The squad of five walked out of the dark cave.
The air around them was heavy and suffocating. Three E-Rank monsters, and one Max-Level F-Rank. In the front was Ren. A summoner, but his physical stats (30 Strength, 30 Endurance) made his body feel like it was forged from steel. He now possessed the strength of a veteran F-Rank warrior.
They pushed deep into the barren, trench-filled plains.
A stray F-Rank spider jumped out from the rocks. Ren didn't even look at it. The Stone Ape (Number 3) leaped into the air. With one strike from its stone fist, it smashed the spider into the ground, exploding its guts in every direction.
They didn't stop. Any monster that appeared in their line of sight was erased in seconds.
Suddenly, Ren raised his hand sharply. "Stop. Hide in the trenches."
The four summons reacted instantly. They slid into a dark earth fissure. Ren laid flat on the edge, watching through the dry brush.
In the distance, a group of seven Awakened appeared. They wore matching guild armor bearing a silver wolf crest. Their weapons glowed with pure mana. An F and E-Rank team. They were sweeping the area for prey.
"Silver Wolf Guild," Ren muttered.
He could have ambushed them. His small army was capable of causing a massacre. But he held back. Fighting humans right now meant drawing higher-ranked clearing squads. He was here to collect cores and money, not start a war with Safe Zone guilds.
He waited until the group was completely gone.
"Move out. We head east, away from their path. I don't want any friction with anyone right now."
Half an hour of silent running later, Ren stopped. A foul stench hit his nose. In front of him was a giant pit in the ground, surrounded by thick, sticky white webs that looked like ropes.
A spider lair.
It wasn't just a trench. It was a vertical tunnel going deep underground.
"Number 3, go down first and smash the entrance. Number 4, follow me."
The Furious Stone Ape jumped. Its massive weight and stone armor tore through the web layers like paper. It crashed into the bottom of the lair, creating a boom that shook the cave.
The second it landed, spiders swarmed it from everywhere. The cave walls crawled with black bugs the size of wild dogs, mixed with red-striped spiders (Rank E).
Ren jumped right after it. Mid-fall, he triggered his new skill.
[Shadow Step]
Ren vanished into thin air. He suddenly appeared behind a giant E-Rank spider that was prepping its venom to spit at the Stone Ape.
Ren swung his steel pickaxe with his full strength. The spiked blade pierced the spider's armor and sank into its multi-eyed head. Green fluid splattered on Ren's face.
The White Goblin dropped like an invisible blade. It targeted the joints of the giant spiders' legs, slicing them with insane speed to make them collapse to the dirt.
Once a spider fell, the Armored Goblin moved in like a bulldozer, crushing its skull with its glowing stone fists using the [Critical Strike] skill.
The Charred Bone Knight played the wall. Spiders lunged at it, sinking their fangs into its chest and emptying their venom. It was useless. There was no flesh to poison. With the [Pain Immunity] skill, the Bone Knight stood firm, using [Bone Stab] to tear open the bellies of the spiders surrounding it.
The fight was bloody and completely merciless.
Ren didn't hide. He was right in the middle of the battle too. An F-Rank spider lunged at his face. Ren didn't use his pickaxe. He reached out with his bare hand and triggered [Crushing Grip]. He grabbed the spider's head and squeezed. The hard shell cracked and exploded between his fingers.
In just twenty minutes, the first lair was completely wiped out.
"Gather the cores."
They ripped out 80 green cores and 5 blue cores.
They didn't rest. The five of them left immediately and moved to the next lair.
The second lair was deeper. The spiders tried to set web traps, but the Stone Ape used [Wall Crawl] and chased them on the ceiling, crushing them one by one. Ren used the [Poison Bite] skill he had extracted from the sewer goblin a long time ago. He stabbed the giant spiders with his poisoned pickaxe blade, leaving them thrashing until they died.
The third lair was a similar massacre.
They became a perfect harvesting machine. No wasted movements. No screaming. Just the sounds of shattering armor and crushed skulls.
[Gained Exp...]
[Gained Exp...] [
Current Exp: 2800/4900]
They reached the fourth lair.
Here, Ren stopped. The cave was much wider than the previous ones. The floor wasn't dirt. It was covered in the bones of other monsters and unlucky Awakened.
In the middle of the cave was a spider.
It wasn't the size of a car. It was the size of a transport truck. Its legs were covered in hard, spear-like spikes. Its eight eyes glowed with a vicious crimson light. It was chewing on the arm of a dead Awakened.
[Mutated Venomous Spider (Peak E-Rank)]
It was a monster on the verge of evolving to D-Rank.
The beast let out a sharp screech. From the dark cracks in the ceiling, dozens of E-Rank spiders dropped down to protect it.
"Combat formation!" Ren shouted. "Number 2, Number 4.. handle the normal spiders. Number 1, Number 3, with me! We're bringing this big bastard down."
The Furious Stone Ape charged first. The mutated spider shot a sticky web thick as steel. The web slammed into the Stone Ape and threw it backward, gluing it to the cave wall.
The beast wasn't done. It raised its front two legs and slammed the ground hard. The earth split open, and a fountain of green acid erupted from it.
"Dodge!"
Ren used [Shadow Step] to bypass the acid pool. The Armored Goblin lunged from the other side, but the spider swung its spiked leg and hit it with a sweeping blow. The Armored Goblin flew back and crashed into a massive rock. Its armor cracked dangerously.
'Too fast and strong,' Ren thought, sliding under another leg attack.
The beast was completely controlling the cave thanks to its size and webs.
"Number 4! Now!"
The Bone Knight ignored the small spiders and ran straight at the mutated spider. The beast spat concentrated acid at the knight. Parts of the black bone armor melted off, but the knight didn't stop. It used [Bone Stab] and plunged its spiked arm directly into one of the beast's large eyes.
The mutated spider shrieked in insane agony and started thrashing wildly.
That was the opening.
Ren dashed at top speed. He jumped over an acid pool and stepped on the spider's leg to climb onto its back.
The beast tried to shake Ren off. Ren triggered [Crushing Grip] in his left hand and dug his fingers into the spider's armor, anchoring himself like a nail.
With his right hand, he raised the steel pickaxe high.
"Die!"
He brought the pickaxe down with every ounce of his strength. The steel blade punched through the back of the spider's head, shattering the hard shell and digging into the brain.
But the beast didn't die. It thrashed violently and struck Ren with one of its dorsal spikes, tearing a deep gash into Ren's shoulder.
Ren stumbled backward, bleeding.
Right at that moment, the Armored Goblin (Number 1) recovered. It launched itself like a cannonball, jumping high into the air. It triggered [Critical Strike]. It landed with its glowing red stone fists, smashing right down onto the handle of the pickaxe already buried in the spider's head.
CRUNCH!
The steel pickaxe was driven entirely inside the beast's skull.
The mutated spider convulsed violently, then collapsed like a mountain of meat onto the dirt, causing a small tremor inside the cave.
[Exterminated: Mutated Venomous Spider (Peak E-Rank)]
[Massive Experience Gained!]
[Exp: 3400/4900]
The second the boss fell, the remaining spiders lost their will to fight. They tried to run, but the White Goblin and the Stone Ape (who had freed itself) cut off their path and wiped them out completely.
Silence finally fell over the lair.
[Gained Exp...]
[Gained Exp...] [
Gained Exp!]
Ren sat on the giant spider's corpse. He was breathing heavily. His shoulder was bleeding, and his muscles were screaming from exhaustion.
He looked at his army. The Bone Knight lost its left arm and half its chest was melted. The Armored Goblin's armor was completely shattered. The Stone Ape was panting, and the White Goblin was limping.
They had reached their absolute limit.
[Current Exp: 5700/4900]
"Gather the cores," Ren ordered in a low voice.
Ren ripped the core out of the boss's head himself. It wasn't a normal blue. It pulsed with a dark blue color bordering on purple. A core on the edge of D-Rank.
He checked today's haul from all four lairs.
410 F-Rank cores. 48 E-Rank cores. And one boss core.
Ren smiled in victory despite the pain.
"This is enough for Uncle Murphy. And maybe... more than enough to prep for the promotion dungeon."
"Cosmic Furnace. Recall."
The four monsters vanished into gray mist to rest in the storage space.
Ren wiped the blood off his face and used a piece of cloth to bind his bleeding shoulder. He made sure all the cores were hidden in his dimensional storage.
He looked at the cave exit. The sun had already risen outside. He had spent the entire night fighting.
"Time to head back to the city."