After surrendering to her mother's decision, Zoe went on to explain their current plan to prepare for the Fourth stage. While leaving the base before the stage could begin, the group would also only go in two groups, with only two checkpoints.

The reason for this was that the queen's range would block off most of the routes for them to have multiple checkpoints. There's also the fact that they likely won't have enough time to properly set up if they stay with the four-checkpoint plan. So, to save time and trouble, Zoe concluded that they would resort to only two checkpoints.

And these checkpoints would be established on the part of the two-ninety-five interstate bridge that crossed Fore River, and the Veterans Memorial Bridge close to it. The reason these checkpoints were selected was for two reasons. The first reason was that these bridges were over the river, and if things got out of hand, the players could simply cross over the river and away from the swarm, and simply destroy the bridge afterward. With the bridge destroyed, the spiders won't be able to cross due to the water.

Of course, in case this plan didn't work and those eight-legged monstrosities were capable of crossing, then they would continue to flee until they reached another location to properly destroy the swarm.

As for the group formation, since there were only two checkpoints, that meant there only needed to be two groups. It was then decided that the two groups would be categorized as Hazel's group and Zoe's group, making them the designated leaders of both groups.

As for which group would join which, Kane and Anais's group would join Zoe's, while Astrid's group would remain with Hazel's. To make things fair, it was also decided that Evelyn and a small group of her healers would join Hazel's group as well, while the rest of her clerics would join Zoe's side.

With their checkpoints and groups established, everyone soon departed from the base and made their over to the designated posts. Because the size of the groups increased, not everyone could fit in a single cargo truck and had to be separated into two groups each. Two for one group, and two for the other.

Once everyone was on board their respective vehicles, the two groups then drove off to their checkpoints, trying to beat the clock before the fourth stage began. Within one of the trucks, Hazel sat down next to her current companions, who were Astrid, Chegyaeyi, and her mother. John decided to join Zoe's group since that would make it fairer, since Evelyn was already a part of Hazel's group.

And so, Hazel and her team patiently waited until they arrived at their checkpoint.

"So, may I ask what the initial three stages were like?" Evelyn asked her daughter with a kind smile.

"Well, the first stage was easy since all we had to deal with were her spider infants and sentinels. Back then, we also had five groups and checkpoints to spread the swarm enough so that their numbers were manageable to deal with. The second stage, on the other hand, was a bit more difficult because of our lack of knowledge of the Web Weavers."

"Yes," Evelyn nodded. "Zoe told me about those. "They produce a very durable webbing material, yet?"

"Pretty much. The web weavers' webs were very resistant to most attacks, both physical and magical. The only way to actually damage it is with a very strong spell or attack, and the only people capable of doing this are currently me, Anais, and Zoe. Kane and Astrid said that they struggled to destroy the web and had to destroy parts of the bridge that the web was stuck to."

"Is that true?" Evelyn turned to Astrid with a concerned expression.

"It's true," The dark elf confirmed. "I tried to destroy the web with an arrow that was enhanced with the kinetic energy from the bow string along with a skill, but I barely damaged it and merely wasted my strength. I'm assuming Kane was unable to deal with the weaver's webbing because none of his skills were long-range or strong enough to inflict enough damage as well."

Astrid and Kane were honestly lucky that they were able to destroy bits of the bridge that had the weaver's webs. Otherwise, they would've been overwhelmed by the swarm as they climbed the makeshift web bridge and attacked the players. Of course, aside from the weavers, the most dangerous spider species, at the moment, were the reapers.

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"I'll say this now, Mom, but when we spot the reapers, you need to keep your distance and focus on defenses," Hazel said sternly. "You cannot draw their attention, or they will kill you."

"Are they truly that dangerous?" She asked, not knowing the severity of the situation."

"Yes, they are. They're fast enough to kill a player in a split second before moving on to the next one a millisecond later. And those bladed arms were sharp enough to easily behead a player with a single slash."

"But what truly makes them so dangerous is their bloodlust," Astrid added.

