3 - Ruby Heart

"Did you not hear me? I said your time is limited! Accept the power of the Ruby Heart now or you will die!" A girl's beautiful voice rang out in Lin Hai's ears, filled with urgency, and though he had initially been distracted by how beautiful the voice was, he finally reacted and turned around.

The instant he did so, he was met with the scene of an unbelievably beautiful girl, the looks of which could cause countries to go to war. It was impossible to describe her beauty, but if Yan Daiyu was said to be a match flame, she could be the/ entire sun.

He was once again dazed, but he quickly recovered and processed her words.

"What do you mean, I'll die? Ruby Heart? What's going on? Who are you?"

However, just after asking that, he suddenly clutched his chest in pain as the sound of bones breaking rang out.

"AAGGGHHH!!!!!" He let out a scream of absolute unparalleled agony as he felt bones all over his body start to break, and his muscles spasmed out of his control, causing him to fall to the ground.

All over his body, his limbs seemed to be twisted by an invisible force as they were bent to impossible angles and broke, with cuts appearing everywhere and dark red blood flowing out.

He felt that it was impossible to be in this much pain, but it just continued to get worse and worse.

He continued screaming in anguish for a few more seconds before barely managing to scream out, "HELP ME!!!!!"

But the girl in front of his eyes seemed to be helpless as she watched this happen with an expression of sadness.

"You have to accept the power of the Ruby Heart, otherwise you will die here! I can't help you because I'm too far away!"

Her voice was filled with urgency as she held a small ruby in her hand that was in the shape of a sphere, barely bigger than a marble.

Seeing this, Lin Hai instantly felt some incomprehensible connection to it, and he reached out his arm as well as he could, despite his convulsing body, and the girl ran over near him.

Suddenly, golden chains appeared around the girl as she was dragged backwards seemingly into the void as she simply disappeared with a hopeful face.

Before she completely disappeared, she said one sentence, "Help me, please." After saying this, she threw the ruby ball towards Lin Hai on the ground.

Lin Hai was confused watching this, but he was more concerned with getting this ruby ball on the ground, which could supposedly end his suffering here.

Despite his body convulsing, he managed to barely touch the ruby ball, and when he did, he felt it shoot into his body and cause a stabbing pain in his heart.

But just as he felt this pain, he 'passed out' and woke up in the real world.

...

In the real world, Lin Hai suddenly woke up with a start, sitting up and clutching his chest in pain. He let out a scream of agony as his entire body felt like it was being cut apart by flaming knives, instantly alerting the doctor who was nearby.

The princess had business to attend to, so she wasn't here, but the doctor was obviously here, and hearing his screams of pain, she came in, only to see the odd scene of his entire body violently convulsing, slamming the bed so hard that it almost broke in half, with him clutching his chest.

The crisp and spine-chilling sound of bones breaking rang out through the room, but unlike in his 'dream', his body didn't get bent out of shape by the bones breaking, with him instead getting taller and slightly bigger.

The doctor actually didn't even know what to do, because even though she was a royal doctor, she had never seen anything even remotely close to this, and there was really nothing she *could* do in this situation but watch.

It was lucky that this was in the princess' private courtyard where nobody was allowed, or the entire castle would have heard his agonizing screams.

Suddenly, his screaming stopped without warning, and his body relaxed on the bed, which was now drenched in blood near his head.

Blood was pouring out of his eyes, ears, and nose as he coughed out mouthfuls of blood onto the pillow.

He was clearly awake, but the sounds of bones breaking had stopped, and his body was no longer hurting as it had been just a second ago.

But an odd scene had appeared; his blood was oddly beautiful to look at, and it didn't dry brown like normal blood did, instead hardening into a weird bright red scab.

The doctor then came running over to him, but he was unresponsive as he just lay there with a blank stare, his bright eyes seeming to slowly come to life.

Suddenly, he sat up and gasped in a breath of air, then coughed out several mouthfuls of blood while reeling over the side of the bed before vomiting out even more blood.

It seemed as if the sounds of his bones breaking had been an illusion, because he was clearly fine right now.

Aside from the coughing and vomiting blood, he seemed to be perfectly fine right now as the bleeding had entirely stopped from his eyes, nose, and ears, while he got the rest of the blood out of his lungs and his stomach.

During this, he was astonished, because he felt that his chest and arm had healed, with his broken ribs and arm no longer being broken somehow.

"Where am I?" He managed to ask the doctor, with a slightly weak voice.

The doctor was shocked for a second hearing his voice, but she managed to respond, "You were brought here by the princess so that I could heal you. You almost died, but you are somehow alive right now."

Her last sentence contained a bit of a questioning tone, because she had no idea what had just happened or how he was okay right now.

