The Human Emperor
chapter-1469

Chapter 1469: Fierce Battle with the Darkshadow Spider (I)

Swish!

Wang Chong silently made his way to the entrance of the cavern.

Good—it didn’t seal the cave! Wang Chong quietly said to himself.

The cavern was still pervaded by the dark green poison mist that obscured vision. However, with his Psychic Energy, Wang Chong could clearly make out that after pushing back Wang Chong and Young Master Qingyang, the spider had returned to the base of the ancient tree where it continued to tie up its prey.

Its front legs grabbed its prey as it began to make its way up to a tree branch along the white threads.

It seems that this beast can control the toughness and sharpness of its threads at will. Otherwise, the sharpness of those threads would have cut its prey into pieces long ago, Wang Chong noted.

After thinking for a few moments, Wang Chong had an idea.

Buzz!

He lunged forward into the dark green mist, toward the Darkshadow Spider within.

As he advanced, he performed many calculations that allowed him to narrowly avoid the sharp and poisoned threads around him. In just a few moments, he was within one hundred feet of the spider.

Hisss!

The massive spider immediately raised its head and let out a warning hiss. At the same time, it opened its mandibles and unleashed numerous thin threads at Wang Chong that covered every possible angle of attack.

Wang Chong reacted quickly, swiftly dodging these ten-some threads and attempting to attack the Darkshadow Spider from another angle.

But after getting just five or six meters, boom! Ten-some sharp threads pierced through his chest.

Yet there was no gush of blood. After being pierced by the threads, Wang Chong’s body vanished in a puff of smoke, a mere illusion.

Alarm bells began to go off in the spider’s head, and it anxiously hissed. Although it was not very intelligent, it knew that the human it had attacked just now was not real.

Swish! As the first Wang Chong was pierced through by threads, an identical Wang Chong came rushing out from another direction, sword in hand and a chill in his eyes.

The Darkshadow Spider was clearly concerned, because it could not differentiate this human before it from the real one, could not tell if it was a fake as well.

Swish!

The Darkshadow Spider stretched its body, and soon more than seventy threads were whistling their way toward the second Wang Chong.

Fwoosh!

This large-scale attack succeeded, as the second Wang Chong wasn’t able to get very far before the threads honeycombed him with holes.

“An excellent chance!”

At this moment, a delighted Wang Chong attacked the Darkshadow Spider from behind.

The cloning art allowed Wang Chong to divide himself into three, and these clones could be used to distract his enemy while also concealing the aura of the actual body. This was one of Wang Chong’s time-tested moves.

Wang Chong had used the same move to trick the men in black during their attack on the Righteous Alliance, and he had also used it to deceive the Dragonbeasts.

Hissss!

The Darkshadow Spider felt an immense threat, its sixteen pairs of eyes showing a hint of panic. As its mouth issued warning hisses, it began to twist its massive body in an attempt to face Wang Chong.

As it was turning, poison threads shot out from its back toward Wang Chong. However, after spitting out so many threads the first two times, the spider could not spit as many out this third time.

Even so, the poison threads of the Darkshadow Spider were just as sharp and unstoppable as ever.

Clang! A moment later, Wang Chong began to swing a small dagger through the air. Dingdingding! This dagger swiftly struck at those terrifying threads.

Those sharp threads which could cut through steel had finally met their match.

In this chorus of clangs, all the threads that had been shot toward Wang Chong were blocked and fell to the ground.

The Wootz Steel dagger!

The weapon that Wang Chong used with such skill and precision was none other than the Wootz Steel dagger he carried with him.

Wootz Steel was considered the most valuable, rare, and excellent material for forging weapons. During the forging process, it would produce flowing magical patterns, and it could easily cut through metal. Its sharpness was unsurpassed in the world.

Only Wootz Steel weapons were capable of contending against the poison threads of the Darkshadow Spider.

Bang!

Wang Chong stomped a foot against the ground, using this chance to lunge at the Darkshadow Spider. At the same time, Wang Chong flicked his fingers repeatedly, sending bolts of Sword Qi hurtling at the spider’s massive body.

The spider panicked. As it sharply hissed and shrieked, it shot one thread after another at Wang Chong. At the same time, its eight legs began to rapidly ascend the web to gain a higher vantage point.

It was obvious that the situation had taken it by complete surprise. It was more skilled in attacking prey from a distance, and having someone get so close was clearly a great shock.

