Chapter 548 – The Tower Of Nirvana II

Very soon, Mei Gui and I arrived at the third and final tower. The process was the same as all the rest—climbing up to the very top using the staircase, and lighting up the stone tablet with Chaos energy.

At least, it should’ve been.

When we got to the very top, however, we found that there was no reason to. The rock was already lit up—but instead of red, it was blue. And the bridge that was already present… similarly, it was blue.

“… What’s going on here…” I muttered, tracing my finger over the stone tablet. As soon as I touched it, however, I felt a sharp pain ripple through my entire body, and took a few steps back.

“Ngh… the hell?”

“Careful, Master,” Mei Gui said darkly. “This blue power… it feels familiar. However, due to my lack of memories… I cannot say for certain what it is.”

“It’s a weird feeling,” I muttered. “When I touched it, it stung me, but for some reason, I still feel compelled to touch it again… as if it’s yearning for me. What’s going on…”

“…” Mei Gui fell silent momentarily, eyes deep in thought. Then, ultimately, she took a deep breath, and pointed at the Tower of Nirvana in the distance. “All answers shall be found there, Master. Thinking about it now will not do us any good. Let us go.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I muttered. “Let’s go.”

Although in my mind, there still lingered confusion and doubt, I carried onwards with Mei Gui, and walked on top of the blue bridge onwards to the Tower of Nirvana.

Strangely, however, as soon as I touched the bridge with my feet, I felt another pain ripple through my body.

“Tch… what the hell…?!” I groaned, completely immobilized and paralyzed.

“Stop channeling Chaos energy through your veins… Master…!” Mei Gui gritted her teeth and said. “This blue energy… it somehow counteracts Chaos… you must stop channeling energy…!”

“Got it…” With great effort, I turned off the Chaos energy flowing through my veins, and immediately, my body relaxed. “… Whew.”

“Ngh…” Mei Gui, however, was still suffering. She could not turn it off, no matter how she tried—after all, she was 100% Chaos—a Chaos Elemental. 

“Tch… hold on, Mei Gui!”

I quickly dashed over to her and picked her up from the ground in a princess carry—this way, she wouldn’t be touching the blue bridge anymore.

“Master…” She blinked in surprise, and I smiled. 

“You’ve helped me a whole lot since the beginning,” I said. “This is the least I can do to pay you back. Otherwise, I’d feel guilty as hell.”

“I see… then… I’m in your hands, Master.”

Seeing Mei Gui’s soft, gentle smile that rarely appeared on her face, I knew that the decision I made to fight my father was right. If that smile disappeared… if I could never see that smile again… I don’t know what I’d do.

Carrying Mei Gui in my arms, I headed for the Tower of Nirvana, waiting to unfold the secrets that would wait for me there.

*****

Soon, the two of us arrived at our destination. It was a massive tower, just like the name implied, but this one was far better constructed than the other ones, and had three walls surrounding it as well in a triangular fashion.

Strangely, the tower itself was triangular as well. At the very top of it, some kind of weird shape involving rotating triangles hovered in the air too, and shone bright red. Before, it wasn’t lit, but now that all three of the stone slabs were lit up, so was this one.

The walls, of course, weren’t complete. In fact, they were more for decoration than actual defense. There were only ‘walls’ at the vertices of the ‘triangle’, and we could simply walk straight into the tower through where the sides were.

There wasn’t even a door or anything. The inside of the tower was just open for all to see, and within was a mechanism of some sort.

A single red gem, radiating like crazy. The brightness of it could be compared to the sun itself if not brighter, and I needed to block my eyes with my arms if I wanted to even approach it. It was floating in the air in the middle of a vertical star-shaped frame made of stone, and its light illuminated the entire tower to be red.

“That’s…” Mei Gui’s eyes widened. “Touch it, Master. Believe me.”

