Liu Shun'an kneeled on the ground with Rihai in his arms and looked at her anxiously.
Seeing the bloody holes on his daughter's neck, the deformation caused by the strangling, and the purple finger marks, boundless fury filled his heart, but he bit his tongue to focus.
He didn't have much time. Delaying could cause complications, postponing his daughter's departure, which would increase the risk of someone discovering something and scheming for her life.
The Liu patriarch reached into the void, pulled out a healing pill, and fed it to her, breaking the pill with his energy to force it through his daughter's crushed trachea more easily.
Rihai struggled a little, but the healing soon took effect, and her neck began to recover at high speed.
Her eyes contracted, then opened, revealing her beautiful blue.
"Da-dad… why…" she murmured with difficulty, still a bit hoarse, tears running down her blue eyes.
Rihai knew that, from that moment on, once they said goodbye, she would never see her beloved father again, and it tore her heart apart. Mainly because she believed it was all her fault.
She even wanted to reveal earlier that she had a Divine Physique, to take her father's place, but at that point her throat was already crushed, and her mind was taken by pain, not allowing her to think straight.
Liu Shun'an gently held the head of his heartbroken daughter and smiled softly.
"Don't worry, dear. This world is like this— we pursue immortality, but most lose what's most important… which is to live. They blind themselves with greed and abandon kindness, mercy, and love. And so, they end up hurting others in their reckless pursuit of power. But I don't want to be like that, and I don't want you to be like that either."
He brushed aside the strands of her blonde hair, stuck to her tears, with affection.
"You see, a cultivator is always gambling with death. If he loses, death takes him. If he wins, death takes revenge, stripping everything and everyone around him, leaving him alone. In the end, there comes a moment when he must choose… to depart with death, or live long enough to see it take everything that is most precious to him. Rihai, let your dad be selfish once today, and not let it take from me what is most precious."
He caressed her head gently, not a trace of fear in his eyes for his own fate—only determination.
"I don't want that, dad. I don't want to lose what is most precious to me either." She hugged him, crying hard.
Gently stroking her back, he closed his eyes, savoring the last embrace he would ever give his daughter.
After a few moments, he slowly loosened the hug and held her face between his hands, looking directly into her eyes.
"Sweetheart… you have to be strong. Promise me that you will live well. There is always love in this world, and also happiness, even when it seems like there isn't. You just need to be patient, and one day you will find it. So promise dad that you'll be strong. Can you promise me that?"
He asked with seriousness and tenderness.
Rihai kept crying, but her beautiful blue eyes stayed fixed on her father's face.
"Promise," he gently insisted.
"I… I promise," she murmured, nodding as her heart trembled with grief.
"Heh, you're still my little girl—crybaby, but tough." He laughed softly and gently kissed her forehead while helping her stand.
Discreetly, a necklace slid from his sleeve, and he placed it into his daughter's hand without anyone noticing. It was his grandfather's necklace, which he had retrieved earlier but hadn't had time to store in his pocket space because of her call. It proved useful now, as he didn't need to reach into the void—a movement that would have drawn the attention of those hateful old men.
Rihai, even in her overwhelming sorrow, felt the necklace fall into her hand and clenched her fist, hiding it without giving anything away to those outside.
'Smart girl.' Liu Shun'an was amused internally and then sighed.
"Time to go," he murmured, making Rihai clench her teeth to avoid sobbing loudly, though her trembling body still showed her sadness.
Liu Shun'an waved his hand into the void and tore open a rift in space. He wrapped his energy around his daughter to protect her and gently pushed her inside.
"Dad…" Rihai kept looking at the man so important to her as her body entered the void.
That was the last time she saw her father—standing there, staring firmly at her with his intense red eyes.
[Image]
Liu Shun'an kept staring at the rift where he had seen his daughter disappear, his heart heavy. But he didn't have much time to think before a voice called out from behind him.
Seeing the girl leave after the sorrowful farewell, Luo Tianhao didn't feel even a shred of emotion.
"Well, we've fulfilled our part, now it's your turn," he said, making Liu Shun'an, who was controlling his energy to send his daughter to a safe place, turn toward him slowly. "Ah, by the way. Give me back Liu Taixuan's necklace. I'm still studying it; it seems there are great mysteries hidden within."
Liu Shun'an's expression shifted, but he nodded.
"I'll send my daughter away first, then I'll give it to you," he replied calmly.
Luo Tianhao slightly furrowed his brows.
"I told you to hand it over now. Even if it's your grandfather's necklace, you made the oath, you must obey," he insisted, believing he simply didn't want to part with the item.
"Just a moment." Liu Shun'an remained firm, but internally, his spiritual energy had already begun to rebel.
Even his soul seemed to go on strike, making him lose a bit of control over his energy. It was essentially a warning: if he didn't obey, it would enter complete chaos.
"Give it to me, now," sensing something wrong, Luo Tianhao insisted, ordering him for the second time—but he saw the Liu patriarch remain still. Then understanding dawned in his eyes. "... You sent it along with the girl, didn't you?"
Liu Shun'an raised his head, and ferocity returned to his red eyes as a crazed smile formed. He reached into the void, pulled out a black sword, and positioned himself in front of the spatial rift.
"Liu Shun'an, you're going to break your oath?! Aren't you afraid we'll break ours and kill your daughter?!" Dong Zhenye, who looked like a young man and was one of the twenty surrounding the patriarch, shouted fiercely, taking a step forward when he saw the man's defiance.
"Heh, Dong Zhenye, I'm going to die at your hands either way, so it doesn't matter if I keep the oath or not. But you timid rats would never give your lives by breaking your oath just to kill my daughter." He laughed wildly as blood began to drip from his mouth, coating the teeth that smiled fiercely.
