“Wow, it looks like you did have a plan after all.” Lunaris said excitedly. She knew James’s weird, DIY spells were pretty good, but she didn’t expect something quite like that.

“Damn, mate. There were probably several thousand saws in the room. I’ve never seen anything like it. I doubt the little shits did much damage, but there were just so many of them!” Helios was pumped. He had seen James fight many times before, but this was the first time he had seen him achieve such an overwhelming victory. Helios and Lunaris were truly proud of him.

As James was drooling at the thought of marching through the dungeon with thousands of saws in tow, destroying everything in sight, the saws already started disintegrating. That was another one of their flaws, the saws had a short life span. James couldn’t just stockpile them and reuse them in the next fight, they disintegrated in just a few minutes.

Still, it was a much better system than being a summoner or necromancer with a handful of minions. Even though those minions were probably more permanent, they wouldn't be able to control thousands at once. At least not without being some legendary mage that sacrificed a lot to get to that point.

“Those chimeras were very weird. The way they transformed, their rage, it’s like … they were corrupted. Like they were infected and infused with way too much Darkness. I suppose we can't ignore this any longer, somebody obviously tampered with the Soul Grinder.” Lunaris stated worriedly.

“That’s been on my mind as well.” Helios answered in a serious tone. “I don’t remember the monsters in this prison being of the Darkness the last time I came here. But is there anything we can even do about it?”

James was worried as well, but they couldn’t just turn tail and run even if something was amiss. They had to press on, the quicker he leveled up, the better they’d be able to deal with any surprises. Especially since that would mean that Helios and Lunaris would have access to more of their powers as well.

James then checked his status.

[You have reached level 76]

At least there was some good news as well.

“Now that’s what I call progress!” James said ecstatically. Eighteen whole levels!

He was literally jumping up and down out of sheer happiness. After all the fighting and the grim mood of the Soul Grinder, seeing his progress with his own two eyes made this place seem much comfier.

The fight had definitely been worth it. Unlike those damn tigers, the chimeras gave him a lot of xp. For a while there he was worried all the monsters would give little xp, just like the tigers. The whole reason they even came to this god forsaken place was to level up as quickly as possible.

“Aye, it was well-deserved, mate. Taking 9 of them down all by yourself, that was a sight to see.” Helios had almost forgotten about losing his sword. He was worried James wouldn’t be able to face the forthcoming enemies. But if he kept pulling off such feats, he’d definitely succeed. The chimeras had been a good test of his skill. Still, he had to tank for him this time around, so James would have to keep improving in order to become a more complete fighter. There were still too many holes in his strategy.

“The monsters up ahead will be even stronger though. Do you have other tricks up your sleeve?” Lunaris asked. She was just as happy as Helios, but she had to make sure James was properly equipped to deal with whatever was waiting for them.

“Yes, I'm starting to have a lot more confidence in the spells I designed, even though most of them are untested. But even without the arcane simulation, my designs didn't really let me down before. At least not when it really counted. But now that I do have the arcane simulation, and I can actually confirm and create skills much more efficiently, I'm sure the grander designs I had in mind will work.”

Helios had been listening carefully. “I’m glad to hear that. If you didn’t have anything stronger prepared, I would have insisted we turn back. The tigers and the chimeras are new to me, they weren’t around during my previous trip to the Soul Grinder. Not only that, there's obviously some fuckery going on with the Darkness being present in here. Not to mention that I am sure that the next set of monsters will be a pain in the ass. Those bastards that took my hand. Their nest is right around the corner, and they’re definitely still there. There’s no way anything drove them out.”

Helios was cringing in pain just remembering the encounter.

“Anyway, the monsters we’re about to face are of the spider type. So that means they can come at you from any direction. They can swing around the room, they can drop down on you, they can climb up the walls. Their one weakness is that they’re not that strong from afar, all they can do is shoot webs at you to slow you down or trap you.”

Helios then shuddered before continuing.

“But their strength comes from two things: their numbers, and their strength at close range. If they get close to you, you’re dead. You can’t dodge their attacks, they’ve got 8 legs and they’re not afraid to use them. But there are also hundreds of them, each as strong as the next one. So if there’s one near you, it’s likely there’s several more. You still sure you want to continue?”

James thought for a second, but then he looked Helios straight in the eyes and answered.

“If there are hundreds of them, does that mean I’ll get xp from each of them?”

Helios looked at him and smiled brightly. “Aye, that’s a real man’s answer. And yes, if everything goes according to plan, you might hit level 100 just off of them. The problem is actually surviving the encounter.”

They couldn't move ahead yet, they placed the crystal down and set up another formation. Even if it was a bit risky to camp like this in a hostile prison full of dangerous monsters, it was still a lot more prudent than just blindly going ahead with little preparation. They had to recover and buff up again.

