The moment Zizhu came into view, Wu Lianlei paled. Although she had read about the demoness before, she never expected to see her in person! In the novel, the spider demoness had remained trapped in the temple while the protagonists rescued its victims from outside. Qi Yuan had then reinforced the seal on the building while Wu Yelin and Li Hanlan had frozen the demoness inside in a ball of water, leaving her for the sect elders to deal with later.

But they'd only used a decoy disciple in that timeline--a creation of qi that Qi Yuan had fashioned up and made dissipate later. With Li Hanlan as hostage, it was only natural that he'd fight his way out. The problem was, she didn't know how they were going to defeat the demoness now.

Once again, Wu Lianlei bemoaned her fate. Her senior brother didn't cherish her enough to make a deal with the Yin Yang Clan to create a decoy disciple. Her senior sister was so confident in her skills that she even encouraged Wu Lianlei to be bait to "enrich" her cultivation experience. Now look--Li Hanlan had gotten kidnapped, the spider demoness had escaped, and everyone was fighting face to face instead of from safely behind a wall!

"It's fine Lei Lei, just stay behind me!" Wu Yelin had already moved to step in front of her sister as soon as she noticed Wu Lianlei's ashen expression.

Next to them, Qi Yuan took out his meteor hammers from his spatial storage bag while Li Hanlan...picked up the giant statue and set it by their side.

"What's the plan?" Qi Yuan asked him.

Li Hanlan shook his head. "I'm thinking of one now."

"Why didn't you think one up before you came out?" Wu Yelin asked.

Li Hanlan only made an expression of disdain as his eyes flickered to Zizhu. "She was being too clingy."

"...." Wu Lianlei couldn't believe it. Aren't you the one who goes charming every living thing that sets its eyes on you?

Sensing her thoughts, Li Hanlan tilted his head at her. "She's also evil."

"....." So you only flirt with members of righteous sects?

Li Hanlan furrowed his brows at Wu Lianlei's deadpan stare before muttering, "This one's not my type."

"....." So if she was, you'd flirt with her too?

"...she'll never be my type."

Wu Lianlei only stared at him harder. Are you sure you're not a mind reader?!

"Look sharp!" Qi Yuan barked as he swung his weapon through a thick, sticky thread that shot their way.

The time for talk was over. Fighting was more important now!

Wu Yelin used her twin swords to slice through the spider threads, Wu Lianlei did the same with Beilei, and Li Hanlan--ducked behind the statue, which repelled all webbing shot its way. Qi Yuan, Wu Yelin, and Wu Lianlei exchanged glances before running to hide with him.

"What's this thing made of?" Wu Yelin asked quickly.

"It's the anchor holding the seal in place," Li Hanlan replied. "There's wood energy coming from its core, enough to overpower that spider."

"Wood?" Wu Yelin blinked. "It's obviously a big rock statue! How's that--" Her words were cut off as a large chunk of rubble came flying past, missing her shoulder by inches.

"I've said it before, don't think I can't touch you just because I can't get close!" Zizhu shrieked. The quartet peeked out and saw that she was tearing off pieces of the temple and tossing them helter skelter towards them.

"Barrier!" Li Hanlan shouted at the same time Qi Yuan stomped the ground with his foot. Immediately, a wall of earth rose from below, catching the pieces of roofing and other chunks flying their way. Zizhu hissed and sent one of her tendrils of web against the wall. Immediately, it grew against the earth in a spiderweb pattern, cracking the surface of the dirt like glass.

"I don't think I can hold up against her!" Qi Yuan warned as the wall before them threatened to crumble. Even though he and Zizhu were both earth cultivators, the demoness's level overpowered his own.

"Yelin, fortify it!" Li Hanlan barked out orders.

"Right!" Wu Yelin sheathed her ice sword to place both hands on her flaming one. "Hiyahh!" Multiple strikes of flame hit the barrier, heating it up with fire and sizzling away the tendrils of web on the other side.

"Lianlei, get me a vine for this statue!" Li Hanlan shouted next, and Wu Lianlei quickly tossed a seed onto the stone figure. With a simple burst of qi, it burst into greenery around the statue. Some of the excess Wood energy that she'd channeled from the barrier had lingered in her body, enough to give her a temporary boost.

"Water!" Li Hanlan shouted next, and Wu Yelin flawlessly took out her second sword to direct a stream straight towards the sound of his voice. Using his innate ice manipulation skills, Li Hanlan was able to guide the liquid towards the vine on the statue, thus speeding up its growth. Meanwhile, Qi Yuan used the extra protection provided by Wu Yelin's flame to increase the length of the earthen wall until it stretched across the sealed in space.

