Electrolux

After saying goodbye to the Auspicious Beast, Huo Yuhao returned to the others. They were already ready to leave.

"Everyone, I'm back," Huo Yuhao said.

"Good. Then let's get ready to go. Yuhao, you lead the way." After Snow Empress finished speaking, she looked at Huo Yuhao, who nodded in response.

After everyone had left, Di Tian finally breathed a sigh of relief when he could no longer sense their presence by the Lake of Life. "Those guys are finally gone."

Flying through the air, Huo Yuhao relied on his memories to reach a wooded area on the outskirts of the Star Dou Forest. He looked at the woods around him, which differed greatly from what he remembered, then surveyed the surrounding terrain and nodded. This was the place. Though the woods looked different from how he remembered them, the terrain had not changed.

Huo Yuhao turned to Brother Sky Dream and said, "Brother Sky Dream, just hand the power over to me to control from here." Tian Meng nodded in response.

"Want me to catch a Wind Baboon?" Evil Lord teased.

The others didn't understand what he meant, but Huo Yuhao did. He politely declined anyway. "There's no need, Evil Lord. That won't be necessary."

Huo Yuhao placed both hands on top of Brother Sky Dream's head, then tried to connect with him using his spiritual power. Once everything was ready, Huo Yuhao took control of Brother Sky Dream's spiritual power.

Huo Yuhao recalled what had happened the first time he and Brother Sky Dream fused. The fluctuations of spiritual power and Soul Power arose, and in an instant, a vast spiritual power appeared in the Star Dou Forest.

Far away at the Lake of Life, Di Tian felt this spiritual power and immediately grew tense. He didn't know what had happened this time, but he didn't go to investigate. After all, the Auspicious Beast was what mattered most. What if those guys came back as soon as he left?

The spiritual power continued to fluctuate. Relying on his memories, Huo Yuhao tried to recreate what had happened back then. The fluctuations grew closer and closer, and sweat covered Huo Yuhao's forehead. Controlling such vast spiritual power was extremely strenuous for him.

When Huo Yuhao adjusted the fluctuations to match what he remembered, the sky suddenly darkened, and the darkness swallowed the sun. A gray current of air drifted out from a tiny crack in the sky.

Seeing this, Huo Yuhao immediately opened the vertical pupil that had changed from the Eye of Destiny back into the Eye of Life, then used his spiritual power to guide the gray current into his eye.

Ever since he had been unable to use the Undead Demiplane after being reborn and awakening his Martial Soul, Huo Yuhao had suspected that it was because he had returned to his teacher's side. After all, his access to the Undead Demiplane had been granted by his teacher. Now it was quite possible that it had returned to its creator. Huo Yuhao's guess had proved correct. This situation lasted only a short while: from the darkness appearing to its entry into Huo Yuhao's eye took no more than a single breath. But to Huo Yuhao, this was a moment he had waited for through countless days and nights.

Huo Yuhao stopped controlling Brother Sky Dream's spiritual power. Aside from Evil Lord, whose spiritual cultivation was the highest and who sensed something, everyone else failed to react.

The aged voice rang out in his mind. "I hold the sun and moon in my hands and pluck the stars from the sky. None in this world is like me. I never thought this old man would still have a wisp of a remnant soul left."

Hearing that familiar voice, Huo Yuhao murmured softly, his voice choked with emotion. "Welcome back, Teacher."

Huo Yuhao entered his Sea of Consciousness and placed his teacher's remnant soul inside the Eye of Life, nourishing it with the Gold of Life.

The gray orb of light gradually transformed into a human figure. "Young lady, why are you using this precious Gold of Life to nourish me? Why have you let a guest like me occupy such an important place in your Sea of Consciousness? And last, but most importantly, I sense an aura that is very close to my own. Can you answer me?"

"You aren't a guest at all. You're my teacher. You taught me Necromancy, and you were the one who gave me the Holy Necromancer Martial Soul."

