Chapter 600: 12.2 Unknown Star - SSS World: Vearth, The Case of An Liang (2)
While Warden Lou and Yun Ming left the Nether System to investigate.
In the Nether System
Throne Room
Ignoring the two pairs of observing eyes on him, An Liang entered the throne room where his temporary office is located. As soon as he entered the throne room his friendly smile faded. He looks cold yet sad. An Liang as he thought of something couldn"t help but his lower lips. Once the taste of blood touches his tongue, he wakes up from whatever he is thinking deeply within his mind.
An Liang murmured, "Old Lord Hei is alive. Does that mean he told everyone that I am a traitor? Sigh~" while whispering this world he could not help but rub the photo necklace hanging on his neck yet hidden within his clothes.
He dug out around like a little compa.s.s with a pink color gem seemingly something a girl would love to wear. He pushes the pink diamond gem and the round-shaped necklace split into two revealing the photo of his wife, Hei Jue, and a little girl who has his hair color yet gray eyes like Hei Jue.
An Liang caressed the little girl"s photo within the necklace and mumbled, "Huahua, dad is bad. Don"t hate dad okay? Dad didn"t want to hurt your Uncle Ye and Brother An. I also didn"t want to make your daddy sad. Dad just... I just wanted to save you." whispering these words, An Liang lowered his head as he tried to hide his tears but the teardrops continuously falling from his eyes cannot be ignored at all. It took a while before his tears stopped falling. When he lifted his head there was only a cold expression on his face but the red corners of his eyes betrayed him.
---
In someplace, in some unknown and unregistered world, Xia Jieye who was looking for fragments of his other soul found this desolated planet. Following behind him is Gui Xiajun, his brother as Ye Xiajie.
Gui Xiajun spoke, "Brother, why did we go here? This planet looks desolated and ruined. There is no way there is life in this place."
Xia Jieye didn"t respond to this little brother of his and observed the ruined world before his eyes. Cracked black lands, lava filling the gaps of the broken stones. There aren"t any trees or water found on the surface. Only active volcanoes continuously spout lavas at random times.
There aren"t many living beings in the world only a few mutated monsters like Lava beasts living within the pool of lavas, or huge rock snakes mutated to be resistant to fire. These types of monsters live on the surface. There aren"t any humanoid being sighted at all yet Xia Jieye felt something isn"t right. As a Yaoguia his sense of smell and hearing are beyond normal.
He could smell humans in this place no... More like a few humanoid G.o.ds. But the aura is too weak and thin as if they were dying. The scent of blood in this place is thick as well. But what caught Xia Jieye"s attention the most is that he felt his wife"s soul in this place. It was because of that, that Xia Jieye couldn"t bear to leave.
Gui Xiajun even though he wasn"t as powerful as Ye Xiajie, still has the blood of the Ye Gui Race. The descendants of this race not only disdain the weak and were born with an inherent life mission. They were also trained at birth to fear the elders of the race. Especially the leader and his wives, this is to ensure their loyalty towards them.
This is more like an unstilled fear during their childhood. Only those who had strong wills would be able to remove such obvious hypnotism. Ye Xiajie is one and Gui Xiajun is the other. But unlike his elder brother a sequela was left in his mind, whenever there was an elder from the Ye Gui race around he felt listless as if he couldn"t stay in the same place as them.
Gui Xiajun grabbed his brother"s robe and said, "Brother. This place is weird. Let"s just leave okay? There aren"t even living humans or G.o.ds in this place."
"There are..." replied Xia Jieye.
Bewildered, Gui Xiajun once again asked, "What are you talking about, brother? There are other living beings here!?"
"Quiet." scolded Xia Jieye to the panicking Gui Xiajun.
Gui Xiajun covers his mouth and nods his head. This other brother of his is much scarier than the other one. Though he knew that both were his brothers, he is more afraid of angering this brother than the one he met in the other world.
Xia Jieye frowned and gave this foolish little brother of his in his second life a huge s.p.a.ce teleporter formation stone. It is a tool with an engraved s.p.a.ce technique in it. As long as one broke it, it would teleport anyone within a certain radius.
"This is enough to bring away 100 people. The location is Nether System"s Throne Room. Understand?" asked Xia Jieye.
Gui Xiajun knew that his brother planned to save the people he sensed just now. If his brother chose to save them there must be a reason why. To bring his brother"s compa.s.sion to the surface, he needs to be involved with his sister-in-law. That only means those people his brother found might or must be connected to his sister-in-law.
"Is it the Hei Clan? But brother Saozi [1]hates that clan," said Gui Xiajun.
Xia Jieye whose memories update everything Ye Xiajie made new ones knows that Hei Mo is alive and his wife chooses to forgive the old coot. Though he doesn"t care whether those people die or not, his wife"s paternal family might think twice.
"Jing"er forgives his grandfather. We can"t kill them that easily now," said Xie Jieye.
This time he spread his domain in this whole ruined world. The bright sky was getting covered with darkness until the sun itself turned dull gray as if the moon had replaced itself.
Under the darkness, Xia Jieye"s crimson eyes were eye-catching. As if an evil being peering within the abyss waiting for his prey to get lost in the dark.
Xia Jieye grabbed his younger brother"s back collar and carried him like a shadow in the form of a dragon that appeared under his feet and carried them away. A dragon"s breath blasted a hole in the direction Xia Jieye commanded it to.
"Abyss dragon, do it," commanded Xia Jieye.
While somewhere underground, the place is humid with little holes for air to pa.s.s through. This underground area was filled with iron bars creating numerous prisons. Each prison is filled with lesser G.o.ds and weak G.o.ds. All of them were weakened to the point that it was hard to feel their divinity and were almost degraded to become ordinary mortals. Their ages range based on their appearances. There are children, females, and elderlies, some heavily wounded, and some dying.
