Chapter 17
The martial artist must have been poisoned. Her body was so weak that Ji Ruo’s full-strength slap could knock out her teeth.
Fortunately, it gave good results. The martial artist slowly woke up, and her eyes were filled with confusion.
Ji Ruo took a quick glance and got her name, Li Nannan, from her inspection pass.
He frowned slightly. His instinct was telling him that something must have gone wrong in the martial arts examination. An invigilating martial artist was hidden by a nine-eyed magic spider in the cave as food storage.
However, Ji Ruo did not know what was wrong.
Besides, now was not the time to think about that.
“Teacher, we are the examinees for this martial arts examination. This is the nine-eyed magic spider’s nest. Also, the two of them here have activated their rescue device,” Ji Ruo quickly explained the situation.
Although Li Nannan had been poisoned, she was still a pulsing realm martial artist. She quickly recalled the whole incident after regaining consciousness.
She grabbed Ji Ruo’s arm and said, “Get out of here. This group of nine-eyed demons has evolved into King Leecher. Their strength is comparable to the divine stage of the pulsing realm.”
Before she finished, Li Nannan was stunned.
Due to her teeth being knocked out and the paralyzing poison left by the nine-eyed magic spider, Li Nannan’s speech was affected. She was unable to speak properly.
Moreover, she saw that the cobwebs in the cave were on fire. The raging flames continued to spread into the depths of the cave, and ashes slowly drifted away from the burned areas. There were not many flammable objects in the nest, so the flames spread quickly.
With the strong eyesight of a pulsing realm martial artist, Li Nannan could see the spider queen that had defeated her earlier in the depths of the cave roaring behind the flames. It was extremely angry.
Ji Ruo nodded seriously.”I know, Teacher. We’re just waiting for you to kill our way out of here!”
The other three had not recovered from the shock of Ji Ruo’s slap.
“K-Kill our way out?” Li Nannan was stunned. She was injured and poisoned. Although it was not fatal, she was no match for the large group of nine-eyed magic spiders.
Soon, she saw the dozen of nine-eyed magic spiders that were chasing after Ji Ruo and the others. From their size, they were only at the level of a level nine Martial Apprentice.
They could be killed.
“All right. Follow me!”
Li Nannan stood up, shook her head, and dashed past Ji Ruo and the others toward the nine-eyed magic spiders.
In the process, she also took out the traditional knife on Ji Ruo’s back. Ji Ruo and the others could only see the gleam of the traditional knife. The faint golden-red qi vitality mixed with the silver gleam of the traditional knife danced in the cave and slaughtered all the nine-eyed magic spiders that were blocking their way in the blink of an eye.
The pulsing realm was a true martial artist, and all aspects of their body had long surpassed the limits of the human body.
Li Nannan’s short battle process was magnificent. The only demerit was that she did not say the name of her move when she attacked.
“Let’s go!”
Li Nannan’s vitality was surging, and the poison in her body was circulating with it. Her body was shaking, and she could not help but spurt out a mouthful of faint purple foul-smelling poisoned blood. Yet, she still remembered to turn back and tell the students to escape as soon as possible.
However, she did not know that these four candidates had been on the run for the past two days. They had already gained a lot of experience.
When Li Nannan rushed out, Ji Ruo and the others subconsciously followed her.
Li Nannan turned around and saw Ji Ruo running past her.
“Thank you, teacher!” Ji Ruo shouted politely.
The three people behind him followed suit.
“Thank you, teacher!”
“Thank you, teacher!”
“Thank you, teacher!”
Li Nannan was speechless.
Ji Ruo and the others had only learned the basic movement techniques, so their speed was as slow as a turtle crawling compared to a martial artist in the pulsing realm. However, Li Nannan could not keep up with them.
She sensed her physical condition and heard the hissing of the large group of nine-eyed magic spiders behind her. She laughed bitterly in her heart and suppressed her dizziness as she shouted, “Don’t look back. There unknown change in the secret realm of Myriad Beast Mountain. Be careful, and don’t worry about me.”
Although she had been forcibly awakened, it was already her limit to be able to stimulate her vitality to kill a dozen or so nine-eyed magic spiders blocking their way. Now that she was opening a path for the students, her mind relaxed slightly, and a strong feeling of dizziness came over her.
She could not run away, so she could help the students escape as much as possible. It was really a pity that Li Nanan could not fulfill her responsibility as a martial artist who was on the exam inspection.
Ji Ruo, who was running in the front, stopped and ran back without thinking. He picked up Li Nannan, who was trying to cover them with her last bit of consciousness.
“Why do all of you like covering at the back so much?”
Li Nannan’s reaction was slow due to the poison. She was stunned for a moment when she suddenly looked back and said in a hurry, “What are you doing back here? You’re still young. It’s my responsibility as a martial artist invigilating the exam to protect you. I can die, but you can’t. Take me with you, and none of us will be able to escape. Don’t worry about me.”
