[Douluo II Period]
Heaven and hell lay a hair's breadth apart.
Above the Sky Screen, the luxurious carriage and the dilapidated woodshed formed a scene of profound irony and cruelty.
Inside the carriage was a life of wine and women, filled with laughter and cheer.
Outside it were hunger, cold, beatings, and kicks.
Kneeling on the ground, Huo Yuhao had long since run out of tears and blood.
His body no longer trembled. He only stared fixedly at the sky.
His eyes, which should have been clear and bright, were now filled with a hatred so deep it seemed almost frozen.
The scene abruptly changed.
It was now a lavish bedroom.
A richly dressed woman, adorned in glittering jewels, was hysterically smashing everything in the room.
Her face was twisted, her eyes filled with spite and jealousy.
The Sky Screen revealed her identity: [Duchess White Tiger.]
[The Duchess had been slighted by other noblewomen and did not dare take her anger out on Dai Hao's mistresses. So she poured all her fury onto the lowest and most defenseless person in the household: Huo Yun'er.]
The cold narration laid bare the sorrowful reality of the weak turning on those weaker than themselves.
"Bring that wretch here!"
The Duchess shrieked.
Soon, two burly maids dragged Huo Yun'er inside and threw her onto the floor.
Young Huo Yuhao followed behind, but was callously stopped at the door.
All he could do was peer through the crack, watching what happened inside in terror.
"You little vixen! You slut! You seduced the Duke and gave birth to that bastard, and now I can't even hold my head up in public!"
The Duchess kicked Huo Yun'er hard in the stomach.
Huo Yun'er let out a muffled cry of pain and curled up on the floor, not daring to utter a single word of pleading.
Then came a merciless beating.
The sound of a whip striking flesh, the woman's frenzied curses, and the mother's agonized moans, suppressed to the very limit—
It all came clearly through the crack in the door, reaching young Huo Yuhao's ears and becoming a nightmare that would haunt him for the rest of his life!
He pounded on the door frantically, crying and begging, but all he got in return was the servants' contemptuous laughter.
After an unknown length of time, the commotion inside finally stopped.
A middle-aged man who looked like a steward hurried to Dai Hao, who was handling military affairs in his study, and reported carefully with a bow.
"Your Grace, the Duchess... took her anger out on Huo Yun'er again. She... seems to have gone a little too far. The woman has already passed out."
Dai Hao's gaze never left the military map on his desk.
He only gave a calm, even slightly impatient, offhand order.
His words made everyone across the continent feel a chill to the bone.
"Go see if she's still breathing."
"If she's dead, find somewhere to dump her. Don't let her dirty the Duchess's place."
When those words appeared on the Sky Screen,
time seemed to stop.
In Shrek Plaza, all the light vanished from Huo Yuhao's eyes, which had been filled with hatred, leaving behind only a lifeless, ashen emptiness.
Slowly, very slowly, he lowered his head and looked at his bloodstained fists.
"Kh...!"
A rasping sound, like air wheezing through a broken bellows, came from his throat.
He wanted to laugh.
To laugh at his mother's naivety, and at his own foolishness.
So in that man's eyes, the lives of a mother and son were worth less than a piece of trash that had dirtied his home.
Utter grief, utter hatred, utter despair—
Countless dark emotions surged like a flood bursting through a dam, completely shattering his reason and mental defenses!
"AAAH!!!"
Huo Yuhao suddenly threw his head back and let out a shriek so anguished it was barely human!
Where no one else could see, several black spots appeared in the golden ring above his head.
An immeasurable mass of pure black spiritual power erupted from his body like a volcano, shooting straight into the sky!
Within Huo Yuhao's Spirit Sea,
the once-calm ocean now churned with monstrous waves!
His entire spiritual world was shrouded in negative emotions as thick as ink, filled with an aura of destruction and madness.
"Holy crap! Kid, what's wrong?! Stop! Your Spirit Sea is about to collapse!"
Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's voice rang out across the raging ocean, distorted with terror.
His immense Spiritual Origin was like a tiny boat caught in a storm before this pure negative energy!
"W-What terrifying resentment!"
Ice Empress appeared as well, shock and horror written across her beautiful face.
"This level of hatred... It's no longer just an emotion. It's almost becoming a tangible... embodiment of resentment!"
"How is this possible?!"
They desperately tried to calm Huo Yuhao's frenzied emotions, but to no avail.
Just as this Spirit Sea was about to collapse completely,
deep beneath the ocean, the gray bead that had always hovered there in silence suddenly glimmered with a faint yet eerily radiant light!
An ancient, weathered thought, steeped in the aura of the dead, rang through the entire Spirit Sea with a heavy sigh.
[Sigh... This child has reached this point after all.]
[I warned you: hatred is a double-edged sword. It can grant you power, but in the end, it will consume your mind!]
Electrolux's voice was filled with sorrow and pity.
[Look at yourself now! If you sink into this, how are you any different from the person you hate?]
[If you become a demon, how could your mother rest in peace, knowing what you've become?!]
[Wake up!]
Those final two words rang out like the tolling of a bell at dusk, carrying an immense, unquestionable power that purified the soul!
A gentle gray light spread out from that fragment of divine consciousness.
Wherever it passed, the frenzied black resentment slowly melted away like snow beneath the blazing sun.
Electrolux's power was forcibly suppressing Huo Yuhao's rampage, dragging him back from the brink of plunging into darkness.
Outside, the entire continent was already abuzz with discussion.
"Beast! He's worse than a beast!"
"That was a human life! The mother of his own child! And he casually ordered someone to throw her out?!"
"How tragic... That poor boy, Huo Yuhao. What kind of hell did he have to endure in his childhood?"
Countless people felt sympathy for him, and Dai Hao's actions filled them with heartfelt anger and disgust.
—
But there were other voices, too.
In certain noble circles of the Star Luo Empire,
"Sigh, the Duke may be a little cold-blooded, but isn't this sort of thing perfectly normal in a great family?
"She was only a servant. If she wanted to climb the social ladder, she should have been prepared to pay the price."
"Exactly. The Duchess was the lawful wife, after all. Disciplining a maid was only right. The Duke didn't interfere because he was protecting his wife's dignity."
That line of reasoning was soon met with even fiercer rebuttals.
"Bullshit! Protecting her dignity? Why doesn't she protect the dignity of those noblewomen who've been involved with Dai Hao?
"That's a classic case of picking on the weak!"
"Exactly! The child was innocent! The source of this whole tragedy was Dai Hao, a hypocrite who couldn't keep it in his pants!"
A massive controversy erupted across the continent.
But the charge that Dai Hao was "cold-blooded and unwilling to raise his own child" had already been set in stone, leaving him no room to defend himself.
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