Killing

Five weapons—a long saber, a short saber, and steel spikes—thrust into that crack almost simultaneously.

A string of crisp clangs rang out. The bearded man's blade tip had indeed cut into flesh, but after sinking less than an inch, it was clamped fast by the Spider King's muscles.

He gritted his teeth and tried to force it another half inch deeper, only to find that no matter how hard he pushed, it would not budge.

The other four hunters fared much the same. Their blade tips only grazed the surface tissue, and not a single drop of dark green fluid spilled out.

"Damn it, we can't pierce it!"

The bearded man yanked out his blade and hurriedly retreated two steps to avoid the Spider King's sweeping tail, panting hard.

"It's all sinew and muscle inside! We don't have enough force!"

Before the words had faded, the Spider King had already flown into a rage.

Though it had lost one foreleg, the killing power of its seven remaining legs was still terrifying.

One intact hind leg swept sideways. A middle-aged hunter closest to its flank failed to dodge in time and was struck squarely in the chest by the blade-like leg.

The man did not even have time to scream before he flew away like a kite with its string cut, crashing heavily into a shelf. By the time he slid down, a large section of his chest had caved in. Bloody foam poured from his mouth, and the light rapidly faded from his eyes.

He was dead.

"Old Guo!"

The bearded man's eyes instantly reddened, but the battlefield gave him not even a moment to mourn.

After completing its sweep, the Spider King readjusted its balance on seven legs and bore down on the crowd again.

Lin Yun's heart sank, but his feet did not dare stop.

He once more closed in on the Spider King from the side, attempting to draw its attention back to himself with a punch.

Sure enough, the Spider King turned and lunged at him. Its intact foreleg shot straight for his chest with a shriek that tore through the air.

Lin Yun twisted aside with all his strength, but the foreleg carried too much force. Though its blade did not strike his heart, it tore past the outside of his left arm with a rip, shredding the entire sleeve and gouging a two-inch-long wound into his arm, deep enough to expose bone.

Blood instantly gushed out and ran down his arm onto the floor. The pain made the veins at Lin Yun's temples throb.

He staggered back several steps and shook his numb, agonized left arm. He knew clearly that he could not drag this out any longer.

If it continued, blood loss alone would wear him down until he died.

The old wound was indeed the Spider King's fatal weakness, but the five late-stage Martial Apprentice hunters lacked the force to penetrate that layer of sinew and muscle. Only he could do it.

Yet the Spider King had been chasing him all across the hall. He had no chance at all to approach the old wound and gather strength.

He took a deep breath, dodging the Spider King's next assault as he shouted toward the bearded man, "Hold it down! I'll strike!"

The bearded man abruptly looked up, glanced at Lin Yun, and immediately understood what he meant.

He looked at the bloody wound on Lin Yun's left arm, gritted his teeth, and roared at the three hunters still beside him, "Restrain this beast with everything you've got! Nail it in place!"

The four immediately changed tactics.

They gave up attacking the old wound and instead spread out in four directions, hacking with their blades, ramming with their bodies, using every method they had to attack the Spider King's leg joints and flanks.

They did not seek to break its defense. They only wanted to tear apart the Spider King's attention so it could not focus on any one direction.

The Spider King was driven frantic by this tactic of being besieged from all sides.

The moment it turned to deal with the hunter on its left, a blade struck the joint of its right hind leg. When it swept its tail to force back the man on its right, someone lunged at it from the left front. When it tried to turn and pursue that most troublesome bearded man at its side, another hunter clamped both arms around its hind leg and held on for dear life.

The four late-stage Martial Apprentice hunters exerted every ounce of strength they had and forcibly nailed a second-tier Spider King in place.

Lin Yun seized the opportunity.

He first retreated several quick steps away from the Spider King to open the distance, then suddenly turned. Wind-Treading Step erupted at full force, and the Gale Battle Boots slammed fiercely into the ground. He shot toward the Spider King's carapace like an arrow loosed from a bowstring.

He stepped on the joint of the Spider King's hind leg and borrowed the force to launch himself into the air. Twisting halfway around midair, he landed steadily atop the Spider King's broad carapace.

The Spider King sensed the threat on its back and let out a furious shriek. Its massive body shook wildly, its seven legs kicking and thrashing like unbridled winches.

The carapace bucked violently. Lin Yun pressed down on it with one knee, his left hand digging desperately into a crack at the edge of the shell as he barely managed to steady himself.

But the Spider King shook too violently. He could not free his right hand to aim.

