Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 133: Battle With The Spider (Beast Den 5)

The dog sized spiders swarmed over, looking to kill Laz and Vivi quickly in one go. Luckily, it seemed that despite the intelligence of the large spider, it didn't understand anything about energy levels. If it did, it would have realized that it was just sending it's children to their deaths.

Laz's entire body blazed with black fire as he started to madly circulate his energy combined with his source essence. As the smaller spiders scurried over, they were touched one at a time. As Laz had been progressing over the past year and a half, he had focused on how to control the black flames to use them as a targeted weapon and not just by relying on instinct. Before the spiders could react, three had already been charred to a crisp.

Vivi's style of fighting was much less elegant. She simply jumped on the spiders as they came over, squished them down and took a bite out of their bodies, just below their heads. Although crude, she was able to target their demon beast cores and rip them out of their bodies, swallowing them in a quick gulp before moving on to the next one. Because of how fast she was able to move, the spiders were helpless to jump at her, often missing and rolling along the floor before coming to a stop a ways away.

By the time the large spider noticed it's prey's fighting ability, over half of it's children had been killed. It quickly screeched, calling it's children back to the walls and ceiling, ordering them to attack when the prey was distracted. At the same time, the elephant size spider charged, aiming to quickly kill the annoying pests. Due to it's large size and despite having eight legs, the large spider that had been regularly fed by it's children ever since it took over was not able to move quickly, allowing for Laz and Vivi to both jump to the side to get out of the way. As the spider hastened to turn around after having missed, Laz let loose with two streams of black fire from his hands while Vivi's jumped forward to bite at it's leg. Although it sensed the danger, it wasn't able to move out of the fast enough, allowing for the fire to wash over it's back, causing it's normally hard skin to start to melt. Vivi also succeeded, grabbing on to it's leg and yanking it fiercely. The sound of the spider's leg breaking echoed throughout the cavern as the spider let loose an ear piercing screech.

The sound was so painful, it forced Vivi and Laz to back off and attempt to cover their ears, giving the large spider time to face them again. The large spider was a little more weary this time and didn't charge straight ahead. Instead, while Vivi and Laz were squaring up again with their red eyes glowing at it, it sent out a screech to it's children, having them start to descend the walls in an attempt to box the invaders in. If it worked, Vivi and Laz would have no where to run when the large spider came for them. It was a basic tactic for pack hunting, but one that has proven to be effective for many years.

As the spiders came down, Laz and Vivi noticed them inching closer, but not straight out running for them. Vivi quickly picked up on the sign of what was coming.

*They are going to box us in,* she said while trying not to smile.

*Figures. Not like this hasn't happened before,* Laz replied while keeping his senses spread out. They had both backed away from the large spider while getting closer and closer to the wall, almost to the point where it was at their backs.

*Still though. You sure you want to try this?* Vivi asked with a strange look on her face.

*Sure. It's worked in every game I've ever played,* Laz said back while holding in his own laughter.

*But this... I mean, how stupid would it have to be for this to happen?* Vivi said as her tail touched the wall. Although spiders were running around on the ceiling and wall above them, they weren't worried about these ones in the first place.

*About that stupid?* Laz pondered while looking at the spider get closer. The large spider was actually feeling pretty content as it had managed to back it's prey into a corner. With it's children circling around them, there was no place for them to dodge to this time. It had also started to feel a bit hesitant due to Laz and Vivi staring at it with those glowing blood red eyes, but it wasn't enough to make it back off. In fact, the reason why It was having that feeling was because Vivi and Laz were looking at it with a bit of ridicule. Anyone could see it was about to use the same tactic again, but did it think it would work this time when it didn't the last time? But sadly the spider didn't know how to read facial cues.

When it finally felt it was close enough, the large spider pounced, attempting to lock down Vivi and Laz with it's front legs. At the same time, the dog sized spiders all jumped down as well, attempting to block the area around the large spider so that they couldn't dodge this time. Fortunately for Vivi and Laz, they weren't looking to jump out of the way. Both Laz and Vivi crouched and jumped forward at the same time. While the spider was trying to jump in an arc towards them, they stayed straight on the ground, causing the spider to actually jump over them. Just as they were about the clear the spider's legs, Vivi stretched her neck out and grabbed one of the front legs while Laz reached out and grabbed the other, both yanking down at same time. Due to their forward momentum and the strength of their bodies, the spider couldn't get it's other legs, namely the ones it was using to attack Vivi and Laz, down in time. The spider couldn't help but screech again as it slammed head first into the wall, squishing two of it's own children.

