Destiny in Cinders

The dying warrior's agitated feelings began to cool. Then, Instructor Li briefed him on the situation. "The vilespawn fiend is indeed heavily wounded. Among the people who came to pursue you is a Clearing Realm adept who almost managed to defeat the vilespawn fiend head on, yet the creature had a hidden trump card.

"It is a subfiend of some greater heavenly fiend. So, it borrowed power from its main body right before it was defeated to catch the adept off guard, swallowing half of his body. Alas, adepts of our divine cult wouldn't fall to a fiend that easily. He unleashed his ability to once more wound the fiend with his dying breath.

"The vilespawn fiend is sweeping the nearby villagers and beasts, trying to consume their vitality to recover its own. It might be much stronger than Aura martialists like you or me, but it's still much weaker than before. If you have some other trick up your sleeve, you might just be able to take it out.

"One last thing, An Jing. Here's the Imperial Earth Divine Body Refinement Art. The sect was supposed to give this to you after the ritual."

Instructor Li was on his last legs. He held out his sole remaining trembling arm, reaching into his chest to take out a tome that he had kept safe with him. "Even though you killed the manor lord, Old Xu, and the rest, I don't hate you. The divine cult is cruel, that much I know. We slay people like we slay beasts, refine people like we refine oil. People like us who consume blood-brew pills are no different from animals.

"You are still young, so it's only natural for you to feel hate. I, on the other hand, didn't have the courage to hate, not openly at least. All I can do is hate why the world has to be this way. You might feel the same as I do, so take it. You will need it."

He raised the tome higher with all the energy he could muster. An Jing knew that Instructor Li would collapse from using up all his energy if he didn't take the tome from him. He found it to be a shame that his odd ties to the cult through his instructor was about to be cut off, but he didn't show hesitation or fear. Instead, he did something that was true to his nature.

"I will take this, not just because I hate how the world is, but also because I need this power." He received the tome and began to form the blood-lethal-qi sword in his right hand, holding it near the fiend-qi-corrupted neck of the instructor. "Xu... What's the full name of that white-robed scholar?"

He had many more things he wanted to ask, but he merely sighed and settled on a final question. "Also, why did you... join the Heavenly Divine Cult?"

"Xu... Changjing..." Those were the last words Instructor Li managed to say before he ran out of energy. Even so, An Jing's final question caused the last traces of his consciousness to reminisce on the distant past when he was abducted from a village by slavers and sold into servitude to a large household.

There was nothing but grueling work, scoldings, humiliation and contempt. Words struggled to describe the depths of despair to which he had descended. For thousands of nights, he dreamed that his parents and the officials would save him from the ugly cage he was trapped within.

One fateful day long after he had resigned himself to his fate, he recalled a familiar voice. The voice of his father calling him by his nickname. Stunned and shaking with excitement, he wanted to leap over the wall to escape, only to hear a horrified cry from the other side of the wall. He no longer heard that familiar voice.

Some time later, the authorities arrived. Li Xiang heard the people from the household justify what happened like it was the most righteous thing in the world. "Two slavers just came and tried to abduct my child. When they were discovered, things got heated and they ended up killed by a careless twitch. I'm sure this won't be a problem, right?"

"Trouble? No, Master Huang, you've done us a gracious favor! Slavers deserve death!" There was nothing that could be done for the dead, after all.

The parents who had traveled from their distant village to retrieve their son had been killed and framed as slavers. There was nobody who could bear witness for their cause. How foolish! Didn't they know that the whole village was in on the slave trade? All they have to do is to silence those who would expose it! Why did you come for me? Why did I pray to be saved?

All he wanted to do at that moment was die. The authorities of Grand Chen had never cared about minor matters such as those. Perhaps they had some kind of tacit agreement with those human traffickers too.

Li Xiang couldn't remember how, but he managed to escape his cage into the deep mountains, becoming a vagabond. Eventually, he sold himself into service, becoming a member of the demonic cult. More time passed before he eventually became the rampaging berserker that killed everyone in the Huang clan.

So what if the divine cult ate people? He knew that well. Even then, they were the ones who bought his life. Though they bought it for cheap, though they took advantage of him in a tough moment of his life, though they lied to him, they had given him power! As long as he got his chance for revenge, he was more than willing to let himself be consumed!

How was that life more exploitative than those of a farm serf, a household servant, a lowly laborer, all of whom were oppressed with all sorts of unjust taxes and burdens? Didn't they have to give their entire being to someone else too, even offering up their descendants?!

Li Xiang's hardened heart began to twitch once more only after he saw An Jing sell himself into service to save his mother. That was what drove him to hand over something that would benefit An Jing tremendously.

Right before he died, Instructor Li raised his head and stared at An Jing with his fiend-qi-corrupted eyes. An Jing, I have committed grave evils and slaughtered many. It's only natural for you to kill me in turn! I do not loathe nor hate you! In fact, this will be my release! But if possible... Go ahead and cut off that maneater's head too!

Blackened blood spilled as Instructor Li's head rolled. His corrupted body rotted away instantly, turning into a bubbling mess of black liquid. The head had been severed before it had been completely corrupted.

Even though Instructor Li didn't say a word, An Jing could feel his rage and relief. Some people continued to live merely because they didn't have a reason to die. When they found an adequate cause that required them to sacrifice themselves as fuel to set the world alight, they would gladly choose that fate.

An Jing was different. He could choose wealth, glory, or join a faction and become a key figure within. Being divinely favored as he was, he didn't need to join the demonic cult to obtain power. However, he had made his choice. He would rather burn his soul rather than drain the blood of others. "I will finish it. I will make no exception, not even for myself."

Stepping across the corpse, An Jing dispelled the blood-lethal-qi sword and headed deeper into the smoking village, the hunting ground of the vilespawn fiend. The path through the forest widened up more and more. He could start to make out the shadowy shapes beyond the flaming village walls, smelling the pungent stench of vomit mixed with bile.

He found himself before the charred ruins of a village. It used to be a peaceful place. There were rocks, broken fences and messy plots of crops all over the place. The village's little paths flowed with so much blood that they looked like capillaries. Signs of battle and destruction could be seen all across the broken walls of the village's buildings. Thick clouds of black smoke blurred one's vision considerably. Corpses and body parts lay strewn with no predictable pattern, lit by the occasional flicker of fire.

At the very edge of the village slumbered a two-winged, one-legged fiendish creature, slumbering in a crude shack built from bone and flesh.

An Jing's drones hummed as they ascended into the air. Then, they let out a sharp hawk-like screech as they dove down from above!