" We're surrounded." Viona whispered.
" Thank you, how would've have known without you pointing it out?"
Khali retorted sarcastically. " You're welcome." Unfortunately for him Viona was too dense to understand sarcasm.
He shook his head at the muscle head.
" Take positions." She barked orders. The warriors stood in a circle with the mages at the centre.
They pointed their guns at the huge spiders. However the rank 1 spiders were not alone. Waves of the smaller spiders came out behind them.
" I don't think we have enough bullets." He smiled but there was no joy in that smile. The only one grinning with happiness was Viona.
Her hand was shaking with excitement, Khali had to grab her arm to stop her from jumping at the spiders.
The spiders attacked first, blobs of green acid flew at them like cannons. The mages created shield barriers to block.
The barriers lasted only two rounds before breaking but that was enough. " FIRE." Viona shouted.
Guns blazed, gunfire lit the dark cave as streaks of red flew in every direction. Screeches of the dying spiders echoed across the cave walls and tunnels.
Green blood splattered across the ground. The rank 1 spiders were tough though. They were large reducing the effect of the bullet.
On top of that, most had the power of three mana nodes which was the same level as the guns.
However spiders were not defense oriented creatures. They fought using superior numbers but were mostly weak individually.
So while it took more bullets to kill them, it wasn't exactly hard. Under the rain of gunfire they barely had time to retaliate.
Khali looked around expecting to see the spider he saw before but it was nowhere to be found.
Then he heard a loud screech echoing across the tunnels. The rank spiders stopped charging at them.
They used the weaker spiders to protect themselves against the bullets. Then more rank 1 spiders jumped out of the tunnels.
He counted them, ' 34? How?' 34 new spiders just appeared. He did not expect this nest to have so many rank 1 spiders.
Then it dawned on him and the realisation shook his divine soul. " Viona, prepare for a hurried retreat, this might be a trap."
Viona looked at him with confusion, " What why? We're winning."
He shook his head, " There are too many rank 1 spiders here, it's unnatural, it means there's something above them."
She looked even more confused. " A rank 2 queen, there's possibly a rank 2 queen and I can assure you, we're not dealing with an entire nest led by something like that."
Viona nodded, " Easy then, kill these things and deal with the queen." She was about to attack when he stopped her.
" Save your mana, wasting it now would not be good for anybody." She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
The warriors kept firing, taking out new magazines and firing again. The mages helped them reload those magazines when they were not creating barriers.
Which was often now, since the rank 1 spiders started using the weaker ones as meat shields they've been sneakily attacking with their acid every now and then.
One warrior was hit by a splatter of the acid on his arm. He screamed as his arm started burning.
Freya reacted very quickly and healed him but she wasn't powerful enough to completely close the wound. The warrior started firing like a maniac after that.
He focused most of his attacks towards the spider who attacked him. The spider ran out of meat shields.
As soon as the gap opened the warrior threw something. Khali grinned which looked as terrifying as a demon's smile then he immediately ordered for barriers to be raised in that direction.
The object flew through the gap of the spiders and hit the larger spider on the face. However nothing happened for a split moment.
Even the warrior was a bit disappointed, after all they hadn't tested these things, they were new.
Before his disappointment could end everybody heard a loud explosion. Flames blazed to the sky shaking the air.
Dozens of spiders were burnt to a crisp, the flames spread out burning everything within 10 metres.
While the radius of the explosion was not huge, it power was immense. However the flames were not even the most terrifying thing.
Tiny metal sharp objects called caltrops flew in every direction like bullets. They were burning hot due to the explosion.
The first barrier of earth was barely able to hold on before it crumbled then two other barriers followed.
They stopped when they hit the wind barrier. The humans were safe however the same could not be said for the spiders.
The caltrops spread to every conor of the cave killing all of the spiders except a few of the rank 1 spiders.
Khali called this the caltrop grenade and it had even more power than he had expected which made sense.
While making it he increased the ratio of the fire mana stone powder he mixed with the gunpowder.
So the intensity of the explosion was naturally greater. By his estimate it had the destructive power of at least a four mana node spell.
Unfortunately he didn't have time or as much material as he would like so he only made 5 of them.
One has been used leaving only four. The warriors shot and killed the remaining spiders.
They waited tensely for a while expecting more spiders to come out but they never did. Finally they relaxed and took deep breaths.
Even though they didn't use their mana the fight was still stressful. The vast numbers of the spiders made them terrified.
While everybody was rejoicing that they had won Khali thought otherwise. He was certain the spider he locked eyes with hadn't revealed itself yet.
" Don't let your guard down." He told the soldiers who looked like they were in a picnic. They immediately picked up their guns and stood tense.
However seconds passed with nothing coming out. " Is everything okay?" Viona asked with worry.
Khali smiled, " Oh you're gonna like this, can't say the same for the others. Prepare yourselves."
The moment he said that 8 red eyes appeared like orbs of fire from the other end of the cave.