Born in Blood

Chapter 450 Dancing in the Moonlight

There was a rapid clicking noise as the Rank 5 Red Fang took its time leaving the web-infested gorge.

The first thing Liam saw poking through the entrance was its freakishly long limbs.

There were two.

Then four.

Then eight.

Each one of them was the length of a 6 story tall building!

Thousands of little spikes covered them.

In reality, they were just hairs.

But obviously, they were not normal.

The quill-like hairs were excreting some sort of slimy black liquid.

Poison, probably.

Even from that distance, Liam could smell the spider's stench, causing his nose to sting.

It smelled absolutely horrible.

Like fermented corpses left out to rot.

What slowly emerged into view next were the two, dark red fangs.

They were freaking massive!

Like smooth, shimmering tusks, they were curved inward, dripping with the same black poison.

Then, the spider's full form came into view.

It was huge.

Massive, even.

Colossal, if one dared to say.

But it was still smaller than the average Rank 5 magical beast.

Its thorax was streamlined and narrow, adorned with tiny little red hairs.

It had twelve button-like eyes, clustered together on the front of its face, right above the two fangs.

Its long joints grabbed the entrance of the mountain crevice.

Like some ancient evil that slowly escaped its enclosure.

Wrapping its limbs around the tower, the spider crawled over it, dominating most of the mountain's surface with just its body!

As it did so, Liam saw the back of the Red Fang's thorax.

What he saw was just a little terrifying.

Beside the macabre artistry on its hardened back, all kinds of skulls were neatly stuck to the spider's oval abdomen.

They were plastered onto its body through a thin thread of crimson silk.

One could think they were an armor of some kind.

…But Liam knew they were not.

They were trophies.

The spider smoothly spiraled around the mountain, producing a chattering noise as the skulls clicked against each other.

One could feel a sense of unease from the scene.

Seeing a spider crawl up a wall was scary.

Seeing a spider crawl up a mountain and make it look like an anthill was something else.

Eventually, the spider circled the peak, towering over it like an eagle.

Then, it looked at Liam with a quiet, blank stare.

Liam looked back with a similar gaze.

Silence.

Who was the prey, here?

Who was the predator?

To anyone else, it may seem obvious.

But to some, they could argue it was ambiguous.

After all, Liam wiped out 75% of the colony in roughly a second!

What normal person could do that?!

Of course, the Rank 5 Red Fang could accomplish that if given the chance.

More or less.

But could a Rank 5 really be compared to its lower ranked counterparts?

The fact that Liam was even considered for a comparison was mind boggling.

But speculation was speculation. Just opinions without fact.

Liam unsheathed his swords, his quad arms growing empowered with Transfiguration.

Just then, he activated Spirit Sight.

Liam's vision turned the spider into a silhouette.

But its vague insides were visible for him to see.

Although the spider had a Rank 5 body, it wasn't as dense and powerful as a lion's thick skin or a dragon's rigid scales.

Speed and defense did not go hand in hand.

Its core was in the same place — between the thorax and abdomen.

However, poisonous hairs covered its entire body, protecting it heavily.

Liam smiled coldly.

'I wonder if a few hairs could protect you from my Void.'

There were also poisonous glands above the spider's head, which Liam had to be careful around.

"Don't be shy now!" Liam shouted at the spider. "I'll give you first strike."

There was no response.

Just a dead, sinister stare.

Quietly, a tentacle on Liam's back transformed into a fifth hand.

From its fingertips, crimson threads softly flowed and danced across the ground, weaving an intricate web.

If the silence was to last a long time, the least Liam could do was prepare for it.

A moment later, a sixth and seventh hand also emerged from his back!

But they were just hands without the arm.

On one of the hands, a tiny but violent mass of Chaos churned.

On the other, a soft and gentle Black Hole.

For several moments, the spider didn't do anything.

Then…

Slowly, the spider's limbs raised into the air, shaking left and right, curling up and down.

Liam furrowed his brows with a little bit of shock.

'Is… is it dancing?'

Just then, Liam realized that this must be a ritualistic dance of some kind.

Spiders had that sort of thing.

To mate with each other, they used dancing to seduce the opposite species!

But what the heck was this supposed to be?

Liam was no breeding partner, damn it!

A moment later, Liam raised his swords and the air, imitating the same dance as the spider's.

"Dancing in the moonlight," Liam said in a melodious tone, then shook his head.

"Never thought I'd have a dance off with a spider but here we are."

Just then, the spider strangely stopped.

Confused, Liam stopped too.

The atmosphere turned tense.

Slowly, the spider lowered its limbs and dug its claws into the mountain below.

'Oh,' Liam thought, realizing something. 'That wasn't a dance meant for a partner.'

Silence.

'It was a death dance.'

With absolute silence, the spider lurched out from the mountain faster than a wraith, causing bits of the tower to break off.

For something that was longer, bigger than 9 meters, the speed it possessed could be called insane.

A distance of 400 meters was rapidly closing in the blink of an eye!

Even Liam was surprised, but only for 0.08 seconds.

He used Shadow Blink.

He had to.

Otherwise, the two red fangs, which were actually retractable, would have scissored him in half!

As he teleported a short distance away, the spider landed upon the strings Liam wove a moment prior.

On Liam's command, the strings exploded outward, shooting into the spider's underbelly.

CLINNK!

There was a clunking noise.

The strings didn't do a damn thing.