Bab 97: Chapter 96: Feeling of Helplessness
At the branch sector of Tang Sect in Skysea City. In a secure and almost empty room filled with only certain human figures.
They were five children wearing somewhat similar school uniforms and one adult wearing white robes that complimented his handsomeness.
While the only adult in the room was mediating by the corner of the room, the children were keeping busy to themselves.
Tang Wulin and his friends were busy either discussing about the situation on the surface.
The Tang Sect they were in was an underground facility capable of housing more than three hundred thousand people, fifty thousand more if they removed all of the massive equipment and resources they stored in the facility. And currently two hundred thousand people, still counting, are now taking shelter in the facility.
How did this happen? How could it happen?
It all happened so fast, Tang Wulin and the rest of class zero still shuddered in fear at the memory of dozens of black robbed figures coming out of nowhere and attacking anyone on sight, without any shred of mercy as they killed them gruesomely before reanimating into undead creatures.
What's worse is that those reanimated corpses could infect living humans through biting them. It was only a mild nuisance if the infected were normal human but if for those who were soul masters...
They were the reason why already 10% of the city's population had already been infected within half an hour.
Both Gu Yue and Mu Xi, who have the knowledge and intelligence to accurately deduce certain possibilities of their current due to being raised by a certain environment, had already guessed that the city had been completely quarantine in the first hour when the chaos had happened and fifty percent of the city's population has already been infected. And from what they've been, only twenty percent had been evacuated into Tang Sect while the rest went to either the Spirit Pagoda or the Federation.
Meaning fifteen percent of the current population of Skysea City is still in the surface, either hiding or being ripped to pieces by the evil soul masters or the zombies.
When Tang Wulin, Xie Xie and Xu Xiaoyan heard about it they either cried out in anger or in despair.
They had tried saving people from being and turning into zombies but they were too weak to face off against those robbed people. They had only luckily survived the encounter with them due to the impeccable timing of Wu Zhangkong. It was then they were informed that they were fighting against evil soul masters.
This was the first time for class zero students to see someone kill a human being before becoming zombies. It was something straight out of the movies!
"*Sniff* I'm sorry... I'm sorry I couldn't help you... I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Xu Xiaoyan mumbled out as Mu Xi wrapped an arm around her shoulders and embracing her.
"Shhh, it's not your fault Xiaoyan. It's okay now." Gu Yue appeared on the other side of Mu Xi and began to sandwiched Xu Xiaoyan between them.
"The evil soul masters are gone now. Plus, you helped save the survivors into Tang Sect as well. It's alright now Xiaoyan."
Xu Xiaoyan had her knees up to her face, her arms hugged around her legs, she quietly sobbed and trembled in fear. While both Mu Xi and Gu Yue tried to comfort her as best as they could: telling her comforting words and also giving her physical support, while also trying to push out the disturbing memories out of their heads.
The girls were exhausted: mentally, physically and emotionally, especially since they had to protect a group of civilians against groups of evil soul masters and a horde of undead. Having to cover that much ground had almost been impossible if it weren't for Gu Yue and Xu Xiaoyan covering each side of the civilian group while Mu Xi covered the rear.
Both Gu Yue and Mu Xi were doing mostly alright, their martial souls were powerful enough to keep or kill any of their enemies from approaching the civilians. While also keeping a cold head on because they were more mature than their peers and had the will to carry on fighting, even when they killed an evil soul master.
Sadly however, Xu Xiaoyan didn't have the same power damage as the two nor the same determination. Leading her to always be constantly helped by them and costing the lives of the civilians.
This made her always feeling guilty, sad and loathing herself for being weak.
Xie Xie was sitting in a meditation posture with his two martial souls laying on his lap. While his two yellow soul rings glowed with its natural light, fluctuations of soul power circulated around his body and converged around his martial souls.
Back when they were on the surface, when they were trying to save people from those evil soul masters, Xie Xie suddenly gained an enlightenment of his martial souls and caused some sort of evolution on both him and his martial souls. It was only thanks to him, Gu Yue and Tang Wulin that they were able to buy enough time for Wu Zhangkong to rescue them against the evil soul masters.
