With the turbulent yet equally soft breeze of wind whispering to my ears, my ragged clothes fluttered violently. While I continued to fall into the seemingly infinite abyss.
"Money, power, a woman, and then, a son..."
...
"We tried so many methods to lure you..."
...
"However, you remained stubborn..."
...
The old man's words kept hammering at my mind, as I couldn't come to believe what he had said.
If I were to think of it as the truth, then I was getting played by the world, and if I did not, then I was being played by destiny itself.
Unknowingly, I had started to grow hungry. Hungry for the truth.
Not long after, my fall seemed to have ended as I approached the ground within an instant.
*Bang!*
With a loud bang that reverberated throughout the entire abyss, sending screech-like vibrations all the way up to the ground level, I smashed into the wall with a force so strong that the gigantic cracks surfaced from the depths, spreading wide and creating spiderwebbed patterns all around.
At the same instant, I let out a sickening groan as my old and weakened body faced the impact head-on. Blood trickled from my nostrils and eye sockets as I spat a mouthful as well.
For a moment, all of my senses grew numb and stopped responding to my commands. My vision blurred as I felt a certain warmth filling me from the inside.
My blood vessels had ruptured, and organs had been pierced by countless broken bones, letting the blood flood the entirety of my body.
Feeling my consciousness drift apart from existence, a voice softly whispered into my mind, acting like the helping hand that I needed to stay alive.
***
'What... What did I do... to deserve such treatment...'
...
'What... If... I had made... Different choices in my life... Why... Am I dying... While they get to continue living on... They are... The ones who deserved to die... Not me...'
***
"Then, what would you like to do to such people?"
It was a voice I was familiar with, but had no memory of it whatsoever.
"Kill...them..."
To me, it felt like a distant fragment of my memory that had been buried deep inside my mind since my birth, only revealing itself now that I had lost everything in this world.
Even though I could not remember a thing, I could feel it all. The emotions that the voice contained, the rejection towards the world, the grief—everything felt too similar to my current self—broken, enraged, and yet, equally saddened.
Slowly, as my senses began to restore, I felt a faint vibration churn below my body. Crackling sounds—barely audible—continuously blew the whistle of liveliness into the abyss.
However, with all the major bones of my upper body crushed, I could not move my body at all.
The cracks on the surface widened with the vibrations and gradually grew weak under my weight.
My body began to sink further into the ground as it seemed to have started to split apart.
Shortly after, as though the ground itself could not take it any longer, the layer below me completely collapsed, letting me fall further down.
And it only made sense for me to have stopped soon; however, I kept falling for an indefinite time.
I noticed that the darkness around me had elevated, and I could see much better now, as if there was anything worth seeing there.
Thinking that my eyes had gotten used to the dark in that short time, I let it go. But just a moment later, I was proven wrong. A bright yellow-gold light began to form over the edges of my body.
It was only for an instant. However, I felt as though my body had spent an eternity in a blazing room of flames.
Almost immediately, my view changed.
The rough terrain of dirt and stones of the cave had disappeared; rather, the darkness itself seemed to have diminished as I saw countless tiny bright lights blinking far from my reach, forming a mesmerizing view.
Before I could think about anything else, I was slammed into—what seemed like a body of water—with a loud splash. My body, at first, simply drowned.
Then, something seemed to lift me up slowly as I floated on the surface with my back exposed to the outside. Though my face remained drowned.
But I could breathe just fine.
"Mo Taixuan," A voice softly echoed in the vicinity.
Even to me, who had become immune to any such emotions, I felt as though I had become a child, peacefully sleeping in my mother's warm embrace.
However, it didn't take long for me to realize that it was nothing more than a facade.
"No... should I call you 'Davey Lionheart' instead?"