"You, who walked two lives in one lifetime, found emptiness in both, creating the void in your heart and soul which I now house. You are strong, stronger than anyone I have seen. Yet you are weaker than everyone else. Do you regret your life?" it asked.

"I said so many things, yet... I still do not know. I have seen others' lives, and I know that they lived better lives than mine. I find the path that I took to be laughable, but I do not know if I regret it or not. Some regret nothing if they throw away everything to accomplish their wish. While others regret nothing if they throw away their dreams in pursuit of love and happiness.

"Grasping greatness does make one satisfied, but creating a healthy relationship is the same. One can accomplish one of the other and even both, and they are satisfied, but I cannot judge anything, for I know not the weight of a choice... I have not had the chance to make one that affected my emotions. I suppose that you are right. In my youngest years, I lived in a Palace, and in the Imperial Life that I led, I already had to strengthen my heart and abandon any hope of being loved.

"I was not reared by a Mother's embrace, for she left me the moment I was born. At the age of three, my father threw me into a Sect to gain connection and protection. I lived a life of emptiness from the moment I was born. Even judging if I regret my life is already a luxury... I cannot tell, for I have nothing but fabricated lies cultivated to find a path for survival."

Ye Feng had nothing… and the Beast of Origin understood this.

"You are pure without a single blight. It is impressive that the moment you gain enough sentience, you have already cut off your emotions to survive. Prodigies and geniuses are cursed, but they are saved by ambitions or others. But you failed to find salvation, unlike others. You see the knowledge you gained as the final nail in the coffin you yourself prepared. You think that knowing everything leads you to understand that you are empty, because you wanted nothing.

"Yet eons after your death, you begin to feel, to express, and to understand."

"..." Ye Feng failed to even make a response.

"Now more than ever, I can sense that you seek to laugh and cry. You sought the wisest of them all to be enlightened and fill your void but failed, for when you asked him how to do it, it was already over. You were a dead man, barred from finding life, and you were unable to fill your void, but you are no longer empty, for I have managed to fill the space you so desire to fill...

"You who now find a normal life envying shall have a chance of living a life filled with happiness. You have no need to kill your own emotions. No, you are no longer allowed to do such a blasphemy, for I shall stop you when you do. Ye Feng, you can finally live. "

Ye Feng listened to Aether's words, and for the first time in his long life, he felt enlightened.

He was never alive; he was a walking corpse.

His flesh did not rot, but his soul had long been infested with maggots called indifference.

He killed himself when he killed his emotions.

'I wanted to live, so I killed myself... a laughable tale.'

Enlightenment came to him.

" I can help you, cross this plane, and travel to the land of the living. What do you say?"

"...why do you care so much, Aether?" Ye Feng questioned its intentions, "Are you not the being that has experienced everything since inception?"

It didn't answer so quickly.

It was thinking, only after it knew that what it held was the truth, did it answer, "...because I too want to live."

"..."

"I exist, solely to wait and hold the balance. Become its equilibrium until the vessel arrives. You and I are the same. Even before I became aware of my sentience, I already had a mission to be fulfilled. It was not I who chose it, but the laws of reality to advance. Unlike you, however, nothing I experienced was my own. A mere watcher of what I can never do. I experienced everything but never got to know the taste of life. But now, that can change. You and I are both in soul and mind but different enough to hold our own desires. I wish to experience life, and you want to understand what it means to exist, to find your purpose. We can walk our existence and live a life filled with rich colors — a life not filled with black and white, but with a lustrous glow."

Ye Feng could feel a resonance in his soul, reacting to the Origin of All's words.

"I see... so all this time...I only wanted to live."

Desire once again appeared for him to grab on. He finally understood what it was that drove him to walk.

"Then reach out to it..."

"I will."

A reaction came about when the two beings devoid of ambitions and desires found it in their existence to extend their hands.

"Claw for it if you want it!"

Theo felt the constriction of the Egg. He fought its hold, wanting to tear it down and escape.

He rampaged within, crying out to draw more of what he got.

The fabric of reality began to crumble, but the two did not stop.

"Go! Do it!"

The Origin of All assisted Ye Feng; it gave him everything so they could break free. The prison that holds them shall collapse,

"CALL FOR IT!"

Nothing would stop them, and in the darkness, their voices echoed.

"I want to live!"

From inside the Shell of the Universe, the force Ye Feng released created a crack. He bashed it repeatedly, for them to break free until he saw the light piercing from the outside.

This was not the light of the sun, and neither was it the light of anything physical.

This was the light of life.

Ye Feng reached out to what he abandoned.

He destroyed the shell and clawed his way out.

The harsh coldness that bound him was lifted, replaced by another.

Alienated by sensations, he could not accurately tell.

All that he knew was that... it was what he wanted.

'Let me OUT!' he screamed inside his heart.

Soft walls pressed upon his flesh, constricting his movement; Ye Feng wanted to get out of the darkness, so he did his best and crawled out. After what seemed to be an eternity, he got out of the crevice with a drenched body.

"I am FREE!" He cried out of pure happiness and bliss. But he failed to hear his words as the only thing he heard was the cries of a baby. With his still blurred vision, he noticed that he was surrounded by giants.

= "It's out! Congratulations, Ava, it is a boy!" =

Ye Feng was born, his cries echoed.

Cultivated patience or not, Ye Feng cried to release the air trapped within.

Ye Feng's cries were long, but they soon stopped as he came to accept his current self. He sniffled and calmed down as he found himself rocking side to side with gentleness and care.

His emotions had been all over the place as it had been eons since he last felt something in his heart other than blind devotion, but now that he regained himself when he finally paused his hunt for answers, and these sensations, all of them felt foreign.

But not unwelcomed.

