Chapter 683: New Horizons (1/2)
It felt extremely weird to stand suspended in space, but the discomfort was far overshadowed by the awe as Thea looked down upon the vast continent in the distance, its size breaking both comprehension and the laws of physics.
Just how big was that place? It was endless, and planets were nothing but small marbles that hovered around it. This was what she had dreamed about when listening to the explanations of the Tutorial pixies so long ago. Visiting mysterious faraway lands, walking paths that had never trod before. And now there was such a continent emitting an amazingly profound aura right in front of her.
If only the circumstances were a bit better.
“Where is this? And why have you taken me here?” Thea asked as she turned to the purple-robed woman next to her.
Mothers-in-law were usually a nightmare, but Leandra Atwood clearly took the trope to another level. Telling her that she was not worthy of her precious son before zapping her with lightning and kidnapping her. Thea had spent almost two months locked in some weird tank, with only her thoughts and an infuriating AI for company.
Now she found herself out here, looking out at some alien world. Seeing it was truthfully a bit exhilarating, but it also felt like another kick to the chin. It was a confirmation of what she had come to realize over the past months; her old life was gone.
She had railed at the AI, desperately tried to break out of the prison she had been put inside. She had cried and raged, angry at Zac, at his secretive family, angry at fate who seemingly kept toying with her. She even tried using her ultimate escape skill, only to find her Skill Fractals somehow locked.
Eventually, she had been wrung dry. She had simply let herself drift around in the viscous liquid for a month, her mind void of thought and direction. Now that she finally was free, part of her screamed at her to lash out, to strike at her captor with her ultimate skill. But a larger part of her was just a haze of helplessness and exhaustion.
“This is the Goldblade Continent, named after the Goldblade Divine Monarch. A brutal place full of danger and opportunity, away from the meddling machinations of the cursed System,” Leandra said. “Your new home.”
“Why did you take me here?” Thea sighed. “Why not just kill me and get it over with?”
“Why would I kill you? Your ‘death’ proved a great motivational tool for my children,” Leandra said. “This is your reward. Thus, the law of balance is maintained and karmic entanglement avoided. Besides, odds are you will fall in this place, turning falsehood into truth.”
Law of balance my foot, Thea thought with exasperation.
How could sending her to a hostile continent be considered recompense for blasting her with tribulation lightning and faking her death?
“You know, Zac and my family have probably realized I’m not actually dead,” Thea muttered in a feeble act of defiance, though she honestly wasn’t so sure. “I’ll eventually escape from this place or he’ll find me one way or another. Either way, your plan will fail.”
“Your understanding is flawed,” Leandra said without raising a brow. “The heavens struck you down, you died as far as the System is concerned. It is the same for that little unstable Tool Spirit, it reopened your inheritance the day we left Earth. For them, you are well and truly dead.”
Thea looked at the staid woman floating next to her, realizing that she really didn’t have any secrets in front of her. Had this woman read her mind, or has she planted spies around her children since before the integration?
“…Why?” Thea eventually asked, which contained all the questions that had rattled around in her head over the past months.
Why kidnap her? Why would Leandra trick her children into hating her?
“I have lived for millions of years,” Leandra slowly said as she looked out across the vast continent.
It wasn’t what Thea had asked about, but it still made her eyes widen in shock. She knew that Zac’s mom was powerful after seeing that metal monstrosity, but to this point? A million years was approaching the limit of a Monarch from what she had gathered, unless the monarch was a temporal cultivator or had found some special treasures to prolong their life even further.
Leandra Atwood was actually someone who had reached even further, someone who eclipsed all the elites of the whole Zecia sector?
“I have had over twenty Dao partners, the longest coupling lasting for three hundred thousand years. Do you know how that relationship ended? He tried to kill me for the materials in my body. He had been stuck at the peak of Monarchy so long, and he knew that I was about to step into Autarchy. It was his last chance to seize the opportunity for himself,” Leandra smiled.
“Why are you telling me this?” Thea asked. “Are you afraid that I’d rob your son of his resources if I stayed on Earth?”
“No. You aren’t qualified to rob my son with that paltry strength of yours, except his momentum. What I am saying is that your relationship was doomed from the start. I think you knew that as well. As it stands, the two of you are too different,” Leandra said before she turned back toward the endless continent.
“His potential is limitless, and you are just an above-average talent of a backwater sector. You will not be able to follow him for long in your current state. You are already too far apart, and it will only get further away,” Leandra said.
A spark of anger flared up in Thea’s heart, but it was quickly extinguished. First of all, what was she going to do to this insanely powerful cultivator? That was just asking for a beating. Besides, she knew that her kidnapper was right.
She had been relentlessly training herself off for three years while Zac had been studying arrays and working on his soul, yet she wasn’t any closer to reaching his level of power. Soon, he would explode forward with momentum again, just like when he returned from the Tower of Eternity.
Even after all she had encountered, she barely made it to the start of the sixth floor. Even that was largely thanks to Zac sparing no expense in terms of Array Breakers, talismans, and pills to push her as far as possible. Yet he had made it to the ninth floor, a feat hundreds of times more difficult. And he had fought off half the sector the moment he got out, like an invincible god of war.
The corpse tree outside the Tower of Eternity was still imprinted in her mind, like a part of Zac she never understood. It was easy to forget that the slightly awkward guy she dated was known as the Deviant Asura, one of the most renowned youths of the Sector.
“More importantly, neither of you held trust in the other. You never told him you’re not a pure human. You never told him of how you felt trapped on his little island. He never told you of me, nor did he tell you about the undead armies he nurtures in the shadows. You don’t know the truth of his power. Both of you had one foot out the door,” Leandra said. “You dying was the most beneficial conclusion of your Karma. Look for love when you've given up on the Dao.”
“His what?” Thea blurted with shock, but she quickly calmed down again. He had already hidden the fact that he had a robot goddess for a mother, what did it matter now if he kept some revenants? “So, you’re telling me to just give up on my past and live on this faraway Continent?”
“The situation here is far more brutal than integrated space. Murder for resources is as common as breathing, and everyone who rises to Hegemony here has walked a path far bloodier than what you can imagine. That is your opportunity. Enter this world, and be baptized and reborn through slaughter. That is your best chance to become a true pillar for your tribe. To walk in step with my son,” Leandra said.
“Though I suspect… Even if you gain the power required to make it back, you two will long have forgotten about each other by that point. After all, the Dao is your foremost love.”
Thea gave her kidnapper another glare for good measure before she turned back to the continent. An enormous mountain larger than a planet stood in the core, and there were eighteen layers of clouds as large as nebulae swirling around it. There were vast forests so lush that it could be seen from space, endless oceans, and even topographies that she couldn't understand in the slightest.
She was not sure what to think. Her future had been stolen, forcibly replaced with what sounded like a hellish meatgrinder. From the sound of it, she would be lucky if she survived a year in this place, let alone long enough for her to return to her family. All those people she had grown up with, would she ever see them again?
Why did she feel so free?