Listen While Reading: Severing the World -Wandering Warrior-

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At that very moment, everyone saw it.

Anna’s ultimate pain.

It was something not born from her own suffering exactly.

No, after all, even though she had suffered a lot, her suffering and pain were mundane compared to what the heavenly demon went through.

He had lived for thousands of years as well, naturally surpassing her in life experiences and struggles, the pain he went through became his power.

Therefore, Anna turned the pain of others into her own strength.

It wasn’t through making others suffer though, that was a method the Heavenly Demon had done.

To “absorb the pain and suffering of others” through demonic cultivation techniques that granted him more negative energy.

No, Anna did something much more…

Humane.

A simple emotion that everyone, or most people always develops.

Sometimes, through a harsh life, people tend to lose it, eventually becoming selfish.

This selfishness is not always bad, it can be born out of the need to survive in a harsh environment.

People that are too kind in harsh environments tend to last very little. Self-centered selfishness is natural and a survival method and is not inherently bad either.

Although it wasn’t in every inch of Earth, there were still many places where the saying “this is a dog-eat-dog world” would have fit quite perfectly.

Yet even in such places, kindness might blossom once more.

Although humans seek to survive, there is also the wisdom that through companionship and cooperation, survival becomes easier.

Since ancient times humanity survived by sticking together and helping one another, this was their greatest evolutionary advancement.

And therefore: “to care for them, so they will care for us” was the primal instinct that was born out of the urge to survive.

“I will give you a hand, then you will give me a hand.”

This, slowly, over time, evolved, and human relationships across thousands of years became more complex, this sense of survivalism wasn’t enough to describe this emotion anymore.

When someone cared for someone else to the point of feeling bad when they felt bad, or happy when they felt happy.

This was Empathy.

Anna reached a new height with the Demonic Cursed Seal Arts, or well, it could be said she completely rewrote and restricted what they truly were.

Through her own unique perspective on life, she gave birth to something so beautiful that even the Heavenly Demon shed a few tears.

And even her friends, and the Heavenly Empress, were left flabbergasted.

“Anna…” the Heavenly Empress felt moved. “Although I saw no hint of Hope Essence within that technique, I could feel it… The intention of my technique, you have imbued it into that old crow’s demonic art, and turned it into something… so beautiful, yet so painful at the same time.”

She felt more inspired than ever before, moved almost to tears.

“To think this disciple would bring me so much joy…” she laughed. “My oh my…”

“Mama, what did I just see? Was that… Anna’s power? It was so immense that Papa… How’s papa?! Is he ok!” Song panicked the moment he realized his father had fallen from the skies.

“Let’s go check,” Song’s mother said, carrying her son with her arms as she descended the cliffs and reached the beaches where both the Heavenly Demon and Anna landed after their very intense battle.

The seas had changed a lot, half of it had frozen, the other was constantly boiling, and the battle they had also left several inhabited islands destroyed, rapidly sinking into the ocean.

The beach itself now had several immense and deep craters, burning with magma, the Heavenly Empress couldn’t help but sigh and giggle a bit.

“Indeed, these are the battles of immortals… And this is also the reason why they don’t usually fight to begin with,” she sighed. “If a fight breaks out, it’s usually planned, and it happens in the heavens instead…”

“Really?” wondered Song. “Ah, Dad is over there! And Anna!”

The boy ran across the beach, reaching his father.

He seemed fine, in fact, he was already standing up, cleaning the dirt and sand over his robes.

“Hmph, my clothes are all nasty, dammit!” he groaned angrily. “Anna, where are you? Ah!”

The Heavenly Demon glanced at Anna, who was barely conscious, he noticed her levels of Ki had almost depleted to zero, and her life force was also decreasing.

“What did she do?!”

He ran towards her as fast as he could, noticing her slightly open eyes were spacing out.

“Anna! That technique… what did it cost you?!”

“Maybe… a bit too much Ki… ugh…”

She started bleeding from her nose, ears, and eyes out of nowhere, making even the crow panic.

“Ah shit, this isn’t a ritual anymore… {Cursed Stagnation Seal}!”

The Heavenly Demon gathered Demonic Ki and injected it into Anna, forming a seal over her entire body, he had never been good at healing others than himself, all of his healing abilities were only to heal his own body after all.

