As wide as the alley, the monstrosity slowly closed the distance between it and the defensive line. Its hideous gaping maw was somehow even more disgusting, green goop dripped on the veritable river of its smaller brethren. A low hiss accompanied the clack of its enormous mandibles.

When Sarah and I arrived at the entrance, the front line had retreated steadily under the pressure of the boss. I feared they would break rank and run, but they were relatively organized under John’s shouting orders.

“Ms Sarah, you must focus on its legs.” Ani spoke calmly beside us.

“Got it. I was thinking the same thing.”

“Be careful, that thing is quite fast. Your armor will offer little protection from the sharp leg tips.”

Sarah nodded in silence.

“Any advice for me?” I asked.

“Don’t die.”

“Uh. That wasn’t in my plan.”

Sarah clicked her tongue beside me while shaking her head, which only made me more confused with the whole exchange. With one hand on my shoulder, Sarah said.

“That was Ani trying to crack a joke. Don’t worry, you will get used to it.”

Ani’s cheeks flushed slightly, but she recovered quickly.

“Anyway, just try to move around and stab it on the thorax. Sarah is better equipped to deal with the legs than you.”

“I can work with that.” I nodded towards Ani.

“Are you guys done? The momma spider is almost on us!”

Our brief exchange was soon interrupted by Noah’s shouts. Moving toward the defensive line, I could see that the huge spider was as tall as me, with the bend of its legs being taller. It was a little over halfway between the entrance of the building and the alleyway. It still moved deliberately slowly, as if waiting for an opportunity to… pounce.

Some things are hard for the brain to process. One of those things is the amount of agility a creature that big can have or, to be honest, shouldn’t have. I couldn’t help but stare mouth agape as it suddenly covered the distance in a heartbeat, with its maw open wide and its legs ready to grab a victim. Some poor sod that stood on the front line was instantly pinned by two pairs of powerful armored legs while the nasty mandibles mercilessly crushed his torso. He screamed and choked, gurgling fresh blood.

Everyone instantly retreated and the line broke, the smaller spiders jumped en masse at the retreating fighters, as if suddenly inspired by their larger sibling. Some of the more cool headed fighters managed to cluster together and fight off the remaining spiders. Thankfully, the last rush that accompanied the boss had been whittled down during its slow approach.

While all this happened, I stared fixated on the scene straight out of a horror movie that played in front of me. With two powerful legs assisted by its mandible, the spider shoved the spasming form of the fighter inside its gullet, clothes and shoes included. With a series of horrendous noises of bones breaking and flesh being torn, one of us disappeared inside the creature’s mouth. As if nothing could satisfy its hunger, the creature started pulling back while looking for the next victim. Large puddles of blood mixed with green goop fell in front of it. It stared at me and for a moment I saw nothing but death in those dark beady eyes.

“Don’t let it retreat!” From behind, Ani’s voice broke me out of my daze.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Sarah muttered as she quickly advanced towards the retreating spider.

“Leo! Willpower! Quick! Dump on it!” Ani shook me.

My mind felt sluggish, and I couldn’t shake off a feeling of oppression. Without giving it much thought, I desired more willpower. I called some mysterious and intangible force, which responded in kind. I felt the fog on my mind going away, as if blown by a powerful wind. I blinked a few times, recovering my bearings.

“Good. The creature can use magic, Leo. It shouldn’t be able to affect you now. You must hurry, Sarah can’t fight it alone.” Ani’s reassuring voice came from beside me.

With a renewed mental clarity, I immediately exited the building. I watched as Sarah pressured the retreating spider. The creature didn’t seem to like the close confrontation, probably an opportunistic predator. At this point, there were few of the smaller spiders and the remainder of the defensive line hurriedly dispatched them. I brushed past the defensive line and idly killed one of the spiders that jumped at me.

[You have slain a Hatchling Horror Maw.]

I dismissed the system message as I jogged towards Sarah. She dodged and slashed the creature’s foremost pair of legs while the spider was all too happy to retreat and avoid Sarah’s strikes.

“Don’t let it get to the wall!” Sarah shouted.

Making sure to keep some space between the spider and myself, I increased my pace but kept my eye on the creature in case it decided to jump at me. It didn’t. Probably too busy with Sarah to afford the time for it. The large spider moved fast toward the wall, but I managed to intercept, forcing it to take a more diagonal approach. By the time I closed in on its rear, we were a little over five meters away from the closest wall.

Coming almost from behind it, I thrust my spear and caught it on the abdomen, but barely managed to crack its carapace as it expertly moved away. I successfully dodged its fluid leg strike with a quick sidestep of my own. Now with two of us pressuring it, we forced it away from the walls. Keeping it on open ground was vitally important. If we allowed it to climb the walls of a building, it would definitely pounce on one of us, and we would be hard pressed to dodge it.

No longer capable of a direct retreat, the monstrosity had to take more careful steps while I did my best to force it towards the direction that would make it the most vulnerable. My arms flared with exertion, it was a ridiculously fast exchange which gave me very little time to think or do anything else. My legs burned with lactic acid build up. If not for my ridiculous increased vitality, I would be dreading the next morning.

HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

The creature’s shriek was painful to the ears. Sarah had finally managed a lucky blow and severed one of its legs at the middle joint. Dark green ichor squirted on the ground as the creature lost its balance, providing me with an opportunity. I stabbed deep and wrenched the bladed tip down out of its body with all my might. A long and nasty gash on its thorax forced another loud shriek from it. It moved away from us with little care for retribution and Sarah managed to give it a shallow cut on its face, splitting one of its eyes.

