Deities: Rulers of Nature

At the edge of the deep and boundless void, there exists such a world.

The sky hung low, with neither sun nor moon, only a broken celestial body emitting a dim light. On the gray-black earth grew some plants that looked like dead trees, dry and twisted.

There were no animals to be seen, and the wind brought a mournful wail that sounded like the wailing of ghosts.

But beneath the desolate surface lies a vast and vibrant underground world, inhabited by intelligent races who call it the Underdark.

Entering through one of the passages, the first thing that catches the eye is a layer of luminous glass covering the rock wall, possessing a dreamlike beauty.

However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that this luminous, crystalline substance is actually composed of the corpses of countless insects.

This is a type of insect unique to dark caves—the glowworm.

Fireflies feed on soil and minerals. As they continue to eat and grow, the soil and minerals they ingest undergo a peculiar reaction within their bodies, causing their originally dull shells to gradually become translucent and emit an increasingly bright glow.

Fireflies that only eat soil emit a soft white light, those that ingest iron ore emit a red light, and those that are lucky enough to eat copper ore emit a blue light... The different minerals they eat cause them to emit different lights.

When a firefly dies, its internal organs quickly dissolve into a highly sticky, transparent gel that binds its carapace tightly to its surroundings.

Over time, the remains of countless fireflies accumulated, eventually forming colorful and dreamlike light corridors in the dark underground caves.

"Kardia, hurry! Don't let that molten iron beast get away!" A figure with eight legs shouted as it sprinted along the rock wall without looking back.

Its eight legs moved rapidly, even creating a whooshing sound in the wind.

Not far in front of her, a molten iron beast covered in dark red scales was rolling rapidly through the cave, its body curled into a ball.

"Ugh, Carlos, if you hadn't suddenly made a sound and startled it, my web would have already stuck it." Kadia's voice came from behind, sounding somewhat exasperated.

She also ran with her eight long legs alternating, leaning her upper body forward to reduce wind resistance.

"Get out of the way!"

As she spoke, her abdomen suddenly contracted, and a white spider web shot forward rapidly, but it grazed the carapace of the molten iron beast and stuck to the rock wall.

Through the glassy layer formed by the corpses of fireflies, two rather graceful yet somewhat eerie figures can be seen refracted.

Their upper bodies resembled human women, with snow-white hair, snow-white skin, and a round, snow-white face, possessing a captivating and alluring beauty. Most striking were their eyes: below a pair of scarlet primary eyes, on either side, were three smaller, blood-red secondary eyes, which, at first glance, resembled rubies adorning their faces.

Following the slender waist downwards, the human divine body abruptly ends, replaced by a massive, obviously powerful, snow-white spider body.

The eight long, slender legs, with sharp tips, are covered with a layer of white down and have barbs at the ends. These spider legs can precisely adhere to the rock walls, allowing them to walk as if on flat ground even when hanging upside down from the top of the cave.

They are the only intelligent race living in the dark caverns, the Snowdrop Spiders.

"Kardia, could you aim carefully before you shoot? Were you trying to catch it or tie me up with that shot?" Carlos used all eight legs to leap over the spiderweb that had just spread out in front of her, his tone tinged with annoyance. "If I hadn't used up all my silk while hunting today, it wouldn't have had a chance to run this far!"

"How dare you say that to me?" Kadia glared at her companion, annoyed. "With your usual reckless hunting style, spraying webs like crazy, no amount of spider silk would be enough for you."

"Alright, stop nagging. I remember one of the forks in the road ahead is a dead end. You and I will work together to force it in," Carlos said to Kadia after piecing together the surrounding terrain in his mind.

As soon as he finished speaking, Carlos exerted force with his eight spider legs, his snow-white figure leaving a trail of afterimages in the cave, and successfully cut into the right side of the Iron Beast.

Although he had exhausted his spider silk, Carlos, as a Bronze-level superhuman, still possessed formidable physical abilities.

Kadia circled around to the top of the rock wall, her abdomen contracted again, and clumps of spider silk shot out, spreading out on the right side of the fork in the road, forming a dense spider web that blocked it.

Although the Iron Beast rolled along, its small eyes could still see the surroundings. Seeing that there were Spider-Men and spider webs blocking its way on the right, it rolled to the left in a flash. However, it did not expect that this would do the two people what they wanted.

"Now!"

Even without Carlos's reminder, Kadia knew what to do. Her abdomen contracted for the third time, and the last of her spider silk shot out at the molten iron beast that was stopped in front of the rock wall.

Carlos followed closely behind, leaping up and using his eight long legs like a cage to subdue the molten iron beast struggling in the spider web.

With the Iron-Melting Beast's unwilling roar, the spider silk solidified, and the Iron-Melting Beast completely lost its ability to resist.

"Phew... This little thing can run pretty fast." Carlos stood up, his snow-white chest rising and falling with his breath, a few strands of hair on his forehead damp with sweat.

She grabbed the sticky spider web, which seemed like glue to other creatures but had no effect on Carlos's skin. With a strong pull of her fair arm, Carlos lifted the spider web.

This is an innate talent of the Edelweiss; their webs will never bind them.

Sensing the shaking, the molten iron beast twisted uneasily, but could only sway in the air with its spider web, like a mere ornament.

Kadia moved her eight spider legs alternately, and in a few steps slid down the rock wall to Carlos's side.

Her crimson eyes scanned the swaying molten iron beast, a smile playing on her lips: "Luckily, it's a male. It just so happens that the female molten iron beasts in the clan's territory are in heat. After the last male molten iron beast died, we were worried about where to find them mates, but this one has delivered itself to our doorstep."

It's no wonder that Kadia was delighted. The Iron Beasts feed on minerals. Although they can't glow like fireflies, some of their excrement is comparable to refined metal. Moreover, by consuming different minerals at the same time, they can produce alloys with different effects.

It's just that there's too little of this kind of excrement, and the pieces are small; otherwise, it would definitely be an excellent raw material for making weapons and armor.

Even so, the Snowdrop Spider Clan has saved a lot of effort since the Iron Beasts were introduced.

"Let's go back to our territory." Carlos shifted the Iron Beast to a more comfortable position, a smug smile playing on his lips, as if he had just thought of something. "Now that we've caught an Iron Beast, I'll see what Caroline has to say about me being a good-for-nothing all day."

"Alright, hurry up and take this back to shut Caroline up." Kadia chuckled, gracefully moving her eight spider legs to keep up with Carlos.