Chapter 31: Covenant with the Crow

"I had been talented enough to be recruited to the Flowing River Sect, a small force not too far from this city."

Wu spoke with a look of nostalgia and sorrow in his eyes.

"When I joined the sect I was quite the catch for women, a spiritual inscriber was a rare profession within the wildlands, only a select few had the aptitude for it at birth."

He turned his palm over and manifested a glowing bright red flame, the flame blew in Feng Zhiming's direction.

Wu raised his eye brow, there was no wind in here so why would the flame blow in Feng Zhiming's direction?

Spiritual flames were the one and only medium that could transmit the will of a person into an inscription and thus mandatory for spiritual inscriptions to be made.

"I was a young man and so I fell in love with a girl, she was a kind woman. Unfortunately for me I caught the eye of one of the elder sisters in the Sect."

He placed his hand over the scar on his face, he could still feel the chronic pain to this day.

"There was a man pursuing the elder sister who fell for me. To take out the rage of his rejection he pushed my head into a flame."

So this was where he got his scar, Feng Zhiming thought to himself as he crossed his arms, he was always in the market for a good story.

Anissa was listening very closely as well, she had never had this story telling type of entertainment much, for her it was train, eat, sleep repeat for nearly one hundred years.

"The man had assumed that after I had been disfigured the senior sister would lose interest, however she never did lose interest, eventually after my constant rejections she finally had enough. She conspired with the one who burnt my face."

Wu brought his hands together and tightened his grip, slightly trembling.

"They kidnapped the kind girl who I liked, they committed…. Unspeakable acts to her."

His expression shifted into rage now and he gritted his teeth.

"She actually took her own life because of the shame she had to live with. I begged the elders for justice but they turned a blind eye! Saying what's done is done and to move on."

How could those old bastards punish their star disciples over someone who killed herself.

The rage left him as he exhaled.

"That day my faith in the sect vanished, I left the sect and roamed the Wildlands for years before I ended up in this dump and began to live day to day. Now I hear that they are both at the peak of Ethereal Core and actually elders in the sect."

He held up the spiritual compass once more.

"Destroy the Flowing River Sect for me and the compass in yours."

The spiritual compass began to wildly fluctuate.

Anissa shook her head in pity. She knew what was coming, she knew that Feng Zhiming would much rather take the easier route.

"Killing me or stealing the compass is an option, however it is spiritually bonded to me, If I die it shatters and vice versa." Wu spoke preemptively almost as if he had heard Anissa's thoughts.

Feng Zhiming frowned ever so slightly, he couldn't even use the power of suggestion here, it was common knowledge that Spiritual inscribers had monstrous levels of mental strength.

"You will really kill yourself if I force the compass from you?" he asked.

"Yes." Wu spoke without a trace of hesitation in his voice.

Feng Zhiming was at a crossroads.

"Swear to the Great Dao that the compass works in the fashion you say it does."

Wu raised his hand.

"I swear to the Great Dao, this compass tracks the creature of the Wildlands that you seek."

Feng Zhiming stood from the chair and took a deep breath before speaking.

"I will destroy the sect, however."

He leaned in towards the old man and looked him dead in his eyes, a gaze that held absolute determination.

"If I find you have cheated me in any way I will let you experience the worst life conceivable in the myriad worlds. This I swear on my name as the Demonic Crow of the heavens."

The sheer power in his words were enough to shake Wu despite Feng Zhiming actually praising his mental stability earlier.

"Remember, none who have crossed me have lived to brag about it to others. But they have lived long enough to regret being born."

Feng Zhiming stood up straight before turning around.

"Let us leave, master." he grabbed a scarf that was laying on the table and left, with Anissa following closely behind him.

"That woman was actually his master?" Wu was left sitting in the shop wondering what kind of weird individuals he had just entrusted his task to.

After he broke out of the daze that Feng Zhiming's threat had put him under he realized the scarf he had been working on was gone.

"Did I just get robbed?"