Hazel leaped into the air, dodging the three Arachne that charged at her. Using her Telekinesis, she hovered above the monsters, not wanting to get too close to them. The Arachne looked up at Hazel, glaring at her from below.

While in the air, she summoned a couple of curse spears and sent them toward the eight-legged hybrids. The monsters dodged, stepping away from the spears that hurtled toward them. However, these spears were more persistent than most and continued to follow the Arachne as they fled.

The spears zipped toward their target, relentlessly pursuing them to the point where the Arachne had no choice but to block the spell when they got too close. They raised their weapons, using them as a shield against the curse spear.

Although they were successful, one of the spears slid past the weapon and wounded an Arachne, cutting a line in its shoulder. The hybrid hissed while clutching the wound. Taking a closer look, he noticed purple lines spiderwebbing from his injury.

The Arachne winced in pain, feeling the effects of Hazel's curse. "What...is this?!"

"Would you like another demonstration?!"

Hazel then summoned her remaining curse spears, which were currently three, and launched the rest at the Arachne she wounded. Just before her spears could hit their mark, one of the other hybrids pulled their sibling away with a strand of web, making her spears strike the ground instead.

Before Hazel could get annoyed that she missed, one of the Arachne shot another strand of webbing at her. She willed her body to the side, dodging the web as it hit nothing but air. Setting her sights on the one that tried to web her down, which was one of the female ones, she fired several mana bolts at her in retaliation.

Much like before, the Arachne leaped back and dodged her bolt barrage. Hazel wasn't done, though, and launched several more bolts at the Arachne, sending a couple more at the other ones just to see if she could get lucky and kill one of them.

Denying her this chance, the Arachne zipped across the ground, weaving around her bolts of mana with relative ease. Seeing this, Hazel's eye twitched irritably.

"Okay, let's try this, then!"

She lowered her hand down and cast Telekinesis on one of the Arachne moving around. In an instant, they became stuck in place, unable to move an inch while under the effects of her spell. The other Arachne noticed that their sibling wasn't moving and went into a panic.

Hazel wanted to suspend all of them in her Telekinesis, but between herself and the Arachne she already had in place, her mana was already working overtime. It didn't make things easier since she was going to be casting another spell to get rid of one of them.

The other hybrids soon realized that Hazel was the cause of their sibling's sudden immobilization before attempting to take her down. Wanting to end this quickly, Hazel summoned several more mana bolts and hurled them at the Arachne under her spell.

The bolts hit their target, piercing through the hybrid with malicious force, leaving baseball-sized holes in its body.

"No...!" One of the remaining Arachne yelled.

Enraged by their sibling's death, the remaining two hybrids were about to attack Hazel once again. However, just when they were about to attempt something, Hazel hastily pulled her blindfold off and revealed her Evil Eyes.

As soon as she locked eyes on the Arachne, they froze with fear, remaining as still as statues while under the intense pressure of Hazel's evil eyes gazing down upon them.

Hazel let out a heavy sigh while irritably scratching her head. "I really need to make use of all of my abilities in my arsenal. Otherwise, I'm going to keep forgetting that I could actually use them."

Out of all of Hazel's spells and abilities, she completely forgot about her Evil Eyes. Just a glance from her eyes and she could immobilize them. The only reason she was so hesitant before was because of her previous attempt to use her evil eyes on the swarm, resulting in some kind of rebound effect.

But that was only because her evil eyes were targeting multiple enemies. Right now, she was only facing three enemies. Or, in this case, two. Not only that, but since she was away from the prying eyes of Zoe's people, she could use her eyes without letting the others know. She already exposed her Telekinetic flight after that stunt she pulled to hold off against the spider swarm. She didn't want her Evil Eyes to be revealed as well. At least, not yet anyway.

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"I won't lie, you guys almost got me. You lured me out here because I was the only one who could fly and get to those sentinels quickly enough before they caused too much chaos among my group."

While she did think the placement of the spider sentinels seemed off, considering where the swarm was, she didn't think about it because she was more focused on killing them and keeping the spiders from destroying the checkpoint and allowing the swarm to take over. But now that she thought it over, this was such an obvious plan set up by the Arachne that Hazel felt a bit stupid for not realizing it sooner.

"I can tell that you guys aren't called the Queen's general for nothing. Which makes me even more anxious about when your mom shows up tomorrow."

After they somehow finish the Fourth Stage, they would then be moving on to the fifth stage tomorrow, which meant Hazel and the rest of the players would finally have their showdown against the Spider Queen herself.

