Poison God's Heritage

"That child is the one you said was called the Fire King. He seems pretty strong. After all he stood still under the Flamboyant Sun almost as much as the Demon Sword did. And all that while he was still at the early Void Shattering Stage," Eccentric Long commented.

"It seems like we'll have some very strong fighters in these upcoming rounds, oh, among the cultivators, it seems that the one named Zhang Tian is going up stage," the Commentator said as he displayed a screen that showed everyone the fight.

Zhang Tian, in his scholarly conduct simply stood in the arena, with his closed fan. Slightly tapping his bottom lip with the fan as he waited.

A man of very short stature showed up. He didn't seem to have any weapons on his person. But he still gave off a creepy and eerie feeling.

Death energy was creeping up around his body.

His skin was slightly on the darker side. And both his eyes were darker than night itself as the white of his eye was mixed with his irises.

His hair was short and unkempt and his entire body exuded a foul odor.

"Half Corpse… what a wicked art," Xiao Du said.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Well, it's a type of Necromancy… But it is only against one's own body. They would give up their bodies in exchange for increasing their internal Qi. However the cultivation method relies on a lot of killing. To have reached the level of a Void stage means that this man had killed countless people," Xiao Du said.

"I know of arts that also require killing, but I've never seen something like this. In fact, losing the ability to use one's body and one's own external arts means that they'll fall short in case they were to face a body cultivator," I said.

"Not exactly," said Xiao Du, "This art makes the user as resilient as an undead. Pain becomes a forgone notion, and they can only kill and absorb the life force of their prey to grow in cultivation. The problem is that it requires the killing of pure…souls," he said.

"Pure souls… children?" I asked.

Xiao Du nodded, "It's one of the arts that's highly frowned upon, and seeing that the Sun mark on him was removed, it's possible that he was excommunicated or has left one of the eight Suns's sects," Xiao Du said.

Looking at the stage, I was fully capable of listening in on the conversation between the two cultivators.

"My name is Zhang Tian, pleased to make your acquaintance," Zhang Tian said as he clasped his hands.

The Half Corpse spat next to him and said, "Tul, that's my name, not that it matters to you anyway since you'll die here," he added with all the arrogance a cultivator could muster.

"You seem rather disappointed, Tul," said Zhang Tian.

It did seem like, the man named Tul had yet to even take a look at Zhang Tian, his eyes were forever looking at the crowd. As if he was looking for something.

"Damn, no one brought any snacks… I've been starving," Tul said as he licked some of his drool.

"By snack…" I mumbled.

"He probably means young ones, not that he would have been allowed to do so anyway," the commentator said. "The whole event is hosted by the Eight Suns, no one would dare harm any of the audience, even the suns themselves take keenly into protecting the people that came to watch their tournament. Well, the young Scholar is poorly matched against a devious man such as this Half-Corpse."

"I don't really think so," I replied.

"You trust in your sworn brother enough to say these words," the Dusking Sun said.

"Of course, well the fight is about to start…"

***

Zhang Tian was a man of many talents and enjoyed learning the most. And in case of something new and eccentric, he would always try and figure out the reason for its existence or purpose. And in front of him, this short-statured man was an interesting being.

He had seen his fair share of deaths, and had understood that life is fickle and volatile. And due to that, he had come in contact with the law of Life and Death.

Of the many laws in his Wisdom of the Ages, many of them handled the Dao of Death.

And this man seemed to harbor a great understanding of this Dao, but at the same time, he harbored the Dao of Life itself.

An interesting existence that was between life and death, never crossing to one side. And always staying in the middle.

However, this man was rather rude and brutish and quite uncourteous. Still, it didn't bother him much when this person ignored him. But the words he spoke later were enough to make anyone feel at least angry.

"Oh!!!" Tul said. "How? How did you manage to remain pure? A man such as yourself? Not even a child, but rather a Void Stage cultivator, and still full of pureness? What delicacy is this?!" he said as the darkness of Tul's eyes focused on Zhang Tian.

Tul had been looking through the arena to see if he could consume another young soul to replenish his energy. But there were none for him to eat. And through the world of cultivation, the older one gets, the more their heart becomes tainted.

Some would break their True Yin or True Yang in dual cultivation, which is an act of intimacy but at the same time for cultivators, it breaks their purity.

Or, they kill unjustly and draw in bad karma. Some would steal, some would harbor ill intentions and some grow to be arrogant and vile.

Those are all normal and natural human emotions and behaviors. But for this man, he was as pure as jade in the dark eyes of Tul. He didn't see any darkness mixed in with such a bright-looking heart. A man who had elevated himself from all of the world's earthly desires. Not even the Arhats of the Buddhist teachings are this pure.

They too would occasionally harbor either sentiments of superiority or traces of darkness in their hearts.

Only when they fully remove them can they reach the stage of Nirvana.

But this man seems untainted by the world itself.

For Tul, the consumption of Pure souls is imperative to his cultivation. The only problem is that their cultivation level and the power of their souls have always been weak and small since they were young. But for a man like this, he was at the Void Stage, and with a heart this pure, not only will his soul propel Tul's cultivation to the next stage.

Greed and lust over this soul filled Tul's heart as he didn't wait for the referee to announce the start of the match before he pounced on Zhang Tian.

Zhang Tian didn't fully understand the rashness behind Tul's action and simply waved his fan.

From the tip of the fan tens of thousands of butterflies flew forward.

Each with its own small formation of laws inside it. Expressing Zhang Tian's vast and endless understanding of Law.

While Tul's hands became covered in a ghostly aura that shaped itself into sharp claws ready to burst and rip apart steel and stone.