Spider Nest

In the eyes of that enormous spider, Lin Yi's movements were nothing more than the instinctive vigilance of prey that had sensed danger, no different in essence from the prey it had hunted before.

What it did not know was that Lin Yi's Spirit Eyes had already seen straight through it.

From the moment it had lain in ambush upon the tree trunk, his platinum-gold gaze had pierced through layers of flesh beneath its shell, accurately capturing the complete paths of those gray-black Divine Markings.

On the surface, Lin Yi maintained a wary defensive stance, but in truth, he had already devoted half his focus to running his brain at full speed, recording the Divine Markings on its body.

Spirit Eyes combined with Super Brain—the efficiency was absurdly high.

In the few short breaths since discovering this spider, he had already recorded roughly thirty percent of the complex, tangled Divine Markings on its body.

Those patterns were about as coarse and powerful as the Savage Bull King's strength patterns, and slightly simpler than the Inkshadow Leopard's speed patterns.

No matter what, this trip hasn't been a loss, Lin Yi thought.

By then, the spider had silently circled behind him.

Its eight long spider legs shifted across the high branches without causing even the slightest vibration.

When it deemed the moment ripe, all eight of its dark-green compound eyes lit up at once. The foremost leg on its right side suddenly shot out like a pitch-black short spear, stabbing straight toward Lin Yi's heart from behind!

Lin Yi had originally intended to turn and smash it with a punch. His Savage Bull Diagram was already activated; one hundred and sixty thousand jin of force was enough to send any Ferocious Beast of the Dragonlike Realm flying.

Yet at the very instant his body was about to turn, an unprecedented and intensely powerful sense of danger exploded from the depths of his mind!

The sensation came fiercely and abruptly, like a basin of icy water being poured directly over some nerve in the back of his head.

He instinctively activated Fleeting Shadow. The blood-gold patterns on his legs flared brilliantly, and his body left an afterimage where he stood before flashing three zhang away in an instant.

Whoosh!

That spider leg pierced through his afterimage, releasing a brief, piercing shriek through the air. Even the air where its tip passed rippled with faint distortion.

The instant Lin Yi landed, he had already turned around, staring intently at the spider that had revealed itself.

A layer of cold sweat had soaked his back. Though he had evaded that strike, the lingering echoes of that dangerous feeling still danced along the ends of his nerves.

"That sense of danger... it wasn't fatal, but it was incredibly strong."

He rapidly replayed that instant in his mind. This thing's attack isn't merely powerful. There must be something else to it.

Having missed its strike, the spider was visibly stunned as well.

Its eight compound eyes all focused upon Lin Yi, as if reassessing the prey before it.

It slowly emerged fully from the shadows of the tree trunk. Its body, more than two zhang long, spread out amid the dim forest. Its eight spider legs were half-bent and half-extended, while gray-black Divine Markings silently flowed over its surface.

Man and spider faced one another in the forest.

Lin Yi did not rush to attack. His Spirit Eyes continued to penetrate the spider's carapace, observing the operational details of those Divine Markings.

As the spider maintained its attack-ready state, the flow of its Divine Markings became even clearer than before. Every connection and convergence was laid bare before his eyes.

While maintaining the standoff, he rapidly advanced the completion of the Divine Marking diagram in his mind—fifty percent, sixty percent, seventy percent... Along the way, he also separated the Divine Markings on the spider legs and gave them a shallow analysis, trying to understand the source of that dangerous feeling.

Very quickly, he found the answer.

The focus of this spider's Divine Markings was entirely concentrated in its eight legs.

Especially at the ends of those legs, where the gray-black patterns converged layer upon layer, like invisible armor repeatedly tempering the tips.

When the spider legs launched a piercing attack, those Divine Markings activated simultaneously in an instant, turning the tips of the already somewhat hard leg joints into spearheads forged from refined iron. Their penetrating power far exceeded the limits that normal strength should possess.

If he had not dodged earlier and had instead received the attack head-on with his fist, his fist would likely have been pierced through on the spot. It would not have been fatal, but his combat power and mobility would have instantly been greatly reduced.

"So that's how it is..." Lin Yi let out a belated breath of relief. "If I'd taken that punch head-on, my arm would've been ruined."

He raised his eyes toward the spider before him, still restless and eager to move, and his gaze darkened.

"Next time, I'd better figure things out before attacking. In this Great Wilderness, there are truly endless things that can stab you in the back."

