CHAPTER 8 - FIEND BODY ART

To maintain his best mental state, Olivier closed his eyes and meditated. What he was going to do terrified him, and it sent shivers down his spine. Just thinking about it made him feel pain in places he wasn't aware of.

It was quite natural. People who suffer from motion sickness get a headache and get anemic by thinking about being inside a moving bus. It was the brains' way of sending us a warning signal. Olivier had learned about the transmission of pain through the brain. The physical message from the injury travels from where you're hurt directly to your brain, where it registers the sensation known as pain. Your brain perceives that pain, and sends the pain message back to the area of your body that hurts — and it all goes very quickly.

Pain happens for one simple reason: to protect you. If your brain registers pain, you typically stop doing what caused it. It goes back to the 'fight or flight instinct. But Olivier needed to fight through the pain and go against his natural instinct to train in the fiend body art.

Olivier starts the process by taking a deep breath. As he began to execute the fiend body art, the energies within his body started to converge in his naval region. The converging energy started to spin and rub against each other in a mysterious way. The energy began to gradually produce heat. As Olivier controlled the energy according to the fiend body art, the heated energy was then distributed throughout his body to each and every cells.

The heated energy began to interact with all the cells inside his body. As Olivier circulated the fiend body art, the energies within his cells began to generate heat in every cell of his body. Olivier's body started producing sizzling noises as smoke started to rise up from his body. This was the start of his body's disintegration. As his skin started to expand, his cells began to melt slowly and steadily. The heat inside of him was rising by the second, and his body was melting.

When the brain receives the sensation of pain from one part of the body, it transfers the sensation of pain to that part to give a warning. When the pain becomes more intense, it releases hormones and activates our immunity power to fight against the pain. If the pain is even greater, the brain distributes the pain throughout the whole body to fight against the pain. But what happens when the brain receives pain signals from every cell of the body? Well, Olivier had an answer to that question.

He first felt tickling in every part of his body, followed by a prickling sensation that made him uncomfortable. Then the prickling feeling became into blinding agony in the blink of an eye. the pain increased so fast that before he could scream, he felt like being hit by a thunderbolt, and there was a blinding white light as he was losing consciousness. Under the horrific torment, he could feel his mind melting down. His mind was shattering like a broken mirror, yet all he could think of was that hellish pain.

Fiend body art? He even forgot he was training in that technique to increase his talent at the moment. All he could think about was when this pain would go away. Even death felt like an easy way out but his broken mind subconsciously resisted that thought, resisted the thought of death as if it hated it to the core.

And just as the pain was at its peak, it dissipated like a cloud, as if it were all a dream. A soothing energy flowed through his body, calming all the agitated cells and clearing his thought, yet the shattering of the mind did not cease. His body including his mind was breaking down but miraculously, Olivier was able to think clearly like never before.

He concentrated and started to follow the instructions according to the fiend body art.

What Olivier didn't realize was that his birthmark was emitting a bright white light that was engulfing his whole body at this moment. As the light started to shine brighter, the flame inside the cylinder container given to him by Kratos jumped outside of its own will. The gold and elixir also started to move into the flame. The flame then began to refine gold and elixir into gold essence and elixir essence, respectively. As if knowing that they weren't enough, the birthmark shone even brighter, and a thousand gold and elixir materialized and leaped into the flame to be refined. Finally, a sphere of gold essence and elixir essence floated in front of the 'broken' Olivier.

Then, the gold essences started to fuse into his body strengthening his skin and bones. The elixir essence fused into his body increasing the strengthening his flesh and increasing the vitality of his blood.

As if sensing was something still lacking, the birthmark shined even brighter and green gems materialized out of thin air, two hundred and fifty in number, the exact amount of gems he had. They jumped into the flame and a sphere of green liquid was refined from it. The green sphere then fused into his mind, mending and strengthening his shattered mind anew.

The flame then fused into his body and started traveling in his body breaking the barriers blocking his meridians and opening all of his pores. It spread inside his body refining his energy channels and strengthening them so that the channels could withstand the passage of more energies in an explosive burst. Then flames gathered in his naval region occupying his dantian. Finally, the reconstruction of his body started. His broken body was covered by the white light like a cocoon which started to absorb energy from the air. Olivier could not even sense the energy before but now he could feel a nourishing force in the air which was formless in nature.

.....

