Yu Xiang’s perception of time slowed to a crawl as his brain registered the terrible sight taking place right before him. Adrenaline accelerated his every thought, synapses firing chaotically in his brain, panic gripped at his heart with barbed claws of steel.
A spray of crimson liquid hung in the air, frozen alongside the rest of the world as the green eyed cultivator stood in horrified silence, a strangled cry slithering out of his throat at a snail’s pace.
Rivulets of Chun Dai’s blood made their way down his panic stricken face agonizingly slowly, his expression petrified in incomprehension.
How? Was the first coherent thought that coalesced inside the young reincarnator’s mind.
They’d been carefully sneaking all the way from the clearing above the spiders’ nest to the center of their innermost sanctum, the sole core disciple among them making sure that nothing they met would be too much for them. So how could something have managed to get past their spiritual senses? Or to even wound the stoic swordsman at all for that matter.
The answer was simple, and as the logical explanation to his question was conjured by the parts of his brain still able to reason his horror turned into outright terror.
Because if whatever had fooled all of their senses could both sneak past and injure their minder then it stood to reason that it was at least in the same realm as him.
What? Was the next logical step taken by his unconscious mind as a single moment was stretched into infinity.
A spiritual beast, obviously, standing at least a realm above the inner disciples’ group, at the Worldy Realm. Their current location, added to the shape of the dark appendage sticking from the blue eyed swordsman’s abdomen quickly identified their attacker as one of the spiders inhabiting this hidden world, if a much stronger variant, no doubt the true ruler of this entire breed of spiritual arachnids.
The possibility that it could be even more powerful was immediately discarded, as it both made no sense for it to decide to ambush Chun Dai if it was that much stronger than him and for the simple reason that they’d all be dead no matter what if that possibility was indeed the truth, which he categorically refused to believe.
But as much as he wanted to scream and rage against this unfair tribulation sent to them by the ruthless heavens his body refused to budge, turned to stone by a flood of all encompassing and stifling dread, caused by the spiritual beast’s presence descending upon all of them.
It felt heavy and sticky in a different way to the usual suppression caused by a steep difference in spiritual strength. His body felt trapped, constricted and a keen feeling of claustrophobia pervaded his senses, making him unable to even try and move his body no matter how much he wanted to.
Fortunately, Chun Dai had no such problems.
Ambushed and impaled from his lower back, through his stomach, and outside his abdomen, he might have been, but a surprise attack and such a gruesome wound were still not enough to make the icy eyed man bend the knee.
Less than a second after he’d been given what would normally be considered a mortal injury even for a cultivator, Chun Dai took his sword in hand.
It happened so fast that even Yu Xiang, his mind having sped up so much he could still see the core disciple’s blood fall in slow motion, was unable to see the action taking place.
One subjective moment the crimson clad cultivator’s hand had been empty, the next he held his blade in one hand, his own presence descending upon their battleground and providing some relief as it battled that of the spider queen.
Chun Dai’s presence felt cold, much like the man himself often looked, but in the same way, it also felt unbelievably sharp and deep. Like an entire arctic ocean hanging above one’s head, comprised entirely of cold sharpened steel blades.
And with a single masterful stroke, Chun Dai showed to all present why he was considered worthy of being garbed in the colors of their sect’s core disciples.
The crimson clad swordsman drew an arc in the air with his blade, the phantom sound of rushing waters following in its wake. Space warped and buckled under the weight of his singular strike, immediately spooking the spiritual beast into trying to retreat after its failed assassination attempt.
But Chun Dai would not have it. With his free hand, he grasped at the leg still lodged in his flesh, buying himself a few fractions of a second to connect his slash.
A sound that brought to mind dozens of tuning forks being struck at the same time filled the egg chamber as the core disciple finally hit his mark, dispelling whatever working of spiritual energy that had kept the beast from their senses.
A hulking form staggered backward on an uncountable number of legs, standing at least twice as tall as the one they’d previously believed to be this nest’s queen. Bluish ichor gushed from a wound on its front, the wounded swordsman attack having ruptured half of the beast’s eyes and crippled enough of its legs on one side to make its body lean diagonally.
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Chun Dai’s slash had also severed the leg the beast had used to attack him, which left him free from its clutches and able to wobble backward on unstable feet.
This was more than likely going to be their best and only chance to run, but still, he hesitated, knowing that one of them would have to get close to the enormous spider to recover the impaled core disciple.
Despite having already taken a trip through the wheel of reincarnation once before, Yu Xiang was in no rush to, so to say, spin the wheel and test his luck on another possible life, so he remained rooted to the earth, struck motionless by fear and indecision.
But not all of his fellows shared his own apprehension.
A figure passed by him, running at full speed towards the core disciple, heedless of the danger he was putting himself through.
