SKREEEEEEE—BOOM!
The bowl-shaped floor of Red-Rock Salt Valley shook as if a dozen mines had blown up underground at the same time.
Clouds of red salt-dust blasted thirty feet into the air as twelve colossal Rank 2 Armored Scorpion Kings burst out of the six dark salt caverns along the cliff base.
Every single one of them was a nightmare made of black-red iron chitin. Their flat, segmented bodies stretched twelve feet long and eight feet wide, standing taller than a heavy warhorse on eight thick, jointed legs tipped with curved stone-digging claws. Out in front of their shining black cluster-eyes, each Scorpion King waved two massive, saw-toothed pincers the size of blacksmith anvils, while overhead arched an eight-foot segmented tail ending in a curved, purple-black poison stinger as thick as a man’s thigh!
Right behind the twelve giant kings, a rustling tide of two or three hundred smaller scorpions—each the size of a fat housecat—poured out of the rock cracks like a living red carpet.
“Mother of mercy!” Scarface Wolf’s voice cracked an octave higher as the biggest Scorpion King in the center—a fourteen-foot alpha beast with a jagged white scar across its left claw—snapped its right pincer shut on a three-hundred-pound boulder of red rock salt.
CRACK-POW!
The solid rock-salt boulder exploded into a shower of pink gravel as if it were made of dry tofu!
Even the twenty pack-camels at the back of the column would have bolted in terror if Old Yellow hadn’t let out a loud, bossy SNORT and stomped his golden hoof to keep them in line.
“Form defensive circles! Shields and heavy sabers up!” Captain Hu roared by instinct, raising his steel broadsword as his Rank 2 Peak iron bones hummed with hot blood-qi. “Watch out for their tail stingers! One drop of that Rank 2 Earth-Rot Venom will turn a man’s leg black in ten breaths!”
“Wait! Put that sharp sword away!”
Pei Xuan’s voice rang out clearer and louder than the screeching of the twelve giant monsters. Standing atop the big salt boulder near the canyon mouth, Pei Xuan pointed an accusing finger at Captain Hu’s raised blade while scanning the charging alpha scorpion with his RTS Tooltip:
“Nobody is allowed to use sharp blades on the big twelve!” Pei Xuan shouted across the valley. “Flip your sabers around and use the flat sides, or use the iron chains! Those twelve scorpions are official public transport vehicles of Dry-Well Village! Anyone who chops off a leg or cracks a headlight shell will have five hundred work-points deducted and scrub toilets next to Boss Qian for a month!”
“What?!” Scarface Wolf nearly tripped over his own boots as a twelve-foot Scorpion King barreled toward him at forty miles an hour, its anvil-sized pincers snapping the air two feet from his nose. “My Lord! It’s trying to snip me in half at the waist, and you’re worried about its paint job?!”
“Your waist has the Iron-Anvil Body Art and can heal in two days with Sweet-Spring Water! A broken scorpion leg takes six months to molt back!” Pei Xuan shot back without missing a beat. “Old Wei, Team One! Batu, Team Two! Captain Hu, Team Three! Scarface, Team Four! Throw the heavy iron chains over their pincers and hold their tails down for three seconds! Leave their foreheads to me!”
“Yes, Young Master!”
Old Wei didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a heartbeat. The scarred, one-armed veteran stepped straight in front of the charging fourteen-foot Alpha Scorpion King, planted his boots knee-deep into the red salt gravel, and swung his [Rank 2 Blood-Iron Mechanical Arm] forward like a grappling hook!
CLANG!
Sparks sprayed three feet high as Old Wei’s five black-iron mechanical fingers clamped straight onto the lower jaw of the Alpha Scorpion King’s massive left pincer! The sheer force of the twelve-thousand-pound beast pushed Old Wei backward five feet through the gravel, carving two deep trenches behind his heels, before Old Wei let out a thunderous roar and locked his Rank 2 iron bones in place, stopping the giant monster dead in its tracks!
“Chain its right claw and tail! Now!” Old Wei bellowed, the veins on his neck bulging like tree roots.
“Ha! Watch the men of Dry-Well Village work!”
Batu leaped off his Silver-Back Wolf King with a twenty-foot coil of thumb-thick black iron chain spinning in his hands like a lasso. Moving in perfect sync, thirty bronze-skinned villagers who had practiced the Iron-Anvil Body Art together every day threw four heavy iron chains across the Alpha Scorpion King’s snapping right pincer and arched tail!
Rattle-CLANG!
