Chapter 639

When I thought about it, it made sense.

No matter how extraordinary a venomous beast a Thousand-Year Spider was, it was still a spider. Webs covered the Poisonblood Grounds, which might as well have been its home. The last survivor of the five Thousand-Year Spider siblings had lost all will to fight and was fleeing along them.

What I hadn’t expected was…

Thump! Shhhhk!

…how fast that enormous spider could run.

…What the hell? How is it that fast?

Maybe it was moving so quickly because it was fleeing for its life. Or maybe it had laid webs everywhere for just such an emergency. Either way, we could barely close the distance. It raced between the great trees and the open air dozens of zhang¹ above us, with no obvious way for us to catch it.

No wonder Spider-Man’s so fast…

I was using my movement technique when an inexplicable chill swept through me. I ducked on instinct.

Slice!

With a sharp cutting sound, a handful of hair drifted through the air. A web had narrowly missed my head. Tough and elastic as steel wire, it had become razor-sharp at that speed.

“Great Hero Yayul!”

I shouted a warning as soon as I realized what had happened, but the Beast Miao King was bigger than me and moved more roughly. He reacted a little too late.

Slice!

What was that, a razor commercial?

The top of his head had been shaved clean instead of his flesh and bone. He answered me with a look of utter misery.

“…Why did you call me?”

“…No reason. Just felt like it.”

The thick hair that had streamed behind him like a lion’s mane was gone. Between the Thousand-Year Spiders’ barrages of acid-laden phlegm and this web, the crown of his head had been stripped bare. It gleamed like an octopus that had just come ashore.

Is this a battle between Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man?

The good and evil sides seemed to be reversed, but still. Watching a superhero movie play out right in front of me made my heart swell.

The Octopus Miao King, whose hair was looking considerably less impressive, was not enjoying himself. His fury reached the heavens.

“You bastard! How dare you!”

His hair wasn’t the only reason, of course. The warriors might have belonged to different tribes, but hundreds of them—people who were practically his own—had died overnight. Savage energy spilled from his bloodshot eyes.

Kra-boom!

The Beast Miao King stamped his foot. The ground, sodden with poison and moisture, caved in beneath him like a sinkhole. Using the tremendous force of the rebound, he leaped high and threw a punch.

Whoooom! Bang!

Compressed air burst outward. The wind rippled.

Fist Energy tore through the air, severing webs hidden in the darkness as it shot toward the Thousand-Year Spider.

Shreeeek! Shhk!

But the blow missed. The spider narrowly escaped death and let out a chilling cry.

—Ssssssissss!

It was no ordinary cry. The strange noise burrowed into my ears like Sound Transmission and spread through the air. My sharpened senses picked up movement everywhere.

This is…

Rustle.

Amid the Poison Mist that had turned the Poisonblood Grounds into a land of death, the blackened grass stirred. Things emerged from between ancient trees, and I remembered a phrase I had briefly forgotten.

King of the venomous beasts.

It described the Thousand-Year Spider perfectly.

Venomous beasts had been crouching throughout the Poisonblood Grounds, waiting for orders. Now they answered their king’s call, gathering in a vast army that blocked our way.

Slither. Ssssss!

Snakes and centipedes as long and enormous as whips. Spiders and toads the size of human heads. Hundreds of bees pouring out from somewhere among the leaves of the great trees.

Hideous venomous beasts of kinds I couldn’t identify—and didn’t want to—converged. In the blink of an eye, dozens became hundreds, and hundreds became thousands. Together, they formed a wall.

Kraaaaa!

They blocked the only path through the Poisonblood Grounds, then surged toward us in a massive triangular wave.

Above them, the Thousand-Year Spider stood on a web much lower than before and looked down at us. It had stopped running. Now it gazed down like a king.

“Fucking bastard,” I muttered. “Now you want to look cool?”

This must have been its plan from the start.

Nanman really was a goddamn place. Why were its beasts and spiders so cunning?

I had entered the Poisonblood Grounds following the Black Tiger known as Ailao Mountain’s Wraith. The Thousand-Year Spider we encountered there had finally summoned all its guards once it reached a battlefield favorable to itself.

Judging by everything I had seen firsthand, its intelligence was in no way inferior to an ordinary human’s.

Compared to a certain glutton, it’s Einstein.

Taishan came to mind. I turned to the Beast Miao King.

Even he, after a lifetime in Nanman, seemed never to have seen anything like this. He let out a low groan. When our eyes met, his expression hardened.

“There’s no need to be afraid. Neither of us will die here.”

Afraid?

I gave a quiet laugh instead of answering. I couldn’t think of a word that was at once so close to me and so far away.

I’d always thought of myself as a coward, yet I’d never once backed down when faced with death.

