On the other side, Alex was finally going to make a move to deal with the spider.
Armed with his two knives, he shot toward the spider who had suffered a bit after falling from such height.
However, just as he was about to cut one of the spider legs, he jumped back out of instinct.
The spider opened its mouth at that moment, spitting out some kind of liquid.
''Tch!''
Due to his intuition, Alex managed to avoid a disaster. Seeing that the liquid gave out smoke as it touched the ground when it landed, it was clear that his choice had been the right one. If he were late, he would have ended up like a certain supervillain (Hero?).
The spider was surprised that Alex avoided such an attack; the spider had intentionally lured Alex into attacking her to deal him a fatal blow. Unfortunately, she still failed in the end. Since Alex would be a formidable opponent to handle and seemed to be protected the other two, she decided to attack them. It could be said that this 3 meters tall spider possesses some level of intelligence.
The spider shot out some threads toward Isabella she deemed the weakest between the three.
''As if I would allow that,'' Alex shouted before throwing knives at the threads, making them deviate from their original target.
The spider's eyes widened when she saw her attacks missed their target. She didn't have time to be concerned about her failure as Alex was already upon her. He swung the knife on his right arm; it was already late when the spider felt the danger of this special knife. One of her legs had been cut off.
''Kyi kyikyi~."
The spider wailed and instinctively swung one of her remaining legs at Alex, the latter evaded by moving to the side before cutting that leg off.
Putting a little bit of strength in his legs, Alex's speed increased, and he moved between the remaining legs as if he was formless; all the six remaining were cut off before a knife went through the spider brain forever shutting her off. The spider died, no knowing why she died so fast. The difference in strength was immense; she was just Rank 4 (Level 39), compared to Alex, she was really weak.
Alex didn't stop for a moment after eliminating the spider; like a ghost, he moved to his left, where there was less concentration of lizardmen. One of the lizardmen noticed Alex and tried to bash his shield against him; however, Alex bypassed him to his utter dismay, and when that lizardman wanted to turn to attack Alex, he was forced to realize that his arms were gone, cut off from the middle.
''Shaa!"
That lizardman cried in pain and fell onto the ground, and started thrashing. His cries put others into a state of confusion; Alex wasn't the one to miss such an opportunity; armed with the two knives, he danced amidst the lizardmen, ripping life as if he was the death god. He was fast yet accurate and deadly.
In the span of a minute, he had killed the seven standing lizardmen.
The lizardmen's leader (he was different from the other lizardmen) standing further at the back noticed Alex slaughtering his men. Furious, he bellowed.
''Shaaaa! Shaaaaa!"
Maybe he was telling the others who started to panic seeing their brethren die so easily to behave; however, before they could recollect themselves after hearing their leader's shout.
Isabella fell back and retreated to Artemia's side. The latter was silent; however, if you watch closely, you could see tiny lightning dancing inside her eyes. Pointing her glaives forward, numerous lightning arrows appeared and were shot at the lizardmen.
One Lizardmen chose to defend by evading while others chose to defend with their shields. As for the one who chose to evade, though he could avoid 1 to 2 arrows, with ten arrows flying, it couldn't dodge them all. A lightning arrow pierced it the moment the Lizardman couldn't evade. Intense lightning spread through his body instantly; he started to dance some kind of unknown dance before getting cooked from the inside and died.
On the other side, the Lizardmen who lifted their shield instead of evading were even more miserable. If what Artemia had shot was a normal lightning arrow, then it would have been the correct course of action. However, the arrows shot this time were not ordinary lightning arrows but arrows made of black lightning, something she hadn't used in their dual. In fact, it was Isabella's first time seeing this.
Shaking his head, Alex observed the lizardmen, who had fallen into a panic after seeing a bunch of their brethren getting annihilated in just a single blow.
''Let's finish them before they recover from their confusion,'' Alex shouts at the other two.
The three moved, and in just five minutes, all the lizardmen were annihilated except for their leader. He seemed to be targeting Artemia with his intense glare filled with murderous intent.
The lizardmen's leader was one size larger than a normal lizard man (1.5 m) and was 2 m in height. His muscles seemed to burst out from the leather armor he wore, which seemed to be made from the skin of some monster. In his right hand, he held a huge greatsword that was well over 1.5m long. His other hand held the only metal shield that the Lizardmen had. This lizardman, whose level was 52 (Rank 6), easily controlled the greatsword with one, and he turned the tip towards Artemia as if asking for a duel.
''Oh?! How interesting. You targeted me because I have annihilated more of your subordinates? You want to avenge them?" Artemia asked while cracking her neck.
The leader of the lizardmen nodded his head.
''I see. I shall entertain youth; however, I doubt you will even last a minute. The fight will end in an instant.'' Artemia declared, sure of herself.
Alex was watching everything from the side with a smile on his face.
Isabella seemed to want to say something when she saw Artemia stepping forward. It wasn't that she feared for the life of her mast; far from that, she estimates the leader to be unworthy of Artemis personally taking action, that's all. However, knowing her master, when she decides on better not force her or else you'll suffer her wrath. So, Isabella couldn't only watch Artemia step forward.
Artemia faced the leader of the lizardmen with her glaives.
For several seconds, neither side moved.
''SHAAAAAAAAA~!''
''Haaaa!''
Both emitted a cry before kicking against the ground at the same time and rapidly closed the distance. Just as Artemia almost reached the leader, she threw one of her glaives toward him. The lizardmen's leader, also the boss of this floor, titled his head to the side to dodge Artemia's glaive before trying to swing his greatsword at Artemia. However,
''Too slow.''
A voice coming from behind him sounds in his ear; the leader felt a chill running down his spine; he knew he was in trouble; however, before he could turn around, his head was sent flying into the air.
''As I said, it would end in an instant,'' Artemia said before sheathing her glaives.
Isabella was in awe while Alex sighed. That Boss was unlucky; he thought he had avoided that glaive was thrown at him by Artemia; however, what he didn't notice what the blue chain at the butt of the sword. Artemia threw the other glaive into the monster right as if she had teleported; she appeared right before the same glaive and caught it before catching the other one floating in the air and due to both glaives taking different directions after being thrown (the first went on the left while the second on the right.) and let not forget about the faint blue chain connecting them, Artemia used this chain to server the head of the Boss.
''Brillant.'' Alex couldn't help but praise Artemia's ingenuity.
''Thank you. Let's rest before continuing.''
Artemia smiled before sitting on the ground to recuperate. Isabella moved around to collect monsters' materials; unlike the other floors where they didn't especially collect materials, the monsters they fought here had pretty good materials worth some money.
When Alex wanted to help Isabella, she politely declined, so he was forced to join Artemia, who had closed her eyes to rest.