His energy was already going into chaos inside his body, killing him from within. But he forcibly suppressed his energy with the Dao rhymes in his roots. The old bastards would never imagine he could do something like that with a Divine Physique, allowing him to fight and survive for several rounds even after breaking the oath.
'Although it won't last long, it's enough,' he pondered, watching the frantic struggle of energy happening inside his body.
"Come, you pack of old dogs, today I'll show you why I'm called the strongest!"
With his roar, he didn't wait and charged directly at those people, unleashing a terrifying strike, even going as far as burning his soul as fuel.
That day, a short but devastating battle took place there, destroying miles around and leaving a gigantic crater where a once populous and powerful city had stood.
Of the 22 venerables present in that battle, 8 fell, including the Liu patriarch—until then the strongest man in the world.
Before taking his last breath, still standing in the sky, he looked at the rift he had protected from the beginning, which was violently fluctuating and collapsing before closing forever.
'Please… let her have reached the other side… my daughter.'
With that final thought, his eyes closed and he fell from the sky, down into the depths of the crater.
…
Rihai didn't know what had happened, but while she cried, traveling through the void rift her father had opened, her eyes became confused as his energy, which surrounded and protected her, suddenly began to fluctuate.
When a soul oath was broken, not only did the soul turn against the user, but also the spiritual energy of the one who made the oath. And even the energy he had placed around his daughter to protect her was being slightly affected by it.
With the protection around her body starting to fail, a bit of the chaotic energy of the void seeped in.
That energy struck her defensive equipment—her dress—and even after a strong clash, it couldn't block everything.
"AHH!" she screamed in pain as just a trace of the void's energy entered her body, devastating her internally.
The medicinal pill in her stomach, which her father had given her earlier and still contained medicinal power, quickly activated, healing the damage while that foreign energy continued destroying.
The patterns in her roots suddenly lit up and drew in that energy, as if trying to protect their owner. Then the battlefield shifted. The spatial energy and the divine patterns—called Dao Rhymes—began a fierce confrontation.
Soon, the victor emerged: the roots, which consumed and eliminated the void energy that had entered. But in exchange, small sections of them shattered into particles.
Rihai sighed in relief as most of the pain subsided.
But soon the barrier protecting her fluctuated even more violently, and more energy invaded.
"AHHHHH!!!"
The pain, which felt like it pierced her soul, coursed through her body again. It was far more painful than being strangled earlier.
Explosions and intense energy fluctuations also began coming from the entrance of the rift she had come through. Those explosions—results of the battle outside—struck her protection, pushing her even faster forward, but also letting more void energy in.
"AHHHHH!!!"
If Rihai's screams could have propagated, they would have echoed sorrowfully throughout that endless void.
Destruction, reconstruction, destruction, reconstruction… slowly, in that cycle of torment, Rihai's roots—the only reason she hadn't died—were completely shattered.
The medicinal pill also slowly lost its effectiveness, leaving her body in tatters. The necklace of her great-grandfather, which was in her hand, was torn away by the explosions hitting her body and was lost to the void.
By then, she was at her last ounces of strength, only protected by the remainder of the energy shield her father had placed, but which could not block everything.
'Father… I won't be able to keep my promise to live…' she thought with her last trace of rationality as her blue eyes closed, welcoming the relief of death and finally escaping the torment she felt.
With her eyes closing, without her knowing, her body finally reached the exit her father had opened.
…
..
.
"When I woke up, I was in some forest. My clothes were in tatters, my body a mess, and I barely had strength to move my hands. I only had a little spiritual energy in my dantian, my roots were useless, so I could barely be considered a 1st level Qi Refinement cultivator."
"Fortunately, my ring wasn't destroyed by sheer luck. Even though it didn't have many things, it was enough for me to survive in the days that followed."
"The hardest part was that I was very young and innocent at the time, and I got tricked by people countless times over the years, betrayed by 'friends' and 'acquaintances'. Once, I was almost fooled by children no older than ten who tried to sell me as a slave. I basically only lived until today because I had many trump cards stored away, which gave me time to learn and mature without dying along the way."
"I went through a lot, gritted my teeth to cultivate even when the pain nearly killed me with my broken roots. I learned a lot, lived a lot and… well, cried a lot too before learning how not to cry."
"I survived more than I lived. My heart had died with my father that day, and knowing it was all my fault only made things worse. Things only changed… well, after I met my husband, which was like love at first sight."
"After I met him, I was finally able to keep my promise to my father. For the first time since that day, I was happy to be alive," Rihai revealed, wiping the tears that fell down her face and allowing herself to finally smile as she spoke about the ending, hugging Aotian's arm—who stared at her with his mouth open and eyes wide.
Finally regaining his senses, he quickly hugged her tightly and shielded her in his arms as if she were the most precious thing—and to him, she was.
He knew many things, but not the details of that day or her father's death. After all, he had never pressured her to speak about those painful memories.
But now that he knew the story, his expression had become extremely dark.
"Luo Tianhao, Dong Zhenye, Gu Yuanzi, Wen Xingdao…" he began listing one by one, in a low, grave voice. "Good, good. I will hunt every single one of them and make them regret ever being born," he growled with extreme hatred.
He had likely never hated anyone so deeply in his entire life.
But when he looked at the girl who had rested her head against his chest, he set the matter aside for now and focused on what was most important: comforting his wife.
Kissing her head gently and caressing her back, he began to whisper gentle and loving words into her ear, trying to soothe her.
As for the red-haired old ghost beside them, who also wore a dark expression after learning the fate of his grandson—and an even darker one upon seeing a grown man hugging his precious great-granddaughter… well, Aotian ignored him for now.