In short: it was uneventful.
The sun was rising over the horizon by the time I found myself walking up an incline. An orange glow was cast across the sky, and light once again entered the world; I was glad that I could finally see without any aid— I had lit a torchlight once I realized the cover of the dark would not hide me from the Monsters stalking through it. I tossed aside the burning wooden stick that was only kept alight by my magic, pre-casting it so there would be no need for a spell circle.
I continued hiking up the rocky hill for another hour or two, until the sun had fully risen into the sky, before I saw my first signs of life— other than the small group of antelopes I had seen going the other way. But in stark contrast to the four legged mammalian creatures, these ones were neither quadrupeds nor were they mammals.
They were octopeds and they were arachnids.
Half a dozen Crawlers— giant spiders standing at over five foot tall and nearly ten foot wide, with metal-like chitinous shells— stood at a flat surface above and ahead of me; some of them looked injured, missing a leg or even missing an eye, but that did not dissuade them from attacking me.
Unlike the Chimera which displayed the intelligence of a smart animal with some wisdom behind its actions, or the Horned Viper which was driven by its territorialism and emotion, these Crawlers showed no decision-making skills beyond pure instincts. They were quite clearly driven from their homes by something, and they were quite clearly hurt. And yet, they charged at me nonetheless.
They ran down the steep decline, unbothered by gravity itself, as they let out an echo of clicks. Some sort of war cry? A tactic for intimidation? To be honest, I found the giant spiders themselves much more unnerving than the sounds they made. They were spiders. I hate spiders!
I watched the Monsters come down at me, before taking a quick look around to ensure that no one was nearby. I saw a faint trail of a plume of smoke in the distance, but it was far and really small, so I assumed it was an old campfire or something of the like. I focused my attention back to the Crawlers, as they edged closer and closer to me.
Seeing this as a good chance to gain some experience, I decided to practice my Geomancy on these Monsters; nothing but earth was all around me, and unlike earlier, it was not soft dirt but hard rock and stone.
I felt at the mana in the ground, and began to cast a spell. I pulled small chunks of rocks away from the ground. From the boulders sitting in the distance. And from the mountain itself.
Tiny fragments of rocks broke apart from their main bodies, flying together, forming multiple spears of stone above my head. The Stone Spears looked fragile, fissured, like pieces of stone crudely put together to form a weapon. And yet, I knew they held firm. I knew they held strong.
Unlike the Frost Javelin, I could barely control where the Stone Spears went. But that was the nature of this spell. The former flew through the air at my command, gently changing its course to where I directed it, but the latter shot out like a bullet— straight at a target, not stopping lest it came into contact with something.
So I carefully aimed the first Stone Spear at one of the descending Crawlers. I judged the speed of the Monster, and fired off the projectile at where I thought it would be. The Stone Spear traveled at such high velocity, covering over a thousand feet in a second. It missed, striking just below where the Crawler would be— I had not only misjudged their descent, but also underestimated the pull of gravity weighing it down.
I sent a second one at another Crawler, correcting the spear’s trajectory to account for previous mistakes, but I missed yet again as the giant spider dodged out of the way. The Stone Spear crashed into the rock wall, shattering bits of rocks out, spraying it like shrapnel in all directions. It bounced harmlessly off the shells of the Crawlers of course, although it served as a distraction for me as it stopped one of them from noticing the projectile flying at it.
The force from the Stone Spear almost crushed the Crawler into the ground, being impaled through its large abdomen, spilling purple blood and ickor out and down the steep slope. I created more Stone Spears as I continued raining the projectiles up at them.
Almost a minute had passed since I saw them, but I had only managed to take two out with the half dozen Stone Spears I flung in their direction. The first Crawler finally came with striking distance to me. It leapt up in the air, mouth open revealing razor sharp teeth like a shark, mimicking what seemed like a snarl—
And a pillar of stone came up from beneath it. Striking it in the underbelly as it was mid jump, tossing it even further into the sky, turning, spinning, before it crashed down the hill behind me, broken by a group of sharp rocks jutting out of the ground. I repeated the tactic on a second Crawler, killing it in the exact same way, before the remaining two giant spiders caught on to what I was doing.
They stayed low on the ground, feeling for the slight trembling of the earth that happened just before I sent a Stone Spire up. And that allowed me to break the ground underneath them instead, creating a small pit they quickly tried
