Somewhere in the forests in the vicinity of Zephystrand City, Samiel was sprinting at full speed through the dense forests of the 3rd Floor in pursuit of Drider, who decided to escape. He already knew the forests of the 3rd Floor very well, especially the ones around the surroundings of the 3rd Floor.
"He is fast."
Samiel muttered as he stopped for a few seconds to catch his breath while tracking the Drider, who once again changed the direction he was escaping. It was clear that the Drider knew the place way better than him and could even move much more easily.
Of course, the Drider was still an elf, and they were best in the forest. In contrast, the Drows the Dark Elves were not "home" in the forest as were, for example, ordinary Wood Elves, High Elves, or Silvermoon Elves; they still had some racial advantage in this enviroment.
Due to this, Samiel needed to expand a lot of power in tracking the Drider, who was fastly escaping from him. Fortunately, Samiel was very sensitive towards the Mana, so he latched on to the residual Mana that the Drider was constantly releasing, probably using some form of Enhacmenet Magic on his body so that he could keep track with him.
After giving in the pursuit for more than half an hour, Samiel arrived relative far from the Zephystrnad, at the place which he didn't really recognize, as it appeared to be some kind of abandoned mine or something in that sense; they were already near the mountains.
"There should be dimensional pathways somewhere here, so he is planning to escape."
He almost cursed out of loud when he realized where the Drider was going. In the entire Tower, countless such dimensional pathways were connecting various Floors of the Tower together, or they were connecting Tower with the other worlds in the Cosmos.
In this way, it was possible to navigate through the entire Cosmos and reach practically any important world in the Cosmos through the Tower. Technically speaking, it was entirely possible to reach almost every World from the Tower.
Either way, once the Drider entered the dimensional pathway, it would be impossible to track him down. If he disappeared right now, there would be no way they would find him once more, so he needed to hurry.
Even Legendaries would have problems tracking someone down who entered some random dimensional pathway that was leading out of the Tower, and even they would need some proficiency with the Space Attributed Spells or Leveled Ability.
After he started running at the top of his physical capabilities, Samiel finally saw the Drider in its full might as he was standing at the plateau of something which looked like an abandoned quarry in nearby mountains, where the stones were probably mined some time ago.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Let the Void be our Protectors in this bright hour, and Chaos we unleash upon enemies of ours."
Samiel then started conjuring several Frost-Bone Spears boosted by the [Winter Ruler] for higher destructive capabilities before shooting them off at the Drider, who was right now entering on the cave entrances in the abandoned quarry.
Befitting his Silver-Tier power and combat experiences, the Drider swiftly turned around, and with his enormous spider legs, he quickly climbed on the walls of the stone quarry, dodging all incoming Frost-Bone Spears.
"Outer filth!"
Screamed the Drider Ilztrar at Samiel in the Cosmos Common language, while Samiel just smiled, hearing very uncreative insults. However, he would ignore them even if they were creative because he himself was an expert in mind warfare, because that was an essential part of the battle.
At first, Samiel pondered on the battle strategy he should employ, as he could always do what most, if not all, Necromancers would do, and that was to flood the Drider with his Undeads, but that would mean losing some of them, and that was not that appealing.
Because he would need to replace them, and replacing the hardly cultivated Undeads was a pain in the ass, as he was focusing on the quality. He has invested a lot of resources of into his Undeads, and it would pain him to lose them without any reason.
Not to mention, he was itching to fight with the Drider, not depending on the Undeads, wanting to see his power compared to geniue Silver-Tier individuals, especially ones strong like the Drider. He wanted to test his combat prowess against the such enemy.
After entering the Tower, Samiel started viewing his Necromantic abilities more like supplementary skills to deal with weaker enemies or large numbers of them, so he didn't need to.
While he could fight those stronger ones.
"Really creative."
He then conjured ten more Frost-Bone Spears, using the Metamagic Skill - Spell Fusion and boosted all of them with the Winter Ruler before shooting them with tremendous speed at the Drider, who had a very hard time dodging them all.
The last Frost-Bone Spear managed to pierce him through on the edge of his belly, as that was protected only by a thin layer of Armor, which couldn't really stop the Frost-Bone Spear. Samiel was wary of the Drider's next move, while not really fearing his strength, because he knew he could just tire him down, but what was big unknown was the poison of the Drider.
Sometimes, Driders had very potent poison, mainly as the gift from the Spider Queen Lolth during their transformation into these monstrosities and abominations of nature. So, because Samiel was wary of the poison and wasn't in a mood to test his poison resistance, he decided it would be for the best to keep his distance.
"Come out, you coward!!!"
Shouted the Drider in pain as he pulled out the Frost-Bone Spear, which was stuck on the edge of his belly, but such provocations were futile on someone like Samiel, who didn't care about thinking like martial honor and being called a coward.
Honor on the battlefield usually leads to a very fast death, as honorable people are killed as the first ones. Seeing that Samiel wasn't giving in to the provocations, and only answered with a few more Frost-Bone Spears, the Drider Ilztrar grew only more and more engaged.
