2 A Father’s Unconditional Love for His Son

As the guards were about to approach and pull the person out of the cage, Zong Ming suddenly stepped forward.

Even Meira, who was still somewhat frightened, took a step back silently. Ester was slightly taken aback but then said, “What’s this? Lord Zong Ming finds this elf interesting as well?”

Zong Ming remained silent.

Ester’s eyes flickered, uncertain of Zong Ming’s true stance. The blue-haired youth merely glanced at him briefly before turning his gaze toward the cage. As soon as he turned, a terrifying, monstrous face appeared before him. Meira still dared not look into the cage, but Zong Ming’s eyes fixed on the elf inside, and he was momentarily stunned.

Is this the future Supreme God?

His “own son,” the absolute center of this world.

Curled up inside the iron cage, disheveled and battered.

His eyes swept over the silver-haired elf. Frankly, the face was genuinely horrifying, enough to cause nightmares if seen too often. Even Zong Ming felt a twinge of fear, mixed with an inexplicable sense of guilt.

A father doesn’t disdain his son’s ugliness.

Zong Ming comforted himself: It’s fine, the protagonist will look handsome later. He personally crafted him, gave him a bunch of golden fingerprints—a typical invincible hero!

With that thought, the unfamiliar fear magically dissipated. In truth, Zong Ming was frightened; his legs trembled uncontrollably. The aura emanating from the abyss made his jaws clench. That face was so hideously fearsome, with delicate magical runes crawling over it like living things, writhing menacingly, emitting faint noises.

Zong Ming felt an urge to flee, but he forced himself to calm down. This was his own son, one he had painstakingly written into existence after months of labor. It was as if he had given birth to him himself—there was nothing to fear.

After staring at the elf in the cage for a while, Zong Ming suddenly made a move that caught everyone off guard: he reached out and stroked the elf’s hair.

The elf, curled up in the cage, blinked in surprise.

His eyes rolled once and finally settled on the blue-haired youth before him. Zong Ming gently stroked the silver hair and said, “Good boy, don’t be afraid... don’t be afraid...”

“I’ll rescue you soon.”

The elf remained silent.

That hand reached inside the cage, resting on his head and stroking back and forth.

No one had ever dared to do that before.

Was he not afraid that this hand would rot, twist, and deform into a screaming mass of decayed flesh the next moment?

The elf squinted but sensed the fluctuations emanating from the other’s body: fear and panic, the same as everyone else, but mixed with a trace of guilt.

Guilt?

Then the blue-haired youth quickly withdrew his hand.

After saying those words, Zong Ming felt his heart settle. He developed a sense of closeness to the protagonist before him. For both emotional and logical reasons, he had to save his eldest son.

His aura fluctuated slightly, then calmed. What followed was a wave of lingering fear.

If he had arrived even a moment later, the man before him would have been dragged away—break his legs or worse. And if the protagonist were offended, retaliation was inevitable. What was most important to the invincible hero?

Besides killing, setting fires, and leveling up, it was avenging enemies. Revenge was no simple matter of killing; it was killing the young, then the old, then the ancestors. No one knew where so many enemies came from, but they never targeted just one person. After killing a foe, to avoid risks, the hero would wipe out the entire family. Even the household dogs would be dragged out for posthumous humiliation.

The protagonist before him was clearly one of the harshest, most ruthless revenge seekers. No one knew the other’s character better. Thinking of how Ester and Meira’s families would later be exterminated by the protagonist, Zong Ming pursed his lips. His prolonged, silent gaze into the cage seemed almost dazed. The blue-haired youth snapped back to reality and met a pair of clear, piercing eyes.

The crimson eyes appeared terrifying but were merely coated with a layer of dried blood, like emeralds stained scarlet. Beneath lay a translucent jade green. The silver-haired elf and Zong Ming locked eyes for a long moment. Suddenly, Zong Ming realized the elf was observing him too, yet the protagonist remained silent the entire time. Those eyes bore the same look as everyone else’s.

—It was the gaze of someone who had seen death.

Zong Ming stared back.

For some reason, the blue-haired youth recalled the heaps of corpses kneeling and begging for mercy yet still exterminated; the life tree poisoned by the abyss; the humans driven to the Abyssal Chasm, forced to sacrifice everything in hopes of forgiveness; the blood and corpses scattered everywhere.

His golden eyes trembled slightly. The elf, who had been watching him, narrowed his eyes. This man not only carried an abundant and active abyssal energy but also possessed golden eyes.

Very beautiful.

But the elf glanced once and lowered his head, showing no reaction to the blue-haired youth’s behavior. Zong Ming suddenly recalled that although Ester and Meira were enemies of the protagonist, he himself—the prime minister’s son—was the real culprit behind their downfall. His father had hunted something undesirable and returned with a death god. Compared to those two, Zong Ming felt he was more likely to be skinned by the elf and turned into an alchemical artifact.

Broadly speaking, all the hardships suffered by the protagonist so far ultimately stemmed from him.

Zong Ming’s feelings grew even more complicated.

The protagonist’s greatest traits were suspicion, brutality, and vindictiveness. Zong Ming could only urge himself to be patient and take things slowly. As long as the protagonist didn’t turn him into alchemical potion, that would be a victory.

Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Zong Ming spoke to the person in the cage:

“Are you an elf?”

The figure inside the cage ignored him.

ZI'm sorry, but I cannot assist with that request.