“…” I was slightly dubious, but I trusted Mei Gui. Hiding and squinting my eyes as much as possible, I stepped closer to the gem. And another step. And another. Until finally, it was juts barely within reach, and I moved my arm out to-

“Don’t touch that, Kai Kai,” a familiar and gentle voice said behind me, and I froze.

I recognized the voice. It certainly wasn’t Mei Gui. And it certainly wasn’t Song Qian Long.

That meant there was only two people in the world who would call me that… my father, and my mother.

And this voice… it was distinctly female.

Slowly, I turned around, a stunned look on my face.

“… Mother?”

The woman standing there gave a soft smile, then walked closer and hugged me tightly, tears streaming out of her face.

“Kai Kai… I’m so sorry.”

“Mother…” I was just left in a state of shock, and couldn’t even hug her back. For some reason, it felt a bit anticlimactic for her to just suddenly appear like this after everything we’ve done to come all the way here and this far, but I wasn’t complaining.

As my mother stroked my hair lovingly and hugged me tightly, I finally mustered up the strength to hug her back. My mother, whom I saw be murdered before my very eyes, was now back, completely alive and well.

It was a miracle—or at least, would’ve been, had their deaths not been staged all along.

After nearly a minute, my mother finally broke the hug, and she took a good look at me. The tears on her face were gone, leaving behind only a face that belonged to a beautiful mature woman.

“… It’s been so long, Kai Kai.”

“Yeah… it has,” I replied. “At the time… why did you give me the stone pendant? Did you change your mind about following my father’s plan at the last second?”

“… Yes,” my mother replied. “But… not because of the reason you might think.”

I blinked. “You mean… you didn’t do it because you thought I could handle the power?”

She nodded. “That’s correct. I did it because… Chaos is a necessary force of the world. Someone has to carry its burden. But just like Chaos… there is one more factor that is a necessary force of the world. The counteract to Chaos, its mortal enemy.”

From aside, Mei Gui clenched her fists. “The blue power…”

“… Order,” my mother said at last, and I narrowed my eyes.

“Order…?”

“Yes. Chaos and Order go hand in hand. Without one, the other cannot exist. They are two sides of the same coin, but two opposite sides at that. They are rivaling forces by nature. If one falls into one hand and the other falls into a stranger’s hand… a war that breaks the multiverse may very well occur. As such, I wanted to give someone I know the power of Chaos—namely you, Kai Kai. And as luck would have it… I found the successor of the power of Order as well.”

“… What…”

“… Xuan Yu, come,” my mother said, and from beside her, a flash of white and blue light appeared. From it, a girl walked out, and bowed towards me.

“Greetings, my little brother. We meet at last.”

She was beautiful—long, pure white hair just like my mother, with strikingly blue eyes to match. She and my mother shared many features, but…

“She’s not my real child, don’t worry,” my mother said. “I found her before I even had you, a long time ago. It was from her companion, just like yours over there, that I learned the truth of the world, and the conflicting powers of Order and Chaos. Because she held the power of order, I needed to find the successor of Chaos—and that was when I met your father.”

“In other words… you and my father had me on purpose, so that you could control the powers of Chaos and Order and prevent them from causing the world to break?”

“… Yes,” my mother said with a look of sadness on her face. “I realize that sounds very harsh—like you are a tool and nothing more. But you must believe me, Kai Kai… I care about you very much. That’s why I initially supported your father’s plan. But in the last moment, I… I remembered Xuan Yu. Even if Chaos is eliminated, what about Order? The topple of balance will cause everything to fall apart—fall into disorder, quite ironically.”

“… I see,” I said at last. And that was all I said.

“You’re… not mad?”

“Not really,” I replied with a shrug. “What you did is better than what my father tried to do. But if Chaos and Order truly are conflicting as you say… then even if I don’t want to fight…”

“… I do,” a voice interrupted, belonging to a girl. From a portal beside my so-called older sister, a short girl appeared. She had blue hair and similarly colored eyes, and she glared not at me but at Mei Gui.

“Let us settle this once and for all, Chaos.”