9 - Anger

Su Lin's lifeless body lay on the ground, mangled and burned. There was not a sound at all from the audience. It was so deathly quiet that one could hear a pin drop. It was at this moment that Su Lin's tear finally fell from her face. It fell quietly and alone. It seemed to contain a boundless sadness. It fell alone, and it seemed to represent Su Lin's whole life. Then, it hit the ground, splashing into nothingness, representing her untimely death.

Almost no one saw this tear, but all those at the second silver star or higher saw it. Not only them, but Su Tao saw it, and the moment that it splashed on the ground, a tear rolled down his own face. He had experienced torture the likes of which these people could not even hope to begin to imagine. But he had not experienced any emotional pain. His mother had just been tortured to death in front of him, but he only shed a single tear.

But before this tear even had a chance to fall from his face, it evaporated, burned out of existence by a tiny green lightning bolt. This tiny green lighting bolt had jumped out of his eye, but he had no clue. Then, without him knowing, the two marbles in the dimension of his left eye grew. They doubled in size. Now they were one inch each.

He felt a pain in his heart. He had felt it before when his sister died, and he felt it now. It felt as if someone was choking him, and he could not breath. It was a pain which could not be described. One could only feel it, feel it breaking them apart as they struggled to keep themselves from falling down. He fell down to his knees, and nothing happened for a few more moments.

Then, he made up his mind. He looked at the red robed elder. He made the decision to kill this elder no matter the cost. Not only that, he would torture this elder to death the same way which he had tortured his mother.

As his eyes locked onto the red robed elder, he released a trace amount of killing intent. But this was so faint that no one could sense it.

But then, the killing intent vanished as his purple flower tattoos started to glow slightly, and he calmed down. Then, more purple flowers appeared on his body. Now, there were some on his arms. But wherever the green lightning tattoos and flower tattoos intersected, the lightning scar would go over the flowers, leaving it looking like the lightning had gone over the flowers.

In addition to the flowers that showed up, there was also a flower on the backs of each hand. But the flower looked as if it had been torn through by the green lightning tattoos.

At this time, Su Tao stood up. He was unnaturally calm at this moment, and although his mother had just been brutally murdered in front of him, he was still calm. His left eye was giving off a light so faint that no one else could see it, and the purple flower tattoos on his body were all glowing slightly.

Those who were around him no longer sensed any anger, but they sensed absolutely nothing, as if Su Tao had turned into thin air. But no one paid it any mind as they still did not know that he was her son.

Then, without waiting for the even to end, Su Tao turned around and left. He was stopped by the guards, asking who he was and why he was leaving, but he simply glared at them and spoke softly.

"I am the son of the woman who was just murdered."

That glare and that one sentence was enough to make them let him pass. After all, how could they hope to keep back a fourteen year old child who just watched his mother be murdered brutally in front of him?

But what they did do was report to their superiors that he had left, and more importantly, what he looked like. After all, his eyes were extremely shocking, and his white hair was extremely rare. Along with that, the weird flower tattoos on his hands which had been torn through by lightning tattoos.

They figured that maybe because his mother was practicing dark arts, maybe she had done something to him and he would end up being evil in the future. But contrary to their expectations, the higher ups simply said to let him be.

Little did they know that this was a direct order from the city master. The city master had had his attention on Su Tao the moment that he entered the area. He wanted to see how Su Tao reacted to his mother's death. At first, he reacted how any kid would react, and he fell to his knees, but contrary to his expectations, he only shed a single tear. After that tear fell, he stood back up, and an absolute calmness appeared on his face that was not anything like what he had ever seen before.

As such, he wanted to see what this boy would do in the future. After all, he was still a boy, and the calmness on his face was not something that someone wicked would normally possess, and they would never possess it at his age. As such, he was not worried about this boy becoming evil. And with his assessment, he told the higher ups in the Su family to not trouble Su Tao for the time being.

After Su Tao left, he went directly to the training area, which was now empty. He once again went up to a stone pillar.

As he punched towards the pillar, his arms were extremely fast and powerful. In Su Tao's perception, though, it was so slow that it could be said that it was at a snail's pace. He had long ago sorted out all the flaws of his punches, and they were now at least twice as strong as before, not in actual physical strength, but in terms of actual power, weight, and precision.

The impact of the fist against the pillar echoed through the whole training area, and it brought with it a calming and holy feeling, which came from his left eye that was keeping him calm. But it was mixed with a murderous intention, leaving the feeling it gave off conflicted and bizarre. After all, absolutely anyone would go completely insane seeing their only family tortured to death brutally in front of their faces with the entire city watching. The only reason he did not kill everyone he saw was because of his left eye, which was currently keeping him calm.