At that moment, the bearded man lunged in from the side and wrapped both arms tightly around the Spider King's only intact foreleg. Using all his weight and strength, he forced it down and pinned it hard against the ground.

With its foreleg fixed in place, the Spider King instantly lost its balance, and its mad bucking abruptly weakened for an instant.

A great mouthful of blood spilled from the bearded man's lips.

When he had lunged forward, the blade of one of the Spider King's other hind legs had already pierced through the right side of his abdomen, its bloodied tip jutting halfway out through his back.

But he gritted his teeth and did not let go. Veins bulged across his body as he rasped, "Brother Lin, now!"

Lin Yun did not hesitate.

He gripped the broken blade in his right hand, pouring all the blood and qi in his body into his right arm. The force of Vajra Fist layered upon layer at the broken blade's tip. Aiming at an old wound Black Brother had cut earlier—the grayish-white soft tissue exposed where the carapace had shattered—he drove it down with all his strength.

The broken blade sank into the old wound, pierced through the layer of sinew and muscle, and caught against something hard—likely bone or cartilage deep inside the Spider King's body.

The Spider King released a piercing shriek, and its body jolted violently.

Lin Yun did not stop.

He pressed the back of the broken blade with his left hand, clenched his right fist, and smashed it fiercely onto the hilt.

Thud.

With a muffled impact, the broken blade drove another half inch deeper.

Thud.

The second punch.

The broken blade sank another half inch. More dark green fluid surged from the edge of the blade, mixed with fine fragments of dark red tissue.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Like hammering in a nail, Lin Yun slammed punch after punch onto the hilt.

The hilt dug painfully into his finger bones, even leaving dents in the alloy scales of his gloves, but he paid it no heed. Only a cold fury churned in his chest.

With every punch, the broken blade sank deeper.

The Spider King's shrieks grew increasingly shrill as its body twisted frantically. But its foreleg was pinned tightly beneath the bearded man, while Lin Yun on its back was nailed to it like a spike. No matter what it did, it could not throw either of them off.

The third punch.

The fourth punch.

The fifth punch.

The broken blade vanished completely into the Spider King's body, leaving only its hilt exposed.

The blade had pierced through the hard bony membrane within the Spider King and wedged deeply between the organs in its chest cavity. Dark green fluid poured from the wound like a spring.

The Spider King's body suddenly stiffened for an instant. All seven legs tensed at once, then went completely limp as though every last bit of strength had been drained away.

With a thunderous crash, its enormous body slammed heavily into the ground, sending dust billowing everywhere.

It was not dead yet.

The light in its eight compound eyes still flickered weakly, and its seven legs still twitched and kicked unconsciously. But it could no longer stand. Its huge body lay crooked amid dust and insect corpses, with only the faintest rise and fall left in its chest.

Lin Yun slid down from the Spider King's back and dropped to one knee, gulping down breaths. The wound on his left arm was still seeping blood, while the bones in his right fist hurt as though they were about to crack apart.

He raised his head and looked toward the bearded man.

The bearded man still held the Spider King's foreleg in that same pose, half kneeling on the ground, his body leaning slightly forward as though he had spent the last thread of his strength.

His eyes were still open, and a faint curve rested at the corner of his lips, as though he were smiling.

But the wound that had pierced through his right abdomen had stopped bleeding.

His chest no longer rose or fell.

Lin Yun looked at him, feeling as though something had lodged in his throat. He could not say a single word.

Behind him came the Spider King's weak, intermittent struggling. Dark green fluid still streamed from the split old wound, mixed with dark red fragments of organs.

Lin Yun slowly rose to his feet, turned around, and walked to the Spider King's head.

He looked down at the second-tier mutated beast still clinging to life, at the fading light in its compound eyes. Then he suddenly raised his right fist and smashed it down at the old wound by its severed leg, already mangled beyond recognition by the broken blade.

There was no sound.

His fist sank into flesh, crushing the defenseless soft tissue, breaking the last thin layer of bony membrane, and driving into the core of its organs, which had already stopped beating.

The second punch.

The third punch.

The fourth punch.

Lin Yun did not know how many times he struck. He only knew that each punch was heavier and more vicious than the last, until he could no longer lift his right hand, until the Spider King's proud head had completely collapsed, until the light in all eight compound eyes had gone out, and there was no longer the slightest trace of life beneath its cold carapace.

The second-tier Shadow Spider King was finally dead!

Lin Yun withdrew his hand and stood there with his head lowered, his ragged breathing exceptionally clear in the empty hall.

He was covered in blood—his own, the bearded man's, Old Guo's, and the Spider King's—all mixed together, impossible to tell apart.