novelsite Chapter 18 Expansion
Chapter 18 Expansion
Having missed twice, the Spider Queen seemed unable to launch another silk-spraying attack in a short time. With all eight legs exerting force, her massive body lunged at Jiang Yuan.
Jiang Yuan's heart pounded, and he felt death approaching more clearly than ever before.
He raised his stinging arm, loaded, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
The second volley of ten arrows was unleashed, this time targeting the other intact eye.
Having learned her lesson once, the Spider Queen no longer confronted things head-on.
With all eight legs springing back simultaneously, the entire spider sank a short distance down like a stone.
Several arrows grazed its head and flew past, then shot into the sea of fire behind it.
This is the first magical beast that can dodge most arrows when amplified by Jiangyuan's magic power.
Fortunately, four or five arrows were still embedded in the gaps of its head shell, the shafts trembling as they remained stuck there.
The Spider Queen was completely enraged. With her eight legs flat on the ground, she rolled towards Jiang Yuan like a rolling gray-white boulder.
No spider would hunt in this way because it would expose its most vulnerable abdomen.
But it did exactly that.
Jiang Yuan retreated hastily.
The spider queen pursued relentlessly, her eight legs digging at an increasingly rapid pace, each stomp creating a shallow furrow in the stone.
It quickly approached Jiangyuan, its chelicerae spread open to their maximum size, with two rows of barbs standing upright.
bass--
At the critical moment, Hil's figure suddenly appeared on the side of the Spider Queen.
This time, instead of aiming directly for the eyes, she gripped the dagger in reverse and thrust the tip straight into the joint between the spider queen's left thighs.
The dagger pierced the soft membrane at the joint connection, a flash of light, and the entire spider leg's power rhythm was interrupted.
The Spider Queen was charging at high speed when one of her two left legs suddenly lost power, causing her massive body to veer sharply to the left.
It had to slow down, bracing itself on its first left leg, while simultaneously whipping its tail toward Hilu, spraying out a large glob of viscous white fluid.
This white paste is far slower than the white silk thread.
Hilu deftly dodged, and the white liquid splattered on the spot where she had just been standing, instantly solidifying into a large lump of milky white silk.
Jiang Yuan used those few breaths to load the third volley of arrows.
Magic flowed into his arms, and the sights locked onto the other intact black eye in front of the spider's head.
Pull the trigger.
The dull thud of an arrow piercing an eyeball and the spider queen's hiss rang out simultaneously.
Its body suddenly thrust upwards, all eight legs straightening simultaneously, before crashing back to the ground.
Hilu attacked again, her figure appearing on the spider's leg, the dagger's blade glowing brighter than ever before.
Swish!
Another spider leg was severed, and the queen spider could no longer maintain her balance, falling to her side.
Jiang Yuanyuan had already loaded a new volley of arrows and aimed them at the wound on its head.
The burning firelight illuminated his face.
"die!"
Press the trigger.
Whoosh whoosh—
The arrow pierced completely through the crack in the spider queen's wound.
Its massive body convulsed violently a few times, squeezing out a few drops of viscous white fluid from its abdomen, before collapsing to the ground with a thud.
The sea of fire behind it was still burning, the orange-red flames clinging to the ground, from which came the hissing of small spiders.
However, the area affected by the flames has shrunk by more than half compared to before, and is decreasing at a visible rate.
The hissing stopped abruptly after the spider queen fell.
Hiru returned to Jiang Yuan's side, her cat tail swishing lightly behind her.
Her leather armor was covered in dust, she had a wound on her abdomen, and several charred marks on her face, but her cat ears stood straight up.
"Jiangyuan, it's dead!"
Jiang Yuan nodded, his adrenaline subsided, and he finally felt the intense stinging pain in his arm, letting out a hiss.
Hilu noticed his injury, her cat ears tucked back, "Jiang Yuan, what happened to you...?"
"It's nothing." Jiang Yuan shook his arm and felt that the movement was still normal, so he should not have injured any nerves.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
I don't know if the sweat is from the heat of the surrounding temperature or from cold sweat.
The fire has gradually died down.
Hilulu approached the Spider Queen's enormous head, gripped the dagger hilt with both hands, stirred it a few times, and then made a cut along the seam of the carapace.
She placed the dagger aside and reached her small hand into the wound, feeling around for a while.
"I've got it." She pulled her hand out, revealing a grayish-white magic core in her palm.
"Here you go." Hilu handed over the magic core.
Jiang Yuan took it; it was icy cold to the touch.
Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly heard Hilu let out a short gasp.
"ah!"
Jiang Yuan followed her gaze and looked ahead.
Spiderweb debris clung to the stone wall, emitting wisps of blue smoke.
The flames he had started ahead had been completely extinguished, with only some wisps of smoke and the Spider Queen's massive body obscuring part of the view.
The view passed over the thick spiderweb-like wall burned through by the flames, revealing what lay behind it.
A stone wall.
The stone wall was the same as the starting point that Hilu had taken him to see before.
This road has come to an end; it's a dead end.
A layer of shimmering light covered the stone wall, like an oil film adhering to the rock surface, its color slowly flowing between deep purple and dark green.
It glows and wriggles even without a light source shining on it.
Similarly, there are "divine marks" on the stone wall.
But this divine mark is not quite the same as the one I saw last time.
Its flow rate is faster, and the edges of the light film are constantly twisting and churning, like a pot of water about to boil.
Jiang Yuan's gaze followed the divine mark upwards, and his pupils contracted.
