Step! Step!
Levi walked through the dark, withered forest alone.
"....Cough! Cough!" After he had walked a good distance from the cave, he vomited a few mouthfuls of blood.
" Tch!" His brows furrowed with irritation.
Without a word, he walked back to the sect, alone.
His torn black robes blowing in the night breeze, no blood to be seen on his skin.
" Wait! Who are you, and why were you out of the sect?!" The two senior disciples who guarded the sect gates asked.
"...Levi. I went to the tomb with the other disciples."
Levi said with a cold and tired voice.
" Tomb? Oh...humph! You can go!" One of them scoffed.
The information about a tomb had spread throughout the sect, but only the disciples of elders or the sect master were allowed to go.
After walking through the sect, Levi went to the outer sect dorm before going to his room, and changing out of his torn up clothes.
His body had yet to recover from the combined attack from earlier, which made him pant lightly.
As soon as he was about to get on his bed to go to sleep, a knock on the door was heard.
" The sect master requests your presence." Behind the door, a disciple with an expressionless face stood.
" Why?" Levi asked. "..." The disciple just waited silently, without answering Levi's question.
He left his room and headed for the sect masters hall.
While walking through the stone hallway, before he could reach the large wooden door of the sect master's hall, he heard shouts coming from inside.
" Didn't you hear what they said!? He killed our disciples! My disciple! He should be crippled and locked in a cell for life!" As he walked in, he saw an elder shouting with a grim expression.
Step... Step, when everyone heard these light, slightly tired steps, they quieted down and looked toward the door.
The 5 remaining disciples stiffened and swallowed their saliva as they waited.
They were nervous, but they weren't afraid because their master's were in the room.
They also didn't believe that Levi would try anything, because if he wanted to kill them, he could have done it back at the tomb.
Levi walked into the room, slightly panting.
He looked at everyone in the room before his eyes rested on a single person.
" Why did you call for me?" His voice was cold with a tinge of tiredness.
" The disciples that came back reported that you killed 4 disciples. For what reason did you kill them?" The sect masters voice was calm, but there was a hidden sharpness.
" Would it make a difference even if i told you the reason? Those four will still want to kill me anyway." Levi turned to look at the four elders, who were also looking back at him with scrunched up faces.
" Audacious! You have no respect! What is the point of people like you living? Die!" Without saying anymore, one of the inner sect elders attacked.
"!!" Levi tried to dodge, but it felt like the palm strike was sucking him in
" What!?" He shouted, shocked.
BOOM!
Levi was sent crashing into one of the large pillars in the hall, leaving a spiderweb like crack in it.
" Cough cough!" His eyes widened as he coughed out a few mouthful's of blood, as his chest sunk in.
What made his eyes widen was the fact that, like eariler, the blood didn't come back no matter how much he called.
He looked up. ' It seems that if i'm weaker than my enemy by too much, my blood will die. I have to be more careful in the future.' He thought.
Levi pulled out his sword and steadied himself, before jumping to the side, then charging at the elder.
Before his sword could even get close, he was sent flying again.
He had used the sword to block the strike this time, but it still felt like his arms were on the verge of breaking.
He released some of his poison onto the sword and attacked once more.
Since he promised himself to kill anyone who tried to block his path to strength, he would not stop just because the person was stronger than himself.
ting!
He appeared behind the elder, before stabbing out towards the elder's heart.
But before the tip of the sword could touch the elder, it was stopped by a thin whirlpool of defensive qi.
" You think a weakling like you can kill me!? Dream on! Now die!" The elder shouted as he sent another devastating palm strike towards levi, his long black hair blowing mesily.
crack!
crack!
crack!
Since he couodn't dodge, as soon as the palm strike his his body, levi used his new found flexibility and dislocated his joints to reduce the impact.
He was sent sliding backwards a few meters, as he forcefully pushed the blood back down his throat.
After reconnecting his joints, he was ready to attack once more.
At this moment, a huge pressure enveloped the whole hall, causing the stone table to crack.
The sect master finally regained his senses as he released his cultivation's pressure, crushing everything beneath it.
