Reincarnation. (2)

Lang Shen was going through a flurry of emotions at the moment. Exiled? He couldn't imagine leaving his home that he had basically grown up in on such terms. Lang Shen started stuttering and pleading with the master to forgive him but all he had received was a heavy kick to the chest that made him fall to his knees.

Lang Shen didn't know what to do anymore as his cries fell on deaf ears. He decided to just defend himself by fighting against their onslaught, hoping that they stop their madness. With anger and sorrow on his face, Lang Shen got into his fighting stance, shouting, "I'm telling you to stop this! It was a mistake...I would never do something like this on purpose!"

The master stomped down on to the ground with extreme force and looked at Lang Shen intently, his face distorted with anger, "Shut up you ungrateful disciple! We will break both of your arms and throw you out of this temple! Master Qiu raised you for all of these years and this is how you repay him?!" Lang Shen cried even more tears when he heard his master's name being mentioned. The master saw this and immediately shouted, "Disciples, attack! Make sure you beat him soundly for all the murders he has committed!"

Lang Shen knew he couldn't survive if he stayed surrounded by all of the disciples so he ran into the weakest set of disciples he saw, knocking them over with incredible ease by deflecting their staffs. Most if not all disciples knew him and knew how skilled he was so some of their hands were already shaking in fear at the prospect of fighting him. The death of the two masters didn't help in that regard at all as it just reinforced their fears. But, they were still Shaolin disciples at heart and they couldn't forgive Lang Shen for murdering their masters.

They all charged him as the knocked down disciples regained their footing and since he had already broken out of their encirclement, he ran away immediately. There was no way he was going to win against so many opponents at once so the only thing he could do was split them into groups in hopes of fighting them off that way. As Lang Shen ran through the massive temple, he started to lose some of them at large turns but the more experienced disciples kept up with his pace almost perfectly.

Since the temple was mostly open and the only buildings in the yard consisted of the important ones used for living, eating, etc., there weren't many places to hide or run to. Lang Shen's mind was all over the place at the moment as he didn't want to keep fighting his brothers.

'I can't keep running from them! They aren't understanding that it was a mistake! Shit, they're making me...crazy by chasing me like this...okay I'll only knock out a few of them and find a way to escape...yeah...yeah...that should work...'

After reorganizing his thoughts a bit and coming to that conclusion, Lang Shen spun around quickly to face the oncoming disciples. As soon as the first one attacked him, he dodged the attack while wrapping his arm around the staff and kicked the disciple in the chest, causing him to let go of the staff while falling backward with blood trailing from his mouth. With his mind in such disarray, Lang Shen didn't have any control over his strength and unbeknownst to him, his body just took the natural course of defending itself from attackers at all costs. The reason he was so physically powerful was that he had been born with 50 times the muscle density of a normal human being. It was something that couldn't be looked into by the hospital since he was an orphan and the medical care couldn't be paid for so they just sent him out to the orphanage in hopes that he could live a normal life.

Lang Shen then used the staff to hit the closest disciples multiple times each to their heads, incapacitating them immediately. He then pushed off the ground with his right foot and continued running away, not looking back at the people chasing him. Any disciple that tried to block his way was immediately dispatched with maximum force and regardless of whether they died from the hit or not, Lang Shen didn't stop moving. All he could do was hope that he didn't kill them although inwardly he could feel that he did but he just in denial. Suddenly, numerous disciples jumped out of a shortcut that was in the path he was running on, blocking his exit. There were way too many people trained monks for him to dispatch nonchalantly so he just tried once again to talk to them. With his voice shaking he said, "H-hey...brothers, you guys can believe me...right? I-i didn't...kill them on purpose! I swear...my father, master Qiu-"

The same master from before that was chasing him stomped his foot down in anger and cut Lang Shen off immediately, saying, "Lang Shen! Don't you dare mention his name you disgrace!! You...you've done too much! We can't allow you to leave anymore! Disciples, masters, it's time to send this lost brother into the cycle of reincarnation! We will pray to buddha that in his next life, he would make the right choices! Kill him!"

[10 minutes later]

"M-master Ji...wake up...i-i...told you to stop hitting me but you guys didn't listen and..now you're all...dead. Brother Wen...brother Shang..brother Liu...you didn't listen to me..."

Lang Shen's tears had finally dried up as he stood in a circle of dead monks, all of them beaten to death by his staff. He felt like he failed everyone, especially his father, by committing such a grave crime. There was nothing but emptiness in his eyes as he slowly walked away from the scene, abandoning the life of a Shaolin monk forever.

Back to Lang Shen in the current time, he shook his head and laughed silently as only when he started living for himself didn't he realize why he couldn't control his strength back at the temple. It was because before the time he fought against his master, he had never used his full striking strength. He only did light spars daily with everyone and that was it, no kind of actual hitting allowed. He had always felt that he was stronger than everyone else but not to such an astonishing degree. After cleaning up his wounds, Lang Shen got up and double slapped his face, saying to himself, "Alright Shen, you've already gotten over this hurdle. No need to go back on it. Focus on your fight tonight."

He then left to take a bath in a nearby lake and soon after, came back to put on some casual gear in preparation to leave. It was already around 6 in the evening when he finally left his cabin. He walked through the forest for about thirty minutes until he got to a public road and then walked thirty more minutes until he got to the nearest bus stop. A few people were sitting there waiting and took no notice to him when he arrived, keeping to themselves.

Soon after, the bus arrived and Lang Shen got on with his mind focused on the life and death battle that he was heading to. The bus took off and everyone was minding their business until a peculiar-looking young man that sat next to Lang Shen started to unbutton with his shirt. Lang Shen looked over and noticed a kind of bulky vest laced with technological contraptions strapped to the man's chest. He had no idea what this was but the people around him seemed to be deathly scared of what was going to happen. The young man then said as was breathing heavily with tears running down his face, "May we all live better in the next life."

BOOM! The contraption on his chest exploded and killed everyone on the bus, including Lang Shen as he was the closest person to him.

Sometime later, in a dark void littered with multiple souls, one of them could be seen opening his eyes as a large man stood in front of him.

"Welcome to your lucky chance at a life you can personally choose, boy. I am an Elder God and you have been chosen to carry out an experiment for us."