Chapter 1.2 (1/2)

Chapter 1: The Third Red Dot (Part 2)

WARNING: Disturbing content

Qi Ling nods, teeth chattering in fear. He stumbles towards the backyard while nodding.

“Hey,” just before Qi Ling breeches the exit at the back, Lijier stops him, “You better hurry up, and if you try to escape, I won’t be happy.”

After Qi Ling left the lobby, Lijier turns her head around, vision concentrated intensely on what’s outside the door of the inn, “Ai yah, they’re here. Why did Kins and Liuna run, as if I’m some sort of terrifying creature, they don’t know that, running out, is when they truly meet a group of monsters……” A faint layer of sorrow looms over her youthful features, as if she really feels sorry for the two.

At this very moment, the wind blows a gap through the storm clouds overhead, the moonlight beams down from the sky, falling onto the path outside the inn, at the crossroads two hundred meters away from the inn is where Kins and Liuna’s corpses currently lie. The pale moonlight covers their corpses with a thin layer of frost.

Fifteen minutes before this, only Lijier is left in the lobby of the inn, and now, the place is suddenly bustling again, taking into account Lijier and Qi Ling, there is now a total of ten people.

The eight new comers are all clad in similar-styled white robs, clean and n.o.ble. The men are all wearing headpieces of which you can tell their status with one look, at their waists are golden swords. The women all wore flowing dresses, akin to snow and fog, the fabric flowing around their figures like smoke when they move even without the presence of wind, lightly and wildly, like gradually changing smog, looking as if they’re from a divine plane. On all of their wrists are bracelets made from ice-blue beads, looking as translucent as the tears of the ocean.

The eight of them are seated at one end of the lobby, and opposite them, is Lijier who is still folded lazily in her seat, looking as if her soul has left her.

Two blatantly different auras fill the lobby.

“Why are people from the family of Shen like you joining in the chaos?” Lijier addresses the eight people in white coldly, “Don’t all of you have enough soul beasts?”

The eight people look back at Lijier, although they do not have terror on their faces, but they look slightly cautious. This can be seen from the moment the eight of them entered the inn. When they saw Lijier tucked in the corner alone, their surprise had been obvious.

A man of thirty sitting among the eight, looking as if he is the chief, while drinking the tea Qi Ling poured for them, he says with a low voice: “There aren’t many who have the ability to subdue Bing Mo, that’s why, people from G.o.dly families like us will be here naturally, also Bing Mo is a high-leveled water-based beast, seen only every century, of course us families wish to have a few more of these advanced soul beasts.” He sets down his teacup and looks at Lijier, “What about you, don’t you think you’ve been unbridled enough in the imperial capital of Gelanerte? And you’re still here.”

“Ai yah, ai yah……” Lijier puts down her legs and stretches, “Just what what you just said, I was already so unbridled back in the imperial capital of Gelanerte, in a small town like this, of course I will cause an even larger ruckus.”

She pulls herself up slowly, moving her body from side to side, the bangles on her arms and legs tinkering, “It’s just that so many of you came at the same time, if I want to compete with you guys with just one person, it’s going to be tough……” With an extremely peculiar movement, she stretches her body that had turned stiff from sitting too long, a weird crackling sound can be heard coming from her small body, “Look at all of you, how shameless can you be, so many people competing with a young girl……”

“You? Young girl? You should be an old lady……” Among the people in white, a young man muttered with a cold snicker.

Lijier’s expression freezes, looking like the dead frozen over with frost, “Say that one more time.”

Two flexible icicles suddenly fall from the ceiling like two snakes, sharp and tough, but as agile and soft as snakes, these two icicles hang down slowly, aiming themselves precisely at the young man’s eyes, as if they are cobras ready to attack at any moment.

The boy pales, it is clear that he’s embarra.s.sed greatly, yet he doesn’t dare to put his life on the line, thus he swallows his saliva and clenches his teeth tightly.

Lijier’s expression softens again, looking like the spring wind crossed her. The two icicles dissipate into the air like steam.

The middle-aged man turns to reprimand the boy softly: “Don’t create trouble.”

Lijier returns to her seat, her gaze turning empty and strange once again.

Originally, Qi Ling had prepared to escape after delivering the food to Lijier and after pouring tea for the new guests. To tell the truth, no matter how intrigued he is by the mysterious soul masters from the imperial capital, after the death of so many, he doesn’t wish to stay not even for another second.

Just when he is about to escape from the backdoor with the tea set in his hands, his feet is caught by something unknown, his whole person loses balance and he falls forward.