She hadn't realized that he had gotten taller because he had been curled up on the bed this whole time and didn't have a point of reference, and she attributed his bleeding from the eyes, ears, and nose to a high blood pressure while the coughing up blood was from his punctured lung.

In her eyes, the only thing that was wrong was that he seemed to be okay right now and that horrible sound of bones breaking from before.

In reality, she didn't even see or understand half of what had happened just now.

Suddenly, Lin Hai got up and stood up, suddenly feeling taller and stronger than before, which was quite weird.

But he was, after all, only thirteen years old, so he still wasn't tall compared to an adult, and he was at least a full foot shorter than the doctor in front of him.

It didn't help that he was already very small before, making the only difference that he was now about average height among those his age.

On the surface, it seemed that he had just gotten taller and bigger, but that was barely scratching the surface of the changes that had happened to him.

He suddenly started to walk out of the room, silently nodding his head to show his thanks to the doctor for her help.

The doctor didn't even know what to say as she walked Lin Hai walk out of the room.

She was initially going to run some tests to make sure that he was okay, but it was evident from him walking out that, although he was thankful for her help, he wasn't going to accept any more.

On the way out, Yan Daiyu suddenly appeared in his vision, walking towards the doctor's place. But when she saw Lin Hai, she instinctively shook as a shocked expression covered her face.

This boy who she had carried here, who had been beaten almost to death, was walking out of the room, seemingly perfectly fine, and when she looked into his eyes, she suddenly felt an instinctive wariness.

As he got closer to her, he nodded his head towards her to thank her for her help, and then walked past her, leaving her shocked.

She didn't even know how to react, because not only was he physically bigger than before, his eyes seemed to be the eyes of a demon, powerful and elusive.

She didn't interact with him much, but she at least knew how tall he was and what his demeanor was, and it was now very clearly different from before.

She even had the instinctual feeling that she should just let him go here instead of stopping him.

As such, she just let him go, and she knew that even if she said something to him, he wouldn't respond due to the difference in their statuses.

It was actually already quite late, and the day had come to an end, with Yan Daiyu only coming to check up on Lin Hai because she had completed her duties for the day.

As such, Lin Hai just went back to the orphanage, as there was nowhere else to go.

When he got back, everyone was already going to sleep, and a few were still arriving, but Lin Hai just ate some food and went to bed, with everyone ignoring him the whole time.

Nobody managed to notice his taller height because it was dark inside the orphanage.

He had already realized something extremely odd other than his physical changes; his heart was no longer beating, and no matter what he did, he couldn't find a pulse from his body, as if his blood was flowing on its own without the help of his heart.

As he fell asleep, his dreams were of that very odd garden and the even odder girl within it.

...

The next morning, Lin Hai woke up to a cup of water being poured on his head, causing him to sit up with a start.

But the moment he opened his eyes, he was shocked to find that he could see better than before, and the boy in front of him, the one who had slapped Lin Hai's back yesterday morning, suddenly took a step back in shock.

Looking into Lin Hai's eyes, he felt an instinctual fear as his eyes seemed like the eyes of a demon.

"What the fuck?" The boy couldn't help but yell out as he tripped backwards.

At this moment, Lin Hai stood up, and he stood much taller than before, being at least three to six inches taller, and because of the water poured over his body, you could see that he was no longer as thin as he was before, with almost all of the fat in his body vanishing and leaving only muscle behind.

He also felt odd, because at this moment, he had broken through to the second stage of the martial arts path.

He didn't even understand how this was possible, because one had to absorb Qi into their dantian and compress it to break through, but he hadn't even done that and he broke through? This was just too odd.

But he was more confused because of the reaction of the boy who had poured water on him. Just getting bigger wouldn't elicit such a massive response, would it?

Lin Hai then looked towards a nearby mirror on the wall, and he was shocked when he saw his own body. He seemed to have gained weight and muscle mass.

But on top of that, his bruises had vanished and his whole body seemed to be quite healthy. But even this wouldn't get such a reaction from the boy.

Yes, there was something else. The blood on his shirt from the night before had dried, and it was bright red, as if it was a dye.

However, it seemed to be a mix of blood and dye, because it maintained its bright red color while drying like blood did.

Because of the sheet over his body, the boy hadn't seen Lin Hai's blood-stained shirt.

"Oh. I guess I forgot to change." Lin Hai said nonchalantly. Not only was everyone shocked from the lack of bruises on his face, but everything about him had changed, and he didn't even seem like the same person as before, with only his demeanor and outlook on life being the same.

He then took off his now wet shirt and threw it on the ground, going to a nearby dresser to get some clean clothes out of. Indeed, he had literally forgotten to get a clean shirt before going to bed.