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Chapter 162- Wovan, The Hivemind Construct
🕑 Added 2024-07-09 22:59:01 +0000 UTCIn the end, Arthur had to wait an agonising seven minutes before the dimensional incursion showed any signs of breaking. In its final moments, the chaotic forces acting on the area were so deadly they would have outright killed anyone with less than a thousand constitution. Arthur was sure whatever visitors Earth would be receiving would die in seconds had they decided to breach the dimensional incursion before it stabilised.
Fortunately for him, the invading creatures had the intelligence to avoid such suicidal actions, and so he’d be getting the fight he so desperately wanted. The dimensional pressure around him reached a crescendo as two realities overlapped and tore a hole in the fabric of time and space, establishing a connection between two places that would otherwise have never interacted. With the portal finally established, the pressure suddenly vanished, so abruptly it was almost like it had never been there. Only the devastated landscape it left behind spoke the truth of its existence.
Arthur watched in rapt attention as the black portal pulsed once, twice before freezing in place, no longer emitting the vast quantities of energy it had been only seconds ago. Arthur had gotten a taste for that energy, though, before the world had rejected it. The ether was incredibly potent, originating from a planet that was transitioning to tier 2. His ether-starved body cried out for that energy- having gotten a taste for it, his instincts were practically screaming at him to go through the dimensional crack.
For a brief second, he actually considered it. A tier 2 world was far more appropriate for him than Earth. He could leave all his problems behind, and he had no particularly strong attachments with anyone here save Elizabeth and Mathew. The former had travelled light-years away to study in an academy who knows where, and Mathew he hadn’t heard from in a while. Sure, whatever dimension he ended up in wouldn’t have access to the system, but the most important parts of the powerful tool were integrated into his soul, the functions that allowed him to easily assign stat points from level-ups and categorize his skills and class. He wouldn’t be losing much. The decision, however, was taken out of his hands by the fact that the portals were one-way only. They didn’t allow travel from this side.
Arthur had already cast Water Shell on himself and used Augmented Recovery to boost his healing for the next ten minutes by twenty times his base value, which left him regenerating a staggering 25,010 health per minute. After factoring in all his increases from his traits, namely Superior Lifeform and Enhanced Regeneration, he was now regenerating in a minute what used to take him the better part of an hour. With the average classed individual possessing around 150 vitality, Arthur’s baseline recovery was the equivalent of 834 humans combined.
Once I manage to get a few levels in Augmented Recovery, I’ll start to give Hydras a run for their money, Arthur mused. His anticipation was finally brought to an end when ‘something’ finally pushed through the dimensional crack. It was a massive armoured limb measuring thirty meters in length, covered in spikes of protruding bone. The limb gave off an aura of danger that practically screamed poison, and the droplets of clear liquid that fell from it confirmed his suspicion seconds later. Wherever the droplets fell, death followed, the little vegetation that had survived the chaotic dimensional forces was stripped of life nearly instantaneously, trees disintegrating into ashes.
Fuck, that's one big monster. Arthur watched in horror as another limb pierced through the crack, followed by another and then another. No, no, no, please don’t tell me this is what I think it is, Arthur pleaded. Unfortunately, his suspicions proved true when eight grey limbs descended onto the ground- each the length of a three-story house and as thick as five tree trunks- and began to drag the colossal creature through the portal. It just had to be a fucking spider, didn’t it. Arthur cursed. He hated the critters, and if he was being honest with himself, was more than a little terrified of the many-legged little devils.
Except this one's the size of a blue whale. Bigger Even. The massive creature was eerily silent; it produced no noise whatsoever, some kind of magical effect certainly. If he wasn’t looking directly at it, Arthur wouldn’t even realize he was in the presence of such a behemoth. It was terrifying. Arthur shot a quick use of Homunculi's Eye to see what he was working with.
The Hivemind Construct, level 263- The product of millions of micro spiders working in unison, woven together. The Hivemind Construct is a force to be reckoned with. Its entire body is a potent source of poison that will strip flesh from bone. The danger it represents is only trumped by its ability to multiply and infest the lands
Strengths: Poison, armoured carapace, spacial magic
Weakness: Fire
Highest stat: Control
Health: 13 (15,600,000)
Arthur read through the monster's description, trying to make sense of it. Its highest stat was Control, something he hadn’t seen before. Arthur suspected it was similar to Willpower- a stat responsible for your control over Ether and your skills- but a little less specific. It made sense that a hivemind constructed from over a million creatures required an insane level of control, though having a stat for it was a little on the nose. The hivemind’s health pool was also a little strange. For starters, fifteen million health dwarfed every monster he’d fought to date put together, a truly absurd value that made the creature a daunting foe to face.
