Chapter 420: Spidermen

As soon as Ye Qing opened the door leading down to the lower decks, he was blasted by a disgusting, vomit-inducing stench. Not only that, his exposed skin immediately turned red and cracked, and eyeballs grew within those cracks. When they moved, they leaked smelly yellow pus.

“What a crazy level of corruption.”

Ye Qing frowned as he channeled his vigor. There was a surge of vitality, and the nasty power attempting to take root inside his body was destroyed in an instant. The unnatural eyes popped like pus before the scarring and healing process returned his skin to normal.

After that, Ye Qing sealed his sense of smell and walked down the wet, rotten stairs.

Cobwebs! So many cobwebs. Are there spiders in this place?

Ye Qing thought. The first thing he noticed upon reaching the first lower deck was that it was covered in cobwebs. The ship had three upper levels and three lower levels, so he needed to go down another two levels if he wished to reach the orlop deck.

Ye Qing narrowed his eyes a little and fired a wisp of force from his index finger, severing three spider threads.

It’s no ordinary spider silk,

he immediately arrived at a conclusion.

It’s tough and overflowing with corruption. I need to avoid it as much as possible.

Ye Qing slowly stepped into a patch of shadow and waited for a bit, but nothing happened. Remaining patient, he summoned Red Sleeve into his hand.

A dreamy red flash cut through a massive amount of cobwebs and opened up just enough space for him to walk across the chamber unhindered. He still didn’t move, however. He remained perfectly still in his hiding spot.

𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Rustle rustle...

A few breaths later, a bunch of rustling noises came from deeper within the chamber. Then, a dozen or so half-humanoid Strangers with a spider’s legs and bodies crawled out of the wall, the ceiling and more.

The spidermen crawled up to the spot where the cobwebs were severed and made a series of strange hissing noises, but they weren’t able to find the culprit who did it. A few seconds later, they spat spider silk from their mouths to reseal this section of the chamber before treading into the darkness once more.

I knew it.

After the spidermen left, Ye Qing finally stepped out of the shadows and smacked his lips.

The cobwebs couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere, but he didn’t think a normal spider could survive in this place. He was right.

It looks like these spidermen sense their prey through web-borne vibration just like a normal spider, but only if I do too much damage to their webs. Otherwise, I shouldn’t draw their attention.

The spidermen hadn’t appeared when he cut just three spider threads. They only appeared after he cut down a bunch of cobwebs. So in theory, he could advance forward without alarming the spidermen so long as he snapped only two or three strands at a time.

It would be slow going, but he would be safe. Although the spidermen were only Hatred-class Strangers, he had no way of knowing how many there were or if there was a stronger down the line. It was better to be safe than sorry.

And so Ye Qing slowly made his way down the stairs while cutting three spider threads with Red Sleeve at a time. He made sure to wait several breaths before cutting another three. After all, he was still going to draw the spidermen’s attention if he cut down the cobwebs too quickly.

Just half a teatime later, Ye Qing found the wooden door leading to the second level. A smile crossed his lips. For once, things were going his way.

He should’ve known better. When he reached out to open the door, his body abruptly stiffened, his eyes lost their focus, and his face abruptly became contorted in pain.

Inside his headspace, countless invisible spider threads were wrapped tightly around his mind. They were attempting to drag his mind out of his headspace!

Every time the spider threads pulled, his headspace would shake and roar like an avalanche or a tsunami. His mind would groan, and his consciousness would flicker ominously.

What the fuck? How did the spider threads appear inside my head?!

Ye Qing’s expression was ugly. He was being as careful as he could be, and still he failed to avoid whatever trap this was!

“Heavenly Demon Captures The Soul”

While defending his mind with the demonic lotus, Ye Qing executed the “Heavenly Demon Captures The Soul” in an attempt to sever the spider threads. A ripple of demonic thought washed out, shaking the spider threads and causing them to give off a strange, vibrating noise. It caused his headspace to churn violently, and cracks to form across his mind.

“Hmm!” Ye Qing let out a muffled grunt as blood poured out of his orifices. The spider threads were still intact though. For the first time, “Heavenly Demon Captures The Soul” had failed him.

“So, you’re tougher than you look, huh? What about this?!”

Cold ruthlessness flickered in Ye Qing’s eyes as he honed his spirit into a blade, and his consciousness into the edge. Then, he slashed diagonally at the spider threads.

“Hellfire Red Lotus Saber Art”

A long saber immediately manifested inside his headspace and slashed upward like it split open the heavens, severing the spider threads without a sound. At the same time, red lotuses rained from above and burned the filthy energy infesting his headspace into ash.

The second the spider threads were destroyed, Ye Qing opened his eyes just in time to see an ugly face. Its face was human, but it had eight eyes like that of a spider’s. The eyes were also blinking rapidly and constantly spreading some sort of invisible spider threads to the surroundings.

Not only that, the face was opening its mouth and plunging what looked like a mosquito’s proboscis into his neck. Then, it injected filthy liquid directly into his body, causing countless pustules to grow all over his body. When the pustules popped, spider eyeballs grew out of them.

Throughout the process, Ye Qing couldn’t feel the slightest pain. He must be under some sort of numbing spell, or the disgusting liquid it was pumping into his body contained some sort of numbing agent.

Knowing that his life was in grave danger, Ye Qing couldn’t care less about keeping things quiet anymore. He focused his qi, essence and spirit into one point and punched the ugly motherfucker in the face with all his might.