He had already closed his eyes in preparation to crash to the ground, but, suddenly a touch of something soft reaches him, as if he fell onto a spongy bed.

Qi Ling opens his eyes, before him is a face so pretty people may think they’re staring at that of a G.o.ddess. he looks down to see that he fell onto a silver-white web, those white threads like that of a spider’s web intersects in the air, catching the teapot, cups and himself on it.

Qi Ling struggles to stand up, and then he hears the girl who had been staring at him before talking to him: “Are you alright?” After saying that, she raises her hand, in an instant those silver-white spider web withdraws into her palms like smoke.

“I’m……alright.” Qi Ling’s face burns, looking at the girl of similar age to him before him, her white robe flowing, her raven hair tied at the top of her head s.h.i.+mmering smoothly. Her eyes are round and dark, her long lashes looking like fog, decorating her features perfectly. Her sharp and small face, her fair skin, like soft snow, her whole person seemed like a young and n.o.ble princess.

“My name is Shen Yin (lit. G.o.dly sound), I come from the imperial capital of Gelanerte.” She looks at Qi Ling and smiles gently.

“My name is Qi Ling……” Qi Ling, who had wanted to escape, is totally attracted now, if the scenes before felt like a nightmare to him, right now, he feels as if he fell into the most beautiful dream. He stands at her side carefully, in his chest the blood of youth boils, he’s never seen such a pretty girl in this small town, he hates how good for nothing he is, even his breath is laborious.

“You should sit down, stop standing.” Shen Yin gestures towards him.

Qi Ling sits down gratefully, he looks at Shen Yin’s face that is so beautiful that she seems unearthly, the terror from before long forgotten, even if a bull-drawn carriage pulls him now, he probably can’t be pulled away.

“Jiejie…… are you a soul master too?” QI Ling looks at her straight on with wide eyes.

“Yes, we all are.” Shen Yin places her hand on the table; on her wrist is the strand of translucent beads. “My clan is quite famous in the imperial capital, everyone in the family is a soul master. They are all my relatives, look at the one who spoke just now, the one right in the middle,” Shen Yin leans over and tells Qi Ling softly, “He is my brother, Kins, he’s always so stoic, so scary.”

Qi Ling glances at Shen Yin who sat closer to him, his breath felt more rushed. He can smell the faint fragrance of magnolia drifting from her body, barely there, not overwhelming, and yet very fresh, as if a flower bloomed in an unseen location in the dark night.

“Woah, are you guys the most powerful soul masters in the imperial capital?” Qi Ling’s eyes brightens, his curiosity for the world of soul powers piping up again.

“You’re talking about us? Our clan is probably quite alright among soul masters, but if you’re talking referring to the whole world of soul powers, the most talented are no longer called soul masters, they are known as ‘n.o.ble Lords’, they are the peak of the entire world of soul powers.” Shen Yin smiles as she explains to the curious Qi Ling in front of her. Since there’s still quite some time before Bing Mo’s appearance, rather than waiting with those of her family in silence, she rather converse with the handsomely-pretty youth before her.

“Ah? Then is your brother a n.o.ble lord?”

“My brother?” Shen Yin looks at the youth who knows nothing about the world of soul powers before laughing with her hand covering her mouth, “Even if there is a hundred of my brother, it will still be an ‘Instant Kill’.”

“Instant kill?”

“Yeah……like just now when Gu Die Lijier killed Lu Ya and Tuoka. In the world of soul masters, if the level of soul powers between two are too far apart, if one overwhelms the other, then, the stronger side will be able to restrict the soul powers of the other, and they can kill the other in an instant.”

“n.o.ble lords are so powerful?!” Qi Ling’s eyes widen.

‘Of course. You don’t understand our world. Since young, we basically have no opportunity to meet a n.o.ble lord; those who have in the imperial capital are few and far between. To us who learned soul powers since young, n.o.ble lords to us are like the G.o.ds in the skies, they rarely appear in everyone’s vision, many times they exist like legends.”

“How many n.o.ble lords are there?” Qi Ling can’t resist asking.

“Seven,” Shen Yin’s face under the light looks as if it’s carved from the most flawless jade, “Since the start of record-keeping in our empire, there has seven ‘n.o.ble lords’ and there is only seven. Only when the older n.o.ble lord dies, will there be a inheritor who fills in the place of the previous n.o.ble lord. ‘n.o.ble lords’ will not increase, neither will they decrease, there will always be only seven. The inheritors of the lords are known as ‘Disciples’, every n.o.ble lord has their own disciple.”

“Are they all so powerful?”

