Prisoners of VR

Not only were the pebbles fist-sized, but they were also smooth and easy to hurl. They made great weapons.

"Every creature is born with an innate ability through evolution. A Spider weaves webs, a tiger uses its claws, a rhino depends on its armoured skin, and a bird relies on its wings to fly." Enrigen lifted a pebble and assumed a throwing stance. "And humanity\'s evolution happened in our hands, at two places. Fingers to dexterously grab onto an object at varying grips, and finally..."

He grunted and threw the pebble with all his might, "A ball-and-socket joint that allows our arms to crank up in any angle as we see fit."

The pebble flashed through the cave and slammed into the head of a Giant Tarantula that peeked from a corner, intending to spy on them. The pebble smashed its head in, causing its blood to squirt out.

"Humanity\'s evolutionary advantage is in our ability to launch projectiles." Enrigen concluded as he cooled down his arm muscles, "We developed our intelligence over time to adapt to the prey we slaughtered that were beyond our biological means."

Every creature part of the food chain had its rigid place as predator, prey, and scavenger. Humans were an exception, fluidly capable of moving across all levels of the food chain without any problem, all thanks to their throwing ability.

With it, they could take down even the mightiest of creatures on land, without sustaining injuries. All creatures relied on close combat to kill their enemy. But humans killed them from afar.

"And that\'s our difference." At Enrigen\'s words, the twenty people behind him took a throwing stance and hurled pebbles, causing a rain of Giant Tarantulas\' blood to splash onto the cave walls.

They didn\'t expend any Brainpower to do this. As long as they rested between each throw, they could hurl at least twenty to thirty projectiles without overstraining their muscles. And this was for normal people.

The ones accompanying Enrigen were Spades, selected to be part of the Byte Cult\'s combat branch because of their fighting prowess. Therefore, they could hurl pebbles at full strength more than fifty times.

And after enough rest, they could resume the process once again.

The pebbles flew with enough force to shred apart most spider webs covering the caves, killing any Giant Tarantulas living there.

After the Giant Tarantulas were killed, one of the captains approached a spider web and scraped its ends with a sharp stone. Once he scraped the part of the web attached to the wall, it contracted. He calmly proceeded to scrap all the ends, leaving a pebble in its centre.

As the ends were scraped off, the web contracted towards the centre due to the weight of the pebble. The tensile stress it created caused the web to contract and shrink around it, forming a thick layer of silk over the pebble.

In such a manner, they collected balls of spider silk and stored them in large bags. The filled bags were transported out of the Dungeon through the supply line. A small village was already being built there with the primitive tools they had created.

Spider silk was being used as an adhesive to put together large structures.

"Sir Enrigen," A captain approached Enrigen and saluted, "Two more Spade teams have just arrived at the Dungeon\'s entrance. Shall I ask them to begin collecting Silk Bombs?"

"No, that won\'t be necessary for now." Enrigen shook his head, "Equip them with some Skills and put them to use in the village\'s construction. We need to create a village space and kill the Dungeon Boss ten times. Only then will we be able to make this territory ours and arrive here whenever we log in."

"Understood," The captain walked away to relay the orders.

"It seems the recruitment is proceeding well," Enrigen muttered. He continued with their raid and manually gathered as much spider silk as they chanced upon, rendering the Giant Tarantulas helpless.

The only way to regain their advantage was by recreating as many webs as possible. But with the raid team collecting all the silk they weaved, despite their superior numbers, the Giant Tarantulas were overwhelmed.

Only when the elites and the Dungeon Boss target the group personally were they able to kill any of the Arachmen. And such sneak attacks at most yielded five people.

But in contrast, a pebble throw and a Giant Tarantula ended up dead. It would take twenty-four hours for its revival. As a result, the number of spiders was dropping fast in the Dungeon.

Enrigen intended to wipe out all the Giant Tarantulas within a day. Thereby, once they set up bases within the Dungeon, even when these spiders revive, they could be dealt with immediately.

They\'ll camp at the spawn locations and systematically get rid of them for their resources.

Enrigen\'s group primarily focused on killing the Giant Tarantulas. Multiple other teams too were active in the Dungeon, using the same pebble strategy to collect the spider silk.

Fourteen hours later, Enrigen woke up after a twenty-minute power nap, "Is there any change?"

"Nope, only the elites and the Dungeon Boss are left. They are hiding in the cylindrical stronghold." Robot, the oldest member of their Attack Squad calmly mentioned. "We\'ve cornered them completely."

The group had reached the deepest part of the Giant Tarantula Dungeon. All paths leading to this location had been wiped clean of all spider silk.

"Should we attack?" Yara, one of the females of the Attack Squad asked, "I\'m itching for a good fight. We have been unable to go all out until now."

"You mad or what?" Enrigen bonked her head lightly and pointed up at the cylindrical cave, "They\'ve been preparing for this all along. Look at the silk cluster surrounding them. That\'s all ammo to launch their Skills."

"Then, what should we do?" Yara frowned, "We cannot waste time here, right? There are only ten hours left of our objective."

"No, we have enough time," Enrigen smirked as he motioned for ten people to stand guard at the cylindrical cave\'s entrance.

He then brought the Attack Squad deeper into one of the cave paths they had just cleared, "It\'ll take twenty-four hours for a creature in a Dungeon to revive. Since this area has just been cleared, we have enough time."

He commanded the Attack Squad, "We\'re sleeping here. Leave the guard duty to the rest."

The captains hurriedly laid down soft quilts of silk for the Attack Squad members to sleep in comfort. Yara was stunned by the order, "Why now?"

"Patience is a virtue," Enrigen grabbed his spot among the six quilts, closed his eyes and fell asleep instantly.

"What..." Yara couldn\'t make sense. She turned around to face the other Attack Squad members, noticing their confusion too. "Does this make sense?"

"It doesn\'t," Dora, the youngest sighed and curled up within her quilt, "But our Squad Leader has been appointed personally by the Ace of Spade. There must be a concrete reason for that."

The fact that he was appointed by the Ace convinced everyone to shut up and follow suit. After all, in the Byte Cult, Manav Sastry was the Cyber God. Following him, the Aces of the four branches were hailed as Demi-Gods.

They too garnered respect and devotion from the members.

Six hours of refreshing sleep later, Enrigen woke up and approached the group standing guard, "Anything unusual on their side?"

"They have grown restless," One of the captains responded, "We have identified their source of nutrition. This boss room only serves as a stronghold in terms of defence. Since we are blocking all pathways leading to it, the spiders trapped within cannot hunt for food."

The insects and lizards that formed the food chain in the Dungeon had been blocked entry to this area by the Arachmen. As a result, the Giant Tarantulas were starving, especially since the bodies of the elites and the Dungeon Boss were massive.

They needed a lot of food to upkeep their bodily functions.

"Have they consumed the corpses of our men?" Enrigen asked.

"Only two more are left." The captain pointed at two silk spheres barely visible from their spot on the ground, "We tallied 62 Giant Tarantula Elites and one Dungeon Boss. Any stragglers among the regular Giant Tarantulas have either been dealt with by us or consumed by the elites as food."

"If they resorted to consuming their own, it means they\'re on their last leg." Enrigen calmly nodded and then asked, "Alright, what about the slingshots I asked for?"

"Here!" A group of Arachmen shouted as they carried a large, \'Y\' shaped wooden structure. A total of eight were brought in, each spanning a height of three metres.

"Plant one here," Enrigen laid out the locations for each of the eight slingshots. While the Arachmen carefully lodged the slingshots in the ground at the respective areas, Enrigen woke up the Attack Squad, "Get ready."

"We\'ll taunt the spiders now."