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RD - 008 - First Blood
🕑 Added 2024-09-03 17:03:30 +0000 UTCTurning back the clock, Ning Shan found himself looking out of a window on the second floor of a dilapidated building. What he saw left him slightly perplexed and apprehensive. The group of five on the ground were clearly humanoid, yet their attires were peculiar, to say the least. He now truly felt like a stranger in a foreign land.
Still, he was unsure of how to proceed next. Should he help them or leave them to their fate? For one, the creature chasing them was much more than he could handle at the moment; doing so would be a risk he was unwilling to take, as that creature seemed to be at a level equivalent to the 2nd level of the Foundation Building realm.
Yet, Ning Shan was also unwilling to simply run away. How could he grow stronger if he was reluctant to take any risks? The thought of devouring that creature's strength and adding it to his own seemed too attractive to miss.
With his mind made up, Ning Shan quickly went to work, diving deep into the building's foundation. While foreign to him, these buildings' construction methods were still relatively simple, and he easily located what he needed: load-bearing columns deep into the basement. He quickly made some calculations and went to work, breaking them one after another until the building barely stood upright.
He then rose to the roof, overlooking the scene below, only to catch one of the men perish in a most gruesome fashion. Ning Shan frowned as he looked upon it, thoughts whirling in his mind.
If this is the effect of the red dust on these living beings, how am I safe?
Still, Ning Shan didn't have much time to ponder as the creature was almost in position, a few metres away from the perfect angle. Then, he became witness to the men's betrayal, yet it barely came as a surprise to him. After all, it was to be expected. He had already seen such scenes too often to still be moved by them.
Still, at least the lone woman on the ground's will to live was praiseworthy. Despite her situation's direness, she still struggled with all she had, not surrendering to her fate. Ning Shan showed a faint smile for merely an instant before his eyes lit up with greed as the creature came into position.
With a stomp of his foot, Ning Shan directed the impact straight into the last column left supporting the weight of this building, making it shatter from the impact. Then, barely an instant later, the building toppled toward the street, its mass falling straight onto the massive creature, burying it under tons of stone and steel, making it unable to move further.
At least, that was what Ning Shan expected, yet the beast shattered his expectations. It seemed to have survived the impact and even struggled to free itself from under the rumble. Not wasting his chance, Ning Shan had chosen to ride the building down as it fell, jumping off just as it collided with the ground, rolling to absorb the impact.
He rose swiftly before rushing back toward the rumble, climbing them in a single leap and standing on top of the creature stuck beneath. It thrashed, hoping to free itself, spewing a cloud of red dust from its open maw, yet Ning Shan felt nothing even as he stood within. In fact, he couldn't feel any better.
The ringed crystal planet within his qi centre spun each time Ning Shan took a breath, inhaling countless amounts of red dust, yet barely a fraction was absorbed as it met the black lightning infusing his flesh. Merely from standing within the cloud, he could feel the planet grow slightly stronger, and he could also see the counter in the corner of his vision slowly grow toward his goal.
The creature roared from under Ning Shan's feet. Whether it was due to frustration or perplexity that he could survive this red mist assault was unknown, yet Ning Shan only offered a slight smile as he clad his hand in lightning and struck it deep within the creature.
However, unlike all the previous times he had done so, this time, the creature's flesh offered some resistance instead of bursting apart into a cloud of red dust. If anything, it felt as if Ning Shan was on the losing end.
Having already made his choice, Ning Shan couldn't afford to lose. As such, he spared no expense. All the dust he had carefully collected ever since his rank up was used, if only to slightly increase his odds of slaying the beast. Yet, this proved just enough for his purposes.
His hand dug deeper within the flesh as if through water, offering almost no resistance. The lightning propagated outward within the creature's flesh, breaking everything apart until all that remained was a cloud of red dust, yet the beast was still too massive to be ended this easily.
It struggled under the rubble, howling with pain and rage. It knew its end was near, and its survival instinct kicked in. It did everything in its power to survive Ning Shan's onslaught, dislodging the scattered debris weighing on it as it sought to rise, yet it was all too late. Ning Shan had already reached its core.
As he expected, the creature also possessed a core, a repository for all the dust it had accumulated during its life. Ning Shan controlled the lightning emanating from his hand to wrap around the core and simply crushed it.
The beast didn't even have time to howl anymore before its body began to break down into a massive cloud of dust that rose into the sky, resembling a massive mushroom. Due to gravity, it fell back down, forming something akin to rain.
The world was bathed in red as Ning Shan felt rain-like dust wash every inch of his body, infiltrating his every pore, only to be met by the black lightning within, slowly adding this dust to his own core.
However, Ning Shan could assimilate only a fraction of the creature's mass. Soon, a whirlwind formed akin to a tempest in a bottle. The dust created a vortex that raged in the middle of the street, eroding the nearby stone buildings until it finally coalesced into a crystal the size of his fist.
As more dust entered that crystal, its colour started to change. It started as a light red, deepening as if it became more saturated until it finally just shifted into orange, the quality of the power held within shifting alongside it.
Ning Shan's eyebrows rose slightly as he observed this phenomenon, his thoughts swirling quickly. There was much he still didn't know about this world, yet this was easy to understand.
