24

Early that dawn at the Shu House, the silver haired youth was struggling on her sleep. Deep breathes and groaning could be heard from the bed.

'Run. Run. You need to run!'

'I can feel it.'

She felt the connection as it strengthened, the fragment. She knew that it was near.

In her sleep, she was running to the source of brilliant light and there she saw it.

It was the fragment! The first piece.

She was about to grab it when a dark shadow engulfed on her, taking her away from it, suffocating her.

A sudden pull released her from the death's grip and she witnessed that Titus pulled her out of it.

Titus with a sigh on his face put Chun down and the young man immediately recognizes the place. It was the same field of sunflowers.

"You are safe now. You're almost trap by those guardians."

Hearing that, she woke up from realization.

"What was that?"

"It's the guardians of the shadow, protecting the fragment."

"Guardians? Why are those guarding my fragment?"

Titus smirked on Chun's statement and answered, "It's not yours until you obtain it. And nightwalking won't help you from taking it."

"Nightwalking?"

"It's a special trait who holds the power of Her, it's about using your soul force to manifest a spiritual body to move to a one place from another."

The silver haired young man ignored his last statement as she was focused to the mention of 'Her'.

'Who is Her?'

As if reading her thoughts, "You will get to know her soon but not now because you're not that powerful yet."

"Is my cultivation not enough?"

At seventeen years old, Chun was known to be superior to her peers as she reached already the initial stage of Immortal realm, that was a shock to her father and Lucil but her two brothers didn't know about it yet unless she tells them.

So why was her power not enough to know about the 'truth'?

The smirking Titus widened the grin on his face. He uninterestedly glanced at the amusing clueless brat.

For Titus, Chun was still a brat to him. He's just an amusing innocent brat. Who feels that she's under control of everything when the truth is she don't.

An innocent brat that he wanted to break, assuming that the butler of her won't return yet so he'll bid his time of playing with her.

Titus chuckled and replied, "Are you joking with me? You're not even cultivating, you're just spending your time lavishly with no worries and not even spending any effort on gaining something. You're just a spoiled brat to me."

Then at that moment, the lazy-look of the silver haired young man cracked a bit. A strange smile appeared on her face.

It hit a nerve.

"Let's talk. What do you 'want'?" The seriousness of her voice was laced with danger.

He cracked him a bit but that's not enough.

The deity smiled, not responding. He just observed the young man.

The always lazy silver haired young man was now a bit angry. The downside of her lazy self was her waning patience.

Her short-temperedness is what she most avoided. The revolting emotion that she knew that she was in control was now lashing back at her. Having no release of her sudden anger.

She felt the beating of her heart quickened, her blood flowed on her vessels uncontrollably and her breathing once again hasten.

Then she remembered. The forgotten memories resurfaced.

The happenings during those five years of disappearance. Her discharge of power that led her on ruining her spiritual core. A core that connects the life energy of a martial practitioner to its cultivation.

Her discharge of power was brought due to her mother's death, an illness that was caused by her. Because of her growing power, it was consuming the life force of her mother and when she realized it, it was too late.

This proposition of studying to another continent was not because of her boredom but her instincts was telling her that she must avoid contact with her family as soon as possible, to not brought deaths upon them.

It was a hopeless case for Chun but she must do it because she doesn't want to lose another love one. She's sure that this growning power was slowly consuming the life force of the people around her but it was just a slow process compared to her family who had blood ties with her, the more they were close to her the double she consumed their life force. It's a consequence of staying alive as a curse.

Titus felt the turmoil on her thoughts and unconsciously read the running thoughts on her head. He smirked.

"Oh, you remembered something that was supposed to be hidden."

The now glaring silver haired young man with her blue-green eyes switching from scarlet red and back was a frightening sight but beautiful to Titus.

The deity of Prevalent Tragedy was amused to this development yet he was pulled to reminiscing those scarlet red eyes. A very familiar sight.

He then chuckled, he decided to stop his play for now as he doesn't want to suffer the consequences of angering a former deity.

