The smoke parted, and a figure stepped forward, Peng Bo.
It was his own son, the very son whose reckless actions had catalyzed the entire catastrophe, and whom Peng Kai had ultimately executed with his own hands to satisfy his twisted, desperate ambitions.
There was no head sitting above the boy's neck, instead, the jagged, severed stump of his throat leaked a slow, spectral trail of black fog.
The boy walked forward casually, holding his own severed head by the hair in his pale hand.
The head's jaw hung slack, but its phantom eyes remained wide, burning with a hellish luminescence as they stared right into Peng Kai's fracturing soul.
"Why, Father?" the severed head whimpered, the words echoing unnaturally from the palm of the boy's hand, dripping with a child's profound betrayal.
"You cut me down yourself. You murdered your own flesh and blood in anger, yet you still lost everything. Was my life worthless?"
