“This must be a dream! I remember that today is the crowning ceremony, for my ascendance to the throne; I must be sleeping,” Su Jin’s mind was in complete chaos unable to comprehend what was happening in his life and following his parents instruction he reached the underground cave’s exit the sight he saw there made his heart cry crazy.
The entire Daram Empire which once flourished in Entire South Sky Continent was now at its ruins, countless lifeless bodies of people who fought for the protections of royal empire was lying everywhere on his path and entire Daram capital city was burning under the flames of war weak women and children who escaped the attack were also found by the knights of Youlong kingdom and they had their way with them, this made Su Jin come back to reality and he became aware of the current situation of the Empire.
When he regained his consciousness he found himself surrounded by 500 Youlong Kingdom Knights, which went after the fleeing people and were returning back. Though they were a lot weaker than him, But they outnumbered him, and Two General Level Knights gave the order to his men to kill Su Jin, and a fight broke out between them.
Using every ounce of his strength Su Jin fought with them and killed more than 200 knights and which made him lose considerable amount of his strength making him unable to continue any more.
Results of the fight were clear he was going to die under enemy Knight assault.
Unwilling to accept his fate, he griped his hand firmly and drop of his blood from his palm fell on the key and a strange light started emitting from his palm which was holding the key given to him by his father the key started glowing in red light and all the dead aura emitting from the from the countless dead body was absorbed by the key and this was the reason behind the red glow on the key. This read light swallowed Su Jin from everywhere, it felt he was in a complete new world and in front of him was the mysterious dagger, having a rusty look on it and a dragon was carved at its edge it was releasing a strange aura from it.
Su Jin, went to inspect the dagger blood was still flowing from his palm and again blood fell on the dagger and various inscription on the dagger started glowing on the dagger, and it went inside the body of Su Jin’s body and it made him unconscious.
Like a spirit, Su Jin after collapsing, drifted under the Red Light. Su Jin felt his body floating through the air, light and completely out of his control.
“Where am I?”
He turned his gaze downwards. There was a mass grave with thousands of corpses everywhere. It was a lifeless land. A group of crows and vultures pecked the flesh from the decaying bodies.
“So many people have died here. Am I dead?” Su Jin smiled wryly, looking at his hands. He could see the dead bodies through them. It seemed like he was truly dead.
But at this moment, a lone wolf with silvery white fur suddenly barged towards the mass grave and disturbed the crows and vultures. In a hurry, the birds flew to the withered branches on the trees nearby and shrieked towards the wolf that interrupted their feast.
The lone wolf paid no attention to the sounds of the birds. It approached a young boy’s body, sat down and sniffed. Then it gave a long and sorrowful howl which made the birds grow quiet.
The young boy’s face was pale but stern, with many scratches across his body. His clothes were ragged and a black dagger was tied to his waist. The dagger looked rusty and dull. The boy was completely lifeless.
The lone wolf stayed on his side and kept howling, as if it was begging for the heaven’s for mercy.
Perhaps, the heaven would answer its plea.
All of a sudden, the black rusty dagger quivered and a strange power stirred from within. An indescribable force sucked Su Jin’s spirit towards the dagger. He was startled but before he could react, his body no longer felt weightless.
Opening his eyes, Su Jin looked up and saw the depressing grey sky. It was foggy. He suddenly felt a pounding headache, followed by painful memories flashing into his head. He thought his brain was about to explode from all of the events happened in his life today.
He then noticed all of the corpses were everywhere around him, oozing a rotten stench. The stench disgusted Su Jin so much, that it made him fill with rage and burning anger. .
“Why did this happened? Why am I over hear? Doesn’t matter, I need to get out of here first.”
This was his first thought. He passed by many corpses and ran towards a forest. The stench of rotten bodies slowly faded away and the sight of them finally disappeared. When he approached the edge of the spooky forest, he realized that his whole body was in searing pain.
He was too exhausted to run. His legs had given up and he tumbled under a tree while heavily breathing. He finally noticed the wolf that was following him. He was spooked as the memories flashed through his brain. He remembered when he was 10 years old, he went on hunting with his grandfather he saved the life of a baby wolf whose mother was murdered by a Purple Lion while protecting her newborn child.
