The hospital suddenly felt like a tomb lined with white porcelain. The sharp scent of disinfectant stung Lin Xuan's nose, but there was another aroma only he could perceive—the cold, manipulative scent of Nine Heavens incense. He stood before bed number 402, staring at the sheets that remained so neat it was as if his mother had never lain there.
"Where is my mother?" Lin Xuan's voice was low, yet the pillow nearby suddenly vibrated violently.
A middle-aged nurse approached with a confused expression. "I'm sorry, Sir, but this room has been vacant since yesterday. We have no record of a patient named Madam Lin on this floor."
Lin Xuan turned his head, his eyes flashing with a dangerous golden light. The nurse flinched, her pupils shrinking. Lin Xuan realized something—all the staff here were under the influence of mass hypnosis. Nine Heavens had not only abducted his mother's body—they were trying to erase the reality of her existence from this world.
"Physical reality can be manipulated with cheap tricks," Lin Xuan hissed, clenching his fists until his fingernails turned white. "But soul bonds possess frequencies that no human hand can erase. You try to wipe away her tracks? I will pull those tracks back from whatever dimension you have hidden them in."
He reached for the pillow, which still held a lingering warmth from his mother's body. Lin Xuan closed his eyes, performing a high-level Remote Viewing technique. Inside his mind, the world around him collapsed, replaced by a flow of gray energy. He searched for the one point of light he recognized most—his mother's heartbeat.
"Xuan! Stop!"
Han Seo-Ah's voice shattered Lin Xuan's concentration. She ran toward him in the hospital corridor, gasping for breath. Behind her, Lin Haifeng looked deathly pale, nearly collapsing.
"Your father just told me," Han Seo-Ah held Lin Xuan's shoulder, trying to dampen the cold energy radiating from the young man's body. "Don't let your anger explode here. That is what they want. They want you to lose control of your frequency so they can lock away your soul."
Lin Xuan stared at his father, who could only lean against the wall, unable to understand the mystical forces at play, yet fully understanding the weight of the loss. "They took her, Father. Because of my mistake. Because I was too arrogant to think they wouldn't dare touch her."
Lin Haifeng approached, holding his son's hand with a tremor. "Xuan... find your mother. I don't know what is happening, but I know you can find her. Don't think about the wealth, don't think about the company. Just bring her home."
Lin Xuan nodded stiffly. He immediately led Han Seo-Ah to the car. During the drive toward the outskirts of Jianghai—the location he had just captured through his energy vision—the atmosphere inside the car felt incredibly tense.
"If I let this anger reach its peak," Lin Xuan said while gripping the steering wheel, "I am not saving my mother. I am burning the path leading to her. The enemy wants me to become a monster, because monsters are easily tamed with chains of hatred. But it is hard... so hard to remain calm when you know the person you love is suffering because of your own stupidity."
Han Seo-Ah looked at the side profile of Lin Xuan's face. For the first time, she saw Lin Xuan not as a master of destiny, but as a terrified child. "Sometimes, the greatest lesson of LOA isn't about how to get what you want, Xuan. But how to let go of your ego so you can see the true path."
They arrived at an old sanatorium that had long been closed. The building looked like a giant skeleton in the middle of a dark forest. To the eyes of an ordinary human, this was just a creepy old building. However, in Lin Xuan's eyes, the building was shrouded by an Energy Labyrinth—a mental defense system designed by Nine Heavens.
As soon as he stepped inside, the reality around Lin Xuan suddenly shifted.
Han Seo-Ah vanished. The sound of the wind disappeared. Lin Xuan found himself standing in a hospital corridor from his first life—ten years into a future that should have been erased.
He saw his past self, the loser version, weeping beside his mother's corpse. The scent of death and failure was so real. The laughter of Wang Chen and Zhang Wei echoed against the walls of the illusion.
"You cannot change anything, Lin Xuan," a formless voice whispered in his ear. "The universe has decreed that your mother must die. You are only delaying the pain."
Lin Xuan stopped walking. His heart pounded heavily, anger and sorrow warring in his chest. However, he remembered the most profound principle of the law of attraction—whatever you give your attention to is what will expand.
If he fought this illusion with anger, he would only strengthen the illusion.
"This is not my reality," Lin Xuan whispered, his voice now magically calm. "Thank you for reminding me of this pain, because it is this very pain that gives me the strength to never let it happen again. I accept this past, but I give it no power over my present."
He walked through the wall of the illusion as if it were mere mist. The mental labyrinth collapsed instantly the moment Lin Xuan stopped feeding it the energy of fear.
In the basement of the building, Lin Xuan finally found what he was looking for. However, the sight before him made his blood run cold.
His mother—Madam Lin, was inside a giant glass tube pulsed with pale blue energy. Her eyes were closed, her breathing assisted by a frequency machine. Surrounding the tube was a series of highly complex energy seals.
"Don't touch her, Lin Xuan," a voice rang out from a speaker in the corner of the room.
A large monitor on the wall flickered to life, showing the face of Song Jin-Ho sitting comfortably while sipping a cigar. His smile was one of disgusting triumph.
"That tube is a Frequency Cage," Jin-Ho continued. "If you try to break it with your power, the vibration will instantly destroy your mother's consciousness. She will live physically, but her soul will turn to ash. She won't remember who you are, she won't even remember her own name."
Lin Xuan stood frozen. His immense power was suddenly useless in the face of his mother's life.
"Your choice is simple, Lin Xuan," Jin-Ho laughed. "Hand over all Aura Nexus assets, give the secret of your manifestation techniques to the Consortium, and kneel before the gates of the Song family tomorrow morning. Or... you can take your mother's body home now, but with a soul that is already empty."
Lin Xuan stared at his mother, who looked so fragile inside the tube. In his past life, he lost his mother to poverty. In this life, he was threatened with losing his mother because of his own power.
"The hardest choice isn't between life and death," Lin Xuan murmured, his voice sounding broken yet possessing a new sharpness. "But between maintaining your ego as a great man, or sacrificing everything for the sake of one heartbeat that is precious to your soul."
He stared into the camera, his eyes no longer radiating anger, but a void that was far more terrifying to anyone watching.
"Jin-Ho... you just made the biggest mistake in the history of the Consortium," Lin Xuan whispered. "You think you are holding a hostage. You forget that when a manifestor no longer cares for his wealth, he becomes a god of death who has no obstacles."
Lin Xuan slowly raised his hand, not toward the tube, but toward himself. He began to do something insane—absorbing back all the energy of luck and prosperity he had built until now, transforming it into a single frequency of pure sacrifice to pierce through the seal.
Sometimes, the universe demands you to let go of everything you consider precious just to test if your intentions are still pure. Power without sacrifice is nothing but arrogance, and only through the lowest point will you find the kind of power that cannot be destroyed by any enemy.