Arthur wasn’t an expert on the subject, but he felt fifteen million was far too much health to have at level 263. Save apocalypse beasts that specialised in vitality, nothing should ever have so much health. Unless he was mistaken, Wovan, the hivemind construct, while powerful, wasn’t quite on the level of an apocalypse beast. It didn’t quite possess the requisite domineering aura he’d come to associate with such monsters. Or maybe, I’ve grown so much since my refining that I don’t feel their presence like I used to. Fortunately, the little thirteen next to its health helped explain things.
The monster was a hivemind, consisting of so many smaller spiders mashed together they became an indistinguishable single entity. It made sense that each tiny spider had its own health pool. Arthur quickly did the math. If each spider had only 12 health, it meant that the hivemind consisted of a grand total of one point three million creatures. Arthur wondered how the mechanics of such a creature worked. Its health and vitality were clearly distributed throughout its many bodies. Did that hold true for its other physical stats? If so, would the monster possess some absurd strength in the hundreds of thousands?
There had to be some kind of formula in place. Arthur refused to believe such a broken creature could exist. Unfortunately, his time for theory crafting had finally come to an end. Wovan had noticed his presence. He didn’t know how it had managed to break through the barriers erected by the Darkstar Essence Core; perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the monster wasn’t native to this particular reality. Whatever the case, the monster now knew he was here- it was hard not to find him when he was the only breathing thing within two miles- and it seemed to register his presence as an affront to its very existence.
Arthur didn't see its attack coming. In fact, it didn’t move at all. One second, he was standing before the massive spider, preparing to attack, and the next, he was struck on the back of his head with the force of a speeding car. As durable as he was, the attack did little to no damage, but it did send him sprawling forward. For all his apparent strength, Arthur still weighed less than 100 kg. Before he could get up, another strike hit him in the small of the back, pushing him further into the soft ground. That was the signal to start the barrage, and Arthur was pummelled with a veritable flood of strikes, dozens at a time, all firing simultaneously to keep him from getting up.
While his Draconic Vitality was high enough to prevent him from taking any damage from them, it didn’t stop his movements from being effectively sealed. He didn’t have enough strength to push through the force of the attacks and stand up. It took Arthur a moment to realize what was going on. Wovan, the hivemind construct, was a master of spatial magic, and the terrifying spider had seen fit to generate fifty tiny portals behind him through which it was launching some kind of magical attack. The fact that it had immediately gone for his head spoke of a level of intelligence and experience battling humans that was concerning. Clearly, the creature wanted him dead expeditiously.
Wovan was a terrifying foe. Where Arthur’s previous battles had been filled with the roars and sounds of exertion native to fighting, the massive spider was eerily silent, generating no sound whatsoever. Even the magic it struck him with made no sound as it hit his body. There was some strange magic going on around it, and Arthur realized with growing horror that it was using some type of ability to hide itself. A behemoth of a beast, a monstrous spider larger than a blue whale, was using stealth magic to make itself look inconspicuous, even as it stood upon a platform of ether atop the roiling lake in the middle of a massive clearing.
And it was working.
Had Arthur not seen the creature leave the portal- one that was already fading away- and witnessed the terrible points of its eight appendages, he was sure his eyes would have skipped right over the monster. How the fuck can you be so big and still use stealth magic! If Arthur had known this was what he’d be facing by coming here, he would have seriously reconsidered his life choices. Wovan seemed to have realized that its attacks were doing no damage, and so it focused all its beams on Arthur’s head. That was something he definitely felt. It was like someone was hitting his head with a metal pan, and he was finally taking some damage.
With all the damage focused on one spot, though, Arthur was free to move his limbs. With a wave of his hands, he managed to push his body out of the way of the attack. He continued to roll for an additional two meters before getting up and dashing towards the beast. That was when the spider decided to release its aura, dominating the area around it in a 500-meter radius, tinging the air with its specific blend of special magic. With its domain established, Wovan was able to create and destroy dozens of micro portals a second, completely surrounding Arthur, constantly reforming around and peppering him with attacks as he moved.
If he thought the earlier barrage was bad, this was ten times worse. He couldn’t take a single step without getting hit in twenty different places. For one reason or another, his water shell didn’t seem to be reflecting any of these attacks, perhaps because of the spatial magic being used to deliver them. Whatever the case, something had to change. Arthur released his pinnacle skill, A Homunculi Hunts, and watched as his own domain rose to meet the monster's, twice as large and far more potent. As ill-versed as Arthur was in domain combat, there came a point where a simple difference in power made all the difference. If there was one thing Arthur had in spades, it was power.
Wovan's special attacks immediately dropped in number, from over three dozen to less than ten. He could feel the creature's will battling against his own as it tried to establish its domain over space. It was a dull buzzing in his ear that was steadily getting louder. The skills they were using were simply of two different calibres, yes, but Arthur's inexperience was seriously beginning to show.
Focusing on the massive creature, Arthur applied the debuff A Homunculi's Ire. Gripping his spear, he prepared for battle. As a soul mage, victory was inevitable so long as he could continue fighting. Few things could harm Arthur, and this time he wasn’t on a timer. Success was a question of when not if.
Arthur wondered how long it would take.
