Dragon Vs Spider

“Hey there, Rookie. I see you have done some jobs that make you seem like you’re an awesome mage. Well you’re nothing compared to me! If you want to prove just how great you are then I dare you to take out this monster. Bring a friend if you’re too scared!”

At the back was a picture of a large and spike ridden spider.

As a large dragon he didn't sleep where humans usually slept. He wasn't able to enjoy what humans found comfortable, their beds, their pillows, and their homes. So Asteris had made a plain on of the south of Fiore into his temporary residence. This morning he had woken up from his sleep only to find that someone had installed a mailbox in his territory and put a letter in it.

What the letter contained was basically a challenge to him and his pride. An insult that Asteris could not stand for. Although he was still confused on who built the mailbox and why anyone would build a mailbox for him just to send a challenging letter. But he accepted the challenge nonetheless, he had nothing to do today after all and it was better to do this than be bored all day.

"Now..." Asteris began to think out loud. "Where would I find this creature?" He muttered before turning the picture over. "Oh. It says I can find the Giant Spider somewhere in the Cursed Lands." He cleared his throat with a low rumbling noise. "Right, I knew that." He tucked away the picture of the giant spider in one of his pocket scales.

He stretched his feathery wings wide, gruffly ruffling his feathers before taking off with a few wing beats. "Time to go hunt an insect." He sped off in the direction of the Cursed Lands, intent on completing the letter's challenge by himself.

Soon he was gliding over a forest. It was full of trees with dark leaves, Asteris would almost say that the leaves were black in color if he didn't know any better. He dove through the treeline, punching a hole through the canopy with his large body. Basking the foggy forest floor with sudden sunlight as Asteris shook off twigs, leaves, and thin layers of webbing from his form.

Asteris stood straight and began to survey the forest. He could tell he was in the right place for every where he looked he could see a thin layer of webbing. He took an experimental step forward and heard the skittering of what could only be several hundreds of small spiders crawling on the ground, on the trees, and dangling on their webs. Asteris couldn't help but feel disgusted at the amount of spiders making their way around him. Asteris began to search the forest, slowly making his way and destroying small branches and thing layers of webs. An uncountable number of spiders, though mostly because Asteris didn't want to count them, were crushed with each step that took him deeper.

The webbing noticeably became thicker the farther in Asteris went. He felt something crunch underneath his claw, something vastly different from spiders. "Human bones." Asteris noted after lifting his claw to look at what he had trampled on. "I'm getting closer and closer." Asteris took a quick look around and saw nothing but trees and webbing. "Further in I go..." He kicked the bones to the side and continued to march his way through the forest of spiders. Idly he wondered why no one had burned the spider forest just yet.

Out of nowhere something suddenly impacted his side and send him crashing onto trees nearby. With a high pitched squeal the Giant Spider continued to plow through the trees with Asteris. Asteris, recovering from the sudden blow recovered and quickly tried to grab a tree to anchor himself and pushed the spider away from him. He quickly pushed himself up as the spider shook off being thrown by Asteris. The two locked eyes. Asteris growled challengingly. The spider squealed in reply.

The spider was suddenly on Asteris, despite being large it's many spiky legs allowed it to move at great speeds. It's forelegs threatened to pierce into Asteris' shoulders and it was only due to his quick action of catching the legs with his arms that spared him from the fate of impalement. The dragon gripped the legs tightly and moved so the spider's back was on the ground. His horns glowed blue before a beam fired from them, pinning the spider between the ground and his Aura Ray. The Giant Spider lashed out, using one of it's many legs and catching Asteris off guard. Asteris had thought that his barrier would protect him but he forgot that his barrier had been dispelled by taking the brunt of the spider's surprise attack.

The beam stopped firing and Asteris jumped away and inspected his wounds. A small gash was on his side and it dripped shiny blue liquid.

"Insolent pest!" Asteris roared as the spider shakily stood. "Take this death like the inferior creature you are!" He fired a beam into the sky.

The returning light pillar struck the Giant Spider once. Asteris moved in close and grabbed one of it's forelegs and threw it into a tree. Another pillar struck the spider and he unleashed an Aura Bolt to it's face.

The third and final light pillar fired down and Asteris took flight before crushing the Giant Spider with Aura Impact. He could feel that the spider was still alive and kept hammering and clawing away at it with his talons for a minute before retreating.

"Just!" He tore off the spider's spiky foreleg with a sharp tug from both his arms. "Die already!" The leg was speared through the spider's head with a loud and triumphant roar.

Asteris, breathing heavily and growling, moved away from the spider to make sure it was truly dead. After a moment of watching it warily for the slightest twitch he began to relax. He had come out victorious against the Giant Spider, an insect almost his size, thought it was still an insect. Compared to a dragon like him, insects like the Giant Spider were nothing to him. His wings, lightly covered in webs and twigs, shook themselves free.

"First thing in the morning I'm crushing that mailbox."