“Pull! One, two, HEAVE!”
Thirty Rank 1 fighters and Batu dug their heels into the salt crust, leaning back at a forty-five-degree angle like tug-of-war champions. Every muscle in their arms and backs swelled as their bronze skin gleamed under the sun. Even though several of them still had minor salt-cramps from yesterday, nobody let go of the chains by a single inch!
SKREEEEEE!
Furious at being pinned down by tiny two-legged creatures, the fourteen-foot Alpha Scorpion King thrashed its eight legs wildly, kicking up a storm of red sand as its purple-black stinger strained against the iron chains just four feet above its own head.
“Hold it steady for two seconds!”
A dark figure blurred across the sand.
Pei Xuan didn’t even need a running start. Pushing the Rank 2 Early Martial (Iron-Bone Stage) power inside his meridians to the limit, his leg bones snapped with a crisp pop of explosive force. He vaulted fifteen feet straight into the air, stepped lightly off the flat of Old Wei’s heavy saber, and landed squarely in the center of the Alpha Scorpion King’s broad, twelve-foot-long armored back!
“Young Master, watch its stinger!” Hong Ling cried out from the boulder behind them, clutching her two kitchen cleavers and her stack of toll books.
Feeling a human stand on its sacred dorsal shell, the Alpha Scorpion King went completely berserk. It bucked its heavy rear end into the air like a wild bull and whipped its chained tail forward with enough force to drag six strong men off their feet! The venomous purple tip of the stinger whistled straight toward Pei Xuan’s chest!
Pei Xuan didn’t dodge backward. Instead, he sank into a low Iron-Anvil horse stance right on the slick black-red shell, grabbed the base of the scorpion’s tail joint with his left hand, and whipped out a glowing white stick of [Rank 2 Royal Bug-Boss Chalk] with his right hand!
Leaning forward over the monster’s eight shining black eyes, Pei Xuan pressed the chalk stick hard against the thick triangular armor plate between its eyes and drew a big, bold circle with the number `1` inside it!
ZING—HUMMMMM!
The moment the chalk circle closed, a flash of ancient golden light sank straight through the scorpion’s three-inch-thick carapace and into its primitive brain.
An invisible, terrifying wave of scent and bloodline pressure—like an Ancient Scorpion Emperor ten thousand feet tall waking up from the dawn of time—erupted from the chalk mark on its forehead!
Silence dropped over the center of the battlefield like a heavy iron curtain.
The fourteen-foot Alpha Scorpion King froze mid-buck. Its vicious, anvil-sized right pincer stopped snapping half an inch from Batu’s nose. Its deadly purple stinger, which had been straining to pierce Pei Xuan’s chest, trembled violently—and then folded down onto its back as meekly as a tucked puppy tail.
Right before the stunned eyes of two hundred fighters, the terrifying Rank 2 monster slowly lowered its eight jointed legs until its huge armored belly rested flat on the salt gravel.
Then, letting out a soft, high-pitched “Chirp-squeak?” that sounded like a three-month-old puppy begging for a bone, the fourteen-foot Alpha Scorpion King craned its neck upward and gently rubbed its scarred iron cheek against Pei Xuan’s leather boot!
“It... it worked!” Batu dropped his iron chain in shock, staring at the giant monster that was currently nuzzling Pei Xuan’s ankle and clicking its mouthparts happily. “One circle of white chalk turned a Rank 2 killer beast into a big black lapdog!”
“Don’t just stand there admiring Number One!” Pei Xuan laughed, tapping his boot twice against the left side of the Alpha Scorpion’s head. “Number One, go tell your eleven brothers to line up for their license plates! Old Wei, Captain Hu, Scarface—help Number One pin the next one down!”
SKREEE-CHIRP!
Hearing its new master’s command—and eager to show off its “Number One Favorite Son” status—Scorpion Bus #1 rose onto its eight legs and charged straight into the flank of the second twelve-foot Scorpion King, clamping both of its giant pincers onto its brother’s claws to hold it still!
With the strongest Alpha Scorpion King now fighting on Dry-Well Village’s side, the battle turned into a one-sided vehicle registration assembly line.
“Hold Number Two’s tail! Coming through!”
Pei Xuan leaped from the back of Number One straight onto the shell of the second Scorpion King while Old Wei and Captain Hu held its stinger down with chains.
Scritch-scritch-ZING!
A glowing white circle with the number `2` flashed on the second scorpion’s forehead. Instantly, Number Two stopped thrashing, let out an affectionate “Squeak!”, and joined Number One in tackling Number Three!
