Mira, Maria, Rhydian, and Vulcan all made it back to their new room in the Battle Maiden Sect without any issues. Mira just wanted to go to sleep since using that much killing intent is somewhat taxing on her mind. But when they got back to their room, they saw a confused Dominique walking around. Rhydian was the first one to react as she started to growl at Dominique. This startled Dominique and she looked in the direction of a very menacing, but cute-looking golden wolf cub growling her. The first thing she thought was how cute it looked, but that thought instantly disappeared as a terrifying aura spread out from the beasts as sparks of lightning shot across Rhydian's back. Now she just wanted to run away, but the growling stopped when the girl holding the wolf cub chopped its head. She now got a good look at the girl holding the wolf. She immediately stopped and became mesmerized.
"Goddess…" is the only thing Dominique could mutter.
"Wrong. I'm Mira. Ugh! It really is more convenient to just wear a mask! It seems you can finally use your brain." Mira said promptly as Dominique shook her head to get a good look at Mira and Maria.
"You really are Mira. The same clothes, same silver hair, and same cold demeanor. Where am I and why am I here?" Dominique asked with a hint of excitement.
"We're in the Battle Maiden Sect. I'm the one that took you here." Mira said as she let go of Rhydian to let her explore her new home.
"Does that mean I won the bet?! Are you going to teach me how to be strong?" Dominique asked with shining eyes filled with excitement.
"If I'm going by the definition of being conscious then you passed, but you turned into a vegetable for the rest of the day though. Consider yourself lucky that you managed to just barely win the bet. And as for teaching you to be strong. That's on you. I won't teach you anything unless you prove yourself. I don't have the time to take care of you right now as I have other things to do. You can watch my training sessions with Maria and the other Disciples. I will also give you a training program to become a cultivator, but the rest is up to you. How hard you work and what you understand will all be decided by you." Mira said sternly so this child didn't forget. She really won't have much free time now that she is going to be sparring with the other disciples as well. Dominique heard the warning, but she didn't care. As long as she had some guidance, she could do the rest herself! She started to tear up and ran over to Mira, hoping to give her a hug. Mira didn't move out of the way and just let the little child embrace her. She just stood there for a minute and let Dominique cry her heart out. After a couple of minutes, Dominique released Mira and bowed to her.
"Thank you!! I won't disappoint you!" She said, but at this time Maria interrupted.
"Ummm. What bet are you talking about?" Maria asked suspiciously, she had a bad feeling creeping up and immediately regretted asking as Dominique answered with an excited voice.
"I made a bet with Mira that if I could withstand her full killing intent and cultivation for a full minute then she would teach me to become strong. If I lost then I would've had to kill myself, but it seems luck was finally on my side!!" Dominique said with a large and childish smile on her face, but Maria nearly stumbled to the ground.
"Tha-Tha-Tha-That was you M-M-Mira?! That was your killing intent?!" Maria asked in disbelief. She felt like she could die just from the sheer pressure of that killing intent and this all came from Mira!!
"Yeah. I usually seal up most of it since it's too hard to control and takes quite the toll on my mind. I guess it is quite freeing though since it's usually bottled up in me waiting to explode." Mira said in a nonchalant tone like this is something normal for her. Maria then switched to an extremely serious tone, something she's never done before.
"Mira. Please tell me. How many people have you really killed? I don't really understand the whole reincarnation thing, but I can assume that this didn't happen in this world. What happened?" Maria asked in a serious voice. This is a great chance to learn more about Mira.
"I guess it doesn't really hurt to tell you a bit. I don't really remember what life it was. I think it was my fifth life though if I remember correctly. I guess you could say that this world was about as civilized as this world, but it didn't have cultivators in it. I was born an incredibly beautiful girl by that world's standards and was the envy of all the women and was the target of every man's lust. One night when I was around 10, my father at the time gathered a bunch of his friends to the house when my mother left. I was just staying at the house doing whatever, probably training trying to practice my martial arts or something. When it got late, I decided to go to sleep. I suddenly woke up to my dad and his friends tying me to the bed and laughing with gross smiles on their faces. My Dad ripped off all of my clothes and whispered to me 'You are so beautiful that there isn't a man in this world that is good enough for you. The only one that can ever be good enough is me, your father. But how can I be so selfish as to keep such a beauty by myself? That's why I've invited over my best friends to enjoy you for a night. Then we can spend the rest of our lives together. Hehe.'. At this point, I was already tied up on the bed and my Dad penetrated me. He and his friends continued this through the night and left me tied up to continue this the next day. This went on for the next week. When my mother came home to see me being used by my father and all of his friends she went mad and started to attack them, but they accidentally killed her by smashing a few broken bottles against her head and continued what they were doing."
