His eyes trembled, "Forget it."
Shame.
His ears reddened.
"It's okay." She called out to him.
He stood to his feet, back turned, "It was just a moment of weakness. Nothing more. I'll handle it."
The words he'd just spoken continued to revolve in his mind like an endless stream of shame biting him.
His ears turned bright red.
Yet, when he was about to leave the fog, he appeared before her again, she was giggling now.
She covered her mouth with a bemused expression, "You didn't think I'd just let my cute little son leave just like that, did you?"
He watched as she raised a hand to caress his cheek gently.
"I guess not." His composure slowly came back, and he watched coldly as she moved towards him so carefreely, "Why have you appeared now, Mother?"
She raised a brow, pinching his cheek fiercely, "Where did my cute little boy go, who would cling on so stubbornly whenever he saw his mother? Ara…"
Unable to resist his mother at all, he could only call out, "Stop, Ai!"
However she pinched harder with a frown, "What did you call me?"
"M-, Mother."
She let him go and a rock appeared beneath him as a seat, she was already sitting down on her own.
With a happy smile she began, "Tell me about this lover of yours! It's been nearly ten years since we last saw each other and from what you've told me already, you've been quite busy!"
His lips tugged.
"Well… She's smart and well-mannered," A thin smile lined his mouth, "She has a very intense personality, but she's very deep too, probably more emotional than me, actually."
She took out some teas, but he raised a hand and took out some Spirit Leaf, with a smile lighting it up.
Her eyebrows scrunched up, "I see that changed as well?"
He nodded.
"It helps with the voices. Though not by a mile, but it does what it needs to do," He let out a long breath of smoke which turned into a dragon his eyes flashing strangely, "In some ways, it may be more fulfilled than I am."
She shook her head, but said nothing.
He leaned back on the rock, a few words leaking from his mouth, his face hidden by the smoke, "She is the most beautiful, the most loving and the most important girl in the whole world."
"Ack-!" She clutched her chest jokingly, "My son has been snatched away!"
"Heee, not quite, it seems instead I snatched away someone's daughter." His smile pierced through the smoke like the early rays of morning light, the mere thought of her turned him into a shining star, "Sometimes I do wonder, if I enchanted her, or if she enchanted me."
She smiled knowingly, "Why not both?"
"Perhaps." He took a moment as though deciding something and then his lips moved, "Father is dead. So is everyone else from the house. Sea Spring was destroyed as well, by my hand. The entire ward is a desolate wasteland now."
"Why?"
"Because," He dragged on the Spirit Leaf for a moment and spoke with the dancing dragon smoke, "They betrayed us."
"I see."
"Now, we have a city hidden in the Demon Realm, within Baylen's Rest. Made up rescued slaves from artifact mines." He shook his head, "I still wonder if that was the right choice, to bring more lives under my already too small back. I was impulsive back then."
"Back then?" She raised a brow jokingly and he smiled self-deprecating.
He raised his head to the sky, "Indeed. Mother, I have a question."
"Go on?" She had a bad feeling rising from the pit of her stomach.
Slowly, his aura began to leak, it did not affect the Ten Thousand Soul Pearl, as this was merely a mortal aura, something so insignificant that it was almost completely useless, only good for scaring the wildlife.
Yet, it carried a sharpness and dread of thousands of lives, if any looked too close they may be sucked in.
His eyes shone beautifully as his lips parted, "Will you still love me if I choose to destroy it all? Would I still be welcome?"
Her pupils shrank.
She knew it since long ago when he first arrived at the Fallen Sword Forbidden Zone, he was not the same shy and scared little boy she'd left alone in that clan.
He was now a young man, with the responsibilities of a lord and an unknown number of lives on his hands.
He may have cried just a little while ago, but he was still, nonetheless, the Sword Dragon of the Wild States.
The Heavenly Death is his Dao name.
Shou Xin, his true name.
He was not the same boy she'd left behind, and now faced with this question she knew it would affect countless peoples and her heart bled.
"...If you should kill innocents, then I will not forgive you." The image of a little boy clutching her legs flashed in her mind, it then however overlapped with the battle torn boy in front of her and she turned serious, "As your mother, I cannot allow you to walk that path."
His face changed dreadfully, as though revealing great sadness and sorrow, she hurt inside but felt that it was for the best.
She hoped he would change his path at all costs if she said this.
However, his face suddenly turned cold and dreadful, his previous ethereal immortal looks turned into a fearsome tyrant's visage.
His eyes were like a beasts looking forward, not a hint of love left.
"You will always be welcome at my table, Mother." He slowly stood up, the Spirit Leaf hanging from his lip, "I will never spurn you, no matter what you must do, even if that is to strike me down."
She reached out, and he turned his back.
"In order to live peacefully, I will crush the peace of everyone who doesn't agree. Gods, I will make them bleed. Lords, I will see their wards crushed underfoot. The sky will bow before me, and the Heavenly Court will regret making me their enemy." His aura rose like a calm flame around him reflecting the certainty of this decision, "I will be passive no longer. Kind no longer. But I will not fall into monstrosity. Killing innocents, I will restrain myself to my best measure for you, mother."
To not be accepted by ones mother, was a painful thing.
Especially because he knew he would break the pact he'd just made.
"Shou Xin…" His body froze at the call of his name, such a strange thing to hear from his mother, "...I cannot allow it. I can sense the tens of thousands who reside within your body, wailing in agony. If you are going to become a calamity, then I, as the Tenki Ai of the Heavenly Court, cannot allow it."
His pupils shrank into pins, "The Heavenly Court? You are… Ha… hahaha…I see it now. I understand."
Staring at the fog in front, everything began to fall into place.
"You never really loved me, did you?"
"That's not-!"
"The Heavenly Court put you up to this, to monitor the cursed bloodlines in secret, how many more 'sons' do you have? How many more of them are cast around the realms?"
"That is not true, I-"
"Please stop. It is embarrassing."
He turned around, the sword heavy in his hand.
His heart beat stopped in his chest, instead, a low hum revealed itself.
Tears fell from both his eyes.
"You will stop me, right?" She wanted to say something in response, "Lock me away somewhere, or kill me?"
Fukkatsu.
He called out the name of the spirit.
And it replied with a weak roar.
The Ten Thousand Soul Pearl slowly began to exit his body, a tear stained tyrannical expression reflected in the sudden light like a small sun revolving in the fog.
"You never even asked why you sensed so many dead," He teared up furiously, "You simply assumed, just like everyone else, that I can only take lives."
"No, that!" She could not come up with a good response, for it was true.
She'd assumed.
In truth, the number of innocents he had killed was nearly zero.
Even the youths beneath of the Yan Clan were the scions of that clan, which had committed countless evil deeds in the name of their clan.
In his eyes, they were not innocent either.
In the eyes of the heaven's, they were not innocent.
Yet, he too was not innocent.
He was a sinner for the mere fact of his birth, an animal to be slaughtered.
Even his own mother assumed him a monster.
"Lock me away or let me go. In the end, we will see one another again." His words carried a clear implication.
He would come to the Heavenly Court on his own one day.
He would come to destroy them.
She was duty bound to reply, "Then, in accordance with the Heavenly Court's laws pertaining to the Cursed. I, Tenki Ai, will take you to the Thousand Isle Mountain for confinement."