Yuan arrived at the scene of what seemed to be a zombie apocalypse movie shoot. Looking down at the horde of around 20 zombies a smile crept onto Yuan's face. He always wanted to see real undead and one of his manga sightseeing goals had been ticked off. Now all he had to do was find the necromancer responsible and pat him on the back in awe.
Using his divine sense he attempted to search the area but not only could he not find the necromancer, he couldn't find any life for hundreds of miles. Yuan’s face darkened a little from this. He knew the situation at Luna’s village now and it wasn’t good.
While in deep thought he was broken out by Luna talking. “Those zombie faces kinda look familiar don’t you think Yuan?” she said in a slightly cheerful voice with a hint of murderous intent in it. Yuan shuddered a little but looked down and gave the zombies a closer look.
Luna obviously had the faces of all the men who chased her deeply etched into her mind as a source of trauma. Whereas for Yuan they had been simple NPC’s running for their life while he tested some skills. After racking his brain he recognised the face of the soldier who had tried to have the first go with Luna. That disgusting pig face was covered in rot so it was hard to tell from a single glance but it was indeed that pig soldier.
Yuan shot a inquisitive gaze at Luna, the recipient was a bit confused that Yuan didn’t seem to know but couldn't see him getting mad at her for disrespecting his lack of knowledge, so proceeded to explain the situation anyways.
“If dead bodies are left to rot in areas of high mana concentration they become undead, considering this is one of the most dangerous forests in the world, the mana here is very thick causing this situation in such a short time. Did you kill these soldiers and not burn them after?”.
Yuan just simply stroked his non existent beard in contemplation of her words. After a moment he seemed to be sad. Luna misunderstood that she had insulted him or that he felt bad for not burning the bodies and was feeling guilty. Meanwhile Yuan saw his dream of being buddies with a necromancer leave his grasp.
To vent his frustration at the situation Yuan casually waved his hand at the group of zombies trying to scratch him from below like mindless Ai that would walk into walls or something.
Upon waving his hand an extreme pressure fell upon the undead soldiers squashing them all into dust. Luna let out a gasp at the show of strength but Yuan didn’t think much of it and continued his journey towards the destroyed village of Luna.
Arriving at the wrecked village Luna started sobbing in sebastians arms. It was a peculiar sight for sure. Her fluffy black ears were twitching uncontrollably and her tail was dropped down as if having lost all life.
After descending to the burned ground the smell of burnt flesh still lingered in the air. The village was made up of around 100 houses. Most were wooden but some more important buildings, such as the village chief’s house, seemed to be made from stone as well. There was a plaza in the middle of the houses with a large water well that went hundreds of meters deep, tapping into an underground lake, allowing for a constant supply of water for the village.
All around the plaza were large mounds of burned flesh and bones. The faces belonging to the victims were no longer distinguishable. Luna summoned her soul beast to try to find any survivors. The small black cat obeyed its masters orders and began scouting the village.
Yuan already knew the results the cat would bring back but decided to let Luna hold onto a little bit of hope, he definitely didn't want to be the one to break the bad news to her.
While Luna was looking at the scene of her family and turned into mounds of charred flesh Yuan was instead more interested in the cat Luna had summoned. It wasn’t anything impressive but it was just the fact it was a soul beast. Yuan didn’t have a soul beast yet as he didn’t know they existed a few seconds ago. Yuan was about to ask Luna about it but could read the mood so decided to ask later.
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Yuan watched Luna slowly lose her sanity and warmth before his eyes. This level of emotion was outside what Yuan had expected. He understood that these are Luna’s friends and family's corpses but in this world of constant death where the strong preyed on the weak, Yuan hadn’t been expecting Luna to break down like this. He could see himself in her, as he had a similar reaction when he learned of his parents death as well. As she lost control of her mana shadows started swirling around her body as if trying to devour her very soul.
Feeling the strings of his heart being tugged at Yuan decided to move. He walked over and embraced Luna in a tight hug and placed his head on her shoulders. He felt his shoulder getting damp from the stream of tears but paid it no mind.
Luna felt her emotions leaving her only to be consumed by the darkness. This darkness was her Dao, the way of darkness. It’s often thought of as a potential demonic cultivation method but in most places its tolerated as its not considered evil just that most people who wield it would work for secret societies or work as assassins as it’s work that fits well within their abilities.
