Chapter 7: Spirit Ray Shows Its Might, Tianmeng Iceworm is Shocked!
Hearing Liu Yuan's request, Bei Bei's footsteps faltered. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed his usually composed features.
"You possess the Spirit attribute?"
It was a well-known fact across the Douluo Continent that Spirit Masters lacking a Spirit attribute rarely, if ever, absorbed a Spirit-type spirit ring., Spirit Masters who naturally possessed the Spirit attribute were as incredibly rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.
"That's right. My martial soul is of the Spirit attribute," Liu Yuan replied, his voice calm and steady.
Bei Bei's eyes brightened. "Good! Since you need it, leave this big guy to us!"
He did not hesitate in the slightest. This was the exact reason they had formed a team in the first place. Over the past few days of traveling together, Bei Bei had developed a strong, favorable impression of this pragmatic youth with a tragic past. He was more than willing to lend Liu Yuan a hand.
"Prepare for battle!"
Bei Bei's voice dropped an octave, ringing out with absolute authority. In a heartbeat, the Shrek reserve team shifted into their combat stances.
"Xiao Ya, you are responsible for controlling and restricting its movements!"
"Yuhao, activate Spiritual Detection Sharing! Provide us with vision!"
"I will take the lead in attacking and draw its fire!"
"Liu Yuan, find an opportunity to strike yourself!"
Bei Bei's commands were concise and razor-sharp, displaying a terrifyingly high level of tactical proficiency.
"Understood!" The group replied in perfect unison.
Hum!
Huo Yuhao moved first. His deep eyes instantly shifted into a faint, glowing gold. A single, translucent white spirit ring rose slowly from beneath his feet, pulsing with a strange rhythm.
Spiritual Detection Sharing!
In that exact instant, Liu Yuan felt a gentle, unobtrusive mental force connect directly to his mind.
A second later, the entire world around him transformed. The flat forest became a hyper-detailed, three-dimensional map. The subtle rustling of the wind through the tall grass, the microscopic contraction of the Soul Spider's muscle fibers, and even the faint trembling of the coarse hairs on its legs were projected into his brain with absolute clarity.
'So this is Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection Sharing...' Liu Yuan thought, a sliver of genuine appreciation rising in his chest. Although the innate Insight of his Double Pupils far exceeded the visual acuity of ordinary people, this omniscient, god-like perspective was a completely different, entirely unique experience.
"First Spirit Ability, Binding!"
The moment Huo Yuhao's vision blanketed the battlefield, Tang Ya let out a sharp, delicate shout.
She threw her hands forward. The earth beneath the Soul Spider's feet ruptured. Several thick, deep blue vines erupted from the soil like a nest of venomous snakes striking their prey. The Blue Silver Grass instantly coiled around the beast's eight long legs, binding them tight before rapidly spreading upward toward its massive torso.
"Hiss, hiss—!!"
Caught completely off guard by the sudden restraint, the Soul Spider released a furious, ear-piercing shriek. It thrashed wildly. Its long, thorn-covered legs sawed frantically against the Blue Silver Grass, producing a harsh, teeth-gritting screech of friction that echoed through the trees.
"Now!"
Seizing the brief window created by Tang Ya's control, Bei Bei shot forward like a bolt of lightning. His right arm swelled, scales erupting across his skin as it transformed into a massive, ferocious Dragon Claw. Violent arcs of blue-purple lightning danced wildly across his fingertips.
"Thunder Dragon Claw!"
Boom!
Bei Bei launched himself high into the air. The Dragon Claw, crackling with the destructive power of a raging storm, descended with the crushing weight of a falling mountain. He slammed it mercilessly into the broad back of the Soul Spider.
Bang—!!!
A deafening explosion rocked the clearing. Blinding lightning scattered in every direction, scorching the earth.
The Soul Spider's seemingly impenetrable carapace proved fragile beneath the sheer force of the Thunder Dragon Claw. The shell caved in instantly, spiderwebbing with charred, blackened cracks. A foul-smelling, viscous green liquid violently gushed from the wound.
