As the egg trembled, the cracks along its surface split wide, revealing a humanoid hand forged of black, chitinous material.
The sight sent several guests stumbling back in fright. They watched, breathless, as the clawed digits spread out, digging deep into the shell's edge. A wet, rhythmic clicking echoed through the hall—the sound of obsidian joints unfolding for the first time. It was not the sound of an animal; it was the precise, mechanical grinding of a predator's clockwork.
The guests felt the vibration in their marrow, a primal warning that the natural order had just been shattered.
Five more identical appendages suddenly burst through the shell, following the first with a terrifying, independent fluidity. A heavy, final crack echoed as the egg struggled to hold its form.
With a synchronized squeeze, all six arms pushed down, shattering the top of the egg into white dust.
Leaning forward, Si Lijun found herself staring at a humanoid figure. The creature possessed six arms: two where a human's would be, and four additional limbs sprouting from its back like a crown of obsidian blades.
The beast stared back with four void-black eyes. The primary pair, her Abyssal Primaries, were large and liquid, reflecting Lijun's stunned face. A secondary pair, the Fate Seekers, rested at the temples just below the first, blinking with a predatory rhythm.
"What kind of creature are you?" Lijun wondered aloud. She reached out to touch the being, unafraid. She could feel the blood bond vibrating between them along with a secondary connection she couldn't name.
As she reached inside, the creature's lips parted, releasing soft clicking sounds that expressed a joy remarkably like a child's laughter. It sat up, nuzzling its head into her palm. Its skin was porcelain-white and translucent, contrasting harshly against the black chitin of its limbs. At her touch, a faint purple blush bloomed across its cheeks—It too felt the two connections between them and bore a strong desire to get closer.
"Mnn... cute," Lijun spoke in her usual monotone, gently scratching the creature's scalp and silky black hair.
"Father, any idea what it is?"
She had never heard of a beast born in humanoid form. Most only gained such a shape after reaching maturity like dragons or high a high stage in cultivation. A humanoid form allowed a beast to cultivate two paths at once, granting a lethal edge over any human rival.
Though successfully doing so with any meaningful gains was what separates the true geniuses from the rest.
Lijun turned to see the crowd frozen in existential fear. Even her mother, usually ready to slaughter anything that challenged her, was unusually quiet. Lijun knew humanoid beasts were considered dangerous, but looking at the small being in her hands, she felt they were overreacting. It was just born. How dangerous could it be?
"Father?" she asked again, snapping him from his daze.
"Lijun, step away!" Rushing forward, her father reached out to pull her from the egg. But the moment his hand grazed her shoulder, his body involuntarily shuddered.
An instinctual, biological terror racked his frame. The air grew heavy, saturated with a killing intent that shouldn't belong to a newborn. It felt as if a bloodthirsty apex predator had marked him. His spirit core trembled; the urge to flee was almost overpowering. He met the gaze of the beast.
Those solid black eyes were locked onto the hand touching his child with terrifying, singular focus.
Noticing the tension, Lijun scratched the creature's scalp again. "Why are you suddenly so angry?" she asked softly.
At her touch, the crushing pressure vanished. The creature retracted its gaze and nuzzled her palm with a soft, trilling click.
"Lijun... the blood bond... was it truly established?" her father asked with a shaky breath. He stepped back, realizing that without his daughter's intervention, he would have been forced into a life-or-death struggle.
"Mn, seems so. Do you know what kind of beast it is?"
Father Si sighed as the rest of the crowd leaned in, eager for an answer.
"While I can't be certain, I have a guess. Our goddess Arachne is, as her name suggests, an Arachne. I can't help but feel this creature is related to her, or at least shares the Arachne bloodline."
A ripple of shock went through the room. Master Fu spoke up, inching closer. "The offspring of a deity? Ridiculous!"
"Watch what you say," Father Si growled. "I only mean it is of the same species, not necessarily a direct relative."
The crowd let out a collective sigh of relief. If the Goddess of Fertility had simply created another of her kind, it was shocking, but not as terrifying as a direct divine descendant.
"Well, it doesn't matter," Master Fu said, his voice turning cold. "We should kill it quickly before it matures. We all know what the Arachne are capable of."
His words hit like a hammer. It was said that thousands of years ago, Arachne went by a different name: Lolth, the Queen of Arachne and all spider-kin. Known for her brutality, she was feared by all. Their ancestors had been so terrified of her power that they had formed a coalition to drive the Arachne to extinction, believing that if they culled her race, she would have no way to reproduce. They believed a single cultivator, no matter how powerful, could not take on the entirety of the human race alone.