We Want to Be Human

The night wind blew in through the broken window, making the robes of the two people flutter loudly.

Yun Jingheng's hair was ruffled by the wind, and a few strands of hair obscured his eyes. He didn't brush them aside, but looked through the gaps in his hair at Chen Weitao's face, which appeared exceptionally pale in the moonlight.

"My teacher discovered his idea."

Chen Weitao's voice suddenly softened, "The teacher is the most unique fragment born in the Moon Domain. He is the only fragment with complete memories, complete emotions, and a complete personality. He is almost a real person."

"He taught me a lot: Soul Power cultivation, Martial Soul control, the history of the Moon Domain, the secrets of the Godhead Fragment. He was also the first person to tell me, 'You are a human, not a vessel.'"

His fingers curled slightly on his knee.

"After learning what the God Servant was plotting, the teacher made a decision. He would kill the God Servant before the God Servant could act."

"He spent fifty years, exhausting all his Soul Power, Divine Power, and life force, to replicate something— Level 10 Soul Tool — the Death God Tower."

Yun Jingheng's pupils suddenly contracted.

"But the Death God Tower is incomplete."

Chen Weitao's voice became even softer, "The Death God Tower needs to be charged, it needs vengeful spirits. The stronger the resentment of the dead, the greater the power of the Death God Tower. Without the charging of vengeful spirits, the Death God Tower is just an empty shell."

"The teacher doesn't have time to collect the vengeful spirits anymore, because that God Servant has discovered his plan. The teacher can only take that empty shell and fight that God Servant to the death."

His voice began to tremble, not in a noticeable, violent way, but in a way that was being desperately suppressed, yet still leaked out from the cracks.

"The teacher is dead. The Death God Tower has been taken. That God Servant obtained the Death God Tower, but without the power of vengeful spirits, he can't use it now."

"He needs vengeful spirits, a large number of vengeful spirits, a massive number of vengeful spirits, and the best source of vengeful spirits is a massacre."

Outside the window, a Mutant stood up from the base of the wall, tilted his head as if he had heard something, and then began to slowly walk step by step toward the other end of the street.

His steps were stiff, and with each step, his knees made a clicking sound, as if the bones were grinding against each other.

"On the night our teacher died, we escaped from the Moon Domain. Zhao Yu'an, I, and others used a Level 10 Soul Tool left behind by our teacher— the Silver Moon Divine Light Shield —to forcibly blast open a crack and escape from the Moon Domain, landing within the territory of the Star Luo Empire."

"Silver Moon Divine Light Shield?"

Yun Jingheng frowned. "A Level 10 Soul Tool designed by Kong Deming ten thousand years ago for the Moon Martial Soul lineage?"

Chen Weitao nodded. "The teacher gave it to us. We used the core energy of the Silver Moon Divine Light Shield to blast open a crack and escape."

He looked down at his hands. "The rift closed in the sky above the Star Luo Empire. We fell from the sky and crashed on the outskirts of Star Luo City."

"Our injuries were not minor, but we all survived, and we made it out of the Moon Domain alive."

"After we got out, we spent a long time recovering. The first thing we did after we recovered was to find you."

Yun Jingheng leaned against the wall, the Moonlight Sword resting across his lap, its silvery-white light slowly flowing across its blade.

"What do you want with me?"

"To prevent you from entering the Moon Domain."

There was something indescribable in Chen Weitao's tone, like a certainty that said, "I know this is wrong, but I have to do it."

"If you don't enter the Moon Domain, you won't die, and that God Servant will never be able to replace you. You can continue being the Shrek Prince, continue cultivating, and continue being with your friends."

"You don't need to become the Yue Shen, you don't need to absorb those fragments, you don't need to carry anything you don't want to carry."

"You can be an ordinary person, live an ordinary life, grow old an ordinary life, and die an ordinary life."

He took a deep breath.

"This is my plan: to stop you from entering the Moon Domain by any means necessary."

"Encirclement, traps, intimidation, even—harming those around you, to prevent you from coming to Star Luo City, to make you leave the Star Luo Empire, to make you afraid to approach any place where the Moon Domain Rift appears."

"I know I went to extremes, and I know I don't deserve forgiveness, but I don't regret it. If I had another chance, I would still do the same thing."

"It wasn't just for me; Zhao Yu'an, Wang Tiangu, Chen Jingcheng, Su Qian, Yi Tiezhu, the Yun siblings, Zheng Yongkang, Li Xianhua, Qiu Ye... more than 3,000 people went out with me..."

"I have to live up to their expectations."

He stood up, moving very slowly, as if he were using these tiny movements to delay something.

The moonlight slipped off him, falling to the ground, landing among the rubble and dust, like a puddle of spilled water.

"We escaped not because we were afraid of dying."

Chen Weitao's voice suddenly changed. It was no longer the suppressed, low voice that seemed to come from underground, but a brighter, sharper voice that seemed to finally say what he had been holding back for a long time.

"We escaped because we wanted to be human. Not containers, not fragments, not steps, not someone's expendable possessions. We wanted to be human, people with names, people with memories, people with feelings, people who could laugh, cry, feel pain, and die."

His hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white and made a creaking sound.

"I want to be a human being. Zhao Yu'an wants to be a human being. Wang Tiangu wants to be a human being. All three thousand people want to be human beings."

"We don't want to suddenly disappear one day, we don't want to be absorbed by someone, we don't want to become a wisp of energy within someone else's body."

"We want to live, to walk on our own feet, to work with our own hands, and to think with our own minds."

We want to wake up in the morning knowing we are still ourselves, and we want to fall asleep at night knowing we will wake up tomorrow.

His voice trembled, not with fear, but with a more primal tremor, the kind of instinctive release that comes after saying something that has been hidden for a very long time.

"The God Servant doesn't understand these things. He doesn't want to be human; he wants to be a god."

He didn't care whether three thousand people died or lived, whether the city went mad or recovered, or whether the Moon Domain split or merged.

"He only wants to become a god, only wants to control power, only wants to sit in that highest position and look down on everything."

"He was willing to wait ten thousand years, willing to sacrifice everything, willing to turn the entire city, the entire Moon Domain, and the entire world into sacrifices for his ascension to godhood."

He took a step toward Yun Jingheng, and the moonlight shone from behind him, illuminating half of his face and hiding the other half in shadow.

"Yun Jingheng, I'm not begging you to save us."

"I'm begging you, don't let someone like that become a god. A person who treats all things as tools is not worthy of a Godhood."

"What would this world be like if someone who would sacrifice everything for themselves became a god?"

He stopped, his chest heaving violently.

The night wind blew in through the broken window, ruffling his black robe, his disheveled hair, and the scabbed wound at the corner of his mouth.

"..."

Yun Jingheng sheathed his Moonlight Sword. "What do you want me to do?"

Chen Weitao extended his hand, "Come with me, I'll take you away from the Moon Domain."