[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 17: Arachnophobia

A beautiful horned demon knelt over Sam in his dreams, eyes aglow with bleeding blue fire and skin marked all over by luminous sigils.

“The Shatterblade,” she whispered with Raiko’s refined voice. “Did it survive? Did you?”

He struggled to respond, trapped somewhere between being asleep and awake.

Until a raucous noise from the waking world pulled him out.

“I don’t want to die!” Lisa cried. The Mage screamed as she clawed at the dirt while something covered in shadow seized her legs and pulled her into the forest.

Sam was up and on his feet a moment later, unsheathing his [Dull Claymore] just in time to block a black lancing leg toward his gut. The spider it belonged to screeched in rage, acidic spittle flying from its mandibles and burning his skin.

Twisting, Sam hefted the blade up onto one shoulder and continued the motion, transitioning from defense to offense. Like when he battled the lizards, he found himself instinctively modifying the sword stances he had learned to suit the situation.

A modified Zornhau allowed him to close the gap between himself and his long-limbed enemy, shearing through three of its legs with one sweep and then transitioning into a blurring windmill slice.

Heart thudding in his chest like a jackhammer, Sam kept up the maneuver, using it against two more [Giant Woodland Spiders] that came at him. With their limbs severed, they were relatively easy prey to dispatch.

You defeat a [Giant Woodland Spider (Level 4)].

You gain additional Experience for slaying a Tough monster!

You defeat a [Giant Woodland Spider (Level 4)].

You gain additional Experience for slaying a Tough monster!

You defeat a [Giant Woodland Spider (Level 4)].

You gain additional Experience for slaying a Tough monster!

Sam could feel the extra Dexterity working in his favor. He handled the greatsword much better than before. Of course, it didn’t hurt that with his enhanced Strength it felt lighter as well.

The camp was utter chaos. He was about to search for Komachi, but she meowed from her hiding spot in his [Bronze Half-plate].

More prompts followed, but he ignored them without hesitation.

Spiders were overrunning the entire place; several people were missing. At least two were covered in a thin sticky cocoon of webbing, while poor Lisa’s screams could still be heard from somewhere off in the dark.

Cursing himself, Sam bolted after her. She was likely some entitled spoiled brat, but she didn’t deserve to die. At least, not like this.

Focusing on dodging and weaving around the spiders collapsing on the empty space he had made, Sam spotted a strange sight. One of them had a spear sticking out of its abdomen like an inverted flagpole.

He didn’t think about where it came from, just that he could use it to his advantage.

Juking to the side, sharpened spider legs sparking off his bronze armor, Sam slipped between two other spiders and surprised the one with the spear stuck through it.

Komachi screamed from within his armor and curled up behind the protective plate. Her bell rang faintly, casting [Regen] onto Sam.

Whatever damage the spear did to the spider seemed minimal. It must have missed every vital organ because the monster didn’t seem slower or weaker by any measure that Sam could see.

Triggering [Rally], Sam felt a warm rush of power flood through him. His HP bar turned blue and extended slightly, indicating the extra temporary HP was there.

The speared spider reared up and Sam performed a soccer slide that would have made his little league coach cheer and holler his name.

Unfortunately, a greatsword is a terrible weapon to attack from less than a foot beneath a creature. He did, however, manage to get around and behind it before the spider knew what was going on.

Dropping his greatsword, Sam gripped the shaft of the spear and wrenched with all of his might. It ripped out of the creature, spilling its entrails all over as it did so. With Sam’s enhanced Strength and the spear acting like a lever, it was almost too easy.

Seeing their companion inside out seemed to give the nearby spiders enough pause for Sam to scoop up his blade and rush off into the dark.

Luckily, Lisa was screaming at the top of her lungs, making it easy for Sam to locate her even in the dim light of the forest. Out here the spiders were thinned out considerably, and Sam’s pursuit was easily masked by the combat behind him and Lisa’s cries.

With the spider carrying its cargo, it wasn’t able to move very fast. Sam could have easily walked it down, had he chose to do so, but that would have given it time to defend itself.

