Chapter 234: The Tale Of The White Crane And The Black Crow
Listen While Reading: Scattered and Fallen
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I think I had a dream. It was a dream where the nine heavens split open and where a beautiful white crane and a tenebrous black crow battled against one another.
Their blows split the heavens apart, the techniques destroyed the continents, and everything was turned into utter and endless chaos.
Countless lives were lost, the sects were destroyed through their fight, and the world trembled before their endless conflict.
Both thought of their own ideals; one battled to protect the innocent and create order; the other fought to do as they pleased and to let chaos flow through everything, as he believed it was the natural order of nature.
Both had their own ideals, and both had their own reasons. But they didn’t realize that if there wasn’t a world left behind after one of the others won, there wouldn’t be a point to their fight.
So the heavens trembled, and the heavens brought a reason for them to stop fighting. The nine colorful heavens stopped them, shackling both of the powerful birds.
It told them to stop fighting and to look at the world for what it was.
It was fine to do as they pleased, but it wasn’t fine if their ideals would bring the destruction of the world they had created.
The birds had conflicting responses.
The crane cried tears of sorrow; she revealed she wanted to just protect the people because she was unable to protect those she loved when she was a child.
The crow roared and screamed in anger, saying that he wanted to be unshackled and forever himself. He said he didn’t want anybody to ever suppress him; he wanted to be truly free because he was enslaved and abused his entire childhood.
After the nine heavens made the crane and the crow open up and speak their hearts, the two looked at one another in the eyes.
So different, yet so similar at the same time.
Their past traumas, their pain... They found mutual empathy in one another.
“You’re not so different to me, despite the villain you are.” Said the crane. “Your past, what you went through... I fight so people never go through what you did.”
“I didn’t know... You suffered so much. I thought you were just a spoiled woman born into royalty.” Said the crow. “...I also lost my family.”
Their past traumas somehow connected them. These emotions they felt for one another, which were mostly pity, slowly transformed as they spent days, weeks, months, and years shackled by the nine heavens, forced to travel the world together as part of the nine heavens mission.
“Travel the world for 100 years; don’t kill anybody. That is all.”
This was the only mission it gave them—nothing else, nothing more. The shackles didn’t keep them together, but they decided to walk together because they were connected by more than the shackles connected to the nine heavens.
Their life struggles, the things they went through, and their reasons to fight and grow stronger. Despite the white crane and the black crow being so opposite to one another when together and when opening up...
They reached an incredible harmony.
The loneliness they felt slowly was filled as they finally found someone who could understand and comprehend them.
And even make them laugh.
This… slowly became something else.
Love.
And the nine heavens gave these two lonely people, who were so powerful they could destroy everything, a reason to finally stop fighting.
After a hundred years of being shackled with a mission, they were freed.
Yet they didn’t separate, nor did they decide to continue fighting.
No, at this point, they would never consider such a thing.
After all, there was a third person with them now.
A gift.
A treasure.
“Baaah! Buaaah!”
The cry of a child.
With black and white feathers, sharing the features of a crane and a crow.
The white crane smiled, holding her child after it hatched from her egg.
And the black crow smiled silently, looking at the child he had created.
There was harmony.
There was beauty.
The opposing sides finally found a mutual understanding.
All connected to one baby.
They called him...
The Child of Heaven.
…
Yet…
I saw it.
There was great darkness and an overwhelming light within that child.
So strong, so powerful.
It brought great upheaval to the world itself.
And then, the worst happened.
The skies broke open.
The white crane and the black crow saw their lives together shatter as enemies from another world invaded.
Beings made of silver and blue light.
And behind them all, something terrifying.
A gigantic neon blue eye, connected to millions of metallic wires.
Glancing.
Looking.
Looming.
Slowly, approaching more and more.
To their child.
.
.
.
“Ah!”
I woke up sweating and gasping for air. I don’t know what sort of weird dream that was, but it was way too descriptive and detailed!
However, that wasn’t the bad part; the bad part was the ending! What the hell was that?! Was the baby really taken away?
Ugh…
Was that just my imagination or something prophetic? Were the crane and the crow... Who do I think they are?
I can’t just have a dream and call it real, though; only insane people do this.
But even then, it gave me a lot of food for thought.
Just what… Wait, what happened?
I looked around, and I found myself sitting over the same bed as before, in the same room as before.
I am fairly sure I went to fight the Heavenly Demon, right?
And I had used some insane ability I found out by fusing with all my Egos and harmonizing my Spiritual Body.
And then blasting him away with a Chaotic Ki palm attack.
Which also blasted me away.
And now I’m here.
I don’t have any wounds on my body, and my Spiritual Body seems unharmed as well.
My Meridians are fine, my Physique is fine, and my inner martial core is okay.
Though there’s… something odd now.
Everything seems much more connected; there’s a blanket of rainbow energy coursing through everything that’s making things constantly combine.
Despite the Spiritual Body being composed of many different parts, everything was now connected to a level that seemed to be just a single part, my body.
