Xiaojun felt the energy in his body wane as he phased in and out of consciousness. He was strong, but he was ultimately human. Weakness in his bones. Weakness in his muscles. But all that was minimal in comparison to his real ailment: weakness in his soul.

“Years of your life…” his mind said to itself, “and yet you are still weak.” There were countless wounds and scars which marred his body, each one being the result of one weakness or another. “You are not strong. You are weak.” His brain seemed to churn like a molasses of sin and doubt. “That is why you simply deserve this blade which shall cut your throat.”

“No!” he retorted to his own thoughts. “I may be weak, and victory may come at an abysmal cost, but I must keep fighting!” A war was fighting in his soul, one between the yearn for self-destruction and the yearn for self-fulfillment. “There is a real reason I must fight! Nina Wagner needs me to save her!”

“You are a delusional dog-faced brute!” his ego retorted. “Nina chose to be taken by the Beast of Corruption! The claim that she was pure was nothing but a lie! She weaved an alliance with that devil so that she may survive the battle!” The mental war fought on as Xiaojun slowly succumbed to the acceptance of death.

In the plane of reality, the shadow was preparing to cut Xiaojun down like an executioner punishing a sinner. The weary warrior closed his eyes as he allowed his body to bow to the pressure of violence. “There is no reason to fight any longer. Finally, I may rest.”

Suddenly, there was a cry coming from the crypt below. “Xiaojun! Are you still there?” It was Hua. She was yelling at the top of her lungs. The sound of slithering jiangshi followed. Since Xiaojun and his shadow were no longer present, the human and the fox girl were perfect morsels of meat. “Keep fighting! We’ll get over there! Just hang on!”

The shadow stopped the execution as it began to laugh. “Your followers seem devoted to you,” it said with the auditory hallucinations. “I shall make your demise ever painful.” It turned around. The shadow was going to chase after them instead. “No…” Xiaojun groaned as he reached out and grabbed the shadow by the boot. “I… can’t… let… you…”

The war in his mind resurged. He had a new purpose to fight: to protect Hua and Rina down below. “I have to get up! If I don’t, they’ll die!” Time ago, he didn’t have a care for anyone other than himself or his quest. But now, things were clearly different. “Fight Xiaojun! Fight and kill this bastard!”

Exploding with energy, he leapt to his feet and smashed a devastating punch into the shadow. Unlike the earlier kicks, this strike was truly devastating as it crushed the shadow’s skull into smithereens. “Is that rage I sense?” the demon laughed. “Perhaps I—”

Xiaojun launched another devastating strike, punching a literal hole into the creature’s body. He wasn’t even holding his weapon anymore. Filled with rage, the warrior was smiling as he stepped toward the recovering demon. “Embrace the rage,” the demon laughed, “embrace—”

The warrior kneed the shadow’s regenerating head, splattering black bile onto the walls as he continued to slam the shadow’s head onto his leg. Grunting like a complete savage, Xiaojun seemed to relish each and every etch of pain emerging from the demon. “Pain!” he grunted. “I want you to learn pain!”

The shadow jumped back, attempting to recover from the murderous attack. “You forget that I possess the city!” the hallucination added. The walls crumbled as hordes of jiangshi were forced to pour forward. Pouncing towards unarmed Xiaojun, they expected a free meal. They were incorrect.

The warrior was a beast without a leash. He launched his bloody knuckles into them, bashing their skulls like exploding grapes. For others, he slammed them into pillars of stone, leaving a splotch of black like a sick artist. With relentless aggression and power he taught the jiangshi fear. He taught them pain.

They attempted to flee from him, but he chased them like a predator hunting for cruel pleasure. Following them into the darkness, he laughed and smiled as he smashed them about like the fragile creatures they were. The jiangshi, running like a horde of terrified ants, were being cut down by the number as Xiaojun refused to give them any room to run. He wanted blood.

This wasn’t the usual warrior that Xiaojun was. This was a complete beast fulfilled only by violence and the causation of pain. A full blight of chaos tightly packed in the size of a bestial man. He hunted every last one of the jiangshi down as he even dug into rubble to snatch a limb like a trawler harvesting fish. When he got his hands on the screaming and terrified jiangshi, he would crush their skulls like how a predator would crush the shell of a crab before a feast. Not a single thought passed his mind other than the bestial yearn for pure violence.

The shadow, moving into the palace of the city, seemingly panted as it struggled to regenerate its damages. Like a heart, the shadow was the impetus of the Demon of Guancheng’s strength. If the shadow was destroyed, then the Demon of Guancheng would crumble like a serpent without its head. Resting against the stone wall, the demon’s body slowly regenerated as it questioned its decisions. “I underestimated him… no matter… he shall become a great pawn for the Beast of Hate. Upon receiving this pawn, the Beast of Hate will grant me a reward! Allowing me even greater power!”

