It didn’t take long before Hazel and the rest of her group finally arrived at their destination. Upon reaching it, everyone exited the cargo truck and started preparing for the upcoming battle like they did for the second stage the day before.

  Meanwhile, Hazel carefully scanned their surroundings, taking note of their current environment and how they could use it for their upcoming battle. Although they were on a different part of the 295 interstate, her group was still able to use the bridge to their advantage in dealing with the spider swarm. However, what bothered Hazel the most right now was the Hadlock field and Fitzpatrick Stadium.

  They were obstructing their view of the swarm along with the various trees and buildings below them. Hazel was tempted to blow up any buildings and forestry that was blocking her view but help back since even she didn’t want to destroy popular architectures like the Fitzpatrick Stadium.

  It wasn’t like the spiders were going to maneuver around the buildings to get to Hazel. If anything, they would likely be crawling over them, since that was likely the quickest route for them to reach their target. Still, on the off chance that some spiders were using an alternative route, Hazel made sure to position some players on the side of the bridge facing Park Avenue, along with the railroad tracks that connected to the road.

  Aside from that spot, Hazel was more focused on the 295 interstate that was right next to Hadlock Field and Fitzpatrick Stadium. Once the spiders crawl over those two structures, those eight-legged freaks would likely then make their way on the interstate to get to Hazel and the other players.

  To keep the spiders from getting too close to the group, Hazel decided to destroy a part of the bridge. Specifically, the bridge that was right above Saint John Street. She also wanted to do the same for the part of the 295 bridge that hovered over the railroad tracks, but held off for now. She didn’t want to cause too much damage and have most of the bridge collapse from the weakened structure.

  She was able to accomplish this by using her curse bombs. She created several bombs of condensed curse energy around the size of a baseball or larger, then lined them up in the middle of the bridge. With a snap of her fingers, she triggered a large explosion that destroyed the bridge over Saint John Street. Fragmented pieces of the bridge fell onto the street, creating a large cloud of dust, followed by the sound of rubble clashing against rubble, reverberating around them.

  Once the dust settled, Hazel looked down and saw a pile of rubble right below her. Before her world was assimilated, this would’ve been a terrifying thing to witness. In fact, such an event like this would’ve ended up on the news in no time. As for the headline, a part of Hazel laughed at the thought of something like “College Student girl destroyed bridge using magic bombs?!”

  Thankfully, she wasn’t going to expect anything like that. Of course, that only reminded her about how everything had changed. Every time she remembered what her world used to be, it gave her a bit of whiplash when she was faced with her current reality. Like her normal life was nothing more than a figment of her imagination, and this post-apocalyptic fantasy world was her new life.

  Once again pushing those thoughts aside for now, Hazel focused back on setting everything up for the spider swarm attack. Aside from the bridge, she and the other players also used the surrounding cars to make barricades and other types of obstructions to keep the spider swarm at bay.

  “So, how are we going to deal with the swarm this time?” Astrid questioned as she walked next to Hazel.

  “Well, since the first wave consists of only the Spider Infants, then we’ll just do what we did last time. As for the second wave, we need to prioritize dealing with the Sentinels, Web Weavers, and Reapers. This is why strong players with ranged attacks like you and me will focus on them. The quicker we finish them off, the easier the wave will be.”

  After their initial encounter with the Web Weavers and Sentinels, Hazel knew that taking care of them was their best option when they endured the waves. And the Reaper was no different. Because Hazel had no idea what they were like, she needed to take them down before they caused them problems like what happened with the Web Weavers yesterday.

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  “We should be wary of the Reapers,” Chegyaeyi added, approaching the pair. “If we act carelessly like with the Web Weavers, then who knows what could happen?”

  “Which is why we need to kill them as soon as we spot them,” Hazel declared.

  “If we’re able to recognize them in time before they attack us,” Astrid pointed out. “We had no idea what the Web-Weavers were before they made their move. And we had no idea what they were capable of until they shot their extremely durable webs at us.”

  Astrid was right about their lack of knowledge regarding the Reapers. If they made a single wrong move while dealing with the new spider species, they could lose more members compared to before.

  “Then I’ll try and search for them in the second wave,” Hazel decided.

