Lord Ice Moon POV

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I wonder if we could be really the allies you wanted us to be.

Perhaps I misunderstood you, Drake.

You're way younger than me and act quite arrogantly. But I guess such arrogance is justified by seeing how strong you truly are.

My foolish Elders had offended you and they had it coming for them too, so I don't mind them being beaten by you.

To be honest, I hate more than half of them.

What baffled me the most is how this man has done so much from seemingly a humble background than me… and while being of the same rank and perhaps younger…

How? I was so concentrated on growing stronger I disregarded everything else.

Perhaps… I should have tried to make bonds with people some more.

To make allies. Good friends, I could trust. And to love a woman and have children.

To build my own family, my own dynasty.

This world is harsh and cold, the strong survive and rule.

But I was strong, stronger than anyone…

Yet… I never made myself a family.

I was supposed to have already reached one of my desires of growing strong enough to not be suppressed by most of the wild world outside, but I guess I lost my purpose in life along the way.

And later, I ended becoming the lapdog of an insane psychopath with the power to annihilate me if he wanted.

This insane psychopath was that nasty bastard of an effeminate faggot… an elf named Lord Greenwood.

I hate him more than anything in my life because I now… know that he killed my family. I now know that, based on the evidence.

In my room there's a piece of scrap metal, it had some letters on it.

After I retrieved some of the ones he left behind from the village he recently burned down by sending spies there, I made the assumptions and.

Indeed, it is the same.

He said he used his robots for this.

So it made sense now more than ever before, he had burned my village.

Why? Why did he do this?

I won't ever know. I couldn't ask him; he would probably kill me.

But most likely… there was someone there that he wanted. A Unique Skill holder, maybe. A reincarnated person.

He took away all of these Unique Skill users from me back then, all of these talented youth whose souls had come from seemingly another world… what a strange concept.

He took them all away from me and used them for his malicious purposes…

I regret not having said anything.

But if I did, I and my whole sect could have been burned to the ground.

Now… I am alone once more, and he left forever for some reason.

When will I meet this bastard again?

I don't know, but whenever I do, I hope I can be strong enough to kill him.

Heh, in the end, strength is still my priority.

I look at my hands, filled with scars.

I have been fighting my entire life…

I wonder what Drake would think about my entire story.

…

Why am I even thinking about this man now?

I suppose I had begun to admire him without realizing it.

I don't know why, he's of a rank lower than me.

I should be treating him as my junior, but he looks like a man worth following.

I talk as if I had little time left, but perhaps I can change things for the better. Perhaps I can still get a woman I could love and make children…

Perhaps I could be a bit like Drake, and we can become friends too.

Why must we be so hostile? Why must we abide by these stupid rules of a cultivation world such as this one?

I had been thinking with the desire for strength all this time, but by cooperating, things can become better than by fighting.

I want to share a bit of that happiness you have, Drake.

Can I have some?

You seem to have enjoyed life more than me.

I can see life flashing through those eyes of yours.

And I… am old, filled with scars, strong, but hollow.

What am I been doing this whole time? I sometimes wonder about this.

I am so ashamed of having come to this conclusion so late in my life. It feels like I have been wasting my life. I had so many opportunities, yet I never cared.

My family's death left me heartbroken, and with the undying desire of growing stronger without stopping. Anything else didn't matter.

And even after becoming Rank 4, I was still a weakling compared to others. But it felt so long and arduous.

I had reached so far yet it felt so painful.

All of this time wasted only to be a little bit stronger in a world filled with monsters?

All my life was sacrificed into this one little thing. And I am not even that strong either.

I could have made a family before, before wasting so much time like this.

Perhaps he was able to cultivate faster because he had a partner to love with him.

Someone to accompany you, to pat your back.

And the only thing I've been doing was wasting my life away in the most meaningless things possible, what a life this has been.

Now that my power feels to have little meaning before the overwhelming strength that I cannot even resist of others, it makes me think that I should have wasted my life away in other ways and manners.

Drake, it appears that you've really changed this old man, this husk of a man.

Despite being Rank 4…

I…

CRASH!

My deep thoughts were suddenly interrupted as the windows to the left side are broken by several figures coated in shadows!

Are these from another sect?!

I quickly take out my mana aura and conjure a strong spell to fight, but they're incredibly fast!

BOOM!

I feel a strong fist hit my chest, as I am out of the air in an instant, and thrown into the ground, I suddenly become immobilized by a sharp red needle that pierced my neck…!

"Who… who are you?!"

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