My mind reeled with a flashback to when Jei Su Long was wrestling that duffle bag full of salt crystals from Dim Wei’s hands during our final exam. Here he was doing the same thing, only now he was stealing a whole damn skiff and wrestling with Dim Wei directly.

The bastard had his hands around her neck, with Dim Wei struggling to put up a resistance. I looked for the rest of her team and saw nothing but bodies at the base of the skiff as it quickly rose into the sky.

My soul came undone.

I expected the bastard to try and hog all the glory somehow, but to go as far as killing fellow legionnaires?

My Flame Surged with a primal rage. Even the cosmic monstrosities around me paled in comparison to the pure evil that was Jei Su Long. I sprung off the ground with a savage cry, willing every ounce of my being to the singular goal of tearing his damn head off.

I crashed into the multiarmed behemoth I had injured and plowed straight through it with a burst of [Wrath of a Thousand Slain Souls]. It wasn’t enough to kill it, but it was enough to push it out of my way and get a few steps beyond to try and reach the skiff.

Juk Sui and Jin Po were battling one of the other behemoths and I spared a few seconds to chop down a couple of the Mind Reapers that were swarming at them with my axe. I was about to leap into the air with [Lightning Walk] when something caught me by the ankle.

I was flipped upside down as the third behemoth caught hold of me and then swung me overhead, slamming me hard into the ground. Pain shook every bone in my body, and I saw stars.

I gritted my teeth with blood-soaked aggravation.

“You damn shits!” I cursed as my rage exploded. “I ain’t got time for you right now!”

I pushed off the ground with my arms and then, using a step of [Lightning Walk], performed a bicycle kick in midair with the monster still gripping my leg. The roles were suddenly reversed as I uprooted the giant monster with the strength of my one leg alone, sailing it overhead and slamming it into the ground with a massive Thoom!

My Frenzy surged with a satisfying rush of [Bloodlust] and I nearly stayed to finish it off, but I had bigger fish to fry. I sprinted into the air with [Lightning Walk] trying to catch up to the skiff that was now at least a hundred feet or more off the ground.

“Jei Su Long, you son of a bitch!” I seethed with rage as I zeroed in on him. “What the hell have you done?!”

He was still atop the skiff, but had Dim Wei gripped from behind now, wielding her like a human shield.

“Stay back or she’s dead!” he cried.

I slid to a halt in mid-air despite myself.

She looked beat up but still alive.

“Commander, just kill him!” Dim Wei cried. “Don’t worry about me!”

“He won’t do it!” Jei Su Long taunted me with a grin despite the fear running through his soul. “He’s always had a softspot for weaklings like you.”

Anger and resentment boiled within me, but deep down the Struggler wouldn’t let me barrel straight through Dim Wei to get to him.

Shit…!

The bastard was right.

“I told you you’d pay for disrespecting me!” he said. “Now all of you will!”

“You’ll die right along with us, you stupid asshole!”

“Not from where I stand.”

My anger and hatred seethed.

Ah, to hell with it! I thought. We were all dead anyway if I didn’t stop that skiff!

I charged forward despite myself, gritting my teeth with determination and rage.

Jei Su Long’s eyes widened with terror as my weapons charged with lightning.

“Take her then!” he cried, shoving her forward. “Take her, if you wish to save her so badly!”

Jei Su Long launched Dim Wei off the skiff with a violent blast of Qi.

She cried out as the technique struck her in the back and she flew at me so fast, that I had to pull back my own technique at just the last second as not to kill her. I tried to catch her instead, but with the force of Jei Su Long’s technique propelling her, she slammed into me like a missile and sent us both hurtling towards the ground.

The world became a blur of violet sky and demons as we spun and eventually crashed into the hard shale below. I took a few seconds to right myself and immediately checked on Dim Wei who was now coughing up blood within my arms.

“H-he, he came down with the tethers,” she sputtered. “S-said he was here to help…”

“Easy,” I said. “Don’t talk.”

I looked back to the sky and could no longer see the skiff.

Shit!

Rage and anger burned me up inside, but I couldn’t worry about that now.

All around me the world was exploding into violence.

Another behemoth had entered the perimeter and at least four more of my men lay dead.

Dim Wei suddenly began to scream within my arms and when I looked into her tear-soaked eyes all I could see was terror and fear.

“The Star!” she cried. “The Cursed Star!”

I dared to look behind me in the direction she was facing and there on the horizon was a flaming red orb of darkness and hate. Its rays cast a horrid wave of heat, sending a broiler-like red light across the landscape and where it touched, the demons grew even more ferocious.

A loud hissing noise filled the air and to my horror I saw the aetherite crystals starting to crack and pop as they evaporated like ice in a frying pan. I felt the rays myself then. Stronger than any Dark Frenzy I’d ever experienced before.

But it wasn’t Dark Frenzy exactly.

It felt… more pure.

Almost like true Frenzy even, but not quite.