"You're right about that thing, you consuming their life force slowly but it's not related to your growing power and that's another topic we should talk about next time."

Before Chun could speak up, Titus cutted her off.

"By the way, thank you for retrieving my pet's heart. So off you go, for now."

Their conversation ended as Chun was suddenly awaken by her second brother's voice.

"Chun! Wake up! You're going to be late."

The closeness of Canis made her flinched back and flew far away from him.

Her second brother had a confusion to his face as he still gestured trying-to-wake-her-up hands was left on the air.

"Are you alright Chun?"

"Stop right there!"

Canis followed but had a hurt-look on his face.

Finally, Chun saw the hints of energy that was being sucked away from her second brother, if one did not look intently, one would not notice the small bits of energy withering away from his hands.

He touched me with those hands.

"Step back a bit!" Chun ordered and her second brother reluctantly obliged.

The sucking instantly disappeared.

To try her luck she closes in to her brother's vicinity and witnessed the tid bits amount of energy was being suck but another flow of qi energy was being replenished towards her brother.

'Let's test a bit'

"Hold my hand, second brother."

The confused Canis followed, again to his younger brother's play.

But the sudden touch made Chun once again flinched as she immediately pulled away her hand from her second brother's hold.

'When he touched me, the absorbed energy could not replenish.' Realizing the truth made her sick.

She's too blind to this situation. She thought that the growing power of her was just a special trait to their bloodline as one of their ancestor experienced this too, confirmed by her father, but she did not know that this was the exchange of this.

Consuming the life of people around her.

'Mother died because she spent time with me and always held me near her when I needed her warmth.'

It's truly my fault. Why is this happening to me?

"Chun? Are you okay? Do you feel ill?" The worried face of Canis woke her up from self-blame.

'Yes. I am sick with myself, second brother but I can't tell you that.'

"I-I'm okay." Her hesitant reply made Canis more worried.

"If you feel not good, just tell me. I'll file a leave for you."

The worry on her second brother made her more guilty. She's not deserving with this kind of care.

Not pursuing the previous topic, Canis asked, "Where's that butler of yours? He should bring you breakfast at this time."

Right. Art doesn't know about this and it's probably good that he's away from me. Away from his death.

Looking at her wall clock, it was 8 in the morning. And the tournament of her students would be at 9:30 am so she still had spare of time to prepare.

She composed her thoughts and answered, "He's away right now because I had something he had to do."

Canis just nodded and stated that he would ask Fria to prepare for the breakfast.

Before her second brother could leave.

"Are you not going home yet?"

She must avoid her second brother as much as possible to avoid physical contact. Even though his absorbed energy was being replenished just standing near on her vicinity, she would not take risks for Canis' safety.

"Not yet. I have business to do here."

"Oh."

------

The silver haired young man tried again communicating with Titus through the silver box but there's somehow a barrier to it that prevented her from reaching the deity.

She stared hopelessly at the unmoving silver box.

Before she needs to figure out this hurdle, she needs to first obtain that fragment.

As what Titus had stated, it's not still hers until she obtained it.

By hook or by crook, she must get it.

Now sensing it, it's now calling to her. The feeling was strong. It's not about recovering her memories during her five years disappearance, it's about knowing her true identity.

Recalling what happened those times made her head ached. The last thing that she saw after her outburst was her spiritual core broke and her life force was slowly disappearing.

It meant that she died at that time but why was she still alive and breathing?

Only that Titus knew.

Knock! Knock!

A knock on her door snapped her back to reality.

This is not her.

Her thoughts was always composed and calm. She's now experiencing another unfamiliar situation that she didn't know about.

"Young master, Second young master said that I'll remind you for your class and he bid you goodbye too because there was a sudden situation," Fria from outside stated.

Chun just responded a hum while opening the door.

The bar lady was momentarily in a daze as she stared at her young master who passes by her.

'There's something new to young master. Oh, well, this kind of aura made young master more handsome, though.'

Fria shrugged and got back to her position at the counter.