Fenrir

"Oh?" Dawn turns yellow out of curiosity. "How do you plan on making them deal with it?"

"Before I get to that, would you mind explaining to me a little bit about the Spawn?" I ask her as I carefully watch the hole in the wall.

"Uh, okay," Dawn says. "The Spawn are a mystery. No one knows very much about them. Not where they come from, or why. The only things we know about them is that they will always try to kill anything that isn't Spawn, and that they can enter a dungeon regardless of the intruder limit."

Hmm, if that's the case...

"Are you going to make contact with the intruders outside?" Dawn asks me as she starts to float in circles around my core.

I look at her for a second before focusing on the hole again.

"Not if I can help it. If it comes down to it, then I will, but I have a different plan in mind," I say as I begin to build a tall wall extending from the ground to the ceiling around the hole, blocking it off from the rest of the floor.

I then poke a hole through the ceiling and connect it to the fourth floor through a large hole near the entrance to the fourth floor.

"This should work for now..." I mutter as Dawn watches me work with interest.

I leave half of the monsters on the fifth floor – just in case the Spawn decide to break through the new wall instead of going to the fourth floor – before moving the other half up to the stairs between the fourth and fifth floors.

"Interesting..." Dawn mutters as she looks over the changes. "You should give the intruders a reward for each spider they kill. We don't want them thinking that the floor just suddenly became a lot more difficult for no reason."

Rewards?

Hmm...

I think I can do that.

I begin working on an enchantment enveloping the fourth floor. This enchantment will drop five World Coins each time the intruders kill a spider.

Suddenly, before I can finish the enchantment, the spiders begin to creep back into my dungeon through the hole.

Shit! I'm not finished yet, and there aren't any intruders inside of my dungeon!

The spiders look around in confusion at the lack of any monsters before slowly creeping further until they reach the new wall.

An Arachnae enters after all of the Arachnids release a loud shriek in unison.

It slowly walks through the Arachnids as they clear a path before looking up and noticing the hole in the ceiling.

The Arachnae suddenly shrieks and begins to climb the wall up to the hole.

Dawn and I both mentally sigh in relief as we watch the rest of the Arachnids begin to climb the walls.

Now that they are heading to the fourth floor...

'Head over to the hole,' I order Blade on the fourth floor while sending him directions through my mind towards the hole.

Since there aren't any intruders right-

My dungeon entrance suddenly opens as a party of intruders enters through it.

-now?

Good timing!

I take a moment to check who the intruders are before exclaiming, "Seriously? Why did it have to be them?"

The intruders turn out to be the party of that arrogant bastard whose name – if I remember correctly – was Arthur.

Name: Arthur Fox

Race: Human

EXP Level: 6

Cultivation Level: 5

Mana: ?/65

Ugh, at least he is strong, despite how arrogant he is.

He should be useful in fighting the Arachnae at least.

Who would have thought that I would ever need that idiot for something...

Now I just have to stall for time.

The spiders reach the fourth floor before Blade can arrive with the Arachnae leading the charge as they all flood out of the hole in the ground.

My monsters from the nearby goblin villages and wolf dens instantly begin clashing with the spiders as three dozen Arachnids rush forwards to attack.

For some reason, the Arachnae just stands back and watches as my monsters and the Arachnids tear each other apart.

"What's with that Arachnae?" I mutter.

"It's possible that it's trying to judge the relative strength of the monsters before joining the battle," Dawn suggests, "After all, there is a limited number of Arachnae in each hive."

"Oh?" I ask, interested in this little bit of information. "What do you mean?"

"As I said before, the Arachnid hives only have one queen, the Arachnus. Each queen can only give birth to a total of eight Arachnae, but they can give birth to nearly three hundred Arachnids. Although most of them only tend to birth around one hundred and twenty in their lives," Dawn explains to me.

Her inherent memories scare me sometimes with how much information she can get from it...

I glance at the intruders and find them on the second floor.

At least they moved through the first floor quickly enough.

Before I can feel any relief about the situation, the Arachnae suddenly sprints forwards into my monsters and starts tearing them apart one by one.

Shit!

I look to Blade and find him a few dozen meters away from the battle.

At least he isn't very far away, but this is still leaving a large dent in my monsters...

The Arachnae manages to slaughter over a dozen wolves and goblins by the time Blade arrives and tackles it to the ground, interrupting its killing spree as it's sliced up by his fur.

The Arachnae lets out a pained shriek as several of the nearby Arachnids pause to look at it, only to have their distraction used as an opportunity to strike by my monsters.

Blade manages to pin the Arachnae down onto the ground as he blasts a wave of black flame straight into its legs as it attempts to push him off.

The breath attack burns through the chitin on its legs and almost devours the entirety of the last segment of each of its legs before the spider finally manages to shove Blade off of it.

