The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 2 - Chapter 20 - The Twentieth Floor (Patreon)

Wolf
One hour later

“Well, that was annoying,” I mutter as I step around the puddles of purple poison towards the mini boss chest in the center of the room.

The stupid frog kept leaking poison from every part of its body! And if that wasn’t annoying enough, it also sprayed large amounts of it from its mouth as well!

I sense Sapphire begin to shift around in my shadow before I warn her, “Don’t come out yet. I don’t want you getting poisoned by this stuff.”

Sapphire stops moving around again as I reach the mini boss chest.

Without wasting any time, I reach out to touch the engraving of a frog’s head with its tongue sticking out on the front of the chest.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Item | Poisoned Blade of the Kokoi | Tier 4

This item is not attainable outside of the mini boss chest of the mini boss: Jungle Kokoi.

This blade gives the user an extra 12% pierce and 18% physical damage to any enemy this is used against.

Bonus Effect: The blade is constantly coated in the poison of a Jungle Kokoi.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“That’s actually not that bad,” I mutter after reading the item’s description as a sword coated in the same purple liquid as what is currently splattered around the floor of the cave, with a little frog head on the pommel of the sword.

That makes for a third useable sword in my arsenal now. One for straight up damage and pierce, one for the effect of making the enemy unable to sense me for a few seconds, and now one for poison.

I reach out to take the sword before putting it into my inventory and starting towards the door.

Right as I reach the door, I look down at Sapphire who is still hiding in my shadow before saying, “Let’s see what is on the twentieth floor!”

Her eyes open, briefly appearing in my shadow before bobbing up and down as I reach forwards and touch the door.

By the time the green light fades, I find myself in a dark jungle, completely infested with webbing everywhere I can see.

My eyes widen in surprise at the change in time of day before I look up at the sky.

Throughout all of the previous jungle floors, it was constantly daytime, but this floor is completely dark, with the only source of light being the crescent moon in the sky above the enormous trees.

What’s more, is that this floor doesn’t have any of the normal chirping of cicadas that the previous floors all had. It makes the floor feel eerie without any sounds outside of the wind blowing through the flora.

Sapphire suddenly leaves my shadow and moves up to a bush covered in webs and silk nearby. She then hisses at it before coming back to me.

I look around for a few more seconds before turning to my west as I sense three life sources enter my range of vision while approaching me at a fast pace. Almost too fast if you consider all of the foliage.

The reason for their speed becomes obvious as three black spiders quickly enter my line of sight while charging straight through all of the foliage as the foliage dissolves the second it touches the thin black liquid coating their bodies.

“Well, those things certainly don’t look pleasant to the touch,” I mutter while releasing my ice element and sending it straight towards the half-a-meter long spiders.

I take a moment to identify them as they are being frozen.

_-| Unnamed – Necroi Arachnid – Level 209 |-_

Sapphire begins approaching the three frozen spiders before I call out, “Don’t approach them yet!”

She turns back to me and tilts her head in confusion.

“Whatever that liquid is, it doesn’t look like it’s safe for you to touch,” I warn her before opening my status and navigating to the System Forums.

Let’s see what the forums has to say about these things…

“Don’t ever touch those things,” I warn Sapphire with a stern voice after I finish reading the information on the forums about these things.

Apparently, they have a necrotic acid covering their body that quickly eats through anything that is living. Which is why they were able to move so quickly through the jungle. It allowed them to just continue sprinting through the jungle without a care for the foliage whilst only having to avoid the trees.

After hearing a brief purr from Sapphire in acknowledgement, I have my ice dig straight into the necroi arachnid’s eyes to destroy their brains before starting through the jungle.

It looks like I will be getting all of the EXP from the necroi arachnids on this floor.

Now to see what else is on this floor.

“What is this?” I quietly mutter as I crouch low in the foliage while looking at a very large looking structure made out of webbing.

The structure itself spans a couple dozen meters in length, with several smaller openings.

