Chapter 71: Reminiscence of Tiangou

In the deepest part of the Deathly Hallow Forest, its eyes opened for the first time since many, many years.

It woke up in its home; a small damp cave that fit its entire body snugly, just want it likes. Unlike the other lords, who all lived out in the open on either a large flat rock, ground or nest.

The core of the forest wasn't anything remarkable or had anything of value that the Death Lords would want to protect and be of use to them, instead, the only thing that made this place a home for them was that it made them superior to the other Deathly Hallows in tbe forest.

The undead corrupted beast let out a loud yawn, though more like a terrifying growl, as it sat up in its home; a cave.

The cave was small and was something it had personally made to be a small comfort to try and forget about the outside world, the dull, boring and cruel un-life it has.

And the hunger... oh how could it forget the insatiable thirst for souls? The desire to seek destruction and death upon all life? Though unlike its many brethren, it still remembered some of the memories it had before it died by the punishment of the heavens; trying to overcome to become something more.

It remembered when it was still able to roam around the land, all carefree and excited to explore everything. It remembered how it first came across its first human, its first fight, its first hunt and its first and last master.

It could still remember how its master help it grow stronger, crossing through numerous trials of tribulations in its life, how he help it experience a grand adventure that it would remember even when its soul has been corrupted for thousands of years.

Its master was always so strong, so strong that he eventually became a divine being! It had filled itself with great pride and joy to have such a godlike master, making it cherish the time they spent together to be more wonderful.

That's why it had always try to become even more stronger; to break the limits of the world and become a divine beast; to eventually stand by the side of its master! Sadly however, it had died by its seventh tribulation and was set to be buried in an ancient unnamed destroyed forest, now gone by the passing of time.

It had failed, and it couldn't reunite with its master. It was greatly saddened and died filled with regrets. Oh well, it hoped that it would meet with its master in the afterlife. Its master is a god after all. Although it fills itself with great shame, nonetheless, it would still be able to meet it's dear master once more!

But before that could happen however, it had felt a tugging feeling of its soul and was stopped in its way to the afterlife.

Shocked and surprise, it tried to resist with everything that it could, but it was pulled back into the world of the living and the next thing it knew, it opened its eyes once more to see a grinning black haired boy with a beautiful pair of iridescent blue eyes.

Remembering that person caused a shiver to run down its spine and entire body, not only from fear, it mostly remembered that person with his great control over the cold, ice and snow; a great opposition of its elemental attribute when it was still alive.

After it was resurrected, it was ordered by that person to remain in this forest and never come out until he returns; for the reason that he's conducting an experiment and it, and its other corrupted resurrected brethren, were a part of it.

Of course not many, if not all, of its brethrens were happy about it. They all decided to not heed the person's words and started sprinting out towards the edge of the forest, which they soon find out that they really couldn't get out of the forest; as they would only get blasted back by some invisible barrier and sometimes even get crushed by some invisible pressure.

After that, well, it was really more of a blur of what happened next.

The first century or two was just pure chaos, not only due to their restrictive freedom, but also because of the insatiable hunger to devour something, and not even eating each other could sate such hunger. But that was soon answered when a stragglers from the outside entered the forest and was promptly eaten by a pack of Deathly Hallow Wolves; they quickly figured out that their hunger was slowly diminishing and they would grow stronger.

Soon after that, well, mostly every Deathly Hallow in the forest would camp near by the borders of the forest to hunt down any visiting humans and soul beasts for thousands of years and present time.

As for it? It simply resisted to eat, to hunt. It didn't know why but for some reason it had a feeling that there would harsh repercussions in the somewhat far future.

Despite not devouring a single soul, and spending most of its time sleeping, it was still the third most powerful Death Lord in the entire forest.

Shaking its large head around, still feeling slightly sluggish from its long slumber, a purple horizontal ring suddenly appeared around its body, lighting up the dark cave by its purple glow, before it spread out in the cave and out to the forest; covering most of the forest within a couple seconds.

It had send out its spiritual power to try and sense the reason for its awakening.

See, it had a passive ability that the other lords of the forest did not have: a more higher instinctual sense, a sixth sense, which is almost like clairvoyance than anything else. Whenever there was a powerful foe near it, which is most likely one of the Death Lords, or some sort of situation that would involve it deeply would immediately awakened it from its sleep.

'This is-!?' Its red ruby eyes widened in shock disbelief as it froze in place. Gone was its lazy behavior, instead, it completely snapped into attention for what it had seen from its spiritual sense.

In some area of the outer part of the forest. The ever familiar oppressive misty forest and weird trees were completely gone; engulfed by a tsunami of fire and cinders, the heat of the fire was so extreme that it could sense with its spiritual power that it's burning though away the elemental energies in the atmosphere.

The fire was destructive; it burned and annihilated everything in its path, never stopping, never merciful, leaving only ashes and cinders of the environment and its victims.

As it analyzed the sea of flames, it was further shocked to find out that the fire, no, ultimate fire had also contained some tinge of law energy within it and a strange sharp cutting energy mixed with it.

Looking at those flames caused it to be mesmerized and daze, it was like looking at a familiar scene, a piece of its memory slowly surfaced within its mind.

Green colored flames danced around, intertwining and weaving together to slowly form a small emerald colored lotus, just at the size of a fist, it slowly blossomed and glowed with its beautiful ethereal glow. It was floating on the hands of a black haired man, his eyes shadowed by his long black haired bangs, he had a amused smirk before letting the small green flower float towards the sky.

It was beautiful and calming to see, a small bloomed flower travelled up towards the heavens, however, the lotus exploded into a sea of uncontrollable green flames that engulfed the sky and spreading more of it within seconds.

The blue sky and white clouds was gone, covered entirely by green fiery flames.

The black haired man smiled before turning towards it. "Impossible? I've been killed several times and yet I still live, technically speaking. I have went through many hardships, life and death situations, and despair in all of my lifetimes, but I never gave up. They say it's impossible, improbable, very unlikely. But to me, it's just any other day." He let out a chuckle for that last one. His eyes soon softened and looked at its eyes.

"Sorry bud, but I guess this is where we part ways. Oh, don't give me that look. We'll meet again someday, I promise. But it's going to take a very long, long time for that day to come." His smile slowly fell. "...I'm gonna miss you, Tiangou."

"Master..."

Tiangou's eyes watered as the memory of the last time it saw its master fade away.

It then bowed its head in sadness, tears rolled down its furry cheeks while soft muffled sobs sounded out of its jaws.

It soon stopped its sobbing, raising its head up, it used its spiritual sense once more to check to see what was going on. Although it was both happy and sad to remember its last memory of its master, it was still curious and wary by the sudden forest fire.

It blinked its eyes. It found out that the fire was gone and only a charcoaled wasteland was left... no wait, it sensed something in the middle of it. It had the scent of a powerful beast, one that it couldn't recognize but it still made it tremble in fear, and both iron and fire. The latter two was more thick and potent, and further sense of it–

It widened its two gigantic red eyes, disbelief and fear flashed within them, and quickly it retreated back.

A purple light appeared and entered within it but it remained in a daze state.

As seconds passed, it snapped out of its thoughts and grinned. Lips curling back to show its two rows of sharp canine teeth and spoke with a soft and gentle voice, completely contradicting its appearance.

"To think that there would be person such as him, looks like Master hasn't given up on me yet. Wait for me master for I, Tiangou, will soon go back to your side soon."