Re-birth: The Beginning after the End - Chapter 85

Chapter 85: NEW ARRIVAL PART 1

A gentle cough shattered the battlefield’s chaos like thunder breaking glass. The sound itself was soft, almost polite, yet it carried enough power to make the very air freeze in terror.

“I apologize for my late arrival.”

The voice wasn’t particularly loud, yet it seemed to swallow all other sounds on the battlefield. The very air grew heavy with ancient power, and flames—normal and spiritual alike—began to flicker and dim, as if bowing in reverence to a greater fire.

Through the growing haze, a figure materialized. He appeared deceptively ordinary: a scholarly man in simple red robes that seemed to shift like living flame. But there was something fundamentally wrong about his presence, as if reality itself struggled to contain whatever force wore this human shape.

Like the others present, Li Hua could sense his cultivation was at the Martial Phase 2 but unlike the others his spiritual energy felt significantly stronger, as if an ancient sun lurked beneath the surface of a calm pond. Each step he took left burning footprints that seared through stone and soil alike, reaching deep into the earth’s core.

Li Hua watched her mother’s face drain of color. The burning vines of her Ten Thousand Thorns technique withered and crumbled to ash without the figure even acknowledging them. The spirit beasts, so fierce moments before, pressed themselves to the ground in instinctive submission.

“My lord,” their mother whispered, the words carrying eighteen years of buried fear.

“Avatar,” their father’s voice cracked slightly as he maintained his hold on Master Qian, though his formations began to waver. “Not even worth sending your true self?”

The Avatar’s smile was gentle, almost kind, which somehow made it more terrifying. “The Sovereign has more pressing matters than hunting wayward servants.” His eyes swept across the battlefield, lingering for a moment on Li Hua with an interest that made her skin crawl. “Though I must admit, this has become more intriguing than expected. To think you’ve been busy raising such… exceptional children.”

The temperature around them began to rise. Not the natural heat of fire, but something more fundamental—as if the very concept of heat itself was being rewritten. Li Hua felt her daggers growing uncomfortably warm in her hands, the metal threatening to melt despite being forged to withstand even the heart of a volcano.

“The Sovereign sends a message,” the Avatar continued pleasantly, raising one hand in an elegant gesture. A small flame appeared above his palm, no larger than a candle’s light. “Return willingly, and your children may live free lives. Resist…” The tiny flame expanded slightly, and Li Hua watched in horror as Master Qian—one of the most powerful cultivators she’d ever seen—fall to his knees, sweat pouring down his face as he struggled just to exist in the Avatar’s presence.

“Let me remind you that we still possess your life tablets.” The Avatar’s words struck with quiet menace.

Li Hua watched her mother’s face transform—a sight she had never witnessed in all her eighteen years. The impenetrable mask of strength that had weathered countless storms cracked, revealing something raw and vulnerable underneath. Her mother’s jade-green eyes, usually bright with vitality, dimmed with an fear Li Hua hadn’t known could exist.

“Our life tablets,” her mother whispered, and Li Hua felt her own heart constrict at the defeat in those words. Her father had once explained what life tablets were—sacred vessels containing a cultivator’s vital essence, guarded in the most secure vaults of the celestial plains. With a life tablet, the great Primordial Lords could track, torture, or even kill its owner from any distance. The knowledge twisted in her gut as she watched her father’s usually steady hands begin to tremble, his intricate formations wavering like candlelight in a storm.

Everything suddenly made terrible sense: the remote location of their home, the countless layers of protective arrays her father had constructed, the way her mother would sometimes stare into the distance, her face full of unspoken fears. Their parents’ life tablets had manifested upon their ascension to the celestial plains, binding them forever to powers Li Hua could barely comprehend. For eighteen years, they had hidden behind their array, masking the tablets’ resonance, living in borrowed freedom.

Until now.

“You are the youngest and most outstanding formation master in a millennium,” the Avatar added conversationally, as if discussing the weather rather than their parent’s fate. “And not just any formation master—but one born with the earth dragon coiled within his inner core. Such a rare gift, to have a primal beast’s essence naturally formed within one’s cultivation base.” His eyes gleamed with barely contained greed. “And you,” his gaze shifted to their mother, something almost like reverence entering his voice, “the only Jade Vitality Grass to ever achieve consciousness in all five realms.”

Li Hua’s breath caught as she stared at her mother with dawning recognition. She had long suspected her mother was originally a spirit herb that gained consciousness—it explained her innate connection to plants and her extraordinary healing abilities. But the Jade Vitality Grass? Her mind reeled at the implications. One of the rarest spiritual herbs in all five realms, so precious that even immortal cultivators spoke of it in hushed whispers.

A single stalk emerged only once every millennium, spending a thousand years absorbing the pure essence of heaven and earth before achieving spiritual awareness. And her mother had been that one stalk, the only Jade Vitality Grass to ever gain consciousness in all five realms—a miracle that had never occurred before or since.

“Such talent, such potential,” the Avatar continued, the tiny flame above his palm dancing as their father’s breath hitched. “The Sovereign and Emperor had such hopes for you both.” His smile turned cruel. “Tell me, was it worth it? Throwing away your destinies to play farmers in the lower realms?”

The Avatar raised his other hand, and a pulse—like the beat of an ancient heart—rippled through the air. Li Hua watched her father fight against death itself. His jaw clenched with each pulse of the life tablet’s power, each breath becoming a battle as the Avatar slowly squeezed the very life force from his body. Every few seconds, his face would pale and his hands would shake, fighting against the supernatural grip that held his existence in its grasp.