Human-Faced Spider

Darkshadow Mountain Ghost steadied his breathing.

Sweat now ran down his face, unlike before.

How long had it been since he moved this much?

When the fight began, he hadn’t expected it to go this far.

Even his breath wasn’t what it used to be.

‘…I’ve grown lax.’

He chided himself.

If he made it back, he’d resume cultivation.

‘To do that, I need to finish him first.’

He looked at Gyo-ha, crouched like a beast.

His wounds were deep, but his eyes still shone.

It wasn’t the gaze of someone who had given up.

But it didn’t matter.

No amount of thrashing would change the outcome.

He thrust both hands toward Gyo-ha.

Then he noticed something odd.

Despite the wounds, Gyo-ha’s breathing was steady.

‘A monstrous body.’

It wasn’t just raw strength.

As he closed in, Gyo-ha punched out.

Darkshadow Mountain Ghost slipped past it easily.

In that instant—

“Was it… like this?”

His fist opened, stabbing for Darkshadow Mountain Ghost’s throat.

A move from his exclusive art, Ink Blood Claw.

“You wretch.”

He tilted his torso and shot his hand again.

Gyo-ha did the same.

Fingers darted for each other’s vital points.

Their fingers collided.

Naturally, Gyo-ha was shoved back.

He clicked his tongue at his broken thumb and forefinger.

“As expected, not easy.”

A small murmur.

But Darkshadow Mountain Ghost’s eyes twitched watching him.

Crude as it was, Gyo-ha had used his martial art.

His gaze skimmed Gyo-ha’s hands.

Tempered hands.

But hands trained for fists, not claws.

‘…It can’t be some other claw technique.’

His eyes wouldn’t be fooled.

Those movements were unmistakably Ink Blood Claw.

‘How in the—…’

Then their eyes met.

Deep, unwavering eyes.

He saw an alien glint within.

‘He saw, and learned it?’

That was absurd, but the only explanation.

He wasn’t merely imitating.

He grasped not just the form but the intent.

Only then did he realize:

Gyo-ha’s scariest gift wasn’t inhuman strength or tireless stamina.

It was those eyes.

Those eyes were the true terror.

“You must die here.”

Anyone would think the same.

To be able to learn an opponents martial arts just by seeing?

No, it was more than learning.

He recalled that coordinated assault Gyo-ha had shown.

‘…He’s not just learning, he’s unpicking them.’

Such a thing shouldn’t exist in Murim.

His eyes cooled.

His hands grew more ruthless.

Blood spattered from his arm at Gyo-ha’s counter, but he didn’t care.

He hounded Gyo-ha’s vital points.

Pressed like that, Gyo-ha struggled.

He kept giving ground.

Then one foot felt hollow beneath him.

Tududuk.

As his body tilted, pebbles fell—he’d been pushed to the cliff’s edge.

He tried to reset his stance, but Darkshadow Mountain Ghost was faster.

“Don’t even think it.”

He kicked out Gyo-ha’s other foot.

Gyo-ha slid backward.

But he barely held.

His toes dug into earth. His toes had punched through the leather.

He held on with his toes, not his feet.

More than half his body hung over the void.

Darkshadow Mountain Ghost looked dumbfounded.

“You really are a beast.”

He had to revise his thinking.

He’d thought his eyes were most dangerous, but that body was no less so.

“But this works.”

If he fell, it would nag at him.

He would never have believed it until he saw a corpse.

In the martial world, you survive by trusting only your eyes.

But since he was clinging here, he could finish him off cleanly.

“Now there’s nowhere for you to run.”

He gathered his fingers into points.

A baleful haze rose at the tips.

He shot out at Gyo-ha’s head.

Gyo-ha yanked up his shackle, but the fingers carved through and kept going.

The shackle split and flew.

He couldn’t brace properly anyway.

Just as the fingers were about to pierce his head, Gyo-ha’s head dropped out of sight.

‘How?’

Looking down, he saw why.

Both feet were in the air.

He’d let himself fall.

But he didn’t just drop.

His palm shot for Darkshadow Mountain Ghost’s ankle.

‘Fool.’

Darkshadow Mountain Ghost scoffed and swung for his wrist.

With his qi-hardened hand-blade, he could easily slice through Gyo-ha’s wrist, which was no longer protected by an iron shackle.

But Gyo-ha wasn’t done.

“Hup!”

His other fist smashed the cliff.

KWA-GA-GANG!

At the same time, Gyo-ha seized Darkshadow Mountain Ghost’s ankle.

It all happened at once.

Darkshadow Mountain Ghost’s hand-blade which was meant for his wrist merely slit his forearm.

His balance had broken.

At that moment, Darkshadow Ghost Mountain, and Gyo-ha’s eyes met.

Gyo-ha grinned.

Darkshadow Mountain Ghost’s view flipped.

Blue sky.

Beyond it, the cliff began to crumble.

‘Lunatic!’

He cursed inwardly as they plunged.

---

Even while falling, Gyo-ha’s mind stayed cool.

He hadn’t jumped without a plan.

There had been a small waterfall.

Then that meant that there should be a pool.

‘A lake would be best.’

No—even a river would do.

If he sacrificed both hands, he’d be able to survive.