He remembered that he named the wolf…
“YuWu!”
Hearing Su Jin’s calling, the wolf howled a few times and its eyes sparkled.
When he heard the voice that came from his mouth, it was unfamiliar to Su Jin. But a strange sound came from his stomach.
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“YuWu, I’m hungry. I can’t walk anymore. Please go and find me some food.” Su Jin gathered a bit of hope and whispered. His stomach rumbled at the perfect timing.
Behind him is a forest, in front of him a mass of corpses of Daram Empire’s dead Soldiers.
The forest was called the Beastly Forest. Which is located at the outside of the Capital City. He used to come to this place with his grandfather to improve his martial arts skill this is also the place where his Grandfather taught him ways of living a life.
Inside the forest’s mountains contained many extremely dangerous magical beasts. He only dared to hunt the beasts with 6th layer magical abilities when he came to hunt with his grandfather who stayed at the edge of the forest and only kept a watch at him. He would take the opportunities to battle when the beasts came out of the forest to eat, to increase his own battle power.
To Su Jin’s misfortune, the earth beneath his feet began to shake.
Bang! Bang! Bang…
Su Jin turned his head and saw a magic bear three metres tall charging in his direction. It’s terrifying mouth was displaying its razor sharp teeth. It opened its mouth, ready to bite!
Su Jin did not know what to do. A shiver ran down his spine and his brain froze, he was unable to react.
A magic bear was even more powerful than any other beast he fought so far.
His heart screamed, “Am I going to die? If a magic bear could kill me, I don’t deserve the Daram Emperor’s name. I’m going to fight!”
Su Jin’s bloodthirst was growing by each second spent between life and death. He pulled out the rusty black dagger from his waist and ignored the pain from his body. He pushed through his body’s limit and jumped. He thrust the dagger, which was more like a tiny sword, 40 centimetres in length, towards the bear’s neck. A strange, indescribable feeling arose within Su Jin’s heart when he held the black dagger. He did not put much thought into that feeling, there was no time.
The bear seemed to have sensed something when it saw the rusty dagger. A tinge of disdain flashed through its eyes as bit down onto the dagger.
At this very moment, all of the bear’s long, sharp teeth shattered. Blood was oozing from its wounds.
As the blood covered the dagger it seemed to come alive. The dagger burst into an incredible amount of black threads which wrapped around the bear’s head. The threads were so tight that the bear could not move. Su Jin’s hand was glued to the dagger.
His body gave a violent shake. All the black threads condensed into a black light which was directed towards his body. Su Jin felt his wounds healing, his strength replenishing. To his shock, the bear’s torso shrank at an alarming speed until there was only skin and bones left. The bear merely struggled for a brief moment before it died.
His wounds disappeared, his hunger no longer remained. He felt energetic. He looked at the dagger. A few pieces of rust fell from the dagger, the black light shone weakly for a while longer and then it returned to normal.
When his life was at stake; Su Jin was fierce and fearless, however he realized after that a cold sweat had covered his body. He tried to steady his breathing. All the sensations he just experienced were unimaginable. He could not find anything similar when searching through the memories from this mind.
It took him a while to compose himself. Then he remembered that he could wear the bear’s skin for covering his body. He took out the dagger and began to remove the bear skin.
Thanks to this Grandfather’s teachings, Su Jin was an expert at skinning a beast. And since the bear’s flesh and blood were completely absorbed by the strange force from the dagger; he removed the skin without much difficulty. When it was done, he neatly folded the bear’s fur. His eyes lit up when he saw the bear’s skeleton.
“Bones of a magic bear! I can get Self Essence from those.”
The second he touched the bones, the skeleton burst into fine dust and was blown away by the wind. Su Jin was dumbfounded. He sighed – It was regretful that he could not get Self Essence from the skeleton. Then he suddenly saw a blood-red cobblestone-size object, an elixir was laying on the ground.
“Ha! An elixir!”
Su Jin naturally knew how precious the elixir was. He was ecstatic to have found it. If he used it, he could obtain better medicine and equipment to protect his life in this Beastly Forest.
Suddenly, he felt something approaching him. He will hold his head high. YuWu came back this time with a small hog in its mouth. The wolf was a natural hunter.
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(To Be Continued)
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