Dragon's Soul: An End's Beginning

by Tony Tran

  Zhang jumped at one of them and silently slit the man's throat through the opening in his armor.

  He screamed, "Mother, Father!! Go!! I'll keep them here; I'll catch up to you soon."

  His father knew the seriousness of the situation, but he had faith in his son's abilities so he took his wife's hand and dashed into the tunnel.

  Zhang unsheathed his swords and was ready to dispatch of anyone who would try to go into the tunnel.

  There were at least twenty cavalry soldiers facing Zhang. He gracefully dashed at them. He threw one of his swords with a deadly precision. The sword soared through the air and pierced a soldier’s neck. The sword was thrown with such force that it also knocked the man off his horse.

  The other soldiers were utterly stunned.

  What they failed to realize was that when Zhang had thrown his sword, he did not stop and kept running while slashing the legs of their horses.

  Without them knowing what had happened, their horses began to, one by one, slump on the ground, making some of the soldiers lose balance and fall towards the ground.

  Once they had fallen to the ground Zhang took advantage of them and quickly dispatched them to afterlife.

  It did not take him long to kill all the twenty soldiers.

  One would think that Zhang would be scared because this was his first time killing anyone.

  But actually, Zhang was used to death, he would often dream of the man killing him with a knife.

  This was the same at that but he was the one who did the killing, a part of himself seemed to encourage this.

  After killing all twenty soldiers, before Zhang could even catch his breath, many more rushed into the courtyard.

  There was no end to the soldiers coming into the courtyard and soon there wasn't enough space for more come in.

  Facing such a large group of enemies, most people would be scared out of their wits, but Zhang wasn’t like most people.

  Rather, he was mapping out how to best face this group of enemies.

  He knew if he even let one soldier pass, his family would be in danger. So he punched his arm into the wall collapsing it into the tunnel.

  The soldiers lifted their shields and went into formation, boxing Zhang in from three sides.

  Zhang jumped into the sky and as he landed he did a horizontal slash and cut one of the soldiers into two.

  And as soon as his feet touched the ground he started to sprint while slashing wildly at the soldiers.

  Some soldiers lost their limbs due to the sharpness of Zhang's sword, others lost their lives. None of them were left unharmed as Zhang ran past them.

  The soldiers soon realized they were no match for this youth and began falling back and rearranging their formation. Archers started coming in behind them and shoot countless arrows at Zhang.

  Zhang was able to dodge and parry some of the arrows but against a large number such as this it was impossible for someone at his level to come out unscathed.

  An arrow landed and stuck itself into Zhang's shoulder, then another into his leg, and another and another. Soon he became riddled in them.

  The soldiers couldn't believe that Zhang was still standing with so many arrows pierced in him. They winced imaging the amount of pain he was in, but actually Zhang could not feel a thing.

  He was born not being able to feel pain luckily.

  But he felt tired, fighting hundreds of opponents alone was easier said than done. Nonetheless, he stood his ground and continued fighting.

  The soldiers had reported back to the golden general and he was on his way to where Zhang was.

  What the golden general saw when he arrived was horrifying.

  Zhang's body was covered in arrows and a few spears were stabbed into his back while sitting on a small hill of corpses.

  The general knew he had to kill Zhang and quickly. He gathered essence in his palm which ignited into a flame. He is in fact a Mage and one at the 8th level that specializes in fire magic.

  A massive fireball flew across the courtyard and smashed into Zhang throwing him off the hill of corpses and smashing him into a wall knocking him unconscious.

  Believing Zhang to be dead, the commander ordered another squad of soldiers to come in and collect the bodies of the dead soldiers.

  Some of the bodies were cut into mush, none of them were left intact. The most horrifying thing was some of them weren't dead just cleaved into two at the hip.

  The general walked up to Zhang, ignited another fire ball and was about turn Zhang into ashes. When he suddenly heard a voice.

  The voice sounded ancient, at first he wasn't able to make out where or what the voice was saying. Just random words in no particular order.

  After a while he was able to make out what it was saying.

  "Guess I will help you this time, for awakening me from my death-like sleep." The voice said.

  And instantly Zhang's body ignited and was covered by pitch black fire.

  The general jumped back and launched his fire ball at Zhang, which seemed to be swallowed by the black fire.

  Zhang's body began to rise as if some unknown force was lifting him up or as if a puppeteer was manning his puppet.

  He flew toward the general at high speed and swung his sword. The general parried his strike but the pure power behind it numbed the general’s arms.

  Zhang continued his onslaught of slashes that seemed to follow no style or technique.

  The general's armor was covered in cut marks, some pieces were even falling off.

  The general used fire magic and infused it with his sword, igniting the sword. He was barely able to fight evenly with Zhang even though he could not sense any essence in Zhang's sword strikes, just pure physical strength.

