1 Stabbed in the Heart, Wouldn't be the First Time
Chaos, pandemonium, bedlam, and madness, all accurately described the battlefield. Thousands of arrows, if not tens of thousands, whizzed by with a whistle accompanied by an incalculable amount of clangs, creating a cacophony that hell itself had personally selected.
The ground had turned into a battered black floor filled with different-sized holes like a piece of Swiss cheese, with blood puddling to fill each hole with a rusty, iron-stench pool of red that looked like it would consume any poor soul that dared step into its maw of blood.
Panting as a dense bead of sweat glided down his chiseled back, Xin walked up with six other cultivators as a wave of Horde soldiers rushed towards them. Seeing the pesky flies approach, a silhouette of a shadowy-black dragon apparated behind Xin.
"Dragon God's Roar!" Xin boomed as his inner qi rushed from his dantian to the silhouette behind him. Receiving the qi, the silhouette suddenly flickered, having gone from a gaseous texture to a solid one as a black beam of flames shot out from its gaping maw toward the Horde soldiers like a tidal wave.
The soldiers had no chance as their bodies crumbled into ash without even a scream before being scattered by the shifting winds across the hectic battlefield. The black flames burned through the ground and left a ravine so deep that no one could see the bottom of it.
However, the flames didn't stop traveling as they burned through dozens of mountains before they sizzled out beyond the horizon.
The six other cultivators who were the best of the best all had varying reactions to the jaw-dropping attack, but they all thought the same thing as they smelled the charred remnants of their enemies.
'So this is the person who conquered the cultivation world and united us.'
Ordinarily, the group of men and women that followed Xin wouldn't be caught dead traveling together as it usually ended up in a fight that destroyed countries and shook the continents themselves since they all had varying grudges against each other.
Despite that, Xin had conquered them all and forced them to throw away their grudges so they could face their common enemy from beyond the stars. The Horde.
Xin looked ahead towards a particularly large enemy as a crash of noise pounded into his eardrums from the carnage and battles happening all over the battlefield, which spanned countless miles.
'Finally, this time will be different from the other two times! Nuclear bombs? Mechas? Spacefaring battleships? They are all mere toys in front of the power of the cultivation world!' Xin thought. 'I will defeat the Horde and save this world from being devoured and destroyed by those shits!'
The group finally paused as they faced off against the Horde general.
The Horde general stretched his scaled-covered neck, which gave off faint cracking noises. He had a wide torso which made his body the size of a giant, with a full set of armor that covered most of his scaly, muscular skin.
The armor had a pearl white base color with gold etched into various symbols all around each piece that gave it inexplicable grandeur that seemed to resonate with one's very soul.
"Puny life forms." The Horde general's deep, gravelly voice boomed.
Even though he merely just spoke. The words sent a chill down the spines of the group, besides Xin, who didn't even display a minute change in expression.
This was impressive since a strong cultivation practitioner that would typically lead a medium-sized sect would've most likely died or fainted just from the words of the Horde general.
Although Xin wasn't affected, he noticed that his group seemed apprehensive as they realized they would fight the giant being in mere moments.
Xin clicked his tongue before he spoke disappointingly, "Surely my eyes aren't telling me that the top cultivators in the world, who clawed their way to the top and could sunder the heavens, aren't trembling at the words of a mere insect's puppet."
Hearing Xin's words, the cultivators regained their cool as they individually remembered the hardships, difficulties, and tribulations they had to overcome to reach their current powers.
Meanwhile, the Horde general looked like someone had thrown the worst insult possible at him, as a series of veins bulged from his body, seemingly wanting to spring forth from its scaled skin.
"You, you, you dare! YOU DARE INSULT, MY QUEEN!!! INSECT? IT IS YOU WHO IS AN INSECT!" the Horde general lost his cool and rampaged forward so fast toward the group of cultivators that most people would rub their eyes since he had basically teleported.
The six cultivators plus Xin merely looked at the general with disdain as they instantly got to work.
"Heavenly Demonic Breath of Ice," a short girl with a flat chest yelled out as a mountain of ice-enhanced qi encased the general like a tomb, freezing the surrounding air so intensely that snow flakes gently descended in the surrounding area.
However, it was painfully obvious the ice would not hold up as a crackling sound could be heard as cracks spiderwebbed all over the ice mountain, but the general was too slow.
"Go to sleep in limbo," an old man with a long white beard pointed his bony, scaly palm toward the general. "Mount Tai's 100,000 Chains of Sealing!"
Before the giant Horde general could completely free himself from the ice, a blue translucent sphere enveloped him. With a loud thump, the sphere was stuffed full of enveloping translucent chains made of qi. The general's progression in freeing himself became slower.
"Give it everything you have!" the old man shouted as his wrinkly arms shook with sweat.
The five of them started launching attacks at the Horde general, but most of them were absorbed by his armor. Seeing his fellow cultivators fail in injuring the general, Xin wasn't going to allow the Horde to win this time.
"Come out, my friends," Xin shouted as his eyes started to glow a bloody red.
Two new silhouettes apparated without a noise beside the giant black dragon, whose eyes started to glow the same shade of dark blood red as Xin's.
The two new silhouettes were also unique, with one of them taking the shape of a giant wolf that would be taller than most mountains but shrank down to an appropriate height. Joining the wolf, a huge man with six arms stood proudly facing the Horde general.
Both were like the dragon god and tethered to Xin's soul. They were both deeply embedded in Xin's heart, as Xin took the wolf as a cub from a dying wolf god and named it Fenrir as a reference to his time on earth.
Meanwhile, the six-armed god had fought with Xin in countless battles as he conquered even the gods of the cultivation world, and after numerous battles, Xin was allowed to learn his name, the Star Conquerer Asura.