It was incredible, honestly. Whenever I thought about it, this rainbow essence would come out.
In that battle, I went all out and surprised even the Heavenly Demon.
But I still feel like I’m lacking, and my Ki was completely depleted before I could do much. I also ended up spending too much Cosmic Energy, so it is even less than before.
I need to rest and slowly recover my energies before I can properly practice my new power, and the new martial arts I want to develop.
Naturally, there wasn’t any System notification regarding it.
Why?
Well, it was a power outside the system, something I had cultivated inside of my own Physical and Spiritual Body.
A power apart from it, in resume, it might not manifest as a new skill or something for a while.
And…
“Meow.”
“Huh?”
I was surprised there was a cute little golden cat sitting over my legs. It was the Primordial Yang Beast but made into a tiny and compact cat made of golden jade. Its golden aura was connecting to my body through dozens of threads.
Slowly, I felt like my Ki was recovering.
If it hasn’t recovered completely yet, it means that I have been only resting for a couple of hours and not just a whole day, or something made my Ki recover slower.
Maybe this new Rainbow Essence makes my Ki recover at a much slower pace, which would be a rather annoying drawback, but I would say it is still fair in a way.
“Do you know how long I’ve been sleeping?”
“Meow~?”
The cat was as clueless as it could be!
“Whatever, I need to quickly get my bearings and find out what’s going on, huh?”
[Congratulations! You have Completed the {Optional Challenge Quest}: {Fight The Heavenly Demon And Win}!]
[Rank: SSS]
[You’ve done the impossible and overwhelmed the Heavenly Demon, ultimately defeating him in a fight fair and square!]
[Or perhaps not too fair and square. Your attacks were very quick, and he was already very weak! You got lucky and defeated someone who could have destroyed the world in the past.]
[…But unfortunately, he can only exert less than 5% of his former strength.]
[However, a victory is a victory! Take your rewards; you earned this.]
[Completion Rewards]: [100.000 Plot Points] [Black Heaven Ki Pearl (SSS Rank)] x1 [White Heaven Ki Pearl (SSS Rank)] [Heavenly Demon of Bestia’s Themed Treasure Chest (SSS Rank)] x1]
Wait, what?
“I won the fight?!” I screamed. “ME?! I WON?!”
I couldn’t believe it! Even as weakened as he was, he was a true monster! So he was defeated when I blasted him with the Chaotic Ki Palm.
“H-Holy shit…!”
Although I felt a bit bad because he must have been left even worse than before, it wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve a good beating; the damned bastard was about to kill me on many occasions.
He really needed to get a bit humbled, to be honest. And because he’s a crow, it's hard to see how old he is. But he’s probably very old.
Very, very old…
So now that I think about it, I was punching a grandpa this whole time.
I don’t know how to feel about it, but I do feel… a bit bad.
Only a tiny bit, like fingernail-sized guilt.
Anyways, I better use my Plot Points to give him a sponsor before he fucking dies on me. I can’t let that old man die yet; he has to teach me more stuff.
It was thanks to him that I reached this far, so I’ll need all his “heavenly” guidance and whatnot, as much as possible, actually!
I stood out of the bed, stretched, and then walked outside, finding a gray and black fox boy carrying a small table with tea and snacks.
“Oh, young Lady Anna! You are awake; I’m so relieved…”
It was Yin Sheng, naturally. Apparently the only servant of this entire dark palace for some reason.
“Yin Sheng! Are you okay?” I asked him. “What happened earlier? I didn’t think about it too deeply, but we really made a fuss, huh?”
“Y-You sure did!” He screamed. “I WAS so scared! I thought the entire Inner Realm was coming down! B-But thankfully, things ended… quickly. Lady Anna, you… you surpassed your master already.”
He suddenly left the things on the floor and respectfully kneeled in front of me, bowing his head and placing his forehead on the floor.
“I greet the new Venerable, who has defeated the Heavenly Demon!”
“Huh? What?”
“I said I greet-”
“I know what you said! But why the hell would that make you think I am a Venerable? I ain’t even reaching his level any time soon. He’s just dying and very weakened; if he were at full power, he would have already folded me a thousand times.”
“B-But even then, the mere feat of defeating him is worth the praises of the entire world!” The fox boy insisted.
“It’s fine, I guess, but don’t do anything weirder than that... I bet your Murim brain is thinking, "You might as well become her servant now!” or “I will let her handle the whole sect!”, isn’t it?” I asked
“But of course! That was EXACTLY what I was thinking about!” He nodded, his fluffy tail wagging around.
“Ugh…” I facepalmed. “I won’t do any of such things. I can’t stay here forever after all, so for now… Hmm, for now, you stick with me, I guess. You got some potential, now that I look at you.”
“E-Eh? Huh? Okay…” He seemed to change his expression from euphoric to sad very quickly. However, what shocked him more was when I looked him in the eyes. “W-Wait, potential? Lady Anna, you can see talents?”
“Something like that.” I nodded.
And he had a very amazing set of Skills yet to be unlocked…
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