Chapter 107
"I'm relieved," she whispered inwardly. Her inner voice was no longer broken, no longer soaked with sorrow, but honest and bare, like someone confessing their darkest sin inside a silent confessional booth, like a child admitting jealousy toward their older sibling, like a lover confessing that they could never truly forgive their former partner.
"I'm relieved, my God. I'm relieved because they will never come back. I'm relieved because they will never take Huan Zheng away from me again. I'm relieved because now, after everything that happened, after everything they did, after everything they sacrificed for their own happiness, they are gone. And I—I who could only hate and kill and burn all this time—can finally breathe in peace, can finally smile without guilt, can finally love Huan Zheng without having to share him with the shadows of a wife and children who never appreciated him enough."
And while murmuring those thoughts to herself, while acknowledging the relief she had never expected to feel, Ling Xu wiped away the tears of light still pooling within the hollow sockets of her eyes.
Not with her hands, because her hands were still tightly gripping the limp hand of Huan Zheng lying weakly on the ground, but with the edge of her robe stained by blood, sweat, and dust, moving slowly and deliberately, as though she were cleansing herself of the remnants of doubt that had haunted her thoughts all this time, of the lingering fear that she did not deserve to love a man who already had a wife, of the remnants of guilt because she—Ling Xu, the manifestation of the Cancer plague, the slayer of Gods, the executioner of civilizations she had devoured whole—had fallen in love with a man who already had a family.
Now, after hearing that the family had been destroyed, that the wife and children were dead, that nothing remained of Huan Zheng's past except wounds that would never heal, she felt relieved. She felt free. She felt that, for the first time in her life, her love was no longer obstructed by anything—not by status, not by the past, not by the people who had existed before she was born.
When Ling Xu raised her head, when her empty eyes hidden beneath the white bandages gazed toward The Silent One still standing in the distance with a faint smile on his lips, when her body—lightened after abandoning everything she had once built and choosing emptiness instead—stood upright.
Not with the hurried movements of someone fleeing death, but with a terrifying calmness, a calmness born from absolute resolve, from a decision that could never be taken back, from the understanding that nothing was more valuable than protecting the person she loved, even if it meant dying for the twelfth time—the air around them changed, becoming heavier, denser, more absolute, like the stillness before a storm that never truly arrives because the storm itself is unnecessary.
It was already here, within Ling Xu from the very beginning, from before she was born, from before time itself had been discovered by the first being brave enough to name the passing seconds.
"The Silent One," she said. Her voice no longer trembled like when she had asked about the fate of Huan Mei and her children, no longer wet with emotion like when she wiped tears from her empty eye sockets, but cold—terribly cold—like ice that never melts even beneath the endless light of the sun, like death that never asks permission before it arrives, like something that had died eleven times and no longer feared a twelfth death because death had become an old companion rather than an enemy to fear.
"The time for talking is over. Now, only one thing remains between us: battle. To the death. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without exceptions."
The Silent One, upon hearing that ultimatum—spoken by the white-bandaged girl with a calmness that even he, the most terrifying specter among the three Cultivation Wheels, could not ignore—merely smiled. A smile no longer bitter, no longer hollow, but strangely respectful, a smile born from the acknowledgment that the opponent before him was no ordinary enemy, that Ling Xu was not a weak girl in need of protection, that Ling Xu was a warrior, an executioner, someone who had died eleven times and risen eleven times, and now, with all the power she possessed, with all the hatred she had gathered over the years, with all the love she held for the man still lying weakly on the ground, she was prepared to fight, to kill, to die, if necessary.
And with a slow, meaningful movement deliberately made dramatic, The Silent One stepped back.
Not one or two steps, but dozens of meters, leaping backward with an agility unexpected from a large man, landing atop the rubble of shattered bone walls, creating a safe distance, ensuring enough room to move, attack, and defend, because he knew—he knew with certainty—that the battle about to unfold would not resemble his fight against Huan Zheng, who, despite his strength, was still predictable, still adaptable, still defeatable with merely ten percent of his power.
A battle against Ling Xu would be different. More insane. More unpredictable. More lethal. Because Ling Xu carried not only the uncontrollable power of the Cancer plague, but also the rage of a daughter whose mother had been violated before her eyes, and the love of a woman who would never willingly lose the person she loved for a second time.
Amid the tension spreading like wildfire across dry grasslands, among the swirling dust, the still-smoking ruins, and the sky gradually turning red beneath the setting sun on the western horizon, a voice emerged within Ling Xu's consciousness.
Not an unfamiliar voice, not a threatening one, not commanding, but a strangely warm voice, one she recognized as the Humanity Star Consciousness, which was none other than the Cancer plague Consciousness that had resided within her ever since she first received the intact Humanity Star from the old man in tattered robes inside that dark and damp cave, the one that had witnessed every rise and fall, every death and resurrection, every tear and every laugh.
And now, for the first time, it spoke not as a whisper, but as a clear voice, firm and overflowing with unquestionable conviction.
"Ling Xu," said the Cancer plague Consciousness. Its voice was no longer vague like dry leaves brushing against one another during an endless autumn, but clear and pure, like water flowing from a mountain spring untouched by human hands, like a bell gently ringing in the distance on a morning still cloaked in mist.
To be continued…