Chapter : 17
"Please, don't leave me..... mother!!!"
-------------------------------------
"Hands… that dare touch her… are hands unworthy of keeping."
"Tell me, are you so tired of living…?"
"You all... do not have the right... to make a judgment on her."
The Cyclops spent what seemed like an eternity saying these words.
Just as he finished speaking, Elder Mu's palm came crashing down.
BOOOOM!!
A golden net of suppression that was woven together from the clans ancestral formation crashed down upon Qing Tian like a mountain crashing down from the sky.
The great hall shook, darkened, and the crushing weight descended down upon the tiny shoulders of the boy.
"Qing Tian!" one of the elders yelled with a sound hard like iron. "Know your place! You dare rebel against the clan for a slave?"
The suppressive sensation cracked the smooth tiles below Qing Tian's feet, forced him smaller against the weight upon him, pressed him lower and lower, forced his knees to bend and buckle.
But this boy did not kneel.
He screamed, not for fear's sake, but because of anger. His arms shook, his veins pulsed, and where he stood, he straightened his back against the pressure as blood seeped from his pours.
The pressure crushed his bones, but he would not back down.
And then...!!!!!!!!!
BOOOM!!
An unknown surge surged from within him.
It wasn't Qi. It wasn't spiritual power. It was something more primal, more ancient, more visceral. It was something he did not own, did not possess, did not belong to an eight-year-old boy.
For a silver of time that flared, the suppression net above him rattled, golden threads hissing as if threatening to snap.
A few of the elders took a staggering step back, faces pale.
"What… is this power…?"
"Impossible… He should not…!"
The hall shuddered as the boy's childish frame burned like another sun, aura crashing against the formation. For a heartbeat, they thought he would break free.
But—
BOOOOOMM!!
A new suppressive aura flooded the chamber, worth as the sea, limitlessly as the sky.
Two figures descended through the shattered doors of the hall.
Qing Feng, patriarch of the Qing Clan, eyes cold as steel. Ji Yuyue, radiant, chilling, her very presence silencing the storm.
The parents of Qing Tian had come.
The instant their might came down, the trapped force in Qing Tian recoiled and jolted violently, like a driven beast struck by chains. His aura was suppressed, smothered under the unbearable weight of his father and mother's suppression.
His small body trembled, blood dripping from his lips as the unknown power inside him shrieked to be released yet got shut down again.
"ENOUGH!!" Qing Feng's words rang like a clap of thunder.
Qing Tian gasped, his body collapsing under the weight, his arms stretched as if pinned to something like a crucifixion.
The flickering unknown power withdrew, but not willingly, it hissed, resisted, clawed at the edges of reality as something ancient caged deep inside, trapped.
Ji Yuyue swept her gaze across the hall, taking the sight of her son in for just a single breath, before shifting her attention to the broken Song Yan before her, an inability to even muster a glare at him. Her eyes trembled lightly yet her mouth remained a stoic expression.
"Qing Tian, what are you doing? How does your aura feel like this? That doesn't belong to the Desolate Mystic World." Qing Feng scanned the body of Qing Tian for a moment, then frowned and asked.
"Huh… does it even matter where my power came from?" He didn't even look at Qing Feng, but instead knelt down in front of Song Yan, who had collapsed from the whipping, her head resting on Qing Tian's lap.
Tears streamed down Qing Tian's eyes as he looked at Song Yan's battered body.
He gently caressed her face, like a mother caring for her child, and the same tenderness flowed from Qing Tian.
"I am sorry, Aunt… it was all because of me. I am the one who should have borne this, but it was forced onto you. I am guilty before you." He spoke slowly, his tears falling onto Song Yan's face.
"Xiao Tian… Aunt will die today, but I am both happy and sad. I am happy… that today you broke the curse of your own heart, realizing what it means to be weak. But I am also sad… that I won't be able to witness the rise of the person I raised." Hearing Qing Tian's words, Song Yan, who had closed her eyes, opened them weakly.
"Don't worry, Aunt… I will save you. Definitely…!" His trembling hand tightly grasped Song Yan's bloodied one.
Song Yan's lips quivered as she groped to form words that weren't blurted or disjointed, her voice so weak it was as faint as the flicker of a dying candle flame.