"Indeed," Chegyaeyi chimed in, nodding her head in agreement. "I have not seen any of the other spiders emit such bloodlust like the Reapers. The same went for their vicious and deadly nature. They kill their enemy on sight without a second thought and do so efficiently at that. You are wise to stay away from those creatures and let us handle them."

Players like her mom would be unable to handle the reapers. She and the other clerics would be unable to keep up with those things insane speed and ferocious pursuit of killing players. Hell, they likely wouldn't be able to put up a barrier fast enough to keep them from getting too close. That was why Hazel and the others were warning her about them. She didn't want her mom to be careless and attract the monster's attention.

Then there was the new spider species that Hazel's group was about to face once the fourth stage began. Since the spiders were getting stronger and more deadly, she was morbidly curious about how dangerous the new spider species would be. All that she knew was that they would likely be more dangerous than the reapers, and that scared her enough.

A little while passed before the group finally made it to their checkpoint, which was the two-ninety-five bridge over the Fore River. Due to the narrow path, the players would be able to keep the spiders from going around them. That was if those eight-legged monsters couldn't swim, to which everyone, including Hazel, was hoping for that to be the case.

Making it to the bridge, all of the players quickly got out of the cargo trucks and started setting up their posts for the upcoming battle. Right now, they were rather close to the border of the queen's range. However, instead of going over to trigger it like before, Hazel was going to simply wait until the fourth stage began and let her range expand. When it did, she, along with everyone else, would get caught up in her detection without even doing anything.

Much like before, the players started gathering the cars around them and placed them on top of one another in front of the bridge. This would act as their barrier against the swarm. There were several cars stacked in rows and also as pillars, with a couple of players positioned on them. Those pillars were basically makeshift guard towers for long-range users like mages and archers.

Since they didn't have the high-ground advantage, they decided to make one. This was the best course of action for them since they needed to prepare as much as possible for the swarm. They were doing this mainly because, unlike before, the swarm would be a lot larger and numerous to deal with since there were only two checkpoints to attract the swarm's attention.

"So, how prepared do you think we are?" Astrid asked Hazel as they stood on the bridge, waiting for the battle to start.

Hazel shrugged. "I would say as prepared as we can be. We've already done this three times. Four, if you count the first time we dealt with the spider queen's swarm. We more or less know the drill, so this is the best we can do at the moment."

There wasn't much to prepare the players for what was about to happen. What they saw was basically what they got.

"All we can do for now is stick to the plan and deal with the swarm like usual. Take out the strong ones as fast as possible, and the rest of the swarm will be easy to handle."

After three days of doing this, Hazel concluded that while the swarm as a whole was difficult to deal with, if they simply took out the stronger enemies like the weavers, sentinels, and reapers, they should be fine after that. As for the new spider species, Hazel would make her decision on them after knowing what she was dealing with. Hopefully, she had enough time to obtain some information on them and form a plan to handle the new species.

A little while passed before the time was finally upon them. Just as the players from Hazel's team were done setting up their posts for the swarm, familiar panels appeared before all of them.

[The Fourth stage of [The Mark of the Spider Queen] will now commence! The spider queen is currently able to sense you within a Four-Thousand-Meter radius! Within that range, she will send Infant Spiders, Spider Sentinels, Web Weavers, Reapers, and Arachne to attack and kill you! The curse can only be broken when either the players marked by the Spider Queen or the Queen herself dies!]

Hazel scanned the panel as her eyes were drawn to a specific word that caught her eye. As soon as she read the new spider species that would appear, her face went pale with fear and dread, realizing what her group was going to be facing now.

"Ah, crap..." She muttered.

"So..." Astrid spoke up with a shaky tone. "That's what we're going to be facing then, huh?"

Hazel grimaced while nodding. "Apparently, so."

While Hazel expected the fourth stage to be difficult, she didn't expect that she would be forced to face The Arachne of all things. Once she realized what her new enemy was, Hazel dreaded her first encounter with the swarm, knowing that the first wave...was going to be a lot more difficult to deal with than the previous one.

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