Chapter 12. What do I want to believe in? (III)

Blood flew everywhere and covered Ruan's face. The explosive splashes of blood also reached Lin who was lying a few meters away.

Lin looked at the scene with a horrified, bone-shivering look. Her mouth was slightly open and her pupils constricted as Montar's blood ran down her face.

"Interesting! Interesting! It worked again!" Ruan chuckled to himself. "If I pump more Energia than it can hold, it explodes!" he said enthusiastic, surprised at the ability he had discovered.

Ruan stared at the air for a moment as he looked at his blood-filled palm. The blood conjured up a picture in his head. Mada laid on the floor. His head gashed in a huge pool of blood. Rage once again filled his bones as he released some of it with a furious nose blow.

"Where is she..." he called in gloomy, dark anger.

"Mom..." Lin thought as she felt physically exhausted.

"Mom?" she suddenly wondered to herself.

"Where is she...?" she asked with blurred vision.

She looked around but didn't see her. When suddenly, the shadow from the corridor window moved.

She looked at the moonlit window.

"Mom?" She questioned as she saw the back of the blurry figure with the long hair messing with the window lock.

"No… it can't be…" she said in disbelief as she tried to focus on the figure who opened the window in quivering silence.

The focus in her eyes returned.

"No... it can't be happening... it can't be..." she repeated to herself with a shocked and pitiful look.

"I know you're a coward... I always told you that.." she said gritting her teeth.

"But... I knew... that at the moment of truth... once it reaches me... you won't be afraid...

You will do whatever it takes to protect me...

Right...? Mom...?”. She didn't allow herself to take her eyes off of her.

"Even if it contradicts logic... you are my mother... you won't do this to me either... right mom...?" she repeated apprehensively.

"We said it together… that we would always be together...

That we will always be with each other...

Right mom... right...?!" she cried in her head, as she saw her mother open the window to the end of it. She passed one of her legs over the window.

It's evident on her face that she is crying hysterically but quietly, so that Ruan won't hear.

"I always knew you were a coward! Always! But I believed it would be different! That with me it would be different! Because you promised me mom! Because you swore to me mom! Right?! Right mom?!" Lin shouted in her head as all she could do was to cry in front of her.

"You won't leave me here alone! In the moment of truth, you won't leave me behind! We will always be together with each other! Right mom?! Right?! Right?!?!" she screamed in her mind, when the shaky ground she built under her feet all her life dropped in an instant.

With half her body outside the window, Natasha looked back at her. Crying, her look begged.

Forgive me.

Forgive me for not being able to be there for you when you needed to.

Forgive me. Forgive me for leaving you alone.

Forgive me. Forgive me for not being what you expected me to be.

Forgive me. Forgive me for the last time.

"Going somewhere?" Ruan asked as he stood at the window outside her home.

With a scream of panic, Natasha fell back into the hallway where Lin laid.

She tried to crawl back but Ruan grabbed her by the neck and pinned her against the wall.

Her eyes were closed in pain as he forcibly sought her gaze.

Following her twisting head in satisfaction, Natasha couldn't speak. She could barely move.

Ruan's choke lifted her off the ground. Slowly, he began to drain her Energia. Her Energia silhouette appeared around him.

On the floor, Lin saw everything that was happening.

"Oh..." Ruan exclaimed with pleasure as he blushed with joy.

"Your Energia... I wanted to drain it slowly to enjoy it… I knew I would enjoy it... but... I didn't know that much!" he yelled loudly.

"Your Energia...! Oaah yes!!!!" He shouted with pleasure filling all of his senses.

"Your Energia tastes different! Unique! Wonderful! Deep!" he was elevated, filled with magnificent excitement.

He closed his eyes in concentration as he changed his tone in sharp seriousness.

"You don't know how much I've been waiting for this moment." he said as he opened his eyes and eases the suffocation a little to look into hers.

She opened her eyes slightly as she looked into his dim glowing purple eyes. Immediately, she tried to fight him back but to no avail.

"...Why...?" she asked with the rest of her strength.

Ruan saw her teary eyes, which only angered him even more as he tightened the stranglehold.

"Why?" he asked angrily.

"Because you took everything I had from me.

You killed the person closest to me.

You ruined my life and my future. That's why." he concluded as he's tightened the choke, draining her Energia.

Natasha began to squirm as she tried with her two small hands to release the stranglehold. She tried with all her strength, but with no success.

She looked at Lin who was watching in abysmal shock from the sidelines and held out her hand forward her.

"Li-n" she cried as tears streamed down her face.

Right after, she lost consciousness.

As soon as she lost consciousness, Ruan stopped the Energia draining. He looked at her with contempt and hatred as he released his stranglehold and shook her lightly. He slapped her a couple of times to wake her up. His gaze changed suddenly, as he began to stress.

"Hey! Wake up! I'm not done with you!" he shouted at her in a panic.

Lin watched everything happening from the side, as her mom's unconscious body swayed in front of her.

"Hey! Wake up! It can't end like this! You need to scream! You need to be regret! You need to understand how much you deserved to suffer! Hey! Hey! Wake up!" Ruan fumed as he shook Natasha's body wildly while holding her shirt.

"Wake up!!!" he screamed as he threw her body against the cracked house wall. Her thin body fell to the floor like a rag doll.

His shocked look revealed that she was already dead.

"So fast..." Ruan said in disbelief. His face contorted in anger and rage.

"It's not enough!!!" He screamed with his eyes closed furiously as a burst of purple Energia shattered the floor into pieces.

The shards of wood flew into the air as purple Energia poured out of him non-stop into the night air.

"It's not fair!" He yelled in frustration as he punched her corpse on the floor which immediately spurted blood.

"You didn't cry enough!" he yelled again with another bloody punch.

"You didn't bleed enough!" he shouted with another punch.

"You didn't hurt enough! You didn't regret enough! You didn't repent enough! You didn't beg enough! You didn't scream enough!!!" he shouted with all his might as he tearfully hit Natasha's body repeatedly.

"It's not fair... it's not fair... it's not fair... it's not fair!!!" he screamed into the air as the blast of purple Energia from him destroyed everything that was next to him.

Heavy breathing, he gasped for air. After a few moments, he stood up again.

Beneath him, laid her body.

Beaten up beyond recognition. Until it is almost impossible to recognize that it was a person.

He looked at Lin with a piercing gaze.

"It's ok." Lin thought to herself as Ruan walked towards her.

"I'm not afraid. I have nothing more to lose. I'm even a little happy that this nightmare is about to end.

After what happened, I don't want to live anymore.

If this is life, I'd rather be dead.” She said to herself resignedly as she looked back at Ruan with a piercing look of her own.

"Cursed family. That's what you are." Ruan said to Lin.

"I saved you for last because I wanted to enjoy it. You managed to avoid me once already huh?" he asked.

"On the street. I was ready to stab you and end it there. Even if it meant going to prison and never seeing the results of his research. End our story once and for all. Do you remember me?" he asked angrily.

"Do you remember the first day in kindergarten? When I was in the corner? I was so angry at the world. But you came, and you made me forget about everything. You were all I needed at that moment. I wanted it to stay that way forever. But, I quickly learned through you, what is the reality we are in." Ruan said with his own resignedly.