CLANG CLANG CLANG
A constant sound rang out from the cave at the bottom of the Peak of Afterlife. Zand and his guards watched in awe as Ning single-handedly started tearing down the very hard Aether Ores.
Ning stopped and looked back, "I thought I told you guys you could leave?"
"Ah, yes. We were about to leave, but I thought you might need some help so I brought these guys here," Zand said.
Ning looked at the people behind Zand and shook his head. They will be nothing but a hindrance; take them back," Ning said.
Zand didn't expect anything other to come out of Ning's mouth after seeing how good he was.
"Very well, we shall leave. Doctor, please come by the mansion when you are ready," Zand said and bowed.
Ning nodded and went back to destroying the cave.
It had been 15 minutes since the old man Canon's funeral. Ning had stayed up there until the funeral was complete and the old man's ashes were sent to heaven.
Ning had then decided to come down here and harvest as much as he could before the seal would close. He had his mid-grade spirit artifact spear that he was using to cut cross hatches on the ores before punching them into pieces.
He continued doing that for the next 3 hours and finally stopped. It was time to leave. He teleported to the gate of the seal and walked out.
He looked back at the gate and the seal naturally returned behind him. Once no one was inside the mountain, the seal regenerated on its own.
'I will need to find a dead body again in 2 months to pass through here, huh?' he thought. 'Why do I even need a dead body in the first place? Isn't this supposed to be a naturally formed seal?'
He didn't bother wasting energy to find answers, however. There were always going to be unique places all over the world, and it wasn't necessary for him to understand everything.
Besides, sometimes things happened just because.
He checked into his storage space and nodded before teleporting back to the village. He appeared right in front of Famir and Mavenna.
They were a little surprised to see him teleport, but it seemed that they were used to it by now. "Are you guys alright?" he asked.
"Yes, we are fine," they answered.
"How are the villagers holding up? It's been a few days right?" Ning asked.
"Well, the atmosphere is still a little sad, but people are returning to their daily life. I think they are used to death by now," Famir said with a sad voice.
Ning sighed. That shouldn't have been the case, but Kell got greedy and started killing people.
"Senior, about the thing you told me before we went to the funeral… is that… true?" Famir asked.
It took a moment for Ning to understand what he was talking about. 'He wants to know if his father was killed, huh?' he thought.
Ning remembered what he had told Zand just a few hours ago, and decided to follow the same thing by himself. However, just before he did, he stopped and instead said, "Yes, I was right. That indeed happened."
The feeling of sadness and rage could be seen in Famir's eyes. His father was murdered and he wanted to take revenge. Mavenna was a little surprised when she saw those emotions in her brother's eyes. She was very confused about what was going on.
Ning however just shook his head. "He's already dead. The culprit I mean, he's already dead. I killed him," Ning said.
Famir's eyes blanked. "You… killed him?" he asked with a blank face. It was like he had just found a purpose and it was taken away from him. He didn't know whether to get angry at the murderer for killing his father, or at Ning for taking away his chance at getting revenge.
"Revenge is a slippery slope kid. Once you slide down it, you are rarely able to stop yourself," Ning said and walked forward.
"Besides, you should see the good in this news," Ning said.
"The… good?" Famir asked. How could anyone see good in the news that their father was murdered?
"You were not responsible," Ning said.
"Wha?" Famir was caught off guard.
Ning placed both of his hands on Famir's shoulder, looked him dead in the eye, and said, "You were not responsible for the death of your father."
Famir's eyes went wide. He finally saw the silver lining in this new piece of knowledge.
"I— I did not kill my father? I did not kill father— Waa," Famir started wailing.
"Brother, what's— what's wrong?" Mavenna got flustered too and started crying when she saw Famir crying.
Famir got onto his knees and bowed forward. "Thank you! Thank you! I… Father didn't die because of me," Famir cried even hard.
Ning had told him before to not feel guilty about it, but it wasn't impossible to clear away the guilt one felt for being responsible for the tragedy.
The weight of his father's death was quadrupled due to the guilt of being the person responsible for it. The guilt had been clawing at him ever since then and he had been living with that pain.
However, after learning that he was in no way responsible for the death of his father, his guilt all vanished in an instant, leaving him with a void that was quickly filled with sorrow.
Sorrow was always better than guilt.
Mavenna cried as well as she hugged her brother. Ning stood from the side looking at their cry.
He could feel both the sadness and relief in his cries. Ning couldn't help but get down on his knees and hug them both as well.
"You did well hanging on until now kid. Your father would be proud of you."
Famir's cries only got louder but the release was so cathartic that Ning let it be.. The two siblings cried for nearly 15 minutes before they stopped crying at all.