Another scream, more desperate and terrible than before, reverberated through the corridor. Soone was certainly being tortured inside here.
"Young Master!" Xuebi reached out, grabbing Wuyi's arm, but Wuyi shook him off and continued toward the source of the cries.
He arrived at a wide, torch-lit room with cell doors lining three walls. In the center, two n stood on opposite sides of a table, where a third man was chained. One of the guards held an iron poker, its tip glowing red-hot.
Wuyi stepped closer, capturing the attention of the guard without the iron poker. The man jumped, startled. "What in the— Who? I an..."
Wuyi had expected the torturers to be nacing figures, but their ordinariness struck him. The shorter guard looked almost friendly, if a bit simple. The other had a brutish deanor but seed like soone who could enjoy a good laugh.
"Who are you?" the brutish guard demanded.
"I'm the young master," he said, adopting the Huo Clan's accent.
"We paid the old warty-faced guard at the door to let see the prisoners." He gestured toward Xuebi. "We're attending the executions tomorrow. I wanted a closer look at the criminals out of curiosity."
Looking at Xuebi, both torturers relaxed. These torturers looked simple, but they both were Qi initiate level 2, which made sense since this dungeon was obviously built to keep strong warriors.
Wuyi's gaze shifted from the guard to the man on the table. The man's skin was pale and yet dark, unlike anything Wuyi had ever seen. Slowly, the man turned his head, his eyes eting Wuyi's. The whites of his eyes seed to glow in the dimly lit room.
"Wart-face? Heh, I like that," Feici, the larger guard, chuckled, gripping his iron poker. "If there's gold liang in it for and Koli, then you can stay and watch this fellow squeal."
"It doesn't seem right, Feici. He's just a young'un," Koli, the other guard, furrowed his brow, clearly uncomfortable.
"You don't want to stand between and gold liang, my friend," Feici retorted, his eyes narrowing.
The man on the table bore multiple burn marks, his chest glistening with sweat and pain. The air was thick with the nauseating sll of charred flesh.
"He's pale and dark," Wuyi comnted, unable to look away.
"He's from the Long Beast tribe, that's what he is," Koli spat, returning the poker to the fire. "All of them are demonics. Heathens, every one of them."
"Why are you burning him?" Wuyi asked, feeling uneasy because the statue of harmony showed him the man had been tortured for a long ti.
Feici and Koli exchanged puzzled glances. "He's from the demonic tribes," Koli finally said. "The Monks and righteous paths say to burn the heathen. So, we're crisping him up before the Lord cos to watch him get executed tomorrow."
"Executed," Feici emphasized, as if savoring the word.
"Executed, killed, what's the difference? They all end up as worm food," Koli spat disdainfully into the coals.
Wuyi sighed. How co none of the warriors he ets have a clean personality, like it showed in books where Qi cultivators are supposed to be clean, showing a certain class and respect? Then again, these were not cultivators; they just had learned to use Qi, so you couldn't expect elegance from these monkeys.
Throughout the conversation, the man, the Tribesman, never broke eye contact with Wuyi. There was sothing different about his gaze; it was like there was a hidden beast in Wuyi, and the man was able to see it. Wuyi was surprised by this. Wuyi realized the man must have been talented.
"What did he do?" Wuyi finally asked.
"Do? He's a prisoner," Feici snorted.
"His cri?" Wuyi pressed.
Koli shrugged. "Getting caught."
Xuebi, who had been standing at the doorway, finally spoke. "Young Master, all the prisoners are either bandits or mbers of demonic tribes captured by the Lord's warriors. The action was ordered to prevent raids into Xion and other protectorates."
Wuyi's eyes moved from the man's face to the patterns of raised scars on his unburned skin. Symbols, simple yet captivating, adorned his flesh. His wrists and ankles were shackled to the table, blood oozing along the chains.
"Is he dangerous?" Wuyi asked, stepping closer.
"Yes," the chained man replied, his bloody teeth forming a chilling smile.
"You shut your heathen mouth," Koli yelled, yanking the iron from the coals. Sparks flew as he lifted the white-hot poker, its glow casting an ugly light on his face.
Wuyi turned to the man, moved close to him, and spoke again. "What's your na?"
The man replied, "Jin."
"Are you dangerous?" Wuyi asked.
"Yes," Jin replied without hesitation.
Wuyi removed the pin from the manacle that was holding Jin's right wrist. "Show ."
The prisoner's one hand was freed.
Jin moved with astonishing speed, but what impressed Wuyi more was his decisiveness. He lunged for Koli's wrist and, with a sudden heave, pulled the guard onto himself. Koli's outstretched hand, holding the iron poker, skewered Feici through the ribs. Feici twisted away, causing Koli to lose his grip on the weapon.
In a fluid motion, Jin lifted himself from a laying position, constrained only by his remaining shackles. Koli slid down from Jin's sweat-and-blood-slicked chest into his lap. As Koli began to rise, Jin's descending elbow caught him on the back of the neck, crunching bones. Although both were Qi initiates, Jin seed stronger for so reason.
This was a pri example of why the quality of Qi and the importance of basics cannot be overlooked. The guard had cultivated in a hurried manner and failed to clean his channels properly. He fixed his ridians instead and forced his cultivation to reach Qi initiate level two. anwhile, Jin had cultivated with patience, leading to his advantage in the fight.
Feici scread, a sound all too common in the dungeon. Disoriented, he slamd into a cell door, the point of the poker driving into the door just below his shoulder blade. He fell to the ground, twitching montarily before going still.
Cheers erupted from the cells, filled with prisoners too foolish to know when to remain silent.
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