by Weiqi Wang
‘We have to teleport!’ Cutting the spider off Kardiac, Jemario claimed frustratingly. ‘We can’t make it to the exit!’
‘Screw that! We just united!’ Kardiac spelled a firering to circle everyone. He was very reluctant to leave like this. ‘We are so close to making it!’
‘We know, but it is what it is!’ Omifo yelled. ‘Let’s teleport before it’s too late! Girls go first!’
‘No, you go first!’ Vivarin disagreed.
‘Listen to him! Girls before guys!’ Soarame yelled too. ‘Don’t waste time! Go NOW!’
‘Be careful!’ Seeing the spiders pouncing more and more ferociously, the girls had to obey. Vivarin, Alicey and Catheray teleported away, but surprisingly, Dileys and Jemario didn’t trigger their emblems — they faked it so that the most exhausted girls would go first.
‘What the heck?’ Omifo barked at them. ‘You think you are guys?’
‘We are less tired than you!’ Dileys stared at him. ‘What are you so proud about as a guy? Your peepee?’
‘Cha?’ Pipi was confused.
‘You guys should all leave!’ Soarame yelled to his friends, blowing off several spiders with his Wind spells. ‘I’ll buy you some time!’
‘We don’t have to leave! Let’s try to break out!’ Jemario urged. ‘The enhancement spells weren’t on us! We are fine!’
‘Same here.’ Ericson said. ‘Snower didn’t enhance me either.’
‘I can hold it too!’ Omifo clenched his fists. ‘Viv is safe, so I can push the limit now!’
‘I’m not… leaving without… you guys.’ Kriagon was breathing so badly.
‘Damn it, just leave!’ Kardiac was touched, but he had to persuade the boy to leave. ‘Don’t forget you are still on my back! Do me a favour!’
‘…’ Kriagon stared at Kardiac, then disappeared — he was too tired to even argue back.
‘Okay, now let’s push the limit!’ Kardiac barked. ‘Snower, enhance us if you still can!’
Unfortunately, Snower was also exhausted due to the enhancement spell; she could only enhance one more person — Soarame. With the most exhausted members already gone, the team just about survived the last two minutes, and made it out of the cavern this time. It had been a ferocious battle, and Snower’s use of the enhancement spell on Soarame had proved to be a wise choice. But unfortunately, Soarame was tired out too after the enhancement spell timed out; he slipped when backing up out of the tunnel— partially because it was raining heavily outside of the cavern and the tunnel was slippery.
‘Soar!’ The friends panicked to see Soarame fall over and start to slide back down. They tried to dive back in, but Ericson stopped them. ‘Don’t block the exit, let him fly out!’
‘SHIT!’ Soarame screamed as he slid back down to the cavern. He exhausted himself by spelling another wave of windblades, cutting off the closest spiders, but got covered in a number of fresh webs. At the same time, more spiders were pouncing on Soarame, with their bristle-like mouthparts wide open!
TAKE THEM ALL
‘AWWW!!!’
A loud and oddly-toned roar of panic echoed in the cavern.
The spiders were already on Soarame, but they were transfixed by the boy’s sudden roar. They stopped attacking and started shaking left and right, as if they had lost their balance. Before Soarame realized what was happening, the closest spider fell to the ground beside his face, with the creepy-shaped mouthparts still open at him.
‘HOLY SHIT!’ Soarame developed gooseflesh all over his body. On his necklace, Scankeen’s token was shining green again — just as it had years ago when he’d been fighting Max. It helped him quickly regain part of his power, so that he could do something to stop the spiders — although he had no idea how he did it. However, after that Soarame was exhausted again; and there were so many spiders that weren’t falling down —
‘GO!’ A figure knocked into the next wave of spiders. ‘Don’t waste my efforts!’
‘ERIC!’ Soarame was terribly anxious, but he didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. Seeing Ericson trigger his emblem after being enveloped by the spiders, Soarame hurriedly climbed out of the cavern. His friends rushed to help him up, and Omifo used all his remaining power to spell a cluster of stone thorns, blocking the exit of the cavern.
