novelbin Chapter 17 Fire
Chapter 17 Fire
"This thing won't emit radiation, will it..." Jiang Yuan bent down and picked it up.
It gets even hotter than the giant scorpion's magic core.
He had a thought, but no panel popped up.
"Can't extract magical energy?" Jiang Yuan looked at the cat-eared girl watching curiously and asked.
"Hilu, do you know what this is?"
Hilu shook her head. "Hilu doesn't understand. The priest knows about these strange, shiny things."
Jiang Yuan then asked, "Would that be useful to you?"
Hilu shook her head.
"Then I'll take it," Jiang Yuan said.
Hilu's bright eyes were fixed on the fiery red crystal core.
She thought it looked nice and wanted it too, but Jiang Yuan gave her something delicious, so she nodded and said "Mmm".
Jiang Yuan carefully put away the fiery red crystal core and went back to get the kerosene flamethrower.
He immediately checked the location.
Behind the giant scorpion, which was perched in the spacious cave, was another passageway.
"Let's go. Let's strike while the iron is hot and go find that big spider."
Hilu responded, her cat tail twirled, and she entered stealth mode.
The two entered the cave passage, and after walking for a while, the cave's landscape began to change.
The red crystal clusters have decreased, and in their place, grayish-white filamentous substances have filled the cracks in the stone.
At first, there were only a few scattered clumps, stuck in the cracks of the stone wall, like moldy cotton.
After walking a while, more and more silk threads appeared, starting to merge into a continuous sheet, hanging down from the cave ceiling and spreading across the ground.
The air was filled with a sweet, rotten stench.
"We're almost there." Jiang Yuan thought warily.
This clump of silk must be a spider web; he occasionally sees it on the Grayscaled Lizard.
They disappeared completely when they reached the territory of the larger scorpions, where the temperature was higher, but now they have reappeared.
This means they have approached the spider's territory.
Jiang Yuan's feet touched the ground, and the soles of his shoes made a sticky, tearing sound.
The ground was covered with a layer of translucent spider silk membrane. In some places, the gray-black stone surface underneath could be seen, while in others, it had piled up into a soft, collapsed silk mat.
Suddenly, Hil appeared in front of them, her cat ears turning to the right front.
Jiang Yuan looked in that direction.
A grayish-white mass, shrunk into a ball and about the size of a fist, was lying on the stone wall.
The limbs extended out of the fur ball and then retracted, making a very faint rustling sound in the dim light.
"Shadow Spiderlings?" Jiang Yuan's heart skipped a beat; it was the first time he had ever seen one.
With a light step on the stone wall, Xilu silently swept past.
The tip of the dagger pierced through the gap in the grayish-white ball of fur, twisted, and lifted.
The little spider's limbs twitched twice and then stopped moving.
"There are so many little spiders here again." She shook off the remaining liquid from the dagger and tucked her cat ears back.
She couldn't eat these small spiders, so she killed many of them.
As the two walked forward, the number of small spiders increased.
The gray-white fluff balls hanging upside down on the cave ceiling increased from three or five to a dozen or so, and then from a dozen or so to a dense mass.
Spider webs covered the ground, stone walls, and cave ceiling; in some places, they were so thick that the stones underneath were no longer visible.
The cloying, putrid stench in the air grew stronger and stronger.
Fortunately, Hilu is quite adept at dealing with these first-tier magical beasts.
With her nimble skills, she flicked a dagger and wiped out the enemy in an instant.
However, Jiang Yuan and his companion were still blocked from entering.
Before them lay countless dense, overlapping giant nets, completely blocking their path.
"Jiangyuan, we can't get through." She revealed herself:
"It's all netting, Hilu can't get through. She stopped here last time."
Hilu's stealth was useless against the spider web.
"This is what I've been waiting for." Jiang Yuan took the flamethrower off his back.
Although we didn't find out the spider's weakness and couldn't get a gun, we can use fire.
