The three living spiders broke out of their cocoons and Sebas headed to where the girls were. Once he arrived he addressed the little spider first. "A large number of beasts are headed our way. Their goal is to kill our mistress. We must get ready for battle." said Sebas. "Yes sir!" said the little spider in a rather militant manner, even saluting with one of her front legs. "Will you help us as well?" Inquired Sebas to the spider girl. "Well they are storming my home and attempting to kill my guests so I probably should. There will probably be a lot though. I can still feel the pull slightly even with the level I just attained thanks to you two.". "You can thank our mistress for that later. I'm not the one who initiated it myself and I doubt the little one did so on her own either.". Just as Sebas finished he could feel a change in his body. All of his energy started to coalesce near his abdomen. He writhed in pain. He could vaguely see the same thing happening to the other adolescent spider. Once the pain ended he felt as if energy was coursing through him with purpose instead of aimlessly like before. He felt as if he could empower strikes with his legs. He decided to test it on the wall next to him and the results were shocking. He was able to cut cleanly into the wall albeit with quite a bit of effort. His legs were now like the deadly scythes of a low-growing human cultivator which can slice half meter boulders in half with relative ease. The difference between growth stages was stark and frightening. If Sebas and the little spider fought the loss the little spider would take would be comprehensive to say the least. With this they could now hear the combined stampede of a couple hundred beasts. They resolved themselves but Sebas could feel something that made him pause. Now that he had formed his beast pearl he could sense outside energy. One thing he noticed is he couldn't feel the little spider at all but he quickly tabled that. "Why…" Sebas thought "Why are they so weak?". The little spider noticed how Sebas reacted and spoke up. "What is it, sir?" She said "Do we have no chance at winning?". "Far from it!" Sebas said, completely bewildered "the strongest among them are so weak that you'd be able to win against them on your own with some damage but not a lot. There aren't even a lot of them that are that strong. All but 5 of them you'd be able to win against two or more of them at the same time.". "I think I know why." said the big spider, now joining the conversation, "I have a hypothesis that the pull generated from initiating the trial is based on how much inner energy the lord candidate has.". "This is even backed up by what that little miss just said. She said she was only feeling the pull a little even though her level just shot up but her level is still relatively low and should not allow her to ignore the pull so much that she barely feels it.". "This should be easy." Sebas said acknowledging the words of the soul with an imperceptible nod to anybody except those looking for it "we just need to strategize so that we don't get caught off guard.". "Little one, kill as many of the weak ones as possible to thin their numbers " Sebas ordered. "You will take down the strongest ones and work down from there. You will handle the back while doing this making sure none of the weaker ones get through. It should be very manageable given their level." Sebas said to the adolescent spider girl. "What will you do?" Said the little spider and the spider girl albeit with the little spider adding "Sir" to the end. "I will take up the role of causing chaos and murdering anything in the middle and back lines so that both of you have an easier time.". And so they headed to the entrance to the cave to engage the enemies. As soon as they got there they saw the first enemies come through the treeline. Most of them looked weird compared to regular beasts. There were two main types of low level enemies. One type looked like emaciated dog-like beasts with reptilian feet and spikes on their backs. The second looked like ceramic dolls except they moved like a roman legion with mechanical precision in their movements. Their appearance was of children and they seemed to be ordered by a creature with intelligence. What was strange is that the creature looked like a human. Even weirder was that the human looked like a child, but it didn't look like just any child it looked exactly like the sculptures. As the sculptures approached the seemingly real one's skin started to writhe as it's form changed into that of a clay version of those horrid dogs. The big spider approached and started to speak. "It's a nagual. Shapeshifters tend to be able to control lesser bloodlines of any form they take. Since it's made of clay and looks like one of those chupacabras it should have the ability to control both groups." said the soul "Similarity and superiority is what fosters control in our beast race. It's rather strange that that tiger can make you so loyal simply because of superiority. That's not something even lords can do. They can only force them to obey through power but they usually never gain the loyalty of a non-similar species unless the gap in strength is just that vast.". Once Sebas had heard the end of the explanation he leapt forward to engage the enemy. He slashed through the clay dolls as if they were paper. The dogs became a bloody mess as chunks of flesh got strewn about the grass as if Sebas was creating a macabre painting with the ground and surrounding trees as the canvas. In his murderous streak he didn't even notice that he had killed everything in the beast tide on his own. The other two living spiders as well as the souls looked on with awe. The souls hadn't seen a massacre like that in their life except for watching their lord decimate most of the xingxings. "He has to be the reincarnation of the lord!" said one of the souls in astonishment. Once Sebas realized what had just happened he was over to the shapeshifter and carved out the beast pearl and moved onto the other energy sources. Apparently two of the chupacabras were semi intelligent but didn't have beast pearls and the same was true with one of the dolls. The shapeshifter actually had a beast pearl that Sebas was feeling the strength of two distinct ones from. "Shapeshifters can only have as many forms as they have beast pearls in their body." said the soul "but since one beast can only have one beast pearl in their body, shapeshifters split the power of their beast pearl in two.". Sebas giving another targeted nod then looked towards the other two spiders which were looking at him in stunned silence. "I guess I overestimated their strength." said Sebas to the two, but The spider girl recognized that his feat of slashing a line in the wall earlier and this massacre just now were not something she could replicate. At that moment she resolved herself to follow that tiger even if it cost her life. Just like that the system feeling her resolve made a new connection. Now back to the present. As Cynthia's stomach growled she called over Sebas. "Tell me in detail what happened," Cynthia said. Sebas told her everything, not even leaving out the part where he communed with his ancestors. He even mentioned that this night is actually lasting longer than the previous one did. In fact it's lasting as long as the previous day. Cynthia pondered on it and decided that the way the days and night likely work in this world are short day, short night, long day, long night and then back to short day. Obviously she will still need to observe to make sure but that was something she needed to wait for. "So all of these are your kills?" asked Cynthia. "Yes my lady!" replied Sebas. "I'm very proud of you Sebas! Not only did you secure 5 intelligent beasts worth of energy but you also managed to pull your sister to our side!" said Cynthia "What would you like as a reward?". "I would like permission to take all of the future spiders under my wing if possible, my lady!" requested Sebas. "That's easy enough to do!" Cynthia granted "How much of your spoils yesterday are you willing to part with?". "I would like to keep one of the intelligent chupacabras and all of the nonintelligent creatures. The chupacabras will be good sustenance for the new spiders and I have an idea for the dolls." said Sebas "the others are yours my lady.". "Ok but remember that girl you have a crush on and the little spider are under your care now. You must treat them well and reward and punish them when they deserve it." said Cynthia "you are going to walk the path of a lord with this request so I expect the dignity and leadership of one as well!".
