BXBX NOVEL Chapter 1 My Turn
The sun shines above a great desert, and the heat is such that few creatures can survive in that place forgotten by the gods. Many would say it is a true hell, but beneath that boiling sands, there is an even more terrible place.
Such a remote place is home to the infamous Bronze Skull Sect, a clan of necromancers and disciples of the death\'s arts. This group of degenerates created a real prison under the dunes, where they torment and violates victims in search of knowledge and power.
Desperate screams are commonly heard at all hours of the day and night through the cold corridors of the dark Sect; anyone caught by the necromancers doesn\'t get out of that horrible prison... at least not alive.
And on this day, what should have been an ordinary day in the life of the Bronze Skull Sect disciples and their victims was about to take a turn that no one could have expected. An evil beyond the comprehension of those people was among them, something that was no longer part of the living or the dead, a being that could destroy an entire world.
And while he was making his move, hundreds of necromancers were following with their cruel experiments in the relentless quest for power and immortality called cultivation.
Well, not everyone in the Bronze Skull Sect was cultivating at that moment, which is the case of one of the Sect\'s most prominent disciples, Zadok.
After being stopped in the middle of his training, which involved flames and a poor soul, Zadok descended to the lowest level of the Sect, a long, dark corridor leading to the place\'s most secret chamber.
He walked for several meters in that corridor, then stopped hearing the screams from the upper floors until only his quiet footsteps sounded in the darkness of the place.
The place was so quiet that the silence seemed mortal, but at the end of the corridor, another young disciple stood guard in front of large black double doors.
That disciple\'s adorned black robe is the same as Zadok\'s attire, making it clear that both are core disciples of the Bronze Skull Sect, but the boy looks at his colleague with admiration and respect.
"Disciple Zadok..." The young guard bows and tries to smile in a friendly way.
But Zadok notices that the guard looks especially nervous. "What\'s wrong with you, Eli?"
Before Eli can respond, Zadok looks at the black door with a curious expression. "Is he here already? I mean, that spoiled idiot."
Eli\'s lips start to curl into a smile, but his face distorts in disorder before his expression grows more nervous. "Don\'t talk like that, disciple Zadok; these doors are thick, but Elder Abner could still hear you."
"And do you think I care what that old fart thinks about me??" Zadok chuckles arrogantly. "Soon, I will become the youngest elder ever in our Sect, and no one will be able to look down on me here."
"Huh..." Eli sighs; he understands how important Zadok is within the Bronze Skull Sect but still tries to advise his friend to be less bold. "You shouldn\'t offend our guest because, in addition to being the Sect Master\'s nephew, his Sect is above ours in the hierarchy."
Zadok shrugs and mocks. "Alright, alright... anyway, I only came to stand guard with you because the Sect Master asked me to; she wants our guest not to be interrupted while he... but what is he doing in there? "
"I thought Jared was just going to come here to get the fairy and the old dog..." He thinks aloud and gets even more upset. "Damn, we always have to hand over our best test subjects to those idiots from the Golden Skull."
Eli sighs again. "It can\'t be helped; our Sect Master uses politics to best benefit us, but even she is limited by hierarchy..."
"I know, I know..." Zadok whispers in annoyance as his black eyes shine with sinister sparkles. "But I still had hopes of having fun with that fairy... I didn\'t touch her from the beginning out of respect for the Sect Master, and now I regret it."
"About that..." Eli\'s eyes also sparkle but in a different way than Zadok\'s, so he puts his hand on his colleague\'s shoulder. "Young Master Jared said he\'s just going to take the mysterious creature back with him."
"Seriously??" Zadok finally seems excited, but then he looks back at the metal door and frowns. "Damn, even if that\'s true, I bet he\'ll completely break the fairy before going back to the capital with the old dog."
Eli seems to remember something and bows his head as what looks like pity flashes across his eyes. "Yeah... Elder Abner asked me to get the biggest scissors in our Sect right after entering the chamber... I have no idea what they intend with that, but it can\'t be any good."
"Damned degenerate, he will ruin such a beautiful creature!" Zadok exclaims as he imagines the fairy\'s lovely face.
"Hmm..." Eli looks at his colleague with a confused expression. "I thought you wanted to break her too."
"I do!" Zadok quickly nods as a sinister smile appears on his face. "But I would play with her a lot before, hehe..."
"..." Eli doesn\'t say anything and just shakes his head; Despite having many dark thoughts towards the said fairy, his heart also has mixed feelings.
And Zadok notices his colleague\'s confused expressions. "Wait! Don\'t tell me you\'re feeling sympathy for that animal??"
"No!" Eli tries to deny it, but it\'s clear he already has feelings for the fairy. "It\'s just… that… I just don\'t understand why you guys want to hurt such a beautiful creature so badly."
"If you don\'t understand-" Zadok immediately stops talking when he hears a loud scream come from behind the large double doors.
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" A sweet and very feminine voice screams desperately, a cry of pain that could chill even the most heartless soul in that dark place.
"What the hell!" Zadok quickly exclaims. "How loud must she have screamed for her voice to get through that door and such dense walls??"
While his colleague is curious about how the voice came out of the isolated chamber so loudly, Eli is more concerned about what provoked that scream. "I\'ve never seen her scream like that since she got here… what the hell are they doing to that poor creature?"
"Cutting her wings off." Zadok quickly responds as his expression shows both excitement and a little frustration. "They say that if you cut a fairy\'s wings off, even if they can close the wounds, they won\'t survive long due to sadness."
"What a shitty death!" Eli can\'t help but feel a little sad, but not out of pity for the fairy, of course. "And what a waste..."
"Indeed-" Zadok again falls abruptly silent as he hears another desperate scream coming from behind the chamber\'s sinister doors.
"NOOOOO--- AHHHHHHHH!!!!!" But this time, instead of a female voice, it\'s a young man screaming; his cry sounds even more painful than the previous one and sends both disciples out of the chamber in confusion.
Zadok is usually brilliant and can deduce entire scenes based on just a few facts, but this time his mind stops when he can\'t come up with a plausible reason for that male scream.
"Didn\'t you say that only Jared and Abner were in there??" He questions Eli.
"Yes... yes..." Eli\'s eyes increasingly stare at the door as he\'s pretty sure he recognizes that voice. "It\'s Young Master Jared!!"
"What?!?!" Zadok thought that there was someone else inside the chamber who could scream like that, but now that his friend said it must be the Sect Master\'s nephew, he couldn\'t help but get even more confused and worried.
He doesn\'t think twice about trying to enter the chamber, but the large double doors seem still as gray light glows around the black metal.
"Shit, shit, shit!!!" As Eli freaks out with worry, Zadok starts pounding on the door until he remembers something and takes a small leather bag from inside his robe.
The bag looks empty, but Zadok manages to stick his entire arm into it and, after a few seconds, pulls out a black star-shaped pendant from inside. He quickly places the pendant on the door where there is a drawing of the same shape, and the gray glow around the door slowly begins to fade.
The male cries continue to come from inside the chamber, and soon another male voice joins the symphony of screams, this time one they recognize.
"Shit, it\'s Elder Abner!!!" Eli gets even more scared when the second-most powerful person in their Sect starts screaming in pain.
"Damn!!" Even the calm and confident Zadok feels chills run through his body; he repeatedly punches the door despite knowing that forcibly opening it with that magic key will take a few minutes.
The floor and walls begin to tremble as the doors slowly open, but the necromancer duo knows that it couldn\'t cause such tremors, which leaves them even more confused about what\'s going on inside the chamber.
"What are you doing standing there?!?" Zadok grabs Eli by the collar before pushing him back. "Go call the Elders!! Or rather, notify the Sect Master personally!!"
Eli was so scared that he couldn\'t even run, but Zadok\'s screams put some reason in his mind, and he started running through the corridor and up the stairs as fast as he could to call for help.