As I am examining the structure, a meter-long, gray spider leaves it and begins spraying a very sticky looking substance at the ground outside of the structure. The substance quickly dries out once it touches the ground before revealing itself to be a splattering of the spider’s webbing.

Well, that explains where the structure came from.

_-| Unnamed – Greater Nesting Arachnid – Level 208 |-_

And that name fits pretty well for what it’s currently doing.

Anyways, that’s enough scouting.

I allow my ice element to flow out of me before it slowly begins to fill the area, frosting over all of the scattered webbing and flora.

The web shooter quickly notices that something is going on and it turns around to look, but it’s too late as I manipulate the ice element to begin swarming the area in the form of a snowy blizzard.

I learned how to do this a couple of floors ago, and it has been pretty useful ever since.

When I use my ice element like this, it not only obscures the enemy’s vision, but – thanks to my senses for the ice element – I can tell where the enemy is within the snow with ease. Aside from that, I can also create little shards of sharpened ice that I add into the blizzard to slowly cut apart anything that is inside.

The only problem is that it is a major cost on my stamina. But with the amount of SP I am making now, that isn’t too big of a problem thanks to stamina potions.

Although I am probably going to have to upgrade to a better stamina potion at some point, since these potions aren’t fully replenishing my stamina anymore…

Anyways, the nesting spider lets out a surprising screech before falling silent as the shards of ice tear through it without any issue.

I wait a couple more seconds before I stop manipulating the blizzard and shards of ice, letting them all fall to the ground.

“I wonder what another Competitor’s reaction would be to seeing this,” I mutter as I look at the clearing filled with snow, along with dozens of small shards of ice scattered about. Not to mention the completely shredded structure of webbing. And the areas full of some sort of gray liquid, which I am guessing is the nesting arachnid’s blood.

These things should work well as fodder for Sapphire, so I should probably partially freeze them the next time I find them so that she can get some of the EXP.

A plume of green smoke suddenly appears in the center of the mess, followed shortly by a green chest.

Oh? An uncommon loot box. Not bad.

I start making my way towards the box as Sapphire comes out of my shadow.

A few hours later

I stare agape at the rather startling structure above me before taking a quick glance at my dungeon map to make sure.

Yep. This is a boss’s area.

About four or five dozen meters in the air, suspended along dozens of enormous jungle trees lies a web. This web spans what must be at least a mile in length, with several little holes each at a different tree. The holes themselves span about seven meters in diameter, with a long trail of webbing going down the tree it opens up at, hinting rather ominously at the size of the nest’s owner.

Surprisingly, there doesn’t appear to be anyone home, which likely means that the boss lives here alone but isn’t home right now.

Either that or any other inhabitants went with the boss to wherever it went.

I glance at Sapphire next to me and find her visibly shaking before I tell her, “Get into my shadow.”

She quickly does so without any fuss as I take off at a sprint towards the outskirts of the area under the web.

The ground suddenly begins shaking as I run.

“Shit,” I mutter as I sense an enormous life force enter the range of my skill.

I glance backwards without stopping to find everything lightly shaking in a repeated rhythm, as if something was slamming against the ground nearby repeatedly.

Just how big is this damn boss?!

A branch breaks on my head as I run without facing forwards.

I face forward again to focus on getting away after failing to get even a glimpse of the boss.

Surprisingly, after a few more seconds of running, the tremors in the ground suddenly stop. I continue running for several more seconds until I finally break out of the area covered by webbing before turning around again to see if I can get a glimpse of the boss.

My jaw drops open in shock the second I see the enormous spider slowly climbing up one of the large jungle trees towards the nest above.

The spider itself has a black body with two large, red blades making up its front two legs. The two blade-like limbs are about twice as large as its other legs, and they are also dripping some sort of red liquid that leaves large burn marks on the tree as it climbs. Large enough marks that I can see them from here.

_-| Unnamed – Nerscillus – Level 230 |-_

I stare at the boss for several seconds as it continues to climb up the large tree into its nest before I turn around to start getting some distance between me and the boss’s nest.