Boom. Boom. Boom.
Amid the earth-shaking sound of stomping feet, the Dark Young—like a colossal tree, raising billowing clouds of dust—charged straight at Bai Jie.
Along its path, its several dozen giant mouths continuously dripped inky black mucus, corroding deep pits into the ground.
"Could this truly be the legendary Dark Young?"
The demon spider faced it as a formidable foe, not daring to be careless: "I have to end this fast! It'll be troublesome once the humans arrive."
The spider's front legs lifted, flicking upward!
Crackle, crackle, crackle.
In an instant, twelve bolts of blue-violet lightning coalesced into long spears, suspended before Bai Jie. Each one was broader than the spider's own body.
But just as it was about to hurl the spears—
Its thoughts abruptly seized up.
"Baaa!!!"
Facing the twelve lightning spears hovering in the air, the Dark Young showed absolutely no fear. It charged straight ahead. Several of its massive mouths let out bleating cries—and Bai Jie actually began to feel an unwillingness to harm it.
This feeling... it was like an adult facing a newborn infant. Something akin to... pity?
Yes—it was actually a sense of compassion?!
Why?
Why, when confronting an evil god spawn, when faced with such a revolting, horrifying monster, did I find myself unable to strike?
Its thoughts ground to a halt, its mind turning to mush. The demon spider froze, watching helplessly as two slimy, thick black tentacles swept toward it.
Smack!
Stone fragments flew everywhere. The ground split open. Two whip-like ravines several meters wide appeared in the earth.
Inside those ravines lay a spider, purple blood streaming from its body—covered in wounds.
"Hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts..."
The demon spider couldn't stop wailing inwardly.
Ding! A system alert suddenly rang out, instantly making the demon spider forget the pain wracking its body:
[Influenced by the power of the 'Dark Fertile Mother Goddess' — Skill: Egg Laying has leveled up.]
What?!!!
[Skill: Egg Laying has leveled up to Lv.9!]
[Skill: Egg Laying has leveled up to Lv.10!]
Before the demon spider could even process the implications of this, another notification seized its attention.
[Influenced by the power of the 'Dark Fertile Mother Goddess' — the host has been afflicted with the 'Corruption' curse. 'Corruption' in progress.]
Bai Jie noticed that although its Vitality had only taken a minor dip—likely unrelated to the "Corruption" curse, and more attributable to having just been lashed twice—
It found that its various capabilities had been severely weakened. This included the efficiency of its spiritual energy mobilization, its physical agility, stamina, and so on.
And what unsettled it most was that its own consciousness was growing increasingly unclear. Its thoughts felt as though they were slogging through a rain-soaked mudfield—impossible to easily extract, each step a monumental effort.
At the same time, an unnameable impulse stirred deep within...
Clearly, this was related to the "Corruption" curse.
"This is bad..."
"Indeed—it is the authority of the supreme mother goddess, the Black Goat of the Woods who births a thousand young."
The demon spider clenched its venomous fangs, forcibly reining in its thoughts to resist that inexplicable, wicked interference.
The next instant, Skill: Advanced Self-Healing activated.
Its wounds visibly repaired at a speed the naked eye could follow. But against the "Corruption" curse, the effect was far less pronounced.
The demon spider felt as though its thoughts had been chopped into disconnected segments. It took tremendous effort just to piece together a complete, coherent meaning.
"Dead goat..."
"Looks like... only by taking you out can I... recover... uh... back to... normal."
"Baaa!!!"
Before it, the sound of ripping air and piercing shrieks rang out. The Dark Young had already arrived right in front of the demon spider.
It raised one gigantic hoof, pressing down like a mountain!
"Lord Bai Zhi!"
Suddenly, the demon spider heard Lin Binbin's cry both in its perception and in its heart.
In that instant, every hair on its body stood on end!
A surge of fury—born of being desecrated and offended—rose up.
The patterns on its back and abdomen blazed with flowing blue-violet radiance, dazzling and magnificent. Spiritual energy mobilized at lightning speed. Its wicked aura climbed!
In that dark, foul-smelling space, a cool, commanding rebuke rang out:
"Insolence!"
Zzzzzt! Zzzzzzt!
Blue-violet light instantly illuminated the entire factory that had been swallowed by darkness. The black fog dispersed.
