The battle was still going on in the Capital's streets. Aisha, with her abdomen pierced, was still having the upper hand against all those assassins. It could truly be said, that, a woman like her, never existed before in the whole Empire.
The three remaining experts were still confused about what technique she just used against their companion.
'It is true that we took all the Thunder's family's techniques, but they are so difficult to learn without guidance, that only some of them were learnt in the whole cult after all these years... To master all of these moves, this woman is truly terrifying.' The enemy's group captain thought as he was sweating while looking at her.
'I'm losing too much blood, I must end this with the next move.' Aisha thought as she looked at her deep wound under her chest,
"Now... I will show you what the price to pay for trying to kill my children in front of me is..."
As she said those words, the remaining experts started moving immediately to hinder her possibility to use other dangerous techniques... but it was already too late,
Aisha raised her hand open pointing at the sky,
"Ultimate Technique..." Suddenly, part of her blood directed towards the sky, transforming in steam and gathering a few hundreds of meters above the battlefield, forming an enormous big red cloud, "From the moment you started pursuing us... your demise was already decided."
In the last fraction of a second left before the strike, the assassins understood that, against her, they didn't have a chance to win from the beginning, 'Ah... now I see... how she got to marry that scary man... we were all dead even before the battle started...'
"Blood Thunderstorm!"
From the cloud up above, a thunderbolt of unbelievable width came down at light speed. The thunder originated from the cloud could be heard from every part of the city. The Emperor itself watched the scene from the Imperial Palace with a gloomy expression, in hope that the imperial guards could arrive in time to save the Crimsons.
In a five hundred meters radius, nothing was left on the ground. All the houses melted completely under such a heatwave. Nothing and no one was spared. Of the assassins, not even the bodies were left. Nothing... the only thing left was dust caused by the combustion.
"MOOOM!!!" Screamed the eldest child of the woman, who was barely able to keep standing. The Blood Thunderstorm is indeed an unrivaled technique, but the price to pay to use it consists of one-third of one's own blood. With Aisha already deep wounded, it was a suicide, but, in that situation, she didn't have any other choice, if she wanted to end the battle quickly.
'I can barely keep my eyes open.' She thought while panting, as breathing was becoming harder and harder.
The young child hurried to help her mother stand while keeping his one-year-old little sister in his arms. They walked slowly for another half an hour, before finally reaching the main entrance of the River's residence, in the western part of the city.
The River and the Crimson families were close to one another because of the childhood friendship between Argo and Joseph. They grew up together and always helped each other in times of need. The Rivers were also one of the other four Great families of the Empire and the only ones who kept a good relationship with the Crimsons after them becoming the fifth Great family.
"Who's there? State your name!" One of the two guards said to the three people approaching, as he pointed his spear in their direction.
"Aisha Crim- cough... Crimson! Report to your patriarch that we need his help." Aisha answered as she tried to stand up on her own feet.
"I will go immediately!" The guard said, glaring to the other one as to say to stay there keeping an eye on them.
A few minutes later...
"Aisha! What happened to you??" The River's patriarch asked anxiously.
"A- cough, assassins... attacked us," She answered as she was almost unable to talk.
"We need to heal your wound first, so let's hurry and get insi-" The man stopped talking as her right hand, stained with her blood, grabbed his left arm. He immediately turned to understand what was going on. Her eyes were looking towards him. He felt as if she could pierce through him just with a glance as if she could understand completely what he was really thinking. Three seconds passed, no one moved, the guards were standing still, waiting for orders, and the young boy watched the man who was supposed to save them.
"You..." The patriarch tried to say something, but he was stopped by her. Aisha had her finger on her mouth, as to tell him not to talk anymore.
"Joseph... You must protect them till their adulthood." She said while continuing to look him into his eyes with an icy gaze.
"So, you kne-... I see. I promise." His attitude completely changed. Everyone was confused with what was happening, but not them... Joseph and Aisha knew perfectly what they were talking about. For some things, there is no need to use words to communicate. Their eyes were everything they needed.
Two hours later, after every attempt to save her failed, Aisha, at the age of thirty years old, died, in front of her desperate son, that couldn't believe that, in one night, he lost everything he had, except for his little sister, "MOM PLEASE WAKE UP!!" He screamed as tears ran down his face, with Joseph watching the scene... speechless and apparently emotionless from distance, while staring at the dead body of the woman laying on the bed at the center of the room.
