Ronin also noticed that while they were busy exploring, more exploration teams had begun appearing in the underground city.
They moved busily between the buildings, avoiding the monsters inside while also investigating the interiors.
Some of them had already discovered that fire had a special effect against the monsters, causing flames to appear all throughout the city.
If one looked down from the top of the building Ronin and the others had entered through, those scattered flames were like streetlights being added to the pitch-black underground city.
But high above the city, in a place no one was paying attention to, the spiders clinging to the cave walls began stirring amid the smoke rising from those burning flames.
They seemed to sense unease. One by one, they awakened from their dormant state and began moving restlessly toward the entrance where Ronin and the others had first entered this space.
And at that moment, there was no longer anyone visible near the entrance.
Ronin's group had not been the last to enter this space, but after them, only a few other teams had come in.
After all, entering these ruins to explore them still required a certain level of qualification, and that alone blocked many civilian exploration teams.
But there were also some people who had previously gone down the other two passages and, after failing to obtain the results they wanted, decided to try their luck here.
However, they had only just entered the passage when they were met by giant spiders, each one as massive as a tank.
In that narrow corridor, even Nen users facing an endless tide of spiders could only be slowly crushed to death, let alone ordinary people.
For a time, screams filled the passage.
Outside the passage, in the direction leading back to the surface, the soldiers who had withdrawn heard the screams and began gathering their forces in full battle formation.
When the first giant spider rushed out of the ruins, the conflict between humans and underground monsters began once again.
But down in the city below, Ronin had no idea that such a change was happening outside.
After exploring several buildings in succession, Ronin and the others confirmed one thing: beneath every building that contained monsters, there was a withered ancient tree.
And it was precisely that tree that had given birth to such an enormous swarm of monsters.
Muherr no longer planned to keep exploring. He intended to take his people back and report the situation here to the Hunter Association.
After that, the Hunter Association would discuss with V5 what kind of personnel should be sent into the underground city for exploration and research.
The mercenary corps would most likely be hired again when that happened, but probably for protection work. And that was exactly what Muherr and his men were best at.
Ronin listened to Muherr's analysis and nodded in agreement.
But his instincts told him that this underground city was not as simple as it appeared on the surface.
Even so, he had no intention of diving deeper into it alone. What he cared about more were the clues related to the Kurta Clan in another passage.
According to Muherr, that passage had still not been explored to the end.
Once the Association sent people into this underground city, the passage on the left would likely be temporarily sealed off. That way, the royal army's soldiers could continue entering the passage on the right and carry out excavation work.
Excavating ruins like this involved a great many technical details. One mistake could easily lead to a collapse.
So professional matters were best left to professionals.
After confirming their next course of action, the team began heading back toward the high-rise building through which they had entered the city.
But before they got close, everyone sensed something strange.
There were far too many spider corpses around that building. All of them had fallen from above.
And on those spiders' bodies, all kinds of wounds could be seen—wounds left behind from fighting people.
Could it be that after they entered the lower city space, battles had continued breaking out in the upper levels of the high-rise?
The group didn't understand what had happened, but once they entered the building, they sped up their climb.
Inside the building, the corpses of the monsters they had smashed apart earlier were still there. However, as they climbed, they slowly noticed that those corpses now bore signs of having been eaten.
It had been done by the spiders that had fallen from above.
The ones that had not died had turned around during their climb and started feeding on the monster corpses.
It was as if those monsters' bodies were some kind of delicacy to them. Even when Ronin and the others approached the feeding spiders, they merely behaved like vicious dogs guarding their food, showing aggression and issuing warnings.
As long as Ronin's group kept moving forward and stepped into the area they considered threatening, their attacks would immediately follow.
But the group didn't care about the spiders' reactions at all, because before the spider could launch an attack, Golem's war hammer had already smashed into its head.
A shrill hiss came from the spider's flattened mouth, but it only lasted a few seconds before vanishing completely.
"The monsters inside the building seem to be pretty attractive to these spider monsters. But after we entered this space, we never saw a single spider actively enter the buildings to attack the monsters. Why?"
Ronin voiced the question in his mind.
No one could answer him.
The group continued upward through the building, but they did not encounter many spiders.
Instead, dense footsteps came from above, and the ground seemed to tremble along with them.
A bad feeling rose in everyone's heart, and their pace instinctively quickened.
When they reached the location where Ronin had used Earth Release to create a barrier slab, they could see through the cracks the bristly underside of a spider outside.
Golem moved first. With a war hammer in one hand and a flamethrower in the other, he raised one mechanical leg and kicked the slab open.
The spider above immediately noticed the movement below. It lifted one of its legs, ready to stab down at Golem like a blade.
But the flamethrower in Golem's hand was already aimed upward, spewing out blazing fire. At the same time, his war hammer braced against the spider's blade-like leg as it came down.
Yet the overwhelming effect fire had shown earlier had vanished. The flames only made the spider screech in pain; they did not ignite it the way they had the monsters below.
Seeing Golem and the spider locked in a stalemate, Ronin stepped forward behind him and formed hand seals with both hands. As he advanced, the chakra in his mouth had already transformed into wind nature and burst out.
Wind Release: Vacuum Wave.
Compressed Wind Release chakra transformed into a high-pressure wind blade.
The blade passed through the gap between Golem's arms and slammed into the spider.
In an instant, it sent the spider's scorched body flying, while the high-pressure wind blade cut into it and caused a large amount of fluid to spray from its airborne body.
Golem seized the chance and stepped forward.
His seemingly heavy mechanical body suddenly unleashed astonishing jumping power. The moment he burst out of the lower room, the war hammer in his hand was already raised high.
As it fell, it smashed directly into the giant spider's head.
But when Ronin and the others jumped out of the lower room after Golem, what they saw was a huge number of spiders on the upper platform, all suddenly turning their heads toward them.
~~~
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