Great Hatred

Sundering Tiger Mountain, Tang Feihu's training ground.

Sounds of heavy weapons clashing reverberated in the open ground. A tall boy rushed repeatedly at a mountain-like man with a red crescent blade.

The mighty man, on the other hand, wielded but a small knife. Yet, in his hand, the knife was no different than a divine axe, as he wielded it with titanic strength.

"Hah. Tyrannical Great Slash!" A beautiful, deadly dark rose flame covered the awe-inducing Red Moon Great Blade. Thorin attacked in a fury, slashing at his opponent with a flaming overhead strike. His ruby eyes shone with a crystal luster, a ruby flame seeming to burn inside them.

The mountain man simply responded with a nonchalant upward slash; a sacred yellow qi covered the small blade. The two weapons clashed once more, causing pink and yellow arcs of light to sizzle through the atmosphere.

Thorin's arms trembled as he used all his strength to push at Tang Feihu's blade, but the latter's arm was like an immovable mountain. It just didn't budge.

Tang Feihu, who was easily holding the boy away, suddenly revealed a fiendish grin. His weapon-holding arm instantly bulged massively, its size seemingly doubling, as if it wasn't huge enough before.

"HAH!" With a fierce shout, he ruthlessly flung the boy away swinging his blade, and consequently sent him flying high into the sky.

High above the ground, Thorin spat a mouthful of saliva from the sheer shock of that strike. He spun his body into an upside-down position and furiously activated his qi. A ruby-colored blood qi, followed by a rose flame, quickly covered his entire body, turning him into a pink colored sunù. Then, he actually holstered his giant blade and made fists with his hands. His muscles erupted outwardly as snake-like veins appeared under his skin.

His flaming figure began falling after the momentum of the previous strike was exhausted. Like a falling star, he crashed toward the stalwart figure.

"Battle King's Eighteen Fists, ninth fist; Earth-Destroying Hammers." He spread his arms away from his waistline, as if embracing the air. Around each arm, his blood qi formed a hammer silhouette that blazed with pink flames. He then stretched out his arms above his shoulders, like a gorilla about to pound at the earth.

In the time it took one to blink, he descended upon Tang Feihu and hammered down at him with his fists.

"Oh!? You want to fight with your fists? That's more like it; real men battle with their bare hands. I knew I saw myself in you. Aahahaha." Tang Feihu laughed hysterically at the descending figure.

He swiftly dropped the knife to the ground and dropped into a horse stance. His leg muscles bulged as did his arms previously, crushing the ground below. He retracted both arms, pushing his elbow behind his back and keeping his hands right below his chest. Spreading his fingers apart, he formed two palms with his hand and forcefully pushed at the falling flame boy.

"Heaven-Repulsing Palms." A sacred yellow Qi covered his palm, causing an absurd heaviness to emanate from his form. Gigantic palm auras surrounded his hand as he struck the boy.

"Boom!!" The fist and palms collided, making the ground surrounding them tremble violently.

"Ahhh!" Thorin screamed valiantly as he unleashed a barrage of hammer strikes; he looked no different from a furious gorilla, slamming at the giant figure underneath.

"Ahahahaahah, more, more! Put more strength into it, boy." Tang Feihu enjoyed himself fully, lashing back with palms of his own to parry every attack.

The fists and palms clashed unceasingly, each collision forming a ring of high-temperature light within which the void seemed to melt.

"Boom-boom-boom."

The two soon struck out more than a hundred times. The ground around them had been completely destroyed. While he pounded recklessly, Thorin noticed the man had not budged one step, with 'huff', he resolutely gathered the rest of his strength for a final attack. He clasped both fists together and hammered down with great strength.

"Good, boy." Watching the unrelenting boy, Tang Feihu nodded in admiration. However, he pulled no punches. He made a fist with a head-sized right hand and punched the boy in the stomach at lightning speed.

"Pow." Like a gun that fired, the boy saw nothing but a flash. He only felt gut-wrenching pain in his stomach, Then the impact of the punch which caused a loud air explosion behind him followed by another trip in the sky. Only this time, he prepared no counterattacks, for he slowly lost consciousness.

Hovering in the air, Thorin looked at the beautiful bluish-purple sky. While his conscioussness wavvered, he began to think about the person he would most like to see. He gazed upon the horizon, for he was high enough in the sky to see, and there- amongst the clouds, a drop-dead gorgeous face, with dark hair as black as the night and eyes of the most beautiful soft red color, her picturesque face matched perfectly with the clouds. The gorgeous beauty smiled at him warmly, and waved before disappearing. Seeing the disappearing form, Thorin reached out with the hand he could still control. He tried to grasp the figure on the horizon- she seemed so small, as his palm encompassed her whole shadow.

"Big sister… I miss you." He softly mumbled, his bright eyes watering up a bit, before passing out.

His body began falling down at high speed, and was about to crash on the ground from high altitude, when a giant flashing figure caught him swiftly and placed his body on its shoulder.