Kratos, who had witnessed the entire procedure with his own eyes, was astounded. When he felt Olivier's mind shatter, he panicked, but then he saw that white light cover Olivier. When he tried to get closer, the white light repelled him. He understood intuitively that even if he tried to push his way inside that barrier with force, it would be useless. He trusted his intuition since they had saved his life several times on the battlefield.

So. he put his worries aside and focused his mind on the horizon. He had other problems to deal with.

On the horizon, five figures were running towards Kratos's location. They were whispering to each other while moving forwards at high speed. Their movements were silent like assassins.

"What is that white light, Captain Astrid? Isn't he supposed to be studying fiend body art?"

"I'm not sure. But I'm sure Kratos is teaching him the fiend body art. He should be in midst of his first body refining. Perhaps something went wrong. It's much better for us now. He will be at his most vulnerable right now, with just silver of consciousness awake. We'll block the commander while you guys deal with that kid ". Astrid, one of Kratos' captains, stated as he looked to his back

Another five female silhouettes were silently following behind them. They were carrying a bow in their hand, and their movements were graceful as if they were spirits. One of the women replied in a cold voice," Don't forget what you promised. We will assassinate that kid, and in exchange, half of the world will belong to us ".

"You don't have to worry about that. I will definitely keep my promise".

"Captain Astrid, must we do this? Commander Kratos will be will definitely kill us after this is over".

Astrid replied casually, "That won't happen. Once we kill that kid, this world will belong to us, barbarians. I don't know what ability this kid has or how he can build things and lock those resources but we can figure that ourselves slowly. As for commander Kratos, I will talk to him afterward. Our commander is skilled at everything, whether it be politics or battles, the only thing he lacks is cruelty. He can be cruel to the enemy but he cannot be cruel to someone he grows fond of. We will make this decision on behalf of the commander. He will understand what we did and why we did once when this whole world comes under our control. Commander lacks the ambition we barbarians should have. Otherwise, why would his younger brother be crowned as the barbarian king while he was the older one? Once this is over, we barbarians will have the place and resources to grow. Maybe then we'll be able to restore some of the barbarian race's grandeur."

He then looked at the horizon and muttered, "Kid, don't blame me for being cruel".

After a while, they reached the hill where was Olivier was undergoing his training. They saw Kratos guarding the hill like some mountain deity, he certainly did fit that image with his huge stature and his huge broadsword.

Just as Astrid was about to greet Kratos, he noticed that Kratos had disappeared from his vision. He panicked and looked around. But then he heard a scream. He turned around only to see something that sent chills down his spine.

Kratos has arrived behind them and his sword had pierced through the chest of one of the archers who had accompanied them on this mission. Kratos mercilessly withdrew his sword and swung his sword to his left. His sword severed another archer from her waist into two spraying blood everywhere.

By now other archers were aware and they hurriedly stepped back creating some distance from Kratos. They fired arrows as they retreated. Kratos did not even dodge as three arrows pierced through his chest, arm, and his thighs. He carelessly pulled out the arrows and threw them to the ground. Blood poured out from those wounds but he did not even flinch. He observed the retreating archers with his cold impassive eyes and swung his broadsword horizontally in the direction of the archers.

The edges of his broadsword shined with a bloody red color and a crescent red wave of energy was released from his sword. The crescent wave traveled at lightning-fast speed and hit the two archers who were slower in reaction.

Boom!

The crescent wave of energy exploded after the collision along with the two archers. When the energy after collision subsided, only two bows and quilts with some arrows remained on the ground. The archers were nowhere to be seen. They had died.

The last remaining archer panicked after seeing the gruesome death of her companions. She fired several arrows showering Kratos with rains of arrows as she retreated even further. Archers were proficient at long-range battles, the more distance they could create from their enemies, the more advantage they will have in the battle increasing their maneuverability.

Kratos humphed coldly and sent several crescent energy waves with a few slashing motions destroying the arrows in the air. He pushed the ground with his legs propelling him forwards, and arrived before the archer and slashed his broadsword vertically with a single hand. Having no time to dodge, the archer blocked the sword using her bow. Her bow was made from valuable materials and it was extremely sturdy and difficult to destroy. But at the point of the contact, the sword in the Kratos' hand increased in length. Despair appeared in her eyes as the tip of the sword pushed through her head cleanly slicing into two. The brain matters and blood sprayed on the sword but the sword shined red absorbing the blood.

When Kratos turned around to face the barbarians, the bleeding had stopped and his wounds were healing at the rate visible to the normal eyes.