“I swear, if you even lay a hand on these kids, I’ll eat you alive.”

Great. This was the last thing he was waiting for. Grumbling inside, he kept his eyes on the path, or else he would get stomped by hundreds of sharp spider legs. He even infused Spirit energy into coating his body, just to be safe. Finally, taking care of that, he put a little of his mind into the telepathic link.

"You don't need to worry. I don't even have a finger to lay upon anyone," he expressed through the telepathic link.

"You know what I mean."

“I think you’re worried about the wrong individual.”

“Seriously, you don’t seem to value your life all that much,” the spider said.

Shan had no time to reply as he was too busy evading being stomped by the baby spiders. Even though the spiders were busy in their marathon and didn’t become murderous with just the sight of him, keeping himself became impossible there. Well, he was the youngest there and probably the lowest rank.

Shan’s spirit coating already got obstructed a couple of times after getting stomped by the sharp legs. And worse of all, he couldn’t attack them at all. Ignoring the fact that one fully sentient big spider mama was somewhere behind him, already warned to eat him alive if he mingled into a conflict here, it was the wrong thing to do here. Well, he was outrageously outnumbered, after all.

Getting stomped under those hundreds of spider legs, Shan moved to the opposite side the spiders were going. However, the storming horde of spiders didn’t seem to end, no matter what.

“Hey,” the voice spoke in through the telepathic link again. “Can you lung in the air?”

“I can,” Shan answered in a pressing tone. “But why will I do it?”

“Of course, so that I can catch you.”

“And eat me alive?”

There was gloating in the telepathic link. “Don’t worry, I’m full,” the voice said again. “Besides, that tiny body of yours won’t be enough for even a one-time meal for me.”

Shan had the same impression about her, though the chance of him getting to eat her was very slim, not to mention Shan had no intention of sticking his head into something like that. That spider was fully sentient, so as long as she stayed out of his business, they were good.

“Haha,” Shan laughed dryly. “That didn’t relieve me in the slightest.”

“Huh, I give you my word then,” the spider added casually. “If you do nothing wrong to my clan, I won’t do you any wrong.”

Her words seemed genuine, but what about the other spider that came to eat him, barely even getting the wind of him? Well, it was not like he was going to get into her clan. He just had to get out of here after getting out of this maddening marathon.

Sometimes all it takes is a leap of faith. Sucking in a cold breath, Shan took the leap of faith, literally. “Here I am.” His body lunged from the gaps of the rushing spiders to the mid-air. A few dozen spider eyes drifted towards him, finally noticing his existence, but before the kids could try anything, a white web shot at him and caught his tail, pulling him towards it. The opposite direction of where the spiders were going.

Within a couple of seconds, Shan was out of the midst of the spiders to get glued to the back of a bigger spider. Shan struggled out the moment he got out of the chaotic marathon, but soon he found out, he was struck to the back of the abdomen of the spider and couldn’t get away no matter how much he tried.

It was not just the sticky web, there was something else. There was a power that stuck him with the spider, but it was not like Shan couldn’t do anything else. Grunting, he triggered Spider Devour as a suction force rose from—not just his mouth, but all over his body. The force was a lot lower than what he usually was when he swallowed those cobwebs during battle, but it was enough.

“What? How?” the empathic spider asked, bewildered.

Shan said nothing as the hunger power sucked out all the power that was sticking to him. Still, it took him several seconds to get free. Shan was about to escape, but the cobweb shot at him again and pressed him on the back of the spider, yet again.

“AHHH,” Shan yelled in the telepathic link.

“Don’t worry,” the spider said. “I’m not going to eat you.”

“Then let me go.”

“In a few minutes,” the spider said. “By the way, how did you do that? Even Iron rankers cannot break free from my adhesional force that easily.”

“Adhesion?” That explained why it was so hard for him to get away. Adhesion has minimal effect as a combat spark, however, it was damn good at what it can do, which was, of course, stick things together. As long as the force behind the adhesion remains, there is no way to break free. Luckily, he awakened Spirit Devour. Even though it was difficult to eat away a spark’s spiritual force, he still managed.

Other than that, Shan was not sure if anything could free the adhesion sticking that easily. Normal, non-attributed spirit force will take hours, if not days, to recover just that if he doesn't have the spark of hunger.

However, what startled Shan was that this spider had more than one spark. Yes, she was Iron ranked, but it's rare to see multiple sparks in monsters.

On the numerical values of Sparks, all the creatures in the universe were divided into four categories. First were those that didn’t have any sparks—they are doomed to never cross the boundary of Iron ranks in their lifespan, or if the universe was kind to them and through some extremely rare chances, they somehow evolve and gain a spark. They become one of the other three categories. Occurrences like these were extremely rare.

Next were those with one inborn spark. Shan thought these Empathic spiders were like that, however, it seemed otherwise. Shan just got first-hand proof of that just now. Actually, one spark was enough to reach Diamond rank and probably the easiest with just one spark. Things get complicated after the numbers become more.

The third category was where the number of sparks becomes two and for the last category, it was where one has the most number of sparks. Supposedly, that number was four. Most humans are of the fourth category, and probably their only advantage over the other races. However, a Mythical creature like Shan himself goes to the fourth category as far as he could tell, meaning at each rank advancement before Diamond he had to integrate with other sparks, raising the number to four.

On the scope of versatility, the more sparks there were, the better, however, the more sparks one gains, the slower one’s speed of advancement gets. So that’s a bummer. You can’t have all the advantages, after all.

“What do you want?” Shan grumbled, watching the spiders racing before his eyes.

“The Spark that you own,” the spider asked, “is that Hunger or Feast?”

“Why do you ask?” Shan wasn’t in a mood to answer the question easily. There was something this spider was getting at that he didn’t know. Feast and Hunger were two similar sparks, but there were some distinctions between them. Such as, Feast was like Gluttony, whereas Hunger was more like Greed—the ambition to not just eat, but the hunger to be something more, something higher.

The Empathic spider didn’t answer like he didn’t, but somehow came to a conclusion. “It's not Feast, but I could be wrong there.”

Shan didn’t try to break free from the adhesion force, as it would be futile, but he kept himself prepared. If he tried, he might be able to get free at the right moment, moreover, there were still dozens of spider babes around them, and the one that caught him seemed to be worried about their safety, so he could use that.

“Solidity,” a spider came from behind, about three feet tall, full white rather than the usual grey and brown, “what’s that snake on your back?”

“Oh, Marvel,” Solidity, the empathic spider, said, as a couple of her pupils looked towards the white spider. “Why aren’t you running with the others?”

There were a few other spiders in the back, but they were even smaller, barely a couple of feet—probably the youngest bunch of the horde. They were going at their best, but their best wasn’t enough. As for Marvel, the white one of the bunch, she was different from the rest.

“Don’t worry,” Solidity added to Shan. “These lots were the female kind of my clan. They won't come to bite you.”

“Are you sure about that?” Shan asked, finding that white spider looking at him with all her eyes, getting closer. The next question she asked chilled Shan even more.

“Solidity,” Marvel asked as her eyes sparkled, “is this the prize of the race?”

So this was really a marathon going on.