Chapter 10 — The Spirit Beast I Adopted Is the Baby Demon Lord

I struggled to catch my breath, forcing down the metallic, sweet taste of blood rising in my throat.

“Why me?”

Why was it me at the Beast Pavilion? Why did he follow me? Why did he not slaughter me the moment his strength returned, or simply discard me like an ant underfoot? Yuan Jin stared at me in silence. Moonlight shimmered in the depths of his dark eyes. A long time passed—so long that I feared he would offer no answer at all.

“My predestined trial was not yet complete, and the seal was waning.”

His voice was low, devoid of emotion, as if he were recounting an event entirely unrelated to himself.

“The moment the seal shattered, my essence was fractured, and my spirit scattered. Only a single, indestructible spark of consciousness remained, adrift in demonic vapors, descending into the mortal realm.”

He paused, his gaze fixing upon my face with a scrutinizing intensity.

“On your person… there is something.”

My heart hammered against my ribs.

“What is it?”

“A strand of aura… exceedingly faint.”

Yuan Jin narrowed his eyes, as if carefully discerning a distant memory.

“Ancient, pure, and teeming with boundless vitality. Though as fragile as a candle flame in a gale, it shares the same origin as the essence of the demonic energy I lost when the seal was broken.”

The same origin? I was struck dumb with shock. An ancient, pure aura? Boundless vitality? And it shares an origin with the demonic essence of a powerful entity? How could that be? I was merely an outer sect disciple, orphaned at a young age, with mediocre talent, struggling to survive at the very bottom of the hierarchy.

“That is impossible!” I reflexively retorted. “I am…”

“It is deep within your soul,” Yuan Jin interrupted, his tone brooks no argument. “It is hidden away with great depth. Had my own essence not been wounded, causing my cultivation to plummet and leaving me in this infantile state—forcing me to cling to you to absorb that faint vitality just to sustain my own flickering spirit—I would never have discovered it.”

I felt completely undone. Hidden deep within my soul? Absorbing my vitality to sustain himself? So, his frail appearance at the Beast Pavilion early on was not entirely a disguise? He followed me, endured my dilapidated shelter, and gnawed on low-grade spirit cores because he needed to anchor himself to me, absorbing this “shared vitality” to recover? The logic seemed sound, yet it was so absurd that I could hardly process it.

“So…” my voice felt raspy. “You stayed by my side only because… you needed to recover?”

The actions that looked like protection, the assistance at Black Peak Valley, his violent rage at the Martial Arena—were these all merely to ensure his “host” was not killed prematurely? Yuan Jin did not answer immediately. He shifted his gaze toward the jagged, ink-black silhouettes of the distant mountains. The night wind ruffled his dark purple fur, and the demonic patterns on his forehead pulsed with a dim, lunar glow. After a long while, his low voice sounded again, carrying a trace of confusion that was almost imperceptible.

“At first… yes, that was the reason.”

“And later…?”

He trailed off, seemingly unable to find the appropriate words to describe such complex sensations. The icy rationality belonging to the Demon Lord was clashing violently with the unfamiliar emotions birthed during our long time together, feelings belonging to the child-like form he had inhabited, which he identified as Mo Yu.

“That strand of aura… it is very warm,” he finally murmured, his tone sounding foreign even to himself. “Your blood… it is also very warm.”

Was he speaking of the blood I coughed up at the arena that had splashed near him? Or the blood that had welled up when I struggled in the dungeon? Warm? A Demon Lord finding blood to be warm? I watched his silhouette under the moonlight—lonely and distant—and a storm of emotions churned within me. The fear remained, but a more complex feeling was quietly taking root. He was not entirely devoid of heart. That part of him that was Mo Yu truly existed.

“Then… what about now?” I gathered the courage to ask. “Have you recovered?”

The strength he displayed when he shattered the Law Hall and drove back the elders had been terrifying enough.

“I have not yet recovered even one-ten-thousandth of my power,” Yuan Jin answered decisively. “My fundamental wounds cannot be healed in a day. The spiritual energy in this realm… is filthy.”

His voice dripped with undisguised disdain, as if he were evaluating a heap of refuse.

“That strand of shared vitality… is still what nurtures my consciousness.”

He turned back, his pitch-black eyes meeting mine, so deep they threatened to pull my soul into the void.

“You… are still my anchor.”

An anchor. The word made my heart constrict. Was it a necessity for survival, or a shackle?

“Then…” I licked my cracked lips. “Where are you taking me?”

“To the source.”

Yuan Jin’s gaze shifted toward the deeper reaches of the Ten Thousand Mountains. That boundless darkness seemed to be the only place where he truly belonged.

“To find my lost essence. And to find… the origin of the aura residing within your soul.”

He stepped forward, walking toward the vast, untamed wilderness. His dark purple form melted into the night, his footsteps steady and measured. I leaned against a tree, watching his figure about to vanish into the woods, then looked back toward the gates of the Azure Cloud Sect. The lights there were still blazing, and the faint, chaotic sounds of the night still echoed. There was no going back to the sect. Ahead lay unknown dangers and a Demon Lord of unfathomable power. But to stay? In my heavily injured state, outside the protective wards of the sect, I would not survive the night. I gritted my teeth, suppressed the tearing pain in my chest, and dragged my heavy feet, stumbling into the dark forest that swallowed everything whole. End.