But now, the Divine Markings had been fully recorded.

"Alright, you're useless now." Lin Yi rolled his wrist and grinned at the spider. "Take a punch from your grandpa!"

He suddenly pushed off the ground, launching forward like a cannonball. His right fist, wrapped in the full power of the Savage Bull Diagram, blasted toward the spider's head!

Sensing the terrifying pressure carried by the gust of his fist, the spider's eight legs contracted and sprang at once. Its entire body shot upward from where it stood at an unimaginable angle, disappearing into the impenetrable canopy overhead.

It moved with astonishing speed and made almost no sound. Its gray-black shell and mottled moss-like patterns blended perfectly with the tree shadows, vanishing from Lin Yi's sight in an instant.

Even its aura sank away with it, as though it had completely merged into the forest.

Lin Yi's punch struck nothing but air, and the force of it sent several leaves flying.

After landing, he did not pause. He immediately activated his Spirit Eyes and swept his surroundings. His platinum-gold vision pierced through the dense branches, leaves, and shadows, quickly locking onto the spider once more.

It had not fled.

It was perched on a horizontal branch three zhang diagonally above his head, its eight legs tightly gripping the bark, its body completely motionless.

Those gray-black Divine Markings still circulated slowly within its body, while its eight compound eyes coldly watched the back of Lin Yi's neck from the darkness.

It was waiting—waiting for Lin Yi to lower his guard and believe it had escaped before launching a second sneak attack.

...This beast really is like a lingering ghost, Lin Yi thought helplessly. It can't beat me, yet it's squatting there waiting for me to expose an opening. Is it determined to scheme me to death?

He directly activated Fleeting Shadow. The blood-gold patterns on his legs flared to their absolute limit.

In an instant, his body appeared in front of that horizontal branch! The spider's compound eyes were still blankly tracking the afterimage at his former position when, in the next moment, Lin Yi's face was already right before it.

"Stop waiting. You have no chance."

His fist, carrying the majestic force of one hundred and sixty thousand jin, struck precisely at the center of the spider's head.

The gray-black carapace suddenly caved in as the immense force poured into it. Cracks burst outward from the point of impact, spreading in every direction, while dark-green viscous fluid sprayed from the fractures. The spider's eight legs twitched at once, then completely lost their support. Its entire body fell from the branch and crashed onto the ground with a dull thud.

Lin Yi landed as well, standing beside the spider's Corpse as he shook the slime from his fist. "Little thing, still trying to scheme against me."

But before the corner of his mouth could fully rise, the Spirit Eyes in his mind caught a new disturbance.

It was an extremely fine rustling sound, surging in from every direction.

It sounded like countless tiny legs rapidly crawling over fallen leaves and bark at the same time. His gaze swept over every trunk and horizontal branch within a hundred meters—one, two, five, more than a dozen.

Figures resembling the spider on the ground were converging from all corners of the Dark Forest. Eight compound eyes flickered with dim green points of light in the darkness, like a sea of stars slowly closing in.

"Damn... more of them?" Lin Yi immediately pushed his Spirit Eyes into a full sweep.

More than a dozen spiders were rapidly approaching from different directions. Though they were smaller than the first one, their numbers were right there. Once they entangled him, it would become a battle of attrition.

What truly sent a chill down Lin Yi's back was that even stronger sense of danger. It did not come from the spiders swarming toward him, but from deeper within this Dark Forest.

There was something there, something more than a level stronger than the spider he had just killed.

"So you're not the overlord of this forest." Lin Yi looked down at the spider whose head he had smashed apart, his tone full of speechless disbelief. "So you're just a gatekeeper?"

He did not linger any longer.

Bending down, he grabbed the spider Corpse from the ground and ran in the direction he had come from.

With Fleeting Shadow fully activated, his body stretched into a blurred afterimage through the woods, while incessant rustling pursuit sounded from the forest behind him.

Those spiders were not slow either. Their eight legs alternated between tree trunks and the ground as they maneuvered and gave chase in groups.

At the very moment Lin Yi crossed the boundary of the Dark Forest, he looked back. More than a dozen pairs of dark-green compound eyes had stopped in the shadows at the forest entrance, no longer pursuing him.

They seemed unable to leave that dim region.

"Dogs relying on their master's power." Panting heavily, Lin Yi carried the spider Corpse over his shoulder and spat toward the forest entrance. "Sooner or later, I'll slaughter every last one of you."