Chapter Text
Shen Yuan’s transformation into a creepy crawly overlord began in a dark cave, miles down from the surface.
He had been small for his size. One baby spider among the thousands born that fateful day. Thousands born, but only the strong survive.
He woke up to war.
A cannibalistic fight to the death for their hunger drove them to attack and to eat. A never ceasing feast of gluttony on the silken remains of the webbed sac and broken eggshells.
There were no allies, no friends, just the harsh reality in an animalistic world without morals or conscience.
Shen Yuan had never truly been hungry before.
His first life found him mostly in the hospital, where his meals were carefully monitored and given strictly on schedule.
The hunger he felt in that moment was as if his organs were collapsing. As if they were going to dissolve into nothingness if he didn’t put anything in it. A mind-numbing hunger.
He joined the feast.
XXX
When he next awoke, he was alone.
Cradled in silken strands, far stronger than appearance would suggest, he lounged high above the cavern floor.
Beneath him lie the remains of the feast. Empty pieces of carapace and chitin, hollowed out legs and viscera, were strewn and tangled within the flattened egg sac. Several of his “siblings” still fought, but the urgency was gone and most of them just wandered about aimlessly. Surprisingly, of the thousands that were born, only a few hundred remained.
Shen Yuan hung for a while just taking stock of his situation. He didn’t allow himself to think deeply of it or he feared he would have a meltdown. He wiggled each of his eight legs, his new eyes allowing full visibility in the dark. He was covered in fine hairs like a fat tarantula but that was where the similarities ended. On his carapaces were iridescent blue designs that were almost hypnotizing to watch.
As he was looking over his new body, a huge body approached the empty sac. The female spider was massive, easily taking up a third of the cavern space. Her abdomen had similar shimmering patterns that Shen Yuan’s possessed. Her legs each ended in sharp almost spear-like red points. Her fangs dripped glowing red venom.
She moved silently towards her children with the smooth grace all spiders possess. Upon reaching them, the baby spiders all surrounded the elder.
However, there was no joyful welcoming to the world.
The mother bent down her huge body and began swiftly eating as many as she could before they started fleeing. Though his siblings scattered, a third of the remaining hundreds were eaten by the mother.
Hanging high above, Shen Yuan was so very grateful he decided to stay up here.
Shen Yuan waited until the big spider left before moving.
Dodging between pointed stalactites, he climbed upside down and around, leaving the birthing cavern to head into darkness unknown.
XXX
The next few years of his spider life could be considered rather dull.
Shen Yuan stayed in the cave for all of it, finding interesting monsters and catching them. After having caught them he would first study them as they hung struggling in his web and then eat them.
He fully appreciated his spider form for its hunting prowess.
Occasionally, Shen Yuan would see one of his siblings or two. With their glowing markings, they were hard to miss. Most of the time it would end in a fight to the death, but occasionally they would quickly leave when catching sight of him.
That also might be the result of him being slightly bigger than them.
Which brings him back to the main point.
Hunting.
Spiders are good at it.
And as Shen Yuan is now a spider, he is very good at it.
Shen Yuan is now incredibly poisonous, can jump extremely high in a single bound, has a built-in netting and silk making system, can climb sheer walls effortlessly, and is just better than every other monster around.
Not a dragon, but generally everyone else.
The cavern Shen Yuan claimed as his own was full of beautiful glowing crystals the size of pillars poking every which way in every direction. The crystals gave off such a bright glow that he could almost feel the warm energy output as he traversed between the icicle-like formations. His blue markings giving him the best camouflage for this environment.
He had made his home high in an alcove looking over the cavern. His webs woven throughout the fragments and columns of strange glowing rock, creating thick walls to stop invading monsters and netting to catch the more delicious ones. While many sticky nets dotted the floor space, the ceiling had by far the most webs for walking.
He hunted anything that entered his cavern. Be it the two-headed-flower-lizard or the flying wasp-monkey, all who entered got eaten.
The monsters who still chose to live here and braved the danger of facing him were slightly stronger than some of the other prey he could find. It was as if the crystals themselves would summon them to enjoy their presence. But regardless of any crystal summoning power, Shen Yuan found that the more he ate, the stronger he grew.
In fact, he molted his carapace at least four times since living there alone.
At the moment he was the size of a large table. At least that’s what he is assuming as there is no way for him to check or compare himself to. He is bigger that most of the small sized monsters, but still much smaller than the cave lizards he feeds on.
His optimal size goal is to end up bigger than his spider mom.
But sadly, he is no where near there at the moment.
Alas.
XXX
He was never certain just how long he had been down here in the caves. It could’ve been one year, or it could’ve been thirty.
But what matters is that it had been a very long time since he had seen anything remotely human.
It had been a normal day in the cave when they first showed up.
Shen Yuan had woken up from his rest, tidied up his web, and then gone off to check his traps for any foolish monster stupid enough to walk right into them.
But what had been strange was there weren’t that many monsters around today.
Oh, there were some minding their young in nests. He generally left those alone as he didn’t want to have to leave the cave to get a meal. Its all about conservation. He could practically be considered a monster rancher with all the baby monsters he takes care of.
But the more active ones that he would normally snack on weren’t around.
It was odd.
He had eaten the last predator who took all his prey. It had been a delicious Crimson Razorback Lynx. He had had so much fun hunting that thing down. Usually things get stuck in his webs pretty easily. But the Razorback Lynx could cut his webs like none other. He had hunted that cat through the shadows and got to practice his flying jump attack.
But all this is beside the point.
Something dangerous was in his cave and he was gonna find out what.
