CHAPTER 67: DISCIPLE CULTIVATION SYSTEM CH67 ONE HIT KO.

Pain more unbearable than anything she had ever felt shot through her body with each step she took.

Her bones creaked with a disgusting noise.

Her muscles strained with each step.

Her blood leaked and stained the ground behind her red,yet she didn’t stop.

She didn’t want to stop.

Her priorities had shifted and nothing else was of importance. She was a disappointment but she still had one shimmer of hope. As long as she was able to present herself to that man,she could still go on.

Valaria could wait...she was a distraction. The main goal was Art,the mysterious man for whom she had begun cultivating a strange affection.

He stood firm and imposing at the entrance of the mall. He was clean and yet,just like her, looked so miserable. "You’ve been through a lot?" Noticing her,he muttered, offering no help and just staring at her.

There was no disappointment...nothing. He was hollow like a corpse given form. This was the first time she had witnessed this side of him and yet she felt as if she was looking in a mirror. A man who would do anything for his goal,just like her. She hated it...she knew how such ideas often ended.

"Teach,can you eliminate me?" Her words came out cold and Art smiled. Not joyful nor cold.

Just a cynical smile...almost maddened. While Trish was beginning to learn new emotions,Art was on the brink of his sanity, wondering where everything had gone wrong. A deviation had occurred again and now there was nothing he could do but face it.

"Are you sure?"

"....I don’t know?"

"Didn’t you wish to fight Val?"

"It doesn’t matter when the victor is already set."

"What do you mean?"

"The only reason I ever wanted that duel was because I was jealous of her.She had all of your attention and I hated it." Her face turned sour as she continued.

"I thought I could prove I was better by defeating her.Humiliating her and degrading her just like you did to Cheshire but...."

Clutching her falling arm,she bit her lip and looked down.

"I saw you training with her.I saw you try your best to break her... trying to mould her to defeat me. She failed and yet never gave up. Each time you sent her flying and each time she stood up, I grew irritated because it was as if I was seeing the future. In this world I could probably cleave her in half but that would be the first of many matches. I knew she would return...she would challenge me again, lose and repeat until I eventually let my guard down and suffered a defeat." "Trish..." Light began returning to Art’s eyes and he whispered her name.

"Even after I came to that conclusion I still wanted to prove I was better,but then I remembered something sour and my train of thought shifted." She raised her head and smiled at Art.

"How can I be better than someone when I don’t even know my own worth."

She always did things to please others,to make sure they would be satisfied. Even so-called jealousy was soon twisted into a desire to prove she was better.

If she had been driven by mere jealousy she wouldn’t have been so easily swayed from discontinuing the match,but it seems her growing affection for Art still lost out to her superiority complex.

"Strength doesn’t denote worth,so until I can comprehend that...I don’t deserve to fight Valaria. I leave that to you, teach." With a final grin,she smashed the ground, erupting a cloud of dust that obscured everything in sight.

Using this chance,she bridged the gap between her and Art and, veiled from the spotlight, hugged him tightly.

[Trish has attained Status: Like lvl1]

In the time Art was distracted by the sudden prompt,she redrew before the cloud of dust subsided and grabbed his hand, directing his sword to plunge deep into her heart. Under Art’s very eyes,she disappeared, leaving him with many unanswered questions.

---

"Trish, why did you do that?"

"Why did you hurt her?"

"She admired you,she loved you...we all did, so answer me, why?" Echoes of the past rippled through the darkness that grasped hold of her mind. She wasn’t done but in a state of transition back into her physical body. Before entering the isolated dimension,the students’ essences are marked with a special signature that digitalizes their bodies. The digitalized body is transported into the dimension for the rank games while the physical one is kept in stasis and preserved until the digital one is destroyed and consciousness is regained. Trish was in that process and yet there was something eerily different about her state. Voices scorned her. Images of the past flooded her mind,each sending a throbbing headache into her consciousness.

"Make it stop." Grabbing her head in pain,she winced, shaking her head in the process. In her desperate attempt to resist the pain,a distorted voice called to her in the dark expanse.

[Child, does it hurt?]

Its voice was eerily calm and neutral and yet its concern sounded genuine.

[I can make it stop...make you forget.]

Its voice,echoing from the darkness, mirrored her and took on her shape as it extended its arms to aid her.

[Just take my hand...and I promise to make you forget this pain. You’ll never experience it again.... you’ll be free and finally understand what you must do. What you were almost meant to do.]

The more it spoke,the more convincing it sounded.

Trish, now more vulnerable than ever, stretched out her hand to grab its own. As she did,the darkness mimicking her smiled, only to be cleaved apart.

"Leave!"

Drawing out every last inch of aura within her,she warned, flooding the dark expanse with her light that covered every corner. She woke up right after,drenched in sweat and among other students who had also been eliminated.