nyslfriends Chapter 50: The Spiderweb Swamp
Chapter 50: The Spiderweb Swamp
Su Qingyao was carefully protected by two experienced teammates, positioned relatively far back and in a more stable position within the battle. Her face was almost translucent with paleness, fine beads of cold sweat forming on her forehead and nose. Her breathing was slightly rapid due to tension and the surrounding poisonous miasma. Yet, her eyes remained clear and sharp, and her tightly pursed lips revealed a stubbornness. She continuously took out talismans from her pouch, either igniting fireballs to burn the approaching spiderwebs, releasing wind blades to sever the legs of the attacking demonic spiders, or erecting small spiritual light shields to deflect splashing venom. Each spell was cast with her fingertips steady as ever, but those hands that were always used for writing medicine, playing the zither, and blending incense were now trembling slightly, uncontrollably, due to the rapid depletion of her true energy and spirit.
Her gaze was not limited to the battle in front of her, but rather, like the most precise compass, it quickly scanned the entire chaotic battlefield, her brain working and analyzing at an unprecedented speed.
"No... these spiders seem chaotic, attacking and biting purely on instinct..." She threw a fireball talisman, burning a large hole in a spider web covering her flank, while rapidly calculating in her mind, "But judging from their positions, the order of their attacks, and even the coordination of their web-spitting and poison-spitting... those leaping out of the mud are mostly concentrated in front and on the sides, mainly attacking with poison, aiming to disrupt their formation and cause casualties; those falling from the trees focus on the upper body and vital points, moving swiftly, intending to distract and create chaos; and those spitting web... their positions..."
Su Qingyao suppressed the churning in her stomach caused by the stench and tension, her gaze sharp as lightning, quickly locking onto several spiders stalking the perimeter and constantly spraying webs. They didn't engage in close combat, maintaining a constant distance, but their web-spraying timing and angles were exceptionally tricky. They always struck the moment her teammates were distracted by the venomous spiders or the attacking spiders, leaving an opening, and their attacks weren't random, but subtly targeted…
She pulled out the small notebook she kept close to her body, wrapped in oilcloth for moisture protection—it was the notebook she used to record the properties of medicinal herbs and her insights on formations. Ignoring the mud and dirt, she quickly tore off the oilcloth, bit her fingertip (which was slightly dry from nervousness), and used her finger as a pen and her blood as ink. In the dim light and on the remaining blank pages of the notebook, she began to sketch rapidly.
With just a few strokes, a simple battlefield map appeared on the paper. The positions of her own team members (those she could clearly see), the main areas where the spiders appeared (mud swamp, air), the direction of the dense spider webs... were all quickly marked with blood dots or short lines.
"Three points in front of the swamp, two on the left flank, one on the right flank... The main air attacks came from the front left and directly above... Spider web landing points... rear left, directly behind, front right..." Her fingertips, stained with blood, moved across the notebook, connecting the marked points. A vague, deliberately guided outline of a "passage" or "encirclement" gradually took shape in her mind.
"They...aren't just biting randomly." Su Qingyao's heart sank little by little, a chill creeping up her spine and down her neck. "They're consciously driving us in one direction...or rather, forcing us into a pre-set area..." Her gaze followed the "channel" that had formed in her mind and landed on the right rear of the battlefield—there, the swamp was exceptionally dark, the puddles were larger and denser, and the "glug" of the mud traps seemed to be more frequent. Several withered trees, with their most grotesque shapes and covered with thick, gray-white cocoon-like webs, stood there like boundary markers, exuding a strong sense of foreboding.
That was the deepest, most dangerous, and most likely to hide deadly traps in this swamp!
This discovery shocked her, and she was about to warn Lin Yan when another unexpected event occurred!
"Miss Su! Watch your step!" A hoarse but terrified roar rang in her ears like a thunderclap.
It was Li Tie! He had just deflected a spurt of venom with his shield, but out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the slightly dark muddy ground behind Su Qingyao's position, which was churning and surging unnaturally, with bubbles rising several times more densely than those around it, like water before it boiled!
Upon hearing the sound, Su Qingyao instinctively looked down to check, while simultaneously shifting her body to the side and forward.
However, the attacker underground was faster and more cunning than she was!
"boom--!"
With a muffled thud, the mud less than three feet behind Su Qingyao exploded upwards as if ignited by gunpowder buried underground! The foul-smelling black mud sprayed outwards in a radial pattern, hitting her head and face!
