Chapter 572: Chapter 572: baptism of Blood and Silk

The six juvenile spiders lunged across the clearing, their segmented legs moving in a sickening, coordinated blur. The copper stench of their dripping mandibles hit Roy’s nose before he could even register their proximity. Panic gripped his chest, but the memory of Ethan’s freezing gaze forced his muscles to move.

SHING!

Roy drew his steel katana, the blade flashing in the dim light. He dropped into a low stance, his breath ragged.

The first spider leaped directly at his face, its long, bristling front legs outstretched to pin him down. Roy bellowed a raw, terrified battle cry, swinging his blade upward in a desperate diagonal slice.

*CLANG!*

The steel struck the beast’s heavily armored carapace, sending a jarring vibration straight down Roy’s arms. He managed to deflect the initial strike, but the sheer momentum of the meter-long monster slammed into his shoulder, knocking him off balance.

"Don’t lose your footing!" Mary shouted from the back, her fingers white as she clutched her unbent longbow, desperately fighting the maternal urge to shoot an arrow through the beast’s skull.

Before Roy could stabilize his stance, a second spider skittered past his flank, its bloated abdomen snapping forward. A thick, sticky stream of grey silk shot through the air, catching Roy across his left thigh. The tensile strength of the web was horrific; the moment it anchored to the dirt, it locked his leg in place like an iron shackle.

"Damn it!" Roy hissed, his face contorting in pain as a third spider capitalized on his immobility, plunging its jagged mandibles straight toward his midsection.

With his leg pinned, Roy couldn’t dodge. Relying on pure survival instinct, he reversed his grip on the katana and shoved the hilt downward, jamming the crossguard directly into the spider’s open maw. The dripping, venomous fangs snapped shut barely an inch from his ribs, the toxic saliva sizzling against the steel blade.

Louisa whimpered, hiding her face against Ethan’s arm, unable to bear the sight of her brother being swarmed. Ethan remained perfectly still, his amethyst eyes tracking every shift in Roy’s balance, entirely unbothered by the violence.

Roy snarled, twisting his wrist with every ounce of his Body Tempering strength. The torque of the blade cracked one of the spider’s main mandibles, forcing the beast to screech and retreat. Seizing the momentary gap, Roy swung his katana downward, hacking fiercely at the thick silk binding his leg until the fibers parted.

But the physical toll was accumulating rapidly. His chest heaved, his lungs burned, and the sheer weight of fighting three peak-level juvenile beasts simultaneously was pushing his unrefined meridians to the absolute brink of exhaustion.

The remaining three spiders converged on him in a pincer formation. One lunged from the left, its razor-sharp legs slicing a deep gash across Roy’s forearm. Blood splattered onto the dirt, and the blunt force of another spider’s headbutt slammed into his ribs, sending him skittering backward through the mud.

Roy fell to one knee, using his katana to keep himself from collapsing entirely. His vision was swimming, his nose bleeding from the residual pressure, and his muscles screamed for mercy. Three spiders were dead or severely injured, crawling in pools of their own green ichor, but the final three were circling him, their compound eyes flashing with an insatiable, predatory hunger as they prepared for the final, lethal strike.

Before the three remaining monsters could launch their final, lethal pincer strike upon the kneeling boy, Ethan’s silhouette blurred.

He appeared in the absolute center of the swarm like a sudden ghost. Three instantaneous, microscopic flashes of silver cut through the dim foliage.

SLICE. SLICE. SLICE.

The movements were so blindingly fast they left no sound of wind behind. The three juvenile spiders froze mid-lunge before their bodies cleanly slid apart, severed perfectly in two down their midsections, green ichor erupting into the dirt.

Ethan casually flicked the green fluid off his blade before turning his freezing amethyst eyes toward the panting, blood-stained boy.

"A true swordsman is not a crude warrior, Roy," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a deep, instructive cadence that carried a heavy, philosophical weight. "You are fighting completely wrong. You are relying on your muscles, your panic, and the physical density of your steel. A warrior fights his enemy. A swordsman commands the space. Observe closely."

Ethan deliberately took five slow steps deeper into the humid clearing, his boots crunching against the camouflaged webs. The sudden, immense weight of his presence sent a massive tremor through the entire forest floor.

SCREEECH!!!

The canopy exploded. Lured by the violent vibrations and the thick scent of juvenile blood, dozens upon dozens of adult Spiritual Web Spiders came pouring out of the high branches and dense thickets. There were over forty of them, each measuring over two meters in length, their massive, iron-hard legs clicking like a descending army as they swarmed toward the lone youth.

Mary instinctively drew her bowstring to its absolute limit, her heart freezing in her chest, while Louisa gripped her small dagger so tightly her hand shook. Roy forced himself up, his eyes wide as he prepared to witness the impossible.

Ethan took a slow, deep breath, completely ignoring the wall of snapping mandibles closing in from every single direction. He gently closed his eyes, his plain iron sword resting loosely in his right hand.

"If you believe in your heart that your blade cannot be stopped, then absolutely nothing in this universe will ever stop it," Ethan murmured, his voice incredibly calm yet carrying an echo that began to vibrate the very air. "If your heart and your sword become truly one... even the world itself will divide before your will...!!!"

The final syllable erupted from his throat like a sudden, cataclysmic clap of thunder.

BOOM!

The iron sword in Ethan’s hand suddenly erupted with a brilliant, blinding white-blue luminescence. The light didn’t come from a high-tier cultivation technique or a surge of restricted spiritual mist; it was an absolute, localized manifestation of pure Sword Intent. After weeks of tempering his restricted core and fighting on this frontier, Ethan had finally unlocked the authentic, conceptual comprehension of the blade.

Ethan moved.

He glided through the oncoming horde like an ethereal deity of execution. The white-blue light trailing his blade became a flawless tapestry of absolute destruction. Every single horizontal sweep, vertical cleave, and low-angle slice traveled with a velocity that defied physical laws.

SHUUU-FUNG! SHUUU-FUNG!

The adult spiders, whose carapaces were dense enough to deflect cold steel and spiritual arrows, were reduced to nothing more than wet tissue paper before his advance. Ethan destayed them, his blade sliding through their iron-like legs, their armored heads, and their massive abdomens without encountering a single shred of resistance. Heads flew into the canopy, segmented bodies were bisected into identical halves, and a massive, continuous rain of green emerald blood painted the dark trees in a horrific, magnificent display of absolute mastery.

Within mere seconds, the chaotic screeching of the forty-beast swarm was completely silenced. Ethan stood at the far end of the clearing, his back turned to the mountain of cleanly sliced, divided carcasses, the brilliant white-blue glow of his Sword Intent slowly fading back into the plain, unchipped iron of his blade.

Young Roy stood completely frozen, his jaw slack and his soul thoroughly shaken. He didn’t just witness a slaughter; he had just glimpsed the true, terrifying apex of the Sword.

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From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.

Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.

Body Refinement Realm

Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement

Spiritual Gathering Realm

Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation

Spiritual Core Realm

Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)

Spiritual Soul Realm

Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion

Golden Core Realm

Prime Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction

Spiritual Sea Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Dao Manifestation Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Spiritual Transcendence

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??