‘Crash crash crash!’ Just as he’d done this, a series of knocking noises sounded from the other side of the stone thorns — the spiders had woken up from the stun and were trying to continue their pursuit.
‘They can’t break out, can they?’ Soaked in the rain, everyone was too tired to run. They lay down in the mud to catch their breath. ‘If they do, we’ll have to teleport.’
‘Or maybe eat them — I’m sure Kardy always wanted to.’ Omifo squeezed his lungs to make the joke, spitting out the rainwater. The thought made Kardiac feel sick; he climbed up from the mud, kicked Omifo’s bottom and set a big fire around the stone thorns.
The Fire spell worked. The spiders were forced back and soon decided to retreat completely.
The remaining friends sighed with relief. Five of them were lying in the mud, too tired to get up. They were frustrated to see that, after all their attempts, the team had gone back to its original size of five. Looking up at the sky, Soarame was recalling what had happened a few minutes ago — all the spiders seemed to be knocked sideways by his panic roar; how could that happen?
Soarame was too tired to recall the details. The battle had totally drained him — both his physical power and mind power. But he did have a vague impression that, in his Magneer vision, the Wind Elements had shaken rapidly all of a sudden — as he roared. If that was really the case, it must have been the spell that he’d always wanted to learn but had never succeeded before — piercing wave!
I spelled piercing wave?! Soarame was madly overjoyed. Unfortunately, he had no idea how he had done it, or how to do it again.
Meanwhile, Snower was holding Pipi and licking his head, as she always liked to do. She finally understood why she couldn’t detect the spiders as efficiently as the other magimals — when they were waiting for prey, they seemed to be hibernating somehow, minimizing their vital signs. Not until they started to move would they appear “alive”.
‘And they change colours too!’ Omifo complained. ‘Come on! What do they think they are? Anoles?’
‘Arachnoles!’ Dileys was suddenly reminded of this breed of spider-like magimals. ‘It can’t be wrong; they must be arachnoles — a mix between spiders and anoles!’
‘If that’s true, we were really lucky.’ Jemario suddenly had a wave of lingering fear. ‘Adult arachnoles can rank from as low as Grade 1 to as high as Grade 6! Those ones must be the weakest ones.’
‘I wish Rodka were as lucky.’ Watching the sunset while lying on the ground, Dileys muttered. ‘If he…’
‘Chacha… chachacha…’
Right then, a series of jabbering sounded from a distance. The friends were puzzled for a second — it seemed that another gang of monkeys were coming to them. Actually, it turned out to be the same monkey gang as the last time!
‘What. The. Freak…’ They struggled to climb up, indignant and disturbed. ‘What now?’
****
In a deep forest somewhere in the valley, the monkeys were surrounding the friends again. But this time, they were watching them in a friendly way — actually, they were only watching the little loris-like monkey on the shoulder of one of the boys, ignoring the friends themselves.
‘Pipi, the crown prince?’ The friends stared at Pipi on Omifo’s shoulder, all stunned. ‘They want him to stay and lead the gang?’
‘What about their new leader?’
‘It’s their new leader who asked Pipi to become the next new leader.’
‘Didn’t he fight the ape to get the leadership? What’s going on?’
‘Who knows?’
The friends whispered. On the other hand, Pipi was enjoying the proudest moment in his life so far. His little tail was standing up high, s
haking left and right.
{Dude, that makes you look like a dog.} Omifo teased. {You won’t really stay here, will you?}
{No, but I’m staying a while before we leave.} Pipi made a grimace. {And I want a bucket of peaches when we are back home!}
{Err… fine.} Omifo cracked a bitter smile. {But don’t play with their feelings. We don’t need any more trouble.}
{Fine.} Pipi jumped off from Omifo’s shoulder and walked towards the new leader of the monkeys. Strangely, the leader looked like a mix between an ape and a monkey, and the friends didn’t recall they saw him last time. Pipi talked to the leader for a bit, and the leader looked more and more frustrated. Suddenly, he bent his knees in supplication!
