The Dawn of the New World Chapter 1613

Hao Xuan sighed, "Says who? You can't be friends with someone you just met. You know nothing about me. What if I was a bad person who wanted to take advantage of you?"

She spun around a few times while mulling it over before confidently stating, "Mmm, nope! I can tell you are not a bad person. A bad person wouldn't save someone without getting something in return."

"That's not even remotely true. What if I did it to get this?" he flaunted the artifact in her face trying to provoke her but she giggled.

"Hehe, you can have that if you want. It's useless anyway."

"Useless??" Hao Xuan's brow slanted upwards.

"Mhm. It doesn't do anything."

"Do you know what it is?"

"Nopes!"

"....."

"How did you get it?"

"I chose it during my Doljanchi!"

'Doljanchi?!'

Hao Xuan was not unfamiliar with the term. There was a ceremony on earth with the same name where elders placed a variety of symbolic objects in front of a baby on their first birthday and whichever item the baby chose would indicate what kind of life they would lead.

The only issue was that they were nothing more than empty traditions seeped in unfounded superstitions from the old days.

"So you chose this artifact on your first birthday?"

"Mhm!"

"And no one told you what it is or does?"

"Nopes! No one knew what it was, it came to me from the clan vault!" she nonchalantly answered while turning round and round.

Hao Xuan pulled her over, "Stop spinning for a second! You're going to get a headache!"

And she did, keeling over.

"Hurk!"

"Oh hell no! You don't get to throw up after eating all that expensive food! Swallow it back down!"

"I-I wasn't going to! Girls don't throw up, that's gross oppa!" she declared while looking up at him with a pale face.

"Sure...so tell me more about this artifact. They just let you keep it?"

"Hng- y-yes. I already bonded with it so they had no choice, it chose me."

'Damn, that means it's useless for anyone but her. At that young age, the artifact would have to be the one to initialize the bond which means it selected its master already.'

"And you have never seen what it can do?"

She thought about it for a second but the answer was still the same.

"Nopes. Sometimes it gets a little warm but that's it."

"...."

"How is it possible that no one in your clan knew its purpose?"

Her expression turned sour as if the very thought of it was enough to provoke her ire.

"Because that's the kind of people they are. They take and take without any reservations. It was just one of countless artifacts that they had stolen from some innocent person and locked away in the vault. They- we are all covered in blood."

She might think that way but it was the same in almost every corner of the known worlds. The strong took from the weak, it was the law of the jungle.

*sigh*

Hao Xuan patted her on the head, "They might be- you are not. There is no such thing as guilty by association, especially when you didn't have anything to do with it."

Her lips slowly curled upwards, "See? Good person."

"Shut it. Let's go, I will take you to the teleporter," he returned the artifact to her.

'It's definitely not useless. There was a spark of divinity around it so it probably just uses a different kind of power or energy.'

Hao Xuan turned towards the city but she latched onto his arm pulling him to the other side, "But you promised to do the thing- please! We are almost there anyway!"

"Huh? What is it?"

"You will see, please?? It will be quick I swear!"

He couldn't detect any deception in her words so Hao Xuan didn't fight back.

"Fine, where? I will carry you."

"Yay! To the deck please, where we first met!"

'??'

"Okay...hold on."

Hao Xuan jumped over clusters of buildings and exited the barrier in the blink of an eye. Just two more jumps and they were on the bow again.

"Right there!" she pointed at the beast's corpse.

Hao Xuan let her down and watched as she busied herself with digging a shallow grave in the sand. She placed the beast inside and covered it before saying a prayer under her breath.

Once she was done, Princess Hwa hunched down and said a few words.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do anything, it was all my fault."

She was barefoot standing in the Yin Qi infused sand which would have felt like hot needles piercing her flesh, but she didn't make a single noise or complaint.

Hao Xuan walked up behind her to provide some cover from the cold wind.

"Did you know this beast?"

"Un. She used to live here before the Market closed down. I took her in afterwards but she came back here to be with the others."

"How did it- she, how did she pass away?"

It didn't look like it died from natural causes so Hao Xuan was curious.

Princess Hwa bit her lip, "Yi Unni. I asked for her help to make a little shelter for the smaller beasts after the barrier went down but she got angry...saying it was a waste of resources. She killed her...because of me."

*Bzzt*

The artifact abruptly lit up with even more symbols than before and for a fraction of a second Hao Xuan could feel that same holy power again.