The Warrior Scholar Chronicles. Ink and Moon on Rice Paper.

Part 3 An even bigger fate (Eight fiery-red eyes.)

Part Three      Eight fiery-red eyes.

Thud!

A sudden eruption of a gale, accompanied by an ominous weightiness, shattered Mu Er's contemplation. The ground trembled beneath his feet, jolting him to attention. His heart raced as he felt the disturbance ripple through his clothes and hair, leaving an unsettling aftermath in its wake. 

"Whoosh"

In an almost reflex manor, Mu Er sent a powerful surge of shen energy drawn from his spiritual sea cascading outward. 

Its aura draped everything, refining his surroundings in a vivid, colourful hue almost akin to a rainbow. Amid fading echoes, he stood primed, senses heightened, unravelling mysteries kindled by the resonating wave.

As dust spiralled into a maelstrom, it veiled the scene in an eerie red haze, heightening the sense of foreboding. The sinister clicking sound seemed to crawl along his spine, prompting him to be on high alert. Before his thoughts could fully form, a nightmarish sight unfurled before him.

Emerging from the obscurity of the blooded dust and shadow was the outline of the Dreadspinner Widow Maker. A monstrosity of an ancient spider species that seemed to eclipse even the most malevolent of imaginations.

Mu Er's movements involuntarily shifted, stepping backward in a haste driven by the sheer presence of the Dreadspinner. The creature's leap beyond the battle's front had been spurred, perhaps, by the pitiful howl of its fallen comrade, the Rockiron wolf.

"Gulp..."

A look of trepidation betrayed Mu Er's uncertainty. His initial impulse was to flee, to cast himself into the refuge of distance. Yet, amidst his fear, a thread of logic held sway. He understood that to turn his back on the spider would be to court certain doom.

Fortune danced on the side of desperation. However, Mr Er's first impression that this was an ancient beast were exaggerated after closer inspection, revealed itself to be less than a century old. Even so, Mu Er found himself caught off-guard, his defences momentarily weakened.

The Dreadspinner's released an aura of terror that seemed to transcend the physical realm, reaching deep into the core of Mu Er's being. His fingers trembled under this overpowering Monters qi, desperately clinging to the half of his bladed spear. The once-familiar weight of the weapon now morphed into an anchor of unease. 

The cool metal beneath his fingers grew slick with perspiration, his slippery grasp betraying his nervousness. 

"Hu!"

Just one look at the Dreadspinner Widow-maker was all it took to strip away Mu Er's bravado, plunging him into the harsh truth of confronting a malevolent force beyond anything he had encountered before.

A monstrous fusion of arachnid and malevolence was ready to pounce. With a body as large as a wagon wheel, its onyx exoskeleton glistens with an oily sheen that seems to absorb the feeble light around it.

Its eight legs, sinewy and contorted, stretch out like nightmarish appendages. Each tipped with dagger-like talons capable of rending through even the toughest armour.

The look of its face caused the most terror, it's defining feature. A ghastly visage seemingly carved by the hands of nightmares. 

Eight fiery-red eyes, gleaming with a malevolent intelligence, adorn its grotesque face. Fangs, elongated and serrated, jutted out from its maw in a gruesome display of deadly precision. These fangs, dripping with venom that can induce both agony and paralysis, act as cruel tools of both predation and terror.

Its abdomen sported an intricate network of webs spun from a silken thread woven in the darkest corners of the netherworld. These strands shimmer with an eerie iridescence, casting a surreal light on the vicinity and acted as an impairment to most weapons getting entangled by the sticky silk threads.