Chapter 6: The Ash-Spider Arrives
Two Days Later – Green Mist Village
The skies over Green Mist had been too quiet since the battle at Plot 3B.
No crows cawed.
No frogs croaked.
Even the spirit bees that buzzed lazily among the wildflowers had disappeared.
Li Yuan felt it in his bones — the tension in the soil, the stillness of the wind. He spent his days tending to the spirit rice and monitoring his fields, but his heart wasn't calm.
The system had gone silent after issuing the Reclaim Your Relics quest. Even the passive notifications dimmed, as if the interface itself had gone into hiding.
> "Something's coming," he muttered as he bent down to check the stalks of Plot 2C.
"I can feel the roots whispering."
He was right.
---
Elsewhere in the Valley – Just Before Dawn
The fog returned, but this time it moved like a living thing — coiling through the trees and swallowing sound.
From it emerged a figure in tattered monk robes.
His head was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, and where his eyes should've been, black spider legs poked through slits in the cloth. His bare feet made no sound as they touched the earth. He walked not on the ground, but across the surface of spiritual currents — disturbing neither branch nor stone.
On his back, eight rusted knives shaped like spider legs gleamed faintly.
> "Xiao Tianmie…" he whispered through a stitched mouth.
"I have waited long… to taste your blood."
His breath turned the mist to ice.
The Ash-Spider Monk had arrived.
---
At the Village Square
That evening, the villagers gathered in the square for the monthly Moon Market — an old tradition where elders traded herbs, tools, and stories beneath hanging lanterns and warm bowls of root stew.
Li Yuan stood near the well, arms crossed, scanning the crowd.
Something felt… off.
The flames of the lanterns were too still. The air too thin. And his Rootsplit Hoe, leaning against a nearby fence post, pulsed with warning.
> "System," he whispered, "I need a threat scan."
Silence.
Then, at last:
> [System Notice: Spiritual Interference Detected. Threat Proximity: Very Near.]
Then — screaming.
---
The First Strike
A sudden shriek tore through the market.
A child — little Mei, no more than seven — was lifted into the air by a writhing shadow. Villagers gasped and scattered as the figure materialized in the center of the square, holding the girl by her ankle.
The Ash-Spider Monk.
Mei flailed, crying. "Help—!"
Before the villagers could move, dark spiritual threads erupted from the monk's back like a web, anchoring him to the rooftops and sealing off the area.
> "Xiao Tianmie," he rasped.
"Come forth… or I pull this child's soul through her spine."
Li Yuan was already moving.
In a single breath, he was in the center of the square, hoe in hand, his spirit energy swirling faintly around his boots.
> "Let her go," he said, voice low.
The monk turned. "You… look like a farmer."
> "I am."
The monk chuckled, his voice stitched with madness. "Then let us test if crops bleed like warlords."
---
The Battle Begins
> [System Override Activated – Combat State Initiated]
[Relic Synchro Boost – Rootsplit Hoe (Crescent Fang Mode)]
[Bonus Activated: Battle on Sacred Soil – All farming tools gain +15% spiritual resonance]
The monk dropped Mei.
She fell screaming — but a pulse of golden earth qi rose from the ground like a hand, catching her gently and sliding her safely to Granny Xue's waiting arms.
> "Good," Li Yuan thought.
"Now I can focus."
The monk lunged.
Eight rusted blades shot out from his back, bending mid-air like serpents. Li Yuan stepped sideways, his hoe whirling once, deflecting three. One sliced across his shoulder — the first blood drawn.
> [Warning: Foreign Poison Detected – "Ash Spider's Venom"]
[Auto-Purification Activated – Soil Qi Conduit Active]
Li Yuan gritted his teeth as his qi rushed to the wound, neutralizing the toxin.
> "He's using poison-based spirit qi. Corrupted Wood Path."
The monk laughed, launching himself into the air, using the webs to pull himself from rooftop to rooftop like a puppet dancing on strings.
> "Your land will rot, Farmer-God. Your roots will blacken. I will drag your soul into the Cradle of Eight Skulls!"
> "Yeah?" Li Yuan leapt onto a rooftop.
"Then let's plow."
---
Unleashing the Soil Techniques
> [System Skill: Earth-Carving Strike – Activated]
Li Yuan struck downward.
The hoe slammed into the wooden roof — and from the impact, a wave of spiritual force traveled through the building, up the monk's web lines, and detonated the anchor points.
The monk screamed, falling.
Li Yuan jumped, landing beside him as his hoe spun in his grip like a divine crescent moon.
The final strike came like a farmer cutting through a thick root.
> "Go back to the soil."
The blade met the monk's chest.
The webs shattered. The rooftop split.
The Ash-Spider Monk collapsed — twitching once — and turned to dust.
---
System Alert: Victory
> [Enemy Neutralized: Ash-Spider Monk – Rank B+ Assassin]
[XP Gained: 5,800]
[New Passive Skill Acquired: Venom Resistance – Tier 1]
[Soul Fragment Detected – Recovered from Monk's Core]
> [Do you wish to extract memory fragment from defeated soul? Y/N]
Li Yuan pressed Y.
The monk's final memory flickered before his eyes — a vision of the six cloaked figures in the north, speaking of war, relics, and sealing the "Farmer God" before he could reclaim his crown.
Then it ended.
---
Aftermath
The villagers gathered, stunned.
No one spoke at first — until Mei ran up and hugged Li Yuan's leg, trembling.
> "You… saved me…"
He knelt, patting her hair gently.
> "I'll always protect this land," he said softly.
"No matter what I used to be… I'm your farmer now."
Granny Xue approached, holding the scroll again.
> "This was just the first test. More will come."
Li Yuan looked up at the moon, his eyes calm — but sharp.
> "Then let them come."