This startled everyone, but the friends had no idea what to do. Pipi kept talking with the leader, and finally reached an agreement with him. {Chacha, he needs my blood, and I’ve promised to help him.}
It took a while for the friends to understand what was going on — for some reason, the monkeys had a born-gift for evolution. The higher ranking the leader was, the more powerful they would all become during the evolution process; and the leader could evolve further by taking the blood of a higher-ranking monkey-alike. Nobody understood why or how, but it had always been that way.
After the old leader — the ape — was overthrown, his blood was taken by the new leader, and that’s why he looked like a mix at the moment. However, he was not as powerful as the original ape. For the survival of his entire clan, the new leader had to either find a higher-ranking monkey-alike magimal, or power up himself by taking its blood — in this case, Pipi’s level-8 blood was greater than they could dream for.
For the best interests of the entire clan, it would be perfect if Pipi would agree to be their new leader. In fact, the ape had perhaps been trying to do the same thing, but no one knew if he — as a careerist — would have given his leadership to Pipi, or taken all of Pipi’s blood instead. This new leader, in contrast, was wholeheartedly willing to give up his leadership; but, unfortunately, Pipi wouldn’t stay. Then the second best choice was to beg for blood, and they believed that the volunteered blood would contain blessing from the volunteer and function better than any they might steal.
The friends were touched. Omifo carefully cut Pipi’s arm to offer a small bow of blood, and cured the wound with his Light spells. They saw obvious gratitude from the entire monkey gang, and the leader bowed to them. ‘Chacha!’
‘He asked Pipi if we need any help from them, as a return favour.’ Omifo updated the friends. ‘And Pipi told him that… emm… he wanted some peaches.’
‘Did he really?!’ Kardiac was tearing his own hair. ‘Why not jankide ores?! We want the ores!’
Unfortunately, the monkeys didn’t possess any jankide ore, but they would like to help the friends seek for the ores. So the next morning, the friends marched out of the forest to a giant cave somewhere, following Soarame’s lead. Soarame’s team found the cave the last day, while the other team was in the cavern; but they didn’t have a chance to explore it before they were summoned by Snower. Different from the cavern, this time the cave was all above the ground.
‘This is strange.’ After asking the monkeys to seek outside for jankide ores, the friends cautiously stepped into the cave. There was nothing in the cave, except for some twigs and flakelets of some kind spread on the ground. ‘Such a big cave, but empty.’
‘Something must have happened here before.’ Jemario crouched to check the twigs and flakelets carefully. ‘What are these?’
Everyone gathered for a look, but no one had an answer.
‘Meow! Meow!’ Snower suddenly mind-talked to Soarame. {Here’s a pit!}
The friends walked to a corner of the cave and saw Snower. Omifo spelled Light to look into the dark pit from a narrow entrance, and he seemed to see something down there reflecting the light. ‘What’s that?’
‘Let me try.’ Soarame walked over and summoned a few shining plates in his hands — the mirrorface spell. He delicately threw the iceplates into the pit, positioning them at different angles. ‘Shine the first one, Omi.’
‘Hold on.’ Jemario pat Soarame’s shoulder from behind. ‘What did you just do? Mirrorface?!’
‘Aha...’ Soarame scratched the back of his head; he’d forgotten that he had never told anyone about that. In the meantime, Omifo cast a ray of light on to the first mirror; the ray was reflected to the other mirrors one after another, lighting the pit up as a result.
Meanwhile, Jemario was still watching Soarame in a strange way. Soarame was trying to explain, but got cut off by a sudden exclamation —
‘JANKIDE ORES!’
A number of uniquely coloured dark stones were inlaid in the walls of the pit, shining their special aura. Due to their angle of sight, their vision was limited, so the friends couldn’t see the entire pit, but they could clearly see some jankide ores.
‘Holy heaven!’ The friends looked at each other, voices shaking. ‘It’s real!’
‘Let’s get them!’ Kardiac barked, his face reddened with excitement. But there was a problem: the entrance was too small for them to pass through. Soarame tried to broaden it with his windblades, but for some reason the rocks there were much harder than ordinary ones; even Soarame’s windblades only left shallow marks on them.
