"Why? Why are you doing this, Huai!", the ethereal figure asked.
Huai answered, his voice steady. "I told you. No matter what. No matter how many times you return. I will come back too. I will come back until I kill you, until I remove your existence forever."
The figure roared. "For what! For that ant? Why? Why are you protecting him with your life?"
Huai chuckled. The sound was terrifying. It made the atmosphere crack. A black, ethereal aura rose around him, as dark and horrifying as the figure itself.
Huai turned his head. He looked at Wuhe. His eyes behind the mask were still bleeding red.
"You remembered me late this time, Wuhe," he said softly. "Let's meet in another life. Until then, become as strong as you can."
He turned back, tore open space with his bare hand, wrapped the ethereal figure in his aura, and stepped into the void with it. He was gone.
Wuhe was left alone on a dead planet, surrounded by corpses.
He fell to his knees and screamed at the empty sky, his voice raw, tears pouring without end. "Huai! Why are you leaving me again? Why!"
***
The world changed again.
There was nothing left. No planets. No stars. No living creatures. The entire plane was ash.
Piles of dead dark creatures were scattered everywhere, like failed monuments.
Wuhe was running. Searching. Calling a name that would not answer.
Then he found him.
Huai was lying on the cold ground. His white robe was no longer white. It was soaked completely red. His body was covered in terrifying wounds, too many to count.
Wuhe dropped beside him, his hands shaking so badly he could barely lift the silver mask. He took it off. Huai's eyes were closed. His beautiful face was pale.
"Why?" Wuhe choked, hugging the broken body to his chest. "Why did you do that? Why don't I have any memory of you in my head? You... you sealed those memories, didn't you? Why!"
The moment he touched Huai, the body began to dissolve. It did not rot. It turned into pure light, into pure Dao. The light flowed into Wuhe's chest, into his soul, giving him the last bit of power it still held.
Wuhe clutched at him, desperate. "You! You told me to come here before you were gone, just for this... Huai! I don't need this power at all. I want you back! I want my master back! Did you hear me! I want you back!"
He cupped Huai's fading face with both hands for the last time. The light slipped through his fingers. Huai disappeared into him forever.
Wuhe threw his head back and screamed. It was not a human sound. It was grief tearing itself out of a soul. "Ahhhhhhhhh!"
Silence fell.
***
Wuhe stood up slowly in that ruined world. His face was dry now. He had no tears left.
With lifeless eyes, he walked among the ashes and collected what was left. The black sword. The silver mask, still stained with those two red tear tracks.
He opened a small, beautiful box. Huai had given it to him a long, long time ago. "Place these things inside after you find them," he had said.
Wuhe placed the sword and the mask inside, gently, reverently, as if he was burying his own heart.
He closed the lid. He held the box to his chest. And in the dead silence of a destroyed universe, he stood alone, holding the only pieces of his beloved that remained.
***
It was another timeline. A much later one.
Wuhe sat on a throne.
It was not a normal throne. It was majestic and cold, carved from a star that had died long ago, and it alone overshadowed every light in the world. He sat on it and looked down at everything, at galaxies turning into nothingness, at worlds burning, at lives ending.
His eyes were lifeless.
In his whole life in this timeline, he had become the most cruel person in existence. He never showed mercy to his enemies. He never smiled. He never forgave.
Shui Zhong floating silently beside the throne, like a shadow.
Before the steps knelt a young man in white armor. Wuhe did not know him in this waking life, but in the dream he knew him instantly. It was his first disciple, Xiao Zhan.
Wuhe's voice was empty. "Is everything ready?"
Xiao Zhan nodded, his head lowered. "Yes, Master."
Wuhe stood up slowly. "It is my time to go."
Xiao Zhan's head snapped up. He immediately kowtowed, his forehead hitting the cold floor again and again. "Master! Why? Why are you taking this path? Isn't everything okay now? Grandmaster did his best just to save your life..."
Wuhe looked down at him. The look was cold. It had no warmth at all. Xiao Zhan shuddered and his voice became a murmur.
"Master... junior brother and sisters will be sad. They don't know..."
"Tell them after I'm gone," Wuhe replied. His voice did not shake. "I have found a little detail of him. Only a single clue. I can't let it slip through my hand."
It had already been millions of years since Huai sacrificed himself and fought that ethereal being in the void. In those millions of years, Wuhe had cultivated to a realm where he was as powerful as Huai had been. He had everything. And he had nothing.
The scene changed.
Wuhe left his territory. He stepped down from his throne and entered the lower realm.
The Eternal Sect was at war. They were fighting the extraterrestrial races, and their sovereigns were burning their own souls just to buy humanity a few more breaths of time. Other human powerhouses across the stars were doing the same, dying in silence.
Wuhe arrived in a vast galaxy called the Galaxy of Sixteen Heavens. Sixteen Galaxy Sovereigns were fighting there, their backs against each other, surrounded by a sea of nether rats.
The moment Wuhe saw the nether rats, his lifeless face contorted with pure hatred. Of all the races in existence, this was the one he hated most. They were the reason Huai had sacrificed himself.
