Zayden suddenly burst out laughing.
“Hahahaha! I see, so that’s how you play it. Cough. You are really cruel, Devron. Is this your idea or your father’s? Cough. To think that I gave my spirit, my struggle, to people like you! Cough!”
As he forced himself to say all of that, he coughed up blood, worsening his condition.
But it did not stop Zayden from showing his fury and sense of betrayal.
His eyes became bloodshot.
His gaze then turned toward the others.
“Are all of you also in this? Have you all been wearing masks this entire time?” Zayden shouted toward them.
He saw that all of them seemed calm as they watched him like this.
He could even see some of them smiling, as if they were satisfied seeing him suffer like this.
“Don’t blame us, Zayden. We only follow the right side of history. Blame your luck for the imperial family targeting your family for so long.”
One of the men said.
Zayden looked at the man.
A man with short brown hair and a young face.
He had a tall and firm build.
The man was someone close to Zayden.
He was the vice commander of Zayden’s battalion.
Seeing the man looking at him with such a calm face while saying those words, the fury inside Zayden rose even more.
“Ervan. I’m truly a fool. Cough. To think that I genuinely considered you my friend.”
Zayden then looked at the others.
“And all of you. Cough. I’m truly a fool! Are all of you here with Devron just to mock me? Are you gathered here just to humiliate me?! To see my death?!”
His voice was full of rage.
“Don’t blame us, Zayden. We only want to see it ourselves. Your death. We want to make sure that you are dead,” one of the men said.
“Our presence here instead shows that we do not underestimate you. How could we underestimate someone who could take the Heavenly Sword and is also one of the greatest geniuses in the empire?” another man also said.
The others did not say anything, but they looked like they agreed with them.
Zayden’s bloodshot eyes did not change.
“Good. Very good, all of you. You will face retribution! I’ll curse all of you! You will never live a peaceful life! Cough. You will live in fear! You will remember my face for the rest of your lives! You will die horrible deaths!” he roared.
“If you dare to touch my family, even though I’m dead, my ghost will come for you! Even if I’m turned into a ghost, I will make sure to bring you all down to hell! Cough!”
Zayden’s body suddenly exuding a strong aura.
It contained a sharp sensation, and everyone here could feel as if their skin were being pierced by thousands of invisible swords.
At the same time, he also tried to get up.
Despite the pain he felt throughout his body, Zayden forced himself to stand.
This made some of them tense.
They had even already started circulating their internal energy, preparing for anything.
But Devron’s face remained calm.
In his view, Zayden was only a person on the brink of death.
What Zayden was showing was only desperation.
He was simply using his last bit of energy to express his fury before he died.
“As expected from one of the geniuses who already gained the title of Swordmaster at such a young age. You can hold on all this time despite already being poisoned by the Northern Black Spider’s poison. You can even still unleash this much sword intent,” Devron said calmly.
“But I think enough of your struggle. Let’s end this. I think we have already talked long enough. Like I said, just consider this chance of conversation before your death as my gratitude for whatever you have done all this time.”
Devron then lifted one of his hands.
At that moment, Ervan, the vice commander of Zayden’s battalion took a step forward and unleashed a powerful punch toward Zayden.
His punch directly hit Zayden’s chest.
Zayden’s body was thrown away, and the punch worsened his wound.
His body was flung through the air and crashed repeatedly onto the ground, getting closer and closer to the abyss.
“Make sure to dump his body properly,” Devron said.
Zayden’s consciousness was already on the verge of falling into darkness.
But he could still vaguely hear Devron ordering them to dump his body.
His sight was already blurry, but he could vaguely see the feet of two people approaching him.
They lifted his body by his hands and feet.
He already couldn’t tell who was who at this moment.
His consciousness was also constantly drifting in and out.
The only thing that forced him to keep himself from falling unconscious was the burning fury and intense worry inside him.
He wanted to take revenge on these people who had been playing him like a fool.
For taking advantage of his life and then just casually taking it away.
He worried about his family.
