Chapter Forty-Two: The Long-Haired Wolf Spider

“Bingo! Look!” The Young Lord of Supreme Heaven pointed at the giant wolf spider, arms flailing excitedly. “See! Look at that! Didn’t I say it was a spider?”

“What’s there to be so smug about, you jinx!”

Huasheng scrambled away, rolling and crawling in terror. But when he reached the edge, like the Young Lord, he found himself unable to escape the magic array. Forced back, he darted out from the center once more.

“There’s no way out—this is a nightmare!”

The newly descended long-haired wolf spider noticed the three unwelcome guests. Spreading its eight furry, enormous legs, it began clacking its way toward the nearest, the Young Lord of Supreme Heaven.

“Eight legs, of course it’s fast!” the Young Lord said, performing a nimble somersault to land behind the wolf spider.

The spider glanced at Weiyu outside the formation, then at Huasheng right in front of it. Without hesitation, it lunged toward Huasheng!

“Knew it, I’d be the unlucky one!”

Huasheng dodged frantically, but the more he ran, the more violently the strings on the ground vibrated, their resonant hum echoing off the walls.

The Young Lord shouted from behind, “Huasheng, the more you run, the bigger a target you make!”

“My nerves are shot—I’m about to lose my jaw from fright! If I don’t run, should I just wait here to die? I already died once, am I supposed to die twice?” Huasheng cried out.

“At least last time you died without knowing why. This time, you’ll at least die with full clarity!” Weiyu teased.

“You two just stand there gawking while I’m running for my life—are you even people?” Huasheng yelled as he fled.

Weiyu and the Young Lord exchanged a glance and answered in unison, “No, we’re not!”

It was the plain truth, really. But at this moment, there was nothing humorous about it for Huasheng. He felt like an amateur tightrope walker, about to fall to his doom at any moment.

“Alright! Just thought you might be stiff from sitting on the celestial crane so long—a little exercise will warm you up!” Weiyu said, leaping into the array. His tall, slender form wedged itself between Huasheng and the wolf spider. Raising a hand, he called out, “Wolf spider, calm down!”

But the spider was unmoved, lunging at Weiyu. Suddenly, there was a dull thud—it was as if the spider had slammed into a wall of transparent glass. Weiyu had already conjured an invisible barrier between himself and the spider.

The spider tested the wall, climbed up a bit, but couldn’t find a way over.

Huasheng began to relax, but then the spider opened its jaws and bit into the invisible barrier. With a sickening crunch, Huasheng saw the monstrous jaws inch closer—the barrier that had just stopped the spider now had a gaping hole chewed through by its deadly fangs!

The spider continued gnawing, tearing chunks out of the wall, and soon clambered through the gap.

Weiyu frowned, quickly invoking an ice spell. A blast of arctic wind surged from his hand, frosting the spider’s shell with a thick layer of ice. But even as Weiyu poured more power into the blizzard, the spider’s advance barely slowed.

Huasheng, seeing the relentless assault, cried, “This spider’s skin is like armor—ordinary spells are useless! Do you know the Celestial Ice Art? Try an even stronger spell if you can!”

“I’m already using the Celestial level!” Weiyu replied grimly, eyes fixed on the monster.

It was the first time Huasheng had seen such severity in Weiyu’s face. Now he knew they were in real trouble. Weiyu herself was not trapped by the formation, but Huasheng and the Young Lord had nowhere to run.

Weiyu’s hands flicked, and the snow turned to icy blades that stabbed at the spider. The blades pierced its thick shell one after another, but before Huasheng could cheer, the ice knives slid off, leaving not even a scratch.

“What’s going on? I saw the ice pierce it!” Huasheng rubbed his eyes.

“You’re right. They did pierce it.”

“Then why isn’t it hurt? How did it heal so fast?”

“It didn’t heal,” Weiyu said. “It went back to one second ago.”

“One second ago? It can travel through time?”

“This String Cavern is bizarre. It’s filled with countless vortices of time. Any time we injure the spider, it reverts to how it was one second prior, unharmed. No offensive spell can harm it!”

“Then, Weiyu, you should go! Leave this to me and the Young Lord!” Huasheng began chanting every attack spell he could think of, ready for a desperate struggle.

“Don’t be ridiculous! If you’re here, how can I leave?” There was no room for argument in Weiyu’s tone.

“It’s too dangerous! I can’t let you risk your life!”

“Shut up!”

“Weiyu! I’m just a mortal. Even if I’ve taken celestial elixirs, I won’t live much longer! But you’re a spirit—your lifespan is hundreds, maybe thousands of years. If I die today, I lose a few decades. If you die, you lose a thousand years!” Huasheng shouted. “Don’t stay here—please, go!”

Weiyu turned, eyes rimmed red. “You fool! Is this really the time for such calculations?”

Suddenly, the Young Lord’s voice came from behind the spider: “Hey! Huasheng, there you go playing the hero again! Don’t act like some old man yelling ‘women and children first’ on a sinking ship.”

A figure leapt over the spider—The Young Lord of Supreme Heaven appeared midair, a flash of gold in his hand. He had snatched his earring from his left ear, which instantly transformed into the legendary swords Ganjiang and Moye.

In midair, he gripped both swords, vaulting gracefully over the spider’s back and landing before Huasheng and Weiyu. With a flourish, he spun the swords and declared, “Showtime! The correct line is: neither of you leaves—stay and watch as I deal with this beast!”

“Behold the true Sword Art of Celestial Taiji! This is hardcore celestial magic!” He released the swords, which floated and shot toward the spider. A volley of clangs rang out as the swords struck the spider’s armored head, sending sparks flying. The great beast was forced back by the relentless assault of the twin blades.

