Chapter 14: The Glutton
The Hunter Spider’s gaze shifted, turning toward Shangyue. Shangyue took a deep breath, approached the nearby wooden wall, cut her finger, and began to trace a pattern with her blood.
Shangyue had a good memory. She quickly reproduced the circular mark Su Xiao had drawn earlier, finishing it in just over ten seconds.
Yet, nothing happened. The Hunter Spider was already growing impatient.
Pfft!
The Hunter Spider’s armored leg pierced through Shangyue’s lower abdomen, flinging her into the wooden door. Shangyue, barely suppressing a scream, vanished into the darkness.
The Hunter Spider shifted its gaze again, this time toward Nita.
“I see.”
The female spellcaster, Dilin, seemed to realize something, but it wasn’t her turn yet.
“Give me a hint, hey! I...”
Pfft!
The armored leg pierced through Nita’s body, blood splattering.
“Ah!”
Flesh tore as the barbed teeth on the leg ripped through, and Nita screamed as she was thrown into the wooden door, her fate unknown.
“Thank you for that.”
Dilin winked at Su Xiao. She walked to the wooden wall and began to trace a mark.
In reality, the initial trial of the Death House wasn’t too difficult. It mainly tested observation, analysis, and memory, though some reasoning ability was also required.
The Hunter Spider wasn’t an enemy. On the contrary, its duty was to guide and assist participants in the Death Game through the wooden corridor. The transparent worms inside that corridor were extremely dangerous—a single touch would mean death.
The Hunter Spider carried a hint on its armored legs: the words “Life” and “Death.”
When Su Xiao first arrived at the Death House, he sat on a metal chair. On the armrest of the chair was a circular mark, with six small characters beneath it.
“Live without regret, die without hate.”
It seemed like someone’s personal sentiment, but it was actually a clue, linked to the “Life” and “Death” on the Hunter Spider’s legs.
To get the Hunter Spider to guide you, you needed to pay a “toll.” The circular mark on the chair’s armrest was the toll.
By consuming recoverable life force (health points), using the circular mark as a medium, you could “purchase” an Emerald Fruit from the Death House.
This fruit was the Hunter Spider’s reward. The creature was a glutton. If it didn’t get its Emerald Fruit, it would refuse to guide you and instead vent its anger by severely injuring or directly killing participants before tossing them into the “Labyrinth of the Dead.”
After Su Xiao gave it the Emerald Fruit, the Hunter Spider signaled him to wait.
With Su Xiao’s demonstration, Dilin grasped the meaning of “Life” and “Death.” As for the pattern on the chair’s armrest, she had only glanced at it earlier, but that was enough.
Soon, Dilin traced a triangular mark with her blood. However, no branches or leaves appeared on the wooden wall. Instead, the wall split open, revealing a dark crack. Inside, a vertical pupil stared at Dilin.
“Hmm, something went wrong.”
Dilin glanced at the Hunter Spider out of the corner of her eye. The spider’s reaction sent a chill down her spine.
The Hunter Spider didn’t lunge at her. Instead, it pressed itself against the opposite wooden wall, trying to get as far away from Dilin as possible.
“Where did I go wrong?”
Dilin looked at Su Xiao, hoping he would mock her and then tell her what the mistake was. But Su Xiao wasn’t in the habit of doing that.
By now, Dilin had lost all sensation in her body except for her head and neck.
A small, pitch-black hand reached out from the crack in the wooden wall, grabbing Dilin. In the next moment, at least a hundred black hands seized her, dragging her toward the crack.
“Damn it!”
Dilin was forcibly pulled into the wooden wall.
The circular mark Su Xiao had traced slowly faded. This mark had to be drawn in reverse. Drawing it forward represented “life,” while drawing it backward represented “death.”
When tracing the formation, it consumed “recoverable life force,” which was the 30% health Su Xiao had just used.
Life force was the “life attribute,” so the mark needed to represent the “death attribute”—meaning it had to be drawn backward. This also matched the “Life” and “Death” on the Hunter Spider’s legs, which served as both a hint and a representation that the life attribute plus the death attribute were needed to trade with the Death House.
Dilin, on the other hand, had created two “life attributes.” This failed to trade with the Death House and instead attracted some entity residing within it.
“Simple enough.”
Baha landed on Su Xiao’s shoulder. As Su Xiao’s followers, Bubu Wang and Baha theoretically didn’t need to obtain Emerald Fruits, but Su Xiao planned to let them try.
Earlier, Shangyue had experimented with Su Xiao’s circular mark and failed. That was because each person’s chair had a different mark. For example, Su Xiao’s was circular, while Dilin’s was triangular.
Soon, Bubu Wang and Baha both traced marks with their blood. As Su Xiao had guessed, as his followers, they could share the circular mark.
Branches and leaves sprouted from the wooden wall, eventually bearing two apple-sized Emerald Fruits. Su Xiao held one in each hand.
The Hunter Spider stared intently at Su Xiao. Su Xiao ignored it.
Seeming to realize Su Xiao wouldn’t give it the fruits, the Hunter Spider flipped over, its eight legs pointing upward, twitched a couple of times, and then went still.
This glutton was actually playing dead to get the Emerald Fruits.
Su Xiao tossed the fruit in his left hand. The Hunter Spider sprang up from the ground, caught it midair, and swallowed it in one gulp.
Before it even landed, Su Xiao threw the second fruit. The moment the Hunter Spider hit the ground, it appeared on the left wooden wall, its mouth wide open, and the Emerald Fruit flew straight in.
After eating three Emerald Fruits in a row, the Hunter Spider looked a bit sluggish. The stinging hairs on its legs retracted, and it approached Su Xiao. Seeing this, Su Xiao leaped onto the Hunter Spider’s back, followed by Bubu Wang and Baha.
The Hunter Spider moved to the wooden wall. Its armored leg, engraved with “Life” and “Death,” slid into a groove on the wall.
Click~
Mechanisms turned, and a section of the floor slowly opened, revealing a sloping passage leading downward.
The Hunter Spider vanished in an instant, its speed incredible as it charged into the passage with Su Xiao, Bubu Wang, and Baha on its back.
Su Xiao stood on the Hunter Spider’s back. Though the path ahead was pitch black, he could hear panicked scurrying sounds. Without the Hunter Spider’s escort, he would have had to deal with the creatures in the darkness himself.
The Hunter Spider moved at an astonishing speed, much faster than Su Xiao at full sprint. Even so, it took nearly twenty minutes of running before the passage ended.
Beyond the passage was another wooden corridor. At the inner side of the corridor stood a golden door, about five meters tall and double-leafed.
The Hunter Spider carried Su Xiao forward, using two of its armored legs to push open the golden door, revealing a magnificent banquet hall. This was the hall that the Pain Queen, Anna, had mentioned earlier.
Su Xiao jumped off the Hunter Spider’s back. The hall was about a thousand square meters in size, with a massive round banquet table at the center, empty of anything.
Su Xiao sat on a sofa against the wall. As for the Hunter Spider, it lounged lazily by the golden door, guarding it. The other participants in the Death Game hadn’t been disqualified. No matter which path they took, they would all arrive at the golden door. Only after passing the Hunter Spider’s second trial could they enter the banquet hall.
Just as Su Xiao was about to lean back and rest for a moment, a spatial fluctuation appeared, and the Pain Queen, Anna, materialized.
The moment Anna appeared, a look of obvious surprise crossed her face, though it was fleeting. She had gone to handle some matters. Her original plan was to wait in the banquet hall for the participants. Yet, Su Xiao had arrived before her and had even brought the Hunter Spider along.