“Of course they are, you can’t even imagine. n.o.ble lords are ranked based on the strength of their soul powers, from ‘Lord to the 7th Degree (7th Lord)’ to ‘Lord of the 1st Degree (1st Lord, Top Lord)’, their soul powers get stronger and stronger. The top three n.o.ble lords, after they became n.o.ble lords, even before they became n.o.ble lords, basically none of us knows who they are or how they look like. They’ve almost never appeared publicly in our country. Before I was even born, there was a year when tens of thousands of soul beasts in the Valley of the North lost control at the same time, at that time, my mother saw the ‘Lord to the 5th Degree’ appear to subdue the soul beasts. That is, in the history of my clan, the highest-leveled n.o.ble lord any of us ever saw. n.o.body knows how grand the soul powers of n.o.ble lords actually are; no one ever saw the appearance of their soul beasts either.”

“Why hasn’t anyone ever seen them? Even I already saw two, a lion and a b.u.t.terfly……or maybe it’s a bat……I don’t know what that thing was, I didn’t dare to examine it, too scary, that thing had countless sticky tentacles, don’t even mention how horrifying it was.” Qi Ling tells Shen Yin softly while glancing sneakily at Lijier at the same time, fearing she’d hear.

“Of course it’s a lot easier to see an average soul master’s beast, I let out my soul beast often too. It’s different for n.o.ble lords, first they themselves rarely appear, we don’t even get to see them usually; secondly their soul powers are terrifyingly powerful, there’s rarely the occasion where they’re required to release their soul beasts.” When Shen Yin talks about n.o.ble lords, on her face is the express of infinite respect and idolisation.

Qi Ling takes in her heavenly appearance, unable to stop himself, he envisions how n.o.ble lords are like. After thinking for a while, Qi Ling suddenly remembers and asks Shen Yin: “Jiejie, what is your soul beast like?”

Shen Yin purses her lips as she smiles, saying: “I shouldn’t tell you, I’m scared I’ll frighten you.” After saying that, she points to the spot where there had been silver-white webs before, Qi Ling suddenly remembers something, looking pale, he says: “Don’t let it out……those things are what I’m most afraid of……” He pauses, “Then they are really the most powerful in the world? That’s almighty!”

“Yes, actually you should say that they are the most powerful of our Aslan Empire. Odin Mainland is separated into four counties in four directions. We are the water county Aslan of the West, there’s also the fire county of Foliaier Empire in the East, the wind county Inde Empire of the North, and there is also the largest and most mysterious Garcia Empire, which is the earth county in the South. In every country, there are seven n.o.ble lords. So you should say that the twenty-eight of them are the most powerful masters of the soul on this landma.s.s.”

“Oh yeah, jiejie, what is this Bing Mo all of you are talking about?”

“It’s a soul beast, if you’re able to capture it, you can turn it into a soul beast controlled by your soul powers, no matter if it’s for battle or making it do other things, it can help a lot. Usually the soul powers of soul beasts are greater than that of the human. So put it more simply, you can take soul beasts as our weapons. And this Bing Mo is a high-leveled soul beast of the element of water, so us born in the Aslan Empire, it’s a great soul beast to have. Because we’re born in this region where the land’s nature is water, our soul powers have a natural strength to control water. That’s why so many people want it. But those not of a certain level are just here to lose their lives.”

“Jiejie don’t you already have a soul beast, why are you still here?”

“I don’t want Bing Mo at all, it’s my brother Kins who wants it.” Shen Yin sticks out her tongue. Qi Ling fells dazed.

“Then why did so many of you come?”

“Bing Mo is a pretty powerful soul beast, even if it’s not as powerful as my 'Dreamweaver', haha,” Shen Yin leans closer to Qi Ling, “Don’t tell that to my brother, if not he’ll be angry again. Capturing a soul beast is no laughing matter, because you have to release most of your soul power to swallow that of the opponent, I’ll put it more simply, it’s basically when you release your naked soul from your body and then getting it to swallow the soul of the opponent, if anything goes wrong during this process, it’s easy to be swallowed by the opponent. Then it won’t be fun……that’s why, usually we concentrate on attacking the soul beast until it’s life is hanging by a thread, and then taking the opportunity to engulf it when it’s soul powers are at its weakest, making it ours. Which is why, today we’re here to be the hunters for my brother, we’re in charge of attacking it until it’s almost dead, and then my brother will be in charge of engulfing it.”

“Ah, so it’s like this……” Qi Ling nods without understanding.

The dark night is permeated with the bitter-coldness of a lake.