An invisible domain expanded, and immediately, Li Qingshan’s struggle slowed down. If it were not for his experience with Dragonsnail’s ambush, he would have been stumped for a moment as to what had happened.
This was not merely an issue of speed. When his thought process slowed down, he struggled to enter a state of mental intricacy, which prevented him from unleashing the limits of his strength. As the circulation of his daemon qi slowed down, the Spirit Turtle Suppresses the Seas lost the pressure from before. Although he could still maintain it, the spider web gradually recovered its original shape, no longer sagging downwards anymore.
Lolth followed the principle of doing everything she could to kill her prey. There was no concept of a fair battle. Right from the beginning, she had gotten Dragonsnail to hide in the surroundings so that he could strike at any time, to prevent Li Qingshan from fleeing with the wings of wind if he refused to enter the web.
Li Qingshan immediately understood why the spirit turtle’s daemon core warned him of such great danger. Dragonsnail’s innate ability was truly strange and powerful. A clash between the powerful could be decided in a single moment. If his speed suddenly decreased by thirty percent, he would become a sitting duck.
“Let’s see what other moves you have!”
Lolth stared at Li Qingshan viciously, only to discover he had become overjoyed instead of surprised, breaking into great laughter.
“What are you laughing for?” Lolth asked in bewilderment, but she did not slow down at all as she repaired the net.
“I’m laughing at you for bringing about your own doom. If you hadn’t called someone else, I’d really be quite embarrassed!”
As soon as Li Qingshan finished speaking, there were several rumbles, and the earth flew into the air. Twenty-one Skull Prayer Beads emerged together from all directions of the cavern, turning into huge, vicious Skeleton Demons in the air. Their sharp teeth chattered together like eerie laughter as their eye sockets all burned with pure-white flames. They ignored everything else, directly tearing at the web.
Lolth’s expression changed. She could not sense the presence of the Skeleton Demons, but a dangerous, terrifying aura clearly enveloped her.
With a flash, she had already arrived behind a Skeleton Demon. She raised her leg and swept it violently, directly sending the Skeleton Demon flying and crashing into the wall loudly.
In that instant, her figure appeared at various locations of the web, like over a dozen clones had appeared. The whip moved with her, dancing like a venomous dragon.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Like a string of thunder, the huge Skeleton Demons were sent flying by her as if they could not pose a threat to her at all.
However, the Skeleton Demon she had kicked away first had already emerged from the wall, persevering with the destruction of the web without the slightest injury.
The Skeleton Demons that the whip had sent flying all climbed up as well. They were riddled with dark marks, but the marks actually seemed like they were unable to seep any deeper. Singed by the Samādhi Flames of White Bone, the toxins had been purged.
“What are these!?”
Lolth’s expression became uglier and uglier. These were the skeleton monsters under the influence of Dragonsnail’s ability. They had already become much more sluggish. If they managed to recover their original speed, how vicious would they be?
The Skeleton Demons climbed up tirelessly, destroying the web. Lolth darted around and not a single Skeleton Demon could withstand a strike from her.
However, she rapidly depleted her daemon qi. She began showing signs of exhaustion before long, and her breathing became rather ragged.
Cling! Clang! Clung! Cling! The threads snapped one by one.
Li Qingshan could move his arms now. Lolth suddenly looked back, and her gaze burned with spite.
“Do you think just summoning these monsters will let you escape?”
She actually stopped worrying about the web entirely. The poisonous whip extended over. The power of the net still subdued him, and under the influence of Dragonsnail’s ability, he obviously could not react in time. The whip wrapped around him firmly.
Li Qingshan let out a sigh. There sure was a lot of binding and tying in this battle, all kinds of S&M play!
As long as I break out of the encirclement of these bone monsters and take him out of this region of water, I’ll still have the upper hand! Lolth dragged Li Qingshan away with this thought in mind.
Boom!
A huge snail shell smashed through the rock and fell into the cavern. There were markings that corresponded to a large swathe of cracks on the side of the snail shell, having been smashed in forcefully.
“Dragonsnail!” Lolth suddenly raised her head.
“Save me, ma’am Spider Queen!” Dragonsnail was fear-stricken. He had completely lost his usual calmness and composure. He had hid so well, so he never expected to still be discovered. However, he was not afraid of being discovered. He was afraid of the enemy’s strength.
A white figure appeared with a flash. A crystalline skeleton chased after Dragonsnail, stepping on his shell and thrusting the white bone sword deeply into the crack before surging out with Samādhi Flames of White Bone and setting him ablaze in a glorious manner.
As soon as Dragonsnail began howling, he seemed to be frozen, unable to produce another sound again.
Xiao An raised her right hand, and the twenty-one Skeleton Demons turned back into twenty-one Skull Prayer Beads.
Lolth could see that the situation was unfavourable, so she wanted to flee with Li Qingshan, but having been slowed down, the Skull Prayer Beads shot towards her. They were like planets among the galaxies that travelled along their own trajectories, yet conforming to an unchanging rule.
Eighteen of the Skull Prayer Beads were already enough for a formation. Xiao An originally planned to use it against Bloodshadow, but she never got around to it. Now, she finally used it on Lolth, and there were twenty-one beads this time, making them even more powerful.
