Chapter 638

Spiders?

I’d seen more than enough of them in my life. Hope Goshiwon¹ had survived the war-torn Great Cataclysm, and all kinds of bugs had infested the place. Spiders were among its most regular guests.

Jinho hyung² once said, “Could the landlord of this building be Fabre, by any chance?”

There were enough insects in that building to make you believe an entomologist who’d been dead for nearly two hundred years had come back to life.

But someone once said humans were creatures of adaptation.

At first, I couldn’t stand the spiders appearing at all hours. Before a year had passed, I’d grown used to them. A few years later, I could even tell one species from another.

“Hyung², say hello. This one’s a ghost spider. The one next to it is a Joro spider.”

“Forget saying hello. I get it, so move them away from me.”

“And this one’s a Brazilian wandering spider.”

“I said move it—wait, why the hell is a Brazilian wandering spider wandering around Hope Goshiwon¹? How does that make any sense?”

“Why wouldn’t it? I fought a goblin yesterday.”

“Ah.”

“And this one’s a tarantula. Must be new here.”

“Is this a nightmare? Why on earth is there a tarantula…?”

What a mysterious goshiwon¹ ecosystem. I’d spent the flower of my youth there among countless spiders. Eventually, we’d been practically neighbors.

But I could say one thing for certain: I’d never seen a spider as hideous or enormous as the one that had just appeared before me.

“…Thousand-Year Spider?”

I’d never heard the name the Beast Miao King had just uttered. And the creature itself was on another level from a tarantula or a Brazilian wandering spider.

What the hell is that…?

If someone asked whether I’d ever seen a spider bigger than a bear, I’d nod without hesitation.

I was looking at one with my own two eyes.

Five of them, in fact.

Skritch, skritch!

Their movements were ghostlike. Every time their eight stiff, hair-covered legs moved, their enormous bodies slid along the trunks of the great trees.

The moment our rapidly approaching figures appeared in the monsters’ eyes, large and small, the Beast Miao King shouted like a thunderclap.

“They’re coming!”

And then—

Shhhhhaaa!

Pale, viscous slime poured down from above, covering a radius of ten or so zhang.³

Thanks to the Beast Miao King’s warning, I barely escaped the attack’s range. I stared at the sight before me, eyes wide.

Hissss!

The ground, the rocks, the grass—even the unidentified Bai warrior’s corpse we’d had to leave behind.

Everything the slime touched was melting with a foul stench, as though someone had poured acid over it.

Acid?

If I hadn’t dodged without knowing what it was, or if even a little had touched me, the slime might have melted part of my body on the spot.

Just looking at it sent a chill down my spine. But I couldn’t afford to stand there in shock.

Skritch, skritch!

Among the thick grass. Beyond the dense mist. On the great tree that blotted out the sky.

Five venomous spiders, each bigger than a bear and hideous beyond description, were closing in from every direction.

“…Are they surrounding us?”

The Beast Miao King raised his internal energy as he answered my incredulous mutter.

“Among the countless venomous beasts of Nanman, the Thousand-Year Spider is called a king. More than being ferocious, it is a cunning creature. There is even a record of a thousand warriors once trying to exterminate one, only for it to kill half of them over ten days and nights before vanishing.”

“All that, from a spider? No, wait. If they’ve been around for a thousand years, I guess that makes sense.”

“They are called Thousand-Year Spiders because they can live that long. No one knows how old these particular creatures are. This may be the first time several have appeared at once, too.”

Nanman was home to countless venomous beasts, and five of the monsters called kings had appeared at once.

I looked at the slime that was still melting everything around us and muttered inwardly.

Damn it. We walked right into this.

I thought I understood why we hadn’t found the rest of the Nanman warriors’ bodies—or any sign of the beasts they’d commanded.

After filling their bellies to some degree through hunting, they must have carried the corpses deeper into the Poisonblood Grounds to stockpile food.

Wrapped tight in webs, like that Bai warrior.

They were certainly planning to hunt us the same way.

But…

That’s what you think.

As the creatures closed in with a skin-crawling rustle, I stretched my empty hand into the air.

Open Inventory. Summon.

Ding.

At my command, the boundless warehouse opened its doors. Of all the weapons I’d collected for emergencies, one spear radiating pure white light settled into my hand.

“Did I just see something wrong……?”

“You did. It’s a three-section folding spear, so I usually keep it in my sleeve.”

Leaving the Beast Miao King staring in disbelief, I sent internal energy into White Flame’s lowered spearhead.

Fwoooosh.

Flames of tangible qi bloomed over its edge, which radiated a chilling sharpness.

As the blue flames kindled by Scorching Yang Qi flickered, the dense Poison Mist surrounding us and the five Thousand-Year Spiders that had marked out positions around us and were slowly tightening their noose both flinched as though they had been burned.

Hissss.

Their cries and movements had turned wary. Their beetle-black eyes, some large and some small, darted in every direction.

But it was too late to retreat.

For them. For us.

The die had been cast. One side would live, and the other would die.

And today, we wouldn’t be the ones getting hunted.

“What are you waiting for?” I leveled the blue-flamed spearhead at them. “Get over here already.”

That was the signal.

Shhhhhaaa!

