Shen Xuanji's pale body rose from the jade coffin, as if the world had been holding the body of a person for his breath.
His pale skin, unweathered by the countless years, woke up in the sealed tomb that was colder than the ice.
His hand and legs were chained by the iron chain; it broke the moment he raised his finger.
Even before he fully stood up, the atmosphere around him paused as if they were worshipping him.
The waves of pressure rolled outward from the boy and made a slight gutter.
Xiao Yang, who had woken up from that pressure, and the old man, who was still kneeling, didn't dare to breathe loudly.
Shen Wuji looked at his son, who was likely around 14-15 years old at most from his face and body, whereas earlier it was around 25 years old.
But the expression on the face of Shen Wuji's son was not like that of an immature child but rather that of a mature man who has faced the difficulties of heaven and earth, judged it personally.
His golden-purple eyes are like an abyss that seems so vast it could devour the entire universe, and the burning gaze in his eyes is as if he holds the power to order and law.
His long, silvery (gray) white hair was threaded and scattered across his shoulder.
Shen Xuanji looked around but didn't say anything first; instead, he observed everything around him, as if he was confused.
The moment his gaze fell on Shen Wuji position, while the spear pierced his body, the shaft of the spear thrust inside down to his own sealed coffin.
The moment he looked at the spear, he recognized it was one of the strongest weapons of that era, the Guiyuan Heavenly Spear, of his father, but now he was looking at his own father, who was pierced by his own spear, kneeling in front of him.
He couldn't help but raise his hand, but as implacable pressure was applied, Shen Xuanji put his hand down.
For a moment, there was only silence; even the sound of breathing had become minimal.
Xiao Yang and his grandfather held their breath and looked at the father and son.
Finally, in the end, Shen Wuji moved. He raised his head, which was covered by the bloody red hair, making it impossible for him to look.
"Xuanji...my son, forgive me...it was all because of me. If I weren't too weak, our eternal shrine should not have been destroyed."
The voice of Shen Wuji trembled; it was not like it had been before, when talking to the old man, but rather it was full of guilt and remorse for the sins he had committed.
Shen Xuanji tilted his head toward his father's face. His face offered no warmth. There was a calm look on his face.
"....Forgive..you…for what...Father...?"
At last, Shen Wuji looked into the dark, starry sky and sighed with pain on his face.
Then he finally looked into the eyes of his son.
His hands trembled as he heard his son's words. He grabbed the spear that penetrated his body.
"For this day...I devoured everything..."
The words made the blood quiver on the ground. The runes engraved on the ground lit up as he spoke.
"In that war..." Shen Wuji said, pulling out his spear from his body, while his voice became more and more cold.
"As the last remaining bloodline of the Shen Clan, I, as head of the Shen Clan, and all the surviving elders, decided to use our cultivation to let you be sealed here until and unless some other plane connects to it. Then later, you will be able to survive. After I and all the remaining elders knew, no matter what we do, we can't survive."
"So, the elders let their cultivation be devoured by me, but our Shen still didn't come close to any plane, and not only did my injuries start to get worse, but within just a few hundred million years, I was at my last stage. Then I decided to use your cultivation to let myself live a little longer. "
"But unfortunately not; I died with the injuries of those weird laws, but also devoured your cultivation. And now the only thing that remains is just my obsession to live as long as you do not wake up. Now you are, my child."
Xuanji did not flinch. He looked like a man who had been told the shape of his life, and here was at last permitted to see the bones. There was a haunting vacancy where there should have been an expected son's rage. Instead, he appeared to freeze, his expression changing to something colder: understanding and then evaluation.
"Does it even matter to save me? You devoured the elders of the clan and my own cultivation, and in the end, even you are in this state; nobody knows how long you will survive." Shen Xuan shook his head in unknown emotions.
Shen Wuji's hands were shaking so much that his filthy fingers had left trails on the shaft of the spear. He was now a kneeling monument to his own sin.
"I stole everything, your divine body, your Dao, your time. You were about to ascend to godhood.
I couldn't ..." He killed the rest on the stone, sentence fragment pair crumbling in his throat.
"I turned into the kneeling corpse," he concluded, and the line was an indictment laid over both their names.
For a moment, the world stopped breathing.
Even blood-mist, an ancient imprint of the clan's dark magic, stuttered in its heaving as though it respected the scope of what was revealed.