= "There, there, everything's all right, just a little bit more, and you'll be in your mother's embrace." =

Ye Feng failed to understand their words, but the comforting tone behind it managed to pierce his rigid heart. His void soul was filled with a little bit of warmth.

'Is this your doing, Origin of All?'

He asked but got no answer. But as silence returned to him, he heard the loud cries of a woman giving birth. He turned to the side with great difficulty and saw a blur...

It took him some time before he got used to the light, but after he did and regained his eyesight, he saw an old bed where a beautiful young woman was going through labor.

His twin was born moments later, the screams ended, and his twin was born.

Ye Feng watched with bated breath.

He was being held by a middle-aged woman. She was smiling, and her worn-out clothes suggested that she was not of high birth.

Ye Feng had just been born, yet the process was yet to be over. He was the first child, and the second had yet to be delivered.

His twin was born moments later, the screams ended, and his twin was born, crying as he did.

= "It's a girl…hmmm?" = the woman announced happily with a smile. She celebrated as she wrapped the second child in a blanket.

All the commotion was something Ye Feng failed to comprehend. Despite knowing everything in the previous Universe, he was now left with a deep sense of loss, as he could not even understand their words.

He was on the same plane of existence yet a different one at the same time.

Pained and hurried breathing filled the room, but something felt weird as the second child did not let out a cry.

The midwives found this ominous, and so did Ye Feng. From what he knows, it was an innate reaction for a child to cry out when they were born; that was why he didn't mind crying earlier.

'If they do not cry, then their lungs will not expand, and the liquids inside would not come out….'

Pak! Pak! Pak!

= "You should cry, little one." =

He watched as his twin's behind was spanked. His twin cried aloud, and Ye Feng let out a sigh of relief, and as he did, he realized that he had managed to show another form of emotion, anxiety, and care.

It made him feel weird once more, but rediscovering them was not unpleasant. He was not aware of what form of influence Aether had on his rebirth, but he had no complaint.

= "Ava, are you all right?" =

When everything calmed down, Ye Feng was handed over to a woman as he was finished cleaning.

= "My children…" =

Ye Feng got a good look at his mother. She was youthful and beautiful, not perfect, yet in his eyes unmatched. When her arms wrapped them, Ye Feng felt a caring touch.

A man then burst into the room. It was a muscular man wearing ragged clothing. Seeing Ava with their children, his tears fell.

= "Noah, come, see our children." =

Ye Feng did not understand what was happening, but he had to be Ye Feng's father, considering how he reacted. He did not know his name, but this man was smiling from ear to ear.

The man received Ye Feng and was then raised. He was told off by the Midwives and had to return the child to Ava's embrace.

= "What should we name them?" = Ava asked Noah.

Noah thought long and hard before giving an answer.

= "The older brother should be named Kiel, and the little sister is Ame… what do you think?" =

= "I think it is wonderful." = Ava smiled as she looked at her children.

Ye Fend did not know what kind of conversation they had, nor did he know that he now had a different name. He was still trying to cope with the unfamiliar emotions resurging inside him.

A foreign kind of warmth that had been missing all throughout Ye Feng's long life had appeared. He, who had nothing but his own thoughts of survival, felt something opening in his heart.

Was it the doing of Aether again? It didn't matter because Ye Feng accepted them. He had been enlightened about the ways of the world, and he had seen the peak of everything.

He who couldn't feel anything felt the greatest warmth one could experience. Ye Feng thought it far more eye-opening than any kind of enlightenment he had; it was better than surviving a Tribulation and much better than seeing the Truth.

Finally, the voice of Aether rang out inside his head, "Experts of all ages focus on one goal and forget everything else, yet one way or the other connection must be created. Understanding emotions is not a weakness but a strength. Even a scheming devil must first know how envy feels to trick a Mortal. If one abandons all emotion, then one cannot form a true path to enlightenment — they are no better than a doll."

Ye Feng understood this reality. He was once someone who tried filling his soul with something by walking two opposite paths. He did all that he thought was the prerequisite of becoming Righteous and saved everyone.

He then did what was considered evil and killed without batting an eye. He had no morals and only directed himself to achieve what needed to be done, and in both paths, he ended up without direction and left them.

He thought he sought out an answer because he had a passion for seeking knowledge.

He lacked passion and drive, and the only semblance of these came in the form of his incessant pursuit of salvation. The moment he realized that he, "Ye Feng," was the answer to the Truth he was seeking, it was all too late.

He abandoned everything, and the moment he killed his emotion was when he became the corpse that everyone feared and loved.

Ye Feng had no tears to shed at the embrace of a loving mother, but the emotion that surfaced did not go unnoticed.

With his emotions opening up and Aether experiencing them, their intents and desires became one and the same — to live.

All the while Ye Feng was preoccupied with letting out his emotions by crying his heart out, Ava seemed to have taken note of his reaction as she disrobed herself.

She had both breasts out as she fed Ye Feng and the newborn Ame.

Ye Feng may have found a sense of emotion, but he never had any form of dignity nor pride; thus, he didn't feel anything as he fed on Ava's breastmilk.

However, he did find something odd because, as he opened his eyes, he saw the other twin staring at him as if it was assessing him.

He disregarded any thought forming inside his mind, 'Ridiculous, it is impossible.'

However, as he thought of that, he heard something echo inside his mind, [= "Is this my new brother? He seems off." =]

It was sent directly inside Ye Feng's mind, and because Aether also didn't know the new words of this place, Ye Feng formed a theory.

Concentrating, Ye Feng tried his best to trace what he just felt, [Child, can you hear me?]

[="Huh?" =] Ame looked at Ye Feng and vice versa.

Such reactions were enough proof. Ye Feng looked at Ame as his eyes widened.

Ame's mouth was slightly ajar as she came to the realization of what was happening.

Ye Feng was not the only reincarnated person in the room.