Fire beget Earth, and Water beget Wood. Using the logic of the five elements, they were able to bolster each others' strengths!

But really, you have to thank the female lead for her raw power, Wu Lianlei thought as she encouraged her vine to grow. Wu Yelin was like a portable battery pack, powering up both Qi Yuan and herself!

Sensing a ploy at play, Zizhu narrowed her eyes. "Pretty boy, we shouldn't build up walls in our relationships!"

"Are you sure you didn't flirt with her?" Wu Lianlei blurted out. She was certain the spider demoness hadn't been quite so coquettish in the novel. Or was that because the demoness had never gotten a chance to see Li Hanlan's face?

Actually, I haven't either thanks to his mask...

"Wu Lianlei, this isn't the time!"

Meanwhile, Qi Yuan was now working on growing his earth wall to the top of the barrier dome. If they could pin the spider demoness on one side, it'd be easier to deal with her. Of course, Zizhu wouldn't wait long enough for him to finish. With an impressive push from her eight legs, she launched herself off the ruins of the roof and straight at them!

"Everyone, duck!" Li Hanlan cried out. On cue, the rest of the trio fell to their knees as he tugged at the thick vine in his hands--the same one now wrapped tightly around the stone statue. With his strength, it lurched into the air like a bird, then went flying at Zizhu like a slingshot!

Seconds before impact, the spider demoness's form shimmered and turned into a cloud of static. No, wait. As Wu Lianlei looked closer, she realized that the creature had suddenly morphed into thousands upon thousands of smaller, individual spiders! The statue went soaring right through the haze, repelling the tiny bodies harmlessly to one side as it crashed into the roof of the temple behind it. Li Hanlan gave it a tug, but the thing was stuck tight.

"Ah, they're falling down!" Wu Yelin was the first to cry out. Like tiny paratroopers, the crowd of spiders were coasting easily past the earth wall to rain down on the other side. She sliced a few with her swords, but they only soaked or singed the creatures instead of causing any real damage.

Li Hanlan knitted his brows before abandoning the vine to throw a handful of talismans into the air. "Solidify!"

A fine disc of ice materialized into place above their heads, forming a physical barrier between them and the rain of arachnids. The first few spiders who hit the makeshift roof immediately froze on impact, temporarily buying them some time.

"Lei Lei, do you have any wood attacks to deal with this?" Wu Yelin asked.

Wu Lianlei bit her lip. She had elemental advantage against Zizhu, but the problem was that her level was still too low. Even then, she didn't have a attack to deal with thousands of tiny spiders. She could grow all the vines she want--even insect eating ones--but not something that could devour all of their enemies at once!

Although she prepared as much as possible for this mission, she wasn't ready for a face-off with the enemy. Nowhere in the book did it mention Zizhu changing her form, because she was never supposed to escape in the first place.

"There's too many of them," she burst out. "I can't get them all at the same time!"

"And they seem to be one body despite moving independently," Qi Yuan observed as another crowd of falling spiders escaped Wu Yelin's attacks unscathed. "Taking down the individuals won't work, we need to destroy the entire swarm some way."

Meanwhile, Li Hanlan was knitting his brows at the barrier. Some of the frozen spiders had eaten their way through their shells and were slowly working on devouring the rest of the shield. Earth was naturally strong against water, but ice was a close second place. As the superior cultivator, it was a piece of cake for Zizhu to break free.

"Pretty boy~" the spider demoness's voice rang out in a series of echoing tinnies, terribly distracting. "Are you giving me dessert? How sweet!"

"If we could break out of the barrier and look for help--" Qi Yuan began, but Wu Yelin rejected him flatly.

"No! This is the only thing keeping her trapped. We don't want to let her out with us!"

Li Hanlan nodded grimly. "As a lower tier eighth rank, nobody with us would be a match for her in combat. Worse still, she could choose to run and cause more trouble elsewhere."

"What about sending a message or letting others in?" Wu Lianlei asked desperately.

Li Hanlan shook his head. "The moment anyone enlarges the opening is the second Zizhu finds a chance to escape!"

"Well, if we can't kill her or call for help, what can we do?" Wu Yelin asked. "At this rate, we'll all end up as spider fodder!"

Li Hanlan hesitated. Then there was a splinter as a piece of his ice barrier cracked. He looked up to see one of the spiders dangling its legs through a tiny hole in the surface and narrowed his eyes. A fresh blast of ice emerged from his fingertips, freezing the thing motionless as his expression grew grim.

