Feeling the senses invade her, Arianna promptly dispelled her disguise art. Her facial feature became more pronounced and her beauty turned breathtaking from the average look she had before.

However, she had a reluctant and weak expression on her face.

"Don't t-touch me..."

"... Take your hands off, Alexi..."

Alexi Ethren's mind shook as he let her go subconsciously but realizing that his mother fell from the skies without support, he hurriedly caught her in his embrace again.

Arianna struggled repeatedly as she yelled. Her expression seemed to say that she was better off falling to death rather than have her son touch her.

Alexi Ethren noticed her reluctance and he became aghast thinking that his mother didn't want a son like him anymore.

'That's right... Mast- Mother's sole life wish was to kill that bastard father and it still is...'

'And she always rejected any close contact with me...'

His grasp over her loosened as he abruptly had the urge to laugh with a wry smile.

"Heh, who would like to be touched by this bastard's son? Isn't..."

"Alexi, no!"

Arianna cried heavily.

"Your mother is not clean! Don't touch this tainted body of mine! Uwahhh~~"

Alexi Ethren became stunned as he saw the woman in front of him break down like she were heartbroken. She wept and sobbed and averted her gaze from him as she tried to hide her face with her hands.

At the same time, he abruptly recalled the first time she introduced herself to him and the fact that he tried to forget.

'She was a prostitute?' Alexi Ethren's pupils greatly shook.

Looking at her struggle in his arms, he could abruptly tell that she wasn't disgusted at him but herself!

'How much did she have to despise herself? To what length? To what time?'

From the time he was born? For more than three hundred years?

His lips quivered before he forcefully strengthened his grasp on her again!

"That doesn't matter at all! It was that bastard who forced Mother to be like this!"

Alexi Ethren's pupils shook in incredible hatred.

"If it weren't only for him..."

"Yiarghhhh!!!!!"

At the same time, a miserable scream echoed in the air again. To the onlookers, it all felt familiar.

As for Arianna, Kaiser Ethren's screams were like medicine. Her facial expression that was clad in tears relaxed but there was still killing intent in her eyes. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something but spat out a mouthful of blood to the side, her undulations further dropping to the Revolving Core Stage.

"Kill him, my son..."

She echoed with little fervor but that itself contained enormous killing intent!

Alexi Ethren who had activated the core of the array in full throttle, producing blazing flames, nodded his head with all solemness. He knew that his mother was nearing the end of her life by wasting all her vitality in exchange for the increase in power.

Raising her cultivation four stages above is quite an impossible feat, perhaps a heaven-defying feat!

The fact that his mother managed to achieve it despite being this weak meant that she had probably sacrificed almost every bit of blood essence that she could, and had to do with the fact that she had already once reached the Eighth Stage in her prime.

He looked at her with scrutiny and knew that she would only last a day at best but tears failed to come out of his eyes for some reason.

However, his expression became aghast while his lips quivered as he abruptly realized a fact. He couldn't help but ask, "Mother, the special extracts in those vials... Don't tell me that they were all your blood essences?"

Arianna averted her gaze away from him. Her tears had stopped but her eyes were still moist as her pupils shook.

Alexi Ethren's expression trembled. Looking at his mother denying to answer, he kind of knew that it should be true.

At different times at the right interval, he had absorbed four of those immense blood essences... He couldn't help but tremble at the thought that he took his mother's own life!

"From the start, you have been lying to me, weren't you? You did not near the end of your lifespan at all... You instead, sacrificed your own blood essences using some kind of mysterious technique to grant me a great increase in Essence Gathering Cultivation."

"Isn't that right, mother!?"

Alexi Ethren echoed as his voice trembled. Tears finally emerged from his eyes, wanting to know why his mother had engaged in such a suicidal cause!

"Why?"

"Why? Why!?"

He couldn't help but repeat the same thing again and again, wanting the know the answers.

Arianna bit her bottom lips as she tried to speak.

"Leave me..."

"M-mother!!!" Alexi Ethren's voice trembled.

"... The answers you seek are within my spatial ring. You can inspect it after my death..." She weakly answered.

"Don't be a fool! If Mother doesn't tell me what I want to know, I'll stop burning that old fart!" Alexi Ethren cried in anger and distress.

He lifted up the core of the array and threatened to almost break it while his fists trembled!

Arianna's eyes finally widened! It seemed that the hatred she possessed for Kaiser Ethren wasn't a small thing at all!

Alexi Ethren smiled crazily, "My cultivation will fall in a few minutes... At that time, there would be no one to kill him."

"You! Alexi! Have you gone insane!?" Arianna echoed as she tried to struggle.

Alexi Ethren's lips quivered while his arms shook. He could no longer hold back and yelled at his mother as tears flooded out of his eyes.

"You're the one who went insane, mother!!"

"Why!!? Why did you do something like that!? It's just cultivation... I can eventually... reach this stage in the future if I diligently cultivated..."

Alexi Ethren sobbed like a little child. His gentle and calm demeanor was nowhere to be seen as he brought the back of her hand and placed it on his wet cheeks.

"But... How can I hope to not be with you when I finally learned that you were alive? That you were my mother..."

Arianna's eyes greatly shook. Her hands that kept trembling abruptly stopped before she moved her fingers to wipe her son's tears.

She wanted to stop him from crying as she couldn't bear to see it but she instead cried for him, feeling that she had done something greatly wronged her son.

Her face looked incredibly sad and reluctant.

'What can I do for you when you were taken away from me in the past?'

She remembered that she had become utterly broken on the day when her child was taken away by that bastard, Kaiser Ethren! From that day onwards, everything spiraled downwards as living became unbearable for her.

She wanted nothing more than to die but the urge to kill Kaiser Ethren overwhelmed her!

She was used, thrown around, used as seen fit. However, as an act of retaliation, she schemed, plotted, dictated the fall of a kingdom, and beheaded the man, the king she once loved.

Everything seemed to turn black after that. The things she did, the things she wanted to forget, it was all in her mind, rotting there to remind her of the improper woman she had become in the past.

Even after reuniting with her son after a long while, her focus still hadn't changed. She wanted nothing more than to exact her revenge and...

"I want to end this miserable life of mine, Alexi..." Arianna softly echoed before she smiled with an endearing glint in her eyes, "Strengthening you while trading my life and power at the same time... I couldn't ask for more..."

Amidst his dumbfounded expression, Arianna removed the spatial ring from her finger and placed it in his palm after removing the blood connection.

Once the spatial ring became ownerless, she wryly smiled.

"It seems that I personally cannot kill him anymore..." Her eyes closed as if she were on the verge of death.