But just because he was calm did not mean that he was not angry. And he was punching the pillar to let out his anger.

Again, he punched the pillar. This time, he felt slightly calmer, but it was so little that it was almost not noticeable. He continued to punch the pillar as hard as he possibly could for a total of twelve hours. Long ago people had returned to the training area, and they had seen him punching the pillar with a look of conflict and pain on his face. There was not a single person here who did not know who he was because if they did not know him before, others would tell them who he was. He was the son of the woman who had just been tortured to death in front of the entire city.

None of them bothered him because they felt that if they did, he might end up just killing them. The fact that he had not gone on a killing spree already was extraordinary, and showed his state of mind was extremely stable. But just because he had not done it yet did not mean that he never would, and this was why everyone was afraid of him. After all, those who had gone insane did not value their lives, and their attacks would be beyond brutal.

As he continued to punch, his fists had long ago mangled themselves into a bloody mess, but Su Tao did not even flinch when he hit the pillar. Soon, his body fell over, completely incapable of moving. All of the rage which he had been feeling was now gone, and his mind had returned to calmness. But this did not mean that he wanted to kill the red robed elder any less. In fact, he wanted to kill him even more than before.

As he lay there, since he could not move anyway, he decided to go into the dimension of his eyes. The next moment, his consciousness left his body and went into the weird void within his eyes. In front of him floated two marbles, but both were now bigger. Both were now two inches in diameter, and they were much more powerful looking than before.

Su Tao felt that the calmness that the eye gave to him was not using any of the energy that the eye seemed to contain, but rather it was something that the eye did without using any energy, or the energy it used to calm him down was negligible such that it could be recovered instantly, such as the energy used for your heart to beat.

He felt calm, and because of that he was able to control his impulses. Impulses like going on a rampage fueled by the anger from his mother's murder. He would never let go of that anger and hate that he held in his heart, and that would be something that would stay with him forever.

Not that he would be able to do much by going on a rampage. But he would not be able to prevent himself from doing it should the calmness from his left eye not be there at any time.

As there was nothing to do in this dimension other than look at the marbles, he left, finding himself on the ground in exactly the same position as before. As expected, no one bothered him, and he felt as if they did not want to bother him or rather they did not dare to bother him. But this made sense for reasons that he had already thought about.

A few minutes later, he got up and went home. He ate dinner, and went to bed.

In the morning, he got up and went to the training area again. Once again, he bloodied his knuckles as he trained. Everyone around him in the training area around him looked at him with pity, there was not a single person here who didn't know who he was. But all of them wondered why the family was not doing anything to go after him if his mother was the one who used the dark arts and summoned all that lightning. But it was not their business what the family was doing since they were too weak to make any difference anyway.

As Su Tao continued to punch the pillar, he felt his strength increase. He now had one hundred sixty pounds of strength, which meant that in a total of three days of training, he had only increased his strength by five pounds, which was one sixth as fast as before.

He had one hundred fifty five pounds of strength when he broke through to the second rank of the martial path, and he trained for one day after the three days of searching for his mother. Including yesterday and today, he had trained for a total of three days, yet he only increased his strength by five pounds. Of course, this speed was still extremely fast, even being a little bit faster than the daughter of the city master.

Everyone started to cultivate and train after they reached the age of thirteen. This was why most fourteen year old's were only at the second rank of the martial path. It was fairly easy to train the body, but one had to be a certain age before they could do so without hurting themselves. This was why everyone started so late. Otherwise, everyone would start probably at five years old.

Thinking about how old everyone was, Su Tao realized something. He just realized that over the past few days, he had been so distracted by his new eyes, tattoos and his missing mother that there was something he did not even notice.

He had just turned fifteen, and not only that, he had turned fifteen on the day his mother was murdered, two days ago. Thinking about this, he could not help but be sad. His mother was extremely important to him, and she had been tortured to death in front of him on his own birthday. Fate had its own ways of being cruel.

Finally, Su Tao finished his training, and he was about to go home. But then, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw something. If he did not have his two new eyes, he would not have even seen it at all.

Then, he raised his arm as fast as lightning and covered his face. Then, not even a millisecond later, the sound of flesh being pierced could be heard, followed by the sounds of bones being broken. By the time Su Tao had fully moved into position, he had already realized that there was an arrow firmly lodged into his arm, going all the way through, and the tip was only about an inch away from his right eye despite going all the way through his arm. Any further, and it would have impaled right into his eye.