Cain woke up in his bed and kept staring at the ceiling. 'Is this a dream? Am I still laying in the Jade Palace losing my mind?' Cain question himself.
Although he remembered the fight with Long Tian, he still was in doubt. His rational mind told him that he was back in the past, waking up after the accident that made it possible for Long Tian to take over while his emotional side was just riled up with conflicting emotions. It was these opposite states that put him in a catatonic state.
“Honey…” A melodious voice woke Cain up and brought up nostalgic memories. Cain moved his head to the side of the bed and looked at the person who was talking to him. A beautiful woman was sitting next to his bed. She has long, wavy silver hair that gracefully falls down her shoulders. Olive color skin that shinned brightly in the light. Her large deep blue eyes exhibits a motherly warmth when they looked at you. She looked no more than in her late twenties with no distinctive features of ever having children.
“Honey...How do you feel?” She asked with concern in her voice. Cain, at the sight of her, started bawling his eyes out. How could he not, for thousands of years he had watched how she was thorned apart by the family enemies. Every time he watched that moment, Cain felt as if his heart was ripped away from his body.
“Mom!!!!!” Cain threw himself and hugged the woman tightly. She was a little surprised at the sudden display of affection, it had been some years since her son had willingly hugged her but she responded in kind. Cain felt warm and safe in her embrace and unleashed all that he had bottled up. It didn’t matter the years he had lived or the memories he had acquired, when Long Tian took over he was barely 15 years old. Being alone for so long had taken a toll on his mind.
“What happened, sweety? Does it hurts somewhere?” She asked her son caressing his back, trying to calm him down.
Cain did not say anything but responded by moving his head in a no kind of way. He was too choked up to answer with words.
It took a couple of minutes for Cain to regain any type of stability to have a normal conversation.
Cain’s mom took her son's head in her hands and lifted his face to look into his eyes.
“You had me worried for a while, sweety” She used her fingers to clean the tears from Cain's eyes. After crying, Cain felt as if a heavy burden was lifted from his shoulders, he felt light.
“I’m sorry mom,” Cain said.
She chuckled at her son. “What was the last thing you remember honey?” Although she wanted to keep hugging her son, she needed to obtain some answers from him. Answers that will help to unravel the event of how her son almost got killed inside the house.
Hearing the question, Cain's entire body shook. He was able to put himself together and started pondering. To his mother, Cain was thinking of the accident but in reality, he was organizing all the information he knew. Although he was being childish a few moments ago, he knew that he needed to think very carefully about the answer to not scare the spies inside the house.
“Mmm...I remember exploring the garden at the back of the house, and then a sudden pain from my back...like if I was being stung by a bee and then everything went black.”
Although Cain in fact knew who the culprit was he decided to keep quiet. I will do no good to spill the beans right now, not when the family wasn’t as united as before. The enemies had managed to sow discord within the family.
“Are you sure honey? You don’t remember anything else?”
Cain’s mom tried to push him a little but Cain denied remembering anything else.
“Ok honey. You should rest a bit more. next week is the day of your awakening ceremony and you can't miss it.” She said as she lovingly stroked his face. Cain nodded in acknowledgment. That will give him a couple of days to plan. The fact that he was almost assassinated the week before his awakening shows how deep the spies had infiltrated.
In a twisted way, he was grateful for being stuck in the Jade Palace since he had analyzed all the events leading to the destruction of the family.
Cain lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. While in the Jade Palace he had devised some plans to pass the time. Who knew that some of them would be useful now.
He closed his eyes, trying to figure out if he could still enter the Jade Palace. The time difference will make a powerful tool to plan ahead. He started to concentrate but nothing seemed to happen. He kept doing it to the point of exhaustion. Just when he was about to give up, he managed to enter the void once again. When he opened his eyes he found the same void that he remembered, he looked around to see his surroundings and tried to feel in what direction the Jade Palace was. When he sensed the direction in which the Palace was he flew to it.
When he reach the Palace he was surprised. The Jade Palace was utterly different from the one in his memories. This one seemed more majestic and irradiated a more profound feeling when you looked at it. The drawings on the walls were more intricate and were inlaid with precious metals and jewels. To the side of the Jade Palace, Cain managed to see 2 other Palaces but those looked gray and dull. He didn’t remember them from his past life.
He entered the Jade Palace and rows and rows of bookshelves filled his eyes. So many painful memories. As he was about to pick a book he sensed something inside. It felt malicious. Cain rapidly ran towards where the feeling was coming from. And couldn’t believe what he found there.
“Well, well...looked who we had here, a visitor!” A shadowy figure was slowly congealing in front of Cain. He could hear the maliciousness in the voice.
“Who are you and what are you doing in here” Cain shouted.
“Really. Don’t you think this situation sounds familiar?” The malicious voice answered back as it took the form of Long Tian.
“YOU!!!!!!” Cain shouted. He had just killed this bastard and now he was here.
'What kind of cockroach is he?'. Cain thought, he rapidly realized that Long Tian had read the books inside and had watched how he had survived. The thought of Long Tian watching how he had lived in the palace made him want to puck.
“Ohhh Yes! My little Cain. Do you real…” Long Tian tried to say a few words but Cain was too enraged to listen. In his enraged state Cain had summoned a giant figure that looked just like him. Cain made a fist with his hand and the giant avatar did the same. He swings downward towards Long Tian. Long Tian tried to dodge but was too slow to do so, and got smacked down by the gigantic fist. Cain didn’t stop at one punch and continued to strike down at Long Tian. After quite a few strikes the gigantic hand had stopped. Cain, panting heavily, got closer to the hole that now decorated the floor of the Palace. He looked down and saw the mangled figure of Long Tian. He commanded the giant to pick Long Tian up. The gigantic figure did as it was told and picked Long Tian up with one of its hands. Cain looked at Long Tian's mangled body and walked away. Long Tian tried to say something but was unable to as the giant figure used its two hands to crush Long Tian into a paste. Although there was some resistance at first, in the end, Long Tian perished turning into a paste. The paste didn’t fall to the floor but fused with the Jade Palace.
Somehow Cain knew that Long Tian was no longer a threat to him. Cain breathed a sigh of relief as he sensed Long Tian fading away.