" Who gave you such guts! To attack my disciple right to my face!?" His voice boomed.
The 10 elders had trouble standing, while the 5 disciples collapsed, unable to breath.
Noticing this, the masters of those five disciples moved behind them to redirect some of the pressure away from them.
" Uhhhh! Cough!" The disciples gasped for air, as tears and snot ran down their faces.
As for the sect master's face, it no longer had it's usual calm.
It was instead cold and sharp.
" Se-sect master! He killed his fellow disciples and disrespected the elders! He deserves death!" The elder explained.
Boom!
The pressure in the room became heavier.
" Who gave you the right to decide whether he lives or dies?!" The sect master's body released a thick and dark qi as his pupils turned bright red, his long white hair floating upward.
The elder under the scrutinizing gase of those red eyes started to tremble.
" Take this elder and lock him in the land of the dead for 4 months!" The sect master ordered coldly.
4 of the inner sect elders walked through the pressure, before holding the elder's arms and dragging him towards the door.
" Sect master! Noooo! Don't do this!! You'll regret this!!!" As he was being dragged away, the elder shouted with resentment.
After this happened, the hall was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
The sect master looked towards Levi, who was looking back at him coldly.
" Why did you kill the disciples?" He asked.
" Do you think that i should let anyone that tries to kill me live?" Levi asked, as his eyes narrowed.
" Even that elder from before. When i become stronger, i will definitely kill him." He said coldly, his voice dripping bloodlust.
The elders that heard this kept silent.
" What did you get from the tomb?" The sect master suddenly asked.
" Why? Anything i found is mine." Levi said.
" Sigh, i just wanted to identify the items. Do you have to be so hostile?" The sect master sighed with a helpless expression.
Levi said nothing as he took out the glass bottle filled with blue liquid.
" That's!..." The sect master opened his eyes widely.
" An elixer!" He said excitedly.
The other elders turned their heads, almost breaking their necks in the process.
They stared at the bottle in levi's hand with sparkling eyes.
" Elixer?" Levi asked.
" There was a legend of beasts that once terrorized the lands!"
" Those beasts were fierce and cruel, they ate, toyed with and killed humans as they pleased." The sect master started to speak.
" But one day, when a small kingdom was being attacked, a mysterious man appeared and killed some of them."
" The peoole of that kingdom, out of anger, ate the beast's flesh!"
" When they did this, something happened."
" They found that their cultivation's skyrocketed."
" Over time, they created different techniques to increase the quality of that effect."
" Instead of eating the beast's as they were, they refined them into elixirs which were much more efficient! I suspect that what you have in you hands is one such elixir!" He explained.
" Oh." Levi put the elixir back into the ring and turned to leave.
" Wa-wait!" The sect master shouted.
"..." Levi turned around with a blank look on his face.
" Can't you let your master have a better look?" He asked with a pleading gaze.
The elders all nodded their heads like pecking chickens.
" There's no need. Since this belongs to me, you need not take a better look." He dissapeared from their sight.
" Sigh, this disciple of mine really..." The sect master sighed, he went back to his seat.
3 of the elders left after giving excuses to the sect master.
" So, let me hear the whole story. Now." His eyes narrowed, as he spoke calmly, but the calmness in his voice caused the people present to shiver.
"Wh-when we went to the tomb, outer elder Garson's disciple couldn't hold himself back and rushed in, but was brutally killed by traps!" When the first disciple spoke, one of the elder's lowered his head in shame.
Evidently, he was elder Garson.
" W-When everyone saw this, they didn't want to go in anymore." Another one said.
" But, sect masters disciple walked into the room calmly and found a secret room." They continued.
" Whe-when he came out, those 4 threatened to kill him if he didn't hand over what he found. He ignored them at first, but then they attacked, so he killed them all. After killing them, he just left." The five disciples took turns explaining.
" I see." The sect masters face was clam but his voice was frosty.
He had an idea of what happened and why, but didn't say anything.
" You may go." He waved his hand to dismiss the elders and their disciples.
After they left, he sat alone in contemplation, his eyes closed.