“Number Three registered!”
Scritch-scritch-ZING!
“Number Four! Watch your fingers, Scarface, don’t let it pinch the chalk!”
“I’ve got its claw, Lord Pei! Draw faster, my thigh is cramping again!”
Across the dusty salt valley, Pei Xuan bounced from one giant armored back to the next like a nimble martial grandmaster crossing stepping stones over a river. Every time his stick of [Royal Bug-Boss Chalk] drew a glowing circle and a number from `1` to `12`, another ferocious twelve-foot monster went from a snapping engine of death to a tail-wagging, boot-nuzzling giant pet.
Even funnier were the three hundred cat-sized Rank 1 worker scorpions covering the valley floor.
As soon as all twelve Rank 2 Scorpion Kings carried the aura of the [Ancient Scorpion Emperor] on their foreheads, the three hundred smaller scorpions didn’t dare attack a single human. Instead, terrified and awestruck by the twelve glowing marks, the three hundred small scorpions scurried backward into twelve neat little square formations behind their twelve bosses—and began using their little pincers to pick up loose stones and sweep the valley road clean!
Ten minutes after Old Yellow’s hoof stomp had started the ambush, not a single drop of human or scorpion blood had been spilled.
In the center of Red-Rock Salt Valley, twelve massive, twelve-foot-long Rank 2 Armored Scorpion Kings sat in a neat, straight row like twelve black-red city buses parked at a station, their giant pincers folded politely in front of their noses and their tails swaying happily from side to side.
Seeing that the twelve scary monsters were now sitting flat on their bellies like obedient dogs, Old Yellow immediately saw his chance to show off.
With his head held high and his brass-gold fur shining in the morning sun, the eight-foot-tall camel trotted out from behind the pack-camel line. He marched straight up to the fourteen-foot Alpha Scorpion King—Number One—and let out a loud, bossy SNORT, tapping his right front hoof on the ground as if ordering the giant scorpion to bow to him just like the little scorpions in the iron basin last night!
Scorpion Number One blinked its eight shiny black eyes at the camel.
Last night, Old Yellow had had a circle of [Royal Bug-Boss Chalk] drawn on his forehead. Right now, however, Old Yellow’s forehead was wiped clean, while Scorpion Number One had the Supreme Emperor’s personal `#1` mark glowing on its own head!
Scorpion Number One tilted its huge armored head, reached out lightly with the flat side of its anvil-sized left pincer, and gave Old Yellow’s furry rump a gentle boop that slid the arrogant camel three feet sideways across the gravel!
BLUUUURGH?!
Old Yellow squawked like a stepped-on goose and hopped behind Pei Xuan’s back, poking his head over Pei Xuan’s shoulder and glaring indignantly at the giant scorpion.
“Hahaha! Look at Old Yellow! He thought he was still the Bug Emperor from last night!” Hong Ling laughed so hard she nearly dropped her satchel of toll books.
“Serves you right for waking them up before we set the chains,” Pei Xuan chuckled, reaching up to pat Old Yellow’s furry neck while tapping Scorpion Number One’s pincer with his chalk case. “Listen up, both of you: Old Yellow is Captain of the Camel Cavalry, and Number One is Captain of the Heavy Scorpion Bus Fleet. Both of you are Rank 2 officers of Dry-Well Village—no pinching the camels, and no spitting on the buses!”
Scorpion Number One let out a polite “Chirp-squeak!” and saluted with its right pincer, while Old Yellow huffed through his nose and turned his head away like a sulky child.
Captain Hu wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked at the twelve giant scorpions lined up in numerical order from #1 to #12, and then looked at the thirty untouched “Municipal Toll & Fine Books” in Hong Ling’s satchel.
“My Lord,” Captain Hu said in a hushed, reverent voice, “I used to think my old mercenary company knew how to fight in the desert. Today I realized we were just playing in the sand. With twelve Rank 2 Armored Scorpion Kings obeying your whistle, who in the Red-Sand Wastes can stop us?”
“Right now, they’re just bare chassis without seats or dump beds,” Pei Xuan said, jumping down from Scorpion #12’s back and walking toward the twenty pack-camels where the pre-cut wooden wagon planks and rubber-vine cushions were stacked. “Old Wei, have the men unload the lumber and iron straps and place one set on each scorpion’s back. It’s time to turn these twelve wild bugs into Dry-Well Village’s first Armored Scorpion Bus & Dump-Truck Fleet!”