81 Taking Action - 27.2 (1/2)

The moment the mist disappeared, Wu Jun Qiao's consciousness felt as if it was submerged in ice, enveloped by an unfathomable darkness.

As if opening his eyes and using his divine sense to see, he couldn't help but internally grimace at what he saw.

Right now, his soul had seeped and stealthily infiltrated into Fan Zhu Xia's mind and based from what he observed so far, her state was far worse than he thought.

Initially, he thought that Fan Zhu Xia was just mentally exhausted and might have pushed her body a little bit too far but from what he could see, that wasn't just the case.

Since it wasn't just Wu Jun Qiao's divine sense that infiltrated Fan Zhu Xia's innermost thoughts and psyche but also his soul, this in turn enabled him on sensing the state of her soul as well by using his own to attune and resonate with hers and based on what he's feeling, her soul was incredibly weak.

Although this state of her soul can be caused by a variety of reasons, ranging from low cultivation, lingering effects or damage from soul-based attacks, the most common which almost all cultivators can suffer from, albeit varying degrees of seriousness is caused by an inner demon.

Right now, all that he could feel and sensefrom her soul was an unimaginable frailty and despair giving him a sense of impending crisis as if one wrong move can cause her soul irrevocable damage.

This almost threw Wu Jun Qiao into a state of panic before he calmed down and tried to make sense of what caused Fan Zhu Xia's soul to come to such a wretched state. Obviously, losing her qi while pushing her mental state and soul to finish the treatment was not the only contributors to this.

Now all he could hope to do was to find a strand of Fan Zhu Xia's consciousness that he can latch on first before he makes any more moves.

Of course this is a monumental task in itself since all he can sense right now was nothing but a swirling, suffocating abyss-like darkness.

Meanwhile, unaware that someone has infiltrated her mind and soul's innermost sanctum, Fan Zhu Xia only felt a sluggish heaviness weighing down on her as if threatening to swallow her consciousness back into that dark oblivion that she had struggled to get out from.

As she was trying to orient herself, her head was struck with such an overwhelming pain that made her double over in attempt to catch her breath as she breathe in frantic gasps.

Struggling to open her eyes, Fan Zhu Xia saw nothing but dark shadows enveloping her and throwing her surroundings into darkness without a speck of light in sight.

Before she could even wonder where she was, her mind was bombarded with numerous images.

Images that she tried to not think about and push to the very back of her mind.

Images that brought her nothing but excruciating pain.

Images that would always and forever remain as the cause of her countless nightmares.

Images that no matter how hard she tried to run away from would always haunt her and never leave her.

Only because this images were facts that couldn't be ignored and changed.

For a long time she tried to numb the pain by trying to drown it away with drinking yet now it sucked her in, not letting her escape as it forced her to relive it over and over again.

Voices shouted in her head.

Drowning out her thoughts.

Only leaving the dark ones behind.

The memories of that night.

The words that man said.

The things that man implied.

Her imagination filling in the blanks so vividly that it was as if she was there when it happened.

When her whole clan and family was wiped out.

Pushing her to the brink and tipping her over as countless scenarios of what happened to everyone she once knew crashed over her again and again, drowning her.

Leaving her floundering as it submerged her whole, making her feel nothing but an icy coldness as a storm of emotions hit her.

At the back of her mind, she knew what was happening.

She knew that she was suffering from a backlash which resulted in her inner demon acting out and spiralling out of her control yet she did nothing to stop it.

She knew that whatever she's seeing isn't entirely true but her guilt prevented her from fighting against it just because of one thought.

What if what she was seeing really happened?

And so she let herself lose herself in it.

Lose herself within the illusions caused by her inner demons and made herself witness everything as if a spectator.

Starting with that night.

His scream.

His order to leave.

Her utter weakness making her helpless to even help.

She rationalized to herself that her running away was due to her doing what was told and preventing herself from being used as a way to blackmail the others and maybe even lure some attackers away but what if it wasn't really that?

Seeing it all over again made her think of how spineless her actions were.