Chapter 166: The Spider Riot
Ronin noticed that as they were busy exploring the depths, the subterranean city was filling up with other expedition teams.
They darted between the spires, kiting the raptor-monsters or attempting to breach the upper floors. Some had already discovered the monsters' extreme flammability. Small fires began to twinkle across the cityscape, looking like streetlamps being lit in a dark, forgotten metropolis.
But above the city, in the lightless reaches of the cavern ceiling, the rising smoke from these fires was causing a reaction.
The giant spiders, sensing the shift in their environment, began to stir from their prehistoric slumber. Agitated and hungry, they started migrating toward the only exit: the breach where the intruders had entered.
At the entrance, the crowds had thinned out. Ronin's unit wasn't the last to enter, but only a few stragglers had followed them.
Entering the ruins required a specific license or a high-tier mercenary contract, which acted as a filter for most civilian groups. However, several teams that had failed to find anything in the other two tunnels had circled back to try their luck here.
They walked straight into a nightmare.
Inside the narrow, winding breach-tunnels, even a Nen user found themselves at a disadvantage against a swarm of tank-sized arachnids. For ordinary humans, it was simply a slaughter.
The tunnels became a symphony of screams and wet, crunching sounds. Outside the breach, the Royal Army heard the carnage and mobilized, setting up a perimeter of heavy machine guns and spotlights.
As the first giant spider burst from the ruins into the open air, the ancient war between man and the deep earth began anew.
Below, in the heart of the city, Ronin remained unaware of the surface escalation.
After sweeping several neighboring buildings, the unit confirmed a pattern: every skyscraper that housed predators sat atop a basement containing a desiccated, ancient tree.
It was the forge that produced the army.
Muherr decided they had seen enough. He planned to withdraw and sell the intel to the Hunter Association.
Once the Association verified the discovery, they would coordinate with the V5 to send in a specialized research team—likely the Permitted Species Isolation Agency. Muherr's unit would almost certainly be retained as high-level security for the follow-up, which suited them perfectly.
Ronin nodded in agreement, though his gut told him the city was hiding more than just biological factories.
But he wasn't here to be a pioneer. He was here for the Kurta. He wanted to get to the right-hand tunnel as soon as possible.
According to Muherr, the first tunnel hadn't been fully mapped yet. Once the Association took over the left-hand city, they would likely seal it off for study, giving the Royal Army the breathing room to resume the excavation of the Kurta sector.
With their path decided, the unit headed back toward the "entry spire."
As they approached the tower, the atmosphere shifted.
The area surrounding the base of the building was littered with spider corpses. They hadn't been killed by gunfire; they had fallen from the ceiling.
Many of the carcasses bore signs of battle—slashes, blunt trauma, and missing limbs.
Has the fighting reached the upper levels already? Ronin wondered.
As they entered the building and began the long climb, they noticed something even more unsettling. The raptor corpses they had left behind were being scavenged.
Spiders that had survived the fall were gorging themselves on the burnt remains of the plant-beasts.
The arachnids were territorial and aggressive. Even as the Golem approached, they didn't flee. They snarled and clicked their mandibles like rabid dogs guarding a bone.
The Golem didn't waste time negotiating. It raised its warhammer and crushed the head of a spider that barred their path.
The creature let out a shrill, piercing screech that lasted only seconds before it went limp.
"The spiders are attracted to the raptor corpses," Ronin noted aloud. "But why? Since we entered this cavern, we haven't seen a single spider enter the towers to hunt the raptors while they were alive. Why only now?"
No one had an answer. The relationship between the two species was an ecological puzzle they didn't have the data to solve.
The unit reached the top levels. The tremors in the floor grew more frequent, accompanied by the sound of a thousand frantic footsteps echoing from above.
Pre-emptively, Ronin activated his Three-Tomoe Sharingan.
They reached the seal he had created with Earth Style. Through the small gaps in the stone, he saw the nightmare: the ceiling of the platform was a carpet of bristling legs and glowing red eyes.
Golem took point. Armed with a warhammer in one hand and a flamethrower in the other, the mech kicked the stone barrier open.
The spiders reacted instantly. Serrated legs lashed out like spears, aiming for the Golem's joints.
The Golem fired its flamethrower. White-hot fire washed over the lead spider.
But the "Special Attack" bonus was gone. Unlike the raptors, the spiders didn't ignite. They screeched in pain from the burns, but their chitinous hides were heat-resistant. They weren't plant-based; they were pure biological armor.
Ronin stepped forward as the Golem became bogged down in the melee. He wove a seal and inhaled.
Wind Style: Vacuum Wave!
He exhaled a concentrated blade of high-pressure Wind Nature Chakra.
The invisible scythe passed through the gap between the Golem's arms, striking the lead spider with the force of a falling guillotine.
The blast sent the massive arachnid flying backward, its abdomen sliced open and spraying thick, pale fluid.
The Golem seized the opening. Despite its bulk, the mech performed a boosted leap, clearing the threshold of the room. It landed on the rooftop platform, raising its hammer high.
CRUNCH!
The hammer obliterated the wounded spider's head.
But as Ronin and the rest of the unit vaulted out onto the platform behind the Golem, they froze.
The entire rooftop was covered in an ocean of red eyes. Thousands of spiders had descended from the ceiling, and every single one of them was now turning to face the new arrivals.
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