He turned on the valve of the fuel tank, pressed the pressure valve with his left hand, and pulled the trigger with his right hand, aiming the nozzle at the thick spider web wall in front of him.
Wow!
A column of orange-red fire shot out from the muzzle of the gun.
But spider webs are more heat-resistant than expected.
The flames licked at it, but unlike burning a regular spider web, they didn't pierce it with a single touch. The translucent silk membrane first turned red under the high temperature, and then slowly charred, shrank, and broke.
Each inch of the spider web takes several seconds to burn through, and thick, charred liquid drips from the burned edges, sizzling as it falls to the ground.
Jiang Yuan, carrying a flamethrower, walked forward, stepping on the scorched stone ground cleared by the flames.
With each step, the soles of my shoes sank into the still-smoking gravel.
Flames cleared a path ahead, and layers of spiderweb peeled away, charred, and collapsed. A pungent, acrid smell permeated the entire cavern.
Hilu followed beside him, her cat ears constantly twitching, catching any unusual sounds around them.
The tunnel ahead suddenly opened up.
"Have we arrived at the boss's location?" Jiang Yuan's eyes narrowed slightly.
The dome suddenly rose to seven or eight zhang (approximately 33-40 meters), and the stone walls on both sides receded to the left and right, revealing an extremely wide cave.
In the very center of the cave, a huge creature lay sprawled.
Its body length is estimated to be over two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters), and its eight thick spider legs are bent and supported on the ground. Each leg is covered with barbs that curve inward.
Its back was covered with dense, grayish-white bristles, and its head had two rows of jet-black eyes, each the size of a fist, reflecting the firelight.
It lay in the very center of the spider web, its abdomen rhythmically heaving.
With each thump, the bristles on its abdomen stand up and fall back down in unison, like a gray-white wave of wheat.
It had already spotted them.
Two rows of dark eyes locked onto the cave entrance, lying there quietly, sending chills down one's spine.
A giant spider, over two zhang long, stares at you motionless in the darkness.
On the spiderweb, countless tiny spiders were scurrying towards Jiang Yuan and his group.
Hilu's cat ears pressed tightly against her head, and she shrank back half a step. "Jiang Yuan..."
"I know." Jiang Yuan took a deep breath. He quickly unloaded the two spare barrels of kerosene, unscrewed the caps, and placed them at his feet.
He didn't rush to shoot the arrow; this spider queen was different from the previous two magical beasts.
The flames weren't enough.
The threat to the queen spider lies not only in herself, but also in the countless shadow spiderlings swarming in the cave.
He picked up a bucket of kerosene, unscrewed the cap, and poured it directly in front of the cave.
Kerosene splashed onto the ground, releasing a pungent odor.
The second bucket followed closely behind, splashing to the left, and the third bucket to the right.
He poured out all three buckets of kerosene, leaving a transparent film of oil on the ground in front of the cave, with the kerosene seeping down through the gaps in the spider webs.
Then he picked up the flamethrower.
The moment the pillar of fire struck the kerosene film, an entire sea of fire exploded.
The orange-red flames surged out along the ground like a burning tide, engulfing most of the cave in the blink of an eye.
The spiderwebs peeled away layer by layer in the sea of fire, and the little spiders that rushed forward were swallowed up by the flames before they could even crawl.
The gray-white fluff balls on the cave ceiling began to fall like rain.
The little spider that fell down immediately curled into a charred ball the moment it touched the edge of the sea of fire, rolled twice, and then stopped moving.
Those that weren't directly engulfed by the flames also frantically crawled away under the scorching heat, shrinking deeper into the cave.
The sea of fire separated the little spiders from the queen... Jiang Yuan felt a sense of relief.
All he had to face was the giant spider queen.
At that moment, the spider seemed to realize something was wrong. With all eight of its thick legs exerting force, its massive body burst out from the very center of the sea of fire.
Flames licked its legs, belly, head...
But this damage is obviously useless against it, as it doesn't slow it down at all.
