Still eluded death

Sou Long appeared beside him and passed a short but lasting solemn gaze at Zeal. He sighed inside without words. There wasn't much he could say other than leaving the lad to decide. After all, Sou Long knew what Zeal rushed inside to do. Who the hell writes a funeral song for themselves. He decided to let the privy remain privy. Sou Long snapped his fingers, and the death-inducing black orb enveloped the place. Sou Long instantly vanished, but his disappearance ushered in the swooshing heavy broad log that would send Zeal to the afterlife. Suddenly, big maniac woods lunged at Zeal with superimposed strength and speed. Zeal saw himself pale in fear, but he decided to take the first step of defending himself.

Zeal didn't have any aura in his fragile body, even a common pitiful one. Sou Long had sealed everything away to his death. So Zeal could only fight with his frail little body. How ironic for a child to defend himself from gigantic woods, weighing some kilograms, and it was practically ten of Zeal in one. However, the lad must not shirk back. He had to take them head-on. Zeal suddenly thought: this was the repercussions of flinching away from those animals in Ashura forest. He remembered he didn't fight a single one head-on because he only cared about survival. And now the old thing wanted to break his entire bones and flesh just for some stupid unclassifiable shit training. Zeal was livid. He hadn't enjoyed life but dying now was inevitable.

His first hit uprooted him from the ground; it squeezed his spiritless bones out of dimensions. Zeal wailed in pain; this was what internal pain felt like; it was a refreshing feeling for Zeal. It directly cleared the unholy thoughts and excuses in his brain. The log kept coming, and Zeal's hand went from numb to bruises in a few minutes. He suddenly understood he was surprisingly fragile. Karl Zeal couldn't have believed it if someone had told him that with all the dangerous training he experienced that he was still as weak as a milkless calf, he would have cursed the person to hell. However, that was the exact disposition he found himself.

Heavy unbearable trunks lunged at Zeal from all potential positions; Zeal defended himself by crossing his arms towards his chest. However, the lifeless automatic logs slammed on his arms until every piece of bone structure on his hands broke. His hands wobbled like a jelly wobble. In less than two hours, Zeal's entire body began to break apart; it was a horrible sight. His blood flowed lively like a river. Still, the wood became more unethical, appearing just about anywhere and with a godly speed and momentum. Karl Zeal saw his sly feeble spirit giving up before him; it was an unsolicited sadness. Zeal's fragile tiny body became a jelly constitution, drooling like a semi-congealed slimy chemical. Anyone could imagine that horrific scene. The hardy log starkly crushed Zeal's bones; his robe became a bowel of blood, and even the floor couldn't escape the blood painting. However, the only thing that didn't break was Zeal's skull and unwilling death anger. He protected those with everything he got. It was good enough that wood broke his whole diaphragm. Now his body looked like some wool without structure, so Zeal decided in his mind that he wouldn't allow those damnable logs to crush his skull and dying anger. He would die a sane boy, and no one could stop him from perishing with outrage. But unable to hold on any longer, Zeal fell unconsciously. The whole dreadful farce did not last more than two hours.

Although the duration of the trial was supposed to be twelve hours, the tried person was long unconscious and was even about to pass on to oblivion. Simultaneously, the black orb that Sou Long erected seemed to have its consciousness. So immediately Zeal fell, it harmlessly dissipated. Zeal lay miserably on the gory floor. Sou Long sighed powerlessly; he had a tinge of regret washing down his face. However, he knew the child had to pass through this trial only to qualify himself for the future journey.

So, immediately after the black orb disappeared, Sou Long vanished and shortly appeared within the gamut of dying gory Zeal. Seeing him, he sighed again helplessly: "he's barely alive because of the regenerative pills I made him take since he came to this villa. Another reason is the rapid healing sutra." Sou Long thumbed his right index finger between Zeal's brow, instantly transferring pure heavenly energy to Zeal. The extraordinary power directly stimulated Zeal's healing with immediate alacrity. Sou Long could only wait. After all, Zeal was in the state of jelly body structure. So moving him now will be disastrous. He also took out a black bottle. It was pitch black that no light could reflect on it. Sou Long opened the tiny unique bottle. Soon, the smell of powerful medicine whiffed the entire estate. Just how strong was this medicine to have such an explosive smell. Anyway, Sou Lomg wasn't bothered about all this stuff because he instantly poured all the content of the bottle inside Zeal's mouth.

At the same time, white and golden vein lines spread Zeal's entire body like water tributaries. Although Zeal wore a robe (which was already soggy with blood), the vein lucidly appeared on his face and arms, which the robe couldn't cover. At the same time, his body rapidly gathered light in the form of energy; they all impacted Zeal, stimulating absolutely body creation. Sou Long could only sit beside the brutally battered lad and await his body to recreate at least one percent of his body structure before he could move him to a new healing site.

After an hour, Sou Long saw that Zeal's breathing had become stable and his color was returning. He picked him from his lying position. Even though Zeal had begun to show stability, his body was still as wobbly as a jelly, but Sou Long didn't mind. He encased Zeal in a white energy orb and carried him to the usual bathroom; he had already prepared everything beforehand because he knew he would snatch Zeal from the cold hands of death again. However, this time, he placed Zeal on the third layer of the ancient drum. In there, the depth was more than four feet. And this layer starkly swallowed Zeal like a bottomless pit. The water in this area was milky in hue. It also had evidence of medicine leaves spread around it. And just like last time, the water became foggy immediately after Sou Long dropped Zeal inside. But more importantly, it also became a pool of blood. The steam steadily puffed up, instantly covering the whole bathroom. However, Sou Long sat there unmoved, caring for Zeal and changing the water.

Sou Long waited day and night, infusing his pure heavenly energy on Zeal. With the interval of three hours, he would feed him the medicine in the black bottle. In fact, the function of that ancient medicine was to corrode every atom of bone structure in Zeal's body. After the corrosion, new heavenly bones would then form. Another reason for the eroding was to prevent fragments of these bones from piercing Zeal's internal organs at the formation of new bones or momentous fight. So after one week, the diaphragm and the rib cage structure showed lucid signs of reforming. After three weeks, that structural part has already formed. The bones were frost color, and according to classification, they were the highest heavenly supreme bone. At the same time, the bones of the legs and arms began to form. After one lazy unbearable month (with constant medicinal water changes), the therapeutic bath recreated the entire Zeal's bony structure into top-quality bones that only the gods (non-human immortals) created by the heavenly monarch, Sen Ateski possessed. Even the Human-immortals that achieve their feat through cultivation and luck didn't acquire such quality bones.

Inside the medicinal bath, Zeal sweated profusely; the temperature and his previous near-death state dried up his lips. He motioned for water dreamily, and Sou Long, who had been nursing him the entire time, quickly got him one; he fed him the water. Zeal immediately slept like he never woke. It was as though he was transversing between sleep and reality. Zeal slept again but woke up a week later with a sharp grunt of pain; his expression was cherry and his countenance rosy. However, in Zeal's mind, he couldn't dismiss that death snarl that had become a shadow of his destruction. He sighed as he made small movements in the bath. When Zeal gained consciousness a week ago, all he thought was his best mother. He didn't know if he would die before, so the lad prepared his epitaph and funeral song, but now Karl Zeal realized his mind didn't want to leave his mother alone; he didn't want her bullied. Zeal looked around with his Soul-eyes but didn't see Sou Long. He peered harder and noticed he could see outside the fringes of those compacted thick walls. He saw the wicked old thing through his Soul-eyes.

Sou Long sat in the sitting room; he had a calm expression. He also folded his arms on his chest indifferently. Even though he appeared indifferent, there were still some mild traces of smile and relief after a silhouette came toward him. Zeal opened the door and walked to a seat in the sitting room, "Master Sou, did you perhaps send my epitaph and funeral song to my mother?" Zeal teased with his childish voice.

"Brat, it is good that you're fine, but are you still in the mood to joke around?" Although Sou Long spoke straightforwardly, it wasn't harsh. He passed a recounting gaze at Zeal with a perfectly veiled emotion and sighed: "here is a bowl of rice and soup. After you finish them, have a proper sleep and rest." Sou Long graciously said as he stood and left unhurriedly.