The 'Silk Trail' is a path composed of spider webs, located in a rift valley that is 500 feet deep, 2,000 feet wide, and stretches for five kilometers from front to back.

The main road of the trail can be traversed stably, but when countless giant spiders inhabit, the spider webs woven above make it very risky to pass through the rift valley.

Because no one can guarantee whether a creepy spider or a sticky spider web will suddenly fall down while walking.

And there are many channels leading to different places at different heights in the rift valley.

As a result, there are many different choices in this path that is densely covered and obscured by cobwebs. If you are not careful, you will fall into the cobweb maze and never get out.

When Brian is walking on the Silk Road, he must consider the network of oblique connections as well as the various networks connected up and down or cross-connected to finally reach his destination.

After all, cobwebs are everywhere here, and they are becoming more and more common.

They cover everything, from the normal-sized web traps set by black widow spiders, to the grotesque silver curtains woven from thick spider silk that are as huge as human skin.

Brian had only been walking for ten minutes, and his boots were covered with thick spider silk.

The air became increasingly turbid, irritating his throat, as if it was filled with invisible spider threads.

After about half an hour of even more exhausting travel, he even felt that his body was wrapped in a layer of sticky cobwebs.

This made him have to constantly clean these slender spider threads from his face in order to breathe smoothly.

He had the illusion that as long as he kept walking, the entire silken trail would turn into a real giant spider. Before he realized the danger, it would slowly wrap him up in a cocoon, making it completely unable to function. If you don't move, you can only wait quietly for the bite of the fangs.

Fortunately, he was wearing a pair of 'Lolth's Fangs Resistance Bracers' on his wrists.

The characteristics of this magical equipment allow him to be protected from intrusion caused by spiders of any quality.

Even if he encounters a group of small spiders crowded on the ground trying to stop him, after he tentatively approaches, they will run away in a hurry as if they have seen something scary, and disappear into the spider webs or stone crevices.

Of course, the premise of all this is that as long as you don't actively provoke them.

In fact, he couldn't guarantee whether those large spiders with higher challenge levels were really immune to this effect, so naturally he wouldn't appear to have any trouble provoking them.

However, until now.

Among the many huge spider webs hanging between the boulders and torrents, all Brian saw were normal-sized spiders, ranging in size from fingernail-sized to head-sized.

The narrow-bodied and long-legged song spider was the largest species of spider he had ever seen, although he knew there must be larger species out there somewhere.

Therefore, he did not dare to be careless because of this, and would rather take a detour than have a conflict with the owner here.

Because his keen perception allowed him to feel that many spiders were lurking in all directions, lurking under the ground, and lurking between every rock and every pit on the surface.

Brian speculated that the largest spider web creators must be lurking in underground tunnels, and he hoped that they would stay there, at least temporarily.

After all, just looking at these little spiders was enough to irritate him and make his scalp numb.

The difficult journey through the spider web maze ended when Brian reached the crossroads of the Rift Valley.

He stopped and took a deep breath. After breathing the fresh air with the smell of mushrooms for a while, he began to carefully look at his surroundings.

The location here is the only road in the Rift Valley with the widest and eye-catching cross tunnels. It is obvious that there are fewer cobwebs.

Of course, this is not because spiders are unwilling to build webs here, but because in this open cross tunnel, there are also many underground monsters that are more ferocious and vicious than spiders.

Brian hid in the shadow of the stone pillar, searching for the knowledge in his mind while looking around warily.

The tunnel on his left can lead to Dark Frontier, the most complex underground labyrinth in the Underdark, as well as the ancient Orens city of the dark elves.

On the edge of the Dark Frontier, there is a fortress built by the drow elves, with a large number of elven guards stationed there.

Its main purpose was to guard the slaves who were captured here and worked hard for them.

As for where the tunnel on the right leads to, Brian is not sure, and there is no description on the map. It is said that it can reach Shamas City and Scindalane City.

This has nothing to do with the purpose of his trip, so naturally he won't pay too much attention to it.

Because the floating tomb that fell during the Netheril era is located in the tunnel leading to the Dark Frontier, it is very close to his current location.

This is also the fundamental reason why he chose Fansi Trail.

The tunnel opposite him led to a lightless woodland dominated by fungi, which was exactly the direction he was heading to the gray dwarf city.

Brian stood there and pondered for a moment. Instead of rushing into action, he carefully searched for some nearby small tunnels or caves that led to unknown places.

It wasn't until he discovered that an inconspicuous cave was marked with a special symbol that he cautiously walked in.

Brian leaned into the small, cold cave, and with the help of the glowing moss around it, he saw that it was filled with stalagmites, stalactites, and spider webs...

Hanging on the spider web were many corpses that had shrunk to the point of becoming wrinkled skin. Only the vague facial expressions could tell the pain and struggle they had suffered during their lifetimes.

