Holding the Line

Ye Liuyun's right hand had been completely pierced through, yet he gripped that black spike tightly.

The muscles in his arm tensed to the limit, veins bulging like dragons and serpents as he forcibly trapped the lethal strike in his palm.

Seeing that the ambush had failed, the sharp spider leg suddenly yanked back.

It was a pitch-black spider as large as a carriage.

Its eight long legs resembled steel-forged spears, and its skin was like obsidian, without any distinctive odor.

If it stood still with its body curled up, it looked just like a rock.

Over the years, Ye Liuyun had learned quite a bit about Spirit Beasts.

He recognized the Spirit Beast before him at a glance—the Crypt Demon Spider!

It was a social Spirit Beast.

Bitterness filled his heart. These things never appeared alone.

At the same time, he realized this was the bad luck brought about by the Butterfly Effect.

The King of the Forest, the Titan Giant Ape, had appeared, frightening the Spirit Beasts at the forest's outskirts into fleeing in every direction.

At this moment, several small beast tides were rampaging nearby.

But because of his appearance, the Titan Giant Ape had not calmly returned along its original route. Instead, it had hurriedly taken another path, causing the beast tides that had originally been fleeing in one direction to change course again.

And just their luck, they had run into one of them.

"Hiss—"

Accompanied by scalp-numbing hissing, countless pairs of tiny scarlet eyes lit up within the surrounding bushes.

They were densely packed—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of century- and millennium-level Crypt Demon Spiders!

"We're finished..."

Dai Mubai had only just climbed back to his feet when his legs gave out, and he sat back down.

Zhao Wuji was unconscious, Tang San had left, Xiao Wu had been taken away, and this ragtag group of wounded stragglers was nothing more than a plate of snacks before such a terrifying spider tide!

Ning Rongrong was even more frightened out of her wits. The brush with death just now, along with the horrifying wound on Ye Liuyun's hand, made her entire worldview crumble.

Slap.

A clean left hand gently patted the top of her head.

Ye Liuyun's voice remained calm, as though the person who had nearly lost the use of a hand just now was not him.

"Go."

Ning Rongrong stared blankly at Ye Liuyun.

"What about you?"

"I'll hold them back."

Ye Liuyun turned around to face the spider tide flooding toward him like a tidal wave.

"Why?"

Ning Rongrong's voice trembled with tears, filled with confusion.

"I deliberately targeted you, and you called me trash. Why are you still saving me?"

Ye Liuyun did not turn around.

Looking at the hideous monsters ahead, he shrugged and smiled indifferently.

"Who knows?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Whether it was saving that old man on the street that day or saving you now."

"It was never about helping anyone."

Ye Liuyun waved his hand dismissively.

"Go."

With that said.

Ye Liuyun, whose Soul Power had already been exhausted, forcefully squeezed out one last use of his spirit skill.

Third Spirit Skill: World of Trees!

Two thick walls of trees rose from the ground, forcibly carving out a narrow passage through the densely packed spider tide.

Zhu Zhuqing reacted the fastest. Knowing that staying behind would only get in the way, she grabbed the still-dazed Ning Rongrong and pulled her up.

Dai Mubai, Oscar, and Ma Hongjun supported the heavily injured Zhao Wuji as they rushed toward the passage.

Ning Rongrong was dragged along, turning back every few steps.

She looked at Ye Liuyun's slender figure standing before the spider tide.

She summoned her Martial Spirit, the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda, intending to provide support.

But her Soul Power had already been drained dry when she assisted Zhao Wuji, a Spirit Saint.

She could not even use a single spirit skill.

She could only run helplessly alongside Zhu Zhuqing.

Her heart pounded violently, as though it were about to leap from her chest.

She knew it was because of the intense fear from earlier. Ye Liuyun had explained to her that this was called the Suspension Bridge Effect.

After everyone left.

The passage was quickly overrun and destroyed by a massive number of Crypt Demon Spiders.

In this stretch of heaven and earth, only Ye Liuyun remained, facing an army of thousands.

"Come."

Ye Liuyun took a deep breath. The Soul Power in his body had run dry, but the fighting spirit in his eyes burned like blazing fire.

At the same time, he spoke the words he had not finished earlier because he had been too embarrassed.

"I just..."

Ye Liuyun slowly raised his head. His pupils, once somewhat unfocused from exhaustion and blood loss, now shone with unprecedented brilliance.

In his previous life, in that peaceful era, what had he been?

He had been a speck of dust drowned in the sea of people.

Countless times, he had stared blankly through tedious classes and fantasized beneath the covers late at night.

He fantasized about donning golden armor, holding the pass alone against ten thousand foes.