“Hmph, think you can run?”

Wang Chong sneered. Although the threads of the Darkshadow Spider were formidable, its actual body wasn’t as impressive. This was also why he had used his clones to deceive it so that he could get up close. If he allowed the Darkshadow Spider to escape to the top of the tree, it would become even more difficult to deal with.

Dingdingding! The Wootz Steel dagger moved with incredible speed, blocking all the white threads regardless of how fast they were or which direction they came from.

The Darkshadow Spider’s terrifying threads were completely incapable of exerting their power in front of the Wootz Steel dagger, but a moment later, there was a clink of cracking metal.

His heart chilling, Wang Chong saw that his Wootz Steel dagger, after suffering from the attacks of more than one hundred white threads, had started to show cracks.

And one section, after suffering too many attacks, had even lost a large chunk.

“This… but how!?”

Wang Chong’s eyes widened. He had personally forged the Wootz Steel weapons, and no one knew more than him just how terrifying they were.

In Wang Chong’s understanding, these weapons were essentially invincible.

Although the Darkshadow Spider’s threads seemed unable to cope with the Wootz Steel dagger, in the end, they were still too sharp and too numerous. After taking so many attacks, the Wootz Steel dagger had sustained irreversible damage.

These thoughts blazed through Wang Chong’s mind, but Wang Chong did not slow down at all.

Buzz!

Even though he felt an ache at his abdomen and disorder in his Stellar Energy, Wang Chong acted without hesitation. Using the Void Movement Technique he had learned from the men in black, Wang Chong vanished into the darkness.

Keekee!

The Darkshadow Spider was now so panicked that it was even making different sounds, chirping rather than hissing. Wang Chong’s disappearance made it feel an unprecedented danger and unease, particularly as he was so close that it would be very difficult to dodge an attack.

Swish!

Under the stimulation of danger, the Darkshadow Spider released vast amounts of thread from its mouth and abdomen, hundreds of threads hissing as they shot off in every direction.

The Darkshadow Spider’s body began to visibly shrivel up.

It was obvious that Wang Chong’s attack had forced it into stimulating its potential. Spitting out so much thread had clearly dealt significant harm to it.

Even Wang Chong couldn’t help but be alarmed as he saw this vast sea of white thread spreading outward.

The Void Movement Technique might have been so fast that it was hard for the eye to keep up, but the Darkshadow Spider had spat out so much thread and with such density that not even a cat could get through the openings left, much less a human.

Even worse was that while Wang Chong could use Stellar Energy to create openings in normal situations, the Darkshadow Spider’s thread could cut through Stellar Energy and even block Sword Qi. Trying to force his way through would just end with his body being butchered.

But even so, Wang Chong reacted quickly. As a top-class Imperial Great General, he possessed abundant combat experience.

Dingding!

Wang Chong threw out the Wootz Steel dagger, which shot like a lightning bolt at the Darkshadow Spider.

Kee!

As the Wootz Steel dagger flew forward, the entire cavern resounded with sharp clicking. The sixteen pairs of eyes on the Darkshadow Spider all constricted as its mandibles opened and released ten-some threads at the dagger.

Although the spider was not as intelligent as a human, it still had some intelligence. It had immediately noticed that this human’s dagger could block its white threads, and even while it was hastily retreating up the tree, its sixteen pairs of eyes had still been focused on Wang Chong’s dagger.

From a certain perspective, this dagger presented more of a threat than Wang Chong himself.

“Hmph, as expected!”

Wang Chong coldly chuckled, having already predicted this act.

He had thought about pouring Stellar Energy into the dagger and using it to kill the spider from a distance, but it was obvious that this cunning spider was guarding against this. And without his Wootz Steel dagger, Wang Chong would have very little at his disposal to deal with the spider.

The risk was too great, so Wang Chong elected to be more cautious.

Fortunately, this had never been Wang Chong’s plan from the beginning.

Bang!

After hoodwinking yet another wave of attacks out of the Darkshadow Spider, Wang Chong’s Wootz Steel dagger suddenly went horizontal. Using the tough blade of the Wootz Steel dagger as a shield, Wang Chong’s Stellar Energy exploded outward, busting a gap the size of a human through the white threads.

Crackcrackcrack! Throughout this process, constant cracking could be heard from the Wootz Steel dagger. The smooth Wootz Steel blade, hailed as the king of all swords, was instantly covered in a web of cracks.