Chapitre 4: Loss.
An eery smile lit up on the man face, from which an unscrupulous pressure suddenly crashed down on the entire shop.
Yu Yan, although able to stand, felt that the being in front of her could utter but a word to end her life. The pressure seemed to bring out her primal instincts as it screamed at her soul to accept fate and hope for the best, and she had no way of suppressing this urge. Just this alone has already caused her mind to submit, but the pressure not only crushed her spirit but her body. Everything felt heavy, breathing felt suffocating and standing felt like running consecutive marathons.
'Refuse and die, is your life really that meaningless?' was the only thought in her head at that moment, and although she didn't understand the full enormity of being a servant to a martial artist, she could only clench her teeth.
"S-senior I-"
"No!"
Just as she was about to agree, a ruffled and hoarse voice echoed across the room, causing her to instinctively pause. The source came from the counter at the side, where one could see a toppled-over chair and a boy.
Li Zhi became surprised as he looked at the counter to the side, causing the pressure to increase by onefold. Cracks started to burst and crackle under his feet, where the pressure was the most concentrated.
'Hm? A mortal can have that level of mental strength?'
Behind the counter stood the same frail-looking youth with a shaky gait. His normally expressionless face shone with a glint of something unexplainable and his hazy eyes churned with an emotionless glare, ironically, though, his breathing was ragged and his body emitted endless fatigue, telling him to just... end it.
His eyes sagged due to his body losing too much energy, and from this, you would only see a weak youth.
Li Zhi's eyes shook the second he met that gaze, he has never seen eyes so resolute in his life before. They were inhuman eyes, eyes that contain a will of steel tempered under the sun. They were unyielding, unyielding to anything and everything, including Li Zhi...
Though maybe it was due to exhaustion, Su Min's head tilted down to the counter as his body slouched, removing his glare at Li Zhi.
"Those eyes..."
Su Min's eyes looked tired as his body began to reach a breaking point that would cause any amount of willpower to fragment and become but a hopeless belief. This exhaustion didn't originate from his soul but his body, as although your soul can evolve indefinitely. If the vessel is unable to keep up then it is but a lantern without oil.
She, a person who has helped him a countless number of times, has never asked anything from him. And now that she is in trouble, he can't even help her? It's laughable, to be honest... Yeah...
Bleakly looking at the counter, he found that he couldn't move anymore, no matter how much he told his body otherwise. He felt that his mind was starting to reel and a strange feeling started to overtake his everything. Like it was sucking him into another world.
It was a familiar feeling, a call from his blood.
"You... No..."
His lips muffled two final words as his body started to crackle under the pressure, forcing his eyes to close and his legs to slump over the desk. He didn't seem conscious, but the man couldn't remove the dread he felt, although the youth was but a mortal.
Yu Yan blankly stared at Su Min as he collapsed. Her thoughts became muddled as confusion and despair overtook her, making tears well in her eyes.
"Y-you did something stupid again..."
Li Zhi's shone with a strange flash as he went up to the boy and looked closely for a second. That gaze was enough for him to pay attention. Nonetheless, He could sense that he would die in about an hour if nobody tended to him, so he just left it.
'What strange eyes for someone in their deathbed... Bwah whatever It's not like I can just reject the request from young master to not get the girl.'
Li Zhi took another glance before releasing the pressure in the room. He put the recommendation down, another sheet of paper, grabbed the bleak Yu Yan, and just walked out.
Just like that.
...
'Don't... Huh, Black? I really went unconscious? Hah? aha, A Martial Artist, of course! haha haha....'
A blackness invaded Su Min's eyes as he eventually regained his thoughts. He could feel that his body hurt a lot, but he didn't care at all when he thought about how Li Zhi looked at Yu Yan.
'Open! Open!!'
He gathered any ounce of strength muster itself in his eyelids until they slid open. His blurry vision couldn't make out much, but the counter he expected to be laying on disappeared, along with anything remotely similar to the shop he's used to. Instead, a familiar but forbidden view replaced it. A hut, as shaky as before, stood out in front of him. The same scowling winds reeked everywhere, and the same rupturing pain in his eyelids came and bled, allowing him to just see its outline.
He has no strength, not even to move, let alone get out of the place, so a feeling of unwillingness erupted out of him. He didn't want to believe it, but he is probably going to die today...
'Ah...'
However, contrary to the same old, he could see a floating book right in front of him. It was covered in a crusted brown leather and accompanied with cracked edges and worn outlines. Its thickness was equivalent to an encyclopedia which in turn gave it a rather hefty weight.
A contoured title was woven on the front of the book with the presence of rushed calligraphy, further emphasized with the rotting leather.
All it said was 3 simple words.
'The Martial Book?...'
For a moment only blankness covered Su Min's eyes whilst he ignored it and paused for the impending doom to sprawl and eat him alive, except it never came. Uncertainty flickered across his face when he peered at the book, remembering nothing that would hint to its origin. That was until he finally found the strange memory of him finding the exact same book on the sofa.
'That book?'
The uncertain feeling only grew as he stared at the book. The feeling he got from it seemed different
from before, especially the title, where it was ... familiar?
He couldn't explain it, but those three words caused him to tremble, a tremble that resonated in the depths of his soul, giving him a feeling that he hasn't felt for a long time. Strength.
It wasn't a lot however he felt that he could move his body enough to grab the book, but nothing more.
'It wants me to take it? Well if it is but a chance to get me out of here then I don't care what this thing is!'
Su Min didn't hesitate to use that slither of strength in his body to push his arms and shuffle on the rough dirt. The roaring winds in the backgrounds seemed to screech at an ever-increasing uproar that caused his vision to blur a little.
Yet, for some strange reason, the blades of black wind never got close to him, like they were avoiding something. That something was, of course, the book in front of him.
His hazy eyes grew weaker and weaker under the booms that were far more terrifying than the pressure he felt back then, but it was still the difference of the heavens and earth when compared to that black blood so he didn't care.
A faint memory stumbled into his mind as he grunted under the pressure, making his eyes teary.
"I will repay you, Old man!"
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone