civilwarnovels Chapter 365 - Forgetful Despair
Chapter 365 - Forgetful Despair
Song Song yawned as she endured yet another war meeting, one of those endless gatherings where people discussed strategies, congratulated each other for minor victories, and shifted all blame for losses onto the enemy’s supposed dishonor.After all the effort and planning Liu Feng had poured into this war, she had grown accustomed to these bastards. Still, there were moments when she hovered on the edge of simply killing everyone in the room. It wouldn’t be difficult.
Her thoughts drifted, and she began imagining exactly how she would do it. The most efficient method would be to splatter blood across the Core Formation cultivators before they could react. No, too boring. That would end things too quickly.
After a while, she leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, letting the voices wash over her as she nodded at the right moments, pretending to listen. She started thinking about what to do afterward. Maybe she’d go visit Liu Feng.
Then, without warning, she felt it.
A presence she knew all too well dulled suddenly, like Qi on the brink of extinction.
Why did Liu Feng’s presence just… fizzle out?
Was he testing some stealth technique?
Unlikely. He would have told her. With the number of enemies they had, risks like that weren’t taken lightly.
And Liu Feng forgetting to mention something so important? Impossible. In her eyes, the chance of him making such a small mistake didn’t exist. He was always competent, sometimes annoyingly so.
She liked to mock him during idle moments, tease him about trivial incompetence. But when it mattered, he never failed.
Song Song stood up.
The room fell silent.
Without a word, she walked toward the exit. One of the war council members, a Peak Foundation Establishment inner elder whose name she couldn’t be bothered to remember, stood up and said something she didn’t hear.
Then he put a hand on her shoulder, trying to stop her.
Until now, Song Song had been polite. By her standards. These people were meant to be her future subordinates, her supporters. Liu Feng had told her it would help in the long run.
Perhaps they had forgotten their place.
She grabbed his face and smashed his head into the reinforced stone wall. Even with protective arrays carved into it, the stone cracked. The back of his skull caved in, his eye popping loose and hanging grotesquely.
Song Song didn’t spare the corpse a glance as she walked past.
No one spoke.
Whatever image of restraint she had carefully cultivated shattered in that instant, but she didn’t care.
She took to the air and flew.
It wasn’t long before she arrived. Despite it being spring, frost coated the ground, and the temperature dropped sharply as she drew closer.
She descended and swept her senses outward. Ye An’s Qi lingered in the ice, but she wasn’t present.
Her father stood encased in an ice coffin, eyes still open. Dark inscriptions crawled across the frozen surface and his body alike, countless high-level arrays layered around him.
Nearby stood Song San.
Her brother stared at the ice, an unusual rage burning behind his gaze.
“What happened?” she asked.
She didn’t need an answer.
As she moved closer, she saw Cai Hu attending to Liu Feng, recovery arrays layered around him. The energy brushing against her soothed her turbulent thoughts, cooling her mind as she crossed into their range.
Her gaze flicked briefly to her father, who was sealed and frozen.
She could piece it together easily. Somehow, Liu Feng had sealed her father. The single greatest threat in her life was gone. With him out of the way, she was free to do whatever she wanted.
But this wasn’t the kind of victory she wanted.
An icy rage washed through Song Song.
Strangely, she felt calmer than she expected to feel in a moment like this.
Liu Feng had defeated an Immortal and sealed him. More often than not, sealing and restraining someone was far more difficult than killing them outright.
And yet… she wasn’t shocked or amazed he had managed to do it.
“How is he?” she asked again.
Her voice came out cold and sharp. She didn’t bother moderating it as she didn’t care about Cai Hu. Her concern extended only to Liu Feng. Anyone else close to him was irrelevant.
“Liu Feng has drained an enormous amount of mental energy,” Cai Hu said. “And your father likely left something behind for the one who bested him. Whatever it is, it can’t be good.”
Only now did Song Song really notice how exhausted the old man looked. His breathing was heavy, his Qi nearly empty, his mental energy stretched thin. Even so, he had forced himself to construct a high-level recovery array around Liu Feng.
