The Spider's Lair
“It’s already been three months.”
“I know.”
The man with the vicious face and a scar running across it answered in a flat tone, then went back to tending his blade.
Three months of no results was more than enough time to make anyone anxious when they’d taken a commission.
“Is this really the right place?”
The younger man—who looked at least ten years his junior—chewed on a strip of dried jerky while staring at the distant entrance to Guya-rim.
Watching him, the scarred man set down his sword and slowly opened his mouth.
“We should head inside.”
“What?”
The younger man asked again, thinking he’d misheard, but it seemed he’d heard correctly after all.
“That’s Guya-rim over there. Haven’t you heard how infamous it is?”
“It’s a place where that greenhorn has lasted five months. Rumors are always exaggerated.”
“How are you going to avoid the surveillance? There are Tang Clan watch units guarding every path into Guya-rim. If we get caught by the Tangs, it won’t end with just us.”
The Tang Clan’s family motto was to repay kindness twofold and grudges tenfold. They would never tolerate anyone who dared touch their own.
Anyone who earned the Tang Clan’s enmity had to be careful even when eating, sleeping, or breathing. After all, hidden weapons could come flying from anywhere, or their food could be laced with poison.
That was exactly why even the Sapas and the Black Path factions avoided clashing with the Tang Clan. They were pragmatists who cared more about their own interests than about justification or face, unlike the righteous sects.
“You’re worried about entering Guya-rim, but assassinating a direct descendant is fine? If we get caught, we’ll earn the Tang Clan’s grudge either way.”
“Isn’t he just a good-for-nothing the clan already abandoned? Besides, the client is from the Tang Clan. If things go south, they’ll clean up the mess themselves to survive.”
“Hmm.”
It was a commission they normally would have refused, but the client possessed something they desperately needed.
“There’s only a month left anyway. Shouldn’t we just wait a little longer? Is it really worth risking our lives?”
“Hmph.”
But the scarred man could not accept that suggestion.
“We don’t have time.”
A carrier pigeon flew in from afar. A yellow slip of paper was tied to its ankle.
Yellow meant urgent.
At least it wasn’t red. That was something to be grateful for.
“Find us a way in.”
“Haa… We really got ourselves into it this time.”
The man’s deep sigh echoed quietly through the air.
“Hehehe.”
After achieving the Shipdok Shingong, Sanlong’s movements had grown far bolder.
It was because he could now explore deeper into the central region.
And in doing so, he had realized many things.
“There’s a tiger here.”
It had been a long time since he’d felt the fear of death again after that first day.
In the central region, traces of beasts that were rarely seen from the outer areas were scattered everywhere.
This was a place where even predators struggled to survive because of the poisonous insects and plants. The fact that something had managed to live here—not just anywhere, but in the very center—meant it was no ordinary creature.
‘It must be close to becoming a spiritual beast.’
He had also spotted monkeys, but they looked nothing like the ordinary ones people knew.
‘Look at the murderous aura in those eyes.’
The moment he stepped into their territory, they glared at him with the clear intent to attack if he took one more step. It made him instinctively avoid them.
“Whoa! I’m definitely not running away because I’m scared!”
While hypnotizing himself that he was absolutely not fleeing out of fear, he kept dodging those creatures and somehow ended up venturing even deeper.
“…I didn’t mean to come this far.”
Still, the area had neither beasts nor those vicious monkeys, so his mind felt a little more at ease.
“Wow~”
He discovered a spot so packed with poisonous herbs that he couldn’t help but gasp in admiration.
“Who needs a special encounter? This right here is a special encounter. Ow—!”
Suddenly, he felt something sting the back of his neck.
“What the…?”
He didn’t feel any particular abnormality in his body.
“Is this thanks to achieving the Shipdok Shingong?”
Dismissing it, Sanlong continued harvesting the poisonous herbs without much thought.
“Oh. Nice… Ebebebebe? Huh?”
What was this sudden numbness in his tongue? Was it from the herbs?
Then, a burning pain like fire erupted from the spot on his neck where he’d been stung. His face twisted involuntarily.
Even though he had consumed the poison of a hundred-year-old Eung-hyeol-sa and achieved the Shipdok Shingong, he felt as if his entire body was being consumed by flames.
