Edward stayed a generous distance away from the black widow, which had now noticed him and stopped laying even more cocoons on the nest. He flung an aura blade at it, probing its defenses. The spider didn’t even attempt to evade, the blade simply crashed against the strongest aura armor Edward had ever seen. He sighed internally. This is going to be a long fight. Why do all monsters have aura armor nowadays? The spider moved slowly, turning in Edward’s direction before puking a continuous stream of green liquid in his direction.

Edward ran parallel to the nest to avoid the liquid, the attack continuing for a good ten seconds, the spider chasing after him with the spat fluid. However, Edward was moving faster than the monster was able to aim and the attack missed and landed on the ground behind him. The webs sprayed by the liquid slowly dissolved in a cloud of smoke. Great, it’s puking corrosive liquid at me. As if a house-sized spider wasn’t disgusting enough already.

Edward continued to circle the nest in midair using aura steps while throwing small aura blades at the spider. He had no illusions that his aura blades would be able to pierce threw the spider’s armor, an armor so thick wouldn’t be so easily broken. He was only probing the black widow, he wanted to learn its different moves before engaging closer.

He wasn’t disappointed, after two more attempts of throwing up at Edward, the spider had enough. It emitted a shrill cry that rang in Edward’s ears. Immediately after, all of the cocoons in the nest moved simultaneously before hatching one after the other. Countless head-sized baby spiders soon covered the nest. What is it doing? Is it hoping for those spiders to somehow be able to take me down? They won’t even be able to pierce through my aura armor.

It was then that numerous motes of aura left the black widow’s body, the motes slowly drifting around the nest in a cloud. Each baby spider that had a mote fall on it started to glow with aura. Holy molly! Are you telling me that now each one of those spiders will be able to use aura?

This changed the situation considerably, the baby spiders turned from a nonexistent threat to one that couldn’t be ignored. Worse, there were so many of them, and their blood essence was so weak that Edward would only exhaust himself attempting to get rid of them. It would cost him more aura killing them than he would be able to take back absorbing their blood essence.

Edward frowned in contemplation. It will be difficult to kill all of those small spiders but my objective is only to kill the queen and destroy the nest. Sharing its aura in such a manner must have considerably weakened its aura armor. I’m not sure it was the right move buddy.

Edward used his acceleration power, suddenly rushing toward the spider queen, teleporting directly into its head once he was close enough. Like all spiders, it couldn’t defend itself from Edward once he was on top of its body, and this was further accentuated by its massive size. Edward plunged his two daggers attempting to pierce the aura armor. The aura armor hold firm, ripples forming on it due to the intensity of the confrontation as Edward was increasing the density of his aura blades.

Edward was shaking from the resistance of the aura armor, even with all the strength he was using he wasn’t able to pierce through. The struggle was in a stalemate when the baby spiders converged on their queen, climbing on its body to reach Edward. The black widow couldn’t defend itself, but its babies could do that in its place. Edward had no other choice but to retreat, lest he got stabbed by a thousand tiny fangs.

He considered his options as the black widow’s body became covered by an army of angry tiny spiders pointing their small glowing fangs at him. The queen’s aura armor was still too thick to be cut by simple aura blades. Edward had to come in close range and stab it directly, but even then, it would take time to pierce through the armor and it was time the small spider protecting their queen wouldn’t give him. He was back to square one, he couldn’t defeat all of the baby spiders, but he couldn’t defeat the back widow before defeating the baby spiders first.

Edward was still thinking of another angle of attack when the black widow resumed the battle, again throwing corrosive fluids at him, forcing him to evade. At least, even if the baby spiders were an effective way for the black widow to defend itself it didn’t help with its offensive capacity. The monster was akin to a tank with a very powerful defense but slow to move and with easily available attacks. Although, from the numerous holes in the ground from the spider fluids, its attacks did seem adequate if they managed to hit their target. This thing is more suited as a siege engine than to fight a moving target.

However, Edward couldn’t let this situation last for too long. He was in enemy territory, and if the fight stayed at a dead end, he would have to retreat eventually due to the arrival of reinforcements from the spider side. He was in a conundrum.

What he needed was an area of attack to remove the numerous but weak baby spiders from the fight. His teleportation and acceleration wouldn’t be of much help in this situation. Even his aura blades, which could kill dozens of opponents at once wouldn’t be very effective against enemies so small.

Edward reviewed his different abilities and the only thing he could think of was his aura blast technique. It wouldn’t be enough to kill the spiders but it would blow them out of the way, buying him time to deal with the black widow.

After avoiding another stream of corrosive fluids, Edward went back on the offensive. He didn’t teleport on the spider queen since it was still covered with baby spiders. Instead, he approached the monster with aura steps until he was right above it. He gathered as much aura as he could inside of him and he let it explode outwards. A powerful blast of air sent the small spiders flying, even swaying the webs both on the ceiling and on the ground.

