Although he had been expecting this answer from the first moment he saw the woman before him, the word still echoed in his mind like war drums. A flood of emotions washed over him, as he stood there in silence for several minutes.
Although it was not a guarantee, he had been aware of the possibility that the mysterious spirit was his mother just based on Barden's description of the events that had happened. Even so, the confirmation of the truth nearly overwhelmed him, as tears began to form in his eyes.
The woman's spirit form floated before John stared at him lovingly in silence as she let him process everything.
"How...how did this all happen? How did I end up here as a baby? Why did you send me away? Why are you not here in person. Who…"
John's string of questions trailed off as he became choked up with an overwhelming surge of emotions. The woman smiled at John as her hand suddenly reached out and touched his forehead.
Her outstretched finger went right through his head, and pierced into his soul. Visions instantly filled John's mind, telling him a story of what his mother wanted him to know.
...
John's mother, who was in her real body and not the soul-form he saw before her, was standing on top of a magnificent mountain, far larger than any mountain John had ever seen before. The wind howled violently around her, its power easily strong enough to shatter the bodies of Heaven Tribulation experts.
However, his mother ignored the howling winds, as if their power was not of the slightest concern.
Cradled in her arms was John, who was no more than a few days old. He was sleeping in her embrace, while she rocked him gently, a sad smile on her face.
After cradling John for some time, her expression turned from sad to serious as her cultivation base flared out with absolute power.
John, who was experiencing these visions right now, was stunned beyond all belief as he felt his mothers power. It was far stronger than anything he had seen from a cultivator, and he had no doubt that she would be able to erase Thunderzen with the single wave of her hand.
As her power flared, a ball of Qi began to wrap around John, encasing him in the Qi cocoon. John could not only feel that immense power, but also strange Dao's infused in the Qi cocoon.
'Is that...the Dao's of Space and Time?'
John couldn't help but be shocked further as he felt the Dao's of Space and Time be controlled by his mother. Her control of the Dao's were flawless, and he could tell that she had full mastery over the Dao's.
Comparing her Dao comprehension to his own was like comparing an ant to the heavens.
The Dao's of Space and Time fused into the cocoon, forming a space-time cocoon independent from the rest of the world. At the very end, she separated a portion of her soul and infused it with the cocoon, her face paling considerably from doing so.
"Goodbye, my precious son," his mother whispered to John as the cocoon finally fully formed around her. "May fate one day allow us to reunite."
Upon saying this, her gaze shifted up into the sky, seemingly peering deep into the void of the universe. Her gaze locked onto a singular direction, and her arms suddenly pointed forwards.
The Qi cocoon, with John's encased inside of it, propelled forward, and immediately left the surface of the planet she was standing on. It screamed out into the void of space at unimaginable speeds before it quickly disappeared from her sight.
Tears formed in her saddened eyes as she stared up at the sky, before she wiped them away and her gaze turned cold.
Suddenly, eight other people clad in incredibly luxurious robes appeared on the top of the mountain, surrounding his mother. Each emanated monstrous power, with two of them displaying equal power to his mother.
"Where is it, and where is he?" one of the two strongest men asked. "Give both to us now, and you will be allowed to return to the clan unharmed."
John's mother scoffed with disgust as she stared at the man before her.
"To think I once considered you as a brother," his mother replied with a cold voice. "Your brother is the only reason you yet draw breath, and this is how you honor him? You disgrace yourself."
The man's face turned red with anger as he heard these words, but he quickly regained his calm.
"My brother will be honored for all time, but it is time to think about the future of our clan, not the past. The war brought incredible turmoil to this universe, and we must solidify our power now more than ever. Where is the artifact? Where is John?" the man asked once more, his voice growing colder.
John's mother smiled as she heard these words, as she knew John was out of reach of the man. It had been beyond hard to separate from her newborn child, but her hasty decision had turned out to be the correct one.
With her power over space and time, she knew they would not be able to locate where she had sent him off to.
"The Artifact and John? They're gone, far out of your sight and reach. You'll never find them. You have lost."
Boom!
The man's aura exploded out, incinerating the entire mountain they stood on as if it never existed, just from the power of his aura alone, as he dashed forward towards her.
His mother struck out with her own attacks, as an apocalyptic battle between her and the eight other cultivators began.
…
John's vision returned back to normal as the visions his mother had bestowed upon him faded away. Deafening silence filled the chamber as John stood there motionlessly, still processing everything he had just seen.
A million questions quickly formed in his mind, as he thirsted for the truth of everything.
"Whe...when did you send me away? How long was I underneath this desert for?" John couldn't help but ask. Although he was unsure of the details, he could tell that a great deal of time must have passed for him to reach this planet, as well as for him to be found by Barden.
"I'm not sure of the exact number of years," his mother replied gently. "My soul was in slumber to maintain my power, and only awakened when you were discovered by others," she explained as her gaze shifted towards the skeletons on the ground.
John's gaze shifted towards them as well, as he finally realized what had happened to them. When his father had discovered this place, he was thoroughly examined by his mother, and was deemed to be a suitable father for John.
The others must have failed this test of hers, as their characters and personalities did not line up with what she wanted. With the secret of John's location far too precious to be revealed, her only course of action was to eliminate anyone who discovered this place and was deemed unworthy.
"However," she spoke up once more, causing John to shift his gaze back to her. "You have been down here in slumber for at least several hundred thousand years."
Boom!
The truth once again struck John's mind like a drum, as he took several steps backwards.
"Wha..what? How is such a thing possible?" John asked, his voice unsteady.
His thoughts shifted back to the Dao of Space and Time his mother had used.
"I used my powers to wrap you in a separate spatial dimension, until I found someone to raise you. In that dimension, time for you was frozen," she explained.
John stood there in silence once again, the series of truths piling up and becoming harder and harder to process. He had no idea the level of power one would need to be able to accomplish such a thing, but he was certain that it was far beyond his current scope of knowledge.
"Now you know the truth, or at least the truth I can reveal to you," John's mother said, breaking the deafening silence.
John's gaze shifted back to his mother's soulform, a million more questions quickly forming in his mind.
"Wha...what happened next?" John couldn't help but ask.
"I cannot reveal that to you, as you are too weak to know the truth yet," his mother replied with a gentle voice.
John frowned as he heard this, although he had been expecting such a reply. The mysterious man had already revealed to him long ago that Karma was a real thing, and invoking too much of it too quickly would only spell doom for himself.
"Goddamn Karma," John muttered in frustration, as his thoughts suddenly shifted to a different topic related to the mysterious man.
John's eyes slowly widened in comprehension as he put two and two together.
'If my mother is the one depicted by the female statues in my palace realm, then…'
His widened gaze stared at his mother who floated before him, smiling at him lovingly.
"If you're my mother...then the man in my palace realm…is he..."
"Yes," his mother replied gently, her voice slightly saddened. "That man is your father."