Isaiah
While sitting crosslegged on the ground and trying to cycle his qi to remove the effects of the powder the leader of the Kindar Raiders had thrown at him, Isaiah saw Prince Tomin exit the inheritance. The man didn’t try to talk to him, however, and just curled up in a ball on the ground and started to cry.
“Um?” Isaiah started to ask. “Is everything okay?”
“No!” Tomin rose to his feet and looked down at Isaiah, his face all puffy. “Things are not okay!
“I was supposed to take over this planet and gain the treasures in the inheritance!” He pointed at the inheritance entrance. “I was supposed to have Silveea as my bed warmer, not that stupid Gale Clan girl, maybe take a few natives or cultivators from other forces to add variety! I was supposed to be living it up!
“Yet everything was ruined by that pair of monsters! And the only other cultivator from off planet I know about is you, the idiot I was supposed to sacrifice for resources!
“Everything is terrible!”
“Ava’s dead?” Isaiah felt weird. The last time he’d thought Ava had died he’d been distraught, but learning she’d been planning on sacrificing his life for years kind of put a damper on any positive feelings. “How’d she die?”
“That succubus and her lord or whatever pissed off the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment by stopping her from sacrificing you for some bloodline ritual, and the bitch took it out on all of us!” Prince Tomin sat down in the blood of one of the Kindar Raiders, not seeming to even notice as he continued to cry. “Ava’s soul was too weak and she died!”
So, Ava had died as collateral damage while the woman and the Heavenly Spark Soul King had been trying to save his life. Instead of feeling sad, Isaiah felt rather happy. He’d seen the Heavenly Spark Soul King briefly and the man felt powerful, like an embodiment of Law, yet his expression had been one of worry, more for his partner obviously, but at least part of it had been directed toward Isaiah as he ran past. And it sounded like they’d risked themselves to save him.
“What happened to the woman and the Heavenly Spark Soul King?”
Tomin glared at him, tears still flowing from the prince’s eyes. “They’re fine. They killed the soul fragment somehow—it didn’t make any sense. Now they’re probably looking through the treasures.”
Prince Tomin then curled up on the ground again, still in the puddle of blood, and kept crying while Isaiah carried on trying to find a way to remove whatever the powder had introduced into his body. His efforts didn’t have much effect, however, and he was still pretty much helpless, unable to activate any of his skills, fully circulate his qi, or even walk.
They both stayed like that for a couple hours, and then the woman came out of the inheritance, walking over to Isaiah while looking over his body with a critical eye. “Do you want some help with that? I don’t have a healing skill, but I do have a healing-based early grade Law Larva which might be able to do something.”
“Okay.” Isaiah was pretty much defenseless anyway, so he didn’t think he could be put in a worse position.
“Good. Take off your shirt.” Isaiah had been wearing a hide T-shirt and pants, but, as the woman sat behind him, he took off the shirt. She then placed her hands on his back and he felt her qi enter into his body.
Normally, his instincts would have naturally fought against the intrusion of foreign qi, but he was in such a weakened state she could explore his body at will, and that made Isaiah extremely uncomfortable. Fortunately, it didn’t seem the woman was trying anything nefarious, her qi just spreading around his body in an exploratory manner.
“Alright. The problem is simple, just difficult to solve.” The woman spoke from behind him. “Whatever that powder was, it made an artificial core in your core container which is blocking your circulation of qi.
“As it is a block of contamination made from your qi and whatever was in the powder, not an actual core at all, there is pretty much nothing I can do, and normally you would be basically crippled for life unless you could get the help of a D rank, but you are lucky. The artificial core is extremely tiny and my partner just happens to have a Law Larva of Cleansing. With my help, he could get that cleared up in just a few hours.”
“Yeah.” Prince Tomin’s voice was dripping with sarcasm as he stood up from where he’d been lying. “It sure is lucky he just happened to have the Law Larva required.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Not really.” The woman smiled at Prince Tomin and Isaiah saw Tomin flinch back. “He has 36 of them, so one is usually useful for most situations.”
“36 what?” Prince Tomin asked, still sounding sarcastic but at the same time a lot more subdued.
“Law Larvae.” The woman looked at Tomin like he was an idiot and Isaiah got the distinct impression she was feigning not understanding how ridiculous that sounded. “Haven’t you heard the term Heavenly Spark before? It’s used for racial abilities and classes which require three Laws of each element.”
She turned to look at Isaiah. “I forgot to ask earlier, Isaiah, but would you mind if I killed the prince here later? It seems possible my main reason for keeping him alive might disappear in a couple of days.”
“Um.” Isaiah looked from Prince Tomin, to the woman, then back to Prince Tomin, then back to the woman. “He did admit he was going to sacrifice me earlier. But would his death cause problems for my brother?”
