Above The Sky
Chapter 585 - 585 554 Anger and Calm 13

585: Chapter 554 Anger and Calm (1/3) 585: Chapter 554 Anger and Calm (1/3) When one’s life becomes a burden to their child.

When one already knows that death is not far away.

When one sees their child’s abilities are now sufficient to grasp the glory they yearn for.

One person.

A mother.

Someone who had given their all in the first half of life and had no second half to look forward to.

Determined the date of her own life’s end.

By her own hands.

[“Mom?

No!!!”]

When the weary man felt the longsword in his hand becoming duller and harder to decapitate those crazed corpses, the situation got even worse.

Strange phantasms began to appear in the city, ones that swords could hardly harm, attackable only by weapons with Origin Substance Reactions or smeared with magic potions, yet their attacks realistically reflected in reality, seemingly having all the advantage.

Besides, various behemoths had crawled out of the city’s sewers and many dark alleys, attacking everyone indiscriminately, even slaughtering each other.

Phantasms and exobeasts attacking each other, phantasms raiding survivors’ camps, behemoths preying on anything still moving, an organization of Sublimators within Azure City formed a team to shelter a small group of survivors heading south to Lantern Fish City.

However, a larger behemoth appeared at Lantern Fish City, crushing the survivors’ team completely.

The man even saw people from Fiery Flame Land and Spirit Wisdom Institute; he knew because they too were organizing teams to flee, transporting equipment and data, exposing their distinctive traits.

But they all died.

Everything was getting worse.

The Avak Domain had fallen into a destruction that nobody had anticipated, not the Archduke, not Viscount Awak, not the people from Spirit Wisdom Institute and Fiery Flame Land lurking in the darkness—nobody knew how the disaster occurred, but it was tearing the world apart.

Ripping apart the Domain of Void, and letting its fragments fall into reality.

But for some reason, the man had a feeling.

He was not afraid of all the hardships.

He was never afraid, neither of life’s difficulties nor these enemies in reality—even if they were powerful, it was just a matter of killing or being killed, he never feared that.

He only feared his own craving for peace, incapable of bringing glory, allowing his family to continue living in poverty.

He feared his ordinary life, letting his mother spend her latter years scrimping and saving, unable to enjoy joy and blessings.

And now, he discovered what he feared even more.

It was that his family would leave him before he could do anything or even before he discovered everything.

His mother had ended her life, cutting the veins in her neck with a small cloth-cutting knife she carried.

Her warm blood mixed with the blood of his enemies as he fought, and by the time he realized, his mother had already stopped breathing.

[“Mom… Mother… why…”]

At that moment, Ian experienced a very special emotion, a complex, suffocating choke that was hard to describe.

At first, it was bewilderment.

His brain could not comprehend the reality that his mother was dead, could not understand the reason for her suicide, could not accept the reality that everything was over before he had the chance to speak his last words to her.

Then came a surge of hatred, powerful like a tsunami.

Hatred towards his own weakness, towards the unknown culprit responsible for all this, towards his mother, who didn’t trust him enough to take her own life.

What followed was a tangle of chaos, emotions so vast and complex that even Ian needed time to sort through them.

A sense of…

instinctual…

relief.

—His mother indeed slowed his pace; if he hadn’t abandoned her, he, along with his mother and Cynthia, would’ve died in Azure City.

—His mother was dead.

If it was just Cynthia, he could still protect her and escape the city alive.

These thoughts surfaced for an instant before being drowned in tremendous, meteoric guilt and regret.

—How could I think that?

—I would rather die than do such things!

But then…

—It was precisely because she knew I would rather die that she chose to end her own life.

—It’s all my fault… All my fault…

—I’m such a…

despicable waste.

Humans, ordinary humans, are unable to control their thoughts.

Such vile and self-destructive thoughts would not linger for more than a moment in the minds of normal people, but the man was far from normal.

In the midst of the immense, tumultuous, chaotic, and indescribable surge of emotions…

He awakened his Spirit Energy.

Upon perceiving this, Ian finally understood why such a profound memory had been left behind.

Here…

this moment.

It was the instant of awakening for a Spirit Energy User with a Postnatal Awakening.

“Hmm?”

