The Sorrow and Bitterness of Longevity

Living too long is not necessarily a good thing, at least not for Elena, who is now over 230 years old. It is no wonder that when she served as the headmistress of the academy, many of her students would vow to become Titled Douluo, only to fall silent after being tempered by a hundred years of time, or, when standing on the threshold, choose not to take that arduous step toward becoming a Titled Douluo.

Living people and things becoming mere memories is a silent punishment more terrifying than any legal sentence. It covers everything in the world; regardless of whether you are a good person or a bad one, in the face of the judge known as time, everything is nothing more than an object for execution.

And the longer time passes, the things one gains can never compare to the things one has lost.

Even though Elena could say to her husband, Barus: "I no longer lack love. Longing does not need to be pinned to dead objects; as long as memories exist, those elders and relatives who loved me still live on in my heart."

But every time she sees the portraits her parents commissioned artists to paint of the family at different ages, the commemorative stone statues of the elders, and the black-and-white photos left behind during the final years of her parents' lives after the 200th year of Levant, Elena always silently locks herself in her childhood room after looking at them, hugging the teddy bear her parents gave her—which should have been lost over two hundred years ago, but was preserved through her constant mending—and cries in silence.

A normal child raised in a loving family, with the companionship and care of her father Osuen and mother Liana for a full 200 years, had long ago deeply imprinted them into Elena's mind. This is Elena's weakness, but Barus also knows that if some ignorant thing were to make a move regarding this, it would touch Elena's reverse scale.

Ding-dong—

Blade Ruse King arrived with Tingxiao (World-Breaking Thunder Dragon) at the Kairon District under the royal capital of Ravenna. Along the way, he bought some things that Barus and Elena liked to eat and stopped at the gate of the manor originally built by Osuen. For over two hundred years, Osuen had never forgotten to keep up with the development of the times. However, ever since Osuen and Liana passed away, Liana, who inherited the family business, never made any changes to the manor, only maintaining it with renovations every five years.

As Elena opened the gate and saw that the visitors were her Uncle Blade Ruse King and Aunt Tingxiao, who had taken human form to visit, she immediately urged them to come in quickly.

"Why are you the only one here, Elena? Why doesn't the family hire some help? And where is that brat of mine? Is he buried in the study again, tinkering with those useless soul guidance devices?"

Blade Ruse King looked at the front yard of the manor and said, feigning anger.

"It's nothing, Uncle Ruse. Barus is cooking for me right now, which is why I was the one to open the door."

Although it is said that under the spiritual contract law, pseudo-100,000-year soul beasts are elevated to the level of 100,000-year soul beasts by high-level Elves, they still possess the ability to transform.

"It seems my stinky son is actually quite responsible. Come, Elena, I brought you plenty of the peach cakes you like, and take the things my son likes as well."

"Actually, Uncle, you didn't need to bring so much stuff over."

Elena took them; the fragrance of the peach cakes was mixed with the scent of spices—it was the spiced roasted lamb chops that her husband Barus loved to eat.

While Elena went to put the delivered items into the house, Blade Ruse King and Tingxiao lingered in the front yard of the manor.

The front yard had been constantly renovated by Osuen, but the crooked ginkgo tree, the swing, and the white bench where Osuen and Liana sat with their children had been preserved through replacements.

The ginkgo remains, but the old friends are gone, leaving only the memories of the Elves and soul beasts who once spent time with them, and the history that remembers their achievements, proving that they once walked this world.

"Sigh..."

Blade Ruse King walked to the white bench and looked at the empty seat.

"Long time no see, old friend."

Blade Ruse King took the wine that Osuen liked to drink from his storage soul guidance ring and placed it on the left side of the bench where Osuen used to sit most often.

"Do you remember when you retired? To drink this wine, you used the opportunity of my visits to dodge Liana's surprise inspections countless times. Heh... thinking about it now, you were quite pitiful, having to be managed by your wife just to have a drink. Now Liana won't nag you anymore, but it's a pity, you can't drink it either."

Blade Ruse King stood up and placed the uncapped glass bottle of wine beside the white bench as a tribute to his old friend.

"Osuen and the others chose not to seek immortality; that was their choice, Ruse, but we can only respect them."

Tingxiao came to Blade Ruse King's side. Osuen and Liana themselves had the qualifications to reach the Titled Douluo level and live for 1,200 years.

But following the deaths of Evans and Light, Osuen and Tewitz seemed to have realized something and chose not to continue increasing their cultivation levels.

"Death is the beginning of a new life; this was their choice."

Blade Ruse King nodded, then looked toward the house; it was time to catch his son.

Soon, the transformed Barus sat on a chair, feeling somewhat at a loss, looking at his father on his right, then at Tingxiao on his left, and finally at Elena, who was hiding behind the door, watching his situation through the overly large gap. Under another wave of pressure from Blade Ruse King, he turned his head back and continued to sit upright on the chair.

"Tell me, what were you trying to do by writing out the feasibility of pseudo-soul beast transformation and Elf cross-breeding on your fingers in your theoretical research? Hmm? Son."

"Th-this, this was for an experiment."

"Just for an experiment? Then how do you explain Elena blushing like that?"

Blade Ruse King and Tingxiao released their transformations, turning back into the Blade Ruse King and World-Breaking Thunder Dragon, sized to fit the room, and placed their large hands on Barus's head.

"You brat! You're lucky you didn't cause a life to be created!"

After a Star Luo reconnaissance team heading to the Far South to reach the Eye of Asura stronghold arrived at their destination, they fell into the depths of despair. They had already been anxious and uneasy because they could never contact this colonial outpost, and upon seeing that the entire research station had completely vanished, they were utterly devastated.

The Star Luo personnel and the Spirit Pagoda staff immediately began to collect available information. But without exception, there was none. Blade Ruse King had used [Skill: Overturning Seas] to clear this nail that had been driven into the path of soul beasts fleeing to the Folded Ear Continent so thoroughly that he left almost no useful information for humans to trace.

The search team, finding nothing, could only attribute the mysterious disappearance of the stronghold to a soul beast that might have appeared on this continent—one even more powerful than that 400,000-year-old ape—or perhaps...

The Spirit Pagoda personnel looked toward the south, thousands of kilometers away, at the other continent that might exist behind the dense ice fog, a continent that belonged entirely to soul beasts.