Chapter 448 The War Begins (5)
August’s vision was filled with white. Other than his body and the person before him, everything in his surroundings was white. It was hard for him to even tell whether he was on the ground or floating. The space was just like the Infinite Space but with white colour.
Wiggling his body, he found it strongly bound to the cross. He sighed in resignment, knowing full well he would never be able to free himself.
Finally, he looked up at the person who was responsible for his predicament.
“What do you want, kid?”
“The story about the past,” Basil answered without skipping a beat.
August scoffed. “Hmph! Just kill me already. Knowing about the past won’t give you any benefit whatsoever. Don’t play with me!”
“You seem to have forgotten about your position. I have every right to play with you, August.”
Glaring at Basil silently, the Rancuser gritted his teeth in anger. He was still trying his best to regain control of his Mindscape. He was old—he was confident in his Soul Power, yet his attempt ended up in vain. It was bewildering for him that Basil’s soul was stronger than his.
“Bloody Pacifer,” he cursed in despise. Realising something, he laughed gleefully. “Ku-Ku-Ku. Kid, you have no other choice than kill me. You won’t be able to get the story of the past that you want so much for your soul is not strong enough to force me to say it!”
August wanted to ridicule Basil yet stopped himself the moment he felt the terrifying yet familiar presence Basil was exuding. His expression soon darkened as a creature materialized its form behind Basil. It had a long body like a snake and was big like a mountain. It was his first time seeing it, yet he knew what it was the moment he looked at its azure scales.
“Qi-Qing Long…it’s the Azure Dragon!”
As soon as he said that, the Dragon who was floating in the air behind Basil roared.
“Rawr!”
His eyes widened in terror as the pressure of the Dragon washed over him. He felt extremely small before the Dragon. He wanted to bow down in hope that the Dragon would spare his pathetic existence. It was a very bizarre feeling for him to feel. It had been so long since something terrified him this much.
“Do you think I still can’t get what I want?”
Basil’s question made August turn his head toward him. The Rancuser met the Pacifer’s eyes, ignoring the slight smirk that sparked his ire.
“How could you have the Azure Dragon’s Soul Intent with you?” he inquired.
“I am the 108th.”
“…bloody Pacifer.”
Soul Intent was the power that a soul had to suppress another soul. It was the only part of the soul that would linger in the world even without undergoing a certain procedure; it often caused a phenomenon called Poltergeist, which civilians attributed to the doing of a ghost.
One could inherit someone’s Soul Intent. The method, however, was only known by Daoists and the Pacifer since Mages didn’t bother to learn about the soul since they didn’t believe in its existence at all.
They liked to call Soul Intent Mana Intent, which was Mana that possessed some of the owner’s consciousness and lingered in the world even after the owner died because of his strong emotion. It was a complicated way to define Soul Intent and a deep comprehension of what the soul was.
August believed in the soul. Although he didn’t understand how it specifically worked, he was sure Basil’s soul shouldn’t be able to handle the Azure Dragon’s Soul Intent. The 108th inheritor had only two fates: had his soul destroyed by the Soul Intent or ended up having the most powerful soul in the world. Basil was the latter, which was why he cursed.
August believed it was only possible because Basil was a Pacifer. He knew that Daoists also cultivated their souls but he was sure none of them was as good as the Pacifer at doing it; therefore, he was absolute that even powerful Daoists would think twice before becoming the 108th inheritor.
Clink!
“Fuck! Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it! Am I going to end this way!? Fuck you, Fated Child!”
It had been millennia since he last cursed. He had thought that he would never curse in frustration after he sent his brother into the Dungeon, so he was extremely enraged that he was wrong.
“Calm down, August. You shall not die in vain. Your memory shall serve for the betterment of this world,” Basil said as he clutched August’s forehead.
August gritted his teeth as he glared at Basil hatefully but then smiled bitterly the moment Basil’s Pacifer Seal glowed brightly. He could feel it—the sensation of having the secret that he buried deep in his mind revealed to the whole world.
Boom!
Countless gigantic screens showing the scene of every event that had ever happened in his life appeared in the white space. They overlayed with each other yet one would still be able to see any of them clearly when one focused one’s gaze on any of them.
“Stop this!”
August had never expected that having his memories seen by someone was this torturing. There were many things that he didn’t want anyone to see and it made him wish that Basil would just kill him.
