Chapter 159: Soul-Web

The straight knife sliced through the air quickly, emitting a faint hum, and precisely stabbed into...

…the blank wall half a meter away from the spider.

Lin QiYe: ...

Not only were Lin QiYe, Cao Yuan, and Shen Qingzhu behind him stunned, even the spider seemed taken aback. It had grown this large, and never before had it encountered someone with such terrible aim...

Wait... was this man's target... not actually it?

Lin QiYe was speechless. His Darkest Forbidden Ruins had only been activated to a range of 20 meters. Within that range, he could hit his target with pinpoint accuracy, but beyond that... it was all a matter of fate.

Unfortunately, the spider was at least 40 meters away, so missing was understandable.

Just as Lin QiYe's knife flew off course, Shen Qingzhu behind him suddenly raised his hand in a flash. The black ring on his knuckles sparked, and then, a crisp snap echoed throughout the cafeteria.

Boom—!!

A violent explosion erupted, and blinding flames engulfed the ceiling where the spider had been. The shattered walls rained down like hail, and the entire cafeteria trembled.

Amidst the billowing black smoke, a grayish-white spider shot out like lightning, its blood-red compound eyes emitting an eerie glow.

"A Chuan Realm mysterious being..." Lin QiYe's sharp senses detected the terrifying aura emanating from the spider, and his brow furrowed deeply.

Lin QiYe gripped his other Starry Knife, the surrounding night expanding once again. His gaze locked onto the fast-moving spider, his muscles tensing in preparation.

Cao Yuan also raised his hand with a grave expression, ready to draw his knife and unleash the Black King Slaughter.

Under the tense gazes of everyone, the gray-white spider suddenly performed a sharp turn mid-air, smashing through a window and disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye.

Lin QiYe: ?

Everyone else: ???

Lin QiYe and the others stood frozen for two seconds before slowly coming to their senses...

That murderous Chuan Realm spider... ran away?

Hmm?!

Lin QiYe glanced suspiciously at the bloodied body of Wang Li and then at the window the spider had shattered as it fled. He fell into deep thought.

Strange... Shouldn't this spider be a ruthless, bloodthirsty monster that kills without hesitation, thriving on devouring people?

Given the vast difference in strength between it and them, why did it run away?

As Lin QiYe pondered this, Cao Yuan let out a breath of relief and lowered his hand, seemingly grateful that he wouldn't have to be tied up by the "Cao Yuan Chastity Lock" again today...

"It ran too fast. We couldn't catch up," one of the recruits who had tried to chase after the spider returned, panting heavily.

Shen Qingzhu furrowed his brows and looked at Lin QiYe. "What should we do now?"

"Strange... this doesn't make sense," Lin QiYe shook his head, momentarily putting aside his doubts. "That spider was fast and strong. We can't keep chasing it..."

He continued, "Let's follow the original plan and return to Building 3 to rescue the people inside. But to prevent that spider from raiding the place, let's leave more people behind to guard Building 1 and protect the sleeping recruits from being slaughtered without resistance."

Shen Qingzhu's gaze sharpened as the images of the sleeping Deng Wei, Li Jia, and Li Liang flashed in his mind. After a moment of silence, he spoke up, "I'll stay behind to guard."

"Alright. Your strength is considerable, so even if the spider returns, you should be able to hold it off for a while," Lin QiYe nodded.

With the strategy decided, the three of them quickly retraced their steps, splitting up the other recruits into two groups. They swiftly left the cafeteria.

Once they were far away, two figures quietly appeared in a corner of the silent cafeteria.

"Tsk... What's up with this spider? It's too timid. Just running away won't create any pressure on these new recruits," one of them sighed in helplessness.

"At least we made Wang Li's corpse look realistic enough to scare these new recruits. If not, this whole atmosphere-building exercise would've been a complete failure," the other replied.

"Still, Lin QiYe's performance was impressive. He's cautious, thorough, bold, and decisive. He's definitely a promising prospect."

"Do you even need to say that? Anyone chosen as an agent by two gods has got to have some skills."

"True..."

"By the way, what about the unconscious Wang Li? Is he out of the camp now?"

"He's lying outside the camp already."

"Good. Now we just have to wait and see if the 'atmosphere team' in Building 3 can do their job..."

In a Secluded Alley

A gray-white spider scurried frantically along, then suddenly, a flash of white light passed through its form, transforming it into the shape of a young boy.

The boy appeared to be around eleven or twelve years old, with gray-white hair and a soft, pale face adorned with faint spider-like patterns. His crimson eyes nervously scanned his surroundings, his expression almost as though he were about to cry.

"Ahhh! What do I do?! What do I do?! That guy who threw the knife looked so scary! And that guy who can snap his fingers and make explosions... His gaze looked like he wanted to chop me into pieces!"

"I was being so good! I just wanted to find a place to sleep, why are they attacking me?!"

Sniffle, sniffle...

"No, this place is too dangerous. I need to get out of here!"

The spider boy turned and started running in the opposite direction, but suddenly, he shivered as if recalling something.

"No, I can't run outside... The evil instructors said if I sneak out, they'll kill me and make me into braised spider legs..."

"Bad people! All bad people!"

"What should I do... What did they tell me to do again?"

"Right, right, first control the spirits of the sleeping people, then find a place to hide..."

The spider boy glanced around and found an inconspicuous little warehouse. He slipped inside, spun his web, and created a world of spider silk around him. Then, he lay down peacefully in the center.

"This should be a good hiding spot. They shouldn't find me here," he muttered to himself, lying on the soft spider-web bed. "Now, let's check on those guys. How are they sleeping..."

He gazed at the webs, and his crimson eyes gleamed with strange light. In his vision, spiritual spider threads extended from his fingertips, weaving through the air above the training camp, forming a large web.

At the end of each thread, like kite strings, they were connected to the recruits' dorms, attaching to each of the sleeping recruits.

This was a spiritual web that only he could see, spanning the entire camp.

At six o'clock, this web had connected the soul-bodies of all the recruits who were in a deep sleep, binding them to the threads. Even if their soul-bodies woke up, they couldn't return to their original bodies, which was why, to outsiders, they appeared to be continuously asleep.

The spider boy yawned lazily as he watched the various souls struggling on the threads.

Suddenly, his gaze landed on a particular corner of the web, where a chubby soul-body was still sound asleep.

The souls of the others had already awakened but couldn't return to their original bodies, but this one's soul-body had stayed asleep all this time...

"Sleeping so soundly... I envy you..." the spider boy sighed, propping his head up on his hand with a face full of longing.

The chubby soul on the web lazily turned over, its eyes slowly opening in the haze...