His father, his mother, and the others.
He worried about his little family, his wife and daughter.
He still had not yet met his daughter directly.
His wife was still waiting for him.
He wanted to run to them and warn them about the danger that was coming for them.
At this moment, Zayden’s body had already reached the edge of the abyss.
The others who wanted to see him dead kept following until this point.
“Goodbye.”
Those were the last words from Devron before Zayden’s body was thrown into the abyss.
The others watched as his body quickly fell into the darkness.
From Zayden’s view, he could see the blurry figures of the ones who had betrayed him.
Although he could no longer see their faces clearly, he could still differentiate their attire.
Especially the prince himself.
‘I curse you!
I fucking curse you!
I will have my revenge even though I’m dead!’
He shouted inside his mind.
As his body kept falling, he could no longer see Devron and the others.
The light from the surface was also getting further and further away.
His consciousness was also becoming heavier to hold on to.
He felt like he wanted to sleep.
He wanted to close his eyes to get rid of his tiredness.
To erase his pain.
He wanted to take a rest and forget all the futility of his life up until this point.
His life that, at this time, had actually benefited others.
Benefited the ones who killed him and his family.
But when his consciousness was almost slipping away, he remembered his wife and daughter again.
His beautiful and lovely wife, who had always supported him and never given up through every challenge that came their way.
And his daughter, whom he still had not yet seen directly.
From the picture, she had his eyes and hair.
He wanted to see her.
They were still waiting for him to come back.
But now they were in danger.
Their lives were in danger!
His spirit ignited once again.
He tried to burst his energy from his dantian to hold back the poison that had already reached his heart and spread through most of his body.
He also used his sword intent, which at this moment was something he could depend on.
A sword intent mostly depended on cultivator’s comprehension, with the energy acting as its support.
Although Zayden’s energy was disturbed, his comprehension was still strong.
Despite the power of his sword intent not being as strong as what he could usually unleash, it was enough to slow down the poison from spreading even further.
Though he felt excruciating pain as he forced himself beyond his limits.
The poison had already spread to a quarter of his heart and eighty percent of his body.
He felt numbness spreading across his body.
He could not move his limbs.
It was as if his body had turned into a statue.
Zayden knew that if he could not move his body, he would be done for.
He did not know how deep the abyss was, but regardless of its depth, he would die from the fall in his current condition.
The light from the surface was getting dimmer and dimmer.
Even though the diameter of the abyss was thousands of kilometres, the light from the surface could not reach much deeper into the abyss.
It was as if the depth itself, the darkness itself, had consumed the light.
‘I have to move my body.
I have to move my body!’
Zayden fought to make his body move.
He forced his consciousness to stay awake and keep a clear head.
He gritted his teeth and withstood the pain that he had never felt before.
‘Move!
Move!
Move!’
He roared inside his mind.
He kept forcing his energy to circulate and unleashing his sword intent to its limit.
After a few seconds of desperation, he finally managed to move his feet slightly.
He kept forcing himself to move his feet.
After adjusting them slightly, he then, without hesitation, tried to use one of his movement techniques.
Void Step.
His body then propelled forward as he pushed himself with his feet.
It was as if his feet had found an invisible foothold to push against, even though he was in midair.
He kept using Void Step repeatedly despite the pain he felt each time he used it.
Every time he forced himself to circulate his energy, he felt as if his meridians were being torn apart.
His body moved horizontally, approaching the central area of the abyss.
Zayden’s intent was to prevent himself from crashing to his death by lessening the impact of his fall through gliding with his movement technique.
He did not know how much longer he would have to keep falling, but he intended to continue using this method until he reached the bottom of the abyss.
This was the only method he could think of.
‘Luckily, I had already consumed an energy replenishment pill, and the poison has not yet completely spread to my feet.
If it had, I truly wouldn’t be able to do anything.’
Zayden thought.
At this point, most of his surroundings were darkness, but he could still see the light on the surface.
After falling for more than two minutes—
Shrak!
Shrak!
Shrak!