As the group of Golden Peak disciples slowly made their way out of the tunnel, they started observing their surroundings with their physical senses, making sure to keep their aura shrouds up so that their presence was hidden from any hostile creatures.

The tunnel they’d been passing through for the best part of an hour had opened up into a giant chamber, their entrance only one amidst dozens of other similar holes that peppered the walls of the cavern.

They found themselves standing on a small stone outcropping, jutting far above the floor of the cavern, the ceiling so close to their heads that a good jump would have been enough for any of them to touch it.

Yu Xiang carefully peeked past the edges of their elevated platform, scanning their surroundings for any sign of the spiders, and frowned at what he found.

Seeing his expression, his companions soon joined at his sides, their own faces quickly mirroring his own.

A carpet of squirming beasts covered the bottom of the cavern, crawling atop each other on long spindly legs as they performed their tasks with the utmost devotion and without the barest hint of fatigue. Bulging pale forms rose amidst the ranks of overgrown spiders, the surrounding spiritual beasts tiptoeing around them and making sure to never step on the off white membrane that made up their surface, unliving sacks filled almost to bursting, writhing slowly on themselves in a display that the green eyed cultivator wasn’t quite sure he should call instinctively terrifying or just disgusting.

“So we found the bastards’ egg room…” Commented Su Rong gravelly, but still making sure not to raise his voice enough for any of the spiritual beasts beneath them to notice their presence.

Had that been the extent of their discovery then none of them would have been so tense and on guard, but unfortunately for them, they’d found exactly what they’d been looking for.

While the dark arachnids casually stepped all over each other with no respect for any kind of hierarchy or property, there was a single point which all the spiritual beasts made sure to steer away from, leaving a patch of the floor completely bare, except for one thing.

A single spider laid down on the hard packed dirt that made up all of the visible ground of the subterranean cavern, its many many legs tapping aimlessly around it in some unknowable pattern that they had no hope of deciphering.

All of the spiders they’d had the displeasure of meeting before then had been roughly as big as dogs of medium stature, never rising higher than the middle of the young reincarnator’s thigh unless they stood on completely outstretched legs.

This one, much to their collective consternation, was as big as a horse. And not a small one either, easily reaching their noses if it were standing up.

And if that alone had not been already enough to put them all on edge, then its legs, as thick as any of their arms, would have done the job, or at least for Yu.

He counted sixteen legs. Sixteen legs on either side that is, for a total of thirty two legs.

The beast looked grotesque in a way he could scarcely explain. Before now, all spiritual beasts he’d ever encountered had been relatively mundane, their bodies following a logic that he could understand if he put his mind to the task. Even the human sized praying mantis he’d killed months back had simply looked like it had adapted its physiology to better suit its environment, outside of its stature at least.

But this thing made no sense. Why in the hell would it have any need for so many legs? It’s not even like its size would be a burden without them, as its strength was no doubt more than enough to easily keep it standing.

To make matters worse, Yu Xiang could feel the power radiating off of it in waves. A concerning prospect considering his aura shouldn’t have been able to pick it up, busy as it was keeping him concealed.

This spider queen was stronger than him, he had no doubts about this, even stronger than Huang Lei, his instincts told him, which was bad news as she was the strongest of their little group of inner disciples.

But, his brain reminded him, not stronger than Chun Dai.

The spider queen was still in the Constitutional Realm, of that he was completely sure, so the question now was if the lone core disciple amongst them would act.

“Senior brother…” He began hesitantly, turning towards the older man. But once again the swordsman had already known what he would ask.

“Do not fear.” His words felt almost like thunder to their ears due to his unwillingness to lower his voice. “I shall keep the leader of this group from attacking you.”

That was all they needed to know.

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As one they all jumped from their perch, a dark sea of hellish figures stretching beneath them. The concealing shroud that had kept them from being noticed was finally lifted with a flex of their wills, letting their souls shine out like bright bonfires, ready to burn all of their enemies to ashes.

Adrenaline surged through their veins, the siren call of battle seducing even the most mild mannered of them as they finally had a way to vent all of the stress that had been slowly building up in the last days.

For too long they’d been hiding from creatures in all ways their lessers, for good reasons, as they would’ve wasted way too much time if they’d wanted to clear the entire forest of the bugs infesting it, but still, no matter their reasoning, it was not in a cultivator’s nature to bend the knee to those they saw as weaker.

The spider queen was the first to sense their presence, letting out a mighty screech that immediately set all other spiritual beasts into a frenzy, readying themselves for the coming battle.

Then the queen’s own aura washed over them, easily matching their combined strength in such a way that Yu instinctively reached for Lin Fen’s familiar aura and melded his own with it, weathering the pressure the massive spider was exerting over their group together.

