dark cultivator

As the four individuals woke up from their unconscious state, they looked at the scene before them. Light's pupils had returned to the usual black, but it was the scene behind them that reminded them that everything that they thought must have been a dream was all reality.

Without giving them time to digest this information, Light spoke up.

"You from the Li clan. Answer my questions and I'll let you live. First, why did you try to take the siblings hostage." Without waiting for an answer he began his questions.

"This was an all out attack on the Huo Clan, the main part of our forces are holding back the head of the Huo clan while we were supposed to take his beloved children as hostages to break the stalemate."

"What's the strongest cultivation base amongst your people?"

"We have one first layer golden core cultivator that we hired from another city."

"Why is the Li clan attacking the Huo clan?"

"Because they have kept us oppressed for years being the dominant power, it isn't just us the Bai clan is involved as well. Today is the end of the Huo clan those-''. The man clenched his fists and spoke but his speech was cut off as he head flew. A promise with a dead man? Why would he keep it.

The blood splattered all over The two siblings.

"Is the information he gave me correct?" Light turned to Kai Green.

After gulping Kai answered."Yes."

Just as quick as he spoke his head flew off as well. Light then turned to the two siblings. By now Huo Fang was balling his eyes out as Huo Ling held her brother behind her.

Light pondered killing the siblings to hide his abilities but he felt it didn't matter, also these two were good to him, there was no need to return kindness with death.

"Relax, I am not going to do anything to you. Though I trust you won't speak of what you saw here." Light squinted his eyes and spoke.

The pair of siblings gulped and hurriedly nodded.

" Let's head back to the city, I'm sure it will be hectic there by now."

As he said this Light turned around and headed towards the way they came from. In the battle between Light and the two dark cultivators the horses had broken through their reins and run away in fear. After a moment or two, Huo Ling grit her teeth and pulled her little brother to follow.

It took four times as long to get back on foot. Arriving at the city, smoke filled the sky as sounds of fighting were rampant.

Light could feel dense auras of negative emotions. He saw people in blue and green fighting people in red. These people belonged to the Bai clan, the Li clan and the Huo clan respectively. Occasionally a person of blue or green would recognize the siblings and charge towards them before being bisected by a slash from Light. 

As many realized they weren't his match, they stopped attacking them realizing they weren't here to fight them.

The trio continued to make their way towards the Huo clan's headquarters.

They soon reached the golden gates. Of the two phoenix statues, one statue was completely gone, crumbled to dust and the other statue was missing its head.

Huo Ling wanted to hurry but seeing Light walking at a leisurely pace she decided to try and calm down. If she went alone there was nothing she could do but if Light was there maybe…

Meanwhile Light had different thoughts brewing in his mind. He wanted to test the upper limits of his power. He had the means to escape as he had a couple techniques that he was ready to activate at a moment's notice. 'Light shift' would allow him to turn into a beam of light displacing him up to two kilometers away. From the description provided by the sword, it could outrun an early stage nascent soul cultivator at the level he was currently at, he had no need to fear running from golden core cultivators. The drawback was that the cost was high and he couldn't accurately control the direction, only a rough estimate of where he would end up. In terms of energy consumption it would use up all his available energy. 

From his understanding though, his current foundation of cultivation should be anything but ordinary. The Radiant Virtue sword came from a far away realm as well as the seal of grief, how could he compare himself with average cultivations in some backwater city of one of the countless worlds in the upper realm.

They soon reached the clearing of the main pavilion. It was the first time Light was here. From the architecture and landscape this should have been a beautiful sight, but today it was ruined and scorched everywhere. In the middle were five figures. The furthest from Light was a middle aged man with a well trimmed beard and red flame like eyes, his long hair flowed in the wind and he held a long spear. Judging by his attire, this was the head of the Huo clan. Off to the side was the familiar Old man Tong, seemingly injured as blood flowed from his mouth.

Opposite to them were two middle aged men in green and blue attires, likely the Bai and Li clan heads. As well as one figure shrouded in darkness standing in front of two family heads, facing the Huo clan head in battle.

Light's energy was focused entirely on this man. He was a first layer golden core realm but that wasn't what caught his attention. It was his identity as a dark energy user.

As the trio entered the two stopped their fighting and all parties looked at them.

"You did good to bring the hostages here but I don't recognize you, where is Li Su and the informant?"

'Li su? He must have been the man from the Luo clan. As for the informant, that was definitely Kai.' Thought Light.

Though Light couldn't be bothered to answer. He sensed a desire from his sword of Light to destroy this dark cultivator. He couldn't understand this, wasn't he also a dark cultivator? Why didn't the sword reject him?

Setting aside the confusions he closed his eyes and gave in to the sword's desires. His eyes opened completely white as the aura contained by his body spiked.

'Light Cultivator!' The thought rangout in the minds of everyone present.

"So you are a light cultivator. Is this where your confidence in coming here lies? Did you think that would help you overcome an entire great realm of cultivation?" A male voice rang out from the shrouded man with an amused chuckle.

"Negative infusion." As the man formed a spell with his hands. Darkness energy formed all round Light forming a small shell before it began to condense trying to enter his soul.

Everyone watched as they were certain in his demise. Even if he was a Light cultivator, the gap in cultivation was absolute, or at least they had thought.

As it entered his body half of it was destroyed by the Radiant Virtue sword, while the other half was absorbed by his own body.

"Hm?" The man could feel the energy disappearing.