"Hiss-roar—!!" The Soul Spider threw its head back, releasing a shrill, agonizing scream.
But this was a thousand-year Spirit Beast. Driven by pure, feral ferocity, it unhinged its mandibles and spewed out a thick, billowing cloud of grey mist. This was its innate mental poison.
"Watch out for the poison mist!" Huo Yuhao's urgent warning echoed instantly through their shared mental network.
Bei Bei was brave, but he was not foolish. He knew exactly how lethal that mist could be. Tapping his foot against the beast's shell, his figure blurred, nimbly flipping backward to escape the expanding radius of the toxic cloud.
Just as the team let out a collective breath, assuming that devastating strike was enough to severely cripple the monster, a bizarre scene unfolded.
A strange, pulsating grey light suddenly surged from the charred, gaping crater on the Soul Spider's back.
Before their very eyes, the bleeding, shattered carapace began to knit itself back together at a speed visible to the naked eye. In a matter of seconds, the horrific wound vanished completely. The shell was smooth and unblemished, as if the Thunder Dragon Claw had never touched it.
"This..." Bei Bei's jaw locked. A deep crease formed between his brows as his expression darkened. "Such a terrifying self-healing ability! Is this a unique characteristic of the Soul Spider?"
He refused to accept it.
"Xiao Ya, maintain the control! Yuhao, track its movements!"
Bei Bei pushed off the ground, launching a second, even more ferocious offensive.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Thunder roared through the forest. Blinding electric light flickered in a relentless barrage.
Over the next few minutes, relying entirely on his overwhelming attack power and Huo Yuhao's flawless visual assistance, Bei Bei tore into the beast. He left terrifying, deep gashes across the Soul Spider's body time and time again.
At one point, he pushed his spirit power to the absolute limit, unleashing Thunderous Fury to completely obliterate two of the Soul Spider's thick legs in a shower of gore and lightning.
But it was entirely useless.
The Soul Spider was like an immortal demon. No matter how devastating the injury, the moment that strange, eerie grey light flashed, the damage reversed itself. Even the severed legs regrew from the stumps in seconds, writhing out like a gecko regenerating its tail.
"Damn it! Why won't this thing die?!" Tang Ya cursed, her chest heaving. Beads of cold sweat rolled down her pale forehead. Continuously summoning and maintaining the Blue Silver Grass Binding was draining her spirit power at an alarming rate.
"Bei Bei, we cannot keep trying to wear it down like this! Its recovery ability is completely abnormal!"
Bei Bei was panting heavily now, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths. A flash of genuine anxiety flickered in his eyes.
His attack power was undeniably tyrannical, but his spirit power reserves were finite. Facing this kind of shameless, hyper-regenerative Spirit Beast, he knew that if they failed to pinpoint its vital weakness, the team would simply be dragged into a war of attrition until they were exhausted and slaughtered.
'Weakness... where exactly is its weakness?' Bei Bei thought frantically. He circled the beast, maintaining a safe distance to contain it while desperately scanning for flaws through the Spiritual Detection network.
Throughout this entire chaotic ordeal, Liu Yuan remained standing near the edge of the battlefield. To an outsider, he appeared to be slacking off, but his demeanor was utterly calm, cold, and calculating.
His Double Pupils had been active from the very beginning, but he felt no rush to strike blindly.
His innate Insight ability was pushed to its absolute maximum. When layered perfectly over Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection, Liu Yuan's vision pierced straight through the monster's physical shell. He could clearly trace the exact flow and trajectory of every single drop of spirit power coursing through the Soul Spider's internal meridians.
And he found the pattern.
Every single time the Soul Spider sustained a critical injury and prepared to trigger that bizarre regenerative ability, the spirit power within its massive body underwent a violent, unnatural reverse flow.
In that split second, all of its energy surged crazily upward, converging on a tiny, greyish-white spot located dead center between the six gleaming compound eyes on its head.
Normally, that specific spot was heavily fortified by a dense layer of spirit power, acting as a natural rebounding mechanism. Bei Bei's stray lightning strikes had actually grazed that area a few times, only to be harmlessly deflected away.
