Chapter 722: Self-Upgrading (Part 3)

The woman widened her eyes, her eye sockets turning slightly red.

"You are… Zhou Huai?"

She looked at the young man in front of her, holding her breath.

Looking at the tall and sturdy young man before her, apart from those familiar eyebrows and eyes, she dared not recognize him.

Looking at his mother's appearance, Zhou Huai felt a sourness in his nose. He raised his head, holding back the warmth in his eye sockets, and then nodded.

"Mom, it's me. I am Zhou Huai."

Although his current face was completely different from what she remembered.

But that familiar feeling of Bloodline connection could not be simulated.

She was his mother.

Hearing the reply, the woman's tears fell down.

The tears were unstoppable.

She stepped forward and hugged Zhou Huai in her arms. Those hands stroked Zhou Huai's back, and then cupped his face, her fingertips rubbing along his contours.

"Huaier… Is it really you!"

"My Huaier, you've grown up… You've finally grown up…"

The woman wept uncontrollably, her tears dripping onto Zhou Huai's cheeks, burning hot.

The mother and son hugged each other and wept in this sea of clouds. Zhou Huai enjoyed this maternal love.

After a long while, the two calmed their emotions.

Zhou Huai gently supported his mother's shoulders as rationality reoccupied his brain. He looked around and asked the doubt in his heart:

"Mom, what is going on here? Weren't you taken away by Mr. Duan back then?"

"Why did you appear here?"

"And… what on earth is this damn place?"

The woman wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, her expression becoming complicated.

"What you said is correct, I was taken away by Mr. Duan. Over the years, I have been trapped by him in an unknown place, and even I don't know what abyss that really is."

She pointed to the sea of clouds beneath her feet, and then pointed to the towering glowing tree in the distance, "Being able to see me here doesn't actually mean we met in reality. Here is my spiritual world."

"Spiritual world?"

Zhou Huai couldn't help being stunned.

He suddenly remembered the ancient remnant Soul named Chun outside the ruin. That woman had his main body soak in lake water filled with life energy, saying she wanted to help him upgrade and break the shackles of Professionals.

Turns out, the method to enhance strength mentioned by the other party was actually letting him use some secret technique to cross dimensional barriers and reunite with his mother in the spiritual world!

Behind all this, what kind of crazy logic was hidden?

Before Zhou Huai could continue asking and figure out the relationship within, the woman spoke first.

She looked at Zhou Huai and lowered her head: "Huaier, never mind me for now. Over these years, how have you been living outside alone?"

Speaking of this, she paused and grasped Zhou Huai's sleeve tightly, "Your father… How is Zhou Feng doing now? Did he take good care of you?"

Hearing the name Zhou Feng, Zhou Huai put away his smile and lowered his head.

Zhou Family, that was a quagmire he was unwilling to look back on.

"Father… He…" Zhou Huai lowered his eyelids, his voice low, "is dead."

"Dead?"

The woman stopped her action and sighed.

"How could this happen… What on earth has happened over these years?" She grabbed Zhou Huai's arm tightly and asked persistently.

Facing his own mother, Zhou Huai had no intention of hiding anything. He narrated his experiences over the years one by one.

From after his mother was taken away, being bullied by his stepmother Liu Yuru and that cheap younger brother, to being ruthlessly driven out of the house during the class transfer ceremony.

He recounted how he turned misfortune into fortune, Awakening the God-level Clone System, and since then possessing the trump card to change his destiny.

"Later, a once-in-a-century beast tide broke out in Donghai City. People from the Dawnbreaker Guild fueled the flames in secret, and the Zhou Family was wiped out in that catastrophe. As for father…" Zhou Huai clenched his fists, "he coveted the power brought by the Divine Artifact, and ultimately died under the backlash of the Heaven-Suppressing Seal, his Origin drained away, leaving not even a corpse behind."

Listening to this, the woman covered her lips with her hand, her tears falling rustlingly.

Zhou Huai didn't stop, continuing to confide his most secretive past: "And later on, in order to quell the turmoil, my Soul's power was exhausted, and my life hung by a thread. If not for heaven leaving no dead end, if not for me desperately slaying Kujo Naruya, the resurrected SSS-rank Amaterasu of Sakura Country, and snatching back the Pendulum of Life that can reverse life and death, I would have gone to see King Yama long ago. Relying on this Divine Artifact, I successfully resurrected myself…"

"However, just when I thought everything was developing in a good direction, Mr. Duan visited in person."

Hearing the three words Mr. Duan, the woman's body shrank back and she took half a step back.

"…He found you?"

"Correct." Zhou Huai sneered. "He is high and mighty, viewing me as an ant, and effortlessly slaughtered the SS-rank Clone I had accumulated with great difficulty. I exhausted all my trump cards, including even the Great Sage Li Er's Word of Law, but couldn't harm him a bit. In the end, I could only rely on the professional characteristics of an S-rank Necromancer to create a perfect dummy for self-detonation, barely fooling him and escaping with my life."

As Zhou Huai narrated, the woman listened while shedding tears uncontrollably.

She never expected that during the years she was imprisoned, her own flesh and blood had suffered such purgatory-like torture in the outside world.

"Huaier… My Huaier…" She reached out and stroked Zhou Huai's hair. "Over these years, you have suffered too much hardship. Mom is sorry for you, Mom didn't protect you well…"

"Mom, don't say that."

Zhou Huai turned his hand to hold his mother's hand and smiled.

"To me, those sufferings are completely insignificant. It is precisely because of these setbacks and life-and-death crises that I was able to grow. If I had always been a useless person under the wings of the Zhou Family, I would never be able to stand here to see you."

Zhou Huai raised his head and looked into the distance.

"What is most important to me right now is not reminiscing about the past. It is how to deal with that Mr. Duan, and how to truly rescue you from that dark and sunless place!"

Hearing this, the woman's expression dimmed.

She shook her head and sighed.

"Huaier, you don't understand…"

"Mr. Duan's strength has long surpassed your imagination. He is a Transcendent unbound by rules. Even with the help of the will of heaven, even if you possess those magical Clones, you cannot possibly be his match."

"For this day, to welcome this massive purge of version replacement, he has planned for a very long time, spanning countless years. He is setting up a chess game to devour the entire world; we cannot fight him."

Looking at his mother's resigned expression, Zhou Huai did not back down.

"No matter how long he has planned, no matter how strong he is, no matter what, I choose to fight it out!"

"Mom, we have nowhere left to retreat! At this point, besides fighting to the death, do we have any other choice?"

He looked at his mother, pronouncing each word distinctly: "Even if I hide now, the world is about to face the Heavenly Dao's massive purge; under a shattered nest, how can any eggs remain intact? Furthermore, a person with an extremely strong desire for control like Mr. Duan, once he finds out I am still alive and that I am an uncontrollable variable, sooner or later he will actively seek me out!"

"Evasion is a dead end!"