The Patrol Examiner must have been badly poisoned. Her body was slack, so Ji Ruo's full-force slap had even knocked out her teeth.
Fortunately, the result was good. The Patrol Examiner slowly came around, her eyes still clouded with confusion.
In a fleeting glance, Ji Ruo had learned the other woman's name from her examiner's badge: Li Nannan.
His brow furrowed slightly. His instincts told him something had gone wrong with this Martial Exam. A Nine-Eyed Demon Spider had actually stashed a Patrol Examiner in its cave as reserve food!
But Ji Ruo had no idea what exactly had gone wrong.
And now wasn't the time to think about it.
"Teacher, we're candidates in this Martial Exam. This is the Nine-Eyed Demon Spider's Nest, and those two activated the rescue devices!"
Ji Ruo quickly gave her a brief account of the situation.
Though Li Nannan had been poisoned, she was still a Qi Pulse Realm martial artist. Once conscious, she quickly recalled what had happened.
She grabbed Ji Ruo's arm and said urgently, "We need to leave. Deep in the cave, this pack of Nine-Eyed Demon Spiders has evolved a Spider Queen. Its strength is on par with the peak of the Qi Pulse Realm—"
She stopped mid-sentence and froze.
Her teeth had been knocked out, and the Nine-Eyed Demon Spider's paralyzing venom still coursed through her body. Her words came out slurred and leaky.
She also saw that much of the webbing in the cave was burning. Roaring flames spread deeper into the cave, and ash drifted from the areas already consumed by fire. There wasn't much flammable material in this Nest, so once something had burned, it was gone.
With the keen eyesight of a Qi Pulse Realm martial artist, Li Nannan could see the Spider Queen that had defeated her earlier, roaring furiously beyond the flames deep inside the cave.
Ji Ruo nodded earnestly. "I know, Teacher. We're just waiting for you to lead us out!"
The other three still hadn't recovered from the shock of Ji Ruo's mighty slap.
"Lead you out?" Li Nannan stared at him, stunned. She was injured and badly poisoned. She might not be in mortal danger, but she couldn't take on that huge swarm of Nine-Eyed Demon Spiders!
Then she saw the dozen or so Nine-Eyed Demon Spiders chasing after Ji Ruo and the others. Judging by their size, they were only at the level of Rank Nine Martial Apprentices.
She could handle them!
"All right. Follow me!"
Li Nannan got to her feet and shook her still-dizzy head. With a flash, she overtook the four students and charged at the dozen or so Nine-Eyed Demon Spiders.
As she passed, she casually pulled the Miao Saber from Ji Ruo's back. All the others could see was flashing blade light, pale gold-red qi and blood mingling with the saber's silver gleam as it swept through the cave. In the blink of an eye, she had slaughtered every Nine-Eyed Demon Spider in their path!
Qi Pulse Realm martial artists were true martial artists, their physical abilities far beyond the limits of ordinary people.
Li Nannan's brief battle had been dazzling. The only thing that might have cost her points was that she hadn't called out the name of a move while fighting.
"Go!"
Qi and blood surged through Li Nannan as she moved, carrying the poison through her entire body. Her legs nearly gave way, and she couldn't help spitting out a mouthful of foul-smelling venom tinged with purple. Still, she remembered to look back and urge her students to get away as quickly as possible.
What she didn't know was that the four candidates had spent nearly the whole past two days running. They'd long since gotten the hang of it.
As soon as Li Nannan charged forward, Ji Ruo and the others instinctively took off running.
When Li Nannan looked back, Ji Ruo was just running past her.
Ji Ruo shouted politely, "Thank you, Teacher!"
The others followed his example.
"Thank you, Teacher!"
"Thank you, Teacher!"
"Thank you, Teacher!"
Li Nannan: "?"
The four of them had only learned Basic Movement Technique. Compared with a Qi Pulse Realm martial artist, their escape speed was as slow as a tortoise's crawl. But Li Nannan didn't catch up to them.
She briefly assessed her condition and listened to the shrieks of the huge swarm of Nine-Eyed Demon Spiders behind them. With a bitter laugh, she fought through her dizziness and shouted, "Don't look back! The Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm has undergone an unknown change. Be careful, and don't worry about me!"
Though she'd been forcibly woken, summoning her qi and blood to kill the dozen or so Nine-Eyed Demon Spiders blocking their path had been her limit. Now that she'd opened a path for the students, her mind relaxed a little, and a fierce wave of dizziness washed over her.
She couldn't get away. All she could do was help the students escape as far as possible. It was a shame she couldn't fulfill her duty as a Patrol Examiner!
At the head of the group, Ji Ruo's stride faltered slightly. He barely gave it a thought before turning around and running back. He hoisted Li Nannan over his shoulder, just as she was preparing to stay behind and hold off the spiders with the last of her consciousness.
"Why does everyone love bringing up the rear so much?"
Poison slowed Li Nannan's reactions by half a beat. When her view suddenly turned upside down, she was stunned, then cried out urgently, "What are you coming back for?!
