Chapter 90: The Fate-Weaving Spider Woman (Please Save to Favorites)

The Life-Weaving Spider Maiden hanging from her spider legs chattered away nonstop, swaying her body like a hanged ghost, as if she were thoroughly enjoying herself.

Liu Zhi, however, could tell that this Life-Weaving Spider Maiden was of better quality than the Corpse-Soul Naga he had seen before. She already possessed a rudimentary consciousness, and as a high-grade undead, she also knew what she needed.

Still, she was not familiar with Liu Zhi, nor was she especially shrewd. She was like a rather innocent newcomer, blurting out whatever came to mind, and once she got started, she could ramble on endlessly.

Liu Zhi was quite curious about this and did not interrupt her. After all, for such a long time, he had been the only one talking, while Vednina refused even to spare him a word or two, and he was practically on the verge of collapse.

Now that someone more talkative than himself had appeared, Liu Zhi was naturally delighted.

He listened to the Spider Maiden very earnestly, with no intention of extracting information from her. He simply listened.

Beside him, Vednina seemed to catch something in the stream of speech. Though she usually spoke only when absolutely necessary, she took the initiative to say, “You… are… studying… something… You… seem… to be… suppressing… your… power.”

“You noticed that too? I thought our handsome master would be the first to figure it out. I never expected it to be you, the one who hardly ever opens her mouth. Actually, I’m not studying anything. It’s just that I feel like I should be able to release spider silk. Of course, you know that releasing silk is instinctive for me, but it’s not quite that simple. You don’t understand: as a spider, I can easily sense and control every strand of silk I put out. That’s what I mean…”

The Spider Maiden went on and on in a rambling fashion, somewhat incoherent at times, but Liu Zhi’s attention was gradually drawn to her.

It seemed that she had little confidence in the powers she currently possessed, finding them too simplistic and illogical. In her view, being a spider meant becoming a weaver of webs, setting traps of every kind, using silk to grasp the overall situation and control everything.

Yet everything she had learned belonged to close-quarters brawling, utterly unlike what she believed she ought to be.

Still, when the Spider Maiden looked at Liu Zhi and Vednina, both of whom wore puzzled expressions, she could not help feeling a little surprised.

“What’s wrong? Did I say something incorrect? I didn’t get anything wrong, did I? It’s exactly like this. We can set up many simple arrangements and seize the upper hand in everything. As long as our home ground is prepared well enough, the enemy won’t be able to break in…”

She continued her endless chatter, and after tilting his head to think for a moment, Liu Zhi said, “I feel this is also a combat method for a necromancer.”

“It… may… very… well… be…”

“Then let her try. Maybe she can bring us something different. Oh, right—what do you need?” Seeing Vednina agree, Liu Zhi turned back to the Spider Maiden.

Once Liu Zhi consented, the Spider Maiden grew even more excited. Her hanging body rocked incessantly as she spoke rapidly: “I have several plans. First, I think we need to set up an alert web outside the city. That should be fairly easy for us. I only need to spit out some silk at random. But as you know, if I want to control the entire web, it will take quite a while. I can’t stay here every day, so we need nodes that can control the web.

“Also, I think we can put a strand of silk on every undead. Then I’ll be able to issue all kinds of commands through the silk, telling them to advance, retreat, or concentrate fire on specific targets. Of course, if you want to talk about wireless functionality, I probably can’t manage that. But I assume you must have a way to control undead, right…”

The Spider Maiden spoke at dazzling speed. At first Liu Zhi listened quite seriously, but by the end, all he could hear in his head was a constant buzzing.

“All right, let’s start by trying the things you mentioned. We’ll take it step by step.”

At last Liu Zhi could not stand it any longer and cut her off. He felt that if he kept listening, his brain might explode. Yet the Spider Maiden showed no sign of fatigue. No one knew how long she had already been talking, and still she showed no intention of stopping.

If Liu Zhi had not called a halt, she might well have gone on forever.

“Fine. You’re the boss, so whatever you say goes. But can I mobilize some of your people then? I mean those ordinary skeletons. Oh, right, I think I saw skeletons of yours with blacksmithing skills, didn’t I? Where did those come from? Can they help me forge some things? Hey, wait a second, don’t run off. Don’t worry, I may not like fighting, but my combat strength is still decent. When there’s a battle, I’ll protect you…”

Driven nearly mad by the noise, Liu Zhi found a place to sit down and fixed the Spider Maiden with a stare. “Listen to me. Talking normally is fine, but when I’m meditating, you’d best stay quiet.”

“Meditating? I see. So you’re a mage. I kept thinking you were a death knight who had obtained a realm in the underworld. But why don’t you look like a mage? You’re even carrying a longsword—close combat? That’s really pitiful. Let me tell you, close-combat mages never have very good luck. They’re always falling off cliffs and whatnot. Actually, you should learn some long-range ability, like throwing lightning or something…”

Before the Spider Maiden had even finished speaking, a bolt of lightning shot out from Liu Zhi’s death staff. It was the last fully charged piece of lightning coral he had left. One of the other two had been destroyed, while the other had discharged its static shock and run dry.

“Huh? You can use lightning magic? Then what else can you do? Fireball? Ice spike? No? You can’t do that either? Wait, don’t tell me—illumination spell? That works too, I suppose. But why are the spells you’ve learned so strange…”

At last, the irritated Liu Zhi replaced the item on his death staff with a sun crystal and lit an illumination spell. He planted the death staff directly into the ground and sat within the spell’s radius to begin meditating.

As for the Spider Maiden, though she remained loquacious, she also understood that for a mage, meditation was the most important moment. So she obediently shut her mouth.

Even so, she did not sit idle. Her gaze wandered everywhere as she looked over the situation inside the necromantic palace, trying to see the place where she would live from now on.