"Please, I’m begging you!"

The woman’s cries and struggles were painfully clear and piercing.

Even the sharp pain from her slightly-too-sharp nails scraping against his arm felt incredibly real.

’This is an Illusion Realm, it has to be...’

Han Ning took a deep breath. He ignored the woman’s incessant babbling, which felt like a demonic chant boring into his ears, and closed his eyes, trying to connect with his Spiritual World.

Inside his Spiritual World.

The specks of green and earthy-yellow light, which usually floated high in the sky and gave off a faint, hazy glow, had suddenly dimmed. They were now shrouded in a dull mist, appearing gray and lifeless.

’Yin Yi...’

Han Ning tried to use his Spiritual Power to communicate with Yin Yi.

A wisp of his Spiritual Power reached for the speck of light.

But it was like a stone sinking into the ocean; there was no response.

Just then, though his eyes were tightly shut, Han Ning felt a foul wind wash over his face.

He snapped his eyes open.

A massive, blood-streaked maw, reeking of a putrid, musky stench, was lunging down to swallow him whole.

’If I don’t dodge this, I could die...’ An alarm blared in Han Ning’s mind, as if his Spiritual Power was issuing a warning.

At that thought, he clenched his right hand into a fist and swung it forcefully.

Ignoring the long scratches the woman’s nails dug into his arm, Han Ning broke free from her grasp. He stomped his foot, abruptly changing direction and diving to the left.

ROAR!

The giant maw snapped shut on empty air.

It was a Silver-Scaled Python, taller than a building.

Missing its target, it shook its head. Spotting the wailing woman nearby, it ignored Han Ning, opened its bloody mouth, and lunged viciously for her head.

Han Ning rolled across the ground, springing back to his feet in a single motion and fleeing toward a less dense part of the beast horde.

’Calm down, stay calm!’

HISS!!

A large beetle spotted Han Ning.

It let out an excited growl, flapped its wings, and was beside Han Ning in an instant.

’Dammit!’ Han Ning cursed inwardly, leaping off the pickup truck and breaking into a full sprint.

But how could two legs outrun something with wings?

The acrid smell unique to the giant beetle wafted from behind him.

In his peripheral vision, Han Ning caught a reflection in the glass curtain wall of a skyscraper.

The beetle’s hideous forked mouthparts, long and narrow and dripping with fluid, were less than three feet from his head.

SPLAT.

A viscous liquid dripped onto the back of his neck.

’Spiritual Power... Spiritual Power... This is an Illusion Realm. Only Spiritual Power can be used.’

A sudden inspiration struck him, and he instinctively unleashed his Spiritual Power at the giant beetle.

WHOOSH~

A gale-force wind swept through.

His formless Spiritual Power manifested as a fierce wind, successfully blasting the giant beetle away.

’Spiritual Power can interfere with the Illusion Realm!’

’What if I use my Spiritual Power to simulate other forms?’

Realization dawned on Han Ning. His Spiritual Power surged, and the image of a colossal bird with a Kun’s head, the eyes of a leopard, and golden wings that could hold up the sky appeared in his mind.

SKREEE!

A shriek that could shatter stone and pierce the heavens echoed across the sky.

What was the natural enemy of insects? In Han Ning’s mind, it was, of course, the Golden-Winged Great Peng, a mythical bird said to be capable of preying on even a True Dragon!

The Peng, so large it blotted out the sun, revealed a pair of Wind and Thunder wings from behind the clouds, shimmering with brilliant golden light. It flapped them forcefully toward the earth below.

BOOM!

Wind and Thunder raged, unleashing world-ending destruction.

The strange Illusion Realm shattered in an instant!

In his Spiritual World, the specks of light representing Yin Yi and Egg Pancake flared brilliantly.

Han Ning’s vision cleared, and the scene before him shifted once again.

He was still standing over a hundred meters from the computer science building.

It seemed less than a second had passed.

Ahead, the giant Brain-Eating Spider, covered in pale fuzz, had silently crept to within ten meters of Yin Yi.

But Yin Yi’s eyes were shut tight, frozen in place like a statue.

