(The heroine graces the cover)
"Man Faced Demon Spider, surrender, and I can make your death quick!"
"Devil Emperor, today we join forces to storm your lair and avenge our fellow disciples who died unjustly!"
"Demon Spider Emperor! You slaughtered your own kind for your selfish desires. You don't belong in Star Dou! Get out of this forest!"
"You're an embodiment of ultimate evil, born to die! You slaughtered thousands of my sect's disciples. From that moment on, I wanted to eat your flesh and drink your blood! Today, I'll make you wish you were dead!"
At the boundary between the outskirts and mixed zone of the Star Dou Great Forest, a region that should have been home only to century- and millennium-year Soul Beasts, a terrifying aura now filled the air—one powerful enough to shake the entire Douluo Continent.
Humans and Soul Beasts, who had slaughtered one another for tens of thousands of years, now stood together for a common goal, forming an impenetrable encirclement.
Every gaze was fixed on the figure at the very center of the encirclement.
Gu Chensha, known as the "Devil Emperor," revealed his true form before them all.
What a terrifying sight!
Eight spider legs covered in dark-gold demonic markings spread out, each segment bearing bone blades like barbs that glinted with a ghostly, icy light in the dim forest.
A grotesque human face twisted across his back shell, as though countless wronged souls were silently shrieking.
Most terrifying of all were his eyes—black as an abyss, yet burning with dark-gold flames, like a demon god gazing upon the mortal world from the depths of hell.
A Two-Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast: the Primordial Demon Spider Emperor!
A taboo existence the Douluo Continent had never seen before!
Yet now, this body, which should have been impervious to harm, was covered in shocking cracks.
Dark-gold blood welled from his wounds like molten lava. Wherever it flowed, plants withered and the earth split apart.
Three of his eight spider legs were nearly severed, held upright only by the last remnants of his will.
Those surrounding him included the top Soul Masters from Spirit Hall, the Upper Three Sects, and the Two Great Empires.
And there were also the undisputed overlords of the Star Dou Great Forest: the Sky Azure Bull Python and the Titan Giant Ape. Even Xiong Jun and the Scarlet King, infamous for their ferocity, had joined their ranks.
Gu Chensha surveyed the countless enemies around him and suddenly let out a low laugh.
At the brink of death, memories of his previous life on Earth grew startlingly clear.
Five hundred years ago, this stray soul from another world had possessed an ordinary Man Faced Demon Spider that had just hatched, then struggled to survive in this forest where the strong preyed on the weak.
His voice was low and hoarse, yet it rang clearly in the ears of every living being.
"Think back to the beginning. I had only ten years of cultivation. Any two-ring Soul Master could have trampled me to death. But I survived because I was ruthless, because I fought with everything I had, because I didn't care if I lived or died."
"After three hundred years, I reached the hundred-thousand-year realm. The Soul Beasts of Star Dou began to fear me and called me the Devil Emperor!"
"After four hundred years, I wiped out three sects that had ambushed me and tried to turn me into a Soul Ring. From then on, humans across the continent began hunting me."
"Now, I've merely survived the tribulation of reaching two hundred thousand years and tried to pursue that elusive path to Become a God. For that, I'm struck by both heavenly disaster and human calamity, with the entire world against me."
His gaze swept across them all, brimming with bone-chilling mockery.
"You say I'm an embodiment of ultimate evil, that I deserve to die."
"But answer me this: over the past five hundred years, when have I ever killed a human who wasn't trying to take my life first?"
"When have I ever devoured a Soul Beast when the law of the strong preying on the weak is the iron rule of this world?"
"You've joined forces to kill me today simply because I'm too strong. Strong enough to make you fear me, strong enough to break the rules you made for your own benefit!"
"But the rule of this world has always been just one thing: the strong are revered!"
As his words fell, his dark-gold compound eyes reflected the countless attacks sweeping toward him.
He smiled, serene, yet filled with endless desolation.
"Five hundred years of cultivation—how could I let it all come to naught today...!"
In an instant, boundless dark-gold demonic flames burst from his body!
It was the power of a Two-Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast burning its source—a terrifying might enough to make even Titled Douluo blanch, sweeping across half the forest in an instant.
"Not good! He's burning his source to take us all down with him! Fall back!"
The faces of the leading Titled Douluo changed dramatically as they cried out in alarm.
Everyone knew how terrifying a Ferocious Beast's final counterattack could be!
The once-impenetrable encirclement instantly broke apart. Everyone frantically retreated, afraid that even the slightest touch of those flames, capable of corroding anything, would reach them.
Yet just as everyone thought he was going to fight to the death, a glint of utter coldness flashed in Gu Chensha's eyes.
Take them all down with him?
He had lived five hundred years, crawling from a tiny young spider to the peak of the continent. He had never been one to lie down and wait for death!
Even if he died, he would take enough of them down with him—and fight for a sliver of life for himself!
This was merely a feint!
Had they never heard that Heaven never seals off every road?
He suddenly rallied his battered body, and the last remnants of his Two-Hundred-Thousand-Year source erupted.
The bloodline power of the Primordial Demon Spider Emperor ignited completely. His surging demonic flames forcibly shook the countless incoming attacks aside, opening up a gap for one ten-thousandth of a second.
Seizing that fleeting opportunity, Gu Chensha kicked off with the only spider leg still intact.
