Everyone in the cavern looked at the newcomer with a little bit of shock.
"Are you from the academy?" Syra asked while landing on the ground.
"No. But that doesn't matter right now. If you want to survive, you'll have to trust me." The man said with a severe expression.
"How can I be sure..." Syra questioned.
"Of what?"
"How can I make sure that you're not a foe?"
"Well, it's either me or them." The man shrugged before a magical aura expanded out of his body and erupted in every direction.
His power rippled through the air in the form of an amethyst-blue energy.
"He's strong..." Falco widened his eyes; however, his expression turned severe once again.
"But not strong enough." He muttered.
The man would most likely have the ability to go up against one or two of the spiders with pristine amethyst cores; however, anything higher than that would get him killed.
The creatures before them were no joke. Fighting them was no laughing matter. They were powerful and skilled in their own way. Even with the addition of the stanger, things weren't looking too good for them.
"Reinforcement is on their way. Don't worry." Eclipse said while looking at Falco.
Falco, on the other hand, simply nodded when he heard this news. It was a relief to know that someone was probably going to come to save them; however, the possibility of the stranger lying was always there.
And if that wasn't bad enough, who was to say whether or not they would survive until reinforcement came?
'Did the academy really make a mistake like this? They always scout out locations before allowing us to go there. Maybe we should use the talisman. Yeah, we should definitely use the talisman. We might die if this carries on.' Falco thought to himself, and without asking anyone else on the team, he took out the crystal he had been given before leaving for the mission and held it high.
Everyone else on the team saw what he was doing, yet despite that, they didn't stop him.
In a way, they knew that the best course of action was to take the loss and leave simply. This mission was not worth their lives.
However...
"Huh..." Falco's eyes widened as dread seeped into every single on of his cells.
His stomach dropped, while a feeling of nausea overcame him momentarily.
"What's wrong." Herla asked while panting. Her spell had taken a lot out of her, and right now, she was trying her best to recover as much as possible before they would be forced to fight the 5 stronger creatures.
"The talisman..." Falco muttered while looking at it in his hands.
His hands were shaking, while his eyes were filled with a certain sense of terror.
"I-It's not working." He said, and when everyone heard him, they felt like they had been punched in the gut before a sense of dread washed over them as well.
"W-What do you mean it doesn't work." Zelon stuttered with a panicking smile on his face.
Taking out his own talisman, he injected his mana into it, yet when he did, it quickly turned grey before the crystal shattered and turned into dust.
Everyone else did the same thing, and yet, they all got the same problem.
"T-They set us up... They wanted to kill us." Zelon said with a shaky voice and a pair of eyes that were beginning to well up with tears.
"They want us dead!" He shouted, and one of the spiders shot forward at that moment.
These spiders weren't like the rest. They didn't walk like the rest on all 8 legs. Instead, they had four legs attached to their backs and evolved to look closer to humans.
It was weird to see them this way. The other arachnids were just giant spiders, but what was before them were monstrosities one would expect to see in a horror documentary about scientists trying to forcibly evolve animals with the use of human DNA.
As one of the spiders closed in at a rapid rate on the screaming Zelon, Eclipse disappeared from where he stood and quickly appeared before Zelon.
Without waiting for another second, he threw out a punch; however, it was not nearly at the same speed or power as the spider's clawed attack.
The spider's human-like arms only had three fingers at the end of them; however, they made up for the lack of fingers by having claws at the end of their fingers.
The clawed hands swung at Eclipse the moment he appeared and were already ready to tear apart his extended arm, yet in a smooth-like fashion, his arms moved like water and altogether avoided the claws.
However, Eclipse didn't stop there.
His arms were quick and fluid, and despite the change in direction, it somehow kept all of its previous moment and was even beginning to add onto it again.
Eclipse's hands ripped through the air as if they were daggers, and within an instant, a low thud could be heard as blood suddenly spilled out of the spider.
Its arm had dropped to the ground while dark-brown blood erupted out of the stump in the arm.
The spider took several steps back; however, it was too late by now.
Eclipse's body moved like a serpent wrapped around its enemy and attacked when they least expected it.
Suddenly appearing behind the spider, his hand chopped at its neck.
It all felt like it happened in a flash.
A low thud rang throughout the cavern as the spider's head dropped to the ground while brown blood spurted out of where its neck used to be.
His hand moved again, and in a swift movement, three holes could be seen to have been drilled through the spider's body as it finally dropped to the ground dead.
