Chapter 7

Kusan felt a gentle warm sensation touching him, it wasn’t his body that he felt the sensation touch and it was as if it was touching his very soul. The sensation is warm and gentle like a mother’s embrace. Involuntarily, Kusan muttered one word he has never spoken for most of his life.

‘Mother’

If it weren’t for the darkness, one would be able to see a teardrop roll down his cheeks, never has he cried once since he was 5 years old.

The next moment, as if though it materialised, the warm sensation changed from an embrace into a hand that pulled him out. A hand which wanted to pull him out from the abyss, Kusan brushed it aside because he felt the hand was now foreign and no longer has the feeling of a mother. However, his resistance was futile as slowly his soul, bit by bit, was dragged by the mysterious hand into an unknown area. He couldn’t feel his pieces of soul that were snatched by the hand after a certain distance.

After a period of time between an instant and eternity after each time the hand came descending down on his soul, he felt the hand stretch out towards him once again. Just as he was about to brush it aside for a second time, he suddenly hesitated. Listening closely, he could hear a voice coming from another side. He searched around the abyss and saw a glowing orb. For some unknown reason, he spilt tears like they were nothing upon gazing on the white orb and he didn’t know why.

He heightened his hearing when he could hear faint whispers from the orb. He suddenly paled and before he could scream at the orb. The orb suddenly glowed and he felt himself get sucked into the unknown before everything disappeared.

“NOOO, MOOOTTHEEER!”

Kusan from his instinct knew that was his mother because when he heightened his hearing, he could hear the unmistaken voice and what she said further amplified his belief that it was her.

‘Son, this isn’t the place for you. You must go now’

And he was then pulled into the world of clear, but the clear was so blinding to his eyes that were used to the darkness that he felt he was staring at the sun itself. He couldn’t help but reflexively close his eyes and tried to get into the battle mode, something his body was going to do.

Despite his instinct, his body couldn’t move as fatigue permeated through his entire body. As if he was nothing but a giant mass of meat with no strength. Then he felt abnormally tired. He had never felt this tired even after overexerting himself physically from his hellish training that he made.

He could faintly hear noises and struggled to open his heavy eyelids. Before he could fully open his eyes, he suddenly felt a large force struck him as if he was being rammed by a giant ton heavy hammer. Strangely enough, he didn’t get injured by the massive force that appeared out of nowhere, soon the force changed from attacking him to holding him.

He could feel his shoulder be stained by the water from the unknown force.

And the unknown force also sent heat to Kusan, his body shivered under the heat not because it was hot but because he didn’t realise he was so cold that the heat is like a god sent gift to rejuvenate him.

During all this, he was still struggling to open his eyes, his eyes finally adjusted to the intensity of the light it has only opened halfway but it still let him see who the mass that is holding him is. The noises got a little louder, turning from whispers to loud muffled noises as if something is blocking his ears from discerning what the noises really are.

All he could see before him is the hair. Long silky strands of hair all bundled up, occupying his view. He sniffed a little and smelt a nostalgic fragrance that he couldn’t help but associate it with someone he once knew. Before, he couldn’t pinpoint exactly who it was, he knew who it was yet he couldn’t. His mind was in a contradicting state and this confused him until the muffled noises cleared up.

Faint sobbing sounds dominated the air of the Dojo’s hospital. With the only patient are Kusan, with five people in front of him and one person currently cuddling him, who is also the source of the silent sobs that is loud in the ears of Kusan.

Once Kusan’s bodily function adjusted to the level of being back to normal with only no strength in his body being the only problem, he finally saw everything. He recognised all five of the people and judging by how Master Kenji and his wife, Mika is sighing while staring at the mass of hair in front of him, he deduced that this person is most likely Serenity. The other three people, he is most familiar with them, the tall lanky man wearing a white robe emblazed with magical runes that flickered occasionally with an aged face that put him between the late fifties to early sixties is Luca.

