Inside a lonely cave was a young man around 15 years old. He was currently wearing black trousers and a black short sleeved shirt. The young man’s hair was short. It was black with pure white streaks mixed in. It was a peculiar contrast, pitch black and snow white. His eyes were cold as he stared at the fire in front of him.

Leaning on his shoulder was a pitch black scythe that had red curving lines on it’s blade and handle. Together they formed a peculiar symbol. The boy stared at the fire for a bit and then sighed. He then set down the scythe in a place that was easy to reach and then took off his shirt. His body was riddled in scars and wounds that were currently healing. What was weird were the black and white curving lines that formed a pair of wings on his back. From his right hand came the black lines and formed a picture of a black glass wing, the white lines mirrored the black ones and formed a white wing.

The young man looked down at his stomach and sighed, “Guess, the wound was too serious.” On it was a long gashing line that had a big scab formed on it. This scar came from a Horned Demon that he had encountered a few days ago. After a bitter struggle and almost dying, he managed to behead the demon with his scythe. Redressed the wound on his stomach and put on his shirt again. After doing so, he took out a green ring out of his pocket and injected Qi into it.

As he did, he only let out a whistle, “This time I truly hit a jackpot. There are a lot of different healing medicines here.” This ring came from a corpse he had found today. He had no idea what this desolate place was but there were a lot of corpses around. Some of them had already been picked clean with only bones remaining but some still had their clothes and/or Spacial Rings left. As he took out all the things inside the ring, he organized them into seven different piles.

Then the black ring on his finger flashed and 6 different rings flew out. They were of various colours and design but they were all High Grade Spacial Rings like his mothers. It took him a sweep of his arm to collect all of the things into different rings and also to put the rings back into the black one. Just as he finished, his eyes flashed.

He grabbed for his scythe as he stared towards the cave mouth coldly. As a step echoed out, he dashed towards the cave mouth swinging his scythe. His scythe was stopped by a long sword and as he pulled it back, he looked at the two that entered the cave. One of them was a young woman his age that seemed to have just been through a bloody battle.

Her clothes were all in tatters and there were various cuts visible. Her eyes were crimson and her hair was fiery red. Even though her face was cold, she still looked beautiful. As he passed his eyes to the old man, he was startled for a second. The old man was missing his left arm and only blood was gushing out from the stub. The old man had long grey hair and his face was very pale.

The young man lowered his scythe as he asked, “You are here to heal your wounds?” The young woman was startled by the question but still nodded her head. Seeing the young man in front of him gesturing them to go deeper inside, she felt hesitant. However, she didn’t have time to think about it as the old man’s wounds were very serious and her own Qi was also exhausted. To block the young man’s attack, she had used up all her strength and had barely managed to block the scythe.

When the two went deeper in, they soon found the place where there was the little fire. As they sat down, the old man started revolving what was left of his Qi to stop the bleeding and accelerate his healing process. The young woman took out several medicine pills and gave the old man a few as she ate some. As the two were slowly recuperating from their wounds, the young man had come outside of the cave. He frowned as he glanced around.

Finally, he shook his held as he sighed, “Seems like those two managed to piss off someone very important.” There were a lot people just running around searching for someone. His hands flashed with a few seals and different gentle lights floated out and around. As the seals settled down, the young man nodded his head as he went back to the cave. The cave mouth was now undetectable from the outside. If you didn’t know the exact entrance, you would never find it. He had laid down a concealing formation before but the two stumbled through the one he had laid down and broken some parts with brute force as well.

When he went back to the end of the cave, he was greeted by a peculiar sight. The young woman was sitting there in her tattered clothes as she revolved he Qi to heal her wounds. Since, the clothes were cut in some very private places, they were fully exposed. Sighing, the young man took out a robe from his Spacial Ring and threw it to the young girl. As the robes came flying, the girl was instantly alarmed and as she caught the robe, she looked at it in puzzlement. The young man sighed as he pointed towards a secluded stone wall, “You should change your robes. It will be difficult to talk to you seriously when you are dressed like that.”

