Chapter 330

He Lingchuan silently turned his head away.

Once a demon puppeteer is fully immersed in his work, he seems to care little about his own situation. The five spider demons only lasted three days before Dong Rui made a request to the guards: "Next batch!"

In the blink of an eye, fifteen days passed.

He Lingchuan was either helping Dong Rui or going to accompany the spider queen at her summons to chat.

This giant demon had lived in the demon nest swamp for a hundred years, having only gone out twice, yet she seemed quite knowledgeable about the outside world.

In other words, she still had channels for external communication?

He Lingchuan had imagined countless times how to give this giant demon a gentle stab when she wasn't paying attention.

However, no matter how he calculated it, it wasn't safe. Zhu Xiuer's twelve eyes were distributed on both sides of her head, basically providing a 360-degree field of vision with no blind spots.

Besides, an ancient great demon like her even released her spiritual sense while sleeping; it was not easy for He Lingchuan to sneak an attack on her.

Spiders have no eyelids; as long as she stands still, who knows if she is asleep or awake? Furthermore, this kind of monster has many incredible skills. He Lingchuan had seen her pluck out her own eyes, only for the eyeballs to grow legs upon hitting the ground and turn into small spiders.

He didn't know where this guy's vital point was either.

Not to mention that Zhu Xiuer had a spider demon legion under her command; although their numbers were far less than a hundred years ago, He Lingchuan definitely couldn't deal with them alone. She had even killed General Nanke; wouldn't it be easy for her to cripple the two of them?

He Lingchuan had privately taken out the Yuan coins several times to look at them, only to find that the elemental power attached to them could only be described as a thread, so weak it could be ignored.

Simply put, the source of elemental power is "unity of purpose." He was now far away from his homeland, with no soldiers around him, and only a virtual token in his hand; without "unity," where would the elemental power come from?

Without elemental power, he would have to rely entirely on his own strength. He was even less confident in dealing with Zhu Xiuer.

These days, He Lingchuan would wander around the swamp whenever he had nothing to do, firstly to familiarize himself with the terrain as quickly as possible, and secondly to find an opportunity to think of a way.

The demon nest swamp was too large; he hadn't finished walking it after several days, and this giant spider let him do as he pleased, as if she wasn't worried at all that he would escape privately.

He Lingchuan simply asked her to her face, and Zhu Xiuer laughed loudly: "There is mirage fog on the outskirts of the demon nest swamp; you can't get out at all, so what am I worried about?"

She chuckled: "Just relying on that little bit of thin elemental power on you? You can't break the mirage fog."

Although she hadn't seen He Lingchuan's State Token with her own eyes, her spiritual perception was astonishing. Besides, He Lingchuan hadn't hidden his family background; she knew he was the son of the Xiazhou Superintendent of the Yuan Nation, who could at least hold a nominal title in the army.

"Where did the mirage fog come from?" Well, the difficulty of escaping had further increased. Even if he could deal with Zhu Xiuer, how would he escape the encirclement of the mirage fog?

"Eighty years ago, a mirage demon moved to the demon nest swamp. In order for us to agree to its move-in, it set up mirage fog on the outskirts of the swamp to prevent human intrusion. Since then, the swamp has been much quieter."

The demon nest swamp was rich in products, and humans often entered to collect materials, or even secretly hunted Zhu Xiuer's offspring.

Cave spiders could provide several medicinal ingredients.

After the mirage fog filled the area, except for armies possessing elemental power, others could hardly get in.

Although the giant spider wouldn't blink, her words and tone meant "I know you want to escape." He Lingchuan touched the back of his head: "What does the 'we' in 'we' mean? Are there other monsters in the swamp?"

Zhu Xiuer's voice suddenly became cold: "Who doesn't have annoying neighbors? If you run to someone else's territory and get eaten, don't blame me for not saving you."

After saying this, she walked away on her eight long legs.

That day, He Lingchuan walked east and saw a giant stone abruptly standing in a small mountain gully, about a zhang high, flat like a stele, covered with a thick layer of spider silk, which was actually shimmering in the sunlight.

He recognized at a glance that this was produced by Zhu Xiuer and couldn't help but be curious. When he walked down to look, he discovered that the other side of the stele was actually covered with a piece of shed skin, and the imprints of the scales on it were each larger than his palm.

Was this snake skin or lizard skin?

The original owner was really quite large.

He Lingchuan also roughly guessed what the giant stone was used for. Suddenly, two long snakes, one green and one red, darted out of the grass and opened their mouths to bite his ankles.

Wasn't it normal for long snakes to grow in this kind of grass? When He Lingchuan was a patrol guard, he was also good at beating the grass to scare the snakes in the wild, so he naturally took two steps back, his hand already touching the hilt of the Fusheng Sword.

With a flash of faint light, the two snakes were cut into four pieces.

Although he killed them in one strike, he didn't go up to check.

Sure enough, the small snakes twisted into a ball upon hitting the ground, as if they were dead, but when He Lingchuan moved his feet slightly, they pounced again! Of course, they couldn't pounce on the enemy.

At this time, a spider guard hurried over from behind to scold:

"Stay away from the boundary stele!"

Sure enough, Zhu Xiuer's territory ended here; crossing the stele meant visiting others.

He Lingchuan picked up the snake corpses on the tip of his sword and retreated back into the territory: "Whose territory is on the other side?"

"Lord Boshan." The spider guard saw the snake corpses on his sword tip. "You killed their boundary guards."