He would normally have a calm disposition, something akin to a kind grandpa but today he had a haggard expression and when he looked at Kusan, he showed a relieved look as if saying that Kusan saved him. This old man is the head of the light mages ‘Dragon Healer’s Corps’ and the person who healed Kusan half the time Kusan was sent to the hospital.

The other two are his beloved grandchildren and disciples, Leana and Michael. Both are only a year older than Kusan by a year but are weaker in terms of strength. However, that is not what those two greatest strength are, their greatest strength is their powerful healing and utilisation of light magic that were personally taught by their grandfather who is considered second only to Mika to be the most powerful healer in the Dojo.

Michael was exactly the same as his grandfather, haggard like he hasn’t slept for two weeks with bags hanging under his eyes. Leana, on the other hand, was different; she wore a strange expression.

“hick…..your alive…..thankhick god….”

A faint yet audible voice resounded within the silent hall.

As if he was oblivious to the mood that is present in the air, Luca spoke, breaking the unspoken ‘keep silent’ to leave Serenity to her moment.

“Well look, the kid is fine like always.”

He pointed his wooden staff that he used as a walking cane towards Kusan as he spoke he walked off, followed by his grandchildren and not before muttering a few words.

“Sheez, next time the boy gets out to the forest again. I am going to go outside, last thing I need is a little girl to pester me for a month.”

Luca is complaining about how, because of Kusan’s dire situation, he was bombarded by Serenity’s incessant action of him healing Kusan which was already done. Yet, no matter how many times he explained to her about how no one can do anything about his condition, since his soul is the only problem with Kusan and that it is all up to him to survive. The explanation seemed to have fell on deaf ears and she continued to nagged him like there was no tomorrow to save Kusan.

Now that Kusan is finally awake, he is at last free from Serenity’s persistent ordering him around for a month. The feeling of freedom is akin to a prisoner finally being let free from prison for who knows how long. This is the reason for his haggard looked as he barely had enough sleep; likewise his grandson wasn’t spared from the same fate his grandfather experienced. Only Leans was the exception and both grandfather and grandson envied that fact.

With the three gone, it left only the Ryuu family, which is the last name of Serenity, her mother Mika and the father, Kenji, in the desolate hall with Kusan. Kenji wore a conflicted look on himself as he stared at both Kusan and his daughter, Serenity. Mika on the other hand sighed before dragging her husband away.

Instantly the expression on Kenji changed, from confliction to a doomed look. It looked as if he was about to experience the end of the world. Before he could express the reason of his doomed look to Kusan, he got choked by his wife.

His expression, it immediately changed to one of anger, likened to that of a raging bull with smokes billowed out from his nose. He struggled intensely while Mika’s death grip is still fiercely latched around his neck before she walked off, with a raging bull in tow.

With the disappearance of the Ryuu parents, Serenity quietened down her sobs before it disappeared.

Kusan looked at her head, waiting patiently for the snot covered face Serentiy to come bursting into his face about how he almost died. It wasn’t the first time this happened, however, no matter how long he stared, she didn’t seem to have any intention of doing her usual antics he always faced when he came back alive.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know what Serenity felt for him, hence he is still single, but because he doesn’t see any value in a relationship and from his point of view, a complete waste of time. He is only after one thing, vengeance.

For a relationship which entails, peace, harmony and spending a lot of time together with the one you love is something that repulse Kusan. There is nothing within his black heart, only people who were there with him for nearly his whole life would he care, however the level of care is only enough to say that he is friends with them and he would not hesitate to kill them should they impede his mission.

Only Serenity is spared, the reason being that she is similar to his mother. Although he sometime doesn’t remember what his mother face looked like and sometime he remembers, but he does, he remembers as clear as the blue sky but whenever he tries to remember later on, for some strange reason he cannot remember what she looks like. This is something that he regrets and hates himself for.

But because of how gentle, caring and humble she is towards him, something that he remembered clearly about his mother. The most notable feature about Serenity is not her beauty but her musical talent; despite the flute talent she possessed to be inferior to his mother or him. It nevertheless calmed his mind whenever he thinks back to the few precious memory he has.

