He instinctively looked upwards at the source of the noise. However, he immediately wished he hadn't.
'Why didn't I piece it together!' Kicking himself inwardly, 'Why everyone came equipped with daggers, why they needed walls at the camp, and why everyone stiffened up when we got here...'
In the space above, large spider webs covered the air. The webs expanded from pillar to pillar and formed multiple layers as a sticky labyrinth of webbing. The noises he heard earlier were those web's residents coming down to say hello to their prey.
'Beasts! Heck, if the cavern its self was made by a large beast that died then of course there would be smaller beasts in the world as well!'
One of the Beast-man working nearby warned everyone in the group, **"Crawlers are here!"
The beasts in question, were known as Crawlers. They were spider type beasts that were about half a meter big. They were typically dark colored, their most notable feature was that their legs were very sharp like needles. They were extremely dangerous, and extremely useless. The Crawlers were venomous, intelligent, and numerous. When people faced them it wasn't their individual strength that overwhelmed teams, it was their numbers.
Their venom was potent enough to incapacitate a full grown man in as little as 30 seconds if they receive a full dose. The Crawlers always attacked in numbers and would attack someones blind spots if given an opportunity to do so. The Crawlers didn't give any meat that was edible and their parts couldn't be used as materials on anything without breaking after being used.
Upon hearing the warning of the Crawlers imminent approach, everyone dropped what they were doing and pulled out their daggers.
**"D*mn, we got unlucky! The Crawlers are awake!"
Quadrant 7, otherwise known as "The nest", was feared for a reason. There was close to 400 Crawlers attacking their group of 50. Each one of the people in the group would have to fight almost 8 crawlers. 2 people were acting different from the rest of the group though. Zaria and his mom began releasing an aura and started to focus on the Crawlers in the vicinity. Finding their targets, they both began compressing the energy to prepare for a spell.
Despite the beast closing in, a part of Cage felt a little excitement and frustration. excitement because of the impending fight, frustration because he couldn't do anything. He didn't know why though.
His mom closed her eyes for a second, then inhaled. With a look of annoyance at the Crawlers, she stomped her foot and yelled **"Stone barrage!"
A large rock broke away from the wall and shattered into numerous pebbles. She thrust her hand sending the pebbles away at the speed of bullets. Sensing the incoming attack, the Crawlers tried to avoid it but to no avail, the attack collided with the nearest Crawlers descending and turned them into mincemeat. They didn't stop there though, they kept piercing through other Crawlers until they eventually stopped and collided with the space behind with a boom.
The aftermath of her one attack was more than 30 crawlers dying.
**"Not bad" Zaria said.
Zaria was annoyed inwardly, 'Ugh, I can't use any large scale destruction spells because of the slaves mixed in with the fight. I wish I could just torch them all and be done with this annoyance...'
**"Flaming Swords!"
five dazzling swords of flame which floated in the air appeared in front of her. Zaria began maneuvering her fingers and hand to stimulate the swords' movements and control them to Slice and stab the Crawlers.
While the two were using magic to fight, a much more horrific scene could be seen elsewhere in the area. The crawlers were too numerous. Clangs and screams could be heard throughout the battlefield. A few slaves were injured, others were incapacitated by the venom. The Crawlers were always in at least a group of three and when you attacked one of them, another would sneak behind and attack you. In this manner, they were challenging to fight.
Observing the fight from behind the protection of his mother, was Cage. 'So this is why everyone is armed and why there is so much defense at the main camp... It really seems like magic is the only way I can defend myself at this point in time, I'm not developed enough to fight physically. I would still need to do it in secret though...'
After 10 minutes of fighting, all the crawlers were slain. 7 people had died and about half of the group was incapacitated by the venom or injured in some way or another, thankfully the venom had a short duration and only lasted about 15 minutes on the average person.
After everyone was able to move again and caught their breath, Zaria announced that they were going to go back.
**"The Crawlers only just woke up, there was a lot less than normal as well. We were lucky that no evolved Crawlers were present in this fight, the queen will probably send more here or other beasts will be attracted by the smell. Grab the soul stones you mined, I need to report back on the situation of quadrant 7. All of you are exempt from today's quota, just hand in the soul stones you have now."
Everyone gathered their respective soul stones and prepared to head out and return to the camp. No one bothered to grab the bodies because they would slow them down and would just attract beasts anyways. His mom picked him up and they began to leave with everyone else.
Cage let out a sigh of relief inwardly, 'Now that the fighting is over and we are going back, this would be the perfect opportunity to test my theory! But, I have to modify it a little after watching the fight...'
He closed his eyes and went to his soul-scape. He was met with the familiar sight of his soul bound by the red chains. Cage realized that he had been closed minded, not thinking about other options and thinking inside the box. If a sponge is fully filled with water can it absorb more? Of course not. He needed to keep wringing out the sponge and having this "sponge" absorb more water. Normally the amount of water a sponge could retain would stay at a fixed amount. however, what if this sponge acted like a muscle and was alive?
The other thing he realized is that his mom wasn't compressing the world energy around her to a point-- he blamed his lack of observation skills and sense of the energy for not noticing-- She was releasing energy from her soul but keeping it contained until she had enough to cast a spell. Of course, he had no clue how to use magic let alone cast a basic spell but it was none the less useful.
'Even if I can't do magic for now, it won't hurt to have a stronger soul. Only one problem, how do I release the energy... Damn! it's not even the first step and I'm already at a road block! It's like I have the instruction manual but not the parts and tools to build it! F---'
While Cage was self lamenting his lack of knowledge, the group of now 43 returned to the main camp.
Zaria clapped her hands together and said **"Let's go, All of you go hand in your crystals and get you food ticket. I need to make a report to the commander".
-=-=-=-
After dismissing the group, Zaria went to report to the commander.
'Damn, 20 years I've been here and every time the Crawlers awaken it's hell. I need to report this fast.'
Zaria approached the only 2 floor building in the camp. The interior was the same as any other except it was more like an office, it had desks and stone slabs with engravings on them. Behind the desks were silver personnel who all used earth magic to write on the tablets. Paper was only a luxury for the rich or important individuals after all.
**"Commander, I have bad news to report."
The commander had bags under his eyes and was clearly suffering from sleep deprivation and overwork. The commander was young, he had white hair, a goatee, and green eyes. He had the same uniform as everyone else but with 3 gold stripes on his arm.
**"Let's here it, it can't possibly be worse than those damn nobles who think they are entitled to all the soul stones right?" The commander sighed and lifted his eyes from the stone tablet he was reading.
**"It may be worse, The Crawlers have woken up... There isn't any evolved yet though, only the normal ones."
**"I stand corrected, it can get worse. We have 6 years to prepare, begin making preparations. I'm going to go tell the capital and ask for reinforcements." He shifted his eyes, looking back to the table with another sigh.
The reason why they were worried is because the Crawlers were only active every 10 or so years. When they woke up, it would mark the foreshadowing of a wave. Because of this, they were often used as a reference point to warn of a wave. The Crawlers and all the other beasts in the mines would begin gathering their strength. The reason? all the beasts would go on a rampage and would fight for dominance. The reason why is unknown, it could be a natural instinct, or it could be more complex. Either way, the wave was dangerous and often resulted in many casualties.
The commander suddenly asked **"Are there any promising combatants in group 4?"
**"...Yes, well, not exactly. He isn't a combatant, but he seems different." Zaria answered after hesitating for a second.
His interest being piqued, raised his eyebrow **"Oh?"