With the way cleared, Edward dropped on the black widow and stabbed it with his daggers coated in a dense layer of the aura. The spider’s aura armor pulsed, concentric waves emanating from the point Edward had stabbed his daggers. The armor wavered but hold on as the tiny spiders were recovering from the shock wave. However, even before they could come back to the fight, another wave of small spiders crawled from the black widow’s belly where they had been protected from the aura blast. Edward had no choice but to retreat again.

I’m not able to pierce past its defenses. Where is heavy artillery when you need it? Seriously, a spider this big should be directly bombed from orbit.

Edward would have to reiterate his technique, blasting aura to chase the small spiders away before attacking the mother, until the spider queen’s armor collapsed. He was ready to go for another round but he saw a squadron of wolf spiders approaching from the distance. Already?! That spider’s cry must have called for help as well as spawned the baby spiders. He didn’t have much time. If he wanted to take down the spider queen, he had to do it now.

Edward was hesitating between fleeing and finishing the fight, however, he remembered a crucial point. Those spiders were intelligent, different species were collaborating together, forming an effective society. If he fled now, he may never have had another chance to slay the spider queen. This spider had strong defenses but more importantly, it relied on others to protect it, and after a failed attempt at killing it, there was no doubt that its protection would be reinforced.

He had to kill the spider queen now, it may very well be his only chance. The problem was how to do it, piercing through its aura armor would be a lengthy process and he didn’t have the time. He needed to deal a massive amount of damage in a short time. Edward once more lamented the fact that he didn’t have any heavy artillery at his disposal. That’s when he got an idea. Wait a minute. I can blow everything by myself. If I plant the rune bomb inside the nest, with all the mana available, the explosion will kill all the spiders. I was focused on the spider queen because I had the impression that it was guarding the nest, but it is too slow to stop me.

I have to be careful about the baby spiders though. I can’t do it like last time when I was cutting the web manually, it will take too long. I have to be faster.

Edward took out his rune flamethrower. Flames are inefficient for burning the whole spider territory because the webs are burning too fast, and the burning is contained in a short area. But I only need to burn a small area to access the center of the nest. Edward clenched his fist. With how much mana he had left, and with the impossibility of recovering mana with the webs sucking all the ambient mana he would have one shot only.

It's all or nothing. Edward went all out. He teleported directly to the other side of the nest to be as far away as possible from the black widow. Then he activated the rune, a tongue of flame spurting out and burning the webs in front of him. Only the webs that were directly exposed to the fire were burning and turning to ashes, the rest of the nest being spared. But this was enough for Edward. The fire was burning a hole inside the nest far faster than by cutting and removing the webs manually.

However, the flame rune wasn’t conceived to be used continuously. The artifact glowed red from the heat, so much so that Edward had to form aura armor to protect himself. However, even with the armor, the heat was passing through and getting to him. Edward held on despite the pain, he had no time to waste, and he couldn’t allow it to slow him down. Sensing what he was doing, the spider shrieked with a sense of urgency. All the baby spiders converged on Edward while the wolf spiders in the distance accelerated.

However, it was already late, Edward had already progressed three meters inside the nest. By now, he was in the part where mana was leaking out of the webs, he barely needed to feed the flame rune anymore, the ambient mana was enough to activate it on its own.

Edward burned deeper into the nest as he saw the baby spiders coming after him from the edges of the hole. He blasted aura, sending them flying away while still progressing inside the nest. He was now five meters deep. Another wave of head-sized spiders assaulted the hole that Edward had burned through the nest. He kept blasting aura at them while progressing deeper. His hand holding the flamethrower artifact had developed blisters due to the heat and Edward was gritting his teeth in pain while advancing. He was already at the ten meters mark.

Edward persisted and felt the time slow down when he reached the twenty-meter mark, he used his acceleration power without enhancing his perception. At this depth, the small spiders were unable to pursue him. The mana density accelerated the perception of time while one didn’t move any faster. If the spiders wanted to move forward, they would have to consciously order their legs to move forward for what felt like ten seconds for their legs to actually move.

Edward continued for two more meters before dropping the flame rune artifact, which sunk inside the webs still burning them due to its residual heat. He took out the bomb with his undamaged hand, he just had to pour the faintest amount of mana for the bomb to activate and suck the ambient mana, turning red from the heat as well. Edward immediately teleported away. He appeared a good thirty meters away from the nest, further than he had anticipated, the range of his teleportation had increased.

However, that was still too close to the nest, Edward continued to run away, putting as much distance as he could from the nest. Behind him the wolf spiders stopped in confusion, not knowing if they should continue toward the nest to guard the black widow or pursue Edward. Their indecision didn’t last long as the nest exploded in a deafening blast, ending their lives as well as those of all the baby spiders. Edward was propelled into the air by the explosion but he was ready for it. He tried to follow the shock wave as much as he could, not going against it but redirecting his trajectory. He landed relatively unscathed. His biggest injury was his burned hand.