This Tyrannosaurus Rex was about half the size of a baby's fist, making it a behemoth compared to ordinary mosquitoes or ladybugs. Creating an independent soul within such a large creature would obviously consume a lot of soul power.
But since he had already decided to do it, Zhou Ziwei naturally wouldn't be stingy with his energy. After all, this was the only clue he could find so far, so he had no choice but to grit his teeth and go for it. A continuous stream of soul power was poured into the Tyrant Spider's body. At first, the Tyrant Spider felt an instinctive unease and struggled desperately, trying to escape from Zhou Ziwei's grasp.
However, Zhou Ziwei used that swirling airflow to bind it tightly, preventing it from moving an inch. After a moment, the Tyrannosaurus Spider finally stopped struggling and began to spin silk incessantly. However, the silk couldn't stick to any fixed point, so the spider had no choice but to wrap it around its own body. Soon, the silk had formed a large white cocoon, completely burying the ugly blue and white Tyrannosaurus Spider within.
Wow... this is too... hilarious! How come spiders are... spinning cocoons too? Isn't this going to steal the business from silkworms? Zhou Ziwei's forehead was filled with black lines as he watched the spider cocoon grow bigger and bigger in front of him. He had been continuously outputting his soul power for a long time, but he still had no sign of successfully creating an independent soul body.
Although he knew that creating an independent soul within this life form would not be a simple task, the amount of soul power required still surprised Zhou Ziwei somewhat.
However, Zhou Ziwei is not the kind of person who gives up halfway. He either doesn't do it at all, or he sticks to it to the end! Fortunately, he only recited the six-syllable mantra once when he was in the lake, and he gained a lot. Although creating the independent soul body in this spider body consumed a lot, it was still just a drop in the ocean compared to the millions of souls in Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls.
Soon, Zhou Ziwei discovered an interesting phenomenon: the thick spider web covering the giant spider's body was not entirely a meaningless decoration. The layers of intertwined web followed an almost perfect artistic technique, weaving a beautiful and mysterious pattern. An innate allure emanated from this large spider cocoon. Even Zhou Ziwei, a master of hypnosis, couldn't help but experience strange hallucinations after looking at it for a while.
What a strange thing.
Zhou Ziwei was taken aback when he realized that the hallucinogenic effects of the Tyrant Spider would even work on him. He then closed his eyes and focused intently on continuously channeling his soul power into the Tyrant Spider's body.
However, Zhou Ziwei soon discovered that although he had output a considerable amount of soul power, it had not been fully injected into the Tyrant Spider's body to form the energy for a condensed soul body. If he hadn't closed his eyes and focused intently, he probably wouldn't have noticed that only about half of the soul power he continuously injected into the Tyrant Spider's body was effective, accumulating in a small area within the spider's body, while the rest was absorbed by the layers of spider silk surrounding the Tyrant Spider's body.
The amount of soul power that a single spider silk thread can absorb is negligible, but this Tyrant Spider in front of us has spun out an unknown number of spider silk threads in an instant. The cocoon formed on its body is round and large, consisting of at least hundreds of layers. If Zhou Ziwei wants to penetrate the Tyrant Spider's body with his soul power, it will have to go through the absorption of the outer spider cocoon hundreds of times. In this way, losing only half is already considered a small amount.
This... this little thing can actually absorb soul power.
This discovery truly surprised Zhou Ziwei. Before this, Zhou Ziwei had never seen any creature that could actively absorb soul power. Moreover... this thing wasn't using its own soul to absorb soul power, but strangely using spider silk... This was really puzzling. Zhou Ziwei didn't know whether the Tyrant Spider actively absorbed it, or whether it was its nature to absorb such things on its own.
However, since he had already decided to capture this Tyrannosaurus Spider, it was as if he was treating it as his pet. So even after discovering this, he wasn't annoyed. It was just a waste of a little more soul power. But if this spider could absorb his soul power and develop some powerful or special abilities, then that would be fine.
Soon... this special ability was displayed again, that is... the seductive and hallucinatory effects of the cocoon were becoming stronger and stronger. Even though Zhou Ziwei closed his eyes and only used his soul power to scan, he still felt a bit affected. Gradually, he felt as if he was in a circular world surrounded by a vast expanse of white, and he himself seemed to have transformed into a fat, large spider...
