novelraw Chapter 1484 - 1483 - Berserker's Honor
Chapter 1484 - 1483 - Berserker's Honor
Lind returned from wherever he came from. Normally, he would not care but he had been so looking forward to his next fight. Some of the battles had helped him in the tournament but Fey Frey had been the most surprising to him.
She was life and death on 2 legs and it had been invigorating to face her!
He was sad he did not get to kill her but now he was frustrated. The man that returned was in mourning. He hid it well but Berserker could tell.
The woman was gone and it had affected him. Berserker did not like what he felt at that moment. The fight he had been so looking forward to was now tainted!
Instead of the mighty dragon, he would get a grieving husband who may or may not care if he lived or died.
He did not want that! He wanted the beast at full power!
He had to admit, the demoness had impressed him. The current owner of that glaive gave her every opportunity to walk away. The damage to her soul was bad but not irreparable. Given her husband especially, she could have one day returned to her peak.
Yet, she did not bow or give up. He respected that. He wished he could have fought with such a warrior.
She would have been crushed by him, but he would not have outright killed her. His honor was fickle like that.
He warned the last one and even though the Frozen Immortal ignored him to fight with honor, he killed him exactly as threatened.
They had to understand he was serious.
Now, as the next duel went on in the background, the room was heavy with Lind's aura. He could feel the turmoil and it was disgusting to him.
Still, he did not poke at the dragon. Even he, for all his wish to fight, was not suicidal. He wanted a clean fight as much as possible.
He needed it. He could feel it.
"You need to work on your face. Your disdain for me is clear as day." Berserker jumped at his voice. He quickly checked but his face was as cold as ever but the emerald eyes looked right at him.
"No one can keep their face still unless the nerves are dead. You normally are stoic, so when you feel strongly about something, it actually makes your face twitch." The words were calm but the emotions were clear to him too.
"If you want me to stop twitching, then get your own emotions under control. Death is a part of life, especially for a cultivator. She chose her path with honor. Do not dishonor her by letting it weigh you down." He had heard similar words somewhere and hoped they would work.
He did not really understand them but they seemed to help the fools he had killed later at that time clear their heads.
Rather than clear up, however, Lind Frey's emotions seemed to sharpen.
"Do you want to know something? I do not care one whit about what you want. I do not care about winning my own tournament. I never did. I cared about finding a way forward for us all. The Fiends are clamoring at our doors and nearly wiped us all out. Yet, the power struggles continue as if that never happened." His voice was now cold.
The Berserker actually felt a shiver down his spine as those reptilian eyes bored into him.
"You are as bad as them. You do not care about our true enemy, only about yourself. I want to kill the Great Bastard and leave his corpse up for the next trillion years as a warning to never, ever cross me again. I am sick of the selfish, short sighted, and generally subjective reasoning of every damn cultivation power I know." He never shouted but Berserker grasped it had been simmering for a long time.
Silence descended as that was all he seemed to have to say. They both looked at the fight but neither really saw it.
Flashes of elemental Qi barely registered to them.
Berserker actually pondered the words. He felt like they resonated with him and slowly recalled why. A very different life came back to him.
He had been a farmer. His family had been 10 siblings strong and his aunts and uncles numbered just as many with similar numbers of cousins to each.
Their village was a humble farming community that was under the protection of a sect. The sect was destroyed by a rival alliance and things changed then.
The once idyllic life was taken away as his family was enslaved, beaten, and killed. He watched as his sisters and aunts were taken away by laughing men. He remembered the weight of the collar at his neck.
He also remembered the rage.
Rage against the injustice of it all. Why did they suffer? What had they ever done?
His questions were unanswered safe that they were weak and took their protection for granted. The key moment was when he had been taken and saw what was left of his female relatives.
His captor was not picky about his partners and Berserker had been very fair looking in those days.
Rage unlike anything he had ever felt filled his heart but the Heavens seemed to answer him. His captor was struck by a literal bolt of lightning. Not a tribulation or an attack, just a normal bolt of lightning from a storm.
The fools either did not maintain the grounding rods or it was simply fate, but either way, Berserker was freed at that moment! His collar had been destroyed.
His body was damaged but still working. He recalled seeing the weapons at the door and a simple idea came to him. His first slaughter was that night.
Yet, it was not bloodlust nor the desire to fight that drove him, it was simple rage at the absurdity of the world.
He kept on killing, without end, until every sect that had ruined his idyllic life no longer existed in the world.
His name was consumed by the rage and he eventually buried the memory of his family as he had buried them on their former farm.
The boy he was died that day and the Berserker was born. He had expected to die but it never seemed to happen.
It was as if a veil lifted from his heart and his Dao flowed in his body like never before. The Dao of Bloodlust had been claimed by him but kept away as well. He had never truly grasped the source of it.
The desire to cleanse the world of its absurdities was the beginning of his path! He looked at Lind Frey with new eyes.
The aura was heavy but it was not mourning, it was sharpening him! It was pain he understood!
"We are the same." His words were softly spoken but were a match to a tinderbox. He was slammed into the wall. The burning emerald eyes stared down at him.
"We are–" Lind was about to deny it but froze. The eyes of the Berserker were exposed. He allowed Lind Frey to see his revelation.
His pain was still there, even after all the millions of years removed from it. The heart demon never formed because he used it as fuel to drive his path to the Dao.
He could see that Lind Frey saw it. The same pain.
The loss of his world forging a new path ahead. Berserker was gently let down and then he did something he never did, he bowed to Lind Frey.
"I disrespected your path and hers. I look forward to us killing each other." He regained his memory, but he was still the crazed man he had always been.
His honor demanded an apology.
Lind Frey backed off and simply returned to his seat. The pair quietly watched the battle unfold but the silence was now comfortable to both.
Berserker walked down his many memories of his old life and for every joy, he found darkness.
Lind Frey was right. There were true monsters in the world but powers were too busy trying to rise up to come together.
Their desire for more power left everyone reeling and exposed. His isolation was not simply due to his bloodlust but also due to a similar anger.
No matter how powerful they became, it was never enough. No matter how clear the danger from the Fiends or wicked powers were, they would undercut each other.
The misery of the world could be laid at the feet of the powerful simply trying to outdo each other. If he survived the tournament, a new bloodbath awaited the world.
The Immortal Berserker's honor was as twisted as his path. The same honor that demanded he apologize to Lind Frey now demanded the powerful be brought low for their crimes.
A smile slowly bloomed on his face as he saw the screaming masses to come.
His Dao stirred but only just as his imagination became quite vivid. No one would be spared. Just like the rest of him, the Immortal Berserker's honor was mad.