Shen Xuan looked at his father kneeling in front of him. There was pain in his heart, but he was unable to show it to his father.
He slowly walked toward Shen Wuji, knelt down, and said in the warmest voice he could, "Why did you keep me alive... was it for revenge that I could take in the future... because I have the capability for that? Or from the perspective of humanity, that they have done wrong to our entire universe, and killed countless people, so I could buid it again?."
His voice didn't seem cold, but rather asked what the purpose of saving was, was it just as a son, the last bloodline... or revenge on those who had destroyed his clan?
Haha....Looking in dark void, Shen Wuji laughed at his son's words.
"For all that you think, as your father, I have the responsibility to save. As the patriarch of the Shen clan, I have the responsibility to save the last bloodline of the Shen clan and human beings; it is their responsibility to avenge me." Shen Wuji didn't seem disappointed by his son's question; rather, he knew what kind of character his son was.
So he told the truth, and this was the reality.
"Why wouldn't a husband want to take revenge on those who have killed his wife? Why wouldn't a father want revenge on those who have killed his daughter? Why wouldn't I, as a family member and head of the entire clan.... I, Shen Wuji...want to take revenge on them and kill them?" Why wouldn't I take revenge on them that has destroyed my universe, killed countless people in my universe. And not to mention, as your father, I have faith in you that you can take revenge for us.
Shen Wuji smiled afterwards, but not the soft curve of a proud father. It was the smile of one who had learned to accept his own damnation.
"Yes. That is the price of being Shen. Even a father has to strip his son if it means the clan lives one moment longer. Hate me. Curse me. But wake up, Xuanji.....for in the entire Shen Clan...only you are left, and you only one known alive, and you have the ability, you should know yourself."
Shen Xuanji paid attention to his father's words, but not to the confession, but to how the choice took form.
Some remnant memories were stirring, and for a moment, he thought he recognized some faces.
They were too bright and too brief, distorted reflections in a frosted sleep over unknown time.
A woman was laughing in the rain, a sister was holding his hand, and the skies were roaring, but something in the memories was incomplete.
It was an ache and a tether he remembered.
"I'll inherit your curse, then," he said. It was a small voice, a knife leaving its sheath. It did not plead; it declared the majesty that he once held before that war.
"How could I hate you, Father?" Shen Xuanji said.
"You did not eat me to death... You devoured my cultivation so that I could rise again from the dust.
It was not absolution."
They were the hardened steel of one who would make a weapon of pain.
The blood-mist blushed like a tempest aggrieved.
Even the walls of the clan appeared to bristle under the charge of his determination.
"Even though my cultivation is lost, even though my flesh is a child-skin... I am Shen Xuanji", he said, and the title was an incantation."
"Your sacrifice will not go to vain. The skies, which ruined us, the Dao, which deceived us, the tribes, which plotted, I shall bring them to their knees. I will ash their skies until there is only ash."
Shen Wuji had not lifted his eyes before that night. In them, sorrow burst into a kind of pride, weak and hideous both together.
"Xuanji… my son…"
"This is the inheritance of our clan and also from your mother's clan." Shen Wuji, took out a token, and handed it over to Shen Xuanji.
Xuanji did not flinch. His bloodline vibrated.
The old demands of the clan were contained in that token: survival, domination, memory.
His oath was no solace to his father, but a sentence the world would soon know as coming out of here.
The tears in the eyes of Shen Xuanji came from the corners, continuously making his cold and calm heart, like fragile glass, break on the floor.
The spear consummated him. It was as though the body of the old man were smashed to pieces with a hammer.
The remnants of a soul, pieces of light, had been swallowed by the black metal and were scattered about the tomb like dying stars.
The hand of Xuanji remained clasped on the spear even after the light died away. It was the heavy and conscious sadness of the life of his father that he felt in his palm.
He stooped and knelt the spot where his father could have been on the forehead; the gesture was minimal, secret, and compartmentalized.
He took the token, closing his eyes, drops of tears coming
In the he whispered while kneeling in front of his father, where the last place was.
"I, Shen Xuanji, son of the Eternal Shen clan, swear, by name of Shen bloodline, by this grave, by the dying light of our blood, I will hunt those who destroyed my clan."
"Henceforth, call me Shen Xuan."
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