Even so, today is the day that he would break off the heart of Serenity, because today he realised that no matter how much he compares Serenity to his mother. She is inferior to his mother in many ways and that he should start growing up, by stop comparing everyone lady who cares about him to his mother.

With that in mind, he put his arms on Serenity’s shoulder and tried shaking her awake. He noticed something strange, she wasn’t moving when he shook her and she was being deathly quiet. Baffled, he lifted her head up and moved the hair that naturally flowed down to cover her face.

He rolled his eyes when he saw her current state, red puffy eyes closed, slight movement from her chest to indicate she is still breathing. Head dangling on his hand, ready to tilt to the side from the slightest movement of Kusan’s hand. In other words, Serenity is sleeping and she is sleeping after depleting all she had to cry out.

He gently lifted her up princess style and laid her down at the next bed beside him. Once he laid her down, he pulled the blanket over her despite it being a late morning with a bright sunny day beaming through the window, bring along a warm temperature within the hospital.

Normally he would have waited for her, for her sake but after the encounter with his mother in that dark place, he walked away. It re-ignited the waning hatred within his heart that allowed him to slowly open up to people to turn back into an isolated heart. None shall pass through his heart anymore.

When he opened the twin doors, he saw Mika next to the door, clearly they were peeping, with Kenji in her still firm grip.

“What happened to you in that forest?”

Mika, before Kusan could ask her about his condition beat him to the question stance.

Kusan didn’t have anything to hide and he too wanted to know exactly what happened to himself, he explained in details in regards to what he experienced before blacking out and then suddenly waking up just a few moments ago. He didn’t forget to include his speculations as well about powerful warriors that attacked him without him knowing.

Mika wore a strange expression; she couldn’t really pinpoint what Kusan has told her.

‘A sudden invisible yet fierce force that caused him so much pain and then black out? Experts ambushing him? No, that isn’t possible...

What could possibly cause……….’

She stopped her train of thought when she connected the dots about a sudden gush of force and her husband’s Saint Battle back then. Thinking a little deeper, she no doubt realised that Kusan hospitalised state was all due to being caught up at the wrong time.

Even with the realisation, her facial didn’t change and so she didn’t give away the fact that she knew what caused Kusan’s hospitalisation. She mentally told Kenji about her theory, although she wasn’t sure, she isn’t dumb enough to not know that this theory is most likely the correct one.

She faked her expression and spoke.

“Hm? With the lack of information about what happened to you, I do not have much to say about this. Maybe the enemy thought they killed you and left, thereby letting a disciple who was lucky enough to encounter you before you actually died.”

Kusan looked at them and without a word, left the hospital.

Kenji stared intensely at Kusan’s back; even after he was gone he still stared at the empty space that used to be where Kusan was.

‘To think I caused Serenity much grief because of my blood grudge *sigh*

What a weird twist of fate’

Kenji mentally spoke before he walked back into the hospital room, along with his wife. Mika on the other hand sighed as she thought about what she saw when she looked at Kusan.

Before, his eyes, in figurative terms, were black but it was easy to penetrate to his heart as if the eyes were the window to his desire. But now, it is different, it was so pitch black that she couldn’t find anything but darkness. Not even her ability to discern people through eyes, could she find his desire other than a black flame that represented deadly vengeance.

‘Looks like he is back to his past self.

*Looks at Serenity*

Darling, looks like you and him will never be fated to be together.’

She sighed, because she knew all too well about the damage a broken or pained heart brought about. Only she hoped her daughter wouldn’t experience such a thing, alas one cannot have everything.

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‘So it’s been three months since I’ve been in a comatose state, not very good’ Kusan came upon this information when he asked a fellow disciple when he was walking. Another not so bad point is to see how strong their eternal rival ‘Tiger Dojo’ promising disciples were to his. Although he has fought many life and death battles with both man and beasts, he doesn’t believe they are stronger than what the ‘Tiger’ can produce.

