Back in the pool

"What do you think?" Wei Dai uttered with a fleeting voice. "Is war what you imagined it to be?"

"No, not at all," Wei Sha responded while serving soup to his heavily injured father laid on a bed.

Wei Dai took a slurp of the soup presented on a spoon. "Good." His voice weakened with every sentence he spoke. "Go now. I wish you wouldn't see me in this pitiful state."

Wei Sha wanted to argue against his father's order and stay here, by his side. But respecting Wei Dai's wish, he put aside the soup and began to make his leave out of the command tent.

His back against his father, he could listen to coughs and near-silent groans.

Not looking back, as Wei Dai must want, he spoke, "I'll hope for a speedy recovery." Then continuing to walk out of the tent, knowing there would be no response.

Right outside the command tent waited a group of professionals in their own way when it came to healing.

"You can continue your duties now." Wei Dai had ordered them to stay outside the tent to allow Wei Sha inside, with whom he had wanted a more personal talk.

The group, now allowed to continue their top-priority duties, rushed past Wei Sha without much care. They left a small passage and tried not to bump into him, though even that might have been because colliding with him would have cost time they could use to suck up to Wei Dai.

'So hungry for recognition,' Wei Sha determined as he took a path towards the command tent's side.

He walked the path for a few hundred meters. At the end of it, he came to a podium of sorts built on a vertical mountain edge top.

"What's the situation?" Wei Sha asked while walking some ten steps to get onto the wooden platform itself.

A demon nigh identical to Wei Sha turned around. "Shouldn't you brief us about father's condition first?"

"Yes, father's condition is more important than a war which has gone on for hundreds of years." Another cardboard copy of him joined in.

"The front line will not move much in a day or two. Father's condition will."

In total, five of his older brothers stopped their tactical thinking and turned to him to hear about Wei Dai's condition.

"He'll survive." Wei Sha answered to them, walking past the droves of lesser advisors and generals to the railing by which the direct descendants crowded.

His brothers sighed and chatted about how glad they were to hear his news. Meanwhile, Wei Sha looked down from the railing to an open plain filled with carnage.

'War. . .' he thought as he gazed at the two demon armies below wage war without a notion of a ceasefire. Not even a lone survivor who had his group be decimated by a singular strike retreat. Instead, the lone survivor marched forwards till the meat grinder latched on.

A day ago, Wei Dai too had flown into the fight from this podium.

A half a day later, the man Wei Sha perceived as a peak existence came back on a stretcher.

Wei Sha turned his eyes to his right, at one of his brothers. "Whose the person responsible for father's current condition? Any names?" he asked Wei Xuno, who leaned onto the railing.

Wei Xuno, who had been chatting with the others, shifted his focus to him. "I heard it was that old devil Mug'un." he, in his discontent, spat over the railing. "From the Fifteenth Layer."

"I'll kill Mug'un." Wei Sha spat over the railing, just like Wei Xuno had. "One day." Anyone who dared to inflict such harm onto his father would feel his wrath.

X

'I sure have changed.' Standing by the Awakening Pool, Wei Sha reminisced of the past.

To his ire, however, he had been unsuccessful in every attempt in finding a way to escape the flashback. But, after all his pondering, reading through old texts, and theorising, he had become rather sure something would happen today.

Just like last time, his clothes and hair flew to the sides as Wei Dai arrived at the scene, shouting, "Welcome!"

Then came the other family heads and the shows following them.

Wei Sha didn't pay much mind; he had witnessed this play once already. Though there was slight happiness when he saw Suar Runron crash against the cavern's walls. Something about seeing the person who ordered assassinations on you being pounded into a pulp made him jovial.

When Suar Runron hit the ground by the combined efforts of the three other family heads, Wei Sha, acting like he had last time jumped onto the railing.

'Any minute now.' He balanced there, waiting for Lin Siniang to pull him.

'Any second now. . .' Last time, it hadn't taken this long for Lin Siniang.

