When I awoke the day had passed the glow of three moons dimly lit my cage. The boy who had shared my cage lay in the corner his eyes wide open staring at nothing. I looked at him for a long time before I realized he was dead.

I had seen countless bodies in my previous life but for some reason this felt new and fresh.  A single tear ran down my face as I whispered a simple prayer for his soul. The horror at his death I drew inside me to nourish my will. One mistake and this would be me, a glassy eyed body emptied of its soul.

Only fools pretended to be strong by making themselves unfeeling to suffering. I had seen slaves like this break easily and die young. Only those that survived knew the true secret of strength, no one was strong enough that they couldn’t be broken. The trick was letting them break you and then putting yourself back together again. Let them strip you of your humanity and then reclaim it.

I must embrace my powerlessness again I thought.  Time and knowledge – that was the secret to unlocking true power. Power that could be used to destroy all enemies and wipe them from existence. My face itched and I gently stroked the side of my face feeling as till healing cut travel down my scalp to my jaw.

Harry I thought as I remembered his name and pictured his face. I would make sure to remember his face every night until I killed him. My Tyrant’s will surged in my filled with an unrelenting hatred and killing intent spread out of me and across. The other slaves shifted in their sleep groaning in fear suddenly as they slept.

With an effort I reigned my power in. I still did not know what this Tyrant’s will was. It was something given life from my hate and grown into epic proportions by the Master Demons who fed on me, unknowingly strengthening my Tyrant’s will.

I brought my mind back to the present. I was alive the old world was dead and I was a slave again. Like always I needed power, only with power could I forge my own path. Closing my eyes I breathed in slowly and began to cycle my miniscule amount of energy through my body.

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After sufficient time had passed I cast my senses out for the part of my Qi I had embedded into the disciple earlier. Sure enough I felt a resonance and ever so carefully I slowly began to link our energy together. Yes! I thought as I felt our energies connect.

I could feel that the disciple was sleeping which was perfect for my purposes. Slowly, ever so slowly I began to draw the Qi out of the discipline and into my body like a parasite.

I wasn’t sure how the energy levels worked on this world but this discipline was clearly dozens of times more powerful than the slaves they fed upon. As the disciples rich Qi began to flood my body I almost cried in joy. Even though in comparison to my former body the amount of Qi was insignificant, to my current body it was like the flood of a river on parched soil. It raged across my meridians, strengthening them and I felt my whole body become strong and more powerful.

Hours past like this until I had drained nearly all the Qi out of the disciple and felt him begin to awaken. Smiling I left a tiny twisted ball of Qi in his body that would sink into his bloodstream slowly poisoning him, damaging his meridian pathways and making it extremely difficult for an expert to detect how he had lost his Qi.

Pooling all the Qi I had drained from the disciple I fed it to my Tyrant’s will and watched it get greedily devoured. When it had consumed the last drop my Tyrant’s will receded back into me making all the Qi I had absorbed virtually invisible.

My first step back to power had been taken and I laughed as I felt the power in my body. I closed my eyes to rest and hoped some new disciples would come to feed on us tomorrow.