Gathering

Zhang Zhongqin reacted extremely quickly. He immediately leaped onto a towering ancient tree nearby and looked around. In the distance, the forest canopy swayed as someone made their way through the trees, leaping from branch to branch. Between the fluttering hems of his robes, his figure was just visible. Wasn't that Pei Ling?

"That brat's up ahead!" Zhang Zhongqin was overjoyed. He hurriedly told his companions below, "He seems to be lost. He's actually heading our way."

"We searched high and low, only to find him without lifting a finger." Huang Xian and Chen Mei were stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing. Huang Xian cracked his knuckles and advanced with a sinister grin. "I was afraid tracking him down would waste time and make us miss Senior Brother Chen's deadline. Who'd have thought the brat would deliver himself right to our door?"

They were overjoyed and moved to surround him. Fleeing for his life, Pei Ling quickly noticed them. He was so thrilled he could hardly contain himself, and ran toward them as if they were long-lost full siblings who shared neither mother nor father. "Senior Brother Huang! Senior Brother Zhang! And Senior Sister Chen... I finally found you! By the way, why aren't Senior Brother Chen and Senior Sister Xiao here?"

"They're waiting for you in the Soul Devouring Mother Array!" Huang Xian sneered and suddenly lunged, trying to grab him.

But at that very moment, a flash of Bloodlight surged around Pei Ling. He abruptly sped up and, in the briefest instant, shot past them like an arrow loosed from a bow.

The gust he kicked up even stung their faces!

Huang Xian and the others stared blankly. By the time they realized something was wrong, Pei Ling had already sprinted far ahead. As he ran, he shouted, "Senior Brothers, I've completed the task Senior Brother Chen gave me, and that fiend's been lured here just as planned... Quick! Let's kill it together and send it to join those little brats!"

The three instinctively looked in the direction he had come from. Several towering ancient trees had just been sheared off by the creature's legs. Through the gaps between the crashing trunks, a pair of crimson eyes glared at them, blazing with boundless fury!

Then the creature's eight legs flexed, and its enormous body leaped into the air. The human face on its abdomen extinguished the last faint hope in Huang Xian and the others. In its rage, the Human-Faced Spider wasted no time, spraying a web straight at them.

Huang Xian and the others were scared out of their wits and fled at full speed.

Huang Xian and Zhang Zhongqin were one thing; both were at Qi Refining Layer 5, and at the crucial moment, they forced themselves to move faster, narrowly dodging the web. Chen Mei wasn't so lucky. At Qi Refining Layer 4, she had time for only a single scream before the web caught her squarely.

A strand of webbing then dragged her toward the Human-Faced Spider. Its hideous mouthparts closed in, and after a few moments of grating "crunch, crunch" sounds and screams, all fell silent.

Pei Ling glanced back. His blood ran cold, but at the same time, he let out a quiet sigh of relief. Better for a fellow cultivator to die than for him to die! If not for these people, he wouldn't have gotten mixed up with the Human-Faced Spider. As the saying went, only the one who tied the bell could untie it. Whether he could make it safely back to Luoshan City depended entirely on these "companions."

The problem was that Chen Mei had already been killed after just one exchange. The other two probably wouldn't last much longer either. He had to put some distance between them and find a way out—fast!

At the thought, Pei Ling suppressed his discomfort and forcibly circulated his spiritual energy. The Blood Snail Evasion Technique roared into action, accelerating him into a streak of Bloodlight that vanished from the horizon in an instant.

Witnessing this, Huang Xian and Zhang Zhongqin glared with bloodshot eyes. "You little beast!!!"

But the Human-Faced Spider quickly finished eating Chen Mei and gave chase again. Though they were a layer above Pei Ling in cultivation, they had no exceptional escape technique. Even straining every muscle, they could only watch helplessly as the Human-Faced Spider rapidly closed the distance.

