Chapter 88 - Hunger
The Matriarch of the spider clan was very old. She was from the same generation as General Li, if not older. And for the last few hundred years, she had been in charge of the clan itself.
And there was no doubt about her power. She once fought the Great General one on one and stood her ground. No one knew who won or lost since neither party said anything after the fact but it was clear she was not a pushover. Not many people had seen her in person since she stayed away from the public eye.
The princess ran through many tightly guarded corridors until finally, she arrived in front of a small hill. This hill was surrounded by a luscious garden filled with hundreds of plants, insects, and even some birds. And this was all underground. The ceiling was littered with thousands of light stones like the stars in the night sky.
There was a giant waterfall behind the hill with light green water flowing down like heavenly dew. The entire place looked like a painting. The only thing out of place was the random hill in the middle which had a small cave in the front.
The princess walked up to the cave's entrance and stood there. She said nothing and did nothing, only stood in silence.
After about thirty minutes, a figure slowly walked out of the cave. The figure was of a woman, she seemed to be in her prime, no more than 35 years of age. With her long black hair and shapely figure, the mature aura she gave out was enough to steal away anyone's breath. This was the infamous spider Matriarch, Feng Mian.
"Mother!" the princess's face lit up like a candle upon seeing her. She ran up to her like a child and gave her a big hug.
It was hard to believe this beautiful mature lady was hundreds of years old.
"Yun'er, what's wrong?" she asked in the gentlest of tones while caressing the princess's head.
"Oh! I forgot! Mother, something happened, granny is asking for you!" the princess said when she remembered the reason for her urgency.
Feng Mian didn't ask anything else and simply followed the princess back. When they reached the room, they saw the granny standing outside with a few wounds all over and out of breath.
"What happened?" Feng Mian asked with furrowed brows. Were they under attack?
"Matriarch, I....I don't know how to explain this," the granny couldn't find the words to tell her what she saw.
"Relax, just tell me what happened."
The granny told her everything from the start when General Li came and what they asked for in return for treatment.
"Hmm, it's fine. If the old demon came here himself then it was important. Then what?"
"Then.....I don't know. I followed the instructions to the letter but something went wrong. The boy's soul was being attacked by something. I mean it shouldn't even be possible. Not many things can attack the soul directly. And then the cocoon....came alive...."
"Came alive? What do you mean?" Feng Mian was a low-level alchemist herself, she knew very well this was anything but normal.
"Take a look for yourself," the granny moved aside and slowly opened the door. The mother and daughter moved forward to look inside and were stunned.
There were giant tentacles coming out of the cocoon. They were waiving around the room as if looking for something. All the dried up herbs and plants that were on the walls and on the tables were gone.
"It ate everything. It even tried to eat me!" the granny said in a fearful voice.
"It...ate it?"
"Yes, the tentacles dragged everything they could reach and absorbed it back into the cocoon. Its color was light red before but now it's getting darker," she said pointing at the coffin. The cocoon was almost twice as big as before and could barely fit inside.
With furrowed brows, Feng Mian took a step and entered the room but as soon as her foot touched the ground, all the tentacles came rushing at her. Fortunately, she was prepared and used her Qi to block them. But then something happened that left her speechless.
The tentacles started eating through the shield made out of Qi.
In theory, this should not be possible. A person's Qi was refined by them over time and it belonged to them alone. When projected outward, it would have the same properties as metal or other substances and could be used to attack or defend. The better the control over Qi, the more variations that were possible.
So eating something made out of Qi would be equal to eating poison. Just like how a person with blood group 'A' could not donate or receive blood from someone of blood group 'B', similarly, it was not possible to absorb another person's Qi. It would get rejected by the body and would cause damage to the meridians and internal organs.
Yet these tentacles were eating away her Qi like it was the most delicious thing in the world.
She walked back out of the room and tentacles went back to their previous routine.
"Bring some spiritual beasts," she ordered while still looking at the coffin with a strange glint in her eyes.
"B-Beasts?" the granny repeated her words. Why would she need spiritual beasts?
"Yes, the more powerful the better," she confirmed. Even though the granny had a lot of questions she didn't linger and followed her orders.
An hour or so later she came back with dozens of guards holding several different kinds of beasts.
There were some rodents, giant insects, even some tigers and other big cats along with a few snakes.
"Throw them in," Feng Mian ordered and the guards formed a line and one by one came and started chucking the beasts in the room.
As soon as the first beast entered it was already surrounded by the tentacles. They grasped it from every side and quickly dragged it back to the cocoon with delight.
It tried to struggle and break free but it was all for naught. The tentacles retracted and the beast 'merged' with the cocoon and in less than a second. There were no movements or sounds to indicate that it was still alive.
The same happened to next, and the one after and all the rest. They were all absorbed by the cocoon and it showed no signs of stopping. The color of the cocoon got darker and darker as well.
"Bring more beasts, see if we have any small Demonic beasts. Bring them all!"
The guards came back sometime later with another assortment of beasts. The same thing happened and all of them were absorbed by the cocoon until its color became dark black and it slowly hardened. The tentacles also receded into the main body and it 'closed off' in a sense.
"What is that thing? What happened?" the granny was still confused. She had never heard of such a thing before.
"I'm not sure, but whatever that thing is, it was hungry so I fed it. Place a low sky-grade Imprisonment formation here and make sure no one enters or leaves this place.. Tell me when something changes," Feng Mian gave one final order and left in a hurry with the princess in tow.