Nycteris flew over the swarm, hovering above the eight-legged monsters. Astrid and Hazel looked down at the horde, watching the sea of monstrosities easily engulf the streets of Portland.

  “Hazel...” Astrid called out to her partner with a worried tone.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

  While above the swarm, Hazel held the condensed purple ball of cursed energy over the spiders. Then, with a sharp breath, she released the ball and let it drop. It rapidly descended from the sky, landing in the middle of the swarm, blending into the darkness that made up the horde.

  However, even when the ball entered the swarm, nothing happened as the spiders kept going. Witnessing this, Astrid got worried, believing that the spell failed. However, Hazel looked down at the horde with a wicked grin, as if she got exactly what she requested.

  Then, she raised her hand, placing her middle finger and thumb together. “And...boom.”

  And with a snap of her finger, a large black explosion erupted from within the swarm. Hazel and Astrid watched as a few dozen spider monsters flew in the air from the explosion.

  [Level 2 Infant Spider has been defeated!]

  [Level 1 Infant Spider has been defeated!]

  [Level 1 Infant Spider has been defeated!]

  [Level 3 Infant Spider has been defeated!]

  [Level 3 Infant Spider has been defeated!]

  [Level 1 Infant Spider has been defeated!]

  [Level 2 Infant Spider...]

  When Astrid watched the purple blast, her eyes widened in shock.

  She turned to look at Hazel with the same bewildered expression. “Did you...?”

  “Yeah,” Hazel nodded, with a smile. “And now I can create more!”

  As if proving a point, Hazel then summoned another cursed bomb, letting it hover over her hand with a calm yet eager expression. And just like with the first bomb, she let it drop into the swarm before exploding it in an instant. The trio watched another purple dome of cursed energy expand rapidly, pushing back the spiders and creating an opening in the ground.

  “Oh, this is going to be so much fun...!”

  With the flood gates opened involving Hazel’s restraints, the witch then began to drop bomb after bomb on top of the spider swarm, effortlessly killing the eight-legged monstrosities with ease as multiple explosions were made amongst the horde.

  Hazel watched as her vision was flooded with kill notifications, displaying dozens upon dozens of deaths she had inflicted upon the swarm. All the while she had one of the most wicked and sinister grins on her face, giving her the impression of some evil villain slaughtering innocents.

  However, despite seeing so many kills, it seemed that even her bombs were doing enough damage to the horde. She hurled at least two or so dozen cursed spheres into that swarm, and yet the spiders were still engulfing the streets like an incoming flood. She could feel her mana reaching its limit because of the constant use of the curse bombs. It seemed that casting this spell packed more of a punch than she initially believed. Then again, it was her first time casting it, so that made sense. But it wasn’t enough for the horde.

  She needed to do more damage. Enough damage to where she could kill a considerable amount of spiders and dimmish their numbers significantly. And Hazel just came up with a good idea for that.

  Her eyes darted at the buildings around her, and she was instantly reminded of when Zoe used buildings to completely destroy the swarm. So Hazel planned to do the same thing as well.

  With an eager grin, Hazel instructed Nycteris to fly around the buildings she told him to go by. Following her orders, the Nightwing blitzed toward the designated structures, allowing her to do her part.

  When the trio flew by one of the buildings, Hazel then planted a few of her cursed bombs around it. Upon doing this, the malicious purple spheres stuck to the walls like glue.

  “Hey, they're like sticky bombs...” She chuckled while planting more bombs around the building.

  With her new spell in hand, Hazel proceeded to plant multiple sticky cursed bombs on all of the buildings around the area. She couldn’t just use one or two, she did at least six bombs per building to ensure that when they detonate, they will make the structures fall.

  Once all the bombs were planted, Nycteris then flew up in the sky to avoid getting caught up in the explosions and aftermath. While flying high in the air, Hazel and Astrid stared down at the swarm, watching them march their way toward the players with malicious intent, desiring to kill them at the command of their queen and mother.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. Because they were going to die just like their siblings the first time around. And Hazel planned to watch it all unfold until the last spider was crushed under the rubble.

