Multiple voices overlapped, and Ian, after a moment of stunned realization, immediately understood that this was a spirit energy communication from those three children.
He wasn’t too surprised, but immediately countered, "People entwined with chains of emotion won’t feel restrained; you just think you haven’t been manipulated——even your spirit energy might have been deliberately catalyzed by others."
"And Baron Leyan is exactly the one cooperating with those people, using you and his ’Chosen One offspring’ for experiments..."
Wait... The Chosen One...
At that moment, Ian suddenly had an epiphany, beginning to understand why it was Baron Leyan, and why a noble lady and a child of the Chosen One would so coincidentally encounter such a disaster...
If one were to say that from the beginning, from the very start, there had been no accidents at all...
But the spirit energy communication interrupted his train of thought.
[Sorry, big brother, who said it was us being manipulated?]
The voices of Ian, Moqiu, and Linda were calm yet tinged with laughter; their maturity far exceeded that of ordinary children, especially Ian, whose wit and sharpness far surpassed Ian’s imagination after reading through a vast number of ordinary people’s memories and life experiences.
Even the degree of their danger was the same.
[Big brother, you are a Prophet, and you should know that seeing some aspects of the future is enough to alter the present self. Spirit energy is the same, possessing it will transform one’s thinking——even a single possibility is enough to lead Humans into the Abyss]
Ian’s voice took the lead: [Perhaps our spirit energy was guided by someone. But everything that follows is our own choice——those strange men in black, why do you think we didn’t notice them?]
[And why do you think that father suddenly started his plan early today just to guard against you alone, rather than it being beyond the expectations of those mysterious people... and forcing father to kill us sooner, accelerating the birth of our brother?]
His voice was filled with pure mirth: [Big brother, you’re very smart, the smartest and most talented person I’ve ever seen, and you’ve also hidden most of your strength, playing games with father, just to test if those men in black are around, right?]
[Nope, they’ve gone to take care of another very important matter in Nauman City, even if you hadn’t come, we would have made father start his plan sooner]
Ian’s eyes widened, and even as he was blocking Baron Leyan’s attacks, he suddenly felt a chill.
"Wait!" he said in disbelief, "Are you saying that it was you..."
[Haha, we sensed your emotional turmoil; did you figure it out so quickly? Indeed, with father’s abilities, you’d just play him like a fiddle]
The children laughed joyfully: [But you’re too kind and hold too much goodwill towards us who appear to be young children]
Their voices gradually became a hollow and distant chorus, just like the sound emitted by Baron Leyan before: [It was us——it was us who made father make such a choice, why did you think a foolish man, who genuinely loves three weird, flawed, and dangerous children, would personally kill his own three children after already losing one?]
[It was too difficult, father was about to break free from the suggestion we jointly wove, even so, he was still trying his hardest to invite you to kill him... Only with his death, could we survive]
[But we just wanted to die, we hoped dad could live with our brother]
[That’s our wish, without strong bodies, we could only use spirit energy to fulfill our wish]
[We’re sorry to dad, but we’ll give him a brother——this is the gift the three of us together are giving him, we hope he can be happy!]
Ian looked down, startled; in the clearing of the valley, the three children in the cultivation tanks were all smiling at him, their eyes twinkling with a dazzling display of spirit energy.
As for Baron Leyan on the side, he had stopped in his tracks, painfully holding his head, clearly already in disorder.
"You want to die——and you want Baron Leyan to kill you by his own hands?!"
He was more than incredulous; Ian was clever, but he had never considered this possibility: "You still love Baron Leyan, but isn’t this torturing him with the greatest pain?!"
[Sorry, we really don’t quite understand what love and pain are, the two seem to be the same]
The children’s voices carried genuine puzzlement: [Isn’t it precisely because of love that one feels pain? So the more pain, the more love?]
[Anyway, this is what we want——how strange, wouldn’t people want to be themselves, to want to survive, why is it a bad thing?]
[Look at those uncles and aunts who cultivate flower seas, they also don’t want to be themselves, sometimes they also don’t want to survive, although they think they’re happy in Leyan Territory, we sometimes feel very happy living with dad too]
[It’s not contradictory]
——Madness, the whole family is insane!
This was Ian’s stunned conclusion.
And yet... he couldn’t blame them.
It was this kind of rational madness, this unhesitant possession and determination, this extreme desire... that made spirit energy strong!
Although Ian sensed a hint of doubt, and the taste of lies, for the most part, even if there were discrepancies in the details, like with Baron Leyan and the children all considering themselves to be the primary doers of evil, certainly one side was lying or being neglected... but these were mere trivia.
He didn’t care about those little things.
"Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps it is indeed your influence that led the Baron to such a crazy act—but what I have to do remains the same."
Ian firmly conveyed to the children, "Ian, you must die. And Moqiu and Linda, you all must die. I was originally thinking of killing Baron Leyan then finding a way to hand you over to Huai Guang Church..."
"But now, your danger level has exceeded the normal range. I’m very sorry."
[Thank you]
Upon hearing Ian’s resolute words, the children actually began to feel happy: "Your kindness and love may be hidden beneath the blade, but they still make us yearn—if this is your way of loving, you might be the person who loves us the most, second only to Father."
"Big brother, if you truly want what’s best for us"
At that moment, Ian could almost hear the same tone from the Baron as before, the chorus of children’s voices said without hesitation: "Come and stop us!"
"Come kill us!"
"Fulfill our wish!"
Ian didn’t reply to this statement. .
After that, he stopped speaking.