“Oh, look at this moment,” Basil remarked as he brought one of the screens closer. “You are crying here, August. What did you do?”
“Don’t look into it!”
From the despair in his tone, Basil could tell that august genuinely didn’t want him to see it. he didn’t care, of course, and immediately inspected the memory.
The scenery changed and he found himself in a well-lit grandiose bedroom. He breathed in the air and immediately noted how dense the Mana contained in it. He could immediately conclude that he was in the era when the Great War had just ended. Looking around, he found a middle-aged, handsome man kneeling on the side of the bed.
“Hebe, my niece, uncle has something to say to you.”
“What is it, uncle?”
“I recently got into a fight with your father. He is very mad at me, so can you help me resolve our problem?”
“Of course, uncle. Leave it to Hebe—you will have tea together the next day after I talk to dad!”
The little girl lying on the bed thumped her chest confidently, making the handsome middle-aged man smile. He kissed the little girl’s forehead and then told her to sleep. The girl grinned before closing her eyes. She was just pretending, however; therefore, when she opened her eyes slightly to peek at her uncle, she was shocked to find his haunted look.
“Uncle, why do you look—”
Poof!
The girl didn’t manage to finish her sentence as she was distracted by the sharp pain she felt in her chest. She looked down at it and found her uncle’s trembling index finger above it. As blood involuntarily came out of her mouth, she looked at her uncle in disbelief. She wanted to ask why but the pain and her uncle’s anguished look made the question stuck in her throat.
In the end, she died without saying anything. Her disbelieving eyes were still planted on her uncle, causing him to cry silently in extreme guilt.
“I am sorry. I have no choice but to do this. I can’t let you stand in my way. Your father has become my enemy and there is no way you wouldn’t become one upon seeing what I do to your father,” he muttered painfully.
Thud!
The door opened, causing the man to stand up abruptly. Basil turned around to look at who had just entered the room and found a beautiful mature woman with brown hair standing in the doorway.
“Thank you for always taking Hebe to bed, August. I wish her father was as caring as you are toward her,” the woman remarked. At the lack of response, she said, “You look weird. What is wrong with you? Did Hebe say something that baffled you again?”
The woman laughed merrily until she saw what happened to her daughter. Her breath hitched, her heart twisted and her stomach swirled as she looked at the hole in her daughter’s chest.
She looked up in horror at her brother-in-law, August and covered her mouth in disbelief. Rage filled her mind soon yet she could never express it since she lost consciousness soon.
When she regained consciousness, she found her husband a few metres from her, forced to kneel as he looked at her in horror. She wondered what happened and before she could ask, her head fell to the ground.
“Melissa!” the husband, Caesar Rancuser, screamed in rage.
Basil stopped looking into the memory and gazed at August in amusement. He couldn’t understand what August had in his mind at that time. Even though he could see the thought process, he still couldn’t get it. It was clear that August loved his niece and sister-in-law as a family yet he still killed the former and violated the latter before killing her.
He could have done it more tamely yet he did the worst because he thought that nothing would change since the result would be the same. He wasn’t wrong yet it was amusing for Basil that he preferred torturing himself emotionally like that.
“Well, now I can say that I hate you.”
“Didn’t you before?” August fired back sarcastically.
“No, I didn’t. I just wanted to pay my debt to Caesar for sacrificing himself for me.”
“I see…his wish is about to be fulfilled, huh?”
“Not so fast,” Basil interjected. “I still need to see what happened in the past. I want to see how the Pacifer fell and The Lord died.”
Ignoring August afterwards, Basil scrolled through the screens. He would constantly look into the memories that were related to wars yet he didn’t find The Lord’s involvement there. It was unfortunate yet he wasn’t disappointed. His main goal was the memory of the fall of the Pacifer and he found it not long after.
Immediately looking into it, he found himself in a desolate plain overwhelmed with bloodlust. Looking around, he found tens of thousands of armed men and women pointing their weapons to the front.
He looked in the direction everyone was pointing their weapon and found an otherworldly beautiful woman with long azure hair standing alone in the centre of the crowd. Blood coloured her white dress red; she was badly injured yet she still stood confidently.
“Hear me out, people. Today shall be the day which your future descendants call the Great Mistake.”
It was Asia, the First Matriarch of the Pacifer, the wife of The Lord.