  “Eat shit, you eight-legged freaks.”

  Hazel snapped her fingers once more, detonating all of the sticky cursed bombs at once. Multiple explosions were heard as the buildings around them were damaged in the process. So much so that they could no longer maintain their structure and soon collapsed on the spot.

  The trio witnessed the multiple buildings crash and break down, falling over the swarm that was both unfortunate and stupid enough to be in the area at the time. As the buildings fell, a cloud of dust was kicked up, blanketing the entire area and obscuring their sight of what lay below.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Meanwhile, Hazel continued to get flooded with kill messages. Each kill popped up a split second after the last. She became disoriented by the panels and mentally ignored them to focus on the task at hand. That being the swarm she just crushed with the buildings. So far, none of the spider infants had emerged from the dust cloud, and it was eerily quiet.

  Instead of hearing the scuttling of spiders, all she heard from the crumbling rubble from the buildings and the whistling wind.

  “Did you get them all...?” Astrid asked.

  “Just to make sure we’re clear; you can never ask something like that in a situation like this. It’s a red flag and by asking that, instead of us actually winning the fight, the spiders will turn out okay and we’ll have even more problems.”

  Astrid simply stared at Hazel in confusion, clearly not understanding what she meant by that. Instead of trying to explain, the witch simply sighed before waving off the comment and turned her attention back to the swarm.

  The three of them watched from above, waiting for the dust to settle so they could see if her plan worked. A few moments passed and the dust cloud finally started to dissipate. When it did, Hazel and the other two got a good look at the devastation from the cursed bombs. The entire block was covered in the rubble of the various buildings that collapsed. However, there wasn’t a single spider swarm shown.

  Seeing that all of the spiders were dead, Hazel and Astrid breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that they were currently done with the swarm.

  “We took down the swarm, but what about the sentinels?” Astrid questioned. “Those guys didn’t show up until we took down the infants first.”

  “I don’t know...” Hazel mumbled, keeping her eyes peeled at the rubble below them, waiting for something else to happen.

  However, instead of seeing sentinels bursting from the rubble, nothing happened at all. Hazel and the others were confused by this, wondering what exactly was happening until they saw a panel manifest in front of them.

  [First Wave of the Swarm has been annihilated! Second Wave will commence in Five minutes. Please leave the range of the Spider Queen if you wish to avoid the second wave.]

  “Oh, so she’s sending her children in waves, huh? Actually, how many kids does this queen have to be sending waves of them like that? That’s a bit concerning if you ask me.”

  Hazel was once again surprised by the game-like features of the apocalypse. So much so that she didn’t expect to encounter some kind of monster wave mechanic. What was next, tower or base defense?

  Anyway, with the horde currently taken care of, there was one more thing that Hazel needed to take care of. And that involved Astrid.

  Turning around to confront her dark elf partner, she crossed her arms while staring intently at her. “Alright, I think it’s time you explained that whole thing with that dark elf named Dolk. And don’t leave anything out, alright?”

  Although Hazel respected Astrid’s privacy, she at least needed to know what the deal was with Dolk and why she held such animosity toward him.

  Astrid’s face fell upon Hazel’s confrontation. Instead of looking hesitant, she seemed to be more resigned to her fate as if expecting that this would occur sooner or later.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” The dark elf said while looking up. “I think it’s time you know about what happened.”

  ...

  “So, let me get this straight,” Hazel began. “That Dolk guy was your best friend you knew since childhood, and before the System appeared, he tried to kill you because he was ordered to by your brother? Do I have that right?”

  Astrid glumly nodded at Hazel’s brief summarization. “That’s right.”

  Hearing the dark elf confirm this only caused Hazel to bury her face in her hands out of sheer frustration and shock.

  “No wonder you have trust issues...” she commented. “I’m surprised that you even accepted my partnership when we first met considering what you went through. If it were me after what happened to you, I wouldn’t have accepted my offer and just left.”