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However, he knew of a special Cursed Seal that allowed him to stop wounds from deteriorating even further, helping someone’s wounds literally freeze. However, it only worked on wounds that already existed.

This helped Anna’s condition to not deteriorate any further, although the pain was still there, and if more wounds were inflicted on her, she could still die.

“I-I think I overdid it, master…” she sighed. “Ugh, I’m completely empty, can’t even use my own healing techniques…” Anna said as she saw the Heavenly Demon about to concoct an elixir for her. She had some healing potions in her inventory, but right now she couldn’t even move her arms to grab it, let alone drink anything.

“Anna!”

However, a flash of golden light descended from the skies, as golden and white flames covered her body, her wounds immediately healed and the vitality she had almost lost was recovered fully.

“Master!”

Anna quickly jumped towards her master, hugging her tightly and feeling her warm, fluffy chest feathers all over her face, she could never get enough of that.

“Well done, Anna, but you were too reckless again!” her master immediately reprimanded her, although she allowed her to hug her, caressing her silky brown colored hair, which she liked caressing. “You must know when to stop if it is too much for you! It is one of the very basic instincts of a living being. What would happen if I wasn’t there? You would have simply died.”

“I always make sure I’m not alone,” Anna smiled back at her master. “I knew you were watching so I went all out! Heh, I wanted to show off a bit!”

“Hahh… this girl, she’s going to be the end of me!” the Heavenly Empress sighed.

“Anna! You’re ok!” after seeing his dad was fine, Song went and immediately climbed over Anna’s back, hugging her.

“Yeah I’m fine, don’t worry!” Anna said with a smile. “But anyways, I might have overdone it a lil’ bit, hahah…”

“Just a little?!”

Her master was furious!

“And you…”

“Geh?!”

The Heavenly Demon was planning on escaping his ex-wife’s wrath and met Anna a bit later, but he ended up being caught by her sharp eyes.

“I had no idea that the last ritual included burning her alive?!” asked the Empress. “I know the trials must be arduous and so on, but that was just too much! How do you know she would have understood it from the beginning? You didn’t even explain to her that to achieve the last Seal she had to go through all that pain!”

“If I explained everything to her, she wouldn’t have been able to truly grasp it on her own then,” he said. “And she might have failed even if she tried her hardest. There are things you can’t just tell upfront to your apprentices! You guide them so they figure it out on their own!”

“Then what is the point of being a master if you want your apprentice to just figure out everything?” facepalmed the Heavenly Empress. “At that point, you wouldn’t even be acting as a master anymore, but as a bully or something!”

“W-What did you expect me to do then? That’s how I do things!” said the crow. “I was never someone like you, you know? My way is rough, reckless, painful, and even torturous, that’s just how I lived and how I walked through my path! Not everyone is given a superpower that lets them use the hope of others, what a stupid thing…”

“Superpower?! There’s no such thing!” said the heavenly empress. “The Heart of Hope is…”

Anna and Song watched the two Venerables discussing as if there was no tomorrow, constantly picking at each other’s cultivation specializations and how they were “unfitting”.

The Empress would think that the Demon was too reckless, aggressive, and risky, while the Demon would think that the Empress was too nice, soft, and even corny.

And indeed, perhaps that was a good way to describe their unique cultivation methods.

“Ugh, Mom and Dad are discussing again…” Song sighed, looking a bit sad. “I wish they were like the ones from before… B-But I guess that was only an illusion too?”

“Song…” Anna looked at little Song, feeling a bit guilty.

The reason they were discussing to begin with was because she was their disciple.

She had promised the Heavenly Empress she wouldn’t seek the power of the Heavenly Demon at first, but in the end, she did.

It was slightly her fault…

“Hey, that’s enough.”

She walked in between the two.

“Masters, please stop fighting! Your son is watching, and your apprentice, right here, is watching too! Wouldn’t it be a bad impression for your son and your disciple to see you two fighting like children all the time?”

The two fell silent after Anna’s words, sighing.

“You’re… right, I’m sorry…” nodded the Heavenly Empress, she was the quickest at understanding and also at apologizing for things.

“Tch…” The Heavenly Demon, however, said no words other than clicking his tongue very rudely.

Anna held both of their hand and smiled, and then called Song.

The little boy walked in front of his parents, timidly.

Although he was always such a bundle of joy, he felt a bit sad and even timid.

His parents quickly realized this.

