Treacherous

There was no way for me to cross this without being eaten alive, so I was about to walk away when I heard a wet crunching sound under my foot.

I lifted my foot from the wet and mozzarella-like remains of the spider that was stuck to the sole of my foot.

"Shit," I cursed.

And instantly afterward all the room's skittering stopped, then they all began hissing. If spiders couldn't hiss, well these ones weren't normal spiders, these are cultivator spiders. Nasty stuff.

A swath of spiders came at me and an even larger group came rushing along the walls of the platform I was on and closed the exit using their bodies.

I sighed, if this was an RPG, I'd be getting a lot of EXP for this. Man, I miss my days on earth playing games every night before going to work.

I took a deep breath and spat out my poison breath. In a locked and enemy concentrated area such as this place, my poison breath should be powerful enough to cause some serious damage. And so it did; the green wave of death shot forward and spread long the room like the tides of death. Whenever it went past an insect, the latter would fumble and fall dying, and once it touches the ground, it would already be dead. More spiders died as my poison breath permeated through the room. And in less than ten seconds, the whole room was only riddled with the bodies of dead spiders.

"Good," I mumbled. Looking down, now that the spiders were all dead, I could see a small set of stairs that was leading from the platform I was on to the lower floor. I took the stairs and went down. Once I was on the ground, I made sure to survey my whereabouts before I took my next step. I needed to make sure that I didn't leave anything behind me alive.

Assuring that there was nothing left alive, I continued walking forward, slowly, because there could be traps, traps that I didn't wish to encounter right now.

Slowly making my way, there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary, the walls and floors were filled and riddled with spiders, if there were any traps, they seemed to have long been disabled. Perhaps by old age or just the number of spiders that usually moved through this area, they would have enabled the traps long ago.

As I moved forward, I was able to see even larger spiders dead or dying on the long corridor headed forward. there seems to be a nest forward, and the small spiders that died at the entrance were just the newborns, as for the ones in the corridors, some were as big as my thighs and others were even bigger, but they all had one thing in common, either they were dead or dying.

I continued moving among the dead bodies, only to see even more dead spiders. The poison breath's area of effect has vastly improved after I reached Foundation Establishment. And now with fifty-four meridians, I'm able to cast the Poison Breath spell on ana rea as big as a football field.

Which is nice.

After half an hour of walking, I met the first spider that was still alive. This one had eight legs, and if one were to focus their sight, they would notice that this spider's legs were shaped like a curved pointed sword.

Its mandibles were larger than a man's leg, and from the looks of it, this thing was at least five meters long.

The spider wobbled as it moved towards me, but it made sure not to fall, it slowly hissed as it skittered forward.

"I guess you're the best opponent to try this on then," I said to the spider, fully knowing that it will not understand me.

Once the spider got close enough, I moved to the side, and I was right in doing so, as it had spat a white substance from its mouth that fell on the ground and spread to a sticky-looking spider web.

"Now, that's stranger, spiders shouldn't be able to create spider webs from their mouths, quite interesting," I said to the spider as I continued sidestepping his attacks. It wasn't that I was fast enough to agilely and rapidly dodge the spells, but the spider was so slow due to the poison that a child could dodge his attacks.

Once I was close enough, I sliced at the tiger with my hand, shaped into a tiger claw. My index and middle finger curved and linked together, so was my pinky and ring finger, while my thumb was separate and on its own. The slice didn't seem to have any effect on the spider as it bounced off against his thick armored exoskeletal body.

"Stupid me, I forgot to use poison Qi in the attack." I shook my head, having been focused on the

form I forgot the essence. But that small mistake was going to cost me dearly.

The spider managed to swing one of his many legs at me, to which I ducked, dodging the blow in complete luck and avoided being decapitated.

I rose swinging, my clawed hand this time fixed and poison Qi rotating all over my meridians then being focused on the tip of my attacking fingers.

The moment my hand touched the spider, it slid through. Not across it, but inside the spider. I pulled my hand immediately afterward when I noticed that the spider had begun squirming and its body began bulging in different places.

"Shit it's gonna blow," I cursed and turned, hastily running away, then slid next to a nearby fallen pillar that I used as cover.

The spider blew up immediately afterward, leaving guts and remain sticking to the walls and ceiling of the passage I was in.

I looked up from behind the fallen pillar at the aftermath of the battle. There was a small core within the fluid remains of the spider. I walked up to the core and placed it above my chest. The poison god's book immediately sucked it inside it.

The spider that just died had so much charisma that I didn't notice the big door that it came from. And what lay beyond it.

It seems that the poison had barely entered through that door that led somewhere deeper in this cave. And if my poison breath didn't go through, then it would mean that there are enemies that are still intact.

I got closer to the door and took a deep breath then spat out the poison to no avail, as it shot back into my face and behind me.

The poison breath however couldn't move forward, it seemed that there was a force in play that immediately pushed it outside the door. I scoffed at the annoyance.

"This is going to be troublesome without the poison, but all of this would be for naught if I give up now."

I sat down near the door's entrance, I thought about eating the Braided Mourning Petal to supplement my lost Poison Qi but decided against it, that plant makes me dull, and I don't need that in this situation. The joyful weed, however, makes me more focused though overusing it will get me stoned up which is equally bad.

I filled my pipe with the Joyful Weed and lit it up. After smoking for a while, I stood up, my mind was far sharper than before, and I had a good idea of how to deal with the remaining spiders.

I stepped into the doorway.

I walked through the doorway, and inside was a man-built tunnel that led further down into the deep. The tunnel was large enough to allow only one of the spider's passage, and if only one of them comes at me I could handle it myself. The problem lays in the fact that I can't use my poison breath here, mainly due to the strong wind coming from within the tunnel.