Su Rong reached Chun Dai’s side in a matter of seconds, grabbing him with both hands and lifting him up over his shoulder, with the older man only letting out a weak grunt despite being put through what must’ve been an agonizing movement.
But just as the fiery cultivator was readying himself to make a run for it, the spider queen retaliated. A mighty screech echoed through the cavern’s walls and sent a spike of searing hot fear running down their spines.
One of its many legs shot forward, way too fast for the much weaker cultivator to avoid, but still, he tried, which might as well be the thing that ended up saving his life.
Su Rong jumped backward through the air, his teeth gritted in concentration as he brought up his right arm in front of him to protect himself and his cargo from the attack, a shroud of semi solid flames creating a shield in front of him.
The giant spider’s leg punched through the defensive technique like so much air, and the only reason it didn’t do the same thing with Su Rong’s body was that he was in mid air and could roll with the hit to some extent, which still ended with him being flung at one of the earthen walls so hard that he left a cracked imprint in the hard packed dirt.
Only then did the spell cast upon them finally break and they all sprinted towards their downed comrade, who had started to let out a blood curdling scream of pain, and soon enough, Yu Xiang could see why.
His right arm had been almost completely torn off, barely hanging on to the elbow by a few strips of intact flesh, more preoccupying though and what was more than likely the main cause of the fiery cultivator’s agony was the patches of sickly flesh quickly spreading through the crushed limb.
All of the spiders they’d encountered so far had been able to secrete some kind of venom from their spiked legs, and it looked like their progenitor had the same ability if many times stronger.
Yu Xiang’s eyes briefly met those of Lin Fen and the two of them immediately knew what they had to do, their thoughts communicated almost telepathically thanks to their auras being still melded.
The young reincarnator ripped a strip of cloth off of his inner disciple robes, tying it as hard as he could just above Su Rong’s elbow, meanwhile the feline alchemist took his silver knife in both hands, standing right beside him with his expression in a frown of grim determination.
Nobody stopped them, no doubt having noticed the same thing they had. With a single slash, the infected appendage was separated from Su Rong, whose painful yelling came to an abrupt end with a stuttering croak, before he fell down limp, knocked out by the horrible pain and the shock of having one of his arms amputated.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have the time to properly stabilize either him or Chun Dai, who was still holding the severed leg of the giant spider inside his abdomen, so Yu Xiang simply picked up the unconscious cultivator, while Huang Lei lifted the older disciple onto her back, and then set off towards the opening they had used to get to the egg room.
Their group sent wary glances behind them towards the crippled spider as it still laid where it had fallen after Chun Dai's retaliatory strike.
It had never stopped screeching at them, its aura, or whatever it was that it was using because it sure as hell didn't feel like a normal aura to Yu Xiang's spiritual senses, smashing repeatedly against them ineffectually thanks to Chun Dai's own presence shielding their spirits from harm.
But as much as it obviously wanted them dead, it was either unwilling or unable to close the distance to finish the job, lending the green eyed cultivator to believe that the stoic swordsman had done even more damage to the overgrown monstrosity than it looked to their eyes on the surface.
Yu briefly turned towards the form of the core disciple, hanging bonelessly over Huang Lei's back, his eyes narrowed in obvious strain, sweat pouring over a far too pallid face, but even then the older man refused to so much as let out a moan of discomfort, the fact that his expression was showing anything at all of his turmoil more than enough evidence of the excruciating pain he was most likely enduring.
One more reason to run as fast as they could.
Their journey towards the surface went much faster than their path into the bowels of the earth did, mostly because they had no more reason to hold back their auras and spiritual energy, which both made them move much faster and gave them the ability to peek ahead with their spiritual senses for the correct paths.
The angry aura hanging over them and which was still trying to tear into their spirits as they ran was also a great incentive to keep moving as fast as they could.
A trip that had taken them hours with only their physical prowess was cut down to a couple of minutes, and as the group of Golden Peak disciples finally escaped from the claustrophobic tunnels of the spiders' nest and into the hidden world's surface they almost let out a sigh of relief due to the spider queen's presence not being able to reach them anymore.
But before they could even start to feel their fears be allayed they noticed a stream of the lowly spiritual spiders making their way towards the mouth of the tunnel they'd come from.
A high pitched chorus of angry screeches reached their ears as the spiritual arachnids noticed their presence.
Yu Xiang had no idea how it did it, but the spider queen must have called out to its progeny.
The young cultivators' expressions hardened, the prospect of having to fight off a horde of spiritual beasts while protecting two of their injured comrades not filling them with confidence. But still the thought of abandoning them to their fate never even passed through their minds.
Fortunately, no such hard decisions were waiting for them, as Chun Dai's aura, now freed from playing defensively against the spider queen's, wrapped around their forms, leaving them all free to use their spiritual energy to run away at full speed.
With that realization, they all immediately started running towards the forest, not looking back at the chasing beasts even once.