The terrible trees swayed their branches in the wind. Seen from a distance, they looked like devils with claws and teeth. The road was long and narrow, winding into the darkness ahead. A crowd of crows shrieked past the heads of the party. They didn't want to hear it, so they covered their ears. But men had only two hands, and machines had no hands. Even William and Ranran could not cover their ears and noses at the same time. Soon, the crows were gone, but a pungent stench, instead of dissipating, grew stronger.

"I shouldn't have covered my ears." William thought regretfully, "I couldn't stand the smell!"

Several rectangular shadows appeared in front of them. As they got closer, Aria realized that the shadows were tombstones. On each tombstone were inscribed some words and pictures, and there was a cone-shaped sand pile next to them each. By the faint light of the compass, they saw that, though there were not many tombstones, yet each one represented an extinct creature. If William had come a little later,the name red seagull would have been there, too.

"My God," Ranran's red lips trembled. They cleared Checkpoint 36 without saying a word and collected 2.5% of the energy.

Suddenly, the compass glowed bright red. The color was like blood, dyeing the whole cemetery red. Then, in the darkness ahead of them, they heard a familiar hiss, smelled a stench even stronger than before, and saw several hazy shadows flash past them. To their horror, eight red bright dots were creeping in on them from a few hundred meters away, and the closer the dots got, the more distinct the hissing and stench became.

"What...... Is...... That...... ?" Rebecca's voice was distorted with horror.

"Is that exciting, my friend. I guess that's not a good thing." William replied with assumed composure, pulling out the laser guns he had bought at the arsenal. He told Photon and Rebecca to load the plasma cannons and get ready to fire.

Finally, the bright dots stopped in front of the party. Then it gave a deafening roar,

"Roar!"

The bright red light of the compass rose into the sky. In the bright light, the terrified party saw that it was a huge, ugly spider. Its eight eyes, the bright spots, were looking with fury at the tiny, ant-like aliens. Eight stout legs supported this huge body, a pair of huge mouthparts ready to move. The bloated, deformed belly was filled with a deadly fluid. It was not a protein-type venom, but a fluid -- fluoroantimonic acid -- far more dangerous than the most toxic protein on Earth. That was because its mechanism of death was simple: it could corrode almost any material.

But they knew nothing about that.

Ignoring his heart, which was about to take off, William pulled himself together, straightened his back, and glared at the spider. He did not consider whether it could understand him, saying directly,

"You will never beat me."

"Roar!" The spider really seemed to understand him. It tried to knock him down with an angry sweep of its forelegs. Quickly, William fired a few plasma bullets at the spider's eyes, then lay on the ground and kicked his legs hard. He quickly slid from under the spider to behind it. Then he got up quickly, aimed at the bloated belly and shot wildly.

The fiery bullets exploded on the spider's body, causing one wound after another of varying sizes. Furious, the spider turned and ran after William again. "Help me!" He shouted, and Photon and Rebecca both fired. But the spider had already started squirting fluoroantimonic acid at William. The dangerous liquid drew devil's tentacles in the air and then fell to the ground. Because William was moving so fast, the acid did not corrode him, but those sand piles did not survive.

"Dear me," William thought as he ducked this way and that, "what the hell is this? Even sand is corroded?"

"Fluoroantimonic acid. It's the most acidic material. It's also highly corrosive." He heard the little robot tell him.

"Why do you even have the energy to find out what it is?" He asked, startled as he watched a few drops of fluoroantimonic acid fell a few millimeters beside his hair.

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"Because my material analysis module has been updated, while the new version allows me to analyze the composition of matter at no more than 0.1 times the speed of light."

William could not help feeling grateful, but he had no time to express it. Seeing that it could not catch William, the spider adjusted its target and pounced on Ranran who was a few meters away. "Danger!" Aria shouted. Photon and Rebecca fired two laser missiles at the spider. Although they caused a lot of damage, the structure of the spider was still very intact. So that didn't stop it from attacking.

Aria rushed over and pushed Ranran aside. If she had acted less than 0.1 seconds later, she would be pounced on by the spider. Ranran quickly got up and raised her laser gun to fight back. The spider roared, flying into a rage.

