Chapter 44: Burn It All!

When he finished talking he looked up at her. He was expecting her to laugh but saw that she was the most serious she had ever been. There was even a hint of fear and panic in her eyes. Her face was pale as if her life force had been drained away.

He was about to nudge and ask her if she was okay but she got up slowly from the table and walked to a shelf.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

She put one hand behind her and walked while sliding a finger along the shelf.

I thought He said He wasn't going to do anything, she thought. Her eyes were so large and her chest was pounding out of its chest. She didn't want him to see her shock.

How could this be possible? Could there be something else going on upstairs that she doesn't know about? Another war, maybe? Had the Gods been on alert if the sword was taken out to be used again?

She has too many questions. There's gotta be someone she could ask this about, only that there's no way she could communicate with them.

She couldn't help but worry about the future and what it could behold. There was only one name that stood out as the reason behind all this. She was anxious it might be him. She was terrified, doubting and praying that it wasn't him, but it had to be him. He's the only one powerful enough to resonate his presence back to the sword. A deadly threat to the existence of the universe. His name was forbidden to be said and she hadn't heard it in thousands of years. A name so ancient it had been forgotten in the Book of Gods. A dangerous name.

The Ancient God Creator.

"Doesn't seem to me like you have any belief or faith." She unexpectedly criticized him. "You honestly don't believe there could be a Heaven above us, or a dark future ahead and that the rest of the world lies in your hands?"

Kun Shang got off his seat and followed her.

"I like to think that sometimes, but then again, I'm nobody. I'm just a bodyguard of the Emperor. I'm not a Prince, not a Royalty, not a nobility. In fact, I'm as far away from unique as can be. I cannot carry the fate of the universe upon my shoulders. It's just too much to ask for, even if it's from the Emperor." He lightly shook his head. "I cannot be the chosen one."

"No, you're wrong." Her voice contained absolute certainty. "Someday, you will see that you are the most important person in the entire world. The only person who can carry the fate of the universe upon your shoulders because that's what you do. You are the most unique person I have ever met even though you don't realize it yet. And when you do, you will reflect back on these words and see that I was right."

Kun Shang was on the other side of the shelf and paused to look at her through the books. She was unwavering in her words, standing strong and confident. Those were some words he never thought anyone would say about him. His whole life he thought it was colorless, he thought it was mundane, dull and uninteresting, but ever since she came into his life she showed him so much more to his existence than anyone had ever shown him.

The corner of his lips slightly curled up by themselves. He tried to force his smile down but couldn't hold back. He didn't try to argue with her on this one. Slightly blushing, he lowered his head and pretended to inspect the books on the lower shelves. Seeing a suspicious book he touched it.

"What is this?" He pulled out a strange book with no title. Thinking he found something important, he handed it to her through the shelf in between them.

"Wow, I've never seen you this mature before," she said, after flipping to the first page. He looked over to see the erotic content of the book exposed on top of her hands, and immediately turned his cheeks away, flushed.

"Something my big brother would enjoy." She added.

She closed the book and put it back on the shelf. They had been searching for another half an hour but found nothing unusual with the room, other than the fact that the air felt dry, the room was old, the wood was rotting, and it lacked a door. They concluded that the old dusty library was neither extravagant nor plain with random common books.

"Any ideas?" He asked her when they met at the end of a bookshelf. He had his arms crossed. It was his way of thinking.

"Hold up..." Something finally crossed her mind. Kun Shang unraveled his arms to see what she had to say. "Remember what Yu Yue told to us about getting separated and choosing the most dangerous path?"

He nodded his head, still trying to figure out which path they should take when they don't even have a path, let alone a door to lead to a path.

"Well, what have we got in here? A room full of super dried wood and paper, one of the world's easiest kinder to start a fire. I really think that if we burn up this room, a path will soon eventually open up somewhere."

He turned his head away from her in doubt.

"Think about it! We'd been searching this room for the past hour and there was no door or any hidden door. This room was built to be lit up. The walls and tables are rotting dry, all the books are too common to be important, and there are candles everywhere."

It didn't take him too long to be convinced but he was still iffy. "And what if we failed?"

It was Xiu'er's turn to cross her arms. "Aren't you a fire wielder?" She teased him.

He exhaled. "All right. If all else fails, I can still protect us from the fire."

Xiu'er nodded and went to scoop up A'Li from the table like a baby, then moved to the middle of the room where Kun Shang was already at. With a flick of his hand, all the candles in the room fell onto the wooden floor and slowly charred the wood, some of them didn't even make it before blowing out. She was going to tell him that the room was not burning at all but he was already onto it. He aimed his open palms to the corners of the room and it suddenly blew up in flames. When the flames reached them, she could see there was an invisible dome surrounding them that protected them from the scorching fire.

As predicted, the room easily burned down to ashes. When the fire finally died, they saw that they were standing on a platform. Where the floor of the room used to be, burned away, exposing a deep hole with the platform still in the middle where they were standing. Suddenly, the platform dropped at an increasing rate, like an elevator.

"Hold onto me!" Kun Shang yelled as he stabbed the tip of his sheathed sword into the wooden floor.