Chapter 52

Darkness.... All Di Xueyan can see is a never ending darkness. She feels like she is only floating in the air. Without a shape... Without feeling the familiar warmth of a human body. She tries to move... tries to see something even if it is any body part. But there is none.

' Where am I?', she can't remember anything. She even seems to forget who she is. All she can feel is a never ending coldness in her entire being, if, she is even considered as such.

' Who am I?'

She is unreconciled. She doesn't want to feel this feeling. She doesn't want to feel the feeling of being lost. The feeling of not knowing what to do. The feeling of not even knowing who she is.

She furrowed her nonexistent brows, trying to remember what is happening. Trying to remember where she is or what she is considered now.

Her simple thoughts became desperate as time went by because no matter what she do, is futile. She seems to cease to exist. As if even she, is aware that she doesn't exist anymore.

She panicked. She seems to want to exist. She seems to long to stop herself from sinking into this abyss way deeper. She have the feeling that she has something to hold into. Something that she doesn't want to give up. And so, she struggles.

Her internal struggle lasts for a while. As if an entity locked in a dark room with its limbs binded, wanting to break free but can't. Like a child in a room with zero visibility trying to violently break free without caring of the things she might break, a part in her mind seems to shatter, as if she accidentally broke a vase in the suffocating prison that locked her.

But instead of shards, she seems to be hit with a violent heat that pierces through her consciousness as if an excruciating curse. Without processing what it is, her mind instantly named it without waiting for her to think furthur.

Resentment

All she feels is a painful resentment. As if gnawing at her pitiful soul, resentment seems to eat her every being, making her shout in agony voicelessly. The vision that she doesn't has seems to be clouded, as if an after effect of the attack that is slowly integrating itself deep within her soul.

She doesn't know why she gladly accepts it. Why she lets it eat her soul. All she knows is that she should feel this way... that this is the thing that she holds into... that this is the thing that she should feel.

' But why?', she feels puzzled but a bout of hatred entered her senses, making her lose the last thread of sanity that she never even tried to protect in the first place.

All she knows is that she hated something...that she desperately wants to destroy something...

And the weird thing is, the feeling is agonizing but she likes it. She welcomes it. She vows to herself that whatever the subject of her resentment is, she would destroy it!

She wants to wreck havoc. She wants to find something to destroy to curb the exciting hatred that she is feeling right now.

She is on the verge of unreversibly losing her sanity. Just a little push, and she will slowly destroy herself, little by little.

She should not do it. She doesn't even know what she is doing it for, but thinking of the pleasure she think she will feel once she destroys that 'something', she can't seems to stop.

' I can feel the irresistible pleasure just by thinking of it, what's more if I do it myself?', and with that, she embrace the violent heat that has been gnawing her entire being more.

In another part of the content, a beautiful woman sat in a meditative posture in a simple room. Her beauty that can bring chaos to the world is enhanced by her calm and peaceful appearance. The room is undecorated, too dull and even without any windows. It is as if it is just a mere plain box that imprisons the lady in the center. It is the absolute opposite of the lady inside. If one will see such scene, they will think that such room doesn't deserve to be graced with such beauty. It is filled with plain white and thick candles that encircles the lady as it serves as the only light of the suffocating looking room. But if one is a cultivator, such room, no matter how noble they think they are, will kill to have even a minute in this trashy room that can even be called a basement as it is filled with dense spirit qi that is twenty times way better than the outside world.

The lady frowned her thick yet carefully arranged eyebrows gently as a sudden dread bursts from her heart. Her cherry plump lips is tightly pursed as her initial cherry cheeks turned drastically ghastly pale. She tries to shrug it off but the unexplained worry consumes her every being that she seems to break down at any moment.

Unable to calm herself anymore, she opened her phoenix eyes as the little dot of green enclosing the red little fire shape in her peerless forehead slightly lights up, as if feeling its owner's worry. She instantly stands and vanished from the room as if she was not there in the first place.