  He knew that if he dragged the fight on he would be no match for Zhang so he quickly ordered all of his soldiers to charge.

  The general knew that he was not a match for Zhang one on one, but when it was ten on one or a hundred on one he definitely would be at an advantage.

  But as soon as they surrounded Zhang the devilish black fire began lashing out like whips. Whoever was touched by it slumped over and fall lifeless onto the ground.

  This terrified the general. Suddenly Zhang's speed increased, it looked as if he was teleporting and before long ended up in front of the general and slashed off his arm.

  He knew he couldn't beat Zhang at that point so instead he stood still. Zhang had appeared in front of him once more and lunged the sword into his heart.

  He, then, used all his might to pull Zhang closer to him and pulled out a soul stone from his pocket and smashed it with his remaining hand.

  "Haha if I'm going to die I’ll take you with me." He screamed.

  The soul stone emitted a massive explosion that rocked the whole city.

  Normally this would not happen, but the general was a level 8 Mage and used all the essence he had left to ignite countless souls that was in the soul stone.

  The whole Zhou mansion and a good part of the city was gone. Only a massive crater was left.

  Chapter 3: A New Place

  Blue Tear City rumbled, as all the energy stored in the soul stone ignited and exploded. A whole section of the city was now gone.

  The underground tunnel shook as the Wu and Zhou clan were evacuating. The part of tunnel they were in was located outside of the city, so it did not collapse like the other parts of the tunnel.

  Ling had stopped in her tracks and stared back at the direction they had come from. An image of Zhang had flashed in her mind, and she suddenly started running back towards the city.

  She knew something had gone wrong and that she had to go back. She had to go back for Zhang, no matter how strong he was he did not possess much essence and how would he be able to take on a whole army alone.

  But before she could even take a few steps her path was blocked by the clan’s soldiers. It was their duty to keep Ling, her family and the Zhou clan’s members safe. For this, many of their brothers in arms
had died.

  The three hundred soldiers of the Zhou clan had most likely all died to buy enough time for them to escape.

  Ling's father walked towards his daughter, and tried to persuade her. He told her that Zhang would be probably fine, and they'd be able to meet up with him at the capital where it is safe.

  Not far away from Ling, Zhang's mother had fainted. She had been worrying about Zhang ever since she entered the tunnel and the explosion only served to make her imagination run wild with all sorts of nightmarish scenes, where her son was killed.

  Both of the clans resumed their evacuation soon after the tremor. They were almost at the end of the tunnel and would soon reach an underground safe house, where they could stay for a few days and then proceed to the capitol.

  Unknown to them, their greatest fear had indeed come true. In the crater where the explosion happened, a black colored flame flickered as the wind blew and soon disappeared. Zhang had indeed gone to the world of the dead and was no longer part of the living world.

  The soldiers of the Siwang Empire went frantic, their commanding officer had just died and they were still in enemy’s territory. Out of the ten thousand soldiers only roughly four thousand are alive. Zhang was able to kill possibly two hundred or so of them, while the explosion and the ground collapsing down had claimed the lives of the rest.

  That night, the Siwang Empire had successfully taken over ten cities within the Heilong Kingdom, along with many other cities in various neighboring kingdoms. And also collecting millions of souls, slaves, and lots of wealth to send back to the empire.

  The kingdoms neighboring the Siwang Empire fell into a state of panic. Alone, they were no match for the Siwang Empire. So each kingdom sent out hundreds of messengers and emissaries to their neighbors asking for aid.

  As the continent fell into chaos, a particular person was oblivious to it all. This person being of course Zhang. He was currently laying on top of a hill. A hill located in a place called the underworld, also known as hell to some.

  When the golden armored general ignited the essence in the soul stone and caused the explosion, Zhang’s necklace flashed and a black fire engulfed his whole body and turned it into dust. The necklace had converted his body into pure energy much like the souls that the soldiers were collecting. The pure energy was then used to open a rift in space and send his soul to the underworld, where he would have a chance of living. Where there is life there is hope.

  Zhang had just awoken to find himself in a strange place that he had never been to before. The sky projected an eerie green color, white mist was everywhere making visibility terrible, howling winds could be heard, lightning could be barely seen flashing the across the sky, and sense of death hung in the air.

  Zhang only recalled that he was impaled by countless arrows and had blanked out.

  He wanted to find his family and Ling so he got up and began walking. He couldn't tell which direction he was going and his sense of time slowly disappeared also.

  What seemed like day had pass would be only a few hours to Zhang. As he kept walking, he soon saw the figure of a person, wearing a long white robe with long flowing hair.

  "Hey! You there, can you tell me where this place is?" Zhang called out.

  But he did not receive a reply. Despite this he kept walking closer to the figure, and when Zhang reached an arm’s length distance from the person he once more asked the same question and even tapped the person shoulder.

  And to his surprise the figure began to turn around, but what would surprise him even more was the. It was a man, not just any man, but one with one of his eyeballs popping out from the socket and dangling, a part of his head was sunken in and his brain was visible. His mouth slowly began to open, and as it did, flies flew out and maggots fell out. There was no possible way for the man to be alive, he was most likely an undead!

  "Welcome to the underworld!!!” He screamed.

  Then suddenly his hands launched at Zhang and took hold of Zhang's neck and began to exert force.

  To Zhang's horror he could not pull off the its hands, and in addition to the currently bad situation the white mist surrounding Zhang suddenly lifted and thousands of undead were revealed as they move all around Zhang.

  Undead with missing limbs, bloated stomachs, charred bodies, and undead of all shapes and sizes surrounded Zhang, and one by one they latched onto him.

  There was no way for Zhang to break out of the mob of undead, and he was gasping for air but to no avail. Until his pendant flashed once and the black fire once more appeared. Each time it touched an undead, it would instantly turn to dust and as if feeding the fire, making it bigger and spreading faster.

  Soon enough all the undead had been exterminated, leaving little patches of black fire where they were standing. Then all of a sudden all of the black fire floated into the air, and flew towards Zhang.

  Not knowing what was happening Zhang stood there dumbfounded, and as the black fire reached Zhang it was sucked back into his pendant.

  And a sudden feeling spread throughout Zhang, he could sense his essence circulating throughout his body, although only a minuscule amount which had never happened before.

  Zhang touched his pendant, and for the first time in his life, he started to wonder ‘what the heck was this pendant?’ Over the years it became practically a part of him, he never took it off, nor did it ever part from him.

  Zhang decided that it was not safe to stay in one place. Who knows if more undead would come here or if something more sinister was lurking around within the mist. Zhang kept moving as quickly as possible through the mist, then suddenly he came to a complete stop.

  He almost ran off the ledge of a very steep cliff, if not for the fact that he accidentally kicked a rock when he was running and heard it fell down the cliff, he would’ve ran off the ledge.

  To his amazement the mist suddenly dissipated and revealed a massive city that stretched further than the eye could see, and what seemed like rivers of people heading towards the city. He could make out that these were people and not undead, or at least he hoped so, because they were not dressed in all white like the undead that attacked him. The odd thing was that the people were all in orderly lines, and did not run about.

  Zhang decided to head towards the palace because it was so far the only sign of people that he encountered. Each step he took toward the city the more details he would notice about it. It had many towers that spiraled into the clouds, walls that stretched across the horizon, and gave off a dominating aura.

  When he finally reached the back of the line heading to the city, Zhang walked up and asked a man who was standing in front of him in line. "Sir can you happen to tell me where this place is?"

  The man turned back toward Zhang and said "Do you not know? Are you perhaps one of those people?"

  "What people?” Zhang replied all confused.

  "I'm not sure how to tell you this kid but you're dead, this is the underworld. Were you not paying attention when you entered into the gates of hell and were briefed by the reapers?" The man asked.

  The man's words made Zhang remember when the countless soldiers attacked him and after managing to fight for a while he blanked out. He should have realized sooner because why didn't he have a single wound on his body? Obviously if someone had saved him or if he somehow got away he would still have an unmeasurable number of wounds on his body.

  As the shock and realization slowly kicked in, the man began speaking to him once more.

  "It’s okay kid, it takes everyone a bit of time to accept that they are dead. Like for instance, who would've thought that I died because I choked on that piece of tofu I was eating. Might be a dumb way to die but well, we all end up in the same place no matter how we die. Since you seemed to missed the briefing I suggest you follow me when we get into the city. It is probably fate that we met today."

  Zhang simply nodded and stood waiting in line like everyone else. The man would occasionally talk to him about this and that. For inst
ance, once a person entered hell they would be sorted based on their good deeds and sins. Those who had done more good deeds than evil would be sent to the city to wait for their turn to be reincarnated again, those who have done more bad than good were sent to the eighteen levels of hell where they would undergo an unimaginable torture to make up for their sins.

  Also, the place where Zhang appeared before was called the Forest of the Forgotten. Those whose bad deeds outweigh their good deeds but not by very much that they would be sent into the eighteen levels of hell. They were exiled into the forest for a certain amount of years before they would be judged once more. So they would lose their minds wandering in the white mist and would become like animals, while others who were able to hold on to their humanity will eventually be let into the city.

  Hell also has its own hierarchy, which starts with Yama sitting at the top, then the ten Diyu, the vice Diyu who were more than one can count, then the soldiers of the army of the underworld, and regular people who had died. The Yama ruled over all of the underworld and kept the order, while the Diyu and their assistants judged the dead based on their sins.