Because the spider's mouthparts are so small, it cannot swallow its prey whole.

They can only use the corpse transformation method, that is, after catching the prey, they first use their fangs to paralyze the prey, then bite a hole in the prey's abdomen, spit out the digestive juice, digest its meat into liquid, and then slowly suck it, a little bit

Don't miss anything, eat it all, and after sucking it, the skin of the prey is casually discarded on the net and hung in the air, which leads to the horrific scene like now.

Brian raised his head calmly, his cold eyes staring at a strange spider curled up in its web.

Apart from the eight black eyes in the middle of its face and the fangs protruding from under its lips, this terrifying creature's general appearance reminded him of a man whose body had been hybridized with a spider and was being pulled on a torture rack.

A drow that is as thin as twice its normal length.

At this time, it curled up naked in the spider silk and watched him vigilantly. Its finger claws that were constantly opening and closing were half the length of its own forearm.

However, the moment this weird spider met Brian, it trembled all over, as if it had seen something terrifying. It quickly tapped its long legs covered with short hairs, and disappeared into the shadow of the stalagmites and spider webs on the roof of the cave.

Seeing this scene, Brian immediately felt relieved and began to carefully examine everything in the cave.

Because he had heard that the drow patrols would use special marks to leave messages from time to time to remind their companions of dangers around them or the distribution of monsters.

So when he saw the mark of the cave, he thought it was necessary to understand the specific situation.

After all, this is the Dark Territory, and any caution that may seem unnecessary to surface residents can often save lives.

——"Detect magic!"

He recited a spell, a faint magical light floated over, and the entire cave exuded a soft red light in his sight.

Brian's expression changed, and he stretched out his hand to brush aside a few strands of inconspicuous spider silk.

"Be careful, there are purple insects nearby!"

Looking at the warning mark left by the drow patrol on the stone wall, he understood its meaning and saw from the obscure traces that the time it was engraved was definitely not more than twenty-four hours.

When he heard it was a purple worm, Brian frowned and walked out of the cave with a heavy heart.

Just as he was thinking about how to walk to the tunnel on the left, a rapid clicking sound caught his attention.

His expression changed, and he quickly hid in the shadow of the stalagmite and turned his attention to the place where the sound came from.

Soon, with the help of the light source of the moss, he saw a direclaw with pale blue light reflected all over its body running out of the passage next to it, blocking his way.

This monster has a head like a vulture, a body like a giant beetle, and an exoskeleton decorated with spikes and bony protrusions.

This is a direclaw, and its name comes from its long, powerful limbs and the curly claws that grow from the ends.

They are ferocious predators in the dark, ferocious monsters in the hunting grounds.

The hidden caves where these creatures live are known for their constant climbing up and down the cliffs and cave walls.

crawling, echoing with the tapping and scraping of their claws.

The way was blocked, and without being sure of the surrounding danger factors, Brian could only wait patiently for the time being.

He saw the Deinonychus using its claws to climb the rock wall, trying to hunt a giant spider hanging on its web head-on.

Giant spiders are the most common species of creatures that inhabit the silk trails. When they feel the trembling of the spider webs, it means that prey is coming to their doorstep.

There is no doubt that the Terrorclaw's attack had no concealment intention, and it was naturally easily discovered by the spider squatting in the center of the web.

However, as a bystander, Brian knew very well that things were far from as simple as Spider thought.

Because the Direclaw is a swarm hunter in the Underdark, it can communicate by tapping its exoskeleton and surrounding stone surfaces with its claws.

What may appear to others to be just random noise, is actually a complex language that only the direclaws understand, and its rhythms can travel miles across the Underdark.

Just as he guessed.

When Brian subconsciously looked above the spiders, he immediately saw at least three Terrorclaws, using their hooked claws to walk on the rock surface at the top of the tunnel as if they were on flat ground.

They tried to use their climbing skills to ambush the giant spider squatting in the web from above and being successfully attracted by its companions.

Just then, the accident happened again.

A deep roar came from deep in the throat, making all the predators stunned for a moment. Even the spiders on the cobwebs were frightened. They followed the direction of the source of the sound and took advantage of their condescending advantage to look over first.

.

Immediately afterwards, the giant spider's whole body turned into a lifelike gray stone sculpture at a speed visible to the naked eye, and then fell from the spider web to the ground, shattering to pieces.

The low roar sounded again.

A huge creature slowly climbed out of the deep tunnel with heavy steps and a swaying head.

Its eight legs covered in dark blue scales scraped against the rocks around it, causing waves of echoes in the tunnel, but it didn't care that these sounds would reveal its position, and crawled straight towards the shattered stone spider statue.

This huge and terrifying lizard opened its bloody mouth, revealing its spear-like teeth, and bit into the spider sculpture, making a crunching sound like it was eating candy.

Basilisk!

Brian recognized the third hunter at a glance.
To be continued...