This strange feeling was fleeting; Zhou Ziwei's powerful soul force prevented him from staying in that psychedelic state for even a second before he fully woke up, but he still broke out in a cold sweat.
Even someone as powerful as him suffered a minor setback at the hands of a spider, almost being bewitched by it. This Tyrant Spider truly has impressive skills and is incredibly powerful... However, Zhou Ziwei estimated that this Tyrant Spider is not usually this strong. The reason it was able to create such a powerful illusionary effect using its spider cocoon was probably due to the massive amount of soul power absorbed from its layers of spider silk.
This Tyrannosaurus Rex must have been a natural expert in using soul power! And its talent was precisely manifested through soul power.
However... this Tyrant Spider was originally too weak. Its soul energy seemed ridiculously strong compared to that of ordinary insects, but compared to humans, it was just a drop in the ocean. Therefore, the Tyrant Spider's illusion magic had never been very effective against humans.
But... just now, this thing took the opportunity to absorb a massive amount of Zhou Ziwei's soul power, so its hallucinatory abilities immediately multiplied, almost even affecting Zhou Ziwei... and almost affecting him even with his eyes closed. So... what if it were an ordinary person? How would an unsuspecting person react to seeing the patterns woven by this spider?
Finally... after about two minutes, Zhou Ziwei, having exhausted twice his soul power, finally succeeded in creating a completely new, independent soul entity within the Tyrant Spider's body.
Because the independent soul was built inside the Tyrant Spider's body, although it couldn't completely devour the Tyrant Spider's original soul, it still had an absolute suppressive effect and easily obtained the Tyrant Spider's original abilities and a very small portion of its scattered memories.
Sure enough... this spider was indeed brought by the Spider Woman. Through the connection between himself and this independent soul, Zhou Ziwei could naturally decipher the pitiful little bit of memory in the insect's mind without any obstacles.
Although the Tyrannosaurus Rex is quite large, its brain capacity is still not much larger than that of an ant. For Zhou Ziwei, its memory could not even be called a memory at all, but at most a vague and scattered impression.
Among these scattered images is the presence of the Spider Woman. In the original sense of the Tyrant Spider, the Spider Woman is the closest creature to it. For a long time, its food was provided by the Spider Woman, and the food provided by the Spider Woman was obviously more delicious and tasty than the food it caught on its own. Moreover, it could make it grow stronger and stronger. Therefore, it had a very strong sense of dependence on the Spider Woman.
As for why the Tyrannosaurus Spider, which was clearly brought by the Spider Woman, was suddenly abandoned here... the Tyrannosaurus Spider had no idea about such a complicated question. With its pitiful brain capacity, it was simply impossible for it to understand the problem.
Zhou Ziwei was naturally unwilling to have wasted so much time and so much soul power, only to find out that the little thing was actually the Spider Woman's pet—an answer that Zhou Ziwei had already guessed.
Left with no other choice, Zhou Ziwei had to try anything, so he used his soul connection to give the Tyrant Spider's independent soul a command, instructing it to try to find the Spider Woman's aura.
It must have been raised by the Spider Woman for a long time, so it should be familiar with the original owner's scent! However... Zhou Ziwei had no idea whether this spider could find another creature by following its scent, like other animals... but he could only try his best.
Upon receiving Zhou Ziwei's order, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which had been hiding in its thick cocoon, immediately and swiftly pulled the spider silk it had spun back into its abdomen.
Then, with a flick of its head... a strand of spider silk was shot out again, sticking to the trunk of a large tree a few meters away. Then... the Tyrant Spider suddenly twitched... and its plump body immediately flew out of Zhou Ziwei's palm like a bullet, landing far away on the tree. Then it spit out another strand of silk, sticking to a large tree even further away, and with a swing, it flew another seven or eight meters away.
Wow... the legendary Spider-Man...
Seeing the Tyrannosaurus Rex so powerfully displaying its advantages, Zhou Ziwei couldn't help but marvel. He had always thought that spiders were incredibly slow, so he would never choose to capture one as a pet. But now it seemed that his previous thinking was somewhat biased. He didn't know how other spiders were, but at least the Tyrannosaurus Rex he had just captured was not slow at all. With a gentle swing, it covered a distance of ten or eight meters. Although its speed was still not as fast as those winged, flying insects, it wasn't too far off.
When Zhou Ziwei witnessed the Tyrant Spider skillfully displaying a mesmerizing beauty with a single strand of its silk, successfully bewitching a yellow bird perched on a treetop, and using the bird as its mount, wrapping the silk around the bird's neck as a rein to direct the bird to fly low through the forest, Zhou Ziwei was utterly speechless.
Is this still a spider? It's almost as cunning as a human. If it could, it might even bewitch someone into becoming its slave. If that happened... that would be quite a mess.
It seems that the intelligence of this Tyrannosaurus Spider's independent soul was ridiculously high from the moment it was created... Back then, the little ladybug also took a long time to nurture with soul power before it reached a level comparable to humans, but this Tyrannosaurus Spider... seems to be almost as good as an ordinary human now!
The Tyrant Spider, having captured the yellow bird as its mount, naturally increased its speed considerably. However, the Tyrant Spider clearly couldn't discern the scent left by the Spider Woman, so it didn't let the yellow bird fly too fast. Instead, it walked and stopped in the forest, occasionally stopping in front of some of its own kind to wrap up ordinary forest spiders with its silk. It was unclear whether they were communicating in a unique way among spiders. Then, as if they had indeed obtained some useful information from those spiders, the Tyrant Spider would urge the yellow bird to take off again.
After walking and stopping for about ten minutes, just as Zhou Ziwei was getting impatient and worried that he might be wasting time on this spider and thus delaying the opportunity to rescue Jiang Chunshui and the others, the Tyrant Spider had already flown all the way to the place where Zhou Ziwei had emerged from underground, next to a small pond not far away.
Then the tyrant spider unwound the silk from the yellow bird's neck, released the poor bird, and then crawled restlessly back and forth on the edge of the pool.
At the same time, it was transmitting a clear soul message to Zhou Ziwei, meaning that its former owner, the Spider Woman, must have gone into the water from here, and... it seemed that she never came out again.
The Spider Woman drowned here.
Zhou Ziwei released a wisp of his soul power with some skepticism and probed into the pool. However, he soon discovered that the pool was neither large nor deep, and there were no corpses in the water. Even the small fish and shrimp that were usually found everywhere were nowhere to be seen.
It seems I've really been wasting my time...
Zhou Ziwei shook his head inwardly, intending to capture the spider first and then search the surrounding area himself, when suddenly... the soul power that swept across the bottom of the pool discovered a series of crooked footprints in the soft mud on one side...
These... look like pinball footprints... indeed... although there are no footprints on the shore, there are some scattered traces of animals crawling by. Could it be... that someone drove the Dragon Group members here and then deliberately destroyed the traces around here?
With a slight thought, Zhou Ziwei immediately focused his mind and extended his soul power, searching along the crooked footprints at the bottom of the pool...
Volume 3, King of the City, Chapter 544: The Dungeon
The pool wasn't particularly large, but it wasn't small either. It stretched at least four or five hundred meters from east to west, and its depth was unfathomable. The deeper you went, the more astonishing the depth became.
After searching along the footprints at the bottom of the pool for a while, Zhou Ziwei could no longer find the footprints. Helpless, he had to put the Tyrant Spider into the lining of his alloy suit and then plunge into the pool, diving straight into the depths of the center.
This pool is very deep. Although Zhou Ziwei has already dived dozens of meters, his soul power still cannot reach the bottom of the pool.
The crooked trail of footprints disappeared near the center of the pool... This place is like a volcano crater. If someone were to actually walk here, they would either slip and sink to the bottom of the pool, or be buoyed up by the water and float to the surface, leaving no trace.
After mastering the secrets of water energy during the tsunami, water has become almost as commonplace to Zhou Ziwei as air. Even in deep water, neither buoyancy nor pressure is a burden for him. Instead, it is a source that he can use to replenish the non-attribute energy stored in his middle dantian.
Now he doesn't even need to think about anything. As long as he is subjected to the pressure of the water, the pores of his body will naturally open, completely converting the pressure from all directions into attribute-less energy and absorbing it into his body.
