Earth's Core 057

The gla.s.sy sand that covered the soil was really like a carpet of treasures. Carl halted his search for the roots to help Zax to sweep the soil. In this job his mist energy proved to be most effective. Because Carl had to maintain a multiply layered mantle, he could not just brush the sand with a wave of mist energy, but what he could do was to use the layers of defense to sweep the sand with his hand without touching it directly like Zax.

Quite often the two found a new plant, whether one that they looked for or another. However, those plants that they did not come for the two refrained from collecting. There was only so much place inside the beast skin pouches and some plants, if handled poorly, could spread toxins that according to Carl: “Too dangerous for even us to deal with!”

“Nine red stalk flowers and four green stalk flower”. Zax said and tied his pouch to his loincloth. In short, these were the flowers he sought and the most the he and Carl could find.

“Let’s head out to hunt before we dig”. Carl said. “In the past two days we both wasted a lot of energy enduring the gravitation force”.

“I can also eat something”, Zax agreed. “The bird type beasts we hunted before were annoying to deal with, but their meat was delicious”. He reminisced.

“Then bird type beast it is-”

RUMBLE!

Tremors in the ground interrupted Carl. The ground shook violently as if something ma.s.sive inside of it was moving, and above it fluctuation in the gravitation force emanated.

“Arg!”

For a fragment of a second the gravitation force increased ten folds and brought both Carl’s and Zax’s knees to the ground.

“Hold on!” Zax saw that Carl was struggling more so than him and supported him.

BOOM!

The ground exploded and a few hundred meters from them a figure appeared near the entrance to the tunnel.

The ground stopped shaking. The fluctuation in the gravitation force ceased. Zax and Carl, however, stood in utter bewilderment, not daring to make one step or breathe too deeply. Like statues the two stood and watched the figure that came out from the tunnel to the second Savage Cave.

A man, about as tall as Carl, stood with his body half turned to the two. His upper body was bare and apart from the short needle like black hair on his head, his skin was red and steamy. At the back of his neck was a tattoo of a spiral cube. To his lower body he wore black st.u.r.dy long pants with six pockets on each side. The sleeves of his pants were crammed inside his dark green shoes.

The man stood slightly bent and panting. From his profile he looked to Zax and Carl disoriented and mad. Low growls left his throat, the countless amount of steam that emanated out from him gave the impression that under his skin he contained a blazing fire.

“Graaaaa!” He suddenly released a deafening roar to the cave ceiling.

The sound wave hit Zax and Carl and threw them back. Covering his ears, a terrified expression appeared on Carl’s face. “Zax! Go! Go! RUN!” The sound wave repelled the gravitation force and the two could manifest the peak of their strength to escape.

When the roar hit Zax cracks all over his body began to sound. The same was with Carl, but his mist energy supported his physical structure. “Carl…” Zax was still dazed from the roar. His soul was clearly inferior to Carl’s and apart from the wave that followed the roar, the man exuded a magnificent dominance which a.s.saulted Zax mentally.

“He is…”

Zax’s eyes fixed on the man; they saw it when Carl tried to speak to him but was too slow compared to the man’s next actions.

The man lowered his head from the roar and an oval shaped black object appeared in his right hand.

CRUNCH!

The man bit the object and a crunching sound echoed.

CRUNCH!

The second bite devoured completely the black object.

THROB!

THROB!

THROB!

THROB!

…

A series of pulses resonated from the man’s body, abruptly halted and a last thunderous pulse burst from the head of the man as its epicenter.

With the last “THROB”, from the man’s head a black dome was released and spread. The last thing Zax saw before it engulfed him and Carl was his own dark reflection on the dome.

“Ahaaa!”

“Ahaaa!”

Both Zax and Carl lost sense of reality and self awareness. Inside the dome their souls swelled as if infected and the pain was inconceivable!

“Graah!” Carl wriggled and coiled, mist energy hissed from his body and his voice deepened more and more.

“Grr!” Zax greeted his teeth. His body bent backward from the initial pain and Carl was right in front of his eyes. He saw him hitting himself, hitting the ground, roaring and twisting as if possessed. What shocked Zax was that while Carl seemed as if turning savage from the pain, he, on other hand, managed to cope with and overcome it to some degree.

What Zax did not notice was that inside his dantian, two black streams of energy were issued from the Black Core, both to his sea of consciousness.

One stream followed to Zax’s soul, while the other to the fifth gate of the remaining three gates of the Seven Stages Of Bodily Refinement beneath it.

The dark attribute in Zax’s soul immediately began to grow and expend, transforming the soul and its energy unbeknownst to Zax.

On Zax’s torso the gate to the next level, level B, the equivalent to the Mist Master level of mist cultivators, s.h.i.+ned with its black radiance. Much like the dark attribute, the fifth gate, in a sluggish pace, also began to expand as it fed on the energy of the dome.