They were like torches trying to weather the fury of a forest fire by pooling their powers, ending up barely holding on.

A star appeared in their mind’s eye.

A tremendously powerful presence washed over them harmlessly, setting their teeth to chittering due to the phantom sensation of cold metal they’d felt slithering across their bodies, but the spider queen was not so fortunate.

Its presence was crushed, cut, minced and thoroughly ground into nothingness. The sheer power of Chun Dai’s presence bringing the monster to the ground.

Its legs buckled, splitting and sliding away as if cut apart, something that made Yu Xiang blink in bewilderment as he was pretty sure that he’d just seen something impossible happen right before his eyes. Auras, no matter how crushing they might feel, could not directly interact with the physical world, and yet he’d just seen the stoic core disciple delimbing a monster with nothing but his presence.

Which raised something like a hundred questions. But right now wasn’t the time, as he still had his own fight to get through first.

The horde of spiritual beasts barreled towards them in a frenzy born from the closest thing to rage insects could feel, a bit less than a hundred spiders ready to give their life to save their queen.

Yu might have found it somewhat inspiring in its own way, had they not been giant eight legged abominations.

The green eyed cultivator slid beside Su Rong, a lightning spear forming in his hands in less than a second then reinforced with a spark of Intent, which responded to his call so readily that he almost messed it up.

“Never seen so many vermins so eager to be exterminated.” Quipped Yu Xiang at the taller boy.

Su Rong huffed, but he could not hide the excitement shining through his pupils. “Makes it easier for us. We don’t have to hunt them down.” He said as his fist ignited in pale flames.

The young reincarnator chuckled, feeling in high spirits despite everything. “That it does.” He said just before the wave of screeching beasts reached them.

The two cultivators stepped forward at the same time, fire and lighting crackling around their forms as they delivered their own devastating attacks towards the front of the horde, scattering most of the more zealous beasts with a single explosion.

They were the tip of the spear in their formation, one born from fighting again and again against the spiders in the past days. Lin Fen and Zhen Ai came up right behind them, offering what aid they could, one with silvery orbs of fire and the other with a seemingly unending reservoir of talismans.

Their flanks were covered by Zheng Yin and Feng Liu on one side, the former’s skin having become so red that she seemed sunburnt while the latter bent the wind to boost his movements, and Su Mei and Jin Shui on the other, the former exhibiting a similar fighting style to that of her brother while the latter was covered in a thin layer of smoke that seemed to scald everything on contact.

Meanwhile, Huang Lei held their rear on their own, while also lending her help to the rest whenever they were on the verge of being overwhelmed. Wind, fire, earth, and more danced around her in a frantic performance of death, her peerless skill clear for all to see.

Ultimately their victory had never been in question. The spiders were only a half step into their realm, while they’d all already refined their body and grown from there, they had become more proficient in the art of killing the horrid bugs with every encounter, and thanks to Su Rong they all knew a lot more about the things’ bodies than they would’ve liked.

This was not a fight, but an extermination.

Steadily the numbers of living spiders kept diminishing, and just as steadily the beasts grew more frantic and less coordinated, which only made squashing them easier. Soon enough, they even started launching suicide attacks to open fatal weaknesses for their brethren to exploit, but it was all for naught.

The last of the beasts was incinerated by Su Rong, who then took a step forward, expecting a follow up from another enemy that simply wasn’t there and almost falling flat on his ass as his meaningless compensation left him off balance.

Yu Xiang, fortunately, was there to spare him the embarrassment, as he steadied him with one hand, earning himself an almost imperceptible. “Thanks.” That none the less he took as a win.

The egg chamber had been plunged into a sudden silence, all of its previous inhabitants being now lying motionless on the ground. But still, the spider queen drew breath, much to the green eyed cultivator’s surprise, or at least, it did until Chun Dai saw they’d finished their fight, at which point he simply waved his hand towards the horse sized arachnid.

A ripple of energy passed through the spiritual beast, severing its life as if it had been nothing more than a mundane spider.

“Su Rong.” The icy swordsman said then. “Check its body.”

Yu Xiang expected the burly cultivator to protest, as he’d just been in a fight and might want to recuperate, but much to his surprise the fiery cultivator looked giddy, or as giddy as he could look with his natural resting asshole face.

Bemused, he looked on as Su Rong made his way to the giant corpse and began to root around its slimy insides, at which point he decided he really didn’t want to watch him work.

Yu Xiang turned around leisurely, a question for his senior hanging on his lips.

Which is exactly why he had a front row seat to a long dark spike spearing right through Chun Dai’s abdomen from behind. Spraying blood all over his face.