He fantasized about turning the tide and saving the girl he loved from desperate circumstances, basking in the admiring gazes of the world.

He fantasized about being an omnipotent superhero, a majestic great general.

But reality was that he had not even dared raise his voice at his boss, nor had he dared confess to the girl he liked.

That was the helplessness of a peaceful era, and the normal state of ordinary people.

He was not afraid of death, but he feared dying silently, dying without meaning, dying in a way that would make his childhood self look down on him.

"Ye Liuyun, Ye Liuyun, look at the state you're in."

He lowered his head and glanced at his pierced palm, dripping with blood and exposing ghastly white bone.

Because of the poison, black blood had begun to seep from the wound.

His Soul Power was exhausted, and he was now badly poisoned.

He was also surrounded on all sides by his enemies.

He had clearly reached an irreversible dead end.

The Crypt Demon Spiders launched surprise attacks with their extendable spider legs, while others spat out webs.

Attacks rained down from every direction like a storm of arrows.

Ye Liuyun could only barely twist and dodge.

The corrosive spider silk burned away his clothing.

The places where spider legs had slashed him began to turn purple and black.

His vision blurred, and his strength gradually failed him.

Ye Liuyun thought of the Shrek group who had run far away.

Like a flickering lantern, memories of his old fantasies flashed through his mind.

Behind him were classmates he was only vaguely close to, along with teachers who looked impatient.

Before him were countless enemies.

He stood here alone, holding the line against ten thousand.

First, he gave a faint, self-mocking smile. Then his expression lost control as he threw back his head, laughed wildly, and roared.

"I really did become what I once dreamed of being."

He suddenly raised his head.

"Come fight!!!"

With that furious roar, Ye Liuyun's previously depleted dantian suddenly rumbled like an enormous millstone turning.

Talent: Endless Life: Reversal!

Saving Zhao Wuji had been difficult because Ye Liuyun was merely a Soul Elder. Although his Soul Power far surpassed that of ordinary people, it was still limited.

Coupled with the loss from conversion, the life force he could exchange for was only so much.

But now, he was burning the foundational reserves hidden deep within his soul, belonging to an Eight-Hundred-Thousand-Year Spirit Beast, and forcibly converting them into violent Soul Power!

This conversion came at a price.

The cultivation of a transformed Spirit Beast was used to condense the Spirit Rings for every stage.

Drawing upon it in advance was an overdraft against the future, burning the foundation of this life.

But so what?

Crack, crack, crack—!

A bone-popping sound that made one's teeth ache rang out.

Within the golden blaze, Ye Liuyun's body actually grew another inch at a visible speed.

His once somewhat lean teenage frame now swelled with sharply defined muscles, every inch containing explosive power.

The savage wound piercing his right hand instantly squirmed with fresh flesh beneath the wash of immense life force, healing in an overwhelmingly forceful manner without leaving even the slightest scar.

The poison was swept away like dust, evaporating with a casual flick of his hand.

"Hiss!"

The Crypt Demon Spider charging at the front seemed to sense something. A trace of instinctive terror flashed through its once bloodthirsty compound eyes.

It felt that what stood before it was no longer a weakened human, but a monster that had just awakened.

Boom!!!

The next instant, a golden tidal wave of Soul Power exploded outward in all directions from Ye Liuyun in a ring!

The overflowing Soul Power swept through the battlefield like a roaring sea and collapsing mountains.

Ye Liuyun slowly raised his head. His eyes had now completely turned a dazzling gold.

Blue hair, golden eyes, and golden patterns gleamed across his body.

His left hand shone with the crystalline Immortal Azure Emperor Armor, bearing the surging, violent Soul Power within him.

He raised it high, pointing one hand toward the heavens.

At this moment, in this place.

Above and below heaven, I alone am supreme!

"Die!"

Snap.

A finger snap.

In an instant, the ground within a hundred meters collapsed, countless cracks spreading like a spiderweb.

Third Spirit Skill: World of Trees: Imperial Pole!

This time, they were no longer ordinary green vines.

Rumble—!

Countless dark-golden giant trees as thick as pillars of heaven, carved with ancient and weathered divine patterns, instantly burst through the earth and shot into the skies!

They were not growing; they were more like divine spears thrust up from hell!

"Screech!!!"

The dozens of millennium-level Demon Spiders at the front did not even have time to cry out before the dark-golden giant trees pierced through their abdomens, hoisting them into the air like candied hawthorns on skewers.

The battlefield echoed continuously with the wails of Spirit Beasts. Broken limbs and shattered ruins formed the brush, green blood the paint—a scene straight from hell.