A grotesque figure, far larger and strikingly different in color than any of the previous Ghost-Faced Spiders, shot forth from the blasted-open mud hole! Its size rivaled that of a millstone, and its carapace, far from being dark brown, possessed a deep, dark, almost purplish-black hue, gleaming with a cold, metallic sheen in the dim light. The "ghost face" patterns on its carapace were no longer blurry, but clear as meticulously carved demonic totems, with protruding fangs and hollow eye sockets, lifelike and radiating a chilling, eerie aura. Its eight compound eyes, no longer a ghostly green, had turned a deeper, colder dark red, like eight specks of congealed blood, locking onto Su Qingyao, who was trying to dodge.
This giant, purplish-black demonic spider was clearly of high status, likely the leader or a mutated individual among the group of ghost-faced spiders. Its appearance was completely unexpected, its timing impeccable, precisely the moment Su Qingyao was slightly distracted while analyzing the battle and her attention drawn to Li Tie's warning. The instant it appeared, its massive, sharp pincers snapped open to their maximum extent, its menacing mouth suddenly opening wide. A jet of dark, viscous, gelatinous venom, ten times more potent and pungent than ordinary venom, shot out like a poisoned arrow from a powerful crossbow, leaving only a faint afterimage in the air, straight towards Su Qingyao, who was sideways as she dodged! Its target was her unprotected ribcage!
This attack was premeditated and extremely malicious!
Although Su Qingyao had heard the warning and tried to dodge, she was still a beat too slow. She only caught a glimpse of a deep purple-black shadow and a streak of dark green light shooting towards her from the corner of her eye. The intense sense of danger made her hair stand on end, and it was impossible to completely avoid it!
In a flash, Li Tie, who was closest to Su Qingyao and had just cleaved a small spider demon in two with his sword, witnessed the entire scene. His mind went blank for a moment, all distractions and concerns about his own injuries vanished. Only one thought burned like a branding iron deep within his consciousness—he absolutely could not allow the venom to hit Miss Su!
His shield was still raised in front of him, deflecting sporadic attacks from the other side; his right arm had just completed a slash, the old strength exhausted, new strength yet to arise. Draw his sword to defend? Too late! Raise his shield to block? The angle was wrong!
Without any hesitation, without even a moment to think, Li Tie let out a low, almost beast-like roar, his waist and abdomen suddenly straining, and he charged towards Su Qingyao like an arrow released from a bow! He didn't use his arms, nor his shield, but his broad, thick back, which was now somewhat unstable due to his injury!
"Bang!"
A solid, muffled thud. Su Qingyao was jolted forward by the sudden, immense force. Before she could even cry out, she was thrown forward and fell into the cold, sticky mud ahead. Her moon-white outfit was instantly covered in black mud, leaving her looking utterly disheveled.
The terrifying, dark green, arrow-like venom grazed the edge of her left sleeve, missing her by a hair's breadth!
"Sizzle—!"
A sickening corrosive sound rang out. Although it didn't directly hit the flesh, several drops of venom still splattered, landing on the sleeve above Su Qingyao's left elbow. The tough, fine cotton fabric was like thin paper exposed to a raging fire in the face of this dark green venom, instantly corroding a fist-sized hole! The edges were charred and curled, emitting pungent white smoke.
Even more terrifying was that the corrosiveness of the venom far exceeded that of the pale green venom they had seen before. The few drops that splashed onto her, after corroding the fabric, still lingered, staining a small patch of skin exposed at the edge of the hole.
"Well--!"
Su Qingyao felt an indescribable, excruciating pain shooting through the outside of her left arm! The pain wasn't a simple burning or tearing sensation, but rather a feeling as if countless red-hot steel needles were piercing her flesh, or as if her blood vessels had been instantly frozen by extremely cold ice picks. Two completely opposite yet equally intense pains intertwined, frantically assaulting her nerves. She groaned, her vision blurred, and she nearly fainted.
She endured the excruciating pain and forced herself to look down. The small patch of skin on her left arm stained with the venom had turned pitch black, and the blackness was spreading rapidly, like ink seeping into water, at a visible speed! The skin was no longer simply festering and blistering; it had developed a bizarre, shrunken appearance, as if completely charred and carbonized by fire, its edges a horrifying contrast to the surrounding normal skin. A chilling, highly corrosive aura surged through the wound, seeping into her arm and rapidly eroding her blood vessels. Wherever it passed, her blood seemed to freeze, her muscles stiffened and numb, and even her fingers began to twitch and curl uncontrollably.
