Ikrei P.O.V.
“The Unorthodox Cultivators and the Andurin have ties that go back almost to the beginning. That’s what boss said, anyway.”
‘Ciel isn’t going to be too happy if she finds out.’
“All that matter is the well-being of the paths, the unorthodox and the andurin. If all else falls or burns, it matters not.”
Hau Yǐngr’s words were ringing in my ears. And that was just the starting point.
‘Great Will, why do I have to go through this?’
“I don’t know…I don’t know anymo—” Boss had come to pick me up.
“It is time for us to go. Remember if you cannot go through it, you will die.”
The elders sent a communication stating that I should not return until the training prescribed ended, this was all done according to their wishes. This was the last step. And since it was another “emergency” I got to talk to Yun Hee.
“Be a man.” That was her answer, she didn’t want to hear the details.
‘Malgrunian demonic, what was I expecting?’
Yǐngr leading the way, boss and I, began our descent to the deepest floor under the Merchant Association Headquarters in Clariun.
I felt lonely, deeply hurt, lied to, used and abused. I was resenting everyone if not outright hating.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’
Going through several checks, various cultivators and about seventeen floors down we reached the underground formation. It was a place for rituals, the details of the structure and its workings were beyond me. No one was going to explain.
Boss directed me to the center, an altar was there or was prepared. The entire place was barely lit, blue reflective lines, surely orgon based, infused or something. I waited and looked around.
The formation under the altar began emitting several colored lights. Red, blue, yellow and even a strange color I had only seen on palettes once, cyan. I saw several eastern pictographs and symbols.
隆 福
‘I don’t understand shit. Why am I staring at things?’
The dread of the immediate future had me doing silly stuff. A couple of minutes later several people appeared. Around twenty. Seven more surrounded me in a circle.
Boss appeared behind me out of nowhere. I thought she had left.
‘Shadow steps!’
The chants began in the eastern languages. I wanted to check the formation but from my position I was unable. Always curious about that sort of thing.
“Kuàisù!” “Lièquē!” “Diàn!” “Long!” “Fú!”
“Fēngyìn yěshòu!”
“Kemono o fūin suru!”
“Tamashī o kaihō suru!”
“Amaterasu Ōmikami!” “Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami!”
A spherical barrier surrounded us. The seven, the boss and a very worried and scared prospective kotari that was starting to regret every decision he had ever made. The chant repeated a dozen times, at the minimum.
The twenty outside the barrier were pouring an immense amount of energy through some method. Boss pushed me right next to the altar. I could feel the energy converging where I was standing. My hairs stood by themselves, my entire body reacting with intense vibrations.
The chant was ongoing. I wasn’t going to make it.
‘I can’t. I can’t. Fuck you Krigsain! Fuck all of you!!!’
The altar morphed for a couple of breaths and a small crystal cocoon materialized. It opened up revealing its contents. I was shaken, my body unresponsive.
‘This is the day I die, I guess.’
There was a sleeping baby inside the retreating oval enclosure. Boss placed a dagger on the altar, an exquisite blood red dagger next to my right hand.
I was to “truly” kill an innocent barely born infant.
The formations and the chants were a few breaths away from fully triggering. Once that happened the energy would concentrate on my body. I didn’t know exactly how but I knew that the interference was going to go erratic, wild and many other possibilities.
Yun Hee’s poking taken to the maximum extreme. The thing wanted to kill me but it was prevented by the scant presence of the Will.
‘Something like that, boss had to tiptoe like crazy when she was explaining it.’
It wanted to kill, so I had to give it something to kill, something precious enough to seal it back and put it under control. And this is why, the elders, my master, Freslia and Krigsain are a bunch of motherfuckers.
The elders let Krigsain do what he wanted, Freslia and Akathos didn’t stop him and his training released whatever was inside me.
‘Left hand, huh? Fuck that shit!’
“I can do evil but not that far.” The absolute bottom line.
“Guǒrán shìgè shǎ háizǐ.” Hau Yǐngr said something in a whisper.
The chants quickened. The energy barrier became pure white for an instant. Thunder echoed.
One breath. A large and flickering beam of lightning reached my body.
ZRREESH! ZRREESH! ZRREESH!
The thunder reechoed once more.
I lost control of my body but I was fully conscious.
“Xiaobao.” The dark one spoke through me.
He was attracted to the infant. I felt it.
