Several hours passed before the third stage was announced, as a panel was displayed before Hazel’s very eyes. It was the same for Astrid, Zoe, and Anais.

  [The Third stage of [The Mark of the Spider Queen] will now commence! The spider queen is currently able to sense you within a Two-Thousand-Meter radius! Within that range, she will send Infant Spiders, Spider Sentinels, Web Weavers, and Reapers 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!]

  Much like before, not only has the spider queen’s range increased, but so has the variety of children she was sending out to try and kill Hazel and the others who were marked. And just from the name alone, Hazel wasn’t looking forward to the new spider species. She had no idea why this type of spider monster was called a Reaper, but knowing what that name meant generally, she knew that this creature was going to be troublesome to deal with.

  “So, when it said Reaper, does that mean...” Kane said nervously, not sure of what to say next.

  “They are extremely dangerous,” Anais declared firmly while walking over to one of the Cargo Transport Trucks. “That is all we need to know. Aside from their strengths and weaknesses.”

  “Which we won’t know until they appear during one of the waves and attack us, right?” Kane grumbled, clearly not looking forward to dealing with the new spider species, knowing what happened the last time they did that.

  “I’m more concerned about the new range of the Spider Queen,” Zoe chimed in, expressing her worries. “According to John, both the West End and East End of Portland are now within her range.”

  “Which means those areas are completely off limits, leaving a large portion of Portland completely unavailable to us.” Hazel finished.

  During the first two stages of the curse, portions of West End and East End Portland were still accessible to them, as long as they avoided crossing the spider queen’s domain. However, that was no longer possible with the third stage. That meant until the curse was broken, they couldn’t go anywhere within this area.

  Well, only the ones under the queen’s curse were affected by this. The other residents who were part of the Valiant Guild were still capable of entering the domain. Then there was Chegyaeyi, who, although wasn’t part of the Valiant Guild, was still able to access the West and East End of Portland since she wasn’t under the spider queen’s curse.

  Of course, that didn’t mean it was still possible for them to go into the queen’s nest and kill her. Even with only a couple of strong players, it wasn’t going to be easy to achieve such a task. Especially since they had no clue as to how strong the spider queen was. She was obviously stronger than the sentinels, but other than that, they had no way of knowing what they were up against.

  Which was why they were resorting to doing this instead. Since attacking the queen on her turf was out of the question, they needed to use her children to their advantage to get stronger and prepare for her arrival.

  Another thing to note was now that the queen’s range expanded, the group would need to pick out different checkpoints. After a bit of discussing, Hazel and the others soon chose their new checkpoints for the upcoming wave battle. However, this time, instead of five, they were only able to establish four checkpoints.

  There was actually a checkpoint they could’ve used, which was the 296 Interstate Bridge near East Deering. However, the trip there would take a while and the group didn’t want to waste any time. There was also the fact that East Deering would be uncharted territory for them. Back before everyone returned, Zoe and the others were able to scout out some parts of Portland without issue.

  That was no longer possible with all of the survivors currently back. For all they knew, there could be multiple guilds currently taking residence within East Deering, and if Hazel or anyone else stepped foot in that area, they would also be intruding on a guild’s territory. It would be one thing if the Guild were benevolent and possibly friendly towards them, but there was also the possibility of those guilds being very hostile towards them as well.

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  If it wasn’t for the current issue with the Spider Queen and her children, Zoe would’ve attempted to make contact and establish friendly connections in preparation for the inevitable conflict. Sadly, that plan was put on hold until they deal with this problem right now.

  Hazel felt a bit guilty for impeding Zoe’s plans to make connections with other players. If she had been more mindful of her spell, then she wouldn’t have disturbed the spider queen’s nest in the first place. Then again, it was possible that without the disturbance, Hazel wouldn’t have been able to find her mother so soon. While there was still a chance they could’ve run into one another, the fact that her actions brought her to her mom in such a way, she couldn’t help but feel grateful for it.

  Of course, when she remembered the fact that she was forced to find swarms of spiders and the like, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was another way for her to find her mom that didn’t involve disturbing a nest that belonged to a spider queen.

  Pushing those irrelevant thoughts aside for now, Hazel and the rest of the group soon go onto their cargo transport trucks to prepare for their departure. But, unlike before when it was just Hazel and Chegyaeyi on the truck, a new member made herself known. A very familiar member.

  “Glad that you could be part of my group, Astrid,” Hazel said with a smile.

  Astrid let out a scoff as the corner of her lips curled into a slight grin in response. “This grouping should’ve been obvious, you know.”

  Hazel giggled a bit. “Yes, I guess you’re right about that.”

  Since they could only establish four checkpoints, that meant one of the groups would have to merge with another. To make things easier, Hazel and the others decided to merge one of the weakest groups without one of the stronger ones.

  Out of the five groups, Astrid and Kane were unfortunately the weakest. This was because of how they performed during their encounter with the Web Weavers. While Hazel, Anais, and Zoe handled the weavers with relative ease due to their power, Kane and Astrid struggled a bit and lost a few members as a result.

  So, it was decided that Astrid would be merged with Hazel’s team. The alternative scenario would’ve been having Kane merge with Anais, but the brawler was insistent on having another round with the web weavers without the assistance of mages or powerful knights.

  While it was stupid and reckless, Zoe did place both Kane and Anasis’s groups close together, just in case things got hairy, and the brawler needed to regroup with one of them. Regardless, with their plans and positions set, the four groups set off to their checkpoints to confront the spider swarm once again.

  “So, what do you think these reapers are like?” Hazel questioned.

  “Well, considering that they’re called Reapers, I would say these things are considered killing machines. Even more so than the Sentinels or the weavers,” Astrid noted.

  “Then shouldn’t we be dealing with something like that in the fourth stage?”

  “The better question is if we’re dealing with Reapers on the Third stage, what kind of creature will we face in the fourth?” Chegyaeyi chimed in, providing her own morbid question to put into the conversation.

  And what she questioned was certainly valid. If they were dealing with Reapers on the third stage, then what exactly was stronger than them, aside from the Queen? This question lingered in the back of their minds as the group made their way over to the checkpoint.

  They were driving on the 295 Interstate, getting closer to the border as they spoke. If their measurements were right, the border was just near Park Avenue. And that was where they were planning to stop and establish their checkpoint for the battle.

  “So, how do we plan to deal with our portion of the swarm?” Astrid asked, curious to know what the plan was.

  “Well, since we’re on a bridge, we’ll have to put a gap between us and the swarm while also keeping them from getting behind us at all costs.”

  Since they were changing locations for their battle, Hazel needed to figure out how much of the environment she could use to her advantage. There was also the question of what kind of spells she could use that didn’t jeopardize her group.

  For one thing, she was worried about using Curse Bomb due to its explosive potential and destruction. If she was careless, Hazel could risk destroying the entire bridge while she and the rest of her group were still on it. There was also the problem in figuring out how they planned to confront the spider swarm when the battle begins.

  Unlike before, they have multiple obstacles obstructing their view of the swarm from the buildings to even the bridge itself. In fact, the spiders could very well use the bridge to their advantage and get under the group and overwhelm them that way.

  There were a lot of things that Hazel needed to take note of. Hopefully, while there were issues with their checkpoint, there was still something that they could use for when they finally confronted the swarm for the second time during the day.