Then the wall into the palace shattered as dust splattered throughout the once glorious building. Looking over, the shadow came to see a singular figure emerging from the smog. Covered in black bile and jiangshi gibs, Xiaojun emerged with his lust for blood being ever present in his erratic breaths.

“You managed to kill every single one of them. They may be transformed, but they were once human. Do you feel not a single ounce of regret?” the demon asked. But Xiaojun responded by laughing. Laughing over and over as he crept towards the demon. “Pain!”

Xiaojun grabbed the shadow by the hips and slammed him upwards, literally suplexing the shadow’s skull into the stone floor behind him. Xiaojun began to grin as he jumped on top of the limp body and began to tear at him. Literally gripping the biley flesh, he tugged and tore at him like a beast as the shadow could do nothing to resist. At this point, the shadow didn’t even look anything like Xiaojun, let alone a human. It just looked like a mess of strewn body parts as its dark blood sunk into the stone slabs below.

The warrior continued to tear the demon apart as his animalistic grunts echoed throughout the otherwise desolate palace. Throwing intestines out like rope, he bellowed with laughter and joy. Then, in the center at about where the human heart would be, there was a strange orb. No doubt, this was the real location of the demon of Guancheng.

Suddenly, a pillar launched into Xiaojun like a missile as it pinned him against the wall. The shadow regenerated the tissue around the orb, covering it once more as it stood back to its feet. “Human monster, do you realize how much potential you lose by restraining yourself to your feeble species? Join us! You can become even stronger!”

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Stone slabs and pillars began to launch themselves towards the warrior as the demon moved them with his will. “I may not have the capability to control the entire city, but I can move each and every block of this palace with a simply thought! You are weak human! That is why your species will die!”

The palace began to fall apart as each and every block of its make was coalescing with the shadow. Cell by cell, the shadow’s biley structure began to liquefy and corrupt the stone surrounding it. By the time Xiaojun managed to heave the pillars off of himself, he came to witness a titanic giant made from the palace he was just standing in.

Hua and Rina, who just managed to escape from the crypts, saw the powerful being from many blocks away. “We have to help Xiaojun!” Hua cried. She attempted to immediately sprint over, but Rina grabbed her by the arm. “There’s too much risk, besides what could we even do?”

Without saying a word, Hua pulled her arm away and revealed her arm. “I can give him my blood!” With that, she sprinted towards the dark coalition of stone and evil. “I just hope Xiaojun is holding out.”

The warrior was being buttoned down as the titan lobbed handfuls of rocky debris in his direction. With each pebble being like a pellet from a shotgun, the warrior was forced to move erratically in order to avoid these fast-moving projectiles. Many of these missiles still hit his body, slamming against his armor and some of them puncturing into his skin. The inside of his armor was drenched in sweat and blood as he continued to push the limits of his human body.

Moving powerfully, the titan kicked the warrior into a large tower. Slamming into it, the warrior spewed blood upon impact before falling to the ground. He wasn’t given a moment of rest, as he had to move quickly to avoid the stomping foot of the titan’s wrath. “You are weak, human! You must acknowledge this!”

Moving like an ant running from a god, Xiaojun navigated himself through the city. Moving in and out of the abandoned buildings, he was the subject to the aggressive offensive of the titan. With his body covered with glass, pebbles, dust, and blood, he refused to allow the attractive allure of exhaustion to weaken his system.

Through this entire time, there was one thing that piqued his animalistic brain: the orb of the demon’s life. He could see traces of it blink within the stone structure of the titan, like the delicious fat of a lamb protected by a fence. His brain put it in simple terms. “Kill him!”

It was easier said than done. He was kicked into another building as the titan began to press his hand down onto the mere man, hoping to crush him with his weight and might. Xiaojun resisted with every ounce of his strength as he pushed against it, the stone below buckling with cracks. “Succumb to the will of the Beasts! You would become so much stronger if you allow yourself to become one with the Beast of Hate!”

Truly he was tired. Xiaojun was demanding far too much from his human body. He felt each pound of the titan’s power and weight as it pushed against his arms and shoulders. Time and time again he had found himself at the forefront of a losing battle and war. He was pushing a boulder up a hill to watch it roll back down. There was no point in fighting. In the end, the war between humans and the supernatural would end only with the corpse of man and the triumph of the higher beings.

Then he heard to sound of metal clanging onto the floor. Looking over, he saw his guandao right next to him. Without even asking where it had come from, the monstrous grin returned to his face. It was time to resist the will of gods once more.