After Samiel sends the last wave of the Frost-Bone Spears, he decides to change the hiding spot, as he stealthily leaves the old one before the Drider arrives at him. Right now, Samiel was technically doing the same thing which he did on Estrid when he firstly fought her.
Driders were known for having a certain level of Magic Resistance, mainly due to the residual Divine Power of the Spider Queen Lolth in their bodies, though this level of Divine Power may differ, and due to that, even their individual Magic Resistance would be different.
For example, if Spider Queen Lolth created a Legendary Level Drider, then the Drider would have Magic Resistance up to the Legendary Level Spells, and any Spell under the Legendary Level won't be able to hurt the Drider. Of course, the conjuration of physical objects or materialized Mana, like Smaiel was materializing Frost-Bone Spears, was the relative exception, as even with Magic Resistance, one could be hurt by it.
So Samiel was now focusing on causing some superficial injuries to the Drider so he could use some curses on the Drider, and one he was specifically preparing for him, seeing the Drider healing relatively fast from his injuries.
After the Drider was in Samiel's vicinity, he cast the 3rd Level Spell from the Necromancy Arts, Vampiric Touch. This spell was created based on the innate abilities of the Bloodkins, Life Drain, which allowed the caster to siphon Life Force from the target to heal his wounds, or if not that, then just siphon it to nowhere to weaken the target.
This spell was commonly used by Necromancers when they wanted either to heal themselves or were fighting someone or something with a tremendous amount of vitality. Casting other Curses on the Drider would be useless because most of them were either 1st Level or 2nd Level, and the effect would be minimal due to Drider being Silver-Tier coupled with his Magic Resistance.
Instead, seeing that the wounds on the Drider's body started healing at a much slower tempo, Samiel cast several Void Strikes from the Void Magic as the space itself started exploding, one of such explosions tearing off one of the legs of the Drider.
'Despite being only 3rd Level Spell, it could drastically injure the Silver-Tier Drider, but the same could be said about the Frost-Bone Spears, which the Ultimate Ability Winter Ruler boosted. If not for my overwhelmingly powerful and dense Mana, such feats would not be possible.'
Samiel thought as he heard the Drider screaming in pain, as one of his stingers was torn off. Samiel readied his magic one more and started conjuring Frost-Bone Spear while at the same time casting the Vampiric Touch at the Drider, knowing of his unnatural healing factor.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmNormally, the Driders didn't have any regenerative abilities or such, so this one should be something given by the Spider Queen Lolth. It was clear that Spider Queen Lolth left her touch on this concrete Drider pretty deeply, contrary to others.
Soon enough, the Drider recovered from the pain that his torn leg was causing him as he attempted to dodge incoming Frost-Bone Spears. Dodging them was a hard task, as their speed was extremely fast, like thunder from the sky; Samiel knew that the Driders were not the fastest things in the Cosmos, so he was making use of this fact to his advantage.
This time Samiel was mainly aiming at the Drider's legs; unfortunately, this time, Samiel wasn't that successful with his endeavors of severing another leg of the Driders because Ilztrar managed to dodge them. When Ilztrar realized what was going on, he focused a lot on the incoming Frost Bone Spears, to the point he was ignoring what was happening around him.
Just as the Drider was dodging one Frost-Bone Spear after another, Samiel started using the Winter Ruler to freeze the entire area where they were founding, as suddenly huge walls made of ice started rising around the entire area.
Samiel planned to create a trap around them, so the Drider won't be able to escape. He needed to be captured alive, mainly because he knew where the Monstrous Spiders' breeding lairs were hidden. If they didn't destroy them, then the entire 3rd Floor would be constantly terrorized by the Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps, who would be breeding here.
Even though Samiel was aware of one, it didn't mean it was a single one, and the best method would be to get it directly from Drider's memories.
After Samiel erected the walls made from the strongest ice he could create through the Winter Ruler, he jumped down from the top of the walls, looking at the Drider, who just now realized that he was trapped here.
Instantly after he jumped down, he used the Winter Ruler, aiming at the poison glands at the sting that the Drider had so that he couldn't use his most potent weapon, the poison he had at his disposal.
"And now we can have a nice little chat."
Samiel stated with a smile while conjuring an Ice Trident through the Winter Ruler and waiting for the Drider to make a move; he made the "arena" a bit more spacious in a case he decided to use his Undeads in the fight.
"Fucking filth, let be smitten to death by the darkness of the Spider Queen!"
Shouted the Drider fanatically as he charged at Samiel, who just cocked his head, and with a wave of his trident, several stalagmites of ice sprouted from the frozen ground, which was covered by ice, attacking the Drider.
Despite lacking one leg, which was bleeding profusely, he managed to dodge the incoming attacks of the ice stalagmites, but that didn't deter Samiel, who kept using the same methods, attacking the Drider with tens of ice constructs.
They were currently on his playground, and with the Winter Ruel, the moment this whole place was frozen, the fight's conclusion was long decided. In the place where the frost and ice were, Samiel's combat prowess skyrocketted.