Pseudo self-martial soul fusion. That was what he had comprehended in that life and death situation.
Martial soul fusion is the ability of two or more Soul Masters with similar properties to fuse together and become one entity bringing out explosive power for a short period of time depending on the strength of the Soul Masters. This ability is extremely rare and requires Soul Harmonization and the degree of Soul Harmonization reflects on the final output power of the Martial Soul Fusion.
In recorded history, to perform a martial soul fusion required two or more Soul Masters. But unsurprisingly, there would be exceptions. A self-martial soul fusion had been performed by Wu Siduo. This was made possible because of the deep connection between her martial souls, which is also the reason as to how Xie Xie was able to use a self-martial soul fusion.
In the original timeline, Xie Xie would eventually create a pseudo self-martial soul fusion by inspiration of Wu Siduo's. But in this timeline, he had created his by complete accident.
He had been fighting against an evil soul master at the soul elder realm while trying to protect several citizens. He was able to buy them enough time to escape and was about to be killed, his friends wasn't able to help him as they themselves were occupied by other evil soul masters, when he suddenly thought about the martial soul fusion between his old friends and ex-classmates: Zhang Yangzi and Wang Jinxi.
He remembered the information Wu Zhangkong had taught him about how martial soul fusion worked and thought, 'hey, could I do that as well?'
He forgot abo the fact that it needed two soul masters to do a martial soul fusion, he also forgot that it needed an extremely large amount of energy to fuse two martial souls together into one entity, and most importantly–he forgot about failure.
Was it because of desperation? Stupidity? Or a last act of 'fuck you' towards his killer? It was probably all three. Nonetheless. Despite the odds, the certain probability of failure, Xie Xie had managed to do it: he did a self-martial soul fusion, lasting only for a second; but it was enough. He used his fused martial souls to not only kill his opponent, but the rest of the evil soul masters around him and his friends as well in a single slash before he fainted.
Using a powerful, unmastered, ability such as a self-martial soul fusion would of course took a toll on Xie Xie. And since his soul power was extremely low at the time, he had sacrificed some of his vitality and life essence to cover up the cost of energy, making him lose five years of his life. Thankfully Xiu Ye had given everyone of class zero three yellow-colored and one purple-colored Life Force Seeds as emergency healing items. Though he gave an extra purple-colored Life Force Seed to Tang Wulin for his body cultivation.
Xie Xie clenched his fists, his expression determined.
'I have to get stronger. For myself, my friends, and everyone else around me. I don't want to be so helpless once more!'
As for Tang Wulin, the official second in command of their group when Xiu Ye isn't around, sat together with his friends with crossed arms and a frown on his face. The aura around had changed significantly compared to before.
And that was because he had completely absorbed the bloodline power of the first bloodline seal of the Golden Dragon King and comprehended the next stage of mastery of the spear, Spear Will. Making his body, mind and spirit underwent some dramatic changes and increasing his overall combat prowess by five fold.
But he wasn't happy about it, not at the price he took to do so. He made the breakthrough during the battle against the evil soul masters and zombies, when a group of civilians ran into the latter two.
It was a total massacre and he wasn't able to stop it.
Tang Wulin had snapped, making the remaining energy of the first seal burst out and channel itself throughout his entire body, completely fusing together, and his spearmanship had taken the next stage soon after. This sudden breakthrough is what allowed him to kill the evil soul masters and the zombies.
He clenched his fists tighter, making blood seeping out of his closed palms. He glared menacingly at the space in front of him with burning flames of vengeance in his eyes.
'Why? Why would they do such a thing? Doing such a cruel act to innocent people...' Tang Wulin thought about his parents and it made him grit his teeth. 'I hate them, those evil soul masters. They did all these senseless killing and spreading pestilence! I'll kill them! Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. I'll kill them all!'
(AN: Eren?!)
Unbeknownst to the young dragon king, his pupils had turned a bright golden red color and shaped vertically like a dragon's eyes. His aura turned red, destruction and desolation radiated out around him before it suddenly disappeared.
