"What Kind of Help?"
"I….we need help getting out of this place, but you don't really have to do anything yourself. Simply tell some powerful cultivators in the outer world and if possible, please tell them to come help us. We…don't have much time left."
"That's it?" Hao Xuan asked suspiciously.
"Yes."
"Alright, that's not a problem," Hao Xuan quickly agreed. It was no skin off his back and he would be helping people doing it.
"Thank you!" Agueda's voice became much lighter and he could almost see her smiling.
"Do you have any questions? And I'm sorry we have to talk like this. My sisters are blinded by Ra's promises and don't see that it's destroying our tribe. They monitor me 24/7 which is why I couldn't say anything before."
"It's not a problem. And for the question…" how could he not have questions after looking at those memories just now?
"Can you tell me what happened with Orion?"
A short bout of silence was followed by a deep sigh.
"Lord Orion, he was the last true king of our people. As you saw, we were a mighty force once upon a time. The kingdom of Zodenheim stretched across numerous planets and galaxies before it was destroyed. And Lord Orion's power was completely unmatched."
"After we were betrayed by Lues and Aegror, Lord Orion called on the people of Zodenheim and many answered, too many to even count. The battle that followed after claimed more than half of them, but Lord Orion managed to close the gates of Abyss soon after they were opened. Unfortunately, Lues and Aegror both escaped."
"They continued their schemes from the shadows, corrupting a lot of our tribesmen. Lord Orion kept fighting them at every corner but he knew there was no stopping them, not like that. For 800 years he prepared and cultivated, waiting for an opportunity."
"The last memory you saw was when another Gate of Abyss was opened. But this time Lord Orion didn't close it. Instead, he led an army of his strongest warriors and broke into the realm of the undead, Ra's very home. All of them died, every single one of those warriors. Knowing full well there was no coming back, they still followed after my Lord without a single complaint, for our people, for the prosperity of our clan. And in doing so they became heroes."
"…What about Orion himself? Did he get out?"
"No, he….was never coming back. He knew full well that even with his power he couldn't stand against him, not alone, especially since there were others like Ra in that dreadful place."
"Then…?"
"You must understand, Lord Orion's power was unmatched even by today's standards. If given ample time he would have broken through the highest cultivation realm and stood at the very top, but he chose to not to do that. If he wanted to escape from that place, there was no thing and no one that could stop him."
"Yet, he chose to stay back and gave the ultimate sacrifice."
"The ultimate….sacrifice?" Hao Xuan was holding his breath without even realizing it. It all sounded too….heroic.
"Yes. When someone dies, their soul moves on and is still able to exist in another shape or form somewhere out there in the vast universe. But if the soul is destroyed, there is no coming back from it. And Lord Orion was powerful enough that even death was just a minor inconvenience for him."
"But when the time came and he realized he would not be able to stop Ra from entering our plane, Lord Orion used his own soul to create a technique, his most powerful and ultimate technique. We don't know what it was called, but it could bring about miracles."
"Such was its power and majesty! So with that technique, Lord Orion used his soul as fuel and made sure Ra would not be able to enter our world, at least for a few million years by sealing the pathway between worlds. He was hoping that would give our tribe enough time to rise from the ashes once again and another would rise to take his place but, he underestimated Ra's reach."
"Although Ra couldn't come here nor could his armies, there were still a few left over from Lues and Aegror's followers. With their help, he cursed Lord Orion's entire bloodline. Those marks that you see on our bodies, those are his doing. With the last bit of power he had here, Ra placed a cursed on our tribe for all of eternity."
"But a long time has passed now and our bloodlines have thinned to the point of nonexistent. This has reduced our powers but also the effects of the curse. It can be broken by a cultivator that is an expert in Curses and we can be freed."
"All you need to do is tell this to the outside world and about the ancestral essence."
"The essence?" Hao Xuan frowned.
"The purple liquid. Tell them of its existence and that is sure to bring some powerful existence."
"What is it? That liquid?"
"…"
From the silence, Hao Xuan could tell that Agueda was trying to find the appropriate words to describe it.
"It is….us. The liquid is created from the bodies of my tribesmen through a horrendous process Ra himself created. Every single member of my tribe, once they get old or unable to work are turned into that liquid.. And soon I'm afraid there will be no one left to carry on our legacy. Please, help us before its too late!"