"I was only kept alive because they kept forcing their semen down my throat, but after a while, they finally untied me and fell asleep. I fucking killed all of them as soon as I was able to move! After that incident, I was then captured by the guards and chained up. Only for my life to be sent to a different hell. They chained me to the wall and were basically just treated as a hole for every male in the city! I swore that I'd have my revenge on that fucking world! I waited and waited until I finally had a chance to free myself. I went into hiding to train myself and become strong in that world. Then I spent the next 25 years or so of my life roaming around that world killing every male I could possibly find. During these 25 years, I was hunted down by every single person in the world. After killing all of the malles, the females weren't any better. They now couldn't have children because there were no males to have sex with. They also couldn't do a lot of manual labor as that's what the males did. I became the target for their hatred, so they started hunting me down as well. I decided to put their pathetic lives to rest as it was their husbands that did those things to me. So I slaughtered all of the women and children in that world as well. I spent the rest of my years hunting down and making sure a single human didn't live. I then decided to just kill myself since there was nothing else there for me. They didn't even have any martial art techniques that I could use. Obviously, I have 9 other lives where I've also killed countless people, but I killed the most by far in this world. I guess you could say somewhere in the tens of millions of people died by my hands in that world. This along with my other lives, I'd say I've killed around 30-40 million people. But I've also killed countless beasts and animals as well, so this count is probably much higher. This is also one of the reasons why I loathe men so much. There are other reasons for this, but I don't want to get into that with you. Does this satisfy your curiosity?" Mira finished talking a little bit about her past. Both Maria and Dominique were listening in on this and they both couldn't stop crying. What the hell do you say to something like that?! If even half of this stuff happened to them, they wouldn't be able to keep on living! Forget revenge, they'd just want to die at that point! Mira is forced to live with this knowledge of her past without being able to pass on and forget. Mira also said she has 9 other lives and from the sound of it, those lives don't seem much better than that one! How is Mira still able to stay sane right now?! Their minds would've been broken long ago! After a while of crying for Mira, Maria was the first to speak up.
"H-How are you still sane right now? Why do you keep wanting to get stronger? Why do you keep living with all of this pain?" Maria said in an almost begging voice.
"Huh? I already told you." Mira said coldly. Maria paused and thought for a second, but immediately remembered something that Mira said years ago. She asked Mira why she wanted to get stronger and Mira said that she just wanted to die. Maria started crying more after figuring this out. Things were starting to make a bit more sense now!
"You don't have to die, Mira! I can give you something to live for! I don't want that to be your end!" Maria pleaded, but Mira just stared at her as her eyes narrowed. She then started to apply pressure onto Maria.
"You? You're merely an ant in this world that can't even learn the fucking basics of my teachings and yet you spew such bullshit?! What a fucking joke! Even if you were strong enough, what makes you think that you can give me something to live for?! I'm forced to live right now, against my will. Whether I like it or not, I will remember everything even after I die. Even if I die, I will continue to find a path to achieve my goal so unless you can give me a new goal that is more important than the one I currently have then don't even think about such naive things!" Mira said as she got up. She really needed to rest her mind for a bit especially now after recalling some of her past.
"Anyways, I'm going to sleep." Mira said as she walked away. Maria and Dominique just continued to sit there as more and more tears streamed down their faces. Dominique didn't fully understand what was going on, but she knew that she just learned something important about Mira. Maria, on the other hand, knew a bit more and didn't know what to do or think about the situation. After almost ten more minutes of crying Maria finally muttered something.
"I think I've been a complete idiot this whole time. Mira's only reason for living right now is because she's forced to. She truly doesn't care about anything or anyone. I think she might even just hate the world and everything in it. It's impossible for her to find enjoyment out of anything since she doesn't care about anything. It's probably hard for her to get close to people as well since if she dies then she'll still remember them, but never be able to see them again and if they die then she'll still remember them after she dies, but they will forget about her. I'm such an idiot!" Maria said as more tears continued to roll down her cheeks, but these tears were because of her own ineptitude and stupidity. Maria pledged in her heart that she would start taking the training a bit more seriously and also set a goal for herself. She wants Mira to be able to see her as a friend, someone she can rely on in times of need.
Dominique didn't have such thoughts, but her determination to get stronger only grew!
Mira went to her room and immediately fell asleep. Rhydian curled up in a little ball in Mira's arms and also fell asleep with her.
Around an hour after Mira fell asleep, Dominique came into the room and slowly entered Mira's bed. She snuggled up next to Mira and put her arms around her while resting her head against Mira's back. She felt like she was the safest person in the world right now snuggling up against Mira, like no matter what happened everything would be alright. She also wondered if this is what it'd feel like to fall asleep with her mom and dad. She had a big smile on her face as she fell asleep.