Her body jerked from the flames of the chains, her skin burned and shredded, yet her dimmed eyes still found Qing Tian's.
"Xiao Tian… Aunt knows… I… it's at the end of the line. I… I can't survive this."
Her words cut deeper into Qing Tian's chest than any whip ever had. His pupils shrank, and his hands clenched tightly enough to slice his nails into his palms, bleeding silently.
Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, but he choked them down, shaking his head furiously. "No… no, Aunt Song, don't say that! I will save you - I swear I will save you!"
But Song Yan smiled faintly, even as she let blood run down her chin.
A lopsided and gentle smile she always wore when she dressed him, lightly chastised him for skipping a practice, or secretly swiped him some sweets from her.
"Xiao Tian... Aunt did not regret anything or neither have. From the day you were assigned to me... to take care of you, you were my young master, but in my heart, you were like my own child, that is born from my womb and flesh."
Her breathing became heavier as she spoke.
She paused for a moment and coughed up blood from the mouth. Then she whispered slowly, while hear head was still on the lap of the Qing Tian and looking at him:
"But... Aunt has a few things she wants. Can you promise me... you will do them?"
Qing Tian's body shook. His lips trembled, "I promise! I promise anything, Aunt, please just, just don't leave me! I can't live without you...!!"
The voice of Qing Tian was very hoarse, like someone screaming.
"Xiao Tian, I have three promises, please complete them for me. Will you do it?"
"Aunt, I will." He took the hand of Song Yan in his hands and said, while the tears streamed from his eyes.
"First, promise me, no matter what darkness you face, in your heart never let it corrupt yourself." She gave him her first promise.
"Second, live for yourself, for the Qing Tian inside you. Not for others, not for the clan. Yes, you may live for the wife and children you will have in the future, but before that you must live for yourself."
"And third and last, Xiao Tian, your aunt always wanted to be called 'mother' by your mouth, and wanted to accept you as my son… will you call me and recognize me as your mother…?"
Qing TIan's tear poured endlessly from his eyes and dropping on the face of the Song Yan.
The vision of the Qing TIan was blurred by the tears, but he could he see her gentle smile on her face.
"Aunt… you…" The lip of Qing TIan's trembled and his heart shattered.
He felt, for a second, he couldn't even breathe.
Like the world had stopped in its tracks of the time.
Song Yan's hand was cold and her pulse weakened every moment, however her eyes, oh, her eyes were brighter than ever.
It were full of only affection, and nothing but the selfless love she had for him since he was born.
Qing Tian bowed his head until his forehead pressed against the back of her bloodied hand. He shook his shoulders hard.
In a hoarse broken voice he said… no, he screamed through the sob in his throat.
"Mother...!"
The word echoes throughout the enforcement like a thunder.
Not simply a cry, it was a promise, an acknowledgment, a pledge not by blood, but love more powerful than blood.
Song Yan's body shook.
For a moment her dull eyes, that had full of tears pooling in them.
She slowly smiled faintly. As if every bit of the pain, all the suffering had at long last become worth something, after hearing the word "mother", from his mouth.
"Ah... my son..." she breathed, her voice little more than a whisper of lament.
"With this... I have no regrets... even if I die today..."
Her head leaned to the side and her hand slackened of Qing Tian's grip, but that soft, eternal smile remained.
Qing Tian shook her hands, bitterly.
His cries were raw and unfiltered like a roar of a beast beyond all reason.
"Mother!!! Don't close your eyes! Don't leave me! Please... please..."
But whether he pleaded or not, her breathing just slowed.
In that instant, something inside Qing Tian had broken, and something new was born, but he didn't know what was born, but he never cared, what he cared about the Song Yan only, and know, that she had left him and it was forever.
The hall trembled slightly.
The aura surrounding the eight year old boy flared again, surging like a volcano about to blow, filling the air with a grief and anger that made the elders pale.
And engraved in his heart... her final smile, etched into his very soul.
bang...!!!
At this time, entire enforcement hall was destroyed by the cold aura.
--------------------
[End of the chapter, 17!!!]
From now on, the main story has started!!!!!!!!!