Chapter 28 - The Corpse That Spoke
I could not move.
"Kai," my mother said.
Her voice was exactly how I remembered it.
Fen bowed his head.
"Mara."
She looked at him.
"Coward."
"Fair."
I stepped closer.
"Are you alive?"
"No."
Of course not.
She had preserved a soul echo inside the tomb.
Enough for one conversation.
I had a thousand questions.
She stopped me.
"The system will try to make you hate it. Then trust it. Then depend on it."
"It already skipped to depend."
She smiled.
For one second I was six again.
Then her expression hardened.
"It is not evil. That makes it more dangerous."
She explained the Heavenbreaker interface was built from captured rebel techniques. It helped hosts survive because living hosts carried lock fragments toward sealed gates.
"So I've been delivering the key."
"Yes."
"Can I remove it?"
"Not without dying."
Reasonable problem.
Mira asked, "What happens if the gate opens?"
Mara's echo looked toward the red light.
"Something Heaven locked away comes back."
Fen whispered, "The First Defier."
My system returned.
[New Quest]
[Free the First Defier.]
[Reward: 10,000 years simulated cultivation.]
The exact impossible prize from every cultivator's dream.
My mother looked at the screen she could not see.
May you like
"Whatever it just offered you," she said, "say no."
