Vol 18 12-12
YinKong felt the air solidified and she was frozen in place. The light from the Lambda Driver had spread beyond her, which meant she was within attack range.
(Converging to the Xuan in reality... does that include intelligence?)
Time did not allow her to think further. A huge force carried her flying back. This force was streaming out from Xuan continuously in such quantity that her body began to tear apart. She was the boat floating in an ocean that was moved by the waves. Her life was on the brink of death as the power of faith carried her toward the house. YinKong could even see the look of terror on the other five people’s faces.
(Is this... the end?)
Is this the end?
Zero stared out the window at the two dead bodies of his family, his mother and brother.
Is this the end? Zero had forgotten when did he first ask himself this question. From the change that happened to his family, in the struggles he went through in in his training, in his journey as an assassin, Zero asked himself time and time again, is this the end?
All the people he had met praised him as a natural born assassin. He was calm, indifferent, and cool. His reliability and silence were the must have traits of an assassin. He had everything needed. He was indifferent to human lives. People believed he was born to be an assassin. He could kill anyone without fear.
Yet, did he really have no fear? Could he truly kill anyone?
Zero knew the question to these two questions. He wanted revenge on the woman who betrayed his father. But he was scared to see this woman who still clinged onto life and gave herself to an enemy.
And yet, why did he feel so empty and awful when he learned of her death? There was also his brother...
It was time for the end to come. Zero chose to kill himself once he finished what he had to do. He had lost the desire to live. Never did he expected to move from the real world to this world. Here, he met Zheng who wanted to live on no matter what it costed, Xuan who possessed the utmost intelligence, Heng who was both strong and weak, YinKonng who was cold and handsome... Everyone had their story and a heartbroken past. His story was nothing extraordinary. He found his kind.
He realized he was simply lonely.
Every night since the day he left his family, he wished to hear the laughter of his father and the soft voice of his mother again. Loneliness was the only thing that remained once his family was stripped from him. This loneliness carried him through the journey of revenge, the same loneliness that took his life.
"I won’t be alone again..." Zero muttered.
Zero was standing on the second floor of the house after he shot the two girls. The two dead bodies turned into his mother and brother as they fell to the ground. Then Freddy surfaced behind him.
Freddy halted the claw that was reaching for Zero’s neck for a moment from hearing those words. He opened his mouth and uttered a syllable when a gun barrel slid into the mouth.
Zero’s voice followed, "I won’t ever be alone again! Mother’s death and falling in love with my brother made me want to die but that has lies in the past... I have too many things I can’t let go now. They are waiting for my return... I want to live on! I want to fight with them together! I don’t want to be alone!
"I want to be with my team!"
When YinKong closed her eyes in resign, the sound of gunshot echoed to her ears loud as thunder. Her body collapsed on the ground with the force going away. A burning pain covered her back. That moment of contact with the power of the Lambda Driver torn away a section of skin and flesh on her back. However, that did not hinder her movements. She flipped up from the ground and immediately turned to Xuan with caution.
To YinKong’s surprise, Xuan’s body was crumbling along with the light around him. She thought the power of the Lambda Driver overloaded his body at first but then turned around to look at the house. On the second floor was a young man kneeling on the floor with a sniper rifle in hand. It was Zero who had disappeared.
The escape from death overjoyed everyone here. Yet, before they got the chance to talk to Zero, the helicopters fired their air-to-ground missiles. Heng couldn’t use any strength, YinKong was critically injured, and Zero had just used the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. No one even had the strength to run. What awaited them in the end was still death.
(Fake Xuan is dead. It’s up to you now, Zheng. Team China’s future lies on whether you can overcome yourself.)
Seeing the incoming missiles, YinKong and everyone here quietly closed her eyes. There were only a few seconds left until the missiles reach the ground.
Neither time nor space existed in a dream.
Zheng’s energies depleted before his body reached its limit. The moment he exited out of Destruction and had no strength, Clone Zheng grabbed his neck and lifted him from the ground.
"It’s the end." Clone Zheng tightened his grip.
Zheng did not have the strength to struggle. His mind was becoming dizzy. It was a matter or two or three more seconds before he lost consciousness and killed.
Perhaps it was the final reflection before death or the lack of strength couldn’t support the fourth stage anymore, Zheng returned from his heart’s devil the second before losing consciousness. As the boundary of freedom disappeared, pain flooded him. Even without the suffocation, he couldn’t know if he could continue on with this body.
Clone Zheng relaxed his grip when he saw Zheng moved his mouth. Zheng took several breaths with the chance then said with a cracked voice, "You... are in pain, right?"
Clone Zheng asked in confusion, "What nonsense are you talking? Are you looking to die faster? I won’t let you. You will die slowly from suffocation."
Zheng smiled bitterly but the grip on his neck stopped the movement on his cheek. He said, "Even though I was fighting you under the influence of the heart’s devil but I got a clearer sense into your heart. You hate me. You hate this world. You hate all living beings. You want to destroy or be destroyed. I think I understand you. I will go through the same changes if I encountered the same thing... You are me after all."
Clone Zheng opened his lips but no words came out. His grip tightened again.
Zheng continued, "I was too naïve. I want everyone to live but the person that I really want to live is me. I only have the power to survive this world with everyone alive. The truly selfish person is the inner me. How ironic, you want to die and I want to live. Yet, you are the one who kills me.
"The clone me, Qi and Blood Energy allows me to use Destruction but let me tell you of the third energy residing in my body."
A white light radiated from Tiger’s Soul and his hand. The light forced Clone Zheng to let go of him. Zheng used his refined Qi and activated the light blade.
Zheng did not attack. He said, "My consciousness received the feelings you emitted during the fight, anger, despair, defeat, and death of the heart. I finally realized the gap between the two of us. One will only gain when he’s willing to give up some things. I was too fixed on surviving and had all these hesitation. I didn’t want anyone to die but witnessed my comrades dying in front of me. I didn’t want to hurt innocent people but the same people die because of our missions... I don’t possess the power to carry out my goals, whether it’s to live on, to protect those important to me, or to repay you. I didn’t want to give up anything and so I couldn’t get anything.
"Live on, my clone. And wait for our meeting in the real world. I will stand on the same height as you. I will have the power to carry out my justice. Next time, I will bring you out of this suffering abyss!"
Zheng slashed a cloud of mist with Tiger’s Soul then jumped in.