Similar to Yuan, Luna doesn't have much offensive power, in a straight 1v1 in an arena she would usually lose to people of a similar realm. However if she can move under the cover of shadows and surprise attack her opponent then she would be unmatched.
This darkness that was always her closest ally and friend was trying to console her by wrapping her up like a blanket would wrap around a newborn. Yuan had mistaken this act as an attack on Luna and had moved in to hug her.
Luna felt the sudden warm embrace of Yuan as well as the weight of his calm breath next to her ear. Letting out a little whimper she returned the hug in full force burrowing her head into his chest.
They stayed like this for a while until Luna had calmed down. After separating, her face flushed red with embarrassment but quickly calmed down after seeing Yuan's gentle but calm face. Luna’s black ears perked back up to normal and her tail was swaying from side to side kicking up some leaves on the ground.
“Thanks.” Luna muttered under her breath, Yuan simply smiled more and gave her a pat on the head. After she calmed down, they decided to talk about the future.
Luna had nowhere to go anymore. She had finished her lessons at the academy in the nearest city and was planning to help her family live better lives out here with her now high cultivation realm for her age at the Sage realm. The position of village chief would definitely have been her’s in the future if not for this tragedy.
Yuan explained to Luna some of his circumstances. He of course lied for now about where he came from as it just wouldn’t make sense to Luna with no evidence. He said he was a sheltered child that had grown up in the forest and was from an old clan that had since declined leaving him as the only member of his family left. Luna felt a deep comradery feeling hearing that Yuan also was without a family.
To show their level of closeness they both decided to share what Dao they were pursuing. For some people it's pretty obvious what Dao they followed, for example someone following the Dao of fire would only use fire type attacks so after a single battle or show of their abilities would expose their Dao and therefore their weaknesses.
However both Luna and Yuan didn’t possess obvious elemental based Dao. Luna went first and explained her Dao of darkness. It allowed her to turn herself into a shadow and sneak up on people. She could also command shadows to move and restrain people. She even exposed her trump card, she could hide in people's shadows and wait for a time to strike.
Yuan returned the gesture and told her about his illusion Dao but Luna was super surprised and raised a problematic question for Yuan.
“How did you train a mind based Dao to such a high realm?”
“Mhm?” Yuan responded with confusion at the question. Not just because he couldn’t answer, as he had never trained his cultivation, but also because he couldn’t understand why Luna would be so interested.
Luna sighed and massaged her temples. “To train a Dao one must expose themselves to the source of the Dao and attempt to learn its deeper secrets. For example a senior pursuing the path of lightning would have to sit atop a mountain in the middle of a thunderstorm in order to grasp the lightning energies around him. A cultivator pursuing the path of fire would surround themselves in the flames of hell…”
Taking a short pause Luna looked to Yuan and continued
“So then the question is, how could one cultivate a Dao such as illusions? There are few natural occurring illusions in the world and the stronger u got in understanding the mechanisms and secrets behind the illusions the less effective they would be before you. I doubt there are many illusions which a person could use to push himself all the way to the celestial realm.”
Yuan seemed calm and periodically nodded to Luna while she was explaining but was sweating on the inside. What was he supposed to say when he had nothing to say at all. Yuan pondered for a while and decided to use the strongest trump card from the modern era of humans.
Putting on a sad face he turned to Luna, “I was born with a mental illness, I see the entire world as fake, everything you see including you and me, in my eyes are nothing more than ones and zeros. Nothing in here is real and therefore everything is but one big illusion. With the help of this mindset I was able to train my illusion Dao at insane speed allowing me to reach the realm i'm at right now.” Yuan let out a bitter laugh to finish his little act.
Luna had a weird expression. She both felt enlightened to how Yuan had acquired his growth but at the same time was confused as it just didn’t quite make sense, what did he mean by zero’s and ones? Before she could press the issue any harder, her soul beast had returned.
Yuan looked at the black cat’s golden eyes as if it was an angel, it came at the perfect moment to save him. “Luna if it’s not too much trouble could you teach me how to get a soul beast?” Yuan asked with great anticipation in his eyes. Luna just sighed at this and looked at Yuan as if he was some uneducated child and smiled.