"There is one way."

"Hurry up and tell us!" Wu Yelin pressed.

Li Hanlan looked towards the stone statue still buried in the roof. "If we destroy the anchor by force, there's a chance it'll collapse this space and trap everything in it indefinitely."

The anchor point for a barrier space not only maintained the seal, but also created an effective pocket dimension removed from the outside world. It followed the same logic as space storage rings or bags of holding that cultivators liked to carry around for their tools. If a ring or bag was destroyed, the space it contained would collapse. However, those items had mechanisms built in to expel its contents after its destruction. Demon sealing arrays like this one showed no such mercy, and would strand its prisoners in a separate, isolated space.

Wu Lianlei paled visibly at the words, while Wu Yelin turned incredulous. "That's insane!"

"It's the best I can come up with now!" Li Hanlan snapped back.

"What about you?" Wu Yelin turned towards Qi Yuan. "Does the Yin Yang Sect have any solutions for problems like these?"

Despite their circumstances, Qi Yuan remained oddly calm. Or maybe his face was simply incapable of expressing emotions. "Nothing I divined suggested a fatal end here."

"How many of your divinations are accurate?" Li Hanlan asked cooly.

"I can't say," Qi Yuan admitted. "The one before my journey was the first I ever did."

"Talking is great, but we're running out of time," Wu Lianlei chimed in. "The spiders have reached the ground!"

All of them looked at their feet to the tiny masses of creatures carpeting the earth as a teeming, seething mass. Once again, Qi Yuan stomped the ground, causing the dirt around them to shudder. Moments later, they were ascending to the air on a growing pillar of earth with Li Hanlan's ice shield rising along above their heads. A few stray spiders fell off the slippery edge and tried to shoot webbing at the earth pillar or their clothes, but were knocked away.

"For now, just gather around the statue," Li Hanlan said. "It's the only thing keeping these pests away!"

As the pillar rose above their wall of earth, the temple and statue came into sight. With a push, Li Hanlan sent his ice disc soaring high into the air until it crashed against the wood element barrier, trapping the spiders on top against it. "Hurry!"

Wu Lianlei summoned her vine from the statue until it flew towards the earth pillar and took root in its sides. She then stepped on the plant and ran lightly across its surface--a straight route to the statue. Wu Yelin threw her swords into the air and opted to fly the distance, while Li Hanlan executed a series of impressive aerial flips and Qi Yuan hopped over the wall and down its other side, seemingly surfing on the dirt.

The four of them would have made for a spectacular show of elemental prowess if the situation wasn't so dire. Of course, with such an obvious goal in their sights, Zizhu didn't stay idle, either.

Being the one with the most direct route, Wu Lianlei reached the temple first. But as soon as she set foot on the edge of the roof, it collapsed beneath her! There was a low rumble as a huge hole opened up in the earth, swallowing the statue above it whole! It would have gulped down Wu Lianlei as well had her vine not reacted in time to catch her and wrap around the surviving structures of the temple as ballast. She ended up clutching the plant as she swayed above a dark abyss with no sign of the statue in sight.

"Lei Lei!" Wu Lianlei touched down almost at the same time as Li Hanlan as both of them reached out a hand. "Are you alright?!"

"I'm...I'm fine." Between her pounding heartbeat and the cold sweat that had broken out on her back, she would rather be hiding under her bedcovers right now. Yet she grabbed them both to pull herself up. "But...the statue..."

"What's going on up there?" Qi Yuan called from behind them. He had stopped short of the temple as soon as he heard the noise coming from inside. "It doesn't sound good."

"The statue's fallen into some kind of pit!" Wu Yelin called back. "Can you bring it back up with your powers?"

"I'll need to take a look." As Qi Yuan spoke, he began scaling the temple walls. Meanwhile, Wu Lianlei was still staring into the hole. For some reason, her hairs were standing on end. The chill that had started in her back was now pooling into her stomach as a low, existential dread.

"Yelin..." she began, soft at first, and then more urgent. "Yelin, look!"

Wu Yelin's head whipped back as she pressed her hand against Wu Lianlei's shoulder. "What is it, what's wrong?"

"Down there..." Wu Lianlei pointed a shaking finger at the darkness beneath. "For a second, I saw it..."

"There's something else inside..."

Ruyi

Hello, hello! Going to start organizing all the peeps we've met so far in an official glossary soon, so check back for that!