At the heart of the Black Spirit Continent, a gray haze shrouded the damp, slick, bone-chilling Spider Swamp.
Here and there in the swamp were pools of unusually clear water, where frail little trees grew. Countless spiderwebs hung densely from their thin, slender trunks, with fist-sized venomous spiders of every color suspended upon them. Every so often, several large spiders let out shrill "squeak-squeak" cries, sounds that carried far, far across the silent swamp.
A wrist-thick, entirely gray Poison Swamp viper lazily swam through the pool, unaware that several mottled widow spiders the size of human heads had already fixed their eyes on him. Malicious, savage red light glimmered in the densely packed eyes of these venomous spiders. Slowly, they sprayed thick strands of silk from beneath their abdomens and crept toward the viper.
A flash of cold light swept past, and the venomous spiders fell into the pool in pieces. The poisonous fluid from their bodies dyed the clear water in a riot of colors. The gray viper leaped in fright at the fallen spiders. He hastily coiled himself up, raised his upper body upright, and flicked his black tongue rapidly, while the miserable green eyes of his own gleamed with equally crazed, savage light.
"Shoo, shoo, little darling. Go farther away. Don't stay here!" A damp, viscous, shrill, grating voice drifted over. A beautiful young girl emerged soundlessly from the fog nearby. She wore a garish skintight leather suit, and her long, supple body swayed faintly of its own accord even as she stood still, making her look like a venomous snake in human form.
She walked over to the viper and gently stroked his ferocious, ugly triangular head. "This isn't a place you should be. Go farther away—the farther, the better. Things won't be so peaceful here