  “I certainly considered that. Unfortunately, the person who offered the partnership was very persistent in teaming up with me.”

  “Ha ha,” Hazel said sarcastically. “But, seriously, I’m still processing everything you told me about Dolk and your brother. What kind of family member tries to...you know, what, I’m not even going to finish that question since there are plenty of people like that in my world.”

  Although Hazel had never seen something like that in person, she had heard plenty of stories about siblings killing each other over many things from petty arguments to life-changing decisions that ultimately put them at odds.

  Thankfully, she and Damien were never like that. While they were the type of siblings who fought often, they still had each other’s backs when it mattered the most. Sadly, that didn’t seem to be the case for Astrid and her brother, aside from the fact that her sibling tried to get her killed with the help of her best friend.

  Hazel couldn’t even begin to process such a turn of events. It was one thing to have one of them try to kill you, but both? That would be too much to handle even for Hazel. But this also explained a bit as to why Astrid was so desperate to return to her village.

  Apparently, her brother was planning something big, and he was doing it with the help of the High Elves. From what Hazel remembered regarding the origin of the Dark Elves, it didn’t make sense for Astrid’s sibling to try and work together with the people who both made and tried to get rid of them.

  Perhaps there was more to their supposed partnership than meets the eye. Maybe the brother was being forced into cooperating with the High Elves, though Astrid stated that wasn’t possible. The way she sounded so certain of that made Hazel uncomfortable. She really didn’t have a good relationship with her sibling considering that she immediately crossed out the idea of him being forced to work with the High Elves against his will.

  But, if that wasn’t the case, then what exactly was the deal between her brother and the High Elves? What were they planning together, and was killing Astrid part of that plan?

  But more importantly...

  “What do you plan to do now?” Hazel suddenly asked. “Since Dolk is somewhere in Portland, are you going to chase after him?”

  In the beginning, Astrid’s main objective was to return home. But now that one of the people who betrayed her was within Portland, did she plan to stay here a little longer until she dealt with him? If it were Hazel, she would hunt down the bastard that nearly killed her and make them pay. But, she wasn’t Astrid.

  There also wasn’t enough time before the rest of the players still in their dungeons returned. That meant members of her tribe, including her brother, would return if the latter hadn't already completed his tutorial.

  So, if she wasted her time on Dolk...Kollr was bound to cause trouble at the village in her absence.

  “For now,” Astrid spoke up. “I need to deal with Dolk. He likely knows more about the relationship between Kollr and the High Elves. If I can get to him, I can learn about what those bastards are planning.”

  In the end, she was prioritizing what was currently within her grasp. Hazel couldn’t really say that she wouldn’t make the same decision if placed in the dark elf’s shoes. It was a smart decision since she could obtain information by capturing Dolk. Then there was the bonus of getting some sweet revenge for trying to kill her.

  “Do you plan to chase after him now? We managed to deal with the spiders, so you should be able to find him without being bothered by the swarm.”

  Astrid shook her head. “As much as I want to, I can’t right now. My...head is in too much of a mess,” She held her head while grimacing. “It was one thing encountering the bastard that tried to kill me. It’s an entirely difficult problem after being told that your sibling was working with the very bastards that want us dead after creating us in the first place. I...need some time to process what I’ve learned right now.”

  Hazel could understand Astrid feeling overwhelmed by everything that happened just now. If she tried to chase after Dolk in her current state of mind, then she could very well end up getting herself killed if she wasn’t careful. For now, it would be best to head back to the Jetport and rest a little bit.

  “Alright, let’s get moving, then,” Hazel declared while walking over to Nycteris, prepared to hop on him. “The sooner we get back to the base, the sooner we can sleep this off and prepare ourselves for tomorrow.”

  Astrid nodded. “Good idea.”

  The dark elf soon climbed on the Nightwing along with Hazel. Once both were on the Familiar, he then ascended into the night sky and soared back over to the Jetport.