Level Up The Colony
Chapter 76: Amusement

Chapter 76: Amusement

"Uh... shouldn’t we help him out?" Prisca asked, uncertainty lacing her voice.

Not that they had many options.

Most of their abilities were ground-bound, and aerial combat wasn’t exactly their specialty.

They’d faced flying monsters before and always managed to adapt, but this felt different.

Miebaka couldn’t help but hope Timothy wasn’t about to go full wild card on them.

He was undeniably useful when he stuck around, that is.

What kind of mindset makes someone charge a spider in its own web? Miebaka thought grimly.

Then he spoke aloud.

"No. He’s still holding his own... for now." His voice lacked conviction.

After a beat, he turned to Helen.

"Be ready to intervene. I’ll try to come up with a plan."

Helen gave a short nod.

As the only one with the ability to levitate, even briefly, she was their sole means of aerial support.

With nothing left to do but watch, they settled in to observe Timothy’s insane maneuvering.

Up above, Timothy was already deep in the chaos he’d thrown himself into.

He hadn’t hesitated, he’d seen Gray in danger and jumped into action without a second thought.

Regret wasn’t in the equation.

The termite meant something to him, for reasons he didn’t even bother unpacking at the moment.

He would do it again in a heartbeat.

But now came the consequences.

His only means of staying airborne was a silk scarf, no, the scarf.

The one that had evolved alongside him, its capabilities growing with his rank.

It was now fastened between a web and the dungeon wall, functioning like a makeshift rope line. He was limited to controlling just two edges of it, but it was enough for now.

He treated the scarf like a pair of mechanical arms, its ends outstretched, gripping and swinging, while the body of the cloth wrapped around his waist to keep him tethered.

It was a clever system... until he stepped onto one of the spider’s threads.

The moment his boot touched it, he almost lost his foot.

What had seemed like ordinary silk webbing was anything but.

The threads laced throughout the tree and cocoon were lethally sharp.

Not that he could sense it in time.

His perception failed him until a clean, razor-thin slice appeared across the sole of his boot.

Why the spider could skitter freely across it became obvious: her limbs weren’t typical legs; they were hardened muscle wrapped in an exoskeleton, designed for precision and durability.

Plus, they were her webs.

She manipulated them like extensions of her own body.

Surprisingly, Timothy’s scarf didn’t suffer the same effect.

Even without his Armament active, it clung tightly to the webs without damage.

He didn’t understand why, and frankly, he didn’t care.

The scarf worked, and that was all that mattered.

His approach to battle was simple: if the body can’t handle it, apply mana and try again.

It hadn’t failed him yet.

His plan to draw the spider’s attention was working.

The black widow had taken notice, narrowing her many eyes in what seemed like a surprise.

She must have laid this web as a trap and now that it had failed, her agitation was showing.

Timothy just had to keep her distracted and away from Gray’s cocoon.

He didn’t know exactly what would happen if Gray’s evolution was interrupted, but every possible outcome he imagined was worse than the last.

Then the spider’s mandibles cracked open and shut.

His perception kicked in instantly, reading the shift in her stance, the contraction of her gut, the backward tilt of her head.

"I knew it!" Timothy hissed, just as he swung out of the way.

A jet of vile, greenish stomach acid shot through the air, sizzling as it missed him by inches.

"So, when you can’t digest me from the inside, you try it from the outside? That’s just lazy," he taunted, smirking.

As if understanding him, the spider recoiled and fired again, this time faster.

He dodged left, then right, but a third stream followed almost immediately.

The barrage began.

Timothy became a blur of motion, swinging like a deranged jungle monkey from web to web.

His silk arms clung to threads, launching him in wild arcs. Each landing jarred his body, the tension on his waist bruising him worse with every swing, but he stayed alive.

"Is that all you’ve got? I can do this all day!" he shouted.

That was his mistake. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

The moment the words left his mouth, the spider became relentless.

If he had any doubt about her being female before, that evaporated now.

No male spider would respond to taunts like that.

She rained acid down on him without pause, as if convinced she had an endless supply.