However, there was a catch. The exact moment the beast activated its recovery skill, it was forced to draw upon the life energy of its entire body. To help that massive energy transfer, the defensive barrier protecting that spot dropped to absolute zero.
For a fraction of a second, it was completely wide open.
That was its fatal weak point.
"So that's how it is..." A cold, pragmatic smile curled the corner of Liu Yuan's mouth. "This is your weakness, isn't it..."
Suddenly, the rhythm of the battlefield shifted again.
Desperate to break the suffocating stalemate, Bei Bei roared, channeling the last dregs of his explosive strength into a massively overpowered Thunderous Fury.
Rumble!
The strike landed with cataclysmic force, directly blasting away nearly half of the Soul Spider's bloated abdomen!
"Hiss, hiss—!!" The Soul Spider let out another agonizing, dying scream. Immediately after, that sickeningly familiar grey light began to pulse from its shattered body. It was preparing to heal itself once more.
"Bei Bei, watch out! It's going to recover again!" Tang Ya shouted, her voice tinged with despair.
Bei Bei gritted his teeth, a look of utter helplessness washing over his face as he prepared to retreat and desperately adjust his breathing.
But at that exact, microscopic instant!
"Now!"
The silent Liu Yuan suddenly let out a sharp, commanding shout.
He took a sudden, heavy step forward. His gaze locked onto the Soul Spider with the terrifying precision of a predator. He watched the beast frantically drawing its energy, funneling it all toward its head.
The spirit power within Liu Yuan's body surged upward, flooding into his eyes without a single ounce of reservation. His mental force and spirit power compressed, twisting and fusing together in perfect harmony.
Within his Double Pupils, a blinding, terrifyingly crimson light flared to life.
"First Spirit Ability—Spirit Ray!!"
Pshhh—!!!
Without a single warning tremor, two high-energy beams, scarlet as fresh blood, erupted from his eyes. Like the cold, inescapable gaze of the Grim Reaper, the twin rays instantly crossed the distance of several tens of meters.
Fast. It was far too fast.
The speed of the attack was so incomprehensibly swift that even Huo Yuhao, whose mind was currently processing the entire battlefield through Spiritual Detection, only registered a sudden, violent blur of red light.
At this precise fraction of a second, every ounce of the Soul Spider's defensive energy was concentrated entirely on repairing its shattered abdomen. The fatal weak point on its head was completely stripped of its shield, exposed naked to the air.
Pfft!
A sickeningly crisp, piercing sound echoed through the clearing.
The two crimson Spirit Rays struck with surgical, terrifying precision, sinking directly into the greyish-white spot right in the center of the Soul Spider's head.
It was as effortless as a hot needle piercing a fragile balloon.
"Gah—!"
The Soul Spider, which had been hissing crazily and preparing to revive itself to full health, choked on its own scream. The sound stopped abruptly.
Its massive, bloated body suddenly went rigid. A second later, it began to tremble violently, spasming out of control.
In that fatal instant, the internal circulation of its spirit power was completely severed. The massive reservoir of life energy it had gathered to heal itself instantly derailed, triggering a catastrophic internal chain reaction.
Bang!
A muffled, wet explosion ruptured from within. A massive, gaping hole was blasted directly outward from the back of the Soul Spider's head. Viscous green liquid mixed with chunks of white brain matter splashed violently across the forest floor.
Rumble!
The beast's massive weight finally gave out. It slammed heavily into the dirt, crushing the grass beneath it. Its eight long legs twitched sporadically a few times before it went completely, utterly still.
Slowly, a deep, vibrant purple ring of light rose from its mangled corpse, hovering in the air as it emitted an eerie, potent aura.
A thousand-year spirit ring.
Silence descended upon the clearing.
Standing off to the side, witnessing this sudden, brutal execution... whether it was Huo Yuhao, Bei Bei, Tang Ya, or even the ancient Tianmeng Iceworm resting deep within Huo Yuhao's spiritual sea... every single one of them was left in a state of absolute, paralyzing shock.
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]