Lisa shot through the lower galleries of the Whispering Cavern like a white flash, her four paws barely touching the damp ground as the golden glow of Natural Energy, occasionally infused by Lohan, left a vibrant trail in the darkness.
Lohan was taking this opportunity to practice his control over the Sacred Light as well; knowing the potential of this skill, it would be foolish not to use it frequently to become more proficient.
Behind them, Alice and Dylan’s group tried to keep up, driven by the urgency to level up and motivated by the power displayed by their leaders.
As they advanced, the environment began to undergo a strange change.
The Weaver Spiders that had previously appeared in small, isolated groups now operated in increasingly larger groups, their levels rising aggressively.
Where there had once been only Level 11 and Level 12 creatures, now Level 13 and 14 specimens, whose chitinous exoskeletons displayed grooves pulsing with purple mana, were increasingly common."Form a encirclement! Justin, don’t stop firing!
Samantha, use the shadows of the stalactites to your advantage!" Halon’s mental voice resonated with great authority over the guild link.
Lohan, firmly anchored to Lisa’s back like a living suit of armor, operated in a state of absolute parallel processing.
He wasn’t just supporting the group; at this point, he was everyone’s central nervous system.
Through [Pack Instinct] and [Collective Synaptic Synchrony], he sent motor impulses to Dee the exact millisecond a Level 14 spider fired a piercing web, allowing the warrior to raise his Slime-reinforced obsidian shield at the perfect moment.
The battles became a brutal spectacle. Whenever one of Dylan’s Players was surrounded, Lohan extended his Magic Web from Lisa’s back or the clones, creating bidirectional nets that not only immobilized the enemies but drained their mana to sustain the group’s abilities.
"Alice, charged punch... now!" Lohan commanded.
The boxer Alice, feeling Lohan’s mass inject a pulse of Holy Light and refined biomass into her fist, delivered a blow that not only shattered the shell of a Level 14 spider but dissolved it in an explosion of purifying energy.
"Halon, this is insane! I feel like my level of existence is being pulled up by you!" Alice laughed telepathically, wiping the spiders’ fluid from her face as she advanced.
However, as they eliminated the last group of Level 14s, Alice stopped, raising her hand to signal the group to halt.
She walked over to the cave wall, narrowing her eyes at what she saw. The walls, which until then had been composed of solid, featureless rock, now displayed small abstract inscriptions.
They were deep grooves in the stone that looked as though they had been carved by jaws or claws, forming patterns that, though strange, seemed to hold some meaning, pulsing with a dark static that disturbed the group’s mana perception.
"Look at this... this doesn’t seem natural," Alice murmured, touching the glyphs. "It feels like we’re entering some kind of sacred... or cursed ground."
Lohan focused on [Instinctive Perception] and felt the air grow heavy.
Around them, there were no longer just spiders; other types of insects began to emerge from the cracks: centipedes with metallic shells and beetles that resembled dark versions of the ones they’d faced in the fossilized tree, but with a greater aggressiveness.
After each new battle, the journey became silent and tense.
With every meter they went deeper, the inscriptions on the walls grew more frequent and complex, covering the ceiling and floor like a web of black marble.
The stench of decay saturated the air, overwhelming Lohan’s [Chemosensory Aptitude] with hints of sulfur and poison.
Finally, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber.
The center of the room was dominated by a structure resembling a sacrificial altar, carved from the very floor of the cave.
Around the altar, the floor was carpeted with the skeletons of forest animals, smaller monsters, and, to the group’s horror, human remains still clad in tatters of armor.
But what truly caught everyone’s attention was the figure atop the altar.
It was a creature that defied everything they had seen in Elysium up to that point.
It possessed the upper body of a colossal spider, but its legs were a mixture of mantis legs and the chitinous segments of a black wasp. The carapace exuded an aura of liquid darkness that seemed to devour the ambient light.
The moment Lohan’s perception touched the creature, his [Core of Holy Light] reacted violently.
A pulse of golden energy shot through the blue gelatin, vibrating with an extremely familiar resonance of repulsion.
It was as if the mere presence of that creature were the antithesis of everything the Holy Light stood for.
The energy emanating from the monster was a cold static, a corruption attempting to "erase" the purity of Lohan’s core.
Just as Lohan felt the shock, the creature felt it too. The monstrosity’s multiple eyes glowed with a sickly red, fixing their gaze precisely on Halon’s position on Lisa’s back.
"PURE... REPUGNANT... BLINDING LIGHT!!!" The creature let out a scream that mixed distorted human speech with bestial, insect-like grunts, reverberating off the inscribed walls.
A system notification, tinged with blood red, appeared before everyone:
[Alert: You have encountered the Sovereign of the Corrupted Web!]
[Level: 15 (Elite)]
[Warning: The level difference and the aura of corruption impose a 20% penalty on all defense stats for Players below Level 14!]
"Level 15 Elite?!" Dylan exclaimed, unsheathing his sword with trembling hands. "Holy shit, this isn’t a common mob, it’s a Guardian of something important!"
Hearing this, the group was torn between two conflicting emotions: fear of a being seemingly so powerful, and excitement at the thought that if such a creature existed, there would likely be a corresponding reward!
The creature gave the group no time to devise tactics. With a movement of its front legs, it issued a command of absolute hatred.
"KILL! DEVOUR THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT! LEAVE NOTHING BEHIND!!!" The scream commanded the hundreds of insects crawling up the walls.
Lohan immediately realized the situation was extremely dangerous.
Since he had split into small clones to protect each member of the group, this creature didn’t know whom to target with its initial attack, which made it even more furious.
The monster began to spin its torso, firing black webs that, to Lohan’s surprise, connected to his insect servants.
Through these connections, the Boss was injecting corrupted energy directly into them, just as Lohan did with the [Spinner Mother] to strengthen his own group.
The Level 13 and 14 spiders and beetles around them began to grow in size, their exoskeletons hardening and their attacks gaining a frenzied speed under the Sovereign’s command."Damn, another enemy like this?!" Lohan complained, his gelatin pulsing urgently. "Guys, he’s a power source for the swarm.
If we don’t stop the energy injection, we’ll be buried by the sheer number!"
Lisa growled, her fur glowing intensely with [Spiritual Fire] as she leaped through the initial attacks.
The group of Players, led by Alice, managed to hold off the first wave, but with every passing moment, more and more insects emerged from the cracks in the cave, drawn by the Sovereign’s call.
Lohan felt the pressure on his [Parallel Processing Core] reach its limit.
To keep everyone safe under the growing deluge of enemies, he had to expel even more biomass, forming more clones to cover the gaps in Justin and Samantha’s defenses while digesting more corpses to maintain energy for everyone.
"Increasing support! Dee, hold the front line! Tunder, unleash everything you’ve got on the rear!" Lohan shouted mentally, as he felt his biomass reserves drop drastically to sustain everyone’s regeneration at the same time.
The chamber became a chaos of white flames, electrical discharges, and the corrosive sizzle of Lohan’s biomass.
However, the Level 15 monster had no intention of staying on the altar just watching.
It was preparing to descend and personally join the battle. The monster began weaving a colossal web on the ceiling, preparing for a dive that would likely shatter the group’s defenses.