Little does he know that he is grossly overestimating his opponents’ power, because the enemies he faced in the forest were actual professional warriors and mages, even assassins and he made comparison of them to the tigers. It is like comparing a farmer to a seasoned warrior is what Kusan is unintentionally saying with the farmers the tigers and the seasoned warriors, the people he fought in the forest.

However, with Kusan’s cautious nature, he will never underestimate his enemies.

Despite the tournament being over for him to participate to be a part of the Dojo’s team sent to the Capital, as it finished two days ago. He made his way to the Tournament board that should be located next to the Tournament’s entrance.

Like usual, the busy people who were mingling about split apart not from Kusan’s half hideous face like he thought, but from the invisible menacing and deadly aura that struck fear into both normal people and the weak-willed disciples. Some people even fainted; the origin of this invisible aura is because it is born from his newly ignited vengeance. His vengeance was at such a level that it, unknown to Kusan, combined with his fierce and seasoned aura that he cultivated after much life and death battles, to a deathly aura.

So it wasn’t strange that people felt intense fear from Kusan, as if he was the living embodiment of Death itself. However, this only works against weak people, Mika and Kenji didn’t pick it up because they were vastly strong compared to the normal people like heaven and earth, so they were definitely not weak enough to be affected by Kusan’s aura.

When he stood before the Tournament board, with a wide gap between him and the weak-willed people, he couldn’t help but raise his eyebrow. He would normally not be affected by anything but for once he is, reason being is because apparently he has gotten seventh place in the tournament when clearly he has been hospitalised for three months, which is enough time to conduct the tournament and finish, due to the large Dojo number of disciples and their youthful eagerness.

A giant word emblazoned completely in red, in the spot of the winner of the tournament is

‘Nage’

‘That old fool probably had something to do with this; no way he couldn’t bear to let me stay behind and watch the possibility of the Dragons losing against the Tiger. If so, this’ll be a major loss of face for him, even though I do not understand what is so important about this ‘honour’ crap.

Although the chance is unknown, he would never take that chance and got someone to masquerade as me in order to force me to join this tournament.

Interesting, looks like I would be fighting some real experts’

Kusan smirked, coupled with his half burnt face and the deathly aura he exuded, it made him elevate his outlook of a devil to a whole new level that even Nage, who was just about to congratulate him, flinch and even feel a soul-wrenching fear.

‘Just what happened to Kusan the last three months?

I know he exudes a fearful aura but this one he is currently exuding………no matter how I feel it or look, it makes me feel like I am standing before a man who has slaughtered millions of people, just like my uncle.’

Nage already knew about the fake Kusan situation and how Kusan was actually hospitalised the entire time until today. So he wasn’t surprised about it, more than that he was elated about the whole plan of forcing Kusan to come. Should they win against the tigers, this would no doubt bolster the reputation of his Empire. With increased reputation means more chances of attracting future geniuses as they prefer to be trained by the best of the best.

It may seem like a bunch of warriors’ pride wanting to be superior over the other but Nage knew better. This was a time of absolute power and cunning strength, if succeeded and continued for many years, it will indirectly lead to the tigers decline in power and thereby increasing his chance of unification of the continent when that time comes and he is the Emperor.

And Kusan is one such key for his plan.

Suppressing his fear, with difficulty and ambitious thoughts, he walked forward to greet Kusan who stared.

“Hey Kusan, congratulation on getting a place.”

Kusan awoke from his deep thought and saw that it was Nage, without returning the greeting; he went straight to the point.

“Dray?”

Nage wore an apologetic smile and nodded, it wasn’t surprising that Kusan knew this was Dray’s plan. After all, out of all six of the top 5 disciples with the unknown sixth being Kusan, only Dray was smart and meticulous enough to concoct a plan that could fool all of the elders, to bring in a false yet not false appearance of Kusan.

“Who?”

