Everyone present felt chills run through their bodies when the masked man directed his aura to them. They started to retreat, but everyone felt the heavy pressure which caused their bodies to freeze.
The masked man floated and tapped his Cube. As he waved his hands, hundreds of black feathers floated around surrounding him. From afar, the scattered feathers seem to form a giant crow. With the giant crow formed, the masked man grabbed a single feather and threw it at the direction of the villagers.
All the feathers then followed the single feather creating an image of a crow attacking its prey. Most of the villagers circulated their energy as fast as they could to block and flee from the attack. Everyone formed various shields while fleeing with everything they got.
The feathers then started to scatter and target every single villager. Their shields shattered whenever a feather gazed it. Each feather were extremely sharp, holes were drilled to anyone who failed to flee or block the attack.
Blood rained as the feathers floated slaughtering anyone on its path. The Village Chief struggled to dodge the feathers and deflect some using magical items. However, their level was not a match for the masked man, so he felt extreme sense of danger while escaping for his life.
The masked man did not even move from his spot. He just watch as bodies fell one after another. It was like annihilating the whole town was as simple as flipping his hands.
Only after a few breaths, the Village Chief and Elder was now badly wounded. The Village Chief arms was torn off and the Village elder has holes in his shoulders. All of the feathers were nearing the center of the Village where weaker townsmen were located. Terror appeared in their faces as they cry for help. Without pause, the feathers slaughtered everyone, everyone cried as one by one their friends and family died. Even kids were not allowed to live.
The sight of the massacre was extreme. Blood and gore was everyone. Deafening screams of terror could be heard everywhere. Even with all the scream for help, no one could help them. Not even the tourist and adventurers where spared. The streets was filled with bodies as black feathers was now drenched in red blood.
Ming Li was motionless inside the mansion. He was staring at Chao Shi and the direction of the village on a daze, but tears continuously flowed from his eyes.
In these three years, he became close to almost everyone on the village. He treated the village as his home. Everyone dying in front of him made him feel unimaginable grief. No noise passed through the protective spell of the mansion, however it was as if he can clearly hear everyone's voice as they died one by one.
After some time, the black feathers stopped moving and returned to the masked man. The masked man smiled in satisfaction and flicked his sleeve. All the blood on the feathers were scraped away with the flick of his sleeve as it returned to his cube.
He used his conciousness looking for survivors, then he looked at Ming Li and gave a cold snort. The roots were still growing and protecting the mansion, so he did not try to attack one more time, since he knew that it will be useless.
Since Chao Shi destroyed his soul, the poison was destroyed along with it. So along with the man with solemn face, they walked away and slowly disappeared leaving only one person alive.
....
Days passed, Ming Li was still inside the house unmoving staring at Chao Shi. His stare was empty but the tears never stopped flowing from his eyes. No one could tell what he was thinking, but anyone would feel sympathy by just looking at him.
In the past seven days, Ming Li did not eat or drink anything. His life force became extremely weak. In the tenth day, his eyes started to turn white. Aura of death emanated from him, and something inside his cube started to glow. It was the wooden slip!
The wooden slip vibrated and shot through the space inside the Cube directly appearing outside. Ming Li did not notice this happening because he was still in deep thought.
The wooden slip floated in front of him and touched his forehead as it slowly entered it!
Inside Ming Li's consciousness, he was recollecting of the past events of his life. Starting from the moment he was born, continuing when his parents died, and when he suffered hardships trying to survive everyday with the feeling of almost dying every time, until this moment where every villager was slaughtered.
The death of his master caused him to experience extreme sorrow, which allowed him to recall every sorrowful events in his life since he was born, he endured a life full of hardship, but he never thought deeply about his suffering. In the instant he saw everyone who became important part of his life die one after another, all the pent up sorrow inside him erupted as if it will swallow him alive.
His life was replayed nonstop as the scenes flashed in his mind repeatedly. The wooden slip floated in his consciousness and seem to be watching the whole thing. All of the scenes played almost thousand times the past ten days, and the death aura surrounding Ming Li grew even more every minute as each and every suffering reflected in his eyes.
On the thirteenth day Ming Li's eyes suddenly flashed with life as he started to breath heavily while waking up from his long trance. The wooden slip also fell from his forehead and he felt the tears on his cheeks, when he noticed this, he wiped them without thinking. After wiping his tears, he looked at his hands, it was covered in blood. He then realized he was crying blood the past days.
He felt extreme hunger, thirst and fatigue. He haven't slept and consumed anything. With all of his might, he slowly raised his hand tapping the cube weakly. Food and fell out from the cube and a pill which he immediately consumed as he regained a bit of strength.
After eating, he noticed the wooden slip on the floor, then picked it up and entered it using his consciousness. Inside the it was still vast and dark, but nearby, he saw a sphere floating covered on black mist. The sphere gave of the feeling of sorrow; the very same feeling he experienced these past days.
The sphere felt like it was the manifestation of his thoughts. He felt the urge to touch the sphere, and when he touched the sphere, his consciousness was sucked into another small dimension around twenty meter in radius where there were tons of ghost and pile of dead bodies. This shocked him greatly, which made him immediately retracted his consciousness.
When his consciousness got out of the wooden slip, a weird marking appeared from the tip of his fingers covering his whole body. Then after a while, he felt his skin burning as the pattern merged in him directly embedding itself in his soul.
Information about suffering exploded in his mind. These was the thing he was enlightened during his thirteen day trance, pain and suffering! The pain of the death of his master and everyone he became friends with guided him to deeply understand the pain and suffering in life.
When everything became clear to him, he said while staring at the wooden slip "So does this thing create an art based on my deep understanding of something?" After that he was quiet for a moment then put away the wooden slip.
Having an art embedded in his soul, he did not feel happy or satisfied. Since he only achieved this because of the death of countless people. He also felt extremely useless that he cant even protect anyone.
Again, he stared outside and sighed as he looked at his master with sorrowful eyes. His heart felt like it was being shredded into pieces. However, he could not express the pain he was feeling with any words, because his master was the only person who treated him like a real family.
He tried opening the window, but it still wont budge. He also tried several other exit, however he could not open any of it. "It seems like I will be stuck here for some time."