My [Soul Shield] went into overdrive trying to fend it off, draining my Dantian even further, but even through it I could feel alien thoughts starting to enter my mind.

Rage.

Destruction.

Oblivion.

~Oh, wayward Child. Hasth thou returned for thine penance?~

I couldn’t tell where the words were coming from.

I’xol’ukz?

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But no, it felt like something else.

Something I didn’t yet know.

But deep down.

Somehow, I did.

It terrified me.

Dim Wei cried out again from behind me and when I looked back to her, I nearly screamed myself. Her head was swollen to perhaps twice its normal size, her face bloated, and her hair was starting to twist and writhe as if having a mind of its own.

Her skin was turning red and her eyes a vibrant crimson.

“Help me,” she said weakly.

“Dim Wei, hang on!”

I tried to increase the strength of my [Soul Shield], but whatever this new power was, it was clearly strong enough to pierce through both it and the dwindling barrier of aetherite around us.

Resignation and resolve entered her eyes then, a grim acceptance.

“P-please kill me, commander,” she begged. “I- I don’t want to become a dem­o—”

I spared her from even finishing the thought, severing her neck quickly with a single clean cut of my axe. My heart ached with grief as her body collapse before me, and I let out a gut-wrenching cry of remorse.

Dim Wei… damn it. I’m sorry.

I looked to the rest of my men and saw them in equal states of demonic transformation.

They were already far too gone like Dim Wei.

But dammit, I owed it to them to not die a demon.

With sorrow in my heart, I sped across the battlefield, seeking out each one of my comrades. Most were dead already, but a few, the strongest of them, were turning into creatures that would become perhaps far more powerful than the behemoths closing in on me.

I flew into the sky to tackle Ten Chui.

He was howling and convulsing in fits, fighting against the bat-like wings tearing through his skin. His face was contorted and melting, revealing a skull that looked like an insect’s head within. My stomach lurched at the sight, and I cried out with rage as I lopped him in two with my glaive, delivering swift mercy from his ordeal.

As his body fell to the ground, I spoke a silent prayer.

That somehow their souls would find their way to a better place than this.

I dove back to the ground, chopping through the resistance put up by the behemoths and the Mind Reapers. I took out my rage and anguish on them, channeling the pain of what Jei Su Long had done to us, to force me to have to do this to my own men. Behemoths and Mind Reapers fell as I gave into my savagery, ignoring the wounds they inflicted upon me as I dished out the same, but killing them did little to quell the burning anger in my soul.

Somehow, someway, I would make Jei Su Long pay for this.

I found Jin Po locked in combat with one of the reapers, but he wasn’t human anymore. His back had sprung a shock of fine spikes like a hedgehog and his head had split into two parts, waving in the air on a set of tentacles.

I dispatched him from behind, cutting through his body and killing the Mind Reaper at the same time. A sharp pain then lanced through my side and I looked down to see a silvery blade piercing through me.

“I’ve always despised you, commander.”

I turned to see Juk Sui.

Or the monster he had fully become.

He stood at least ten feet tall and had a chitinous armor that covered his skin like black scales. His swords were now imbedded in his arms like single talons and for a face was now only a mass of writhing tentacles. My mind shrieked at the sight and the words that came from him, hinted at even more horrors that I could not see.

“Bold is the fallen, but redemption is near. Succumb to the Greater Will and rejoin the One True Flame.”

I had no idea what was talking through him or what it was even talking about, but I rejected it with a pulse of [Struggler’s Resolve].

“I follow only the [Frenzied Flame]!”

As I invoked the technique, it made Juk Sui flinch, and I used the opportunity to close the gap between us with a burst of Frenzy. I flew into a series of martial strikes and my instinct to engage him like a cultivator rather than a monster, was proven right. I countered his parries as he defended against my Axe and Glaive technique like a champion in the ring.

Each parry felt like I was deflecting a shot from a cannon, a testament to just how strong the Cursed Star had made him. But he was Juk Sui no longer and I needed to free his soul from the monstrosity he had become.

I poured on the dwindling Frenzy in my Dantian and engaged [Mark of the Beast].

It was a risk in my current condition and surroundings, but I had nothing else to draw on now. My added speed was enough to overcome him and I ended Juk Sui with a quick sever of his neck.

I paused for a moment, trying to regain my breath and then suddenly the air shifted with a harmonic resonance of Frenzy I’d never felt before. It hit me like a piercing ringing in my ears and I nearly dropped my weapons to cover them.

But this was no sound.

This was a resonance in my soul.

The reason for it became clear as the demons who were stuck behind the barrier suddenly surged forward. The aetherite was gone, evaporated by the Cursed Star and now I could feel the full effects of the Cursed Star itself drilling through my soul.

My [Soul Shield] felt like it was about to implode under the immense spiritual pressure and even with it engaged, the corners of my vision began to fade into darkness, like I was under the raw effects of the Bloodmoon again.

The wall of charging demons slammed into me and my body went into a near autonomous mode of pure survival and self-defense.

