As Ye Chuan continued absorbing the souls of those demonic creatures, the power of his Soul Banner grew increasingly formidable. Translucent chains flew out as if they cost nothing, reaping one soul after another.
Hordes of Glowspider Venomants fell, yet even more of them surged forward relentlessly!
Ye Chuan watched as his artifact's attributes steadily increased, his gaze settling on the tide of spiders.
The sheer density of their numbers made him slightly nauseous—especially since most were palm-sized spiders, swarming forward in a dark, seething mass.
"Activate!"
Ye Chuan instantly triggered Ghost Etherealization!
At the cost of halving his magic resistance, he became immune to most physical attacks.
And what was his magic resistance?
[Infinity × ½]
The spiders lunged at him madly, only to pass right through his body. Meanwhile, the Soul Banner voraciously devoured the surrounding souls. Without hesitation, Ye Chuan began summoning fireballs.
"Meteor Shower, descend."
Fireballs rained down one after another, exploding against the ground. Waves of scorching flames incinerated the venomous spiders, while their souls were completely absorbed by the banner.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Each fireball erupted into a sea of flames upon impact. Within moments, the swarm of Glowspider Venomants had been reduced to half their original numbers.
Deep within the labyrinth, a massive spider—standing five to six meters tall—sharpened its metallic, blade-like limbs. Its bulbous green eyes gleamed with an unsettling, almost human-like intelligence.
"Are you the Glowspider Venomant King?" A sudden voice rang out. The king’s compound eyes instantly locked onto the figure standing before it.
"Skreee!" It raised its scythe-like limbs high.
"Shut up." Ye Chuan lifted the Soul Banner and smashed it down—
The skull of the Glowspider Venomant King, a being of equal cultivation level, exploded on impact. Green blood mist sprayed in all directions.
"Pathetic." Ye Chuan flicked the blood off the banner.
His attributes were stacked too high. Even opponents of the same realm couldn’t survive a single exchange.
A 1% increase here, a 1% increase there—soon, the damage became overwhelming.
A chain lashed out, ensnaring the soul of the Glowspider Venomant King. Ignoring its desperate struggles, Ye Chuan ruthlessly dragged it into the banner.
After the king’s death, Ye Chuan stored its enormous corpse in his inventory. With their leader gone, the remaining Glowspider Venomants scattered in panic.
Ye Chuan ignored the stragglers, instead using his spiritual sense to search the area.
"That thing Niya mentioned…" He glanced around until his senses detected something—a pendant hidden among the half-melted spider silk.
The pendant held an emerald-green gemstone. Ye Chuan stored it in his inventory and checked its description.
[Item: Gemstone Pendant
Seems to be someone’s personal keepsake.]
"Whatever. Let’s get out of here."
……
……
"That guy… he’ll be fine, right?" On the second floor of the labyrinth, Niya leaned against a wall, idly flipping her dagger.
She tossed it into the air, caught the hilt with precision, and repeated the motion over and over.
"Instant-cast magic…"
She knew Ye Chuan was strong, but the Glowspider Venomant King was no pushover.
That monster excelled at summoning its kin for battle. Its chitinous exoskeleton and limbs were harder than steel, and its magic-resistant silk made it a nightmare for most adventurers.
And Ye Chuan was a mage.
"Ah, whatever. I’ll just check on him. If he’s dead, I can drag his body to the church for revival… assuming it’s not too mangled." Niya stood up, about to descend to the third floor, when she spotted a figure soaring upward.
"You escaped?"
Seeing Ye Chuan unharmed, she frowned. His clothes weren’t even dirty—no signs of a fight.
"Escape?" Ye Chuan scoffed. "What if I just wiped out all those monsters instead?"
"You were only in there for a short while."
"Long enough." He snapped his fingers. With a heavy thud, the colossal corpse of the Glowspider Venomant King crashed onto the floor, its skull shattered and green blood pooling beneath it.
"The Glowspider Venomant King… How?" Niya examined the blunt-force trauma on the corpse, then skeptically eyed Ye Chuan’s slender arms. Was he secretly a warrior?
Impossible.
But after traveling with Ye Chuan briefly, Niya had grown accustomed to absurdities. She suddenly asked, "Did you see any corpses inside?"
"Corpses?"
"Adventurers’."
"No." Ye Chuan shook his head. He’d scanned the area with his spiritual sense immediately and found nothing.
Most likely, the spiders had devoured them completely.
"Is this what you were looking for?" He held out the pendant, noticing Niya’s expression shift. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at it.
"Niya?"
"This is it…" She took the pendant, clutching it tightly as if her chest ached.
A pained look crossed her face. "Why…?"
"Did you lose this?"
"No…" Niya met Ye Chuan’s gaze, then shook her head. "Since the Glowspider Venomant King is dead, our partnership ends here. Maybe we’ll work together again someday."
With that, she staggered slightly but quickly vanished from sight.
"That’s it?" Ye Chuan blinked.
Just like that?
……
"Whatever. Back to Yisu Town."
Though puzzled by Niya’s behavior, Ye Chuan left the labyrinth and returned to town. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and the Adventurer’s Guild’s oak door remained half-open.
Inside, drunk adventurers snored on the floor, and the reception desk was still unmanned.
"Guess I finished the quest too early." Ye Chuan checked the time.
Without the reward, he couldn’t visit the succubus den yet—though he was curious about what lay inside.
"Are you, by chance, a mage?" A voice interrupted his thoughts. Ye Chuan turned to see a gaunt man in black robes addressing him from a nearby table. A staff rested beside him—clearly a fellow spellcaster.
"How’d you know I’m a mage?" Ye Chuan replied casually.
"Heh. You don’t look like a warrior or a thief. You give off… a familiar aura." The man chuckled. "Besides, we mages love burning the midnight oil studying magic."
"Are you in need of assistance?"
"Actually, yes."
"May I be of service?"
"Sure. Lend me some money. I want to visit a succubus."
"?" The gaunt male mage froze for a moment. "I—I meant... something bigger, more meaningful."
Ye Chuan responded earnestly, "Lend me some money. I want to find a bigger succubus."
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
