Afterlife Dream

At 15.30 sharp, I arrived at the cave entrance, and I was alone. It was rather unusual because players tended to gather one hour before the raid took place.

"Guys? Where is everyone?" I typed into the guild chat.

Instead of an answer, I received an invitation to join the squad. Right after I joined, Hime wrote in the squad chat, "Go inside, Antares. We are all waiting in front of Helene."

I carefully clicked on the entrance NPC and made sure that I did not choose to reset the level 60 raid. The NPC took me to the huge platform at the ancient stone palace again, the start point of the level 60 raid.

"Dear Adventurer, welcome back. To continue with the Queen Spider raid, please head over to the NPC at the end of the map to enter the Queen Spider lair."

I jogged down the stone steps and went through the camps that we destroyed a day ago. No monster corpses were visible inside the camps. Only the broken pieces of totem poles that were scattered on the ground served as proof that we completed the precursor raid.

The walk took maybe ten minutes. Just like Hime said, all of them already gathered around Helene, waiting for the raid to open.

Hime was a level 100 High Priest who did not like to talk much. When I arrived, she was sitting on a moldy stone in a corner to set up parties. Her brows were knitted and her fingers incessantly moved over the squad interface screen. The other players were more relaxed. They were chatting in groups.

After Hime was done with the squad setting, I was put into the same party as DragonTalon, HellWitch, Lazarus, ZhaoYun, and Livina. The five of them winked me over to their corner as soon as they saw me.

ZhaoYun and Livina wore their Fire Golem helmets with pride. I could barely suppress a grin.

"The helmets look good on you two," I complimented.

They grinned back at me.

"It's a dream come true," Livina commented. "I am so grateful."

"There will be more," ZhaoYun remarked. "I am itching to get the Queen Spider boots. Did you see how cool they were when BlackPuma was slaying the Dark Pegasus...?"

10.00 AM arrived in no time.

Unlike the Fire Golem, the Queen Spider had nothing to say other than a bunch of incoherent noises. What followed was the usual mechanical voice to welcome us to the raid.

We all clicked ourselves in as soon as possible. Three minutes were all we had to spread around the map according to our parties. It was not much.

I was stunned to see that we were literally standing on big, sticky spider web threads that extended from wall to wall in an intricate pattern. Beneath and above the spider web was complete darkness. The spiderweb was suspended in the air. I squinted to see what lay beyond the darkness, but there was nothing to see.

The only reason why we did not slip through the holes and die was that the hole was not big enough to fit a whole body, and also because the spider web would stick to our limbs like super glue whenever we fell.

It was a relief that falling from height was not one of the hazards in the Queen Spider raid. The problem was everything else. Players had to make great efforts to dislodge their feet from the sticky thread every time to walk. I could not imagine running or even dodging attacks in this kind of battleground. We were literally like prey trapped on spider webs, waiting for the Queen Spider to come to fetch its lunch.

ZhaoYun gave us all Iron Body before he and HellWitch moved to stand in front of us. I healed us all up and cast Divine Guard and Mana Guard one after another.

"Hey, Antares," Livina whispered to me from behind. "Do you have at least one point on Resurrection?"

Resurrection was the skill to resurrect dead teammates.

"Yes," I confirmed.

"Oh, good," Livina looked relieved.

Resurrection could only be used once per run, but when done effectively, one High Priest could resurrect five dead teammates at once.

After three minutes passed, the darkness above us opened up and a furry, eight-legged horned spider with a mouth full of fangs descended in an instant. Although its landing could be referred to as a light one, it still sent waves across the spider web. Players with both legs spread widely on the web had better footing than the others, who quickly fell face-first toward the web.

"Yuck," I heard they cry.

"Ewwwwwww!!!"

The spider was huge. The base of its legs had the same circumference as a player's torso. It had beady eyes the size of a player's head. The eyes moved up and down, left and right animatedly as if trying to size us up and calculate the damage that we could do to it.

In our party, only HellWitch and Lazarus ran the level 70 raid before so they were not as shocked as we were. I reckoned that in other parties, there were also a few new participants. That was how some players started to attack as soon as the spider landed on the ground, while the others were frozen for three seconds before they too joined the attack.

The familiar red HP Bar strip appeared as soon as the Queen Spider took the first hit. As soon as that happened, the Queen Spider started to attack aggressively.

I was not saying that we were not aggressive. Oh, we were aggressive. As aggressive as we could for players who had to walk over sticky threads and had to make sure that our feet did not slip through the open holes.

The front fighters took it the hardest. While they were trying to get closer to the Queen Spider to launch their attacks, the Queen Spider went ahead of them and flung them off the web with one leg. The players landed in a heap against the wall, sticking to the spider web underneath. It repeated the move a few times and effectively swatted the front fighters away like annoying bugs.

After the front fighters, the mages and healers were next.

Having seen ZhaoYun being swept off the ground like that, DragonTalon and I learned from HellWitch and used Teleport to avoid the tricky legs. A claw missed me by a hairbreadth, but I was saved by Lazarus who shot at the spider from my opposite direction.

I was thankful, but at the same time also confused. How did Lazarus get to the other side so quickly while we all struggled to move? Then I saw his boots. There were literally a pair of golden wings that were attached to each of his feet. His feet were hovering around a centimeter off the spider web.

...

It was a Bow Master's skill, Winged Steps.

Teleport could only bring the players two meters away in a certain direction, but Winged Steps allowed Bow Masters to prance around on the map while shooting at the Queen Spider from a distance.

After the initial attack of swatting players to the wall, the Queen Spider started to spit out venoms at players. It was done very quickly in succession, and a lot of players failed to dodge the attacks.

I heard some players screaming angrily for heal, followed by Hime's unusual raised voice, "DO NOT DEPEND ON YOUR HIGH PRIESTS TO HEAL YOU IF YOU WANT TO FINISH THE RAID. USE YOUR OWN POTIONS!!!"

Before long, a lot of players got poisoned by the venom. This included my own party. None of them was not poisoned.

"Guys, can you gather for a bit around me so I can purify you???" I shouted at my teammates.

"Purify who you can, Antares, but it is of no use. Just take care of yourself!" HellWitch shouted at me.

Of the five people in my party, DragonTalon and Livina were attacking not far from each other. I thus teleported toward them and cast the purification dome over us. The golden dome spread smoothly around us and protected us from further venom attacks.

"Good job, Antares!" DragonTalon managed to say while he shot one Fire Beam after another at the Queen Spider. Fire attacks were quite effective against the Queen Spider.

At the 50% HP mark, the Queen Spider employed a new attack. The Puppeteer String. Livina became one of its first victims. Her initially green HP Bar turned red in an instant, and her eyes turned empty. Before DragonTalon and I knew what was happening, two throwing stars left her hands and landed at the back of our necks.

My sight went blurry and I fell face-first on the sticky web. The scene around me lost its color but I could still see what was happening while lying on the spider web. A huge dialogue box appeared before me with a question.

"You have died. Do you wish to leave the raid map?"