The hand of the titan was ripped into shreds within less than a second as Xiaojun immediately traveled up the titan’s arm. Running with his guandao in hand, the warrior sprinted relentlessly as he walked on the arm like a bridge. “You damned human!” the titan roared. It used its other hand to try and swat the pestering man away, but the hand was given the same treatment as it crumbled as soon as it got in Xiaojun’s range.

Launching from the bicep of the titan, the warrior surged as he jumped towards the orb in the center of the titan. With one powerful strike, one that was strong enough to part the heavens in two, he blasted a great laceration into the chest of the titan. Right in front of him, without even a cell of a barrier, was the orb of the Demon of Guancheng. He launched another strike.

A piece of rubble barely came in time as it narrowly shielded the strike, But Xiaojun could see a crack emerge onto the orb as the bonds between the stones faded. The structure of the titan failed as it fell apart due to the orb’s weakness. Xiaojun rolled onto the ground as he looked back at the orb.

A shadow reemerged from the orb, this one being far weaker. There was no grin. There was a hand in front of him instead, as if he were begging for mercy. Still regenerating, the Demon of Guancheng weakly said his words. “This was the man who defeated Siumeng. I can see how such a feat was possible. But your body has endured too much. Even now, it is nothing short of a miracle that you are still breathing.”

The demon was correct, as Xiaojun fell to his knees. His entire body felt as heavy as the sky with his consciousness fading in and out of existence. He watched as the demon continued to regenerate. At this rate, it would be the demon who would win the battle.

Then someone propped Xiaojun up to his feet. Hua, caked with dust, did his best to heave the man up. “I hope the guandao came in on time. I was nervous, since I never see you without your weapon.” But she wasn’t speaking to the warrior she knew. She was speaking to a beast. Xiaojun suddenly bit into her shoulder, taking a large bite like a wolf feasting on a lamb.

Hua screamed as she stumbled back. Blood squirted from the large empty chunk as she gripped onto it. She wasn’t only surprised. She was terrified. She was reminded of the hatred and monstrosity that hid within the Envoy of Humanity. Chewing on the meat, the Envoy was given vigor once more as the bloody wounds sealed themselves shut.

The Envoy of Humanity began to march towards the Demon of Guancheng. “W-wait!” the demon pleaded, “I can give you this city! Do you know how much a man would pay for this piece of land? The general who lay siege here was willing to sacrifice his whole army in the attack!” But the Envoy of Humanity was not someone who was bargained with. The Envoy of Humanity was someone who was met only once. A moment where one either lives after meeting him, or dies.

The Envoy of Humanity slammed his fist into the chest of the being with one final thrust. The shadow gasped motionlessly as the Envoy of Humanity retrieved the orb. With a powerful motion, he crushed it into nothing. Once again, humanity prove its worth and endurance against the wills of gods and beasts.

It was then when Xiaojun finally regained his sense of control. As if a whole different being were responsible for his last set of actions, he immediately tended to the aid of Hua. “Hey! Are you okay?” He asked. But as he reached his hand, the girl instinctively screamed and backed away. It was this reaction that caused the warrior to realize what he had done: surrender to the temptations of hatred and blind violence.

The fog within the city dissipated as well as the stench of demons. It became another desolate and destroyed city in this new world of violence. With the fog removed, Rina finally made her way to them. It was a sight. A shocked and traumatized girl on the ground juxtaposed with a shamed and remorseful warrior. “What happened? Hua, are you okay?”

“I-I’m fine. He just scared me, is all.” At this point, her shoulder was finally healed as she took a deep breath. “You had me scared for a little while, Xiaojun. I thought you were going to die to that demon.” She tried to crack a smile, but the warrior turned his back instead. “I am sorry.”

“It’s fine! You needed to heal quickly!” Hua rationalized. “Besides, you usually are gentle with me and—” The warrior interrupted her as he gave a deep sigh. “A warrior always knows when and how to use violence. In a battlefield, we use violence to subdue our enemy. But if we offend violence towards those we love, that means we have lost every sense of our control.”

He turned to Rina with a somber look, one that reminder her of the illumination of humanity still present in his heart. “I want you to take care of Hua. Restrain her if you have to. Just make sure she stays far away from me.” The warrior began to walk off as Hua attempted to chase after him.

“Hey! What are you—” Rina held her down as they watched the warrior walk away from them. He had a journey to continue. If it was a journey which would hurt the only people who have been kind to him, then the Envoy of Humanity could not make that decision. “Xiaojun! What are you doing? My blood is helpful! I can help you! Please!”

Tears welled from her eyes as Rina tied a rope around her. “Please let me help you!” But her cries were unanswered. Xiaojun was gone. The Envoy of Humanity could not afford to hurt the people he loved as a result of his reckless destruction. This was a journey he had to travel alone.