Soon, a stench-filled gust swept over them from behind. The broken branches and leaves kicked up by the Human-Faced Spider's legs as it raced through the forest nearly struck them in the back.

"Damn it!" Their faces deathly pale, the two exchanged a glance in their haste. Understanding each other without a word, they struck their chests at almost the same time. A flash of cyan lit their eyes, and they suddenly accelerated.

At the same time, blood seeped from all seven orifices. Against their twisted faces, they looked terrifying, and their auras quickly waned.

This was the Chongming Sect's Blood Burning Great Method. By burning their blood essence, they could forcibly raise their strength, but afterward their cultivation would plummet and their spiritual energy would turn on them.

It was nothing short of drinking poison to quench their thirst.

But at that moment, they had no better choice.

"Go find Senior Brother Chen!" Blood streamed from Huang Xian's mouth as he shouted hoarsely. "We can't hold out much longer!"

Zhang Zhongqin understood. Blood poured even faster from his seven orifices as he sped through the forest like the wind.

A while later, Chen Huan, who had been meditating beside the Soul Devouring Mother-Child Array to recover, suspiciously opened his eyes. Xiao Tasha, who had been admiring his handsome face without looking away, was just about to speak when two bloodstained figures suddenly tumbled down from above.

"Senior Brother Huang! Senior Brother Zhang?!" Xiao Tasha swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue and stared in shock. "How did you end up like this?"

Huang Xian coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. Ignoring her, he hurriedly told Chen Huan, "Senior Brother Chen, things are bad! Somehow that little beast Pei Ling provoked a Human-Faced Spider, and he has some incredibly fast escape technique... Junior Sister Chen Mei was just eaten by it, and that brat has vanished. We had to use the Blood Burning Great Method to shake the beast off for now."

Xiao Tasha's eyes widened, and she sucked in a sharp breath. "What? Doesn't that mean the Human-Faced Spider is coming this way? Senior Brother Chen, we have to leave at once!"

"Leave?" Chen Huan's expression darkened. He quickly considered their options, then looked up and said coldly, "We can leave, but what about Junior Brother Huang and Junior Brother Zhang? If we take them, can we outrun the Human-Faced Spider? Or do you want to abandon them?"

"I..." Xiao Tasha had spoken without thinking. Now, she couldn't help feeling awkward.

Huang Xian and Zhang Zhongqin both shot her a venomous glance. Even more embarrassed, she lowered her head and fell silent.

"Leaving is out of the question." Chen Huan turned to his two junior brothers and spoke quickly. "Our only option now is to use the Soul Devouring Sub-array."

He explained, "The array's already set up. Since the Human-Faced Spider will be here soon, you two go to the Sub-array below and lure it inside. Once the Sub-array traps the spider, Junior Sister Xiao and I will split up and flee."

As he spoke, he took two talismans from his Storage Pouch and handed one each to Huang Xian and Zhang Zhongqin. "As for you two, in your current condition, there's no way you can keep running. These are Breath Concealing Talismans, one each. While the Human-Faced Spider is trapped in the array, find a corner and hide. Even if it can't find you right away, once it sees Junior Sister Xiao and me flee, it's bound to chase after us! That way, you'll be safe."

Huang Xian coughed. "Thank you, Senior Brother! But the Sub-array couldn't even trap Pei Ling..."

"Pei Ling may not have high cultivation, but he's still a living person, and he probably had considerable opportunities before joining the sect," Chen Huan said evenly. "The Human-Faced Spider may be a Foundation Establishment Realm demonic beast, but it's still a beast. Until it takes human form, its wits are even worse than an ordinary mortal's! Besides, the Sub-array can hold it up for a while, and that's better than nothing. Otherwise, none of us will get away!"

Huang Xian was about to say something else, but Xiao Tasha had already turned pale as she stared at Chen Huan. She hurriedly asked, "B-but, Senior Brother Chen, you want them to hide while the two of us run in different directions? What about me?"