Chapter 3: A Past Drenched in Blood
He took a deep breath to clear his mind. With his eyes still closed, he delved inward, using the faint amount of Qi he'd just gathered, to focus on his newly restored dantain. Instead of the sparsely filled space he expected, an anomaly lurked within.
A swirling vortex, dark red, ominous, and sinister was now located in the center of his Dantain.
' How did that devilish thing get inside my dantain?'
His body tensed a little. It looked exactly like the vortex that had ensnared him before, the very thing that had pulled him into that otherworldly vision.
His eyes opened slowly and he let out a breath. " So this is apart of the inheritance as well..."
Normally, he would've been scared by this ominous sign but right now, His curiosity overpowered his fear.
Tentatively, he focused on the vortex, willing it to move.
The moment he did, something stirred.
A pulse of dark red energy rippled outward from his body. The wave spread, expanding no further than a single meter radius around him, then dissipated.
' Could it be blood Qi?'
Yao Zi wondered, brows furrowed. During his time back in the Jiang Clan, Yao Zi had learned many things and amongst those things where the different types of Qi's known to those of Qin mountain.
Amongst them was Blood Qi. A Qi rich with vitality and power, yet due to it's harsh procurement methods, it wasn't used much by those of Qin mountain. Nevertheless, it didn't mean others weren't willing to use it for their own.
He had fought and apprehended several people who sought to negatively use Blood Qi to accelerate their cultivation before, so he was able to tell in the end that the red wave possessed no ounce of blood Qi.
Nevertheless, he was able to tell that It was the same technique used by the black-aura figure in his vision, albeit far weaker and different.
If only the inheritance contained everything the 8 winged figure knew but after skimming through everything, he found that it only contained the 8 winged beings story and wish.
It just meant he'll have to figure everything out himself.
He clenched his fists. Thinking to himself, If he could summon the dark red spirits like the one in his vision… Then what would that mean for his cultivation path going forward? The thought of this caused his blood to boil with excitement for a moment.
"No....A wise man knows not to make haste...the real question is whether they'll obey when summoned."
" After all, an army without a leader is no army, but a disaster waiting to happen." He said, furrowing his brows in contemplation. Managing to suppress his wild urges.
His thoughts ran far, filled with endless possibilities, until a sudden, crushing fatigue consumed him without warning.
"Arrghh..."
His knees buckled. His vision blurred.
Both his mind and body felt as though they had been wrung dry, every ounce of strength drained in an instant.
"I'm guessing this must be the backlash of the divine ability...."
His trembling fingers dug into the dry ground for stability. His body felt weak, but his heart and soul felt something else entirely. A sense of relief.
' It doesn't matter either way....' He clenched his right palm in front of his face. ' So long as I can now... cultivate again.'
To mortals, their lives could only be fulfilled after living a fruitfull life, for most it was growing up, finding a job, getting married, having kids and live their old age in piece.
For some it was doing whatever possible to add a bit of excitement to their lives, to experience that rush of power flowing through them till their final hours, but. To a martial artist, the meaning of life lied in cultivation. So long as one had tasted the fruits of the martial world, they would always be longing for more. And Yao Zi wasn't any different.
Ever since he'd begun cultivating, he'd always wished he would one day reach a height great enough to earn him a place amongst Qin mountains strongest in a few decades or so... Yet now, as if influenced by the dark red vortex, the phenomenal vision and short memory the 8 winged being had given him.
Yao Zi's ambitions began stretching farther than he'd previously hoped. With this godlike power to dominate the living and dead, didn't that mean he was basically someone with the potential to stand at the top of the country, no country was too little...
Right now he felt like it wouldn't be impossible for him to stand at the apex of the continent or maybe even the world.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze upwards. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the swirling fog no longer obstructed his vision.
And there, above him, was the sky. Vast. Open and seemingly Endless.
" So what do I do now?" He asked himself. Strangely, he felt no raging emotions nor aching heart like before. As if they had all vanished in the blink of an eye without a trace. As if trying to remind him of his reason for commiting suicide, his most hated memory surfaced once more.
Several weeks ago...
A heavy weight pressed against Yao Zi's back as he trudged up the familiar dirt path. A freshly slain wild boar, its coarse fur matted with blood, hung over his shoulders. Each step was sluggish, but excitement thrummed through his veins.
"I can't wait to see Wan'er's surprised look when she sees this," he murmured under his breath, imagining the way her face would light up.
The village lay just farther up Qin mountain, nestled within a dense forest. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys in the distance, the scent of burning wood mingling with the crisp evening air. The sky was tinged with hues of deep orange, casting long shadows across the earth.
He soon entered the village and made his way down the road. But as he stepped past the bamboo fence surrounding her home, his breath caught in his throat.
The scent of iron, thick and pungent, clawed at his nose.
His smile vanished.
A cold, suffocating stillness gripped the air. The moment his gaze landed on the sight before him, the world tilted.
"W-Wan'er?.…"
She was kneeling, bathed in scarlet, her delicate hands clutching at the still-warm corpses of her parents, Uncle Li and Aunty Li. Their lifeless eyes stared at the heavens, as if questioning why fate had been so cruel.
"How?..."
Yao Zi staggered, his wild boar slipping from his shoulders with a dull thud.