“Beneath Mount Wudang in the Land of human but not yet human, the Emperor of the Living Dead rests… what does that mean?” Ryu said in surprise. The foreign figure had taken a blurry shape in his mind and was prancing around while spewing random sentences. Each sentence seemed to be spoken by a different personality or person all together.

“Yes, beneath Mount Wudang lies the Ruler of Many. All shall kneel down before me or perish!” This time a hoarse women’s voice spoke.

“We are many Chosens, the Ones who should have swept across the continents!” A high pitched dominant voice spoke.

“Damn that Zhang Sanfeng! If we only didn’t meet him so soon.” This time a man’s voice filled with regret rang out. The bitterness in his voice is evident.

Zhang Sanfeng? Isn’t that the legendary founder of Wudang? Ryu thought to himself. Ryu also noticed at this time the Infinity Tomes were not with him, he was in an enclosed space cut off from the normal world.

“Nooo, not him. His Enlightenment is too great. Spare us! Spare me!” The warrior yelped suddenly and changed to a completely different person. He knelt down as he spoke, a weeping voice came out as he did so. Each time their personality changed, the pressure and aura around this figure seemed to have changed as well.

“It was all your fault! Why did you provoke him? We didn’t deserve this eternal damnation. How long has it been? Five hundred? Six hundred?” To Ryu’s surprise, it was a child’s voice this time.

“No! Seven hundred!”

“Impossible, it is nine hundred!”

“It is eight hundred!”

“Does it matter? Death eludes us who want it the most. Why won’t the end come?”

“It’s seven hundred I’m sure!” Many voices came out of this undiscernible crimson warrior at once, debating their time imprisoned. Ryu couldn’t be sure if they were talking about millions of years but that itself was a scary thought.

“It was my birthright to acquire it, those damn Taoist priests and Buddhist monks. Why did they interfere?” The very first voice Ryu heard spoke over all voices and the obscurity around him increased. This time he seemed to have suppressed the other voices and only he continued on talking.

“My legacy cannot end here. I am the true Chosen amongst all Chosens, it was my destiny to obtain ‘it’!

“I was so close to escaping this cage. They told me I had the potential to find the ‘Truth’ regarding this world. They promised!”

“With the power bestowed upon me I should’ve been a king that made everyone kneel before me. There is no one stronger than me!”

“Wait!”

“Who are you? You are of the living. How are you able to hear our ‘voice’?

“You entered our eternal prison with your own power? Impossible, you are neither one of the Gods or the Betrayed Ones!”

“Wait, why is your soul so strange? You… You are not of this world just like bastard! Why did you guys come here? Why did you cut my destiny short? You guys are the true sinners of this world!”

“A legendary soul? No a perfect soul… how is it possible, you are so weak! How did you maximize your luck and talent already?”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll make you mine!”

Ryu was startled, the strange warrior finally took notice of him and Ryu didn’t know how to reply, he had no idea how this strange being had even taken shape inside his mind or if Ryu’s conscious had been transported into the piece of bone. He didn’t even understand what the man was sprouting about. The indistinguishable crimson warrior in Ryu’s mind suddenly stopped in his tracks. Then a violent and overbearing burst of energy exploded forth, rocking Ryu’s mind.

By instinct he summoned all the Origin Power at his disposal within him and entered a Zen-like state, attempting to suppress the hostile energy creating chaos in his mind. Origin Power is the power of the mind and it’s all he could muster out right now. He doesn’t have a physical body so he couldn’t even generate an ounce of Qi. At the moment he was holding him off at bay but the overwhelming pressure came in waves, one after another it pushed Ryu’s defenses back. Ryu was certain that if it breached the Origin Power he had summoned to defend himself with, he would certainly die on the spot.

All three Infinity Tomes suddenly opened behind his real physical body, each flashing their own unique colors. A gigantic crack appeared inside the space Ryu was trapped in and three blinding beams descended. Instantaneously the energy from the crimson warrior got suppressed and he screamed out. The situation was reversed abruptly and Ryu could now see that the tomes’ terrifying power crushing and tearing at the crimson warrior’s inner organs. The previously suffocating and foggy aura around him also disappeared. He had been completely dominated by the power of the tomes.