Its hateful beady eyes glared at us. We spread out and advanced towards it, cutting off any avenue of retreat except towards our main building. It was so focused on us that it didn’t realize that John, Will and three others had moved to intercept it.

I thought for a moment that we might be able to finish this fight in the next few moments, but when John and his small squad had almost reached striking distance, it raised its head and let out a terrifying shriek. I flinched, but held my ground. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sarah still moving, but slower than before. On the other side, John knelt while Will and the others straight up crumpled under the creature's influence.

‘A wide area magic? A stun?’

I couldn’t help but feel some nostalgia from all the games where I had faced boss creatures with magical abilities and phases, but differently than that time, now the stakes were all too real.

Once it stopped shrieking, it had put some distance between us. and stared at Sarah with venomous contempt. The creature shook with hatred as it stared at Sarah, so much that it was palpable in the air. Still, it tore its eyes away from Sarah and turned to the people behind it, offering us its back. I don’t know if it thought it could get away with it, or if it knew it was dead and was trying to kill as many as possible.

Sarah roared and started running, I did the same, without the roar part. What happened next was somewhat of a blur as adrenaline took over and I felt myself rushing towards it.

The large horror maw used its surviving foremost leg to stab one of the prone fighters while it moved its mouth over John’s kneeling form. The large man swung his machete one handed against a mandible and the creature grabbed it, yanking it away from him. The next pair of legs stabbed him, one in the wounded arm and one in the ribs. John kicked and screamed and cursed, but the creature was indifferent. His machete clattered against the floor as the large mandibles spread wide around John’s torso.

The creature’s mandibles snapped closed and it retracted its legs in response to a powerful jolt of pain. Sarah severed one of its rearmost legs and the creature wobbled with pain, but kept a firm grasp on John with it’s mandibles. Sarah hacked away at the next leg, but had trouble hitting the joint. The pain distracted the spider long enough that it gave me time to attack before it finished John. Or so I hoped, because the snap of those mandibles was very dangerous.

I charged the creature, its large thorax right in front of me, and jumped without hesitation. I scrambled to stay on top, and the pain of its small protrusions cutting me was terrible, but the adrenaline kept me going. The thorax was as large as a double bed and despite the creature's panicked attempts to shake me off, I managed to rise to my knees and stabbed down with all the force I could muster. My spear sank deep and the spider shrieked as it bled ichor.

Using my spear as an anchor I managed to stand up and find my footing. It fought to shake me off, but with two legs missing, John’s weight in its mandibles and Sarah hacking away, the creature’s efforts were severely hindered. I planted my feet as best as I could, removed my spear and stabbed again, this time, closer to its head. I moved forward and watched as two of its eyes clearly stared at me. A sudden pressure fell on my mind, but this time I easily brushed it off.

“Not this time, you fucking disgusting bitch.”

Despite almost losing my balance when pulling my spear out, I stabbed it once again, deep between its eyes. It opened its jaw and I heard as John’s body hit the pavement. The spider shrieked and shook harder. One of its legs caught Sarah and she was flung away. Something extremely hard prevented me from digging my spear deeper. Without any other ideas, I jumped. I crouched mid air and let all my weight fall on my spear. Finally, my weight and the increased force of the short fall were enough to break through whatever inner armor the creature had. My hands felt a satisfying crunch through the spear as it sank deeper. With one last shriek the creature lost all strength and collapsed on the pavement.

[You have slain a Juvenile Horror Maw.]

[The fourth wave has been cleared.]

[Participants will be rewarded according to their contribution.]

[The contribution ranking is:

Maccurach - 203 points

Leo - 120 Points

Sarah - 115 Points

Takeshi - 63 Points

Will - 47 Points]

[You have been awarded 120 points.]

[You have been awarded ten contribution points for being the second highest contributor.]

As I sat down on top of the dead creature’s head, I watched as people ran from the entrance of the building towards John and the fallen fighters. Sarah jogged towards me with a frown.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I am fine, just exhausted.”

She nodded at me and turned to John’s unconscious figure being hastily carried inside. Ciara jogged beside trying to take a look at the wounds while passing orders around.

“You think he will make it?” I asked.

“Who knows. I don’t think he is going to die to wounds that would kill most, but what is the limit?”

The idea of John dying hadn’t crossed my head until the moment I saw him being crushed by the boss’ mandibles. He is just not the kind of person I would expect to die. Once again I was reminded that reality doesn’t care about my misguided notions of it.

“Anyway, any idea about this guy who managed to get ranked first?”

“No idea, but I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

We lapsed into silence as we watched the last of the downed fighters being dragged inside, including the one who had been stabbed earlier.

I decided to open my stats sheet while I recovered my breath sitting on the head of the dead boss.

[Name: Leo

Level: 4

STATS

STR: 6 VIT: 10

DEX: 6 (+1) AGI: 7

WIL: 8 (+2) MAG: 0

DEVIATIONS

Improved Regeneration(VIT);

SKILLS

Throwing (Initiate); Hand-to-Hand Combat (Beginner); Dodge (Proficient); Running (Proficient); Submission (Proficient); Club Fighting Style (Initiate); Swimming (Initiate); Spear Fighting Style (Beginner);

MAGIC

Language(Passive);]

I hadn’t realized when I had gained one more point in DEX, but I imagine it was while fighting against the boss. My WIL was quite high now. Was I finally free from the system’s influence? I wouldn’t mind dropping two more points if it guaranteed me complete immunity to it.

‘Maccurach.’

I repeated the name inside my head while I analyzed my status sheet. I had a bad feeling about it, but maybe it was just me being upset that someone took my first rank. Hopefully.