Instead, he paralleled the creature, found a downed tree to run across, and leapt through the air toward it with a grin of triumph plastered onto his face.

Sam’s blade came down, slicing into the abdomen of the large spider, spraying viscera all over the place.

The few other spiders around were in full retreat. Sam could see back at the camp somebody had made a makeshift torch and was using it on the spiders.

Wow, Sam thought as he watched the burning spiders fleeing, is their blood gasoline or something?

Whatever it was, it was super flammable. He was surprised the monsters didn’t blow up like tanker trucks.

They skittered into the forest, and for a wonder didn’t burn it down around them. In under a couple of minutes, it was all over.

Sam gently used his blade to cut away the thin silk and freed Lisa, who clung to him like he was the only stable thing in existence.

The few scratches and scrapes that Sam received had taken some points of HP off. If he had only remembered to use [Rally] sooner, he could have avoided it entirely.

The blue bar of HP shrank when he took some hits he didn’t even notice, revealing a portion of the green bar beneath. So that’s how it looks.

It started to tick up almost immediately, however, thanks to Komachi’s [Regen].

“Komachi, we’re going to need your help with the wounded,” Sam said, peering into his breastplate where the fluffy cat was curled up as small as possible.

Cats really were liquid. He doubted any other animal could have fit in such a small space.

Back at camp, the chaos was just winding down. Everybody sported one wound or another, and there seemed to be fewer people as well.

“Who are we missing?” Sam said.

It took a short while to do a head count.

“Matt,” Kale said grimly.

“Kai? Darren?” Sam called.

The Hawaiian looked up, his hands cupped around Chris’ head as he healed him with a faint green sparkling spell. “Darren and Matt walked out into the forest while on watch. I did not see what happened to Matt. I only saw Darren running back with these creatures chasing him.”

Sporting a long angry gash across his dark complexion, Kale spun on Darren, who had somehow managed to avoid taking any damage by the looks of it. “Did you just try to MPK us?!”

For the first time that Sam had seen, Darren looked truly panicked. He was already sitting, so he got up to his feet and waved his arms frantically. “No, that’s not what happened at all! Matt wanted to do a perimeter check. He thought he heard something. I wanted to stay at the camp, but he insisted. You know how he can get.”

Kale frowned, but even Sam knew that Matt, while fairly nice on the outside, was also one of the top performing managers for a reason. He was strict and didn’t abide laziness.

“We got separated in the dark,” Darren said. “Before I knew it, those things were everywhere. I tried to fend them off, but I panicked and threw my spear. There were so many. What did you expect me to do? Die?”

Yes, Sam’s thoughts sprang forth. But he said, “No. Of course not. But you should have let Kai know what you were doing.”

Komachi hissed at Darren, hackles raised, airplane ears and all. Too upset for words, she turned away to assist healing the group.

“Yes, yes I should have,” Darren said, eyes wide and stunned. “And for that, I’m sorry. I… I saw them drag Matt away. There was nothing I could do except run back to warn everybody. They might have come upon us in our sleep.”

Sam didn’t quite buy it, but then again, these weren’t normal spiders by any stretch. They might have been prowling for them.

“We’ll organize a search party,” Sam told the group, feeling a sense of resolve. “Just as soon as everybody is healed up.”

While they did that, Sam looked over his level ups, his eyebrows climbing higher as he did.

Level Up!

Your [Fighter] Job has reached Level 3.

+2 Strength | +2 Vigor | +1 Agility

+1 Bonus Point

Level Up!

Your [Adventurer] Legend has reached Level 1.

+1 to all Stats

+2 Bonus Points

Level Up!

Your [Fighter] Job has reached Level 4.

+2 Strength | +2 Vigor | +1 Agility

+1 Bonus Point

His Adventurer Legend finally leveled up, boosting every single one of his physical and magical stats, along with extra bonus points to spend too.

The rush of power was incredible.

Altogether, from all these recent level ups, that meant 4 bonus points total to spend wherever he wanted.

