Chapter 155: Ensnared in the web

"Brothers, I'll cover our retreat as much as I can. However, I'll need some time to set up the array formation I have in mind when we reach the nest. Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras are especially dangerous within their nest. From their sting, they produce Soul Silver Silk which enhances their mental attacks. Even if we're not trapped in their cocoon, they should be able to produce powerful psychic waves. Weak cultivators would probably die on the spot due to head splitting headaches. I could spend some time setting up an array formation to protect us, but..."

"No need to worry about me!" As soon as he had started speaking about mental attacks, Ren Chao knew he was being targeted. Even though Cao Yun had given him the same mind cultivation as the others, Ren Chao was still weaker than them. "My perception is weak, I have to admit this. But I can assure you that my will is powerful enough to resist to mere headaches. I went back to the Yin-Yang Torture Illusion array formation. And this time, I was able to resist way longer. If I remember right, the record was around eight hours. Well, I could resist more than fifteen hours. And I couldn't go beyond because of my points."

And indeed, even though his mind cultivation was weak, Ren Chao's Zhi was overly developed. If they could see his sea of consciousness, they would discover a Zhi made of an amalgamation of several metals such as onyx and obsidian. It gave off an air of incredible solidity. In fact, unknowingly, Ren Chao had developed a will stronger than anyone else in the group. That was ironic considering how little faith he had in himself.

"But what about you, Brother Sun? Do you really think you'll be able to set up your array formation while under their mental attacks?"

"What?! You think a bunch of spiders can best my mind cultivation?! If that's what you think, you're insane! However, I do have to admit their physical attacks could prove difficult to handle while I'm setting up the array formation. That's where you'll come in handy. Brother Chen will take care of rescuing Sister Mei. Thus, I'll need you to protect me. Do you think you can handle it? After all, we'll be faced with 3-core demonic beasts."

"Humph." Showing his hammer, Ren Chao had neither doubt nor fear in his eyes. "I'll squash these bugs! Even if they had the strength of an early Mortal Warrior, I could still block them. Do not worry about any of them getting near you. I'll die before it happens. And I don't intend to die."

"I hope so. How could I explain this to Sister Wang when she gets out of the Ancient Ruins? If you die before you can even know of the pleasures between man and woman, that would be a shame..."

This completely shut down Ren Chao who got embarrassed. After a moment of silence, all the young men started to laugh heartily. It was more due to the stress and the frustration from their previous escape. But they really needed to vent their emotions.

According to what they knew, there should be around twelve to twenty Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras in their nest. Even though they were 3-core demonic beasts, the males were rather weak. In fact, the dominant sex was the females. They were at least ten times larger than the males. And their bodies were way more dangerous. The main strength of the males was only their speed as they were smaller.

However, both females and males could unleash powerful mental attacks within their nest. From the comparisons Cao Yun had read, he knew that he could resist them with his mind cultivation. For Sun Liao and Ren Chao, it was uncertain but from what Ren Chao had said, he should resist. And Sun Liao's mind cultivation had also reached Shen and he had almost attained Perfection with it. Finally, they couldn't invade their minds unless they were wrapped up in their Soul Silver Silk. By the way, this was also a great material for both blacksmithing, array formations and alchemy.

Unfortunately, they wouldn't have to time to gather much of it.

Their plan had been rehearsed many times. In fact, even when they were on their way, they still went over it again and again. After all, they were walking rather slow due to Sun Liao setting up his array formations. With Ren Chao, they had made a lot of new flags from several materials and he intended to use them all.

When they reached the portion of the tunnels where they had been poisoned, various emotions went through them and they stopped talking. A great tension could be felt. Thanks to Cao Yun's pills and his 'Locking the Seven', they slowed down their metabolisms and almost stopped breathing for several minutes. The tunnels couldn't be completely filled with Burrowing Deadly Typha as the poison would also be a problem to the demonic beasts. But its presence was very strange. It really seemed like the demonic beasts had set it up as a defensive mechanism. However, they were not known to have neither the intelligence nor the physical ability to plant these. After all, they had neither hands nor fingers.

Deep down, Cao Yun was wondering whether this was a trap from demonic cultivators. These tunnels were in the cave where he had killed several of them. So, such a coincidence was strange. It could be a mere coincidence though. Maybe the demonic beasts had been attracted by the Evil Qi in the air. As he had violently killed the demonic cultivators, and even despite Xiao Xuefeng's intervention, there was a concentration of Evil Qi in that cave.

Anyway, now was not the time to think about it. They had to rescue Mei Hua. Although they were not worried about her mind being devoured, they were worried about her body being devoured.

-

Mei Hua could not see or feel anything as she was trapped inside a cocoon. And her mind was even trapped into her sea of consciousness. If she were to leave this mental prison, she wasn't sure whether she would be able to keep the mind of the Soul Weaving Cyrtophora confined or not. Right now, its mind was trapped within the cauldron she had manifested. Mei Hua also gathered her four characters around it. She focused on her Po which was the weakest of her characters. With this mind she had captured, she was convinced that she could literally consume its energy to build up her fourth character.

However, unless she had a way out, she would not dare destroy this mind. The moment she would, the demonic beast would become brain dead. And its companions would probably either attack Mei Hua's mind together, or more likely, they would simply kill Mei Hua. Even if they hadn't the intelligence of humans, they were not stupid and had a powerful instinct.

When she thought about this, Mei Hua got an idea. She hadn't realized it back then, but it really was strange that she couldn't feel the Burrowing Deadly Typha's poison before it was too late. Even Cao Yun should have had enough intuition, especially after energizing his Chamber of Jade. Racking her brain around it, Mei Hua only saw one possibility. Someone had done something to hide it. As she tried to remember, she suddenly smelled something. It wasn't actually here, but it was a part of her memory.