“Heh, the kid really did it,” Cai Hu chuckled weakly. “I can’t believe the plan worked this well. I came here prepared to die with him, but he went against a monster like your father… and won.”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Song Song said flatly. “So, for the last time, how is his condition? Can I do anything to help?”
If he hadn’t been tending to Liu Feng, she would have stabbed him for wasting her time. She didn’t want to hear about plans or victories, especially not when Liu Feng had gone behind her back and nearly died because of it.
“He’s not dead,” Cai Hu said. “There are no external injuries. As for his mind…”
The old man winced.
“Spill it,” Song Song said, clenching her fist. Her body fluttered with an anger she had never quite felt before.
“I warned the kid multiple times,” Cai Hu admitted. “But considering who we were up against, this outcome is… acceptable. He’s very unlikely to die.”
He hesitated.
“Though he might end up… mentally unwell.”
Something clenched painfully in Song Song’s chest, like an invisible weight pressing down on her heart.
Even softened, the meaning was clear.
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Liu Feng might come out of this with mental damage. He might even end up a vegetable, Alive, but broken.
That was a fate she could never accept.
Never.
For Liu Feng, it was far crueler than death.
She moved closer to him, Cai Hu watching her carefully as she passed through the barrier. The array’s energy washed over her, refreshing her mind, sharpening her thoughts, like waking from a deep sleep.
She ignored it.
Song Song crouched beside Liu Feng.
It had always been like this, him helping her with a smile, never asking for anything in return.
He was far more suited to lead their duo, yet he always looked to her for direction. Whenever she was angry, worried, or faced problems she couldn’t solve by killing someone, Liu Feng was always there sweeping those troubles away with an effortless smile.
She cupped his cheek gently.
That alone was unusual for her.
“This wasn’t the kind of victory I wanted,” she whispered, and for some reason her eyes felt misty. “I’ll take care of you for as long as you need.”
A part of her half-expected him to stir, to respond somehow, to prove her wrong.
Of course, he didn’t.
“But from now on,” she told herself quietly, “I will no longer respect your wishes.”
When she thought of Liu Feng, he was always an infallible existence in her mind. Someone who never lost as long as he had time to plan. Someone who would never die or disappear from her life.
As for his lack of cultivation talent, she had never doubted he would overcome it. He always did. He always found a way.
But this…
This was different.
Song Song straightened and rose to her feet.
She realized then that she had been indulging in a fantasy that Liu Feng was untouchable, that he always had a hidden scheme, a second plan, or a final card held close to his chest that would reverse everything.
But he was human.
Always had been.
Her gaze swept the area and landed on her brother, Song San, who stood nearby as if watching a play. The moment her eyes met his, he stiffened, took a step back, nodded, and fled without daring to linger.
“What are you going to do?” Cai Hu asked. He didn’t seem particularly worried about Song San.
Did they have some sort of arrangement? And Ye An–
Song Song could still sense that little bitch’s Qi.
But she didn’t dwell on them.
She turned back to Cai Hu.
Judging by his expression and the discomfort in his voice, he clearly believed she was about to do something reckless.
“Nothing,” Song Song said. “I’ve just realized something.”
She paused.
“I’ve relied on Liu Feng for too long. I always followed what he said. Even when I didn’t like it, I endured.”
Her eyes lifted to the sky, thick clouds gathering despite it being late spring, heavy with the promise of snow. It was due to that woman's technique.
“To be honest,” she continued, “I never cared about becoming the Blazing Sun Sect Leader. I chased it because it sounded difficult. Because it sounded fun.”
She had never cared about leading people. Never cared about fixing a place like the Blazing Sun Sect.
She had only thought it would be enjoyable, with Liu Feng beside her.
As Sect Leader, she could start a war when bored. Slaughter the east. Cleanse the west. Anything to break the monotony.
Her gaze dropped back to Liu Feng.
