Master? Master?' Liu Ming called, his body growing motionless from the fear branching out from his soul. He wasn't looking at the entity with his eyes open yet it felt as if 'it' was staring back through ten thousand eyes from every angle, watching him intently.

He lowered his gaze and parted his eyelids. 'It has no soul. No breath. No smell. Nothing. Should I fight it by myself?' He looked at his peers, who were staring up at the roof without moving even half an inch. He could feel their fear which ran deep and spread out to every part of their bodies.

Following Wu Tao's orders, Liu Ming slowly turned around. His breaths were locked in to avoid alerting the creature, or so he hoped.

Without any sound or movement, the serpent demon's phantom manifested itself in front of Liu Ming, making eye contact and capturing his soul like its other phantom had.

He gasped, terrified, but it was already too late; all three of them had been...captured.

'Liuyue? Wu Tao?' he tried reaching out to them but there was no response. Unbeknownst to him, his peers' souls were slowly being pulled out little by little by this entity that he could not recognize, not even from the legends.

Ren's eyes popped open as an indescribable odd feeling filled him. As if he was losing a part of himself, his soul grew restless, and his body became colder.

He got up and stepped from under the pavilion to bathe in the direct sunlight so he could rid himself of this sudden chill.

When it didn't work, he lit up his black fire all around him. Yet still, the chilly sensation running beneath his skin didn't wear off.

"Clay?" he called.

A second later, Clay descended from the sky in his mature form, rolling and twisting in the air until he reached his master.

"Ma-ster?" His speech was still undeveloped, but he could manage to speak a sentence even though with difficulty.

"I'm feeling cold. No, I'm freezing. You can breathe fire, right?"

Clay exhaled. His breath was so strong that it blew Ren's hair out of his face like the wind. "Master not, cold. Discip-les cold."

Ren's face contorted in a frown. "What do you mean they-" He instantly closed his eyes and thrust his consciousness into his mental galaxy.

Three of the six stars now twinkled dimly, cold air emanating from them and into his galaxy. 'Liu Ming?' Silence. 'Liuyue?' Silence. 'Wu Tao?' Silence.

This only further confirmed his fear...they were dying by cold air.

The first thought that came to Ren's mind was the man who had killed Han. He remembered how thick the ice had been when he got to Han that night. 'Does that bastard have a hand in this as well?'

Suddenly, the hatred he had buried for months after the sudden death of the first friend he had made in this world, exploded. His body was immediately consumed by flames of golden qi. "I'm going to rip you to pieces!" he hissed before a black hole opened and swallowed him up, leaving Clay behind.

'Master, angry,' Clay thought. 'Follow Master?'

But he hesitated, fearing he'd make Ren more angry by appearing when he hadn't asked him to. Heartbroken, he flew back to where he had been. Where he always was when Ren needed his space... Han's branches.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The black hole materialized just in front of the mouth of the cave after following the weak link Ren had with his disciples.

The chilly air got to him, but the anger bubbling throughout his body blocked it off. All he could think of was how he'd cut down that miserable man and make him bleed slowly for what he had done.

A string of golden flames popped up in the air, lighting the tunnel to where he could feel fading traces of human souls. His jaw clenched, his rage burning more qi to cover his body as both a defense and offense barrier. With the sword in his hand, Ren moved forward, misusing the portals with each step he took.

The distance that had taken his disciples fifteen minutes was covered in a minute.

He saw them, finally.

But relief was far from possible as their bodies now had a thin layer of ice covering them and life was going out like a candle about to melt completely.

He took a step through the void to appear between his disciples without caring if the danger was still nearby. "Liu Ming? Can you hear me?" he asked patting his frozen cheek gently.

When silence was all he got in return, Ren placed his hand on Liu Ming's chest and injected his qi into him. He had no idea what he was doing, but he had to do something. Ren was not going to just stand and let more people die. People who had chosen to follow him in two lives and rested their faith and hopes in him; a man with no deep understanding of anything about this world, nor himself.

