The Birth of the Demon Sword

Spiders Without Self

Chapter 21 - 21. The spider is selfless

"What are we doing, captain?"

Mason returns to the real world and notices his surroundings.

The spiders seemed satisfied with their crops and slowly retreated carrying around 40 corpses on their backs.

Mason's eyes became firm as he commanded.

"We stopped as much as we could. I don't know why they stockpiled food but we can't let so many of them escape like this. Luke, you'll follow those who escaped and find out where their nest is. Good luck!"

He did not wait anymore and went after the beast, the others followed behind him.

The group focused the spiders busy with transportation as they were unable to counterattack and in their poor intelligence, they did not set up any defensive formations around them.

Noah uses his speed to appear in front of them and delivers a clean attack to their heads, which is his best method of saving "Breath" against their formidable outer skeletons and still finished them off in a single blow. Meanwhile, he used his mental energy to pay attention to the guards' fighting methods.

Mason will use his huge axe to deliver a devastating blow regardless of the corpse hitting the spider's back.

He swung his weapon with incredible dexterity and momentum creating an area of his personal destruction as he advanced amidst the retreating group of beasts.

Noah could not help but think that if he were hit by one of those swings, he would die on the spot.

Eddy and Rob had more trouble.

Their martial art was a Balvan style sword that was ranked 1st so its effect was limited to rank 2 beasts that specialized in defense.

After they realized that they were just wasting energy, they used their swords to slow down the spiders as much as they could wait for some of their friends to finish them off.

From time to time, a sharp sound would be heard between them and a spider would fall dead on the ground with an iron arrow hitting its head. Luke helps them from a distance as he follows a faster specimen back to their nest.

Balor is fine. His attacks were imprecise but had great momentum, with his body weight added to his hammer, any downward attack would kill or injure the spider.

The slaughter continued for 20 minutes with only a small part of the group of animals managing to escape.

More than 30 spider corpses littered the ground that stained the terrain with green blood. The corpses of the villagers were reduced to porridge or mutilated all-out from the battle.

"Haha! The body of the iron spider is really useful for the manufacture of magical weapons, when the inner circle comes to cleanse us will be greatly appreciated!"

Balor exclaimed happily, and Eddy and Rob followed while smiling brightly.

Only Mason and Noah frowned deeply.

'These savage beasts never react to our presence, they only care to retreat with the dead villagers, something is not right.'

He looked towards Mason and saw that he might be thinking the same thing.

He lifted his eyes from the ground and looked at Noah shaking his head, both he, with his experience, found the answer to the strange behavior of the spider.

"We'll know more once Luke returns, let's take a break in the village for now, maybe the villagers' story can enlighten us."

Noah nodded while the other 3 men looked puzzled by the captain's words but still chose to follow his orders.

Back in the village, Mason wonders but in the end, he finds nothing useful.

He revealed what he had learned to the other four while they were eating soup made from leftovers inside the village.

"The "attack began about a week ago. Initially, the spider will kill the cattle in the village and bring them back to its nest. When the cattle ended, they targeted humans with the same pattern: kill and bring back. The situation escalated.until today's invasion. According to the descriptions of the village elders, this was the highest number they attacked, so we can assume that they increased the number of their group."

Noah frowned.

'This is absurd, there is unselfishness in their actions, they don't even protect themselves!'

"We killed quite a number of them, I think we can assume that their number in the nest should not be more than 60."

Rob is trying to raise the morale of the group.

The door of the house they were in opened when Luke's figure appeared. He calmly sat across from Mason and took a drink from Eddy's soup.

"The nest entrance is a few hours' drive east. It is a naturally formed underground cavern. I followed the spider inside for a while but then chose to retreat for fear of being surrounded."

Mason nodded and asked.

"What do you think of the situation?"

Luke took another sip from Eddy's bowl.

"Surprisingly, I can clearly say that they are gathering food but there are many spider corpses inside the cave. It's like they're undergoing forced reproduction just to eat their offspring."

Rob felt disgusted at the thought of this and cursed loudly.

"The beast, though miraculous, is in the end still a beast."

Noah was even more confused now, their behavior was unreasonable. If they need food to breed, why do they eat their offspring? What's the point of dying, for a magical beast?

Mason reviews all the information he has and makes a plan of attack.

“We gathered some resources tonight and then set up camp in front of the nest entrance. Tomorrow morning, we will go inside to explore and clean the cave. If we cut off their food filling and reduce the amount bit by bit, we will be completely safe while still completing the mission. Get ready, we're leaving in an hour."

No one objected, so they got ready and by midnight they had set the fireplace 50 meters from the entrance of the nest.

They took turns to stay up at night.

When it was Noah's turn, he could not suppress the faint sense of danger the cave felt.

No matter how much she reviewed the information she had, she would always feel that she was missing something.

'Selfless magical beast, continuous accumulation of food, cannibalism. What the hell is going on?'

No one could relate all of this information that appeared in his mind.

He calmed himself down and sorted out his thoughts, he was ready for the upcoming battle in the morning.