Chapter 24: The Bizarre Spider at the Top of the Food Chain

  As he was being pulled towards the top of the cave by the white rope, Liu Yi had managed to free one hand and pulled out a short sword, about 40 cm long, with a black glossy blade.

  This short sword is made of obsidian, a sacred object for warding off evil spirits. It's called the Obsidian Sword and was once the personal artifact of Liu Yi's master, Xuan Yun Dao Zhang, when he was young and traveling the world. It has beheaded many ferocious wolves, evil leopards, malevolent ghosts, and vengeful spirits, making it a rare and precious little treasure sword.

  Liu Yi was being pulled towards the top of the cave when he grabbed the white rope with one hand and used his black jade sword to cut the ropes binding him. Unexpectedly, the rope was afraid of his short sword, and as soon as it came into contact with the white rope, it automatically loosened. Fortunately, they were already close to the entrance of the cave, and Liu Yi, in a state of urgency, grabbed the edge of the entrance and pulled himself up. If he had been thrown down from mid-air by that strange rope, he would have certainly died.

  Shidongtoukou Cave is a huge cliff-isolated cave, just like the sandwich layer of a hamburger.

  Liu Yi rushed into the cave and saw that those ropes were pulling Professor Zhou Tao and his team quickly backward.

  "Damn it!" Liu Yi shouted, using his light body technique to catch up with Professor Zhou Tao, who was at the back of the group. He grabbed his ankle and then swung his black obsidian sword at the white rope, cutting it off. The rope suddenly broke apart, releasing a yellowish gas that smelled extremely pungent.

  The rope was injured and quickly retreated with a "zip, zip" sound.

  Then Liu Yi cut off the white rope on Professor Zhou Tao's body and rescued him, but due to the uneven ground and protruding rocks of the cave, Professor Zhou Tao hit his head on a rock during the process of being pulled back by the rope and had already fainted.

  Liu Yi shouted his name again and pinched the person's Zhongxue hole, which finally woke him up. Seeing that he was not seriously injured, he put down his mind.

  Just this brief delay and those strange ropes had already gone missing.

  With the light of the flashlight, Professor Zhou picked up a small broken rope, looked at it for a while, then put it in front of his nose and sniffed, smelling a pungent smell, and then looking at the thumb-thick white rope in his hand, he said in horror: "It can't be spider silk, can it?"

  Professor Zhou's words made Liu Yi's body hair stand on end. Encountering such a gigantic spider, unheard of before, was far more perilous than encountering a ghost. He exclaimed loudly: "Is there really such thick spider silk in this world?"

  "I'm also quite uncertain, if it's spider silk, its tenacity is extremely high, more than a hundred times stronger than steel wires of the same thickness, how could it be cut off by the short sword in your hand?"

  Liu Yi was about to say something when a loud "humming" sound came from behind, the Soul-Devouring Insects that were chasing them had caught up.

  This step forward is danger, a step backward is the feeling of death, too terrifying, but at this time Liu Yi couldn't care about these, loudly shouting: "Run quickly", pulling up Professor Zhou Tao's hand and rushing all the way.

  The Soul Devouring Insects behind them didn't give up either, tightly pursuing, it seemed they wouldn't stop until they had gnawed them to the point of nothing being left.

  "Humming, humming......" The sound was getting closer and closer, the god of death slowly stretched out his dark hand, and the desperate breath in my heart was indescribable.

  Suddenly Liu Yi discovered a small opening on the left front, he didn't think and ran tightly for several steps, pulling Professor Zhou Tao into the hole with one head.

  The entrance of the cave was sealed with spider webs, and when they rushed in, their bodies were covered with spider silk. Fortunately, the clothes they wore were tight and intact, otherwise that feeling would be unbearable.

  Liu Yi and the other person were stunned as they crawled into the hole, only to find that it was a spider's nest. The ground, walls, and everywhere else were crawling with countless yellow spiders of all sizes. In front of them, there was a dark cave entrance, and Lu Zonghan and Ke Kexi were each using one hand to grab onto the horns of the Tibetan antelope, while using their other hand to grasp the protruding rocks on the wall, trying their best not to let the white rope be pulled into the hole.

  Liu Yi saw the situation, "Ta, ta......" quickly ran forward, in his running process, many small spiders were trampled to death, the sound of "pi, pa" kept ringing out, yellow ** splashed everywhere, a foul smell filled the air.

  Liu Yi's black obsidian sword, a sacred object for driving away evil spirits, was not to be underestimated. With three or five swift cuts, it severed the thick spider silk binding Ru Zonghan and the others, rescuing them from their predicament.

  Those soul-eating insects that were chasing them also chased after, but at the entrance of the cave they encountered a spider web and most of them got stuck on it. The remaining ones smoothly drilled into the hole in the spider web broken by Liu Yi and others.

  These insects, suddenly saw a nest of yellow spiders, were frightened and fell from the air, then Liu Yi and others saw a large group of small yellow spiders crawling towards the Nian Ling insect, starting to devour them voraciously.

  "This spider is the natural enemy of the Soul-Devouring Bug!" Professor Zhou shouted.