This dust isn’t unlike qi, yet it seems poisonous to this world’s inhabitants. I wonder where it all comes from...
As he pondered, his gaze resting on the hovering orange crystal bursting with power, Ning Shan heard some movements behind him, prompting him to turn around.
"I can't believe he managed to take down an Orange-Class Dustborne!"
Ning Shan frowned as he looked upon the three men in strange attires standing before him not far away. The deadly end of their weapons was aimed at him, yet their tones were much too casual considering their situation.
What surprised Ning Shan more than anything wasn't that they had doubled back once they realized the beast had been slain but that he could understand their language so easily. While he was already surprised he could read this world's characters, verbal communication was another thing entirely.
“Check out that man!" one of the men exclaimed, Ning Shan in his sight. "How can he be fine without protective clothing standing near that dust crystal? He should be dead by now!"
Ning Shan looked at them curiously, maintaining his calm and his silence. He hoped to extract as much information from these men as he could without revealing his hand.
“You fools, look at his eyes!” their leader said, lowering his weapon slightly. “He’s nothing but a failure. I’m sure the building falling on that Dustborne must have been only an accident. I refuse to believe a Black-Class trash is able to take it down alone!”
They talked about Orange-class and now Black-class... is that their ranking system? But why black for me? Is it because I have black eyes? Do these people classify their strengths using their eye colours? What absurd method is this?
Ning Shan remained silent, watching the three men slowly drift apart from one another as they slowly encircled him. However, they were much more relaxed now that they had deemed him a black-class. One man had even lowered his weapon, not even bothering to keep Ning Shan in his sights.
"Boss! Look at this? He doesn't even have markings on his skin!" one of the men exclaimed as he looked at Ning Shan's bare arms. "Could he be a pure one, but what could he be doing so far from the city? I thought they were all protected by the government."
"Who cares where he's from," their boss sneered. Ning Shan could almost see the greed in his eyes. "Do you know how much pure ones' body parts are worth on the black market? It's enough for us to be set for life!"
"But boss... There's no way a pure one would survive outside the city without a respirator!"
"Enough! We'll have all the time in the world for this once he's taken down. Get him, boys!"
Ning Shan had gotten enough out of these fools. He saw no reason to keep entertaining them. Still, his questions had only increased, yet he couldn't be bothered to suffer their existence any longer. He could always seek answers someplace else.
As he saw their leader's index finger inch closer to the trigger on his weapon, Ning Shan kicked a nearby pebble, propelling it at incredible velocity toward the rifle's muzzle. He altered the rifle's aim just before it discharged a beam of light.
The impact jerked the heavy weapon to the boss’s side, scrapping a building’s stone facade until the beam intersected one of his men’s body. Not even the man’s protective clothing could resist the deadly heat ray as he was sliced in two before bursting into flames. Both lifeless halves tumbled to the ground before being quickly reduced to cinders; not much remained of the man except for ashes floating in the wind.
“You bastard!" the other man said as he pulled the trigger on his own weapon, yet Ning Shan had already disappeared from where he stood, hiding himself within the clouds of red dust.
“To your left!” the boss yelled, jerking his weapon back the other way, but Ning Shan had already reached his target.
Unable to turn in time, the man tried to strike Ning Shan with his rifle as he entered his range, yet Ning Shan easily parried the blow with his forearm before forming the point of a spear with his remaining hand, plunging deep into the man's abdomen and reaching upward until he could feel the man's heart in his grasp.
Ning Shan was close enough to the man that he could see the man's eyes through the transparent protective screen of his mask. They were wide-opened, a deep red akin to the colour of blood, yet there was a terror hidden deep within.
The man went limp as Ning Shan crushed the man's heart without mercy before using the lifeless mass of flesh as a shield as he charged toward the only man left standing.
The large man screamed as he pulled the trigger as if trying to keep his sanity while all his squad had already perished. Yet, he was unable to think rationally, too engrossed in the madness of death. Even as a seasoned hunter, watching his squad members fall in this fashion was too much for him to remain calm. If anything, he could feel his impending death much too clearly.
The rifle’s deathly ray easily pierced through his former comrade’s dead body, slicing it in two, yet Nin Shan was nowhere to be found—at least the large man couldn’t see him.
Ning Shan's tactic wasn't anything special. His opponent couldn't think clearly, so he used that against him. Just before the trigger was pulled, Ning Shan pushed the dead body with all his strength, making it barrel toward his opponent while at the same time diving behind a nearby pile of debris from the collapsed building.
While his opponent was distracted, firing blindly, he quickly rushed the lady who had collapsed some time ago, snatching the weapon from her hands before activating it by pressing the prominent button and tossing it in the man's direction.
The blade of dust spun, creating a disc that sliced everything it came into contact with, eventually rendering the man into two halves. The man's torso fell over, tumbling onto the ground, yet unfortunately for him, he failed to perish instantly, instead having to suffer intense pain as his life persisted.
Through the pain, fuelled by reluctance and madness, the man sought to raise his heavy weapon and fire at Ning Shan once again, yet Ning Shan was faster, reaching the man shortly after, pressing his foot onto the rifle while standing over him.
“It's over," Ning Shan said dismissively, showing no emotions on his face nor signs of struggle, only the confidence of knowing that his plan went exactly as he had imagined it.
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