“Little Beard, weren’t you acting all high and mighty when you were chasing me? What’s the matter now? Cat got your tongue?”
Second floor of the internet café, amidst the rubble of a broken wall—
The human-faced spider stood there nearly unscathed, exuding arrogant contempt.
The bearded man sat slumped in a corner, clutching a cracked machete in one hand, blood streaming down his body.
Yes, his instincts had been spot on—
The strength of this out-of-control person had indeed reached Soldier Level.
And though there was only a single step between Division Level and Soldier Level, that single step was a chasm as vast as heaven and earth.
The bearded man slowly raised his head. His vision was swimming in red, his head dizzy with pain, and every inch of his body was screaming in agony.
Through his blurred sight, the twisted and gleeful face of the monster loomed large.
This creature had once been a normal revived person—
He’d awakened a mutant ability to control spiders, even enlarging them.
But he refused to join the Demon Slayer Division, so surveillance was placed on him.
Then one day, the daily updates from the informant suddenly stopped.
When the bearded man investigated, what he found was horrifying:
The revived man had transformed into a full-blown spider monster.
The informant was scattered across the living room floor in pieces—some of which were visibly inside the monster’s stomach.
This kind of spider-like monster had a specific classification within the Demon Slayer Division’s leadership:
“Aberrant Out-of-Control Person.”
These aberrants had started appearing after the infamous “Black Coffin Lingtian” resurrection incident three years ago at Changbai Mountain—a case that had shocked the entire nation.
Though there’s still no concrete evidence linking the two, it was almost certain.
The Demon Slayer Division’s grasp of resurrection phenomena was still woefully shallow.
Even the “Kunlun Fairy Palace” incident ten years ago hadn’t been fully deciphered.
All they’d managed to obtain was a single breathing technique from a stone tablet at the base of the thousand-layer steps outside the palace—
Guiyuan True Technique.
And it had taken them ten whole years just to decipher that.
“If this was two days ago, our Tianfu District Demon Slayer Division… we might’ve all been wiped out by you!”
“Hm?”
The human-faced spider narrowed its eyes and glared at the bearded man.
The man looked half-dead, slumped with his head down—yet somehow, a crooked grin still stretched across his battered, blood-streaked face.
The bearded man pushed himself to his feet with difficulty, raising one trembling arm.
Alarmed, the spider monster lunged forward like a cannonball, its razor-sharp legs slicing through the air—
Slash!
An arm flew off diagonally into the rubble.
“Ha… hahaha!”
Despite the pain, the bearded man laughed wildly as the human-faced spider approached.
From his pocket, his bloodied right hand suddenly extended—
Clutched in his grip was a talisman, already pasted directly onto the spider’s body.
He mouthed a word:
“Bang!”
…
Silence.
Nothing happened.
The spider twitched its lips, slowly peeled the talisman off its face, and tossed it to the ground.
Then with one leg, it swept the bearded man across the room.
The smile on its face twisted into something far more menacing.
“Bang? You serious? Were you pretending to be some badass just now?”
The bearded man stared at the fallen talisman in disbelief.
Could it be… the talisman Chen Huaian gave him was fake?
No—that couldn’t be. The righteous light he saw radiating from it wasn’t something you could fake!
But then he noticed something—the radiant energy on the talisman… had disappeared.
No telling when that had happened.
“I’m talking to you, Little Mustache. You still pretending?”
The human-faced spider crouched and gave the bearded man a condescending slap across the face.
Earlier, when the man took out the talisman, it had really panicked.
For a second, it thought it was done for.
But now?
What a joke.
Thinking back on all the times the bearded man had hunted it down, the spider grew more and more vengeful.
It would be far too easy to just kill him now.
Grinning hideously, it muttered,
“How should I torture you… hmm? Maybe wrap you up in spider silk with only your head exposed, then inject digestive fluid through your feet. That way, your body’ll slowly dissolve—
And you’ll watch, unable to move, as I eat you alive, bit by bit.
Ahh~ sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? Hehehe…”
Suddenly—
A faint, even breathing sound echoed behind it.
Very close.
The spider’s scalp prickled.
It turned sharply—only to see…
A very handsome young man with a buzz cut was standing right behind it.
Less than two meters away.
In the youth’s hand was a talisman—
Exactly like the one it had just dismissed.
“Who are you?”
The human-faced spider locked eyes with Chen Huaian, wariness surging in its gaze.
He didn’t even know when this guy had gotten behind him.
Had he really been so focused on tormenting the bearded man that he’d let his guard down?
Chen Huaian didn’t answer.
He just stepped forward, talisman in hand, and reached out.
The spider instinctively backed away, eyes fixed on the talisman.
Then sneered:
“You don’t really think that garbage can do anything to me… do you?”
Chen Huaian stepped forward with the talisman and waved it teasingly:
“So what? If you don’t believe it, why not slap it on and see what happens?”
“You think I don’t dare?”
“I know you don’t dare.”
“Hah! I’ll slap it on right now!”
“Then do it!”
“I will!”
Chen Huaian raised his chin defiantly and shouted:
“Just do it—!!!”
The human-faced spider reached out with one of its claws toward the talisman—but then suddenly paused mid-air.
“You little brat,” it grinned maliciously, scarlet eyes gleaming with cunning, “you think I’m an idiot?”
That hideous smile widened as it spoke with exaggerated smugness:
“If I’m not mistaken, the moment this talisman sticks to me, thick smoke will explode like a smokescreen. Then, while my vision’s blocked, you’ll take the chance to rescue that bearded bastard, right?”
Chen Huaian said nothing.
Instead, he jabbed a clothes-drying rod straight at the spider’s face.
Then—he turned, flopped down, rolled under a nearby table, tucked his knees to his chest, pulled a chair cushion in front of him, and slapped his hands over his ears.
‘Good luck, Bearded Bro…’
He sighed in his heart.
And then—
Light.
Thunder.
Fire.
All exploded right in front of the human-faced spider.
A burning heat like searing steel spread from its scalp through its entire body in an instant.
BOOM!
A blinding flash of white light punched a hole straight through the entire second floor!
By the time the smoke cleared, the entire upper floor of the internet café was half-destroyed.
A small, palm-sized spider, charred black and trailing smoke, staggered and scampered toward the café’s front door in a panic.
“Run, I have to run!”
“That old bastard’s talisman… it was real?!”
“How can there be a talisman that powerful? Could it be related to the breathing technique the Demon Slayer Division cracked?”
Its mind was in total chaos.
So many questions, so few answers.
But one truth rang crystal clear:
Only by running can it survive.
It scuttled over an overturned PC desk, dodged falling bricks from the shattered ceiling, leapt over a burning keyboard…
Then sprang forward, launching itself several dozen meters in a desperate lunge toward the exit—
Only to find a girl suddenly appear in front of the door.
That didn’t matter. She wouldn’t stop it.
But then—
She raised her hand…
And slapped something onto the door.
The moment the spider saw what it was, all six of its eyes popped wide in horror.
“No—Not this again, f@#&ing hell——!”
BOOM——!!!
Another blinding flash of lightning exploded.
Under the table, Chen Huaian shut his eyes with a peaceful, almost merciful expression.
Inside the pocket of his jacket, the game interface on his phone pinged and displayed a pop-up:
[Spider Demon defeated. Rewards acquired: Demon Cultivator Fragment ×1, Spider Silk Soft Armor ×1 (Delivered)]
