Death… And Me

Chapter 4227: Hell No!

Over three hundred thousand years went by...

"So you see? If we get to apply these runes in this manner, the system armor gets a 0.3% increase in Divine Origin Energy output," Qia commented to Rean, Fay, and many other Formations Masters present in that room.

Fay nodded with interest. "That is an unusual approach, mother. But won’t it create instability in the DPU?"

The other Formations Masters gave their inputs, and the conversation continued for hours and hours. All of that just for a simple 0.3% in output. The System Armor had grown really strong as the years went by, and it wouldn’t be wrong to say it was as good as any top armor of any other power in the Great Void. Any increment, as small as it looked, was truly a great breakthrough.

Yet, after their work was over and Rean came out with Qia, Qia didn’t look very happy. It wasn’t anything related to the System Armor, though. Instead, she was bothered by Rean’s behavior. "Alright, spill it out already. What is it you have in your head?"

"Hum?" Rean looked at her, puzzled. "Me? There is nothing wrong. Your inputs were very good, and I’m sure the System Armor will get much better. That’s all."

*Kick!*

*Ouch!*

Qia gave Rean a light kick on one of his legs, attracting his attention. "What was this for?"

"Hmph!" Qia snorted. "Who the hell are you trying to fool here? This hasn’t started today. You have been like this for quite a few decades already, and that’s only the time I noticed. You have likely been like this for even longer, but only recently has it become truly annoying."

"Eh?" Rean scratched the back of his head. "Has it really been like that?"

"Yes," Qia confirmed. "You are just gloomy. There are so many things to discover, to study, to improve, but you just don’t seem interested in any of that anymore."

"Sigh..." Rean nodded slightly. "It’s just... nothing truly feels like a challenge anymore, either."

Even now, Rean hasn’t told anyone that he was actually capable of controlling The Echo. In fact, he was a lot better at doing it now. Everyone in the twins’ group was. That said, it didn’t really matter what kind of things they created there. Everything had The Echo inside, so he could make it all meaningless with just a thought.

"Alright, then let’s take the Celestial Treasure room and get rid of everything in there," Qia made the decision.

"What?!" Rean quickly took a step back. "No way! Those are the only things that still feel interesting."

"Ah!" Rean immediately noticed his mistake.

"As I thought," and Qia got her confirmation. "It is not that you have no interest anymore. You just don’t have any interest in anything from our Great Void. Your mind is totally on the Celestial Plane and the things from there. The number of Treasures from the Celestial Plane you acquired over the years is quite remarkable."

Rean couldn’t be blamed. Celestial Plane-related things were the only ones that had no Echo in them, so Rean couldn’t really manipulate them however he liked. That made them a lot more interesting than anything else in their Great Void.

Rean felt a little guilty. "Sorry... It is not that I don’t care about our Great Void anymore. It’s just that I’m already at the limit of what I can do here, be it forging, formations, incriptions, training, cultivation, etc. You know my life. I’ve always had kind of a meteoric rise, so these many years after I return just... don’t suit me at all."

"Sigh..." Qia expected that answer. "Then what the hell are you still doing here? Could it be you are holding back because of me and Fay?"

"Well..." That was exactly the case. He couldn’t simply bring them to the Celestial Realm. That wasn’t how it worked.

"You can stop there," Qia cut in. "Fay and I are very fulfilled in our Great Void. It has been over three hundred thousand years since you returned. However, Fay and I aren’t like you. Considering all the resources available to us, our cultivation is very slow, and we haven’t even bothered going out to look for our rogue Celestial Laws yet."

She continued. "That’s because we don’t need any of that. We are happy with what we have here. One day, we might go to the Celestial Plane, but that is not now, nor anywhere near the future. So, stop wasting our time with all that gloomy and doomy behavior of yours and just go already. We’ll be fine."

"Qia..." Rean felt embarrassed, but happy at the same time. "Are you sure you don’t want me to wait for when you girls get ready?"

"We are sure," said Fay, suddenly joining the conversation. She had been hearing everything through her CD, which Qia kept open. "Father, the way you are at the moment, you are boring. You are starting to affect my own mood, so just go already."

Rean sighed and nodded. "Alright. I’ll go talk to Roan and the others. However, that doesn’t mean we will not see each other anymore. If anything, we can still see each other pretty much every day."

"Hum?" Qia and Fay got curious. "How come? You will be in the Celestial Plane."

Which Rean just smiled in response. "Trust me. Even the Celestial Plane can’t stop me from coming to see how you are doing. Also... Thank you."

Without waiting for the two girls to speak, Rean disappeared from their sight.

"An idiot to the end..." Qia commented.

"That’s father for you..." and Fay agreed.

---

Somewhere else in the Lisan Universe, Roan was brandishing his Crystal Void Scythes everywhere, always making sure to keep himself in tip-top shape.

*Zush!*

Suddenly, Rean appeared nearby, much to his displeasure. "And here I thought I would manage to stay a hundred thousand years without seeing your face. It was so close... just another two thousand years..."

"Is that so?" Rean couldn’t care less. "Hey, I decided to go to the Celestial Plane."

Roan’s eyebrow raised a little. "What’s the point if you can’t cultivate without the four of us anyway?"

"Maybe," Rean shrugged. "But staying here is going to kill me from boredom. I’ll go ahead and prepare the terrain for when you guys decide to go up, too. Oh, and I’m bringing Celis. I’m sure he is even more bored than I am."

"Wait..." Roan stopped Rean. "I’m going up too. I already talked to Calina a few hundred years ago."

"Eh?" Rean was taken aback. "Why? This time, there isn’t any real reason to go up there. We don’t have any universe to save, any primordial beast to release, nor any bullshit like that. I’m truly going up just because I want to, nothing else. Had we not been bound by those objectives before, you wouldn’t have done any of those things."

"True," Roan acknowledged. "No one is forcing me to go up. The only reason I want to ascend is to improve as a cultivator; it’s a personal choice. We’ve reached our limits in the Great Void, so ascending is our only way to grow further. This time, I’m choosing to embark on this journey of my own accord, and that makes all the difference. I can genuinely say it is something I’m looking forward to."

Rean scratched the back of his head, asking something else. "We don’t really need to stay close to each other anymore once up there, do we?"

"HELL NO!" Roan answered instantly.