Boss Zither began playing. The return of the Zheng Zhen, hundreds of needles this time. The chant outside exploded in cadence and power. Like a wave of a hundred voices.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
The music and the floating needles danced in the air inside the lightning barrier. The needles absorbed the power. Lightning pouring into them. An incredible sight.
SPURT! SPURT! SPURT! SPURT! SPURT!
I bled, it bled. No matter how fast the dark version of myself was, it could not escape a hundred divinely charged persecuting needles. It tried by crashing into the barrier for a hurried dash.
CRASH! CRASH! DOOONG!
It was painful, the bastard was transferring the pain to me.
‘Screw you, give me back my body!’
A massive headache was coming on.
“Hundun!”
“Shǎ guā!”
I didn’t understand a thing. I felt it was some sort of bickering between the dark one and the boss.
ZIING! ZIIING! ZIIING! ZIIING! ZIIING! ZIIING! ZIIING!
The needles exploded like arrows unto us. More pain and more blood.
“AAAAAARGHHHH!” A cruel scream came from my mouth.
The dark beastly thing was exasperated. The needles flew at impossible speeds charged with divine power. The powerful cadence continuing outside the barrier.
‘You are done for, darky.’
The seven people that were surrounding me at the beginning of the scuffle were frightened beyond reaction. They just stood there, like poles. The baby was protected by twenty lighting charged needles that floated around him.
More running and dashing until a desperate lunge at full speed came from my body against the boss.
Thirty-three needles crashed into the back of the speeding Phenom. We were pinned to the floor inside the formation.
“Rúguǒ wǒ shuō nǐ shì, nàme nǐ jiùshì, Hundun!”
About or very close to seven minutes had passed. The dark one was desperately trying to free us, free itself. Since it couldn’t, it attacked me.
“AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!”
The needles recharged with the chants and the lightning. They exploded inside my body with full energy, all thirty-three of them.
‘Let’s suffer together, you bastard!’
“AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!”
A few breaths later, boss stopped playing. I couldn’t comprehend anything.
"Wèiyǎng!” Said the boss.
Her needles floating in the air. The ones that pinned us down were retrieved.
“Kuàisù!” “Lièquē!” “Diàn!” “Long!” “Fú!”
“Fēngyìn yěshòu!”
“Kemono o fūin suru!”
“Tamashī o kaihō suru!”
“Amaterasu Ōmikami!” “Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami!”
The chant became all encompassing. Another intense and raw lightning strike on my body.
ZRREESH! ZRREESH! ZRREESH!
I regained partial control of my body. I could feel the intense desperation the entity was having. A few breaths later, I, we rushed at one of the seven inside the barrier.
“We” bit his neck and tore a hole in his body. Whoever he was, he wasn’t able to scream.
“AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!”
Forced soul communion. The thing was transferring the memories of the one that was bitten. The entity wanted me to suffer as we struggled together.
“AAAAHHHH!” “HA, HA, HA, HA!” “AAAAHHHH!” “HA, HA, HA, HA!”
Unbearable suffering, death row prisoner that’s what I got from the memories. My soul was shaking, like being pulled in all directions. Another fast charge with a laughing dark one.
‘Stop, stop, stop!’
Straight grab. He pounded the head of a woman against the floor. I forced myself, I was going to halt this madness.
“AAAAHHHH!”
More soul crushing. It was mad that I tried to stop it. One brutal poke into the eyes of the woman. Blood everywhere and more memories. It was so fast that she could not scream, just like before.
A collage, a blur of things and feelings. More pain, the more it killed, the stronger the scent of death got. The closer I was to losing my mind. He carved the woman up, her insides became his food. My hands filled with organs and things I rather not describe.
Macabre. Terrible. Enmity. Bitterness.
“You know what you need to do.” Hau Yǐngr was forceful.
Another swift motion targeting the closest one of the running five that were left. They were screaming in the eastern languages.
SPURT! SPURT! SPURT!
Elongated nails making holes into a young man’s crotch.
‘My body can transform? Yun Hee was fighting this?!’
Evil, he screamed uncontrollably. The dark thing ate his balls. Disgusting is not even the proper way to describe anything. Memories flooded into me.
This guy was a violator, a rapist. In a twisted fate, the dark one made me feel how the victims felt, completely unmanagable. Wild screaming ensued from me.
“AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!”
“You know what you need to do.” The words came again.
‘No! Even if I die, I won’t!’
“AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!”
With all my meager remaining strength, I managed a shout.
