Well then, shall we start by whittling down the small fry count?
...Wait, hold on. Do I actually need to bother fighting all of these guys one by one?
I've been thinking up strategies to deal with Earth Dragons lately, so it slipped my mind, but if it's an Arachnatect, wouldn't those tactics work just fine?
Probably worth a shot.
If I fail, I fail.
It's not like I'd lose much even if things go south.
Alright then — let's do this!
I use Prediction to track the Arachnatect's movements.
I dodge.
The Arachnatect's fang lodged itself right where I'd been standing moments ago.
Scary?!
Fast?!
As expected of the fastest monster I've ever Appraised.
It maxed out on Accuracy too, plus a high-level Probability Correction.
If I didn't have my four-hit combo evasion technique — Thought Acceleration, Prediction, Evasion, and Probability Correction — I'd have been skewered by that Poison Fang.
Yikes, yikes.
Well, "fast" is relative. It's still slower than me.
The Arachnatect has both Magic Combat and Aura Combat active to boost its physical stats, but I'm even faster than that.
After all, both my Magic Combat and Aura Combat are at higher Skill levels.
And my Magic Combat has even evolved into Demon God Arts.
Demon God Arts is the advanced Skill of Magic Combat.
Its effect not only boosts Magic Combat further, but also raises all magic-type Status parameters.
Thanks to that, my already ridiculous magic stats have gone from absurd to absolutely asinine.
If I activate Demon God Arts and Dragon Power together, my magic attack power and resistance both break past ten thousand.
Heh heh heh.
The Arachnatect's physical attack power is terrifying, but it doesn't matter if it can't land a hit.
The Arachnatect shoots out thread.
Oh, that's the dangerous one.
I know about this.
Spider thread is no joke.
If you get caught, it's over.
Well, if I do get caught, I can just teleport out politely, I suppose.
A net of thread hurtles toward me.
As I dodge it, I catch sight of the Greater Arachnatects starting to move from the corner of my vision.
Ah, no time to be leisurely about this.
Honestly, knowing I can escape via teleportation at any time makes it hard to stay tense.
I've gotten a lot stronger too, so I don't have to worry about dying in one hit like before.
My raw physical stats are high to begin with, and on top of that I stack Demon God Arts, Aura Combat, and Dragon Power for extra boosts.
If I really wanted to, I could add
Wrath is a Skill that massively increases physical Stats.
How massive? At Level 1 alone, the boost is roughly equivalent to what my Level 9 Aura Combat gives.
And it costs zero MP or SP.
However, activating this Skill forces you into the abnormal status "Madness."
Thanks to Heretical Nullification, I was never completely overtaken by madness, but I never want to use it again.
I'm plenty strong without it, and besides — I'm a magic-type at heart.
No need to throw away my magic and resort to hand-to-hand combat.
Factoring in Patience, my effective HP easily exceeds ten thousand.
I'd like to believe there's no savage out there who could punch through all of that in a single blow.
Well, at least the Arachnatect can't.
The Arachnatect's strongest attack is, of course, Deadly Poison Attack at Level 10.
And its Universal Thread serves as the means to land it.
Without teleportation, even I'd be finished the moment I got caught — a vicious combo.
The fact that the one pulling this move is saying so should tell you how reliable that assessment is.
But as I've been saying, I have teleportation, so escaping is easy.
The physical attacks from that massive body are certainly intimidating, but since it's slower than me, they won't even graze me.
The only real trouble would be if I get overwhelmed by sheer numbers, but that's solvable if my strategy works out.
Right then — let's try Operation "Welcome to the Sauna."
Step one: dodge the Arachnatect's attack.
Step two: close in while dodging.
This is the hard part.
When it comes down to raw Stats, the Arachnatect really does surpass Earth Dragons.
Its Spatial Maneuver grants it freeform mobility, its thread-infused attacks make Prediction difficult, and on top of all that it launches magic attacks too.
The magic it uses is Poison Magic — the same kind I'm fond of.
Thanks to my Deadly Poison Resistance, even direct hits don't do much damage, but having a ranged option alone dramatically expands its attack patterns.
Like a seasoned warrior, the Arachnatect expertly times its shots, launching high-power Deadly Poison Bullets among its Poison Magic barrages.
A Deadly Poison Bullet probably wouldn't deal much damage to me either, but getting hit would create an opening.
It's not after damage — it's after that opening.
Man, this thing is dangerous.
Its Stats aren't higher than an Earth Dragon's for nothing.
But in this particular matchup, the odds are against it.
Why? Because I already know almost all of its attack patterns.
Think about it.
Everything I've cultivated in battle up to now — wielding thread, fighting with Poison Fang, launching spells.
It's exactly my own fighting style.
And it should be. We're both the same Taratect species, and we're both spider-type Monsters.
Of course our tactics would overlap.
What's more, none of its attacks can land a decisive blow on me.
Its Poison Fang won't be fatal to someone with Poison Resistance from a single hit.
I can teleport out before it injects a truly lethal dose of poison.
Same with its thread.
Magic is out of the question — there's no way its magic-focused build could break through my resistance.
So that leaves pure physical attacks, but those won't even graze me with my evasion combo.
As for me, do I lack a finishing move?
Not exactly.
I've evolved in a pretty irregular way, you see.
Unlike a normal Taratect, I've got magic in spades.
One-on-one, it'd be out of luck.
That's probably why it brought an army, but the lack of any real command structure or teamwork worked against it — the Arachnatect went and charged ahead on its own.
Thanks to Thought Acceleration, I've been able to chew through all this analysis, but in real time, not even a minute has passed.
The Greater Arachnatects still haven't caught up.
At this point, you could say the Arachnatect has lost any chance of winning.
And now — the finishing blow.
My body makes contact with the Arachnatect.
I cast Spatial Magic — Range Transfer.
Against a dragon, I'd figured this would fail due to Rancor's effect and their high resistance.
But the Arachnatect has no Rancor.
And its resistance can't match my magic power.
The Arachnatect teleports along with me.
Our destination: the magma lake in the Middle Layer, where I once fought the Fire Dragon.
Welcome to the nice, toasty sauna bath.