"Are you guys just going to watch, or will you help me?" Eclipse asked, causing everyone to be snapped out of their stupor and get into fighting stances.
The battle between the spiders and humans began.
only three spiders remained; however, when they fought, something was different.
They were... Adapting.
They were changing.
While Eclipse had an easy time killing the first one because he took it by surprise, the others weren't nearly as easy,
It was almost like they had watched and analyzed every single movement he made when he fought with their brother. Through seeing him fight, not only did they become better fighters themselves, but they also adapted to Eclipse's style.
"Shit... They're getting stronger!" Eclipse shouted out in panic as he felt himself being pushed back by the spiders before him.
She was already being attacked by two of the stronger spiders simultaneously, while a swarm of the smaller and slightly weaker spiders came and attacked him as well.
The small spiders weren't too hard to kill, but the fact that they were not only poisonous, but came in swarms too made it much harder for him to fight back.
No matter how much he punched, there was always another spider.
*Swoosh*
Suddenly, both spiders before he disappeared, and they were behind him in an instant.
"Wha-" He almost couldn't see them.
'That movement... It was almost elastic. As if they were storing energy and unleashed it in one burst to move as quickly as possible.' He thought with panic while leaning back.
Eclipse's heart raced as he faced the two humanoid spiders, their movements now mimicking his own. It was as if they had become his mirror, anticipating his every strike and evading his attacks with unnerving speed. Their clawed hands swung at him in tandem, leaving little room for him to counter.
Dancing with the spiders, Eclipse displayed his remarkable agility. He twisted, ducked, and somersaulted with a fluidity that seemed almost otherworldly. His body moved like a shadow, evading the deadly claws by a hair's breadth. With each dodge, he retaliated with strikes of his own, his hands moving like a blur of daggers in the air.
The swarm of large spiders closed in on him, their massive forms blocking his escape routes. Eclipse was surrounded, but he didn't panic. Instead, he used the confined space to his advantage. With a quick twist of his body, he somersaulted over the attacking spiders, gracefully flipping in mid-air to avoid their strikes.
As he landed, Eclipse's hands became a blur of motion, delivering precise blows to the smaller spiders that dared to get close. The large spiders lunged at him, but he leaped away with astounding flexibility and reflexes, dodging their attacks effortlessly.
The humanoid spiders continued to adapt, and now their attacks came faster and with more precision. Eclipse's usual strategies were becoming less effective, forcing him to constantly switch up his tactics to stay one step ahead.
The students weren't doing any better than Eclipse despite having only deal with one humanoid spider.
Due to Herla's purge of the weaker spiders, the only ones left were the much stronger ones and the humanoid ones, and not only were these quicker and stronger in every way, their exoskeletons were much tougher than the ones that Herla had killed earlier.
Tapping her staff on the ground, Syra took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she saw them surrounded by the spider, and they were already bearing their fangs at her, getting ready to bite her and inject her with their venom.
She tried her best to push them back, however, she was quickly getting pushed back herself.
She created several air shields around her, but she knew that they wouldn't last long.
The rest of her team weren't doing well either.
Zelon was slowly running out of mana. His breaths were becoming heavier. His pants could be hesrd by the creatures from a mile away.
His legs were trembling, and he was visibly growing slower every time he threw a spell out.
And after launching one more fireball spell, he fell onto one knee.
One of the spiders didn't waste any time and immediately pounced onto him.
His eyes could barely track it as it came closer, but at a certain point, it had felt like everything around him had suddenly stopped moving.
'Ah... Is this what those people meant.' he thought to himself.
His heart was beating faster and harder than even.
He could hear blood being pumped into his mind, but it was slowm very slow.
And in that moment, he watched his entire life flash before his eyes.
Every instance.
Every moment.
The good.
The bad.
The horrific.
It didn't matter.
Tears flowed down his face as he understood this was the end.
In the end, there was nothing he could do but watch.
He could already feel the sharp fangs of the spider piercing his skin.
His ears picked up the muffled sound of his friend screaming his name.
Darkness washed over his mind one last-
*Swish*
Yet, just when he thought it was all over, he was ripped out of the dreamy-like state when a bolt of flames ripped through the air and turned the spider to ash in an instant.
"Don't worry. I've got you." The figure of a red haired man stared at him with a warm smile, and in the background, he could see a pink-haired girl walk past them while releasing a menacing aura that froze every single person and monster in their place.
"Are you really losing to these weaklings?" She asked as her eyes locked upon Eclipse's figure...
Before a terrifying grin appeared on her face.
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