The triumph of slicing the solid oak table with a flicker of a finger lasted exactly three seconds.
Then, the ledger unbalanced.
It wasn't a gradual fade. It was a catastrophic system crash. The sudden, violent exertion of Qi had sent a shockwave through his unrefined meridians, cracking the fragile seal that held the Heart-Stopping Orchid at bay. The dormant toxin didn't just wake up; it retaliated.
A rush of vertigo slammed into Rian like a freight train loaded with liquid nitrogen. The world tilted on its axis, the floor becoming the wall, the ceiling becoming a spinning vortex of grey.
Warning. System Failure, Rian's mind flashed, his internal monologue frantically trying to impose order on biological chaos. Core temperature dropping. Motor functions unresponsive. Critical Error.
He tried to command his legs to steady him, but the connection was severed. His knees buckled, hitting the floor with a bone-jarring thud. The cold wasn't just in his veins; it was in his soul, a freezing void that sought to snuff out the tiny spark of his consciousness.
Emergency Reboot, he thought desperately. Initialize safe mode.
But there was no safe mode. The darkness didn't just take him—it swallowed him whole, dragging him down into a depth where numbers and logic ceased to exist.
The Deep Web
When Rian opened his eyes, the concept of "Rian" felt distant, like a memory from a previous fiscal quarter.
He wasn't in his room. He wasn't in the infirmary. He wasn't even in a human body.
He was in a suffocating, dimly lit hollow, vast and curved like the inside of a gargantuan pearl. The air was thick, humid, and smelled of ammonia, ancient dust, and the copper tang of spilled hemolymph.
The ground beneath him was soft, sticky, and humming with a low-frequency vibration that rattled his teeth—if he had teeth.
He tried to stand, to find his center of gravity, but his limbs wouldn't obey the commands of a bipedal brain. He looked down, expecting hands. He saw obsidian-black, segmented limbs. Glossy, sharp, and covered in sensitive bristles.
He counted. One, two, three, four... eight.
He was small. He was chitinous. He was a spiderling.
And he was not alone. The realization hit him with a wave of claustrophobic terror. The hollow was teeming with life. Thousands of other spiderlings writhed around him, a living carpet of clicking mandibles and twitching legs. They were climbing over each other, snapping, hissing.
They were trapped inside a massive, translucent cocoon that pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly purple light.
Competition, Rian thought instinctively. His human panic was instantly overwritten by his Banker's analysis. This is a closed ecosystem. Market saturation is at 1000%. Resources are zero. Conclusion: This is a liquidation sale. Winner takes all.
A larger sibling lunged at him, mandibles clicking. Rian skittered back, his new legs moving with a terrifying, jerky speed.
Suddenly, the universe tore open.
The top of the cocoon didn't just break; it was ripped away by a force that made the air scream. A blinding violet light poured in, burning away the shadows and freezing the thousands of spiderlings in sheer biological terror.
A shadow descended. It was a limb. A massive, segmented pillar of chitin as thick as an ancient redwood tree. It ended not in a spider's tarsus, but in a delicate, pale, human-like finger, tipped with a claw the size of a scythe.
The owner of the limb descended from the void above. She was a nightmare made flesh. She was the architect of fear. Her lower body was that of a colossal Tarantula, covered in armor that shimmered like oil on water. But where the cephalothorax should be, the upper torso of a pale, hauntingly beautiful woman was fused into the carapace.
Her hair was not hair; it was a writhing, living mass of smaller spiders, weaving and unweaving themselves in a constant cycle. Her eyes were eight glowing purple gems, arranged in a crown across her forehead. They didn't just see; they penetrated. They weighed the value of every soul in the pit.
The Spider Matriarch. The Primordial Mother. The Weaver of Fate.
The thousands of spiderlings cowered, vibrating in submission. She ignored them all. Her massive hand moved with fluid, terrifying grace, bypassing the strong and the aggressive. She reached down and plucked Rian from the mass.
Being lifted by her felt like being held by gravity itself. She brought him close to her face. Her breath washed over him, smelling of sweet rot, old blood, and something intoxicating—like the scent of a predator's musk.
"This one is... tainted," she hissed.
Her voice didn't enter his ears; it bypassed his auditory nerves and vibrated directly through his exoskeleton, rattling his very soul. It was the sound of silk tearing.
"Poison in the blood. A flaw in the ledger."
Rian couldn't speak. He was paralyzed by a pressure that felt heavier than the mountain. He expected her to crush him. Damaged asset, his mind whispered. Write-off imminent.
The Mother tilted her head, her eight eyes spinning independently, focusing on the microscopic traces of the Heart-Stopping Orchid in his spiritual veins. "Foolish child," she murmured, a sound like dry leaves skittering on stone. "Do you try to vomit the poison? Do you try to reject the gift?"
She tapped his small, trembling thorax with the tip of her razor-sharp claw. One slip, and she would skewer him.
"A Dragon rejects the impurity. A Phoenix burns the impurity," she intoned, her voice growing louder, echoing in the infinite void. "But a Spider? A Spider does not reject. A Spider consumes."
She leaned closer. Her purple eyes filled his entire vision. "The poison is not an invader, little Weaver. It is an ingredient."
She opened her mouth. Instead of fire, she spewed a cloud of dense, glowing purple mist. It engulfed Rian. It didn't burn like heat. It burned like data. It unraveled the very concept of his Qi, breaking him down to his molecular foundations. It felt like his DNA was being edited in real-time.
"Weave it," she commanded, her voice becoming a roar that shattered the dreamscape. "Spin the toxin into your meridian. Make the death your life. Calculate the synthesis!"
Information flooded Rian's mind. It wasn't words. It was instinct. It was the ancient, biological knowledge of how to break down chemical bonds. It was a flow chart of enzymes and protein structures. It was the absolute understanding that his body was not a temple, but a chemical refinery.
Do not flush the toxin, the instinct screamed. Refine it.
[DIVINE OBSERVATION LOG: ENTRY #005]
Observer: High God of Vengeance Subject: The Anomaly (Rian) Location: The Dream of the Primordial Web Status: Undergoing Corporate Orientation
COMMENTARY: I am unsettled. Most cultivators receive their inheritance through a dusty book found in a cave, or a wise old ghost stroking a beard. It is usually a very dignified, spiritual moment.
This boy gets dragged into a primal nightmare dimension to be lectured by an eldritch Spider Goddess. And the most disturbing part? He isn't screaming. I can see his soul's fluctuations. He is terrified, yes. But he is taking notes.
He views the Spider Mother not as a monster, but as a "High-Level Consultant." He is treating this traumatic hallucination as a mandatory training seminar. "Poison is an ingredient." He has accepted this logic immediately because it aligns with his worldview: Everything has value if you know how to liquidate it.
The Mother thinks she is creating a monster. The Boy thinks he is acquiring a patent. I fear for the world when he wakes up.
[END LOG]