Chapter 011: Broken

It was a spider—or rather, an incredibly huge one. Its height alone was over three meters, with eight long legs as thick as a human’s waist. On its abdomen was a black-and-white pattern that, from afar, resembled a giant face sneering coldly.
At the top of its head was a gaping maw, along with two enormous, sharp fangs that gleamed like sharp knives. Above those fangs were eyes slightly larger than coconuts, staring intently at the three people before it.
Du Fan felt his scalp tingle. How could such an insect-like creature grow so large?
Before he could even think of a solution, the giant spider suddenly let out a howling sound and lunged forward with terrifying force, its entire body moving as if to shake the earth.
“Back—!”
Du Fan shouted loudly, ignoring everything else. He darted backward to avoid it, managing to pull the bell ring in his haste.
“Bang—!”
With a loud noise, the giant spider landed on the ground, causing the earth to tremble. The ground around seemed on the verge of cracking.
Du Fan’s legs gave out, and he fell to the ground. He and Ringing hugged each other, rolling together.
But before he could stop, darkness covered his vision as a shadow rushed toward him.
With just one glance, Du Fan was terrified. Without hesitation, he chanted a spell. His magical energy surged forth like an uncontrolled flood, and with all his strength, he threw a fireball the size of a football.
The fireball hit the giant spider, which let out a pained scream but still rushed forward even faster.
Though delayed for a moment, Du Fan had time to pull out a weapon from his storage ring. He pushed Ringing aside, shouted loudly, and his fighting energy flared up. With all his strength, he swung his Silver Moon Sword, delivering a holy cross-cut.
A loud noise erupted as the pure fighting energy collided with the sharp fangs, producing a blinding light, as bright as the sun at noon. Everything around seemed to be illuminated by this light, its colors so vivid they seemed unreal.
But it was only for a moment. Moments later, the light vanished, just as the sun is covered by clouds.

Du Fan suddenly felt as if all the combat energy in his body had exploded. His hand went numb, and a gush of blood sprayed from his mouth as he was flung backward. With a soft “thud,” he crashed into the trunk of a large tree. His face was pale, his lips covered in blood, and his entire body seemed to have been soaked in blood, with veins of blood appearing everywhere. His right hand kept trembling. If it weren’t for the excellent quality of the Silver Moon Sword, such a blow might have been fatal to Du Fan. Staring at the giant spider before him, Du Fan suddenly grinned and muttered, “This… I’m really done this time…” Before he could finish speaking, the giant spider let out another screech. It locked onto its target and lunged at Du Fan once more, its sharp fangs gleaming in the air. By now, Ringtone had also rushed over. She trembled instinctively at the sight of the giant spider but still gritted her teeth, formed several hand seals, and slammed them into the air. With a loud “bang,” the giant spider seemed to hit a golden wall and stopped less than a meter away from Du Fan. Ringtone gasped for breath and shouted in a voice that sounded like she was struggling, “Hurry… run away… I can’t hold on much longer…” Du Fan coughed and spat more blood. He glanced at the giant spider right in front of him, its fangs continuously striking the golden wall that seemed on the verge of breaking at any moment… Du Fan took a deep breath, ignoring the pain all over his body. He pulled himself out of the tree trunk and jumped down, but halfway through the jump, his chest hurt again, leaving him utterly exhausted. When he hit the ground, more blood sprayed from his mouth. Gritting his teeth, he got up, grabbed Ringtone, and rushed into the depths of the jungle in a panic. He didn’t want to stay here for even another moment. At that moment, a crisp “ding” sound was heard. Du Fan instinctively turned around, only to see that the golden wall had cracked. The giant spider, seemingly enraged by the obstruction, opened its mouth and spat out something like spider silk. Du Fan sighed inwardly. There was no strength left to dodge, and at such a critical moment, he still thought to himself, “It spits spider silk… It’s really a spider… just a spider that’s taken aphrodisiacs!”

