A Blessing in Disguise

A muffled groan squeezed painfully from Lin Xia's throat. The sticky darkness and tearing agony became clear once more, but he was still alive?!

And the control over his body... had returned!

Though he was weakened to the extreme, his insides like ruins after a hurricane and his meridians riddled with damage, the icy shackles binding his soul and mind seemed to have shattered!

He immediately sensed the situation within his martial soul space—Bulbasaur's tiny body was curled up, the glow of its once-brilliant seed bulb dimmed to the point of near extinction. Its entire body radiated the exhaustion and stillness of one utterly drained, like a lamp running out of oil.

It was holding on! Using the last of its strength to transform energy and keep him alive!

A torrent of heart-wrenching distress and overwhelming fury instantly swept away all of Lin Xia's remaining confusion and weakness!

"You bastard!!!"

There was no time to examine his injuries, no time to be afraid.

The instinct to survive and his concern for Bulbasaur overwhelmed everything else!

"Life Poison... burn for me!!!"

Lin Xia roared inwardly! No longer passively enduring the transformation, he poured out all his strength and actively guided the life energy that remained within him—the energy Bulbasaur had transformed to sustain him—into merging with the more tyrannical origin of his first soul ring, the power born from the countless exotic poisons in Yue Hongsheng's courtyard, which possessed the dual traits of poison transformation and life transformation!

Boom—!

An invisible yet violent will mixed with newly formed poisonous energy erupted completely within the Illusion Demon Spider's stomach sac, already riddled with corrosion and frail beyond measure, centered on Lin Xia's body like an unleashed demonic dragon!

"Screeeech—!!!"

The Illusion Demon Spider let out a wail of ultimate agony, enough to tear apart the soul! The luster of its massive, sturdy dark-purple carapace dimmed, as though it had been coated in a thick layer of dust!

Its eight enormous legs flailed madly, smashing the surrounding broken walls, ruins, ancient trees, and giant trunks to pieces. Its entire body convulsed, twisted, and leaped wildly from the unimaginable pain in its abdomen, as if it were being scorched by hellfire!

It felt the vast life force it had accumulated over thousands of years being plundered at an unprecedented rate, forcibly transformed into that soul-searing poison! Its strength rapidly drained away, and even its soul seemed to be burning and melting!

Death! The cold shadow of death had, for the first time, descended so clearly upon this absolute predator of the outer reaches of the Star Dou Forest!

Its terror far surpassed the rage of being hunted!

It desperately tried to vomit the calamity from its belly. Terrifying corrosive acid mixed with clots of purple blood spewed out like a waterfall, but it was too late! Lin Xia was no longer there—or rather, the source of destruction had already taken deep root within its body!

A day and night of hellish struggle.

At last...

"Rip!"

A hand covered in sticky digestive fluid and congealed purple blood scabs, like an evil ghost returned from hell, violently tore through the Illusion Demon Spider's tough abdominal carapace, which had long since been corroded brittle by poison!

Then, a figure drenched in foul-smelling mixed fluids, like an Asura from hell, staggered out and crashed heavily onto the cold ground! He gasped in huge breaths that carried a thick stench of rot. His face was pale as paper, and his body was battered beyond recognition, yet within those greenish-purple eyes burned the cold fire of surviving catastrophe.

He did not look at the Illusion Demon Spider, which lay limp on the ground, its carapace completely gray and dull, its eight dark-green compound eyes devoid of all light, its massive body twitching violently as it neared death. Nor did he first concern himself with the extraordinary soul ring floating above its corpse, deep emerald in color and haloed by strange silver threads.

"Bulbasaur!!!"

Lin Xia's voice was hoarse and broken, carrying a trace of panic.

Trembling, he extended a hand. Ignoring the depletion of his own Soul Power, he forcibly connected to his martial soul space and released that tiny emerald figure.

The little fellow lay curled up quietly. The miraculous seed bulb on its back was dull and lifeless, its usually lively crimson eyes tightly shut. Its faint breath was nearly imperceptible; only the tiny rise and fall of its chest proved that it was still alive.

That desperate eruption earlier had exhausted all of its Soul Power and mental energy.

Lin Xia's heart felt as though it had been fiercely clenched, sorrow and warmth intertwining.

Trembling, he reached out a finger and gently brushed Bulbasaur's cold cheek.

"...Thank you."

A thousand words clogged his throat, only to become these two heavy words in the end, accompanied by a scorching drop that fell onto Bulbasaur's brow.

He could no longer count how many times his companion had pulled him back from death's door.

As though sensing the familiar touch and its master's presence, Bulbasaur's eyelids trembled with extreme difficulty. It let out an almost inaudible, sigh-like little sound.

"Bula..."

As if it were saying, "It's okay."

Its eyes ultimately could not open. It merely rubbed its head with difficulty and trust into the warmth of Lin Xia's palm, found the most comfortable position, and sank completely into deep sleep.

Sensing that Bulbasaur's life signs, though weak, had stabilized, the taut string in Lin Xia's heart finally loosened. Immense exhaustion and lingering fear surged over him.

Carefully gathering Bulbasaur into his arms and using his body heat to wrap its cold body, he took a deep breath and let out a grateful yet helpless sigh.

"That really was... a close call."

Lin Xia had never imagined that accepting an ordinary martial soul awakening mission would lead him, in such a backwater far from the core soul beast forests, to encounter a thousand-year soul beast and the legendary Illusion Demon Spider in succession.

This could no longer be explained by bad luck. It was practically as though the god of misfortune had possessed him.

Had he known such a vicious creature was hiding here, he would have turned around and left without hesitation, putting as much distance between them as possible.

After finally catching his breath, Lin Xia endured the tearing pain inside his body and examined himself internally.

His meridians were like farmland that had been plowed over, covered everywhere in traces of strong acid corrosion and impacts from Soul Power. Yet beneath that ruined landscape riddled with holes, an unprecedented sense of surging power was beginning to grow.

"This is..."

To his surprise, he discovered that the Soul Power vortex within him had not only stabilized, but the total amount of Soul Power stored at its center had become far more abundant than before!

"Level eighteen?!"

Lin Xia blurted out in astonishment.

Before risking his life against the Illusion Demon Spider, he had only recently stabilized at the peak of level sixteen!

This brief day and night of struggling on the brink of death, especially that hellish process of enduring corrosion and constant transformation within its poisonous stomach, had forcibly raised his Soul Power by two whole levels to level eighteen!

Such a rate of advancement was terrifying.

What shocked him even more was the change in his body.

Every muscle, tendon, and bone carried a dense, solid feeling, as if they had been repeatedly hammered and forged.

With a slight movement of thought, he swung his fist, and it actually faintly produced the sound of wind tearing through the air—the sense of strength was far greater than he had expected!

"The Illusion Demon Spider's corrosion and digestive fluids kept destroying my body, while Bulbasaur's Life Poison kept pouring in transformed life energy to repair and strengthen it... destruction and rebuilding, it was practically like being tempered in the fiercest furnace and beneath the heaviest hammer..."

A bitterly complicated smile tugged at Lin Xia's lips as he murmured:

"Does this count as... a blessing in disguise?"

But the price of that blessing had been far too heavy.