Chapter 70: The Black Dragon’s Roar

Without needing to examine her surroundings cautiously as Arthur did, the spider woman ran through the tunnel at an unreasonable speed, for her radar-like scanning skill allowed her to know everything within a full mile around her.

Within a few seconds, she arrived at the tunnel through which Arthur had fallen, but she did not stop, and continued running for several hundred meters, and only then did she notice that his scent had disappeared entirely.

She furrowed her brows in great annoyance, retraced her steps, and this time examined her path with greater focus, and found the tunnel that still held traces of his passage.

Without any hesitation, she jumped into it and, with an indifferent expression, slid through it. Her pure white robe and her dense black hair danced, and after about two minutes, she landed gracefully inside the long and somewhat spacious cave.

Water droplets flew up around her bare feet.

At that moment, a chill swept through her entire body, and her instincts screamed in terror. Her pupils contracted, and she froze in her position from sheer fear, unable even to breathe.

The water rippled around her faintly, and the place was engulfed in a heavy silence, then suddenly, the glowing roots in the walls began to increase and decrease in brightness, and the dark shadows of the cave moved as though they were living creatures lying in wait for her.

She felt an overwhelming presence fix its gaze upon her.

’It is watching me, whatever creature is here, it is watching me. Damn, what have I gotten myself into?’ Chaos engulfed her thoughts, and she felt suffocated.

Far above the strange enormous tree, the black dragon opened its eyes, and proudly raised its head, crowned with long, sharp horns.

At its movement, the mushrooms danced joyfully like children who had seen their father. Indifferent to them, the dragon looked in the direction of the spider woman.

Killing intent filled its eyes, it opened its massive and dark mouth, and let out a thunderous roar that made everything around it shake.

Rooooar!

Its thunder-like voice traveled through the tunnel network accompanied by a faint shockwave laden with dust, and when it reached the spider woman, it made her hair move chaotically.

She trembled, and the pressure she was feeling increased.

But that was not the end of it, for after the sound of the roar had passed and its echoes had fallen silent, a faint rustling sound came from the tunnels behind her, and little by little it began to grow louder.

The water beneath her rippled in one direction as though fleeing from something, and the walls around her shook, causing a little dust to fall on her.

She took a deep breath, gathering all the courage she could, and freed herself from the state of fear that had struck her and numbed her senses.

Very slowly she turned around and looked behind her.

At that moment, she saw hundreds of massive insects and mushroom-infected monsters running toward her like a herd of raging bulls.

Ants, centipedes, rats, and even things far stranger, the tunnels were filled to their limits with monsters. From both below and above, they surged while colliding with each other, and growling savagely.

"Damn." The spider woman found no fitting word to describe her feeling at that moment, and settled for repeating the word "damn," which she had grown accustomed to hearing from Arthur.

Even though she had not fully recovered from her shock, she did not continue standing still, she drew upon all the mana she possessed, and released hundreds of dense and sticky webs, blocking the passage behind her, after that, she concealed her presence and fled at her maximum speed.

She knew that the barrier she had built would not hold for long, yet she did not care, and did not look behind her again. All she was thinking about was getting out of this place, but the matter was not that simple.

After running a distance of one mile, the tunnel walls ahead of her suddenly burst apart, and from them surged several D-Rank centipedes, their bodies filled with mushrooms.

They stared at her savagely, then pounced on her.

She gritted her teeth, and raised her right hand, formed several white spears around her, and launched them at the centipedes like bullets. The bodies of most of the centipede monsters were destroyed, and without stopping, she avoided the rest.

She placed another barrier behind her, and continued running.

But, the moment she covered a short distance, a massive swarm of ants surged through several holes in the walls before her. They packed tightly together, forming a solid barrier with their bodies.

They opened their mouths all at once, and sprayed her with a flood of lethal red venom, which surged toward her like a tsunami.

The walls dissolved, the water evaporated, and mushrooms grew everywhere in a scene that was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

The spider woman did not flinch, and very calmly she also opened her mouth, and released a flood of far more lethal venom. Her venom intercepted the violent red wave and swallowed it with ease, then continued on its way, dissolving the ant barrier and all the mushrooms that had grown in its path.

Behind her, and from beneath the watercourse, a nimble mongoose emerged, its body covered in thorns. It looked at her exposed back, and without hesitation launched a surprise attack on her.

When it reached her and was about to bite her neck, her white silken robe split open at the back.

A sharp black leg extended from her smooth body, which stabbed the mongoose through the heart, then a second leg extended and blew its hideous head to shreds, and threw it far away.

The spider woman growled with intense anger, and without holding anything back, she took on her half-spider form, and more legs sprouted from her body, her size increased a little, and two additional eyes appeared on her face.

The ground beneath her feet exploded. Like a projectile, she surged through the tunnel at an astonishing speed, and whenever a monster appeared in her path she either avoided it or killed it.

’There is no use in concealing my presence now, as long as I am in this place these monsters will continue attacking me. It seems their master has marked me as a target to be killed, damn, what exactly is happening here?’

She remembered that faint unease that had continued to bother her throughout the past two months, and thought with regret, ’I must return to the surface quickly, I was wrong, the monster living here is far more dangerous than I expected, and whatever it is planning, it can’t be anything good.’

She directed her gaze toward the glowing roots extending through the walls of the cave and sighed in worry, ’If these roots belong to one of those trees I am thinking of, well, this part of the forest is completely doomed.’

Rumble!

Suddenly, the ground beneath her shook, snapping her back to attention. Before she understood what was happening, the ground before her exploded, and a massive C-Rank centipede emerged, and pounced on her directly.

Her eyes widened, and she felt threatened, for she had still not recovered all her strength, and facing C-Rank monsters would not be easy, especially mushroom-infected monsters, which did not die easily.

Despite that, she showed no hesitation or panic, she returned to her human form, and passed through a small gap beside it, then directed her hand toward it, and launched hundreds of silk threads at it, binding and restricting its movements.

She kept fleeing, and after about thirty minutes of non-stop running, she finally reached safety.