559 Karmic Burden (1/2)

Meng Qi sheathed Heaven Inflicted Pain into its scabbard and closed his eyes. He could feel the strands of Karma weighing on his body break away and return to the Thunder God from the Ninth Heaven. Together, they were obliterated.

However, one strand remained. With obstinate stubbornness, the densest and heaviest strand of gossamer was still firmly attached to him. Unable to be severed from him, it seemed to have become a part of his karma.

The scenes before him changed with a flash. He saw a young beggar reeking of unbearable stench and filth. Every day, the young beggar was bullied by others from the Beggar Sect and seldom did he eat to his heart's content as hunger seemed to linger around him. Nothing but ceaseless pain and suffering tormented the young beggar throughout his pitiable life.

Until one day, a carriage came hurtling down the road. The carriage rolled upon a dirty puddle and drenched him with a huge splash of muddy water. He wore a dumb and blank expression, still perplexed of what had befallen him when the carriage stopped. A lovely woman with her hair tied into a tall bun came out of the carriage and with an impressive figure, the woman was gentle and gorgeous in her flowing white dress.

She strolled gracefully to the young beggar and stopped in front of him. Instead of scolding him, she was sympathetic to his plight and dismal state of health, appalled by the scars and bruises that lined across his thin and frail body.

With no sign of a condescending demeanor, the woman held his dirty and dusty hand and led him into the carriage, vowing to the young beggar that she would save him from a life of torment and hardships.

In the eyes of the young beggar, the woman was a true fairy, the Bodhisattva of Compassion who had come to rescue him from bitter hardship.

For her, he had dedicated himself to an intense regimen of training and practice of martial discipline. For her, he looked after and nourished himself adequately. Until one night, under the dim illumination of the flickering flame of a red candle, she removed her white dress and revealed to him her body of unparalleled beauty... That night, the woman gave the young beggar his most beautiful and unforgettable memory. A memory that he would thereafter reminisce with sweet tenderness, imprinted deep into his soul.

Still, all good things eventually came to an end when the young beggar anguished to find his happiness short-lived. The young beggar came to learn of her many male companions: that all men were but tools for her to replenish her Yin and Yang energies. Frequent was her lustful lovemaking with other men. Her moans of ecstasy rang incessantly through his lonely nights, bringing indescribable pain to his heart.

The misery from his jealousy and suffering tore mercilessly at his spirit. He understood that he would only earn the lady's favor if he put in more the effort in his training and practice, knowing well that he would have to gain remarkable influence and become a pivotal figure to make her solely his.

And one day, an opportunity soon presented itself before the young beggar: he had been accorded the opportunity to meditate on the legendary Extinctive Blade of the Overlord.

In the order of the Method of Mistress Su, those who were able to demonstrate their potential were free to meditate upon the aura and the mysticisms that the blade held in order to reawaken the powers of the blade.

Despite his high hopes and earnest, the young beggar returned empty-handed like everyone else who attempted to reawaken the fabled weapon. Still, all hopes were not lost. In his most desperate and depressed moment, the young beggar mysteriously stumbled upon an arcane dimension where he had received a portion of the Purple Thunder Force: a preliminary to the entirety of the martial discipline that would then allow him to claw his way back into the graces of Mystic Fairy and Bliss Bodhisattva. They misunderstood his achievements to be his own and began to shower favors upon him. He was given an unprecedented amount of support in terms of resources and was allowed to savor the carnal pleasures that Bliss Boddhisattva gave him.

Power, status, respect, and women. All the possessions that a man could hope and desire were heaped upon the young beggar. He came to fully comprehend pleasures and the true benediction of being truly alive. Addicted and intoxicated in the privileges and pleasures that he was showered upon, the young beggar began to lose the purpose that had once driven him. The loyalty and devotion that he once reserved for the Fairy withered, only to be replaced by a possessive desire to have her for his own.

Still, the young beggar was well aware that the pleasures and bestowment that he was drenched in came only from the Extinctive Blade of the Overlord - by which grace he was mistaken as the successor and heir to the Thunder God and the Overlord. He realized that if the truth about his skills was exposed, he would find himself replaced with another who commanded greater potential. He would plummet down into the abyss from whence he had clambered from, only to be one of men who were mere tools for the female disciples of the order to harvest natural energies and replenishment from.

