Sea Spiders

What?

Gu Ningyun: ???

When had she ever wanted to poison someone?

Jiang Yao’s voice was neither too loud nor too soft, just loud enough to be heard by the three people not far away.

Wen Xuan immediately swam over. “What’s wrong, Ningyun? Is someone bullying you?”

Mu Chenze and Jun Luo also cast concerned looks.

Gu Ningyun felt touched, but also didn't know whether to laugh or cry. “Don’t listen to Jiang Yao’s nonsense. It’s like this...”

She simply took out the jade slip containing the travelogue and used her divine sense to pull up the section on Blue Lake Scallops, letting the four of them read it in turn.

“So that’s why!”

Now, instead of one person, five people were looking toward the depths of the coral thickets with glowing eyes.

...

“Attack together! The demon cores inside these rank two sea spiders can be used to refine rank two water-repelling pearls. If we take them to Donglin City, each one will sell for at least thirty mid-grade spirit stones.”

A woman in black raised her hands to form a seal, shouting, “Rank two sea spiders are the easiest rank two sea beasts to fight. We can't miss them if we encounter them.”

Beside the woman in black were seven other cultivators dressed just like her.

On the backs of their black robes, there was an emblem of a tanghulu supporting a full moon.

It seemed these people were all disciples of the Yuebai Sect.

Based on the cultivation auras they released during the fight, the woman leading and giving orders was at the middle Foundation Establishment stage, while the remaining seven were at the early Foundation Establishment stage.

In front of these eight people were three brownish sea spiders, each half a person tall. Every one of them was at the rank two middle stage, equivalent to a human cultivator's middle Foundation Establishment stage.

A dense seaweed corridor stretched from the far distance, ending where the sea spiders were stationed.

Around these eight people and behind the sea spiders, countless fist-sized sea spiders were emerging from the seaweed corridor, closing in to surround them.

Not far from the encirclement, Gu Ningyun and her four companions were hiding behind a reef, using stealth talismans. They held their breath, not daring to move as they watched the scene.

The middle Foundation Establishment stage was right at the limit of the stealth talisman's effectiveness. Furthermore, this was the seabed; even if the talismans could hide their forms and auras, the ever-present water currents could easily expose them.

The reason the five of them had traveled from the blue sea coral area to this place was also for these sea spiders.

However, their goal differed from the group in black; what they wanted were the sea spiders' legs.

If not for that travelogue, who would have thought that the Blue Lake Scallops, which lived off blue sea coral, would find sea spider legs to be their favorite snack?

Scallop-type sea beasts were all timid, and the Blue Lake Scallops were the most cowardly among them.

Even if the blue sea coral they lived in was leveled, they would only retract into their shells and hide under rocks.

Only after the danger outside had passed would they tentatively open their shells, draw in seawater, and use the jet of water to swim away in search of another blue sea coral forest.

To lure a Blue Lake Scallop out from the depths of the blue sea coral thickets, one had to use the long legs of a sea spider as bait.

The location of the sea spiders was recorded in the travelogue, but perhaps due to the passage of time, many of the landmarks used as references had become unrecognizable.

Gu Ningyun and the others had walked on the seabed for a long time, detouring at least seven nautical miles before finding this beautiful seaweed corridor.

The sea spiders lived on this seaweed.

Who would have thought that just as they arrived, they would sense abnormal fluctuations in the seawater?

The stealth talismans they had applied to avoid alerting the sea spiders now served as their best cover.

They quickly slowed down and tried to match the frequency of the water's fluctuations as they swam behind a cluster of jagged reefs not far from the corridor.

Reefs mostly grew along continental coasts or around islands.

For the sake of the sea spiders, they had swum dozens of nautical miles along the seabed, but there was no way they could have returned to the shores of Cangzhou.

This reef likely belonged to an island.

This happened to correspond to a reference point marked in the travelogue.

Gu Ningyun and the others chose to hide here so that if things went south, they could follow the reef up onto the island.

Although this sea area lacked high-grade sea beasts due to its proximity to Cangzhou and the frequent passage of spirit boats, dry land was always much safer than the seabed.

At the very least, they wouldn't have to be so cautious when using their spirit energy.

“It’s no good, Senior Sister Huo! The eight of us are just barely on par with these three rank two sea spiders.”

A black-clothed man at the early Foundation Establishment stage used a trident to block a sea spider’s long leg, then performed a difficult backbend to dodge another incoming leg.

He caught his breath. “Although the small spiders surrounding us are only at the Qi Refining stage, there look to be at least a thousand of them. Even enough ants can bite an elephant to death; if we get surrounded by this many small spiders, I’m afraid we won't be a match for them.”

Sea spiders were mostly brown or pale yellow. The front of their cephalothorax had a mouth similar to a mosquito’s proboscis, which they used to suck up food.

They had four simple eyes on top of their heads, each capable of rotating independently to observe almost every direction—front, back, left, right, and up.

Their abdomens were poorly developed, appearing only as small protrusions.

On each side of their cephalothorax grew four long legs, with claws at the ends that could easily pierce a prey's defenses.

At the very front, they also had a pair of smaller chelifores to assist in feeding.

Currently, the eight people in black were surrounded by the three sea spiders' total of twenty-four long legs. The claws at the end of each leg were incredibly sharp, reflecting a chilling light underwater.

No matter which direction they dodged or attacked from, they were firmly captured by those twelve flexible eyes. They couldn't find a single opening in the sea spiders' defense.

Unless they attacked from beneath the sea spiders' chests.

However, the eight long legs and the pair of chelifores of each spider kept the people in black firmly at bay, giving them no way to get close.

While they were fighting, Gu Ningyun also keenly noticed that except for water-attribute spells, other spirit energy techniques—even sword and saber attacks—were weakened to varying degrees underwater.

The power of fire-attribute spells couldn't even reach ten percent of their usual strength in the water.

That senior had only recorded the location of the sea spiders in the travelogue; as for how to obtain their legs, they would have to figure that out themselves.

Gu Ningyun looked at the Yuebai Sect disciples fighting the sea spiders in front of the seaweed corridor, lowering her eyes in thought.

With their cultivation levels, the five of them could never defeat rank two sea spiders.

All they wanted were the legs of rank one sea spiders.

She wondered what the character of these Yuebai Sect cultivators was like. If they were reliable, perhaps they could cooperate.

More and more small spiders crawled out from the seaweed, and it looked like they would soon be completely surrounded.

The leading woman in black used a wave to push back a sea spider's leg, then swung her arm to clear a path. “Retreat for now!”

The direction she cleared was exactly toward the reef.

This was bad. The black-clothed woman clearly had the same idea as the five of them, intending to use the island as a path for retreat.

Gu Ningyun’s heart immediately skipped a beat.

Sure enough, before Gu Ningyun could send a transmission to her companions, the people in black had already turned and were swimming toward the reef where she was hiding.

How fast was the speed of the Foundation Establishment stage? This short distance was covered in an instant.