Ranran ran quickly to William. William hugged her tight and said,

"Get on Natalie this second!"

She nodded nervously and jumped into Natalie while the spider and the planes tangled. "Don't worry, Ms Ranran, I can protect you very well." Natalie said, "But you need to give me your gun."

Soon, Ranran's laser gun was placed on the hood of Natalie the racing car. She was bigger than either William or Ranran, making her a better prey. The spider spotted Natalie galloping and gave hot pursuit. Thanks to some brilliant tuning and Uncle Sam's modifications, or Natalie wouldn't have been as nimble as she was in dodging acid.

Photon was busy shooting. Suddenly he caught sight of a springboard beside William. "Master! Use that!" He cried.

William spotted it quickly. "Maybe I can attack it from the air," He thought. He shot off like an arrow and sprinted toward that springboard. When he was within a few paces of it, he took a deep breath and jumped to his feet. After flying in the air for a few seconds, he landed perfectly in the middle of the springboard. The spring was compressed to a length of less than 10 centimeters, then stretched out like lightning to about a man's height. The planet's gravitational acceleration was relatively low, so William could fly for a long time. Seizing this golden opportunity, he aimed two laser guns at the spider's eyes and belly and pulled the triggers in anger. Bullets whistled and burst in its eyes. The spider felt the pain and growled wildly, flailing its forelegs wildly. Bullets that hit the belly tore relentlessly through its bloated outline, letting a cascade of acid inside flow out.

"Well done!" Cried Photon. He was more excited.

"Thanks a lot, but beware of the acid!" William had a rapid-fire reply. He hit the ground softly, rolled around a few times, and then picked himself up quickly.

"Want to try again, huh?" William provoked. The spider just growled in anger. So he ran over to the springboard once more and poured about 100 plasma shells into the spider's eyes. This time, the spider's cry was even more painful. It covered as many eyes as it could with its forelegs, and used its hind legs to cover its "bleeding" belly.

William even wanted to laugh a little. "Come on, now corrode me again, won't you? Too bad you won't have a chance soon!" With these words, he winked at Photon. The plane knew what his master meant -- to launch a final attack.

When the spider turned around, Natalie noticed that two bright dots had faded a little. "Does that mean the eyes are scraped?" She asked William.

"Not unreasonable. But it would be great if I could make all eyes look like that." He replied.

They merely needed to be careful with the flowing acid. With its remaining six eyes, the spider aimed at William and sprayed him with a cascade of acid. He jumped quickly, dodging the liquid devils. "So are the others. Take cover!" As he spoke, he sprinted for the springboard again.

The bullets made countless other holes in its riddled belly. As a result, fluoroantimonic acid poured out at an even faster rate. Several more eyes were wounded in this attack. Now the spider had only three working eyes left. Struggling in pain, it rushed at Aria in a rage, using its only-left normal eyes. The locomotive screamed in panic and scurried around the cemetery. Not only did she have to watch out for the spider behind her, but she also had to watch out for fluoroantimonic acid.

"Come here!" Photon called to her. She turned the corner nimbly and ran toward the plane. Suddenly, the compass adjusted itself in William's hand to meet the spider's eyes, and it glowed bright red again. It was like a blade sharper than any other ones, a supernova that outshone any other ones. It pierced the spider's eyes and exploded inside them like a hydrogen bomb. One by one, its optic nerves died, and the sight quickly turned into endless darkness.

The spider lay on the ground, almost drained of its "blood". It could no longer stand up. The party watched it struggle subside until it did not move. But even though the spider had turned into a remain, the acid that had corroded all the sand piles and gravestones was reaching for the party. "This is not good, run!" Cried Rebecca.

They ran quickly to the road they had just taken. Strangely, however, the road became so slippery that William and Ranran could not stand steadily. The road went straight down, so the acid didn't stop chasing them.

"Fluoroantimonic acid loses its strong acidity and corrosiveness when it encounters water." The little robot in the backpack hinted William.

"Is there water ahead?" He asked anxiously as he taxied.

"Yes. This road will reach the sea level, and then we can go hide on the beach."

"Thank goodness for that -- aargh!" The road ahead was even steeper. The screams of the party echoed through the eternal night.