"Silver Crescent Horizon!"
Hanyuan's roar echoed against the frozen valley walls. He swung the Cold Cloud Spear in a vicious, horizontal arc, the blue light of the frost Qi elongating into a razor sharp blade of energy. The crescent tore through the air, slicing clean through the chitinous abdomen of one spider and bisecting another that was mid leap.
Feng Yue didn't miss the opportunity. As the third spider recoiled from the shockwave, she lunged forward, her sword becoming a piercing blue streak that drove straight through its primary eye cluster.
The creature collapsed, dead.
With a practiced wave of his hand, Hanyuan triggered his Storage Ring. The three massive carcasses vanished in a shimmer of purple light. Tier 2 corpses, Hanyuan noted mentally. Even these common ones will fetch at least two or three Mid grade stones each at the Sect's processing hall.
"I hear many more coming," Feng Yue said, her voice tight. She tilted her head, her senses picking up a cacophony of metallic clicks vibrating through the cavern floor. "They're swarming us."
Hanyuan let out a frustrated sigh, his breath a thick plume of white. "If we had a Fire element cultivator here, we could just smoke them out. Fighting ice beasts in a frozen cave is a battle of attrition we can't win."
Ten more white carapaces emerged from the dark recesses of the cave, their green eyes fixated on the intruders.
"At this rate, we won't be able to sneak in to find the crystals," Hanyuan chuckled, though there was no humor in his obsidian eyes.
He didn't wait for them to close the distance. "Thunderclap Steps!"
Hanyuan exploded into motion. He appeared before the nearest spider in a burst of violet sparks, driving the Star-Point Piercer through its head. He didn't stop to admire the kill, he twisted his waist with impossible fluidity, a razor sharp bladed leg whistling through the space he had occupied a millisecond before.
Rotating his spear, he unleashed the Blizzard's Hidden Fang. The visible frost ray shattered the lead spider's guard, while the hidden needle of Qi blew its head apart from behind.
Skreee!
A spider dropped from the stalactites above, aiming for his neck. Hanyuan's reaction was instinctive. He pivoted and threw his spear like a massive blue javelin.
SQUELCH!
The Cold Cloud Spear impaled the spider mid air, carrying it backward and pinning its twitching body to the icy wall. Disarmed, Hanyuan spun and delivered a devastating roundhouse kick to another spider's flank.
CRUNCH!
The force of his Tempered Body pulverized the creature's carapace, sending it tumbling into its kin. Beside him, Feng Yue was a flash of blue silk and steel, her sword harvesting legs and heads with precision. Within minutes, the ten spiders lay in pieces.
Hanyuan reclaimed his spear from the wall, wiping the thick green ichor from the blue steel. "Luckily, these things aren't as hardy as the Silvermoon Ape," he mused. "Their strength lies in numbers, not individual.."
"Ugh..."
Hanyuan whirled around. Feng Yue was leaning against the cave wall, her face suddenly ashen. A thin, jagged line was torn across her waist where a spider's bladed leg had grazed her.
"The poison," Hanyuan whispered, his eyes narrowing.
He could see the grey discoloration spreading from her wound. Feng Yue tried to lift her sword, but her arm fell limp. The numbing toxin was already invading her meridians, locking her Qi and leaving her defenseless.
Click-click-click-click!
From the darkness of the deeper tunnels, another ten spiders scurried out, sensing the scent of blood and a weakened prey.
"Damn it!"
Hanyuan didn't hesitate. He dropped his spear into his ring and swept Feng Yue up into his arms, hoisting her in a firm princess carry.
"W-what... where are you touching me?!" Feng Yue's face, previously pale from the poison, suddenly erupted into a shade of red that put a strawberry to shame. She tried to squirm, but her paralyzed muscles only allowed her to cling weakly to his shoulders.
"Shut up and hold on if you want to keep your head!" Hanyuan growled.
He pushed his Thunderclap Steps to the absolute maximum. Violet lightning wreathed his legs as he became a flash, leaping over boulders and dodging silk threads. He burst out of the cave mouth just as the first wave of spiders reached the entrance.
"SCREECH!"
A shadow blotted out the pale sun. Lingxiao dove from the sky like a falling mountain, its metallic wings shredding the lead pursuit-spiders into piles of white shards. Feng Yue's Snowy Owl followed, its amber eyes flashing as it used powerful gusts of wind to keep the swarm at bay.
