Cyberserk

Chapter 16 - Fighting the Spider Queen

Dan quickly bought a new katana from the store. The sword appeared in his hand but the young man paid no attention to it. The beginning of the fight thrilled him.

The spider queen immediately noticed the invasion of the enemy. The monster's reaction was immediate. The large body rose on its two hind legs and raised itself above the stones of the floor. Four clawed paws met the attack of the cheeky little intruder. 

"I'll devour your meat!" The spider queen roared her threat loudly and met the small danger.

Skong! Smash! Bam, crash!

Four sharp bone claws stopped the phantom with their blows. Tom immediately struck a paw that pierced his armor. He was in great pain, but that didn't stop him from continuing his attack.

The Powerful Blow skill had a minimum cooldown of one second. But the clone could not afford a single second of delay. He used his second strike using the assassin skill.

[Devious Attack.

Required level: 3

Requirement: None

Mana cost: 2. Applying the spell adds +3 points of damage to the attack. Increases attack power by 12%. 

Devious Attack increases the damage dealt with enemies. Using a short blade increases damage by 50%!]

The clone's tanto was in the short sword class. Phantom realized that this weapon was more suited to deal damage to this creature. The queen wouldn't allow an enemy near her body! 

But this creature was no ordinary smart animal. The Queen's mind appreciated the pain the little freak caused her.

"I'll drink your blood!" screamed the boss. She nailed her enemy's body to the ground and struck with the fangs of her mouth!

A b****y damaged figure appeared above the phantom's body.

-170! 

Chak, Thum, Clatt, Donn, Bonk, Skraboom.

Pieces of the clone's armor spilled onto the cave floor. The body of the enemy vanished into thin air. The queen squealed shrilly at the insolent creature's failure to give her meat and blood. Fires of anger and rage flashed in the monster's eyes.

Her annoyance quickly gained a new victim.

Dan immediately summoned a new phantom and held out his katana with the handle forward. The player had time to think about it.

"Buy me a Tanto! Buy me any dagger!" Tom shouted the order and rushed toward the boss.

He managed to land two strikes and died from a powerful blow from the Queen's fangs.

Dan Raven had ten minutes to evaluate the event. He immediately bought some daggers and prepared one for Tom. Then the player turned his gaze to the chat panel to examine the results of the battle.

During the first encounter, Tom managed to do good damage! He attacked with both hands and it got results. The queen was taking 7 to 12 points of damage from each blade.

But the second attack was less impressive. The clone managed to deal only 17 points of damage in two strikes! Dan realized with horror that Tom's plan had a major miscalculation. Of course, Tom would kill the Queen! But strictly speaking, 250 clones would kill the Queen!

Dan Raven could not use his mind as a clone. But he could make a simple calculation. 250 clones take 2,500 minutes to regenerate enough mana. 2,500 minutes is... Dan started to convert minutes to hours and after a minute he froze with a displeased face.

42 hours! It will take them 42 hours to kill the Queen! That's not a normal way to run a game. This is nonsense! What's the point of defeating this fool? 

Dan could have zoomed in on any status indicator in his field of vision. He maxed out the bar that showed the amount of mana. The blue bar was just beginning to recover.

Raven looked at the monster. The Spider Queen was down on all her paws again, snorting with indignation. The vile combination of the seductive nakedness of a beautiful female body with the ugly body of a huge spider was nauseating. Dan realized that he was a long way from the cold-bloodedness of a clone. The phantom is not a player, he has no feelings, he is a robot, he is not a man.

Dan Raven realized with horror that he was no match for this boss. He was afraid even when he stood at a great distance from the monster. It was too early for him to participate in such adventures.

Time dragged on slowly. Dan calmed down a bit when he assessed the results of the fight more closely. Tom had done the most damage during the first fight with his second attack. Especially impressive was the damage of 14 points!  

Dan called up the skill panel. The level 1 assassin attack impressed the player. Dan pulled a second samurai dagger from his inventory and waited with two daggers in hand.

"Assassins always rules! Maybe we should change the way we play. No! With a long sword, it's much more comfortable to deal with regular monsters. Tom has fallen too much in love with his samurai subtleties. Tom is sure to set up a garden and grow sakura trees to admire the blossoming trees. We'll find a place where we can stay in peace. Japanese peculiarities are normal. Tom will exercise his techniques in the blooming sakura garden. Curious players will pay with useful items and food to watch! Tom bought himself a book on learning kendo. Nasty bastard! He wouldn't give me the book! Now that bastard is sure to die a hundred times until he kills that thing. He's not leaving this place without his favorite book," Dan whispered nonsense and watched carefully as his mana recovered.

The mana recovered. Dan applied the Phantom skill and held out two daggers to the clone. Tom quickly drew his weapons and rushed at his enemy. The queen snorted and met the annoying little creature that hurt her and disappeared after punishment.

Four claws struck the body of the clone, who was dressed in simple gray pants and a shirt with no protection. A strike of venomous fangs from the grinning mouth ended the swift fight. Two daggers fell to the stones of the cave.

Den Raven smirked. 

"Take that vile creature! You won't die in forty hours. Now I'll count it all again," the player whispered. He was afraid to speak loudly, but his whisper was full of joy and expectation.

