Prisoners of VR

The cave wasn't dark, dimply lit by luminescent moss that grew on minerals capable of radiating heat. Geothermal energy was abundant underground, thereby funnelling heat throughout the cave. It was pretty warm and hence, one could be light on equipment to traverse it.

Enrigen headed the group of hundred, watching them set up a supply line for resource transfer. It was simple. An Arachmen stood at the entrance and when asked, he grabbed a bag from the pile and gave it to the nearest Arachmen.

From one person to another, the bag would be transferred, with each Arachmen only having to move twenty metres. It was a human-type supply chain.

There were guards posted to protect the supply line.

As the Arachmen took up their respective posts, the size of the group dwindled steadily. The path was cleared out of all spider silk. Hence, any of the Giant Tarantula, if they tried to target them, was swiftly dispatched.

"Wait..." Enrigen motioned for the group to stop as he felt the walls of the cave and knocked it lightly. Followed by a smirk, he patted it with force, watching the cave wall collapse, "Jackpot."

There was a hollow section in the cave, spanning a room's worth in volume. The entrance had been sealed by a layer of silk on which the spiders had pasted wet mud that once hardened, resembled the cave walls.

In the room existed thousands of eggs, all laid by the Giant Tarantulas. Enrigen grinned widely and motioned for the group to transport the eggs out of the Dungeon, "They'll constantly produce silk for us once they mature. Store them with care and prepare to set up a farm immediately."

"On it," One of the captains took charge of transporting the eggs out of the Dungeon. The base material required for their Skills was silk. Therefore, they could produce it on a farm, as long as they had enough silk-weaving insects.

On a farm, there was no risk in resource collection. Moreover, they could experiment to improve the yield, which wouldn't be possible in a natural setting like a Dungeon. The Giant Tarantulas only weaved enough web here necessary to capture prey.

But on the farm, they would be generating silk as much as biologically possible, forced by the farmers. Besides, insects multiplied rapidly, so there would never be a problem with their numbers.

The moment they began to transport the eggs, hundreds of Giant Tarantulas rushed into the cave.

"They're here!" Enrigen shouted as he took out a bunch of Silk Bombs and threw them all over the cave, "Be ready to attack!"

The Silk Bombs exploded upon impact and spread a metre radially, latching onto the spiders in range. They were stuck to the spot, unable to break free. And the more they wriggled, the greater the silk wrapped around them.

Enrigen had targeted spots dense with spiders using the Silk Bombs. The result caused small mounds of trapped spiders, acting as barricades to slow down the rest.

[Skill: Elastic Rope]

[Grade: Moderate]

[Brainpower: 60]

[Willpower: 4]

[Empower: 4]

Enrigen grabbed a fist-sized pebble from his pocket and crushed six Silk Bombs on it, turning it into a gooey mass. He then activated the Skill of Elastic Rope on it, causing the silk within the gooey mass to elongate into a short rope, a metre in length.

Enrigen grabbed the rope's end and spun it. Due to the generated centrifugal force, the length of the Elastic Rope increased as Enrigen flicked his hand, causing the pebble to slam into a Giant Tarantula, crushing it.

The pebble came to a stop upon the impact. With the centrifugal force gone, the Elastic Rope shrunk to a metre in length, allowing Enrigen to make the rotary motion once again.

He made the pebble perform full circles at least three to four times a second, at the end of which the Elastic Rope elongated to around two metres in length. The attack landed squarely on the target, after which he retracted it and repeated the process.

Every five seconds, Enrigen killed a Giant Tarantula. As all he did was spin a pebble in place, he wasn't even expending much energy, brisk even after killing thirty spiders. This method of killing consumed the least amount of energy and muscular strain.

Besides, once his right arm hurt, Enrigen shifted to his left. He was ambidextrous and hence became a killing machine.

"Let's take a break here." He spoke after twenty minutes, having killed all the spiders that rushed into the cave. The Attack Squad sat on cushy chairs brought out by the members that followed them.

All along, only the Attack Squad fought. The rest remained for logistic support.

