Chapter 60: Attack Strategy.
Avoiding most of the lower ranked beast, leaving them for the students to deal with during the upcoming training sessions, Crule and Ming silently dashed to the center of the cave systems where the wolf spider pack have taken nest. Taking many zigs and zags through the dimly lit tunnels that were only illuminated by certain bioluminescence plant life and rare metals, they reached the center quite fast. At the entrance, was around half a dozen wolf spiders guarding the entrance. They were diligently keeping watch. Piles of corpses could be seen around them as various beast have tried to trespass onto their territory.
The wolf spiders looked like wolves, but had six appendages and a large abdomen. Its body was segmented into two sections while the front section was that of a wolf’s head, the behind was that of a spider but covered in the same colored wolf fur. The wolf spider’s four eyes are quite adjusted to the darkness and they seemed to glow at a shining yellow. They looked diligently around their surrounding and every once in a while, it lifted its nose into the air to smell for prey.
Judging by the size, Crule concluded these wolf spider sentries were around C rank. Obviously having to fight so many of them would spell death for the students. This was something that must be purged of before the training can start. Crule signaled for Ming to take three, she nodded and they started the operation. Under the cover of darkness and concealing their presence with their aura, Crule climbed the walls, trying to the drop on the half dozen wolf spiders and Ming waited on standby behind a stalagmite.
Crule didn’t want the wolf spiders to send out their howls to alert the rest of the pack so he instead chose to kill three instantly. Crule signaled Ming and she gathered a ball of blood in her hand and silently let it drip onto the floor. The blood slowly flowed toward the wolf spiders. Due to the pile of corpses having a strong smell of blood, Ming’s assault had gone unnoticed.
Crule flew down from the wall as three whips made out of his famine aura lashed out faster than the wolf spiders could see. The whips hit the three wolf spider dead center between their forehead, and a long strip of their flesh and bone was immediately devoured by the whip, leaving the skull halfway slashed in half. At the same time, Ming’s blood on the floor rose up from under the wolf spider’s head and impaled their brain from under their chins.
Without being able to let out a whimper, the six wolf spider sentries died.
Crule and Ming kept silent the entire time as they do not want the wolf spider pack to panic, escape, and attack the sleeping students outside.
The wolf spider corpses had decent value so Crule quickly stored them in his spatial storage. This was so also done to stop the scent of the wolf spider corpses to alert the pack. Upon death, the wolf spider actually detonate their silk sack within their body. The fluid without being mixed with the hardener that the wolf spider produces as it secrete the silk, doesn’t not become spider silk but rather stay in its liquid form. Also without the chemical reaction it normally goes through, upon contact with the outside atmosphere, a chemical reaction occurs that produces a sort of smell that acts like pheromones to alert nearby wolf spiders.
The wolf spiders have manage to thrive due to this mechanic, being always able to have a majority of the pack escape from predators.
Having previously encountered a pack of wolf spiders, Crule knew about the chemical reaction that take place in the wolf spiders’ corpses.
______
They slowly crept into the den of the wolf spider pack. Looking inside, Crule saw nearly a hundred wolf spiders. He was astonished at the sheer amount. Normal sized wolf spider pack range from thirty to forty. Having nearly three times as much means that instead of a pack leader alpha male, the wolf spider must have a queen within its mix.
A Queen wolf spider was FAR stronger than a normal wolf spider. If left to cultivate, the wolf spider queen absorbs enough energy to become A ranked beasts. This would be difficult to face the Queen plus her entire pack. Crule and Ming realized they should change their approach.
Stolen story; please report.
They left the den and went back up the tunnel to an area without beasts and they could talk freely.
[Crule]: This is more troublesome than I thought.
[Ming]: When I came down here earlier, I only saw around two dozen wolf spiders.
[Crule]: By the looks of it, those were only the ones left behind to protect the nest while the others went out to hunt. With a queen wolf spider leading the charge, no wonder we only saw half a dozen beasts wandering the tunnels.
[Ming]: Yea, looks like most of them were eaten.
Wolf spiders consume their prey more like a wolf than a spider. Normally a spider would wrap its prey in a cocoon. The wolf spider directly eat the meat and with their strong jaws, they would even grind bone. Their silk was used for maneuvering the tunnels and forests they usually live in.
[Crule]: The question is how we deal with all of them.
[Ming]: I think one of us should hold the queen down while the other quickly dispose of her pack.
[Crule]: That would work great if the pack was only around twenty to thirty. With their sheer number, just one person alone isn’t enough to ensure none of the pack escapes to the outside.
[Ming]: Hmmm….
They both began pondering. Moment later, Ming seemed to have come up with an idea.
[Ming]: Let’s seal the tunnels.
[Crule]: That should work, but we don’t have anything to seal the tunnel with.
[Ming]: I can make blood walls but I won’t have enough blood to cover all the tunnels…
[Crule]: So we have a plan but no way to execute it…
They went back to thinking.
[Ming]: This would be so much easier if we still had the dream incense.
[Crule]: Yea, but we used our last one a while ago.
Back in the old world, Crule had to use a dream incense to put a large pack of A ranked beasts to sleep in order to escape. The incense was a rare item received from the Antagonist games. Having it right now would greatly help.
[Ming]: Instead of just standing here and thinking, let’s look around, maybe we will come up with an idea.
[Crule]: Fine.
They started walking around the tunnel, looking for something that might work. Ming had already mapped out the place earlier today so they wouldn’t get lost. Upon reaching the fifth gate, she could sense the blood of beasts base on their location within a hundred kilometers. Since the cave was so full of beasts at the time, she easily mapped out the intricate cave systems.
They soon found an underground stream that the river seem to flow into from above.
[Crule]: This might work.
Flooding the lower tunnels can seal the wolf spiders, and with Crule and Ming’s current ability to control their aura, they could hold their breath under water for about an hour, which is enough time to swim from the bottom of the tunnel to the entrance.
[Crule]: Ming, use your blood walls to redirect the streams to the various tunnels leading to the den.
Thankfully the inner den only had four entranced. Three at floor level and one on the ceiling.
Ming nodded and used her blood walls to redirect the underground stream.
[Crule]: Let’s do this.
They ran down toward the den while the water slowly filled up the tunnels.