Chapter 120

  Choices in Life (II)

  It is rather difficult to describe the sensation of feeling my hands catch fire. They weren't literally ablaze, no, as the man's attack never reached quite that far, but my brain, blinded by the decades of living in a non-magic world, was certain that they were burning.

  As soon as I pulled the Tortoise Mirror out, a particularly bright sheen of light exploded from its cracked surface. It contorted outward like a slime or a membrane, fanning out to cover the entire area around me.

  The moment the gigantic, hurtling ball of flames descended upon its surface, the entire sheen turned bright red, as though immolated. It didn't stay that way for long--rather, it couldn't even be measured in normal time, I don't think.

  The only reason I even saw any of this was because the time seemed to almost slow down for me, as everything unraveled as though in want of being seen by my eyes.

  Upon impact, the ball of fire dissipated across the surface of the projected sheen, and less than a blink later, the sheen was back to its original appearance while a spewing ball of flames twice the size of the previous one was sent back twice as fast toward the point of origin.

  I don't know whether the attack was especially strong or even particularly deadly, but it was evident that none of them expected any of us to put on any resistance--after all, why would they? They felt I was the strongest, at the measly middle of the Spirit Manifestation Realm, and the person attacking me was, comparatively, a Demigod (not a literal one, I don't think, but close enough).

  Thus, none reacted as the ball of flames reached them. It all unraveled in less time than it takes to blink, and the ball of flames erupted into a world-consuming inferno that briefly turned the night into a day.

  Three pillars of fire jutted out for over a hundred yards into the sky, debris was flung up and outward like an eruption of a volcano, and the world quaked and was nearly torn apart at its seams as the ejection of energy demolished practically everything in front of us for almost four hundred yards.

  All the trees were gone; in their stead was scorched dirt with ashes slowly piling on top.

  Even the rocks and stones melted, turning into sludge swallowed up by the ground.

  Everything was consumed in the infernal blaze... everything but us. The fire never so much as looked our way, as though it were a protector keeping us safe.

  Eerily, it did not continue burning as flames ought to.

  Within a second, it devoured, destroyed, and consumed everything... and it disappeared, as though something else entirely swallowed it up out of existence.

  It was gone.

  The sound that was just budding to erupt into an explosion that would definitely burst my eardrums... it was cut.

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  The blinding light that just flashed the night into a day disappeared, as though it had never been there.

  Even the warmth that I just started feeling against my skin cooled down immediately.

  In a way, it was even more petrifying than my reflecting of the attack.

  Speaking of such...

  I'm shaking.

  Holy shit, am I shaking!

  Did I just really do this?!! Did I just kill like thirteen people?!

  No, no, no, they killed themselves! Right, they attacked, the attack was bounced, and boom! So were they. Bounced from life.

  Ugh. Is this really a time for bad jokes?!

  "... eh?" Surprisingly, it was Long Tao who seemed to have squeezed out the exclamation. I turned toward him and saw him thrice as shocked as he was when I insulted the man.

  Xi Zhao and Dai Xiu stared at me with such zealotry and reverence it... it's freakin' weird! It's creepy! Oh my God, no person should ever look at another person with that gaze! It's like we're not a band of travelling merchants but a freakin' cult in which I brainwashed them into thinking I'm some sort of a God!

  I'm really not, guys! It's the system; it's all the system!

  Even Light seemed awed, her wide eyes shining brightly as she stared at me.

  Wan Lan?

  That girl has passed out.

  No, seriously, she's lying flat against the ground. I don't know if it was the shock of impending doom, my cursing words, or just the overwhelming pressure of Qi, but she seemed to have slept through everything.

  Good, actually.

  There's going to be at least one person devoutly against me being some sort of a divine figure. I'm desperately going to need that.

  "We need to leave," I voiced out. Though nothing lasted, there was still a brief--but very powerful--explosion of Qi. Chances are that a lot of people felt it and were on their way here. And I certainly don't want us to be here when they come. "Long Tao, pick up the girl and let's run."

  Without saying another word, I ran--and they followed.

  I ran eastward, as that was where the Spiritwood Grove was, electing to go through the trees. I mean, we first had to run for a while across the burned land and the singed nothing, but the trees were waiting for us soon enough.

  My heart was racing at, oh, I don't know, eight billion miles an hour? No, seriously, I don't think it's ever raced that fast--not once.

  On top of that, my thoughts were... well, they were all over the place. There was the recognition I just killed a dozen people, my realization that I've severely underestimated the system's true capabilities, and fear that somehow, someway, I'll be caught.

  That creeping worm of selfishness dug out from within me, and I was afraid for me, not the kids.

  Just me.

  Haah.

  I always believed that, in some capacity, I've grown up with the rest of the world. We change, after all, as years whizz on by. When I was sixteen, I was a pretentious little gremlin who considered every other genre and subgenre of music outside of black metal just grating noise.

  I took out War and Peace from the school's library when I was 14, in its original Russian, and pretended to read it in class just so others would think I was being smart.

  I've done so many selfish things in my life that listing them all might actually be the one kind of book that's fatter than Russian literature--like, seriously, those guys weren't writing books, they were writing health hazards--the book of my ambivalence and hubris.

  But... I grew up. It became more that I cared for others rather than what others thought of me. Every once in a while, though, the selfish worm would come back up, as though to remind me it's there. Waiting. Just biding its time.

  And it's back.

  I was worried for myself, rather than what my actions might do to the kids. Was it human? Sure, I suppose. Still pretty crappy, all things considered.

  We ran for a good half hour before I just couldn't run anymore--my lungs were on fire, the adrenaline was finally wearing off, and I felt like I'd pass out at any moment.

  So, we went deeper into the forest and found a thick arrangement of trees and shrubs to rest within. As soon as I sat down, practically, I felt all the remnant energy from within me just... disappear. The last thing I saw was Long Tao abruptly bending over, extending his arms, and grabbing my head, gently nestling it against a tree.

  Hah.

  Ain't that just the sweetest?