Chapter 48

Ten hunters carefully approached the cave, and five of those hunters led the way, but instead of the spears that most hunters usually carry, they were all hefting big wooden clubs at the ready.

After their first encounter with the centipede swarm, they learned that piercing attacks from their spears were more likely to slide off their rounded carapace, and so they deferred to the wisdom of a wise honored ancestor who once said "You have stick! Stick very good!"

So if you can't pierce it, you can still smash it, as was proven when the hunters dropped their spears and used their single-handed axes and hammers against the centipedes' heads to great effect.

Just behind those five club-wielding hunters was Grud along with four other hunters hauling firewood, fresh and dried Sky Mind leaves, and a lit torch.

When they made it to the cave entrance, Grud, and the four hunters without clubs stayed by the entrance of the cave while the five club wielders went into the cave. After about a minute, one of the hunters that went into the cave came out and hand waved Grud's group to follow him.

As they approached the bend in the cave, Grud signaled the other four in his group and pointed at the ground. Grud's group immediately got to stacking wood for a fire and soon after the man holding the torch lit the pile of wood on fire.

After Grud was confident the fire would not be snuffed out by a slight breeze, he signaled to the hunters, and all the hunters except Grud started making their way to exit the cave. When the last hunter passed him by, Grud dumped a makeshift basket filled with Sky Mind leaves along with the handfuls he had on hand on top of the growing fire.

After dumping the Sky Mind leaves, Grud held his breath even tho he knew he did not need to and walked as quickly as he could exit the cave. When all ten of them got out of the cave, they joined the rest of the hunters hiding in the treeline some distance away, Grud's group was handed heavy clubs and crouched behind some bushes to wait.

'I sure hope this works, it would be embarrassing for me if this does not work. The worst case is that the centipedes breathe in a lot of smoke, which can't be good for anyone.' After a couple of minutes of waiting and watching smoke billow out the cave entrance, there was a chittering screech that echoed out the cave entrance. This was followed by many other chittering screeches, and finally, instead of a chittering screech, there was a chittering roar which made all the hunters that heard it feel the bass rapidly thump in their chest.

"Well, that's not good…" a nearby hunter muttered, to which Grud and the other hunters who heard him could only nod in agreement. 'Whatever made that sound sounds many times bigger than these already huge centipedes.'

Soon, Grud's enhanced hearing could pick up the sound of centipede legs coming closer towards the cave entrance, but instead of the constant *tac-tac-tac* sounds of their legs hitting the ground, now it sounded irregular and…. The sound of… feet dragging?

When the first centipede came out into the sunlight, despite the seriousness of the situation, Grud almost burst out laughing at the absurd sight. The centipede's front body was moving diagonally forward while the rear end was having trouble deciding where it wanted to go as it kept changing direction every few seconds, and while the centipede was moving around, a fifth of its legs just dragged along the ground.

Just a few seconds later more centipedes came staggering out of the cave, some of them curling up when they came into the sunlight, and to Grud's delight, all of them were moving sluggish and seemed to be visibly drooling from what Grud could only assume to be their mouth.

When the centipedes drifted far enough away from the cave entrance to not be affected by the burning Sky Mind leaves, Chieften Dhun gave the signal and charged with a warcry, and as one, all the hunters hiding in the treeline charged with their heavy clubs raised.

'Finally!' Grud thought to himself as he lifted his heavy club which to him was as easy as lifting a short stick. Grud dashed from his position at full speed and swung his club down on a centipede which saw him coming but could not react in time.

Grud's club met the head of the centipede and all that was left of that head was viscera and shattered chitin, to Grud, these centipedes were moving as slowly as leaking tree sap, and a few seconds after his first clash, it would seem like his fellow hunters agreed.

When facing centipedes that could not even coordinate moving their own body, picking them off was easy for anyone strong enough to swing a club, and soon there was a line of hunters smashing in centipede heads as they rushed headlong to their doom.

The hunters were doing so well that Grud estimated they were killing faster than the number of centipedes staggering out of the cave. That was until two huge antennae exited the smoke, and soon a huge centipede head with drool flowing out its mouth followed.

By the time that centipede exited the cave, Grud estimated it to be around eight meters long, and after observing its movement, it did not seem to be too affected by the smoke, 'It's drooling like the rest and it seems just as sluggish as the other centipedes, but it seems it still has full control of his body.'