  "I get it, this eerie place has its own food chain system. The soul-eating bugs eat the old man fish, the old man fish eats the glowing fish, the glowing fish eats the small spiders that haven't grown up yet, and the spiders eat those soul-eating bugs. If I'm guessing correctly, the mother of these little spiders is the monster at the top of the food chain for all living things here! We're doomed!" Liu Yi shouted.

  All the yellow spiders in the cave were attracted by a large number of soul-sucking insects, and where did they have to care about Liu Yi and others? Although there were a few who crawled towards them, due to their small size, they were trampled to death as soon as they lifted their feet, thus giving Liu Yi and others a temporary chance to breathe.

  Liu Yi asked Lu Zonghan: "Have you seen Malacca?"

  Lu Zonghan stepped on a small yellow spider that was trying to climb onto him and pointed at the dark cave entrance: "When I was dragged in, I saw him being dragged in. If there's a giant spider inside, it would have eaten him up by now!"

  Liu Yi heard this and without hesitation, directly rushed into the dark cave.

  Brothers who depend on each other for life and death, how can they be abandoned?

  A team that advances and retreats together will never lightly abandon any of its members!

  Then we saw that all the people in Liu Yi's team followed him closely, drilling into the hole. Even the little Tibetan antelope, Xiao Ke Xi, trotted after its owner, Kexi, and jumped into the hole with a thud.

  This temporarily formed team has unconsciously formed a "do not give up or abandon" contractual spirit.

  ……

  As soon as they entered the black hole, they felt a huge dampness mixed with a stench like rotting corpses, hitting their noses.

  Everyone was afraid that the gas was toxic and quickly covered their noses. But Liu Yi, who was at the front, swung his arms wildly, like a raging bull, not caring whether the foul-smelling gas was toxic or not. At this moment, he wished he could fly over and rescue Ma Liya immediately.

  "Hold on at all costs!" Liu Yi prayed in his heart as he ran, praying that Malacca would be as strong as a pig.

  He knew that if he could just be a second faster, maybe he could have saved Malacca.

  Suddenly, there was a faint light in front of him, as if guiding his direction forward.

  As Liu Yi stepped forward, the faint light also gradually became clearer and brighter.

  Under the light, he saw that the walls and ground were covered with yellow spiders of various sizes.

  He trampled on the live spiders, one by one, and crushed them to death, just like that, treading on the corpses of the spiders, he marched forward bravely!

  Liu Yi's mind turned like lightning: "Spiders prefer humid and shady places, how can such a place have spiders surviving for a long time? And where did this light come from?"

  As soon as Liu Yi stepped into the stone chamber at the end of the cave, all these questions had their answers.

  A beam of light shot down from a large opening at the top of the stone chamber, and was refracted through some strange stones into the dark passageway inside the cave. In a place where sunlight could not reach for the time being, there was a spider as big as two millstones staring at him with one shiny black eye that seemed to be able to see through people's hearts and explore the good and evil of the world.

  Liu Yi was shocked, his head spinning, he shook his head vigorously and looked intently, but saw that the spider's entire body was golden yellow, unlike ordinary spiders. This spider surprisingly had only one section of its body, with its head, abdomen, and tail forming a huge oval shape. On its body were inserted eight black wooden stakes, pinning it to the wall of the cave.

  Its eight yellow claws danced around its body, like a sun releasing rays of light hanging on the stone wall.

  A heap of corpses lay scattered around the spider in a chaotic mess, emitting an eerie aura that was extremely frightening.

  Most of these skeletons are animal skeletons, which should have accidentally fallen from the hole in the top of the stone room and been sucked dry by spiders. What's even more frightening is that on top of the skeletons, there are several shriveled human bodies hanging on the skeletons, light and airy with no weight at all, which should have been sucked dry of their essence by this giant spider.

  Their eyes were wide open, clearly not closing in death. These people were all dressed in modern clothes, with bloodstains on their clothing, and one of the corpses still had a semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. One person looked particularly familiar, somewhat like the man who stood on the altar in Coco Village assisting the shaman in his ritual.

  "Could it be that the group of people who took away Korkwood have been here?"

  Liu Yi had doubts in his heart, but this was not the time to think. He saw that the eight golden claws of the spider were dancing in mid-air, playing with a huge "cocoon" bound by white spider silk, only a pair of eyes exposed outside, as if showing off to Liu Yi, an outsider.

  The two eyes of the pupa shone with a fearful light.

  No need to guess, this "mummy-like" guy is Malacca.

  After Malacca was dragged in by the spider, the spider did not rush to eat it. It should have been a long time since he saw a person, and he was very lonely, so he treated him as a toy.

  Malacca saw Liu Yi rush in, and the fear in his eyes slightly reduced, revealing a glimmer of hope.

  He believed that this brother, who was bound to him by ties of life and death, would certainly rescue him, just as Liu Yi had rescued him when he fell into a dry well and was in despair, using tree bark to create a lifeline.

  Liu Yi saw his brother being bullied by this spider, and suddenly anger rose from his heart, fire burning in his eyes. He danced the obsidian sword, creating a whirlwind of sword flowers, shouting: "You wicked beast, accept your death!"

  With a loud roar, Liu Yi charged at the golden-yellow spider whose combat strength was unknown.