Within Tang Wulin's spiritual sea, a golden figure with a masculine features let out a long deep sigh as he look at a golden dragon, curled into a ball, and was held by seventeen chains. The seventeenth chain had showed multiple cracks on it, showing that it was about to break.
'All of this blood, despair and his rage has accelerated the breaking of the second bloodline seal. At this rate, Wulin doesn't have five years of safety before the second seal breaks and kills him–it would now be in a year, or a few months, or weeks, or maybe even days if this situation continues! He has to remain calm and get to a calm environment for the seal to regain stability.' Old Tang features hardened in determination as he waved his hand once more to try and stabilize the seal.
'This situation has to be resolved quick. After that happens, Wulin should go to the ocean and fully stabilize the seal with his other bloodline.' He decided to tell his charge about it later on when he was alone, probably when he's asleep.
Suddenly a flash of dark-blue flaming smoke, shaped vertically, appeared in the middle of the room.
The sudden appearance of it immediately caused everyone to stand up on guard with their martial souls out.
Tang Wulin's right arm instantly transformed into the Golden Dragon King Arm with Atlanna in his left hand, Xie Xie grasped his martial soul daggers in his hands, Gu Yue summoned condensed balls of elements and Mu Xi's fists began to glow golden with a small sun appearing behind her head. Xu Xiaoyan even snapped out of her state and was prepared to use her Starwheel Ice Staff.
They were prepared to attack first and ask questions later when they felt a sudden cold pain striking the back of their heads.
"Ah!" They all hissed in pain and cupped the sides of their heads.
"What the heck was that for?!" Xie Xie yelled.
"Owie..." Xu Xiaoyan sniffed.
"You bloody idiots." Wu Zhangkong let out a sigh as he lowered his ice covered hand to his side. He was standing behind his students with his eyes staring at them in disapproval. "Did you all forget what I said about dark-blue flaming clouds appearing out of nowhere?"
"....Oh yeah." They blinked their eyes simultaneously before bowing their heads sheepishly. "Sorry."
Wu Zhangkong shook his head and a look of sympathy appeared on his face. "It's okay. After all the things you all went through, it's expected that you would all be highstrung. It's normal for new soldiers that had went through their first battlefield to be like that. I honestly expected it, you would all one day experienced it as well; with your career as a soul master and aspiration to become Shrek students. It's to be expected, trust me, I did as well."
His face darkened, "But it should have been in the far future than now. As your teacher and guardian, I had failed in protecting all of your innocence. There is nothing more greater in the world than a child's innocence before they're influenced by the dark side of society. You all shouldn't be in this situation if it wasn't for me, I'm sorry." and he bowed his head in apology.
"Teacher Wu..." Tang Wulin and his friends had tears in their eyes as they look at their teacher, now seeing his disheveled and tired appearance of someone who hadn't sleep for days.
Wu Zhangkong had worked himself to the bone. He was one of the many who had helped rescue the civilians in the stadium while also blaming himself for taking his students into Skysea City: making them face the cruelty of a battlefield against evil soul masters so early in their career.
The self-hate, guilt, helplessness and the justified anger and rage he had against those evil soul masters, but had to restrained them because he couldn't let any innocent lives be taken from his recklessness again, had really taken a toll on him mentally and physically.
Yet, he still stands and act tough for his students.
The admiration and respect they had for their teacher grew as they realized how awesome he was.
They were so stunned about their realization of their teacher, and latter still bowing his head, that they didn't notice Xiu Ye standing behind them with a blank expression.
'I come back with a blue portal behind me, a cool new sword and, what? They didn't even noticed!' His lips thinned even more when they still continued on staring at Wu Zhangkong. '....Welp, since they're occupied I guess I should just leave.'
Xiu Ye de-traced Yamato and quickly turned around to head towards the door. He opened it, glanced over his shoulder to see that they still didn't notice him, and then closed it loudly, snapping everyone out of their states and turned their heads towards the door.
"...."
"Did, did Xiu Ye appear and just leave...?"
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