostly on her instinct.
However, for the first time, her instincts that had pointed her towards just collapsing the ceiling on top of the spiderlings and be done with it, had ended up failing, as this plan wasn’t doable with the countless spider webs and spiders blocking off the ceiling from being directly hit.
Unless... She could find another way to collapse the ceiling of the spawning chamber and have the entire underground space cave in on itself.
But how would she go about doing that...?
Lost in her own thoughts about what to do, Scaly found herself cautiously poking part of her head out of the water before starting to look around the spawning chamber for any weak points that she could take advantage of to cause the spawning chamber to cave in. Different from before, she was confident in remaining hidden amidst the dark waters of the lake as none of the royal cave spider guards paid any attention to the lake itself and were mostly focused on the paths leading inside the spawning chamber or the spiderlings themselves.
Soon enough, her gaze focused on the few massive pillars that were scattered throughout the spawning chamber. Holding up the ceiling above and stopping it from caving in and collapsing on top of everyone inside.
She had noticed these pillars before, but with how thick and large they were, she had originally ignored them. Not believing she would have the ability to damage them enough to cause any effect with her current strength.
But... As she continued focusing her attention on these pillars, she quickly realized that they were far from stable and even looked like they were about to collapse at any moment.
The reason for this? The spiderlings had dug countless small tunnels and hideouts throughout the towering pillars holding up the ceiling. Making them far weaker than they had appeared on the surface.
Observing them, Scaly was almost certain that even her water magic would be capable of shaking them enough to cause an unstoppable chain reaction that would in turn cause them to collapse, let alone her lightning magic.
In turn, when one pillar collapsed, the other would have to bear more weight and would soon follow the first and collapse alongside it. Meaning, she had finally found a way to ensure the ceiling of the spawning chamber collapsed!
All she had to do now was make a few last-minute preparations and get ready to make her move before escaping. After all, she didn’t plan to get herself caught up with the spiders as the ceiling collapsed on top of them. The gradual collapse of the pillars would at least give her a bit more time to escape, while not providing nearly enough time for the spiders to do the same...