The Spider Queen

(Hydra Star System- Planet Eleron)

(Training Field No.12- Special Arena)

"What the fuck?! He died so quickly…"

"No… no… we can't deal with those monsters…"

"I give up! I give up!"

The sudden and brutal death of the male student only a few hundred meters away brought an atmosphere of fear and terror to the remaining survivors.

Sophie furrowed her brows and stepped to the side for a moment to observe what would happen next.

A large blue runic circle appeared above the skeleton of the fallen student and soon time began to rewind.

Thousands of creatures lurking beneath the sand started to move backwards and opened their mouths involuntarily.

Bits of flesh, muscle and bone flew out of their orifices and gathered around the corpse. The torn off pieces of flesh came back together and gradually life returned to those empty eyes.

The student sat up trembling with a strange purple rune hovering over his body. He glanced at the thousands of creatures hungrily staring at him and froze in place.

Fortunately, a portal opened up by his feet and the student disappeared out of the arena.

Clearly one of the professors was monitoring the situation to ensure that the students would not be stuck in an endless death loop.

Well… at least the temporal reversal formation was still working properly…

But even that fact did little to reassure the students who were now awkwardly standing around the entrance to the arena.

Who would want to be torn apart and eaten alive by thousands of monstrous creatures?

Sophie glanced at Luna and saw that the paper fan in her right hand was slightly trembling.

"Don't worry… I have a plan," Sophie leaned over and whispered in her ear.

"Really? But how can we even get inside with all those monsters guarding the path to the interior?" Luna asked in a puzzled tone.

"Did you notice something strange?" Sophie replied with a question of her own before explaining what had caught her attention.

"Why was that student the only one who suffered an attack so far? There were others who are now currently running further inside the interior of the arena and yet they are fine."

"I think… well at least my hypothesis is that certain zones in the desert biomes are death traps, but we can travel safely around those zones."

The hybrid girl's theory did make a bit of sense since it was unreasonable to expect the students to deal with such a numerous swarm of enemies at the start.

But why did the desert creatures not attack those outside the death trap zone?

It was a question that Sophie did not know the answer to.

"Arghh… no… NO!" a terrified scream came from the distance.

Sophie's golden eyes narrowed, and she could spot two students trapped in a perilous situation.

The Mendolesa warrior on the right was stuck in place since her ankle had sunk into the sand.

Her companion tried to help but monstrous serpent-like creatures wriggled and writhed towards their location from the other side of a large sand dune.

Eventually one of the beasts reached the Mendolesa girl who was pulled beneath the sand and disappeared with an agonising cry for help.

The other student backed away nervously and took several steps away from the sand dune.

Curiously enough none of the monsters beneath the sand attempted to pursue him.

The student did not question his good fortunate and quickly escaped.

"Wow! You were right!" Luna exclaimed in admiration as she clapped her hands together. Blackie was infected by his master's excitement and all three of his heads bent down to lick Luna's face.

The elegant and dignified appearance of the noble girl soon disappeared after her face was covered in saliva from her enthusiastic combat beast.

"There should be a visual clue to distinguish the death zones, but I have an idea," Sophie spoke confidently.

The hybrid girl closed her eyes and focused on the qi flowing through her body. She planned to use a technique that she had not used in a long time.

Rsychosis!

Sophie's figure blurred for a moment and then dozens of identical copies of herself appeared where she had been previously standing.

The mirror images were completely identical but there was a variety of sullen and angry expressions on their faces.

"Can we not?" one of the clones suddenly spoke up after a moment of silence.

She was the first mirror image to voice out her complaint, but she would not be the last...

"Every time you use this technique… nine times out of ten it's a life and death situation…"

"Did you see what happened to that poor kid? We'll be eaten alive in seconds!"

Sophie's mirror images voiced their complaints but still spread out and walked forward in a fan-shaped formation.

Blackie seemed to be confused by the sudden appearance of more Sophies and his three heads kept trying to figure out which one was the original.

Eventually the head on the left gave up and fell asleep before it was woken up by a fierce headbutt from the middle head.

"Let's go," Sophie gestured forward. Luna nodded and the pair began to walk a few hundred meters away from the mirror copies.

Blackie followed closely behind, and he was not alone. Some of the other students by the entrance saw what Sophie was doing and began to walk behind them.

Sophie was tempted for a moment to tell them to find their own route but eventually decided to let them follow.

It didn't matter and perhaps there would be some bonus points for working together.

The points system was intentionally vague, so it was hard to tell what the professors were grading on outside of eliminations.

The large group walked for around thirty minutes in the sweltering desert heat. The air shimmered and Sophie felt large beads of sweat run down the sides of her brow.

The temperature was quite high, and the air was hot and dry.

Sand crunched beneath her shoes as she walked endlessly in a sea of large sand dunes.

Sophie was forced to cast her Rsychosis technique two more times since her mirror images could not avoid the death zones that were scattered across their path.

The crowd of students following them had more than doubled in size since more students saw her strategy.

"Is that…." Luna's voice trailed off as she stared at the unexpected view.

There was a large settlement behind the sand dune that they had just crossed.

It was composed of hundreds of brown tents, and one could spot vague humanoid shadows moving from one tent to the other.

An oasis was located in the middle of the tent city and was surrounded by tall leafy trees that stretched out towards the heavens.

The shadowy figures simultaneously froze in place and turned their heads to stare at the crowd of students.

It was an unnerving sight, and their actions made a chill run down the spines of the students who were following Sophie and Luna.

One of the shadows in the middle of the camp rushed inside a tent and brought out a large golden bone that resembled a tibia.

He slapped the bone on the ground over and over again as if possessed by madness.

Boom! Boom! Boom!