Chapter 56

Chapter 56: Did She Die?

Seven months earlier—Senyu Beast Forest.

The sky was the color of old bruises. Black clouds gathered so fast they seemed to pour into place, swallowing the last scraps of daylight.

Pei Xuan paced in a tight circle around the newborn little black panther, licking it again and again until its fur lay clean and dry, until the cub’s tiny shivers eased. Only then did he turn toward Su Yan.

How… did she die?

Was giving birth really that dangerous?

Su Yan lay motionless, as if the world had cut its tether to her.

Pei Xuan lowered his head and licked her cheek. Her throat. The fingertips that had turned grass-green from clutching weeds. He tried to wake her with gentleness, as if tenderness alone could pull her back.

She didn’t move.

Above them, the tribulation clouds were almost complete.

Thunder rolled like the beat of a war drum. Each rumble felt closer than the last, as if the sky itself leaned down to listen.

This was the final heavenly tribulation—the last step that would reshape him from a mortal beast into a spirit beast.

He’d endured ninety-nine strikes already. He couldn’t fail on the last.

“Wait for me,” he said, voice rough, almost a growl. “I’ll finish the tribulation and come back. I’ll find a way to bring you back—even if I have to bargain with the Death Rule God.”

He cast a lightning barrier over Su Yan. It sealed around her in a dome of crackling power, threads of electricity weaving a cage of light.

Then he lifted the newborn little black panther in his mouth. The cub needed warmth; without body heat, it might not survive at all.

The tribulation clouds followed him as he fled deeper into the forest, as if the heavens had a leash around his throat.

Lightning and thunder raged in the heart of Senyu Beast Forest. From time to time, furious roars tore through the air—king-beast level screams—followed by pillars of heavenly punishment that split the sky and turned the trees into black silhouettes.

Devil beasts and wild beasts alike panicked. Afraid of being caught in the spillover, they streamed out of the forest in every direction, scattering as if the ground burned beneath their paws.

A Profound Rank devil beast discovered Su Yan.

It crept closer, drool stringing from its jaws, eyes fixed on her like she was a feast left unattended.

But when it drew within a few steps, the lightning barrier snapped awake. Arcs lashed out, striking again and again, the crack of power echoing through the trees.

The devil beast didn’t want to leave. It kept testing the barrier, hungry and stubborn, pushing its luck.

Then the barrier detonated.

The blast carried the force of Pei Xuan’s full-strength strike, compressed and released all at once.

The devil beast tried to run.

It didn’t make it.

The last surge reduced it to dust, leaving only a gray-brown high-grade crystal coin behind, half-buried in charred leaves.

Su Yan opened her eyes.

She lay still for a heartbeat, looking around—then stood and walked away, her expression a mix of regret and quiet melancholy, as if she’d stepped out of one life and into another without looking back.

Not long after, Pei Xuan returned.

He had survived the final tribulation and evolved to spirit beast grade. The air around him still carried the faint taste of lightning.

He came back with the little black panther—

—and found nothing where Su Yan had been. Only a single high-grade crystal coin lay on the ground, cold and indifferent in the dirt.

He set the cub down and let it crawl a short distance, tiny paws stumbling over roots. Then he lowered himself onto the spot where she’d once lain, pressing into the earth as if he could find her by scent alone.

About two days later, a massive black panther ran through Senyu Beast Forest with the little black panther.

A fire-red nine-tailed phoenix bird soared overhead. The panther lifted its head and watched it pass, eyes narrowing against the glare, then gripped the cub in its mouth and blinked away, vanishing like a crack of lightning.

…

In the present, Su Yan watched Little Hao wrapped in lightning, his small body swallowed by crackling light.

Little Mei had said he was safe. Su Yan forced herself to believe it, even as her heart thudded too loud in her chest.

Pei Xuan watched even more closely, his attention sharp enough to cut. After a while, he saw it too: Little Hao wasn’t being harmed. His realm was climbing—fast, like a tide rushing in.

Pei Xuan’s gaze flicked to her. “That pill… where did you get it?”

“By chance,” Su Yan said.

In truth, there was a restriction: the pill could only be used on cubs the host had borne herself.

The system shop didn’t mark it on the item page, but in the exchange notes, a single line glowed in yellow: one-point items and free items were for Host and Host’s offspring only.

Su Yan pulled out two more wooden boxes. “A young beast under one year old can take up to three. That’s all I have.”

Each one cost points. She wouldn’t waste them.

If it weren’t for the strange bond she felt with Little Hao, she wouldn’t have spent even one.

As for anyone else? She wasn’t responsible for them.

And she definitely wasn’t going to sell this. She didn’t lack money—and even if she did, she wouldn’t trade her points for it. She still had plenty of supplies from the big gift packs untouched. Any one of those could be exchanged for coin.

Pei Xuan understood her meaning immediately. “No third person will know.”

If anyone learned she had something that could raise a young beast’s talent, she’d be targeted until the ground under her feet turned into a trap.

He’d already “killed” her once. He didn’t know how she’d returned, but he would not let her die again—never again in front of him.