‘The rest, I’ll leave to recovery.’

As the ground rushed up, he saw he was wrong.

Brown earth appeared.

There was nothing but stone and dirt everywhere.

If he landed there, it wouldn’t just be his arms.

Punching the cliff had been a bad move.

It had pushed him too far out.

Then a glint of blue flickered at the edge of sight.

There was no time to check.

He twisted midair.

And he kicked the halved shackle falling beside him.

PUNG!

The air burst.

Normally, it would be the shackle that would’ve flown.

But—

Flying Dragon Chasing Lightning.

One of Kunlun’s footwork techniques.

Footwork is a way of walking.

Lightening the body to move faster than others is lightness skill.

Conversely, one could make the body heavy to add power or let an opponent’s attack flow past them.

Either way, it stayed within “walking.”

But Flying Dragon Chasing Lightning was different.

Just a single step.

It was a footwork technique made solely to shoot one upward in a single step.

One step for ascension.

Gyo-ha’s body fired like lightning.

But someone caught him.

Darkshadow Mountain Ghost glared, clutching him.

He wouldn’t let him go alone.

His resolve burned in his eyes.

Together they plunged into a pool.

---

They sank deep.

The pool was deeper than expected.

It was deep enough to spare his hands.

Relieved, he then sensed something wrong.

He was still being pulled down.

‘Too deep—…’

His body was dragged somewhere.

The water currents tossed him around.

As the wound tore open and blood mixed together, even keeping his body upright was a struggle

Through the tumbling, he saw a shaft of light.

A big rock gleamed within it.

‘Land.’

Or close enough.

Fortunately the current ran that way.

As the rock loomed, he drove in his fingers.

It was the Ink Blood Claw he had learned from Darkshadow Mountain Ghost.

He climbed up, sinking his fingers in.

The current battered his back, but he didn’t stop.

Only after a long climb did he break water.

He flopped onto the stone.

“Haaah.”

As air filled his shriveled lungs, pain followed.

He’d come up in a large cavern.

A small hole gaped above.

Sunlight fell through it.

“…I can’t move a finger.”

He’d never been this exhausted, not even sparring with his master.

‘So Master never pushed me to death’s edge.’

He felt the warmth of his Master anew.

This time, death had climbed to his chin.

Splash.

Gyo-ha heard the sound of water splashing.

But it was different from before.

Turning his head, he saw a black hand rising from the water.

Then, Darkshadow Mountain Ghost surfaced after.

Hair wild, he lived up to his title, looking like a ghost.

He shot Gyo-ha a chilling look.

“I’ll grind you up and drink you.”

Having climbed onto land, Darkshadow Mountain Ghost staggered onto a stone.

His condition wasn’t fine either.

One arm dangled to his side.

It was broken by the current, yet he was still better off than Gyo-ha.

Gyo-ha groaned upright.

Even raising his torso was hard.

Him not being able to move a finger hadn’t been an exaggeration.

Cold sweat poured just from standing.

Then he noticed something odd and raised a hand.

It wasn’t only wounds and fatigue.

Something sticky clung to him.

It was the same for Darkshadow Mountain Ghost.

As Gyo-ha stepped, Darkshadow Mountain Ghost frowned at his soles.

“Thread?”

Layers of thin strands.

But normal thread wasn’t this sticky.

Sasa-sak.

Both of them looked up.

A low sound escaped them.

Numerous shapes writhed in the dark.

The light reflected from the water revealed them.

Spiders.

Scores of spiders clung to the ceiling.

Many were larger than Gyo-ha’s head.

It wasn’t just the ceiling. The walls and floor were crawling with them too.

Then the thread’s nature clicked.

They were webbing they had spun.

What he’d thought was white rock was webbing covering the whole floor.

“Oh.”

Gyo-ha looked intrigued; Darkshadow Mountain Ghost went rigid.

Spiders were carnivores.

They barely recognized kin.

They devoured siblings—and parent and child.

Their territoriality was fierce.

And these weren’t one species, but many different ones were mixed together.

They preyed on each other, yet even that wasn’t normal here.

Not normal often meant dangerous.

Sure enough, the spiders stirred.

Then a face appeared beyond the dark.

‘A person?’

Yet it looked too big for that.

And too low.

Long poles moved in the dark.

When it stepped out, both Gyo-ha and Darkshadow Mountain Ghost caught their breath.

It was a giant spider.

A spider that was bigger than a man. It was the size of a small-storehouse—with a face like a person’s.

The face was twisted in rage.

And there was another face on its abdomen.

A smiling face.

It was an utterly grotesque being.

Its name ripped from Darkshadow Mountain Ghost like a scream.

“Human-Faced Spider!”

“Human-Faced Spider?”

Hearing the name for the first time, Gyo-ha tilted his head.

Then he marveled at the thought of such a creature existing.

“Why would such a fiendish thing be here…”

It wasn’t just its look. Its presence was also dreadful.

He edged back.

But behind him was only swirling water.

To flee, he’d have to climb up.

‘…It’s not that high.’

The hole above could fit a grown man.

But something else had noticed Darkshadow Mountain Ghost’s plan.

“KIEEEEEEE!”

With a hideous screech, the Human-Faced Spider charged at him.