Chapter 1983 - The Riddle of Birth!

“You…”

An Yaluoshan’s eyes flickered, and after a long silence, he finally asked his question.

“You are my mother?”

The air in the tent seemed to pulse as An Yaluoshan asked this question.

As the future master of the Central Plains, the future true dragon, the one known by the Celestial God Organization as the ‘Child of the World’, and the ‘Your Excellency’ that Cui Qianyou and the others served, An Yaluoshan had always had an ambition to swallow the Central Plains and destroy the Great Tang.

But deep in his heart, An Yaluoshan had also always had a small and selfish desire: to find his mother.

He had been abandoned as a child, and his only proof of identity was the round bronze token that had been worn around his neck, the name ‘Yaluoshan’, and a paper slip that said, ‘When the time has come, I will appear before you again.’

An Yaluoshan had always kept these objects by his side and memorized the words.

He had attempted before to investigate his background, but there had never been any clues, and after countless disappointments, he forgot about the matter.

But several days ago, to his surprise, he suddenly found a letter with the brand of that bronze token upon it. All it said was this:

‘The time has come! Come to Mount Yaluo!’

All of his memories were recalled at that moment, and An Yaluoshan’s heart once more began to waver.

The tent was quiet. An Yaluoshan stared at that hunched figure, his heart filled with anticipation.

After a long silence, a voice finally spoke. “The Child of God… has no mother!”

It was a hoarse and discordant voice, like two pieces of metal being rubbed together. It was both incredibly old and indescribably unpleasant.

An Yaluoshan immediately frowned, but he suppressed his discomfort and continued with his questions.

“What do you mean?”

“Hoohoohoo, just as I said, you are the son of a god, the blood of the war god left behind in the mortal world. How could you have a mother?”

The figure gave a cold and sinister laugh, like the cry of an owl in the night. Finally, that figure turned around.

“Ah!”

Even though An Yaluoshan had prepared himself, the sight of that figure still made him tremble in shock and take several steps back.

The figure behind the fire basin had a face like tree bark, thickly covered in wrinkles. It was a sinister-looking old woman who had to be at least seventy years old.

But most shocking of all was her eyes. Just like that ox skull, she only had two empty eye sockets, a pitch-black void where her eyes should have been.

An Yaluoshan swallowed and hoarsely asked, “Y-you are my mother?”

He had had all kinds of theories, but he had never imagined that his mother would be an old granny in her seventies.

“Kekeke, Child of God, how could you think such a thing? I am just a useless old granny. How could I be the mother of the Child of God? I am merely someone Moyeshi sent to wait for you here.”

The elderly female shaman eerily laughed.

“Then where is my mother?”

An Yaluoshan’s brow creased.

That black-robed man had said that Moyeshi was waiting inside, and he had also believed that the one inside was his mother. But this was seemingly not the case.

“Hoohoo, if the Child of God wishes to see her, you naturally will, but not now,” the elderly shaman said.

“The time has not come? Then why did you have me come here?”

An Yaluoshan’s eyes narrowed and his voice chilled. The excitement he had felt when leaving the Andong Protectorate headquarters faded, and he immediately lost interest in these mysterious worshipers.

“Hoohoo, although I am not Moyeshi, I can tell you everything you wish to know. In addition, Child of God, if you wish to see her, you will naturally see her on the day your mission is complete.”

The female shaman strangely laughed again.

An Yaluoshan fell silent. The dancing flames in the fire basin illuminated his plump face, creating patches of light and shadow that concealed An Yaluoshan’s thoughts.

“Why did you abandon me, and after so many years, why did you contact me?” An Yaluoshan finally said.

He found this old shaman extremely unpleasant, but this was his only clue to finding his mother. Most importantly… even if this woman wasn’t her, he needed to ask that long-buried question.

He needed to know the answer!

“Hoohoo, as expected, this is what you want to know the most?”

The old shaman laughed, her empty eyes turning to an empty part of the tent. A few moments later, the old shaman gave the answer.

“This is your fate! All of this was arranged by God, was what you needed to experience! If you were not abandoned, how could you become the Andong Protector-General of the Great Tang, and how could you attain your current status and return to the Mountain of Yaluo?!

