Chapter 51: The Poor Sand Spiders
Sand Spiders were a species of bugs that lived in the desert.
Mature Sand Spiders had six pairs of legs; they were thick and long. Four pairs of them were more than three meters long to help them move while two pairs of forelegs were as sharp as blades. They were meant for hunting.
They had a carapace of hollow spikes on their rear section and there was an opening in the midsection for laying eggs.
During their spawning season, they would lure their prey into a cave before injecting all their eggs into the prey's body. They would then wrap the prey in a spider web.
After the eggs hatch inside the prey's body, the baby spiders would consume the organs of the living prey and rupture the prey's abdomen to join their family.
In reality, these spiders possessed a unique characteristic in that all of them were hermaphrodites [1]. Oftentimes, two Sand Spiders would spar and the winner would then impregnate the loser.
Occasionally, two or more Sand Spiders would get embroiled in the fight and sometimes, the situation would develop in a much more complicated manner where all of the spiders involved in the fight might end up pregnant. The most bizarre thing about this was that the baby spiders would then be unable to identify their father...
...
The Sand Spiders that filled the top of the snowy mountains were crawling towards the bottom. They were fast, and by estimation, they would reach the bottom of the Snowy Mountains in an hour, more than 30 kilometers from the mouth of the canyon where Lin Huang and the rest were located.
With Lin Huang's ability to see, he could only spot black dots on top of the Snowy Mountains and he could not tell what they were.
Thankfully, Yi Yeyu and Yi Zheng who were at gold-level managed to recognize the Sand Spiders and estimated their numbers. There were about 100,000 of them.
If the Sand Spiders were to break through the line of defense, it would take them less than an hour to massacre the population of 200,000.
Yi Zheng panicked. They did not have enough people here and there was a horde of Sand Spiders coming.
"Are there any heavy gunmasters here?!" Yi Zheng bellowed from the top.
Heavy gunmasters were a branch profession of the gunmen class and were experts in powerful and destructive long-distance attacks.
Lin Huang wanted to be a gunman as his second profession but not the heavy gunmaster. He was planning to take the light gunmaster or even the sniper route.
Gunmasters belonged to the battlefield, which Lin Huang was not keen of.
In reality, most of the hunters would not consider this profession.
As expected, nobody responded to Yi Zheng.
He was hoping for a miracle when he asked, but when he received silence in return, his heart sank.
Apart from a medium gunmaster, there was no one else who could attack from more than 30 kilometers away.
"Brother, what is there to worry about?" someone asked.
Yi Yeyu glanced at Yi Zheng in disdain. While everyone was watching, she then attached an eight-meters-long cannon on her left hand within seconds.
Yi Zheng was taken aback and asked her carefully, "I remembered that you didn't even pass your beginner gunmaster assessment? Without the license, how did you manage to purchase this?"
"Is there anything that you can't buy in the black market?" Yi Yeyu said.
"Aren't the Firearm Relics that are being sold on the black market expensive... Did you borrow money just to buy this?" Yi Zheng suddenly recalled Yi Yeyu borrowing money from him earlier.
He found it strange too as Yi Yeyu should have enough pocket money for her daily expenditure but he lent some money to her anyway.
"So, you're not dumb after all," said Yi Yeyu while slotting in a few Life Crystals into the cannon's energy tank.
Yi Zheng felt the pain when he saw her actions because the smallest Life Crystal contained 100 years of Life Light. Each of such Life Crystals cost at least 10 million credit points. For such Firearm Relics, each attack would consume one Life Crystal.
"Yi Yeyu, you're not a gunmaster, why would you buy this Firearm Relic? Which man would marry you if you spend like that?" Yi Zheng wanted to teach her a lesson.
"Mind your own business, aren't you single as well?!" Yi Yeyu snapped.
"In the future, don't borrow money from me to buy such nonsense like this!" Yi Zheng was mad.
"I won't! So petty!" Yi Yeyu scoffed and aimed the cannon at the Snowy Mountains.
Seeing that, Yi Zheng stopped talking and leaped to the giant rock that she was standing on.
He stood behind her and looked at the direction where the cannon was pointed towards, he then lifted the canyon slightly.
"What are you doing, I will miss the shot if we fire at this angle!" Yi Yeyu stared at him.
"I've told you that you don't have the talent to be a gunmaster yet you never heeded my advice." Yi Zheng shook his head and explained, "A gunmaster would need to take the environment into consideration as well as the estimation of the attack's effect. In such situations, if you attack the location where the Sand Spiders are traversing, the effect would be limited. But if you attack the top of the Snowy Mountains, you could cause an avalanche that could potentially bury all of the spiders."
Yi Yeyu knew what he said was right so she did not argue any longer but she shot him a dissatisfied look.
"If you lean your body forward like that, although Firearm Relics can absorb the recoil, a cannon of such size would have much stronger recoils." Yi Zheng patted her back.
He then stood behind Yi Yeyu once again to reassess the angle of the cannon and nodded, "Fire now!"
After Yi Zheng's confirmation, Yi Yeyu launched the cannon.
A radiant sphere was created at the mouth of the cannon and in a split second, it turned into a white glow and fired towards the snowy mountains.
Yi Yeyu's body shook from the recoil, but she was held steady by a hand behind her.
"Bang!"
The white glow hit the top of the snowy mountain, and every part of it began to tremble.
Soon, the snow at the peak collapsed. They were like ocean waves, gradually growing in size and speed. It then buried the black dots on top of the snowy mountains.
Looking at the results, Yi Yeyu was over the moon.
She was happy that she managed to kill more than 100,000 Sand Spiders in just one shot.
She did not anticipate that to happen since she assumed she would need at least 20 shots to kill all of the spiders.
"Nice!" Yi Zheng gave her a thumb up.
Yi Yeyu blushed. If not for Yi Zheng's mentoring, she would not have achieved such success.
"I will leave these mountains to you. If there are any monsters approaching from that direction, use the same method as you did just now," Yi Zheng instructed Yi Yeyu and leaped back to the giant rock that he was standing on before.
The Sand Spiders were all buried beneath the snow close to Snowy Mountain Town. They were rolling towards the foot of the snowy mountains.
The snow was cascading towards the Snowy Mountain Town in waves. However, nothing could be seen outside of Snowy Mountain Town as it was covered by their line of defense.
The crisis was solved just like that.
Lin Huang was watching the entire thing from the beginning till the end.
Watching the snow as it engulfed the sand spiders, he sighed,
"No matter which world it is, the power of nature is always mesmerizing..."