How Much For Your Soul

"How dare you! No one has been brave enough to disrespect me in years!"

"What disrespect, I only spoke the truth! How else would a supposed genius like yourself remain unaffiliated with any faction? I heard that you whore yourself out to anyone more powerful than yourself for ten spiritual stones a session!" Said the masked stranger.

Murong Yu's face flushed red with either shame or anger, most likely a mixture of both. His desire to be recognised as the strongest, influenced him to suppress others ruthlessly, and he would not hesitate to manipulate others to accomplish his goals. Murong Yu was usuallyquite intelligent in how he acted, never offending anyone that could harm his path to the top. That was why he had managed to befriend the powerful factions and yet still remain free to act as he pleased. But with his overbearing and vicious personality, being surrounded by this group of masked men that so thoroughly insulted him, that intelligence was replaced with mindless fury!

"I'll kill you!" Murong Yu screamed, his voice had turned into sonic blades and flew towards the person that had now become his most hated enemy. Murong Yu hadn't even drawn his sword yet, but there was already sword intent contained in his voice.

The masked man that had only been saying what he was ordered to felt death lunging at him through the impending sonic blades. Luckily, he had condensed his seventh Fate Soul, allowing him to see the incoming sonic blades from Murong Yu's furious shout. The minion immediately dodged sideways and merged with his demon spirit. The rest of the masked minions quickly followed suit and launched attacks of their own.

Seeing that his sonic blades missed, Murong Yu cursed as he swept his palm in a slapping motion towards the man on his right, sending a palm of energy to block the incoming attack while he drew his sword. These trash students would soon feel his wrath! Unfortunately, the man to his right was not the only one to send out an attack before merging with their demon spirit, and Murong Yu received five hits that dealt quite a bit of damage to his unprotected back. Finally drawing his sword, he viciously turned and slashed it towards the cowards that had dared to attack him from behind, channelling his pain and rage into his sword.

Luckily most of the energy had been defused; otherwise, it could have cut the two students in half! Everyone there was a cultivator, their senses were a hundred times that of a base human. They all witnessed the vicious attack that nearly killed their two friends. They had been attacking with the intent to subdue Murong Yu, not kill him. So they had moderated their strength when they threw out a few fist and palm strikes before they transformed, just enough to cause a bit of pain and humiliation to give themselves time to change.

But Murong Yu had retaliated with the intent to kill! Even with the school rules promising harsh punishment, he dared to kill or cripple! Where were the Elders that oversaw the training grounds? Why had they not stepped in to punish Murong Yu's actions now that he had tried to murder two students? Was it because the attack was blocked and only the end result was punished, not the intent behind the attack? Suddenly, the masked minion's faces turned ice cold. If the Elders were not going to step in, then they were going to take off the kid gloves!

Murong Yu was too filled with rage to notice the change that went through his enemies. His only goal was to kill or maim anyone that dared to spit on his honour! His sword swept out in two different directions, filled with sword intent and the overwhelming strength of a one in a million talent. But the masked minions had finished morphing into their bestial forms, their strength multiplied with their demon spiritualist powers.

Twenty-eight Heavenly Fate Realm experts that all had above four Fate Souls unleashed full-powered attacks to nullify the two sword strikes easily. Then they turned their hate-filled eyes towards Murong Yu, who was from Skysoul Institute's East District. Someone that was apparently above the rules that were followed by everyone else in the other Districts. They had only set out to humiliate this arrogant brat, maybe beat him a little and steal all of his soul scales. But now, they were going to beat him like an unwanted red-headed stepchild, and take everything he owned!

Let's see how he likes the stares of thousands of 'common' people as he walks back to his precious East District battered, bruised and naked. Since the Elders only wanted to punish end results, then they just had to make sure they didn't cripple the precious celebrity. Hell, they could even pass it off as training! They were merely tempering his spirit and giving him the motivation to train harder! Hua Ling quickly telepathically gave the order to beat the daylights out of this vicious sh*thead, but not to take it to far. Even with all the resentment, they felt towards Murong Yu for trying to kill their friends, they were not stupid enough to kill or cripple a star pupil.

They were not retarded, if they crippled a famous person like Murong Yu, they would be harshly punished to set an example. The Sect only cared about increasing its power and influence, they would support a genius over a hundred nobodies any day of the week. But Hua Ling was privy to his Lord's plans, and with the backing of Gu Bei, they could show this piece of excrement his new place in the world! After today, Murong Yu would be too ashamed to show his face in public!Murong Yu was the type of person to ruthlessly humiliate people until they could never raise his head towards him again. He always tried to leave his shadow in their heart, to impeding their cultivation, causing them never to rise again to challenge him!

But today, he was going to enjoy some of his own medicine. Even though Murong Yu was talented and could fight against ten of Hua Ling's men, thirty was just too many. Different attacks ranging from fire to lightning landed on their outnumbered victim. Because Murong Yu had a grandiose dream of standing at the top, he had not contracted himself to another faction, his pride would not allow it. This meant that he had to equip himself and gather his own resources for cultivation, even in the East District spiritual stones were scarce. If he had been an underling of a powerful clan, he would have been wearing an armour artifact of at least the fifth grade, greatly nullifying all of the attacks that were currently pounding him like he was a prison b*tch!

Even after years of saving, he had only managed to amass enough to buy his sword, a grade six artifact created by the Gods Craft Pavilion. This had cost him everything he owned, fifty thousand spiritual stones. That was why a prideful person like him was currently slaving away in the Ghastly Ruins, he needed money! Unfortunately, he robbed the wrong people. Without any armour, the different attacks were punishing his body and reserves of soul force he used to help negate most of the damage. Even with using a grade six artifact to counterattack, all of his sword strikes were quickly destroyed. He could only suffer when in retaliation, they seized the opportunity to strike his undefended back.

If only he knew the 'Three Heads Six Arms' technique that was popular in cultivation novels, he might have stood a chance to defend against multiple attacks from every angle. With thirty people flawlessly working together, some even at a hight cultivation rank than Murong Yu, he never stood a chance. And thanks to his vicious personality, the strikes were heavier than they would have been initially.

"Heavenly Flaming Claw!"

"Golden Winged Slash!"

"Scarlet-Blood Sword!"

"Abyss Bear Roar!"

The attacks kept coming, and thanks to their demon spirits, they were devastating!

'I need to merge with my demon spirit' thought Murong Yu desperately, he had cruelly been reminded that he was not invincible.

The problem was that you needed time to merge with your demon spirit. So just like the two minions at the start of the fight, when he tried to integrate with his Saint Blood Draconic Falcon, he was put down before he could finish.

"Got to give it to the bastard, he was strong!" Commented one of the masked attackers as be put the boot into the unconscious form of Murong Yu.

"I don't care how strong he is, this b*tch nearly killed me!" Yelled a bleeding masked follower as he spat on Murong Yu, his stomach was still bleeding from Murong Yu's first sword strike.

"Ok, everyone settle down!" Shouted Hua Ling, "You two, concentrate on healing your wounds, the rest of you back off. Not you four, strip him and stake him out spread eagle. We still have to teach this arse-licker humility!" He said, pointing to the four closest people dressed like bandits.

Murong Yu was quickly relieved of his sword, bag of soul scales, clothes and interspatial ring. Each of his limbs was then tied to four wooden poles that had been hammered into the ground. Even with his superhuman strength, there was no way he could escape from his fetters. There was no leverage to pull out the stakes, and the materials used to restrain him were not common materials that he could break.

Murong Yu was now at the mercy of thirty pissed off students.