Igniting the Fuse

The night was hazy.

The entire playground had turned into a blood-soaked slaughterhouse. A group of people huddled together, their bodies trembling, their eyes filled with despair.

A little girl, her eyes red and swollen, looked up at her father and said, "Daddy, I'm so scared... This is a dream, right? It has to be a dream, right?"

Her father, a middle-aged man, had just witnessed his wife being killed by the giant corpse beetles. Two of them had pounced on her, and the virtuous woman didn't even have a chance to resist. Her organs were ripped out, and she died a gruesome death.

They had survived the darkest seven days, but just one step away from hope, they were torn apart. The man, with tears streaming down his tiger-like eyes, buried his head in his daughter's shoulder, crying like a child.

A dream?

He too wished it were just a dream.

---

Feng Zhiyong's expression suddenly turned serious. He looked around and asked the officer next to him, "How many people do we have left? Is the ammunition sufficient?"

The officer wiped the blood off his face and replied slowly, "There are more than eighty who can still fight. Brothers from the third, sixth, and ninth squads are all dead. We have enough ammo, but it's only effective against the larvae."

"We can't hold them off. We have to retreat!"

"Retreat?" Feng Zhiyong frowned as he glanced at the Broodmother. "At its speed, even if we retreat, where could we possibly go?"

"Then what should we do?" The officer choked, his voice trembling as he remembered the comrades he had lost today. "Is there nothing we can do?"

Feng Zhiyong didn't answer, his eyes filled with bitterness.

The Broodmother was terrifying. Throughout the past few days of their sweep, he had never encountered such a dreadful creature. Each of its limbs glowed with a poisonous blue light, and with just a casual swipe, neither ordinary people nor elite soldiers stood a chance of surviving.

The situation was dire.

Feng Zhiyong watched in fear, closing his eyes. The battle itself wasn't frightening; as soldiers, their duty was to fight!

But the most terrifying thing was knowing from the start that victory was impossible. That was what truly drove people to despair.

Suddenly, the temperature around them dropped sharply, as if they had fallen into an ice cave. The cold seeped into their bones, and the hair on their bodies stood on end. Feng Zhiyong opened his eyes and saw a massive shadow.

It all happened too suddenly. The shadow looked so terrifying, even as a mere silhouette, that it struck fear into everyone's hearts.

Where had it come from?

Could it be…?

Feng Zhiyong's heart skipped a beat. For some reason, a certain figure came to his mind. He quickly turned to look at Chen Feng, his pupils narrowing to thin slits.

What had he seen?

The shadow gradually materialized into a spider-like monster. Its legs were covered in barbs, its long horns were razor-sharp, and its grotesque, ugly head exuded a menacing aura like that of an Abyssal Demon.

And behind it stood a familiar figure.

There was no need to ask; Feng Zhiyong knew that only one person could summon such a monstrous creature: Chen Feng!

Only a summoner could call forth something so terrifying!

A series of footsteps echoed as the Demon Spider appeared before Chen Feng. It was pitch black, as if it had just crawled out of a grave, its body emanating a foul stench of decay. Its eye sockets blazed with a cold, ethereal flame, giving off a palpable sense of oppression.

The Demon Spider.

This creature was a hunter of demons, prowling through every corner of the Abyss, even in the harshest environments like the Sulfur Hell.

The Demon Spider possessed the following traits: Toxin, Armor Piercing, Webs.

As the night deepened, the Demon Spider, having been summoned, still had remnants of its last meal in its mouth—perhaps a piece of elf, a tauren, or some other dark creature. It didn't matter; it relished any kind of meat.

The Fair Contract.

The contract could be invoked at any time. For these five minutes, the Demon Spider had to obey Chen Feng's commands.

The enraged Broodmother, already teetering on the brink of madness from the pain of losing its offspring and the injuries it had sustained, felt its anger flare as the Demon Spider appeared. The Broodmother, a powder keg on the verge of exploding, was now fully ignited. It breathed heavily, the blood within it churning violently.

It sensed a threat in the Demon Spider.

A crescent moon hung low in the sky, casting an eerie light over the scene, making it all the more disturbing.

The playground was littered with broken human parts—pale brains, corpses with intestines spilling out, even entire severed legs. Once a place where students ran, studied, and even fell in love, it had now become a blood-soaked lawn.

The Demon Spider noticed the Broodmother's strange behavior and hesitated. Instinct told it that the insect before it was on the brink of a berserk rage.

Though the Demon Spider lacked the ability to speak, it was far from mindless. On the contrary, upon reaching Silver level, its brain capacity had expanded, giving it the intelligence of a seven or eight-year-old child.

A rampaging monster was terrifying.

Not just because of its power, but more so because once it went berserk, its intelligence and consciousness would plummet into the negatives. A puppet driven solely by rage, with no fear of death or danger. In the Abyss, no one, except for naturally mindless creatures like Dretches, worms, and some orcs, would dare provoke such lunatics.

The Demon Spider was no exception. If it were in the Abyss, it would have avoided the Broodmother without hesitation. But now, it had no choice; the power of the contract bound its actions. No matter what, it had to serve Chen Feng for five minutes.

Resentment!

The Demon Spider shot a wicked glare at Chen Feng, resentful for being summoned at such a time.

Chen Feng seemed to sense something. He looked up, meeting the Demon Spider's angry gaze, but his face remained expressionless.

The one who eats someone else's food has to give something in return.

Since it had accepted his offering, the Demon Spider was expected to pay a price.

Chen Feng stepped back a couple of paces, seeking a safe spot to watch the battle. Standing behind the crowd, his tone suddenly became stern: "Demon Spider, kill it for me!"