Mother Spider

The moment consciousness returned, that voice arrived right on cue.

[Return to Void has opened]

[Countdown to return: 23:59:57]

It was still 24 hours; the time had not changed.

Jiang Ran opened his eyes and sat up from the bed.

Everything in the room was exactly as it had been when he left: the compound bow leaned against the wall, the quiver hung on the back of the chair, and the Tang Dao lay across the tabletop.

He walked to the window and pulled back a corner of the curtain.

The window on the fourth floor of the residential building opposite remained shattered, with shards of glass scattered on the sidewalk below.

Jiang Ran watched, lost in thought.

It seemed that the destruction here would persist and would not reset when he left and returned.

Jiang Ran then pulled the curtain shut again, not rushing to leave immediately.

Instead, he took out the Bagua Copper Coin, recited a silent prayer, and tossed the coin into the air.

The next second, the coin simply fell, showing absolutely no special reaction.

Jiang Ran was taken aback. He caught the coin just before it hit the ground, his brow furrowing slightly.

What he wanted most right now was undoubtedly a Seed of Return to Void, or perhaps Spirit Crystals and items similar to the Bagua Copper Coin.

Since the Bagua Copper Coin could only be used for one divination per day, Jiang Ran naturally wanted to use this chance on the Seed of Return to Void.

However, it was clear that the coin could not divine the location of a Seed of Return to Void.

In that case, he could only divine the location of something similar to the Bagua Copper Coin itself.

After all, Spirit Crystals could be found in the heads of any monster; there was no need to deliberately use the Bagua Copper Coin to search for them.

Thus, Jiang Ran silently asked: where is the closest thing similar to the Bagua Copper Coin?

He then tossed the coin.

This time, the coin finally reacted, spinning rapidly in the air.

At the same time, a direction appeared in Jiang Ran's mind.

West, about 20 kilometers away!?

Twenty kilometers was not a long distance under normal circumstances, but this was the Return to Void.

God knows what he might encounter on the way.

Go, or not go?

Jiang Ran hesitated for only three seconds.

Go.

The Return to Void had just opened for the second time, and most people were still in a state of panic, groping and adapting.

Even if those organizations and factions had already begun to act, their efficiency was limited.

This was a window of opportunity.

Once everyone reacted, organized, and established spheres of influence, the difficulty of snatching good items from under their noses would increase exponentially.

In the early stages, one had to compete.

Compete for resources, compete for opportunities, and compete for everything that could make oneself stronger.

Jiang Ran opened the map on his phone.

The fastest way from his current location to the target area was to take the main road, but that also carried the highest risk.

On the open street, once targeted by a monster, there was almost no cover.

His finger slid across the map, finally selecting a route that was relatively winding but dense with buildings along the way.

Although it was a detour, it at least provided space for hiding and maneuvering.

With the plan set, Jiang Ran quickly organized his gear.

He slung the compound bow over his back, hung the quiver at his waist for easy access, and secured the Tang Dao diagonally across his back with paracord.

He stuffed essentials and the Bagua Copper Coin into his tactical waist pack.

Finally, he pulled up the hood of his black hoodie and covered the lower half of his face with a mask.

He pushed open the front door.

When he stepped out of the apartment building, the sky was pitch black, with only a sliver of moonlight.

Most of the time, Jiang Ran maintained a pace between a fast walk and a light jog, his body always in a state ready to exert force at any moment.

With Combat Intuition fully engaged, his five senses were heightened to their limit.

His eyes scanned the windows and rooftops of the buildings ahead and on both sides.

Along the way, Jiang Ran encountered three lone monsters.

They were all the same gray-green, lizard-like creatures he had seen before.

He did not engage them; he bypassed them whenever possible, and if he couldn't, he dispatched them with rapid shots from his compound bow.

With his current arm strength, the 156-pound compound bow allowed him to pierce skulls with every arrow within fifty meters.

The monsters didn't even have time to sound an alarm before they collapsed and died.

Jiang Ran would quickly dissect the corpses, extract the Spirit Crystals, and immediately leave the scene.

No lingering, no delays.

An hour and a half later.

Jiang Ran stood at the corner of a street and came to a halt.

The scene before him made his pupils constrict.

The street surface looked as if it had been gnawed on by a giant beast, riddled with bottomless pits everywhere.

The buildings on both sides were destroyed beyond recognition.

The blood on the ground had already dried and turned black, splattered everywhere.

There were also unrecognizable fragments of tissue.

How could this be the High-Tech District...

Calling it a war zone would not be an exaggeration.

Jiang Ran had to slow his pace.

Several kilometers away, on another street.

Zhou Ming was panting heavily, sweat sliding from his forehead into his eyes, stinging them.

He didn't dare to wipe it away, because if he stopped, those things behind him would catch up.

"Uncle, Uncle Wang... wait for me..." His voice trembled, almost on the verge of tears.

The man running ahead didn't look back; instead, he increased his speed.

"Hurry up! Stop fucking dragging your feet!" Uncle Wang's voice was impatient.

The two had met half an hour ago.

Zhou Ming had followed Jiang Ran's advice, contacting the Federation immediately upon being outside. Someone had quickly communicated with him about shelter arrangements, telling him to wait at home for rescue.

But plans couldn't keep up with changes.

Not long after he entered today, monsters had actively come to his door.

He had been forced to leave his home and head for the police station.

Then, he ran into Uncle Wang on the way.