At the very center of the cave's dome, where divine marks churn, is embedded something.
It's about the size of a palm, made of crystal, and you can't tell what it is. There are broken edges at all four corners.
It was half-submerged in the flowing "oil film," repeatedly washed by the divine marks, but showed no signs of dissipation.
The remaining firelight in the cave reflected off the surface, casting a cold, faint glow.
"Crystal texture, very similar to that mysterious bone..." Jiang Yuan's gaze sharpened as he stared intently at the object.
Just then, a golden substance emerged from inside the crystal object.
That wisp of gold was extremely fine and bright, like a wisp of silk awakened, slowly unfolding deep within the crystal.
Then, rapidly, intense golden light spread like stars.
Jiang Yuan felt a sudden burning sensation in his left little finger, as if something had been ignited.
A burst of intensely hot heat exploded inside my little finger.
Then his mind went blank, as if it had exploded.
The cave, the Spider Queen's corpse, the divine marks... all the images disappeared.
He completely lost consciousness.
I don't know how much time passed, or if it was just a moment.
He seemed to awaken from a deep dive, surrounded by incomprehensible murmurs.
Like countless sounds overlapping, surging in from the far distance and exploding at the very near.
High-pitched, low-pitched, hoarse, shrill...
Hundreds of people were speaking into his ear at the same time, but every word was indistinct, as if they were shouting through a thick layer of water.
He didn't know what those voices were saying.
But he could sense the emotions contained in those voices.
Anger, sorrow, joy, anticipation... all conveyed with an ancient and heavy gaze.
Then, in an instant, everything fell silent.
All that remained in my perception was an endless expanse of gray-white, as if I had fallen into a thick, impenetrable fog.
After an unknown amount of time, sounds gradually seeped in.
"Ewon...Ewon!"
The crisp sound grew louder and louder.
Jiang Yuan suddenly opened his eyes.
What first caught my eye was Hilu's tiny face, no bigger than the palm of my hand.
His sky-blue pupils were less than an arm's length away, their sockets veiled with a thin layer of mist, and his cat ears were pressed tightly against the sides of his head.
She saw Jiang Yuan open his eyes and jump up:
"Jiang Yuan, you're awake! I couldn't wake you up no matter what I did, hope Lu was so scared!"
Jiang Yuan felt a little dizzy and found himself lying on the stone ground.
He propped himself up on the ground and sat up, then looked up and was startled again.
A cold white halo, ten feet high, hung a few steps in front of him.
The aperture stood upright, like a rift torn open from the void.
It stood there quietly, as if it had been waiting for some time.
What is this? I haven't even had a chance to use the Gate of Boundaries yet... Jiang Yuan shook his head, feeling much more awake.
The gate to the realm was golden, with flowing light dancing around its edges.
"What happened to me just now... What is this thing?" He asked, his voice unusually hoarse.
Hilu followed his gaze to the door, her tail flicking nervously.
"You were walking straight ahead, almost reaching the Divine Mark, when you suddenly collapsed. No matter how we called you, you didn't respond."
"This shiny thing appeared when you fell down. Hilu didn't know what it was, so she was afraid to touch it or walk away..."
Didn't Xilu see the crystal object and the golden light it emitted? Jiang Yuan looked down at his left hand.
The fingers were long and slender, showing no signs of abnormality.
He tried clenching his fist, but he knew something was different.
The palm-sized crystal object vanished the moment it touched him, just like the finger bone that had merged into his body in the basement.
Where it went after it disappeared is self-evident.
Something of unknown origin, something he couldn't fully control, simply merged into his body.
Jiang Yuan took a deep breath, feeling a little heavy-hearted.
He had always regarded that mysterious finger bone as his golden finger, subconsciously avoiding the consequences it would bring, but now he had to face them head-on.
What if I lose consciousness again like I did just now, and I can't regain it?
We must find out exactly what this thing is!
At that moment, Hilu let out another short, sweet cry.
Jiang Yuan suddenly looked up.
At the end of the cave, the divine marks covering the stone wall began to move.
Unlike the slight twisting and churning before, it is expanding.
The edges of the deep purple and dark green light membrane kept surging outwards, expanding outwards with each surge, as fast as the rising tide.
The stone wall was swallowed up inch by inch.
Divine marks descended from the dome, spread forward from the ground, and squeezed towards the center from both sides of the stone wall.
The entire divine mark resembled a giant, closing light curtain, threatening to swallow the entire cave.
"Hilu, didn't you say that the Divine Mark wouldn't move?" Jiang Yuan asked.
"Hilu doesn't know..." Hilu said timidly, "Could it be...could it be that the goddess is angry? What should we do? Father said that the Divine Mark will eat people!"
Jiang Yuan stared at the wildly expanding divine mark, his thoughts racing.
No, the divine mark had always been safely sealed on the stone wall and never moved.
But why is it suddenly moving now?
What happened occurred after he took the crystal shard.
The thing was half-sunken in the divine mark, and although it was repeatedly washed away by the divine mark, it was not eliminated.
What is the connection between these two?
Who knows what will happen if it's covered by divine marks... I can't try it.
Running back is useless; that's a dead end, marked with divine marks.
Jiang Yuan locked onto the cold white halo two meters in front of him.
Or perhaps it's a portal.
He didn't know where the suddenly opened portal was taking him.
But going back is a dead end, and staying here is also a dead end.
"I think I've cleared the dungeon, right? It's normal to be teleported out..." Jiang Yuan could only comfort himself with this thought as he grabbed Xilu's wrist.
"Follow me!"