‘Damn it! I can’t even scream!’
The numbness began at his fingertips and rapidly spread throughout his body.
‘Son of a—! It’s paralyzing poison!’
And it wasn’t ordinary paralyzing poison, either.
If he hadn’t consumed the Eung-hyeol-sa poison and reached the Shipdok Shingong, he would have stopped breathing and died instantly.
‘Get a grip!’
He tried to circulate the Shipdok Shingong to calm the situation, but it only made his mind clearer, allowing him to feel the abnormalities in his body even faster.
His consciousness was intact, but his body wouldn’t move. A truly terrifying state.
‘…I let my guard down.’
He had grown too complacent after achieving the Shipdok Shingong.
This wasn’t the ordinary Guya-rim. This was the central region.
‘Move! Move, damn it!’
He tried desperately to move his fingers and toes first.
‘…Shit!’
Thud!
Sanlong’s body collapsed onto the ground like a rotten log.
‘Should I consider myself lucky that the paralysis makes it hurt less?’
He tried to think positively, but it was hard to change the grim reality.
‘Hoo……’
The only part of his body that still obeyed him was his eyes. He rolled them around.
He wanted to see exactly what had done this to him.
‘Heuk-shi-bong.’
A small wasp with a paralyzing poison that made the victim’s body stiff like a corpse. That was why it had earned such a terrifying name.
It was small for something living in Guya-rim, but its poison was every bit as horrifying as its name suggested.
‘Hoo… Let’s focus slowly.’
He tried to slowly resist the paralyzing poison using the Shipdok Shingong.
‘It’s moving!’
But his limbs felt as powerless as a patient suffering from lethargy.
‘That’s definitely my hand.’
Shaking off the bizarre sensation that it felt like someone else’s hand, Sanlong circulated his energy once more.
‘So that’s why I didn’t see any traces of the bigger beasts.’
Because even worse things lived here.
‘Is it night already?’
Had he been lying there longer than he thought? The world suddenly seemed to grow dark.
‘No way!’
He couldn’t see clearly, but his instincts screamed danger.
Shaaak.
At that moment, spider silk wrapped around Sanlong’s body.
‘Damn it!’
His entire body was rapidly being bound by the threads.
‘Stay calm! It hasn’t killed me yet!’
They say even if you’re dragged into a tiger’s den, you can survive if you keep your wits about you. Besides, something similar had happened in his previous life.
‘With a body this big, it’s no ordinary spider. I keep running into spiritual beasts ever since I came to Guya-rim.’
The first had been the Eung-hyeol-sa, and the second was this lord of the web.
‘Focus… Circulate the Shipdok Shingong.’
Even to escape, Sanlong continued operating his internal energy.
Before long, he was completely wrapped up and dragged off somewhere.
‘Hoo… This feeling. It’s been a while.’
He had been captured by spider-type monsters in his previous life as well, so the experience wasn’t unfamiliar, but it was hardly a welcome one.
‘Still, I came prepared.’
Fortunately, his limbs had still been movable before he was completely wrapped, so he had managed to grab a black obsidian hidden weapon in advance.
‘Slowly. Slowly.’
Scrape. Scrape.
Using the razor-sharp obsidian weapon, Sanlong carefully cut through the spider silk.
‘This stuff is ridiculously tough.’
To need this much time even with an edge as sharp as a razor blade… It really wasn’t an ordinary spider.
‘At least a hundred years… Maybe even a thousand… Its inner core… Hoo, get a hold of yourself. I can’t handle that right now. First, survive.’
For a moment he indulged in the sweet fantasy of how much his internal energy would rise if he ate its core, but fighting a hundred—no, a thousand-year-old spider lord in his current condition would be suicide.
‘Get out first. I’ll come back and catch it after I get stronger.’
Slice. Slice.
It took him half a shichen to free both arms.
“Aargh!”
Thump!
Finally free from the cocoon, Sanlong felt as if his entire body had been hammered.
Rubbing his tingling limbs, he examined his surroundings.
“Ha… Damp and humid. The perfect environment for spiders to live in.”
He hadn’t known there was a place like this so deep inside Guya-rim. He was curious, but there were more important things right now.
‘Hmm.’
