Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 155 - Metal Generates Water

Chapter 155 – Metal Generates Water

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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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For a moment, Ju-seong’s head felt like it was spinning.

“Your friend is… a spider?”

At Ju-seong’s question, the Blood Flower Crone nodded placidly.

“A friend of thirty years. We encountered each other in the depths of the abyss and have been together ever since.”

-Chwiik! The spider made a strange cry, and the Blood Flower Crone gently placed her hand on its head. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Those children won’t harm you.” Ju-seong carefully observed the spider. It was covered all over with pitch-black fur, and on its belly was a distinct white pattern that was eerily similar to a human face.

Two large concentric circles looked like eyes, and two curves fell between them resembling eyebrows and a nose.

Below was a wavelike pattern that looked like a person’s lips.

“Could this spider possibly be a Human-Faced Spider?”

Even while asking, Ju-seong was already certain.

Its size, larger than a considerable bear; its home in a damp cave; the human-face pattern on its belly.

Coincidentally, the Human-Faced Spider was one of the five poison creatures Ju-seong needed to find.

At Ju-seong’s question, the Blood Flower Crone nodded and answered.

“In the world, it’s called that, I understand. But to me, it’s only a cherished friend.”

“The medicine I learned can only be used on humans.”

The Blood Flower Crone shrugged casually.

“You never asked from the beginning, did you? You boasted that you could help my friend. I simply agreed.”

Ju-seong stared blankly at the creature, then spotted tiny forms wriggling beneath its belly.

Baby spiders the size of a palm. They were abnormally large, but being young, they had a certain chubby-stumpy cuteness.

However, the little ones seemed on the verge of losing all their strength, feebly squirming.

The Blood Flower Crone spoke with a quiet sigh.

“No matter what food we give them, they won’t accept it. Their mother eats any kind of meat without trouble and can go dozens of days without food after one meal.”

Come to think of it, there were various animal bones and fish scales scattered around.

It seemed the Crimson Spider Sect side fed her periodically, and sometimes she went out to the riverbank herself to hunt.

“…Hmm, as far as I know, Human-Faced Spiders are creatures that eat any flesh without problem.”

So why were the offspring so devoid of energy? At that moment, something inside Ju-seong’s robes twitched, then fluttered up.

“Huh?”

It was White Pig, the snow-white winged moth. The creature flew, fluttering its wings as if it had business, landing near the Human-Faced Spider and simply beating its wings with no apparent purpose.

“Psst… White Pig. Come here. Don’t be like this in someone else’s home.”

Ju-seong was worried the moth might get bitten, so he quietly commanded it, but it was useless.

As some white moth annoyingly fluttered about, the Human-Faced Spider hissed openly in threat, seemingly irritated.

But White Pig wouldn’t budge, continuing to beat its wings incessantly.

‘Surely it’s not trying to heal them? It’s not that nice a creature.’

White Pig had some intelligence and knew what its wing powder could do.

It wasn’t the type to show unprompted goodwill to an animal it had never seen before.

At that moment…

-Chwiiit!

The Human-Faced Spider, which had only been making threatening noises, could stand it no longer and bared its fangs, spitting out dark red venom.

“Oh!”

In an instant. As a poison creature famous throughout the world, the Human-Faced Spider moved at a speed Ju-seong couldn’t react to.

The venom spurted in a straight line from its fangs.

Ju-seong grimaced, imagining the Human-Faced Spider’s fearsome blood toxin dissolving White Pig without a trace. Still, it was a creature he’d grown attached to.

‘This mama’s words it ignores completely, doing whatever it pleases…’

But in reality, what unfolded before his eyes was the opposite.

-Sploosh!

The Human-Faced Spider’s venom was blocked by the moth’s fuzzy legs, gathering into a round droplet.

It was amazing enough that it had casually blocked the liquid and clumped it together, but then White Pig sucked it down.

“What the hell?”

Ju-seong stared blankly at the scene. The Blood Flower Crone also seemed dumbfounded, asking.

“…What on earth kind of spirit creature is that moth?”

Ju-seong didn’t let this phenomenon pass carelessly. He had read all the secret records documenting poison creatures.

Of course, because the poison creatures in the records were extremely rare and dangerous, there were no detailed observations of their ecology.

But among them, there was one particularly memorable record about the Zhen.

‘Where the Zhen’s poison settled, only charred-black melted corpses of beasts and men remained. But soon, purple-gold centipedes swarmed to lick up the Zhen poison and clean up.’

The purple-gold centipedes referred to the Purple Gold Centipede.

The Zhen’s poison was an earth-attribute poison, and the Purple Gold Centipede was a poison creature of metal-attribute.

“Earth generates metal…”

Ju-seong murmured blankly. Naturally, metal and minerals come from the earth, so earth energy nourishes metal energy.

Thus the world’s most fearsome poison, Zhen poison, became a tonic for the Purple Gold Centipedes.

Seen this way, it made sense that White Pig the Heavenly Silkworm Moth drank the Human-Faced Spider’s venom.

The Human-Faced Spider’s poison was strongly water-attributed. Meanwhile, the Heavenly Silkworm Moth was a poison creature of strong wood-attribute.

Water makes trees grow, hence water generates wood.

Ju-seong smiled slightly and stroked White Pig as it returned to his arms.

“Clever little one. You’ve really been earning your keep lately.”

The Blood Flower Crone was still watching Ju-seong from a distance.

Ju-seong carefully approached the Human-Faced Spider.

-Chwiit.

A low threatening sound. Though the Blood Flower Crone, its friend, had said it was safe, it was only natural to feel wariness when a stranger approached one’s offspring.

Ju-seong lowered his stance, extending his hand forward, and approached slowly.

“Good spider…”

Eight ruby-red eyes held Ju-seong’s image.

‘Better not make eye contact.’

Ju-seong felt his mind going hazy for an instant and averted his gaze. Come to think of it, the Heavenly Silkworm Moth also had poison that made one drowsy and caused hallucinations.

Did all dangerous poison creatures have some weapon to entrance their prey?

Ju-seong slowly channeled the Poison Releasing Technique he’d learned in the Five Poison Valley, drawing out the Purple Gold Centipede’s poison from his dantian.

As if a centipede curled under a rock was stirring its dozens of legs, the Purple Gold Centipede’s metal poison moved through Ju-seong’s energy channels.

-Shaaaa…

As the silvery poisonous energy of the Purple Gold Centipede dispersed faintly into the air, the Human-Faced Spider’s eyes intensified and its jaws moved.

-Chiichiichii.

The creature made a somewhat urgent-sounding cry, calling its offspring. It must be trying to expose the babies to the trace of metal poison Ju-seong had released.

“No need to rush. I carry nearly as much poison as an entire Purple Gold Centipede.”

Ju-seong harbored the poison core of a Purple Gold Centipede in his dantian. Moreover, that poison energy had grown alongside his internal energy, so Ju-seong could emit poison as dense as a century-old Purple Gold Centipede.

“Monk Won-gong, you’d better step away. I don’t intend to spread poison mist, but if you accidentally breathe in what floats through the air, you’ll be in trouble.”

“Then I’ll wait outside the cavern.”

Ju-seong didn’t bother telling the Blood Flower Crone to leave. Surely someone who ranked in the top ten of the Central Plains’ jianghu could handle it.

As Ju-seong sat cross-legged, the eight baby spiders gathered around him at their mother’s command.

-Chwiit, chwit.

Baby spiders crying in voices shriller than their mother’s. They were quite excited after tasting the trace of metal poison.

‘So newborn Human-Faced Spiders need to be fed metal poison. Metal poison as potent as a Purple Gold Centipede’s.’

Metal generates water… cold metal’s surface naturally beads with water, indicating metal energy’s property of nourishing water energy.

It seemed these water-attributed Human-Faced Spiders needed to be fed metal poison when young. Like nursing an infant.

There was a reason such fearsome poison creatures were rare. Their growth conditions were fiendishly demanding.

With the compassionate heart of a Buddha practicing mercy, Ju-seong gladly spread both hands and slowly dripped silver-gray poison droplets.

The droplets that beaded on his palms like sweat fell, and the baby spiders eagerly drank them.

‘They must be really starving.’

The Blood Flower Crone spoke quietly beside him.

“The male Human-Faced Spider has a small body, unremarkable poison, and no pattern on its belly. Essentially, only females are called Human-Faced Spiders. The males all die after mating.”

Ju-seong was too focused on the Poison Releasing Technique to respond.

“A male Human-Faced Spider sneaked into this cave to mate and died just four months ago.”

Ju-seong recalled that among the scattered bone fragments earlier, there had been a spider carcass about the size of a human torso.

That must have been the male Human-Faced Spider’s remains.

The Blood Flower Crone continued in a bitter voice.

“I was happy as if it were my own joy that my friend had offspring in her final years. But once they were born, the babies wouldn’t eat anything. There’s never been anyone who observed baby Human-Faced Spiders…”

Normally, the mother would have caught Purple Gold Centipedes or other powerful metal-poison creatures to feed them.

But their mother was a female aged enough that conceiving and laying eggs was itself a miracle.

After exhausting herself laying eggs, she could barely move at all.

Come to think of it, since Ju-seong and the Blood Flower Crone had entered, she hadn’t moved from her spot once.

‘What extraordinary coincidence.’

Of all the countless grains of sand that were people in this chaotic jianghu.

Yet the only person who could help these creepy yet cute baby spiders was Ju-seong alone. And he had found this cave at precisely this time.

‘No, perhaps I should call it fate.’

As if warp and weft of a spiderweb weave together miraculously, had Ju-seong arrived here by heaven’s inscrutable design?

Ju-seong felt the sparse and indifferent yet evenly warm current of the world. Was this what Buddhists called emptiness? No sooner had he gained this mysterious enlightenment than he felt the three divine powers… Celestial Hearing, Celestial Nose, and Celestial Eye… lodged in his upper dantian stir faintly. Before he knew it, the three powers had begun slightly merging and melting into one another.

‘Each enlightenment brings me closer to Buddha-nature.’

Ju-seong couldn’t say definitively whether this was good or bad. But if anything could suppress the heavenly punishment he’d been born with… that bottomless killing nature… wouldn’t Buddha-nature be the perfect remedy?

While he was lost in thought, the baby spiders, bellies apparently full for now, scurried back under their mother’s belly to huddle together.

‘Come to think of it, the spiderweb…’

The Human-Faced Spider, perhaps due to age, hadn’t spun any web around her dwelling, but she had carefully woven a nest of spiderweb for the babies to stay in.

A crimson spiderweb bunched into a cushion-like shape.

Only then did Ju-seong understand why the Crimson Spider Sect was named for the crimson spider.

‘The red threads hung everywhere…’

He also realized that the entire Crimson Spider Sect territory was covered in Human-Faced Spider silk.

“Ah.”

Ju-seong let out a soft exclamation and looked back at the Blood Flower Crone. The old woman smiled mysteriously and nodded.

“Do you understand now?”

The old woman’s words came back to him… that this entire place was her weapon. She was right. The spiderweb spread throughout the canyon was her weapon.

The Blood Flower Crone was another spider that had made its nest in the Maling River Canyon.