'C'mon!' He became anxious. 'Pull me in!'

'People are starting to look at me.' The commotion everyone had their eyes on beginning to calm down made some eyes turn to see his act.

And as the trend continued, Wei Sha got off from the railing, frustrated.

'Was I wrong again? Is this flashback my life now?" He shook his head. 'No,' he argued against such a notion. It made no sense. Furthermore, even if he wanted to stay here — in a time and place where he was much happier — he knew it wouldn't be right.

'I shall go back, hide my newfound strengths, bide my time,' he asserted his plan to himself.

"Mother, will the ceremony continue?" Of course, to get back, he needed a way for it.

"Don't worry," Li Li assured him. "Nothing will stop an awakening ceremony."

Wei Sha sighed. "I feared I wouldn't have my chance this year. Something like postponing the start of my cultivation would have been. . . bad." Having not been in here for this long last time made Wei Sha question everything. It mattered little how confident he was in his prowess, for he didn't like taking gambles.

Li Li's eyes peered into his. "Everything is fine, Wei Dai wouldn't let you suffer such a hindrance," she said with a mother's calming tone.

Her efforts also worked quite a bit. Wei Sha felt at more ease, though questions like, 'What if Lin Siniang has gone past my stop already?' Were flooding his mind.

He shook his head again.

"Thank you, mother," he thanked Li Li and began to focus on the matter at hand. Now that he couldn't fall into the water by "accident" anymore, he would wait for his name to be called by Wei Dai.

Sure, this took more time than he was comfortable with, but his name came right after Wei Bo.

"Wei Sha!" Wei Dai shouted his name while flapping his wings above the Awakening Pool.

Without further thought, Wei Sha placed his foot on the railing. And as he dived, he shouted, "For the glory of my parents!" Last time, he had rehearsed to shout "for the glory of my mother", yet it had now changed to this iteration. Wei Dai wasn't such an evil man in his heart anymore.

As his body passed the liquid's surface, he recognised a check of some sort travel through him. 'So this is what kept me from returning?' he reasoned, though not putting much mind to it. This fact wasn't important enough to gain attention, not talking about memorisation.

What was important to him was finding a particular bubble made out of bright-yellow liquid.

His head spun to the right.

His head spun to the left.

'Well, this is going to take a while,' he thought, already descending deeper into the infinite ocean surrounding him.

X

"Buuu!" On his way, he kept on scaring people he came across, sometimes going out of his way to do so.

Wei Sha had, at least in his mind, become more refined over the years, yet he couldn't keep himself from scaring those weaker races. Their frightened looks were too humorous for him. Also, thanks to him honing his physique to another level, their reactions were greater than last time.

X

'Should I go take a look at those other palaces?' Nearing the depths of the Awakening Pool, he had a want to go visit the other sites there.

'Surely there's no harm? Destroy one or two of humankind's hopes before anything comes from them?' he imagined, swimming towards a white marble palace chosen as the target.

X

Forget about breaking them. He didn't get close to them before hundreds of genuine and hurting human creations charged at him from amidst the pillars of the marble palace.

X

After that incident, Wei Sha kept his mind on descending to the level where canyon tops appeared.

'Now.' He studied his surroundings, near and far. 'Which one is the correct one?'

His eyes peered left and right as he swam towards a direction he didn't know.

X

Wei Sha swam what to him felt like days. During that time, he came across countless sites that belonged to demons, even one which had a talking being welcoming him to come over.

"Have you seen a bright-yellow bubble?" He had asked the being which from hearing such insolence hunted him for a day, if not longer!

X

"Stupid beings," he muttered to himself.

As he spoke, he, looking to his right, saw a glimmer of light. Familiar in nature.

He had found Lin Siniang.

"Lin Siniang!" he screamed her name on repeat as he flapped his legs and hands fast as he demondly could.

[Welcome back, aspirant #1X862X477X7]