NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10: TEN
After they had rested and the huge amount of primeval essence Tian Zheng had used to activated the mutated gu worms, was replaced he looked at Yi Chen. He looked like he was considering something, as his brows were furrowed and small beads of sweat had started to form. "What is next?" Tian Zheng waited but no answer came. He didn`t mind the silence but used it to delve into his thoughts. When he was reviewing what he knew of the paths he had been forced to walk and the one he had chosen.
'Heaven path assimilates others while it can also be assimilated, Human path complements other paths leading to it being the best choice to create a base for a killer move. The Rule path acts a glue between them, it holds them together and gives them parameters to operate.' His mind wandered to something he had been meaning to try ever since he saw the death of the creature. 'If I can control the power of heaven and deliver those lightning strikes covertly, maybe I can kill some beings by stopping their hearts or at the very least, I can fry their muscles.'
His thoughts were forming the skeleton of a killer move when he saw Yi Chen stand up. He walked towards the beast but Tian Zheng noticed a new caution in the way he carried himself. Like he had finally realized that he wasn't dealing with a child but a rank 3 Gu master raised by the scrounge of the Eastern sea. "What do we need to do for you to reach the inheritance?" Tian Zheng asked the question once more but this time louder. He watched as Yi Chen turned to look at him, noticing the small amount of hostility that had grown in his eyes. He seemed to think about it for a moment before he answered. "Don't worry about the details, I'll show you the path and you only need to help me acquire it."
This statement almost made Tian Zheng laugh out loud. In the months he had stayed with the ginger child, they had built a sort of friendship. Although they weren't close they could be called acquaintances. However, that all came crushing down when Yi Chen realized that the person who he thought depended on him, could kill him with a flash. Just as his father had told him, Anyone can be a friend but once you start to threaten anything they hold dear, you will find a knife in your back.
He held back the laugh as another thought appeared in his cluttered mind. 'He can now be classified as an enemy, just because you broke the fragile control he thought he had over you.' He suppressed the smile he was holding back and focused back on the back of Yi Chen. He had gone to wherever the inheritance is. 'Maybe it`s in some secret passage that he is afraid I will kill him if I know it. He should know that he will need to show me where it is at some point.' Whatever the ginger was planning didn't concern him, what he needed was to complete the killer move he had in mind and then, he needed to find a way to get new and better gu worms. He couldn't trade any of his since they were too valuable or were from the mutated series that he had started to form in aperture.
The killer move was built on the way the Heavens seemed to hate the foreign Dao marks to the point of expending its power to destroy them. He wanted to funnel that rage into attacking his opponents. He did have the fire funnel gu but using it had a couple of problems. First, the gu weren't his and he had to give them away at some point. Second, for it to be used to direct the power of heaven meant it would be touched by heaven and assimilated, this would cause it to be changed fundamentally and it would become a wild gu again. Third, he didn't have any idea of how he would be able to harness the wrath of Heaven and he also didn't have the necessary knowledge to direct it at someone else. He didn't even know how Heaven would react to being used by someone else. While it seemed to not mind his tinkering, he wasn't so sure it would allow the birth of a killer move that could allow one to basically call upon its power. Fourth, was that he didn't have enough gu worms to create the killer move. The killer move would be powerful and this would cause it to need many specific and necessary gu worms that would force him to spend money he didn't have.
He looked at his remaining funds only to find a few dozen gu worms. He had stopped using gu worms to replace his used primeval essence when he had reached rank 3. According to his calculations, he would be left with one or two primeval stones when he was done with this business. This was also the reason that he had shunned the idea of just killing the ginger child and taking the inheritance for himself. The thought had appeared when he landed on this piece of land and again when he had killed the creature. He knew that it was a stupid idea that had been born of the greed that was innate to all creatures with thought. If he killed the ginger, then he would be stranded on this piece of rock. He wanted to use the plans that Yi Chen had to get to the nearest island and if the ginger tried to abandon him after he got the inheritance, then a dead body and an ill gotten inheritance was a gift he couldn't refuse.
Another problem with the killer move appeared in his mind. The question of ability. If he completed the killer move, had the formula for the working killer move, had acquired the necessary gu worms and made sure that upon activation Heaven wouldn't smite him down instead. Then he wouldn't be able to activate them. 'While controlling three or four gu worms isn't a problem, the amount of gu that will be needed for this killer move are monumental. I will never be able to even activate it.' Sadness filled his heart but this didn't make him give up. He just had to wait until he had enough experience and mental prowess to activate the gu worms that form this move, and as he waited he could keep refining the killer move until it would be comparable to the full wrath of Heaven when he unleashed it.
He looked up from the spot in the horizon he had been staring at for some few minutes and saw a figure running towards him. When the sun fell on his figure he saw a ginger running away from something with panic in his face while his eyes were focused on Tian Zheng. 'The sun hasn't moved from where it was from the time we came on this rock.' A stray thought caused him to pause as he looked around. As golden fire filled his body his eyes traveled to the calm water. 'Too calm' another thought. He looked at the sky, not focusing on the screaming ginger child. The more he observed the greater he dreaded. The sunlight was static, the clouds were glitching and the water seemed to act as a blanket that covered a void underneath them. Even the wind tasted wrong. The wind from the Eastern Sea was always filled with a fishy and salty smell, the one that blowed his hair was stale. Like it was once actual wind but after time fermenting. "It is old." The wind was old.
His gaze hardened and looked towards the ginger and finally saw what he was running from. It was a storm, one that walked on two legs and instead of eyes just two balls of blue energy. It looked like a warrior, with two arms that held thick weapons. Tian Zheng saw that on its armor were markings, like it had been recently harmed. They seemed to spill condensed energy as a form of blood. Yi Chen seemed to have grown tired and the giant caught up with him. The thick arms rose and two swords fell onto the position he should have been. However, they missed since he appeared a small distance from the position they had fallen looking pale. "Did he even replenish his primeval essence before he went off?" this question rang out to an inexistent observer.
Seeing as the giant had also realized that it hadn't hit anyone, it raised its head up high and let out a roar that sounded more like thunder. The sound caused Tian Zheng to lose balance but he wasn't close enough to be greatly affected but Yi Chen was. His ears burst with blood and his eyes closed as he hit the cold ground. The giant as if drawn by the smell of blood turned its big blue orbs towards the fallen figure of the ginger child. He slept peacefully while a monster that seemed twenty meters tall was behind him. As the giant black cloud in the faint shape of a human turned to crush Yi Chen, he saw another puny being shoot towards it, as golden lightning followed behind him.