No, It Wasn't Yue Hongsheng, It Was the Illusion Demon Spider!!!

No! It definitely wasn't Yue Hongsheng!

If it had been Yue Hongsheng, that poison-attribute Soul Saint, he would have long since fallen into agony worse than death!

That man would never put on such a bizarre puppet-show prelude, and Yue Hongsheng's pursuit was so swift and ruthless that he would never have given him time to stand here and analyze the situation!

There was only one answer!

An answer that made even Lin Xia's marrow turn cold!

Someone else!

Or rather, a soul beast!

An incredibly terrifying soul beast with some sort of mental or neurotoxic control ability!

It was nearby—perhaps even... among these villagers!

That terrifying hunter that had effortlessly torn apart the berserk thousand-year Skyhorn Snake!

At that suffocating moment of utter silence—

"Rustle... rustle..."

As if confirming Lin Xia's most horrifying suspicion, an exceptionally faint yet distinct sound of footsteps crunching over dead leaves slowly came from behind the villagers, following a strange rhythm!

Each footfall struck against Lin Xia's taut nerves!

Bulbasaur suddenly shuddered in Lin Xia's arms. The bulb on its back flared with an unprecedentedly urgent green light as it let out a piercing shriek filled with utter terror:

"Bulba—!!!"

The footsteps stopped.

They stopped at the edge of the campfire's glow, within that impenetrably thick darkness.

Lin Xia locked his gaze on that spot. His spiritual power, like the finest probe, strained with all its might to sense something, yet all he felt was a cold, viscous spiritual field that seemed capable of corroding souls. It spread like an invisible spiderweb, enveloping the entire village.

He could almost see countless hair-thin spiritual threads stretching out from the darkness, connecting every villager with hollow eyes.

"Hiss—"

A shriek that came not from a throat, but from some mental plane, carrying a powerful sense of sucking and distortion, exploded directly in the minds of Lin Xia and Bulbasaur!

Man and beast both grunted, their minds violently shaken, as if their souls were about to be ripped from their bodies.

At the very instant of that mental impact, the campfire flickered violently!

The firelight spread forward, abruptly illuminating the darkness at its edge.

A massive spider leg covered in dark purple carapace stepped into the halo of light first!

The shell was covered in strange swirling patterns that flowed with an illusory sheen under the firelight, as though they could draw in anyone's gaze.

Then came the second, the third... a full eight long legs, sharp as enormous scythe blades and covered in carapace, steadily supported a colossal body that made hearts and souls tremble as it squeezed entirely out of the darkness and into the firelight!

The creature's main body was a hideous head wrapped in thick dark purple carapace.

There were no eyes in the conventional sense on its head. Instead, eight enormous compound eyes, dark green like cheap glass marbles, were arranged across its brow!

Every compound eye was cold and lifeless, yet flickered with maddening, kaleidoscopic light. As they turned, they seemed able to reflect the deepest fears hidden in one's heart, constantly radiating the viscous, filthy mental ripples Lin Xia had just sensed—the source of its soul-controlling power!

Below the compound eyes were two dark blue bony scythe jaws, like terrifying guillotines!

The edges of those massive mouthparts gleamed with a hard metallic chill. The Skyhorn Snake's huge, tough body had clearly been severed alive by those jaws!

Illusion Demon Spider!!!

That realization brought not only shock, but crushing despair!

Illusion Demon Spiders! They were renowned for their unfathomable stealth talents and despair-inducing spider-silk control!

They were among the upper predators recorded among soul beasts, famous for being troublesome and bizarre!

They rarely showed themselves in their true forms. Instead, they excelled at using spider silk to control their prey, turning them into puppets without them ever realizing it!

Remembering the villagers' evasive words and abnormal vigilance during the day, Lin Xia instantly understood why!

But now was not the time to think about that.

This monstrosity was so enormous, and it had effortlessly toyed with that thousand-year Skyhorn Snake as bait, even biting it in half... only one explanation made sense!

Those villagers had likely long become puppets controlled by this monster, gathering Rotting Flesh Poison for it—or they themselves were merely nodes in its vast web!

No wonder its true body could brazenly exist in the dense forest so close to the village—because the entire village was part of the trap it had woven!

Those with Soul Power were even more perfect thread puppets for it!

Five thousand years!

It had definitely reached the five-thousand-year level!

Lin Xia's heart pounded wildly in his chest, nearly bursting apart.

An Illusion Demon Spider of this level possessed terrifyingly powerful control. Its mental assaults were enough to instantly crush the will of even a Soul Grandmaster or Soul Elder!

Not to mention its invisible, incomparably tough Illusion Demon Spider silk!

Fight it head-on?

Forget Lin Xia and Bulbasaur in their current state—even a Soul Ancestor would gain no advantage whatsoever against such a sinister existence proficient in mental attacks and puppet control!

Run! They had to run immediately!

Every cell in Lin Xia's body was screaming a shrill warning.

He had almost no time to think. His body instinctively wanted to retreat, to summon his bone wings and tear through the air!

However—

At the instant the thought of fleeing flashed through Lin Xia's mind like lightning!

A sudden change occurred!

That bone-deep chill abruptly intensified!

It was as if an invisible cold wave had instantly frozen his limbs and body!

An indescribable, irresistible force of terrifying spiritual power struck Lin Xia's mind without warning!

It did not feel like an external attack. Rather, it was as if the neural pathways connecting his thoughts to his body had been brutally severed by some force!

More precisely, he felt as though his soul had been tightly wrapped and bound by an extremely viscous, tough, cold, invisible substance!

Every muscle in Lin Xia's body instantly tensed to its limit! His face reddened from terror and desperate struggle!

But!

He could not make a single movement!

He could not even move one finger!

His throat felt as though it had been tightly gripped by a giant hand, unable to produce the slightest sound!

Even the rhythm of his breathing was locked down by that invisible force!

From the corner of his eye, he saw Bulbasaur. The little fellow had likewise fallen into an absolute state of rigidity!

It was as though it had been frozen onto a stone slab. Its crimson eyes were wide open, filled with the same terror and a trace of stunned confusion, as if it could not understand why its Vine Whip had stopped responding or why its body no longer obeyed its commands!

At the edges of Lin Xia's vision, faint, nearly transparent purple light began to flicker strangely.

It was not light perceived by the eyes, but more like a mental sensation produced by extremely powerful spiritual perception, or the activation of some sort of connection!

Threads!

Countless Illusion Demon Spider threads, finer than hair, completely transparent and utterly impossible to see with the naked eye!

Like a vast net that had been laid out long ago, they had silently wrapped themselves around Lin Xia and Bulbasaur's limbs, torsos, even their necks and heads!

Every thread was deeply embedded at the point where skin and soul connected!

The moment Lin Xia formed the thought of escape, those hidden spider threads activated at once, like the most precise surgical blades, completely severing their control over their bodies!

The mantis stalked the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind... The mantis thought it had escaped the oriole's pursuit, never realizing that it had already crashed into a silently spread, deadly web belonging to the Illusion Demon Spider!