You're still young. Protecting you is my duty as a Patrol Examiner. I can die, but you can't. If you carry me, none of us will get away! Forget about me!"
Ji Ruo said gravely, "Teacher, I left my saber with you. I came back to get it."
Li Nannan: "?"
The other three were used to running by now. Zhang Quan and Liu Neng knew they weren't much help, so they ran without a moment's hesitation. They knew that if they stayed behind, they'd only hold Ji Ruo and the others back.
Liang Shixian slowed a little as he ran, glancing back over his shoulder. When he saw Ji Ruo carrying Li Nannan, he let out a breath of relief and picked up the pace again.
"Ji Ruo, where are we going?" Liang Shixian called. The wind howled past their ears as they sprinted, and they were panting so hard they had to shout to be heard.
Ji Ruo thought for a moment, then suddenly turned and ran toward the woods on the left. "This way!"
Liang Shixian froze. "But that way is a swamp, and there's also—"
At first, more than twenty Nine-Eyed Demon Spiders had chased them. During their escape, they'd passed the edge of that swamp, where several thick tentacles had reached out and dragged some of the spiders in.
That was how Ji Ruo and the others had learned it was a swamp.
Luckily, Ji Ruo had been using [Absolute Sense of Direction] to find a "safe" route. They hadn't run in a fixed direction, so they'd avoided the swamp in advance. Otherwise, they'd have been done for already.
"Trust me!"
Ji Ruo took the lead and sprinted toward the swamp.
Li Nannan was already barely conscious. Ji Ruo couldn't spare a thought for how she felt while he ran. The violent jolting made the poisoned Qi Pulse Realm martial artist throw up.
The foul, venomous vomit was sticky and reeked.
Ji Ruo didn't care. They were all going to get dirty soon anyway.
Two minutes later, Ji Ruo suddenly felt his body grow heavy. The air seemed to turn into a thick liquid, its resistance enormous, and his speed plummeted.
"Slow Demon Eye?!"
Liang Shixian cried out in alarm. They were all affected.
The Nine-Eyed Demon Spider had come out!
Ji Ruo instinctively looked back. There was no swarm of spiders behind them, at least not within ten meters. That meant the one chasing them wasn't an ordinary Nine-Eyed Demon Spider. It had to be the Spider Queen Li Nannan had mentioned!
The sudden weight made Liu Neng stumble and fall.
Then the desperate will to survive drove him to scramble up, pain forgotten. But he ran slower and slower, and his strength drained even faster.
He couldn't help saying, his voice breaking, "We can't get away. We can't get away!"
"Shut up! Keep running!"
Ji Ruo bellowed. The swamp lay in sight ahead.
It wasn't very large. Its shallow-looking surface shimmered with ripples.
The plants around it looked strange, like set dressing from a horror movie.
On top of that, bones of some unknown creature lay scattered around the swamp. Mud clinging to them had long since dried, forming a web of fine cracks.
Ji Ruo gritted his teeth and carried Li Nannan to the swamp's edge at a dead run. Then he suddenly threw himself down and rolled through the mud with Li Nannan, whose mind had grown extremely hazy.
The wet mud at the center of the swamp suddenly bulged, as though something were trying to crawl out from deep within it, but it was moving slowly.
Ji Ruo growled, "Get over here and roll!"
The others: "?"
They had no idea why Ji Ruo wanted them to do that, but angry roars were already rumbling faintly behind them.
In their panic, they didn't stop to question it. They slid to the swamp's edge and rolled around in the mud.
In the blink of an eye, they were all mud-covered.
"Don't move. Don't talk. Hold your breath. Have you ever played hide-and-seek?"
What the hell kind of hide-and-seek?!
Ji Ruo lay on his back in the mud and used [Camouflage] on everyone, then forced himself to stop panting and waited quietly, a little lightheaded from lack of oxygen.
The skill could be used on other people. [Camouflage] increased its effectiveness by 40 percent, but Ji Ruo still didn't know whether it could fool the Spider Queen. It was their last resort.
The others didn't dare move or even breathe loudly. After all that running, they'd stopped all at once, and each of them could hear their heart pounding like a drum inside their chest.
Li Nannan's breathing was faint. She'd already lost consciousness.
The monster in the swamp finally surfaced. It was still made up of thick tentacles, but unlike before, each one was tinged with the faintest hint of purple.
They emerged from the swamp and swayed gently. Their wobbling made them look drunk. Clearly, the few Nine-Eyed Demon Spiders they'd caught earlier had poisoned them.
The poison wasn't strong, though, and its effect was limited.
The others stared wide-eyed, not daring to move for fear the tentacles would spot them and drag them into the swamp.
Yet the thick tentacles seemed not to notice them at all. They swayed slightly, appearing somewhat confused.
"Hiss!"
The furious Spider Queen had arrived.
Now all that remained was to see whether [Camouflage] was any good—and whether they could successfully divert the danger elsewhere.
The organization has arranged training today, so I'm not sure when the next chapter will be.
Before you continue