Kusan asked, clearly about who exactly represented him in the tournament because although impersonating someone is easy, to impersonate him to the degree that even his techniques and how he fights could be considered a godly impersonator.

“Serenity”

That was all Kusan needed when Nage told him, it wasn’t surprising that she could copy him since they both have trained together for most of their life in the Dojo.

However, he remembered a flaw. The flaw being that considering Serenity’s strength, she should be facing the fake Kusan who is obviously impersonated by her, with this in mind, he looked at where her name stopped and saw the reason why.

‘So she intentionally lost against Kayle before I lost against her.’

Nage saw Kusan narrowed his eyes when Kusan glanced upon his fiancé’s and Serenity’s fight, he gave him a pat on the back and spoke up.

“Come now; let me hear what the genius number one has done so far.”

Having been hanging out with Nage for many years, Kusan understood what he actually meant as he disguised the fact that he was asking him about how he got himself hospitalised for three months by using a misunderstanding from him being a winner on seventh place. After all from the outside point of view, it sounds like Nage is curious as to how he managed to reach so far and defeat him when not much people considered Kusan to be strong.

Kusan couldn’t care less about telling Nage what happened so far, however what was most confusing is how it took him three months to recuperate and that is something he forgot to ask Mika when he had chance. Considering that to heal someone, especially for Luca, is easy as one two three.

‘I’ll ask them that when I get the chance.’

He relayed what he knew so far about his incident. Normally Nage wouldn’t care about Kusan’s life since it was normal for him to be sent to the hospital many times, it was as if the hospital was Kusan’s second home, however three months of hospitalisation was something that was unprecedented even in the history of the Dojo’s hospital records. Not even Luca’s powerful healing could do anything to heal Kusan.

After hearing it, Nage, just like Mika, connected the mysterious force that Kusan experienced to that of the Saint’s residue force. Considering that the time of his hospitalisation coincides with the Saint battle that took place.

“Have you heard about the ‘Saint Forest’ incident yet?”

Kusan was expecting an answer from the knowledgeable Prince who could connect what he experienced to a powerful assassin since a prince is naturally connected with the underground. But seeing how he was talking about an incident.

“What does that have to do with me?”

Nage showed a knowing smile.

“Three months ago, our Dragons’ elite core disciples, along with Master Kenji went out and fought against an army of powerful Saint Monsters and beasts of various kinds.

It is said that because of the battle, everything within a twenty kilometres diameter of the battle was visibly turned upside down. Deep craters prominent everywhere, mist lingered around showing no signs of letting up and clouds that have continued to shoot lightening ever since.

Living beings of all ranks, no matter whether they were a 9th ranked warrior or beast. None were spared from the after-shock as they were incinerated into nothing. Even if you were some thirty kilometres away, you weren’t spared from the attack residue.”

“I see that is great but what does that have to—“

Nage saw that Kusan didn’t pick up his hint that he just said at the start so he spoke more clearly again.

“Because it happened three months ago”

Nage smiled before he walked off. Kusan was sceptical at until he realised what Nage meant by ‘it happened three months ago’. He immediately connected the dots about how; ‘even if you were a fair distance away you would still be affected by the residue of the Saint battle’ this was the underlying meaning behind the story that Nage told Kusan. He finally knew what caused him to be injured to such a degree that it took him three months to heal from it.

‘So they already knew but acted all normal saying they didn’t know when clearly they were the one, hmm quite the weird twist of events I got myself in’

He felt amused about the situation. Now that his nagging feeling of being hospitalised was answered, his mind was finally free from the burden of not knowing what happened to him.

Without much to do and the future of facing powerful experts that the tigers could produce, he felt elated at that prospect and decided to see what changes has either occurred within his body due to the injury he sustained or nothing. Sometimes when he was injured, he would notice either being slightly stronger than before or no changes.

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Sitting in a lotus position within a small room, illuminated by the red sky that was slowly fading away like a fire, as Kusan was prepared to enter a meditative state.

