The Cave Monster

The other party moved incredibly fast across the web. Its sudden appearance gave Zhou Xu such a fright that his heart clenched hard in his chest.

At that moment, what appeared within his field of vision was a gigantic purplish-red spider whose estimated size rivaled that of an off-road vehicle!

The eight enormous spider legs were covered in hair-raising bristles.

At the very front of its body, eight pitch-black eyes were clustered together atop its protruding head. Just looking at them was enough to make anyone with trypophobia uncomfortable.

Beneath its eyes, the hideous mouthparts opened and closed in a certain rhythm, making one's scalp prickle just to look at them.

To Zhou Xu, a modern man, this was unquestionably a monster.

A surge of intense fear erupted like a volcanic eruption, making his entire body shudder uncontrollably.

"Fuck! Run, run!!"

With no time to think, Zhou Xu took off running. Dashan and the others had no idea what was happening, but they immediately followed, not daring to stop for even a moment.

Zhou Xu did not know how long he had run. Only when his head grew heavy, his feet light, and his vision went black did he hurriedly reach out to brace himself against a Black Forest tree before sliding down against the trunk.

[Damn it, my hypoglycemia is acting up...]

It took him quite a while to recover. Then he raised his eyes to look at Dashan and the others gathered around him.

Dashan and the others were watching him with tense expressions.

"I'm fine."

When Zhou Xu spoke, Dashan and the others visibly relaxed, but they could not help asking him more questions.

"Chief, what exactly did you see in there?"

Dashan's question caused that figure to surface in Zhou Xu's mind once more. Even now, his emotions had not completely settled.

After taking a deep breath and adjusting himself for a while, Zhou Xu told Dashan and the others what he had seen in the enormous rift cavern.

After hearing him out, expressions of fear also appeared uncontrollably on Dashan and the others' faces, exactly as they had on his.

Clearly, Zhou Xu was not the only modern person who would be afraid of such a gigantic monster.

He had never imagined that such a huge creature would be living deep within the Black Forest!

[Fuck, are there really monsters like this in the primitive world?]

The moment this thought arose, Zhou Xu quickly realized that he was wrong.

He had almost forgotten—the world also had those so-called Old Gods and summoning rituals. It truly was not a normal world.

Following that line of thought, making a fuss merely because a giant spider had appeared was actually his own mistake.

"Which way did we run from?"

"This way."

Following the direction Dashan pointed, Zhou Xu once again activated Eye of Insight and looked over.

If that giant spider had come after them, its enormous body would have made it impossible for his Eye of Insight to miss it.

After confirming that it had not come out after them, Zhou Xu let out a tremendous sigh of relief.

Thinking carefully, he had merely discovered it unilaterally with his Eye of Insight at the time. The giant spider might not have noticed his presence at all.

He had been frightened by that monstrous spider, a creature that completely defied common sense, and had temporarily lost the ability to think.

Now that he had calmed down a little, his thoughts quickly opened up completely.

[If this giant spider's habits are similar to those of the spiders I know, then its method of hunting should mainly be waiting patiently for prey to come to it. In other words, it probably won't take the initiative to attack.]

[Does that mean that as long as I don't enter the depths of the Black Forest, I can temporarily leave it in peace and it can leave me in peace?]

Naturally, he did not want to live next door to such a terrifying monster.

His first thought after calming down was whether he could find a way to kill that giant spider.

For example, he could stand outside the rift cavern and throw torches inside to burn the spider to death!

But Zhou Xu quickly crushed that idea and threw it into the trash.

Not to mention that there was nothing inside the cavern to catch fire—even if he threw in a torch, it was doubtful that he could get anything burning in there. He could throw in a Fire Pit, and it might not burn either.

Even if it did catch fire, the giant spider probably was not stupid. And even if it were, animals still possessed the instinct to survive, right?

Once the fire started, wouldn't it run outside?

Trying to burn it to death directly was not realistic.

Under these circumstances, only two paths remained before Zhou Xu.

One was to hurry up and prepare, then migrate with the entire tribe and leave this place.

The other was also to hurry up and prepare, but this time to think of a way to kill the giant spider!

In the short term, migration was the relatively safer option. At the very least, they could effectively avoid the threat posed by the giant spider.

But at present, neither the tribe's food problem nor its fresh-water problem had been solved.

At the same time, apart from this Black Forest, they knew virtually nothing about the other regions.

In other words, they had no idea where they should go.

Migrating in this state could easily result in their food and fresh water running out one after another, leaving them to die on the road.

Conversely, if they chose the other path, they would have to endure the threat of the giant spider. The advantage was that this area could, for the time being, provide them with relatively stable supplies of fresh water and food, allowing them to survive.

Zhou Xu was not opposed to running away. After all, even the Thirty-Six Stratagems said that retreat was the best strategy.

But he could not keep running forever...

With that thought, Zhou Xu steeled his heart.

"Fuck it. Let's kill it!"

As he spoke, Zhou Xu rose to his feet.

"Dashan, mark the trees around here with marks like this."

As he spoke, he casually picked up a stone and carved an X into the tree behind him.

"Starting today, assign one person to come and watch this cavern every day. The moment that giant spider makes a move, come and report to me immediately!"

"Also, send someone to notify Fei Que. They're all on the outskirts, but it would be best for them to stay alert too. I'm going back to the tribe first."

After arranging everything here, Zhou Xu hurried back to the tribe.

Against a spider monster of that size, fighting it head-on truly left one with little confidence. They could only outwit it.

He had already formed a rough plan in his mind along the way.

Now he merely needed a little more time to make that plan more detailed and clear.

During that time, Zhou Xu did not let himself remain idle either. He was currently inspecting the clay bowls laid out to dry in the wind.

He truly intended to kill the giant spider, but what if he failed?

People had to prepare a way out for themselves. They could not simply walk down a single road into darkness.

These pottery vessels would allow them to store fresh water effectively.

If they failed to kill the giant spider and needed to flee, the fresh water stored in the pottery would let them travel farther, greatly increasing their chances of finding a new habitable place!

The update is here. I'd also like to thank the readers "Gentle Breeze" and "Casual and Simple" for their tips!