He used the last of his lucidity and every ounce of strength in his body to utter one final, most vicious curse.
"You will pay the price..." His voice was no longer a voice, but a shriek on the level of energy that poured directly into Wu Heng's consciousness. "Power... is not always better the stronger it is... I have already seen your destruction... The conflicts between Traits... will make your soul explode... Everything will return to heaven and earth..."
His consciousness was shattering, fading away, yet he had to finish those words before that happened.
Not to make Wu Heng afraid, but so that he himself could die without regrets.
In his understanding, one could master at most one or two Traits. Even God had not mastered many.
The various Traits conflicted with and repelled one another. Forcing them together would cause the soul to burst apart, returning everything to heaven and earth.
In his eyes, Wu Heng's final fate would be to suffer a backlash from the Traits and have his soul annihilated.
The Famine Rider did not curse him.
Nor did he struggle. He lowered the rib in his hand and laid it across his knees, as though setting down the last piece of luggage he carried.
Then he closed his eyes.
The two of them—or rather, the two remnants of consciousness—gave up their final struggle.
They knew they had lost.
From the moment Wu Heng stepped into the manor, they had already lost.
Those struggles, that self-destruction, those curses, were merely a way to grant themselves one last sense of existence. Like someone about to sink beneath the water, knowing full well that no one on the shore would come to save her, yet still reaching out a hand.
Not because there was hope, but because