The Arachnae then slowly turns itself over before struggling to stand.

It looks like this one should be dead soon as-

The Arachnae suddenly lets out an ear-piercing shriek that reverberates throughout the entire third, fourth, and fifth floors, stunning every single monster in the floors, including the Arachnids.

Blade recovers quickly and snaps his jaws straight onto the Arachnae's face and rips out its eyes, killing it and ending the final cry of the spider.

"What the hell was that all about?" I mutter before I feel rumbling echo through my fifth floor.

I glance back there and watch the hole for a second before saying, "Oh shit."

Another wave of Arachnids floods out of the hole followed shortly by three more Arachnae as they all rush straight out up the walls into the fourth floor.

Shit, shit, shit, shit! That is WAY too many spiders!

I nervously glance between the spiders, my monsters, and my boss room before making my decision.

'Ashina, head out to this location,' I order the boss of the fifth floor before giving her directions to the wall surrounding the hole.

"Yes, master," Ashina replies as she jumps from bridge to bridge to reach the entrance to the boss room before leaving the room entirely.

Ashina is my best hope if it comes down to fighting the queen, but she should also do well against the Arachnae.

She is the same level as the Arachnae after all, but with magical abilities that they don't have.

If I break the wall down, then I might be able to flank the spiders as well.

I return my attention to the battle on the fourth floor and find Blade bleeding out as he attempts to fight all three of the Arachnae at the same time.

I glance at the intruders and find them just now entering the third floor.

At this rate, they are going to finish off Blade before Ashina can make it. Then they are likely going to rampage throughout my fourth floor and come down again to my-

An ear-piercing shriek rises from the hole leading to the spiders' nest. This shriek reverberates throughout my entire dungeon, startling every single thing inside of it including the intruders as they begin looking around in confusion.

"Shit, Fenrir!" Dawn shouts while staring at the hole in abject terror.

Don't tell me...

I watch the hole for a few seconds before seeing two more Arachnae leave it, followed by what I can only assume is the queen.

Just to make sure it's her, I identify the massive creature.

Name: ???

Race: Arachnus

EXP Level: ?

Cultivation Level: 7

Mana: ?/?

Well, shit.

The massive three meter tall and four meter long queen slowly enters my dungeon, breaking off parts of the walls of the hole in the process due to her size.

It then walks up to the wall and stares at it for a second before raising one of its eight massive legs and striking the wall, causing it to shake as cracks slowly begin to appear throughout it.

It only takes seeing her do this one more time to make me give up on not having any contact with the intruders.

I shift my attention towards them in a hurry and lock all of the trial doors as they finish leaving one.

After that, I unlock the boss room and order the monsters to let them pass.

I decide not to talk to them directly via telepathy and instead have a new slate suddenly raise from the ground in front of them as they look around in bewilderment.

One of the few actually intelligent individuals in their party walks up and begins reading my slate out loud, "A crisis is occurring down below. Go down to the fourth floor and kill the Spawn. If you do this, you will be rewarded five World Coins for each and every kill you get. The monsters will not attack you during this crisis as long as you agree to help."

I begin to grow nervous as the one who read my message – I think his name was Jake – slowly begins shaking his head, but before he can say anything, the arrogant leader of their party shouts, "Let's do it!"

Both Dawn and I let out a mental sigh of relief.

I think this is the first time I have ever been happy that this idiot was an arrogant bastard.

At least it means that he doesn't worry about his own safety and will jump down into danger for a reward while thinking that he can't be killed.

Although that wouldn't have been a problem if they had just been faster at getting down to the fourth floor in the first place...

I turn my attention back to the battle on the fourth floor as the intruders begin rushing towards Fang's room.

Blade is on his last leg with several puncture wounds all over his body, likely from the Arachnae's legs, meanwhile the Arachnae themselves are still in pretty decent shape, aside from one of them who is missing a few legs.

The rest of my monsters are dying off as the Arachnids swarm them with numbers.

Unfortunately, my monsters only manage to take down about half of the Arachnids before I run out of monsters.

Damn it!

I shift my attention back to the fifth floor as Ashina finally reaches the wall before I spawn as many monsters as I can around there to support her.

Meanwhile, I have all of the monsters I sent to the stairs between the fourth and fifth floor rush back over to the wall as the queen strikes it again, almost finishing off the wall in the process.

I look back at the fourth floor and find the intruders climbing their way down the stairs as the Arachnae finally finish off Blade in one more strike through his throat.

A loud crash sounds out from the fifth floor as the wall crumbles down to the ground, revealing my monsters waiting on the other side to the spiders.

"Charge!" Ashina shouts as she rushes forwards with a sword in her right hand.

I'm counting on you, Ashina.