Seeing that there was nothing left but to close his eyes and wait for death, Du Fan was prepared to ensure that even in death he wouldn’t let this spider escape unscathed. But suddenly, with a soft “whoosh,” the giant spider’s figure in mid-air halted abruptly, and the spider silk it had sprayed halfway also fell to the ground. Then, with a loud “splash,” the giant spider split in two, its internal organs and blood spraying out together…

A figure slowly stepped down from the spider’s corpse. Gannon stretched out his hand and examined it, seeing several fine lines resembling fingerprints on it. With a slight flick of his hand, those lines disappeared instantly.

After a moment, he let out a low sigh and said, “Just a few Evil Face Spider Queens, and they’ve pushed you to this extreme? It seems, Young Master Du Fan… you’re still a bit inexperienced after all.”

Du Fan glanced behind Gannon and couldn’t help but be astonished—there were two more corpses of Evil Face Spider Queens behind him. Clearly, while Du Fan had been fighting desperately, Gannon had already dealt with them.

A bitter smile appeared on Du Fan’s face. The gap in strength between him and Gannon really couldn’t be explained in just a few words!

Du Fan struggled to stand up, took a deep breath, but inwardly smiled bitterly. At least three of his ribs must have broken from those attacks. Fortunately, his internal organs weren’t damaged, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to stand now. With a grim expression, he channeled his combat energy and tapped his chest a few times to realign his broken ribs. Yet, his chest still hurt slightly with each breath. Du Fan knew he might not be able to use his combat energy any longer.

As for Lingsound, her condition wasn’t much better, but since it was only superficial injuries, she wasn’t in too much trouble.

Just as they were about to speak, another “shushing” sound came through the air.

Gannon’s expression suddenly changed. “Bad news—those guys are back. I can’t protect you… Run for it yourselves… Otherwise, things will get troublesome!”

Du Fan’s face twisted in pain. He didn’t want to confront those Evil Face Spider Queens again. Immediately, he grabbed Lingsound and, ignoring their injuries, they ran away at full speed.

After running just a few dozen meters, they suddenly heard Gannon’s cold laugh behind them, followed by a deafening explosion and flashes of fire, along with a pungent smell of burning.

Du Fan suddenly froze, pulling Ling Yin and jumping to the side. A wave of scorching heat rushed over them. Looking up, Du Fan saw the charred corpse of the Evil-faced Spider Queen thrown in front of them, still emitting white smoke—clearly just burned to ashes.

Frowning, Du Fan couldn’t help but look back and witnessed a truly astonishing scene. The forest where they had been moments ago was now on fire in large areas, but the flames were not red—they were a pale blue, almost identical to the flames emitted by those abyssal creatures. The vast forest emitted a cracking sound, like screams, under the influence of these demonic flames.

Amid the fire, Gan Nong’s robe stood out sharply as he floated in midair. With a gentle wave of his hand, the burning demonic flames seemed to obey his control, spreading in all directions.

The Evil-faced Spider Queens, who had appeared out of nowhere, rushed at Gan Nong with fangs bared. Yet before they could even reach him, they were engulfed by the demonic flames, letting out earth-shattering screams. However, those spider queens were incredibly fast, and it seemed Gan Nong’s control over the flames had its limits. At first, he could barely deal with them, but after a while, he began to struggle.

One of the spider queens lunged at Gan Nong. He waved his hand, sending a wave of demonic flames toward it. But at the same time, two more spider queens attacked. Gan Nong frowned slightly but still darted aside in midair. Yet before he could stabilize himself, spider silk wrapped around him.

With a cold laugh, a wave of demonic flames erupted from him, rushing along the spider silk toward the spider queen. Unable to dodge, it was instantly engulfed by the flames, and in moments, its entire body was burned to ashes!

But by then, another spider queen had attacked Gan Nong from behind. This time, he didn’t have time to dodge, and its sharp fangs pierced his body. Gan Nong let out a pained scream, then reached out with both hands, slowly and firmly pulling the fangs out of his body. With a gentle twist… those steel-like fangs… broke apart.