The woman looked thoughtful for a few seconds. “Probably not any more than he would already have now. I captured all the Pillars of Conquest, remember? So there is no way he’ll be getting off this planet for the next 71 years. And they probably already think he’s dead.
“Were you to join us after we heal you, though, it would probably be better for your brother if he died.”
The Heavenly Spark Soul King exited the inheritance at that time and he looked from Isaiah to the woman. “What do you need me for? I just made a breakthrough regarding the golems.”
“First, thanks for using Universal Common so Isaiah can understand.” The woman said calmly, likely mostly for Isaiah’s benefit. Then she pointed at Isaiah. “It seems the Dragon Subduing Powder works by making a contamination core.”
“Oh.” The expression on the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s face changed from minor annoyance to excitement almost instantly. Then he walked up to Isaiah and, without asking, placed his right hand over Isaiah’s navel, pushing some of his qi inside to inspect Isaiah’s core container for himself. “Interesting. I wonder how dragon qi is different. There must be something the Dragon Subduing Powder reacts to.”
Isaiah felt a different type of energy enter into his core, one that felt somehow bright and clean, and then the woman moved to his back and her qi entered into him as well, guiding the Law power from the Heavenly Spark Soul King into the right place.
The Heavenly Spark Soul King kept talking about the Dragon Subduing Powder and how it might work, the woman pointing out flawed arguments or giving alternative ideas every few minutes, but Isaiah couldn’t follow it at all.
What he could tell, however, was the two were very used to each other, maybe siblings or childhood friends, and his qi was quickly unblocked as they worked together.
“Don’t try moving your qi yet,” the woman told him when he tried to start moving it again. “There is still quite a bit of contamination and it will be easier to get rid of if it all stays in one place.”
“You realize they’re playing you, right?” Prince Tomin said from the side, having sat down while the treatment proceeded. “It’s all an act.”
The Heavenly Spark Soul King turned his head to look at Tomin, the cleaning up of Isaiah’s core not faltering in the slightest. “Tell me the mastery percentage of your Danger Sense skill.”
A look of utter terror appeared on Prince Tomin’s face and Isaiah couldn’t really understand it. The woman behind him, however, he heard place one hand over her face, a gesture he was pretty sure indicated exasperation.
“N-ninety-seven percent mastery.” A rock hurtled from the ground toward Prince Tomin at a speed Isaiah could barely follow, but Prince Tomin dodged it. Then another shot at him, and another, all while the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s focus on cleaning up the contamination core inside Isaiah never seemed to waver.
“Don’t run away and tell me when it hits 100%.” The Heavenly Spark Soul King’s voice was apathetic and Isaiah finally figured out what was going on. Inside the inheritance, there were almost certainly the materials necessary for extracting at least one skill from someone recently deceased, and the Heavenly Spark Soul King wanted Danger Sense.
“You don’t have to be worried.” The voice of the woman behind him sounded annoyed and a little resigned. “We already got a Legendary grade Kinetic Senses skill orb from closing one of the Pillars of Conquest, not to mention we will only extract skills from enemies we would otherwise kill, no one else.”
Then she took one of her hands and flicked the forehead of the Heavenly Spark Soul King. “Stop throwing things.”
The rocks stopped flying and Isaiah saw the Heavenly Spark Soul King look at the woman with a confused expression.
“You revealed too much and made your intentions obvious. He was considering whether to allow one of the rocks to kill him, and he would have decided to do so before he mastered the skill.”
Isaiah then felt the woman turn her head toward Prince Tomin. “You may leave and try to escape from us, but you have to master Danger Sense within 10 days. Us two monsters will leave this planet within 36 days, so, if you manage to keep away from us during that time, we won’t be able to kill you.”
Prince Tomin just stared at her for a few seconds. Then he looked to the Heavenly Spark Soul King, who was frowning, before starting to run, seemingly moving with his maximum agility in an easterly direction.
“I think I’ll join.” Having made his decision, Isaiah nodded his head.
“After that poor quality display?” The woman behind him asked, sounding surprised. “Why?”
“Just because.” Isaiah tried to analyze it himself, why he’d want to join these two. Sure, they were obviously both ridiculously talented and, sure, they’d effectively been using the scion of a C rank force as a cultivation resource, which was awesome, but the main thing was how they treated each other.
He’d only interacted with them for about an hour, and most of that was the two of them having a conversation he couldn’t even begin to follow, but there was an obvious respect between them he hadn’t seen much in the Gale Clan. The woman was technically the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s servant, yet in situations of dealing with people he seemed to treat her as his superior. The woman on the other hand deferred to him in the science conversation they were having, seemingly perfectly comfortable with him being the one in control of that area.
That type of camaraderie was what he’d been looking for his entire life.