Chapter 26: The place where it all began

"How do I do this?"

Yi Ren had never thought that the effects of that item would be like this. Someone had told him about the object ten years ago, and only after eight years did he manage to steal it.

The information he had on it was scarce, he only knew it would be useful in a variety of ways. The object was a Titan's fragment: a material with very powerful and mysterious properties.

It looked just as a large piece of metal when Yi Ren obtained it, but that was because it hadn't been 'treated' yet. The fragment was the most pure of all energies, however, it had crystallized.

He had to leave it in a place where it could be nourished; where life was abundant. Only life would be able to melt a solid piece of spiritual energy, but it would take time.

Yi Ren had planned to quietly leave after it ripened, but he was suddenly ordered to be part of a suspicious expedition, from which he knew he wouldn't return. Elder Lin, the one who helped him join, had warned him once, the sect has a way of getting rid of useless and problematic disciples.

They would make up any excuse and send a batch of disciples to some sort of concentration camp, where they would do forced labor for the rest of their lives.

Obviously, Yi Ren wasn't willing to go, so he planned to leave the day before, bringing Wang Fan and Fang Chang with him. It would be troublesome; they would be hunted down by the sect.

However, on the same day they were supposed to leave, word 'coincidentally' spread out that the one responsible for stealing a godly material was a disciple of Gray Grass Sect, causing this mess, a chaotic situation that Yi Ren was willing to take advantage of.

How did they find out? Who knows.

The boy took a shovel out of one of his rings, from the black one that belonged to Qeris' guard –the one he beheaded– and started to dig the perimeter of the green square.

It was a strange scene; a green-eyed boy digging up a pit in the middle of a chaotic setting, surrounded by debris and fog, where strange and painful screams could be heard in every direction.

Yi Ren didn't mind, though, he just kept digging.

"With this, I will be able to leave the island once and for all. I will start anew somewhere else, hide for a couple thousand years and become strong enough so my identity doesn't matter anymore."

Thud!

His shovel finally hit something solid and a rush of energy immediately invaded his arms, forcing him to drop the tool.

"It seems its essence can travel through anything but air… wait, no.

The grass directly above it survived. Why? The Titan's fragment is pure energy, it doesn't have any protective properties. Did it strengthen it?"

Yi Ren kept whispering to himself as he put the grass he had dug out inside his black space ring. He grabbed the shovel and meticulously removed the soil that covered some sort of solid surface.

'Here we go.'

The thing he was looking for was finally revealed: a smooth cristaline black square; one of the faces of what seemed to be a cubical figure.

"Black?"

However, that cube wasn't supposed to be black. The person who told Yi Ren about this material said that, once ripe, the thing would look like a white lamp, it was supposed to exude light.

"Is it because of the patterns I drew on the glass? But they disappeared, it's completely smooth… Or did it absorb some kind of evil essence?

Yi Ren's curiosity was picked. The fragment's shape wasn't cubical when he stole it, he modified it for aesthetic reasons, but that much wouldn't bring that kind of a change.

He also built a container using special glass he had gotten from a ruin, in which he had carved many lines that formed some sort of tri-dimensional, complex maze that would suck in spiritual energy from the air.

In fact, his explosive cubes were imitations of what he had done with the fragment –using ordinary materials like spirit stones and normal glass of course– that ended up being unstable. Meaning that, if that thing broke, the consequences wouldn't be moderate.

"It sucks light in instead of releasing it… Sigh, can't anything go as I had expected for once?"

Yi Ren stood there for a moment, watching the black face of the cube without doing anything else. He couldn't touch it, he would break through and that was something he didn't want to do yet, he had his reasons.

However, if anyone else came by, they wouldn't be bothered by it. He had to act quickly else someone could come and snatch it.

He tried using both of the space rings, but none could contain it.

"Well, I've got no choice." He muttered, taking out a yellow dress from the silver ring and hung it on top of the black surface. As he had expected, nothing went through the dress.

