Chapter 327: The Silk Net

“I’ll cut it!”

Marcus surged forward after the Greedy Demon and slashed at the half-meter-tall white flower clutched in its paw. His razor-sharp Bat Dragon Cloud Sword flashed once and sliced cleanly through the stem.

“Uh oh.”

The moment Marcus reached for the falling flower, the Greedy Demon spun around.

Its large round eyes gleamed black, and the corners of its mouth lifted into an eager, crafty grin.

In the same instant, it raised its right paw. A dark, tattered fishing net flew straight at him.

The moment Marcus caught the white flower, his vision went black. The net had already dropped over him.

’I walked straight into that.’

The Greedy Demon had hidden the net in its paw from the start, using Marcus’s own greed as bait.

As he grabbed the flower, the Pure Mist Cloud Cluster ended. His body reappeared from mist form.

And in that tiny opening between one heartbeat and the next, the Greedy Demon struck.

’Sneaky little monster.’

It was perfect timing too.

Marcus immediately raised his sword to hack through the net and escape, but before he could swing, a system notification appeared.

Ding!

[Player Stonehaven, you have been trapped by the Greedy Demon’s Silk Net. If you fail to cut through the net within five seconds, you will be bound for thirty seconds. During that time, you cannot move or use skills.]

’Damn.’

There was no time to waste.

Marcus swung the Bat Dragon Cloud Sword down with all his strength, but the Silk Net yielded like water. It offered no resistance at all. The blade slid through without finding anything solid to sever.

Not a single strand broke.

He had used a net to capture the Blood Spirit Cicada, now he was the one caught in a net.

How quickly fortunes changed.

Beneath the Greedy Demon’s smug little smile, the Silk Net began tightening around him. According to the system, if five seconds passed, he would become the monster’s helpless prize.

’No. I need another way out.’

His thoughts raced. He glanced upward at the Red Locust Bees circling in the air. Maybe he could turn the swarm against the Greedy Demon.

That creature was far too clever, and far too prepared.

Yes, Marcus had stolen the white flower from it, but as long as he held the flower, both he and the Greedy Demon were protected from the bees. The swarm had no intention of attacking either of them.

The demon had calculated that too.

So Marcus quickly formed a new plan. He would stash the white flower in his backpack, activate the Pure Mist Cloud Cluster, turn back into a cloud, summon Pebble, and drag the bees straight onto the Greedy Demon.

’Let’s see how smug it looks then.’

And if cloud form let him slip free of the Silk Net, all the better. But the moment he summoned Pebble, the Greedy Demon did something unexpected.

One paw held the tightening Silk Net, the other reached toward Marcus and began patting across his body.

’What the hell? Harassment?’

Sure, the Greedy Demon was weirdly cute, but if it actually started frisking him here and now…

’Absolutely not.’

Marcus felt his skin crawl. This was humiliating. He immediately demanded that the system implement anti-harassment protections for male players.

Then he realized he had panicked too soon. The Greedy Demon’s paw brushed over him in a blur. It was not groping him at all.

Marcus had barely exhaled in relief when another notification struck like thunder.

Ding!

[Player Stonehaven, monster [Greedy Demon] has successfully used Thievery on you. Your Pure Mist Cloud Cluster has been stolen.]

Boom.

Marcus froze. That hit almost harder than the thought of being molested.

Successfully stolen? With his high Luck stat?

Not only had the skill succeeded on the first attempt, it had stolen his precious Pure Mist Cloud Cluster.

’Greedy Demon… you really are something else.’

Marcus no longer dared underestimate it.

If the Silk Net fully bound him for thirty seconds, there was no telling what the creature might steal next. He might actually be defeated in the dumbest, most humiliating way imaginable.

’Fine. You win. I’m done playing with you.’

It was time to leave.

He had three seconds left before the Silk Net locked him down completely.

The Greedy Demon was not slowing either. Delighted with its successful theft, it grinned, stuffed the stolen Pure Mist Cloud Cluster into the white pouch on its chest, then began rummaging inside again.

Marcus’s heart skipped.

’What now?’

He had no intention of waiting to find out what else that cursed pouch contained.

“Run for Your Life!”

He instantly disengaged from combat.

“Wanderlust!”

Just to be safe, now that he was free of combat status, he did not use a Town Portal Scroll. Instead, he activated his high-level movement skill and teleported to one of his preset waypoints.

It was a success. A flash of light burst around him and marcus vanished from inside the Greedy Demon’s Silk Net.