“Teacher, my knife is still in your hand. I came back for it,” Ji Ruo responded in a deep voice.
Li Nannan was speechless.
The other three had gotten used to running. Zhang Quan and Liu Neng knew that they were useless, so they ran without the slightest delay. They knew that even if they stayed, they would only be a burden to Ji Ruo and the others.
Liang Shixian slowed down a little. He looked back as he ran. Seeing Ji Ruo carrying Li Nannan out, he heaved a sigh of relief and quickened his pace.
“Ji Ruo, where should we go now?” Liang Shixian asked in a loud voice. The whistling wind in their ears and the heavy breathing from the strenuous exercise made them speak loudly.
Ji Ruo thought for a moment and suddenly turned to run to the left side of the forest. “This way!”
“But it’s a swamp over there, and there’s…” Liang Shixian was stunned.
In fact, there were more than twenty-nine-eyed magic spiders that were chasing them at the beginning. When they were escaping, they passed by the edge of the swamp, and several thick tentacles extended from it, catching a portion of the nine-eyed magic spiders.
It was also because of this that Ji Ruo and the others knew that it was a swamp.
Fortunately, Ji Ruo had been using [Absolute Directional Sense] to find the ‘safe’ direction, so their escape route was not fixed. Otherwise, they would have been dead.
“Listen to me!”
Ji Ruo took the lead and ran toward the swamp.
Li Nannan, who was on his shoulder, was not very clear-headed, so Ji Ruo did not care about Li Nannan’s feelings when he ran. Under the violent jolts, the poisoned pulsing realm martial artist vomited.
The stinky, poisonous vomit was sticky and unpleasant.
However, Ji Ruo did not care. He would get dirty later anyway.
Two minutes later, Ji Ruo’s body felt heavy. The air seemed to have turned into a viscous liquid, and the resistance was so great that Ji Ruo’s speed plummeted.
“Slowing demon eye?!”
Liang Shixian was shocked. They were also affected.
A nine-eyed magic spider had caught up.
Ji Ruo looked back subconsciously. There was no spider swarm behind him, at least not within ten meters. In other words, it was not an ordinary nine-eyed magic spider, but the spider queen that Li Nannan had mentioned!
The sudden heaviness made Liu Neng stagger and fall to the ground.
Then, his strong desire to live made him ignore the pain and get up in a hurry. However, his running speed became slower and slower, and his physical energy consumption became more intense.
“We won’t be able to run away. We can’t run from this,” he couldn’t help but cry.
“Shut up! Keep running!” Ji Ruo shouted.
The swamp was already in sight.
The swamp was not big, and the surface of the water was shallow.
The surrounding vegetation looked strange, like the setting of a horror film.
Not only that, but there were also some skeletons of unknown creatures scattered around the swamp. The mud on the skeletons had long dried up, and fine cracks appeared on it.
Ji Ruo gritted his teeth and ran to the edge of the swamp with Li Nannan on his back. Then, he suddenly pounced and rolled in the mud with her.
The mud in the middle of the swamp suddenly swelled up, as if something was trying to come out of the mud, but it was not very fast.
“Come and roll over here!” Ji Ruo growled.
The few people were speechless.
They did not understand why Ji Ruo wanted them to do this, but they could already hear angry roars coming from behind them.
In their panic, they could not care much and slid to the edge of the swamp, rolling in the mud.
In the blink of an eye, the few of them had turned into mud.
“Don’t move, and don’t talk. Hold your breath. Have you played hide and seek?”
“What f*cking hide and seek?” the rest thought.
Ji Ruo lay on his back in the mud and cast [Disguise] on everyone. Then, he forced himself to stop breathing and waited quietly, feeling dizzy from the lack of oxygen.
This skill could be used on other people, and it could increase the effect of disguise by 40%. Ji Ruo didn’t know if he could fool the spider queen, but this was his last resort.
They did not dare to move or even breathe. They stopped after the intense exercise, and everyone could hear their hearts beating.
Li Nannan’s breathing was weak. She had lost her mind and fallen into a coma.
At this moment, the monster in the swamp finally emerged. It still had thick tentacles, but compared to before, these tentacles were all suffused with a very faint purple color.
It stretched out of the swamp and shook its head slightly, as if it was drunk. It was obvious that it was poisoned by the nine-eyed demon spiders it captured before.
However, the toxicity was not deep, so the impact was not great.
Everyone’s eyes were wide open, and they did not dare to move, afraid that they would be discovered by the tentacles and pulled into the swamp.
However, those thick tentacles seemed to not have noticed them. They swayed slightly and looked a little confused.
“Hiss!”
At this moment, the angry spider queen arrived.
Next, it all depended on whether the [Disguise] skill was effective or not, and whether he could successfully divert the disaster.