Sanlong slowly searched for an exit.
It was too dark to see inside properly, so he kept his right hand on the wall and walked forward blindly.
‘I don’t know when that thing will come back.’
He had no idea when the creature that had gone out hunting would return.
As he felt his way along the wall, something brushed against Sanlong’s hand.
‘Moss? I’ll take it for now.’
If it was moss growing in the territory of a spider that was close to becoming a spiritual beast, it probably wasn’t ordinary moss.
Moreover, this was a place where not a single ray of light entered.
There were more than enough factors for it to become a spiritual herb.
‘The presence of a spiritual beast means the area is full of natural energy. So this moss might not be simple moss either.’
With that rather reasonable deduction, Sanlong stuffed the moss into his ragged clothes.
How long had he been walking? Sanlong discovered a dead end. When he looked up at the ceiling, he saw a small speck of light.
“Whoa… The height……”
It seemed the spider used this passage to come and go.
“Hoo.”
Climbing cliffs had become routine for him, so Sanlong operated his Sadokjo and began scaling the wall step by step.
If there was one thing he had done best since coming to Guya-rim, it was training his external arts diligently.
Using the bare minimum of internal energy, Sanlong eventually crawled out of the pit.
“Man… The scenery’s not bad. But… this is a bit much, isn’t it?”
After climbing one cliff, another cliff stood right in front of him.
Only now did he understand why it had seemed so high.
While filling his hunger with the moss, Sanlong surveyed his surroundings. Something caught his eye.
“Spider silk……”
It was the entrance to a spider’s lair, so of course it was covered in webs.
Wondering if he could make use of it, Sanlong gathered a suitable amount of spider silk.
“It’s moderately sticky. Then… if I twist it like this……”
Thanks to the perfect level of stickiness, the silk wove together nicely when he rubbed it between both hands.
“Oh! Oh!”
Whoosh! Whoosh!
It felt like a light rope. This time he secured the silk to a rocky outcrop and tested it with his weight.
“This is pretty good stuff?”
It had a decent amount of elasticity but didn’t break easily.
“Right… like this… like this.”
After wrapping it around his body, twisting it, pulling on it, and even biting it, he discovered one thing.
Unless it was cut with something sharp and focused, it wouldn’t break easily.
“This isn’t the time to be happy about it.”
The joy of discovering something new lasted only a moment. Sanlong’s face quickly hardened.
“This means it’s no ordinary spider, right?”
Just from the silk, he realized the creature was at least one or two hundred years old.
‘I almost died for real.’
So he would never come this way again, Sanlong thoroughly memorized the terrain around the spider’s lair.
“Let’s take some more.”
After gathering plenty of both the moss and the spider silk, Sanlong slowly descended the towering cliff.
“Ugh……”
Looking even more like a beggar than when he had escaped the spider’s lair, Sanlong trudged back toward his hiding place where a warm bed awaited.
Today he was going to skip training, skip everything, and just collapse and sleep.
“Hm…?”
On his way to the hiding place, Sanlong noticed something strange.
“Huh?”
The traps he had set up to prepare for both beasts and the assassins hired by Eon Jungmi had been triggered.
Sanlong carefully examined the traces.
‘A beast? No… This is definitely a person.’
The traces were too neat to belong to a beast.
What did he mean? The signs clearly showed that someone had approached with extreme caution.
If it had been a beast, the marks would have been much rougher.
‘This is exactly how those looters left traces in my previous life.’
In the Gates, you had to watch out for monsters, but the truly dangerous ones were humans.
Even as their species marched toward extinction, there were people who killed other humans and stole their items just to satisfy their own greed.
‘Is this an assassin sent by Eon Jungmi?’
If they were skilled enough to enter Guya-rim, they wouldn’t be ordinary.
‘Shall I move according to the plan?’
Sanlong had made various preparations and devised multiple strategies in case Eon Jungmi sent assassins.
One of them was creating a secondary hiding spot near the main one.
It was only a makeshift shelter, not a properly built one, but it offered a clear view of where he usually stayed, allowing him to see who the intruder was.
‘Alright… Who are you? Let me see your face.’
As the sun set behind the mountain ridge, the shadowed face of the intruder slowly came into view.