The Truth (2) - The Thunder Beast

[Name: Kirin (familiar)

Species: Thunder Beast

Ranks: Rare (I)

(300 / 2000)

Strength: 90

Agility: 300

Vitality: 120

Zen Reserves: 2000 / 2000

Skills: Lightning Spirit(I) 40%, Thunder Wave(I) 70%, Lightning Rod(I) 15%, Quick Charge (I)30%, Protect (I) 10%]

"Awooh!" "Awooh!" Kirin was crying in pain as its body continued to shake in Stigma's embrace, it was currently standing on its three legs since one was slightly bruised.

"It okay Kirin, it's okay...." After checking its stat, Stigma continued to pet it's head to calm it down, at the same time he trying to figure out who was capable enough to harm Kirin when it was to fast even for him to catch.

After finding Kirin, Stigma found that the wound was nothing but a large cut made from a blade. Nonetheless, it was provided with some emergency first aid treatment just to be sure to avoid infection. If not for the broken front leg, Kirin would be jumping at him in joy right now.

Stigma cleaned the wound first with some water from the canteen, then applied some ointment and clean bandage that Felix bought from his space ring.

Stigma wanted to heal Kirin using the Pure energy, but he decided that it was for emergency purposes only, and he had no idea what Felix reaction would be if he could heal wounds in seconds.

Since his Pure energy alone needed soul, he can't always rely on finding places that had abundant souls and risk increasing the Taboo skill. Plus, if Stigma were to go a place like a graveyard, he doubted that there would be enough lingering souls, so he needed to conceal the Pure energy until he can figure out another method, or when he a lot more reserves.

Places that were filled with corpses are what Stigma or more accurately Cheng Xuan wanted to avoid venturing in, since he was warned by his late mother that it was considered disturbing the death from falling asleep peacefully. Though he assumed it was nothing more but a warning to not wander inside a cemetery when he was younger.

He had never done the 'Soul Burial' in front of another person, so he had no idea if they would be affected like Bell[1] said or they could see what he sees and tamper the corpses. If they saw what Stigma was doing, they would believe he was performing a ceremony or if not they would assume he was a religious person praying for random people who died.

Though Stigma didn't want to hurt it, he manage to tightly bandage Kirin's back and leg with some difficulty. There was some blood on the floor, but it didn't appear as though Kirin had lose to much blood, so it was fine for now.

Though it struggled under Felix grasp, it stayed completely still for Stigma, between the two it obviously trusted Stigma completely. Though Felix didn't complain as he studied Kirin from a distance with great curiosity, recalling what Stigma had said, Kirin was called a Thunder Beast - instead of calling it a beast clad in lightning; the correct term would be - a Beast bathed in lightning.

'Amazing, to actually find a Heavenly Beast that has said to be found only in legends the - Thunder Beast.'

Legends says that the Thunder Beast is said to be a lone wolf reborn in the Heavens and became a companion of a Heavenly Being of Lighting who hunted in the sky using his lightning element.

Before, he was but a solo hunter, the type who like the thrill of a chase and had subdued the Beast to live in peace in the Heavens.

Through many years of hunting alone, the Heavenly Being of Lightning thought of bringing a companion, but all the animals in heaven either had a master to follow or were too stubborn to leave their homes. After searching for decades, he gave up and chose to find a companion in the mortal world were survival was at its prime, by transforming into a cloud he started his search at the mountains, soon he found that many beast that lived there would suit his criteria, yet they could only hunt on their own.

With such candidates living among the strong, the Heavenly Being stayed and choose to cover the sky until he found the right one.

Yet again not one was capable of hunting with a partner but his patients was what got him the title of the God of the Hunt. Another year had passed and he was almost ready to give up on his search, but then he had found a pact of animals moving as one to hunt a large beast that toward a boulder - a bear. Curiosity filled the Heavenly Being, so he chose to follow them in secret, and found out what the small Beast were - wolves.

Though small they were fast, though weak individually they coordinated with one another. From time to time, they were able force the large beast to constantly retreat with fear in its eyes.

When the beast was finally taken down by their teamwork, the Heavenly Being had decided to take the wolf as his companion, since he didn't want his hunts to be too easy, he chose to find a lone wolf to further enjoy the kinship and deepen a bound until then.

Within the group, an aging wolf was found with its last breath, being careless it was struck down from protecting one of its own. Caring not for its dying breath, the pact had left it behind as they feasted on their prize.

When the pact was gone, the Heavenly Being took the opportunity to descended from the sky in a form of lighting burning the wolf's body to cinders, from its ashes the Heavenly Being had brought it's remains towards the heavens, continuously bathing it in the lightning element to let it be reborn.

