7 - Story (2)

As Xu Xin woke up, he found himself in shackles, bound in the dungeon with several strong guards nearby. He was held in the most highly guarded part of the prison.

Every limb was bound by two separate chains attached to cuffs, along with his neck and his waist, and although he could move around the cell, that was all he could do. The cuffs were laced with a contact poison that prevented a person from using their power, and it was designed for someone as strong as him.

He couldn't activate his power even though he tried, and the most he could do was warm up the chains a bit.

He was leaned up against the wall, and he realized that Qi Meixiang was leaning on his side, asleep. She wasn't chained up like him because she wasn't nearly as strong as him, and she wasn't considered a threat even without the chains.

As he took in what was happening, he hung his head in shame as he realized that he couldn't even protect the woman he loved from a fate like this.

For a little while, he just sat there, his head hung in shame. He had hate in his heart towards his brother, but he couldn't do anything anymore, no matter how hard he tried.

He felt nothing but shame at this time; shame that he couldn't protect Qi Meixiang; shame that he couldn't avoid such a simple trick as the one his brother pulled. And most of all, shame that he didn't see it coming.

He truly felt trapped for the first time in his life.

After a little while longer, Qi Meixiang woke up with a shiver. The cell was cold and damp, and she had been cold this whole time she was asleep.

She then looked at Xu Xin, and seeing the look on his face, she said nothing. She knew that he was feeling defeated, and nothing she would say could change his mind.

"Don't worry. I'll get us out of here. I'll find a way, like I always do."

Xu Xin's voice was quiet and sad. He wasn't confident like he normally was, but he reassured Qi Meixiang nonetheless. He then pulled her in with his chained arm and held her close, circulating what power he could to help warm her up.

But before she had the chance to respond, another voice rang out nearby.

"I very much doubt that, brother.

Father has authorized me to kill you in whatever way deemed appropriate, and I say that someone who betrayed us for the blood order deserves to suffer like those who had family killed by the blood order."

His cruel voice rang out, causing Xu Xin to stare at him in hatred.

But as his words processed in his mind, he realized what he meant, and he instantly grabbed Qi Meixiang and backed up into the corner, guarding her with his body.

She didn't realize what was happening until a moment later when she saw Xu Xin get smacked to the side by a guard violently and she was dragged out of the cell and in front of Xu Xin's brother.

She screamed for help, but none came as Xu Xin was beat down by the guard every time he tried to help her. All he could do was watch her get dragged in front of his brother.

"Xiao Wei, if you do this, I will hunt you down until the end of days!!!" Xu Xin screamed out with a voice like thunder that boomed in Xiao Wei's ears.

"Oh, will you? I don't think you'll ever get the chance." Xiao Wei retorted with a laugh.

After saying this, Xu Xin watched Xiao Wei pull out a knife coated in poison and hold it up to Qi Meixiang's body. She tried to back away, but she had had standalone shackles put around her body with the same power dampening poison on them, meaning that she was completely powerless to resist.

"Now how should I kill her? Should I make it quick and painless, or should I make it agonizing?" Xiao Wei's creepy laughter rang out through the cell, and Xu Xin's killing intent burst out like a fog of death. However, it was completely absorbed into the cell as it was made of power absorbent materials.

"LET HER GO!!!" Xu Xin's voice screeched out as he was pinned down by the guard.

"Wrong answer," Xiao Wei spoke quietly as he sliced the top of her chest with the poisoned knife, throwing her back into the cell with Xu Xin. It was clear that he was going to make her death painful.

The guard then unpinned Xu Xin from the ground and left, leaving only the two princes and Qi Meixiang behind.

Xiao Wei watched with a smile on his face as tears streamed from Xu Xin's eyes.

Xu Xin scrambled over to Qi Meixiang and held her in his lap, looking at the cut on her chest.

By now, vile green lines had already spread around part of her chest, and her breathing had become raspy. She was finding it hard to move as she quickly became partially paralyzed.

Her weak voice barely reached Xu Xin's ears as tears welled in her eyes. "We had a good run. I hope we meet in the next life."

Her voice seemed to contain infinite sadness as she pulled in Xu Xin for one last kiss before she died.

After the kiss, Xu Xin's tears increased as he rested his forehead on hers. "You're gonna be okay. You have to be okay." His voice was choked and raspy.

By now, he was hugging her close, bent over her dying body. His tears fell directly on her face as it went white and green as the poison spread to it.

Her heartbeat then started to slow down as her life started to end. "I love yo-" her last words were cut short, now nearly imperceptible, as she was then fully paralyzed.

He then pulled her closer, whispering to her what, deep down, he knew would be the last thing she heard. "I love you too."

Then, her mouth foamed up as body fell limp as she died in his arms.

