Tie Dan opened his eyes, seeing eight crystal-clear glass-like black eyes staring at him, reflecting Xuantian Sword Ancestor Yazi Great Monarch’s wild and flamboyant, domineering, dazzling, and insanely cool figure.
"How are you, friend? You look haggard. Are you hungry? I’m not good to eat. Let me find you something else to eat, okay?"
Then, a whisper came to his ear, as if a man had leaned in close, gently blowing on his hair...
"Tsk..."
Tie Dan clicked his tongue, furrowing his brow as he assessed the massive silver-backed black-haired spider sprawled on the roof, curled up, about six feet wide, with mottled belly hair resembling a human-face.
"I was just drifting in space. Was it you who captured my Primordial Spirit?"
The spider whispered softly, legs rubbing together in a whispering sound,
"Yes, it was I who cast a thread into the Void Abyss. You caught it, so you are my friend, and I am honored to know a new friend."
Suppressing the urge to smash the spider with one slap, Tie Dan glanced around and noticed he was trapped in a ten-foot square cube compartment that looked remarkably like the company Titan’s non-object crew compartment. The floor was swamp-like, covered with blood slicked over walls and floors, littered with debris and remnants.
The spider hiding in the corner spoke cautiously,
"Previous slaves of the legion were sent by their masters to conduct violent tests on you.
Yet violence only brings more violence and ultimately is consumed by absolute violence.
Thus, I believe violence is unnecessary and undesirable. I wish to borrow your violence using communication."
Tie Dan looked at it,
"Are you a slave or a master?"
The spider did not deny it,
"I am not a slave, nor am I a follower of violence.
I am a First-Class Soldier of the legion, ordered to investigate and report on you."
Not bothering with small talk, Tie Dan said,
"Let me out. I won’t kill you."
The spider gently said,
"No, no, that’s not how it works.
I need to stay with you for a while, understand your origins, understand your name, understand your purpose.
Prove you are safe, prove you are controllable, and prove you have the potential for cooperation.
Then I can apply to the Committee to transfer you to the Yellow Zone.
Perhaps then, during missions, I can borrow your violence."
Tie Dan looked at it,
"How long is a while?"
The spider softly replied,
"A standard sequence, usually, but it can be quicker, mainly depending on communication efficiency."
Tie Dan looked at it,
"All right, let’s start communicating efficiently then. I am Xuantian, a seeker of the Dao, captured on Mars while in seclusion by a few bald heads; my objective is to return to Earth.
Your turn: What is this place, who are you, and what so-called mission are you on?"
The spider softly said,
"It is a great honor to meet you, child of violence, Xuantian.
This location is Titan Rebirth level; I belong to the Taihao Clan, offspring of the Xiu family, named Xi.
The ultimate mission of our legion is to overthrow the Committee’s rule and liberate All Heavens and Myriads of Worlds from the oppression of human tyranny.
And the short-term mission is to deal with the human fleet arriving from the Sagittarius Arm direction."
"Human fleet, you say..."
What this spider said matched what Mo Mountain mentioned earlier about how, due to the company’s fleet about to arrive, the new Three Great Sects ceased fighting.
Tie Dan couldn’t help but be curious,
"How many Titans are there in this fleet, and how many does your legion have?"
The spider was surprisingly honest, answering gaily,
"Based on the detectable gravitational fluctuations, if excluding ship types not detectable by our technology, humans have assembled fleets from the Sagittarius Arm and the Southern Cross Arm military zones, approximately three thousand five hundred Titan-class battleships.
Our legion has one Titan."
After hearing this, Tie Dan fell silent for a moment,
"...That’s quite a disparity in numbers, but you seem pretty confident?"
The spider softly said,
"No, no, I’m actually scared to death, drops fur falling every day lately. But fear and panic do not help efficient communication with you. So I’ve not transmitted these emotions."
Indeed, seeing it curled up in the corner, it clearly wasn’t confident, probably not voluntarily entering the room for ’communication,’ and it might be that all the legion’s slaves had been eaten, leaving only ’First-Class Soldier’...
However, looking at its appearance, Tie Dan suddenly recalled the knowledge from the Lingxu Daoist Collection,
"Taihao... is it Taihao, the one who learned from spiders and created webs?"
The spider reacted physically, waving its pincers in front to express joy,
"Yes, yes! Taihao learned from spiders and created webs, Gold Sky held nine Quarrels to set the seasons, Emperor Xuan waited for the Phoenix’s call to tune, Tang Yao observed birth pods to know the months!
The Immortal Scripture’s path to longevity consists of hundreds of matters; not all require turtle crane methods, wise men use distant thoughts, naturally mystical!
Our ancestry’s progenitor, the genetic prototype, is indeed Taihao, who learned from spiders to weave webs. Where did you hear this tale?"
Tie Dan reminisced from the Primordial Spirit Daoist Collection, deciphering and decrypting the spider’s Primordial Spirit frequency, suddenly splitting the Divine Court and sprouting eight eyes from his forehead to stare at the spider, reflecting Divine Light, transferring a projection of Primordial Spirit memory to the spider,
"I once excavated company relics in the mountains and saw... well, specimens of your Taihao Clan."
The Taihao spider quivered, all eight feet sprung, bouncing around, performing a mysterious dance in the room expressing both joy and sorrow. After a long display, it stopped, rubbed its pincers, bowed its head, crawling, seemingly bowing in human-like fashion,