In the cave, rustling sounds could be heard. The mandibles of the human-faced spiders were rubbing together. Also, their compound eyes glowed with green light and they looked extremely terrifying in the darkness. “What should we do? Should we just continue waiting here? What if more and more spiders gathered?
Zeng Gang spoke angrily due to his anxiousness.
“Ziqi, do you have any ideas?”
Zhang Yanzong asked. Waiting? It was definitely impossible because the human-faced spiders would attack sooner or later. Hence, the amount of time they had remaining wasn’t much.
“Come, feed these medicinal herbs to them!” Tantai Yutang spoke while chewing some herbs. He meticulously explained while passing out more herbs for the group to chew. “Try not to chew the herbs too much and break them into fine pieces. Instead, use more force to get the liquid from the herbs to flow out. Take note not to swallow the liquid yourself though.”
“Why are you still concerned about the victims now?”
Xu Jialiang angrily complained.
One couldn’t blame him for being depressed. Other than Peng Kunqi and Wu Jitong, four other students from Chongde were also unconscious. With so much baggage, what should they do?
Toss them aside?
Xu Jialiang stealthily gazed around. He believed that others had this idea too, but no one dared to say it because this suggestion was too inhumane.
“So we have to quickly make them regain consciousness!”
Tantai Yutang spoke at a pace that was neither fast nor slow.
“Junior brother, are you not afraid of death?”
Lu Zhiruo was curious.
The sickly fellow chortled, “We all have to die sooner or later!” “Can you say something more auspicious instead?”
Zeng Gang scolded. He didn’t want to die.
“What sort of people are these students of Sun Mo?”
Zhang Yanzong felt his scalp turning numb.
Xuanyuan Po, Ying Baiwu, and Tantai Yutang were incomparably calm. Their breathings were normal, unlike the others who were already panting loudly.
Li Ziqi was afraid, but she could use her intellect to suppress such an emotion. After that, she would rack her brain trying to find a solution to solve the situation.
As for that papaya girl, she didn’t seem to be frightened at all. She felt leisurely enough to chat with Tantai Yutang, and the topic was whether Tantai Yutang was scared or not!
Chu Jian took the herbs and after chewing them a few times, he spat them out and stuffed them into Peng Kunqi and Wu Jitong’s mouth.
His handling was somewhat crude.
“We won’t wait any longer. Let’s break the siege. Xuanyuan Po, Zeng Gang, I will leave the front line to you two!”
Zhang Yanzong gritted his teeth. This was the command he had given, hence, he had to bring things to an end himself.
“No, in this situation, whoever brings up the rear will die!”
Li Ziqi rejected.
“It’s fine if more of us can escape!”
Zhang Yanzong also had no choice. “Xuanyuan Po, I’ll leave it to you. Quickly rush out and release the signal tube.”
“I will stay behind and bring up the rear with
you!”
Xuanyuan Po rejected.
“I…I…”
Zeng Gang also wanted to say this, but the fear in his heart prevented him from doing so. The ones bringing up the rear had an 80-90% chance of dying.
“Ziqi, Zhiruo, follow me closely later on!” Ying Baiwu wouldn’t care about others, but these two girls were students her teacher loved dearly. Even if she was to die, she would do her best to protect their safety. “Junior martial sister!”
Lu Zhiruo felt very vexed. She was clearly the senior martial sister, but she was so useless.
“Don’t panic, there are other solutions!”
Li Ziqi clenched her left hand and placed it by her mouth. She unceasingly bit on the nail of her thumb, racking her brain. All the adventures’ stories that the little sunny egg had read about rapidly surfaced in her mind.
There were fifteen people in the group. Their flaws and strengths all appeared as she contemplated.
Also, the living habits of the human-faced spiders, their hunting patterns, the special characteristics of their tribe…
All of a sudden, Li Ziqi’s eyes brightened.
“Zhang Yanzong, let’s go and find the broodmother of this tribe!”
Li Ziqi spoke.
“Are you crazy?”
“Do you feel that we won’t die fast enough?”
“Why should we look for the broodmother? To negotiate?”
The other students immediately interjected, scolding and mocking Li Ziqi, asking her for the reason.
“Why?”
Zhang Yanzong couldn’t understand too.
“Sickly invalid, you explain!”
Li Ziqi still needed to consider the later stages of the plan. She knew that given Tantai’s intelligence, he would surely be able to understand her battle strategy. “Ziqi is planning to use the art of spiritual beast control to enslave the broodmother. As long as we control her, we would be able to command this spider tribe.”
Tantai Yutang explained.
After entering the cave and seeing those unlucky fools from Chongde, Tantai Yutang had known that something was wrong. From then on, he started to think about how they should resolve the danger they were about to face.
(This little sunny egg is quite impressive!) Tantai Yutang silently praised.
“Is this a joke?!”
Zeng Gang shouted.
“Why are the spiders not attacking yet? Because they want more spiders to form an army and surround us. Hence, if we wish to slaughter a path out, we will encounter many spiders. But upon thinking carefully, the area around the broodmother should be mostly empty now.”
Tantai Yutang’s tone was still frivolous, and this caused Zeng Gang to be so angry that he wanted to punch him.
“No!”
e no
Zhang Yanzong rejected. “Firstly, we have no way to instantly locate the broodmother. Secondly, if we want to enslave it, she will need a long period to interact and communicate with it. Thirdly, even if we want to forcefully enslave it, the strength of the broodmother is too high resulting in the rate of failure being extremely high as well!”
If a spirit controller wanted to enlist a spiritual beast, there were two ways. One was doing what Sun Mo and Little Silver did, forming a bond of mutual approval with both parties having equal status in the relationship. The second way was to forcefully enslave the creature.
