World's Last Hope-Chapter 54: Morning exercise

Eric took a deep breath and then dashed forward, raising his sword over his head.

It took time for the monsters to hatch from their cocoons, so now was the most crucial time.

He was going to eliminate as many monsters as possible before they were born.

Eric thrust his sword, splitting a cocoon in two horizontally.

The next second, he was already upon another cocoon with his sword in the air.

He could have moved even faster, especially now that he had become a master, but it was important to watch his step.

Killing the spiders in the cocoons meant there was a risk that their blood could splatter on him, most dangerously on his face.

So he had to move fast, but with caution—a difficult combination to pull off.

"Five, six, seven," he counted, taking steady breaths. He wasn’t yet pushing his body to the limit.

"Twelve, thirteen, fourteen."

Shifting his gaze, searching for the next cocoon, his expression darkened.

It seemed one cocoon had already finished hatching.

Now, a giant spider stood , about two meters tall. It had eight thin legs, and its body was covered in patches of fur.

Redirecting its six crimson eyes at Eric, the creature opened its jaws, letting out a horrifying roar before lunging at him.

And it wasn’t alone.

About a dozen monsters had finished hatching entirely and were now charging at Eric with everything they had.

Instinctively, the first thing Eric did was position his back against the wide trunk of a tree, limiting the possible positions from where he could be attacked.

Raising his sword, he felt his desires amplified. There was only one thought in his mind,

Survive.

"Let’s see what you’ve got!" Eric spat as the first spider reached him.

It seemed the smaller spiders were more agile compared to their larger counterparts.

A one-meter spider opened its jaws and lunged, aiming to bite Eric’s leg.

Not letting it take the chance, Eric thrust his sword into the spider’s head.

The monster continued to twitch, if only slightly, so Eric rotated his sword, unwilling to take any chances.

In the blink of an eye, two more spiders were upon Eric.

The two-meter one had reached him, and a smaller one was accompanying it.

Not panicking, Eric sidestepped, dodging the leg that the larger spider sent toward him.

In the same motion, he slashed with his sword, killing the smaller one.

Eric’s eyes watered as the blood of the monsters sizzled and began dissolving the ground.

It seemed that even staying close to the proximity of the acid blood hurt Eric’s eyes, so he didn’t want to imagine what would happen if the acid got on him.

Letting out a roar, the large spider jumped high into the air.

In the next second, it sent a web flying straight at Eric.

"Shit!" he cursed, as he wasn’t able to move fast enough to dodge the attack.

His left arm got tangled in the web, preventing him from moving it.

"If that’s the case!" Without hesitation, Eric used his free hand to throw his sword, aiming at the spider’s exposed underbelly as it was still in the air.

Being airborne, the spider had no way to dodge the attack, and Eric’s sword pierced its abdomen.

Acid blood began raining down from the corpse of the spider onto the ground.

"Goddammit!" Eric frowned as he attempted to jump backward to escape the acid, but a few drops landed on his armor.

Black smoke began to rise as the acid started dissolving the metal.

Before he could catch his breath, three more spiders of varying sizes approached, with even more creeping up behind them.

To make matters worse, one of the spiders seemed smarter than the rest—it had climbed the giant tree Eric was leaning against.

The only reason Eric noticed the spider was because it screeched before leaping down toward him.

"This is ridiculous." Eric grinned grimly as he dissolved the sword still stuck in the two-meter spider’s body, summoning it back into his right hand.

With a grunt, he tore through the spider web binding his left arm, then slashed horizontally, wounding the three spiders approaching him.

At the same time, he used his free hand to grab the spider lunging at him from the tree.

The spider was a big one, so despite being caught in the grasp of Eric’s hand, its legs were long enough to reach his face, and it tried to do so.

Forcing his hand to close with all the strength he could muster, Eric managed to crush the spider’s body.

Its body seemed relatively weak.

The problem was that crushing it caused the spider’s body to explode in his hand, and a large amount of acid immediately went past his armor as it destroyed it and went onto his skin.

"Fuck, this hurts!" Eric grunted, throwing the spider’s remains aside as he shifted his gaze to the next group.

Truth be told, he didn’t want to keep fighting, but he remembered the negative effects of his ’The Cursed One’ trait and how any creature would do anything to claim his soul.

He knew instinctively that once a monster saw him, it would stop at nothing to chase him down.

"One monster chasing me is more than enough, so how about you all just die!" he shouted, raising his sword as he prepared for the spiders trying to end him.

*****

Eric was gasping for air as he cautiously observed his surroundings.

About a dozen spider corpses lay on the ground, their cocoons wide open.

Surprisingly, most of the cocoons in the area remained closed.

If all of them had hatched, it would have been a disaster.

"And all of this because..." Eric shifted his gaze to the patch of ground he had healed earlier, but it was nowhere to be found.

It seemed it had been infected by the corruption again.

Shifting his gaze to his left palm, he grimaced.

His left hand was now useless, having been damaged by the monster’s acid.

His glove was gone, and most of the skin on his palm had been burned away, though no bones were visible.

He didn’t feel much pain yet, likely due to the adrenaline coursing through his system.

Eric was about to let out a sigh of relief, now that the battle seemed over, but froze as he felt the ground shake beneath him.

A familiar roar echoed through the forest, this one far more menacing and powerful.

It seemed that what Eric wanted to avoid at all costs had happened.

The parent of the cocoons had decided to pay him a visit.