While Ren Chao was protecting the busy Sun Liao, Mei Hua was now out of her cocoon with her rope dart in hand. Between her and Cao Yun was a single female Soul Weaving Cyrtophora. A female was as large as an elephant and way stronger than a male. However, due to her size, she was slower. Moreover, her main way to attack was not her body but her mind. However, both Cao Yun and Mei Hua had extremely strong minds. Apart from Ren Chao's abnormal will, their minds were above their friends by a good margin.
Quickly, the female understood that she had no effect on their minds at all and decided to use her strong body. That was the exact moment Mei Hua's attack connected. Her rope dart sliced off a leg from the female, and before she could react, Mei Hua bent the rope with her other forearm. All of a sudden, the trajectory of the blade changed and as it had still enough momentum, it sliced off another leg.
Just as Cao Yun launched a 'Dragon's Twin Horns' toward the beast's legs, she jumped in the air. Seeing her up there, Cao Yun tried to attack once more thinking she couldn't evade his attack anymore. However, she shot some webbing toward the existing web and changed her trajectory to fall back on another web. Even with some legs missing, she wasn't weakened at all. In fact, in a matter of a few breaths, her legs had grown back.
"Brother! Help me get them out!"
Cao Yun understood why Mei Hua had not immediately tried to run away. Inside the cocoons there were two other human cultivators and they seemed to be breathing, albeit very faintly. Activating 'The Moon Grounds the Sun', Cao Yun's movements became faster than before. He couldn't move at full speed though because he didn't want to get stuck on the web. As such, he had to balance out his martial art and his 'Stopping the Waves'.
Mei Hua was closer to the cocoons so she easily took the two cultivators out. Both of them looked very alike, probably a brother and a sister. The brother had lost an arm and the sister was also extremely pale. They had probably sustained terrible injuries when the demonic beasts had captured them. Despite being freed from the cocoons, they were still unconscious.
The young alchemist, thanks to her cultivation, was strong enough to hold both of them. She knew she wasn't that much of a fighter. Thus, she wanted to allow Cao Yun to move around freely while she took care of the burden that were those two humans. Seeing her taking charge, Cao Yun only acted as a guardian and kept his senses focused on the female that was still dangerously close to them. Even in this very obscure place, he could clearly feel her hatred. More than keeping her prey here, she especially wanted to slaughter Mei Hua who had injured her and probably killed her sister.
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Just when the females were ready to take action, understanding the full situation, the humans were freeing all of their human preys, their best preys. As they loved devouring minds, Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras were always more enticed by humans than by demonic beasts or animals. And they now understood that no matter how powerful their mental attacks were, those humans were ignoring them completely. Moreover, watching Ren Chao slaughter three males effortlessly, they knew the other males would be no help at all.
Fortunately, they had understood the exact situation a bit too late. Sun Liao had finally finished his array formation. This array formation was a modified version of Infernal Heart Cannon. In fact, he had invented it himself to complement his own 'Houyi's Nine Suns' while using Infernal Heart Cannon as a basis. He had named it the Sun Blazing Cannon array formation.
As soon as he set up his last flag, the dozen of spirit stones and demonic cores started to light up. Just after that, the hundred of flags began to burn away. Slowly, all the blazes gathered right in front of Sun Liao. The young man was now holding his bow drawn without any arrow. The center of his bow was right in the Gate of Hell. And in this gate, all the blazes were beginning to form a very small sun. It was completely red and extremely condensed. The heat was so intense that Sun Liao had a hard time breathing. Covered in sweat, he tightened his grip on the bow. Even though his 'Ten Thousand Li Bow' was a 2-star Human weapon, Sun Liao still heard cracking sounds.
According to the armory pavilion, the 'Ten Thousand Li Bow' had been forged using the bone of a Moon Devastating Sparrow, a powerful 4-core demonic beast. Despite all this, the bow was almost ready to split apart due to the extreme heat. Even Sun Liao's hands were burning red. Bearing the full strength of the heat, Sun Liao did not move at all.
The tunnels were now full of light. It was so bright that Ren Chao got blinded by it. Even the Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras who were mostly blind got attracted by this intense light. The females knew they had been right. That human was really the most dangerous of the group.
Before they could act, the small red sun was complete. Ignoring the pain, Sun Liao kept his bow fully drawn. Slowly, the sun's form turned into the shape of an arrow. With this array formation, Sun Liao could use one of the most powerful techniques of his 'Houyi's Nine Suns', the ninth mantra. Contrary to its name, this wasn't the final mantra. There was still a tenth and last one. However, even Sun Liao hadn't been able to reach this level.
But more than using this technique, the Sun Blazing Cannon array formation could allow him to use it as though he was a Mortal Warrior. In a way, it was Qi Manifestation. Instead of controlling the Qi outside with his own mind, he did so with the array formation. However, he had to be perfectly synchronized with the array formation, circulating his Qi within in the appropriate way.
"Nine back at Fusang". For a split second, the sun turned into a solid arrow. Just then, Sun Liao let go of the string.
"Get down!"
Immediately, Ren Chao lay down on the ground. Just above his head, the arrow whistled while bringing intense heat. In a matter of a few breaths, the arrow produced an even more intense light while it burned away. Sun Liao had calculated his attack perfectly. When the arrow reached the center of the nest, it exploded back into a red sun. All of a sudden, most of the oxygen from the nest got sucked in by the expansion of this red sun. For an instant, it looked like there were two wings leaving the core of this tiny sun. And just after that, the entire web started to burn down while flames spread everywhere.