Pale slime came pouring at us from the front, the back, both sides, and overhead. The Beast Miao King and I shot forward to meet it.

Whoooosh!

Wind rushed over my body. The poison that had seeped in through my skin and airways ebbed away, while the flames surging around the silver spearhead burned higher.

Now.

Fwoosh! Kwoooong!

One swing.

I swept the spear around me in a single horizontal strike, and the slime pouring in from every direction evaporated as it met the flames.

And before that, the Beast Miao King’s fist had already shot through the air.

Boom! Hissss!

The slime burst outward with a tremendous explosion, raining acid over several dozen zhang.³

But neither of us had lost so much as a hair. We pressed on, leaving everything that was melting behind us.

Whoooosh!

The Beast Miao King went for the Thousand-Year Spider blocking the way ahead. I went for another clinging to the great tree above.

We hadn’t made a plan, but one glance in passing was enough to tell us what the other intended.

Grab.

Just as I kicked off into the air, a large palm caught the tip of my foot.

Muscles that belied the Beast Miao King’s eighty-plus years rippled through his arm. With a thunderous shout, he drove my foot upward with the force of a shot put.

“Go!”

Whoooosh!

Weightlessness swept through me.

I hurtled upward, faster and harder than I could have managed with ordinary Stepping on Empty Air. In an instant, I was right in front of the eight-legged monster’s face.

—…!

A multitude of emotions could be read in its many eyes, both large and small.

The Thousand-Year Spider looked almost human in its shock as I brought the spearhead down.

Swish! Slash!

A streak of flame cut through the air. Sticky blood sprayed.

The spider sacrificed three of its eight legs, each harder than steel, to survive the blow. It hastily spat slime at me.

Splatter! Hissss!

My quick movements and the Scorching Yang Qi that countered its poison helped me avoid the spray, but I’d been too close. Even what brushed my skin and clothes brought a searing pain.

Rather than groan, I drove my spear into its enormous body as it tried to escape.

Crack! Thrust!

Unlike insects, spiders are arthropods with thin exoskeletons. Their bodies aren’t especially hard.

Even a Thousand-Year Spider, king of the venomous beasts, couldn’t withstand Force.

“Fuck, you think I’ve only killed one or two spiders? If you’d lived in Hope Goshiwon¹, your whole extended family—in-laws and eighth cousins included—would’ve died by my hand.”

—Kiiiiiieet!

Its enormous body writhed as it shrieked.

I dodged another blast of slime, then caught the leg sweeping toward my side and tore it off with my bare hand.

Crack!

—Kieeeet!

Once, maybe. I wasn’t getting caught by the same move twice.

The Thousand-Year Spider was convulsing now, not merely struggling. I drove the spearhead into its head.

Thrust!

Its flailing legs went limp. Its enormous body stiffened.

A notification sounded, confirming what I’d suspected.

Ding.

System

• Defeated Lv. 117 Thousand-Year Spider!
• Gained a substantial amount of EXP and Fame!
• The Thousand-Year Spider is a special existence among the countless venomous beasts. An additional Reward will be granted!
• Achieved the rare Achievement Indiscriminate Hunting Bug!
• When facing insect-form enemies in the future, you will gain additional stats!

The System notifications poured in as though they’d been waiting. But I had no time to read every line of the holographic window.

Below the great tree I stood on, the Beast Miao King was fighting for his life against several spiders at once.

Hissss!

“You bastards! Even tearing you to pieces wouldn’t be enough! How dare you do this to my hair!”

“…”

His hair. He was worried about his hair at a time like this.

Half his clothes had melted away, exposing patches of skin, and the slime had eaten through almost all of his once-thick hair.

Even so, true to his title as one of the Ten Kings, he had already killed one and was fighting three at once.

Wham!

Correction. Two.

The moment the Beast Miao King’s fist, thrown with a savage aura, smashed one of the Thousand-Year Spiders apart, I kicked off the great tree and plunged toward the ground like a bolt of lightning.

Whooosh! Crack!

My spearhead sank into a Thousand-Year Spider’s body as though it were tofu. Then the powerful Scorching Yang Qi I’d drawn from my dantian surged inside it.

Fwoosh. Boom!

Its enormous body exploded into pieces. A torrent of bodily fluid sprayed out and evaporated. Only a new System notification remained above the unrecognizable corpse.

Ding.

System

• Defeated Lv. 109 Thousand-Year Spider!
• Gained a substantial amount of EXP and Fame!
• You have gained bonus EXP for defeating another extremely rare creature!
• Level Up!

Fwoooosh.

Invisible healing light swept through me.

The skin melted by the slime and the internal energy I had expended were restored, while the flames on the spearhead, which had been slowly dying down, suddenly blazed as fiercely as though they had never weakened.

Fwoosh.

—Sssssss…

The last Thousand-Year Spider stared fearfully at the blue flames in the darkness. Then it fled.

Pat-pat-pat!

All eight legs kicked off the ground at once. Its huge body leaped into the air, stepped on something invisible, and settled lightly onto it.

That was when I caught sight of something glinting beyond the flames lighting up the darkness.

A spiderweb?

The thought flashed through my mind as the Beast Miao King and I raced after the fleeing spider.