He did not move to save them in time.
The sixteen sovereigns died a horrified death, torn apart while still fighting.
Only then did an ethereal figure appear between the corpses. It was Wuhe. He waved his hand once, and a beautiful tower made of light descended. It was the Tower for Consciousness. He had forged it himself long ago, not as a weapon, but as a coffin to seal his own memories of Huai inside. This was only a projection of the real tower.
The tower caught all sixteen fading souls and locked them inside, safe.
The nether rats looked up at him in horror and confusion. Wuhe just snorted. In that instant, their bodies disappeared into thin air. They were erased, not even dust left behind.
He turned to the sixteen consciousnesses inside the tower. Their leader, Ji Wuxuan, looked at him with terrified eyes.
Wuhe manifested in his normal form and stood before them. All sixteen souls bowed inside the light.
"Thank you for saving our consciousness, Your Highness."
Wuhe nodded. "I have a task for you. If you agree to do it, I will let you keep this tower for eternity. Your souls will be nourished by it. You will never truly die."
The figures looked at each other. Ji Wuxuan bowed deepest. "Your Highness! We agree. Our sect is gone. Our family is gone. At least we can survive and try to revive our clan..."
Before he could finish, terrifying dark thunder rolled above their heads. In a single moment, a black seal mark burned itself onto each of their hands.
Wuhe looked at the marks and said, "Now that you are marked by my residual power, I will tell you what to do."
He waved his hand. A beautiful, simple wooden box appeared, floating in the void. He waved again, and beside it appeared a picture.
It was Huai.
He wore a long dress of black and red, and on the fabric, divine and mythical beasts moved slowly as if alive. His face was calm and peerless.
All sixteen sovereigns gasped just by looking at the image. The pressure from the painting alone made their souls tremble.
"He is Shen Huai," Wuhe said, his voice finally softening. "Eternal Sect leader. One day, you will meet him. Give him this box. And maybe you will meet his sect core disciples too. Support them until they reach the apex of this plane."
Ji Wuxuan murmured, confused and in awe, "Your Highness! Why don't you..."
Wuhe shook his head. "No. I can't wait any longer. If I want to meet him, I need to go to that place."
He looked at the sixteen sovereigns for the last time. "Don't tell him anything about me. Not until he has reached a perfect realm."
Then Wuhe suddenly turned his head and looked into the far distance, into nothing.
The sixteen sovereigns also looked, but they saw only empty void. They frowned, because Wuhe was smiling. It was the first real smile he had shown in millions of years.
He was not looking at them. He was looking across time.
He was looking at himself. At the sleeping Wuhe, lying on a bed in a small courtyard on Sword Star, with red tears still drying on his face, and with Huai sitting beside him wiping them away.
The cruel, god-like Wuhe from the future met the eyes of his own younger, broken self.
He smiled at him, a sad and gentle smile full of all the pain he had carried alone.
"Don't let him go this time," he whispered across the timelines. "Be careful. Or he'll do everything just to save you. Don't let him suffer alone. He took too much burden."
Wuhe's eyes opened suddenly,
He woke up like someone yanked him out of deep water.
His whole body jolted upright on the bed, a sharp, ragged gasp tearing his throat. Cold sweat had already soaked him completely. It ran down his temples, down the sides of his neck, down his spine. His thin inner robe clung to his chest and back, wet and freezing. His hair was plastered to his forehead in damp strands.
His hands shot out and clutched the blanket. His fingers were shaking so hard the cloth bunched and tore under his grip.
The green light from the memory world was still in his eyes, flickering and fading. The dried red tear tracks on his cheeks cracked as his face twisted. His pupils were unfocused, darting around the empty room, searching frantically for something that was not there.
His heart was hammering against his ribs, too fast, too loud. He could hear it in his ears. He could not breathe right. Each breath came short and shallow, as if his chest was being crushed.
"Huai!" The name ripped out of him, hoarse and panicked. "Master!"
The memories were still on top of him, crushing him. The mountain of corpses. The black sword dripping blood. The silver mask with two red tear stains. The box he had closed with lifeless hands. And the voice of his older self from across time, smiling sadly at him, saying don't let him suffer alone.
Another violent shiver ran through him and cold sweat poured again, beading on his skin and dripping onto the already damp sheets. He pressed a trembling palm hard against his own chest, right where in the dream Huai's body had turned into light and dissolved into him. It felt hollow and burning at the same time.
He tried to get up and his arms gave out. He collapsed back onto his elbows, his body convulsing with another jolt. He was shivering, but it was not from the cold in the room. It was the terror of watching Huai die again, and again, and again, inside his own soul.
He curled forward, his forehead almost touching his knees, his shoulders shaking. His breathing was broken. Sweat and the last traces of those strange red tears mixed on his face.
He was awake, but he was still drowning in the memory.
At this moment, a notification rang in his mind:
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, Host, for recovering 10% of your memories.]
[Memory transfer process successful!]