When the imperial guards arrived at the Crimson residence, they looked at each other in confusion as they couldn't recognize the residence at all. There were stones and flames everywhere on the ground. At the center of the residence, a body was found... the lifeless body of the patriarch. Three blades pierced through him, with his eyes still half-open, but with a smile on his mouth, as if he were seeing his children in front of him just before dying. The face of a man, who had no regrets at all. He did everything he could, in order to protect their future. The imperial guards stood there, in front of him, in silence, with their swords driven into the ground, as to pay respect to the man they saw fighting alongside them countless times on the battlefield. After a minute of silence, they brought all the found bodies to the imperial palace, in order to let the martial masters under the Emperor investigate them.
After some time passed, the hero of the nation, Argo Crimson, was awarded a legendary funeral, attended even by the Emperor itself. For three days, the streets were kept in complete order and silence, to honor the Pillar of the Empire in his march towards heaven.
And this is exactly where our story begins... the story of a young boy, named Arslan Crimson, destined to become the strongest person in the known world. A world based on cultivation, whose known power levels were as follows:
- Human level,
- Earth level,
- Mystic level,
- Heaven level---> the level of martial experts,
- Sky level---> the level of martial masters,
- Semi-divine level---> from which someone would be called martial grand-master,
- Divine level,
- Semi-God,
- God.
Every level was divided into 3 stages: early, middle and late. They were established when it was first noticed that there were 3 more little improvements in the strength people had at every level.
In addition, those who started cultivating before reaching their 14th birthday will get their bloodline awakened during that year. Usually, what type of bloodline is going to be awakened depends on the parents. This was the reason for the big powerhouses to have been able to last for centuries. Every bloodline increases by several times one's own amount of raw QI and their physical and perceptive abilities. The amount of QI a person can have access to is based on which one of the levels of strength the bloodline belongs to. In the ancient records of the Empire, no one getting a stronger bloodline than level 7 was recorded. The techniques to learn after the awakening will be chosen based on the bloodline strength, because the more the raw QI accessible is, the stronger the techniques learnt can be. Usually, cultivation is composed of two phases: raw QI gathering and QI refining. The level of refining is defined by the cultivation method and, the purer the QI is, the stronger a person will be. Obviously, having more raw QI will allow the cultivator to increase their power level growth pace, because they will be able to skip the gathering raw QI part and just focus on refining it. The amount of QI refined is what the cultivation level represents. People at the same cultivation level, but with different bloodline levels, will have different strengths.
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10 years passed from that day,
"STOP LOOKING AT ME!", A red hair woman spoke to Arslan, throwing a jar against him. Her curvaceous body was thin but its features were pretty, her face was quite beautiful, but how she twisted it everytime she got angry made it look worse than how it really was. For sure, it could be said that she paled in comparision to Aisha Crimson, thing that she had never wanted to accept,
"Those disgusting red eyes of yours make me remember of your idiot father!" She continued, as she got angrier because he avoided the jar.
Indeed, Arslan really resembled his father when he was young like him. With his crimson eyes, black hair and the facial features similar to Argo's, he had everything his father had. Even his character wasn't much different.
"It is you who entered my room without asking for permission, Eveline." The young boy answered as he got on his feet again, while looking at her, straight in her eyes.
"How does a loser like you dare calling my mother by her name?! She is Miss River for people like you." Joseph and Eveline's second son, whose name was Troy, stated, as he entered the room after her mother, while looking at Arslan with the same face of disgust she had. He was 16 years old, the same age as Arslan's.
During these 10 years, Arslan and his sister Elma lived at the River's residence. Joseph kept his promise made with their mother, but he was on the Ulghar's frontier as the general of the western army for almost 5 years. Under his command, there was also his first son. A prodigy of the Empire, referred at as the future Pillar from the common people and the nobles families. Being at the Early stage of the Sky level was indeed a great accomplishment for someone who was just 21 years old.
'They are just exploiting the situation of uncle Joseph's absence, to annoy me every day... Every day i have to bear with their awful behaviour.' Arslan thought, as his eyes stopped staring at the woman and were diverted to another direction.
"I ask for forgiveness from Miss River, i woke up quite nervous today, because of the martial examination that will be held this afternoon." Arslan said, with a lower tone of voice and a completely opposite attitude from before.
"It seems you have finally remembered what your position in this house is." Eveline said in satisfaction, as a grin started appearing on her face.