The Devil Himself - Part 1

As his eyes opened, Asura's pupils diluted, adapting to the dim light reflected in his eyes. As soon as his eyes adapted, Asura looked around without moving and instantly sobered up by the scene in front of him. He was in a dark cell, metal cuffs attached to his legs and hands. He slowly turned to the side and saw Xia gently breathing with worry carved deeply on her sleeping face.

Taking a look at himself, he saw a torn white cloth that had many parts which didn't match the original color of this rag. It was a one-piece shirt that was long enough to cover his knees. He raised his right hand and saw a blood-colored red circle with a weird rune in the middle. He felt that there was someone else who would be able to know everything about his current state if he touched that rune with his Spiritual Sense, so he refrained from doing that.

Asura: 'Slave contract, I suppose...'

He glanced over to Xia and silently crawled to her without rattling the chains. He gently kissed her forehead as that was the only way he wouldn't startle her in this situation. As he did, the long eyelashes fluttered and a pair of purple gems dawned unto the world, witnessing another pair of green gems only a little bit away from her face. Just as she was about to speak, Asura placed a hand on her mouth and transmitted his thoughts over.

Asura: 'Don't. It seems we've been captured. Don't make any noise, also be careful with chains, they make a lot of sound.'

Xia's pupils contracted as she heard the word 'captured', as she seemed to recall something which made her bitter, angry and helpless.

Asura patted her on the head gently and ruffled her hair as her troubled thoughts found their way to him. 'Relax. I'm here now, everything will be fine. Show me what happened.'

Suddenly, Xia lifted the chains in the air to prevent making any sound and only then jumped on Asura, tightly embracing him as two streaks of tears began streaming down her cheeks. Seeing her like that, Asura felt his heart tighten and something within it shatter. The last restraint deep in his heart shattered. From this moment onward, his heart could be said to be unrestrained, but the cost for that were Xia's tears. She made sure not to let out any sound that would alert their captors and silently sobbed in Asura's embrace.

Every twitch of her body was like a sharp knife cutting through Asura's heart. He once again felt helpless, almost causing both of them to die because of his recklessness. Although the other Xia wouldn't wake up if he didn't fuse the three Soul Spirits together, it was all at the cost of his innocent little sister's feelings, worry, fear and tears.

Only after falling asleep once again in his arms and resting for a while did Xia wake up again and separate from him. The coldness of the chains and floor deeply branded themselves in Asura's mind. Every fortune he encountered would immediately be followed by a misfortune, balancing things out according to the rules of nature. But even nature itself underestimated him. For he was the one who broke the laws of the universe. How could nature decide his fate? His fate is also Xia's fate, so he had to worry about both of them, and now there were the other part of Xia, the little fox, the Dragon Soul and also the hundred and one Divine Soul Fragments depending on him.

Asura's sharp gaze resurfaced, 'It's time to become serious, me. The time for playing around has ran out... It seems, I will have to become a devil for real... '

Xia blinked twice in silence, as she calmed down and the redness of her cheeks gradually started subsiding as she thought back to the scenes that took place in the last several days. Asura could clearly see in his mind everything that Xia experienced.

-----

A little girl carrying a similar-sized boy on her back scaled the thick forest, exhausted and hungry. Her eyes were lifeless, as if she was doing all of this while being unconscious, despite still walking. She'd been carrying her brother for a few days, headed to who knows where. She only wanted to find anyone, find something to eat, find someone to take a look at her unconscious brother. She wanted to find anyone that could check his health, to find another person who could confirm that he would be okay.

She had been following the footsteps that Asura had seen before he fell unconscious, vying for his life. She had been following them for far too long to still harbor any hope. Every time she had a bit of hope, the fact that every living thing was running away because of her aura had extinguished it. Nobody would be dumb enough to approach a potential threat out of curiosity.

After holding on with this for a few days, she was running out of energy to support herself. Even though she could cultivate, the energy here was so thin that it was basically meaningless. The expenditure was three thousand times faster than feedback of energy. She was bound to run out of it sooner or later. And so, it happened. Her eyes lost all light as both she and her brother fell on the grass.

After some time, someone came and took the two away. Xia had just enough consciousness left to understand that, but she couldn't even open her eyes, let alone try to do anything. Hunger and exhaustion had took their toll on her. The last thing she remembered was a scorching feeling coming from her right hand as she felt a kind of connection establish between her and another creature, and the coldness around her ankles and hands around that.

The next thing she knew, she saw the long-awaited green eyes staring at her.

-----

Xia: 'Brother, how are you? Are you okay? What happened? Why did your vitality drain so much? I... I thought you were about to die!'

Asura tapped her on the head twice, calming her down. He recounted everything that took place, as well as his battle with destiny for survival. Naturally, he left out the part about the other Xia. About the purple crystal containing the way to suppress Xia's aura - he said that when the Dragon Soul appeared he figured out how to do it with its help and then it fell asleep together with little fox.

He wasn't sure whether Xia believed him or not, but he couldn't spare any mind for that. The thing he was intensively working on right now was how to escape their current predicament. He pondered about whether to try his luck with the slave contract on his hand. The black-haired Xia in his mind then pointed out that he had nothing to fear, as nothing in this world could possibly win against the Dragon Soul.

Asura opened his eyes and looked at the bloody circle with a rune on his hand and focused his eyes on it. A strong oppressive force bore down on him, as if the entire world wanted to crush his very soul. The Dragon Soul in his mind felt a foreign invasion in its territory and multicolored divine light shone, obliterating the will of the world along with the laws governing the Soul Contract. It wasn't hard to do the same for Xia. Although people called it Soul Contract, everyone knew that it was basically a Slave Contract, as the master had full control over the other party's life.

Asura then took a glance at his and Xia's hand and saw the blood-colored mark vanish. He quickly let some blood out and drew a similar circle on his hand and then on Xia's. It was good enough to not be figured out at a first glance, but if someone wanted to really check it, they would notice that it wasn't an original. It was lacking an aura of the world's law.

*tap*, *tap*, *tap*

A series of heavy footsteps resonated in the hallway in front of the cell. It took a while for a fat man to appear in front of the cell.

"Ohoho, look what we have here. Our sleepy prince and princess finally woke up."

He raised the metal bat in his hand and dragged it over the metal bars, to which Asura and Xia reacted by snuggling against each other, pretending to be afraid. For a narrow-minded fatty like him, this was more than enough to make him believe two children were scared out of their wits.

"You brats! Good. Good! That's the proper way to act towards your owners. If you make this boss happy, I will put a few good words in about you to our leader. What do you say?", the man asked with a disgusting grin on his face.

Little did he know that Asura could understand his every thought.

Asura: 'You want to sell me off and want to groom my little sister until she grows up some more so you can 'enjoy' her with your buddies? Congratulations, fat bastard, you just signed your death contract. Congratulations.'

The two nodded frantically, behaving like how any six-year-old child would in their place. Asura noticed that there were many more cells other than theirs, but half of them were full of old people or strange beasts. He didn't see any children like them here. Maybe there were children at some other place in this building, but as far as he could see, it was a lost case for now. To make things even more depressing, everyone had a resigned look in their eyes, as if they've accepted their fate.

Suddenly, an old man in the cell next to theirs spoke: "You bunch of shit. I pray for the day when your Midnight Alliance will poke the Dragon's nest and get obliterated. You weren't satisfied with only us old farts, now you even dragged children into this. Heavens will not allow it! I will die soon and won't be able to witness it, but you won't be spared!"