Voyage With The Pirate King

The frightened rabbit appearance from earlier had completely vanished and before him was a grim and forbidding character best suited to be a villain. The corner of the boy's lips quirked up into a sly grin as a low groggy chuckle escaped his throat.

The tail from before had vanished like a thick fog dispersing. His body stood upright as his shoulders relaxed. "I can't but..... neither.... do I.... need to," spoke the boy but maybe because the creature was unaccustomed to speaking human language its speech was a little delayed.

"Humans are.... the stupidest... intelligent.... species. I possessed him.... so I can.... help him... avenge his.... mother," it said with a righteous air in its tone, "Do you... want to..... hear it."

Ji Yao didn't have any patience but looking at the boy's body that had been subjected to so much abuse and torture he couldn't help but conclude that this boy's story deserved to be heard.

Seeing that Ji Yao said nothing, the boy's head lowered as a malicious grin appeared on his face. It began to narrate the tragic story of this little boy, the only survivor after an entire village was strung up and dragged into the forest.

The story was rather simple. It was that of a girl kidnapped from another village for marriage to the village chief's son. The girl was forced into marriage against her will and bore a son. Since this was the chief's first grandson he was held with high esteem.

Apart from his mother being treated badly by his father the boy's life seemed it was going to be great. But as time went on things didn't seem so. His father's treatment of his mother worsened. The beatings increased especially when things in the village like strange illnesses and livestock vanished at night.

Since she was an outsider in this tight-knit village she was blamed for everything. The whispers among them were that she was bad luck brought into the village. Paired with her difficult labour it all seemed to add up. She was the scourge that brought up such bad luck to them.

Because of this, the beatings escalated to the point of no return. One cold night the village chief's son return home after having failed to capture a single fish at the banks of the largest river within their vicinity.

When he got home and found a bowl of fried wild vegetables on the table and no meat, he vented out his frustration on his wife. He beat her and beat her until she was knocking on death's door. The boy who never intervened because his grandfather told him not to do so couldn't handle it anymore.

He grabbed a knife and rushed in front of his mother to protect her. He was told that his mother was just like their livestock. Her life served only one purpose and once that purpose was reached she was of no use. Since her purpose was to give birth to a son then she no longer had any value except to serve as a punching bag and carry the blame for the entire village's bad luck. But to this boy, this was his mother. She had no value to everyone else but to him, she was special so of course, he would defend her.

Unfortunately, because he was small he could only point that thing at his father and nothing else. The man used that very same knife to kill the boy's mother and from that day onwards the boy's life wasn't the same.

His father tossed his mother away like a dead dog leaving her to be scavenged by insects and birds. The boy had to bury his own mother digging the soil with his bare hands.

For two days he dug and dug the grave all day and night his hands bruised and nails covered in soil. His entire body was covered in insect bites and he hadn't eaten or drunk anything for those two days.

He looked especially pitiful. Too pitiful for this creature to eat him when he was dragged by one of its minions deep into the mysterious forest. The Aoyin towered over this boy after tapping into his mind to see what he had been through.

"Do you... hate them?"

The boy clenched his fist his body trembling and answered, "Yes."

"Do you... want revenge?"

"Yes..."

Two yeses and this boy walked out of the forest no longer himself. When he arrived at the village they were celebrating the entire place decorated in red. His father was marrying another girl. No one had bothered to look for him neither did they care if he was dead or alive. This meant no one cared that he had never spoken to anyone since then.

After this, the villagers began disappearing one by one. Because it wasn't safe for the Aoyin creature to physically go past the radius of the keystone neither could its minions go far to catch pray its partial possession of the boy it could control his body and make him drag the villagers to the edge of the dark forest.

Thus the villagers vanished one by one and the boy was never caught. It was like this for a while that is until Ji Yao injected his seraphic energy into the keystone. Something at that moment changed. The creatures that had been limited to a particular radius snatching curious folk at the edge of the dark forest could suddenly roam free. This meant the village was attacked and more than half of them were snatched in one night.

Because the village chief's new daughter-in-law hated this boy so much she incited the villagers into sacrificing this scourge that had brought bad luck upon them. She hated him because she had bragged that she would have a son when she was pregnant but the heavens blessed her with a baby girl.

She had lost face but it also meant this son from the first wife was still the only plausible chief in the future. Instead of running, she used her status as the late fortune teller's daughter to convince them that sacrificing this boy was the only way to get rid of their curse.

Instead of relocating the entire village the villagers including the chief believed her and tied up this boy on a pole intending to sacrifice him but what happened, in the end, was unexpected. The entire village was wiped out in one night living this sole survivor.

With the sphere of influence expanded and more easy prey, the Aoyin creature had become stronger in just a short time. In conclusion, if it weren't for that silver head idiot from earlier it would have infiltrated this group and taken them down from inside.

Ji Yao clenched his fist hearing this story and couldn't help but sympathize with the child. He had just lost his mother only to get taken advantage of by this creature.. Ji Yao wasn't even certain if he could free him from the bounds of this demon.