“Your experiences endowed you with immense strength—is that not so?”

An Yaluoshan’s brow furrowed, but he could not retort. This was not the answer he wanted to hear, but it was true. If not for all that he had experienced, he would have never reached his current status.

“You said that God arranged a mission for me. What god, and what mission?” An Yaluoshan sternly said.

“Keke!”

The female shaman gave a bizarre laugh, but a split-second later, the smile vanished, and her face turned grim.

“Do you not already know the answer?”

An Yaluoshan was taken aback, his brow creasing. But he seemed to realize something, and a thoughtful look appeared on his face.

“Since she is not here, why did you call me? If there is nothing, I will take my leave,” An Yaluoshan coldly said, quickly regaining his composure.

Since he could not get the answers he wanted, he had no reason to tarry here.

“Hoohoo, we naturally had reasons for the Child of God to come.”

The shaman’s face turned strange and mysterious.

“Moyeshi has divined that a danger has recently appeared in your destiny. If all is as predicted, you are probably about to go very far away from this place.”

Whoosh!

An Yaluoshan had already turned to leave, but when he heard this, his body trembled and his feet stopped.

“Kekeke, so it was right. Moyeshi said that you will encounter the greatest enemy of your life, and to carelessly go over as you are is not a wise decision. Moyeshi has prepared something for you, and she says that it will be of great assistance.”

The old shaman ended the suspense. Her shriveled claw of a hand reached into her robes, and when it emerged, it held a bronze sphere.

An Yaluoshan’s eyes widened when he looked at the sphere. Mysterious black inscriptions had been carved onto the sphere, and the sphere exuded halos of bizarre light.

Even though he didn’t know what it was, An Yaluoshan sensed that it was bursting with mysterious high-level energy.

This object was clearly extraordinary!

Such was An Yaluoshan’s instinctive judgment.

“Hoohoohoo, take it!”

With her strange laugh, the female shaman threw over the bronze sphere.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as An Yaluoshan’s eyes tracked the bronze sphere. Almost as if he was drawn to it, he instinctively reached out.

“So heavy!”

This was An Yaluoshan’s first sensation.

“What immense energy!”

An Yaluoshan almost immediately sensed a strange energy surging into his body with a life of its own.

This energy unexpectedly shared the same origin as his own energy. Without any further refinement, An Yaluoshan could absorb this energy and use it as if it were his own.

“This…”

An Yaluoshan’s mind was stifled, and he raised his hand to ask the old shaman more questions. But to his shock, he discovered that the tent was now empty, the old shaman gone.

The female shaman had simply disappeared.

“How could this be?”

An Yaluoshan was shaken, his mind in disbelief.

There should have been no place for the old shaman to hide in this tent, and the tent showed no signs of damage. How could she have so mysteriously vanished, and how had he not noticed despite being so close?

After a few moments of silence, An Yaluoshan left the tent with the bronze sphere.

It was dark outside the tent. If he carefully listened, he could still hear the voices of the Turkic warriors.

An Yaluoshan walked over to where he had encountered those black-robed men, but there was no one there now. They had all withdrawn at some point.

Only the empty tent midway up the mountain served as evidence that none of this had been an illusion.

“First it was the Child of the World, and now, it’s the Child of God, and some sort of divine mission… I, An Yaluoshan, am a chess piece for no man. I will do what I want, and execute my own mission. No one will control me.”

An Yaluoshan raised his head and laughed at the darkness, and then he strode away like a shooting star.

It was almost daybreak, and it was time to return to the Andong Protectorate headquarters.

……

Several days went by. In the main hall of the Andong Protectorate headquarters, An Yaluoshan sat on his throne, staring into the distance as if he was waiting for someone.

A gust of wind blew past, and suddenly, there were three puffs of smoke that manifested into three people. Their leader was a man wearing a white mask, and where the eyes should have been were two runes like wriggling tadpoles. This man with the bizarre mask was one of the leaders of the men in black, Genesis Supreme.

The two men flanking him were clearly his followers.

“Are you ready?” Genesis Supreme said.

“We can leave at any time,” An Yaluoshan coldly said, his expression unperturbed.