Chapter 195 – Forest of Giants (3)
Translator: Seven
Editor: Ana_Banana
The reason why the combination of the Queen Spider and the Striped Ants was so troublesome was because of their characteristics.
The Queen Spider could use their pheromones to enslave monsters, and the Striped Ants were proficient at making tunnels.
There was no place the Queen Spider’s pheromones would be more effective than an ant nest, which was, in essence, a large maze.
Moreover, there was something that set the Striped Ants apart from other ant species.
Striped Ants had a habit of paralyzing their prey with the paralyzing venom they had, and then bringing them alive to their queen.
This didn’t mean that they wouldn’t occasionally kill their prey to eat, it was just that stockpiling food was something that they generally did.
This was why Lee Se-jun gave up the attack on the dungeon.
Monsters that entered the Striped Ants’ nest would get paralyzed by the ants then taken to the queen’s chamber where they would then be enslaved by the Spider Queen.
So they weren’t stockpiling food, they were instead increasing the Spider Queen’s army.
Moreover, as the size of the army increased, the Striped Ants would also increase the size of the lair.
The size of the ant nest would get progressively bigger and as it grew in size, the number of monsters it attracted would also grow, creating a vicious cycle.
This was what everyone expected.
Including the 60 players from the Messiah Guild.
‘The inside of the ant nest must be quite complicated.’
‘They can’t move too hastily.’
They had predicted how dangerous the Queen Spider and Striped Ant combination would be and prepared accordingly.
The problem was that the situation they encountered far exceeded their expectations.
[You are being influenced by the Queen Spider’s Pheromones.]
[Your mind is becoming confused.]
[You have become intoxicated by the sweet scent.]
“Dammit, the Wizard has fallen!”
“Healer! Healer!”
The situation within the Striped ant nest was much more severe than the Messiah Guild members anticipated.
“Stop fighting! Stop fighting! Retreat!”
Naturally, this meant that they struggled during their attack.
On the third day after they had entered the dungeon, the Messiah Guild’s team retreated from the ant nest for the seventeenth time,
“It’s practically over. At this point, it’s clear that the Messiah Guild can’t clear the ant nest on their own.”
At that moment, everyone knew that the Messiah Guild would be unable to defeat the Queen Spider with their own power.
Not sticking to the same strategy for more than three days had become of the unspoken rules among players.
Of course, the reason this rule came to being in the first place was because of self righteous people who stubbornly stuck to the same strategy even after it failed numerous times.
And if you attacked a dungeon with stubbornness and self righteousness, you would only be met with failure and death.
“Because it’s not worth it to risk their lives on the first floor.”
“They have to be smart.”
No matter how willing the Messiah Guild’s team members were to risk their lives for their savior, they could not recklessly sacrifice themselves on the first floor.
In fact, after their seventeenth failure, the Messiah Guild’s team finally decided to take a break.
“Well, it went as we expected.”
“Right.”
This was a sight that most of them had already expected to see.
“If it was something that could be beaten by just 60 people, Lee Se-jun would’ve already done it three years ago.”
After all, this was the dungeon that the Messiah Guild, including Lee Se-jun, had given up on.
Even if the world had progressed by a great deal since that time, they could only succeed if all of the players united.
This wouldn’t change even if the 60 members of the Messiah Guild were willing to risk their lives.
“Is it just Isaac that’s left?”
In this situation, the players moved their focus over to Isaac Ivanov.
Or more precisely, the other guilds present were waiting for Isaac Ivanov’s offer.
Unlike the Messiah Guild, they had no intention of fighting against Isaac Ivanov.
Their goal was to agree to any cooperation that he requested so that in the future, he would request their help whenever he decided to attack a dungeon.
Everyone thought this way.
After all, didn’t Isaac Ivanov recruit players to join the dungeon attack to get as much support as possible?
‘So why hasn’t he made any requests?’