She tried to immediately circulate her internal energy to seal the wound and expel the toxins, but found that the chilling aura invading her body was exceptionally domineering. It hindered the circulation of her already depleted internal energy from repeated spells, making even the movement of her fingertips into hand seals stiff and slow due to the numbness and pain in her arm. Her vision began to blur, and the sounds of battle faded into the distance, leaving only the ever-spreading, icy pain in her left arm crystal clear.
"Miss Su!" She turned her head with difficulty and saw Li Tie staggering back two steps, using his knife for support before barely regaining his balance. His right shoulder blade, where the leather armor, already damaged in the battle, had been splattered with the venom and was now hissing with white smoke. The fabric and flesh beneath the armor were clearly also damaged. His facial muscles were contorted in excruciating pain, cold sweat poured down his forehead, his teeth were clenched, but he forced a hideous yet relieved smile onto his lips, his voice hoarse as if two pieces of coarse sandpaper were rubbing together: "I...I'm alright...you..."
Before he could finish speaking, the purplish-black spider, seeing that its attack had failed, let out an angry hiss. With its eight legs pushing off the mud, its massive body moved with surprising agility as it pounced again, its sharp, knife-like pincers aimed straight for Li Tie's head!
A fierce glint flashed in Li Tie's eyes. Ignoring the excruciating pain in his shoulder, he roared and swung his sword to meet the attack! With a deafening clang like metal clashing against metal, his steel sword collided violently with the spider's claws, sparks flying everywhere! The immense force caused his tiger's mouth to split open, blood flowing freely, and his already injured body swayed several times.
Su Qingyao knew this was not the time to hesitate. The poison was taking effect much faster than she had anticipated; the blackness had already spread past her elbow and was now encroaching on her shoulder. Her consciousness began to blur, the scenery before her eyes swayed and overlapped, and her true energy became stagnant and difficult to circulate.
With her last shred of clarity and a sliver of strength, she cried out in Lin Yan's direction, "Brother Lin! The antidote... is in the nest!"
Though the voice was soft, it carried the instinctive judgment of a family of physicians—the most poisonous things in the world are often accompanied by a remedy that counteracts them within ten steps. This spider's venom is so insidious and ruthless that it's highly likely that an antidote grows deep within its long-standing lair.
Before she could finish speaking, she felt herself completely swallowed by boundless darkness and cold. Her slender body swayed, like a puppet with its strings cut, and she slumped forward, completely unconscious in the cold, filthy mud. The shocking black patch on her left arm had already spread over her shoulder and was slowly crawling towards her neck and heart, like a vicious black centipede greedily devouring her life force.
***
In the distance, Lin Yan, entangled by several demonic spiders, kept a close eye on Su Qingyao out of the corner of his eye. Seeing her stumble and fall after being knocked aside by Li Tie, his heart sank. When he saw her sleeves corroded, her arms turning black, and her desperate cry of "The antidote is in the nest!" before finally collapsing unconscious, Lin Yan felt an unprecedented surge of emotion—a mixture of shock, anger, anxiety, and bone-chilling cold—rush to his head like magma, threatening to overwhelm his reason!
The last trace of composure in his eyes was suddenly replaced by an almost ferocious ruthlessness.
"Get out of here!!!"
A roar, like a thunderclap from a clear sky, sent mud flying everywhere! Lin Yan no longer held back, his Devouring Spirit True Essence surging wildly at an unprecedented speed, and the ancient mark on his chest suddenly became scorching hot!
"God of Deterrence - Activate!!!"
Om-! ! !
It wasn't a sound, but an invisible and intangible yet heavy spiritual pressure, centered on Lin Yan, that swept outwards like a giant wave stirred up by a boulder thrown into a still lake! Within this pressure lay his violent killing intent, burning rage, and the predatory power stemming from his Soul-Devouring Body, which instinctively plundered the essence of living beings!
In an instant, within a radius of more than ten feet centered on Lin Yan, time seemed to stand still for a moment!
Whether it was the leader of the purple-black demon spiders that was pouncing on Li Tie, the ordinary ghost-faced demon spiders that were frantically tearing at Lin Yan, or the auxiliary demon spiders that were spitting venom and weaving webs in the distance... all the demon spiders that were swept by this "divine power" showed an extremely obvious and strange sluggishness in their movements!