“I don’t want to be like you!”
“AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!”
The screams were mixed with a maniacal laughter.
“IGREISH!” The thing spoke.
Somehow, I knew what it meant, it was andurian for death. True death. it was going to make me suffer until I died. It really didn’t want to die; it was just playing the part for the boss. I could feel it, deep down. Yun Hee’s energy training was helping.
‘Screw you, friend!’
The one that was going to die was me, only Ikrei.
The savage killing continued until only one of the original seven was left. I am not going to retale the horrors I went through too much. Suffice to say that I was internally sodomised in one shape or another.
Despite all that and rolling on the floor occasionally, I held on.
‘You are not that freaking Spider Queen! I will die for my beliefs!’
“AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!” “AAAAHHHH!”
The insidious dark one wanted me to go through the ritual. If he couldn’t kill me now, it was content with whatever the result was going to be. It would just eventually return to wherever, whatever it used to be before it entered me.
My body became unresponsive once more. The darkness, the energy within the barrier, the formation, the chanting, everything ended in a convolution that leads to this precise effect.
I was dying. Ten breaths, maybe eleven or twelve.
“Dangsin-eun na gat-eun hondon-ibnida. jasin-ege geojismal-eul geuman se!”
‘Yun Hee?!’
A tidal wave of dark energy manifested inside of me. Yun Hee was taking over. The desire to kill became something akin to the realm of unconscious compulsion. The true art of the succubus.
She was bleeding, puking blood. The nine copies of Hazu were helping her transfer energy. I could easily feel it.
“Kuàisù!” “Lièquē!” “Diàn!” “Long!” “Fú!”
“Fēngyìn yěshòu!”
“Kemono o fūin suru!”
“Tamashī o kaihō suru!”
“Amaterasu Ōmikami!” “Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami!”
My body moved on its own exactly where the dagger was and I held it at a striking angle. The child was crying. Yun Hee began sending thoughts, soul communication.
“I’ll be great!” “All in a day’s work.” “Moths to the flame.”
“Stop lying to yourself, do what must be done lord.”
Our connection was so intense I could feel and see everything she was experiencing. It worked in reverse too. She was in the mirror room, her favorite.
Seven breaths. “Ikrei is not a monster.” I said.
Images and a forced explanation of what a chaos root is. Dark chaotic energy from the world, from the gods. Only the special ones have it. They are that rare.
Yun Hee began bleeding from her ears. She jerked strangely, her body contorting into impossible angles. Hazu was desperately trying to help her. She had broken the rules of the gods by explaining things to me. She was going to suffer for it, grivously.
The image of Yun Hee turning into something other than human was vexing. Horrifying. Her transformation ability was going haywire.
‘Stupid girl! Why?!’
The only reason I wasn’t in the same situation was the sealed space created by the cultivator gods inside the ritual area.
I was completely petrified with everything.
A final sentence from my bleeding and grotesque consort.
“No lord, Ikrei is my monster. Kill!”
Her feelings intensifying but her control released, it was my choice.
The incredible internal fight reached its peak. I was tired, evily coerced into acceptance. Absolutely abhorrent.
‘I’m sorry Teng, I regret everything. This is what you wanted father? Curse you, Andurin tricksters!’
I thrusted the dagger directly into the infant’s heart. His memories, his lives poured into me. At least fifty of them. Joy, dread, happiness, longing, sadness, mercy, love, forgiveness.
The soul within the child forgave me.
‘A saint’s soul?! Oh god! Great Will?!’
This is what it is meant with a true kill. You are killing someone’s soul. In return the dark entity will be sealed with the power of the gods. A fair exchange ritual. The dark gods get their fun and the light gods deal a blow to an evil being.
The power and the intrincacies of the divine aspects in the cultivator world.
The barrier shone pure white, the energy condensing upon the dagger, the altar, the dying child and a death welcoming small time forest hunter.
I didn’t hear the child’s screams. I guess my mind didn’t want to process it.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” My impotent scream filled the air.
I crashed down, I fell on my back looking at the ceiling. The dissipating barrier making strange noises. The formation remained fully active and lit.
The chants finally stopped.
“We will discount certain costs from your royalties.” Boss appeared within my field of vision.
She was completely unperturbed. Unemotional eyes.
“Welcome to the Kagemusha, brother.”
I just stared at her while crying without a sound. Tears, emptiness and a feeling of betrayal, the seed of hatred.
‘I’m not a monster, right mom?’