Chapter 74: Even Savage Beasts Fear Death?!

The moment Wang Chen saw the second passage, he sensed its blatant strangeness, as if someone had practically written "there's a trap in here" at the entrance. Yet, in truth, he had no choice; he had to go in and take a look. In fact, he needed to check both the larger and smaller passages. His goal was to find the spider eggs, but he had no idea in which tunnel they were hidden. If he searched one and found nothing, he’d have to try the other.

Thinking this over, Wang Chen found it almost laughable. Why bother with so many silk traps? Wouldn’t it be more effective to dig hundreds of tunnels and hide the eggs randomly in one? That way, it might take someone a week to find them, during which the Celestial Silkworm Spider could kill any intruder a thousand times over.

“Besides these obvious traps, there’s something else to consider.” Wang Chen stared at the smaller passage. “Why make this tunnel smaller? Wouldn’t the Celestial Silkworm Spider find it too narrow to pass through?”

“There are two possibilities,” he mused. “First, the tunnel was dug before the spider grew to its current size. Second, it was dug by a different Celestial Silkworm Spider.”

He lingered at the entrances to both passages, turning over these scenarios in his mind, searching for a plausible explanation. But with so little information, he could only speculate wildly.

“If it was dug by another spider, given their habits, there shouldn’t be more than one. It must be the male, devoured after mating with the female. But why would he dig this tunnel? Did the two of them sleep apart, each with their own bedroom?”

Wang Chen almost laughed at the absurdity of his own thoughts.

“Enough. I can’t waste any more time. I’ll just push forward. I keep trying to outthink a beast with a human’s logic; it’s ridiculous.”

With that, he entered the smaller passage first. Without the obstruction of spider silk, he’d be able to search faster. After a few steps, the passage suddenly narrowed, its ceiling now only twenty or thirty centimeters above his head.

“What’s this? Got tired halfway through and started cutting corners?” Wang Chen muttered to himself. “So even fearsome beasts slack off. Aren’t they supposed to be fearless?”

The thought had barely flickered through his mind when he froze in place. “Do beasts… fear death too?”

A chilling possibility flashed through his mind, and goosebumps spread across his arms.

He retreated from the passage and examined the edges of both entrances closely. Then he returned to the spot where the small passage began to narrow and compared the digging marks on the stone walls. The marks were different.

It was clear: the digging at the entrance of the small passage matched that of the larger one—both made by similarly sized pincers. But the marks where the small passage narrowed were distinct, made by finer pincers.

Noting these details, Wang Chen smiled after a brief moment of distraction.

“If that’s true, my luck’s not bad at all.” He pressed on, though still searching for further confirmation.

After walking a few dozen steps, he spotted drag marks on the ground. His heart settled, and he smiled.

He no longer bothered to look around, focusing solely on moving forward.

…

Lin Lehan felt she would never fear spiders again in her life.

After today’s long, tense standoff with the Celestial Silkworm Spider—facing its savage visage and gleaming steel-colored limbs—she’d undergone the most thorough desensitization therapy imaginable.

The spider swung its massive legs, adjusting its abdomen’s aim, and shot a strand of silk at her with deadly precision.

Lin Lehan launched herself upward with a single powerful leap, dodging with ease.

As if predicting she’d evade, a second silk shot landed precisely where she was about to fall.

Seeing this, she let out a sharp cry, and a ring of shadow appeared at her ankles.

“Shadow Step!”

The darkness swiftly enveloped her, spreading from her ankles to her entire body. In an instant, she vanished.

The spider silk hit nothing, sailing past and landing on the ground, where it spread into a web covering the floor.

The Celestial Silkworm Spider rotated its eight eyes, scanning for Lin Lehan’s whereabouts. Its legs crept forward, turning its massive body as it swept the area inch by inch.

But it could not find her. A puzzled, guttural snarl issued from its jaws.

Suddenly, a shadow leaped from the spider’s own shadow, spiraling upward to strike at two of the eyes on its abdomen.

“Shadow Kill!”

With two nearly simultaneous piercing sounds, the spider let out a shrill, agonized screech.

It lashed its limbs at its abdomen, but the shadowy figure kicked off its trunk and darted away.

Landing lightly two or three meters away, Lin Lehan quickly took cover behind a column of water.

As the shadows receded, her figure became visible once more.

“Whew—now that I’ve blinded two of its abdominal eyes, it can’t accurately track me behind it, so it can’t launch silk attacks at me anymore.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. Though she’d spent a skill, this forced the spider to chase her with its lumbering frame.

That was much easier to handle. She could use the remnants of Wang Chen’s skills—the undamaged Stone Hand, the standing water column, the lightning sphere and death chain still binding the spider’s limbs—to keep it at bay.

She had been doing just that until the spider, realizing it couldn’t catch her, began using ranged attacks instead. Its eight eyes, able to target with minute precision, had made its silk shots almost impossible to dodge—several times, she’d barely escaped being trapped.

Now, she intended to restore the battle to its previous state, locking the spider in a relentless chase.

The Celestial Silkworm Spider shuddered; the pain in its abdomen finally dulled, replaced by a surge of fury as it charged at Lin Lehan.

It ignored the water column, thrusting its thick legs straight through. The swirling water sliced shallow wounds into its limbs, oozing yellow-green blood.

Seconds later, its legs burst through, sweeping horizontally toward Lin Lehan.

She pushed off the ground, vaulting high, and flipped backward, landing steadily before darting toward the Stone Hand.

Thus began a wild chase across the ravaged battlefield—a deadly dance of predator and prey.

After a quick exchange of leaps and dodges, Lin Lehan found herself once more behind the water column.

“It must have been nearly twenty minutes now. I wonder how the hero is faring.”

She glanced toward the scorched web at the cave’s entrance.

“He should be coming out soon. We only agreed on half an hour, after all.”

She dodged another of the spider’s lunges, turning back to the fight.