The spider stood frozen, its eight scarlet eyes darting over the two pieces of wood it had sliced apart beneath it.
"Hiss, hiss!" It hissed twice, seemingly puzzled, confused, and a little angry.
What happened? Where did that perfectly real person go? How did she turn into two pieces of wood?
Realizing something was wrong, the spider looked up toward the cave ahead. As the white mist dispersed, a figure had already ventured deep inside, steadily widening the distance between them. Seemingly sensing its gaze, she glanced back, a faint smile playing at the corner of her mouth, as though mocking it.
"Hiss!" With an angry shriek, the spider charged forward, trying to catch the prey about to disappear from view. But the cave was too small for its enormous body to enter.
All it could do was watch her vanish completely, powerless to stop her.
"Whew..." Yui let out a long breath and lightly patted her chest a few times, shifting her gaze from the giant spider to the Black Mist Vortex a short distance ahead.
"That was a close call..."
"Good thing I could use the Substitution Technique without spending much chakra..."
The Substitution Technique... I'd learned that ninjutsu so long ago, but today was the first time I'd really used it to escape death. If I hadn't remembered it at that critical moment, I probably would've been saying goodbye for real.
Still! At least I'm out of danger now. The cave entrance was large-large for a human like her, anyway. For that enormous spider, however, it was tiny.
Yui was certain the giant spider would not be able to follow her inside anytime soon.
With the danger past, only one final question remained before her: did the Black Mist Vortex ahead actually lead to the Red Ant