"Your student? But I don't remember teaching you. Still, your aura does feel very familiar to me. Could I look through your memories?" For someone of Electrolux's stature, looking through another person's memories was something he could do with a simple gesture. But since she had used the precious Gold of Life to nourish his wisp of a remnant soul from the start, Electrolux politely asked Huo Yuhao's permission.

"Of course, Teacher."

Electrolux looked through Huo Yuhao's memories, watching them without expression. But when he saw a certain part, he couldn't help frowning. He sighed, then looked at Huo Yuhao.

By now, Huo Yuhao had already lowered his head, like a child who had done something wrong.

Electrolux asked calmly, "Is there nothing you want to say?"

"I'm sorry, Teacher. I failed to be someone who revered life. I let you down. I was the one who killed them."

"Don't you want to offer any defense for what you did? From what I saw in your memories, that had already amounted to a war. They were people from an enemy nation." Electrolux's expression remained as placid as still water as he asked.

"No, Teacher. Even if it was a war, I was still guilty. I caused that appalling disaster. I caused that explosion with my own hands, and countless civilians died because of me. They had nothing to do with me, yet they died because of me. Among them may have been people's parents, children, lovers, and friends, but I was the reason they were torn apart forever. Even afterward, when the people around me told me to just keep quiet and that no one would ever know, I still couldn't accept it. I even tried to hide behind love, and numb myself with the promise I made to Brother Sky Dream, but I can't forget any of it."

Huo Yuhao's voice was already choked with sobs, as though emotions he had repressed for so long were finally about to burst out. "Teacher, whether I'm on Douluo Continent or in the Divine Realm, whenever I close my eyes, I see parents asking me to return their children, children crying as they ask me to find their parents, lovers kept apart, and friends unable to reunite. I caused all of it. They weren't soldiers or Evil Soul Masters. They were just civilians who wanted to live normal lives. No words can change the crimes I committed. Teacher, I'm a butcher." In the end, his tears fell, and the feelings he had repressed for so long poured out.

Electrolux listened quietly to Huo Yuhao. Though the young lady before him was different from the person he had seen in his memories, after hearing what this Huo Yuhao had said, Electrolux silently raised a hand and laid it on Huo Yuhao's head. Whatever had made his former student become like this, Electrolux now accepted the Huo Yuhao before him.

Electrolux gently stroked Huo Yuhao's head. The soft Light Element radiating from his hand was as warm as sunlight. Electrolux no longer knew how long it had been since he had last used light magic.

Feeling the warmth on his head, Huo Yuhao looked up at Electrolux. His teacher wore a faint smile. "Teacher, have I disappointed you?"

"No, you haven't disappointed me, Huo Yuhao. You didn't treat those killings as merits to your name, nor did you boast about them as proof of your abilities. If someone else came to me and claimed to be my student, then treated those things as something to brag about or as matters of no importance, I'd feel that I must have been blind to teach such a student. But you haven't. You still feel remorse for the people who died because of you. It's true that what happened can no longer be changed, but we must also make sure it doesn't happen again."

Electrolux seemed to think of something and gave a bitter smile. "I feel that we're alike in certain ways. I must have told you what I did in the past, right? I once started a war for revenge-for my parents, who had died unjustly because of me, and to punish the king who falsely accused me, as well as my unfaithful lover and her paramour. I chose the legacy of a necromancer and started a war that swept across half the continent. In the end, I killed my enemies. I destroyed the king and his kingdom, and I killed my lover and her paramour. I finally succeeded in my revenge."

At this point, Electrolux's expression grew desolate. "The joy of revenge didn't last long. When I looked back, half the continent had been devastated by my war. I didn't know how to face my dead parents or tell them at their graves that their enemies were dead. But my parents had both been kind people. Would they have wanted to see this ravaged world? Did everyone in the kingdom ruled by that king deserve to die? Many of them were just farmers or merchants. They had been living simple lives, and now they had nothing. Later, I gave up waging war and shut myself away."