Chapter 345: Chaos Among the Monster Kings!

The two of them lingered inside the cavern for a short while longer, not daring to move until all sound outside had vanished entirely. Only then did Dong Rui whisper, “We can go now.”

He Lingchuan drew his blade and slashed twice in quick succession, neatly severing the spider webs sealing the entrance.

Ordinary blades would have been helpless against these webs, but Fleeting Life cut through them as though they were nothing more than mist.

He did not stop there. He stirred and shredded the remaining strands as well, making sure no one would be snagged by any lingering stickiness. After that, the two of them draped the black cloth over themselves and lay flat atop the monster puppet’s back.

Dong Rui had already rubbed spider molts and legs all over the cloth beforehand, thoroughly masking any trace of human scent. He patted the monster puppet’s head and murmured, “Go.”

Once it began to move, what other creatures would see was simply a spider with a slightly arched back.

Besides, Zhu Erniang’s spider guards had never been identical to begin with. There was plenty of natural variation among them, so this small difference drew no attention at all.

Carrying the two men, the monster puppet sped through the winding maze toward the nest entrance, far faster than any human could run.

They had not gone more than a dozen steps when the puppet suddenly halted. Dong Rui whispered urgently, “There’s movement ahead!”

* * *

The yellow smoke billowed skyward, yet it failed to trigger any alarm among the spider guards at the Jiana ruins.

Not long after, however, dozens of small spiders burst out of the western forest, skittering rapidly in this direction.

The sound of their frantic movement was itself an anxious cry for help.

Unfortunately, the spiders guarding the Jiana ruins showed no response at all.

The ones stationed at the Demon Nest entrance did sense something wrong, though the drug dulled their minds. They struggled to lift their sluggish heads and turn toward the disturbance.

Then something came charging through the forest, charging so violently that the ground itself seemed to quake.

A shrill, piercing screech split the air, and more than a dozen massive figures thundered out of the trees, barreling straight toward the Demon Nest!

Steward Zhao clutched the trunk of a nearby tree, his face drained of all color. If any one of those monsters so much as brushed him, he would be meeting his ancestors on the spot.

They were all powerfully built wild boars. The leader among them towered well over six meters tall, forcing anyone nearby to crane their neck just to look at it. When it charged, it was like a gigantic locomotive, its momentum unstoppable. Its curved tusks, each of which was more than three meters long, smashed through trees as if they were straw, demolished huts without slowing, and showed not the slightest inclination to dodge anything in its path.

The boars trampled straight through the bonfire, scattering sparks and flames in a crackling storm. Fire seemed to trail in their wake, the spectacle as terrifying as it was overwhelming.

At their speed, the Demon Nest was only moments away. Once they reached it, it became a scene of boars trampling whatever was in their path.

The poor spiders were still under the lingering effects of the drugs, their movements sluggish and uncoordinated. Against the boars’ sheer size and brute force, they were mercilessly bullied. A few heavy stomps from massive hooves were enough to crush a spider into a burst of pulp.

As for the merchant caravan, they fled in a panic halfway up a hill. Steward Zhao and the others could do nothing but tremble, while Tu Zhongli led his men in a wide detour, quietly advancing toward the Demon Nest.

The dozen or so boars were not satisfied with flattening Zhu Erniang’s front entrance. They used their tusks to scoop up burning firewood and hurled it straight into the Demon Nest.

Most of the firewood fell into the sinkhole below and was extinguished by water, but dozens of blazing logs landed inside the passages.

Glowspores grew everywhere in the tunnels, and these fungi could not withstand such intense flames. Before long, fires sprang up throughout the interior.

The leading boar raised its long snout and blew downward. Its mouth acted like a massive bellows, sending gusts of foul, forceful wind roaring into the Demon Nest.

Chaos erupted above and below.

Even Zhu Erniang, slow to react as she might be, could not fail to notice when someone rode right up and started wreaking havoc on her doorstep.

Before long, the fires inside the nest began to subside.

Every so often, the Demon Nest was partitioned by thick layers of spider web. These webs were not sticky, but they were excellent at insulating against heat and flames, better even than the firewalls used in human architecture. Open fire simply could not pass through them.

Of course, the main reason the flames died so quickly was that the spiders within the nest had rushed over and begun spewing webs to smother the fire.

Immediately afterward, a vast spider army poured out of the nest to meet the boars head-on.

These wild boars were residents of the Demon Nest Swamp as well. Their leader, the Boar Monster King, had always been unreasonable, charging and goring wherever it pleased. Zhu Erniang had personally disciplined it several times in the past, even eating several of their herd’s young before the herd finally learned to behave.

But during the recent descent of imperial nectar, a large lump of the viscous substance had landed squarely in the boars’ territory. The entire herd benefited. Those with cultivation advanced further, while those without cultivation gained awareness. The boar clan’s strength surged, and with it, their confidence soared.

After enduring so much humiliation, they had finally come to take revenge.

Burrow spiders’ webs were astonishingly tough. When more than a dozen spiders spat webs together, they could blanket the battlefield, pinning most creatures in place and leaving them unable to move. Some spider guards even spewed corrosive fluid. Two unlucky boars were struck and blinded on the spot, shrieking in agony as they charged about wildly.

More than a hundred years ago, General Nanke of Panlong City had led over a thousand troops against Zhu Erniang and her offspring, only to suffer a bitter defeat. Those soldiers had been protected by origin energy, yet still lost. That was proof enough of the spider monsters’ fearsome combat power.

These creatures also fought with multiple specialized roles. Their coordination was drilled into them under Zhu Erniang’s command.

Though her clan was far less prosperous than in the past, Zhu Erniang ruled the Demon Nest Swamp as a local tyrant purely through strength.