The Skull Prayer Beads changed in shape again, turning into cartwheels-sized skulls that sprayed out the Samādhi Flames of White Bone.
Lolth felt like she was in great danger. She used her daemon qi to block the Samādhi Flames of White Bone and advanced boldly, swinging her hand to knock a skull away. If she had not moved, then so be it, but now that she did, all of the Skull Prayer Beads began to revolve rapidly.
Immediately, two skulls blocked her path and three skulls slammed towards her viciously, as if an invisible thread strung all the Skull Prayer Beads together, setting off a chain reaction.
Lolth was fast, but she was unable to break free so easily. Her pupils coldened and eight rings appeared. Through her eyes, the Skull Prayer Beads immediately slowed down, allowing her to see through them.
Her eight legs danced wildly, where each strike possessed alarming power. She knocked away the incoming skulls one by one and forcefully carved out a path, breaking out of the formation.
The Skeleton Demon Formation was powerful and basically guaranteed victory against any Daemon General, but against a Daemon Commander, and a carapaced Daemon Commander with a tough body at that, it still seemed a little insufficient.
Suddenly, Lolth felt her hand sink. Li Qingshan abruptly became dozens of times heavier, pulling her downwards.
Having broken free from the web and without Dragonsnail’s interference, his daemon qi recovered in the blink of an eye. He immediately unleashed the Spirit Turtle Suppresses the Sea before opening his mouth and unleashing a breath. The breath entangled with Lolth, unable to harm her but enough to interfere with her movements.
As Lolth gazed at Li Qingshan who glistened with a metallic lustre, she felt like she had entered a nightmare filled with bones and skeletons.
She gritted her teeth and abandoned Li Qingshan in an extremely resolute manner.
She knew that if this continued, not only would she fail to kill Li Qingshan, but her situation would become worse and worse, or maybe even become as bad as last time.
Lolth managed to free up one hand. The twenty-one Skull Prayer Beads were unable to stop her anymore. If a Daemon Commander wanted to flee, no one could stop her unless a Daemon King intervened.
There was a flash of white, and Xiao An blocked her path. There was no sword aura or sword qi, just a lethal sword intent enveloping and locking onto her before stabbing over like a streak of white light.
The Skull Prayer Beads scattered once again. As long as she obstructed Lolth, she would fall into the Skeleton Demon Formation again.
There was a blood-red flash, and a horrific slash appeared on Lolth’s chest. She had not actually dodged, directly receiving the attack to force her way out! She could clearly sense that the tiny skeleton before her was in control of the twenty-one skeleton monsters and possessed terrifying strength no less than Northmoon’s.
At this moment, she sensed that something was amiss. Lowering her head, she saw white flames spread through her wound, devouring her flesh and blood and burning even brighter. Her skin suddenly became a silvery-grey, but the flames burned even deeper along the wound. It was even more potent than her venom.
This time was unlike last time. She still had around half of her daemon qi remaining, so she managed to circulate her daemon qi and purge the Samādhi Flames of White Bone with quite some difficulty. Still shaken, she tossed out a threat.
“Northmoon, I’ll definitely kill you!”
“You’ve offended me, and you still want to leave!? Use the ultimate move!” Li Qingshan called out.
Xiao An opened her mouth and spat out a palm-sized banner, pinching it between her fingers and waving it. The Blood Sea Banner fluttered through the air.
Lolth glanced at the deep, blood-red colour and felt indescribable coldness creep up through her heart. She became even more afraid to linger around any longer, directly diving into the depths of the walls.
In that moment, the world became blood-red.
Lolth looked around. There was no longer any rocks or water, only an endless, surging sea of blood. The heavy smell of blood did not assault her nose alone, but every single pore of her body.
A feeling of feebleness and powerlessness rose through her heart. This was the deepest despair.
The sea of blood was endless. She could neither return to where she had come from, nor venture to the other side.
White bones floated through the sea of blood. With a single glance, Lolth had a feeling that her fate in the end would be the same as the white bones. She would become a member of the sea of blood.
The sea of blood surged violently. Boney hands reached towards the sky one by one as if they were pleading to the heavens for a ray of hope. However, hope did not exist in this hellish scenery, only a bone-deep hatred for the living. Thousands of skeletons turned their skulls over, gazing at Lolth with their empty eye sockets.
It made even the malicious Lolth blank out. She felt a chilling coldness.
The waves of blood surged as the skeletons broke out of the sea of blood, lunging over together.
“Petty tricks!” Lolth sneered. Her whip swung around her, and she smashed apart hundreds of skeletons in a single stroke, all falling into the sea of blood.
The space around her immediately emptied out, only to be filled with even more skeletons. They had no fear or hesitance. They did not even roar or howl. They merely used everything they had in an attempt to grab Lolth with their boney claws and drag her to the depths of the sea of blood.
In a short while, even Lolth lost count of the number of skeletons she had smashed through, but the skeletons seemed endless. There were no signs of them lessening.
“I can’t sense the existence of the spiritual qi of the world here at all, so I can’t recover my daemon qi. I need to find a way to break free. How despicable, Northmoon!”
Lolth suddenly stopped swinging her whip and closed her eyes. The skeletons immediately swallowed her as a bone mountain piled on top of her.