His broken body became a streak of dark-gold light and fled toward the southwestern side of the Star Dou Great Forest.
"He's running!"
"After him! We mustn't let this monster escape! If we let a tiger return to the mountain today, he'll become a grave threat in the future!"
Everyone reacted at once. Figure after figure turned into streaks of light and chased after him like mad.
In an uninhabited forbidden zone on the southwestern edge of the Star Dou Great Forest, a streak of dark-gold light crashed heavily to the ground.
"Pfft!"
Gu Chensha's true form hit the ground, his shell shattering.
Dark-gold Spider Emperor blood gushed out like a spring, corroding the earth beneath him into countless pits.
The speed had come at the cost of burning his life source, but his injuries were simply too severe.
With every mile he fled, the cracks across his body widened.
The trail of blood he left behind had long since become a marker for his pursuers.
He wouldn't last much longer.
His eight compound eyes slowly closed, then struggled open again.
All his life, he had fought against Heaven, against humanity, and against the unfair rules of this world.
Was it really going to end here?
He wasn't willing to accept it.
He hadn't yet reached the summit of the Douluo Continent. He hadn't yet shattered the damn rule that Soul Beasts could only be reduced to Soul Rings for Soul Masters. How could he die just like this?
But the truth was that his source was nearly exhausted, and his soul could dissipate at any moment. Even a heavenly treasure couldn't bring him back from the brink.
The only path left seemed to be taking human form.
Once he cultivated to level 70 and reached maturity, he could fully transform into human form.
As a transmigrator, he had no objection to starting over. But gravely wounded and on the brink of death, he couldn't possibly hold on until his transformation was complete...
Even if he succeeded, he'd have lost his cultivation. There was no way he could make it out of the Star Dou Great Forest.
There was nowhere left to retreat, nowhere left to run.
Unless...
A thought, mad beyond measure, suddenly appeared in his crumbling soul.
Sacrifice!
He would offer up the last of his intact Two-Hundred-Thousand-Year source to find a host and form a Symbiotic Pact.
He would pour all his power, laws, and bloodline into his host, helping her defy fate and change her lot!
His soul, meanwhile, would dwell in the host's sea of consciousness. They would live and die together, sharing one body.
If he failed, his soul would scatter, and he would never be reborn!
Even if he succeeded, he might lose control of the body. From then on, everything about his future would be bound to his host.
But now, this was his only path to survival—a desperate gamble he had no choice but to make.
If he won, perhaps he could be reborn in another body and climb to the peak once more!
If he lost, he would only die a little sooner.
But his host had to meet certain conditions.
She had to be able to withstand the power of a Two-Hundred-Thousand-Year Demon Spider surging through her, and her soul had to be compatible with his.
She needed enough resilience, enough ruthlessness—the kind that refused to bow, even when the world drove her into a dead end.
Where could he find such a host?
Gu Chensha's consciousness grew more and more blurred. Just before his soul completely dissipated, he suddenly caught a scent.
The smell of blood—human blood!
No, there was more than blood!
There was another aura, one he knew all too well.
The stubbornness of someone at the end of their road, the defiance of someone unwilling to yield—it was exactly like the young spider that had struggled to survive in the mud five hundred years ago.
Gu Chensha's mind cleared for an instant, and he followed the scent with his gaze.
Deep in the forest, nestled among the gnarled roots of an ancient tree, a girl was curled up.
She was only twelve or thirteen, and her black fitted clothes were soaked through with blood.
Wounds of varying depth covered her body. The worst, on her left shoulder, was deep enough to expose bone.
Her face was pale as paper, but her lips were pressed tightly together.
There wasn't the slightest trace of pleading fear in her dark eyes, only an unyielding stubbornness.
Dragging his broken body, Gu Chensha slowly made his way over.
The soft sound of his landing startled the girl.
She jerked her head up.
Though his aura had withered to almost nothing, the fearsome name carved into the minds of Soul Masters across the continent still made the hairs on her body stand on end.
Of course she recognized this Soul Beast.
A taboo existence with two hundred thousand years of cultivation, the "Devil Emperor" hunted across the entire continent—the Primordial Demon Spider Emperor!
She had fled the Star Luo Empire to escape the fate her family had arranged for her, only to be driven by her family's pursuers into this forbidden zone, a place not even marked on any map.
Already at the end of her strength, with little time left, she had never expected to encounter this legendary Ferocious Beast just before she died.
The girl's body trembled instinctively as she shrank back.
With her back against the cold tree trunk, she had nowhere left to go.
But as she looked at the Spider Emperor before her, covered in blood and on the verge of dissipating, an absurd sense of kinship suddenly rose within her.
She was at the end of her road. Wasn't the Devil Emperor before her in the same position?
Two souls adrift in the same world, one after the other, walking toward the same end.
Once she had accepted death, her initial fear instead faded away.
Looking into her eyes, Gu Chensha suddenly let out a low laugh. His voice rang directly in Zhu Zhuqing's mind.
"Fate truly hasn't sealed off every road."
Zhu Zhuqing shuddered, but her injuries were too severe. She suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"Don't be afraid. If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead."
Gu Chensha's true form slowly shrank. His grotesque spider legs folded in, his dark-gold shell faded away, and he became a hazy figure with disheveled hair, drenched in blood.
He looked to be just over twenty, his features stern.
With every step he took, another crack appeared across his body, and his figure grew fainter...
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