When the girl heard his words, she looked down and instantly blushed. She had been very tense until now and didn’t have time to think about how she looked. With a cast down head, she went to the wall and after making sure no one was peeking, she started changing her clothes. Seeing this, the old man smiled towards the young man and bowed his head, “We are in your debt young man. May I know your name?” The young man sat down next to the fire as he said, “My name is Fang Zhi. May I know your names?”

The old man looked towards Zhi and answered, “My name is Xi Hao and she is Xi Qing. I must thank Young Master Zhi for staying his hand and letting us recuperate our wounds here. When I have recovered enough, we will exit the Ancient Battlefield.” Zhi’s eyes flashed ass he asked, “You have a way to leave this damned place?” The old man looked at him in surprise as he asked in confusion, “You do not know how to exit this Ancient Battlefield?”

Zhi just shook his head and the old man Hao looked at him in complete shock. He had never heard of a person who could enter the Battlefield but didn’t know how to leave. As he quickly scanned his body, he realized that there were various injuries and scars on him that made the old man frown. “Is he someone who had stumbled upon a rift and accidentally came here?” As the old man thought to himself, the young girl came back as well. She had also heard about the conversation the two had and she immediately asked, “How long have you been here?”

Zhi thought for a while as he said, “Since I was this tall.” As he gestured his approximate height when he was cast here, the faces of the two turned to complete shock. Since there was no way to differentiate day and night here, he could only show about how high he was when he came here. The old man seriously asked, “How did you get here?”

Hearing this, Zhi remembered the night his mother died. Unknowingly, he released a killing aura that made the two feel cold sweat run down their spine. The old man just decided to take back his question as he realized that he didn’t come here by accident. He suddenly remembered something that had shocked the Deity Plane ten years ago. The son and wife of the next Patriarch of the Long Clan had disappeared over night.

The Patriarch was someone who was unmatched in his generation and even most of the seniors didn’t have confidence in beating him. That very same man’s wife and young son disappeared into thin air. There were signs of struggle at her wife’s room but what poured oil to the fire was that the wife’s Soul Slip had shattered a while after the incident was discovered. The young son’s was rumoured to be still intact.

However, after this incident the Next Patriarch Long Fanghong, had truly flipped out even going as far as leaving the Clan to personally search for his son. This had all happened ten years ago and it was something that actually made every senior generation elder sigh.

Long Fanghong was actually one of the most dazzling stars of his generation and it didn’t matter which Clan or Sect it was, they all felt that the Long Clan will prosper when he took the reigns, however, after all that happened to his family, his martial arts heart had been crushed and he was fully focused on finding his son. Even though there was no way pinpoint his location due to the tracking magic on his body being tampered with, the Soul Slip would still give out a Resonance Ripple when it was close to the main body. So Long Fanghong took the Soul Slip and started roaming around, searching for a reaction from the Slip. Old man Hao just shook his head and discarded this thought.

Although he had never seen the little boy, he knew that his name was Long Zhifang. Zhi looked towards the old man and asked, “If I helped you recover, would you be willing to help me exit this place?” The old man’s eyes narrowed as he said, “You are not afraid that I might use your help to recover and then just dump you?” Zhi’s eyes narrowed as well as a cold aura spread out. H

is voice was also cold as he said, “I have been here for as long as I can remember, to exit this hell hole, I am willing to take any chance.” This made the old man surprised. He could see the resolution in Zhi’s eyes. He was just gambling on the chance of successfully exiting here. It didn’t matter to him if it failed, what mattered to him was that he tried. The old man shook his head with a smile and said, “I am willing to take you out as well but you need to know this: The place we appear after exiting will be completely random. I will be able to use Teleportation to take Qing along with me and directly go to our Clan. You will be left where ever the heck we appear, deal?”

Zhi thought about it for a second and asked, “Is there a chance that I will be stranded in a place like this one?” The old man shook his head as he said, “No, this place is a special. After we exit here we will appear in one of the countless Mortal Planes.” Zhi thought over it and said, “Okey, now then don’t struggle.” As he said so, he raised his left hand and a white flame manifested on his palm.

Qing looked at the flame in puzzlement but Hao’s eyes were as wide as carriage wheels as he stuttered, “That’s the Flame of Life!” As his words echoed out, Zhi flicked his finger and the flame flew over to Hao and engulfed him. The flame didn’t hurt, it was the complete opposite, it healed him. His wounds were healing at a speed visible to the naked eye. In only 10 minutes all of his wounds had closed not even leaving a scar behind. Qing looked at all of this with a baffled expression. She did not know what to say and just looked towards Zhi with a suspicious gaze.

When the old man’s wounds had healed he had a shocked expression as well as he asked from the Zhi, “You, may I ask where did you obtain the flame?” Zhi just lowered his head as he said, “I only remember eating a black and white fruit that and after my body went through a hell load of torture, these tattoos appeared on me.” As he said so, he extended his arms. He continued, “On my left hand is the white flame that heals, on my right is the flame that withers.”

Old man Hao had a serious expression as he said, “What you ate was the Fruit of Yin-Yang. The probability of successfully ingesting the fruit is miniscule. If one million people ate one, only one would probably survive. The white flame is called the Flame of Life. The other one should be that black flame, Flame of Death.” Qing’s eyes widened as he heard these legendary names of Flames. They were only known of in records and there wasn’t anyone known to actually be able to use either of the flames.

They were the two strongest Flames in existence, one would be able to save a person even if they were a breaths away from death and the other would ignore everything and kill everyone. She gulped as a thought popped into her head, however, she immediately shook hear head discarding it. The old man however opened his mouth and said, “Would you be willing to make a deal with me?” Zhi tilted his head towards the old man as he asked, “What deal?”

The old man took out a golden medallion with a Phoenix engraving and as he held it up he asked, “I want you to guard this medallion. I am willing to give you all of our possessions and also give you compensation when we come to collect this.” Zhi looked at the medallion as he thought about it. He just asked, “What is that medallion? Does it have something to do with the army of people searching for you outside?”

Qing’s face darkened but before she could say anything Hao said, “It is our clan’s tradition that all of the female’s will have a Protector that helps them defend their medallion. This medallion signifies the permission to marry the owner of the medallion. It doesn’t matter if the person is the most dazzling genius of his generation or a beggar from the streets. If the woman who the medallion belongs to gives the medallion to a man and announces that she wishes to marry him, it will be so.”

Zhi thought about it for a minute and then just asked, “But doesn’t this mean that if they manage to seize the medallion, they will be able to marry the woman? If someone uses all of his connections possible to gather a large force, what stops them from forcibly seizing the medallion?” Hao just smiled as he said, “I said that the woman has to announce that she wishes to marry him. If she says that she doesn’t want to marry the person holding the medallion, they would not be able to.” Zhi thought about it for a while and then nodded his head, he didn’t understand it completely but he understood the main parts.

However, one thing puzzled him, “Why do you want me to guard it then?” This time Qing chipped in as she said, “My situation is a bit different from the others. I was born with a special Phoenix Body, a legend amongst our Clan, and I am basically the Next Matriarch of the Clan. Anyone, who is able to obtain the Matriarchs Medallion, I will have to marry without any quarrels.” Zhi’s eyes widened, “This is...”

He honestly felt that this would be very dangerous for him. Hao said, “Don’t worry, it is a tradition that the Protector would be the current Matriarchs Husband, aka me. They will all be busy trying to kill me, plus no one will know you have the medallion and that you even have a connection to us.” Zhi still felt that it wasn’t worth it but when he remembered that his only way out of this hell hole were these two, he realized that he could only grit his teeth and accept it.

However, he put on a sly smile as he asked, “Aren’t you afraid that I will try to use the medallion to get her for myself or that I will find someone to give the medallion to?” Qing’s face fell while Hao just smiled as he had been expecting this question, “Well, if that happens then it happens but I feel that you do not have such ill will towards us. If you did, you could have killed me at the entrance and taken Qing by force.”

Zhi laughed as he said, “I honestly have no idea why you have such trust in me?” Qing also had the same question, why did Hao have so much trust in someone they had just met.