He had never felt so alone in this world before, and he was overcome by grief and sadness as he wept over her body, refusing to let her go.

Deep inside, he was still hoping that she might wake up, hoping that she might still be alive, but he knew that it was not possible, and all he could do was cry.

But his grief was cut short as Xiao Wei's cruel voice rang out. "We get it. She's dead. Stop crying over it and get ready to die along with her."

Hearing Xiao Wei's voice, Xu Xin looked up, killing intent filling his heart, mind, and body as he stood up, radiating an aura of death unlike no other.

"Xiao Wei." Xu Xin's voice sounded like the voice of a demon from hell as it seemed to silence everything that heard it.

"I will hunt you until the end of days. There will be no escape." His words seemed to come from a god that couldn't be denied. It seemed as if every single thing he did was an absolute order.

Xu Xin's voice was quiet, but the killing intent radiating from his body was so strong that it bypassed the absorbent abilities of the cell and charged directly into Xiao Wei's soul, shaking him to his core.

At the same time, Xu Xin's power started to activate, brought forth by the frenzied killing intent, and the chains on his body weren't nearly enough to stop it as they quickly started to glow red hot, melting around his very body as they then evaporated into thin air.

His killing intent had boiled his blood and mutated his body once again, burning his lifeforce itself as it forced him to break through to the next realm and increased every single attribute of his body.

His absolute willpower was the only thing that prevented him from turning into a demon from the sheer amount of killing intent he was radiating.

His mind was the only thing unaffected by the killing intent, with every other part of him seeming to become the demon that his killing intent suggested him to be. Even his eyes turned blood red.

The entire cell Xu Xin was in started to burn with golden flames as his killing intent caused the entire castle to shake violently.

Each word he spoke seemed to infiltrate directly into a person's soul as every single person in the city heard his words.

By now, Xiao Wei had already started to run away, and he had pissed his pants from fear.

The golden flames had gotten so hot that the entire dungeon he was in started to catch on fire, burning the inmates within to death as their agonized screams rang out.

The only thing not being incinerated by the golden flames was Qi Meixiang's body, which lay on the floor, cold and lifeless.

He took special care not to destroy her body, just in case she might still be alive, though he knew that it was the hope of a fool.

Instantly, the entire castle and city was thrown into chaos, and the king didn't even bother to take the correct path as he blasted through the floors of the castle to get directly to Xu Xin.

However, even as strong as the king was, he was only slightly more powerful than Xu Xin in this state. His very lifeforce itself was burning, and the flames seemed to come from a god as this power couldn't be fought against.

Xu Xin's eyes had gone blood red as blood leaked from his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes.

In this state, Xu Xin looked like a demon from hell, sent here to commit endless slaughter for the rest of time.

The killing intent radiating from him continued to get stronger as it transformed from a fog into drops of blood suspended in the air, which would dissolve anything they touched.

Even the king wasn't sure if he could beat Xu Xin in this state, and his mind was shaken every moment from the killing intent radiating from him.

The king didn't even understand how such strong killing intent could even exist without driving the person emitting it crazy.

However, before Xu Xin had the chance to get any stronger and before he had the chance to gain control over this power, the king took a giant battle-axe from his back and swung it at Xu Xin.

His power was only barely able to break through Xu Xin's as the axe slammed into his side, creating the giant gash in his side that nearly led to his death.

The axe also had the core crippling poison in it, which is why Xu Xin was poisoned.

Just as the axe slammed into Xu Xin, he gained control over this power and instantly blasted the dungeon beyond recognition and ran away from the castle.

As strong as he was right now, it would only last another second or two at most before it faded away, at which point he would die.

On top of that, the threat of the core crippling poison was too high to risk staying behind no matter what.

As such, he ran into the woods, and his father wasn't fast enough to catch up to him. But his father didn't need to since he had already gotten the core crippling poison in his body.

The only reason his father couldn't catch up to him was because Xu Xin put special effort into learning escaping techniques in order to be able to get out of any situation, and it was one of his fortes.

He managed to barely escape with the gash in his side and the poison in his body, and he had only a slight bit of lifeforce left, which wasn't nearly enough to fight off the poison.

He instantly fell unconscious about ten miles away from the castle, and when he woke up the next day, he went on his journey, trying to escape the kingdom with his life, rejecting his birth name of Xiao Xin and adopting Xu Xin as his name from now on.

The only reason he was able to become so much stronger by burning his lifeforce was because he had mutated in that moment and also broken through to the next realm of cultivation, the spirit realm.

His already mutated cells, after mutating again, was what pushed him to that level of power, while the increase in cultivation allowed him to maintain it for more than half a second.

Several months later, he would be forced to relive this entire experience in a nightmare.