After ten years the wolf was reborn into a Heavenly Beast, from the start it was brought towards the Heavenly Being many hunts. But instead of accepting it's fate to be its companion, it only ended with the wolf closing its heart towards everything believing it to be a form of future betrayal.

Through many encounters of hunting and surviving life threatening wounds, the wolf finally opened up and chose to be its master companion and accepted to form a pact, finally becoming the future Beast of The Thunderous Hunt - the Thunder Beast. With their new founded trust, these two were forever known as - " 'Thunder and Lighting' the Storm of the Heaven Realm".

With each hunt, their fame grew and their trust deepened, causing many to praise their ability all beast of the wild to fear.

However, the Heavenly Being of the Cloud and Wind, grew jealous of their accumulating fame, so he decided to challenge them with a wager that if they lose, the Heavenly Being of Lighting must give up his hunting life. With the challenge accepted, the Heavenly Being used water and air, to give birth to a powerful Beast of legends - a Dragon.

With such a powerful foe before them, the Storms of Heaven could only accept the task and take the beast down, their battle lasted for ten years yet the mortal world continued to suffer from the dragon's roar that called tornadoes, from the howl of the Thunder Beast thunderstruck, from Heavenly Being's lightning fell from its command destroying the ground below.

'Thus, their battle became known as the 'The Storm''

With whole Heavenly Realm watching, all were in awe, but the Heavenly Being of the Cloud and Wind grew impatient and created a barrier of Clouds that made one lost once entered - the mist.

As their battle continued to rage on, the mist enveloped the lands and shrouded their sight, trapping them from the outside world.

At the end of the tenth year in engaging with a fierce battle between another powerful beast, the Thunder Beast was struck from protecting its master and was casted down from the heavens, becoming lost in the clouds. As the ferocity of the Dragon continued, the Lightning Heavenly Being could only lament on his fallen comrade and struggled within the cloud like prison.

With his objective completed, the Heavenly Being Cloud and Wind that trapped them disappeared and never sought them out again. For his final ploy, he made sure the Thunder Beast would never return to the Heavens and find it's master, by concealing the pathway to the Heavenly Realm and shrouding it with his enchanted mist along with creating dummy clouds.

With the entry of Heavenly concealed, the wolf can only lament as his master continued to fight with Dragon on his own. Continuing to shift away from the sky day by day. Not giving up on his master, the wolf gave its thunderous howl to the sky to support his master.

But his endless chase had exhausted it and had found itself left behind in the mountains, lost on its own unfamiliar birth land.

At the end of each year, the Thunder Beast called upon thunder when the sky was dark and the water fell, calling for his master to find him. But after many years its master never answered or returned to find it. The beast had given up of calling after a hundred years and lived in the tallest mountains where the clouds can be reached, hoping to meet his master again after his battle.

After finding a female companion to mate, it had created a great lineage of noble hunters that carried his bloodline along with his teachings of companionship to leave the mountains and spread its ideals.

Centuries of a branching lineages and not one of its descendants have forgotten to carry on the duty and mission to find master to serve, even to the lesser breed they never forgotten or disgraced their great ancestors glory and pride as a form of instinct.

But with the mortals discovered the blessing known as cultivation, the beast were hunted down to be trophies of glory and nourishment as a proof of manhood. The beasts then had lost the reason to follow the ideal and formed families in the wild, rarely mingling with humans.

If a non-Cultivator were to be spared from finding one, then he/she will considered a great leader or

had the destiny to become a historical figure. If a Cultivator were find one and made a contract, then he/she is said to be blessed by the heavens and be the reincarnation of the Legendary wolf's master who still held loyalty too and become a living legend.

....

'If the legend is true, then Stigma will be....' Felix stopped for a moment and shook his head from the thought, and pushed aside the legend as it does not dictate a person's life. The story was told to encourage youths to be brave in the face of danger, so it was considered a fairy tale.

But when Stigma used the technique Felix taught him, a symbol appeared on his hand, the same symbol of little blue wolf's head. Confirming that Stigma is the actual contractor and owner of the Heavenly Beast, but Felix still believed that Stigma had the choice.

Forcing someone who has the capability and ignoring their wishes is the worst thing anyone can do. Especially when Stigma is still a child and had the right to decides to be what he wanted to be, if he chooses to make history, then it was Felix and his clan responsibility to do their best and make sure he was raised correctly.

'Fulfilling a role is different from going towards a goal.'

"I have got to admit, two days ago I heard and found those rumored' puddles of blood' in the forest, this explains where it all came from. Stigma, what should we do know, you found Kirin so should we leave now?"

Though Felix wanted to investigate the corpses, he was curious on what Stigma's next step would be, he knocked out the guards on his own and made an accurate deduction so he must have a rough idea on what the next step should be in this situation.

