The Spirit Rhinoceros Calf needed to be kept in the jar of water. Shi Feiyang asked Fire Wuhai about the Patterned Spiders.
These Patterned Spiders were born from the mating of a thousand-year-old scorpion and a Fire Spider. A single brood consisted of four hundred and ninety-one eggs, which burrowed into the soil upon landing. Each time Lei sounded, they sank another inch into the earth. Only after three hundred and sixty-five years deep underground, nourished by the lustful, poisonous, damp, and hot energies of heaven and earth, could they take shape.
After hatching, the little spiders devoured one another underground. Eating a head made them grow a head; eating a leg made them grow a leg. Once only one remained, it would rise a foot for every bout of Lei it heard, until it finally emerged.
Once it fully emerged, it gained supernatural powers, able to grow or shrink at will. It would also nurture the inner core in its abdomen into a Fire Spirit Pearl. Given enough years, even immortals and Buddhas would struggle to subdue it.
According to its normal destined course, the Patterned Spider would not emerge until the year of the future sword duel at Ciyun Temple. It had yet to mature.
But Shi Feiyang had no intention of waiting for it to reach full maturity. He had come early precisely to act, calculating the moment when their mutual devouring left only three.
He spent half a month in the cave, and Deng Bagu arrived as well. The Patterned Spiders underground had now eaten one another down to exactly three.
Shi Feiyang had the two of them assist him. Fire Wuhai took the east and Deng Bagu the west, both hovering in the sky, while Shi Feiyang stood on the ridge directly north.
Deng Bagu