"Hmm?" Lucian's voice appeared in a completely dark space. It was faint, as though he had only woken up from a deep slumber.

Standing upright normally, he glanced at the never-ending dark hue. His expressions, his body, everything seemed restricted.

His body shimmered in a strange white glow, contradicting the darkness like a beacon of light.

His eyes were restless, and so were his breaths.

'Where... Am... I...?' Words struggled to form even in his mind. A moment before, Lucian remembered standing right beside Mira.

'That... Sand... Girl...' As he began to remember the figure of the woman he saw while collapsing, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble.

Naturally, his gaze drifted below and widened in shock. There was no ground.

In a sense, he wasn't standing but floating. Yet, he could feel the brewing tremors beneath the soles of his feet.

Arching his eyebrows, Lucian frowned.

"Urmf..." A strange, strangled voice reverberated in his mind. It was akin to that of a struggling beast. Suppressed but primal.

Caught off guard, he instinctively looked upward, only to find out that the view that was present before his eyes mere moments ago, had been changed!

In front, a man cloaked in a fuming dark aura knelt helpless. His hands hung mid-air, tied to gigantic chains.

Not a single part of the figure was visible, almost as if its entire body had been sealed. Yet, Lucian could hear a faint whisper echo in a distance.

"Why... are... you... here?" The voice muttered in a barely audible, eerie voice. Although simple, the voice carried a deep sense of rejection.

In an instant, Lucian felt as though his heart had stopped beating momentarily. Cold sweat formed over his temples as he let out a long, desperate gasp.

*Gasp!*

His eyes snapped open, and he saw a faint reflection of a crescent-shaped moon, accompanied by countless stars and a night sky.

He was back.

Lucian's eyes were still blurry and his mind unstable, yet he was sure he could hear something. From his right, the strange muffle of a suppressed gasp could be heard.

Unable to keep his curiosity any longer, he slowly twisted his head and neck to the right—just enough to peek from the corner of his eyes.

It was Mira, sobbing silently right by his side. Even without knowing much, Lucian easily understood the situation.

"Mira..." He called out in a weak tone.

Mira quickly halted her tears and straightened her neck. It was the first time in a few hours that she had heard someone other than her own sobs.

Her eyes naturally fell upon Lucian, only to discover that he had awoken. Without thinking much, she pounced on him.

Her elbow hit Lucian in the stomach, causing him to cough violently. But in the end, he only laughed it off as the girl unknowingly hugged him, crying.

Lucian smiled at her sweetly as he continued to pat her head.

He could tell just how worried she must have been after seeing her first and probably last friend fall unconscious out of nowhere.

Naturally, such a situation is too much for a child to handle. Not to forget, the hostile environment only would have blamed the girl if anything bad were to happen to me, possibly threatening her life.

"I-I thought you... you became sick from touching Mira..." She mumbled, her voice wavering with a mix of concern and relief.

For a moment, Lucian froze. Then, smiled.

"It's fine, Mira. Look, I'm awake, aren't I?" He called out in a rather loud, yet soft voice. He was trying to cheer her up by acting like he was completely fine.

Though, he was not.

Lucian wasn't sure of it, but for some reason, his body felt weak.

But he didn't think much of it. Thinking it was a part of the aftereffects of his sudden daze, Lucian decided to focus on Mira instead.

After several minutes, as Mira finally stopped crying, her eyes had slightly swollen red.

"Hmm?" She tilted her head in confusion—much like an owl—and asked, "Friend Feng Tian, why are your nostrils twitching?"

She pointed at his face with her small hands briefly.

"O-Oh, they're not!" Lucian stammered, suppressing his voice from leaking out. Ever since Mira had stopped crying, he had been continuously staring at her face with unusually rigid expressions.

'She looks like a pufferfish!' he called out loud in his mind, cackling all over an imaginary ground.

He wanted to wheeze uncontrollably but feared she might start sobbing again.

"Are you sure that you're not sick anymore???" Mira further asked out of concern. Although she had never been with a friend or someone as close as to call family, Mira knew how dangerous sickness could be.

Letting out a deep breath, Lucian calmed himself down and smiled at Mira.

"See, I'm totally fine." With a single push, he got up from the ground and sat upright comfortably.

"Though, Mira," he called out, "why are you calling me 'Friend Feng Tian'?"

"Well, since you're Mira's friend and Feng Tian is your name, I thought I should call you that..." She answered with eyes full of innocence.

"Wait, did I do something wrong?! I'm sorry! Please! It's just that Mira has never had any fr—" Flustered, she quickly began to apologize.