“Break Through”

A lone cavalry could cut through an army of thousands. The full-powered punch shattered the face into pieces, and the giant body behind the face staggered backward and scattered the thick fog behind it.

It was only now Ye Qing noticed that his attacker was a gigantic spider. It was so big that it was nearly as tall as the chamber itself.

Ye Qing’s senses returned to him after he shattered the face. He immediately sensed that the whole chamber was jam-packed with invisible threads.

“I see!” Ye Qing exclaimed in realization. The visible threads were just a distraction. The real threat was the invisible threads that could hurt his mind directly!

“Uwargh!”

Frustrated at being thwarted, the gigantic spiderman let out a strange shriek. As it turned out, the spiderman had more than one head, and three more heads spun around to shriek at Ye Qing as well. At the same time, a dozen or so smaller spidermen crawled out of the shadows and pounced toward him.

Ye Qing turned his wrist and summoned Red Sleeve. As he swung the weapon, a crimson light wobbled in the air like thousands and thousands of red leaves riding the spring wind, charming and beautiful. It was quickly joined by a fine drizzle and a red beauty dancing at the center of it all. It painted a gorgeous, soul-stealing image that the weak would only live to see once.

The spring wind was a saber. The fine rain were an innumerable number of saber. For a time, sabers were everywhere.

The smaller spidermen split into countless cubes of rotten, smelly flesh and puss long before they got close. The massive one though, it charged right through the spring wind and fine rain of sabers like they were nothing and brought down a pillar-sized leg on top of Ye Qing.

Ye Qing rooted himself on the floor and swung Red Sleeve upward. The scattered storm of saber forces immediately rolled back to Red Sleeve to form a massive energy saber. It met the falling foot head on.

BOOM!

There was a loud, echoing boom as the energy saber dispersed into nothing. Two joints in the spider’s legs snapped like twigs, but there was so much weight behind the attack that Ye Qing's bones popped and cracked ominously, and his whole body felt numb. He also lost consciousness for an instant.

That instant was all the opening the spiderman needed to swing one of its legs and sent Ye Qing flying like a rag doll. He slammed into the wall so hard that it dented a little.

“Cough! Cough!”

Blood flowed freely down Ye Qing’s lips as he talked. The blow was so powerful that even his internal organs were hurting a little. There was no time to care for his injuries though. He could see an inescapable web of invisible spider silk flying all over his vision.

The massive spiderman wasn’t just strong, its legs were covered in those anomalous spider threads as well. That one blow hadn’t just thrown his energies into disorder, it also allowed more spider threads to invade his headspace and entangle his mind, again. Ye Qing had no choice but to execute the “Hellfire Red Lotus Saber Art” once more to sever them.

As soon as he took care of the spider threads inside his mind, Ye Qing rolled to the side just in time to avoid a spider leg from flattening him like a pancake.

Bang bang bang!

Several more spider legs descended in an attempt to crush Ye Qing, but this time he was able to dodge them all with ease. “Illusionist’s Grace” was at its best when its practitioner employed it to avoid enemy attacks by a hair’s breadth, not to mention that Ye Qing had mastered the movement art a long time ago. While there wasn't much room for maneuver inside the chamber, it was still quite easy for him to dodge the attacks, so much so that he had the time to open Nine Heavens and consume a drop of Nature’s Water to restore his tired spirit and injured mind.

He could have consumed Longing’s Renewal, but he was afraid that it was poisoned or something. What if she implanted a curse in the medicine so that she could use it to control him when all this was done? It was better to be safe than sorry, not to mention that Nature’s Water was more potent than Renewal.

Seven spider legs rained down on Ye Qing like a downpour. There were many smaller spidermen who couldn’t get out of the way in time and were flattened like a pancake. However, the human it was targeting remained perfectly unharmed. The heads on the spiderman’s body were so angry at their inability to hit Ye Qing that they screeched again and again.

It looked like Ye Qing was dodging aimlessly, but a closer look would reveal that he was slowly closing the distance between himself and the Stranger.

When he was several inches away from the spiderman’s body, Ye Qing abruptly split into nine silhouettes and spread out. Each silhouette fired a crimson slash at its heads.

Sensing the danger, the heads spat out a bunch of spider webs at the Ye Qings. Most of them were crushed, but none of them were the real thing.

The next moment, the spiderman’s screech came to an abrupt stop. Then, its four heads rolled off its shoulders and hit the floor lifelessly. Right after that, his back facing toward the spiderman, the real Ye Qing faded into existence and slowly put away Red Sleeve.

Thump!

The spiderman’s headless body shook twice before it hit the floor with a loud thump. It would never move again. A small smirk crossed Ye Qing’s lips as he slowly turned around to face the lifeless spiderman.

The gigantic spiderman was probably a Phenomenon-class Stranger. Not only did it possess immense strength, its spider threads were near impossible to defend against even when he knew it was coming.

However, he came to realize that the spiderman’s heads were its weakness while he was killing the small fries. That was why he utilized the “Illusionist’s Grace” to close the distance before ending the fight in one strike.

It sounded simple, but of course it was so, so much more difficult to pull off in reality.

The spiderman’s four heads were covered in invisible spider threads just like its legs. Had he been careless, it would have been him lying lifelessly on the floor. That was why he had severed the invisible threads with the “Hellfire Red Lotus Saber Art” first before cutting off its heads with Red Sleeve.

After ending the giant spiderman’s life, Ye Qing took a moment to cleanse the filthy energy inside his body and recover. It was only after he returned to peak form that he opened the wooden door and stepped down into the second level.