The summer heat blazed on. Even in the stillness of night, it was as sweltering as it had been by day. The evening wind swept up waves of scorching air, leaving the atmosphere unbearably oppressive.
Rumble!
Just then, a sudden thunderclap rang out overhead.
Drops of bone-chilling rain fell from the sky. A cold wind gradually rose, and the dark clouds overhead seemed to gather rapidly.
Above the grove outside Spirit City, dark clouds blanketed the sky. Low thunder rumbled from time to time, lighting up banks of cloud as the icy rain steadily grew heavier.
Not far away, two figures slowly emerged through the rain: a man and a woman running at full speed. Even veiled by the downpour, the woman's graceful, slender figure remained striking.
The man appeared to be in his thirties, with sword-like brows and star-bright eyes, his features exceptionally handsome. He wore a fitted black robe with a fist-sized character for "soul" at the center of his chest. On his left breast was a badge engraved with six crossed swords, marking him as a Soul Emperor of the Spirit Hall.
The woman wore a blue-and-white gown adorned with azure wave patterns. Her oval face was flawless, her brows long and slender, her skin fair. Her slightly swollen belly made her look a little fuller, but it could not conceal her peerless grace.
"Tian, I can't run anymore," the pregnant woman said to the black-robed man, Luo Tian.
"Yan, don't give up. Let's rest for a while. It's raining now. They won't find us so easily."
Luo Tian looked at the torrential rain pouring through the night and was about to comfort his wife, Lin Yan, when a cold voice tinged with grief suddenly rang out.
"Won't find you so easily?"
Luo Tian and Lin Yan's expressions changed drastically. They looked toward a large tree ahead in disbelief.
An old man stood there. His hair and beard were grizzled, and his short gray-white hair stood upright like steel needles. His physique was extraordinarily powerful, nothing like what one would expect of an elderly man. His eyes were unfathomably deep as he stared straight at Luo Tian.
"Teacher Jin Zhuan, I never imagined even you would come," Luo Tian said with a bitter smile.
"Teacher? I have no disciple who wallows in the same filth as an Evil Soul Master!" Jin Zhuan said, furious at Luo Tian's failure to live up to his expectations.
Thunder roared across the sky, and silver-white lightning cracked overhead.
The rain fell harder, yet its bone-chilling chill could not diminish Jin Zhuan's fury in the slightest.
He had finally found someone with level-nine innate soul power and a top-tier martial soul, the Death Spider Emperor. With proper training, becoming a Titled Douluo in the future would have been inevitable.
Never could he have imagined that his own personal disciple would fall in love with an Evil Soul Master, much less injure his colleagues for her sake.
Did Luo Tian not know what sort of beings Evil Soul Masters were?
Where did such conduct leave him? Where did it leave the Spirit Hall, which had nurtured Luo Tian?
Jin Zhuan raised his head slightly and glanced at Lin Yan's gently swollen belly. His expression darkened further.
"Teacher, I've wronged you, and I've wronged everyone else even more. But Yan really isn't like those Evil Soul Masters-"
Before Luo Tian could finish, he was interrupted. It was not Jin Zhuan who cut him off, but four people who had just appeared: three men and one woman.
"Junior brother, an Evil Soul Master is an Evil Soul Master. What difference could there be?" the oldest of the four, a middle-aged man, said flatly.
"Senior Brother Zhao, Senior Brother Qian, Junior Sister Sun, Junior Sister Li... I never imagined all of you would come."
At the sight of the four, Luo Tian's face grew a little paler. If it had only been his teacher, Jin Zhuan, and his junior sister, Sun Yan, perhaps they might have turned a blind eye, pretended not to see them, and let them pass.
But Zhao Changge and Qian Buduo had always dealt with Evil Soul Masters in only one way: kill!
More importantly, Zhao Changge and Qian Buduo were Soul Saints, while Luo Tian and Lin Yan were only Soul Emperors. They were no match for the two. Though his teacher, Jin Zhuan, was even stronger, an Advanced Soul Douluo, he could not possibly intervene to stop Zhao Changge and Qian Buduo.
Seeing Luo Tian's face grow ever more ashen as they were surrounded, Lin Yan's heart ached terribly. If not for her, he would have had a far better future.
"Everyone, this is all my fault. Kill me and let him go!" Lin Yan pleaded with Jin Zhuan and the others, giving a desolate smile.
But the Spirit Hall's policy toward Evil Soul Masters had always been to root them out and slaughter them to the last. As a traitor, Luo Tian might meet an even more miserable end.
At that thought, Sun Yan, who secretly loved Luo Tian, could no longer contain her fury. "It's all your fault, you enchantress! Give me back my senior brother!"
Sun Yan gathered soul power in her palm and abruptly struck at Lin Yan. Her fiery-red soul power stood out vividly in the rainy night. A vicious, icy gust blew Lin Yan's wet hair aside, revealing her lovely, unworldly face.
Sun Yan's attack came without warning. Though Lin Yan was also a Soul Emperor, she had never expected it and had no time to resist.
Just as the crimson palm was about to strike Lin Yan's pale forehead, snuffing out her beauty and claiming two lives in a single corpse, two sharp shouts rang out.
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
One was Luo Tian's voice. The other belonged to someone no one had expected: Jin Zhuan!
At the objections of two people dear to her, Sun Yan desperately reined in her soul power, trying to pull back. But how could a blow delivered in fury be released and withdrawn as freely as she wished?
Bang!
An impact rang out, and a figure was sent flying through the curtain of rain, scarlet blood spraying through the air.
It was Luo Tian who had been thrown back. In that instant, he had pushed his wife, Lin Yan, aside and taken the blow for her.
"Pfft!" Luo Tian sank to one knee, his collarbone shattered by Sun Yan's palm. He opened his mouth to say something, only to cough up blood.
Luo Tian's cultivation was on par with Sun Yan's, and ordinarily he would not have been so easily gravely injured. But more than a year on the run had left him little time to rest or recover from his injuries, so he could not withstand even a single palm strike from her.
Lin Yan rushed over at once and cradled Luo Tian where he had fallen. "Tian, are you all right? Please don't leave me!" she cried.
"Cough, cough... Yan... until I've seen our child... born... I won't die." Luo Tian looked at Lin Yan and forced a faint smile.
"Tian, you will," Lin Yan said with a heartbreakingly beautiful smile.
"Yan, being... with you... has been the happiest thing... in my life. I'll love you forever." As he spoke, Luo Tian coughed up another mouthful of blood.
"Tian, I love you too."
Watching the couple's tender exchange, Sun Yan had their affection shoved down her throat. When she saw Lin Yan's swollen belly, her fury flared even higher. "You monster who eats human flesh, drinks human blood, and slaughters people like mowing grass! What right do you have to bear my senior brother's child?"
As members of the Spirit Hall, hunting down and exterminating Evil Soul Masters was their bounden duty. Yet the love between Luo Tian and Lin Yan still moved Zhao Changge and Qian Buduo deeply.
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