Their son won’t grow up well if he keeps seeing these things through his childhood.

In fact, he might eventually grow tired of his parents, detached from his family, and would try to not see them ever again.

“Please behave and… try to be more understanding with each other! Also, I’m really sorry,” said Anna. “I am partially at fault for all these things. I only want to grow strong to save your world, and also mine later on. Master, I took this reckless ritual willingly and fully knowing what awaited me. But I felt like I had to do it, or else, I would have lost a valuable opportunity. The Heavenly Demon is very strict, and very rough around the edges as well… But he’s also still kind of a good teacher, he has taught me a lot of things, even including philosophy. He’s not the brute you think he is.”

“Anna…” the Heavenly Empress was a bit surprised. “No, there’s nothing for you to apologize for, dear. You’ve done nothing wrong. We, as adults, should act like them.”

Anna nodded, glancing at the Heavenly Demon.

“Master, I know that you dislike the ways of cultivation of the Heavenly Empress, but they’re also valuable and precious to me,” Anna explained. “The reason why I was able to reach a new height with your technique was thanks to everything she taught me. The power of Hope transcends mere techniques or even the Essence of Hope itself, it’s definitely something more. Don’t you think you should reconsider things a bit, even more when your own technique finally evolved after accepting these positive emotions that you have tried to step away from for so long?”

“Hm…” the Heavenly Demon sighed. “You’re really good at words… Dammit. Okay, I… I admit it. Yes… I know.”

“So! Don’t you think both sides have interesting things to share with no another?” Anna asked. “Both of you could learn so much from the other’s techniques, and also from what you’ve become after all these years…”

Then Anna held Song’s hands, and then let his parents grab them.

Song smiled cutely, making his fathers smile and blush a little.

Their son was so beautiful, it was a miracle of this world.

Their love for their son… surpassed every difference they had.

“I think you also have a lot to learn from your son! Right?”

Anna smiled at her two masters, as they nodded.

“Yeah! Please don’t fight anymore… I don’t like it,” said Song, looking a bit sad. “Let’s get along… Please?”

“Song…”

“My son!”

In the end, the boy was hugged by his two parents, and they started crying on his shoulders.

Seeing him again after everything that happened before, always brought them to tears.

“We’ll work together…” his father cried. “I’m very sorry… I really am…”

“What happened to you was because of these stupid fights, because we simply couldn’t accept each other’s differences all the time…” sighed his mother. “We will try to do better. But whenever you see us like that again, please reprimand us, feel free.”

“Really?” Song wondered.

“Yeah, we’ll listen to you,” his father nodded. “We promise you.”

“Yeah, we promise you,” his mother nodded.

“Mama, papa! I love you!” Song smiled cutely, hugging them both with his tiny arms and his wing.

“We love you too…”

As the family hugged happily, Anna smiled a bit.

Although she was quite far away from them.

She felt slightly lonely too…

“I guess it’s rude to ever think I would ever be part of their family…” she sighed, looking down. “It was very stupid and selfish of me… they’re happy like that, all three of them. Yeah.”

As she thought such things, to her surprise, the family of birds quickly glared at her.

“What are you standing there for?! You’re also part of the family, my foolish disciple!”

“My, looking all sad like a puppy! Why are you like this, Anna? Come over here.”

“Big sis Anna! You’re family too!”

“E-Eh?”

Anna was surprised, she mistakenly assumed that she wasn’t the fourth member of the family.

“I-Is it really ok? It’s not weird?” she asked, nervously. “I know I acted weird yesterday, I shouldn’t have said that, I-I don’t know what happened to me, maybe I just felt too happy but-”

“There is nothing to be ashamed of,” said the Heavenly Empress. “I too, was an orphan.”

“Me too,” said the Heavenly Demon. “Throughout my whole life, I always watched other families with envy. It’s only natural you would want one as well.”

“We understand how you feel, Anna, we truly do,” said the Heavenly Empress. “And we love you too, come. You’re part of our family, and… you’ll always be.”

“Really?” Anna started crying.

“Yeah.”

“Come.”

Anna walked towards her family, and they hugged her tightly. Her little brother hugged her belly, and her father patted her head, while her mother groomed her hair with her beak very gently, like birds do with their feathers. In fact, all three started doing the same with her long hair.

“R-Right, they’re birds…”

Anna felt both overwhelmingly happy and a bit embarrassed.

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep