Chapter 115: Changes in the Battlefield IV
He knew he would probably die in a few moments but there was not a shred of regret left on his face. The only thing left on his face was contortion due to the pain and smile in his eyes. Even if he were to fall here, he had slain the enemy for the clan. Looking at the deacon whose name Amrit didn't know, he didn't know how to feel. He was happy to have met clansmen who would gladly give up their lives just to slay an enemy for the clan and he was sad to see his clansmen who had given up their lives just to slay one enemy.
He could only curse fate and the cultivation world even though he knew it was their own weakness that led to the current events. Even after killing a few cultivators and going through so much emotional roller coaster, Amrit didn't know how to feel, what to feel, or even if he had to feel at all. From what he knew of his bloodline, they pretty much lived for war. Their hands were stained with the blood of countless lives and now he was getting confused if he would ever reach that point in the future.
Would he be able to slaughter those lives on a whim or will his conscience constrain him and make him mediocre even with such inheritance? Will his bloodline influence him and turn him into a killing machine? Amrit is fully aware that without killing, he won't be able to survive but he also knows that he wouldn't be able to slaughter mindlessly for few benefits. He didn't know what to choose.
If he could just turn off his conscience left from Earth, things would have been much easier. There would be no dwelling on morality in the midst of the battlefield. Even with his clan members falling around him, Amrit was unsure why he was still hanging on the tiny shred of his so-called humanity. Although he was a good guy on Earth, he was also on the battlefield here, every minute he dilly-dallies, more clan members may die.
The threads around him were weakening, some were gaining red color and some were so dim that they could barely be seen. Amrit shook his head and snapped out of his thoughts. He would do his utmost to save more of his clan members even if he were to feel guilty, he would do so after the war. Barely a minute had passed since he had killed a cultivator but the battlefield was getting more chaotic.
Everyone was engaging with the invaders. The deacon didn't know who the masked man before him was but he looked at Amrit with gratitude-filled eyes. Even with the pain contorting the deacon's face, Amrit could feel the overflowing gratitude. Amrit didn't know what the gratitude was for, whether it was for saving the deacon's life, killing the enemy, or maybe letting the deacon kill the enemy himself, Amrit just nodded at the deacon.
He was standing on his last legs and Amrit reached towards the pouch to recover one wound healing pill. Suddenly as Amrit reached for the pouch, the smiling deacon before him crashed on the ground with a thud.
Behind the deacon was a Ming clan cultivator with violet-colored gas emanating from his temple. This was the residual effect of the soul attack. Some of the attacks were invisible but if your mastery was not enough, some residues of soul could be visible. Even Amrit was not able to react in time for this sneak attack.
If this attack was aimed at Amrit, he would have been able to sense it but since it was directed at another cultivator and it was a sneak attack, Amrit couldn't react in time. The deacon laid still on the ground his face sideways and on his face there were gratitude-filled eyes. At the last moment, he couldn't even know how he died. Even with the help of wound wound-healing pill, there was no guarantee that the deacon could have been saved but seeing someone who he had just saved die in front of him left a bitter taste in his mouth.
After the bitter taste came an overwhelming rage from the depth of his soul. This time it was not due to the bloodline, this rage was purely from Amrit. His eyes turned red and the killing intent and bloodlust that was starting to flare up suddenly came under his control and created a thin layer just outside his skin, enveloping him all over.
After a moment, there was no killing intent or bloodlust aura leaking from him instead it looked like he was donned in a crimson and dark-colored armor. Under the rage, his conscience strangely came to terms with the way cultivators of this world felt. The guilt and questions about what he would become in the future if he went down this path just sublimed onto the prospects of surviving. He twirled his halberd and looked at the opponent.
The opponent was from the Ming clan identifiable by their hawk-like nose and sunken eyes. The cultivator was preparing to attack Amrit with another soul attack. There was a cloud of violet gas like soul power collected outside his temple and from the strength of the soul power, Amrit could infer he was at the middle stage of the foundation building realm or the violet soul realm. For the old-generation cultivator at the middle stage to ambush someone at the initial stage of foundation building realm was downright unethical but this was a battlefield, so as long as one side won the war everything would be justified.
The losers would be branded as heretical who cultivated the evil path. The cultivator had almost finished preparing the attack when Amrit leaped towards him without even bothering to say anything. In his eyes, the cultivator from the Ming clan was a corpse. When Amrit was in mid-air, the soul attack was launched with a smirk on the Ming clan cultivator's face.
It seemed that he had already finished preparing the attack and was just baiting Amrit to let down his guard and when Amrit was in mid-air there was no way he could dodge the attack. And soul attack was the fastest among the three paths. In a blink of an eye, the attack reached Amrit.