70 Chapter 70: Deathly Hallows

"Ryūjin Jakka, are we talking about the hollows in your world or just a similar description to it?" Xiu Ye asked his partner as he raises his right hand, instead of summoning Crimson Yang Sword, bright orange flames burned on his hands before it manifested into a familiar sheathed sword that was Ryūjin Jakka. Its flames spread and covered his body, burning the earth below him, the air and space that it caused unnatural forces.

Now that there was no living being in his vicinity that would be in danger of being burned by his flames, and that this situation needed a sword that deals against creatures that had the vibe of hollows, Xiu Ye didn't hesitate to use it.

Strapping the sword by his left side, as he listens to Ryūjin Jakka, he reigned in the flames to avoid detection in the forest.

"The latter I assume, as Wu Zhangkong and that boy Xie Xie told us that these deathly hallows never left the forest. Hollows are souls of humans who have lost their hearts to despair or regret, after the Shinigami failed to do their duties, and became filled with an eternal hunger for the souls of others. These Deathly Hallows would have already leave this forest and begun a widespread soul feast upon the inhabitants of this continent."

Xiu Ye frowned. "True, Shrek Academy wouldn't have protected this place if the creatures inside of it eats souls." He used his spiritual power to sense the inside of the forest but to no avail; all what he could sense were only darkness, evil, death, etc.

This really begs the question, why would the academy want to keep this forest as it is?

The answer to that must be the mysterious "nuts" teacher Wu had sent him here to collect, whatever those are.

"...should I purify this place." Xiu Ye muttered as he observed the wrongness the forest in front of was. It was supposed to be a forest filled with life; flora and animals. Seeing it so devoid of it and looked like what you'd expect to see in a horror genre, it disgusted him.

The person, or thing, who would do this would pay.

A unnatural phenomenon such as this shouldn't be natural, after all. Xiu Ye had remembered that the storyline in DD3 was that the planet is dying, and that it's said to be intelligent, how could endanger itself even more?

So many questions, no answers to be found.

Xiu Ye let out a long sigh and took a step forward to enter the forest, "...one day, I'll purify this entire forest and set the tortured souls free."

He couldn't do it right now, as much as he wanted to, but teacher Wu had warned him from venturing deep into the forest as that's were the four lords of the forest hibernates. The Deathly Hallow Forest is separated into three parts; the outer part, inner part and core part of the forest.

Deathly Hallows' strengths are like from a soul beast and have a hierarchy. But they are not categorized by their age, they are categorized by the color of their eyes.

White eyes means a ten year old level of strength from a soul beast, yellow eyes means a hundred year old level of strength from a soul beast, purple eyes means a thousand year old level of strength from a soul beast, black eyes means a ten thousand year old level of strength from a soul beast and red eyes means a hundred thousand year old level of strength from a soul beast.

The four lords of the Deathly Hallows Forest had red eyes and were reported to be intelligent to enough that they can speak in human language.

Fighting against four Deathly Hallows akin to hundred thousand year old soul beasts is a death sentence. And Xiu Ye wasn't so foolish as to sought death a second time.

"Oh yeah, then what about the times when you willingly get killed by me in training?" Ryūjin Jakka said as he heard his thoughts.

"...it's different. I don't really die in my inner world." Xiu Ye replied back as he walked through the misty forest, the black soil beneath his feet slightly caved in with every step he takes.

The Deathly Hallow Forest was almost entirely covered in white thick mist, so much so that Xiu Ye had almost face walked onto a decayed tree.

His spiritual power was useless to use here, the mist somehow blocks his spiritual perception, so he was practically blindly walking into a forest filled with hallow like creatures.

Yup, this is part of life now. Was it too late to turn his life around and go back watching shitty animes in this world? Xiu Ye snorts at the idea, nope. He didn't want his friends to die by the abyss devouring the world, or Tang Wulin and Gu Yuena doing some idiotic double suicide, or his sister and parents dying to some cult just because he wasn't strong enough.

As he muses about his life, he casually tilts to the right side to dodge a black claw that went passed him; intending to ripped out his head.

A dark feline figure went passed him and hit the ground in front of him in a fluid graceful manner similar to a cat would went it jumped onto something. It let out a loud growl as it turned towards him with its deadly sharp fangs, as long as a finger and wide as two, bared at him.