Still, the Boar King was twice the size of its fellows, its power overwhelming. Whenever one of its kin was ensnared by webs, it charged in and smashed them free with a single shove.

Raw strength could overwhelm a hundred techniques. Against such a brute-force opponent, the spider monsters’ abilities were stretched thin.

At last, Zhu Erniang forced her way out of the nest entrance. She climbed up a large tree by the sinkhole’s edge and hauled herself onto the surface, fury blazing as she shouted, “Fat Pig Si, have you lost your mind?!”

The Boar King had once captured a schoolteacher. Before eating him, it picked up a refined-sounding nickname: “King Si Wen[ref]Note that literal translations of Si Wen (斯文) include gentle, cultured, and refined.”

It liked the name and kept it.

Zhu Erniang, however, held it in utter contempt and always called it “fat pig.”

King Si Wen flicked its small, curled tail toward the bonfire. “Zhu Erniang, you captured my descendants and fed them to humans! Today, we settle old grudges and new!”

Zhu Erniang spared a single eye to glance at the fire. Sure enough, half a roasted suckling pig was still skewered there, golden and dripping with fat.

Tsk...

Of course, that was not the point. King Si Wen never needed a reason to fight.

It hooved the ground and lowered its head, charging straight at Zhu Erniang.

Its momentum was ferocious, but just as it reached her, she suddenly rose into the air.

Yes, Zhu Erniang had fired a strand of web upward at a tall tree, hoisting herself aloft. This was a spider’s innate skill. Despite her massive size, she was astonishingly agile.

King Si Wen skidded to a halt. If its grip on the ground had not been superb, it would have plunged headlong into the sinkhole.

In that brief pause, Zhu Erniang plummeted from above and slammed straight into the Boar King!

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The two titans rolled across the ground, shaking the earth.

No lesser creature could even intervene.

King Si Wen tried to use its size and weight to pin Zhu Erniang down, while she twisted and flipped with uncanny agility, always managing to regain the upper position. However, finding a clean opportunity to bite was no simple matter.

Zhu Erniang’s venom was lethal, but King Si Wen’s hide was too thick. Piercing it with her fangs would take time.

She remained utterly calm, spinning and spewing webs as she went, attempting to cocoon King Si Wen layer by layer.

Her webs were unmatched in both stickiness and toughness. King Si Wen knew all too well that once fully wrapped, it would be doomed. Zhu Erniang would inject her venom and slowly consume it, just as spiders always did with their prey.

With a roar of effort, King Si Wen suddenly flexed outward with all its might. Hundreds of long bristles across its body snapped rigid, shooting out like steel needles.

It was like an oversized storm of hidden needles unleashed at point-blank range. Each bristle was over thirty centimeters long. Zhu Erniang, pressing down on it at close range, had no chance to dodge.

She hissed sharply, her body now bristling with embedded hog bristles like a human struck by countless iron spikes. Several of her smaller legs were pierced clean through.

The pain must have been excruciating.

Taking advantage of the moment when Zhu Erniang loosened her grip, King Si Wen abruptly contracted, its massive form shrinking by an entire layer, forcibly squeezing out of the half-formed web cocoon!

The surrounding spiders were stunned. Even Zhu Erniang herself was shocked. After all, she had always trusted her webs.

A closer look revealed the trick. King Si Wen had left its outer shell behind inside the cocoon.

After countless years wallowing in marsh mud, its body had accumulated a thick layer of hardened filth. Reinforced with monster techniques, it had become armor tougher than granite. Zhu Erniang’s webs had only stuck to that shell. By abandoning it, King Si Wen regained its freedom.

It had never used this move in previous clashes, saving it for a critical moment.

The cost was steep. Stripped down to a bare-skinned boar, its defenses were drastically reduced.

Knowing full well that it was not Zhu Erniang’s equal in direct combat, King Si Wen let out an ear-splitting screech, a call that could only mean:

Brats, help me!

The forest behind them exploded with sound. From the dark shadows burst a colossal python, lunging forward and biting straight into Zhu Erniang!

It had been concealed perfectly. Even the two battling monster kings had not sensed it. The strike was lightning-fast, a blur that darkened every onlooker’s vision for an instant as the giant python Mountain Monarch Bo joined the fray.

Two massive boars in its path were sent flying by the impact alone.

Zhu Erniang barely had time to react before the python’s jaws clamped onto her abdomen. Mountain Monarch Bo had attacked from behind precisely to avoid her fearsome mouthparts.

With its bite secured, the python immediately coiled, wrapping around Zhu Erniang’s abdominal segments and several legs, seeking to immobilize her.

At the same time, King Si Wen surged back into the fight, biting down on Zhu Erniang’s head and ramming her with its scimitar-like tusks. These were no ordinary tusks. Their tips had been sharpened to deadly points, each thrust gouging bloody holes.

The two giants worked in perfect coordination, seemingly driving Zhu Erniang into a dead end.

Their underlings were just as busy.

This was Zhu Erniang’s territory, and the spiders vastly outnumbered the others. Seeing their matriarch trapped, they swarmed the two monster kings. From halfway up the slope, Steward Zhao could see them crawling over Mountain Monarch Bo and King Si Wen in dense layers, completely obscuring their original colors.

Though individual spider fangs were not as formidable as Zhu Erniang’s, sheer numbers made them terrifying. Hundreds of fangs piercing flesh and injecting venom was unbearable. Mountain Monarch Bo fared better as its body was covered in hard scales that resisted penetration, but King Si Wen, having shed its mud armor, was far more vulnerable. Several century-old spider guards managed to pierce its hide, making it squeal in pain as the venom took hold.