How Much For Your Soul

Murong Yu awoke to an uncomfortable feeling in his groin. The Ghastly Ruins was an apocalyptic setting, there was a distinct lack of fresh green grass. So when a man is staked face down on the ground, all there is to comfort is genitals was course rocky terrain.

The constant ill wind and crumbling ruined walls guaranteeing that not even sand was left to lessen the painful experience. He tried to move his arms in an attempt to push himself up and inspect the weird situation he found himself in, only to realise that he was bound and unable to move even his legs.

The freak out that ensued only exasperated the problem of his unprotected junk, and the jagged rocks that they were exposed to.

"What the hell is happening?" Murong Yu cried out in pain and confusion.

"Oh, it looks like the entitled prick is awake!"

"What's the matter, young master? Your accommodations not up to your usual standard?" Came a jeer from one of the masked men now crowding around their naked victim.

"Release me! Do you even know the consequences of your actions? You will pay dearly for this!" Raged Murong Yu.

"I'm glad you brought up consequences you little shit stain." Said one of the men as he viciously yanked Murong Yu's head back by the hair, giving him a view of his masked captors.

"There are indeed consequences to every action, and today, you are going to face yours! We had originally just planned to teach you a small lesson for your recent behaviour, nobody likes a bully after all. You seem to forget that there are people above you and attacking their people is just not acceptable. BUT THEN YOU TRIED TO KILL US!" The man holding Murong Yu's head had started the conversation almost pleasantly but finished by shouting in his ear.

"Since neither the Elders of the Institute nor your parents have seen fit to teach you manners, it has fallen to us to educate you on how to behave towards your fellow Sect members."

Yet before the man could finish his speech, Murong Yu had interrupted him by shouting out in defiance. "How dare trash like you tell me how to act! None of you could even fight me five on one, let alone one on one! What gives you cowardly f*cks any right to teach me anything? Nothing but jealous trash!" He said as he tried to spit at his captors. The masked man giving the speech sighed as he shoved Murong Yu's head into the ground before he could succeed and stood up.

"It seems that you are unwilling to even listen to our young master's message. Very well, we will move on to the physical aspect of your lesson in humility. Begin!" He said as he took a whip out of his interspatial ring and threw it to one of the lackeys.

Surprisingly, when Hua Ling received his orders from Shen Yue, neither he nor his men had a whip. It was a rather exotic weapon that was rarely used except by a few women in the Sect. He had to buy it just for this occasion when they returned to the Skysoul Institue. They aimed to inflict not only pain but also humiliation as everyone got a turn to take their frustrations out on Murong Yu's uncovered back.

It was the perfect way to achieve both goals, letting him remember his lesson and leave him uncrippled. With the medicine available in the Draconic Ruins, any damage would be quickly restored without leaving any scars. Unfortunately for Murong Yu, it would not heal the emotional ones.

The men were not at all gentle as they whipped him like a rented mule, most not having any experience with a whip. With thirty men practising on a staked out victim, their aim was all over the place, even turning into a bit of a game. After everyone had their turn, Hua Ling retrieved the whip and stored it away. He looked at his men's handiwork and was amazed to see that there was no place left untouched. There was very little white skin visible, the once unmarred white skin now a grotesque, bloody mess. Their wild, untrained swings even managing to take the skin off Murong Yu's feet!

Although the wounds were only skin deep, the amount that Muron Yu had just received would surely have killed someone at the Gold rank, and an average human would have been an unrecognisable lump of flesh and broken bones. Without his current cultivation, this punishment was a death sentence. But to a Heavenly Fate Realm expert with six Fate Souls, it was just incredibly painful and somewhat debilitating.

He would be quite tender as he made the trip back to his courtyard. During the first twenty strokes of the whip, Murong Yu had been very vocal in his plans for revenge, but by the sixtieth, he was just begging for it to stop. Soon after, he was just blubbering incoherently, the pain wreaking havoc on his ability to think clearly.

With their mission accomplished, they broke into teams and went hunting Ghouls, laughing and joking like they had not just whipped every inch of skin off another human's back. Not one of them felt the slightest amount of guilt at what they had done, and that was without any of Shen Yue's brainwashing! This was a brutal universe, others pain and suffering was often a source of amusement to others.