Meanwhile, Zadok keeps looking at the doors slowly opening. He tries to understand what\'s going on inside the chamber as he hears the screams getting louder and louder. [Who is doing this?? There should only be them and the fairy inside... and she couldn\'t do anything being so weakened...]
[Wait! There\'s also the Old Dog inside...] A strange gleam passes through Zadok\'s eyes as he grows even more confused. [But he shouldn\'t even be a threat to a rat... not after everything we\'ve done to him...]
Zadok gets lost in thought and doesn\'t see the time pass until the big black doors are wide open in front of him. There are no lights inside the chamber, and the screams have stopped, leaving only a dead silence in the room.
He regains focus and pulls a small, sharp dagger from his sheath as he faces the darkness. "Elder Abner?? Where are you???"
*Thud*
Something flies from the shadows toward Zadok, and he jumps back to avoid a possible attack. But to his surprise, what lands and rolls over the floor is a human head, Elder Abner\'s head.
First, Zadok notices that there is not as much blood as a severed head should have, but then the terrified look that still remains on Elder Abner\'s face causes the young genius to feel more fear than at any other time in his entire life.
[RUN! RUN!! RUN!!!] Just that one word sounds in Zadok\'s mind as all of his senses tell him to get away from there, get as far away from whatever did that to Elder Abner as possible.
Zadok knows he should flee, but despite being cruel and ambitious, he is loyal to his Sect and colleagues, and of course, the fact that he is very arrogant also makes him believe that he can fight the enemy in the shadows.
"Who\'s there!?!?" He yells back to the darkness as he points his dagger into the chamber.
"Your hunter." Those words sound from inside the chamber, carrying with them a wave of coldness and a strong smell of blood.
Zadok is shocked not only by the sensations that the voice makes him feel but also by the power they carry. And the craziest part is that he feels like he\'s heard that voice before, even though he doesn\'t recognize it.
"Who are you?!?!" Zadok yells as flames erupt from his body and flow onto the blade of his dagger; his cloak begins to sway despite there being no wind current in that place.
The silence in the chamber is replaced by the howl of Zadok\'s living flames, which also begins to light up the room. He is shaken to see severed limbs on the floor and fresh blood everywhere.
But then the light from the flames reaches a pair of bare feet and Zadok\'s eyes are drawn to the figure standing in the center of the chamber. That person is obviously male and has very pale skin and very athletic muscles.
The mysterious man is wearing rags that don\'t seem to contain the full size of his nearly two-meter-tall body. But he is not alone, and as Zadok\'s flames illuminate his body fully, the necromancer sees a familiar figure in his strong arms.
"The fairy!!" Zadok can\'t help but think aloud as he sees the fairy in the mysterious man\'s arms. The most surprising thing comes next when the necromancer notices that she seems to be kissing that man\'s neck while her body and especially her wings shine with a powerful blue-green light.
The necromancer thought she was kissing the man\'s neck, but when the light from his flames reaches the fairy\'s eyes, she looks at him, and he notices black blood oozing from her mouth and also from two holes in the mysterious man\'s neck. [What the hell...]
Zadok thought he couldn\'t get any more shocked until the light from the flames finally reached the mysterious man\'s face. First, the necromancer can\'t help but notice how handsome that man looks with perfect features, crimson eyes, and flowing reddish-black hair.
However, what leaves him more perplexed is not the man\'s appearance but the fact that he is very similar to someone else, or rather, someone that Zadok would never consider anything more than an animal, a despicable and disgusting creature…
"Old Dog..." The words escape Zadok\'s trembling lips. "This is impossible..."
A murderous gleam sparkle through the mysterious man\'s crimson eyes as his perfect lips curl into a bloodthirsty smile that reveals long blade-sharp teeth.
"I bet your blood stinks worse than the rats in this place..." The mysterious man\'s voice sounds so seductive but also so deadly at the same time, and he doesn\'t seem to have a good proficiency in the language of that place.
Before Zadok can say anything, the mystery man continues. "But I\'m still going to take every drop of your blood and use it to destroy everything you guys love."