As the mark bloomed, Dai felt something wash over him. It seemed, though, something was trying to invade from within. His eyes twitched, and goosebumps appeared all over his body.
"This power—I can feel it as a part of me, yet it feels very strange," Dai said with a frightened expression.
He immediately sat down, crossing one leg over the other, trying to stabilize this power. Just as he was about to close his eyes.
The mark vanished, nullifying everything occurring deep within his body.
"Strange, how did that feeling disappear?" Dai muttered, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
One thing was certain: as he looked at Spring's grave, Dai's eyes swelled up with overwhelming emotion. He wiped the tears from his face and headed straight back towards the hut.
But what could Dai, who had just lost Spring, have known about what his future held for him?
As he walked along a path through the forest, he sensed many creatures staring at him. When he turned to look back, there was nothing but eerie silence.
Finally, he reached the exit. As he left the forest and saw the hut, he felt a sense of relief.
Suddenly, a few flashes of light shot out from the hut in an instant. When the flashes faded, loud sounds of someone in pain echoed from deep within the hut.
"No… It cannot be… That voice… GRANDPA!" Dai rushed forward without thinking. He felt as if a part of himself was trying to detach. Those were the moments he had spent with Zeng all these years.
As he went inside the hut, he dropped down on his knee and started to cry so loudly that the wind stopped its flow from around them.
Just then, Zeng turned his head toward Dai while coughing up blood. His body was covered in wounds, and there was a large hole in his stomach, as if someone had punched right through his chest. His entire body had turned green, except for his head.
"Dai, forgive me, for this is our last time together."
"No… Grandpa, you can't leave me," Dai wept as he came closer to Zeng.
Each step he took seemed to detach his emotions. Yet, the intense feeling of revenge did not fade. In his eyes, it burned even more fiercely.
"Come closer, Dai," Zeng spoke as he coughed.
His face was turning pale from blood loss, and a greenish color began to spread across his head. He saw Dai's small footsteps approaching, recalling the days when Dai had taken his first steps toward him.
All he remembered was Dai's smile, even in the face of death. Just then, Dai's hand broke the dream. Zeng saw Dai's emotionless face, breathing heavily right in front of him.
Dai pressed his hand over Zeng's chest wounds, as if trying to stop the bleeding.
"It's too late now, Dai. I am sorry. The past, which I tried to hide within the echoes of time, has reopened itself."
Just as Zeng was about to say more, something began to glow inside his pockets.
Dai reached out for it just as he pulled it out. He saw that it was a mirror—the very mirror that had been on the crib where Zeng had first found him. As Dai stroked the mirror, Zeng spoke a few words to him.
Suddenly, the clouds darkened...
Dai's hand fell down; the downpour began when the mirror impacted with the hard surface of dirt beneath them.
This mirror was unlike an ordinary one; it survived without shattering, although a faint crack appeared on its surface.
…
The moon was up, just as it had been six years ago.
The only difference was that, at that time, Zeng had found Dai and rescued him. This time, however, Dai lost Zeng right before his eyes.
He stared blankly at the grave.
The once innocent child appeared to have matured internally.
It was still raining, and that too heavily. The intense rain masked the tears streaming down Dai's face as he recalled the last few words Zeng had spoken to him before his death.
"You are adopted, Dai. Forgive me for hiding all these things from you."
As he recalled this word, a scene replayed repeatedly in his mind: Zeng pointed his finger, and something seemed to flow from him into Dai's mind. Afterward, Zeng collapsed from the poison entering his brain.
He tried to walk away from the grave he had built with tears and the pain in his heart, but his legs gave out, weakened by the anguish.
In a single night, he had lost the two most precious things in his life. Just as all hope seemed lost, the howl of a wolf echoed through the night. Dai instantly recognized the source of the sound. This voice rekindled the burning sensation that Zeng had once calmed.
While his heart raced, the Dao Wheel positioned above it seemed to react intensely to the emotion of anger. This Dao Wheel featured nine slots at its corners, while three seal-like locks rotated around a large central hole.
"This is feeling?" Dai placed his hand over his chest as he felt a deep desire for destruction surging within him.
But this desire was short-lived, as the mirror silently sucked it away for good.
Swoosh
Winds howled as they swirled around Dai.
"Argh, what is this pain?" Dai pressed his hand more tightly.
Something began to sting his heart.
The pain was so unbearable that it drove Dai to attempt suicide. However, he did not give up. He sat down, trying to endure the pain. He even coughed up blood but remained unmoved. All he could see were the faces of Zeng and Spring before him.
Just then, the Dao Wheel in his heart illuminated with a white light—the very color that Zeng had shown to Dai. Then, faint shades of blue and red emerged. All three colors of power seemed to harmonize with the disk.
Suddenly, one of the seals began to vibrate vigorously.
Boom
The seal broke, releasing a contained blackish aura.
Its name was
The Death Seal.