In this time of trial, Josh couldn't help but remember the wisdom of a great sage that once said: "I totally fucked up, now what?!"

How was he supposed to know that there could be more than one Bosses?! Now, 10 gigantic White Spider were chasing him. After all this time beating up one of them with the power of friendship, it had learned. Was this karma?

Now, the spider also had gotten his friends to help. Nine of them when only one would have been sufficient! Was this simply the power of a Mass Calamity curse wantonly used? If yes, it truly was OP!

That cursed amulet hadn't even been crafted with Tower materials. How strong could it possibly get? Would it be possible to use it to summon true Dragon-Devouring bosses?! Josh shuddered as he pictured getting chased by spiders the size of a mountain. Yes, even for him, it was harsh to picture.

Now, how was he supposed to get out of this?! The only reason he had been able to kill the Boss was that it was getting swarmed by "fellow humans". It had previously allowed him to do a full-powered charged attack.

Would the other 9 Bosses just watch him as he tried once more? Hell no! Did he have a way to increase the Fellow humans count? No, they were part of the decor and didn't actually respawn once they died.

What if he tried to use them to attack one another? He positioned himself perfectly in order to….almost fucking die! There was no way this was going to happen! These spiders were different from the zombie or even the golems.

While they weren't smart enough to realize complex battle formations (otherwise, he'd already been dead), they knew better than to kill one another. Trying such a stunt just made it so he was closer to their deadly spear-like legs.

In fact, the weapon he had obtained earlier was a spear too. The Bosses kept mercilessly stabbing toward him. Josh had no desire to become a spider brochette. He kept running, using the experience he had built up all this time.

Yes, the monsters were far faster than him and had the number advantage too. How was he still fine? Well, by now, he could predict every single of their movements. He was akin to a veteran beginning a new playthrough in a game, already knowing all the secrets.

As he kept dodging, he couldn't help but wonder if the system would check up on the fight at some point. Was this a bug? Was this intended? What the fuck was going on?! He missed so dearly the Alter Tower Protocol right now!

The difference between the two was like Heaven and earth. Hell, if one day he could switch patron Protocol, he'd do it in a heartbeat. Then again, the other one was smarter. It may be more troublesome to manipulate.

He kept going, with legs brushing near him and landing upon various objects. Deadly legs were sinking into the ground deeper than his own height, crushing rocks and vegetation alike and even shattering the bark of the big trees.

He could feel the cold touch of the grim reaper, and yet all his brain could think of was: "Demolition spiders: Fucking shit up since Floor 12! Satisfaction guaranteed, or we eat you!" with a cool jingle to go with the ad.

This habit dated back to his early training days. He had been so scared initially, literally shaking in his boxers. Back then, he had embraced the adage of imagining his enemies in ridiculous situations to release the tension. Well, that had stuck.

How (un)funny was that! A group of demolition spiders that….oh damn! Never mind, it wasn't funny at all. It was genius. The kind of genius that would be hard to implement but so what?

The first item of business was to check the sharpness of the tools. Looking intently at the spiders, Josh happily nodded. These things were living machines of destruction after all. ✔️

The second order of business was to make sure the area was safe for the personnel. Well, in this case, that would only be him. He did big rounds around the place to line them up perfectly. ✔️

Then he definitely needed a quality wedge. He'd rely on the spider spear he had (mostly for the irony of it). ✔️

He made sure to keep an escape path and to visualize where the action would happen. ✔️

Then he kept avoiding the crazy strong Bosses using the nearby trees as a foothold. He simply kept going courageously, every spider attack barely missing him and digging into where he had been a second before.

But Josh was clearly delaying the inevitable. Or was he? As far as the spiders were concerned, he was simply an annoyingly fast snack, one that was bound to tire eventually. After all, the energy of any living being would eventually run out.

Well, they were right on that point. Just that Josh could last way longer than a usual human. Even the Climbers could survive a long time without eating. Josh had the Gluttony bloodline allowing him to fight an even more nonsensical duration.

Except, it wasn't Josh's stamina that gave up first. No, it was the towering trees all around the area. All this time, he had been using the spiders to weaken their structural integrity. The spider destruction corp had done a wonderful job!

In fact, it was such an amazing job that plenty of humongous trees were now falling on them, with trunks bigger than elephants. It all produced an earth-shattering sound! BAM! Josh could feel the very ground under his feet trembling from the aftershock.

The spiders could be seen weakly trying to struggle out from under the massive weight, but all were stuck. Josh felt like some kind of mastermind right now. He even began to laugh aloud, akin to a madman. "HAHAHAHA! Get wrecked!"

He had used their own power to cause their demise, all the while using the terrain around them. He himself had not done any damage whatsoever. Now it was time for the fun part. He came near each one and ceased their pitiful existence.

Well, one did manage to free itself, but even that wasn't much of an issue. Josh simply went to get help from his "fellow humans" once more. As the last one disappeared, he glanced over the shadowy forms.

"All of you! They tried to Bully us, they tried to Crush us, they even tried to Destroy us! But! Are we humans that easy to Exterminate?! False! There is nothing Greater than Humanity! Together we are Indestructible! Today is a day of Joy! We have Killed all our enemies! For humanity! HUZZAH!"

As he heard them sing his praises with a tactful "THaNk yOu FeLLoW HuMan!", he knew they loved him. Well, that speech was truly a classic. It was perfect from A to K, and then he had gotten bored.

After celebrating their victory with appropriate cheers like "THaNk yOu FeLLoW HuMan!", came the looting part. Josh approached all the corpses with excitement, a feeling that slowly died as he proceeded, for the elusive chest piece was nowhere to be seen.

But then, at the 9th spider corpse, there it was. Just lying there beautifully. Like some wonderful piece of antique art. He felt happiness course through his whole body, similar to the rush surviving had just given him.

Defense +4

The only stat on it was trash, but it didn't matter. He had finally gotten the missing piece of the item set. Actually, perhaps there was even a cloak to go with that? Josh shakily equipped it. Now would come the moment of truth.

Would it increase the set bonus, or did he need to go back to farming some more? In such a case, he certainly would slow down with the cursed amulet. He had been so focused on the fight that he had lost any notion of time.

Still, he knew a long while had passed. After all, dodging all the bosses while leading them subtly to dig their own grave had been extremely troublesome. He looked at his trusty internal clock, aka the Fallen curse: . It had taken him about a day to prepare the amulets and for the initial farming.

This meant he had spent about 5 days scheming against the monsters while running for his life. As he came to this realization, he could feel how tired he actually was. The constant adrenaline and his Climber body had kept him going, but barely…

As Josh equipped all of the set items, this was his status:

Crawling of the White Spider: White and Sticky (5 min) Cooldown 1 hour.

Calling of the White Spider: Phantom Ally Cooldown 1 hour.

Aspect of the White Spider: Temporarily become one with the Phantom Ally. Toggle.

~

He quickly activated the Calling ability as the phantomatic being began screeching "tsk-tsk-tsk."

He then felt his heart beat faster as he used the Aspect one. Would he morph as a spider directly? Would he gain tons of limbs? Would his hair turn white, perhaps? The last one would make him look wise for sure!

He could then feel it. It was the same feeling as when he used the White and Sticky mode. It was exactly the goddamn same! There was no physical change whatsoever to him, and the phantom even disappeared.

But after 5 minutes, he understood the difference. There was no time limit. As long as he kept it active, it kept going. The only downside was that it took mana. But this system was unlike any other video game he had seen.

He couldn't see his mana go down in real-time. Nope, it was only showing the total, 2700. But he could feel it. The more time passed and the more lightheaded he felt. He could probably last 15 minutes continuously using it before he really felt the strain (estimated).

He finally had a skill (albeit it was an item set one). This would give him way more versatility when it came to fighting! All in all, these runs had been amazing. What could he have done before with the ability to climb on surfaces?

The answer was absolutely nothing so far. He had mostly struggled against the crazy zombie, the clay golem boss, the rats, and the nature vine beetle. The latter needed to be attacked melee to shatter its weak point, and the formers were in areas without any terrain to Climb.

Here it would have worked wonderfully, but the spiders could do the same except without even expending mana. So yeah… Still, Josh was convinced it would one day come in handy else he wouldn't have worked so hard for it.

He made sure to pick everything up. Good thing he had that cocoon. His spoils of victory were damn impressive. So impressive that he wondered how so much loot could fit inside the tiny white container. Well, magic or some shit.

He had in total 4 spider legs (1 sword, 3 spears), 4 Spider Helmets, only 1 robe, 5 pairs of gloves, 6 bracers, 4 pants, and 4 pairs of boots.

Smiling from ear to ear, he finally declared. "Take care, my fellow humans. See you guys in another life, on another Floor."

They obviously all wished their hero goodbye and a safe journey with poetic farewells: "THaNk yOu FeLLoW HuMan!"

Thus josh teleported out. But as soon as he was outside, he could see tons of members of the Black Squad blocking access to the Tower. They even had a fully functional defense perimeter. One of them sternly shouted at Josh.

"You there! Going back in the Tower is prohibited! Hurry up and exit the premises!"

This was the first time Josh actually saw any kind of regulation made toward the Tower. If he didn't have the backing of Draconic, he would have definitely hurried back inside just to be safe.

After all, he only had 24 days left to live. He couldn't afford to stay outside for long. But for now, he complied with the instructions. He wasn't there to start a war with the humans in any case. He simply desired to Climb.

But still, what could this be all about?...