He wondered what the trigger was for Adventurer to level up. It definitely appeared to level up slower than his Fighter Job, so it was plausible a Legend took even more Experience than a Job did.

As his temporary HP vanished, Sam pulled up his Status to see the difference.

He wasn’t about to go out searching for Matt on his own, and even with three Clerics, their healing spell, [Regen] was not an instant heal. And everybody had taken quite a bit of damage except for himself, Darren, and Komachi.

[Status]

Name: Samuel Hunter

Race: Human

Legend: [Adventurer (Lv.1 - Unranked)]

Job: [Fighter (Lv.4 - Unranked)]

Path: [Void (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Profession: [N/A (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Health(HP): [49/65]

Mana(MP): [35/40]

Attunements

[Void Mana] (F-Class Apocalypse Gate) (★★★★ Legendary III)

Affinities

[Fire Mana] (F-Class) (☆Primitive I)

Physical Stats

Strength(STR): 18

Dexterity(DEX): 10

Agility(AGI): 11

Vigor(VIG): 19

Awareness(AWR): 8

Magical Stats

Arcane(ARC): 7

Control(CTL): 4

Resonance(RSN): 9

Mind(MND): 10

Insight(INS): 5

With 4 Bonus Points to spend where he wanted, Sam was ready to throw them all into Dexterity again since that seemed to help a lot with just 2 extra points, but then he noticed that his HP and MP had finally gone up.

Quite a lot comparatively. An increase of 15 HP with a previous 50 HP max seemed rather good. Unfortunately, it seemed that only the maximums increased.

Good to know I can never count on a level up to get me out of a tight spot, Sam thought. He had hoped that perhaps finally gaining more HP would fill up his current HP.

Or at least raise his current HP proportionally. It didn’t seem to move at all except from Komachi’s [Regen].

Taking one of his Bonus Points, Sam tossed one into Vigor, upping it to a nice round 20. It was his highest stat, after all, and he was curious if it enhanced his HP at all.

Sam almost laughed as he checked his Health again.

Health(HP): [49/66]

Mana(MP): [35/40]

A single point. That’s all it raised his HP. That either meant that higher health was incredibly hard to come by, or he was missing something.

That made his [Rally] ability that much more important. Figuring that a pleasingly round 20 was good enough for now, he tossed the remaining 3 points into Dexterity and checked his stats one last time.

[Status]

Name: Samuel Hunter

Race: Human

Legend: [Adventurer (Lv.1 - Unranked)]

Job: [Fighter (Lv.4 - Unranked)]

Path: [Void (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Profession: [N/A (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Health(HP): [49/66]

Mana(MP): [35/40]

Attunements

[Void Mana] (F-Class Apocalypse Gate) (★★★★Legendary)

Affinities

[Fire Mana] (F-Class) (☆Primitive I)

Physical Stats

Strength(STR): 18

Dexterity(DEX): 13

Agility(AGI): 11

Vigor(VIG): 20

Awareness(AWR): 8

Magical Stats

Arcane(ARC): 7

Control(CTL): 4

Resonance(RSN): 9

Mind(MND): 10

Insight(INS): 5

Hefting his [Dull Claymore] once more, Sam joined the others. He felt a warm sort of satisfaction at finally seeing his HP go up, even if it wasn’t a huge amount.

Maybe somebody smarter than him could have figured out what the deal with his HP was, but Sam didn’t care. Vigor clearly increased his HP. That was enough for him.

What was important was that enhancing his physical stats made it noticeably easier to fight. He was almost eager to face more spiders, despite his innate disdain for them.

They had nothing on the tropical centipedes, though. Suppressing a shiver, Sam walked up to Darren. “We’ll need you to lead us to where you got separated.”

Darren shakily got to his feet and looked around at the shellshocked members of their group. “I...” he started to say, before recognizing the look in Sam as one of sheer stubbornness. “Yeah. That’s a good idea. The sooner we find him, the better.”

Sam leaned closer and dropped his voice for Darren alone. “For your sake, let’s hope we find him and that he can corroborate your story.”