Accompanied by the roar of enraged lightning, twelve lightning spears were hurled horizontally. They swept away the wicked, cleaved through heaven and earth, shook the moonlit sky. Currents of overwhelming force and vigor pierced the void, exterminating all.
Slash!
On the spot, the mountain-tall Dark Young was struck by all twelve lightning spears. Its entire body erupted in crackling explosions, lightning blazing everywhere as if it were a Christmas tree.
It let out a miserable, piercing shriek. Its entire body ignited on the spot. The black sludge dripped off at an even faster rate.
"Baaa!!"
This screech of agony was louder than all those before it—enough to pierce the eardrums of ordinary humans. Even Lin Binbin couldn't help but cover his ears, his facial features contorted in pain.
The Dark Young's Vitality began its downward trend. In a single breath, it plummeted to 230.
"Absolute darkness—now is the moment."
Like an incantation echoing across the ages.
Skill: Darkest Hour activated.
Bai Zhi's counterattack began at this very moment.
In an instant, profound, arcane laws cloaked Bai Zhi's form. It seemed to consign itself to the darkness, just like the Dark Young.
At the same time, air currents swirled around its body. Within five meters, countless threads of fine blue-violet lightning crackled and scattered.
Light and darkness—in this moment, they coexisted harmoniously.
An aura that looked down upon heaven and earth, a mysterious and noble presence that would not tolerate desecration by any living thing, emanated from the spider's form.
It was like a razor-sharp sword, standing straight upright, threatening to stab a hole through the very sky—let alone a mere spawn of an evil god.
Ding!
[Due to the target species matching conditions, during the activation of Skill: Darkest Hour, damage dealt to the current target increases and damage received decreases.]
Thud! Thud!
The Dark Young seemed to boil over with fury. It lashed out with countless whip-like tentacles, violently hammering the spot where Bai Zhi had stood. Plumes of smoke and shards of gravel erupted. But in the very next second, the spider appeared perfectly intact right beside it.
Under the boosted state of "Darkest Hour," Bai Zhi's reaction speed and movement had entered a realm that even it found difficult to comprehend. The Dark Young couldn't land a hit on it at all.
"Not enough."
A thought flickered past. High above the Dark Young's head, a blue-violet orb of light coalesced from the air. Its radiance flashed, erupting into terrifying bolts of lightning. Dozens of thunderbolts rained down in a mad frenzy!
Thunder rumbled, shattering the darkness.
Screams and booms played out in unison, making every human who heard the noise feel their scalps crawl.
Plop, plop, plop.
Countless scorched and severed tentacles dropped to the ground. The gaping, bloodthirsty mouths had festered beyond recognition. Black, unknown viscous fluid flowed continuously from the wounds.
Before long, twenty "lightning spears" had fully materialized. In a flash, they shot forth, crisscrossing and impaling the Dark Young's body like nails pinning it in place. Then they bloomed into space-distorting explosions, melting away its flesh and tissue wholesale.
In just a few short seconds, the situation had completely reversed. It had become a one-sided crush.
"I am willing... to offer everything... to Lord Bai Zhi..."
Lin Binbin, having retreated to the very edge of the factory, watched this scene utterly spellbound. His eyes brimmed with a frenzy that could only be called sheer madness.
He knew that even ten of himself would be stomped into meat paste in a single encounter with that monster.
Lord Bai Zhi's power far exceeded anything he had ever imagined.
Under such a ferocious onslaught, the Dark Young's Vitality plummeted to 160. Its originally five-story-tall, titanic frame was now battered and broken, reduced to only half its former size!
However, Skill: Darkest Hour was about to reach its limit. The demon spider's spiritual energy was already nearly spent.
This signaled that the battle was approaching its end.
Amid the mottled, interweaving colors of light and dark, the core orb of lightning descending from the sky plummeted straight down, boring directly into the Dark Young's body.
Then it could be seen—that tree-tall shadow of darkness was entirely wrapped in blue-violet lightning, gnawed apart, and melted away.
After several seconds passed, that nauseating stench in the air also finally dissipated.
Ding.
At long last, the familiar mechanical voice of the system sounded:
[Dark Young status updated to 'Annihilation']