‘Jankide is the hardest ore in the world, and the rocks around the ores are also harder than ordinary ones.’ Dileys looked frustrated. ‘If Soar can’t cut it, none of us can.’
‘No! Don’t give me that!’ Kardiac was yelling. ‘We are three yards away, but you are telling us we can only stare at it?’
‘Chacha! Chacha!’ Pipi jumped around, raising his hands above his head.
‘No, you can’t go in there. Neither can Snower.’ Omifo instantly denied his volunteering. ‘It’s a weird place, and it’s too dangerous. It has to be one of us.’
‘Let me see if I can get in.’ Jemario suggested. ‘I’ll spell ice on the surface first, and hopefully I can slip in.’
‘No, you won’t fit.’ Soarame tried to stop her. ‘It’s too narrow.’
‘Are you saying I’m fat?’ Jemario stared at him. ‘Just watch.’
‘Be extremely careful, then.’ The friends didn’t have a choice, so they watched Jemario try. Surprisingly, her body was more elastic than they had expected, so that she did slip in with the help of the ice surface. Jemario had thought that she had prepared herself mentally for anything she might see, but the next second, she still muffled a scream.
‘What’s wrong?’ Everyone was nervous to see a transfixed Jemario looking somewhere they couldn’t see from the entrance —
The pit was much bigger than the friends thought. It wasn’t just a pit, but instead a large space that extended far and deep down there somewhere. The friends could only see the jankide wall as a small part of the pit from where they were, so that they had no idea what was taking up the majority of the space —
Spider webs.
Countless spider webs!
Countless spider webs, crisscrossed everywhere, surrounding a large number of spheroids of different sizes. Jemario could vaguely see through some of the closest spheroids, and noticed that something was moving and wriggling inside each of them, making very slight but skull-itching noises.
‘It’s a spider nest!!!’ Jemario’s previous scream had woken up a number of giant spiders from deeper in the space. They were diving towards her right then, spraying webs at her along the way. Just as Jemario was screaming and dashing towards the entrance of the pit, one of the webs caught her legs.
‘TELEPORT! GO!’ The friends heard the noises of the giant spiders moving in the pit, but they couldn’t do anything from out there.
‘RUN! They are coming!’ Jemario screamed while triggering her emblem. The next second, she disappeared.
‘Crack!’ Almost at the same time, a huge sickle-like spider leg thrust into the ground where Jemario had been. The friends shivered — they couldn’t imagine what would h
ave happened to the girl if she hadn’t make it in time.
‘GO TO HELL!’ Soarame was outraged to see Jemario almost killed. He furiously spelled a blast of windblades through the entrance of the pit, but the giant spider’s exoskeleton was surprisingly tough, and the attack had no effect. Seeing the giant spider stretch its long sharp leg out of the pit in a blind attack, the friends hurried away from it. Fortunately, the giant spiders couldn’t get out of the pit, so they didn’t have to run, but instead took their time to plan their next step.
‘The jankide ores are in there, and we only have one more day! We must get some!’
‘No way! You saw the spiders! They are much bigger than those in the cavern!’
‘But they can’t get out, that’s why we still have a chance!’
‘But we can’t get in either! Even if we could, how would we get the ores out of the wall?’
The friends’ voices echoed in the cave as they argued, but they couldn’t reach an agreement, even after quite a while. Frustrated, they had to take a break, not sure what to do with the ores.
‘Listen! What’s that?’ Once they had stopped talking, they heard some vague noises from somewhere. This reminded the friends of the day before; they suddenly looked up, and saw countless small spiders on the ceiling of the cave!
‘They sent the small ones out of the pit? For an ambush?!’ The friends were frightened and instantly moved to escape. ‘No way! They are not supposed to have such high intelligence!’
‘Crack, crack, crack!’ A big group of spiders landed from the ceiling and blocked the exit before the friends reached it. The friends had to strengthen their resolve and charge together, in an attempt to break through. Fortunately, with the help of ice spells, the small spiders were not able to stop them. But once they broken out of the cave, they were taken aback —
With rustling noises, countless figures were approaching the cave from the forest. The team could vaguely see their shapes and their rapidly-swaying multiped feet — they were also spiders!