"Now those two were unexpected! To think that both the dark horse of this year and Pig God would finish their fights so quickly and with such ease even though their opponents were such powerful great masters!" The referee walked across the center of the arena with a large smile on her face.

"I wonder, would the coming fights live up to that? This year’s early eliminations are something else!" And then, she waved one of her hands and pointed at the blue gate. "And with that, I introduce you to our next contestants, and I start with him, the one and only, the master of the skies, and the silent stalker of nights!"

But no one was at the gate, and even after waiting a few seconds, the contestant didn’t show up, causing the referee to frown a bit. The last thing she and the ones responsible for this tournament wanted was for one of the fighters to run away.

But while she saw no one come, the crowd did. The man was up on the ceiling, and he jumped down, landing silently and gracefully right behind the referee without her even noticing. He was just a bit over six feet tall, as wide as a barrel, and as built as a brick wall. His luscious grey hair, glowing yellow eyes, and calloused hands moved silently behind the referee, and she only noticed him when he leaned on her shoulder.

"Hello there." Hearing his words caused the referee to jump away with a pathetic cry, staring back at him with tearful eyes. "Where... where did you come from!?"

He lifted one finger, pointed at the air, and proudly proclaimed, "I’m the God of Birds, the sky is my domain, and from it I have descended." As the crowd cheered, the referee collected herself, and shouted.

"HE IS HERE! THE GOD OF BIRDS! GRANDMASTER OWL!" Hearing her, Owl pulled two curved swords, swung them around in a show of skills, and then took a stance. When he did, he had trimmed both his hair and beard to a fresh cut and fade.

"Now that was a fun show." A woman’s voice boomed from the red gate, and when she walked out, the entire crowd fell silent. A stunningly beautiful woman wearing a one-piece black dress with a slit up to her waist, a full-body fishnet, and her coal-black hair was tied into a massive ball above her head.

She looked at Owl with her glowing red eyes and smiled. "As flash as ever, Owl." And then she gave him a gentle bow, "I’m the Great Mother of Spiders, Miani."

Owl reached forward, grabbed her hand, and kissed it. "You don’t need to bow to me, Grandmaster Miani. A man can’t have their mother bowing to them."

She giggled. "Mother? You know I’m not yours. I picked you off the streets and raised you for a few years, and when I got bored playing that role, I threw you to the Great Talon sect."

Up in the private room, Liana, Kali, and Eris watched, and the first one to speak was Eris. "Really, a bird god without a single feather? It would’ve been better to give a sword master title."

Kali giggled, "Well, let him show off to his mother." She then looked at the arena.

"The fight is about to start! Would the god of birds break free from the web of the spiders’ mother, or will she finally catch him?" The referee shouted, and then jumped back, "Let the third round start!"

As the gong rang, the God of Birds was the first to move, leaping forward at blinding speed. His two swords whistled through the air, and the Mother of Spiders didn’t move an inch. She stood there, looking forward with a smile, and suddenly, Owl himself jumped aside with sweat rushing down his face.

His arms started bleeding, and he looked at his mother with a smile. "So, you’ve already set it up, your net." The entire arena was already covered in tiny, near-invisible threats of pure energy conjured by the Mother of Spider. Those threads were so thin that they became sharper than most blades, and a single brush against them could cleave a man in half.

She looked at him with a smile, and then curled her black lips as she flicked a finger toward him, and in the next second, he jumped away and dodged. To the crowd, he looked like he dodged nothing, but when the referee looked at the ground, she noticed a thin cut that was barely visible, but a whole nine feet wide.

"She is throwing her webs, and they are as sharp as blades!" The referee rushed to the arena’s edge so she wouldn’t get cut. "If Owl got hit, he would’ve been cut in half!"

"What is it? You won’t attack me?" She took a step forward and started walking toward Owl. "Come on!" She theatrically waved her arms, "Don’t be afraid! Where did all of that heat and courage of yours go?!"

"Mommy here wants to give you a hug! And kiss!" Looking at her lips, Owl could clearly see the venom-filled fangs, and the thread around her; if he got close carelessly, she would wrap him like a burrito and knock him out with a single bite.