The lady appears in a dim lit room, but unlike the previous one, the room is way sophisticated as the pillars are all coated with gold with meticulous designs of nature, the floor is tiled with spotless and rare white pure spirit jade thae emits a faint spirit qi, devoid with any impurities, the chinese style windows are opened, letting the moonlight enters the room, giving the room a peaceful glow and in the middle, a huge blazing red strange silky but an inch thick cloth hung grandiously with a huge golden and intricate crying phoenix embroidery in the middle. When one enters the room, the first thing that would gather attention is the imposing phoenix embroidery, but the lady immediately dashed in front of the embroidery where five strange luminous balls with a size of a basket ball float in the air steadily. She inspects each of them, trying to find out which one almost gave her a heart attack.

She looks at her husbands crystal ball, which is until now, spotless even though he has been missing for years now, which gave her immense relief, she frowns slightly though as she never had this strong feeling whenever he was in danger before anyway, she just immediately assumed that it is him because of his special situation. But she didn't think further as she has to identify who is in danger among her loved ones first, so she shrugged it off, when she suddenly hears a crack. Her heart seems to stop beating. If the people who knows her, except for her family, will see the broken light in her eyes right now, they would surely be shaken as they always knew that no matter what, this woman will always have a 'don't annoy me if you don't want to die' emotion plastered in her face, not worry nor fear. She instantly found the source of the noise when she looks at her eldest child's life crystal. Another bout of pain assaulted her senses as a tear escaped her eyes. She instantly clutched her chest as she stares at her precious baby's life crystal that has a thin crack in the middle. It only means that her life is in a precarious state. Now she understands the strong feeling that she has been feeling right now,

A mother's instinct.

She took a strange parchment paper from her storage ring and calmly stares at it for a while, but deep inside she is now crumbling.

She tries to located her eldest daughter's location across the continent but all she can see is her son's location and her youngest daughter's .

The moment her husband vanished into thin air, though she knew the reason, her paranoia still let her put a tracking device in her children's as she is afraid that she will lose them someday.

Though she agreed to let them experience the harshest training that they could ever have and for therm to roam and experience the world themselves, except for her youngest of course, she is still a mother in the end. She is selfish. If she can, she wants her children to be with her all the time so that she can protect them everytime but, she also knows that she can't protect them forever, so they have to learn the ways of the world.

What makes her more worried is the fact that she can't see her eldest daughter's location at all. She knows that she won't go to a different dimension just yet, as this is the first time that she experiences the cultivation world. So, what made her vanish into thin air?

" Everyone heed my orders", she blankly said, her voice is almost shaky but the power within it can still make anyone tremble. In an instant, fifteen black robed trained shadow guards kneel down behind her. They knew their mistress very well, and as the best trained people under her, they can hear the slight shake in her voice.

Who can make this fierce demoness tremble this way if it is not her family?

" Comb the entire continent. I want my eldest daughter back tomorrow morning. No matter the cost, bring her back", she instantly faces her subordinate and saw them kneeling at her respectfully as usual.

" Here is her aura, blood and face. Remember not to let this leak out", in a blink she injected those information in their head one by one. If someone will see the way she passes information, they would surely kill to learn such technique. Who wouldn't if they can save time and effort as they didn't have to be scared of being traced by crime they made? The technique the woman just displayed right now is one of the lost ancient techniques that her darling daughter stole from her, in which she just turned a blind eye.

The Soul Memory Flow Technique can let the users pass the information to their intended people, but those people will not be able to pass the information to others which made their transaction traceless. Also, once the receiver of the information will betray, they will be severely punished. By saying 'to not leak out', she is not implying about the information she just passed as she is confident at her people, but at the commotion that they might make.

" Yes!", her subordinates are not so surprised at her skill, in fact, their mistress was gracious enough to teach them the skill. Which implies the trust she has in her subordinates because if one of them will betray her and teach someone from a vile family, then the world will be in chaos. They are aware of the punishment, but the punishment is only applicable if they tried to leak the information not if they teach others. Since the receivers are supposed to not be able to pass the information to others, their mistress amazingly modified such ancient skill just to test their loyalty. They can leak the information and they would be punished, but not enough to take their lives, but no one can still pry their mind, but ofcourse they wouldn't betray her. No matter what, they wouldn't betray their benefactor and friend.

