CHAPTER 431: PETAL-LIKE

He didn’t scream. At least not immediately.

At first, he was simply confused. Since it was his left arm that ended up inside the monster’s mouth, together with his phone, the cave fell into darkness once again. He could hear things, and feel things, but...

It didn’t even really hurt. Because of the web, his nerve endings were all burned and numbed. He could still feel the sensation, but it was just... odd.

One of the spider’s petal-like ’lips’ wrapped around his left arm. Then, they started moving. Rubbing up and down, side to side.

That was all that Ethan could feel. However, having seen the teeth that were on the inner side of those ’petals’... It wasn’t hard to imagine what was happening to his arm.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The reality finally set in, and Ethan panicked, screaming and trying to pull his arm away. All that resulted in, though, was the ’petals’ wrapping around his arm even tighter, as the monster was visibly annoyed at its prey’s desperate struggles. Any of Ethan’s attempts to stab the monster with his spear also amounted to nothing, as his whole body was now stuck in the webbing, with hardly any room left to move...

Helpless, he yelled, "SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!"

But what did it change, even if he screamed for help? Lane was even busier than before, trying to defend himself, as now that Ethan was trapped in the web, most of the spiders turned their attention to him. Of course, he would have been able to save Ethan if he wanted to, but...

He didn’t want to. That was the point of this whole ’accident’.

However...

"Hold on, I’m coming!" Jasper called back from the other part of the tunnel, abandoning his other task and heading his way. It seemed that he believed that helping Ethan and Lane was more urgent. Or maybe he still failed to find Adrian, and assumed that he wasn’t in that part of the tunnels?

Either way, he was coming their way. Lane clicked his tongue, but didn’t do anything about it. He just jumped back, quickly covered his eyes with his hand to hide the glow, and using his Mana Scan, threw a quick glance at Ethan...

His face instantly turned dark.

His plan was falling apart right in front of his eyes.

On the surface, everything seemed fine. The rescue team was still far away, and it would take them a while to reach them. Digging through the rockfall wasn’t easy, after all - they had to be careful not to cause another collapse, since Lane, Ethan, Jasper, and Adrian were trapped below - and they didn’t have any abilities that would be particularly suitable for the task. They weren’t aware of the secret passages that led underground either. Because of all that, their progress was slow.

Jasper joining Lane wouldn’t make much of a difference either. He couldn’t do much in the dark to begin with, it was pretty much looking for death on his part. And even if he found any source of light - he should at the very least have his phone in his spatial bag - it still wouldn’t help much. Both he and Lane were injured, and as long as Lane limited himself to an ’A-ranker’s’ strength and abilities, they stood no chance against so many spider monsters. Even if Adrian woke up and joined them, it still wouldn’t change anything.

It was a losing battle. Forget saving Ethan, they would be lucky if they could hold on until the reinforcements arrived without getting caught up in the web!

The problem was the spider monsters. Lane had known about their existence, their strength and had at least a general idea about their hunting methods... But he hadn’t known about their eating habits! The Guild that had previously owned this dungeon reported everything they had discovered to Lane, but they had only engaged with the spider monsters briefly, fighting from a distance, and withdrew quickly without suffering any casualties. They had never seen how the spiders consumed their prey.

Who would have guessed they were such slow eaters? And on top of that, although they hunted in groups, they didn’t feast together. Instead, they seemed to have a hierarchical approach, where certain members of their clutter fed first, before the others could have their turn.

And what did that mean to Lane? That Ethan’s chances of survival greatly increased!

How unfortunate.

Lane dodged to the side, avoiding the threads that one of the monsters was spewing at him, and turned off his Mana Scan. Instead, he took out his night vision goggles, switching to thermal vision mode. It was less comfortable and reliable than using the Mana Scan, but... Now that he was engaged in the fight, it was safer to get ready for the rescuers.

As an A-ranker, in this situation, he should eventually end up caught up in the web as well, after all. He couldn’t use the Mana Scan without covering his eyes because of the glow, and once he would be entangled in the web, it would be difficult even for him to remove the blindfold... Especially if it got stuck in the webbing as well.

And it would be difficult to explain to everyone why he was wearing a blindfold, no?

Thus, the night vision goggles it was. Lane quickly slid them over his eyes, tightening the strap and quickly adjusting the modes...

As expected, they weren’t particularly useful. The spider monsters didn’t emit much heat, thus they were hard to spot, and so were the threads that they were producing. Lane had to increase contrast just to function...

Oh, well. As long as he made sure that none of the spiders could start eating him before the rescue team arrived, it would be fine. It was still better than outing himself as having any additional abilities, especially since...

He threw another glance at Ethan. The spider’s ’lips’ had just moved past his elbow. It was feasting on the Guide, but the progress was extremely slow...

Lane let out a heavy sigh.

Yep. It seemed that Ethan would survive...