Soul-Eating Demon Spider

At the same time, they finally understood why Jin Zhuan had spoken up to stop Sun Yan from attacking Lin Yan.

There was no other reason-Lin Yan was pregnant.

Although Spirit Hall had always exterminated Evil Soul Masters without mercy, executions could still be postponed under special circumstances.

If an Evil Soul Master was pregnant, they would try to spare her life and capture her alive instead. After all, there was a new life in her womb.

After the child was born, they would observe it from infancy to determine whether its nature had been influenced in the womb. If it was a normal child, it would be raised in an orphanage, while the Evil Soul Master would naturally still be executed.

Hearing this, Lin Yan, who had been holding herself back all this time, finally erupted. She roared, "I'm not a monster! I've never eaten any, not even once! They forced it into me!"

"Your water has broken," Junior Sister Li, Li Xuemei, said, breaking her silence with a startling revelation.

Sun Yan froze for a moment, her gaze falling to Lin Yan's lower abdomen. She could see thin trails of blood running down Lin Yan's slender legs and mingling with the rainwater. Without a close look, they would have been almost impossible to notice.

After her anger erupted, searing pain swept through Lin Yan's entire body like a tsunami, battering her nerves wave after wave. All she could do was grit her teeth and endure it.

"Argh..."

"What are you standing around for? Hurry up and find somewhere for her to give birth!" Looking at the people before her, Li Xuemei was truly speechless.

Several men were staring blankly while a woman in labor gritted her teeth and struggled on. Was she trying to throw her life away?

The wind howled, muffled thunder rumbled ever louder, and the bone-chilling rain grew heavier.

Inside a cave in a small forest outside Spirit City.

A fair-skinned woman with a hideous, centipede-shaped scar over the left side of her abdomen let out intermittent groans of pain. Amid them came another woman's encouragement. "Come on, push harder."

"How could this happen?" Li Xuemei froze. Instead of the baby's head, she had seen a pair of tiny, pale feet emerge first.

A difficult birth! Those words flashed through Li Xuemei's mind!

As she watched Lin Yan's signs of life grow weaker and weaker, Li Xuemei panicked. If this continued, it would surely end in two deaths!

"Is the baby out yet? I can't hold on much longer." Lin Yan gasped for breath, her awareness beginning to blur.

Seeing this, Li Xuemei rushed outside to ask whether any of the others had a way to solve the problem.

Outside the cave, the men stood shoulder to shoulder, keeping their distance from the woman giving birth.

"What did you say? Yan'er is having a difficult birth? Cough, cough!"

Luo Tian could not believe what Li Xuemei had told him. He clamped both hands around her slender shoulders, as though shaking her a few more times could change the truth.

"Luo Tian, calm down."

"Calm down, Junior Brother Luo."

Luo Tian's master, Jin Zhuan, along with Zhao Changge and Qian Buduo, all tried to persuade him, but Luo Tian was so consumed by panic that he could barely listen.

Smack!

A sudden slap brought Luo Tian to his senses. The one who had struck him was Li Xuemei.

"What you need to do now is find a way for your wife to deliver your child safely, not stand here taking your temper out on me," Li Xuemei said coolly.

"I'm sorry."

Although Luo Tian appeared to have calmed down, his deeply furrowed brow, clenched fists, and faintly trembling body made it easy to imagine how desperately worried he still was.

Time ticked by, second after second. Seeing that the men still had no ideas, Li Xuemei could not help sighing. "She hasn't had any proper rest all this time. Now both mother and baby are steadily losing vitality."

"Vitality?"

That word seemed to jolt Luo Tian awake. His tightly knitted brows relaxed in an instant.

"I know how to save them." As soon as he spoke, Luo Tian charged inside.

Inside the cave, Lin Yan was already drifting in and out of consciousness. Only the baby's lower half had emerged. If much more time passed, both mother and child would surely die.

"Yan'er, wake up!" After entering, Luo Tian immediately patted Lin Yan's cheeks to rouse her.

Lin Yan's hazy eyes slowly opened. With an apologetic look, she said to Luo Tian, "Brother Tian, I'm sorry. I..."

But Luo Tian cut her off. "There's no time. Yan'er, your Martial Soul is the soul-eating demon spider. Use it to drain my vitality, and you and the baby will be all right."

Everyone in the cave was utterly shocked by his words, especially Jin Zhuan and the others who had just entered. They had never imagined that Luo Tian's solution would be to sacrifice himself to save his wife and child.

"No!" The one who objected was Sun Yan. Having fallen for Luo Tian, how could she possibly be willing to let him die like this?

The others, however, said nothing, especially Jin Zhuan. As Luo Tian's teacher, he knew him very well. Once Luo Tian made a decision, no one could change it-just as no one had been able to change his love for the Evil Soul Master Lin Yan.

"Yan'er, hurry!" Luo Tian ignored Sun Yan's incessant protests and began urging Lin Yan to act.

"Brother Tian, I won't."

"Hurry, or I'll kill myself!"

Luo Tian spoke with desperate urgency, gathering Soul Power in his hand. If Lin Yan continued to refuse, he would slit his own throat.

Knowing Luo Tian's temperament, Lin Yan knew he would carry out his threat. With no other choice, she used the Martial Soul she had hated more than anything throughout her life-the soul-eating demon spider!

"Soul-eating demon spider, possess!"

At her soft cry, purple-black light appeared around Lin Yan. Within that dark light was an enormous purple-black spider! Its eight spear-like legs, bearing eight pairs of barbs, were over three meters long. Its three pairs of purple-black compound eyes and hideous mouthparts gave it an utterly vicious, evil appearance.

The hideous mouthparts suddenly extended, then plunged straight into Luo Tian's neck. With gulp after gulp, streams of blood mingled with his soul were drawn into them and transferred into Lin Yan's body.

The cave's air filled with the pungent stench of blood and the occasional sound of sobbing, forming a strangely unsettling scene.

Lin Yan's previously feeble life force began to surge rapidly, soon stabilizing at roughly the level of a Soul King.

Luo Tian, meanwhile, died after only a few breaths as she drained him. His already lean body was reduced to skin and bones, like a skeleton. What had driven him to make this decision was nothing other than a father's love-a father's love as weighty as a mountain.

"It's coming out! The head is out! Push a little harder!" Li Xuemei's words broke the silent, desolate atmosphere in the cave.

"Aah!!"

Along with Lin Yan's anguished groan, a baby's loud cry rang through the cave.

Outside the cave, the sky grew darker still. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, and rain poured down, as though Heaven were venting its fury, or a goddess were shedding tears in secret.

Inside the cave, perhaps because of the newborn's arrival, there seemed to be a little more life.