The colossal creature, standing two zhang tall, pawed at the ground with all eight legs, slamming into the cave entrance with an absurdly rapid acceleration, its feet treading on the flames covering the ground.
The flames were shunned by its momentum, leaving a charred gash, before closing up again behind it.
The ground was shaking.
Jiang Yuan channeled his magic into his legs and darted diagonally to the right front.
The spider queen's barbed claws grazed his left shoulder, the wind from which they brushed against him stinging.
Before he even landed, the Spider Queen had already turned around, her two-zhang-long body turning back at the cave entrance, and with all eight legs exerting force, she pounced again.
So fast!
It's a whole level faster than the Greyscale Viper.
While the other giant scorpion had a powerful stinger, its body movement speed was not particularly outrageous.
But this spider queen is different. Its straight-line explosive power exceeds that of the giant scorpion's stinger. The coordinated force of its eight legs makes its acceleration at the moment of starting almost leave a blur.
But Jiangyuan at this time was no longer the same Jiangyuan as it was three days ago.
With his level 8 physical attributes and the amplification of magic power, his reaction speed and burst speed also surpassed the ceiling of ordinary humans.
As the spider queen's chelicerae swung down, he had already sidestepped and circled around to the outside of her two left legs.
Hilu's stealthy figure suddenly appeared in front of the Spider Queen's head, her right hand gripping the dagger in reverse, the blade flashing with light, and she plunged it into one of the Spider Queen's front black eyes.
The spider queen reacted faster than the giant scorpion.
Its head snapped to the side, and the dagger pierced the carapace next to its eye.
At the same time, the two legs on the left swept towards Xilu, the barbs grazing her waist.
Hilu twisted and flipped in mid-air, her toes touching the joints of her spider legs, and used the momentum to fly backward.
The two were already working together very well, and she was creating opportunities for Jiang Yuan to shoot arrows.
Jiang Yuan had already raised his crossbow.
"Sixty crossbow bolts left...that should be enough!"
Magic flowed into his eyes and arms, bringing every detail of the Spider Queen's two rows of black eyes into sharp focus.
A sea of fire surged behind it, and orange-red light shone through from behind, covering the entire cave floor.
Jiang Yuan steadied his breathing and pulled the trigger.
Ten tungsten steel armor-piercing arrows locked onto the largest eyeball in the center of the front row.
The tungsten carbide triangular cone-shaped propellant penetrated the cornea of the queen spider's eye.
The first arrow penetrated nearly halfway in, encountering greater resistance than expected.
The Spider Queen's eyes are just as well-defended as the Scorpion King's eyes after he goes berserk.
But the ten arrows, with their penetrating power multiplied, focused on a single point and forcefully tore open a gap.
Dark green fluid gushed out along the arrow shaft.
The Spider Queen emitted a sharp, high-frequency vibration that struck the surrounding stone walls and bounced back, mingling with the sizzling sound of burning flesh in the sea of fire, making one's eardrums ache.
Immediately afterwards, the end of the queen spider's abdomen suddenly jerked upwards.
A white line, as thick as a forearm, shot out from the tip, moving so fast that its trajectory was almost invisible, leaving only a straight white streak in the air.
The white mark turned orange-red in the firelight.
Jiang Yuan's pupils contracted.
Magic flowed into his legs, and he instinctively tilted his head and turned to the right.
The silk thread flew past his cheek, the wind it created stinging his face.
But he was still a fraction too slow. The moment the thread brushed past his side, the end suddenly snapped back like a whip tip, piercing straight through his right forearm.
Blood gushed out, and excruciating pain exploded from his forearm.
His entire right arm trembled, and he almost dropped the crossbow.
Hilu was also hit at the same time.
The silk thread shot straight towards her waist and abdomen. She twisted her waist and flipped over in mid-air, pushing off the stone wall with her toes and shifting half a body length to the side.
Fortunately, she wasn't too close. The silk thread grazed the leather armor on her side, causing it to split open with a clean cut, revealing a thin, long bloodstain on her fair skin.