Just as Grud finished his assessment of this new gigantic centipede, he heard Dhin call out, "Virk, Fresh, Grud, with me! The rest of you clear a path to the big one that just came out and secures our exit!"

Grud smashed one last centipede and fell in next to Dhun along with two of the biggest hunters Dhun brought along with him, and they started pushing their way towards the eight meters long centipede along with the hunters at thor portion of the line.

The gigantic centipede, as sluggish as it was, noticed the approach of Grud's group and decided to meet them halfway. As it charged forward, its sharp legs uncaringly trampled and pierced some of the smaller kin with the full force of its weight and bulk.

As they neared each other, the hunters who were not with Dhun were ordered to back away and soon they clashed. Not wanting to take the gigantic centipede head on and risk being overpowered, the four hunters split off to its sides as the gigantic centipede lunged forward to try to bite one of them.

The moment the dodge happened, Grud noticed he was the only one who dodged to the left while the three others went right, but he did not waste any time and took a quick swing down on the gigantic centipede's body.

This time, instead of shattered chitin, Grud felt his club bounce off the carapace, but even when it looked like there was no damage, the gigantic centipede sure felt the impact and turned its attention to Grud even as it was getting whacked by the other three hunters.

As the gigantic centipede turned and lunged at Grud, it shifted its body in a way that made one of the hunters on its other side miss a blow to the gigantic centipede's body, and hit one of its legs with a sickening crunch.

The gigantic centipede rounded on the offending hunter that crushed one of its legs but by the time its sluggish bulk turned towards the three hunters, they had backed away to a respectable distance. This gave Grud a chance to attack and he followed his fellow hunter's actions and took a wide two handed swing of his club toward's the gigantic centipede's legs.

A quick series of crunches from three broken legs made the gigantic centipede screech out in pain and anger as it tried to turn and bite the retreating Grud.

Seeing that the only way to seriously hurt the gigantic centipede was to aim at its legs and figure the rest out later, Grud shouted to the rest to aim for all the legs to disable it. Soon the four of them were spread out around the gigantic centipede doing hit-and-run attacks on any leg that looked vulnerable.

After a few minutes of pulverizing the gigantic centipede's legs and dodging its attacks, the only legs it had left was the three segments closest to its head, while the rest of its body was uselessly squirming around.

Seeing how disabled it was, Grud got an idea, 'Whether this idea is foolish or smart… I guess I will only find out later.' Grud then shouted to Dhun while he tried his best to circle behind the gigantic centipede, "Dhun! Distract it from the front, I am going to try something!"

Not knowing what he was thinking but knowing that Grud would most likely survive, Dhun called over the two other hunters to the front of the gigantic centipede and started taking swings at it while trying to keep themselves from getting bitten.

When Grud was confident that the gigantic centipede was sufficiently distracted, he jumped on top of the gigantic centipede's back and scampered up to where he had a good distance to whack its head and clamped his legs around its body.

The gigantic centipede tried to shake Grud off, but without its other legs, it did not have the leverage to do so. After Grud felt he was secure, he started taking full powered swings to the gigantic centipede's head.

On the first blow, the whole gigantic centipede's body bucked, but Grud held on. The second blow, it started thrashing around and Grud had to hug the gigantic centipede to prevent being thrown off and ended up getting dragged on the ground.

The third blow, when there was a lull in the trashing, Grud straightened up and struck again, this blow made all the legs on the right side of the gigantic centipede give in and it flopped on its side. The fourth blow was met with an audible crack, and when you looked at the gigantic centipede's head, there indeed was a crack in the carapace which started leaking out blueish blood.

Even after the gigantic centipede stilled after the blow that drew blood from its head, Grud thought to himself, 'Knowing the toughness of these centipedes, better be safe than sorry.' Then proceeded to rain down blows until there was no head left.

When Grud looked around, the other hunters had already cleared up the smaller centipedes and were watching Grud turn the gigantic centipede's head into mush.

Just as Grud got off the gigantic centipede's back and was thinking about cleaning himself off from all the centipede bits and goo that had splattered on him, the chittering roar sounded from the cave again, this time louder and more vicious.

Grud looked at the gigantic centipede he just killed and back at the cave then looked at Dhun while pointing at the gigantic centipede, "Was this not the thing that made that roar just now?"

Dhun shrugged his shoulders, "Guess there is a bigger one inside."