Going South

With the terrible realization that the empire had to be informed. Humanity had to band together to remove this creature from the world, and the prince decided to do something that would stain his honour forever. He would be haunted for as long as he lived but it had to be done. For any military commander worth his salt, this was taboo but in the prince's situation, he could not see any other way out of his predicament. His men were screaming in pain and terror but he could do nothing to save them. In this moment of weakness, Prince Jie Shui finally understood why his siblings had chosen to join the sects. It was so that they could have power. It was so that they would never have to suffer under the tyranny of creatures such as the skeleton before him. In the past, the prince had labelled them as greedy royals seeking to cultivate more power than they needed for their own selfish benefit. He now understood that power was very crucial to protect the things that one loved. The prince closed his eyes. Tears came out of his eyes for the first time in years. As a military man, he was taught that a true man needed to be stoic and unflinching in the face of pain. This person had never known the kind of pain the prince was experiencing at this moment. He slowly crawled over the bodies of his dead men. His own stomach had a large hole and his intestines could be seen hanging out. In all this pain, the prince crawled through blood and gore until he reached the nearby small forest. He stood up immediately and began moving away from the battle. He was fleeing the slaughter. He was abandoning his men. Tears rolled down his face. At first, he walked slowly but he kept on increasing his speed despite the pain that coursed through his body.

Soon, he was sprinting through the forest. In his heart, he hoped that he was doing the right thing.

He could still hear the screams of his men but he did not turn around knowing that he was weak. Weak beyond measure. He needed power. Prince Jie Shui made a promise to himself at that moment. A promise to seek out the peek of power so that he could eliminate all evil from the world.

When dawn came and the first ray of morning light fell on the battlefield, there was nothing except dead bodies and blood. The ground was red and the bodies were dismembered with arms and legs strewn all over. The black skeleton was nowhere to be seen but one could hear fast muttering coming from deep in the ground.

The skeleton had dug a hole in the ground and buried itself below its victims. If one watched the place closely, one would realize that the blood on the ground was slowly being pulled into the ground and the dead bodies were rapidly decomposing.

"Ia m Wu yI."these words could be heard on the battlefield. They sounded as though they were said by some kind of otherworldly creature that could barely put two words together. Deep inside the earth, the skeleton sat with its legs crossed. Blood came from all directions and was absorbed by its black bones. A weird sister Qi who gave off a deathly aura could also be seen being absorbed by the skeleton.

By the time dusk came and the sun began its inevitable descent, the ground that had been covered in blood a few hours earlier had already regained its brown colour. As for the dead bodies that were once the soldiers of the mighty Cloud Empire, they had all decomposed so much that not even a single each of fresh human meat could be seen.

They all looked like mummies. When the sun finally disappeared plunging the earth into darkness, the bodies were nothing but flimsy bones that could break apart at the slightest contact.

Booom, a skeleton arm broke through the ground sending earth and rock flying in all directions. The skeleton crawled out of the ground. Judging from the aura it gave off and the brightness of its red eyes, the skeleton had become stronger once again. It now had ten times the power it had before massacring the army of thousands.

The skeleton looked around the place with its cold red eyes. The expression within showed great intellect and understanding. It brought its skeletal hands before its face and looked at them for a long time. It did not see anything wrong with the way it looked. It felt comfortable in its bones just like how a newborn human child would feel nothing wrong with being confined in case of meat, blood and water.

"I need to be careful. I have not seen anything else like me and all the creatures I have so far encountered have a deep fear and loathing for me. If I am careless, I will be hunted and killed .If I can die ." thought the skeleton as it began walking towards the south.

It did not know how it had come to learn the human tongue but it knew it perfectly. It only lacked the proper flesh to create the sounds.

"I feel as though something dear to me is in the south ." thought the skeleton as it began running faster than any horse ever could. It wanted to reach its destination before the sun came out. The skeleton did not have any emotions but it felt that it needed to go south. It did not know what was waiting for it but it could not stop itself from going south.