The village square had turned into a slaughterhouse. Twenty men of Millbrook—from a thirteen-year-old teenager like Ben, the eldest son of the Carter family, to a fifty-year-old man like Old Pete who usually just sat in front of the shop—now stood with makeshift weapons in their bloody hands.
Three bodies from their side had fallen.
Harold the Baker lay with his stomach eviscerated, his empty eyes staring at the morning sky. A sword had pierced his abdomen and ripped out his guts. His last breath was a long sigh that turned into silence.
Young Tom, a sixteen-year-old who had married just two months ago, lay with his throat slit open. Blood still flowed from the gaping wound, soaking the ground beneath him in a dark red puddle.
Marcus Elder, the brother of Marcus Brennan, had collapsed with a shattered head. A war hammer had crushed his skull, and brain matter and blood were splattered around his lifeless body.
In the midst of this carnage, Li Yuan stood like the embodiment of death itself.
His once-clean gray shirt was now soaked in blood—the blood of enemies, the blood of friends, the blood from his own wounds. The red cloth that tied his hair fluttered in the morning wind like a war flag, its color mixing with the blood spattering from the incessant battle.
His gray eyes... those eyes had changed. No longer the warm and understanding eyes that the people of Millbrook knew. Now they were deep as a bottomless abyss, cold as winter steel, and in them gleamed something that made the Drakemoor soldiers retreat with a primitive fear.
A young soldier, who had just seen Li Yuan rip out his commander's throat with his bare hands, took a step back, his body trembling.
"Monster," he whispered in a quivering voice. "He's not human."
Li Yuan turned his head toward the sound, the movement slow and terrifying. The eyes of the abyss looked directly into the young soldier's soul.
"HOW MANY HAVE I KILLED?!" Li Yuan's voice boomed across the square, so loud that the glass in the windows of the houses rattled.
The remaining Drakemoor soldiers—still about forty of them—were silent in fear. Even Colonel Blackthorne, who had witnessed many brutal battles, felt the hairs on his arms stand on end upon hearing that voice.
Li Yuan stepped forward, each step leaving a trail of blood on the ground. "FORTY-THREE," he answered his own question, his voice like thunder ripping through the silence. "FORTY-THREE LIVES I HAVE TAKEN WITH MY OWN HANDS!"
Blood dripped from his fingertips, fresh from the last soldier he had just killed by crushing his skull like a ripe fruit.
Around him, the surviving men of Millbrook stood with horrific wounds. Ben Carter, the thirteen-year-old teenager, had lost two fingers on his left hand, the pieces of flesh dangling and blood flowing profusely. But he still held a knife with his right hand, his young eyes gleaming with a mixture of anger and fear.
Old Pete, though fifty, still stood with his cracked wood axe. His left ear was gone, severed by a sword, and blood ran down the side of his head. But he didn't back down.
"We're still here, Yuan!" he yelled in a hoarse voice. "We're still fighting!"
David Miller, who had been badly wounded earlier, was now in an even more gruesome state. His left arm was now completely severed, hanging by only a bit of skin. The wound in his stomach had widened, and he had to hold his own intestines in with his remaining right hand. But his eyes still burned with unwavering determination.
"For Millbrook," he mumbled in a weak but determined voice.
Robert was still crawling on the ground with his two crushed legs, but his knife was still stabbing at the legs of passing soldiers. James, now completely blind in both eyes, was still swinging his spear in every direction, hoping to hit something.
Thomas Aldrich, with a severed right arm and a broken left arm, was still trying to lift his axe. Blood flowed from his mouth, a sign of internal organ damage, but he hadn't given up.
Colonel Blackthorne looked at Li Yuan with eyes full of fear and... something else. Sickened admiration.
"Who are you, really?" he asked in a trembling voice. "No human could kill that many with their bare hands."
Li Yuan laughed—a cold and terrifying sound that made the soldiers back away even more.
"I am what you created," he answered in a voice that echoed like a sound from the bottom of a deep well. "I am the water that flows around stones. But you forced that water to become a flood that washes everything away!"
The eyes of the abyss swept across the battlefield, staring at every terrified face.
"YOU WANT BLOOD?" he yelled again, his voice thundering so loud that birds flew from the trees around the village. "YOU WANT DEATH?"
Li Yuan raised both of his blood-soaked hands to the sky. "THEN I WILL GIVE YOU AN OCEAN OF BLOOD!"
In the surrounding houses, children cried louder. Anna hugged Lila tightly, both of them trembling in fear at the total change in Li Yuan's voice.
"That's not Uncle Yuan anymore," Lila whispered with tears streaming down her cheeks. "That's... that's a monster."
Anna couldn't answer. She looked at the man who had become a part of their family, the man who had gently taught Lila to write, the man who had patiently listened to their stories at night. Now that man stood in the middle of a sea of corpses with eyes that no longer knew mercy.
Margaret Aldrich, watching from her house window, saw her husband—Thomas—who was near death from his wounds. But she also saw Li Yuan who had turned into something monstrous.
"God," she whispered. "What have we unleashed?"
The remaining Drakemoor soldiers began to retreat, primitive fear overcoming their military training. They had seen their friends killed in inhuman ways—necks broken with a single motion, skulls crushed with bare hands, hearts ripped out of chests.
"Run," a soldier whispered. "We have to run."
"NO ONE IS RUNNING!" Li Yuan's voice thundered again, and the eyes of the abyss looked directly at the soldier who wanted to flee.
"You came to my home. You threatened my family. You killed my friends."
Li Yuan stepped forward, each step like an approaching death sentence.
"Now you will pay with your blood. ALL OF YOUR BLOOD!"
And in his Zhenjing, the Understanding of Emotion vibrated with a terrifying intensity—he felt not only the emotions of the people he loved but also the emotions of the soldiers he was about to kill. Their fear, their regret, their longing for families they might never see again.
But he also felt his own emotions—an anger that had turned into something darker, deeper. No longer anger to protect, but anger to destroy.
And the Understanding of Rage within him... that understanding vibrated with an almost uncontrollable power, ready to reach a depth of meaning he had never touched before.
This is what the world asked for, Li Yuan thought as he prepared to continue the slaughter. Blood. Death. Destruction.
And I will give it all to them.
The eyes of the abyss stared at the remaining soldiers, and in them, they saw their own certain death.