First Collaboration

The moment he sensed the shadow blade, Erich's sword was already out of its sheath.

But it was too late. The blade was close at hand, its chill almost piercing his skin, aiming straight for his heart. Erich didn't retreat—to retreat was to die. He slammed the hilt of his sword against the side of the shadow blade, forcing his body to twist at the same time. The shadow blade scraped past his hilt, veering off by a fraction of an inch, and stabbed into his left shoulder with a dull squelch.

Agonizing pain erupted. Erich let out a muffled groan, holding his sword in his right hand as he swung backhand toward the shadow. But the attacker retreated instantly after the single strike, and his blade only cleaved into the rock wall.

On the other side, the bone spine stopped mere millimeters above Isa's head. The red necklace on Leonora's chest burst with an arc of light, and a translucent red shield materialized over Isa's head. The bone spine slammed into the shield; cracks spread across it, but it ultimately held. Isa didn't waste this half-second of breathing room. She grabbed Leonora and rolled out of the bone spine's attack range, retreating all the way to Erich's side.

The bone spine, having missed its mark, swiftly retracted into the rock layer. Immediately after, the ground began to shake, and the entire floor collapsed.

The three of them, along with the black-clad figure hidden in the darkness, plummeted into the cavern below. The moment they fell, Erich saw the figure melt into the shadows mid-air, as if they had never existed.

Erich adjusted his posture in mid-air, grabbing Isa with his still-functional right hand. Isa held Leonora. The three of them barely managed to stabilize themselves amidst the shower of debris. The moment they hit the ground, they rolled to break their fall, landing safely on a soft, white surface.

No, it wasn't the ground. Erich looked down. Beneath their feet was a thick layer of spider silk, giving way with an unsettling elasticity when stepped on.

This was a massive underground cavern. Patches of glowing moss grew on the cavern walls. Spider silk covered everything in sight like a plague, and spider cocoons of various sizes were scattered throughout the cavern, gleaming a deathly pale under the blue light of the moss.

Right ahead, a giant spiderweb spanning half the cavern hung suspended in mid-air.

Accompanied by a grating, teeth-gritting sound, a massive bone-spine spider slowly descended onto the web. Its eight long legs, covered in stiff white hair, were as thick as ancient trees. It was entirely white, its back densely packed with dark red bone spines like a grave bristling with swords. Its eight purple eyes locked tightly onto Erich and the others.

The Bone-Spine Pearl Mother. This was their original target.

Erich stared at those eight purple eyes, cursing eighteen generations of the client's ancestors in his mind. A magical beast of this scale was only worth seven gold coins? No wonder that commission had been sitting in the Adventurers' Guild with no takers.

The Pearl Mother gave them no time to breathe. Three globs of white spider silk shot from its mouthparts toward the three of them. Erich and the others dodged in different directions simultaneously. The silk grazed their clothes and struck the ground, corroding the rock with puffs of white smoke, filling the air with a pungent, sour stench.

Failing to land a hit, the dark red bone spines on the Pearl Mother's back began to grow. Under the fluorescent light, the spines twisted and deformed, extending from the length of a palm to half an arm's length. They stood on end like a forest of deadly thorns before shooting toward the group.

Erich charged forward to meet the bone spines. Relying on his speed, he dodged several of them, and those he couldn't dodge, he deflected with his sword. In a flash, he reached the Pearl Mother, leaped high into the air, and unleashed a Level 9 Vertical Slash. The blade carved a straight arc of light, hacking down fiercely on the Pearl Mother's head.

With a metallic clang, Erich was flung back by the recoil. He forced his body to adjust in mid-air, landing back beside Isa and Leonora. Meanwhile, not even a white scratch was left on the Pearl Mother's head.

In the game, the Bone-Spine Pearl Mother wasn't nearly as terrifying as this one. The Pearl Mother's shell in the game was weak to fire; hitting it with fire magic would soften the shell, allowing players to burst it down with raw damage. However, in this world where commoners could almost only access magic through academies, Erich obviously hadn't had the chance to study magic at an academy yet, and Isa didn't know any either.

All these thoughts flashed by in an instant. Erich turned and asked Leonora, “Do you know any fire magic?”

Leonora nodded, her voice trembling slightly. “I only know Lesser Fireball.”

“Use your fireball to attack the Pearl Mother's body.” Erich looked at Isa. “Isa, protect her and watch out for that black-clad figure.”

Isa nodded, drawing her sword and stepping in front of Leonora. “Stay alive,” she said.

Erich smiled, turned, and charged at the Pearl Mother again. He was now Level 22. After dumping all thirty of his saved free attribute points into his Strength stat, his Strength had reached sixty-eight. As long as the fire could affect the Pearl Mother's outer shell even slightly, he was confident he could slay the beast.

The Pearl Mother clearly had no intention of giving him that chance. It let out a screech that shook the entire cavern. The spider cocoons, large and small, began to squirm. The silk shells were torn open from the inside, and a dense swarm of bone-spine spiders surged out from all directions, filling every corner of the cavern like a tide.

At the same time, the spines on the Pearl Mother's back had finished regrowing. Bone spines tore through the air, followed closely by three globs of spider silk, sealing off all avenues of escape.

Erich crushed a spider lunging at his feet with one stomp. He sidestepped a bone spine shooting straight at him, but a second one was already upon him. He deflected it with the flat of his blade, his arm going numb from the impact.

He couldn't drag this out any longer.

“Leonora!” he shouted.

Leonora understood immediately. She raised her hand, and with a rapid chant, mana coalesced at her fingertips into a fireball the size of a human head, which she launched at the Pearl Mother.

Erich dashed alongside the fireball's trajectory. The moment the fireball struck the Pearl Mother's body, orange-red flames exploded against the deathly pale shell. The Pearl Mother shrieked in agony. The small patch of shell scorched by the fire rapidly lost its luster, turning a dull, rough grey.

Now!

Erich swung his sword.