He then folded the luxurious dress in a way that it would be able to serve as a bag, and used his free hand to quickly grab the black cube, which was the size of a big fist, and throw it inside the strange-looking bag.

Yi Ren only held it for a moment, but a razing rush of black energy was already circling through his body, forcing him to advance to the peak of the First Realm.

"A good old cloth bag. It somehow never disappoints."

The boy held it like a grocery bag, looking quite weird.

Before he could even take a step to try to leave, a red light that resembled a traditional firework appeared in the sky. It couldn't be clearly seen because of the fog, but it was clear something had blown up above him.

"What 's that?" Yi Ren asked, not expecting an answer. However, someone actually replied.

"A signal." A tall, calm-looking young man said. His voice didn't contain any emotion, as if he was talking in his sleep.

Yi Ren turned to look at the man, he had an idea of what was going on.

"Does that mean someone is going to come?"

"Yeah. A lot of people, probably."

"But I can just leave, can't I?"

"I won't let you."

Yi Ren's expression completely changed when he heard that. Annoyment was plastered all over his face, his eyes turned indifferent and his body tensed, ready to fight. He was just about to complete his goal; he was an inch away from success, from freedom. Yet, a random nobody came out of nowhere and stood in front of him, trying to stop him.

However, a moment later, he relaxed. He remembered the reason for which he had been doing everything.

So what if he had to keep fighting people until the day he died? So what if he would never taste freedom's flavour?

Anger would never be able to lead his actions, not as long as he didn't forget his goal.

Everythin else was disposable.

His face regained his innocent setting like the one he'd portrayed for the whole time he was in Gray Grass Sect. After a long exhale, and when his eyes had regained their calmness, he asked.

"Are you really confident in your words?"

"Of course not. You stole a divine material directly out of a Royal Treasury and are still alive two years later, you even have it with you right now. Not only that, I'm not at my peak strength, but you're unscathed. I wouldn't dare stand in front of you on a common occasion, but…"

"But?" The green eyed boy was now confused. It was obvious that the other guy was buying time, but Yi Ren felt that he had to hear the whole explanation.

"I have orders, and I found a few interesting toys along the way…"

Not a second passed after he spoke when numerous white beads were already in the air, flying towards Yi Ren. He knew clearly what those things were, he invented them, after all.

"Shit."

The small spheres reached the floor and broke, painting the world white. Yi Ren managed to cover his eyes with his hand, but the tall man, who had eye protectors on his, took advantage of the momentaneous distraction to attack, not the boy, but the bag he was holding.

"If my boss can't have it, she said we have to destroy it!"

"You're nuts!!"

The tall man's fist was about to punch the bag with the strength of a hundred horses, but Yi Ren felt it and moved it out of the way. The fist, however, still landed on his quadricep, causing some damage… to his fingers.

"Damn, it felt like hitting iron." The man muttered and continued charging forward at the same time as Yi Ren retreated. The blinding light hadn't faded yet, so the latter couldn't see.

'Fang Chang is probably dead, I suppose. I should've taken the pouch with me.'

After a slightly regretful thought, Yi Ren sped away with the goal of escaping. The threat wasn't the man who had tried to destroy the black cube and cause an explosion that would kill everyone, but whoever was coming after his signal.

The white light had started to fade and he was about to safely leave the area, but an extremely powerful shockwave stopped him in his tracks.

Booom!

An explosion like the ones he had heard when the raid had just begun occurred in front of him.

When the dust settled down, an old man was revealed on the other side. His back was straight but his neck hunched; his light gray robes fluttered with the wind. The old man held a stick which didn't reach the floor, but this time there was something in between and not just empty space: a middle aged man.

"Where were you trying to run off so suddenly?" Stick-old-man asked, looking at the man below his stick.

When his head turned to see the scene in front of him, he found a familiar sixteen-year-old boy with green eyes, who wore black robes and was holding a yellow piece of cloth like a bag. It didn't take long for him to recognize the boy he had given many beatings to.

"Yi Ren? "