Chapter 12 - The Punishment Hall's Dungeon
Yaan had now been living in the core sect for one whole month. He mostly spent time with Great Elder Wan, but was given some free rein to explore by himself.
The core sect was large and lacking in people, enough so that it was rare to bump into others unless he ventured into the various public meeting places. By exploring the marketplaces and training halls, Yaan became acquainted with some of the other core disciples and elders.
They treated him courteously, so he reciprocated in kind. These people were still unsure about Yaan. Nothing was really known about him, and on the outside, he appeared to be an ordinary mortal child. That said, how could someone who caught Great Elder Wan’s attention possibly be ordinary?
As such, Yaan was treated politely whilst people waited to see what he achieved.
After assessing that he had finally settled in properly, Great Elder Wan brought Yaan into a dungeon below the core sect’s Punishment Hall. The hall itself was located within a vast palace crafted from various rare rocks and crystals, but the dungeon below was completely different.
Dark, damp and smelling like blood, the aura of death lingered in the air.
“Teacher, what are we doing here?” Yaan asked curiously.
Over this past month, the great elder really had treated him well. On account of their student teacher relationship, Yaan took to calling him ‘teacher’. It would be more courteous to call one’s teacher ‘master’, but Yaan wasn’t yet prepared to devote himself like that just yet.
Most of his caution towards this amicable teacher of his had disappeared, it was just that he couldn’t help but feel distrustful of people in general now.
“You are going to start cultivating using Slaughter Aura now.” Great Elder Wan looked down at Yaan with an understanding smile.
He felt happy that Yaan was warming up to him. Although it was gradual, he was certainly gaining the young boy’s trust, slowly but surely.
“Slaughter Aura…but…” Yaan showed a pained expression. The hazy and incomplete memories of what he had done in Zong Village slowly resurfaced in his mind, haunting him every night in his dreams.
He had lost his sanity and killed dozens of innocent people, even revelling in the bloodshed as he did so. Every night, when he lay down to sleep, he was forced to see the pained and fearful expressions of the children whose lives he had prematurely ripped away.
If it wasn’t for Great Elder Wan’s interference, perhaps he would still be running around like a crazed madman.
No…in all likelihood, any other elder would have killed him on the spot…
“What happened in Zong Village was not your fault, Yaan. And don’t worry…the people I have chosen for you this time are all prisoners scheduled for execution.”
“Prisoners?” Yaan repeated, blinking his eyes in surprise.
“Right. They are all people who have offended the sect in someway. These people are held in prison cells until their executions. They are all destined to die regardless, so you may as well do it yourself, right?”
Yaan nodded slowly. This did indeed suit him. He wanted to continue with his cultivation, but didn’t want to kill innocents needlessly. He was already tormented by what he had done, he didn’t want to make things even worse.
“This time, I want you to resist the Slaughter Aura with your own efforts. The effect on your mind after the 100th kill will be far greater. I will be unable to help you resist it, so its essential that you adjust now.”
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Yaan silently agreed, though he still felt begrudging about the fact that he was going to kill again.
He knew that he needed to do this. For the sake of his revenge, he would definitely do this.
Creak…
They stopped beside a metal door at the end of the corridor. Unlike the doors to their sides along this corridor, this final door was being guarded by a single person.
“G-Great Elder Wan! I heard word of your arrival, it is an honour, my lord!” The man bowed deeply, both afraid and in awe of the huge figure that was Great Elder Wan. Yaan had to remind himself that to the majority of the sect members, his teacher was a figure of such grandeur that a single meeting with him would be forever engrained within their memories.
“Mm. My disciple will be entering alone, he is not to be disturbed until he leaves.”
“Of course, my lord!” The guard hurriedly nodded. He fumbled in his pocket for the key, dropping it on the floor in his nervousness. He hastily apologised as he picked it up, sweating at the fact that he was appearing so stupid before the vice sect lord.
Great Elder Wan showed an indifferent expression. To him, this guard was just an insignificant character, he was more concerned with Yaan.
“The prisoner is tied up, there is a sharpened sword within for you to use as you see fit.” The guard smiled at Yaan with a flattering smile as he opened the door, pointing within the dark chamber.
Yaan nodded to the guard before entering the room slowly, not stopping until he heard the door slam shut behind him.
This room was the execution room used for mortal prisoners who had somehow offended key sect members. As for how a mortal could offend a key sect member without being killed on the spot…the only possibility was that they had been brought back to the sect and tortured relentlessly prior to their execution.
The stone walls were stained with blood and a strong aura of death and resentment lingered in the air.