Killing multiple people in one's life was considered the norm. As Shen Yue watched through the eyes of Hua Ling, he wondered how the hypocritical b*tch from Earth would have acted in this situation. Would she have just turned the other cheek and bore Murong Yu's humiliation? Or had Nie Li handle it and keep her hands clean of any wrongdoing.

Shen Yue was a little sickened by the whole event, but this was the only way to teach this spoilt bastard a lesson, he would not listen if they asked him to politely return their soul scales and apologise for the humiliation he dished out. There was no one standing up for equality, or justice, not even the so-called 'righteous' Sects. Hell, even the Demon Beasts that everyone felt was acceptable to kill without reason were sentient creatures on par with humans.

They had not really even broken the school rules other than stealing, a crime with a light punishment at best! No, there was not going to be a group of SJW's jumping out and marching in protest about it (unless it benefited them personally) and Murong Yu was going have to do something himself if he wanted revenge. The circle of hate continues.

But Shen Yue was surprised that no Elders jumped out to stop it, were they even watching? It seemed ridiculous that they did not intervene in this savage act of street justice. But he was not complaining, they would only complicate matters if they got involved.

That was why Shen Yue had thrown most of his morality from Earth away and adopted the local philosophy, 'Might = Right!' After all, morality is subjective. To a mouse, the cat is a racist, psychopathic monster, hell-bent on killing any mouse in sight. Cows would see humans as even worse.

A true sociopath capable of pretending to love and raise it only to betray the cow and turn its corpse into delicious burgers. If only every living thing were vegan, capable of surviving off nothing but grass, then the world would be a utopia where everything lived in peace and harmony. Until it got overcrowded and the grass ran out.

So as the mortified Murong Yu stumbled out of the Ghastly Ruins covering his manhood, under the many stares of other students, he vowed his revenge on the villans that had unjustly attacked him. 'Long Tianming will pay for this!' he thought spitefully. But he must not act recklessly, he would bide his time and wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. For a nobleman to take revenge, ten years is not too long! Long Tianming had a large army and was also personly much stronger than him, he would be seeking death if he publically stood against him.

To anyone capable of reading Murong Yu's mind, they would wonder why he would be swearing an oath of vengeance against the shoo-in for the next Sect leader position. It was suicidal to even think of such a thing, let alone for considering it for no reason.

But Murong Yu had an excellent motive, as he looked at the students peering at him with schadenfreude, it reinforced his hatred and vow to kill Long Tianming at any cost! The bandits that had robbed and humiliated him thought that they were so clever by hiding their faces, but he still overheard them as he was being savagely whipped!

"What a piece of trash, to think he actually had the balls to attack young master Tianming's men!"

"I know, right! Truly a new-born calf that is not afraid of the tiger."

"Trash should know their place! Young master Tianming is too merciful, we should just cripple this fool!"

Even though they were whispering to each other, with his cultivation, he was able to hear it clearly. 'So what if he robbed a few soul scales, this humiliation was uncalled for!' He thought to himself, forgetting that he was guilty of the same crime. He walked up to a student that was blatantly laughing at him, the little peon had not even reached the Heavenly Fate Realm!

"Give me your robe." Spoke Murong Yu harshly.

"This is the Skysoul Institue, you can't rob me here. It's against the rules!" Shouted the student, trying to draw everyone's attention.

But everyone with eyes or ears were already paying attention, enjoying the entertainment. They looked at the nobody student with pity in their eyes, was he retarded? He should have just taken out another robe from his ring, Murong Yu was a well know bully after all, why give him a reason to target you?

Without even replying, Murong Yu controlled the little soul force he had recovered and used his aura to crush the poor bastard that had been singled out to the ground. The force had been so sudden that the sudden massive pressure had snapped the kid's legs. The sound of bone snapping making a few of the onlookers wince in sympathy.

While the unlucky victim was clutching his legs and screaming, Murong Yu merely looked at him with dead eyes and a cruel smile. He didn't even speak as he used his soul force to shuck the screaming student from his robes and wrap it around himself, slightly wincing in pain as it touched his mangled back.

As Murong Yu walked away to the soundtrack of whispers and screams, there was only one question on everybody's mind.

"Who was brave enough to humiliate a young genius?"