It was indeed a giant, spider-like creature - but with a horrifying twist: on the back of the spider stuck a pale, half naked, bloated woman whose eyes were open wide; her head was almost at the tail position of the spider, while her waist was connected to the mouth. Overall, it looked as if a giant spider monster had a large woman-shaped tongue that was stuck to its back.
The golden light spell and energy blast landed on the bloated woman's chest and one front claw, leaving a smoking burn mark on the pale, bloated chest area, and a large crack on the exoskeleton.
High-pitched screeches exploded, along with the shrills of the woman: "Why can't you!? Why can't you!?"
Wu Xiaoming took a few more steps back and looked around - there was no way for him to escape the room into the rest of the building. But there was one way out - the window, out of the building completely.
Wu Xiaoming grabbed a wrapped prey from the ground and threw it out of the window - nothing attacked it from the outside. So he just leapt out of it. The spider creature charged into the room right after it recovered from the initial shock, but it missed Wu Xiaoming's back by around a quarter or a third of its front claw's length.
"Slash!" Wu Xiaoming turned around in midair and roared.
An energy slash shot through the short distance between them and landed right at the front claw with which the spider creature tried to attack him.
The exoskeleton on the leg was sliced open, a few splinters burst into the air. The energy slash continued its way, almost completely cutting off this section of the spider creature's front claw, stopping only from the exoskeleton on the other side of the front claw.
The bloated woman on the back of the spider creature screamed, a string of shadows of her face shot from her actual face, aiming right at Wu Xiaoming. Wu Xiaoming immediately crossed his arms before him to block the attack.
"Poof poof poof!" Three shadows of the bloated woman's face struck him in both his arms. They did not carry much impact, but turned into streams of paralyzing energy and invaded his body, spreading through his muscles, veins and even bones.
Yet right at this moment, the Qi flowing inside of Wu Xiaoming's meridians began accelerating and pushing out the energy.
"Fuck!" Wu Xiaoming regained the feeling in his arms just a few seconds too late, and he almost fell on the spiked mace head of his morningstar. The spider creature screeched and crawled outside of the window, then jumped onto the ground attempting to lunge at Wu Xiaoming once again.
Wu Xiaoming grabbed his morningstar and took off running around the office building - right this moment, fighting the creature in open space seemed worse for him than actually fighting it in the relatively confined space of the building.
"Why can't you!? Why can't you!" The bloated woman cried behind him. He zigzagged a few times, successfully dodged a few more shadow face attacks. He shot through the front door of the building and rushed directly towards the staircase.
The spider creature immediately followed. Its body was too big and needed to take a moment to adjust to the right angle before it could go up the staircase. At the same time, the bloated woman on its back sprung straight and shot up the staircase, her lower body left the spider's mouth, revealing a long, fleshy lower body like that of a giant earthworm. A beam of golden light shot right at the bloated woman's head, but she unleashed three shadow faces just one mere moment later. Two energy attacks collided and exploded in the air.
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming jumped right at the woman, roaring as he swung his morningstar at the bloated woman's face.
The energy blast struck the woman's chest area, then right at the next second his morningstar landed true and heavy on the side of the woman's head. Yet at the same time, the woman also thrust her arms forward, her black nails shooting up in length, jabbing at his chest and shoulders.
In a loud crack, the woman lost the majority of her head, revealing nothing but a critically wounded, bleeding and steaming pile of flesh on her neck. Her chest area was torn open by the energy blast, revealing a bleeding, smoking wound.
The muscles on Wu Xiaoming's chest shoulders tightened and caught the dark nails, stopping their invasion into Wu Xiaoming's body, preventing his vital organs from being actually impaled. He pulled away once again, letting the sharp edges of the nails open up the wounds just a bit more but alleviating the danger of being critically injured. "Slash!" The two hands were cleanly cut off from their forearms.
The spider creature screeched and sped up its move up the stairs. The bloated woman's body was simply flopping around, just like a grievously injured tongue, or tail. Wu Xiaoming continued running up the stairs, catching more webbings in the process. The Qi in his meridians continued flowing with accelerated speed and seeping into his other body parts, especially his wounded areas, stopping his bleeding and heightening his self healing.
Only at this moment did Wu Xiaoming notice the boost to his Qi resource he previously received was more than the mere quantity, but also quality - it never flowed as fast before, and the healing property it had was never as strong. And just like before, he had limited control over it, it seemed that there was a lot of time before he could actually use Qi externally in active combat, just like the powerful heroes and villains of Wuxia novels and movies.
He headed towards the third floor, bypassing another room with many wrapped prey inside, and more webbing in the air - it might just be that the spider creature was in the higher floors earlier.
Still not able to catch Wu Xiaoming, the spider creature screeched again and hastened its climb. Its uninjured claws clicked and scratched, its body breaking through the corners and even entire walls in its way.
"Attack! Slash! Attack!" Wu Xiaoming took multiple opportunities to ambush the spider creature while it was trying to get close. Energy blasts, energy slashes and golden light spells landed on the creature one after another, spilling its blood and tearing its shells, and even two claws from its body. But it was still not quite enough, as the spider creature was still pursuing him, more furious and aggressive with every new injury inflicted on its body.
Yet the third floor was already the highest floor he could go in this staircase. He darted towards the furthest room right as he reached the top. The spider creature crashed through the handrails and protective walls and followed, with the broken and torn body of the bloated woman wailing and flopping around, slinging blood and pieces of flesh everywhere.
This room was once again filled with wrapped prey, hard to say how many unfortunate prey were captured and stored here. Wu Xiaoming almost got tripped by two of them and had to kick another out of his way. Eventually he had no choice but to leap out of the window once again. The spider creature followed, crashing through the wall right behind Wu Xiaoming.
A thick white string shot from the spider creature's tail aiming at Wu Xiaoming's legs. He looked up and unleashed an energy slash and cut it off, but he also lost the proper posture of landing on the ground.
"Move!" Wu Xiaoming yelled at himself as he was about to hit the ground. His body decelerated and was thrown sideways, away from the spider creature by a few arms' length. He landed on his side and rolled on the ground to redirect the momentum. The spider creature on the other hand just crashed onto the ground almost directly in front of him. One of its claws swung at him from his left, he took a step back but suffered a shallow slash on his right forearm and his morningstar was ripped away from his grasp.
The creature lunged at Wu Xiaoming, even though at least four of its legs were close to or even already incapacitated. He shot back again, pulling out the other morningstar and swung at the spider's foul head. But a front claw with its tip severed sprung forward and bashed Wu Xiaoming in the waist.
Wu Xiaoming almost puked while being sent flying, but had to adjust his position so that he would not break his neck when he landed on the ground. The second morningstar was also lost somewhere behind him.
Just as he was about to pull another weapon from inventory, the shadow of the spider creature's body loomed over him. He had no choice but to roll on the ground and get away. A blade appeared in his hand as he simply was not able to locate with precision which item to pull from his inventory. With a sudden surge of bloodthirst, he stabbed the spider creature on the side of its tail.
The blade was short, so in order to maximize his damage, he twisted and pulled the blade and stabbed the creature again. Foul dark green and brown liquid gushed all over his chest and arms. He was almost able to land the third jab, but the creature just swung its body and butted him away just as his hand was still in the air.