Yaan stared forwards through the faint candlelit atmosphere and gazed at the emaciated man before him. When the man heard Yaan enter, he slowly looked up and stared at Yaan expressionlessly through his empty eyes.
“Are you here to kill me? To think they would send a child…” The man muttered with a raspy voice.
His long and disheveled hair, the cuts that covered his body, the bone structure that could clearly be seen through his pale skin…this man had obviously suffered plenty enough.
“Why are you here?” Yaan asked, for reasons he couldn’t explain himself. It would definitely be better if he killed this man without thinking too much about it, and yet, he asked this question anyway.
Seeing that Yaan was hesitating, the man’s dead eyes gained a faint glimmer of light. He struggled to sit up, the chains that bound his limbs clattering on the stone floor as he did so.
He saw an opportunity.
“It was all a big misunderstanding! One of the lords visited my home village, so of course the entire village showed up and paid our respects. Only, my damned brother in law muttered something about the lord being late! I slapped the fool and berated him, only, the lord mistook me as the-”
“You’re lying.” Yaan stated plainly, cutting off his story and staring at the man coldly.
“No, I really-”
“You’re definitely lying. That look in your eye is one I have seen many times in those scheming types of people. That aside, there’s no way that an elder would ever make such a basic mistake like that.”
Yaan slowly walked across the room, then picked up the sword that was neatly held between three metal rungs on the wall. He felt the weight of the sword as he examined it, complimenting the sharpness in his mind.
For a moment, Yaan felt bitter…even though he could hardly remember the atrocity that he committed back in Zong Village, he had apparently developed a keen eye for weapon appraisal after killing so many people with an array of different tools of murder.
“I, I really don’t deserve to die though! Maybe I did twist the truth slightly, but I still don’t deserve death!”
“Maybe, but…you will die, regardless of whether or not I act.” Yaan sighed at this pitiful man.
As soon as the spark of hope was rekindled in the desperate man’s eyes, he began grasping at straws, trying to find any opportunity to save his own life. It was a pathetic display, and yet, it was entirely understandable.
“I really shouldn’t have said anything…” Yaan muttered to himself as he approached the now screaming man. The man's pleas became silent to his ears as he focussed on the task at hand.
Chi! Thump!
Yaan acted quickly, striking before the man had time to realise that his death was imminent. His head was removed cleanly from his body. Blood spurted out from his headless corpse, then his body hit the floor with a thump soon after the head rolled away.
From the frozen pleading look on the man’s face, it was clear that Yaan killed him before he even realised that his killer had acted.
Yaan stood there expressionlessly as he stared at decapitated corpse for a while. He could feel the bloodlust within his body rising as the Slaughter Aura was absorbed, but compared to the time in Zong Village, just this much was nothing.
The experience of completely losing his mind to his base killing desire actually hardened his resistance tremendously. This meant that even though the bloodlust increased with each kill compared to the last as he approached 100, Yaan was able to maintain his sense of reason without any major difficulties.
That said, he didn’t plan to leave this place just yet. He would stay inside of this chamber until the bloodlust completely dissipated, then he could leave without worrying that some outside influence might affect his mind. He had learned after he prior experiences…when possible, it was best to always maintain his peak mental condition when he was around others.
Perhaps staying beside the still bleeding corpse wasn’t helping the bloodthirsty to subside, but Yaan remembered what Great Elder Wan told him. With this in mind, he decided to think of it as a form of tempering his mind’s resilience.
Six hours later, Yaan finally stood up. He took one last look at the corpse and sighed, then shook his head and knocked on the metal door. There was a moment of silence before the guard hurriedly acted, this time not dropping the key. When Yaan walked outside, he found that Great Elder Wan had left, but this wasn’t surprising given how long he had spent in there.
“I’ll go and fetch the next prisoner, you can leave to eat and rest in the mean time. Vice Sect Lord Wan has explained the situation to me, feel free to come and go as you please in this layer of the dungeon.” The guard smiled flatteringly. Yaan simply nodded, then left without a word.
When the guard glanced inside the room and saw the cleanly beheaded corpse, he couldn’t help but take a second look at Yaan as he walked away.
‘He definitely killed this guy hours ago, yet stayed beside the bleeding corpse for so long after. To kill so decisively, then show no emotion afterwards, and his weird actions…sigh, it’s better if I don’t think about it.’
The guard knew that Great Elder Wan was doing something strange with this disciple of his…but, as an ordinary prison guard, he didn’t even dare to think about what the vice sect lord might be trying to achieve.