Chapter 3 - Thunder Prince
"Argh! bastard..."
plop plop plop
The sound of blood dripping onto the floor, the metallic taste of blood groping in his mouth, his vision starting to blur as he felt the excruciating pain of having a sword through his torso...
He wanted to talk...
Shout out...
Roar...
But all he could do was die in silence as he was watched by the judgmental eyes of the boy in front of him.
He felt his hair being pulled as the pain intensified in his head, reluctantly, his eyes landed on the enemy leader, holding a body in his hands.
"senior-brother... Mao..." His words were filled with sadness and disbelief, he looked around to be greeted with the sight of thousands of corpses piled side by side. His sanity slowly eroded as he lost control.
The sadness he felt was replaced by hatred, his goal of trying to understand, had been overcome by the thought of revenge, he faced the person in front of him as he was clouded by anger.
His shaggy blue hair and eyes the purest silver color that reflected his face, he bit his lower lip as tears involuntarily started to run down his face.
"Because... cough." He who was happy will feel the true face of the cultivation world.
A day ago he was on cloud, being the heir of the sect, with a talent greater than even some so-called princes, he will feel that he was blessed, even when he found that treasure that quickly bonded with him.
It felt like everything was destined to happen. Until his sect was invaded, his guards were killed, the women imprisoned, and the elders all lost their cultivation, he fought for the glory of what was once the Thunder God's Sect as he watched the bodies of his friends.
With him captured, the small portion of cultivators he had gathered were hopeless.
He didn't believe them.
He didn't believe in himself.
The young man smiled in front of him, making him feel like hell had just fallen on his shoulders.
"A weak sect like that..." His gultural voice rang out and with every word that came out of his mouth, it was like shooting an arrow at him. "How dare you use the name of the thunder god?"
His expression was broken as he slowly put the pieces together. "So that's why!?" His desperate voice came out as he mustered up all the strength to speak. "Because of a name!?"
The young man in front of him dropped the body in his arms, not caring about the damage, he walked amid the pile of bodies and staying a few inches from him, said:
"Don't you know my fame? I kill for a lot less than that." The mocking smile had transformed.
For the first time in his life, he felt terror.
The fear of death.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
The youth slapped the cultivator's face three times and looked away from him as if it wasn't worth a second look.
"Keep going."
Like a light at the end of the tunnel, his eyes shone as he felt the hand that was pulling his hair release them, he heard more and more distant footsteps, he would have thought they had given up on killing him, smiling, he felt joy amid the darkness.
Slash!
Until he didn't feel anything anymore.
Your wits have been cut off. For the first and last time, he watched the beauty of the world and the blood gushing across the floor...
Upside down.
The young man smiled as he saw his enemy's head fly up and fall to the ground, returned to the tent arranged behind the piles of corpses and faced a cultivator who knelt as he entered.
"You've found?" he asked.
"Reporting to Prince Thunder, the third prince reported that he found, the information was false." Reluctantly, the nascent soul cultivator slammed his head to the ground apologizing as he felt cold sweat trickle down his body.
The prince was silent as he stared straight ahead with a blank stare.
The guard felt his arms weaken as with each second of silence inside the tent, his heart raced faster and faster.
Boldly, he raised his head to see what his young master was up to, but was taken aback to see a devilish grin on his face.
"F-Forgive me!" He felt his heart race, his eyes widen. His young master was famous for showing no mercy and taking it out on his subordinates, for fear of retaliation, he hit his head on the ground.
Crack!
A small crater formed in the ground where his head was leaning, blood began to slowly fill the small crater as his vision blurred.
But no matter what he did, his master didn't seem to want to talk, so he would stay there, until he could leave, or be killed.
And just like that, a few minutes passed.
"HAHAHAH! another death flag avoided!" His young master laughed heartily as he raised his hands and touched the air with speed.
Has the young master gone mad?
The thought crossed his mind before he received his master's soft, confused gaze.
"How did you get hurt?" He asked.
"W-what..."
"Go quickly and take care of it!" The young man picked him up and guided him out of the tent carefully handing him over to the bodyguard who was tending to the outside. "Take good care of him."
"Yes your Highness."
As he watched them both leave, the prince turned back to face the air, which actually had two floating interfaces in front of him.
[Congratulations on killing a protagonist's childhood friend!]
[You got 2,000 fate points!]
[Congratulations on avoiding the plot <Being Saved by Childhood Friend with Scary Identity!> You've achieved 1,000 Destiny Points.]
[Plot:...]
"Frankly system, I look at you for a few seconds and my subordinates get hurt." Curious, Zeng Xiang was confused, he certainly remembers his guard entering the tent unharmed, why did he hit his head on the ground like that?
"Crazy growers..." As he was about to return to his tent, Zeng Xiang felt a familiar fluctuation inside her, entering, he spotted a new kneeling face.
Feeling tense, he sat in the chair and spoke with some concern: "Any news?"
"Reporting to Prince Thunder, Ye Chun is listed as one of the participants for the sect exam." The kneeling cultivator quickly said.
He didn't know why he was doing this, at first he thought his young master had gone crazy to give importance to the junk cultivators of the lower sky, but as his personal guard, his job wasn't to question.
"We also noticed that Ye Chun is able to expel Qi even in the realm of body reinforcement."
