Chapter 207

  Grudges (II)

  "Why are you doing this?!"

  A panicked cry broke out just a moment before a booming explosion tore open a hole in the wall of a small hamlet residing deep within the forest.

  A figure flew out like a cannonball, burning through the trees in their path and demolishing them all one by one for almost a mile before they finally came to a halt. The original building cracked further out and collapsed fully, kicking up a storm of dust and debris; from it, a silhouette emerged, walking rather slowly.

  Before long, the face of a rather handsome and young man broke through the dust, his expression cold and distant. A stir of Qi emerged, and he vanished, as though swallowed by the world, appearing a mile forward through the demolished forest, stopping above the sorry figure embedded in the side of a jagged and cracked boulder.

  It was a rather sorry sight, with blood pouring out like a river from every-which-where, and the robes the figure was wearing now being but a few stray bundles of cloth. The skin was torn up to the bone and organs in so many places that it would make even those with iron stomachs feel nauseous at least for a moment.

  The man coughed, spraying forth blood quite violently, the eyes just barely opening.

  "W-why..." he barely mustered a single sound through the violent coughs.

  "Why? You have the audacity to ask me why?" The man looming over him grinned, crouching down and shoving a small, round pill into the lying man's mouth; mere moments later, the wounds began to heal at an accelerated rate until the disfigured face regained its own original handsomeness. He looked young, just barely in his thirties, with sharp eyes and eyebrows; yet, within the former was only terror and confusion. "You've hidden like the rodent that you are... but you should have run. You should have run to the ends of the world just to buy yourself a few more days."

  "A-are you from the Holy Lands? I--I have wealth! Any-anything you want, just name it, and it's yours!"

  "Holy Lands?" Elder Qin felt his anger bubble back up yet again; his fingers curled into a fist, forcing him to take a deep breath just to barely calm down. "No, I'm not."

  "T-then... who are you?! Why are you doing this?!"

  Elder Qin looked down at the pathetic man on the verge of tears--no, he was crying by now--with a level of derision he hadn't felt toward another person in a long time. This was the fabled Sect Master of the Fire Sun Sect? The man whose name shook the Innominate Edge for so long, and the only person who could contend against Spirit Sage?

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  ... how?

  No, more importantly--why? Why was the world so unfair as to give garbage like this any talent, let alone an eclipsing one?

  "It was supposed to be a tournament," Elder Qin said. "Within regulations. Even if we lost, I could have lived with it. But you... you took in outsiders, led them to our doorstep, and set my home on fire. And you are asking me why I'm doing this? Revenge. The oldest and purest of motives."

  "Y-you... you're a survivor?! No, no way!! Even if you are, there was nobody in that place that was as strong as you! N-no, no, sorry, sorry for yelling. Please, please spare me! I--I will do anything, anything you want! I--I'll swear an oath to be your slave for all eternity, yes!"

  "... you have just one thing to do," Elder Qin said, stretching out his right arm, whereupon a blade of light appeared within it. "Die as painfully as physically possible."

  He swung and delimbed the man in a singular motion--two legs and two arms flew up in a spray of blood as a scream tore out toward the sky, one full of agony and pain.

  As though possessed, he continued swinging--dozens, hundreds of times. But he made sure that each cut was shallow and non-lethal. When the screaming nobody appeared to be on the verge of dying, he'd stop, feed the man a pill, listen to his begging and whining for a little while, and then resume slicing.

  Though he begged for life for a couple of hours, soon enough he begged for death, with perhaps even more yearning than he did for life.

  The agony persisted for nearly a whole day, until there was a literal lake of blood and disemboweled organs lying about.

  At some point, he'd stopped begging and whining--he'd only whimper and cry, his eyes glazed as though he were already dead.

  "Did anyone else from your Sect survive?" Elder Qin asked; as though the words were a trigger, consciousness seemed to return to the man's eyes as he replied.

  "N-no," he said. "Just... just me. I... I don't want to be alone," he added rather suddenly. "I want all those bastards to feel this. The man who first approached me calls himself Ghostblade, and he is an Elder of the Immortal Sword Haven Sect. I... I thought it would be only him, and that he'd involve himself only if we were losing. I didn't even know they were going for extermination until the day-of. Do you think I had a say in any of it? Hah! They're the Holy Lands. Whatever they say... it goes."

  "Don't worry," Elder Qin said, raising the sword of light and pointing it at the man's head. "You won't be alone. Soon enough, all of them will accompany you to hell."

  "I--"

  Without waiting for another word, he stabbed forth and straight between the eyes--he didn't use Qi, just the sharp edge of the sword. The sound of the cracking skull echoed out into the night as the last glimmer of light within the pair of depraved eyes... disappeared.

  He pulled back as the blood began to gush out yet again, though he ignored it, turning up toward the moon.

  The first step was done. As soon as he'd heard that the Sect Master of the Fire Sun Sect had escaped, he knew that would be his first hunt. He dedicated every second of every day for months, but he finally managed to track him down and kill him.

  He could breathe better now, if only slightly.

  But it was only the beginning. No, it wasn't even the beginning; this sorry excuse for a man could barely be considered as a warmup. He was a nobody, a pathetically weak nobody.

  Those that were truly behind the fall of the Spirit Sword Sect... they wouldn't go down as easily. But they will go down, no matter what.

  Discarding the bloodied clothes, he tied his hair back up into a ponytail, glanced back at the mess that he'd made, turned around, and just left.

  There was much prey left, and the hunt had only just begun.