XXX
It was the fire light that drew him.
Then the speaking.
Humans.
Two of them sitting by the fire.
One of them, an older man, had a naked sword across his lap. The other, a young child skinny with hunger, poked at the fire.
Shen Yuan crawled forward on the ceiling and settled behind a pointed rock formation. He usually never goes this close to the entrance of the cave. But with two intruders making camp at his doorstep, Shen Yuan couldn’t let them be without supervision.
But as he sat and began focusing on them, one point became abundantly clear the longer he listened.
He couldn’t understand them.
They both spoke what seemed like an ancient dialect of Chinese, but the language itself just didn’t fit in his head.
Almost like he couldn’t understand human speech at all.
Fuck.
Regardless of this discovery, Shen Yuan spotted the remains of several Two-headed-flower-lizards cooking over the open fire.
He decided to continue watching them. If they didn’t do anything and left in the morning, then he’d let them be.
Of course, if they went deeper into the cave, then all bets were off.
So, he sat in the darkness and listened.
XXX
The two humans were interesting.
They did this thing where they drew energy from the earth into their bodies. For some reason, his eyesight could see the energy move around them like colored swirling mists before entering their chest. The boy was having trouble doing it, but it looked like the older man wasn’t doing much to help out either.
Shen Yuan didn’t like the man.
He just gave him a bad feeling.
That and Shen Yuan could sense the deaths of many monsters on his blade.
Very unsettling.
But his dislike came to head, when the two of them decided to leave.
Shen Yuan had made the magnanimous decision to follow them for a time. He was curious about the world, but he also wanted the chance to see if he could pick up some of the language before returning to his cave. That way if there are any other invaders, he could warn them off.
He’s become an old man threatening people to get off his lawn. Shen Yuan chuckled at the thought.
So, he followed the two out of the deep cave that had been his home for a long time and entered the surface world.
The entrance to his cave exited at the foot of a mountain surrounded by lots of old forest.
Seeing daylight for the first time in a spider body was an experience. His eyesight picked up so much more than human sight could. Everything was so much clearer and the colors brighter. He could zoom in and zoom out like a camera lens. The colors of the world were just amazing!
Before following the two humans, who at this point had disappeared down the road, Shen Yuan decided to hide the cave entrance. It wouldn’t do for someone else to just come and enter as they please.
Taking some webbing, Shen Yuan covered the entrance with white silk threads. He took rocks from right next to the entrance to blend it with the mountain. Wrapping the bottom half of the newly placed rocks with web, Shen Yuan stuck them together as if with glue so that when he had finished his project, it was impossible to see where the mountain ended, and the cave entrance began.
Shen Yuan felt a little like a trapdoor spider. Maybe he is getting a little too into these spider instincts.
Well, he is a spider.
When the entrance was covered to his satisfaction, Shen Yuan leaped into the trees and jumped from branch to branch, stretching his legs and muscles for the first time in a while.
Maybe the cave had been a bit crowded with all the crystals everywhere?
In the trees, there were many large birds that were sacrificed to his belly as he steadily followed his humans.
The longer he followed them, the worse he felt about the older man.
The man… wasn’t treating the kid right.
At first he thought it was just tough love, a father pushing his son to success.
But the man would yell at him, knock him to the ground with a slap to the face, sabotage his meditation thing.
Even his monsters treated their children better!
Well… excluding his spider mom.
Shen Yuan then began plotting the man’s demise.
XXX
Shen Jiu has regretted many things in his short life; begging on the streets, getting caught and sold to the Qiu’s, letting Qi-ge leave without him. But nothing as much as following Wu Yanzi into the wilderness.
Like a deal with the devil, Wu Yanzi had him trapped in a discipleship he didn’t want and placed in a bigger cage than previously, but still trapped with no escape. The illusion of freedom here is much worse than before.
Shen Jiu sat in the lotus position a short distance away from this evening’s campfire and Wu Yanzi, and attempted to cultivate. They have been on the road in the Western Forest for about three weeks now and should reach the next town within a few more days.
Sadly, that means more practice with pickpocketing the local merchants and robbing wealthy households while Wu Yanzi ambles off to the nearest whorehouse to spend the money collected.
He gritted his teeth and tried to force his mind to empty, to focus on his cultivation.
Lately, it was getting harder and harder to bring the outside energy within his core. He has been suspecting Wu Yanzi with this, but there is no proof. He could just be a failure at it.
Like everything else he does.
He closed his eyes and felt the world around him, gathering the wisps and drawing it close. Welcoming it home.
He sunk deeper into the feeling. The wind, the earth, the roots, the trees, the fire, his “Shizun”, the…
What?
What is that?
The energy of a large creature suddenly appeared above him.
Big.
Its body larger than a covered carriage.
Above him.
Shen Jiu opened his eyes.
Wu Yanzi had his back against one of the large trees nearest to the fire. In his lap was once again his favorite sword, unsheathed and glistening in the wavering light.
Directly above him, in the branches of the tree was the biggest spider Shen Jiu had ever seen.
Its shell was black with shimmering indigo markings decorating its back and fading to a bright blue at the end of its legs. Each leg was pointed like a spear, and eight black eyes ringed with blue glowed in the dark.
Eight eyes.
Staring down.
Before Shen Jiu could even make a noise, the spider leaped lightning quick on top of his Shizun, biting into his neck as it wrapped him with white threads.
Wu Yanzi's body shuddered, seizing up in violent twitches, his eyes wide, before going still. Foam dripped out of his mouth.
He was dead.
The Spider turned its head and stared at Shen Jiu.