At first, I became a Hunter because I wasn’t afraid. Later, I learned martial arts because I was.

Strange. I fought with everything I had because I was afraid of dying, but I kept walking into battlefields where I could die at any moment.

Still… today, at least, I didn’t think I would die.

Kraaaaaaaaa!

I watched the wave of venomous beasts roll closer, then spoke.

“When those things are gone, kill it immediately. No—just hurt it enough to leave it barely breathing.”

“What?”

“Remember, you can’t hesitate. We have to get it now, while it’s let its guard down and come lower.”

“What are you—”

Now.

Instead of answering, I stepped lightly against the ground. Internal energy was already surging from my dantian toward my toes.

Slither. Boom!

Compression. Then explosion.

The internal energy that burst from a single point—the tip of my toe—gave my entire body the speed of a beam of light. At the same time, a fierce gale wrapped around me and scattered the deep green Poison Mist.

Beyond it waited a colossal wall of thousands of venomous beasts.

Kraaaaaa!

A thick shadow fell over my head. The already dark Poisonblood Grounds plunged into complete darkness.

Then brilliant light burst from the blade of White Flame, the spear in my hand.

Vooooom.

With a hum like a swarm of bees, flames bluer than the sky took hold. Three jiazi’s² worth of powerful Scorching Yang Qi drew together, linked and coalesced into a still greater hellfire.

And at the end of it all—

One Annihilation.

Ruuuumble!

A flash tore through the darkness. A roar shook earth and sky.

Since childhood, Beast Miao King Yayul Cheok had thought of himself as a wild man.

He was rough and unrefined, with no use for etiquette or elegant manners. But perhaps it was true that a position shaped the person.

As the years went by, he found himself responsible for leading others. People began following him, though he couldn’t see what there was in him worth following. Eventually he became Great Chieftain of the Bai people. Then one day he looked around and found himself Palace Lord of the Nanman Beast Palace.

How did that happen?

He had no idea. All he’d done his entire life was train in martial arts.

But the water had been spilled long ago. There was no turning back and no gathering it up again, so he did his best to fulfill his duties as Palace Lord.

He stopped beating people up. He even cut back on the swearing that had once come as naturally as breathing.

Slapping a tribal chieftain who couldn’t understand a damn thing he was told might bring him peace of mind. But if he slapped the man hard enough to deafen him permanently, that chieftain would rebel against the Nanman Beast Palace.

Years as Palace Lord had made the Beast Miao King much tamer. Even so, at the sight before him, his lips began moving of their own accord.

“Uh… what the fuck is that? Uh…”

Ruuuumble!

Everything broke apart and melted.

The wave of thousands of venomous beasts was shattering before his eyes.

The two-headed horn snakes that hunted bears whenever they grew bored. The black frogs whose poison could kill a hundred bulls with a single drop. The golden bees said to strip a tiger to its bones in half a gak.³

Fwoosh! Kraaaaaa!

Thousands of venomous beasts, every bit as powerful as they were hideous, turned to ash in the blue flames and the thunderous roar that lit the darkness.

…This is insane.

Not since the Great Faction War, more than fifty years ago, had he seen anything so astonishing.

Even the final ultimate technique unleashed by the Demonic Cult’s Sword Demon just before his death could not compare with the sight before him. And even Fire King Jeok Cheongang, who had easily dodged the Sword Demon’s final strike and methodically trampled him until he was on the verge of death, had never displayed this level of destructive power.

Nor, of course, had the man thinking it. Not even Beast Miao King Yayul Cheok himself.

How is this possible?

Unable to hide his shock and confusion, the Beast Miao King stared at the back of the young man standing tall before the blazing hellfire.

Then a single sentence suddenly flashed through his mind.

When those things are gone, kill it immediately. No—just hurt it enough to leave it barely breathing.

“…!”

At first, he had wondered what kind of nonsense the young man was spouting. Now that nonsense had become reality.

The Beast Miao King knew what he had to do.

Boom!

He shot toward the sky with a thunderous roar. He was half a beat late, but so was the Thousand-Year Spider, caught in a situation it could never have predicted.

—S-Siss?

Its many eyes, large and small, darted in different directions. The moment they found the Beast Miao King, they froze.

His few remaining hairs streamed behind him as he flew upward. A cold smile touched his lips.

“I’ve finally caught you. You piece of shit. I’ll tear you apart.”

—…!

The Thousand-Year Spider had made two fatal mistakes.

First, it had underestimated the young human’s strength.

Second, it had killed the old human’s tribespeople and shaved off the thick hair he had always been proud of.

Splaaash!

Its last desperate spray of slime cut through empty air. The Beast Miao King caught one of its legs.

Crack!

—Siiiiiiit!

The leg tore free. Screaming in pain, the Thousand-Year Spider plummeted toward the ground.