Tracing her eyes, he saw that they were transfixed on his little bird that was sleeping by his side. He smiled and picked up the bird, waking it up from its sleep. Stretching its wing, it flew from Minos's hands to his head where it laid.
"How did he manage to get such a bird?" Xin muttered, but loudly enough that Minos heard her.
"Erm, I think she just fell in love with me. Is there a problem?" Minos asked, still unsure of what exactly the problem was.
"You don't know the history of that little bird, do you?" Xin asked, this time looking directly at Minos's face.
"Nope." Minos replied, shaking his head.
"What is on your head is known as an ashen dragon." Xin stated.
"Wow, a real life dragon." Minos said, with his eyes widened in shock. "If it's a dragon, why does it look like a bird?" Minos asked immediately.
"A trait of the ashen dragon is that it can manipulate its shape and size. And also, I think yours is still a youngling." Xin answered, with a calm and gentle voice.
"Wow, an actual dragon as a pet. How lucky am I." Minos thought, before asking.
"Miss goddess, do you know the meaning of 'ki'?" Minos asked, as until now he still didn't know what ki was and how it affected him.
"You want to know about ki?" Xin asked, before going into a deep thought.
"I don't think I've heard of ki before." Xin replied.
"Okay, what about 'chi'?" Minos asked, as he recalled the direct synonym of ki in his handbook.
"Ohh, chi. That's an easy one." Xin replied, in a prideful tone.
"Chi is the internal force that permeates the universe. It's simply a big part of our life force." Xin replied.
"Oh, so that's it. What about circulation of chi? Is there a way to circulate this internal force faster than normal?" Minos asked again.
"Not any that I could think of. Why are you asking?" Xin asked, in a suspicious tone.
"Aah, no reason. Don't mind me. So, when am I leaving here?" Minos said, changing the topic immediately.
"Never!" Xin replied, with a word that seemed to irritate Minos.
"What makes you think I can't just force my way through?" Minos asked, as his gaze darkened.
"I'm sure you can't. Remember my chains that I used to bind you? Even if you manage to weaken their sealing abilities, they still have a great effect on your strength. Besides, if you could force your way through as you claimed, you would have done that a while ago." Xin said.
"Hahahaha, is that what you think? I give your little chief three full moons to let me go, or when I'm leaving I will take his head with me. Go pass my message to him." Minos said, closing his eyes to contain his imploding anger. But as he opened his eyes, he met Xin still looking at him.
"What the f*ck are you still doing here? Scram!!!" Minos thundered, causing her to leave in a hurry.
After she left, Minos tried to calm himself down, but nothing was working. He immediately left his hut and decided to go for a walk to calm his nerves down, as he was still very much irritated and angry from the thought of being a prisoner.
Xin's POV (point of view)
"Scram!!!" Those words were like a beast's roar to her ear, which instilled fear and quickened her step to the chief's hut. But she found no one there. Asking the few guards she met, she was told that the king was called by the dark council for a meeting. Hearing this, she was startled, as she knew nothing good ever came from association with a councilman.
Minos's POV
No wonder, I still felt heavy inside. So the system couldn't erase the chains completely. Ohh, so that's what it meant by 50/100. Minos thought.
On his walk, Minos decided to escape the village if he could. Actually, this was not the first time he tried to escape the village. He once tried to escape the village one certain night, but he saw that the village was covered with a barrier that seemed hard to break, especially with his current strength. But he was sure that if he was to use total transformation, he could break through with ease.
Today, he decided to revisit the barrier to see if he could find some weakness with his beast eyes and also wanted to ease some tension. And who was the perfect opponent if not a powerful barrier?
On his way, very close to the barrier, he spotted a carriage that seemed to be ambushed by people in black hoods. Deciding to take a better look, he saw the two bodyguards he had knocked out with a punch last night on the floor in a pool of their own blood. And he saw a person whom he recognized as the chief of the village on the floor, shaking in terror.
He wanted to leave him to his fate. Besides, he knew from day one that he was no hero. He was only a man who never cared about anything else in this world but his life.
Taking three steps, he changed his mind and decided to help the chief, as he thought he could request his freedom as payment for saving his life.
Rushing forward, he immediately channeled 30% of his ki around his body, which gave him swift speed and strength. He appeared instantly behind one of the hooded men's back and twisted his neck until it was out of his body. This alerted the other four, who immediately transformed into hideous-looking monsters: long teeth, big snouts instead of noses, skin as dark as night, eyes turned red, and the muscles in their limbs increased exponentially, giving them huge bodies. They charged towards Minos in a group. Unable to transform, Minos channeled his ki to his hands and legs in order to activate his speed and strength, neglecting defense as his ki wasn't enough to cover the three.
The three pounced on Minos with claws stretched, but Minos was able to react instantly, dodging their attacks easily. They continued their attack, but none was able to touch Minos.
After a while, they stopped attacking carelessly, and one of them opened his palm. Immediately, instant darkness enveloped the area around them, blinding Minos's line of sight. And they started their attack.
After a while, Minos was covered in his own blood, as without his sight he couldn't directly predict their attacks, at least at the beginning. Later in the fight, Minos started to predict their ki's movement in order to see their attack pattern without his sight, and managed to knock out two of the three intruders.
The last person, who was still in his transformed state, was already battered. His cloak was already in bits and pieces, and his breathing was irregular.
He immediately chanted "σκοτεινός θεός δανείσου μου τη δύναμή σου" and his energy level went up instantaneously. His speed and strength increased by threefold, making him faster than Minos by quite a lot.
Using the speed, the hooded man dashed towards Minos, whose hands were stretched and was in a defensive stance. He sent him flying with a punch that was too fast for Minos to react to.
This one-sided beating continued until Minos was almost knocked out. Sizing Minos up, he was ready to end this. He dashed towards Minos to deliver the death punch, when flames flew out of Minos's body and hit the man, sending him a few metres away.
The ashen dragon emerged from Minos's battered body in its true form and immediately turned into ash, merging with Minos. He immediately recovered from his wounds and also sealed the effects of the chains of Psylocke.
Sensing that his body seemed to have returned to normal, no heaviness, he immediately tried summoning 100% of his ki and realized his limit had increased by a lot. It was no more 30%, but 60%—that's twice his initial control.
He immediately started to circulate his ki aggressively, which caused him to transform into his alter ego: "the minotaur".
With his transformation active, the hooded man's speed slowed in comparison, as Minos could see and dodge his speed without any difficulty.
The hooded beast tried to claw Minos, but Minos was just too fast to catch. Minos finally decided to go on the offensive and immediately grabbed him, hulk-slamming him multiple times before pushing him to the village barrier. He just kept punching him until life left his eyes. Summoning the sword of Theseus, he stabbed the hooded man. The light from the sword did not just cover his body like it did with Dario, but directly consumed the body, leaving nothing in its place. Minos did this to the other corpses of the hooded figures before he ran out of energy, as the ashen dragon left his body, transforming back to a bird before dissolving into Minos's forehead.
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