With the luxury of tasting sweetness, came the fear of losing it. Seeds of doubt and fear were sowed deep in the heart of the young beggar. Deep throbs of unease and fear troubled his rest and he began to actively seek and practice the Purple Thunder Bladesmanship in hopes of fully mastering the martial disciplines and to fully embody the elements of Thunder in order to truly gain the recognition and approval of the Extinctive Blade of the Overlord, eventually becoming its true successor.

Despite the hidden risks of the Eighth and Ninth strokes of the Purple Thunder Force that would drain his lifespan notwithstanding their simple possession, the young beggar has had to tread on a knife's edge to acquire the mastery of both skills even though he was then a warrior of the Exterior Scenery. To his delight, when he had finally grasped a cursory command of the two strokes, the Extinctive Blade of the Overlord began to exhibit a faint but definite connection to him.

The revelation of his had him fainting with delight over the fruits of his labor until grim tidings knocked upon his door once more: the true successor to the Thunder God appeared!

Assuming the persona of the Thunder God from the Ninth Heaven, he had long considered the Extinctive Blade of the Overlord and its legacy to be his and his alone. Hatred and jealousy, birthed by his unwillingness to relinquish his claim to them, pestered him, giving rise to the murderous intent that he harbored for all that dared dispute his claim, including Meng Qi. That was how the subsequent events came to be!

The tale of this Karmic burden played in Meng Qi's mind, allowing him a glimpse of the burden that was now his to bear.

”Meditate upon Extinctive Blade of the Overlord once again and master its legacies!”

The obligation of Karmic burdens of these nature did not explicitly entail fulfilling the wishes of the other party. It was sufficient for Meng Qi to meditate upon the Extinctive Blade of the Overlord once. The success of claiming its legacies would be a matter of further inquiry.

There were also Karmic obligations similar to that of the Patriarch of the Wang Clan - ones that wished for the triumph of his clan to weather through woes and adversities, and some that prayed for blessings of prosperity and peace for one's family and household. Much complexities and unknown abounded the elements of Karmic obligation and burden that would hardly be explicable by mere words.

Meditate upon the Extinctive Blade of the Overlord in the Mistress Su's Fairyland... Meng Qi sighed. Grave indeed was the price of using the Fruits of Karma technique! Through fire and steel, Meng Qi would have to traverse to complete the obligation of the Karmic burden which he had shouldered, lest the penalties of the obligation would visit him and reap his life!

It was indeed the Blade of Utter Destruction where only Karma mattered, not the strength of one's foes!

The technique provided Meng Qi with the prowess to slay foes which were levels above him. Foes whose levels were not overly ahead of him - without the powers and strength to completely overwhelm him - could potentially suffer death in the face of this technique!

Meng Qi opened his eyes and stared at the corpse of Thunder God from the Ninth Heaven, which was devoid of any wounds or scars. His corpse had been restored to its intact self upon their exit from the seal dimension. Wearing a grim expression, Meng Qi whispered,

”With your life that I have taken, I have shouldered your Karma.”

The deceased: the Thunder God from the Ninth Heaven of The Myths, a warrior of the Exterior Scenery of the order of the Method of Mistress Su.

Conditions of death: no visible injuries, complete loss of life.

Cause of death: unknown.

Slain by: Su Meng, the Killing Blade

...

The eyes of the Nirmanakaya incarnation of Mystic Fairy met Jiang Zhiwei's. A slight shift occurred in her expression as her hands clawed into the empty space before her and the black fabric of a handkerchief suddenly flew out. In the empty space of the courtyard, the silhouette of a corpse on the ground and a figure subsequently appeared.

”Howling Lunar Hound is dead? How is it possible?”

”Su Meng is the only one still alive!”

To think that two warriors with unparalleled skills who have powers over the First Celestial Ladder have failed to slay an inexperienced foe of the Exterior Scenery with the use of secret artifacts!

Meng Qi looked up from where he stood and saw both the Nirmanakaya incarnation of Mystic Fairy and Jiang Zhiwei. He instantly reached for his saber, channeling his powers in preparation of another skirmish, his eyes gleaming of the stars reflected from the dark night around them as he shouted,

”Like I once said earlier, My Lady, you bear a most burdensome and strenuous Karma!”

With a clang, Meng Qi unsheathed his saber.