At the time she had been focused on the poison, but there was another smell as well. It was very faint and she had to stop breathing to protect herself. But it was clearly there. Unfortunately, she couldn't figure out exactly which smell it was. However, it proved that she had been right. Most likely, someone had used some kind of fragrance to try and mask the poison as much as they could. Otherwise, Mei Hua was convinced that she would have felt it before it became dangerous. It was only a 5-star Human plant, not something that should have threatened her.

Apart from Heaven rank plants which had a form of instinct that could frighteningly look like intelligence, no plant should evade her senses.

Then, there was the problem of the illusions she had seen. Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras shouldn't be able to access her memory. Usually, they sent very generic visions to destroy the mind of their preys. In fact, some times, they only had to send a raw mental attack to break it with pain. Of course, it wouldn't have worked with Mei Hua. But then, it showed something. They knew about her past. And 3-core demonic beasts were not smart enough to discover it on their own. Even then, they had no way to discover it because Xiao Xuefeng had done everything she could to hide the past and even the real name of Mei Hua.

Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras were way smarter than other 3-core demonic beasts thanks to their powerful mental abilities. However, they were still not up to the task. All of this meant that someone else was controlling them. And the obvious conclusion was a demonic cultivator, probably a beast tamer at that.

But this wasn't the time to think about this. When she had more time, and she wasn't in a mortal danger, she would ponder about this. Right now, she focused on her sensations. She didn't know what had happened to Cao Yun to enable him to access his sea of consciousness, but this situation was probably very close. Surviving such an ordeal would give her many benefits. In fact, if she were to meditate on these sensations, she was sure that she could access her sea of consciousness. Something that only Spirit Warriors could achieve, she would do while being a 6th-grade Mortal. And as an alchemist, it would be a game changer.

Using her three characters as a form of tripod, Mei Hua stabilized her cauldron. It was moving and shaking as the mind inside was trying to break it to free itself. However, Mei Hua's mind was way stronger. Then, her Shen started to hover over the cauldron as a kind of lid. But this wasn't a lid at all, the warm heat from Shen got focused on the insides of the cauldron. Slowly, Mei Hua was quite literally cooking the intruder's mind. She couldn't directly destroy it, but she could start absorbing it.

Unfortunately, she couldn't invade the spider's mind, but she could extract some things from it. With all her guesses, she decided to be extremely careful. If this beast had been tamed by a demonic cultivator, it would probably have seals to both control it and ensure that no one could pry any information from its mind. Even on humans they used this kind of seal. Thankfully, she could ask her master for some help with that once she was safe. But for now, she was only interested in the recent memory of the beast.

What she wanted to know was the number of beasts and the layout of the tunnels to go back toward the cave. When her friends would come, that would be the way they would retreat through. She needed to know whether other tunnels could allow the beasts to surprise them. A single surprise had brought her here, she wasn't ready to have others.

Using her knowledge gained through Xiao Xuefeng, Mei Hua was able to extract the recent memories of the beast. She couldn't actually see them, but she had a general understanding of them, just like a dream. The nest was a giant hollow ball dug into the ground. There were webs everywhere and several other cocoons. The Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras really were the ones who had attacked the camp they had seen. They had also killed several demonic beasts and even animals.

The nest was so dark that it was impossible to see anything. The Soul Weaving Cyrtophora were mostly blind anyway, they were able to see through vibrations. As such, the total darkness of this nest did not hinder them at all, quite the opposite. There were many movements in the nest as the males were ready to go hunting. The females were managing most of the nest and the males were sent to hunt while they ate. The spider that had invaded Mei Hua's mind was a female.

Unlike the males, its body was mostly dark with terrifying patterns of dark red and gray on its back. There were also many spikes coming from its abdomen and all over its long and slender legs. The patterns on its cephalothorax almost made it look like the face of a crying woman. But with the body of a spider as big as an elephant around it, this was a vision of nightmare.

-

In the nest, a female crawled on the wall and got closer to one of the cocoons. With extreme agility, it positioned itself right over the cocoon, its head near the heart of the poor captive, one of the men from the camp. His body was almost not moving at all but he was still alive. The spider put its chelicerae over the man and sank its fangs into his flesh. As they were pulsating, the man's body began to convulse and bleed out from the mouth, nose, ears and even eyes. The body began to collapse on itself as it was becoming flaccid as if the bones were turning to rubber. While the spider was liquefying his innards, she also drank from his body.

Luckily, the man's mind had already been destroyed. Otherwise, the pain would have been immeasurable as his nervous system was able to resist a rather long time.

The process lasted for several minutes until only a empty husk remained. The skin had been preserved and it got discarded. When the female left, other males came to get rid of the cocoon and the limp skin. This vision would have been a nightmare for anyone. Thankfully, all the other captives were trapped inside illusions. Some had happy visions, others horrible nightmares, whatever allowed the spiders to extract more of their mind and soul. They wanted to drain them from everything before killing them and sucking their liquefied bodies. Even Mei Hua was not conscious of what transpired around her.

From all the cultivators captured in the camp, only a couple of them was still alive.

When the female was done eating, it turned toward the female invading Mei Hua's mind and waited. Strange noises came out of its horrid mouth. But there was no answer at all. Mei Hua could not know what was going on. Even though the female looked perfectly alive, it was not responding. At first, it seemed like she was having difficulties with the captive's mind, but after several hours, this female was suspecting something more ominous for her sister.