However, Isaac Ivanov had yet to make any requests for support to the other guilds since they had entered the dungeon.
It wasn’t just that he wasn’t asking for cooperation or support.
‘No, more than that, why didn’t he go into the ant nest even once over the past three days?’
Until now, Isaac Ivanov and the other members of the Phoenix Guild had not taken a single step into the ant nest.
It was almost as if he didn’t intend to attack.
“It’s like he’s only focused on hunting…”
“All he’s done is hunt the ones on the outskirts.”
He had simply attacked the monsters that were wandering around the ant nest, and even that number was insignificant.
‘I thought Isaac Ivanov would sweep through the ant nest with his army of skeletons that wouldn’t be affected by the pheromones.’
This wasn’t like Isaac Ivanov, who usually wiped out the monsters with his overwhelming combat power.
This fact made everyone begin to question what was happening.
However, these questions didn’t last very long.
[The Queen Spider has been slain.]
[Proceed to the next floor.]
“Huh?”
“What?”
The first floor was cleared on the third day after the dungeon attack began.
…
Kim Woo-jin could vividly remember when he had attacked the Forest of Giants in the past.
In January 2025, the Messiah Guild had finally decided to get rid of the Forest of the Giants, which was one of the few flaws on Lee Se-jun’s otherwise perfect record, and they chose Kim Woo-jin to complete the task.
That dungeon attack was a nightmare.
On the first floor, over 60 people died killing the Queen Spider, a process that took almost 11 days to complete.
The damage was quite painful, which is why everything he had experienced in that dungeon had been practically imprinted on Kim Woo-jin’s bones.
The strategy he was using currently was in fact based on those imprints.
The first method was simple.
Kim Woo-jin simply used a corpse to create a bomb.
[Used Corpse Poison.]
[Corpse Explosion has been engraved onto the corpse.]
The Corpse Poison skill was used to poison the monster’s corpse, then he engraved the imprint for Corpse Explosion on it.
Afterwards, he simply needed to find carriers for the bombs.
This was also not difficult.
[Solomon’s Ring]
– Required Level: 100
– Description: The Ring of King Solomon. It has the amazing ability to communicate with and control all living things.
– Magic power +100
– All attack power +10%
– When equipped, the skill ‘Solomon’s Command’ can be used.
All he needed to do was use Solomons Command, the skill that allowed him to perfectly control monsters that were lower in level than him.
And so the bombs he made were carried by the Striped Ants and piled up into Queen Spider’s chamber.
All that was left was for him to detonate them.
Pak!
And all that took was a single clap.
[The Queen Spider has been afflicted by Blood Poison.]
[The Queen Spider has been afflicted by Black Poison.]
Furthermore, Black Blood poison was also included.
Kim Woo-jin’s poison filled the Queen Spider’s room in an instant and killed the Queen Spider within moments.
[The Queen Spider has been slain.]
[Gained the achievement ‘Queen Spider Hunter’.]
[The Emissary of the Underworld admires your skills.]
[The Emissary of the underworld bestows some power to you.]
[The rank of the Corpse Explosion skill has increased by one.]
This was the secret to how Kim Woo-jin had killed the Spider Queen on the third day.
Of course, only Kim Woo-jin and Lee Jin-ah knew this.
“H-, how did you do that?”
Not only the other players, but even the players from the Phoenix Guild were shocked by the sudden situation.
Moreover, a bit of fear could be seen in their astonished expressions.
For humans, sometimes the unknown was much more fearsome to them than unparalleled violence.
Kim Woo-jin simply looked at those players with a smile.
‘This is just the beginning.’
With that thought, Kim Woo-jin changed the ring that he was wearing on his right hand.
[You have equipped Osiris’ Ring.]
[You can now use the skill ‘Resurrection’.]
When he saw this notification, an image came to Kim Woo-jin’s mind.
‘I’ll resurrect the Hellhound on the second floor.’
An image of a reborn Hellhound slaughtering other monsters.