What Price are you willing to pay for Power? Part 3

After Wang Wei got a taste of power, things soon escalated beyond his control. His enemies noticed the ever decreasing number of prisoners and bandits around the neighborhood.

After investigating, they discovered that the disappearance of these people have something to do with the Wang family. Adding the fact that the patriarch of the Wang family suddenly became a powerful cultivator, people already inferred that Wang Wei was involved in some kind of evil cultivation technique.

  So, the people cut off Wang Wei's path of finding prisoners and bandits; all the prisoners in the state he lived in were transferred and all the bandits were slaughtered.

Wang Wei became furious after hearing this news. As such, he became more proactive in his fights against the Royal family and the other powerful clans.

Since he could no longer sacrifice these prisoners, he went after the people of the clans. He believed that since they were his enemies, they all deserved to die. At this point in time, he did not need a sacrifice array as a way to increase his power, all he needed to do was kill a person and he would immediately absorb all the flesh and blood and their souls.

Wang Wei did not care that the majority of the people he killed had a white soul. All he cared about was becoming more powerful. As such, he killed more and more people, and during the process, his soul turned bright red, then black.

It did not take him long before he became powerful enough to be invincible in the kingdom he lived in. So, he slaughtered all the aristocrat families and the royal family.

Afterward, a bloody massacre was launched in the entire cultivating world. The Slaughter Devil Wang Wei went mad and started killing all kinds of cultivators. He did not have a bottom line, whether it was man or woman, adult or children: he went as far as killing pregnant women and babies.

All the cultivating sects, families, and dynasties formed an alliance to stop the madness of this devil. Unfortunately for them, Wang Wei would always escape when they encircled him. When they discovered him again, he would be more powerful and the alliance would suffer great loss.

The crusade against the Slaughter Devil Wang Wei lasted a whole ten years. Unfortunately, in the end, the great devil won. The majority of the powerful sect were destroyed, the powerful families were slaughtered, and the cultivating dynasties were erased from the annals of history.

After Wang Wei killed the majority of the cultivators, he realized that it was not enough for him to reach the state of invincibility: the state where the fate of all things were controlled by him.

He had become obsessed with that state. Every night, he would dream of becoming a supreme being that would dominate the entire world. All people bowed to him, his words could determine the fate of the entire world.

Unfortunately, when he woke up the next morning, all his powers were gone. But he believed that one day he would reach such height. As long as enough sacrifices were made, he would reach such a realm one day.

As such, he went on an expedition against the common people of the world. He created a powerful army that was controlled solely by him. In the past ten years, Wang Wei did not just kill the majority of cultivators, but he managed to kill 3/4 of the world's population of ten billion people.

More than 7.5 Billion of people were killed by him. After doing all of this, Wang Wei found himself facing a bottleneck in his cultivation. No matter how many people he killed, his cultivation would not increase even a single bit.

He was so close to the realm of his dream; the realm that has been haunting him like a lingering ghost in the past ten years. All he needed was just a little push and he could accomplish his ultimate dream and goal. However, this little push that seemed so close has blocked his path for many years. Even worse, he could not see any hope.

Until one day while he was meditating, a sudden enlightening came to his mind. In order to achieve the highest realm, he needed to kill something or someone that has meaning to him, someone that was close to him. After that, he would be detached from the world and become truly invincible.

After being enlightened, Wang Wei immediately returned to the Wang Clan estate. This place was his origin, as such he protected it during the era of chaos. Because of him, the Wang family had a supreme status in the world.

Upon returning to the clan, Wang Wei knew what he had to do in order to reach his goal. That was to kill his mother. As she was the last tether she had in this world. As long as he killed her, he would be free.

He did not care about the rest of the people in the clan. To him, they were nothing but flesh and blood that could be absorbed at any time.

Soon, Wang Wei noticed his mother in the garden watering the plants. He moved instantly and appeared behind her.

For a moment, he stood silently behind her reminiscing of the past. This was the place that started his glorious journey to supreme power. Wang Wei was not the type of person that likes to reminisce about the past. 

In fact, over the years, he had become cold and extremely indifferent. The fact was that all his emotions were long abandoned by him except for the desire of power.

However, when he came back here, he could not help but to think of the past. After all, this is the place that started it all.

Wang Wei's mother immediately noticed someone behind her. In fact, due to Wang Wei's cultivating realm, it was simply impossible for an ordinary mortal to notice him. But she had a strong bloodline connection with him, so she noticed him the moment he appeared.

Without turning around, she smiled and said: "Wei'er, you are back. I have not seen you for more than ten years. Help your mother water these new flowers that I got from the shop down the street."

Wang Wei did not say anything and walked next to the flowers and watered them. The two spend the next two hours in silence watering the plants.

After watering the plants, Wang Wei's mother--whose name was Yu Yan--looked closely at her son for the first time in ten years. She could hardly recognize him.

Although he did not change much physically, he exuded a completely different temperament. His face was completely stiff, as if he did not show any expression for a long time. His eyes were cold, devoid of any kind of emotion--even when he looked at her.

Yu Yan could smell an intense scent of blood that almost overwhelmed her senses. It took her quite a bit of strength and courage not to faint. More ever, she could see the grievances of all the people he had killed over the years manifested around him.

They were dark, shadowy-like figures that constantly screamed at her son. Their faces displayed anger, pain, suffering and kept saying things like "Why did you kill me?", "We had no grievance with each other", "You killed my family".

There were countless grievances and she could not count them all. However, her son seemed to ignore their cries of suffering and despair.

Yu Yan walked over to Wang Wei, raised her trembling hand and started to caress his hair. She started to reminisce of her son in the past, memories of when he was young flashed in her head. 

Memories of growing up as a child, memories of his school days, and memories of him turning into a responsible man capable of looking after the family. Her memories stopped to the point ten years ago, in the same garden, when she told him to follow his heart.

She knew that this was the starting point of it all. Often she blamed herself for what happened to her son. Many times she imagined if things would have turned out differently if she had given him a different advice. Or maybe, if she had convinced him to just run away and live an ordinary life. Or maybe, everything was fated.

During her caress, Wang Wei stood there like a wooden pole, with no expression on his face. Yu Yan did not mind all these. She was in her own world for a while, before regaining consciousness.

She looked at Wang Wei in the eyes, smiled brightly and said: "You can do it son. I knew this would happen some day. In the past ten years, not seeing you was one of the greatest joys of my life. Because I knew that if you did not return here, that meant that there is still hope for you, it meant that there is still a trace of humanity left inside of you."

"Unfortunately, fate plays us all like marionettes. I want you to know that I still love you and forgive you. The only regret that I have in this life was the fact that I could not save you in the end."

After saying her last word, Yu Yan closed her eyes and waited for her final moment. A smile was still pertinent on her face: this smile was brilliant, pure, and genuine.

Wang Wei--with no expression on his face--took a long red sword and without hesitation, plunged it straight toward her heart.