Luck or Destiny?

Eventually, Yin was tied to a wooden cross as well, one placed next to the other 15, which now were nothing but black ashes and burning coals on the ground.

One of the knights carried over a torch, and threw it down below Yin's cross.

Yin didn't try to struggle. He had accepted his fate at this moment. He didn't know what to think, in fact, there was nothing in his brain at all.

"You had quite the spirit kid. Too bad you were born with such pathetic blood." Arthur said, looking directly at Yin.

Yin rose his nearly closed gaze and looked the royal in the eyes. It was a weak, pitiful looking face, but his eyes looked deep and infinite, like looking into a black void.

After a second, Arthur turned his horse the opposite direction and started to leave along with his knights. After riding a couple meters away, one of the knights couldn't help but ask about what Arthur said.

"Kikiki. Prince Arthur, what did you mean when you said too bad? Did you want him to live or something?" The knights chuckle was greatened by the laugh of some others as well.

"No... not exactly." Arthur's expression was quite serious, which contradicted the knights laughs. They immediately stopped smiling and straightened their backs.

"That boy. The look in his eyes... it was quite different." Arthur said, looking into the distance with a solemn face.

BANG!

Suddenly, a large bolt of white lightning jolted down from the stormy sky and struck the fire beneath Yin, wiping it out completely.

Arthur and the knights immediately turned their horses towards Yin however, their path was already blocked by broken buildings that were completely on fire.

As Arthur tried to find Yin amongst the fires, which had spread everywhere, he saw that the little boy was still looking at the ground, his head held low. He knew that he had already lost hope.

"Young master! What should we do!?" A flustered knight questioned.

Arthur paused for a moment before answering. "Leave him. He is still tied to the cross, and this entire village will soon turn to dust, taking him along with it." Arthur said before quickly turning his horse around once again.

***

Three hours later.

Wind had started to pick up even more, and the raging fire had whirled its way around the entire village. It was nearly at the point of reaching Yin. Once every then and again, Yin could feel the fires hurling towards him, but he looked down to the ground, not seeing any of it for himself.

The sky was still stormy and jolting down lighting towards the earth.

Drip...

Yin's nearly closed eyes opened slightly.

Drip! Drip!

Rain had started to pour down. In just a few minutes, the fiery village was cleared of all flame. The rain nourished Yin's dehydrated skin, and caused him to wake up slightly from his daze.

He was prepared to die, he had given it all up to the devil of sorrow, but for some reason, he was still alive. He hated it. He didn't want to be alive... just then, the thought of Arthur saying those words to him came into his head.

"You don't want to live in a world where your friends, and village are no longer. Your too scared of that reality. That's right, you simply want to die"

Yin's eyes suddenly blew open completely. Maybe it was because of the cold winds caused by the rain, or because of the water that enchanted his body, but Yin could feel emotions once again, he felt as though he was alive once again. Now, he realized that he no longer wanted to die. Why? Simply due to the fact that, he didn't want Arthur to be right. He was far too petty for that.

No matter what, no matter who died, no matter what was erased from existence, Yin decided to live, even if it was to prove someone wrong, he wanted to live!

Using the leftover energy he had lift, Yin untied his rope that was already slippery from the rain, and started to walk out of the coal village.

At this moment, he knew not of where he was going, what he was doing, or why he was doing it, but it felt surreal, he felt as though he had been born for a second time.

After hours of walking into the jungle aimlessly, Yin found himself completely lost. He had never ventured so far before. Although he had no sense of direction, he knew how to survive in the jungle, afterall, he had been doing it his whole life.

Although at this moment he didn't want to do anything, he knew that he had to live, and so, he started to look for the essentials he knew he needed for survival.

First, a shelter. He dragged himself along as he continued to look for a good place to sleep for the night, just then, he found a large tree, one that looked different from the rest.

Unlike the others which were bent and bulgy, having mess and rocks all around them, this tree looked smooth, and it was far bigger than the other trees. It looked to be a different species.

The tree had a small hole at the bottom of its trunk. As long as rain didn't pour down on him, it was good enough to be a shelter Yin thought.

He went inside and checked the place out. It was dark and slightly wet, having moss everywhere, but it was much better than the outside. He decided it was good enough for a shelter, and moved on to stage two of survival.

Food and water. Water wasn't a problem, as many rivers existed inside of the Ja' jungle, however, food was a different story. In Ja', only powerful beasts existed. The weakest of which were no less than a pure beast.

By the teachings of Ken, and talk in the village that Yin had heard throughout his life, he knew that pure beast were the weakest types of beast, that still had cultivation. Below pure beasts were simply normal animals with no cultivation whatsoever, however, those creatures were driven to extinction long ago in the Ja' jungle by the sheer amount of cultivated predators around.

Just a week prior, he and Ken had hunted down a formation beast, one that normally took 5 village-men to take down. It was quite a feat, but nowhere close to taking down a rampage beast. Rampage beasts were powerful creatures that controlled the area of where Yin's village existed. There were always rumor's of even stronger beasts, but no one had ever truly given evidence of a more powerful creature.

A rampage ranked beast needed over 20 village-men to defeat, a true tyrant of the jungle.

In order to obtain sustainable food, Yin knew that he needed to at least hunt down a pure beast. It usually took 2-3 full grown village-men to take down a pure beast. Yin was talented from young, and was already more powerful then average fully grown men, however, he had never hunted alone.

Before he could do anything however, he realized that once every then and again, the memories of Ken and Evlin, the rest of his friends popped into his head. They were so special, so important, yet so... useless.

Right now, all they did was hinder Yin's ability to focus on his main objectives, and so, he decided he needed to hide them deep into his memories. This was a tactic the village people used for centuries.

It couldn't erase ones memory, nor did it really make it invisible to the person, however, it placed the memory so far back into ones brain, that it never popped back up without one purposely thinking of it, or having something force it back to the conscious part of ones brain.

To do this, Yin sat down and crossed his legs before closing his eyes. He started to meditate, breathing in and out in consistent intervals.

After about ten minutes or so of performing the technique, he opened his eyes, his mind refreshed. He had hid his memories of his lost ones for now, and he knew that when the day arrived, the memories would come back rightfully so on their own.

His nothing else on his mind now but essentials, he headed out of the tree.