The light in Ian’s eyes receded, and he had finished viewing the past memories hidden within the illusion.

It was recent.

These memories were from just a few days ago, belonging to one of the few survivors from Azure City.

As for why Ian was able to sense that a man named Miles in the memories was still alive, a survivor…

It was actually a kind of premonition through Spirit Energy.

In the flow of time he retraced, Ian could distinctly sense the people and objects in these past images, their conditions, and even…

make predictions about them with Foresight View.

In the past, aside from the Elf Pirate Captain Andor, Ian had never seen any living people, as those residual memories and emotions were too ancient, all remnants from over a thousand years ago.

However, the emotions in the Phantasm woman were too ‘fresh.’ Ian could discern the current state of the man named Miles, the one who those emotions clung to.

And this was the reason for the young man’s astonishment.

“Silver…

he has the potential for the Fourth Level?”

Ian murmured to himself, indeed noticing that ‘Miles’ had good talent in swordsmanship, but to be honest, not as good as him, nor as good as Green Tide.

Green Tide was the kind of person naturally adept with the sword; he could kill three fully armed guards from Harrison Port with a pen, and beat Scott to a pulp with a twig.

In contrast, Miles had actually awakened Spirit Energy.

This indicated that he possessed a certain Spirit Energy Potential, like Elan and Ian, who could become Spirit Energy Users given exposure to specific events and emotional impact.

But, merely having this was not enough to create a ‘silver mist.’

The future Foresight View could predict was not long; typically, it could manifest a mist from the upcoming month, and beyond six months, there were only some ‘signs.’

This was ascertained after many experiments over the years by Ian, who, compared to other Prophets with their decade-spanning prophecies, only ever saw such a Prophetic Dream after he had ended the Dao Path of the Swarm.

Miles advancing to the Fourth Level within six months?

What a joke, Ian couldn’t even do it himself!

But then, a thought lightly stirred in Ian’s heart, “No, that’s not right, the silver in him is the same peculiar silver as the Frost Butterfly.”

Ian remembered the silver mist he saw on the Frost Butterfly before he set out.

It had confused him at the time, and he eventually concluded it meant there would be some benefits at the Fourth Level, just like his own ‘Aether Crystal.’

That wasn’t strange, rather, Ian would certainly strive for the Frost Butterfly to have it…

and now Miles possessed that potential too.

“Ian?”

Just then, the young man heard Hua’an asking with some concern, “Why do you seem so angry?

Look, look, the pen, the pen has been crushed by you!”

“Ah?

Is that so?”

Ian was somewhat surprised.

The Fairy Miss hadn’t noticed anything unusual about Ian at first, but then she saw that Ian could nonchalantly crush a pen in his hand without changing his expression.

He could appear perfectly calm on the surface, performing his analysis coldly, yet express his anger only in minor details!

The Fae couldn’t do this because they were naturally incorporeal; happiness, anger, and even sadness were all very apparent, making them a very understandable form of life, utterly unlike Humans who have bodies serving as barriers between them.

Casting his gaze downward, Ian looked at what was in his hands.

The pen he had been using to write his report was flattened by his grasp, ink spilling out and being suspended mid-air by his instinctive Fairy water control ability,

Gazing at this scene, he couldn’t help but sigh, “It seems, I really…

haven’t learned my lesson.”

When he was with Baron Leyan last time, the Radiant Nun had noticed this anger, allowing her to perceive his true feelings.

And this time, he had again shown this emotion in front of Hua’an, even in front of Michael.

Although, in some sense, this could also be a facade, nobody would doubt that he indeed should be angry…

But regardless.

It was a very inappropriate thing to do.

He needed to remain calm, not showing any signs.

“Back when I talked about these matters with my teacher, I was always very calm.”

Ian thought somewhat self-deprecatingly, “Now that I think about it, I was too arrogant—I had never personally witnessed the ugliness and death of this world, not even people dying as indifferently as ants, in scenes akin to trash.”

“Yes, it’s my fault, I was too arrogant…

I had never seen the atrocities of the former Empire with my own eyes like my teacher had, nor had I transformed the world like they did, so of course, I could view everything with the calmest and most rational perspective.”

“So…

even now.”

“Having seen it, I should still remain calm.”