"This is bad..." Hazel panicked, scanning the panel displaying the fifth and final stage. "This is really, really, bad!"

Turning away from the holographic screen, she then enveloped her body in Telekinesis before letting herself levitate in the air. A moment later, she flew back over to the checkpoint to meet up with everyone else.

Once she was hovering over the bridge where the other players were, she looked down and noticed how much of a panic everyone was in. They were shouting in fear, scrambling around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.

Hazel scanned the crowd, trying to locate Astrid, Chegyaeyi, and her mother. It didn't take long until she found all three of them together at the back of the checkpoint. As soon as she found them, she descended from the sky and landed near the trio, much to their surprise.

Astrid and the other two quickly noticed Hazel and rushed over.

"Hazel," Her mom exclaimed with a worried tone. "Are you alright?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine. For now, anyway." She turned to Astrid. "You saw the notification too, right?"

The dark elf nodded. "Yes. So, how exactly are we planning on dealing with this?"

"For now, I think it's best to regroup with Zoe's team. With the Queen making an appearance, we have a better chance against her army as a single group than two."

"Agreed," Chegyaeyi nodded. "But should we meet up with them or have them come to us?"

"Because of the circumstances, it's better for Zoe's group to come to us." Hazel turned to her mom. "Mom, I need you to contact Zoe and tell her to come to our checkpoint. And tell them to be quick, otherwise, they might end up getting caught by the swarm and overwhelmed."

Evelyn firmly nodded before pulling up her Chat Room to contact Zoe. Meanwhile, Hazel continued her conversation with Astrid and Chegyaeyi.

"The message panel stated that the queen planned to send in the rest of her children along with herself. While facing the swarm was one thing, I'm not confident of our chances against the queen along with them."

"So, are you suggesting we take down the swarm first, then fight the queen?" Astrid questioned.

"I don't think that's possible. We would be dealing with the swarm at first, but something tells me that the queen isn't going to just sit back and watch us kill any more of her children."

The fact that the queen initiated the fifth stage out of pure hatred and spite toward them for what they did to her children should've told them that she had no desire to simply watch from the sidelines like she had been doing the previous stages.

"What exactly is the plan then?" Chegyaeyi asked. "How are we supposed to deal with the swarm and the queen if we can't fight them at the same time?"

Hazel paused to ponder her options. Because of how unprepared they were for the fifth stage, going up against the swarm as they were was no different than going on a suicide mission. So. How exactly did they plan to handle this situation?

"Dammit," Hazel clicked her tongue in frustration. "I guess there's really no other option."

"What?" Astrid asked.

"We can't fight the spider queen and her horde as a group like before; we have to do it with only the strongest players if we want to survive this."

Hearing this, Astrid and Chegyaeyi's eyes widened.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" The lizardfolk warrior questioned, expressing her concern.

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"It's not like we have much of a choice. We'll be overwhelmed by the sheer number of the remaining swarms. So, our best chance to combat this was for us to be constantly moving around and handling the swarm little by little."

Astrid shook her head. "No, that would take too long. By the time we're done with the swarm, we would've likely exhausted our energy enough to the point where we can't fight the Queen herself."

Hazel mulled over Astrid's words, taking them into account. "Then...the best chance we have is to take on the swarm and queen separately...at the same time."

Chegyaeyi's brows furrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"I'm suggesting we do what we've been doing, but in a different manner. One group deals with the swarm, and the other takes on the Queen herself."

This was the only way for them to have a chance against the Queen and her army. By keeping the swarm away from the queen, there was a chance that they could take her down before her children could get in her way.

And once the queen was killed, that should cause the rest of the swarm to go into a panic and retreat. And if not, they should at least be in enough distress that they couldn't function as a group, allowing the team that would be dealing with them to easily cut them down.

"That plan sounds good in theory, but who do we choose who deal with the boss and who takes on the swarm with the other players?" Astrid asked.

"I'll obviously go and fight the queen since I have a spell that should be able to either kill or extremely weaken the queen. Zoe and Anais will join me since Zoe's the strongest warrior, and Anais has various spells that can keep the queen at bay like me."

"What about me?" Astrid questioned.

"You're staying here. Just as the queen is important to take down, so is keeping the swarm from staying by her side and making it difficult to kill her. Chegyaeyi, Kane, and John will be with the team as well, so you should have enough people to keep the swarm at bay."

It looked like Astrid was about to protest, but held back, likely to avoid prolonging the conversation and allowing the swarm to get the jump on them. Knowing that the dark elf was listening, Hazel quickly switched visions so she could check up on Zoe's position, along with the sudden appearance of the spider queen.

Right now, through one astral eye, she was watching a military cargo truck speed through the Fore River parkway, making its way toward Hazel's location as she watched. A few miles away from them, Hazel noticed that the spider horde was closing in on their checkpoint. If she had to guess, they had about maybe ten minutes or so before the swarm would arrive. Maybe less if they picked up the pace.

Watching over the swarm, Hazel scanned the area, trying to look for the queen herself. It didn't take long for her to locate her target as she laid eyes on the very being that cursed her and Astrid after everything that happened.

Located at the very back, trailing behind the swarm, was a massive spider creature. It was at least half the size of the sentinel, but possessed the body of an Arachne, making her half spider and half human.

Her spider form looked more menacing and grotesque with spikes protruding from her legs and abdomen. Her human half, however, gave off a different appearance. Instead of a simple thick stand of web wrapped around her chest, she was wearing some kind of adorned chest plate. Not only that, but she also wore golden bracers with multi-colored gems adorned on them and some kind of crown or helmet in the shape of a spider's head.

Her entire appearance screamed royalty, which made sense considering that this thing was called the Spider Queen. Of course, even if its attire told Hazel who she was, she still wanted to know what kind of monster she was facing. So, while her astral eye was trained on the monster, she quickly appraised it.

<Spider Queen> Level 55 The Ruler and Empress of spiders and webs. Once an ordinary spider with no purpose, now gifted incredible powers from a being from another world. She has complete control over her children, allowing herself to peer through their eyes and see what they see, and make them do her bidding. If she continued to develop and grow stronger, she would soon become a higher being.

"What the hell?" Hazel blankly stared at the description of the spider queen. "She was gifted incredible powers from a being from another world? But, that would mean..."

It wasn't the system that gave the spider queen her powers, but another being from another world. Which would mean that a resident of the multiverse...meddled with the affairs of her undeveloped world. Was that even allowed?

This was the first time Hazel stumbled across something related to the other beings outside of her world. She knew that there were a lot of planets and such since she was now part of the multiverse, but she didn't expect to encounter one so soon.

It's only been three to four days since her world began its second phase of the Integration. Honestly, she expected to experience something like this once she and the rest of her world started the World Trials.

But that clearly wasn't the case here. And that concerned Hazel quite a bit.

Before she could ponder over this further, Astrid called out to her.

"Zoe and the others are here, Hazel!"

Putting her thoughts aside for now, Hazel turned and saw Zoe's cargo truck drive closer to the wall of cars that shielded them from the enemies. While she was curious about how the beings from the other worlds were able to meddle with her world, she had bigger priorities at the moment.

And that was destroying the queen and her swarm.

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