Chapter Fifty-Four: The Stone Armored Spider

“Test…” I was just about to ask how the fat man planned to test it when he suddenly twisted me around so my back faced him, then slapped his hand onto the wound on my back.

“Damn you…” The pain was so sharp I could barely speak. Turning my head, I saw his fingers were already stained with my blood. But that pain made his intentions clear to me: “Hell, couldn’t you use your own blood?”

The fat man chuckled, “Just assume my arms are too short to reach.”

With that, he smeared the blood onto the rocky wall. We both stared intently, and soon several streaks of blood appeared before our eyes.

“Damn, it really sticks to the wall,” he muttered. I was puzzled too. He’d only smeared blood onto the wall, and it was visible, while earlier, even after pressing against it for ages, we hadn’t seen a trace. There was no way to explain it.

In the past, such minor details might have been overlooked, but now, desperate for clues and nearly at the end of our rope, we couldn’t afford to let anything slip.

We stared at the blood marks for a while, but saw none of the reactions I’d expected—no blood seeping into the mountain rock. The fat man, unwilling to accept this, took some blood from his own back and smeared it onto another spot.

“Damn, what a bizarre thing…” He seemed determined now; if nothing else turned up, he’d probably start smashing the wall with his hammer.

Watching him, a thought suddenly struck me. “Got it…”

He paused and asked what I’d thought of. I turned to face the mountain rock, back pressed against it. “Your experimental approach is right, but your method is wrong. Smearing blood like that can’t reproduce our earlier situation. If we want to test this properly, we have to restore that exact state.”

He patted me approvingly. “Hey, didn’t expect you to be so meticulous. Alright, press your back against the wall. I’ll watch from here. If you sense anything strange, move away as fast as you can. That way, I should be able to spot what’s happening.”

I figured there was nothing to lose, so I pressed my back to the rock as before. Standing there, I felt pretty stupid—like this was pointless.

“Well?” he asked after a while.

“Nothing,” I said, examining my wound carefully. There was no unusual sensation. But just as I finished speaking, the wound on my back began to itch—and this time, beneath the itching, I felt a faint sting.

Alerted, I quickly stepped forward and turned to look at the rock behind me. Both the fat man and I froze. Two small stones on the mountain wall were moving back and forth. It was like watching an ant carry a pellet across the ground, except these stones were on a vertical rock face—they should have fallen, not moved.

Within two seconds, we saw those little rocks merge back into the larger rock, disappearing so swiftly I almost thought I’d imagined it.

After exchanging glances, we confirmed it hadn’t been a hallucination. The fat man’s earlier suspicion was now taking shape—there was definitely something wrong with this wall.

“What now?” I asked.

He reached into his trouser leg, pulling out a dagger. Without a word, he stabbed at the stone that had just moved. No matter how hard he tried, the dagger only sank into the mountain rock—nothing unusual.

I tried prying at it with my hand, but it felt normal, no sign of looseness.

After a moment, he straightened and looked at me. “Missy, do you think maybe that thing only reacts to blood?”

“Possible, but if we press our backs to it, we can’t do anything,” I replied.

“Not necessarily.” He thought for a moment. “I think whether we press against it or not doesn’t matter. The key is enough blood has to touch the rock.”

“Maybe you’re right, but we can’t just bleed ourselves against the wall.”

“No need for that. Think about it—your wound’s only got so much blood on the surface. Just a bit more than what I smeared earlier should suffice.” He finished, suddenly placing the dagger in his palm.

“You’re not really going to do it, are you?”

He sighed. “This wall might be our last hope.” He glared at me. “So, are you willing to donate a bit for your own life?”

With that, he slashed his palm with the dagger. Watching it made my own hand ache, but he didn’t even blink, grinning as he looked at the cut. “Hell, I thought oil would come out first.”

He let his blood drip onto the rock. The surface was uneven, so his blood didn’t slide right off but gathered slowly, forming a bead. We waited, minutes passing, but saw no reaction.

“Hey, maybe your fat uncle’s blood has too much sugar,” he muttered, pulling his hand back.

I was frustrated, but still wanted to try again. After all, it was about both our lives—I couldn’t let him bleed alone. I snatched the dagger from him. “Let me try.” Gritting my teeth, I cut a line in my own palm.

“Damn, if I’d known you’d be so decisive, I’d have let you go first,” he said, clutching his hand.

I pressed my hand to the rock, letting drops of blood fall onto the bump where his had pooled. As my bright red blood trickled down, suddenly, the stone beneath the blood shuddered. Startled, I instinctively tried to pull my hand back.

He grabbed it, urging me not to stop. Drop after drop of blood fell onto the stone. The trembling grew more intense. I stared wide-eyed, and then, with a crack, the blood-stained spot bounced slightly. Beneath the small stone, six furry appendages emerged. Seeing those six limbs, I immediately thought of a spider.

The fat man realized too. “Damn, it’s an insect!”

I couldn’t recognize what this six-legged creature was. Aside from those spider-like legs, it was nothing more than a stone. It quickly crawled toward the blood, crouched down, and sucked up much of it. Only then did I glimpse two silver, fang-like shapes at one end of its body.

The fat man tried to grab it, but suddenly, the whole mountain wall and the space above us echoed with a sharp, clattering sound.

I held my breath. Countless cracks appeared on the rock’s surface, all the stones turning into tiny insects, swarming like an army of ants emerging from their nest. Above us, the entire tomb passage ceiling was covered with even more stone insects, crawling in waves, some dropping to our feet.

The sound of a single insect is faint, but when millions—perhaps billions—move together, the noise is deafening. The fat man shouted something, but I couldn’t hear. We just kept retreating.

I don’t suffer from a fear of crowds, but seeing this scene, my legs went weak with terror. He pulled me back, trying to reach the corner and escape into the other tomb corridor. But as I’d suspected, once these things revealed themselves, they weren’t going to let us escape easily.

We hadn’t even managed to turn around when countless stone insects rained down from above. In an instant, it was like being trapped in a storm of rocks, my skin pounded by their relentless assault. Worse, as they landed on me, I felt sharp pain, immediately understanding why the fat man had fallen from above earlier.

I was still frantically swatting at them when he yelled, “Stop grabbing, there are too many—just run!”

Even as he shouted, he couldn’t move forward himself. The insects fell thicker and thicker, our visibility shrinking. Struggling to escape, suddenly, an even louder crackling erupted behind us. Turning, I saw the mountain wall transform into a massive sphere composed of millions of stone insects, rolling toward us. There seemed to be some connection among them—when they moved, all gathered together, growing ever larger, rolling faster and faster.

I was utterly terrified. So many insects, with stone shells—if they didn’t bite us to death, they’d crush us. The fat man cursed and shouted, “Quick, hide in the side chamber!”

I snapped back to reality, following him as we ran and crawled into the chamber where the armor was stored. As soon as we entered, swarms of stone insects swept past where we’d just stood. My heart pounded, fearing they’d come back, but the noise gradually faded.

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