Bai Lan stopped, listened to the instructions, glanced back, and then continued forward.
Her limbs were wounded, and a large, bloody gash ran down her back. Her clothes were torn, giving her a ragged appearance.
Although injured, it was merely a disadvantage in the fight and did not hinder her departure. She suddenly darted towards the opposite bank.
Nan and Mu also quickly reached Yu Qing’s side. They looked him up and down, found him unharmed, and instantly breathed a sigh of relief.
Of course, both were also puzzled. Nan Zhu said, “Fifteenth, leaving this woman alive is a disaster. We already had her life under our swords. We should have executed her immediately. How could you let her go? Is this not just asking for trouble?”
They were very confused, but they felt that Fifteenth must have had a reason for doing this, hence the question.
Yu Qing stared at the receding figure. “She is a disaster, but merely one begging for her life under my sword. Over there is another disaster that we are powerless to defeat. With our current strength, it is very difficult to kill him. Perhaps Bai Lan will have an easier time succeeding than we would.”
Hearing this, Nan and Mu suddenly realised and understood the fellow’s intention in letting the opponent go.
Nan Zhu sighed. “No wonder you did not make it clear from the beginning, and insisted on fighting her before you would speak.”
Yu Qing said, “If I had said this from the beginning, would she have easily believed me? Only by showing that I could kill her but chose not to would she believe it, and only then might she act according to my guidance.”
Nan and Mu glanced at each other, both having an inexplicable sense of surprise and suspicion in their eyes. Although in their view, Fifteenth was never a good person, and it was not surprising for him to engage in swindling and cheating, they still inexplicably felt this time that Fifteenth seemed to have changed somewhere.
“Was that the Sealed Dust Sword Technique you just used?” Mu Aotie suddenly asked again.
Yu Qing nodded slightly and looked at the golden coffin. “This is not a place to linger. Let us go.”
Just as the three of them walked back to the golden coffin, and Yu Qing was about to bend down to lift it, he suddenly saw what appeared to be a reflection on the coffin lid. He abruptly looked up.
The other two naturally followed suit and looked up, instantly feeling a sense of horror.
A spider the size of a house floated in the air, drifting slowly towards them, or more accurately, descending while hanging upside down.
At this very moment, the three martial brothers finally understood what that golden web was.
The problem was that there was more than one. Large and small golden spiders somehow emerged, the smallest being the size of a room, descending from the sky at varying heights.
How could the three dare to hesitate? Yu Qing shouldered the golden coffin and ran first, shouting, “Go!”
Before they even reached the cliff wall on the opposite side, they saw large and small golden spiders crawling down the cliff upside down. The large cracks and caves on the cliff wall seemed to be the nests of these spiders. Such creatures kept crawling out, and the loose rocks on the cliff wall rained down with a clatter.
Some of the hanging golden spiders had already landed, charging towards them in swarms, their jointed limbs climbing at lightning speed.
The three looked back, realising they could not retreat either, as large swarms of spiders had also landed behind them.
What was even more deadly was in the air, where golden spider silk, like thousands of threads, fluttered and rained down.
Nan Zhu had already experienced the stickiness of this stuff before. If he were truly entangled by so much spider silk, escaping would probably be as difficult as ascending to heaven. He immediately waved his palms repeatedly, blowing the drifting spider silk away.
Mu Aotie did the same, and the three rushed together towards the area with fewer golden spiders.
However, the falling, fluttering spider silk increased. The golden coffin was too cumbersome and eventually got stuck with some of the drifting silk. With even a slight delay in movement, more spider silk attached to it.
Yu Qing still wanted to try his best to salvage the situation, but glancing at Nan and Mu, he ultimately put down the golden coffin and fled with them first.
With one hand drawing their swords and the other continuously emitting palm winds, the three blew away the strands of spider silk.
Soon, the three were surrounded by spiders coming from all directions. Jointed limbs stabbed at them like spears with a clanging sound. The three dodged quickly, and the golden bumps on the ground were continuously pierced by the spear-like limbs. The ferocity of the attack was imaginable.
Fortunately, these large spiders also had a weakness. They found it difficult to attack their own backs. The three leapt onto their backs, dodging the continuously descending spiders and spider silk. The situation was extremely perilous. Once entangled by those webs, the consequences would be unimaginable.
On the cliff, Wu Hei and the others, along with the Iron Masked Man, heard the faint rumbling sound coming from below the cliff.
Just as they were listening intently, a figure flew up and landed on the cliff. It was Bai Lan, with dishevelled hair and ragged clothes.
Seeing her covered in wounds, the Iron Masked Man was quite surprised and asked, “How did you get injured like this?”
Bai Lan stared into his eyes for a moment and gritted her teeth. “Your information was wrong. His cultivation has broken through the Mystic realm. His strength is greater than I imagined. I almost lost my life in their hands.”
“Broken through the Mystic realm?” The Iron Masked Man was stunned, and then asked, “Is he dead?”
Bai Lan said, “No. A large number of spiders appeared and entangled them, which allowed me to escape. Sir, those spiders have a very strong attack, and the spider silk they spit is extremely sticky. It stuck to the back of my hand, and I had to tear off a piece of skin to get free. A large number of spiders have been alerted and could come up at any time.”
The Iron Masked Man immediately waved his hand and shouted, “Go!”
The two of them darted away together.
Ning Chaoyi immediately asked Wu Hei, “Sir, what should we do?”
Wu Hei replied without hesitation, “We should leave too!”