'Is that how you see this world, Mira?' a thought crossed Lucian's mind.

'A world where no matter what, the mistakes are meant to be owned by the weak.'

"Do not apologize, Mira." Lucian said, his voice loud enough to jolt her awake from her thoughts.

Hearing sudden words, Mira was, quite frankly, surprised. She looked at Lucian with widened eyes.

"From now on, as long as it is truly not your fault, do not apologize. Own the mistakes you make; however, never apologize for the mistakes of others. If you do that, the world will continue to step on you." He said with a stern expression.

Mira, on the other hand, seemed to be taking his words to her heart as she looked at the ground with a mix of guilty expressions.

"Tian." He said firmly, a smile slipping on his face. "Call me Tian from now on."

Hearing his response, Mira smiled wholeheartedly. It was then that she wondered for the first time...

Maybe that was what it felt like to have a true friend...

"Oh!" She quickly began to rummage through the inner pockets of her robes.

In a heartbeat, she pulled out a well-wrapped paper and handed it to Lucian.

"The man who saved Tian, he told Mira to give it to you."

"The man??" Lucian raised an eyebrow as he unconsciously began to recall the said man.

***

In the distance, a young man—barely in his early twenties—sat majestically on a plain rock. Putting a leg over his knee, his hand supported his neck.

His long black hair cascaded down his back, and dark brown eyes sparkled with curiosity.

Smiling, he looked down upon an old man kneeling profusely before his legs. Tianlong Bai.

The old man, whom Lucian thought to be an immortal, knelt before a young man helplessly!

"Keuk!" Feeling the sharp pain of bruises and freshly made cuts all across his body, the old man let out a painful, guttural groan.

Blood continuously trickled down his wounds, staining his muddied, torn-apart robes.

"Say, old man, who do you think you are?" The young man asked, laughing. He raised his leg and slammed it down on the old man's head.

*Bang!*

Tianlong Bai's head smashed into the ground; blood spurted out of his ears as his eardrums were torn apart due to the collision.

"I did not pass down the Sacred Tianlong techniques to your ancestors to have you scheme against us." He let out a deep, frustrated sigh.

Blankly staring at the old man's trembling body, he removed his foot from his head.

"Without a doubt, our presence has been erased from the world, but I wonder," he muttered in a low voice. Suddenly, a wave of calm, yet equally aggressive, qi leaked from the young man's body.

In an instant, the air around rippled violently, and giant cracks formed mid-air. However, his pressure didn't exceed a certain area. For even as his rage tried to escape his suppression, it couldn't.

Affected by the sudden pressure, the old man's body slammed into the ground, cracks spiderwebbing his body.

"Since when has a Mahayana gained the guts to go against us?" The young man continued, his voice laced with rage like poison.

Tianlong Bai merely trembled before this young man. For even he recognized the individual standing before him.

"My sincerest apologies, great sir. But I—I really have no idea about what you mean..." The old man groaned painfully.

"Tsk," the young man clicked his tongue and withdrew his energy. The suppression, in an instant, disappeared.

"Keep your dirty hands off that boy for the next 30 years." He ordered in a calm, suppressed voice.

The old man jolted upright and looked at the young man with a mix of confusion, surprise, and shock.

'That boy?? Does he mean Feng Tian?!' A thought appeared in Tianlong Bai's mind.

Almost immediately, the young man nodded and said, "Yes, I mean exactly him."

"B-But sir, why?" The old man asked pretentiously.

"You do not need to know." He glared down at the old man's bloodied face.

The young man then raised his right hand and stabbed himself in the center of his chest. His fingers wriggled inside his chest for a moment as he quickly snapped them out.

Colored crimson with his own blood, the old man raised his hand up in the air.

With all his might, he mustered his voice and roared.

"I swear to 'him,' if you harm even a single hair of that child within the aforesaid time, I will hunt you down even if it costs me my life!"

Tianlong Bai widened his eyes for a moment; however, he couldn't help but wonder. "Him? Not the heavens? But him?"

Unknowingly, he muttered his words out loud. To which, the young man smiled sweetly.

"Well, would you look at that? Turns out even our heavens differ greatly."

*****

[A/N:]

Don't mind the updates guys ;-; I'm already having quite some trouble since I changed a part of the upcoming story and messed up my stocked chapters.

In any case, I thought this was the right time to reveal this. At the end of this volume, there is a particular scene that I thought of even before starting this book. That scene is the sole reason this whole book exists.

And trust me, the future of this book solely depends on that one single scene. Look forward to that. :)

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.