-On the heart of the forest-
There is a small place surrounded by a lot of spiderwebs, yet there is not a single spider, that is because they are scared of the owner and only inhabitant of this place, “The Trickster Arachne”!
Today would have been a normal day for her, that is except for the humanoid bird that has been circulating her home for the last 15 minutes, normally her extremely high arrogance would keep her from worrying about it, but she has a feeling, a feeling of fear, it is like her instincts are telling that there is a stronger predator close by.
And just as she raised he hand to cast her magic at the bird…
*swoosh*
She barely managed to dodge a ball of fire coming her way, after looking the way the attack come from she noticed the culprit, a black humanoid wolf.
‘!?’
But in a single second that same wolf closed the distance between them, the only thing that managed to save her was a large number of traps she has laid all over the place. As a large wall of ice suddenly formed in front of her, she didn't lose time and distanced herself and began casting her illusion magic and at the same time, she used her racial skill (Thread Manipulation).
Thankfully, her preparations came in handy because the strange wolf had broken her ice wall and was charging in her direction. the wolf dashed at an unbelievable speed but it suddenly stopped, its whole body was covered by threats that contained a highly dangerous poison, not letting go of this opportunity she released her illusion magic. The Arachne began to relax thinking that the battle was finally over, but that proved to be a fatal mistake.
*shrieeek*
After feeling the intense pain in her back the Arachne turned around to find the same humanoid bird that was circulating her home, its right claw had blood dripping down, there was no need to investigate who the culprit of her injury was. Surprisingly, as soon as she tried to move many tentacle-like plants rose from the ground around her and began to tie her up.
*roar*
The Arachne began to panic as she was a tall monster that looked like a human-like horned rabbit charging at her. The last thing Arachne saw before losing consciousness was that monster stabbing her stomach with its large horn.
-The culprit-
‘It seems the poison finally took effect’
Asher was testing his new elite troops, the Were-Hellhound, Were-Eagle, Springfield, Were-HornedRabbit, Elder Mandragora, and Dream-Eater.
He decided that the best way to do so was to fight with the guardians of the forest, killing two birds with one stone. He ended up learning a few new things thanks to this, those that have a skill have a high defense for similar skills (except for physical type skills), such as with the Arachne, because she had the (poison) skill the sleeping poison had to take extra time to kick in, the same seems to apply to similar skills. But there seems to be another thing that occurs as a side effect, the caster has a high resistance against their own spells, if a fire mage was to cast a spell like (Fire Tornado) they would receive very little fire damage, but that doesn't mean that they don't receive damage from physical side effects. If they cast (Explosion) they won't be hurt a lot by the fire but they will be hurt by the force created.
‘!?’
Suddenly Asher had a feeling like something was wrong, it was hard to put it into words, it was like…. if there was something wrong with his line of thought…. like if he had to question something……
But that though banished as quickly as it came, Asher thought nothing of it and focused on infecting the Arachne and healing Fenrir before it is too late.
Asher took control of Fenrir and used her mana to cast a spell called (Detoxification) which is created by joining the spell (Clean) and the (Poison) skill, the rest of her mana was used on the skill (Natural Healing LV4).
He used the Springfield to enter the Arachne through her wound using the Springfield’s racial skill (Spore Seed), normally it is a skill that allows the user to create spores that will grow into seeds of any plant that the user had eaten before but by expending a large amount of mana those spores can become Asher’s virus from, the only problem is the range, these special spores cannot fly further than 10cm, but thankfully the Arachne is asleep so using the skill becomes easier.
After entering through her stomach the rest become easier, he traveled through the bloodstreams while infecting nearby cells and multiplying until he reached the heart, from there he obtained a small control on the Arachne, after all on animal-like beings, the way to take control of it is, infecting individual limps and organs, capture the hearth, while this doesn’t grant a complete control it does allow Asher to use skill form both the host and himself.
From there he used the remaining Arachne's mana to use (Natural Healing lv4) which had leveled up sience he obtained it from infecting a few more minor medical herbs and infecting monsters that had that ability, like orcs, lizardmen, etc….
The rest doesn't even need to be mentioned; with the threat of death by blood loss gone all he had to do was to apply some medicinal herbs that he had prepared beforehand because with the Arachne's remaining mana it wasn't enough to fully close the wound but it was enough so that it is no longer a mortal wound. by the time the Arachne was fully healed Asher had already arrived at the brain and infected it, once the brain is infected the host's immune system no longer recognizes Asher as a treat and makes Asher get full control to the host.
[The quest (The Guardians Of The Forest) has been updated! quest progress: 1/3]
After receiving the notification Asher headed in the direction of the Graviton Panda.
-30 minutes later-
The Graviton Panda was sleeping peacefully, completely unaware of its surroundings.
‘3’
‘2’
‘1’
But suddenly a lot of weird plants that look like tentacles emerged from the ground and tied it up.
An elf-like being with large leaves instead of hair and green skin came out of the forest and started to sing a calming melody.
The Graviton Panda lessened his struggles as it began to feel sleepy.
‘It seems to be quite effective’
That just now was the racial skill (Melody) from the Elder Mandragora, it allows its user to control emotions through songs, it can also induce a need, such as hunger, lust, sleep, etc….
*roar*
A roar came out of the panda completely disrupting the melody. The previously blue fur of the panda become a dark purple as an intimidating aura was forming around it.
‘Damn that was way too fast’
The roar is a skill called (Predator’s Roar) which induces fear into opponents, and the sudden color change is because of the skill (Berserk), which exchanges rationality for strength along with an after effect of fatigue and temporarily weakening.
*swoosh*
Before the panda could break free Fenrir climbed on the back of the panda and began to hit its head with a barrage of punches until it got knocked out.
‘That…… was easier than I expected…’
Asher’s hope of a difficult and epic battle got completely crushed, he spent a lot of time making different plans and preparations, it leaved a bad taste in his mount, even though he can't taste anything….
‘The next one will definitely be a cool fight….. definitely……’
‘!?’
[Alert! A new effect of the Divine Curse has been found! the effect @#$%$#@ is currently active ]
Out of nowhere, Asher got hit by an intense pain.
❈ Asher's favorite food is canned peaches
❈ The Arachne's traps trigger when specific strings are broken.
I don't mind the colorings but the blue is a bit too harsh in the contrast with the dark theme.
Barrage of punches
Thread manipulation
Thank you! i use the light theme, but i have been seeing that a lot of people use the dark theme, so i will swich to the dark theme to see how this looks.
@Jairo481 much appreciated