The figure tapped the boy's back lightly and muttered to him. "You did good, my cherished new disciple. I cannot wait until you grow to surpass me and make the true martial world tremble with your might, making me proud. Mwahahaha." With no guilt whatsoever on his face despite for knocking the senses out of his disciple, Tang Feihu once again laughed loudly as he walked away with the unconscious figure on his shoulder. 

…

A few hours later, Thorin woke up disoriented in a room.

"Where am I?" He softly muttered, looking around for clues. There was no one else inside but him.

A painful feeling assaulted his abdominal area the moment he began regaining some clarity.

"Dammit, it hurts." He caressed his abdominal area to soothe the pain slightly.

"Master is not one to go easy at all." He lightly mouthed out. "But I appreciate that, it reminds me of the old days in the clan, and he's just like my uncles."

Softly smiling, Thorin remembered his early childhood. The members of his clan were all hot-blooded people who enjoyed fighting a lot; it was ingrained in their blood.

"Everyone always treated me and my sister the same despite the fact that we were different from the rest…" He mumbled as he sat on the edge of the bed. He slowly lifted both his arms…

A bright light flashed in his ruby-colored irises; one of them actually turned black. Two flames of different colors appeared on his hands, one black and one rose. The two flames gave a different aura, as if they came from different origins; the black one gave a demonic, dark, and destructive impression, while the rose flame exuded a sacred, full of vitality, and inextinguishable aura. The two flames had diametrically opposed sources of power, yet unlike the usual chaos caused by combining two conflicting energies, they complemented each other in the hands of the boy. Looking at his burning hands, an emotional expression clouded his resolute and young face. "Mother… Father… it's been five years since our clan went into hiding again. Being top experts of our race, you both fended off the hell and chaos fiends of the Ring of Twilight, allowing the young and vulnerable to escape. Sylvia and I managed to reach this place through a spatial pathway that led to the Flaming Sun Star Cluster, ending up in this ancient great world. Originally, it wasn't so bad since I was with big sister; however, she left me to find ways to get stronger in the hidden danger lands of this great world, saying that they held great secrets despite existing in this middle-rank domain; some secret lands even contained signs of our race... Now, though, I'm alone…"

Thorin recalled the painful events that led to his presence in the true martial great world. Although tears did not fall on his face, you could tell he was in a highly emotional state, this was a face he had not yet shown his new friends or anyone for that matter, for he previously judged the weight of his past is something none in this world could help him bear, but things changed a bit since he met Kaelen and Thorin; he just didn't find the strength to talk about it, yet. He still felled many negative emotions everytime he thought of his race, his clan and his family. The ruby flame in his right hand actually dimmed while the black flame erupted fiercely, destroying the initial balance.

A dark and vengeful aura covered Thorin, giving his countenance a slight demonic and evil edge; his other eye turned jet black as well, both now completely black- he looked like a scion of darkness. A fury of negative thoughts and emotions swiftly emerged in his heart and mind, fiercely shaking him and inducing an intense migraine.

"Arghh" groaining in pain, he tried to control his emotions before he went berserk. "Crap, My unstable emotions are causing the Abyssal-soul Flame to overtake the Virtuous-Heart Flame." As the negative emotions clouded his mind and heart, Thorin immediately panicked. "The abyssal flame feeds off my negative emotions, while the Virtuous Flame feeds off positive emotions. I can't help but feel sad when I think about what happened, so it's hard for me to just shut off these negative thoughts, especially under the influence of the abyssal flame. I need to think of positive occurrences instead…" His mind racing, Thorin began thinking of the good things that happened after his sister left a few years ago.

"Nothing much happened after my elder sister left; I just practiced by myself and stayed in the imperial city until the opening of the sect a year later. However, I've met Kaelen and Raizel at the entrance, and we became good friends. I can tell their stories aren't much different from mine; they were probably also affected by the invasion of the hell races of the dark universe. I enjoy spending time with them and growing stronger together. I also met many new people, like master, teacher Long, Tang Hao, and the other classmates. My life currently isn't so bad." As he thought of his friends and new relationships, The darkness surrounding Thorin slowly dissipated, and his eyes regained their bright ruby color. The black flame in his hand dimmed, while the rose flame grew until a balance was reached.

"Haaah..." He exhaled loudly, and released the flames from his hands, causing them to disappear. A resolute expression replaced the previous emotional one. "I will keep training and get stronger with my friends. Then, I will go find Sylvia, and when I'm strong enough, we will search the entire Ring of Divinity or Ring of Twilight for you guys. Mother, father, wait for me, if those hell fiends so much as injured you…" he clenched his fist, and his eyebrows furrowed into a fierce glare, both his eyes flickered between ruby and black colors, before finally settling in a greyish-burgundy color, releasing an unsettling terror that shook the void where he gazed.

"I will slaughter those fiends until the very last." He muttered in a grave voice