“Arhwoo!” A howl reverberated inside the dome and Zax looked with a mystified expression on his face.

Carl lost himself and transformed to his animalistic form, an over four meters in height, six meters in length canine, a black fur wolf with red paws.

“Arhwoo!” His howl resonated as if several voices emerged from his maw. Red eyes averted their attention to Zax. “Rhwoo!” Carl pounced at his direction.

“Carl… he is one of them?” Zax recalled the canines he fought before he entered the first Savage Cave, his Master’s enemies. “It… it can’t be!” Any attempts to wrap his head around it went down the drain. The shock was too intensive and by the time he made out the giant wolf intent, a paw struck him and claws ripped through his chest.

“Ahr!” Zax was tossed aside like a rag doll, blood gushed from his wounds and his left arm’s bones shattered.

Zax used the momentum of the fall to roll over and jump back to his feet. “Carl!” He screamed for him to wake up. “Carl-” The black fur red paws wolf attacked again.

WUs.h.!.+

Zax’s legs kicked the ground and his body avoided the coming strike. ‘What’s happening?! How come Carl lost to the savagery? It can’t be! He adapt to it… Why!’ Seeing his companion, his friend, his brother d.a.m.ned to be a savage for no reason, Zax did not know what to do, to who can he call for help?!

“Please! Stop what you did to him”. Zax caught a glimpse of the man that came from the other side of the tunnel while moving around.

The man was standing with his hands holding his head, ignoring the two.

“Rhwoo!” Carl aura exploded and his speed increased. His gigantic body became even bigger as his muscles grew and tore past his skin and fur. If under the regular savagery of the first Savage Cave one who loses himself received a boost of fifty percent strength, than just now, that already mighty Carl, under the black dome received a boost of two hundred percent.

WUs.h.!.+

His speed surpa.s.sed Zax.

BANG!

Zax raised his right arm to defend, but the a.s.sault was too strong and blew him away.

“Carl-” Blood gushed out of Zax’s mouth and the word was m.u.f.fled. “Carl…” He did not care if he was an enemy, his brother’s body was expending like a balloon and what would happen when his muscles would not be able to stretch anymore was all so clear.

BANG!

A heavy paw landed too fast for Zax to react and buried him forty centimeters deep in the hard soil.

“Ca…” Zax held on only because to constant healing and expansion of fifth gate, then again, with every attack the damage to his body was being done faster than the healing. ‘Outside of the dome, outside of the boundary’. Zax imagined it as the only solution to bring Carl back.

“Ahaa!” A sharp pain in his shoulder suddenly made him burst in agony.

CRUNCH!

Carl bit Zax’s left arm.

THROB!

A pulse echoed and the black dome retreated to the head of the man.

Zax was buried in the ground and was barely affected when the dome pa.s.sed him again, but Carl was thrown fifty meters or so from the man.

At that moment, in Zax’s consciousness, the black attribute finished the transformation of the soul and the blur that it was, radiated dark light like a black Sun Stone for a split second and returned to normal. Beneath Zax’s soul, the fifth gate of the Seven Stages Of Bodily Refinement faded. At the same time, the sixth gate appeared at the center of Zax’s chest and in but a few breaths black spikes emerged from all over Zax’s body, not only completely healing him, but also changing the sixth gate’s azure radiance to black.

Zax rose from the ground around the same time that Carl did. Carl’s muscles ceased expanding, but his mind was already lost to savagery worse than that of the first Savage Cave. Being much closer to the man, who stood still with eyes close, than Zax, Carl howled and jumped him.

“Carl, no!” Zax’s body moved on his own, feeling stronger than ever before and with a clearer mind that dissolve the redness from his eyes and any trace to the savagery from his consciousness.

Nonetheless, with his body fitness level in level B, Zax still could not match the man who was unmoved by Carl’s a.s.sault. The eyes of the man stay closed, concentrating on what he was doing; all he did to address Carl was nudge his finger a little.

Before Zax’s eyes, Carl’s back bent unnaturally as his spine was struck by a black aura that came from nowhere and raided him from above. Next, a black aura engulfed the man who had a satisfied smile on his face and his figure disappeared.

“Carl!!!”

Under the pressure of Zax’s kick, the tough soil was no better than tofu. He sprang forward to the giant mutated body of his brother that lay without moving on the ground.

“Carl…“ Tears streamed on Zax face.

Carl’s body was paralyzed, but his soul and mind was still powered by savagery. As he saw Zax he growled and howled.

“I’m so sorry, Carl…” Zax raised his hand, he wanted to shelter Carl from his pain, from what he became, but it was too late and in his animalistic form he needed very little to manage against the gravitation force that returned to its previous state.

“Grrr…!” As Zax got closer Carl grew madder and his aura lashed at Zax. The killing intent, the aura, even if Carl was not hurt, in Zax’s current body fitness level, he could do nothing to harm him.

“If it wasn’t for me you would not have come here…” Zax cried and blamed whether it was accurate or not. As a youth he was closer in times of pain to the mind state of a child. Because of it, unlike an adult, he did not question the many “What Ifs” that could happen if Carl did not meet him.

“I’ll take you out, big brother”, Zax lifted Carl as best as he could. Most of his body was being dragged along, while his head rested next to Zax’s, growling and howling, but inert.

Outside of the boundary that was formed from the force that leaked from the tunnel was no different. Carl’s savage behavior remained the same, his soul lost.

Zax continued to carry him steadily and carefully like Atlas from stories past that carried the sky. It was both a burden and a virtue that could not be given up.

“Shree!” The savage bird type beasts and other winged beasts spotted the two as they came down from the mountains and instantly attacked.

When Zax saw them his mind was seething. “Savagery!” For the first time his killing intent manifested on his command, he could not stand it anymore. He gently laid Carl, turned to the coming savages with his fist clenched so hard that blood seeped through his skin.

“Ahaaa!” All pain came out in ferocious roar, so strong that the bubble of savagery in some of the flying beasts wavered.

A sentence that he once heard and was directed toward him with compliance played in Zax’s head.

“Do you want me to kill those who hurt you?”

His big sister asked.

Tens if not hundreds of savages flying beasts inhabited the mountains near the tunnel to the second Savage Cave. The louder they were the more came out from their dwellings.

Zax cared nothing of how many they were or how much up above him they flew. Those that dived at him or Carl were decapitated with one sharp blow. Those that sent long range mist attack from above were slaughtered even more viciously. With a kick to the ground Zax jumped as high as he needed to reach his target. Thirty meters, fifty meters, hundred meters… the beasts were also bigger than him by a large margin. When Zax reached one in the air, his claws sunk to its flash and ripped it apart effortlessly, then, instead of falling back to the ground, he stabilized his feet on the huge body of the beast and bounced toward another one.

‘Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!’ Zax yelled in his head. Blood soaked him everywhere, yet he was completely sober. ‘Big brother Carl! Big brother Carl!’ How short was the time that he could call him like this and receive his acknowledgment?

“Do you want me to kill those who hurt you?”

When the sentence repeated Carl was replaced by his big sister, and then the look in her eyes when she said it.

Countless thoughts began to circle that ten words sentence.

‘To have so much willingness to murder’

‘To say it as if it was nothing’

‘Not for survival but for the immature words of a child’

‘Smiling right after’

‘Killing for no reason’

‘For no care of consequences’

…

Zax’s mind tried to decipher another instance of death that his big sister unknowingly inculcated in him and with every life that he took his conception little by little changed.

‘Killing for survival is incorrect’. He finally determined and the thoughts in his heads converged into two voices of reason.

…

‘Killing for… killing for… killing for…’ There was nothing that could justify the act of taking another’s life in Zetsa’s eyes back then.

‘Why?’ Because killing does not need to be justified, to justify it is to make an excuse and seek remorse for something that cannot be undone.

‘Then why there is justification when it’s for food or self defense? How can it be okay to kill without feeling remorse?’ Because for food or self defense is also an excuse. Killing can be done without a thought, like killing a hundred enemies while having something else in mind. It is too simple for and honestly does not worth the troubles of remorse.

‘But the law says…’ Can the law decide that the life of a human is greater than a beast’s?

‘No’. Then how is it sensible to step on an ant and rub the shoe from it?

‘…’ What makes the law right? Why does it even being mentioned?

‘…’ The law is right because it has the power to inflict its ideals. It is mentioned only by those that are infested by it.

Killing is not only for survival.

Killing does not need justification. Killing does not need remorse. Killing does not need the law or rules.

If killing is for something, then it is for killing and nothing more. If something needs to be killed, than kill it. If something can be solved by killing, then kill. If something wants to kill, then kill it. If something cannot live, than kill it. If you have the strength, then you can kill.

If you do not want to kill, than do not kill.

It starts and ends with nothing that precedes or follows.

‘Killing…’

Just “Killing”, nothing more is needed.

‘What of the implications?’

Kill them, too.

…

A curtain was lifted from Zax’s mind. Around fifty beasts remained with only ten or so targeting him or Carl.

Did he listen to the two voices of reasons? He was not sure. But he did heed their conversation.

He moved back to Carl’s side and his killing intent subsided. The man from the second Savage Cave crippled his body and the dome that came out from his head submerged his soul in savagery. By now there was also almost nothing left of his mist energy due to exhaustion.

Zax turned his head to the remaining savages. Without any change in temperament his eyes emanated the same willingness to murder his big sister had in her eyes… it was formed by nothing but the decision to kill.