When qi alone wasn't enough, he let the black flames, whose heat surpassed the golden flames, cover Liu Ming's body without the intent of burning him.

His right eye moved, giving Ren a bit of hope. 'Can you hear me, Liu Ming?'

'Ma-ster!' Liu Ming's weak voice came. 'A serpent, demon. It...it...'

A barrier formed out of thin air around the four of them to protect them so that Ren could put his entire focus on saving his disciples from the jaws of death.

Using the void, he gave each of them his qi, lowering his level from six thousand down to five thousand and one hundred inversely raising their levels;

*Ding*

Name; Liu Ming

Ability; Enhanced perception

Cultivation level; 2100

Cultivation stage; Qi foundation

Life;----

*Ding*

Name; Liuyue

Ability; Summoning

Cultivation level; 2600

Cultivation stage; Nascent soul

Life;----

*Ding*

Name; Wu Tao

Ability; Soul manipulation

Cultivation level; 1400

Cultivation stage; Qi foundation

Life;----

Unlike how the qi he consumed from other beings reduced when reaching him, the qi leaving his body equaled the qi going into his disciples.

With their levels raised, Ren proceeded to make his dantian boil, producing the hottest flames he could make and covering their bodies.

The ice wore off while his qi restored and protected their souls from further damage.

Their weak bodies swayed to the ground but Ren used his roots to catch all of them, lifting them off the ground.

"Mas...ter?" Liuyue whispered trying to lift her hand. "I'm...sorry." A teardrop rolled down her right temple as her eyelids grew heavy till they closed

Ren patted her head. "It's okay. I'll take care of the rest."

He carefully transported their bodies back to the sect, ordering the twins to leave the pagoda so they could take care of their seniors. Clay was instructed to protect the sect alongside the sect's guardian.

With any distraction gone, Ren lit up the rest of the path, his hand itching to kill someone or something.

He didn't care how much energy he'd use today, all he wanted was vengeance. For the present account, and the past. He'd give that 'man' a painful and deserving death.

Using the void to walk so he could get to the center of the cave faster, Ren occasionally destroyed the frozen corpses without intending to, or even caring. They were dead anyway, their families or sects didn't care enough to retrieve them. So why should he be bothered whether they remained intact or in pieces?

Finally, he reached the heart of the cave which connected several other tunnels.

Something was hanging from the roof or growing from its rough, damp surface.

Ren's flame levitated to illuminate it, only to find the serpent demon resting upside down, its lower half of the body now turned into roots, and its head, which had been covered with snakes, now had long, thin, thread-like, red grass leaves that were moving slightly to its little movements.

The demon opened its eyes, meeting Ren's which were full of anger, confusion, and coldness. Colder than the icy air it emitted to scare off other beings.

"You! What are you?" he questioned raising his blade at it.

The yellow eyes moved from his face and down to the sword.

It spun unnaturally from the waist, forcefully cutting itself in halves. The grass leaves transformed into snakes while the void lower half grew into a snake body before hitting the floor.

With the upper half in a human form yet looking neither male nor female, it hissed, slithering closer to Ren, its eyes firmly fixed on the sword.

'It wants to attack!'

He hopped backward as his qi began flowing into the sword, borrowing some of its intent. He might have weakened from saving his disciples, but he was still strong enough to handle the entity. Ren just didn't want to take any chances. He intended the slash to end the creature for good.

But without a soul, he didn't know where to strike or how to kill it.

He released his first slash of qi infused with the sword's murderous intent that would cut through anything.

Hissing, the creature didn't try to dodge the attack, having it lose an arm. Ren's brows furrowed, wondering why it hadn't moved out of the way. But he took it as a chance to deliver more slashes, cutting its body into more pieces and staining the floor with its green blood

As he drove the sword through what was left of the entity's chest, Ren realized that it wasn't paying any attention to him at all. Its eyes, all of its eyes including the snakes', were on the sword.

"Ma...ster," it breathed in a deep male voice, its head drooping forward as if...dead.