Tom instantly realized that the assassin skill had the best effect on their situation. First, the clone applied the skill of the Devious Attack! He managed to land two strikes. The total damage was 23 points! That was a huge number for the partners. The queen would take eight points of damage every ten minutes.

Dan did the calculations and was satisfied that the fight could only take ten and a half hours.

Raven sat down on the floor and listened to how he felt. He was tired. He was very tired of new experiences. First, the phantom killed the man. Then the skeleton warriors gave new emotions to the player. Raven smirked as he remembered the mad dungeon breakthrough and the encounter with the vile spiders. The hours of cautious wandering through the stone tunnels were remembered as a nightmare. The spiders were terrifying. They turned out not to be such terrible enemies for partners. But they did look very horrible and nasty. The spiders provided new trophies!

Dan thought about putting spider venom on the daggers. But then he dismissed the idea. He remembered how respectfully Tom greeted each new bag of poison. The phantom convinced Dan that this merchandise was of special value. The monsters of the Dungeon location leave particularly valuable trophies!

Dan clearly understood that he could endure ten hours of combat with the Spider Queen. Rest was out of the question! First, they would kill the boss and then they could rest.

Dan stood up and summoned Tom. Phantom grabbed two daggers and rushed into action. Three seconds later, the two daggers jingled as they fell to the rocks. The queen roared an indignant curse. Den Raven grinned nastily. Twenty-one points of damage. Not much, but enough to see a winning battle tactic.

Raven opened the store panel and bought a party of tanto daggers. He took great pleasure in looking at the weapon's weight number. 200 grams! Dan would be able to collect all the daggers after the fight. Carrying a few dozen kilos was no problem. With two points in Strength and Body, he could carry 220 kilograms!

Time dragged on slowly. Within a few hours, while the clone was throwing suicide attacks, Dan had fully embraced the concept of phantom death. He didn't treat his partner as expendable. On the contrary, every death of Tom made him angry and want to kill the Queen as soon as possible. Dan Raven watched with pleasure as the life of his opponent diminished. He was afraid that the monster would use special skills before he died. But Tom was right and the little boss didn't change his abilities. The queen handled the nuisance little menace just fine. Perhaps she realized she was trapped. A large number of daggers were lying on the stones of the cave. The queen was even forced to move sideways. It was uncomfortable for her to stoop down on the slide of steel objects.

Her condition gradually worsened.

392. 291. 194. 48 health points.

Dan held out two daggers to his partner.

"Don't you dare run and try to make one last strike. Screw the experience!" Tom voiced his opinion and rushed into battle.

"Screw the experience," whispered Dan. He was well aware that even a mortally wounded Queen gave him an awful sense of dread. Raven felt he might piss himself if this creature turned its horrible eyes on him.

After this fight, the monster has only 23 health points left. The Spider Queen squealed loudly with the foreboding of imminent death. Dan Raven watched in horror as the creature began to run quickly along the back wall of the cave. For a moment Dan was frightened that the vile creature would run in his direction and prepared to run down the tunnel away from the big boss cave. But the Spider Queen never left the far wall of the cave.

Dan looked carefully at the mana scale. He couldn't wait to end this adventure. The hours of fighting the boss made his head hurt. He didn't want to sleep. The player felt an unpleasant sense of morbid excitement.

He prepared the last two daggers for the winner. Tom had won the beast. Dan understood perfectly the significance of his miraculous Phantom skill.

The Phantom appeared beside the man and grabbed the daggers from his partner's hands. Without a word or a joke, Tom rushed toward the boss to end this ridiculous battle.

The result of the fight stunned Dan. The queen pounced on her enemy and immediately bit him. The clone's head disappeared into the monster's mouth. The clone's hands struck the last blows on the enemy.

[Congratulations! You have defeated the Spider Queen! Reward: 153 experience points! Warning. The difference in levels is 2. Multiplier applied. Reward increased to 306 experience points! Special reward for the first destruction of the Spider Queen boss: the Meva Stone. The player receives the achievement Boss Killer Rank 1. All damage increased by 10% on bosses!] 

"Greedy bastard game creator! Choke on your experience!" Dan went to the corpse of the monster to collect the daggers. "306 experience points. For less than ten stupid zombies! They're kidding me! This isn't a game, it's a scam and a cheat."

Dan collected the daggers and put them in his inventory. Unfortunately, Tom's armor disappeared six hours after the battle began. The creators of the Game loved the cleanliness and weren't going to contaminate the surface of the new world with a dump of weapons and other pieces of player equipment. Equipment was losing its durability. Mountains of used armor could grow at the portals to the new world.

Dan noticed the book that was under the daggers. He smiled. Tom's book! It wasn't missing like the armor. It was the best gift for a novice samurai for defeating a fearsome boss. The player carefully picked up the book and hid it in his inventory.

Dan breathed out a sigh of relief when the corpse of the dreaded Queen began to disappear. He felt fear at the proximity of the creature's huge, horrible body. It seemed to him that at any moment the Queen would revive and pounce on him. All monsters in this game are reborn! Only humans die forever!

Dan leaned over for another dagger and saw a little blue light next to the blade of the dagger.

The little ring lay on the stone floor and glowed with a blue light.

"What is that? What an interesting ring," whispered Den Raven.