The battle had ended as quickly as it began, leaving the group with their reserves of Demon Power largely untouched. Without the need for a recuperative pause, they pressed onward, delving deeper into the suffocating darkness of the cavern.
The air grew heavier, thick with the scent of stagnation and ancient decay. As they navigated the winding rocky path, the Green Wolf King broke the silence, his voice low and gravelly.
"Listen up," he cautioned, his eyes scanning the gloom ahead. "The next sector belongs to the White-Haired Spiders. As individual combatants, they aren't particularly impressive. However, they possess a biological weapon that makes them a nightmare to deal with: their webbing. It is foul, sticky, and incredibly resilient."
He turned to face the group, his expression grave. "When we engage them, we cannot afford to hold back. You must use your most devastating techniques immediately. The goal is to obliterate them before they have a chance to spew those webs. If they trap us, things will get ugly fast."
"Understood," Xie Jun replied, gripping his weapon tighter. "We follow your lead, Wolf King."
"Don't worry about us," the Barbaric Bull King added, cracking his knuckles. Beside him, Wei Rui nodded in silent agreement.
They marched in formation for several miles, the oppressive silence of the underground world weighing on them. Gradually, the environment began to shift. The jagged rock walls became obscured by layers of silk, and the floor grew soft and spongy underfoot. It was a landscape of death, draped in white. Everywhere Luo Zhen looked, he saw torn fragments of webbing fluttering in the stagnant draft, many of them acting as shrouds for the desiccated remains of monster beasts that had ventured too far.
It reminded Luo Zhen of the legendary Pan Silk Cave from the old myths—a beautiful, deadly trap.
"Watch your footing. We are in their domain now," the Green Wolf King whispered, his hackles rising. "Remember the plan. Strike hard, strike fast. Do not let them fire."
The warning came just in time.
From the shadows ahead, a chittering horde surged forth. They were the size of washbasins, their bulbous bodies covered in coarse white bristles that seemed to vibrate with malice. A thick, nauseating Corpse Qi radiated from them, rolling over the group like a fog.
"Engage!" the Green Wolf King roared, the sound echoing like thunder in the confined space.
Luo Zhen and the others did not hesitate. The air crackled with energy as they unleashed a torrent of secret techniques and raw power.
The spiders were ferocious, driven by a hive-mind aggression. Some reared back to spit jets of acidic venom, while others clattered forward, baring fangs that dripped with toxins, throwing themselves suicidally at the explorers. The cavern erupted in noise—the sharp crack of energy meeting chitin, the wet tear of flesh, and the screeching of dying beasts.
Explosions bloomed in the dark, illuminating the gruesome tableau. Under the group's high-level assault, the White-Haired Spiders were decimated. Bodies exploded into ichor, limbs were severed, and the front line collapsed.
Yet, the surviving spiders showed no fear. They did not route. Instead, they began to spasm, wiggling their abdomens and emitting a high-pitched, rhythmic squeaking sound that drilled into the ears.
"Damn it!" the Green Wolf King cursed, realizing the implication immediately. "They're signaling the hive! Kill them! Wipe out the stragglers before reinforcements arrive!"
Luo Zhen's eyes narrowed. He channeled more power into his strikes, his movements becoming a blur of lethal efficiency. Within minutes, the last of the vanguard lay dead, reduced to twitching piles of gore.
But the victory was short-lived.
From the deepest recesses of the corpse tunnel, a vibration began to hum through the floor. It was the sound of a thousand legs skittering over rock. A second wave emerged, vaster than the first.
However, these spiders had learned from the slaughter of their kin. They sensed the overwhelming power of Luo Zhen's party and refused to close the distance. Instead, they held the line far down the tunnel, their abdomens swelling before they unleashed a barrage of massive, pure white nets.
The air was suddenly filled with flying silk.
"Here comes the attrition war," the Green Wolf King sighed, the fatigue evident in his voice. He summoned a magical shield, bracing himself against the incoming deluge. "Everyone, defensive positions. Prepare for a long grind."
The mood of the party plummeted. Looking at their grim faces, Luo Zhen felt a flicker of curiosity. Was spider silk really enough to terrify a group of Demon Kings?
He tightened his grip on the Green Brilliance Saber. With a flick of his wrist, he slashed horizontally, sending a magnificent arc of green blade energy tearing through the air.
Whoosh!
The energy wave, sharp enough to slice through solid steel, collided with one of the drifting webs.
To Luo Zhen's genuine shock, the web did not disintegrate. The blade energy hit the silk and seemed to lose its momentum, merely tearing a small gap in the structure before dissipating. The web fluttered on, largely intact.
