Chapter 486: To walk a path from the past.
‘Huh? What the fuck?’
As the chaos of battle erupted across the caravan fleet, sending the people scattering as monstrous otters tried to eat their faces, all sorts of interesting events were occurring left and right.
Zhen Wang, the only Grandmaster not fighting the Thunderscale Dragon Otter, was busying himself fighting off several tier two Ravager Otter adults that had made their presence known. The two sides were in a bit of a stalemate due to the latter’s environmental advantage.
The half a dozen or so Aether Masters of the branch clan were also fighting off the Ravager Otters to the best of their abilities, each of them showcasing something unique about them.
Zhen Hai showed that he was just as adept as the Ravager Otters when it came to water combat, Zhen Yue’s combat adaptability was on full display as she effortless switched between her formula’s totemic forms and even Zhen Li, Zhen Wang’s apprentice, turned out to be a formidable fighter when he wasn’t being a condescending prick.
In fact, the Aether Master elders of the Zhen Clan were also showing some new tricks, things that the rest of the family hadn’t seen up until now.
(Granted, they didn’t come up with these tricks until after a certain event occurred).
However, it was amongst these combating Aether Masters, that one had noticed something strange occurring in the battlefield.
Namely, they noticed how a certain young master of the branch clan pulled out an unusual looking aether tool and blasted one of the other clan elders in the back with it.
They even saw how the man turned one of his puppets into ammunition for the tool.
‘Is this guy taking an opportunity to betray his own clan?,’ the observer thought.
But then, he felt something unusual occur in the surrounding aether, something akin to a sudden power spike.
‘No way…’
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[Oooooh, so this is what it feels like to be inside someone else’s soul…weird yet comfortable…welp, time to get decorating…by chaos there are a lot of fucking snakes in here…,] Razorstella commented as she merged her consciousness with Zhen Ye’s, […and repressed trauma, godsdamn.]
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‘Everything…going…dark?’
‘Am I…dying?’
‘No…it doesn’t feel like it…’
‘So…where am I?’
One minute, Zhen Ye was leaping from a raft in the middle of a giant river, in a vain attempt to try and prevent a tragedy he was about to witness unfold before him, the sight of his wife and son getting torn to shreds by Ravager Otters.
However, before he could scream out in desperation or rage at the unfairness of the universe, a sharp pain had suddenly blossomed on the small of his back.
Next thing he knew, he was whisked away to somewhere…familiar.
Somewhere that, despite being pitch black dark, was fully visible in his vision.
Somewhere that didn’t look quite match up to the details in his memories, but just enough was present to make the whole place scratch at the corners of his memories.
Somewhere that had once left an undeniable shadow in his heart.
‘Wait a minute…’
As Zhen Ye’s mind began to adjust to the fact that he had somehow been teleported, he began to notice important details about the place he was standing in.
He recognized almost immediately that he was standing in a man made tunnel, more specifically, that it was the same tunnel that he had ended up getting trapped in once when he was just a child.
At least, it was a slightly distorted facsimile of that exact same tunnel.
There were a few more embellishments and details on the walls than he remembered, with significantly more…cosmic theming in mind, with the one strange exception being the depiction of what Zhen He recognized as being the carving of a snake, albeit, one with wings.
The tunnels in his memories were cold, dark and blank and the only details that were present were the ones he had made himself as a child.
He had lucked(?) out when he was spirited away all those years ago, having disappeared with a piece of chalk in his pocket. As such, when he tried exploring the tunnels himself, he used that piece of chalk to draw a path, one that he could backtrack on the off chance he got lost.
‘I wonder…huh.’
When Zhen Ye crouched down to examine the wall closer, making his eyes level to where he would have been the same height as to when he was a child, he saw that as plain as day was the chalk line he drew as a child…alongside several other lines of chalk that ran parallel with it.
From what he could see, there were a total of three running parallel to his own.
‘Okay that’s weird,’ Zhen Ye mumbled as he poked one of the chalk lines out of curiosity.
‘Who drew these others-WHOA!’
The moment he touched that line of chalk, it suddenly lit up like a bioluminescent eel, continuing into the tunnel depths and disappearing at some point, turning at a junction point.
The glow lasted for a few seconds before dying down back into darkness.
‘Huh…I guess that’s how I navigate this place?,’ Zhen Ye observed.
To make sure his observation was correct, he proceeded to touch the other chalk lines, eliciting the same response as the one he first touched, though the colors of these other lines were different from the one he had just touched and led in different directions.
Zhen Ye paused as he tried to figure out which path he should go, which line of chalk he should follow.
While it seemed like there were a total of four different choices he could make at this point in time, in reality, it was only just two.
Does he follow the path he made as a child, possibly running into the same obstacle he had faced all of those years ago, a certain room that haunted him even to this day?
Or should he follow a different path, ones that he had no idea where they led, but were bound to be a step forward regardless?
It didn’t sound like a difficult decision, why should he bother facing his past when there were other options to explore, other ways forward.
But the more he tried to make that choice, ignoring his past decisions and going on a different route…something inside him wouldn’t let him do that.
He didn’t know whether it was his own regrets, or a force of nature beyond his control, but something was preventing him from moving on from his past and taking a different route.
Or…to be more precise, it felt as if this “something” wanted him to confront his past before he could move on.
‘Shit…what am I getting myself into?,’ Zhen Ye asked himself.
Taking a breath to calm his nerves, Zhen Ye pressed upon the chalk line he had once drawn as a child, illuminating a path of white light.
Once the way had been fully lit, Zhen Ye took another breath before stepping forward, following in the footsteps of his child, following in the path of one of his greatest traumas.
‘Am I some sort of masochist? Why the hell am I walking a path I know leads to pain?,’ Zhen Ye asked himself.
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[Interesting…I had figured he would try and forge a new path altogether, forgetting his past regrets and leaving it all behind…then again, I suppose part of becoming the center of attention involves becoming confident in oneself. And what’s a bigger confidence booster than facing your past trauma, head-on?,] Razorstella mused.
[Hmmm. Since my first performer desires to take on a stage he is familiar with, albeit in the worst ways possible, who am I to deny him his wish? But just because he knows the setting, doesn’t mean I can’t have some…creative liberties…]
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‘Turn here, door there, and yup…there it is.’
Following the path he made all of those years ago, Zhen Ye came face to face with the first and only obstacle that had caused him so much pain as a child and in his subsequent years.
Before him was a simple trap, nothing more than a hole in the ground,a chute, that led directly into a room full of Sound Eater beasts.
‘I guess what they say about the follies of youth were true,’ Zhen Ye thought to himself as he stared at the chute.
It was so painfully obvious to him now that he couldn’t help but feel a bit silly that he had fallen for it in the first place, both literally and metaphorically.
Then again, he was a child and now that he thought about it…he might’ve been too distracted by the thoughts of treasure.
‘Welp, I have now seen firsthand the thing that led to the most traumatic moment of my life and I can now say for certain that I do not want any part in-‘
[Help…]
‘Huh?’
[Zhen Ye…please…help…]
‘She Yang?!’
As soon as heard that voice, any rationality in his mind went straight out the window.
