Looking at this tied up group of eight people Naath began thinking, and then a malicious smile spread across his face as he had an idea. He walked over and grabbed them all, dragging them across the floor and dirt back outside. Once he brought them outside it was then that Naath noticed the outer disciples he had recruited were all beaten black and blue as well. Seeing this Naaths cold smile turned even colder. If any one of the eight inner disciples saw this smile they would probably break down and start crying. Naath brought them right out to the middle of a nice sunny area, got some boards left over from construction and tied them all down to different boards spaced about 10 feet from one another.

After making sure the knots were secure he layed the boards down and let these inner disciples lay in the sun for a while. Then he went into his storage ring and got out a large barrel. Inside of the barrel was a type of salt, it was a type of salt that was dyed black due to the darkness energy it absorbed. Naath had bought it thinking it had a nice flavor profile and it was on sale by the barrel so, why not? He opened the lid to the barrel and let it sit in the sunlight too while he went over to try something on his beaten allies. First he looked over each of them with his soul sense. This took Naath a long time to be able to focus properly and even after 10 minutes the most he could do was see their hairs in high detail.

He had wanted to be able to see their entire bodies at a cellular level and use his creation energy to heal them. This proved to be impossible for Naath at his current level, he reminded himself again of the need to practice these things later. It seemed like the things he needed to practice and learn was every growing and that he would need to devote some serious time to training later. After failing to do what he wished he then grabbed all of them and layed them down in the shade. He splashed some water on all of their faces to wake them up. Thankfully at the very least he knew first aid from his last life on earth so they all woke up at least partially patched up and in less pain and none of them was in danger of dying.

When they saw Naath they all panicked and started to tell him to run, that some inner disciples had come. Naath shook his head and began laughing at there antics. He pointed to the nearby group of eight and smiled with his malicious smile. Suddenly all of the members of the unofficial True Void Faction felt a sense of pity for the group that attacked them. After seeing these reactions Naath spoke up.

“Come on now whats with that response? Do you all not want revenge? Even if you don’t they hurt Brutus so I wont let them off myself. So, any takers on the chance for a type of revenge that will set a serious example to not ever fuck with us?”

After saying this a few disciples stood up on wobbly legs and nodded showing that they wanted to take revenge. Naath smile widened again and he told them.

“Good, but sit back down and rest. They wont wake up for a little bit, I hit them a bit harder than I intended to. Once they wake up we can start with setting an example for others.”

With that the members of the True Void Faction all sat back down and started to meditate, using their martial energy to increase the rate of recovery even if only marginally. Naath took this opportunity to sit down and more thoroughly check on his new condition. All of his new True Void membranes had formed perfectly in the missing space inside of different bones. He now had a True Void membrane in the soles of his feet, palms of his hands, wrists, ulna’s, radius’ , elbows, humerus bones and two in his spine. Soon he would have the absolute minimum needed to form a small circuit or network of pathways between his True Void membranes, then he could be considered to have entered the middle of stage 2.

This would not be a small change, it would mean that all of his True void membranes would be able to work together completely and interact to do various things. Naath was greatly looking forwards to this, but now the amount of energy needed to condense a True Void membrane was downright abominable! If he used the energy needed for condensing even one more he would probably directly break through to muscle strengthening right on the spot! Knowing this Naath grumbled and turned his attention back outside thinking to himself ‘ I guess it would be too much of a cheat if my True Void Arts had no drawbacks after all.’

As he came out of his thoughts he noticed that the inner disciples were starting to wake up now. That made Naath smile as he would at least relieve some of his stress on these people, he spoke up to his own group saying.

“Alrighty guys, they seem to be awake so lets begin, shal we? Everyone take a bucket and choose one of these eight bastards. Fill the bucket with that blazing hot black salt I’ve been heating in the sun and cover them. Everything except the head.”

When the eight heard this they started laughing and the defacto leader snorted.

“Thats your big revenge scheme? Cover us in some hot salt? Ahahaha.”

Naath simply smiled as he heard this and grabbed his own bucket and dumped it all over the one who just spoke up covering him completely. As soon as the salt hit his skin he began screaming bloody murder. The black salt had easily reached a temperature of 120 degrees celsius after all, when hearing the screams Naath smiled wide again saying.

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“You idiots seem to forget you’ve only cultivated your bones and maybe your blood a little? You’re skin, muscles, and organs are still very, very susceptible to pain and damage. Just cultivating your bones doesn’t mean you aren’t mortal it just means your bones are sturdier. Hell, even I felt more than one or two muscles tear when I landed in that crater over there. Honestly speaking though you lot clearly cultivated wrong to avoid pain, that will come back to bite you now. Everyone, after they are covered in salt we will hold a barbecue and wait for six hours before uncovering them!”

