The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 2 - Chapter 23 - The Trap (Patreon)

Wolf
Three days after his deal with Nosferatu

“And that makes 220,” I say to Sapphire as I pull my sword out of a frozen greater scythian arachnid.

Sapphire purrs in happiness before I turn towards the large nest a few miles to my south.

“Now I just have to deal with that…” I mutter before smiling at Sapphire as I see her tilt her head at me.

My smile turns serious as I sheathe my sword and start walking towards the large web while calling out to Sapphire, “Let’s go!”

I quickly hear her catch up to me as we walk, only to pause again and crouch low to the ground as the ground begins shaking.

The nerscillus is leaving its nest right when we are about to attack it? Or is it coming back to its nest? It’s kind of hard to tell with its nest being so big, and at such a large distance away from us…

My answer comes to me as the small tremors in the ground begin to gradually weaken before fading away entirely as the nerscillus leaves the area.

A smirk stretches across my face before I turn to Sapphire and say, “Let’s go.”

She makes a light purr before we both sprint off towards the large nest.

I grunt one last time as I pull myself up into the large web.

“That was an annoying climb,” I mutter as I take a moment to catch my breath before looking around the enormous web. Most of it seems to be on a single layer, but some areas do move up and down, with a few even having more than one platform of webbing to stand on.

Time to get to work.

I begin walking around the web in search of the largest open area to lay my trap.

From what I was told by Mikaela, the nerscillus should have the ability to use ranged attacks from both its spinnerets, and its two blade-like claws. One shooting webbing, while the other flinging acid.

That being the case, it might be able to deflect my ice element with it, making the boss a lot more of a challenge than it would have otherwise been.

So, the solution is to build a trap for the spider!

It takes me about half an hour to find a perfect location for the trap before I begin carefully carving through the webbing with my ice while also reconnecting the webbing with my ice in a large circle surrounding a wide-open spot on the webbing.

Unfortunately, the webbing begins to lightly shake as the boss gets nearby, likely climbing a tree that the web is connected too.

Despite this, I continue my work all the way till a large tremor goes through the web and a loud hiss echoes throughout the entire area.

“Shit,” I mutter before I speed up my work, all the while feeling the tremors on the web slowly increase in strength as I sense the nerscillus heading in my direction.

Damnit, damnit, damnit!

I leap from my position to roll away right before a splash of acid hits where I was just standing.

Before I can get annoyed at being interrupted, I notice the red acid eating through the rest of the webbing I hadn’t finished cutting and replacing.

My irritation is instantly replaced with a smile before I quickly reconnect it through my ice and take off at a sprint across the trap.

I vaguely sense Sapphire peeking her eyes out of my shadow to look behind us before a short screech comes from her and she hides back in it.

Meanwhile, the enormous life source I sense quickly approaching suddenly leaps into the air, wiping the smile off of my face as I freeze a little slide in front of me before sliding down it to just barely get off of my trap as the nerscillus lands directly on top of it.

So far so good…

Before I can focus on the ice around the trap, I roll to the side to dodge another splash of acid.

“Damn it,” I mutter as I climb back to my feet to see the nerscillus slowly approaching me with a hungry look in its eight eyes.

The thing raises its blade-like legs again to send another splash of acid at me before I shout, “Screw it!”

I can heal whatever damage this might do!

I completely ignore it as it throws a large splash of acid at me, all the while standing my ground on the end of my ice slide and focusing on the ice holding up the trap.

The acid directly hits me before I bite my tongue to hold back a scream of pain as some of the acid seeps into the cracks of my ice armor. I push through the pain as I focus on the ice surrounding the trap before slowly making the ice vanish around the enormous trap.

It takes me several seconds to control the ice element in all of it to dissipate the ice due to the trap’s massive size before the area with a diameter of a few dozen meters in the webbing with the nerscillus on top of it suddenly falls into the jungle below.

A very loud – and very angry – screech echoes from down below as I rush to wipe off the acid with hands covered completely in ice, only to notice a sudden string shoot upwards from the hole towards the tops of the nearby jungle trees.

