A good hour or so passed before Hazel and the rest of the players finally returned to the Jetport base. They had to take a detour because one of the paths was blocked by a large gathering of monsters, likely alerted by the Queen’s swarm. No one wanted to waste their remaining energy to deal with them, which was why they took an alternative route to return to the Jetport Base.

  Once everyone returned, Hazel and the others got out of the cargo trucks and soon regrouped with one another. As the other players entered the Jetport, Hazel, Chegyaeyi, Astrid, Zoe, Kane, and Anais stayed behind so they could go over what happened at their checkpoints.

  The group gathered at one of the cargo trucks that was parked in front of the Jetport.

  “So,” Zoe spoke up, glancing at everyone else. “Seeing as how everyone is here, your groups more or less handled the first two waves?”

  “More or less is one way to put it,” Kane replied, irritably scratching his head.

  “The first wave was fine since we knew what to do, but the second wave was the most annoying one,” Anais added with a grim and annoyed expression. “Those accursed Web Weavers...if I hadn’t used one of my strongest spells to get rid of those damn webs, a good majority of my group would’ve died.”

  “Then you were more fortunate than me,” Kane grimaced. “Because of those web weavers, I lost a few good players and could only watch them get pulled off the bridge and get eaten by the swarm.” He quivered while remembering the horrors of his wave. “I would do anything to forget those horrible sounds...”

  It was clear to Hazel that the other players didn’t have it so easy during their waves. And that was because of the lack of information regarding the Web Weavers. If they knew about what this spider species was capable of, like with the infants and Sentinels, their battle would’ve gone a lot smoother.

  Of course, there was no way for them to do such a thing. The only way for them to know what the species was like, they had to encounter them, and their first encounter was during one of the waves. Which meant that they needed to pick up their habits and abilities quickly before they got caught off guard and ended up dying.

  They were lucky since Hazel and the rest of them were able to get rid of those durable webs from the Weavers, but she knew that this was only the beginning. She feared that a new and much stronger spider species would appear in the third and fourth stages of the curse.

  The problem was that there was no way to go around this. They couldn’t just enter the Queen’s nest and kill her because none of them could even get close to the nest without triggering the detection. And they were also the only strongest players who could even attempt such a thing. If they left this matter with someone else, then they would only die in vain because they were too weak.

  Not that Hazel and the others were better off in their current conditions. Because she had to share the swarm with her group, she didn’t make a lot of progress with her levels, except for achieving a single level up. That was unacceptable.

  She needed to at least reach level thirty if she wanted to stand a chance against the Spider Queen. Even if there was only a small percentage of success, it was far better than nothing.

  “For now, let’s go up to the third floor and go over what each of us went through,” Zoe declared, turning her heel and heading toward the entrance to the Jetport.

  Hazel and the rest of them soon followed suit, having no other reason to stay behind, considering their current predicament. Though Chegyaeyi was also joining them, clearly invested in assisting them with the swarm.

  Entering the building, everyone made their way up to the third floor where there was no one else around. Making it there, the group picked one of the many open spaces available on the floor and congregated there.

  “Seriously, we should really get some chairs or something, so we don’t just pick a random spot in the room to gather around,” Kane voiced his opinion, clearly getting tired of this routine.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Would you like us to build a meeting room as well?” Anais asked sarcastically.

  “Actually, yes, if you don’t mind,” The brawler gave her a snarky grin.

  Before the two could banter any further, Zoe quickly stepped up to change the topic and get everyone focused on their main objective right now.

  “For now, we should go over what happened during the waves.”

  “She’s right,” Hazel agreed. “We need to know how each checkpoint fared against the swarm and see if there needs to be any changes to our strategy when we go back out there.”

  Hearing this, Kane and Anais quickly went quiet, remembering what was at stake. Once they agreed, each player then discussed what happened at their checkpoint, making sure to not leave out a single detail to avoid any unexpected events from happening in the future.

  Their briefing went on for quite a while due to how each checkpoint was handled. While Hazel was able to take down the sentinel and web weavers webbing with Baneful Sickle players like Kane and Astrid had a tougher time doing this, resorting to either breaking pieces off the bridge that was caught in the web or, in Kane’s bizarre case, grabbing the web and pulling the web weavers that were still attached to it before killing them right after.

  As for the Sentinel, everyone more or less handled them with ease. Perhaps it was because, despite the level difference, the players were able to inflict damage on them a lot more effectively than on the web weavers’ webbing. Either way, unlike their previous encounter with the monsters, they weren’t much of an issue this time around.

  “Okay, so aside from myself, Hazel, and Anais, we will have to figure out a way to deal with the Web Weavers for Kane and Astrid,” Zoe concluded.

  “Maybe we should put them with our groups?” Anais suggested.

  Both Zoe and Hazel shook their heads.

  “If we get rid of the two checkpoints, then the rest would be forced to deal with more of the swarm in the process,” Zoe explained.

  “Our goal here is to split the swarm up as much as possible,” Hazel added. “We all know what happened during our first encounter with the swarm. You guys literally had to drop several buildings on those guys, and while that plan was clever, doing this strategy multiple times would cause us more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “Then what do you suppose we do about this, then?” Kane questioned, crossing his arms. “None of my people have strong enough spells or skills to properly cut through the webbing. Even I can’t do much, and I’ve tried when those bastards first started shooting those webs at us.”

  “For now, the best way for you to deal with them would be to provide cover for yourself, using shields, walls, or cars to act as your barriers. Of course, to keep the web weavers from becoming a further problem, you would need to kill them as soon as you spot them.”

  “So, we need to make them our priority when they show up?” Astrid chimed in.

  Hazel took a moment to process her words before responding. “I would suggest having certain players assigned to deal with the web weavers once you see them. If you make them a number one priority, then the other players could make a mistake in focusing on them while letting the rest of the swarm pass.”

  “Okay, that makes sense,” Kane uttered, mulling over Hazel’s words. “Still, I would feel a lot better if we had stronger players helping us.”

  “Well, that can’t happen since all of the strong players are currently within this room, and we all have our respective checkpoints to deal with,” Zoe reminded. “And if we decrease the number of checkpoints...”

  “Then we risk dealing with more spiders than we should, yeah, the situation is starting to click for me,” The brawler groaned, knowing that anything he said wouldn’t amount to anything.

  “I’m sorry, but this is the best we can do at the moment,” Zoe declared.

  “So, what do we do now?” Anais asked. “Are we going back out there before the third wave starts?”

  Everyone, including Hazel, turned to face Zoe, who was the one who made the decisions when it came to stuff like this. Considering what they knew now and how much daylight they had left, there was still time for them to attempt another wave or two. However, Zoe had to consider the mental state of the other players.

  After enduring two waves of spider hordes, it was clear that everyone else, aside from them, was mentally drained from the battle. If they attempted to attack while they were under such duress, then it would only cause further problems for them.

  Taking this into account, Zoe let out a heavy sigh before coming to a decision. “Not today, no. We should consider this our test drive of what to expect from the Horde. Tomorrow, though, will be different. We will try to challenge the waves as much as possible to get stronger. For now, we’ll rest until then.”

  Upon making her decision, no one else argued. Not even Hazel, who felt a bit more eager to go after the swarm. Maybe it was because she knew how to deal with them better that she felt a bit more confident than before.

  However, Hazel didn’t voice her opinion and simply listened to Zoe’s decision. With their briefing over with, all of the players present left the third floor and went off to do their own things for the time being. They had plenty of time before the third stage would begin, so all of them decided to use their time wisely before they had to head out again.