This reminds me of the cool wind that the Ice Yeti had been releasing as his breath, but only here, it was far less powerful, far less cold yet, constant and continuous, this was natural made wind.

And facing upwind, my breath skill would get swept away behind me. So, I had to get close and dirty if I'm forced to fight.

I continued walking and had nothing to help me see through the dark but a small green flame, that I lit up on the tip of my index finger. After a long while, I heard the screams of people, coming from inside the cave.

"Seems like there are others than just me."

I continued moving through the corridor until its end, where I saw an enormous palace that had been chiseled into the walls of a cavernous hole. The palace was amazingly huge, and the fact that it was carved up in the depth of the earth was even more amazing. Yet spiders had infested it, they laid their eggs everywhere around it and all over the now destroyed garden at its front.

I looked up and realized that through the spiderwebs covering the summit of the cavern, there was a big hole. This area seems to be like a volcano with its tip covered in cobweb.

I turned off the small light coming from my hand, the night sky even without a moon, shining through the cobweb was enough light for me to see clearly. Not far away from where I stood, were hundreds of spiders like the one I just fought earlier, let's call them warrior spiders. And they all seemed to be surrounding one creature, which was by far the largest spider I had ever seen. It looked like it could fit ten or twenty of the warrior spiders in its stomach and that still wouldn't be enough.

This was a Spider Queen. The warrior spiders would go toward where a group of people was battling, fight against them and kill whomever they could, then one of the spiders would impale the dead cultivator and drag it through the dirt towards the queen.

The cultivator would get immediate processed, the warriors would rip its arms and legs, taking it for themselves, and would hand over the head to the queen. The queen then would split open the head using her mandibles and would suck in the brain.

This whole process didn't last longer than a dozen seconds and more corpses piled up in front of the queen.

The torsos weren't however disposed of, but they were webbed together and stockpiled for later consumption.

I was lucky enough that all the spiders had been slowly pulled toward the fight and left me all alone here, also I came to realize that the volcano-shaped mountain I was in was the reason why there was such a powerful wind. The air would come from the volcano's top and would then come down and exit through the tunnel, creating a wind current. Yet now that I'm here, the majority of my poison breath if I were to release it would rise and mix up with the air inside the volcano's belly.

I slowly made my way towards the palace, hiding and taking cover using all the random rocks and boulders and growths that were growing in this place. Though this area was filled with spiders and covered in their webs, I noticed that the palace itself seemed that it had never been pried open, so while the spiders were occupied with the cultivators, I could probably get inside and see what I could find.

I have no obligation to save anyone, as these people had taken the risk to challenge this place and still failed. So, it is of no concern to me if they live or die, nor would I feel regret over the death of people I don't know.

Still…

"Sigh."

I looked back and saw that the screaming had lessened, and the people were now being covered in webs instead of outright being slaughtered. The queen seemed to have probably eaten enough and now ordered her minions to keep her prey fresh by covering it in webs and keeping it alive for later consumption.

The spiders continued covering the cultivators in spider webs and soon after they stuck them to nearby rocks.

One of the spiders had dangerously gotten closer to me. If I were to make a sound, I'll be joining the rest of the cultivators as a mural decoration.

I rotated my energy and released a low dose of my poison breath, this one wasn't based on the Bone and Body Grinding Poison, but rather the Braided Mourning Petal. The toxic and paralyzing effect of it.

Small gout of purple smoke shot out of my mouth, which was far less dense than the Bone and Body Grinding poison, and far less pervasive, but at the same time it worked fast, it shot up to the spider and the latter stopped moving and flopped down to the ground.

I had to move away from this area because the secondary effect of the Braided Mourning petal would kick in soon, and then it's going to become a problem to stay close.

The spider that flopped to the ground started spasming while I moved away and took a roundabout way to get behind the rocks where the cultivators were stuck.

Another spider realized that one of its own was having a nasty seizure, and when it went to check, the prime spider suddenly stopped moving, and then its body began tearing up, revealing bloodied braided petals that tore out of the spider's chitin.

More spiders had gotten closer when the petal began releasing more toxins. And more spiders were infected.

The commotion brought the attention of all of the spiders inside the cave, which was perfect. I took the opportunity to get behind the boulders and said in a low tone, "Hey, you still alive?"

"Y-Yes! Help please!" the man frantically said.

"Shhhhh! Be quiet. I'll get you out in a second."

I touched the webs and immediately regrated it, the thing was sticky as heck and thankfully I only used one hand.

"Damn sticky," I cursed. "I'll use my sword, be careful, and don't move," I said to the man.

"Swords are useless there are no swords that can cut through this…" the man's words were abruptly stopped as he saw my Creeping Demise, slicing through the webs with utter ease.

"You were saying?"

"Nothing! Let's escape!"

"Hey, hold it, I'm here to help you all."

"If we're a big group the spiders will chase after us! We have to save our skins!"

This man has a nasty and wretched personality, the moment I save him he immediately tries to escape not even giving a single thought about his friends.

"If you wish to escape, go ahead, I'll leave when everyone is safer."

"But you don't know any of them!" The man said.

His words caused me pause, this man… he knows too much. Dangerous, how does he know I'm not friends with any of these people? So, it means that he suspects that I found my way to the palace's entrance from another area. Meaning that even if I had saved him here, once we're out and he is 'safe' he could do what he wants, perhaps even blame me for the death of his comrades. Though this reasoning isn't without flaw, in those stories, this would have been the perfect explanation.

"It doesn't mean that I shouldn't help those who need help. Leave if you want." I shooed the man away and went to the next person stuck.

Just a was about to remove the webbing of one of the cultivators stuck in the rock I heard a loud stomp behind me when I turned, the man I had just saved, with murder in his eyes was swinging a sword at my neck, and it was far too late to dodge…

****

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