In this godlike display, Huasheng saw a glimmer of hope for escape from the String Cavern.

With Ganjiang and Moye barring its path, the Young Lord pressed his attack, his swordplay ever-shifting. Sometimes, as he neared the blades, he would seize Ganjiang from the air and pair it with the flying Moye; other times, he’d wield Moye and let Ganjiang dance as his partner. The divine swords became even his stepping stones, letting him soar and strike from above.

The twin blades, under his Celestial Taiji Sword Art, bloomed like lotus flowers, filling the cavern with dazzling light. This relentless chain of attacks forced the spider back dozens of steps.

After the final, thunderous assault, the Young Lord gripped Ganjiang with his right hand and directed the airborne Moye with his left. Moye, as if alive, spiraled in the air and plunged into one of the spider’s legs. As a crack split the limb, the Young Lord descended, wielding Ganjiang with both hands.

With a resounding chop, he severed one of the spider’s legs at the root.

Huasheng barely had time to cheer. As Weiyu had said, the severed leg dissolved into glowing motes and vanished, while on the spider’s body, the wound too began to glow, and the leg reformed as if nothing had happened.

No matter how they hacked away, the spider would always return to its state from a second ago, unscathed.

“Never taking a scratch—this is awkward,” the Young Lord quipped as he landed.

Weiyu said, “Defeating this thing will be incredibly difficult! Can we think of another way to subdue it?”

“I’ve got it. Fight time with time,” the Young Lord exclaimed, summoning his swords and plunging them into the ground. He ran over, gripped the hilts, and levered them to one side, prying up the energy strings embedded in the floor.

Huasheng immediately caught on. He rushed over, grabbed a glowing green energy string, and shouted, “Up!”

The string peeled from the ground like silk. Weiyu joined them, and together they pulled out a second and a third.

Each holding an energy string, the three cracked them like whips at the spider, each catching one of its legs. But with five razor-sharp legs free, the spider quickly sliced through the bindings.

The Young Lord tried again, using the swords to pin two of the spider’s feet and anchoring the strings to the floor. When all three pulled together, they managed to bind five legs. But as long as one foot was free, the spider could cut through the strings binding its other legs in a flash.

“We’re short on hands—counting the swords, we can only bind five legs. We need more people!” the Young Lord said in frustration.

Seeing that Ganjiang and Moye could only hold the spider so long, Huasheng suddenly had an idea. “I wonder if this will work,” he said.

“There’s only one way to find out,” the Young Lord replied, eager for a plan.

“These two sides are temporal wormholes. Entering either sends you back about half a minute. If we sprint through the wormhole faster than before, since part of the path is outside the wormhole, could we intercept our past selves?”

The Young Lord gaped. “Makes sense! Let me try!”

“I’m not sure it’ll be so easy,” Weiyu objected.

“Why not?” the Young Lord asked.

Weiyu replied, “You’re a celestial. Celestials and Buddhas exist beyond the Three Realms and Five Elements—past, present, and future, there can only be one of you. A celestial can’t travel to the past and become two people.”

“We won’t know till we try!” the Young Lord said, then immediately, breathlessly added, “Didn’t work.”

Huasheng realized from his tone that he’d already tried. The reason they hadn’t seen him run was because he’d traveled back to before he began the attempt.

“Each time I go, I should catch up to myself from half a minute ago. But as soon as I arrive, my past self just vanishes—I can’t intercept myself,” the Young Lord explained.

Weiyu said, “Only things made of matter can be caught through time. Only spirits and mortals like us, made of physical substance, can manage it.”

Yet Weiyu herself had already tried, but for some reason the wormhole rejected her.

So, in theory, only Huasheng could do it.

Huasheng didn’t hesitate. “Young Lord, I’ll need you to take me through the wormhole. You’re stronger than I am, so when we see the past me, use a binding spell to freeze him. Then we speed up, and freeze me again. Repeat this, faster each time, until we have enough people. Then release the spell and we’ll all rush the spider, binding it with the energy strings!”

The Young Lord glanced askance at the spider. Ganjiang and Moye could only hold it for so long, so he decided, “Alright! Let’s go!”

“It’s in your hands!”

“One, two, three—go!” they shouted, dashing toward the Bodhi Tree.

The Young Lord grabbed Huasheng by the collar and they raced forward, accelerating at each flash of light. With every pass, the Young Lord called out, “Freeze!”

At first, Huasheng could tell when he was in the real world and when he was in the wormhole. But after only a few runs, the lights flickered so rapidly he could barely keep up. He closed his eyes and pressed on, feeling himself lifted off the ground as their speed increased.

He couldn’t spare a thought for anything else. Just as before, passing through the time wormhole brought a splitting headache and strange hallucinations—images flickered through his mind like a slideshow: Weiyu standing with her back to a starry sky, tears streaming as she caressed his cheek; Weiyu, no longer in Daoist robes but a white wedding dress, holding a birthday cake; the Young Lord picking up a withered branch, burning his hand; a girl with ocean-blue eyes; a young monk in red robes. The scenes tangled and blurred, colors swirling together until only white light remained—and the pain.

“I can’t take it! Stop! My head’s going to split!” Huasheng suddenly collapsed, blinded by the pain.

“Are you alright?” he heard Weiyu ask, but everything was pitch black. Only after a few seconds did Weiyu’s face begin to emerge in his vision.

“My head hurts… Did it work? Are there enough of me?” he asked, clutching his head.

“We did it!”

Through blurred vision, Huasheng saw Weiyu’s concerned eyes. She pointed behind him with a slender finger.

“Huasheng, there are now seventy-two of you!”