Emptiness

[Previously, you conquered the Sun Moon Continent, became its emperor, and prepared to return to the Douluo Continent.]

[Your journey back to the Douluo Continent was swift. You could now travel at thirty times the speed of sound, or 36,000 kilometers per hour.]

[You reached the Douluo Continent in less than three hours, countless times faster than when you had left.]

[At the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, you gave the Blue Silver Emperor's corpse and Soul Bone to Ah Yin to absorb. Then you took out the medicinal texts you had collected over the years and began searching for Immortal Herbs that could benefit you.]

[Ah Yin had mixed feelings when you returned and immediately gave her such a generous gift. Over the years, she had more or less accepted that Tang Hao was a human who had coveted her Soul Ring. But she still held on to one hope: that her son was still her son, not some outsider occupying his body.]

[After absorbing the Blue Silver Emperor's corpse and Soul Bone, Ah Yin's cultivation age rose at a terrifying pace. She soon passed the hundred-thousand-year mark and reached 130,000 years.]

[With the reserves of another Blue Silver Emperor to draw on, Ah Yin successfully survived her first heavenly tribulation.]

[You did not care. To you, there was no longer any difference between a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast and a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast. Both were trash you could crush with one hand.]

[You searched through the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and found quite a few more Immortal Herbs that would benefit you.]

[After taking those Immortal Herbs, you did not rush to refine them. First, you took the Infernal Delicate Apricot and Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass you had never gotten around to eating, letting their violent medicinal power temper your body.]

[During this time, you used wind to tear open a passage through the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, straight down into the earth.]

[You found the remains of the Fire Dragon King and Water Dragon King. As you moved closer to see whether they had left any Soul Bones, two lingering dragon souls appeared to stop you.]

[The two remnants were too weak, barely reaching the strength of Limit Douluo. You erased them with a casual move.]

[You searched among the enormous dragon bones and eventually found a Divine Level Fire Dragon King wing bone and a pair of Divine Level Water Dragon King palm bones.]

[It was a rich haul. Rather than risk any complications, you chose to absorb the two Soul Bones right there in the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, using its waters to speed your fusion with the bones and the medicinal power of dozens of Immortal Herbs.]

[You withdrew the wind barrier and let the waters of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well swallow you. As you soaked in them, your body swung repeatedly between destruction and renewal.]

[After half a month, you had completely absorbed the two Divine Level External Soul Bones and all the Immortal Herbs' medicinal power.]

[Your foundation made another leap, reaching 370% in one bound and drawing ever closer to 400%.]

[You had just surfaced from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well when you saw a beautiful woman sitting by the shore. For a moment, your mind went blank. Then you recognized her familiar face: Ah Yin. But why had she taken human form? Had she not already passed the hundred-thousand-year mark? You did not understand, but you said nothing.]

[Ah Yin blushed when she saw you rise naked from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, though she did not look away.]

[Tempered by the power of the Water and Fire Dragon Kings, your Wind Element had developed two new branches: wind-fire and wind-water. The names were a little strange, but the abilities were useful.]

[Wind-fire could summon heavenly flames and fire tornadoes from thin air, while wind-water could conjure floods and waterspouts. You had also gained immunity to fire and water.]

[As you were still getting used to your vastly increased strength, Ah Yin asked timidly, "M... Master, may I go out and see my child? Just once."]

[You opened your eyes. They were still and empty, like a stagnant pool. You nodded, then turned into wind and left.]

[You no longer wanted anything from the worldly realm, yet you felt hollow. It was not the exhaustion of your long journey. It was the ache of having no home, an emptiness in your heart.]

[You realized you had no home in this world, nowhere you could truly settle in peace, not even a single companion. Those tangled emotions closed around you, urging you to go home and find your real family.]

[You did not understand it, but the feeling tormented you so badly that you nearly broke down.]

[In the twenty-first year of the simulation, you forced those emotions down, but you looked far more listless and dejected. The emptiness left you unable to care about anything. Your mind remained clear, yet your emotions kept interfering with it. Your left brain fought your right, your right brain flanked your cerebellum, your cerebellum assaulted your brain, and the whole thing kept stalling.]

[That year, Ah Yin saw her son. After investigating and observing him, however, she reached a cruel conclusion: Tang San truly was not her son.]

[From then on, the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well had one more person who spent every day looking miserable.]

[The two of you were alone together at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. Disappointingly, nothing passionate happened.]

[You sat there like a piece of dead wood, caring about nothing, quietly meditating within the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.]

[Ah Yin was in pain, but seeing you even more lost, distressed, and stifled than she was stirred something in her. Truthfully, she was drawn to you, but the unapproachable air around you kept her at a distance.]

[Sometimes Ah Yin tried to talk to you, but you never responded. You just sat there, staring blankly ahead. There was no light in your eyes, as though you had become obsessed with a question whose answer you could not find: what was the point of living?]

[Ah Yin did not know what had happened to you. But seeing you so numb brought her an inexplicable pain, like what she had felt when she learned she had no family or friends at all.]