He lay there pale, barely breathing, and so still he might as well have been dead.
She had never wanted this.
“From now on, I’m going to do things my way,” she declared again.
“Wait!” Cai Hu called after her, finally understanding what kind of person he was dealing with and what those words truly meant.
Song Song didn’t spare him a glance.
She left Liu Feng in his care and flew back toward the war council.
The time for talking was over.
She had only acted diplomatically because it was convenient. With Liu Feng in this state, it was no longer.
Song Song had always relied on her instincts. She had only suppressed them because of Liu Feng.
Now that he was gone–
She just wanted to tear out the disgusting weight in her chest, the one that made her feel uncomfortable in her own skin.
It had been Liu Feng’s choice to confront an immortal for her sake. She knew that.
And yet the guilt clawing at her was unbearable.
She barely registered entering the war council building. Her body moved on instinct while her thoughts drifted elsewhere.
The moment she stepped inside, the room fell quiet.
The corpse of the man she had killed earlier was gone. Only the cracked wall remained, streaked with dried blood, flecks of skull, and gray matter lodged in the stone.
Several elders were missing as well.
“Where are the people who left?” Song Song asked, “And what happened to the body?”
Something in her tone made the others straighten immediately, expressions snapping into rigid seriousness.
“The body was taken away by the two elders who left,” one of them said nervously.
“Who gave them permission?” Song Song asked.
Her gaze settled on the speaker, a short man in his mid-thirties, hair still thick, face already pale.
“They–”
He didn’t get to finish. Song Song released her Core Formation cultivation, and her Qi slammed into him like a falling mountain.
Despite being an eight-star Foundation Establishment cultivator, he was hurled into the wall without the slightest chance to resist. Stone cracked. His body slid down helplessly.
He clawed at his throat, veins bulging grotesquely as if an invisible hand were choking him.
It was his own blood.
Song Song’s control had grown precise. She could exert limited authority over the blood of those weaker than her.
She had developed this technique because of Liu Feng.
She knew his opinion on abilities that only worked against weaker opponents. She also knew how fond he was of hiding behind arrays. Using this against him would have been quite effective in a sparring match.
The thought made her rage surge even higher.
It didn’t take long for the man’s throat to collapse with a wet croak, his breath choking off mid-sound.
He hadn’t even had time to fall before Song Song moved.
Condensed droplets of blood shot from her fingertips, detonating on impact and tearing his limbs apart in a burst of gore. For a fleeting moment, his mangled body twisted helplessly in the air; grotesque, flailing, like a chicken about to be thrown into a fire.
Then she flicked her wrist.
A sharp blood spear streaked forward and punched through his chest, pinning him to the wall with brutal finality. His body shuddered once… then went still.
It all happened in an instant.
Eyes widened around the table. Some mouths opened as if to speak, then snapped shut just as quickly.
“Next time someone wants to speak,” Song Song said calmly as she sat back down, “they should raise their hand and ask for permission.”
The table was round, meant to signify equality, with the implication that every voice here mattered, that strategies would be discussed, debated, and respected.
Only a fool would still believe that.
Song Song treated them like children.
And so what?
What were they going to do about it?
If any of them dared give her a reason to kill them all, she would take it without hesitation.
She let her gaze drift across the room.
One by one, they looked away. Even the Core Formation cultivators.
Only after everyone had learned their place did Song Song return to the point of the meeting.
“From now on,” she said, “we wage all-out war against the other sects. I want them to feel it.”
Before, someone might have argued. Offered caution. Suggested restraint. Now, no one was that stupid.
This was just a distraction. A way to drown out the pressure building in her chest.
People would die. The continent would drown in blood.
To Song Song, the world and everyone weaker than her existed to satisfy her needs.
And right now, she needed silence. She needed the thoughts to stop.
What if he didn’t wake up as himself?
What if he never woke up at all?
The thoughts clawed at her no matter how hard she tried to crush them. Each one made her chest tighten, her breath grow shallow, as if no amount of air was enough.
And she hated them.