But most importantly, its two completely eerie yellow glowing eyes straight at him.

"Well, that's not very nice." Xiu Ye said nonchalantly as he studied the form of the creature known as a Deathly Hallow.

It looked like a black panther. It was about 1 meter tall in all fours, its skin, or is it fur?, is entirely black in color and the difference about this from a normal black panther was its strange eyes, that defined it as a Deathly Hallow, and the white bone like armor sticking to its head, connected to its spine, till its tail that had a bone spike at the end, and its four front limbs.

It was almost like a hollow Xiu Ye had seen in the anime, manga and Genryūsai Yamamoto's memories, only without a hole and it's mostly black than white.

This was a Deathly Hallow, a corrupted soul of a soul beast given a physical corrupted form that looked like their original when they were alive, they turned into a bloodthirsty hungry beast; eating the souls of humans and soul beasts alike without discrimination.

Ever since the forest was found and investigated, the origin of how these Deathly Hallows were created is still unknown to this very day, at least, to what Wu Zhangkong and Xie Xie had told Xiu Ye.

'And it looks like he's not the only one.' He glanced around him to see dozens of pairs of different colored eyes; from white, yellow to purple was what he could see in the fog.

The Deathly Hallow in front of him let out an angry growl and crouched down to pounce onto him.

Xiu Ye didn't panic, he grasped the handle of Ryūjin Jakka and said.

"Reduce All Creation to Ash, Ryūjin Jakka."

The Deathly Hallow was only in midair when a wave of fire engulfed it, and everything in Xiu Ye's surroundings was washed over by a tsunami of a fire as he lazily waves the sword around him, changing it into nothing more than ash, and engulfs the surrounding landscape in a blazing firestorm, the heat of which is intense enough to scorch the sky and consume the clouds.

Miles upon miles across of the Deathly Hallows Forest, the sea of fire engulfs all within it; the mist, weird trees, and the Deathly Hallows specially.

As the flames consumes the evil creatures, instead of feeling more pain and suffering, what they felt was, peace.

They had finally been liberated from the hellhole they've been trapped in for many, many millennia.

The constant pains of hunger and bloodlust, wanting to sate their hunger outside but they cannot leave. No. The barrier planted by that, being, made it so they cannot leave the forest physically and spiritually; their souls cannot even leave this place even when their bodies die, they can only wait for when the forest creates them a body for them to inhabit once more and die once more.

It was a cruel endless cycle.

All they can do, was wait in constant pain for thousands of years in this forest and be entertained by some preys going inside the forest once in a while.

But at last, for the first time since ten thousand years, as the feeling of fiery warmth encompass their cold unfeeling body, which they thought to have been taken from that being, they can finally rest in peace.

'Thank you.'

Xiu Ye closes his eyes as he sheathes Ryūjin Jakka back into its sheath, his spiritual power can feel the numerous Deathly Hallows he set free and enter the afterlife.

His lips tugged up into a gentle smile. "You can finally get your rest now..."

Xiu Ye opened his eyes and looked around, only to find his entire surrounding a literal sea of fire than a forest of death. Letting out a sigh, he tugged into his connection with the fire and finally extinguished it from further spreading.

Ash and charcoal was what he saw of the remains of the Deathly Hallows Forest, well part of it.

Xiu Ye took a quick and detailed scan around his surroundings with his spiritual power, only to blink when he sense an absurd amount of life force in front and around him.

Looking down, his jaw hanged by what he saw.

There, on the ground in front of him, was a green colored nut that radiated huge undulating waves of life force.

'It literally is a nut.'

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AN: Happy late New Years everybody! Thank you for being so patient with me cause I'm finally back! Phew, man, what a couple of weeks. Hanging out with the fam and friends, go to my cousin's birthday party, my uncle's birthday party, Christmas party(twice), alumni, New Years party, and finally my sister's birthday party a couple days ago. Dang what a party filled two weeks. Thank god I did a two week vacation or I would be exhausted right now.

So anyways, arc one is about to be over and the second arc(Teen, Shrek and Secrets Arc) would soon start in about chapter 90-100.

If you want to see more chapters then go to my pa-treon! I posted chapter 81 just now. So have a happy New Year and enjoy more of my story! Bye!