He quickly entered the nostalgic white space that represents nothingness. He sighed as he scanned the area and as he was about to scan his body, he suddenly did a 180 turn because he found a suspicious plain looking book within the white space some hundreds of metres away from him.

Wary, he thought deeply about the possibility that his mind was invaded by a foreign object. He calmed his mind down; he knew it was impossible and so attempted to evaporate the object into nothing.

After some time and many attempts, he shockingly found that he couldn’t do anything against the book to make it disappear from the white space.

One must know that in the white space, it is made of one who has entered nothingness in the mind. Nothing should, without the consent of the owner of the space, should there be anything in the space and yet. The impossible is actually possible where something is here, not by his order to conjure stuff but it actually appeared. As the white space is actually a part of the soul, so for something to be already in his meditative state without his control is worthy of extreme danger, because if an object can easily pass into the mind, what’s to stop the mastermind from coming to kill him by destroying his mind?

Waiting patiently while he stared intensely at the book, for the mastermind to appear but after what he thought to be five hours already gone by in his mind. He couldn’t help but warily edge ever closer to the book while being alert in case of a surprise attack.

Having reached the book, with no incident happening, he looked at the unremarkable book. The book had had writing on the end part of the thin book; the front page looked to be made of an old parchment that has weathered many years with its slight crumples and yellowy colour. He didn’t fully read the title as he was busy scanning the whole book from every possible angle without touching it.

Noticing nothing out of the ordinary about the book that looked to be more than a hundred years old or hasn’t been looked after properly, he decided to read the title of the book.

‘The Over………..Necromancy Book’

‘Necromancy? Where have I heard of that before?

But more importantly where and how did this book come here?’

He was conflicted about whether to touch to book or not to check whether it is real or a side-effect of his long comatose state. Eventually his urge to touch it won out over not touching it.

Carefully and slowly he drew his finger ever closer to the book.

Ten centimetres…

Eight centimetres…

Six centimetres….

Four centimetres…

………

With the build-up increasing his agitation towards the book, he couldn’t help but just swiftly touch it before he threw continuous flames towards the book like a flamethrower bursting from his hands.

He looked around while he pumped magic into the fire like fuel, seeing nothing out of the ordinary happen before, during and after touching the book or even during the so called ‘weak’ moment he presented when he cast magic onto the book. He couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary no matter how much he looked or scanned with his mind. Even narrowing his eyes, hoping he could see within the vast space to find a single trace of an uninvited existence didn’t help.

Having his search come up empty, he stopped pumping magic and the fire slowly lessened before it flickered away into nothing, leaving behind a book that was shockingly not affected in any way by the fire.

He stopped whatever he was doing and stared at the book, waiting for something, it was the unknown that Kusan was waiting for. If the book can withstand his fire, where in his mind, everything is supreme as he is the owner of the space yet his power is proven nothing before the book.

“This isn’t possible, just what the hell is a book that can defy my powers within my mind be doing here?”

He remembered one time when he chanced upon a book, luckily he had Serenity by his side that she pestered him to bring her along to one of his many journeys to the forest, to be there for him or else he would have died. The reason being is because he was too eager in wanting to learn a possible hidden technique that he didn’t even think that a seemingly harmless book would actually be a trap because the moment he opened it, a large puff of smoke blasted out and he immediately convulsed.

He later learned the book had nothing and the smoke was actually a poison that would have no doubt claimed his life, if not for Serenity’s swift action in detoxifying him.

Without any healers around and the great unknown that no doubt exuded danger, especially since the book is in his mind which is a very fragile existence, much like the soul as they are both interconnected.

He decided to just leave the book alone and will indirectly ask someone about the possibility of something to exist within his meditative state.

He exited the state and pondered on who to ask and how to ask without giving himself away that he himself is the one.

He couldn’t possibly ask Mika or Kenji because they can no doubt see through his roundabout ways in asking.

After a little bit of pondering, he decided to ask the most knowledgeable person he knows, Dray, about it.