At the news of food and a small party the members of the True Void Faction were elated. Some time during the party Baal and Zeke also came back to the came and learned what happened. After the six hours had passed Naath ordered the salt to be removed from the victims whos screams had long since died down to pained whispers. They all let out sighs of relief and some wept with joy as the salt was removed from their bodies. Underneath, their skin was dry, cracking and dehydrated completely with blisters and burns all over. Seeing this Naath said.

“Good now you guys are good and ready for the real punishment, prepare your lungs and throats. We need your screams to reaa~~ly ring out across the sect to make a good example to not touch our little group.”

With that said, Naath picked up some long, thin branches from the nearby forest, smoothed them down completely and handed a stick to everyone in his faction. Then with a smile that would give a devil the chills he said.

“Everyone, whip them, cover your ears though, this is a kind of pain that these people absolutely cannot handle.”

After giving this order Naath personally went up to the one that seemed like the leader and ruthlessly lashed out once with his branch. The branch ran across his chest and stomach and the inner disciple let out an absolutely blood curdling scream. The sound of his scream went outwards and due to the pain he had unconsciously used energy in his voice. People a few kilometers away heard this cry of pain and wondered what was happening. At the first whiff of something entertaining interested disciples began to flock towards the source of the noise. In a matter of minutes a crowd of hundreds had gathered. Seeing this Naath smiled and spoke up.

“Ah, just in time everyone I was waiting for you all to show up to really start the show. You all got here much faster than I anticipated though. Anyway, these fucking morons decided to attack my faction and even tried to steal away Brutus, my wolf companion. This is me setting an example of what will happen to anyone else who gets any funny ideas like that in the future.”

Saying that Naath smiled like a ringleader at a circus holding a show and swung his stick down again this time at a different angle. Again the miserable blood curtailing scream rang out. However unlike last time Naath did not stop here and continued to whip him over and over again until he had done so 100 times. He also ordered the others of his faction to do the same thing. After a brutal ten minutes the crowd was thoroughly drained of blood, this was just plain ruthless! Naath’s next words chilled them all to their very souls though.

“Alrighty everyone, take these eight to the nearby river, take them off of the boards and toss them in. With the dehydration from the salt we buried them in and this whipping being put in a natural river like that… Well even I would flinch a little from that level of pain, and my breakthroughes are fucking brutal!”

Without question the eight were untied from their boards and thrown into the river. The screams that rang out sounded like vengeful souls from the underworld being tormented for thousands of years of sin! It was absolutely unbearable and made everyones skin crawl, except of course Naaths. He just stood there smiling as he watched and listened. Everyone watching made a vow to never, ever cross the young man in front of them no matter the cost! It was a fate far, far worse than death!

The crowd scattered when the demonstration was done and the word of the True Void Faction and to absolutely not touch them spread like wildfire. This even soon became infamous in the sect and even the raging river city itself. In fact, Naaths method of discipline was noted by the local city lord and issued as a punishment for the city’s most heinous criminals. The crime rate in the city dropped drastically almost over night once this was known. But back at Naaths base of operations he was peacefully cultivating and drawing in energy.

The brutal torture Naath had just done seemed to not affect him even in the slightest, in fact he had already moved on from all thoughts of it. His full focus right now was instead turned inwards, he was using the True Void Arts right now inside of his soul, being careful with King being in his soul sea. This cultivation took every ounce of Naath’s concentration, he had to make sure that he slowly shifted his True Void energy and that King’s runic body changed energy types with him. This also served as a training of sorts for King, he was able to sense the energy changes occurring in pretty much slow motion, this made it so he could work out how to shift it on his own.

After doing this for an hour Naath stopped cycling his energy and asked King.

“So, do you think that you can handle the energy shifts now? Most importantly though, are you okay with the energy of destruction and then nothing that follows it?”

“I think so, yes. I can even change my energy type on my own now, so I can speed up the energy change for my runic body while you cultivate and shouldn’t slow you down too much. But, how on earth do you deal with it? The energy of destruction running through your soul like that should be a level of pain that is completely intolerable!”

“Ah, well my True void Arts aren’t exactly touching my central soul, and I also follow the correct path of the True Void Arts. I understand the true profundities of it, and that is the only requirement to assimilate or merge partly with True Void energy. You are essentially using me as a medium in order to use the elements of the True Void. That in itself is already a miracle, I don’t feel any pain because I am as one with the void so to speak. But you and the other runes are not. There is a price to pay for using the True Void Arts without truly understanding them.

I could allow you to understand them more deeply if you want, after all we are linked forever now. Me you, and every single one of the other runes.”