Endless Scorched Land

A small shadow stretched over the scorched ground, its form flickering into various indistinguishable patterns. The shadow would occasionally be buried in the ground by a naked leg whose form it actually represented, but only a moment later it would once again face the world as the leg hiding its existence rose in the air.

*Tss*

Four steps sounded, each of them at a different time than the other. Sometimes, two would sound at almost the same time, but that that was a rare occurrence.

Xia: "How long does this scorched ground stretch for? Also, what happened with the cave and everything else that was previously here?! It's like some kind of curse was cast on this land, turning it all black like this!"

Asura's eyes narrowed as he glanced at a desert-like black landscape. Except the endless darkness, reaching as far as their eyes could see, there was nothing else here.

Asura: "I really wonder what happened when we were unconscious to cause such a drastic change in terrain... I doubt it was any kind of explosion, otherwise we would've died without a doubt. It feels like some kind of fire burned everything down, but as far as I know, fire can't burn mountains and rocks to the ground."

Xia nodded and came closer to her dearest brother, holding his hand with worried expression.

Xia: "Me too... It feels far too unbelievable that even that purple thing is gone. The only thing that comes to mind is the awakening of our Soul Spirits, but even so I don't think a mere awakening can cause such a terrific destruction. This seems to be caused by something else."

Although neither of them knew exactly what happened and how it took place, there was a lingering feeling in their hearts that it was related to their awakening and their special Soul Spirits. So far, Asura and Xia noticed a pattern with their Soul Spirits. The ones within their foreheads had a peculiar kind of pure energy, that can be transformed into anything. Although it's very pure, it also has special properties like how Asura's has very rich life-like property while Xia's has a very destructive property.

The ones inside their hearts are related to the worldly energy around them, as white phoenix can burn it down and turn it into its own, while multicolored dragon can control the energy directly, meaning it can do anything with it, maybe even convert it into another type.

But by far, the scariest ones were the ones in their dantians, located in their bellies. One caused endless destruction while other could devour anything.

While they were walking out of this endless leveled area, they were testing out various combinations by using small amounts of energy. That's how they discovered all of this information. The Green and Purple energies reacted violently with each other, producing a very powerful explosion, but since they used only small amounts of energy, the resulting explosion was neither powerful nor harmful.

Asura's Multicolored Spirit Energy and Xia's Sacred White Spirit Energy had a mutually beneficial reaction where the two energies sublimated and became a dozen times more powerful, but they didn't know how many times it was. As for the Starry Black and Pitch Black Spirit Energy combination, their reaction was frighteningly intense. Due to the Starry Black Energy's properties to absorb any kind of energy and condense it to the extreme, when it paired with a world-burning flame, the flame intensity suddenly skyrocketed as space twisted violently and it made the flame even more dangerous. If not for the two quickly extinguishing it, maybe that flame would've burned everything until there was no more Spirit Energy around.

This combination seemed like something responsible for this scorched ground.

What the two didn't know is that they had broken through the first boundary immediately when their Soul Spirits merged with them, which is something that never occurred before in known history of all these hundred worlds. There were cases where people had a certain amount of energy upon Spiritual Awakening but it was only up to level 10. There wasn't any living being whose initial level was 11, like the two of them.

To make things even more interesting, it seemed as if the near-death experience when using Starry Black Soul Spirit pushed Asura's eleventh level to next sub-level, as if it every level was split into several sub-levels. He wasn't sure whether it was only a sub-level of the current one or if the absorbed energy became sufficient enough to force him to break through the 12th level, but upon remembering that every thousand particles condense into a single one and all three of his cores need to be filled simultaneously, Asura concluded that the first case was a more likely one than the second.

Considering their age, it wasn't strange that if someone could measure their Spirit Energy, they'd proclaim them as monsters. That is the biggest worry on their minds right now. They didn't want to stand out and make their lives harder, at least until they found someone strong enough to serve as their backing and deterrent against others.

Asura's eyes looked at the night sky full of various different colors and his thoughts recalled a certain saying from his past life: "The tallest tree in the forest bears the most wind, huh?"

They had already walked for several kilometers from the starting place, using the massive Spirit Star as their reference point. This little planet was sure to be attracted by the Spirit Star's gravity, so that should be a very good reference point for calculating distance, as it should be facing Spirit Star all the time, similar to how moon always faces earth with the same side. He counted the distance according to the number of steps and assumed every step to be somewhere around half a meter long, since they were kids physically.

