Divyat woke with a groan, every inch of his body aches something fierce, and for a moment he had no idea where he was, until the grey ceiling of his cave abode came into focus.
There was dim lighting in the cave, but even that was still too bright for Divyat as he winced and shut his eyes, but even that was way too extreme a movement as he was wracked with intense pain in the process.
But Divyat was anything but resolute, pain was not the kind of thing that could keep him down for long, but sometimes, there was just nothing you could do when your body is not responding to you.
"You shouldn't bother getting up, Cao Lin has injected a muscle relaxant into your body, and while your metabolism is burning though it at a rapid pace, you are essentially paralyzed for a while, especially when you consider I've administered a neurotoxin of my own making into you.
You'll be bedridden long enough for the healing salve and pills and your own monstrous regeneration to kick and heal you completely. But in light of that boy…. I believe we should have a very good talk about your performance at the trial.
"Divyat couldn't help himself, he swallowed hard, no matter how powerful he has become and the power trip he had undergone during the trial, in the face of Cao Man, he just seemed like a child… he still felt weak under the grip of the elder Naga.
But what was there to do than look at him and bury any negative thoughts deep in his heart, as it stands Divyat was no sure he wanted to add on the pain from Cao man's enslavement technique with the rest of what he was feeling.
"I wanted you to undergo a baptism of bloodshed, fight for your life and kill a few people in return, then stay under the radar and come, irrelevant if you are a human or not.
But you personally culled a significant amount of our younger generations' population, and went ahead to give our entire race the middle finger by winning the damn thing…. I underestimated you and the heights of your power, I underestimated our propensity for violence, and I underestimated your thirst for blood and your will to survive.
It won't happen again, but even at that I am at a loss about how to proceed now…. You have become too big of an image to be my 'pet project' anymore. I need to figure out another angle to keeping you in check and under my control."
White hot anger lanced through Divyat as thoughts of moving forwards and ripping out Cao Man's throat crossed his mind. Involuntarily he flinched, wincing in expectations of the pain that was to come from his heart, in tandem with the fresh wave of pain that accompanied his sudden movement.
But it never came, and the shock at the absence of pain caused him to move some more sending a fresh wave of agony through him, as he tried to calm down…. He felt pain, but not from the seal Cao Man had placed in him. Divyat looked up at the Naga, flinching back at the wild smile that was thrown his way.
"Good! I had thought that perhaps since most of your heart was destroyed in your fight against the Asura that perhaps my seal had come undone. But I can see that is not the case that at least put things in perspective for me as I figure out in what direction to point you. Cao Lin wants to run more tests, as apparently there's something peculiar about your blood that she had noticed, but the time for tests are over."
'He thinks the seal is still in me'
Divyat thought to himself, shocked yet completely ecstatic about the absence of that cursed technique. It meant that at least now he would no longer be restricted with his thoughts or have to go through pain when his animosity against Cao Man rears its head.
Now he could actually plot against this fucker, plan his revenge, and just fuck everything in sight until he burns a path back to the fucking empire that took everything from him.
"Your rewards from the trial has been sent over, it's placed over there. Once you're strong enough to move I would suggest taking some time off to cultivate, perhaps it would be better for you to push for the Qi Condensation realm in your case.
You rate of advancement is astounding, by my estimate with the consolidation of your experiences from the trial, you should be ready to step into the Qi Condensation realm. Your current techniques should be a lot more powerful then as you would have real reserves of qi to back them up rather than drawing from your meridians…. Which isn't even normal for ordinary cultivators.
The chief is away on a raise, and he should be back in anything from 2 weeks to 4 months, depending on how far into human territory he's gone and in which direction.
In the main time, you will recuperate and then train with your chosen bandit followers, there have been human incursions into the mountains recently.
You all can spend your time hunting them down for extermination or capture them for slave trading, you seem to have made humans a trend, now everybody wants to own one. Get well and get stronger….there is still much work to be done."
With that said Cao Man turned around and left, his massive serpentine body slithering away as Divyat continued to face the ceiling with a despondent look on his face.
Cao Man left with a wild grin on his face, his experiment had been a massive success, way beyond his expectations.
He walked through the camp grinning and humming a tune, and for those of them who were still around, it was a nerve wracking scene for them as Cao Man never smiles, never hums, never laughs….not unless there was death on the horizon, or carnage unlike anything they had ever seen or experienced.
But what they all didn't know was that even as Cao Man was slithering away with a jaunty tune, Divyat was back on his bed, smiling to his ceiling as he fell asleep with a fanged smirk on his face.