  Since she had the Astral Eyes spell, it was simple for her to use her floating invisible eyes to scan the swarm and locate the Reapers. All before they could arrive at their checkpoint. Which meant this would be a race against time. Would Hazel be able to obtain enough information about the Reapers before they arrive?

  “It seems like everything is almost ready,” Chegyaeyi turned around and noticed that their preparations were nearly complete.

  All the cars within the area were in position, along with the players who were already prepared for battle. While the trio conversed with one another about their plan, John, the Gunslinger Soldier, soon approached them.

  “Everything is set for the upcoming swarm,” He informed them. “I also got word from Zoe and the other two that their checkpoints were ready as well. All that’s left to do now is for you guys to trigger the Queen’s radar.”

  Hazel and the other two nodded.

  “Alright, let the others know that we’re ready as well and that I’ll head over to the border and wait for their cue.”

  John firmly nodded his head before turning around and walking back to the other players. Once he left, Hazel turned her gaze over to Chegyaeyi.

  “Alright, Chegyaeyi, would you mind bringing me over to the border?”

  “Of course,” The lizardfolk warrior agreed.

  [Astrid Skogr: Can’t you just use Telekinesis to fly over there?]

  Hazel secretly read the message from the chat room while sparing a glance at Astrid, the one who just messaged her.

  [Hazel Thatcher: I’d rather not reveal all of my cards. You never know what might happen, right?]

  While it was possible for Hazel to simply fly over to the other side of the bridge to get to the Queen’s range, she didn’t want to show off one of her powerful spells in such a way. That and she didn’t want Zoe’s people blabbing to her when they saw Hazel flying out of nowhere.

  Unlike her mom, the players following Zoe would most definitely tell her about Hazel’s abilities when they get the chance. While Hazel and Astrid were currently working with Zoe, neither of them could fully trust her just yet. They both could tell that she held no malice and wasn't dangerous to them.

  Hazel knew this well because of how close the person was to her mother. Evelyn wasn’t some naive person who easily trusted people if they showed a little bit of kindness. So if she trusted Zoe, then Hazel wouldn’t refute it.

  But there was a difference between Hazel trusting Zoe and her mom trusting Zoe. Evelyn had known Zoe longer and had also had each other's backs while in their Tutorial Dungeon. Hazel, on the other hand, hadn’t experienced such a thing with her. So, trusting her would take longer compared to trusting her mom.

  Chegyaeyi picked Hazel up and leaped across the collapsed bridge, landing on the other side with ease. Placing the witch down, she walked over to the border before stopping a couple of inches from it. Or where the edge supposedly was, according to their measurements. It would’ve made things a lot easier if Hazel and those cursed by the spider queen could see the border. Sadly, that wasn’t the case here.

  Hazel turned back to the other side of the bridge where Astrid and John were, watching them. A moment later, John raised his hand, signally to Hazel that was almost time. She waited for the cue, watching the soldier’s signal.

  A few seconds passed until John gave her a thumbs-up, which was the signal to cross the border. Hazel nodded before taking a few steps forward, immediately crossing the border and triggering the queen’s detection.

  A familiar panel that told her that the Queen had detected her and was sending her children after her materialized before her very eyes, just like before. Once she saw the panel, Hazel moved closer to Chegyaeyi, getting ready to run off and jump back over to the other side of the bridge.

  Using the opportunity while she could, she sent one of her Astral Eyes over to see the swarm. She was mostly curious about how many were coming their way. Since there were only four checkpoints instead of five, that meant the number of spiders would be bigger than before. That would pose a slight problem if they couldn’t handle the sudden increase.

  But when Hazel used her Astral Eyes to check out the swarm, she soon realized that was the least of her concerns at the moment.

  “Ah...crap...” She muttered with a hint of fear in her voice.

  “What’s wrong...?” Chegyaeyi asked.

  “The swarm...is a lot different on the first wave than I remembered.”

  Through the sight of one of her Astral Eyes, Hazel saw something she didn’t expect. Marching down the street in her direction were not only Spider Infants but also spider sentinels, spider weavers, and most importantly, Reapers.

  For some reason, the difficulty of the first swarm had been raised too drastically for her liking.