Just as the words fell, a whooshing sound arose, and three figures rushed up from below the cliff. It was exactly Yu Qing and the other two.
A crashing sound, like a tidal wave, was also surging up from below the cliff. Yu Qing sheathed his long sword and warned the crowd, “The monsters below the abyss have been alerted and are catching up.” As he finished speaking, he suddenly took a step back, his hands striking out in a surprise attack, poking the backs of Nan and Mu, and then quickly adding a few more finger strikes.
Wu Hei and the others looked utterly bewildered, not understanding the reason.
Nan and Mu were also greatly shocked but powerless to act, their bodies going limp and collapsing.
Yu Qing reached out with both hands to support them and urgently said to the crowd, “Help me take them away with you.” Having said that, he pushed with both arms, sending the two flying.
Ning Chaoyi and Zhu Kuanzhen immediately reached out, each catching one person.
Nan and Mu’s eyes darted frantically. Unable to move or speak, they were extremely anxious.
Yu Qing turned his head and sprinted along the edge of the cliff.
“Where are you going?” Ning Chaoyi shouted.
Yu Qing said, “I will come back to find you.”
The rumbling sound from below the cliff was already approaching. Wu Hei said in a deep voice, “Go!”
The group immediately flew away, but soon they looked back one after another. They saw a group of golden colossal creatures had already climbed up. Upon seeing the crowd, they immediately kicked up a cloud of dust and chased after them with a rumble, their long legs running fast.
Yu Qing had already jumped into a crack in the ground to hide. Waiting until the noise outside disappeared, he crawled out of the crack to the cliff face. He stretched his head out to look down the cliff, and only after confirming there were no more large spiders did he leap down.
Reaching the bottom of the abyss, he continued to fly cautiously all the way.
Not long after, he returned to the previous scene of the incident and saw the golden coffin he had abandoned. The problem was that the golden coffin was already covered in a massive amount of spider silk. The ground in that area was also covered in webs everywhere. Let alone extracting the golden coffin, he could not even get close to it.
After scratching his head in anxiety for a while, he suddenly took out a fire starter. He remembered that spider silk in the mortal world was afraid of fire, and he wondered how it would be here.
He blew on the fire starter to ignite it, purely as a last resort, and touched the burning flame to the spider silk. Unexpectedly, with a sudden buzz, a sheet of fire suddenly flared open like a gust of wind, rapidly spreading and engulfing all the connected spider silk.
Yu Qing was stunned. He did not expect the ignition point of these spider silks to be so low, catching fire the moment it touched the flame.
The burning firelight was vigorous, producing a strange burning smell. As the fierce fire burned, those golden spider silks seemed to twist. The fire burned quickly and died out just as fast. The flames were soon extinguished, and the burnt spider silks seemed to wither, losing their original lustre.
He tried waving his hand to sweep out a palm wind to see if the spider silk was still sticky. As a result, the burnt spider silk not only floated up but also crumbled into flying golden powder.
The spider silk that had been extremely difficult to escape from before was now easily dealt with by fire. Yu Qing was overjoyed. He put away the fire starter, immediately darted to the side of the golden coffin, and waved his hand to sweep away the already incinerated spider silk, revealing the true appearance of the golden coffin.
The top of the golden coffin had become pitted and uneven, obviously having been stepped on by the jointed limbs of the large spiders.
Fortunately, it had not been pierced. Yu Qing shouldered the golden coffin and ran, wanting to escape quickly before those large spiders returned.
Who knew that what he feared most would happen. When he climbed to the bottom of the cliff wall and had not climbed very high, he stopped. Rustling loose rocks were falling from above. Looking up, he saw a cave directly above him, with a spider half crouching at the entrance, staring down at him.
Obviously, those spiders had not completely left.
The large spider suddenly pounced out of the cave entrance, dangling spider silk from its tail, and charged directly at Yu Qing below.
Yu Qing sprang away, landing in a half squat, and put down the golden coffin. He then sprang up again and pounced back.
Just as the large spider landed, Yu Qing, with his sword drawn, descended from the sky and landed on its back. Before it could steady itself, he directly stabbed his sword backwards into the back of the large spider’s neck, and a burst of evil qi immediately gushed out from the wound.
The large spider immediately let out a hissing cry, spinning rapidly and thrashing its body violently. It even crashed its body against the wall, and finally tried desperately to crawl back up the cliff wall. However, the lustre on its body was changing, and its climbing limbs gradually felt weak, teetering and looking as if it would fall at any moment.
The evil qi at the wound on the back of its neck was still seeping out, not in a gushing form, but transforming into a withdrawing form.
Hanging on the back of the large spider, Yu Qing lowered his head and watched the tornado-like evil qi rush into his chest. Naturally, it was not rushing into his own body. It was the pendant on his necklace, along with Yun Xi’s bead, that was absorbing the evil qi.
He could clearly feel that the large spider was extremely afraid and terrified, solely focused on escaping with its life.
However, the large spider’s vitality also seemed to be rapidly drained. Its metallic surface showed a shrivelled sensation, similar to being corroded, losing its original rounded brilliance.
Ultimately, the large spider was too weak to cry out, and even weaker to hang onto the cliff wall. It lost its footing and plummeted with a loud crash.
Yu Qing sprang away and landed. With his dharma eye, which he had forcefully generated by consuming his magical power, he watched helplessly as the last wisp of faint evil qi drifted from the large spider’s wound and was absorbed into his chest.