Their eight compound eyes, which had been gleaming with an eerie green or dark red light, suddenly dimmed and scattered; their sharp, opening and closing chelicerae froze in mid-air; their nimble legs seemed frozen by invisible frost; even the organs at the end of their abdomen that spewed silky fluid temporarily ceased their movements. It was as if a pair of invisible giant hands had gripped their simple souls, plunging them into a brief but complete state of stunned stillness and rigidity!
This widespread "mind-shattering" impact was also a huge burden for Lin Yan. His face suddenly turned pale, the veins on his forehead bulged, his temples throbbed, and a sharp pain and a strong sense of emptiness came from his mind, which were signs of excessive consumption of his spiritual energy in a short period of time.
But he couldn't care less about any of that!
Almost at the same moment the spider swarm was stunned and frozen, Lin Yan's figure moved!
"Swiftness - Full Power!!!"
Two shallow craters suddenly appeared in the muddy ground beneath his feet, and his figure completely transformed into a blurry, gray-black afterimage that was almost impossible to detect with the naked eye! He moved so fast that he left a faint, lingering afterimage in place, while his true form had already darted out like a ghost!
The target was clear—the leader of the purplish-black spider demons who had just exchanged blows with Li Tie and was now in a daze!
A flash of light!
There were no complicated moves, no charging process. He compressed and condensed the dark gray Soul Devouring True Essence to its limit onto the blade, causing that ordinary longsword to now emit a chilling, dark edge that seemed capable of devouring light!
"puff!"
With a soft thud, like a hot knife cutting into solidified butter, the blade swept diagonally across the relatively vulnerable neck-chest junction of the purplish-black spider leader! The purplish-black carapace, tough enough to withstand even Li Tie's full-force strike, was easily cleaved like paper before this strike, imbued with Lin Yan's ferocious true energy and extreme speed! A viscous, dark green fluid mixed with traces of dark gold gushed forth like a fountain!
The dull, dark red light in the spider leader's compound eyes had barely regained its clarity before it completely dimmed and went out. Its massive body crashed to the ground, splashing up a large amount of mud.
Lin Yan's figure did not pause for the slightest!
The blade flashed again!
"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"
Like the scythe wielded by Death, the gray-black afterimages darted rapidly among the spider demons who were also in a daze, were significantly larger than their companions, or had an exceptionally dark color and appeared to be minor leaders! Each flash was accompanied by a soft sound, a spurt of bodily fluid, and a demon corpse that crashed to the ground!
His speed was so fast that the spider he killed didn't even have time to recover from the "stun" before it lost its life.
In just two or three breaths, six or seven powerful spider demons, suspected to be leaders, died under Lin Yan's blade!
Just as Lin Yan slew another target, the demonic spider, his body paused slightly, the throbbing pain and emptiness in his head intensified, and he couldn't help but let out a muffled groan—
"hiss--!!!"
A sharp, piercing shriek, seemingly capable of penetrating eardrums and stabbing straight to the soul, suddenly came from the deeper part of the swamp, from that area filled with puddles and withered trees that looked like ghosts!
The screech was filled with shock, anger, panic, and a strange rhythm that seemed like a command.
The moment the sound spread, the remaining spider demons, who had just recovered from the "stunning" state and were in a state of brief confusion and instinctive fear, stopped attacking abruptly as if they had received a supreme command!
Then, to everyone's astonishment, all the surviving spiders—regardless of size or severity of injury—made a startlingly synchronized move: they swiftly abandoned their prey, stopped spitting venom, stopped biting, and even disregarded the corpses of their companions. They turned around in unison, their eight legs paddling, and with even greater speed than when they attacked, they fled in panic toward the direction from which the hissing sound came—the deepest and darkest part of the swamp!
They burrowed into mud holes, dived into puddles, climbed dead trees, and disappeared behind dense gray-white spider webs... In just a dozen breaths, apart from the muddy mess, the scattered spider corpses, the broken weapons, and the thick, unbearable stench of blood and decay in the air, the spider swarm that had been frantically attacking just moments before had completely retreated, as if it had never existed.
Only the Black Stone Guards, barely clinging to life and looking at each other in disbelief, remained at the edge of the swamp, along with... Su Qingyao, unconscious in the mud, her left arm blackened and spreading.