Before Xin could even give out the command, his three silhouettes charged toward the Horde general, who hadn't moved, but as time passed, the old man started to sweat more as he looked to be struggling to continue the spell.
Charging forward, the three gods attacked. The black flames from the dragon god started to melt the general's armor, while Asura launched heavy blows which cracked the armor and some scales underneath the armor.
Fenrir, on the other hand, used all the momentum he had built from his unrivaled speed, as his teeth tore into an unprotected part of the general's left arm and tore it off at the middle of his bicep.
A loud crunching sound could be heard as Fenrir crushed the bone in the general's arm into a cloud of fine dust, as chunks of flesh fell to the ground.
Although the Horde general couldn't move, he could still scream and roar as Xin smiled at the idea of making it feel pain.
As more attacks rained down on the general, Xin knew it was only a matter of time before he would defeat the Horde general and march to confront the queen of the Horde.
The Horde general's end would happen within the next few seconds until suddenly. The chains finally broke and faded away as the old man couldn't hold on anymore.
With a loud roar, the general used all his power to break the ice easily. The short, flat-chested girl had accidentally gotten too close as she planned to fling another attack.
With a loud crack in the earth, the general moved so fast it looked like he teleported, and he held the short cultivator with his right arm and started to break her neck.
Even though the girl was at the mercy of the general, she was a cultivator that stood at the top of the world, and her body couldn't be easily broken.
The other four cultivators nearby flung their own attacks that would usually obliterate anything that stood in its way.
The general could easily dodge, but a flash of brilliance came to him, and he used the short cultivator as a shield to block all the attacks.
Bearing all the attacks, the girl screamed. Eventually, the general managed to crack her neck, which made her body go limp as the general tossed her body to the ground.
Seeing the action, the other cultivators all hesitated as they stared at the general with fear.
One of the cultivators trembled as he could barely mutter, "M-monster."
The one who spoke instantly turned around in an attempt to flee out of fear, but the general instantly got up to the poor lad and swung his energy sword, which cut through the cultivator like butter.
Just like that, two cultivators that could move oceans and destroy countries died like flies in front of the general.
"NOO! I'm coming!" Xin roared as his muscles contracted as he attempted to help his fellow cultivators until he felt a sharp pain like a red hot iron being stabbed through his chest, followed by a sticky liquid pouring out.
Xin looked down and saw an energy dagger, similar to the general's sword, penetrating his heart before he looked behind him to see the old man smirking.
Before the blood started to rise to his throat, Xin weakly questioned, "But...but why?"
The old man yoinked the dagger out from Xin's chest and wanted to finish the job until Xin's three silhouettes appeared and surrounded their master's body.
Although the old man had powers on par with the best of the best, he didn't dare challenge Xin's silhouettes, as he could only wound Xin with a complete surprise attack and betrayal.
"Don't take it personally, Xin. I merely made a deal with the Horde. They'll transform and take me in. You must understand that the opportunity to become a species on the verge of perfection is too tantalizing to pass up," the old man casually said as he walked away from Xin, who had fallen to one knee with blood gushing out of his wound.
Normally Xin would be able to heal such a wound easily as long as he had ample qi, but the particular weapons that the Horde wielded made that impossible for an unknown reason.
All he could do was remain still as his life slowly whittled away.
Xin looked towards the fight between the remaining three cultivators that were left but could only grimace as he easily understood the results. They had all died.
Without Xin's overwhelming power, the group couldn't withstand the horrifying offensive the general put out. Their bodies were strewn across the battlefield, with limbs missing, and one of them even had his skull crushed into mush.
The old man who had betrayed Xin walked up to the general and pointed toward Xin. After some brief talk, the general opened a portal back to somewhere, and the old man followed the general back to the Horde.
Soon the entire battlefield turned silent as the alliance forces full of cultivators were slaughtered without the seven leaders. Xin looked up to the sky and roared with a seething anger that would never disappear until he held the queen of the Horde's neck with his own hands.
"I'LL KILL YOU SHITS! AHHHHHHHHH" Xin roared as he punched the ground and split the ground open as an earthquake shook the land with a violent tremor.
A normal person would have bled out and died within seconds once the dagger was pulled out, but Xin's body and vitality had gone well beyond normal conventions.
But even with that, he started to feel his vision darken and his hands tremble after ten minutes.
His silhouettes had nestled up to him as they felt sad and disappointed with the unfortunate death of their master.
As his eyelids became heavier with each blink he took, Xin could only reflect on all three of his lives.
'Curse that goddess for choosing earth as the next place to fight those bastards…it was a massacre. I'm not even sure why I was happy to learn that I was chosen by the goddess for a second chance to fight against the horde. If cultivators who could shake the literal heavens with a punch failed to win, how would humanity back on Earth be able to win with bullets and nuclear bombs? How can there be any hope?'
Xin's body slowly became colder as a black sheen started to eat into his vision.
'Even that time I rebirthed into a space-faring society...mechs? Space-faring battleships? They were all useless. Only this world gave me hope, but to think in the end I was betrayed... I will never stop...my anger…'
Suddenly Xin's body fell forward, and his vision became totally black. He only felt the rage of his bonded silhouettes. Soon, Xin's soul left his body and disappeared into the void.
Xin's soul drifted through the dark void like a wandering wisp. Suddenly, he was pulled into a white light. Normally people would fight against the suction, but he had gone through this twice already, so he just let the light pull him in.
Before he knew it, the light enveloped him, and promptly he regained all his senses.
The moment his senses returned to him, a series of cheers voiced out as a series of men and women said something, but he couldn't understand any of it. Then he felt a familiar warmth and a thought occurred to him.
'I've been reborn.'
