My Mother Has a System but Won't Use It

All over the Sacred Lust Continent, people stood frozen and in fear. One by one, they started to get wrapped up by the red veil like a chain of smoke, and as all of them nervously waited, as if a cold demonic maw hung on their necks, it happened.

The first it happened to was a baby. Just 6 or 7 months old, the little thing rose to the skies alongside the smoke, but his parents could do nothing except watch as he floated up, slowly and gently but somehow untouchable, as if he had turned into a ghost.

But the baby boy was not alone; more soon followed. The less you weighed, the sooner you rose. As panic, screams, and shouts rang rampantly, the people who rose continued to rise, and in the thick red light, their silhouettes vanished.

—

Outside the Demon Restraining Temple stood an old man, his eyes as deep as an ancient well, his white beard stretched down to touch the ground as he walked forward. His words were a murmur, but they echoed like a small hymn as he counted.

"36, 37, 38," suddenly, he stopped. "So a total of 38 people rose up from my sect, but 3 of them are children who hadn't even awakened… sigh, they would probably die."

A small voice asked him from his back, stumbling in the red light. "Master! What is going on now? Isn't the Heaven Rising supposed to happen at least a decade later?!"

Laughing aloud, the old man said calmly, "Something seemed to have happened; I think someone triggered it by themselves. We will know when the people who rose come back."

"Master, can I also go? Why am I not floating?" asked the voice once more.

"Your master is a Transcendent little girl; why would you need to fight tooth and nail in such a barbaric fashion? It's going to be full of death, and you don't have Sacred Talent yet, only those people will raise up."

"So that is why the babies are also flying away? Can't you stop it?"

"Let fate run its course. There is no way I can do anything against things set up by the Sacred Demons. Since it has begun, we can only wait for the results now."

…

Such conversations happened all around the four sects with all sorts of important people, while the unknown parents in random villages could only stare as their babies floated up, crying as they flew away as if held by invisible hands. …

Han Li and Yue Li both held their hands tightly as the red light coiled around them and soon enough, Yue Li could feel something pulling them up while her son held her closer than ever. She could feel his anxiety ooze straight out. He was afraid.

Their clothes slightly flapped as, with some mysterious power, they began to float up. One meter, two meters, Yue Li's heart skipped a beat, but looking down, the red darkness had already hidden everything from their sight.

"How ominous," she said worriedly, her own hold over her son tightening. Her heart tightened at the weightless feeling while she tried to push out her soul sense. But she understood. Even Soul Sense was completely useless in this red light.

"Hold on tight. From now on, Mom," Han Li said, his voice abnormally cold and serious, "you listen to what I say, no questioning, no hesitation. It's gonna be rather dangerous now—and for this period, forget any promises."

A chill went down her spine, and she asked, "What will happen now? Where are we flying to?"

Han Li looked up at the sky, his gaze utterly cold and calculating.

"We will soon be in a completely different world; after we pass this red mist-like thing, we will be still flying for some time, but then… we will enter there. And after that, we will have to be extremely cautious. Everyone we meet will be our enemies."

"There?" her voice was laced with worry.

"The Empty Space of the Sacred Demon of Lust, we will enter it."

This time, her heart thumped. "That means?"

"Yes, we are up for an adventure that you wished so much."

Just as they were about to continue speaking, the red light suddenly vanished as if they had surpassed a cloud layer. And once above, Yue Li's eyes widened as she looked at the red clouds under her and the blue expanse above. But Han Li's gaze coldly moved around.

Far, far in the distance, he could see a small dot flying up just like himself. The one person in this world who had Sacred Talent and was the closest to himself, and in that direction—Yang Wei.

His gaze shifted to another angle, and there, in the distance, he could see small black dots, too. But in his vision, that was all the Sacred Talents. But he was sure that at least tens of thousands existed with this level of talent across the entire continent—and all of them would fly up today, rising to the heavens.

"When people die, Mom," he said calmly, "they leave behind their Empty Spaces and Dao Souls just like they leave behind their bodies to rot. The Dao Soul floats up to the sky and according to the legends, become stars. Empty Spaces either disintegrate; transformed into Energy that joins back with the Energy of the World. Or they become Detached Empty Spaces, which are unique resources that other people could use."

Yue Li nodded, hesitant. Unknown emotions were roiling inside her chest.

"But that is for us normal people at lower cultivation stages. As for the Sacred Demons, their Empty Space in itself are different; none of them disintegrated, all of them are Detached Empty Spaces, and all of them float above the Demon's respective continent. Above Sacred Lust Continent floats the Empty Space of the Sacred Lust Demon."

"So we will… enter it today? That Dark place?"

Han Li nodded. "But not in a way you might expect; soon, we will be pulled into it. Even now, we feel static, but we are flying at a speed we simply can't even comprehend; you only have to know this much for now. I will tell you the rest when we reach there.

***

Yang Wei looked at the distant black dots in the sky's expanse, a furrow on his face while his white robes were covered in blood. "How peculiar, huh, to think Han Li's city had two Sacred Talents, amusing indeed."

A voice inside him spoke. "This is no simple matter, Yang Wei. This is the Heaven Rising!"

"Yeah, Yeah, shut the trap." He laughed, his dead fish gaze focusing on the skies. "What will we gain from this? I want to know that. All else is just air."

"Not what you have to gain," the voice of the Spirit hissed, "What you have to lose is more important. Sacred Talents will be here, all the way from new borns to Power Borns, and all of them creme of the crop. And it will be a trial, and the chance you will die is too much."

"What are you telling me to do then?" He laughed, uncaring. "If I die, I die, but if I die, I will first kill too."

"You should allie with Han Li or people like him. I have been having this bad feeling for a while now, and this seemed to be the crescendo of the feeling. What happens here might as well determine the future of this continent."

"You haven't told me what we stand to gain." Was the cold reply.

"Plenty. Magical Resources, Knowledge, and most of all…" she hesitated. "You can see the true essence of cultivation and understand what makes a Sacred Demon, a Sacred Demon."

Yang Wei was about to question the statement when his head grew hazy, and his consciousness faltered; a second later, he was unconscious. He couldn't even last long to realize.

***

A hazy feeling assaulted Han Li's psyche, but he activated his Talent Seduction on himself multiple times, and his body warmed up to an extreme. But that was far from enough to endure the sleepiness, so he gritted his teeth, and his skin vibrated all over.

It was hard to stay awake, but with all his strength and resolve, he held back from falling asleep; he even used some other Magic Powers that he had never used before. Especially the Magic Power—Sleepless Lust that can remove sleep to some degree. Luckily, his will was iron strong after the struggles he had gone through in his previous life.

His Mother, on the other hand, was already unconscious, so he held her strongly against his chest as her head fell to his back. And just as his eyes grew blurry, he saw it, a red light blinking in the sky like a distant star. It brightened shortly, completely overwhelming his senses with a red hue, and a second later, Han Li, along with all the Sacred Talents under the Transcendent level in the Continent, vanished from the sky.

Into the "mouth" of a Demon, as some old guy mockingly commented.

But then, a silence ensued.