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Still protecting Mei Hua and the two vagrant cultivators she was holding, Cao Yun activated 'Dragon's Chest'. While focusing most of his Qi in his back, he covered the girl, even using his spear to stab the wall behind her. That way, he was able to resist not the heat but the blast from the explosion. As the flames were slowly burning away everything, Mei Hua and Cao Yun used the confusion to quickly go back toward the entrance tunnel. Once more, Mei Hua sent her weapon toward Ren Chao. This time, they both grabbed each extremity firmly as if their lives depended on it, as they did. And with a single powerful motion, Ren Chao pulled the four cultivators toward him.
As soon as they got reunited, Cao Yun gave a pill to Mei Hua. Being an alchemist, she immediately recognized a Purifying Muddy Source pill. What shocked her was that they shouldn't have had the ingredients to make such a pill. Several possibilities came to her mind, but this wasn't the time at all. Trusting Cao Yun's skills, she ate the pill without hesitation and started to direct the medicinal essence. It was extremely potent as Cao Yun had kept the purest pill for her, fearing that she may be injured. She wasn't in the slightest though.
While the flames were devouring all the nest, the Soul weaving Cyrtophoras were trying to get it under control. The core of their nest was totally destroyed, but by cutting some webs here and there, they could maybe isolate it enough to extinguish it. However, some males caught on fire because of the heat and spread the flames even farther.
Cao Yun's group didn't wait to see whether the spiders would extinguish the fire or not. Once they were done rescuing their friend, they ran as fast as they could.
And that was the wisest decision. Because as two other males got badly burned by the fire, the spiders gave up on controlling this. They would simply wait for it to burn all the oxygen in the room. Even though it would take time, they could easily spin other webs to replace their nest. However, something was clear to them, they had to kill these humans. In fact, the largest female of the group sent telepathic messages to her comrades. No matter what happened, they were to kill the human with the spear, even at the cost of their own lives.
Usually, a nest of Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras was not taking orders from a single individual. The males were obeying the females yes, but most of the time, all the spiders just worked together. However they all agreed to the order, just as if they were obeying to a higher power.
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Inside the tunnels, the powerful light from the blazing fire lit up the galleries almost all the way to the cave. Cao Yun's group had taken three hours to get to the nest. But with their current speed, they would reach the surface in less than half an hour. Sun Liao was leading the group with Mei Hua just behind him. As she didn't know about all the array formations he had set up, she followed him very closely while holding the two other cultivators.
Behind them were Cao Yun and Ren Chao. The blacksmith was the slowest of the group and Cao Yun didn't want to leave him alone to deal with potential pursuers.
Very soon, they could hear the crawling from the galleries behind them. All the Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras were trying to catch them. The males, faster and smaller were leading the charge. Many of them had died under Ren Chao's attacks but they were still determined. For Cao Yun's group, the males were not really dangerous, but the females truly were a problem. This would especially be the case if they had to confront the three surviving females at once. The best scenario would have been if they didn't pursue, too busy with trying to salvage their nest.
Now, the second best scenario was for them to fall victims to Sun Liao's array formations.
All of a sudden, a powerful noise shook the tunnels. Behind the group, pillars of rock erupted from the ground and almost crushed several males. Unfortunately, they were so fast that they dodged every attack. And just behind them, one of the females, almost as large as the tunnels themselves literally ran through the several solid pillars.
Many other array formations got activated. One of them turned everything around it to ice. The spiders were too strong to get frozen. Just like humans, demonic beasts had Qi flowing through their bodies. The main difference with their energetic body was that instead of having Dantian, they had demonic cores that naturally condensed Qi. But with this vital energy flowing through them, even this incredible cold did nothing to them. They could survive even lower temperature. However, the ground turning to ice slowed them down a bit.
Very soon, Sun Liao and Mei Hua reached the part of the tunnels with Burrowing Deadly Typha. This time, and despite the adrenaline shooting through her entire system, Mei Hua circulated her mind cultivation to increase her perception to the limit. She put everything else aside. It would probably be her last possibility to analyze the smell that was hiding the poison. With the charge from the females, there was a real risk for the tunnels to collapse.
The Purifying Muddy Source pill from Cao Yun greatly slowed down the poison but didn't completely canceled it. As such, she wasn't ready to breathe too much of it. However, she had to understand this smell. The more she thought about it, the less it made sense. In the end, her only conclusion was that someone had prepared everything just for them. Even the behavior of the Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras was strange. After assimilating a small part of the mind from one of them, she knew that their natural inclination would have been to let the threat run away. Given their weak bodies compared with other 3-core demonic beasts, they were not prompt to engage in a fight. And after witnessing their main attacks, their mental attacks, fail, they should be even more hesitant to give chase.
Mei Hua only breathed a small fraction of air. There! The smell was there! This was from some incense. Now, she was sure that humans were behind this. As it wasn't the time to think about it right now, she kept this smell in a corner of her mind and kept following Sun Liao.
All of his array formations activated one after the other. All the spirit stones and demonic cores he had used were not wasted. Some of the array formations simply slowed down the beasts, but others killed a couple of them.
The moment they ran above the Burrowing Deadly Typha, they knew what would happen. And they were right. From all around the ground, plants looking very similar to red bamboo stalks erupted. They were as sharp as Human rank weapons. Prepared for them, the group dodged the first ones as best as they could. Soon the entire tunnel was pierced by a forest of deadly stalks.
These stalks reacted to vibrations. Obviously, the running group was causing a lot of them, contrary to the spiders who were able to move extremely fast without disturbing their surroundings, used to crawling over their web. The only one of the group who could run freely was Cao Yun with his 'Stopping the Waves'. Unfortunately, it wasn't something his friends could learn in less than a day, no matter how talented they were. They only learned a bit of 'Locking the Seven', just to reduce their metabolism and reduce the impact of the poison, further helped by the pills.