“Shit,” I grunt before forcing through the pain once more to weakly swipe my arm, sending a blade of ice straight towards the string as the acid burning my skin finally dissipates after eating down to my muscles.

I faintly smile before focusing on healing my wounds after seeing the string cut before it can even reach the tops of the trees.

The nerscillus’ screech comes to a sudden stop as a loud crash sounds from down below, followed by a very powerful tremor in the webbing.

I kneel down on the ice while healing my wounds for a few minutes before I finally get back to my feet to approach the hole in the webbing so that I can check on the boss.

The faint smile that was on my face vanishes the moment I see the boss standing on the ground about 5 dozen meters below me.

As soon as the boss sees me, it lets out another screech before shooting a large amount of webbing from its spinnerets in my direction, only to just barely come short.

“I wasn’t sure what exactly I was expecting, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it to get back up after that fall,” I mutter to myself before Sapphire peeks her head out of my shadow to look at what’s going on.

I ignore her as I look at the very pissed off, and very injured nerscillus down below. It has what looks like three broken legs, with all of the others being extremely battered from the landing.

Did it break its fall with those broken legs?

Either way, this is a good chance…

I reach into my inventory to grab a stamina potion before downing it and raising my hands as the nerscillus stops staring at me to start towards the nearest tree to get back up here.

“Sorry, fella, but that isn’t happening,” I mutter while creating several dozen weapons of ice before dropping my hand and having them all fall at a swift pace towards the nerscillus.

The nerscillus notices the weapons, but thanks to its injuries, combined with its size, it can’t dodge so it instead just hisses again while shooting out webbing at some of the weapons to knock them off course.

I frown at the sight before manipulating the weapons to move slightly, avoiding most of the webbing before they finally reach their target, piercing every last part of the nerscillus.

It lets out one last screech of pain before falling to the ground with a loud thump as silence fills the area.

I sit down on my ice slide that I made earlier to catch my breath before a loud fanfare plays out amongst the silence and a large chest appears right in front of me on the webbing.

“And that’s a wrap,” I mutter while giving a salute before laying down on the ice for a moment of rest.

Arcadian Live

“And The Winter Wolf has done it again! He is back to his place as the forerunner and is moving on to the third theme!” Mikaela shouts as excitement practically explodes from him.

The audience explodes into showering applause as Katherine smiles at the sight of Wolf laying down and staring up at the treetops before she joins them in the applause, along with Mikaela.

Screams of excitement run rampant throughout the stadium as everyone releases their built-up excitement for Wolf’s victory.

This lasts for several minutes until Wolf finally gets back to his feet and approaches the boss chest, labeled with a large spider head with two red blades crossed in front of it, and a large spider web behind it.

“Time to see what he will get from the boss!” Mikaela shouts before everyone goes quiet in anticipation.

Wolf pauses in front of the chest before he reaches out and touches the spider’s head.

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

Item | Blade of the Nerscillus | Tier 5

This item is not attainable outside of the boss chest of the boss: Nerscillus.

This blade gives the user an extra 20% pierce and 25% physical damage to any enemy this is used against.

Bonus Effect: The blade is constantly coated in the acid of a nerscillus.

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

Item | Amulet of the Nerscillus | Tier 4

This item is not attainable outside of the boss chest of the boss: Nerscillus.

This amulet grants the wearer a 10% resistance to all types of acid.

Note: This does not apply to any of the other minor attributes of the poison element.

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

“Oh? Those are both pretty good items!” Mikaela exclaims as the audience breaks out into more cheers.

“What’s more is that he can actually use both of them,” Katherine says with a chuckle.

Mikaela glances at her before looking at the screen again as Wolf picks up the two items and puts the amulet on, “That’s true. It’s unfortunate for The Winter Wolf, but harbingers can only use their own element, and no other elements, and there is no way around that.”

Katherine nods her head before exclaiming, “Now it’s time to see what the next floor’s theme is!”