Gong speaks up, “Well. The original agreement was just mutual support. Big Sis Crane was going off trust and our previous conversations. The Yellow Sashes are connected to her, and if the spiders were effective, she wanted them to help cover gaps and provide extra security.

“If provided, they would support my claim as a gang. I just wanted it to be spiders, but Big Sis Crane suggested I leave it to the Yellow Sashes to decide. While we would not be a subordinate gang, we were definitely supposed to be diagonally adjacent.”

In the span of a breath, a tiny spider appears in her hand. “These little guys helped that change to become more adjacent, than subordinate to both parties. As James knows, I can feel what these little ones feel and see, on a vague level.” Her face turns serious. “This is getting to be little stronger every day. These little ones are getting smarter, as we knew would happen. However, it also gives me a better information network.”

The spider begins creating a web between her thumb and pinky, along her hand. It seems almost playful. Like a child playing with the hair of their mom. She gives a glance over to me before the slightest tinge of red comes to her ears, as she continues to speak.

“I’m able to have access to information others may not know, simply by having these little ones spread around the city. It also happens instantaneously, as well. I haven’t revealed the full span of my abilities to them, but have made hints. Luckily for me, there are demi-humans who have awakened the ability to control creatures in the past who occasionally had this ability as well. They wanted my ability on their side, in case it actually awakens to that level.”

The spider leaps off her hand after making a nice little design. She admires it for a second before laying on the table.

“We really made a big impact when they had attacked us in the square. More specifically, the spiders. From intelligence I was able to gather, their offer for a formal alliance was in response to the proven usage of the ability. It seems your helping of the Yellow Sashes, have made this into a more harmonious relationship, rather than a benefit focused one. So… your decision wasn’t a wrong one. Though we will need to work on the how.”

Ai speaks up, “How were you able to defeat all of those cultivators, though? You said there were multiple cultivators attacking, as well as non-cultivators.”

“That’s a good question and honestly, there were a few moments where I wasn’t sure if I’d be alright.

“Before I get into that though, I should mention why I went all out on them… and why they attacked with such a comparatively large force.”

She takes a breath.

This might be a bit of a doozy.

“The Vermillion Stripes and I have been at odds for quite a while now. They constantly harass regular people and demi-humans particularly. They fund thugs around the area to make sure that demi-human businesses and people are always kept in ‘their place’. They’ve even pressured other gangs to not support or take these businesses in, unless it was selectively done. Even the Yellow Sashes doesn’t step on their toes too much, since they are not concentrated in this area.

“As they say, ‘Even a Powerful Dragon cannot repress a Local Snake’ and despite the Yellow Snakes Sashes overall strength, they can’t commit heavy resources to this area… except to protect their own people. So, unless you become a female prostitute under their group, they won’t openly help you.”

Ai and Lin seem to have heard something similar, as they nod in understanding.

“While patrolling, occasionally I would get into disputes with these thugs who weren’t, who I would ‘convince’ to leave. Both the Yellow Sashes and Big Sis Crane supported this, but couldn’t do so publicly. What they did do was make sure that there wouldn’t be retaliation for my actions. I would also be notified if they were planning to make things difficult for me.

“Now? Now, I don’t have to worry about holding back, even against the gang members themselves. The show of force today, was to not only defend myself, but prove that they would take heavy damage if they chose to push me too far. I may have to look out for assassinations, though Big Sister Crane has always agreed to provide interference and protect me as an unofficial backer. She has a mysterious presence and none of the major forces in the area seem to want to mess with her. The leaders of each gang refuse to combat her in any way, though the Yellow Sashes are on good terms.

“What is a little strange… is that even the Revolving Heavenly Light Sect pays respect to her, when traveling that road. Having her officially on my side, means that it will be difficult for enemies to move against us, as easily.”

After a pause, a smile grows on her lips.

“Now for the fun part, how I kicked all of their butts.  

“The members of the gang who attacked us were officially ‘disgraced’ and ‘exiled’ before committing that action. They were planning, if it succeeded, to reclaim those members. From my research, they had found out that an alliance with Crane was in the works and that we were about to gain the support of the Yellow Sashes.

“What they did not know, is that we were coming from the meeting that made it official.

“By the time the information had reached them and they got to where the group would have been, everyone was dead. They lost 31 lowest Qi Condensation members and many more non-cultivators. I may have mentioned before, that I could handle around 3-5 cultivators, albeit with an insane amount of difficulty and a lot of preparation. With those spiders though? It was simultaneously difficult and easy to accomplish.”

How could it ever be easy to defeat those guys? Granted, from what I’ve been told of low-end Qi Condensation members, who would normally have the strength of 10 men, these guys were definitely way below average… but they should at least be able to shatter Gong’s exoskeleton.

“Look, I can see you are a bit confused… but let me fill you in. Against an untrained low rank Qi Cultivator, I could probably fight them one on one and win, with injuries. Against a trained low rank Qi Cultivator? I would have to try to escape, though I could probably tie them down while escaping. Most of the guys I fought are not trained, have terrible foundations, aren’t even decent fighters. They weren’t able to have sustained high level combat.”

From this point on, Gong dived into the various demerits of the men who were part of the Vermillion Stripes Gang, with most of the reasoning being anecdotal and most definitely highly opinionated. Most of the non-biased reasoning came down to them not working together, like a sect would.

In many cases, their petty hatred towards each other made them sacrifice others and trip them up. This seems to be the norm in the group and part of the reason their foundations and everything are so poor. They barely get anything from leadership and everyone is constantly getting betrayed. Even in the middle of a fight.

Lastly, Gong had spent a stupid amount of time coming up with strategies against cultivators with a spider army. This was mostly because she was already dreaming of doing this and wanted to come up with ways to fight with them. With the powered up, totally dedicated spiders, this created even more overpowered strategies she could use for a mass attack. Honestly, I don’t think I could ever match the absolutely absurd and intricate ideas she had planned for them. I will, however, be using her tactics in an emergency though.

Gong had the huge spiders do lockdown with massive amounts of web, while having the waves of spiders block off exits and shape the battlefield. She basically turned the battlefield into seas, with Krakens all around. Each individual spider is also abnormally tough from the taming ability. It appears that if you take a lot of strengthening and compress it into a small space, it is harder to break than a big item at the same strength. At the time of the battle, she estimated there were enough spiders to equal 125,000 men worth of space. A quick check into the scan shows it is now below 80,000 human biomass worth.

She’s been having them eat more and more. So, it isn’t that they are breeding quickly. There are just already a lot of eggs, and each spider is just growing larger from the ability, in addition to breeding.

I let her know to slow it down a bit, since I do actually have a limit of how many I can handle. She seems surprised, but adjusts. I let her know how many I can handle and when that will increase. Which is around 3 times as many spiders. I believe even as they individually grow in size, I’ll be able to keep up as long as they don’t breed as well. I also let her know it may be better to have some not eat, so that she can still have them be smaller sized, but powerful later. If she can find a way to have them eat, but not grow, that would be best.

The Vermillion Stripes have gone silent, but are fuming at their loss. There are talks they may lash out in another way. In a way that can’t be blamed directly on them. Though they would have to stop their temporary infighting to do so.

After that long discussion, we all are a bit relieved, but anxious. Well… what do we do now?