The air in the room shifted. It became harder to breathe. The echoes of the forceful command still reverberated off the walls as the entire congregation fell silent. Li Meirong slowly opened one eye and dared a peek at the scene.
The man who had spoken was marching toward her from across the hall, shrouded in an aura of great foreboding and a murderous fire in his endlessly black eyes. The rest of the crowd faded away, Li Meirong could see nothing but his face. His terrifying glare bore down upon her and she couldn't help but cower under it.
He was tall, intimidatingly so. His jawline firm and wide, his chin sharp and long. His heavy eyebrows betrayed great maturity and his eyes, black as the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean, made no mistake of the wisdom and immense power this giant of a man contained.
And yet, something about him was strangely familiar as well. Through the fear and intimidation came the mental image of the slender, golden eyed stranger who saved her that night in the brothel. That man with hair like a snowstorm who now haunted her dreams.
There were clear similarities between the two, although the approaching cultivator had decidedly more masculine features.
When he finally approached, he towered over her, regal and unyielding as a mountain. Li Meirong tried to hold his gaze, chilling her to the bone. The intense anger, as if she'd dealt him some great and terrible offense, forced her to look away and face the ground on which she knelt.
Suddenly, she felt her breath catch in her throat. She tried to breathe in, but something was stopping her. It felt like a fist closing down on her windpipe, letting less and less air through until she could inhale none at all. She was choking!
She couldn't even speak. Each agonizing moment that passed felt worse, her chest tightening, her face reddening, her brain fogging over and spots dancing in front of her eyes. She grabbed helplessly at the floor, unable to hold herself up as her entire body squirmed and struggled.
There was nothing she could do. He was killing her!
She didn't know how or why. If she had any control over her body she would have screamed, run away or even tried to hit him, anything to get this to stop and understand why he was doing this to her, this man whom she'd never met before in her life, who hadn't even said a word to her before deciding she had no right to live.
The room was still silent. No one was trying to stop him. Through the growing holes in her vision, she saw no one else struggling as she was. It was only for her, this punishment. The attacker's fellow grandmasters had mostly averted their eyes, uncomfortable with watching the spectacle.
They're all sitting there, watching this like some lab rat undergoing a brutal science experiment. Did no one care that she was dying?!
And what of Chou? Couldn't he do anything to help her in this situation, even if it meant exposing himself to the rest of the disciples?
Little did Li Meirong know that Chou had also been affected by the Grandmaster's deadly aura, and was, in fact, knocked out cold, unable to do anything for her.
With the last of her strength, she willed herself to face her murderer. Slowly she raised her head, forced her own eyes open and met his deathly glare. She saw her end in his eyes, but no matter what, she told herself, she would not look away again. He would have to see the life fading from her eyes if he wanted to go through with this injustice. She would not be some faceless bug for him to squash.
Still, the sheer level of hostility radiating from this man was simply incomprehensible to her.
What could she possibly have done to offend this psycho?!
Suddenly, somewhere in the depths of her cramping mind boomed the same commanding voice again, 'Little thief, where did you steal your powers from?!''
Surely he wasn't expecting an answer, not when he had a mental death grip on her throat and was strangling her like this. She could feel tears coming out of her bloodshot eyes, but they were thick and too warm. Something was dripping out of her nostrils as well. Blood.
She remained silent but still stared him down. She would not look away. Not this time.
A moment later, however, he seemed to have reconsidered. Perhaps it had occurred to him too that if he killed her now, he would never get the answer to his question. And so, just as the pain rose to an intensity which she felt she could no longer bear, the terrifying cultivator released his hold on her windpipe at last.
Li Meirong collapsed to the floor, clutching at her throat and inhaling a long, ragged breath of fresh air. Any semblance of dignity she may have walked in with at the beginning of this day was long gone. Instead, she lay in a heap, gasping and trembling as her body scrambled desperately to regain its much needed oxygen. Too weak to stop it, a trail of drool mixed with blood dribbled down her chin and onto the clean marble floor.
Through the loud ringing in her ears, she could just barely make out the conversation taking place above her.
"She must have thought herself a phoenix, strutting in here in front of our godly masters. No wonder our Grandmaster deigned to knock her down a peg or two!" One senior disciple explained, justifying his leader's actions.
"But surely this is too brutal a punishment. She hadn't even said a word…" Another countered.
"The masters have their reasons, far be it from us to question them."
Some of the disciples behind her were making snide remarks, mocking her. Most of the crowd, however, were dumbstruck and speechless.
The one senior disciple who had been cut off tried to speak, "Grandmaster of the Bestiary Coalition Zhu Zhang, this…" but he could not find the words to complete his sentence. He was trying to make sense of what was happening, addressing the man who had just nearly killed Li Meirong for apparently no rhyme or reason, but words failed him.
"Silence."
A hush fell over the crowd once more at the word of the Grandmaster in question, who once again directed his attention to the shivering girl at his feet.
Li Meirong felt his stare upon her and slowly raised her head to meet it. He was waiting for her answer. But what could she say? She hadn't stolen anything, at least not that she knew of. And as far as she could tell she had no particularly enviable power that would be worth stealing, let alone killing her over. But somehow she felt that none of these answers were going to satisfy this Grandmaster Zhu Zhang. And what would he do to her if she didn't tell him what he wanted to hear? How could she possibly defend herself against another attack like that from someone as powerful as him?
Should she run? With no real explanation, that would just be the equivalent of an admission of guilt. He would assume that she had indeed stolen whatever power he was referring to, in which case she would never get far, anyway. She'd be dead before she reached the edge of the hall.
She pleaded with her eyes, willing him to see the innocence on her face, believe she had nothing to do with whatever he was accusing her of. She searched his expression for any hint of sensibility, any willingness to consider that perhaps he had been wrong without her having to come out and say so. This man could kill her without lifting a finger, she couldn't risk saying anything that might offend him further.
The surrounding crowd watched the silent battle of wills in puzzlement, unaware of the goings on in each of their minds, or the grandmaster's ability to communicate with the girl telepathically.
Zhu Zhang's eyes narrowed as he assessed the thief's character. Her expression feigned innocence and appeared genuine. Nevertheless, he was well acquainted with all kinds of trickery and was in no hurry to judge in her favour just yet.
'If you let me know where you received your powers from,' his deep voice filled her mind once more, 'I will host you under my coalition as a succeeding disciple. But you must tell me the truth, I will know if you don't. The aura you bear is not your own, girl. Where did you get it?'
Li Meirong's jaw dropped, gaping. She was speechless.
It was hard enough to think straight with the effects of suffocation still clouding her thoughts, but how could she possibly come up with something satisfactory to say to him, when she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about? Was this man delusional?!
'Almighty grandmaster, if I had all this power you accuse me of, why on earth would I let you choke me to death?!'