Therefore, although the depth of this pool is astonishing, even professional divers would probably not be able to dive to the bottom in one go without advanced diving equipment. However, Zhou Ziwei was nonchalant and dived to a depth of more than 600 meters in just a short time before finally reaching the bottom of the pool.
It's a very deep pool.
Zhou Ziwei was secretly amazed, and then searched around the bottom of the pool.
There was no light inside, and the bottom of the pool was as dark as hell. Zhou Ziwei had no choice but to use his soul power to scan it. After scanning, Zhou Ziwei did not find any corpses, and he breathed a slight sigh of relief.
His biggest fear was that all the members of the Dragon Group had been killed and their bodies disposed of by throwing them into the bottom of this pool. Now that he hadn't seen any bodies, he still had a glimmer of hope.
The trail of footprints in the pool indicates that someone must have gone into the pool not long ago. Since there was no body here, the person who went into the water obviously did not die. So... where did he/she go?
Zhou Ziwei once again released his soul power in all directions, thoroughly scanning the entire bottom of the pool. After a moment, he was finally invigorated and discovered that in a corner of the pool, there was a waterway with a diameter of about two meters that extended diagonally into the deeper underground.
There are waterways in the pool, which is a natural thing and nothing to be surprised about.
It should be noted that although this pool is not large in area, it contains a lot of water. And since there is no stream or other water source around the pool to replenish it, how could the pool possibly maintain a sufficient amount of water?
This usually proves that the pool is likely fed by groundwater. It would be strange if there were no waterways or springs at the bottom of the pool.
The waterway here is wide enough for two or three people to pass side by side, so... could it be that the Dragon Group members went into this place?
This discovery immediately caught Zhou Ziwei's eye, and he immediately plunged into the rugged waterway without hesitation. Even if there were mountains of knives and seas of fire ahead, Zhou Ziwei had the soul power to detect things 240 meters in advance, so he was not afraid that anyone would hide in the waterway and ambush him.
After diving through the undulating waterway for five or six minutes, Zhou Ziwei suddenly felt a wide open space ahead, and unknowingly arrived at another spacious underground pool.
This underground pool was also very deep, but it was certainly not as ridiculously deep as the pool on the surface. When Zhou Ziwei used his soul power to scan and determine the approximate area and depth of the pool, he was taken aback.
According to Zhou Ziwei's rough estimate, the difference in elevation between the underground pool and the surface pool must be at least 400 meters. It is an age-old truth that people go uphill and water flows downhill. But... why doesn't the water in the surface pool flow downhill? Instead, it seems that the water in the lower pool is flowing uphill.
This illogical phenomenon startled Zhou Ziwei for a moment, but he quickly came to terms with it. There are too many things in this world that defy common sense. If everything could be explained by common sense, wouldn't the world be too boring?
Putting everything else aside, is it reasonable that his soul, after death, did not perish and instead found an opportunity to possess another body and be reborn? Moreover, it's not impossible for water to flow uphill. If there were no water flowing uphill, then where would the fountain come from?
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei shook his head, no longer dwelling on the problem. He lightly pushed off the water with his feet, and his body quickly floated to the surface.
This...this place actually emits very strong radiation.
Before he had even reached the water's surface, Zhou Ziwei could already sense a faint silver light emanating from the underground pool and falling into it.
The light shining down from above was definitely not moonlight, because this place was underground. Then Zhou Ziwei felt that this light contained a kind of radiation that ordinary people could not detect, but which was clearly very strong.
Only after Zhou Ziwei fully emerged from the underground pool did he finally see the source of the light...
This was a vast underground world, and the ancient yet dilapidated buildings caught Zhou Ziwei's eye, making him realize that this place seemed to be the same underground city he had discovered during his previous underground search.
However, in the same underground city, he should now be in a different location than before.
The city is quite impressive in size, but most of it has been buried by soil, with only a few areas forming relatively independent spaces in this underground world.
The underground city that Zhou Ziwei came to this time had relatively few buildings. There was a very open square next to the pool, and in the center of the square was a rather abstract and huge stone sculpture.
The stone carving was quite damaged, but it was still roughly possible to make out that it was a statue of a human-faced beast, and in the hands of the human-faced beast, it held a spherical, glowing object about the size of a wheel.