And she knows that.

" I will personally lead the search", the only woman in the group instantly voiced out her thoughts as she saw their mistress is about to go out in a hurry, obviously joining the search.

" No, I will also help", the woman, Feng Huali, tries to ease her anxiety as she is about to go out of the Di family's Ancestral Hall. Yes, ancestral hall but only their names and life crystal is inside, as they are the first Di family that settled in the central region, so their elders are either honorary or guest elders. And since they are the first, the vast empty hall only held the names of the direct descendants. It is not that she is cursing their family, she just doesn't give a fuck about the tradition and simply put her family's life crystals and names there since the room that the elders proposed to build is considered useless in her eyes, so why not make it useful? Only she can enter the hall anyway, for even if those people in the clan, the family of those elders of course, will be injected with a million chicken guts, they will never dare to let their feet wander in 10 meters vicinity of the ancestral hall, else they want to turn into meat patties.

Another crack echoed across the room, making the pitiful mother to dash out even faster, but the woman who spoke to her already anticipated it and instantly pacified her mistress.

" Mistress, you have to stay here to help gain clue from the life crystal", her voice is unhurried, as she knows what exactly to say to pacify a mother like her mistress, her word brings back the clarity in her mistress' eys as her mistress gradually calmed herself down. Her subordinate is right, since only she can gather information from the crystal, she has to stay. So she compromised and instantly checks her daughters life crystal to gather information.

"Go", she coldly stated as she extends her hand and touched the life crystal, a surge of cool sensation instantly enters her fingers up until her mind. Seeing her calmness, her subordinates felt more at ease and instantly started their search.

Feng Huali knows how strong her daughter is, and since she has been constantly monitoring her location, she knew that she was with the powerful guardian beasts in the Night Forest that already have the cultivation to stand on the top of this continent, just a while ago. She just meditated for half a day and now her daughter's life is in danger. She doesn't know whether to be traumatized or what. Though she is used to the brutal killing and injustice of this place, she is unwilling to let her family suffer such fate. Knowing the guradian beasts around her and her own capabilities, Feng Huali is sure that the one who is harming her right now is not from this continent. She already has the culprit in her mind. And she swears to have her revenge someday for all those people had done.

She knows that she has stronger enemies, so she hates herself for letting her little chicks wander themselves, but she also knows that they have to grow up.

Whatever conflicting feeling she feels right now, only a mother will know. She unconsciously stares at the bright moon outside the window and stares at it for a bit.

"Ah Jue, is letting them fend off for themselves wrong?", she asked softly with a frown, her voice is so soft and full of affection and worry, that it is as if it is carried by the whistling wind.

She knows her husband well and knew that if he is the one who raised their children, he would surely toss them to the most dangerous forest in the world to let them battle with very strong mysterious and demon beasts themselves. Her lips twitch at the though, indeed, that bastard believes that soft education is not the key. Even though she thinks that way, her eyes still soften.

Noticing her thoughts are going wayward, she instantly focuses her attention at the life crystal in front of her, her earlier hatred of those people is reignited.

How would she knows that the reason of the cracks are not because of enemy attacks, but her child's hatred to herself?

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A/N: Goodddd dayyyy!!!!!! Night rather ahahahah. Hi everyone! It's been a while! How are you faring at this pandemic? I pray for your health and safety!

I extremely apologize for not updating for months. I've been caught up with my studies that I barely have time to write. And also, I got honestly sick of writing because I've been writing analytical essays and book reviews for the past few months that I felt like I have to stop for a moment and rethink what is wrong with me that I took up my current course ahahahhaha kidding. I also have to limit my screen time because as you know, Philippines is one of the only two countries in the world who annoyingly is still using the online platform for learning, so we, the pitiful students, have to face our screen all day long, which is quiet eye straining by the way. So, I really apologize for letting you wait...

Anyway, thank you for still supporting this story even though it has ghosted you for the past few months ahahahahha. You will always have a special place in my heart ♥️♥️♥️♥️!!!

Enjoy reading!