Luo Zhen stared at the result, calculating the variables. His saber was a Top-grade Magic Treasure. He was a mid-stage Demon King. In the previous skirmish, a single casual swing was enough to cleave a spider in two. Yet against their webbing, his attack was effectively neutralized.
I would need at least five consecutive slashes of concentrated energy just to destroy a single net, he realized. The secretion is significantly more durable than the creature that produced it.
Noticing Luo Zhen's contemplative expression, the Green Wolf King spoke up while deflecting a net. "Fellow Daoist Luo, do not be alarmed. This is their ultimate defense. The tensile strength of this silk defies logic."
"I see," Luo Zhen replied, firing off another volley of energy blades to keep the webs at bay. "That explains your earlier urgency. Killing them is easy; cleaning up this mess is the hard part. The energy consumption required to cut through this is triple what it takes to kill the spider."
"If only energy consumption were the main problem," the Green Wolf King said with a bitter grimace. "The real danger is the corruption. These webs are not just physical barriers; they are metaphysically filthy. They defile Magic Treasures."
"Defile?" Luo Zhen raised an eyebrow.
"Contact with the silk erodes the spirituality of a weapon. If your artifact gets wrapped up, its connection to you severs, and its power plummets. It effectively neuters our offense."
"I see," Luo Zhen mused. That was indeed a nasty trick.
"Prepare yourselves," the Wolf King warned. "Last time we scouted this hellhole, we spent two full days inching forward, grinding down the spiders while trying to protect our gear. It was a nightmare. I'd take the Corpse Scorpions over this sticky hell any day."
"He's right!" Xie Jun chimed in, sounding miserable. "It's disgusting. It ruins weapons, it blocks the path, and it smells like death."
"Ah! No!"
A panicked scream shattered the conversation. It was the Barbaric Bull King.
The group whipped around to see the Bull King's massive Mixed Iron Staff ensnared by a drifting net. The reaction was instantaneous. The web clung to the metal like a parasite. The spiritual glow of the staff—usually a vibrant, pulsing aura—began to flicker wildly before dimming rapidly, as if the life was being choked out of it.
"Get off!" The Barbaric Bull King roared, panic overriding his senses. He reached out with his bare hand to rip the web away.
"Don't touch it!" the Green Wolf King shouted, but he was too late.
As the Bull King's fingers grazed the silk, his protective body aura sizzled and vanished. The corruption bypassed his defenses instantly. Foul, yellow blisters erupted across his palm, the skin bubbling as if burned by acid.
"My staff! It's my Natal Treasure!" the Bull King cried, ignoring the pain in his hand as he watched his weapon turn dull and gray. "If this keeps up, the bond will break! I'll suffer a backlash!"
The situation had spiraled into a crisis. The tunnel was filling with webs, their tank was compromised, and they had no way to advance without risking their own artifacts.
"What do we do?" The Bull King spun in circles, clutching his blistering hand, looking like a trapped animal. "How do we get rid of this filth?"
The tension in the cave was palpable, a thick, suffocating dread. Just as despair began to settle in, a calm voice cut through the panic.
"Let me try."
Heads snapped toward Luo Zhen.
"Fellow Daoist Luo?" The Green Wolf King's eyes widened with a glimmer of hope. "Do you have a countermeasure?"
"It's simple physics, really," Luo Zhen said nonchalantly. "Webs burn."
With a mere thought, a flicker of dark crimson flame materialized from his body, hovering in the air.
The hope in the group's eyes instantly vanished, replaced by disappointment.
"It's useless," the Green Wolf King said, shaking his head tiredly. "You don't understand. This isn't normal silk. Ordinary fire won't catch, and even our cultivated Beast Fires aren't hot enough to burn away the corruption before it destroys the weapon."
Luo Zhen looked at them, a small, confident smile playing on his lips.
"Who told you this was ordinary fire? Or even a mere Beast Fire?"
He pointed a finger. The wisp of dark red flame—the Return Origin Crimson Fire—shot forward like a bullet, aiming directly for the entangled Mixed Iron Staff.
"I'm telling you, fire doesn't work. Why are you still—" The Barbaric Bull King began to shout, his frustration boiling over.
His words died in his throat.
The moment the crimson flame touched the web, there was no struggle. There was no slow smoldering. The resilient, corruption-filled silk simply vanished. It was incinerated so thoroughly and so quickly that it turned to ash in a fraction of a second.
Freed from the parasitic web, the Mixed Iron Staff hummed. The spiritual light surged back, glowing softly as its power returned.