“Nooo! You can’t steal what’s mine. You guys have taken enough from me! Please… don’t take it away from me!” The warrior begged as he lowered himself to the ground. The brilliant beams from the tomes were shined on him and it seemed like the crimson warrior’s power faded away by the second.

Ryu just stared on in surprise, he couldn’t communicate with the tomes previously but thankfully they found a way to aid him in his time of desperation. The tomes established a gateway for him to exit so he went for it. Sparing a glance at the now terrified warrior in fetal position with his hands hugging his head, Ryu left the mysterious place with the tomes’ help.

Ryu was back to where he was previously, inside a small hole in a mountain inspecting the items Wu-Feng had stolen. A clueless Wu-Feng stood there as if nothing happened, Ryu instantly searched his mind and shockingly, it appeared as if no time had passed at all. Ryu peered closely at this piece of ordinary looking bone and couldn’t tell what was so special about it, it appears to be a bone marrow. After much contemplation Ryu wondered if this was a remnant of a childhood story he read where the founder of Wudang subdued a Death God-like being. [Chapter 3, references the childhood story that states Wudang founder defeated a God of Death]

Just as Ryu stood there brainstorming about what happened, the remaining items in front of him that he has yet to put away started trembling. There were a few bottle of pills and the essence from a Fading Storm Eagle inside a gem. They suddenly floated up in the air slightly and Qi seeped out of their containers directly towards Ryu. Ryu was caught unprepared and the streams of incoming Qi dove through his Qi channels and straight into his reservoir!

Ryu couldn’t comprehend or stop what was happening. He was surprised that he could even absorb this much Qi at once, it’s as if his Qi channels enlarged! The most he could do was focus on refining the incoming Qi, thankfully the foreign tree-like objects sapped up ninety percent of the incoming Qi and thus reducing the burden tremendously. This Qi gathering rate exceeded what he was capable previously, it was as if Ryu became an endless black hole made for the purpose of absorbing Qi.

What’s going on? Ryu sent a mental note to the tomes.

The Judgment Tome opened up to a page where many scribbles were written. At the very top stated “Skills from Anti-Heaven Tribe, Conqueror of Pandemonium Pyramids” Then it flipped page by page, a total of exactly two hundred pages worth of writings, describing various skills that Ryu had never heard of before.

Did all these skills come from that strange crimson warrior? Who was he? He conquered the Pandemonium Pyramids? Is that a Mythical Zone too? But the Infernal Fist Founder, Exoe, couldn’t even clear the first stage of Fiend Tower with the help from the Eternal Phoenix leader. Was he really trapped in this piece of bone for millions of years? What happened to my body? Is my body reacting out of reflex due to these skills the tomes recorded? Two hundred pages… how is that possible? Alexis’s whole collection amounted to twenty pages. [Chapter 13, references how skills condense and take up space in the Infinity Tomes]

Ryu had countless questions and thoughts bursting inside his mind as he did his best to refine the enormous surge of Qi coming at him. The Infinity Tomes have the ability to record skills which allows Ryu to recall and use them instantaneously. These new skills from the Anti-Heaven Tribe are definitely foreign to him, he had never even heard of the Anti-Heaven Tribe.

The sheer volume of information contained from the Anti-Heaven Tribe was astonishing. All the skills that Alexis owned only amounted to twenty pages of space in the Infinity Tomes. Prince Na’Vi’s group taught Ryu a hundred pages worth of skills regarding core shaman arts. The Anti-Heaven Tribe not only have double that amount, it turns out that only two main skills were recorded! The Anti-Heaven Tribe seems to practice skills that goes against the ‘Will of Gods’, something Prince Na’Vi mentioned. Who are the Gods and what are their Wills? Ryu doesn’t know but he was told to worry about it later once he goes through a few Rebirths.