As if he expected this kind of answer, Zeng Xiang was overcome with boredom as he fell into deep thought, until for the first time since he started receiving daily reports, something interested him.
"We also noticed a second meteoric rise in the lower sky."
A certain anxiety took over Zeng Xiang's body. He didn't expect to find another protagonist so quickly, he wanted to at least be able to take care of them one at a time. "Where."
"Burning Sun Sect, Prince."
Crack!
Zeng Xiang slammed his fist on the table in front of her, breaking it in two, his lightning Qi slightly leaking out as he squinted his eyes, "What!? Who!?"
The bodyguard, accustomed to the prince's quick temper, quickly replied, "The name is Li Dao, he has gone from the 9th Layer of Mental Reinforcement to the 6th Layer of Body Reinforcement."
Zeng XIang was silent as he quickly opened his system with his mind.
'System, spend 50 fate points and answer me and if this Li Dao is a protagonist.'
[50 Fate points have been spent!]
[Analyzing Cultivator Li Dao...]
[Complete analysis! Li Dao is not a protagonist.]
"Tsk..." A reader's mind of Zeng Xiang began to work as he tried to decipher who Li Dao was.
Perhaps Ye Chun's bodyguard for the purpose of protecting him in secret? No... his plot doesn't involve being from an influential family so maybe... an occult master?
"Cough!" The guard who saw his astonished young master coughed, calling him back to reality. "I also came to report that Ye Chun's enemy Fang Cai was killed by Li Dao."
The guard felt for a millisecond a feeling of sadness pass through Zeng Xiang's eyes before he ignored it all again.
Poor Fang Cai, sympathized with him at least a little, was killed by the protagonist's plot armor... Now I'm sure, Li Dao is surely a hidden master who took an interest in Ye Chun.
"As a protagonist, he is a magnet for powerful masters to risk everything to teach him, this must be one of them." Zeng Xiang placed his hands on his chin and pondered aloud.
"Pardon?"
As soon as he noticed his bodyguard, Zeng Xiang blushed slightly from the embarrassment of having his thoughts exposed, quickly composing himself, changed his attitude and turned cold, with a slightly murderous voice he ordered, "Investigate and kill whoever gave us the false information about the location of the mythical sword, have someone investigate everything they can about Li Dao quickly and keep an eye on Ye Chun."
"Yes sir!" The guard rose and in the blink of an eye disappeared.
Zeng Xiang averted his eyes from the place where his guard had been and faced the broken table with conflicting feelings, even though he was confident in facing the protagonist, the biggest threat at the moment for Zeng Xiang was his younger brothers that he constantly had to keep an eye out.
"It doesn't matter... if this Li Dao wants the protagonist, I just have to make him want me." Like most clichés, he knew that for a hidden master to be interested in the protagonist, he had at least one technique that defied the heavens, so it was beneficial to steal Ye Chun's chances to weaken him quickly. "Looks like I have to visit the lower sky very soon."
***
In the cultivation world, to be recognized as a true cultivator, you need to enter the Foundation Establishment Realm. Until the 9th tier of body reinforcement you are called semi-immortal by mortals.
As soon as you enter the foundation establishment, you need to choose a cultivation manual, and by cultivating from this point you can expel Qi out of your body.
There were exceptions, such as Ye Chun who cultivates an ancient-era cultivation manual given to him by his master, where you can expel Qi before becoming a true cultivator. In addition to an ancient cultivation manual being very powerful compared to current ones, the density of Qi in the user's dantian is at least 5 times denser!
Putting it all together, in the realm of body reinforcement, Ye Chun is invincible, that's why he achieves the feat of fighting people with realms above him, a true protagonist.
Nathan knew that to truly become a top expert he would need a good cultivation manual, preferably from the ancient era, and what better way to get one than stolen from the protagonist?
Nathan's goal was to take the master away from Ye Chun before he gets to the foundation establishment, once he gets it, most of his problems will be solved, but the biggest problem is that this kind of master has a debt with the protagonist, which will keep her from cheating on him, so it has to be at the right time.
"There's only one way to do it, I'll need to hasten Ye Chun's death, even if my memories become invalid about future events, I've never trusted this blindly." Nathan knew that just the fact that he was now a core disciple in Fang Cai's place would trigger the dreaded butterfly effect, so from here on out memories of him wouldn't be so accurate.
In the original novel, Ye Chun's master doesn't betray him no matter what kind of benefits Zeng Xiang offers her, but at the last moment, just before the thunder prince finally kills the protagonist, his master abandons him.
So there's only one way, I need to show her that being with Ye Chun is a waste and he's doomed to die.
Nathan could steal his cultivation and kill him right away, but that would bring his master's wrath, so it was out of the question. In the original novel, whenever Zeng Xiang kills a protagonist, the Heavenly Dao punishes him with something different, and he nearly dies.
Nathan knew that Zeng Xiang just didn't die because he was the real MC of the work, but Li Dao was nobody, as his system had specified, he was not the protagonist. In order not to put his life at risk, he wasn't going to kill any protagonists.
If the Heavenly Dao punished him, he would surely die.
"Let's take it one step at a time." He entered the Cultivation Chamber where the density of Qi in the air was denser than outside. "First, I need to know what the talent limit of this body is."
He walked to the middle of the chamber and sat in the lotus position. "Let's cultivate..."