It wasn’t just rage, it was focused, intelligent hatred.

Then it happened.

While trying to reposition, Timothy grabbed onto a web strand with his scarf, it was one the spider was actively using.

Her control over it was instantaneous.

With a subtle twitch of her leg, she severed the strand.

He barely had time to react.

Caught off guard and mid-swing, he lost his balance.

A fresh spray of acid flew toward him.

Panic surged.

The nearest tree was outside the standard twenty-meter reach of his scarf.

He had no time to hesitate.

He released one of the scarf’s arms to stretch the other to its limit, aiming toward the trunk.

But the tree was still too far.

Without thinking, Timothy summoned his machete mid-fall and hurled it with every ounce of strength he could muster.

He didn’t need it to cut through the wood, he just needed it to stick.

Tension coiled in Timothy’s chest as he watched the bile race toward him, the machete still spinning through the air toward the tree.

He was just far enough from the spider for it to become a question of timing, would the acid get to him first, or would the makeshift anchor hold?

He didn’t wait to find out.

Already, he was calculating the cost, how much flesh he could afford to lose.

If this failed, best-case scenario, he’d survive with half his face melted off.

Walking around in a mask might make him look cool, but it wouldn’t make getting a date any easier.

Not that he had time for that.

Then the scarf connected.

Mana surged from his arm, flowing through the cloth like a current.

The silk responded instantly, the Armament spreading from his hand through the scarf to the machete embedded in the tree.

For a brief moment, the machete seemed to hesitate, almost as if it were verifying the Mana’s source.

Then, it responded in kind.

The scarf darkened to a blend of black and earthy green, while the machete shimmered with a sickly purple hue edged in vibrant green.

The moment it struck the tree trunk, a solid thud echoed, signaling success.

Without pause, Timothy yanked himself toward the trunk, narrowly slipping past the incoming bile.

He slammed into the tree, gripping the machete for stability, the scarf tightening reflexively around him before it reverted to its usual form,, though now noticeably shorter.

Relief surged through him.

He wouldn’t be disfigured.

He wouldn’t have to wear a mask, and more importantly, he wouldn’t be a charred corpse.

But he hadn’t escaped unscathed.

A searing pain flared through his thigh.

Looking down, he saw the flesh of his right leg blistered and hissing, his pants eaten through by the bile.

It had caught him, just barely, but enough.

The skin bubbled, and the burn began to spread with frightening speed.

Then the scarf moved on its own.

It wrapped around the scorched flesh with a gentle but firm pressure.

Timothy winced as thousands of pinpricks danced across his leg.

The scarf glowed faintly, and in the next instant, half of it vanished, receding and condensing as though consumed.

What remained looked less like a scarf and more like a bandage tightly woven around his leg.

Except... it wasn’t fabric anymore.

His thigh, or what had once been flesh, was now a dense weave of enchanted cotton.

The scarf had merged with him, replacing the ruined muscle.

Stopping the burns also

It looked like a cast, but it throbbed with power, not pain.

Timothy’s eyes widened.

"This ability... how could I forget?"

Memories of the Ghost Bride surfaced, how her dress stitched itself into her wounds, sealing them like nothing had happened.

She was undead, so the drawbacks were hidden, but Timothy could imagine the pain.

Still, the potential of this ability was staggering.

His mind raced with possibilities.

The scarf wasn’t just a tool for mobility or defense, it could augment him.

Physically.

Permanently or temporarily he didn’t know yet

He channeled Mana into the new leg.

A deep brown-black sheen crawled over the cotton-flesh hybrid, hardening like stone.

A grin tugged at his lips.

"If you get kicked by this leg," he muttered, flexing it,

"you’d probably prefer a sledgehammer instead."

Across the battlefield, the spider watched him, its many eyes narrowing.

Somehow, he knew it was smiling, if only in its own twisted way.

They were both amused but for very different reasons.

"I should end this quickly," Timothy muttered under his breath.

He had done what he set out to do, the black widow had been lured away from Gray’s cocoon.

The termite’s evolution remained undisturbed.

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