The light in this underground space emanated from the sphere held in the hands of the human-faced, beast-bodied monster. Could this thing be a so-called luminous pearl? However... this luminous pearl is too big, so big that it can make one despair... The light emitted by the sphere is as cold as moonlight, illuminating this enclosed underground space, truly resembling a scene of moonlight spreading across the earth, appearing so desolate yet elegant.
However, this beautiful, cool light, like moonlight, was like poison to Zhou Ziwei, making him feel a sense of threat to his life.
Zhou Ziwei frowned inwardly, carefully closed his eyes and sensed for a moment. Only after confirming that the radiation here, although certainly highly destructive to the human body, was of no great harm to him, did he breathe a sigh of relief.
With a "whoosh," Zhou Ziwei reached out and gently wiped his alloy suit. The completely closed suit immediately opened a gap on its own, and then the Tyrannosaurus Spider, about half the size of a fist, fell to the ground with a "whoosh" while pulling on a strand of spider silk.
"Can I sense the Spider Woman's presence here?" Zhou Ziwei released the Tyrant Spider Queen and immediately began communicating with it in their souls.
The plump Tyrannosaurus Rex hopped twice, twisting its fat body and circling the edge of the underground pool a few times. Then, it jumped up in surprise, signaling to Zhou Ziwei that it had sensed the Spider Woman's presence. Then, like a little turtle, it began to wag its eight thin, long legs, supporting its fat body as it slowly crawled towards the human-faced, beast-bodied statue.
This guy's spider silk is very powerful; it can shoot at least ten meters at a time. Just now, it used its spider silk to stick, pull, and swing, and it could instantly advance ten meters. It's just a pity that this is a wide-open underground plaza, and it's empty everywhere. The Tyrannosaurus Spider can't really use Spider-Man's tricks anymore.
Unless its spider silk can be launched nearly a hundred meters at once and directly stick to the huge dome at the top of this underground space.
Apart from that, the Tyrannosaurus Rex only had the ability to manipulate its natural illusions, but this trick was definitely useless against Zhou Ziwei. Helpless, it could only use its eight not-so-strong spider legs to walk step by step toward its target.
Zhou Ziwei was slightly taken aback and couldn't help but feel regretful. He should have known better than to let the Tyrant Spider release the yellow bird when he was up there. Anyway, the bird wasn't very big, and he could have easily stuffed it into his alloy suit.
It'll only take a few minutes anyway. Just pump some air into the layers of their alloy suits, and they shouldn't suffocate. That way... once they're down there, the Tyrannosaurus Rex will still have a mount, and things won't be this complicated now.
"Whoosh—" Zhou Ziwei waved his hand and pulled the Tyrant Spider back into his hand. At the same time, he angrily communicated with the other party through soul connection: "You don't need to crawl slowly like this anymore. I don't have time to play with you here. Hurry up... Where do you feel the Spider Woman's aura coming from? You should be able to sense the general direction. Then tell me... I'll take you there."
Although he felt somewhat displeased, as if he had become the mount of this ugly spider, he didn't have much time to waste.
The gas composition in this underground world is rather strange. Although there are no obvious toxins present, it still makes people feel somewhat uneasy.
After all, it's impossible to verify how many years this place has been buried. The air here is completely isolated from the outside world. This sealed air has existed quietly for hundreds or even thousands of years. Even if it's non-toxic air, it won't turn into anything good if it's trapped for hundreds or thousands of years.
Although Zhou Ziwei detected that the air here did indeed have a high oxygen content, and even the atmospheric pressure here was much higher than outside, which should be the reason why the water in the underground pool was flowing to the surface pool, it was still best to leave this dangerous place as soon as possible.
Following the direction of the Tyrant Spider, Zhou Ziwei seemed to wish he could grow wings and fly away. In just a few leaps, he arrived in front of the monster statue in the center of the square that looked like a human-faced beast.
Before the lazy spider perched on Zhou Ziwei's shoulder could even point out the direction, Zhou Ziwei's face lit up with joy, and he muttered to himself, "Haha... Just as I expected, there's a secret passage under this statue... I suppose Zidan, Jiang Chunshui, and the others are locked up inside, right?"