The darkness bubble faded away and Light appeared unharmed, though after absorbing the darkness energy he was left with the unpleasant feeling of anger and sadness from the after effects of absorbing darkness energy. It seemed this man had done a lot of killing.

Cleansing himself of the emotions he took out his sword once again. Since he decided to come he would waste no time. Pouring the full strength of his cultivation he let out a vicious slash with his sword. A blinding 30 meter wide white arc of light flew towards the man. As it flew it dragged along the ground leaving a deep gash.

Feeling the danger of the strike the man tried to move out of the way jumping into the air. Before he could go far chains of white energy grabbed onto his ankles.

'Chains of judgment.' Was another technique Light had learned. After releasing such a strong strike, he needed to make sure his opponent couldn't dodge or it would be all for nought.

The chain broke as the man willed all the force he could muster into his leg but that moment of delay was enough for the strike to catch up. "Dark Defense." The man shouted as he conjured a dark shield to protect him. As the Light beam made contact with the shield an earth shattering explosion occurred. These were two incompatible energy forms thus the rejection force was strong.

Everyone except Light flew back a few meters from the shockwaves. 

When the dust settled everyone saw the broken down state of the man. His dark disguise was gone revealing a shallow sunken face belonging to a young man. Though his gray hair gave away his true age.

He was missing an arm and a chunk of his torso as he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Light felt part of the sword's desire to kill go away as he approached the man while gauging his own combat abilities. Light energy was a good method to fight against darkness, also considering a strike with 50% of his energy reserves could do this much damage, he was equipped to fight and kill first layer nascent soul cultivators of the darkness attribute, as for regular attributes it would be harder, so he could most likely only fight evenly, but he would run out of energy first.

Walking towards the man he kept his sword unsheathed. He would never underestimate an enemy while they were still alive.

When he neared him the man didn't beg for his life or proclaim some sort of status, he only cursed Light's existence as a cultivator of light. 

When he neared him Light exacted a barrier of white light around the two. A milky white barrier blocking spiritual sense was formed.

"Keke what are you gonna do torture me?"

Light stayed silent. There was no reason to waste words on the dead.

Lightning energy exploded creating a second barrier to protect against spiritual sense.

With one barrier he was confident. With two he was near certain. Though he chose not to hide his true strength, he would like to keep the knowledge that he could use darkness abilities to as few people as possible. 

Seeing the lightning the man's eyes flickered. Lightning was also an element known to be the bane of evil. This young man before him was an enemy of his existence through and through. But nothing could prepare him for what came next.

The man shivered as he felt his darkness energy go out of control.

"I-impossible!"

"Absorb" light spoke indifferently to the man's immense shock.

Dark energy began to leave the man'a pores in streams as his skin started to turn paler by the second.

The man was in a state of disbelief but his leaving darkness energy was the greatest proof that what he had thought was indeed true.

After all the darkness energy entered into his body, Light could clearly tell the number of people this man had killed were in the tens of thousands. Amongst them were the emotions and pain of many young children. It seemed this darkness cultivator was very befitting of the title.

Though Light didn't necessarily judge him. Those around him were tools for him to get his revenge, and when the day of his revenge comes, he will spare no person no matter if they are a child or not. All those connected to those who took everything from him, even their loved one's will suffer the same fate. There will be no pity for so-called 'innocents'.

As Light's mind began to divulge into thoughts of revenge due to his agitated mind, he subconsciously sped up the absorption process.

After a few more seconds the man was depleted of all his qi. Light's next words caused the man's mind to shake. "Refine." Refine was an evil technique that acted as a basis for all evil cultivators. The refinement of tissue, blood and all matter into energy. A method of directly absorbing one's vitality.

The man's skin began to shrivel and crack as blood began to escape through the cracks, being quickly absorbed by the black vortex in Light's left palm.

"No!" The man's emotions were in turmoil, with one part humiliation, one part fear, and one part rage. To be refined by someone while alive was a humiliation and also some of the worst pain in this world. Nothing, not even your soul would be spared.

"Stahp pleeze." With the man's body being refined, his mouth and tongue disfigured, he could no longer speak coherently.

Soon enough, his entire body was refined, not even a sliver of his existence remaining.

HUMMMMM.

As Light finished refining the evil cultivator, his cultivation reached the second stage of foundation establishment. He would need to consolidate his foundation once again. 

With this Light was one step towards achieving his goal of revenge. Though he didn't know how strong his enemies were, he knew he was still far from their strength. Every level increase would be a step in the right direction.

Light decided to consolidate his foundation before removing the seal. He let his qi flow through each cell in his body and through his meridians. One by one his cells were each being tempered by all of his elemental energy, though mainly light and dark. Within 10 minutes his physique was completely consolidated and he could be said to have become a legitimate second realm foundation establishment cultivator.

Light released both barriers and once again emerged before everyone. To him it felt like a mere moment but to the others it felt like an eon had passed. They all saw that the evil cultivator's body disappeared without a trace and their pupils constricted. Whatever technique was used to erase the existence of a nascent soul cultivator without even a trace of their existence was frightening.

When they noticed Lights' new cultivation base they were even more frightened. What had he done in those 10 minutes to go up an entire cultivation realm?

Light lightly dusted off his clothes as he glanced at the Huo clan head. "We should talk. But first I think you have some business you need to take care of" light glanced at the Li and Bai clan elders who were still sitting there like ducks from their shock.