Enrique stared at the five members of his squad, "How's your stamina?"

"Good to go after fifteen minutes of rest," The youngest, Dora said, savagely excited, "I never thought killing spiders could be such a stress-relief task. We're doing the world good by ridding it of these creepy arachnids."

While they rested, the group members packed and carried the spider corpses out of the Dungeon. They had plenty of uses. Just the meat in them could be used to feed the various insects they were raising on farms outside.

They also contained venom sacks that could be extracted for a variety of purposes. The venom could be used to poison the creatures in another Dungeon.

"There are no Invoker Crystals among the pile." One of the members commented while sorting out the corpses into a silk bag. All members wore gloves of silk to avoid being poisoned.

One of the members, in his work enthusiasm, had ventured slightly deeper into the cave while picking up the corpses. He approached a pile and reached out to the spider at the top, noticing a glint from within the pile, "Hey, there's an Invoker Crystal here..."

Suddenly, silk was squirted on him from the gaps. The silk spread out like a blanket and wholly wrapped around him. And then...

It rapidly shrunk in size, applying enough pressure on his body in an instant that more than a hundred crunching sounds resounded.

The man's body had been turned into a tiny, metre-long cocoon, fully compressed. Not even a droplet of blood leaked out, fully sealed within.

"What the?" The rapid bone-crushing sounds alerted all the members as they turned around in the direction of the sound, witnessing a massive spider, five times the size of the Giant Tarantulas rush out of the pile of spider corpses.

A silk rope trailed from its abdomen, connected to the cocoon containing the man's crushed corpse. It fled rapidly, dragging the over seventy-kilogram cocoon like it was nothing.

"That's the Dungeon Boss!" Enrigen bellowed as he threw a Silk Bomb, "Attack!"

The Attack Team reacted promptly and threw Silk Bombs too, targeting the fleeing Dungeon Boss. But right at that moment, the Dungeon Boss screeched, the sound grating to the ears, causing everyone to grunt in response, distracted.

A group of spiders, twice the size of a Giant Tarantula appeared at this moment, shooting pellets of compressed spider silk. The pellets unfurled into umbrellas of silk that blocked the cave, behaving like walls that covered the entire cave's over ten-metre-wide breadth.

The umbrellas stuck to each other to form this wall, acting as a barrier. The thrown Silk Bombs slammed on this barrier, further reinforcing it when they blasted out silk.

"Shit!"

"No!"

Five members shrieked in fear, for the silk umbrella separated them from the rest of the group. Now, they were faced with the Giant Tarantulas. And before they could react, silk nets sprang upon them that shrunk into cocoons instantly, killing them in the process, violently.

In one move, the Dungeon Boss killed six people and dragged their corpses away, vanishing deeper into the network of caves that formed its domain.

"It's tough!" The oldest in the Attack Squad, having the Worldcraft name of Robot muttered in all seriousness as he threw a pebble at the silk umbrella with all his might, "We'll waste a lot of time breaking down this silk wall. It seems to be the skill of the Giant Tarantula Elites. Therefore, they can always use it to separate us."

"A few seconds is enough for the Dungeon Boss to kill the ones separated. Its Skill is potently powerful." He concluded. "It executed its plan perfectly. We didn't even begin to retaliate but already lost six men."

"It's indeed smart. I'll give credit where it's due." Enrigen said as he attached an Elastic Rope to a large rock. Then, he took on a pose similar to a hammer throw athlete and began motion, spinning rapidly as he accumulated rotary momentum in the rock.

And then, he launched it at the silk umbrella, producing a bursting sound akin to a drum getting smashed open. The silk umbrella was torn apart. The Giant Tarantulas waiting on the other side-watching their actions-were crushed by the rock that continued to speed forward, stopping only after destroying more than thirty spiders.

"Alright, this works. Note it down." Enrigen commanded one of the captains, "And prepare more rocks for me."

He stared at the scurrying figures of the Giant Tarantulas, revealing a wide grin that expressed his bloodthirstiness, "It's time these insects understand humanity's endless excellence at war."

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