By now, they already passed some fifteen thousand steps which is close to eight kilometers, according to previous calculations.

Asura: "Hm? Look! There's finally something in the distance."

His hand tugged at Xia's that was tightly nestled in it as he pointed in a certain direction in front of them. What he was able to see in the distance didn't seem that close. It looked like it was at least ten kilometers away from them.

Xia: "Haaa... I don't want to walk anymore. Brother, carry me!"

Asura's steps subconsciously slowed down as he turned to look at Xia. He subconsciously recalled the scene when they were squeezed against one another, gripped in the purple serpent's tail. Xia's suffering face was deeply etched in his mind. He couldn't find any logical reason to blame either of them for what happened, since there was no way to know what awaited at this lake and they even tried to run away, which didn't go as planned.

But even so, he still couldn't forgive himself for what happened. If not for some kind of world-defying luck, the two of them would be long dead by now. He didn't like leaving things up to luck and fate, as neither of them were things he could control.

Asura: 'The only solution is... being strong enough to control our own fate. I must find a way for both of us to become strong enough, and do it soon. I can only hope now that the civilizations in this world are at least developed enough so that we don't need to behave like wild beasts toward others... The worst case scenario is that there's a heavy competition in sects and cultivation families, but let's wait and see...'

Xia's eyes became filled with unease when she saw Asura's eyes firmly nailed to her own, unflinching and unblinking. To make things even more uneasy for her, Asura kept staring at her without saying anything after she teased him about not wanting to walk.

Xia: 'D-d-did he become angry with me?! Did he really take that seriously??? I was sure my voice had a joking tone, it can't be! Or is he thinking of something else entirely?'

The only time her mind went chaotic like this was when it was related to her 'brother', hence why her face started gradually becoming pale out of unease that turned into worry.

Asura took a firm step with his eyes still narrowed toward her, while Xia felt like that step landed on her little heart instead of the scorched ground. In all that confusion, she subconsciously closed her eyes and pressed both her hands against her chest, as if she was trying to guard herself against something.

Xia: 'W-w-w-w-what is he gonna do?! He isn't thinking of doing anything shameless here in the middle of nowhere, right? No! I don't want to do it in a place like this! At least let's find something more comfortable, besides can our bodies even handle it ri-....'

By the time she calmed her thoughts, she felt something warm pressing against her thighs and even tightly clutching them. Her previous thoughts immediately flared up again. She was almost sure this little devil was trying to take advantage of her even though he was the one who said to wait for several years! She felt air brush against her skin and gravity pull down on her, but instead of the heavy ground pressing against her back, another warm thing appeared between her legs, dangerously close to her sensitive parts.

She couldn't help but let out a faintly audible whimper, but as nothing else happened after several moments passed, she slowly opened her eyes to see what was going on, despite the fear of what she could see. It even seemed like there was a faint expectation in her eyes.

As her eyes slowly opened, she saw everything as before but from a higher point on view.

Asura's voice came from below: "Oy, if you don't hold on to my head, you will fall off!"

Xia: "E-eh..?"

Glancing below her, she saw Asura's hands gently holding her thighs as his head stuck out between them, but facing the opposite side of her body. Only now did she realize that he wasn't having any lewd intentions and was instead picking her up to carry her on his shoulders.

Xia: 'I feel so embarrassed... That was so unreasonable of me! Aaah, I want to bury my head in the ground!'

Asura was already waiting for a bit but still didn't feel her hands on his head so he warned: "Hey, don't blame me when you fall, I'll start moving!"

Xia quietly replied while carefully positioning her small warm hands around his head: "Eh? Ah, sorry! I was taken aback a little..."

Asura smiled and didn't show any other reaction on his face, which seemingly indicated that he didn't understand the hidden meaning behind her words, but that was only what she saw on his face. His head was leaned back as he looked at Xia with his pair of innocent green eyes, which resulted in an unexpected kiss from his little girl in this weird position. After a quick delicacy, the two continued onward while Asura carried Xia on his back and Xia fought back against her own thoughts.

Little did she know that the green core in Asura's head only stopped releasing energy after Asura started walking.

Asura: 'Heh, this ability is really useful. I was able to see all of her expressions even though she had hands over her face. I wonder what she was thinking about all that time... Well, it doesn't matter, I still got to see such a cute side of her, hehehehe. Man, I'm glad I have this ability.'