Chapter 1

After the entire Locke Clan fell into demonic corruption, my master threw me, the sole survivor, into the Purgatory Tower to appease public rage.

A swordsman I had once saved by chance broke through the mountain of corpses and sea of blood to rescue me.

For my sake, he willingly endured seventy-nine Agony Spikes at the foot of Mount Solitude. His elderly father even knelt and kowtowed before the entire realm just to welcome me through their doors.

I bathed in their pampering and tender devotion, carrying his child for ten agonizing months.

Yet the very moment the newborn drew its first breath, I slaughtered the entire Croft household.

1.

On the day I went into labor, the entire Croft family gathered around my bed.

My husband, Callum, knelt and prayed to the heavens, begging for my safety.

With red, tear-filled eyes, Callum’s mother held my hand tightly. Her voice trembled with sobs, wishing desperately that she could take my pain upon herself.

Even Callum’s three-year-old brother pulled a crumpled ward amulet from his chest and tucked it into my trembling hands.

“Sister-in-law, Mother and I prayed at the sanctuary for this. May you be safe and whole!”

My unfocused gaze locked onto Callum’s hands. Looking into his eyes, all I saw was pure, unadulterated devotion.

It truly looked as though he loved me more than his own life.

Over a decade ago, my family, the noble Locke Clan of immortal cultivators, succumbed to dark corruption overnight. My kin painted the streets of the Grand Capital in blood until the realm banded together to subdue them three days later.

Only I, raised on the isolated peaks of Mount Solitude, was spared from the initial purge.

Yet the public’s thirst for vengeance could not be quenched. To cleanse the sins of the Locke bloodline, my master personally shattered my spiritual core and banished me to the Purgatory Tower, leaving me to endure the endless torment of having my skin peeled and tendons severed.

Back then, it was Callum Croft, a wandering swordsman I had once spared, who shattered the tower’s seal. He carried me out from that mountain of gore on his back.

My reputation was thoroughly ruined, yet he spared no expense to marry me in a lavish, ten-mile bridal procession.

The entire Capital erupted into chaos over our wedding. Hostile cultivators surrounded the Croft manor day and night, yet they stubbornly refused to hand me over.

To atone on my behalf, Callum knelt at the base of Mount Solitude and took forty-nine Agony Spikes into his flesh.

His aging father, a respected patriarch, knelt and bowed his head before the entire world for my sake.

“The Locke Clan turned demonic, but the child is innocent!” the old man had cried.

Faced with such sacrificial love, even my cold-hearted master was moved.

The world respected the Crofts’ noble virtue, and only then was my wretched life spared.

For years, I never took a single step out of the Croft manor.

Countless righteous warriors wanted nothing more than to see me dead. The moment I crossed the threshold, ten thousand arrows would pierce my heart.

Nightmares of my family’s demise tormented me relentlessly, soaking my pillow with tears every night and driving me to slash my own wrists.

It was Callum who rushed from behind the partition, knocking the dagger from my hand and crying in agony, “Live, Loralie! Live for me, please!”

I wept until my heart shattered in his embrace, vomiting dark blood from grief.

He never grew impatient. Instead, he gently wiped the blood from my skin and rocked me to sleep until dawn.

During the ten months I carried his child, the Croft family pampered me beyond measure.

I once asked him, “They say demonic blood runs in my veins. Aren’t you afraid I will give birth to an abomination?”

He looked deeply into my eyes and swore a solemn oath, “Loralie, I will love this child with everything I have, for it is the sacred proof of our love.”

Now, the hour of delivery had finally come.

I had sworn to trade my very life for this baby, just to repay the profound love the Croft family had shown me.