"We should check the corpse from outside the cave, the smell of corpses reminds me of when I woke up, plus it would be a waste of time checking the entire cave."

Lifting Kirin under his embrace, Stigma cleaned up the mess and walked out, as if the cave had little meaning.

"? Are you sure the ones inside the cave should be important, since they have yet to be inspected might be hiding something, we might as well check if the wounds match anyway."

"Check the floor and the surrounding first, and see if I'm not wrong on my approach."

?

Following on what Stigma had said, Felix checked the walls to the ceiling and found out what Stigma meant by wasting time.

When one gets a cut blood will eventually flow out from the wound, but if an artery was hit then the blood will fly out like a fountain. Just by looking at the wall and the ceiling, Felix noticed that there was no blood splatter that came from a wound, only blood that had dried up and looked like it was smeared to the wall by hand.

If they were killed here, then there should be a pool of blood or even a puddle, but there was none at all. If a beast did kill them and stored them inside, they wouldn't have bothered with the blood and drag the corpse inside and store it as is.

Each of the corpses had most of their blood removed, iIf what Stigma said was true, then this was man made.

When Felix inspected their hands, there was wasn't much dry blood but there were numerous cuts including their legs, so they must have struggled when they got captured. Other than small cuts and bruises, Felix noticed that all of them had their necks ripped out, if he were to guess a thick curved weapon was used and position half way to make it look like a beast fang was the cause.

There was the smell of blood in the air, but it wasn't pungent enough that would make one vomit, Felix had already experienced enough bloodshed and based on the color of their flesh, he realize that these victims were killed by having their blood drained before they were stored here.

Since they were inside a cave and the lighting was bad, Felix and Stigma browsed through the corpses and made a rough estimate that all of them were wealthy people with some merchants, all of them had sword or knife wounds. But were positioned to look like claw wounds, so Stigma made the right call and said that it was a waste of time.

"Lets go check the one's outside, they must have already been investigated, so they wouldn't bother double checking even if they were tampered with. Plus, even if we check the corpses inside we would find the same wounds, the perpetrator sure did a good job in restraining the victims, they must have either been drugged or killed without fighting back then struggled when they had their throat was ripped out."

"Whoever did this, they must have a plan to put in lot of preparation and effort to cover their tracks and made it look like a Heavenly Beast did this. But why not return now and destroy everything once the bodies were found...it makes no sense."

Stigma noticed that the corpses had no rope burns on the flesh, when he checked the wrist and legs. If they were captured for ransom, then they should have bound for a few days, and the victims skin would have shown signs of damage even if they didn't struggle.

"...Stigma, have you done this before? And how are you sure they won't double check the corpses." While shrugging his shoulder, Stigma answered as he walked towards the top corpse on the pile.

"Not really, humans are lazy by nature, so they won't bother double checking everything unless someone likes to pay attention to details or had realized the hint that something's amiss. If they found out that the corpses inside have been moved as well, then someone from the Top merchant would have to further investigate this matter and take precaution to convince the other three and prevent anyone from leaving the valley, forcing the perpetrator who committed the murders to make rash decision and formulate a new plan."

After untying the straw mat the face of a middle aged man appeared, Stigma grabbed his knife and tried inserting the knife to his neck to compare the size. The wound however didn't match the cut, based on the muscle tear in the neck it looked like a curved needle was inserted and got pulled out forcefully. With his knife being straight, Stigma could only make a rough guess that tool used was shaped like a hook with a thick base and was used to pull out the victims throat upon incision.

*Arf!* *Arf!* Kirin started barking at Stigma when he inserted the knife to the corpses, he patted its head with his free hand and made it enter inside his robe as he compared the other wounds.

As he continued his work, he caressed Kirin's small head, then it licked Stigma's palm as nuzzle its head, missing him from the day long absent. Even if he asked Kirin, it won't give him a straight answer much less speak his language, the very thought just made him laugh.

"...So ,who do you think did this, bandits?"

"...I doubt it. If bandits were the involved, then the moment they realized they had nothing valuable, these people would be killed anyway and the bandits would have investigated what was up ahead in secret. They would have left the valley when they realized there were too many people nearby and with an army stationed nearby, heavily armed patrolling the vicinity. Also, I left Kirin here less than a day and the cave was completely empty, now I come back and suddenly it's filled with corpses that make up a small hill. The time frame for killing these victims could not make up a day." - Stigma

"...You have a point, let's say all these people were from more than ten days ago, why keep the bodies and drain the blood then leave signs of a beast was responsible over at the market then leave it all the body's here with some valuables like rings and jewelry. The moment the rumors circulated in the market, they should have stopped their methods and destroyed the evidence, then left the valley to stay outside the borders or stayed in the market to lay low. Then when the merchants are scared and wanted to leave they would pillage the small groups slowly in the forest, then aim for the remaining one with the army as the last target. Their plan was obviously working well with about ten or so merchants here." - Felix

"If they wanted to keep themselves hidden and continue waiting game of pillaging, they should have buried the bodies in separate areas not hide it all in one cave. It's to obvious!" -Stigma

The more they look into it, it looked more like a sick joke in a form of a killing spree. Bandits would be the only fit the suspects criteria, but the evidence was left behind and didn't bother to safeguard or dispose of it, so those involve are not ordinary.