Hanyuan didn't stop until he reached a high, flat stone ridge a hundred yards from the cave. He placed Feng Yue down carefully.
"The poison is moving fast," Hanyuan said, pulling a high grade detoxifying pill and a healing paste from his storage ring. "Apply this and heal yourself first. I'm going back in."
Feng Yue stared at him, her eyes wide with a mix of lingering embarrassment and genuine fear. "Alone? Hanyuan, there are hundreds in there!"
"I need those crystals," Hanyuan replied, his hand finding the grip of his spear as it reappeared in his hand. "And i will be quiet,Just don't fall asleep."
Without another word, he turned and vanished back toward the darkness, a lone streak of violet and blue entering the throat of the Frozen Bone Valley.
Hanyuan stepped back into the freezing dark of the cave, his breath suppressed and his presence masked. He moved like a shadow through a forest of metallic, razor sharp cobwebs that hummed with a low vibration whenever the wind whistled through the entrance.
After five minutes of silent, tense trekking, he came to a halt. Hanging from the jagged icy wall were five corpses, or rather, what was left of them. They were picked clean, reduced to bleached skeletons encased in thin layers of frost. Hanyuan's eyes narrowed as he recognized the insignia on their tattered clothing: the Golden Saber School.
Wasn't the Golden Saber School just founded last year? Hanyuan thought. These must have been their first batch of elite disciples. Even they couldn't survive this pit.
He noticed a dull glint on the skeletal fingers. Slowly and methodically, he removed the storage rings from the bone white hands. Upon checking the contents of all five, a surge of adrenaline hit him. Between the rings, he counted a total of 115 Mid-grade spirit stones.
"I struck it big," Hanyuan whispered, a thin smile touching his lips. "The risk of coming back in was definitely worth it."
"Haha! Spiders, come out! I'll slaughter every last one of you!"
A thunderous shout echoed from the cave entrance, followed by the clashing of steel. Hanyuan pressed his back against a massive stone pillar, peering through the shadows. A group of five young cultivators, dressed in the expensive, light blue robes of the Heavenly Frost Sect, had arrived. They were all at the Mortal Core realm, radiating arrogance as they began to carve into the vanguard of the swarm.
The cavern floor suddenly vibrated. From the pitch-black recesses, a true horde of spiders,over a hundred of them,erupted like a white tide, rushing toward the noise and the scent of fresh blood at the entrance.
This is my chance, Hanyuan realized, drawing a cold breath. If those hundred had surrounded me, I wouldn't have stood a chance.
With the path cleared by the noisy Frost Sect disciples, Hanyuan sprinted toward the deepest part of the cave. There, tucked inside a glittering grotto of pure permafrost, he found them: the Frozen Bone Marrow Crystals. They pulsed with a ghostly, rhythmic light. He quickly harvested five of them, sweeping them into his Storage Ring.
Suddenly, a cold shudder ran down his spine. The air in the grotto turned heavy, and the scent of rotting meat became overwhelming.
He slowly looked up at the ceiling.
A monstrous form was clinging to the wall above him. It was five times the size of the other spiders, its carapace a dark, translucent grey that looked like armored glass. Its eyes didn't glow green,they burned with a malevolent, emerald fire.
The Spider Queen, Hanyuan thought, his heart thundering against his ribs. She's at least at the 4th Layer of the Mortal Core!
"Thunderclap Steps!"
Hanyuan didn't wait for her to lunge. He exploded into motion, violet lightning crackling at his heels as he vaulted toward the tunnel entrance. Behind him, the walls vibrated as the Queen detached herself from the stone. She moved with terrifying, jittery speed, her long, blade like legs clicking against the ice faster than Hanyuan could run.
She's catching up!
Desperate to buy distance, Hanyuan pivoted mid sprint. He funneled a massive amount of frost Qi into his spear.
"Silver Crescent Horizon!"
He didn't aim for the Queen. He aimed for the cracked, fragile stalactites and the overhead ceiling.
BOOM!
The freezing arc of energy struck the roof of the narrow tunnel. Tons of rock and solid ice groaned and collapsed. A massive section of the ceiling crashed down directly onto the Queen and the path before her.
A cloud of dust and ice crystals filled the air as the stones were blasted aside by the Queen's sheer brute force, but Hanyuan had gained a precious second of time. He didn't look back to see the damage. He pushed his legs until they burned, a streak of violet and white racing toward the distant, sunlit exit.