And after seeing what her children were made of, Hazel couldn't help but feel nervous for her arrival. The Arachne alone were above Level 40, which meant their mother was stronger than that. If Hazel had to take a guess, the spider queen had to likely be over level fifty or even sixty.

While thinking about this, the two Arachne began to laugh, as if finding Hazel's statement humorous.

"Mind telling me what's so funny so I could join in too?"

"You...will meet our mother...soon enough."

"Very...soon..."

Hearing this, Hazel felt a sudden chill crawl down her spine. She wasn't certain why, but she didn't like how the Arachne phrased that statement. It made it sound like...the spider queen was going to show up a lot sooner than expected.

And if that was the case, then she wasn't going to like what would happen next.

"Well, it was nice chatting with you, but this is where I'm ending this fight."

Declaring this, Hazel then summoned her Entropy Sickle and propelled it toward the two Arachne. The eight-legged hybrids could do nothing as the spell tore into their bodies. Once the Arachne were bisected, their two halves slowly disintegrated into nothing.

[Level 40 Arachne has been defeated!]

[Level 41 Arachne has been defeated!]

[You have leveled up! You are now Level 33!]

"And that's the end of them...until the next two waves."

Although Hazel took down these Arachne, she still had two more waves where she had to deal with more of them. Then there was the ominous statement that those Arachne told her. Could something happen after they cleared the other waves?

There was one thing Hazel was certain of at the moment, and that something bad was brewing, and she didn't like where the situation was going.

Turning away from the non-existent Arachne, Hazel set her eyes on her checkpoint, where the other players, including Astrid, her mom, and Chegyaeyi, were. She soon switched to her Astral Eyes and took a look at the battle with a bird's eye view.

So far, her group was handling the spider swarm well. The players were keeping the swarm at bay by firing their spells and other projectiles at a distance using the car towers. For the spiders that managed to get past the bombardment, Chegyaeyi led a small group of vanguard players that took down any spiders that got close to the checkpoint.

As for Hazel's mom, she was located in the back as she promised and assisted in healing any players who were injured. There were quite a few that suffered from the sentinel's boulder and car-throwing game. Some received severe injuries like broken limbs, concussions, etc. There were a couple of players who were only slightly injured, so they waited until the mortally wounded were taken care of first.

Thankfully, nothing bad seemed to be happening on their end.

[Hazel Thatcher: I took down the sentinels that were throwing the boulders and cars at us. By the way, they did that while under the command of the Arachne to try and draw me out.]

[Astrid Skogr: Are you alright?]

[Hazel Thatcher: More or less, but there's something more important than that. We might be facing the Spider Queen sooner than expected.]

[Astrid Skogr: What?! Why?!]

[Hazel Thatcher: It was something that the Arachne said before I killed them. Either way, we need to be on our toes. Something tells me that after we finish these waves, we're going to have more problems on our hands.]

Finishing her conversation with Astrid, she dismissed the Chat Room. Before heading back to her checkpoint, Hazel wanted to see how Zoe's group was handling the swarm. If it was as bad as hers, then she might have to head over there to help.

She was just about to send another Astral Eye to Zoe's location, but was interrupted by a familiar panel appearing.

[First Wave of the Swarm has been annihilated! The Second Wave will commence in five minutes. Please leave the range of the Spider Queen if you wish to avoid the second wave.]

"Oh, looks like I don't need to check up on Zoe," Hazel said with a sigh.

[Warning! Spider Queen's Curse is being altered!]

Hazel's eyes widened. "What the..."

[The Spider Queen can no longer tolerate the numerous deaths of her children! As such, she will now take matters into her own hands!]

"No...!"

[The Fifth and Final stage of [The Mark of the Spider Queen] will now commence! The spider queen is currently able to sense you within an Eight-Thousand-Meter radius! Within that range, not only will the queen herself leave her nest to come and find you, but she will also send all her remaining children 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!]

This was a lot worse than Hazel realized. Now she knew why those Arachne said they were going to meet their mother so soon...it was because the queen was going to hasten the curse to the fifth and final stage, allowing her to finally make her appearance.

Hazel continued to stare at the panel in stark horror, unable to process everything that was happening. As she did, her ears were assaulted by a loud and ear-piercing screech that echoed throughout Portland. It was so loud that it not only shook the very ground she stood on but also made her entire body tremble from the noise alone.

She didn't need to know where that sound was coming from, because it was so obvious. It was the queen, finally making her presence known to all of the players who dared to hurt her children. And now...she planned to get revenge.

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