In one of these cells, a malnourished young lady was detained in it. This lady has gray-colored irises but her long hair is the same color as An Liang"s light brown hair. She looked delicate and pretty at the same time but the scar on her face destroyed her beauty. Her name is An Juehua, An Liang and Hei Jue"s elder daughter.
Her long light brown hair had turned black due to dirt and mud acc.u.mulated inside the prison, she used it to cover her face. Her clothes were like rags and their original light beige color had long turned gray and semi-black. Her body is too thin and could almost line with her bones seeing her flesh and muscles lacking. Despite that, some elderlies whose condition is worse than her would choose to give most of their food to keep and protect her with their lives.
An aunt approached her and gave her bread from today"s breakfast. It was a hard type of bread which is hard to swallow with water. But water is a luxury in prison.
"Young Lady An, please eat this bread. You"ve given yours to the young ones again."
An Juehua replies, her voice is soft and meek yet sweet. She still acts naive and innocent like young ladies of her age.
"Aunt Hei Yuyu, no need. I"m okay. I ate bread last night. I will be okay. Please give the bread to little brother instead." said Juehua. She is talking about Aunt Hei Yuyu"s youngest son, Hei Juyu.
Hei Juyu said, "Jiejie, I"ve already eaten my part."
"Then let aunt eat it. Aunt should eat sometimes too," said Hei Juehua.
Aunt Yuyu still gave the bread to the young lady and said, "This old woman had long past the cultivation where I needed to eat. But Young Lady An had her dantian hurt, because of it your cultivation regresses as time pa.s.ses. You would start to begin feeling hunger if you don"t eat."
"Jiejie, please eat okay? You promise that someone will save us. Your Dad is a friend of the Lord G.o.d of Netherworld, right? He would be coming to capture all these bad guys here." said the little boy.
Hearing the words she had said before to comfort the children, Hei Juehua starts to feel bad for giving them hope. She, herself, wasn"t even sure that his dad or daddy even remembered her. Maybe to them, she had already died.
But she still lied through her teeth when. She saw the young boy"s glowing eyes. It was filled with hope that they would be able to escape this h.e.l.l.
Hei Juehua smiled and said, "Of course! Uncle Ye and Uncle An would definitely come to save us!"
When she said this there were some moody ones who once believed in her words but got false hope instead when they realized that no one would be coming to save them. They"ve started to hate her because of this.
Some sneering noises were heard from the background.
Sneers~
"Heh~ look she"s talking nonsense again."
"Only brats would listen to that liar"s words~"
"Save us? No! We are going to die here!"
"No one can escape this place!! Hahahah~"
"b.i.t.c.h! Don"t talk anymore stupid things. If your uncles were really out there to save you then you won"t be here anymore!"
"f.u.c.k this! Beat her up!!"
Some teenagers and young adults planned to gang up on An Juehua but there were lots of adults who protected her as well.
"Stop! What are you guys doing?!"
"Don"t harm Lady An!!"
"Stop it! Do you know who her uncles are!!?"
"It"s the Lord G.o.d of Netherworld and the G.o.d of Destruction. If they found out, all of us would be dead if you harm her!"
"She is also the only princess of the Hei Clan as well!"
"Don"t touch the princess!"
A huge brawl happened in the area. The adults tried to hold back the teenagers and young adults but since they gave most food to the young ones they lacked energy and were pushed back during the fight.
Amid the chaos, the one who hated An Juehua had silently approached the young lady as he tried to kill her using a stone knife he made.
"Princess An, look out!"
"Ahhh!!! No!!"
"Hehehe, die you liar!" said the man holding a stone knife.
An Juehua was frightened by the scene but still couldn"t stop herself from protecting the young children behind her. She closed her eyes thinking of her death when suddenly unknown to her, a transparent figure of Hei Anjing appeared in front of her creating an ice barrier separating those who wanted to attack her and those who wanted to save her.
A clear distinction between the two teams. This ice barrier not only protected An Juehua and her side, but it also captured and imprisoned those who attacked within a dome of ice. No matter how much the men inside the dome struggled, the Ice barrier wouldn"t break at all. Their effort was futile.
This transparent Hei Anjing is the soul fragment Ye Mo had stolen when they first fought to the death. That day was the day when Ye Xiajie died to protect him. One of Ye Mo"s wives took advantage of the fight and stole a soul fragment of Hei Anjing"s wounded soul. She is also the same woman who pushed Ye Xiajie and Gui Xiajun"s birth mother to death. This is the missing fragment from that time. The owner of this underground prison was the very wife of Ye Mo at that time. She loves capturing people from the Hei Clan and making them suffer in this abandoned world.
Hei Anjing"s soul fragment spoke, "My dear niece, you have done well. Your Uncle Ye is already in this world. He will bring you home."
"Uncle An!!?" calls An Juehua as she notices that her Uncle An"s soul is about to fade. It used to be only translucent before but now it was transparent to the point that everything could be seen through him.
"Don"t worry... I just feel so sleepy. When A"Xia arrives... Give me... To him~" said Hei Anjing as his form faded and turned into a palm-sized white snowflake that landed on An Juehua"s palm.
Seeing this, An Juehua couldn"t help but let her tears fall. All the time she knew that this Uncle An was a mere soul fragment. He had been protecting her all his time and it was also because of her that his Uncle An"s soul fragment got weakened to this point. She starts to regret the times she lost hope that his uncles and parents would come to her.
An Juehua murmured while in tears, "Uncle An, thank you for protecting me all this time."
[1] Sister-in-law