The entire cave shook with the force of the impact, causing several of the little spiders to lose their balance and fall. Although the large spider was stunned, it's tough body took very little damage due to the crash. Vivi and Laz weren't going to let this chance go and quickly got out from underneath the spider while leaping up on to it's back. Vivi started scratching and biting it's back while Laz let loose wave after wave of black fire on it's unguarded body, causing the stone like skin to blacked and melt. Laz then punched as hard as he could, shoving his hand through the now brittle layer of skin. He then unleashed even more streams of black fire as he started roasting the spider from the inside.

Although stunned, the pain from being burnt and bitten and scratched caused it to quickly wake up. It screamed while shaking it's body violently, causing Vivi and Laz to be thrown off to opposite sides. Taking Laz and his black flames to be the more dangerous of the two, the spider once again pounced after him. Because of the damage that it had taken, it's body wasn't able to respond quickly. Laz saw the front legs coming down and quickly rolled out of the way several times, avoid the multiple attempts to skewer him. Just as he was about to run out of ground on which to roll, Vivi had jumped on the spiders back and continued her assault, her razor sharp claws ripping away more and more of the spiders rock like outer skin. The spider had to stop chasing Laz while it tried to shake Vivi off, giving Laz time to get out of the way and get back on it's feet. He quickly got out of view before Vivi was thrown off.

With Laz out of view, the spider totally forgot about him and started to go after the larger and in it's mind, easier target, Vivi. Just as she was getting back up on all fours, the spider bore down on her, going all out to pierce her flesh with it's front legs before using it's pincers to incapacitate her. Just as it was about to reach her though, it felt another heavy object hit it's back, causing it to once again fall forward and miss. Just as it was about to shake Laz off, Laz grabbed the flayed area where Vivi had attacked, latching on and not letting go. While it tired it's best to shake Laz off, Laz held on tightly with one hand while the other hand held tight to the freshly drawn Last Rites. Just as it thought it had shook Laz loose and stopped shaking, Laz rammed Last Rites into the now defenseless flesh of the spider and fired several shots. The large caliber bullets burst through it's squishy flesh on it's back and exploded out the other side, leaving three head size holes in it's chest. Due to being inside the spider when being fired, the muffled bangs barely even sounded in the large cavern, but the damage they did was unmistakable.

Laz jumped off the monstrous spider as it thrashed around. Neither he nor Vivi could get close to it now as the started to go mad, bashing into walls and flailing about wildly. They both just did their best to start away from it as the cavern dangerously shook again and again from the large creatures movements. After what seemed like forever, the large spider, the leader of the entire den, collapsed on the floor. With a few final death surges, the last bits of life drifted out of the spider, causing fist size balls of green light to start hovering in the air. Without a second thought, Laz strode forward to absorb the energy while Vivi started to tear up the spider's corpse even more, finally pulling out a red, melon sized demon core. As Laz sat down to circulate the energy of the spider, Vivi started absorbing the rich source essence from the core. Although the spider wasn't a third stage beast, it was still a peak level two stage beast which was stronger than anything they had faced before. The resulting energy rewards were huge too. Vivi quickly absorbed what she could while she waited for Laz to finish securing as much of the energy as he could.

After almost an hour of frenzied absorption, Laz had taken in as much energy as he could while Vivi had done the same, draining the core by almost half. For Laz, it would take a while to actually refine all of that energy, so he wasn't in a rush. But he got a bit confused while watching Vivi.

*I thought you always just ate the cores?* He said after noticing her odd behavior.

*You think I can eat this thing?* Vivi said while indicating the side of the core.

*No..?*.

*Right. That only works for beasts that are smaller and more suitable for me to do that. Once these cores start coming from even higher level beasts, the amount of energy in them will be unfathomable. So obviously I can't just take it in all at once.

*Ah. That makes sense.*

*Yeah, sure human. You really have no idea what I mean, do you?* Vivi said while shaking her head.

*Nope. But then again, I don't have to as long as you're with me, right?* Laz responded while fluffing up her messy hair.

*We got lucky this time. Had there been more than one of those things, we would probably be nothing more than spider chow,* Vivi evaluated while rolling the core over to Laz to store in his backpack. She would need to wait and absorb the rest of the energy later.

*Yeah. I could feel that just one hit with those legs of that thing would have been enough to go right through me. We really lucked out," Laz said, agreeing with her observation. Had there been two, then they wouldn't have been able to attack in turns and keep it distracted. No matter what, they would need to be ready for something like that in the future.

*So now what?* Vivi asked, looking around. The large spider was dead while there was only around 2 left of the dog sized ones. All in all, the cave looked pretty clear.

*Well, now we see what's behind door number one over there,* Laz responded while pointing to the cave opening the huge spider used to make it's entrance. He really wanted to see what was buried back there that had caused all of this energy fog.