"Oh, is it serious?" It seemed Zhu Xiuer's neighbor was a snake demon. He Lingchuan looked at the snake skin on the boundary stele; hmm, it was also quite large.

The spider guard circled around the boundary stele and found no other traces of snakes, so he said to He Lingchuan: "Do you want them?"

"... You take them."

The spider guard dragged the snake corpses out for dozens of zhang, until the boundary stele was almost out of sight, before sticking his fangs into the snake corpses.

At this time, the green snake was not yet dead, but it could no longer resist.

He Lingchuan: "..." So they just started eating? "Can you just eat the other side's guards?"

The spider demon patiently waited for the snake meat to be dissolved into juice by the venom and answered as a matter of course: "They also often sneak over to steal our things."

He Lingchuan looked at the boundary stele, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. So it really was just for marking territory; the minions on both sides came and went, often stealing things from each other.

Thinking about it, it made sense; Zhu Xiuer and Lord Boshan were both monsters in this swamp; how could their management be so strict?

As long as they didn't fight normally, they would just pretend not to see trivial matters.

"How many years of cultivation does that 'Lord Boshan' on the other side have?"

"Four or five hundred years."

"That can't compare to your ancestor." He Lingchuan asked him, "Why doesn't Zhu Xiuer wipe him out and take over the territory?"

Just looking at how big Zhu Xiuer's nest in the Ghost Needle Stone Forest used to be, one knew she also believed in having many children and much happiness.

The more offspring she had to raise, the larger the territory of course needed to be.

The spider guard said blankly: "I don't know."

His duty was to guard the boundary stele; why would he need to know so much? He Lingchuan thought for a moment: "Do you two sides often fight?"

"We fight." The spider guard's mind was on the prey, so he answered casually, "Lord Boshan will unite with other monsters to fight us. They just want to grab our things."

So Zhu Xiuer's "neighbors" were none of them easy to deal with; no wonder she didn't have a good tone when mentioning them.

It seemed this mother spider didn't have a very good reputation in the entire demon nest swamp.

"Are there other great demons in this swamp?" He only knew that a mirage demon also lived in this swamp.

"Yes, there are seven or eight others." The demon nest swamp is very large.

He Lingchuan was slightly startled. Great demons that were rarely seen elsewhere, yet there were seven or eight here? Why were they all crowded into this swamp? He knew very well that the more capable a person was, the bigger their temper, and monsters were even more so.

"What things do they want to grab?"

"They grab everything!" Mentioning this, the spider guard was also a bit angry. "They even grab the nets and want to grab the demon nest back!"

"Grab it back?" He Lingchuan asked curiously, "Could it be that the demon nest originally belonged to Lord Boshan?"

"That's right, our ancestor came here and drove him away."

So Zhu Xiuer was the invading robber. He Lingchuan scratched his head; no wonder she was so hated by the indigenous monsters.

Two days later, when He Lingchuan was watching the spiders harvest the net cages in the water on the edge of the Jia Na tribe ruins, he actually discovered two large snakes in a cage, each with a belly round as a ball.

Each snake was as thick as his thigh and nearly two zhang long.

After being visited by these two big-bellied gluttons, only two pitiful and lean little fish were left in the cage.

The angry spiders sprayed spider silk wildly; one big snake was netted and couldn't move, while the other slipped away with a greasy belly, diving into the water and swimming away into the distance in the blink of an eye.

Most spiders couldn't dive and just hissed angrily on the shore.

He Lingchuan's eyes rolled, and a sleeve arrow shot out, accurately piercing the snake's head and dragging it back.

He didn't need to exert himself for the rest; the spiders pounced and stabbed the two snakes wildly.

The snakes were not small, but they couldn't withstand the spiders' venom, which was too fierce, and they went numb after a while.

The spiders happily sucked the frozen meat; clearly, snake meat was much more delicious than fish meat.

Because He Lingchuan helped, they didn't exclude him when he approached again.

However, killing the snakes this time didn't have no consequences like the one at the border.

After only a cup of tea, before the spiders had finished their snake meat feast, He Lingchuan found that the jungle was unusually quiet, without even a bird's chirp or insect's buzz.

The reed bushes, which were a zhang high on the opposite side, were suddenly brushed aside, and from far to near, something was swimming through the water, coming from under the reeds.

The spiders suddenly abandoned the food at their mouths and retreated backward in a swarm, while the larger spider guards stepped forward, spraying layers upon layers of white nets on the ground.

They were ready for battle.

In this situation, He Lingchuan certainly wouldn't stand still and be a target; he quickly followed the small spiders to retreat to the safe high ground, preparing to sit on the mountain and watch the dragon and tiger fight.

However, at this time, Zhu Xiuer personally rushed over from the rear.

She paused on the shore, her huge body swelled up a circle, and then she passed over the water.

He Lingchuan admired her.

That mountain-like body could also play at walking on water? However, she seemed to have just injected a large amount of air into her body, so floating wasn't a problem.

Then, Zhu Xiuer also drilled into the reed bushes.

Of course, she was tall, and the reeds couldn't completely cover her. From He Lingchuan's angle, he could see her crawl into the reed bushes and freeze, as if confronting something.

Suddenly, Zhu Xiuer spread her eight legs, lifted her body, and overall looked another circle larger, appearing very fierce.

It's the 28th, asking for monthly tickets, and by the way, I implore everyone to give their guaranteed monthly tickets for next month, thank you!

(End of chapter)