Chin The Conqueror

Chapter 9:The Dark Part Cace

The whispers concerning the king had drifted widely around but the priest chose to harbor his doubts in silence until Chin himself saw fit to bring the matter up with the priest.

Among those who navigated the shifting factions of the court Minister Iaus,the fortunate one,forth remained a singular anomaly because he would occasionally recount with him the strange circumstances of his spiritual awakening to some extent .

He could offer no rational explanation for this sudden candor except for a persistent suspicion that some unseen hand was pulling the strings of his destiny or perhaps it was because of his presence at the shrine that had been prompted by an entirely separate crisis.

But it could be that these disparate threads of political activities and cosmic disturbance were converging toward a singular thing of the state,which left him no leisure for any abstract philosophy. At least the awakening had served an honourable purpose by granting him the supernatural authority required to subdue a mutinous vanguard that had previously threatened to the fire borders.

'What a coward!'

The ice king was cowardly to flee as the first sign of a diplomatic rupture when a timely concession might have preserved the peace . Had it been he didn't get the chance to wield fire,the chronicles of the dynasty would read very differently today,he thought.

His arrival at the spirit realm was met with hostility no less. It was an immense stroke of fortune that the damanu sealed to his retinue as a celestial guide possessed the esoteric wards necessary to repel the ravenous entities lurking in the realm.At some point,cursed drake spirits were terrified of his presence

Time itself seemed to stretch in this parallel domain where a single second in the spirit realm dragged on like an hour in the human realm.

As he scanned the desolate horizon his gaze locked onto a dark dragon spirit resting at the shore of a sea and this sudden discovery was only possible because the blood of the fire people granted them a rare sensory bond with both dragons and phoenixes.

The dragon spirit stared back in disbelief before it plunged without a second thought into the yawning abyss below to carry the news to its master.

Deep within the subterranean cavern the demon lord sat upon his unyielding throne when the dark spirit burst through the gates with an expression of panic on its face. It was not the usual of the creature's usual stoic countenance that made the sovereign realize something was wrong.He felt it a while back.A surge.

"My lord I saw it I saw it... the Keeper," the messenger gasped out while its body trembled.

Upon hearing that forbidden title the demon lord unconsciously tightened his grip until he nearly strangled the black serpent resting on his lap. The serpent shrieked a few times and crawled down from his knees to hide itself beneath the throne.

The cave itself remained both inconspicuous to the untrained eye and strangely conspicuous to anyone who could trace the extreme flood of dark energy pulsing through the stone as this hidden vault served as the secret abiding place of the dark lord and his vanguard.

Chin would never have discovered the entrance to this abyssal sanctuary if the cursed spirit hadn't trailed off into the oddly suspended.He was following the wrong trail.

Before he could reorient his steps in the gloom another bloated aberration named Kiara twisted its misshapen torso from behind and lunged directly toward his flank with a feral hunger.

Chun pivoted away with practiced ease because his senses and reflexes had gotten sharpened and he suffered no hesitation even when caught off guard. He had certainly anticipated resistance along the borderlands but he never expected this liminal realm to be so densely populated by such low-grade ravenous cursed dark spirits.

Not a single human soul broke the bleak monotony of the wastes and every corner of the landscape appeared dead as the skeletal forests and the withered canopies and the gray sky offered nothing but an oppressive void.

The desolate exterior mirrored the hollow architecture of the cave itself ,there was a hollow empty space from the area that looked like it was the entrance,which made him curious.

The persistent spirit came hurtling toward his position a second time with its jaws wide open but the Chin caught the creature by its throat and slammed its body against the stone floor as the impact forced a high shrill squeal from its mouth."Restrain your malice and take your leave before I lose my patience," This cursed spirit was frustrating to deal with.

The thrashing creature froze when it noticed the celestial sigil of the Damanu Seal protruding c from the palms of his hands and it slowly retreated although its posture remained locked in an aggressive stance.

But the minute twitching of the creature's eyelids and the sudden flaring of its dark nostrils did not escape the keen observation of Chin. His spoken warning had been fully understood by the cursed spirit. Such comprehension was common enough among the entities inhabiting these borderlands yet the cursed spirit still ventured forward with hesitant steps despite the overwhelming energy radiating from the trespassing mortal.

The reckless nature of it seemed foolish because the sensory perceptions of the spirits most especially the cursed spirit who utilised the dark magic,far surpassed those of ordinary humans owing to the reservoir of primordial Qi coursing through them .

Before the monster could close the distance a burst of sudden fire caught the tip of its tail and pinned it to the hard where it began crying out in a shrill voice.

Had the creature possessed the swiftness necessary to evade that initial strike the lingering energy would undoubtedly have drawn a whole vanguard of more formidable cursed spirits to the location within a short time.

Fortuitously the magical residue floating in the air remained too faint to carry any presence to attract more cursed spirits.

Chin slid down the rocky incline toward the agonized injured spirit and gently placed his palm upon its trembling body until the vibrations of its energy began to settle. As the spirit opened its eyes with a newfound clarity its piteous cries subsided while the blistering injuries along its flesh fixed under his touch.

By transferring a small portion of his soul-force into Kiara he managed to soothe its primal malice before turning his attention back toward the yawning mouth of the cave.

His progress along the path was instantly blocked by the towering silhouette of Kiara but its motionless posture indicated that it did not actually desire to initiate an attack.

"What?" Kiara didn't move while his gaze remained fixed on it.

The minute twitching of Kiara’s eyelids accompanied by a rhythmic wriggling of its scorched tail served as the only response ."You understand me?" He did not truly expect an articulate reply from a creature born of the abyssal wastes.

The slow deliberate shift of its body and the protective stance it assumed across Chin's path strongly suggested that it was trying to prevent his further progression into the cave. Right.It wasn't what brought him to the realm of the spirit. The fragile spirit of his late brother was supposed to be wandering somewhere nearby.

yet tracking a single deceased mortal remained a difficult feat without knowing the exact locations where this dark realm intersected with the divine anchor where human souls walk through. Navigating these endless would prove exceptionally difficult under normal circumstances but the presence of the Damanu Seal provided a reliable spiritual compass and he reasoned that a native entity like Kiara might know the geography of this world.

Chin moved slowly across the loose shale while carefully matching his stride to the lumbering pace of Kiara as it turned away from the cave to lead him into another part of the desolate landscape.

Just when the unrelenting monotony of the gray expanse caused him to doubt the wisdom of his guide and think about changing his course, Kiara came to a sudden halt near a precipitous drop.

The cursed spirit let out a few sharp squeaks as it pressed its thick scaly paws firmly towards the end of the cliff to draw his attention to the valley below.

This particular vista looked different from the jagged "not alive" paths they had traversed and the sudden transformation brought a grim clarity to his thoughts. It was obvious that the treacherous terrain they had been navigating up until this moment was the dark part which fully explained why the atmosphere had been so congested with those predatory spirits.

"So those wandering spirits are human souls?"

Kiara shrieked. Well then, it won't take him long to track down the high prince.

At the vale, shadows hovered around like the world of the living, many of the souls didn't cross to their residing state . It was believed that every human creature had his depth to pay before he would be able to venture from the wandering path, whilst some spirits have their eternal dwelling place there before reincarnation. Those who didn't find their place would lose the opportunity to get reincarnated and their cycle has ended.

The two strode down and walked through searching for the relevant spirit, dragging them to reach a hill there it was quiet with no wandering souls, it looked like the end of the abyss but the void never had an end . That was the unfortunate part, when a spirit is trapped at the wrong part of the realm. Most of the cursed spirit weren't like that initially, but transformed into one