Stigma was worried, what if they were doing this to go after Kirin and wanted to single him out to catch it or kill it with the help of the masses.

'If they were after Kirin, they were doing a sloppy job....' Nonetheless, Stigma vowed to kill the bastard for harming Kirin even if he were to lose an arm or a leg.

'If it's not Kirin, then what is the goal here?'

"I suggest we regroup in the market and laylow for a while, we can only assume there's a goal for doing this so we had to with an investigation before reaching out the Top."

"...So you think there was a purpose in all this, is beyond common arson and murder." Stigma was about to answer when he heard something from a distance, he wasn't the only one, as Felix turned his head toward the same direction Stigma was facing with his eyebrows furrowed.

Stigma was carrying Kirin closely, so he will have a difficult time moving around to protect it. While Felix was still recovering, if he had fought now, he can at least use half of his strength.

From a distant both of them could hear the low growls of the hungry beast that made them both uneasy, not from the danger of encountering it, but whether they should use the guards to kill it or bring them to another location for safety. But their identities would already be found, and they would assume they were involved in the murders.

Eventually the sound of the growling stopped, but to be sure, Stigma used his skill and found that it was far of and left. Taking in some precaution, Stigma left the straw mat untied and tied the guards up the tree to be safe then brought out a dead body outside to take this seriously and notice a clue left out.

As an added bonus, he slipped in a piece of paper that Felix provided in the corpse hand, the words 'Reply by leaving the paper back at the cave and right down a meeting place to communicate with.'

Stigma was about to leave but thought about something, if these murdered victims had one in common they were all from the market. So he had an idea who to ask and may get some help in locating the perpetrator.

'If I get the Top's support, I can get the bastard and make him suffer a thousand slashes!'

Stigma was very protective with Kirin as it was still young, so seeing it in pain was his responsibility, and had filled his mind with dangerous thoughts. The one who harmed Kirin may be strong, but wasn't invincible and Stigma had a handful of skills that could help him greatly, with perfect planning he can kill almost anyone.

"Senior Felix, lets met my employer, they might have an idea who is responsible..."

"You think so..." Felix didn't have much lead when he looked at the corpse, and he still owes Stigma and still wanted him to heal his entire group later on. So if Stigma had a plan Felix could only share his opinion.

"They called themselves 'Assassin' who have connection to the underworld, so with their experience and knowledge they must have an idea who is capable of doing this, it's not much but we may find out what they know since they may have stayed here longer."

"...Stigma, why are you obsessed in finding the criminal, did someone you knew died in there..."

"No! I want payback for what they did to my Kirin, hurting my friend is considered punishable by a thousand lashes! Killing them is considered, punishable not by death but pure experience in hell!"

After another trip to the forest, Stigma had found himself back into the gateway, not wasting any time he jumped down the cliff and had landed with a great thud with Felix following behind him. Like what Felix said the necklace prevented Kirin from getting irritated from the Red Lilies.

Unlike last time, the guards made way for them and only asked the tags back. Complying to their demands while Kirin growled at them, they returned the tags and made way towards the tent where his companions are.

When he finally returned he found that Felix couldn't follow him due to an invisible force, immediately realizing it was the barrier doing.

"I'll go on ahead, so wait for me here."

*Awoo!* With Kirin giving his remark, Stigma moved forward.

When he went near the door, the talisman he had hid in his robe started to light up and opened a small entrance.

When he entered, Stigma had expected to see the entire tent cleaned up.

Yet he found himself facing a man sitting on the couch with his pants down breathing heavily with sweat beating down his face, the sister using a rag to wipe the table with a red face, and short woman walking out with a bathrobe on with wet hair flowing down her body.

If it weren't for the fact these people were still wearing mask, Stigma would feel awkward in walking in them. But not letting the chance get away, he gave his comment to not be awkward.

"So your in that type of relationship, should I come back after your done with round two?" [2]

"Hell No!"

....

[1] Bell, the Heavenly Being Stigma met from the chapter 'Heavenly Being and the Spirit Realm'

[2] If you haven't noticed Stigma wasn't sure what was going on and wanted to confirm if they had that type of relationship - sex friends in other words.