Not bothered by Scaly’s internal musings of disappointment upon seeing how she wasn’t able to see he water blades landing and could only hear how they pierced into their targets from beyond the wall of fire he had just created, Verdell didn’t waste any time and began laying out several magic traps that would blow up whenever someone walked over them from a distance. Making sure that these fire traps were nowhere near Scaly and were instead centered around him and the more remote parts of the wall of fire that kept the spiders at bay for now. Planning to take out the weaker spiders. Knowing that Scaly was going to deal with the stronger ones on her own.
Fwoosh-!
Thud~!
And, like he had expected, a massive spider covered in blood from being hit cut by several water blades jumped through the fire and landed on the ground before charging towards Scaly filled with killing intent.
A challenge that Scaly happily responded to, as Verdell saw her using her water magic to conjure up several new water blades alongside several larger spear shaped water magic that soon enough flew off towards the charging giant spider.
But as exciting as this duel might be, he didn’t exactly have the time to just lean back and watch the battle from afar.
Fwoosh~
Fwoosh~
Fwoosh~
Even as the two began their battle, more spiders followed their leader through the wall of fire despite the injuries they suffered in the process. Leaving him with a lot of spiders to deal with on his own. Especially if he wanted to take care of these spiders before their numbers increased to the point where resistance became meaningless, something that was very possible if over a hundred of those spiders came charging at him at the same time.
Still, dangerous as the current situation was, he also understood that this was a perfect opportunity for him to truly test his strength now that he had officially been promoted to a dragon flame mage. Having not exactly had the opportunity to properly test his strength beforehand, as most of his time following Scaly was spent blowing up weaker monsters that barely provided any challenge to him and died to a single fireball most of the time.
Boom!
However, before he even had the chance to cast a single spell towards the incoming spiders, one of them stepped onto one of the fire traps he had just laid down. Blowing off one of its long legs while also sending its large body flying high into the sky far beyond anything Verdell had ever imagined his fire traps capable of accomplishing as he just watched that large spider flying off into the distance towards the unknown.
Only with the spider disappearing into the clouds above did he suddenly find himself realizing that he had still been judging the strength of his fire traps with the fire traps he had used before becoming a dragon flame mage.
Obviously, now that he had been promoted to a dragon flame mage, his fire traps would be stronger... It was just... They turned out to be far stronger than he would have ever expected. Sending an unfortunate spider up to meet its great eight-legged ancestors spinning the great web in the sky.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Not just that one spider, but several other filial little spiders decided to go up and see their ancestors in the sky.
A disturbance large enough to make both Scaly and the cave spider champion she currently found herself facing off against to pause for a few seconds to see what was happening, causing Verdell to face the terrifying killing intent of the cave spider champion while at the same time also sensing what seemed to be some sort of approval and acknowledgement from Scaly’s gaze.
Strange as this was, Verdell didn’t worry too much about the cave spider champion attacking him, as Scaly and the spider soon enough resumed their battle. Allowing him to finally shift his attention towards the still recovering spiders that had been somewhat traumatized by seeing what had happened to their companions. Not even hesitating for a second as he began wielding his fire magic against these spiders that from a glance seemed to have a certain degree of weakness to fire.
Allowing himself to go all out. Understanding that anything less than his everything wouldn’t be enough in the current situation. Especially when the wall of fire ran out of mana and dissipated on its own in another half minute and the spiders too afraid to force their way through the fire came over to join the battle.
In fact. Looking at the overall situation, his job was still to keep Scaly safe from any ambush and ensure that she would be able to continue her battle without any external disturbances. Allowing her to kill of this leader and join him in rolling through the remaining weaker spiders.
Problem was, though Scaly held a clear advantage from what he could see from the battle, it was clear that she wouldn’t be able to take down the cave spider champion in a short time because of how it seemed like it had a natural resistance to water magic, something that was somewhat expected given the spiders obvious weakness to fire magic.
"Use fire magic or something similar, they are weak to fire and strong against water magic!" To ensure that the battle of his friend went smoothly, he decided to inform her of his discovery. Hoping that it would be able to aid Scaly in overcoming her enemy that was getting increasingly close to her, something she clearly wanted to avoid with how obviously powerful this spider was when it came to melee battle.
"..."
Still, even if she heard Verdell’s reminder, she didn’t have the ability to follow up on his suggestion as none of the magic she had learnt so far involved fire magic. The only close one being lightning magic that might not even do much more damage given the difference in level between her water magic and her lightning magic.
Crackle~ BANG!
And so, after an initial probe using lightning magic and confirming that the spider wasn’t one shot by it, she switched back to using her water magic against it. Knowing from testing just now that it was far more mana efficient to keep using her water magic to fend off against the cave spider champion. After all, while it did take a significantly reduced amount of damage from water magic, it still took damage. Having already been covered in several cuts from water blades that had even managed to directly sever one of its eight legs.
In the current state of things, keeping up the pressure, it wouldn’t be long before this cave spider champion was cut down by her water blades.
Powerful as it might be, it had no way to show off just how strong it was as an S Rank Monster, as it had no way to easily close the distance after it lost one of its legs. Unfortunately, not having a single ranged attack like some of the weaker spiders Verdell found himself facing off against that had the ability to either spit out some kind of erosive and highly toxic liquid or just plain old magic that was generally some kind of shadow magic or unique web magic.
In fact, faced with toxic liquid spit out by some of the spiders and restrained by web magic before being faced with a volley of earthen spikes emerging from the ground, Verdell found himself pushed to the limit trying to avoid becoming a dwarf skewer.
Whoosh~ Bang!
Allowing some of the spiders that had originally been focused on him to shift their focus towards Scaly and attack her to help their leader in the battle, something that saved this leader from the one-sided bullying he had found himself being subjected to so far.
Swish!
PTSH-!
Something Scaly was less than pleased with, as she was forced to shift some of her attention away from using her water magic to cut down the bold little spiders that had been daring enough to attack her. Ultimately giving the cave spider champion, the time needed to close the distance, as Scaly found herself meeting it head on after she killed off the weaker spiders that had managed to attack her from the side.
Bang!
A clash that made her realize just how powerful this now seven-legged spider was, as even her strength close to two thousand was feeble in the face of this spider that had seemingly focused everything on ensuring its strength was above all its peers.
Still, with one leg missing, after the initial difficulties, Scaly soon began pushing back relying on her magic to aid her in the battle. The most important surprisingly enough being her ice magic, as she realized that she could use her ice shield to block a majority of the power from the cave spider champion while the remaining bit that got through was easy to deflect with her own strength.