"Wh-what kind of fire is that?" The Barbaric Bull King stammered. He looked from his restored staff to Luo Zhen, his eyes bulging with disbelief.
The Green Wolf King, Xie Jun, and Wei Rui stood frozen, their jaws slack. They had battled these webs for days in the past. They knew how impossible this should have been.
"I told you," Luo Zhen said, recalling the flame to his palm where it danced obediently. "It is not a Beast Fire."
Down the tunnel, the spiders continued to spew their nets, unaware that the balance of power had just shifted catastrophically against them.
The Green Wolf King swallowed hard, his heart racing. He looked at the flame, then at Luo Zhen. "Fellow Daoist Luo... that intensity... what quality is that flame?"
The cave fell silent, save for the crackle of the fire.
"It is an Exotic Fire," Luo Zhen stated calmly. "Tier 1."
"Exotic Fire!" The Green Wolf King yelped, his composure cracking completely. "I knew you were strong, but... an Exotic Fire?!"
"My god," Xie Jun whispered, staring at the flame with a mixture of naked envy and terror. "I thought maybe a Tier 7 or 8 Beast Fire... but an Exotic Fire is the stuff of legends."
In the cultivation world, flames were tiered. A Beast Fire was powerful, requiring months of meditation to cultivate even a spark. But an Exotic Fire was a force of nature. Even the weakest Exotic Fire could incinerate a Demon King in moments. It was a weapon of mass destruction.
"If you have an Exotic Fire," the Green Wolf King said, his voice trembling with excitement, "then these webs are nothing. It's like pouring boiling water onto snow. Please, Fellow Daoist Luo, clear the path!"
Luo Zhen nodded. "I intended to. I have no desire to spend two days stuck in a spider nest."
He flicked his sleeve.
Whoosh.
A ball of dark red fire the size of an apple shot out, hovering before him.
The temperature in the cave spiked instantly. The air shimmered and distorted. The moisture on the walls evaporated into steam.
"It's... It's huge!" The Green Wolf King gasped, stepping back from the heat. "I thought that tiny wisp earlier was your limit! You have this much?"
Cultivating special flames was an agonizingly slow process. Most cultivators prized a bean-sized ember of Beast Fire. A walnut-sized flame was a treasure.
Luo Zhen had just summoned an apple-sized sun.
And the Green Wolf King didn't even know the half of it. Luo Zhen was suppressing the vast majority of his power; his true reserve was the size of a watermelon. But in this treacherous world, one never reveals their full hand unless necessary. An apple was enough to shock them; a watermelon might make them too terrified to function.
"Go," Luo Zhen commanded mentally.
The ball of fire split apart, transforming into hundreds of slender, seeking threads of crimson light. They hissed through the air, seeking targets.
The result was absolute devastation.
The threads of fire tore through the incoming webs, incinerating them upon contact. They didn't stop there. They punched through the darkness, finding the spiders hiding in the rear.
There were no screeches of pain, for the nerve endings burned away too fast. There was only the sound of instant combustion. In mere seconds, the dreaded blockade of the White-Haired Spiders was reduced to drifting piles of white ash.
Silence returned to the cave.
"Incredible..." Wei Rui wiped sweat from his forehead, though whether it was from the heat or the fear of Luo Zhen, he couldn't tell.
"Fellow Daoist Luo truly is full of surprises," the Green Wolf King said, his tone heavy with respect. "We struggled for days. You finished it in seconds. We are fortunate you are on our side."
"Indeed," the others murmured, eyeing Luo Zhen with a newfound deference.
"We are a team. I did what was required," Luo Zhen dismissed the praise with a wave of his hand.
Suddenly, he paused, his gaze fixing on something amidst the ashes on the floor.
"What is it?" Xie Jun asked.
Luo Zhen walked over and knelt, picking up a gray-white sphere. It was identical to the Corpse Pearl the Wolf King had shown them earlier, only larger and more potent.
"A Corpse Pearl," the Green Wolf King identified it immediately. He looked at his companions, then made a decisive gesture. "Gentlemen, this victory belongs solely to Fellow Daoist Luo. Without his fire, we would be wounded or worse. I propose that all loot from this sector belongs to him. Any objections?"
"None!" Xie Jun said quickly. "Whatever he finds, he keeps. It's only fair."
"Agreed," the Barbaric Bull King grunted, still nursing his healed staff.
"Since you insist," Luo Zhen smiled, not bothering to feign modesty. He began collecting the pearls scattered across the floor. In this world, power earned rewards, and he had certainly earned these.