But in the final instant before he disappeared, he saw what the demon had taken out.

A black talisman.

The Greedy Demon was grinning broadly, ready to slap it onto him.

Cold sweat ran down Marcus’s back.

Fortunately, the Silk Net did not fully immobilize its target until five seconds had passed. Until then, skills could still be used. If it had bound him instantly, he would have been finished.

Heart still pounding, Marcus reappeared high in the sky outside the Red Locust Grove in Ghost Rain Marsh.

Before entering the grove to capture the Blood Spirit Cicada, he had wisely changed his waypoint from the fourth level of Black Rock Spire to the airspace outside the grove.

That precaution had just saved him.

’Damn. I almost got tagged by that talisman too.’

Another wave of cold sweat followed.

“Greedy Demon… I’ve got my eye on you. I’m not stopping until I catch you and make you my pet.”

Staring at the red-misted Red Locust Grove below, Marcus muttered darkly to himself.

’You tried to catch me? Let’s see how you like it when the tables turn.’

Meanwhile, back inside the grove, the Greedy Demon had been just about to slap its Paralyze Talisman onto Marcus when he vanished right in front of it.

Its smug, adorable little face instantly drooped like a wilted eggplant. It had never expected a mere Level 30 player to escape the Silk Net.

The Greedy Demon was furious.

It had planned to squeeze several more treasures out of him before finishing the job. Now that chance was gone.

Still, this was no time to sulk.

The Greedy Demon stuffed the empty Silk Net and the Paralyze Talisman back into the white pouch on its chest and immediately began hopping away.

When Marcus vanished, he had taken the white flower with him, that meant the Greedy Demon lost its protection.

The Red Locust Bees noticed at once.

Bzzzzz.

The swarm surged toward both the Greedy Demon and Pebble, whom Marcus had summoned moments earlier.

But Pebble had lost its link to Marcus after the teleport and now stood there blankly, taking the full fury of the bees.

It made perfect cover.

Using the distraction, the Greedy Demon reached the edge of the red sealing barrier maintained by the Thousand-Year Blood Spirit Cicada.

From its pouch, it pulled out a prepared green bamboo tube and thrust it into the barrier.

The tube expanded once inside, widening until there was enough hollow space to pass through.

The Greedy Demon leaped neatly into the tube, shot through its center, landed outside the barrier, retracted the bamboo tube, and vanished into the dense Red Locust Grove.

Only then did it reveal its true speed.

It moved even faster than the Level 60 Red Locust Bees, leaving the pursuing swarm far behind.

But the farther it ran, the angrier it became.

The Red Locust Spirit, which should have belonged to it, had been stolen by some random knight named Stonehaven.

It had counted on that spirit to heal its injuries and restore its divine power. Thinking of its weakened state only made its temper worse.

If it were not injured, if even half its strength had returned, the Silk Net would never have allowed five seconds of movement before binding its prey.

And if ninety percent of its former power had returned, then anyone caught in that net, unless they possessed Gold-tier abilities, would never escape.

The Greedy Demon seethed with rage. It would have revenge.

Digging through its pouch once more, it carefully withdrew its most precious treasure.

The Greedy Demon Mirror.

After chanting a short incantation, it used the lingering scent left on the white flower to trace Marcus’s location.

Black mist swirled across the cracked mirror’s surface, then a tiny white point appeared.

After a moment of calculation, the Greedy Demon gained a rough sense of where Marcus had gone.

The mirror was damaged, spiderwebbed with fractures. If it had been whole, the demon could have pinpointed Marcus instantly.

Now it could only sense a general direction, and with its current weakened power, even that cost considerable effort.

The Greedy Demon shook its cute little head, steadied itself, tucked the mirror carefully back into its cosmic pouch, then shot off in Marcus’s direction.

That damned knight. How dare he steal its Red Locust Spirit? It would make him regret it.

—

Achoo!

Marcus rubbed his nose. Who was cursing him now?

He looked down at the white flower he had risked so much to seize and felt only irritation.

His precious Pure Mist Cloud Cluster had been traded for this useless thing.

’What a loss.’

And of course, the one stolen by the Greedy Demon was the better one.

That cluster had already lost over an hour of duration from enduring the Blood Spirit Cicada’s sonic attacks, but it still had roughly three hours of use left.

Now Marcus was stuck with the weaker cluster, the one with barely twenty minutes remaining.

As for the white flower in his hand, it was completely useless…

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