Under the power of the Cursed Star, the creatures were strong enough to tear straight through all of my physical defenses and I found myself quickly tapping into [Death’s Door] to remain upright and alive.

I lost all sense of time then.

Seconds felt like hours of tortuous agony.

Hope faded as the stark realization hit me.

Here I was.

Trapped on an alien Hell World, broiling under the rays of a Cursed Star.

Barely any Frenzy left to soothe or save me.

My men lost.

Turned into demons.

And me, forced to slay them with no hope of escape myself.

I cried out in bitter anguish as I somehow summoned the will to continue to fight.

The Demon inside me was about to give up and give in.

To say ‘to hell with it’ and just become another demon amongst them.

Another lost soul.

~Truth… rejoin the fold, Fallen One~

The words entered my mind and suddenly pissed me off.

“To hell with you!” I cried out. “Whoever the hell you are!”

The red-hued Struggler pushed back against the darkness, restoring my vision of the real world.

I can’t end now.

The deepest core of my Dao was still pulling for me.

Fia.

The baby.

I needed to get home to be a husband and father.

To save my world.

To save even the wretched empire from total destruction, before I tore it the hell down myself.

I surged forward with newfound strength, releasing an enormous pulse of [Fear the Flame] and [Wrath of a Thousand Slain Souls]. The shockwave of [Frenzied Lightning] cleared an area a quarter mile wide, vaporizing the demon horde where they stood.

In the brief reprieve I found clarity of mind.

I needed to hide from the Cursed Star to survive.

Deep in the ground.

I needed to get to the tunnels I’d just dug for Dim Wei.

I scrambled to find the nearest one of them. After that last attack I was literally running on ‘E’ when it came to Frenzy and my Flame seemed too embattled to produce much more. The demonic horde surged behind me yet again, filling in the quarter mile gap I had just created.

Finally, my Dantian drained altogether, and my [Soul Shield] collapsed.

It felt as if I’d just taken a sucker punch straight to my soul as my Flame instantly twisted and flared under the effects of the Cursed Star. It was like setting off a stick of dynamite in a campfire and the resulting explosion was enough to knock me out of my senses.

Violent thoughts of aggression and annihilation returned, tearing my mind apart as my body began to mutate and change, becoming the true demon that I was. The Struggler wrestled for the controls, running my body as if by remote as my world view shrank to a pin prick. In the darkness a new presence threatened my soul.

I couldn’t see it, but yet it was there.

An all-consuming fire.

A Cleansing Flame.

I screamed in a mixture of pure delirium and agony as I fled from it and finally somehow, I managed to dive into one of the tunnels. Immediately I felt relief from the oppression of the Cursed Star as the tunnel shielded me from the direct impingement of its rays. My mind began to reform itself the deeper I crawled, and the effects grew less and less.

And then I began to sense something else.

Those same thoughts and feelings as when I had dug the tunnel initially.

A chorus of voices in agony and despair.

But with them came the promise of something sweeter.

Pure Frenzy.

There was more aetherite down there somewhere and I needed to get to it to cleanse the impurities in my Flame. It was burning with a strange deep red hue and the effects was even affecting my [Death’s Door].

I wouldn’t have long to survive if I didn’t find a substantial source of aetherite soon.

I hit the bottom of the tunnel and began digging deeper.

Flesh and bone snapped as my body literally cannibalized itself trying to perform the task. But I didn’t stop, my mind becoming a fuzzy, haze of singular purpose.

Endure the pain.

Dig.

Fight.

Survive.

I heard the screech of demons as they entered the tunnel from above, but I still didn’t stop.

I couldn’t.

I had no strength left to fight them.

Digging to find that aetherite was the only way I could eventually return strong enough to kill them all. Something finally gave way beneath me and I found myself freefalling into darkness.

Second passed before I hit something hard with a violent thud.

I blacked out from the pain for a second and then came to, experiencing even more.

I could no longer breathe, my shattered lungs heaving blood in the darkness. I could barely see out of one eye and the only thing I could make out was a faint shaft of light of where I had perhaps fallen from. It seemed incredibly high up, a couple, hundred feet or more.

Shadows and screams came from it, but the demons seemed to stop just short of jumping into the abyss to finish me off. I then sensed as to why. Somewhere close to me, was the pull of aetherite. I rolled onto my stomach and began crawling towards it.

My eyes barely worked, but faintly, through the agony and pain I began to see a faint yellowish glow. My vision tunneled as I pushed on through [Death’s Door]. I lost count of how many time the darkness took me, but somehow the Struggler kicked me back into consciousness, and I continued on.

Finally, I reached the base of a solid chunk of aetehrite crystal. I couldn’t tell how big it was and I didn’t care. The only thing I cared about was that it was enough to send a small vibration of Harmonic Frenzy through my soul to begin cleansing my Flame as I touched it.

As I finally gave into the inevitable darkness, the sounds of sorrow and chaos reigned.

I had made it, just barely.

And now, it would be purely up to this crystal, if I survived.