“Here, take this.” Lunaris handed James an orb.

“What is it?” James asked.

“It’s loaded with mana. The battle ahead is probably going to be even tougher. Use it to fully load your necklace with mana, so you can use it during battle. But you have to purify the mana first, the reason why you can’t just use the orb in battle directly is that the mana is impure.” Lunaris answered.

“Thanks! I’ll actually need quite a lot of mana to pull off any advanced spells.” Every day, his friends did something that made him feel truly lucky to have them. As if it wasn’t enough that they came into this blasted dungeon with him, they’re even giving spoonfeeding him things like that. James couldn’t wait to be a rich and powerful mage so he could shower them with gifts and favors.

This time around they spent hours inside the defensive formation. They rested up, buffed up, strategized. They couldn’t leave any stone unturned, they had to be at 100% in order to fight the legions of spiders that were about to swarm them as soon as they moved ahead. Helios was constantly on edge and hyper vigilant, making sure no spiders sneaked up on them.

They were about to go, but Helios decided to be extra prudent.

“Actually, now that I think about it, we should probably use your Mana Golem to scout ahead. God knows what’s waiting for us. I’m feeling uneasy, the Darkness being present is throwing a wrench into how I thought things would go. Especially since those chimeras were so weird, something is bound to go wrong.”

It was unusual for Helios to be so cautious, he was usually almost as reckless as James.

Seeing his friend’s serious demeanor, James did as he was told. If something was enough to unsettle Helios, it was definitely time to buckle down and watch your step.

James conjured a Mana Golem. The weak little thing could be killed by a breeze, but it was good enough for scouting.

The rooms of this prison were incredibly large, so the Golem waddled slowly towards the next room, taking quite a while to cross the room they were in since the trio were staying as far away as possible from the entrance to the spiders’ nest. As it stepped into the next room, it hadn’t taken even a second and the Mana Golem was destroyed. These monsters were too powerful to let themselves be scouted that easily.

“Well, that didn’t tell us anything.” Helios said. ”Wait, I know, let me add something to it.”

James conjured another Mana Golem, and Helios imbued it with his own magic. The golem burst in flames, lighting the room up brightly.

“I don’t know if it’s any more durable, I didn’t even try to make it more durable cause no matter what, if just one spider attacks it, it’s going to get destroyed. But it should be a hell of a lot quicker. Here’s what we do: send the Mana Golem running inside. It probably won’t last long, but its speed should keep it alive for a few more seconds, and the fire should allow us to see quite well what’s waiting for us.” Helios instructed James.

James did as he was told and sent the Mana Golem sprinting into the next room. The difference in speed was night and day, the golem was probably ten times faster.

As soon as it stepped into the room, it was already attacked. But the spiders must have not expected such a stark difference in speed.

As the trio was mentally connected to the Golem, they were able to see anything it saw.

The immense room was filled with webs, cocoons, eggs. Every inch of it was filled with spider paraphernalia. Spiders of all sizes were crawling all over. From tiny ones the size of bugs, to many that were the size of people.

Only God knew the horrors that the Golem didn’t even get to see, because seconds later it was pierced by a spider’s fang.

“Did you see it?” Helios asked with an ugly grimace.

“I saw it.” Lunaris answered, with an equally ugly expression.

“What?” James had seen the horrors of the spider nest, but he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary that would make them react like that.

While James was quite brilliant at battling monsters, he still lacked the reflexes and perception of highly trained mages.

“It wasn’t all of them, but many of the spiders were emanating Darkness.” Lunaris stated.

“The monsters in this dungeon shouldn’t be affected by Darkness at all, if they were they would have been killed instead of being put in this prison. I was still hoping it would only be some of the monsters infected by it, but it seems this whole prison has been overtaken by the Darkness. Something is very wrong here.” Helios added..

“So what do we do now?” James asked.

“This is highly unexpected. Helios had a hard enough time with the spiders when they weren’t imbued with Darkness. Now we can’t even begin to estimate how powerful they are. We need to retreat, immediately.” Lunaris said.

James was very surprised, and he wasn't exactly sure what was the right thing to do, but then Helios spoke up.

“I agree with Lunaris. Let’s get out of here, now. Pull out your teleportation scrolls and let’s get away.”

It was one thing for Lunaris to say it, she was cautious and rational at all times. But if even the hothead, battle-thirsty Helios said it, then one would be an absolute moron to stay in spite of that.

They pulled out and ripped their teleportation scrolls.

But instead of being teleported away, nothing happened.

Helios and Lunaris were absolutely stunned. The teleportation scrolls should have worked, it would take incredibly powerful magic to block them. Something like this was almost unprecedented. How could they be blocked without them even knowing?

But they didn’t have time to contemplate what happened. As if reacting to something, a second later, the spiders rushed towards them.