Upon hearing that the police would protect Zhou Ming, Uncle Wang had taken it upon himself to guard him.

Zhou Ming had believed him.

But now...

"Uncle Wang! There's a fork in the road ahead, which way do we go?!" Zhou Ming shouted.

Uncle Wang did not answer.

He ran to the fork, suddenly turned right, and disappeared behind a building.

Zhou Ming hurried to follow, but the moment he rounded the corner, he tripped...

He lunged forward, his knees and elbows slamming hard against the rough concrete, burning with pain.

When he looked up, Uncle Wang was already dozens of meters away, glancing back at him once.

There was no apology in those eyes, no hesitation.

Then Uncle Wang turned and vanished completely into the entrance of a building.

Zhou Ming froze.

He lay on the ground, staring blankly in that direction, his mind a complete void.

Until a hissing sound came from behind him.

He turned his head stiffly.

Three monsters were slowly closing in from the other end of the street.

Their bodies were larger than any Zhou Ming had seen before.

Their heads... were twisted human faces.

The features were misaligned, one eye higher than the other, with mouths stretched to their ears, revealing rows of dense, sharp teeth inside.

At this moment, the three human faces were turned toward Zhou Ming, wearing a strange, mocking expression that looked like a smile.

"No... don't..."

Zhou Ming struggled to crawl up, but his knees ached intensely, and he couldn't muster the strength for a moment.

The leading Human-Faced Spider accelerated, its eight legs alternating rapidly as the distance closed in a flash.

Ten meters.

Five meters.

It raised its front limbs high, the tips sharp as scythes, aiming straight for Zhou Ming's skull...

Fortunately, at that moment, gunfire suddenly erupted.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Bullets whistled past the top of Zhou Ming's head.

They brought flashes of fire, and with them, hope.

Meanwhile.

On the other side, atop an office building.

Jiang Ran had also found his target.

However, it wasn't on his building, but on the roof of the skyscraper across the street.

The rooftop opposite was covered in a layer of iridescent spider silk.

In the center crouched a Human-Faced Spider of immense size.

Its body was the size of a small truck, and its eight long legs, when spread, were each thicker than an adult's waist.

Surrounding it, dozens of white eggs were scattered across the web.

Each was the size of a basketball, their surfaces translucent, revealing the faint outlines of curled-up larvae inside.

It looks like... a mother spider!?

This won't be easy to fight...

Jiang Ran reached this conclusion after only a few glances.

A monster of this size could no longer be easily dealt with by bows or close-quarters combat.

He would have to rely on extraordinary means like the Dragon-Tiger Fist.

But judging by the number of eggs, a massive amount of monster larvae had likely already hatched inside that building.

And the total amount of blood energy within his own body was nowhere near enough to handle so many monsters.

Should he give up!?

The moment this thought arose, Jiang Ran snuffed it out.

He had already come this far; to give up halfway now was something Jiang Ran could not accept...

Just as Jiang Ran was rapidly formulating a strategy, a sound suddenly came from the rooftop opposite.

Pfft.

Jiang Ran immediately looked up.

He saw the surface of one of the white eggs crack open.

Immediately following, like a chain reaction, dozens of eggs ruptured in succession.

Tiny Human-Faced Spider larvae crawled out from the eggs, dense and swarming, covering a small portion of the rooftop in an instant.

They shook off the slime from their bodies and began to pour into the building through the stairwell.

Some even began to crawl vertically downward along the exterior walls of the skyscraper.

The barbs on their eight legs gripped the glass curtain walls and concrete surfaces firmly, their speed astonishing.

In just over ten seconds.

Jiang Ran saw countless monsters pouring out from inside the building, sprinting toward a single direction.

This sight left him slightly stunned—were they going out to hunt!?

Regardless, Jiang Ran knew his opportunity had arrived.

Noticing that not many monsters were left pouring out of the building.

Jiang Ran quickly retreated to the opposite edge of the rooftop.

He gauged the distance between the two buildings; it was about twenty meters, with an eighty-meter drop in between.

In the past, this would have been suicide.

But now...

Jiang Ran took a deep breath, and his blood energy began to surge.

He retreated to the furthest end of the rooftop, a distance of about thirty meters.

A running start.

The first step landed, causing the concrete ground to tremble slightly.

With the second step, his speed surged.

On the third step, his blood and qi erupted, and the Eight-Step Cicada Chase was activated at full power...

The world blurred within his field of vision.

The sound of the wind roared in his ears like a thunderclap.

By the fourth step, Jiang Ran had already charged to the edge of the rooftop.

He leaped high!

His body soared into the air, crossing a twenty-meter gap.

At the very moment he jumped, Jiang Ran's left hand snatched the compound bow from his back, while his right hand drew an arrow from the quiver.

He nocked the arrow and drew the bow.

The movements were completed while he was suspended in mid-air.

The bowstring was pulled to a full moon, the arrowhead aimed directly at the massive Mother Spider on the opposite rooftop.

Its compound eyes seemed to sense something, and its head slowly turned toward the sky...

Whoosh!

The arrow left the string, its piercing whistle cutting through the air.

At that exact moment, Jiang Ran was about to land.

He did not even look to see the result of the shot.

He had already assumed the stance for the Dragon-Tiger Fist while still in the air...

His arms spread to his sides, his waist and hips twisted, and his spine rippled like a great dragon.

Blood and qi condensed and boiled in his right fist...

A dragon's roar exploded over the street in an instant...!!