79 Is This Real?

"It' him!" a broken, tired voice echoed in the air, ending with a shrill scream. A thin figure hid behind a large pillar, shivering at the very thought that in a moment of panic she might have caused him to notice her presence.

'Oh no, why did I scream?'

Tears started pouring on her face, a face that was once so so desirable, so pretty.

Once, yes. Before she met him.

Sometimes she remembered that there was a time when her beauty had forced her to work twice as hard to convince her family that she could be more than a pretty concubine to some member of the main line. She could be strong, a warrior. A powerful figure in the tribe. Respected and admired.

She had the hunger in her, she always did, since birth. The insatiable need that pushed her to want to achieve more and more. Her mother said it was the voice of the Spirits, pointing her towards the right direction for her life. There were people like that, she said, people that were blessed by the Spirits.

Trembling, a dirty and wounded hand brushed away from her face the long black hair that fell in disarray on her entire body. She couldn't let her hair to make her lose sight of him. She needed to make sure that he wasn't coming after her!

Her heart rate fastened. Now, now... there was no reason to panic. He was still very very far...

Oh, who she was trying to deceive: she saw him before, moving after Devassa fast as a thunder falling from the sky.

'An evil, criminal, devilish, black thunder' She added in her mind, not daring to speak more words now that she had him in her visual camp. He could hear her. She knew that he could. Devassa, could always hear things that happened, even if they were very far from her. She could even see things that were very far from her, describing them in great detail even without opening her eyes!

The Third Eye, she called it.

The violet Buddhist said that she was only able to use the most basic form of it, shaping the eye with common energy. Her senior brother Azure, she said, was able to use his own soul to see with the Third Eye. Something that only Soul Inscription Elders should be able to do. But he was an exception.

All her brothers and sisters were exceptions. She talked to her of them every day. Instructing her on what to say and how to behave before every one of them.

She was going to bring her with her, you see? To a great sect, where she would be able to become a great cultivator. No one would be ever able to command her again, to demean her, to force her to kiss the ground while her entire body was tormented by shocks of unspeakable pain.

She would be respected, strong and independent.

A smile almost seemed to broke through the miserable expression on her dirty face, but then she seemed to remember something and her features froze. The image of a bloody corpse of a violet snake appeared in her mind.

'Gone, all gone...'

Her knees felt suddenly too much weak to hold the rest of her body upright. She left herself fell to the ground, her breathing roughening. 'She is gone now.'

Her eyes moved again on that distant figure with hate and fear. He killed her. She knew it. She didn't actually see her die, they were too fast and moved too much far away from her with a speed that she could not contend with, but he was the one going after her. Evil thing he was. Evil thing, always doing evil things. Always trying to destroy her dreams.

The first time she met him, it was the time he destroyed her first dream. After she worked so hard for it, after she was only a couple of steps from it. In only a couple of weeks, the Councill would have given her a Bow. She would have become a Hunter. Untouchable, powerful.

But HE broke that dream. He put her on chains, and forced her to betray her people. The grimace of her tired face became a mask of hate. Her hands tightened in two trembling fists. He forced her to sell herself to those that only saw her as a prize to enjoy for a single night and then to lock away forever.

After a couple of seconds, her hand starting to relax again. There was blood on the top of her fingers, and new wounds on her palms.

'I survived.'

Yes, she did survive. Maybe her mother was right, the Spirits were on her side.

Yes. Of course. The Spirits had taken pity on her, and guided the hand of destiny to give her what she deserved. Her hand ran towards her back, touching a green wooden object hidden under a dark rough black piece of cloth.

She then casually found Devassa. No, wait... the Spirits lead her to her.

She laughed, insanity shining in her eyes.

"Spirits, yes" she didn't even realize that she was talking out loud, too much buried in her delusional talks with herself.

'Spirits' Yes, it was them. They wanted to show her that not everyone who held the power of cultivation was evil. They wanted her to understand that, so one day she could also wield that power herself.

Why else would she found another cultivator? One that didn't want to harm her, but to help her? One that saw her as a sister, a friend? It was surely a sign.

"Sign, yes"

The Spirits wanted her to become a cultivator herself. The first Hunter Cultivator. She would then come back to the Extreme Wilderness and unite all the Tribes. She would become a legend, like those heroes of the past.

However, that dream was also dead now. He ruined it. For the second time, he came and killed her dream. He killed her first dream, and now even the second.

The tears kept flowing down her bony cheeks, her eyes looking towards where she thought she would find the sky and instead found only a dense layer of darkness.

Now no one would introduce her to a powerful sect. No one would teach her how to cultivate any longer. Right when things were perfect, he came again and destroyed everything.

"This one seems in some sort of hibernation" a calm voice reached her, as if the owner was only a couple of feet from her.

Her body trembled. She brought her gaze towards him with terror. He was still there, far far away.

Yet, she could swear that she heard his voice. It was HIS voice. She was absolutely certain of that. It was different now. It was calmer, quieter. It was him though. She would bet her Green Bow on it.

"I'm ready, why you don't come out now?"

He was still speaking. Was he speaking to her? No, no, no, no. Why didn't he leave her alone? What had she done to deserve this?

She looked around herself with scared, suspicious glances. Almost as she was expecting an assault at any second.

"I've picked its interest it seems, you should start preparing yourself"

What was he talking about? No, who cares. He wasn't talking to her, now she was certain of it. She needed to run, she needed to survive him another time. She couldn't leave him to put his slave marks again on her.

The woman started to back up slowly, reading to start sprinting away at any seconds when a roaring scream seem to shake the entire world.

"I AM GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE!"

She felt something pushing her towards the ground and couldn't do anything more stand down and use her entire strength to simply breath. She even summoned her Blood Energy, but it didn't help much.

Suddenly, a red column of cracking light exploded in the sky, far away from both her and the hellish devil sitting on a white rock. Everything that she could see was dyed with a crimson light, and the temperature seemed to suddenly grow warmer.

'Energy, that is energy.'

She wasn't good at picking up energy, but the sheer quantity of power made it impossible even for her to not understand what was that.

She couldn't believe that there was something able to manipulate that much energy. She couldn't tell the grade and power of that energy, but even if it was the lowliest in the scale it was still impressive: even if it was an energy weaker than her Blood Energy, the quantity made up for the quality.

Suddenly a small white flame emerged from the red column, flying with insane speed towards her position. She felt the pressure that kept her down intensify greatly while the flame came closer and closer.

"YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS"

Another roar shattered the air, making the entire world vibrate as consequence. She felt her internal organs being compressed by the power that kept her down and blood started to pout out of her mouth.

'No, I don't want to die like this... no, not like this!'

No matter how much she didn't want to, her vision faded into complete pure darkness.

She dreamt of towering palaces of glass, white-haired people clothed in luxurious violet robes. A giant gate with six giant statues, a laughing red haired man that looked at her with lascivious expression, a place with countless women sitting on shelves with lifeless eyes and then... him! a small black snake with violet eyes, sleeping on a corner of a blue colored cave. She was near the snake, looking at him from the top. Without warnings, the snake snapped open his eyes, looking at her without seeing her.

"ARGHH"

She woke up screaming in terror and the first thing that she saw was the exact same face that she last saw in that strange dream she had: Darkscale.

However, this one wasn't randomly looking around without seeing her. He looked right at her, with fear in his eyes. Fear.

There was blood on his body, several scales on his head were broken, revealing the bloody flesh under them. His breath was ragged, and there was something wrong with his left eye.

"Is this real? Am I still dreaming?"