The more Ryu understood these skills, the more disturbed he was. These skills are heinous, cruel and merciless. The two main skills from the Anti-Heaven Tribe contain four stances each. The first skill is passive and is called Destiny Defiance. It literally grants the user the ability to change their destiny. The problem is that in order to do so, you have to rob the destiny of others. Ryu understood why the phenomenon occurring right now is happening, the first stance of this skill absorbs and steals essence from the world. Regardless of source of Qi, the user will suck it up dry if they wished! Obviously if the user absorbs too much without refining or absorbs a much higher cultivation than their own, they’ll still die. The next three stances steal and absorb life, talent and luck. Stealing life simply increases your own longevity so you no longer needed to worry about leveling up to live longer. As for stealing luck and talent, Ryu didn’t even know such a thing existed. It was almost too scary for him to process.

This skill also instructs how to exceed ones’ natural limit. In all of the martial manuals Ryu studied, seventeen Qi channels were the norm that a human could obtain without a special body. The Destiny Defiance skill allows you to evolve your body beyond that of a special body! Ryu wasn’t clear on the ranks or classifications of special bodies before, just that they are rare but this skill informed him in great length of details. Special bodies are ranked as regular, rare, heavenly, mystical, legendary, perfect and god-like. According to its ranking, Eu-Meh has a rare type of special body! She had twenty Qi channels that fused into three main ones, in theory she can unleash at least ten times the power against someone with the same cultivation with a normal body!

When the crimson warrior said I have a legendary or perfect soul, was he going by the rankings of special bodies too? Ryu couldn’t help but wonder.

The problem with this skill is that it’s passive and seems to have been engrained into his body’s very cells. Ryu is subconsciously utilizing the skill without realizing it and couldn’t control it at all. Actually Ryu was starting to feel changes within his body, it was as if it’s trying transcend its limits by practicing the method from Destiny Defiance to achieve a special body! He could feel his Qi channels getting thicker by the second, the pain was excruciating and similar to the process he went through when he got his first Infinity Tome.

Wu-Feng was immobilized due to the Absolute Agreement and stood three meters away from Ryu. He had a face full of horror and unconsciously wetted himself. Wu-Feng could roughly guess what was going on, judging by the abundance of Qi flowing out of the materials he stole earlier. He seems to be just out of its range or he would be sucked dry as well.

The second skill was named Death Supremacy. This one sounded like it rebels against the logic of the world even more than the first skill. It has four stances and each one is used to manipulate life or the dead. Dead Resurrection allows one to recall a soul and implement it into a puppet, it would contain the majority of the knowledge it possessed in its lifetime and its powers were limited only to the puppet’s power. It would not have free will though and would be completely dominated by the user. This was similar to Spirit Fusion except it did not require the summoned soul to work in unity with the user. Soul Destruction is literally the dispersion of the soul. According to Prince Na’Vi, cultivators that have established an essence will have a chance to enter the afterlife regardless of how they die but this skill says otherwise. Once the soul is destroyed by this skill, there will be no chance of going to the afterlife. The third stance is called Soul Sacrifice, if the user is about to take a mortal wound then it can use a previously captured soul to take the fatal damage instead. This is practically giving the user extra lives! The last stance is Cheating Death and makes it nearly impossible for the user to die at all. If the user dies physically, as long as the soul survives and makes it to the afterlife, it will forcefully take over another body from another realm! It’s literally coming back from the dead. Each one of these stances are illogical and should not exist in this world.

Is that why this crimson warrior is sealed inside this piece of bone? Killing him would be pointless if the soul isn’t dispersed since he can cross over from the underworld and take over a new body! Ryu said after reading the last stance of Death Supremacy.

At the bottom of the last page, it contained the few snippets of memories from the crimson warrior. Ryu was stunned at what he read, it was something that he didn’t expect. This would definitely throw the world into chaos if the major powers of the world knew what was stated. Ryu did not know what to do regarding this information, perhaps he should discuss this with Prince Na’Vi first.