I walked through the doorway, and inside was a man-built tunnel that led further down into the deep. The tunnel was large enough to allow only one of the spider's passage, and if only one of them comes at me I could handle it myself. The problem lays in the fact that I can't use my poison breath here, mainly due to the strong wind coming from within the tunnel.

This reminds me of the cool wind that the Ice Yeti had been releasing as his breath, but only here, it was far less powerful, far less cold yet, constant and continuous, this was natural made wind.

And facing upwind, my breath skill would get swept away behind me. So, I had to get close and dirty if I'm forced to fight.

I continued walking and had nothing to help me see through the dark but a small green flame, that I lit up on the tip of my index finger. After a long while, I heard the screams of people, coming from inside the cave.

"Seems like there are others than just me."

I continued moving through the corridor until its end, where I saw an enormous palace that had been chiseled into the walls of a cavernous hole. The palace was amazingly huge, and the fact that it was carved up in the depth of the earth was even more amazing. Yet spiders had infested it, they laid their eggs everywhere around it and all over the now destroyed garden at its front.

I looked up and realized that through the spiderwebs covering the summit of the cavern, there was a big hole. This area seems to be like a volcano with its tip covered in cobweb.

I turned off the small light coming from my hand, the night sky even without a moon, shining through the cobweb was enough light for me to see clearly. Not far away from where I stood, were hundreds of spiders like the one I just fought earlier, let's call them warrior spiders. And they all seemed to be surrounding one creature, which was by far the largest spider I had ever seen. It looked like it could fit ten or twenty of the warrior spiders in its stomach and that still wouldn't be enough.

This was a Spider Queen. The warrior spiders would go toward where a group of people was battling, fight against them and kill whomever they could, then one of the spiders would impale the dead cultivator and drag it through the dirt towards the queen.

The cultivator would get immediate processed, the warriors would rip its arms and legs, taking it for themselves, and would hand over the head to the queen. The queen then would split open the head using her mandibles and would suck in the brain.

This whole process didn't last longer than a dozen seconds and more corpses piled up in front of the queen.

The torsos weren't however disposed of, but they were webbed together and stockpiled for later consumption.

I was lucky enough that all the spiders had been slowly pulled toward the fight and left me all alone here, also I came to realize that the volcano-shaped mountain I was in was the reason why there was such a powerful wind. The air would come from the volcano's top and would then come down and exit through the tunnel, creating a wind current. Yet now that I'm here, the majority of my poison breath if I were to release it would rise and mix up with the air inside the volcano's belly.

I slowly made my way towards the palace, hiding and taking cover using all the random rocks and boulders and growths that were growing in this place. Though this area was filled with spiders and covered in their webs, I noticed that the palace itself seemed that it had never been pried open, so while the spiders were occupied with the cultivators, I could probably get inside and see what I could find.

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I have no obligation to save anyone, as these people had taken the risk to challenge this place and still failed. So, it is of no concern to me if they live or die, nor would I feel regret over the death of people I don't know.

Still…

"Sigh."

I looked back and saw that the screaming had lessened, and the people were now being covered in webs instead of outright being slaughtered. The queen seemed to have probably eaten enough and now ordered her minions to keep her prey fresh by covering it in webs and keeping it alive for later consumption.

The spiders continued covering the cultivators in spider webs and soon after they stuck them to nearby rocks.

One of the spiders had dangerously gotten closer to me. If I were to make a sound, I'll be joining the rest of the cultivators as a mural decoration.

I rotated my energy and released a low dose of my poison breath, this one wasn't based on the Bone and Body Grinding Poison, but rather the Braided Mourning Petal. The toxic and paralyzing effect of it.

Small gout of purple smoke shot out of my mouth, which was far less dense than the Bone and Body Grinding poison, and far less pervasive, but at the same time it worked fast, it shot up to the spider and the latter stopped moving and flopped down to the ground.

I had to move away from this area because the secondary effect of the Braided Mourning petal would kick in soon, and then it's going to become a problem to stay close.

The spider that flopped to the ground started spasming while I moved away and took a roundabout way to get behind the rocks where the cultivators were stuck.

Another spider realized that one of its own was having a nasty seizure, and when it went to check, the prime spider suddenly stopped moving, and then its body began tearing up, revealing bloodied braided petals that tore out of the spider's chitin.

More spiders had gotten closer when the petal began releasing more toxins. And more spiders were infected.

The commotion brought the attention of all of the spiders inside the cave, which was perfect. I took the opportunity to get behind the boulders and said in a low tone, "Hey, you still alive?"

"Y-Yes! Help please!" the man frantically said.

"Shhhhh! Be quiet. I'll get you out in a second."

I touched the webs and immediately regrated it, the thing was sticky as heck and thankfully I only used one hand.

"Damn sticky," I cursed. "I'll use my sword, be careful, and don't move," I said to the man.

"Swords are useless there are no swords that can cut through this…" the man's words were abruptly stopped as he saw my Creeping Demise, slicing through the webs with utter ease.

"You were saying?"

"Nothing! Let's escape!"

"Hey, hold it, I'm here to help you all."

"If we're a big group the spiders will chase after us! We have to save our skins!"

This man has a nasty and wretched personality, the moment I save him he immediately tries to escape not even giving a single thought about his friends.

"If you wish to escape, go ahead, I'll leave when everyone is safer."

"But you don't know any of them!" The man said.

His words caused me pause, this man… he knows too much. Dangerous, how does he know I'm not friends with any of these people? So, it means that he suspects that I found my way to the palace's entrance from another area. Meaning that even if I had saved him here, once we're out and he is 'safe' he could do what he wants, perhaps even blame me for the death of his comrades. Though this reasoning isn't without flaw, in those stories, this would have been the perfect explanation.

"It doesn't mean that I shouldn't help those who need help. Leave if you want." I shooed the man away and went to the next person stuck.

Just a was about to remove the webbing of one of the cultivators stuck in the rock I heard a loud stomp behind me when I turned, the man I had just saved, with murder in his eyes was swinging a sword at my neck, and it was far too late to dodge…

****

Hey thank you all for the patronage, this chapter is dedicated to the generous Rafael Fazio, Thank you for the little piece of happiness as you said.

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