Owl smiled, "Well, I just need a few seconds. My eyes are getting used to this." As he looked around, he was already becoming able to see and distinguish the near-invisible threads in the air. It wasn’t easy, but if he concentrated hard enough, it was possible.

When he could finally see the threads and the energy forming them, his face broke into a smile, and with a single leap, he took to the air, landing on one of his two swords and then flying around Miani like a bolt of lightning. The air around him rumbled, and with his second sword, he slashed the threads one after another as he made his way toward Miani, flying circles around her.

Miani had a grin on her face as she stood still. While Owl did indeed cut many of her threads down, many more of them still cut his body, leaving countless wounds on his arms and legs. But she knew that it was a part of his plan, with all of the blood splashing everywhere, the smeared threads became far easier to see, and he was finding it easier to dodge and cut them with his sword.

The tide of the fight was slowly but surely shifting in Owl’s favor, but that was when she still didn’t make any direct move. And thus, it was time for her to go on the offensive. She bent down and slowly removed her high heels. Taking her sweet time while Owl was doing his best to reach and cleave her in half, it was only a thing that she could do thanks to her net and the amount of information it grants her.

When she finally took those shoes off, she stretched her legs and wiggled her ankles, and then, with her toes, she grabbed the threads in the air and started climbing them like stairs. Like a spider, the net itself was her home, and it allowed her extreme three-dimensional movements to be carried with ease.

While the first step she took on the net was slow, the next one was blindingly fast as she suddenly disappeared from the crowd’s vision, and was already running behind Owl mid-air on her threads.

"As expected of you! Mother, you’re not confined to the ground!" Owl immediately turned around and swung his sword at Miani’s head, and she, with a smile, blocked the sword with a net of bright red threads between her fingertips.

"Careful, baby, my threads are sharp." And with a flick of her foot, a cut appeared on Owl’s leg. He was flying through a near-invisible spiderweb of razor-sharp threads that could cut a mortal’s lip cleanly off with a simple brush.

Of course, such a wound wasn’t going to slow him down, so he kept swinging, and she did the same. The clash between them was too fast for the mundane people to follow, but the great cultivators and Arad were seeing it just fine; the speed itself was much lower than what he was used to. And Arad had noticed one thing from the smell of Miani’s venom: it wasn’t lethal.

And then, after a whole minute-long clash, Owl suddenly froze midair, his eyes rolled back, and he fell right down through the sharp threads, getting several deep cuts carved into his body. But before he could hit the ground, Miani caught him in her arms, and looked at him with a smile.

"You’ve done well, Owl." And then bite his shoulder, injecting more of her venom into his body.

The referee shouted from the edge of the arena as she didn’t want to get close and cut, "The match is over! He has lost consciousness; there is no need to finish him off!"

When Miana pulled her lips away from Owl’s skin, she smiled. "Don’t worry, I slowed his heart to almost a halt; this way, he won’t bleed to death from all of those wounds." She then put him down and pulled all of the threads so the medics could rush in and treat him.

"Just treat his wound, my venom would lose its effect in a few hours, and he’ll be fine." She walked back through the gate she came in from, and inside, she found Arad leaning on the wall. She froze for a second, gave him a look, and then approached with a smile.

"What do you want, big boy. This lady is exhausted and needs to rest, I won, so I still have a fight later this day." She crossed her arms and gave Arad a long look as she inspected every inch of his massive body. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Two things, you better get healed up quickly, and... that was a strange poison." As he looked at her, she giggled. "It was a venom, extracted from snakes and spiders, and then modified for my own needs."

"Not that." Arad pointed at her chest, "If you feel your chest tighten from time to time, or pee blood once in a while, it is that venom’s fault. Constant exposure kills muscle tissues, including the heart, and slowly destroys your kidneys with all that waste."

Her face twisted in a frown, "How do you know that?"

"All that you need to know is that there is no cure, and your best option is to stop using it at once and use something else." Arad turned around and left, leaving her standing there. That venom was a secret formula developed by her family for countless generations, and many have died of those symptoms.

"How...does he know?"