The moment Arachne launched forward from her position; a strong gust of wind followed suit. Her movement was a blur; most wouldn’t be able to say even that, her form to many just mysteriously disappeared. Even with Noah’s peculiar vision, he had difficulties keeping up with her. Unless he activated his ability to perceive time faster, the only thing he could do was keep up with the blur.
Seeing what such "simple" buffs could achieve, Noah couldn’t contain his evil chuckle. This was what he wanted. Of course, he valued his own strength, but he could just imagine himself in the future. What if he got his hands on more advanced support abilities? What if he managed to even cast the ability, he already has but to all of his creatures simultaneously?
With Arachne skyrocketing towards the behemoth, Noah couldn’t allow himself to miss anything. Not only did he open his second pair of eyes, but he even used his ability to change the way he perceived the world just to allow himself to be able to register the new speed she had unleashed.
The Behemoth wasn’t as fast as Arachne, even before the buff, but now that her speed attribute was over 900, its body could only register the danger before its brain could understand what was going on.
Arachne landed on the behemoth’s face, now that she lost majority of her spider form, her body was only inches taller than Noah, while the behemoth’s face rivaled the size twice her figure. Before she even landed, her scythe-like appendages were already being sent in four different directions while her other four legs braced against the behemoth’s hide.
Briefly, the behemoth was able to see the enlarging of her "scythes" growing closer, each blade glowed with a lustrous green hue that seeped an unrecognizable liquid. Soon after, she struck, her blade-like limbs penetrating into four of the behemoths’ eyes.
The creature’s pained roar sounded loudly through the clearing, its massive body thrashing in an attempt to dislodge her, but her grip held firm.
Despite its slow comprehension and seemingly slow size, its body reacted amidst the thrashing. Two of its enormous, thorny arms clawed towards its face, blindly swiping at Arachne. With the size of its arms, and the sound of wind accompanying its heavy swing, Arachne would undoubtedly suffer heavy injuries if even one of its legs connected. But within the second she had punctured its eyes; she was already changing locations.
Her body deftly moved forward, heading towards the middle of its body. Losing sight of her once again after the damage she inflicted on it, the behemoth let out a frustrated hiss. It was done! It desired Arachne as a mate, to further expand its control over the forest while eventually offering it to the sapling. However, now it just wanted Arachne and everyone else to die. It lashed out blindly, its heavy strikes impacting against its hide, creating thunderous thuds as it tried to catch Arachne.
Arachne’s relentless assault carved grooves into the behemoth’s dense hide, each strike leaving a mark but unable to pierce deeply enough to deal fatal damage. Yet, every time she evaded its attacks, the runes on her limbs glowed brighter, adding a razor-edge sharpness to her next blow. These glowing strikes allowed her blades to sink further into the behemoth’s armored hide with each pass, creating weak points that further released her degrading toxins into its body.
Despite this advantage, she knew her strikes would be devastating if she unleashed her ability to reduce its attributes. The additional reduction would cripple it, especially given its shared spider lineage, which would allow her effect to target a fourth attribute instead of the usual three. However, the powerful buffs Noah had given her were pushing her strength and speed to a level that made channeling the debilitation effect nearly impossible. Her attributes were superior to the behemoth’s in almost every way, everything besides the creature’s stamina and constitution, and with the creature’s humongous size, Arachne was aware that its defense and strength was what the creature specialized in.
Knowing this, it was better to wait until the buffs elapsed, at least then she could target more than just its constitution while still maintaining the upper hand.
The behemoth’s wounds were steadily increasing. Despite its frustration, it didn’t have the capability to keep up with Arachne’s speed, nor was it aware that her explosive speed was only temporary. It just had to wait half a minute to retaliate, if only it knew about the time limitation, then it would have remained patient.
Driven by not only its rage, but also a sense of defeat, its shriek wasn’t just an outraged cry but a signal and a confirmation, to both its offspring and the sapling. The spiders that were still alive all momentarily froze, their eyes darting towards their father and leader that soon inspired a bizarre change. Their pursuit to take down the snakish creature killing its way through both insects and animals alike had completely halted. Instead, each and every spider rooted onto the ground, laying completely still.
"What are they doing?" Ailetta noticed around the same time as Noah, her creation giving her a first-hand view through its vision of their weird behavior.
Noah’s gaze narrowed, peering through the forest before staring intently towards the sapling.
"They’re allowing themselves to be absorbed..."
His words were heavy as he observed the entire ordeal. He could see the mana within the spiders dwindling, transferring into the ground while the energy was being directed back towards the sapling. Its glow pulsated ever so strongly with the potent nutrients. It wasn’t just the mana that the sapling was absorbing but the entirety of their essence.
The longer the scene continued, everyone was able to see the change for themselves. The roots that took over the area of dead plants were brightly glowing, even shining through the ground.
"Should we destroy it, Noah?" Ailetta asked, directing her question towards the sapling whose aura continued to intensify.
To her question, Noah’s mind was sporadically going through a series of questions.
’Would it be better to try to destroy the tree before it could accomplish its goal?’ Seeing how the tree’s roots weren’t just merely glowing, but at the bottom of four of the unused behemoths legs, Noah could see the spider’s legs punctured into the ground, allowing the roots to tether themselves to it. The spider’s legs glowed, vein-like protrusions continued to appear up its legs, spreading out through its body like the veins connecting to the roots were always there, as if the spider was....
"It’s part of the tree..." Noah finished under his breath. This realization made him lean to destroying the tree even more. But then he further questioned himself. ’If the tree could so easily absorb the life out of the spiders, then why hasn’t it done so to them, or any other creature that inhabited the forest for that matter?
While in his thoughts, his eyes traveled around to the nearby trees and plants again. Every piece of greenery was connected to the lone tree. If it wasn’t for its dead and malignant appearance, Noah would assume that it was a-!
"That’s it!" His outburst shocked both Ailetta and Eve. The two looked at him curiously, Ailetta wanting him to spit out what had him so excited, while Eve was upset by the fact that she interrupted her concentration, watching Diablo’s fight. Googlᴇ search Novᴇl_Fire(.)net
Noah planned to answer her, but his gaze hardened seeing how Fenrir was unable to prevent all of the bee-like beasts from reaching them, specifically, the bee that was most likely the leader of all of the swarm. Suspiciously, it was also about to go after Fenrir, cooperating with its fellow bee beasts. But then, its antenna’s flickered, and its gaze quickly turned towards Noah before it charged directly at him.
If the bee-like creature built like bears had abnormal strength, then this one, that resembled more robot than an actual creature, catered most of its attributes to speed. But as long as its speed didn’t breach past the limits of a creature of Arachne’s stature, Noah had nothing to worry about.
He approached the beast with firm steps. His mind was no longer preoccupied with the tree and the changes to the spider that came with it. If the tree is what he thinks it is, then he couldn’t bring himself to destroy it if he plans to take this place over. That would mean allowing the behemoth spider to potentially undergo a major growth because of it, but that was a risk he gambled to make.
Looking at the creature prepared to attack him, his expression became thoughtful and yet intrigued. To him, there had to be a reason why it signaled him out over all of the others. Besides what he did with Arachne, there was no other reason to target him, and yet even now the creature was coming towards him despite Arachne being the one that killed their kin, and despite Ailetta’s creation killing the creations within the forest.
Although he couldn’t pinpoint the reason, he chose to embrace this chance. His hand motioned towards his ring, light formed, tracing a particular weapon in his hand that he had yet to use.