And it wasn’t just Yin Yi. Lü Xiuning, Luo Chen, Lin Tianhe, their Soul Beasts, and Egg Pancake were all standing motionless with their eyes closed, as if caught in a Magic spell.

Seeing this, Han Ning hurriedly used his Spiritual Power to contact Yin Yi and Egg Pancake.

"Yin Yi! Yin Yi, can you hear me? Yin Yi, Egg Pancake, wake up!"

"Ling!" "Jii?"

Stimulated by Han Ning’s Spiritual Power, Yin Yi and Egg Pancake immediately snapped out of their stupor.

"Egg Pancake, protect them!"

"Jii!" Egg Pancake glanced at the Brain-Eating Spiders swarming toward them like a tide, already attacking the Cold Frost Shield and the Silver Lotus Wood, and rushed forward.

It flung two mud balls caked in sludge, briefly halting one Brain-Eating Spider’s advance before hurrying to deal with another.

Meanwhile, the Flame-like light in Yin Yi’s eyes flickered intensely. The vines on its sides grew rapidly, forming two thick Vine Whips that shot upward to block.

THWACK!

The sharp pincer broke through several sections of vine before getting firmly stuck between the Vine Whips.

Light flashed in Yin Yi’s eyes. Its right Vine Whip blocked the pincer while its left Vine Whip underwent Frenzied Growth, wrapping layer after layer around the Brain-Eating Spider’s Body.

At the same time, bright, shining Emerald Flower Thorns materialized in front of it.

"Hiss, hissssss!!"

The Brain-Eating Spider struggled relentlessly, but for a moment, it couldn’t break free from Yin Yi’s viny Entanglement.

Left with no choice, it could only continue to release those peculiar, pale-glowing crystalline particles.

Now that he was closer, Han Ning could see more clearly that these particles were being shot out from its scarlet pupils.

This time, he was prepared. Although he didn’t know the specifics of how to counter the strange Spiritual Fluctuation, he poured his Spiritual Power into Yin Yi’s green speck of light without hesitation.

As expected, Yin Yi was completely unaffected by the particles’ assault. It continued to manipulate the Emerald Flower Thorns, shooting them viciously into the Brain-Eating Spider’s Body.

BOOM!

A massive explosion, like a gas canister blowing up, echoed across the plaza in front of the building.

Verdant Wood Type Energy erupted wantonly.

In an instant, it obliterated the Brain-Eating Spider’s bodily tissues.

THUMP~

Its massive, five-meter-tall body collapsed like a toppled mountain, crashing to the ground with a heavy thud.

Without the impact of its Spiritual Power, it was no match for Yin Yi at all.

With the death of the giant Brain-Eating Spider, the three stupefied people and the Silver Lotus Wood all snapped out of their trance.

"What just happened?"

Lü Xiuning and the other two looked as if they had just awoken from a long dream, their faces a mixture of confusion and lingering grogginess.

"We’ll talk later. Let’s clear out this Brain-Eating Spider Swarm first," Han Ning said. He took the Compound Bow from the pouch left by the Insect-man, nocked an arrow, and sent a spider that had charged too close flying.

He had a limited number of Silver Scale bullets, and with the giant Brain-Eating Spider dead, there was no need to waste ammunition killing the relatively weaker swarm.

"Oh, right, okay!"

The other three stopped thinking about it and immediately began commanding their Silver Lotus Wood to clear out the remaining Brain-Eating Spiders.

With the giant Brain-Eating Spider dead, the rest of the swarm posed no real threat to them.

Each volley of Yin Yi’s Emerald Flower Thorns took the lives of dozens of Brain-Eating Spiders.

Soon, the ground before the four of them was covered in a dense layer of Brain-Eating Spider corpses.

A few minutes later, aside from a few stragglers that had escaped, not a single one was left alive.

A light breeze blew, swirling through the white mist and over a ground littered with spider carcasses.

Han Ning kicked a corpse out of his path and walked quickly to the body of the giant Brain-Eating Spider. Sensing a strange fluctuation in his mind, he reached into the giant spider’s brain and dug out a polygonal Crystal Stone, slightly larger than a ping-pong ball and surrounded by a clear, fluorescent glow.