Battle Against the Giant Spider

The Swift Star Wolf had gone back to rest. With the Swift Star Wolf present, dealing with this Bewitching Demon Spider would have been far more manageable — but for now, they had only themselves to rely on.

Even among Battle-General-class creatures, there were clear differences in power. The Cursed Beast Demon, the Scale-Skin Mother Demon, and the Three-Eyed Demon Wolf they had faced before were all average specimens of the tier — capable enough, but not especially formidable. The Dread Mimic, by contrast, was also Battle-General-class, yet so overwhelmingly powerful that none of them could hope to challenge it — a truly exceptional existence at the upper end of that rank.

As for the Bewitching Demon Spider before them now, judging by the aura it radiated, its strength placed it above those three ordinary Battle-General-class creatures, yet it fell far short of the Dread Mimic's terrifying level.

Mo Fan had his Focus Pendant. His mind was protected.

Mu Ningxue was consumed entirely by the will to kill. Whether her mind was guarded or not was irrelevant.

Stripped of its bewitching power, this Battle-General-class spider should be significantly less difficult to handle. The immediate priority was to finish it off as quickly as possible. Heaven only knew whether the people still slaughtering each other out there would end up sharing the fate of those One-Eyed Demon Wolves.

**"Slash—!!"**

The Bewitching Demon Spider raged, its forelimbs flailing in furious sweeps — each one a razor-edged blade, carving down left and right in crossing strikes.

It stood thirty meters from Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue. At that distance, it should not have been able to reach them. But this spider proved far more dangerous than they had imagined. As it swung its forelimbs down, the blows transformed into two shrieking air-blades trailing spiraling vortexes, slicing toward Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue from opposite angles!

Mo Fan threw himself into a frantic sideways roll, snapping his neck sharply down.

A chill swept from above. When he looked up, he saw a lone wall standing amid the overgrown grass — cleanly and precisely sliced through — now sliding slowly apart and toppling with a heavy crash.

*What a devastating attack.*

He had assumed a creature that relied on traps to catch its prey wouldn't be much of a fighter in direct combat. Instead, that sweeping air-blade had very nearly taken his head off.

He glanced at Mu Ningxue. She had woven her Ice Lock into a defensive barrier in front of her — but those solid chains of ice were sheared straight through, clattering to the ground in pieces, no longer under her control.

Her Ice Lock had been completely neutralized. From here on, she could only fall back on Wind Element.

She used Wind Track to blur away to greater distance and began arranging the Wind Element Star Chart…

Gale winds coiled around her as she moved, billowing her thin outer garment and tracing the breathtaking curves of her figure. Silver hair danced in vivid, wild arcs; the crimson mark between her brows glimmered dangerously, and her eyes held a killing intent already decided. She had become something elemental — a spirit of the storm — every movement carrying with it the devastation of the wind.

Her Spirit Grade wind seed made the gusts more savage than ever. Under Mu Ningxue's direction, the winds gathered into a sweeping vortex of destruction that swallowed nearly a hundred meters of terrain.

Wind Disk—Heavenly Net took shape with terrifying speed. What had been scattered, chaotic currents became, within seconds, a colossal wall of wind. Caught within the eye of the storm, the Bewitching Demon Spider shrieked again and again, its forelimbs clawing ceaselessly at the tightening wall.

At last, the wind wall fully contracted — but the Bewitching Demon Spider had already driven all eight of its legs deep into the earth, bracing itself against the full force of the Wind Disk—Heavenly Net, a spell capable of uprooting a house from its foundations.

**"Whooooooooooosh—"**

The spider's grip on the ground was extraordinary. It crouched low, enduring the relentless tearing of the Wind Disk—Heavenly Net without yielding.

The Wind Disk—Heavenly Net held longer than most mid-tier spells, yet the Bewitching Demon Spider remained earthbound — its body swaying only slightly, never once lifted from the ground.

A line appeared between Mu Ningxue's brows. This creature was well above the average Battle-General-class opponent. A second-tier Wind Disk augmented by a Spirit Grade wind seed — that combination should have been enough to destroy most Battle-General-class creatures outright.

"Mo Fan, your turn!" she called, knowing her magic's destructive power wasn't enough.

"Keep it pinned — its ground speed can't be slow," Mo Fan said.

"Mm."

Wind Element was a sweeping, wide-area force. It would never deliver the same immediate devastation as Fire or Lightning. The Bewitching Demon Spider's utterly unscathed appearance made that much plain.

"Rose Flame—Blazing Fist—Earth Fiend!!"

Mo Fan went all out, driving his Fire Element power to its absolute peak, then in a single motion launched a punch that sent the raging Rose Flames tearing outward.

The death-rose inferno erupted at the Bewitching Demon Spider's crouched position — a breathtaking wave of flame devoured the area in an instant, and roaring geysers of molten rock blasted skyward.

Earth Fiend was itself a wide-area destructive spell, but it gave off a distinct elemental disturbance as it surged upward — and the Bewitching Demon Spider's perception was razor-sharp. The moment it sensed a scalding force building beneath the ground, its body dropped low in an instant…

Then, as Earth Fiend erupted, the spider launched itself skyward — leaping more than ten meters straight into the air.

It was hard to believe that such a massive, heavy creature possessed that kind of explosive jumping power. All Earth Fiend managed was to splatter a little molten rock onto that grey-black, fur-covered body — more an inconvenience than a wound.

"You need to freeze it!" Mo Fan felt the Bewitching Demon Spider land and come bearing down on him, and scrambled to put more distance between them.

The spider gave him no quarter. Its movement speed on the ground was just as startling — eight legs churning the earth in a frenzied blur, flinging up waves of dirt with every stride.

It was nearly as fast as the Scale-Skin Mother Demon, and she had at least been roughly human-sized. The Bewitching Demon Spider was on the scale of a full construction excavator, and when a beast that size came charging with that kind of explosive acceleration, it would pulverize a small rocky hill outright — let alone a person standing in its path.

Mo Fan didn't dare use the Nether Separation Shield.

He remembered once, scrolling through social media on his phone during a dull class at school, he'd seen some kid abroad testing a phone case's durability by wrapping his phone in it and hitting it with a hammer. After a few solid blows — sure enough — the phone case came out without a scratch. He flipped it open and found his brand-new phone shattered inside.

The situation now was exactly the same. The Nether Separation Shield would probably hold up just fine — he was absolutely certain that something costing over ten million was built to last — but the shockwave it transmitted would be more than enough to reduce him to paste. This was absolutely not something to treat lightly.

"Blood Beast Boots!" Mo Fan activated the Enchanted Gear.

A crimson radiance shimmered with a strange luster, wrapping around his legs as though it had taken solid form.

The Blood Beast Boots blazed to life, linking with the blood-flow in Mo Fan's legs and flooding them with a surge of raw, primal strength — filling his lower body with a savage, inexhaustible power.

The Bewitching Demon Spider came on like a wrecking force. Earthen mounds, crumbling walls, trees — all were flattened in its path. Its eight limbs were ferociously sharp; nothing it passed over was left intact, everything shredded to pieces.

Mo Fan didn't underestimate it for a moment. He sprinted hard toward the raised ruins behind him.

He had barely reached the rubble when the spider came crashing through in pursuit. Mo Fan planted his foot against a section of brick wall and vaulted upward, launching himself above the Bewitching Demon Spider's head.

"Take another punch!"

Flipping through the air, Mo Fan completed a mid-tier Fire Element spell in the blink of an eye — his entire body blazing red.