Chapter 9 - Determination

Struggling to raise his head and take a look around him, the only thing that entered his vision was the multiple blood pools and limbs that filled the destroyed barren lands.

Lifting his head a little bit more and checking the sky to take a look at the one who was sent to massacre his clan, fury burned inside of him, yet helplessness was accompanied by it.

As he gazed at the two figures that were surrounding him from two different directions, making escape impossible, while they clearly knew that he couldn't move a limb.

He let out a deep sigh filled with bitterness. Despite his lack of strength compared to the two powerful figures present, he mustered up some of it to use his spiritual energy and ask for something.

The clocked man cut him off before he could even speak out his words, already knowing what the miserable young man was going to ask, " It's easy to guess why, and if you honestly ask me who to blame for what happened to your clan. The answer is clear as day. It's you that's to blame for their deaths."

Before the broken young man could again say anything, the cloaked man replied, " You gonna say something like I loved her and I was so talented even to start closing up on the twelve great clans? That's exactly the same reason why you shouldn't approach clans that are clearly living in an entirely different world than yours."

The young man that was bathed with blood lay on his back again after he heard what he wanted to know, gazing at the vast sky and stars filling it, not helping it but start recalling something he once read.

Hawks spread their wings in the vast sky

Fish swim freely under deep water

All living things vie for freedom under the autumn sky

Pondering over the immensity of the universe

I ask this boundless and misty earth

Who rules the fate of this world?

If heavens had emotions, it would grow old; the path of Cultivation is emotionless and impartial. Every living being has the chance to rise up; it depends on how one uses their opportunities and how one fights!

In this world, no one is born to be a side character. And there is no one who is an eternal main character.

As he recalled the sentences he heard from the minister of the emperor himself, the young man called Vladimir started laughing, tears streaming out of his eyes.

This night, his tears were almost dried up from the amount of time he spent crying over his parents and Bloodline relatives, over his fate and future that turned to ashes cause of a feeling he felt for a girl.

His eyes were bloodshot as he mocked the famous poem that many people blindly believed it. Acting like mere slaves who couldn't think of themselves and realizing that none of these words were valid.

" Everyone indeed vies for freedom, but at the end of the day, it turned out to be just a mere illusion, told to the young cultivators so they can get their hopes high in an aim to become more than what they were born as to step into higher realms and reach the top of this world. But everything turned out to be a lie. "

" Even though I used my opportunities perfectly and was close to catching up to the great twelve clans, even surpassing the first-grade clans, while I was only born in a second-grade clan. And learned how to fight as best as I could. Yet I still failed. "

" Maybe I really went out of my way and thought that I was talented and strong enough to ask for marriage from one of the twelve great clans. However, why would they massacre our whole clans? Isn't a simple no more than enough? "

Vladimir thought he was the main character of his time, quickly rising above all and surpassing them, leaving everyone behind in the dust, looking at his back and realizing that they were merely side characters.

Regardless of his achievements and thoughts, he fell so hard that even his death was currently in the hands of the one who massacred his clan, from the thoughts that he was the main character to instantly becoming a dead man in a single night.

" I at least agree with his last sentences. There are really no eternal main characters in this vast universe."

He steeled his heart and accepted his death. However, while he was waiting for death like a frozen sculpture. Various memories of his life flashed past his eyes, summarizing his lived life that didn't last for long.

As he saw different scenes of his parents, clan, and friends. Fury, accompanied by a fighting spirit, uncontrollably filled his heart, yet he couldn't muster any strength to get up and fight back.

Thus and without any more options, he hopelessly muttered in a low voice. " If there is someone out there, somewhere in the vast sky, watching this scene. It would be great if I get a second chance to fix everything and get my revenge."

The cloaked man couldn't hear anything that the man was saying the whole time, given the distance between them and the fact that Vladimir couldn't raise his voice at all without amplifying it with spiritual energy.

Hence he was clueless about what was going on with him, thinking that he was just feeling despair and guilt over his actions. Joy filled his heart as he thought of that, making his body uncontrollably shiver from excitement and fun.

" You at least realize your mistakes. However, don't think even in your wildest dreams that things will just be over and all the pain that you are feeling will be washed away after your death cause I won't be killing you; destroying your cultivation base and crippling, you is a much more fun and amusing thing to do. "

Swoosh!!

The cloaked man vanished from the sky and appeared right on top of the miserable young man. A look of disgust and ridicule could be seen behind his mask.

With a few simple finger movements filled with spiritual energy that didn't require much effort for someone in the Soul Palace realm like him to perform.

Vladimir's cultivation base was utterly destroyed, giving him no possibility of ever being able to cultivate again.

Vladimir didn't even have the strength even to yell after the intense pain caused by his cultivation base crumbling suddenly hit him, and he simply thought to himself.

"Ah, whatever, I should just suicide, I guess. Death will wash away every feeling that I'm currently experiencing in my heart."

" Yeah, just kill yourself by your own hands and follow your clan to the grave; that's more fun to watch, after all. Hahaha." The cloaked man laughed like a maniac as he mocked Vladimir.

For some reason, Vladimir felt another burst of rage and fighting power rising up from a mysterious place at the depths of his very soul, and he subconsciously said with a determined look.

" I'll never take my own life. It doesn't matter if you sealed my Cultivation cause one day, I will surely take my revenge and bathe in your clan's blood."

" That's even way better, haha; I'll at least sleep at night knowing you are suffering somewhere or dead under a cliff. " The cloaked man chuckled as he vanished into thin air, his tiger disappearing out of sight as well, seemingly finished his job here.

' I'm such a pathetic man; even my hidden feelings and thoughts didn't give up. And yet I thought about suicide. I won't give up and keep on going till I finally regain my foothold in this world and take renege with my own hands, and even if I don't succeed, I'll at least die trying and thus fulfilled my duty to my deceased clan. '

Following his feelings, Vladimir affirmed his belief as he vowed to do his best to get revenge for his clan, even if it caused his death while he was trying to do so, and never taking the easy way out, which is suicide.