For the second way, one had to use martial force to suppress the creature. But by doing so, the chance of betrayal by the beast would be extremely great. Also, the higher the intelligence of the spiritual beast, the lower the chance of enslaving it would be.
Lu Zhiruo suddenly raised her hand. “I can locate the broodmother!”
“How?”
Li Ziqi was considering this problem too. The papaya girl took out an arrow from Ying Baiwu’s quiver. She placed it vertically on the ground and casually let it drop without chanting any spells or praying. Pak!
The arrow fell and it pointed to the 9 o’clock direction.
“The broodmother is over there!”
Lu Zhiruo spoke with confidence.
The group of students was dumbstruck.
Zhang Yanzong’s countenance immediately turned black. If it wasn’t for the situation being so pressing, he would surely curse Lu Zhiruo’s ancestors of eighteen generations. (Do you have to make a joke at such a time?)
“How about little loachie? Can it find the broodmother?”
Li Ziqi asked in a low voice.
The spirit qi roaming dragon was extremely sensitive to spirit qi.
This sensitivity wasn’t limited to spirit mines and herbs, but it also included powerful people, ferocious beasts, and bugs!
These experts contained an extremely vast amount of spirit qi in their bodies as well.
“That’s right, why did I forget about it!”
Lu Zhiruo clapped her hand to her forehead. After that, she bit the skin of her thumb and used her fresh blood to draw a mysterious diagram on her palm. She then clapped her hands and injected spirit qi into the diagram.
Bang!
A ball of white-colored fog exploded. After that, the spirit qi roaming dragon appeared before Lu Zhiruo.
This was the spirit controlling technique Sun Mo had taught the papaya girl. No matter where the spiritual beast was, as long as one used this technique, they would be able to summon it over.
However, the further away the spiritual beast, the greater the amount of spirit qi consumed.
“You actually forgot about your own spiritual beast?”
Zhang Yanzong was speechless. He felt that the papaya girl wasn’t too reliable.
Jiji!
The moment little loachie appeared, it curled itself around Lu Zhiruo’s arm.
“Hehe!”
Lu Zhiruo stretched out her index finger and dabbed on the little loachie’s head. After that, she took out a handful of popcorn from her pocket and fed them to the spirit qi roaming dragon.
The popcorn was a snack Sun Mo made. Corn was covered in sugary powder and heated until they popped. They were very delicious!
“Mhm, given the situation, can we feel a little nervous or not?”
Chu Jian was speechless.
“Oh!”
Lu Zhiruo who was initially giggling immediately retracted her expression and changed it to one of nervousness.
Chu Jian covered his eyes. (Forget it, I won’t look any longer.)
“Little loachie, can you locate the broodmother?”
Li Ziqi asked. If it was an ordinary spiritual beast, it would surely not be able to understand what the little sunny egg was saying. But there was no problem for the spirit qi roaming dragon. Little loachie flew up and paused for a few moments. After that, it began calling out and pointed its tail toward a certain cave.
Everyone turned and looked, but they were speechless. Wasn’t this the direction Lu Zhiruo had pointed out? She had actually guessed it correctly?
“Luck! It must be luck!”
Xu Dingjiang mumbled.
“Group leader, give the order!”
Li Ziqi urged. The spiders already started to move forward.
Zhang Yanzong wasn’t able to speak. If they chose to flee, a few of them would still survive. However, if they tried to enslave the broodmother and failed, all of them would die here. They wouldn’t even have time to release the signal for help.
“Quick, there’s no more time!”
Chu Jian urged. A bad idea was still better than not having an idea at all.
“Everyone, pay attention. We will charge into the broodmother’s nest. Zhiruo, Tantai, Xu Jialiang, you three will be responsible for the unconscious people.”
Li Ziqi gave the order.
Zhang Yanzong didn’t agree nor reject because this concerns the life and death of all of them. He truly didn’t dare to make the decision. These were human lives. A single sentence to determine life and death? This was too difficult.
“Chu Jian, Xuanyuan Po, Ying Baiwu, you guys will be the spearhead and lead the charge. Zeng Gang, Zhang Yanzong, the two of you will bring up the rear. Let’s do it!” “Go go go!”
Li Ziqi lifted her long sword and ferociously waved it. “For teacher!”
“Shouldn’t it be ‘for survival’? Even if you shouted, ‘for the championship’, it was fine. What the hell do you mean by ‘for teacher’? How much do you worship Sun Mo exactly?” Zhang Yanzong ridiculed her. Since the situation had now come to this, there was no way to turn back anymore. As Li Ziqi shouted, the spiders were alarmed and started to attack.
Tantai Yutang glanced at Li Ziqi. Her shout wasn’t only to raise their morale, but she intentionally wanted to alarm these spiders so all the students had no choice but to follow her plan.
Actually, Tantai Yutang had a similar plan to Li Ziqi. He had intended to launch an attack on the spider to alarm them, so everyone would be forced to follow the plan due to the pressure.
Li Ziqi was truly impressive given that she was able to calmly think through and plan out details step by step despite being in such a dangerous situation. “Kill them all!”
Xuanyuan Po took the lead, but Ying Baiwu’s arrow arrived first. In the darkness, the semi-transparent arrows glowed with light, looking extremely gorgeous. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Over ten spiders at the 9 o’clock direction were instantly killed. All of a sudden, there was nothing in front of Xuanyuan Po.
Li Ziqi’s guess was correct. The human-faced spiders were gathering to hunt them, but that also meant that the tunnels leading to the broodmother were now defenseless.
“There are no more spiders!”
Xuanyuan Po shouted, “Where should we go?” “Follow little loachie!” Li Ziqi shouted. Fleeing? No, the little sunny egg’s goal was greater. She wanted first place. Once this battle strategy succeeded, there would be a chance for them to counterattack.
