After eating the meal that Lilith prepared, everyone was very satisfied.

  She made a meal consisting only of grilled meat for Baby and made a mix of nuts and fruits that were decorating a plate beautifully for Sun and finally made a meal composed of some rice and grilled vegetables and grilled meat for her and Seph.

  Seph had been eating raw meat for the longest time. He was ecstatic, as were Baby and Sun; even though food did very little to provide him with energy, it still had the satisfying factor it used to have when he was alive.

  Seph and Sun thanked her profusely for the food; both of them were in love with her food, and then Seph and Lilith got to talking.

  Seph asked, “You never told me, how come you know exactly where the sect is, even though you have never been there before? I have been following your lead since we left my mother!”

  Lilith answered, “I have a very special connection to the bell of Amoria, same as my father. You can say I inherited that from him. I can tell where it is as long as I am on this physical plane. The sect doesn’t even need to ring the bell; I always feel the bell of Amoria calling for me.”

  This information impressed Seph, but he felt that there was some sort of mystery to it. “Did you ever think that maybe the bell had something for you? That there was a purpose behind its call?”

  Lilith pondered for a few seconds and said, “I did, but I always thought that maybe my cultivation was too low to understand the nuances of the energy the bell emits. Believe it or not, the bell still emits energy to this day; it’s very heavy and suffocating if you are not used to it.”

  She stopped for a minute, and Seph said nothing as he saw genuine sadness on her face before she said, “My father always said, it is the suffering of a nation; unresolved prejudices, crushed dreams, lost hopes. But he also told me there was nothing more he could do about it than he was doing back then. The target of his hatred was very high; the Solea Empire wasn’t where it was going to end, it was just the start.” She sighed heavily and stopped talking.

  “And he didn’t even get to resolve his vengeance against the Solea Empire. It was the most heinous of betrayals, but we will get revenge, you and me, one day when we are strong enough.” Seph consoled her as he felt her anguish.

  She reached out with her hand, sadness still painted all over her face, and she squeezed his palm tightly with hers.

  Seph smiled at her and then looked at the clear night sky; all the stars were visible and brighter than ever.

  They were sitting on the ground around a fire they had lit earlier in the night. A couple of tents behind them that Lilith bought back in the village.

  Seph didn’t have a mind for preparing for the road like her; he just thought they would walk all day and all night until they reached the sect.

  Which they could do, but Lilith gave him a respite that his body and mind longed for; he just didn’t know it.

  Sun was chilling on a nearby tree; now that they were in the outside world, he liked to stick to his natural habitat more when possible.

  Baby was sleeping next to the fire, unperturbed by its closeness or heat; rather, she seemed to enjoy it.

  Seph and Lilith could see very far that night; the full moon was in the sky, and everything was showered with moonlight, that it was very hard for anyone to sneak up on them.

  Yet, someone snuck up on them. Suddenly, Lilith noticed the same individual they saw before Seph’s village within five steps of where they were sitting.

  Lilith immediately summoned her whip, and Seph, who had his back to Assistant 11, jumped and turned around once he noticed Lilith’s alertness, his gourd following him to float behind his back where it usually floats in most of his fights.

  “Relax, young ones; I am not here to pick a fight with you. In fact, we, the Underworld’s Emissaries, never pick a fight with anyone; that’s not our job. We are merely messengers, and I come bearing a message or rather a gift.” Assistant 11 said in a calm voice, unperturbed by the hostility that the duo was showing.

  The young cultivators didn’t lower their guard, though. Seph was thinking neither he nor Lilith could do much to stop that creature anyway, but he wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “I told you before the dark masters sent you their regards, we already knew that something huge was going to happen in that village, and with my powers as an emissary I saw you were going to be responsible for it.” Assistant 11 reminded Seph of his words calmly.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “You knew the villagers were going to get killed?” Seph asked in disbelief.

  “I had an idea that you were going to kill the villagers; only you could unleash such destructive powers in that little obscure village.” Assistant 11 said with a smirk.

  “YOU PIECE OF SHIT, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME ANYTHING?” Seph screamed at him as he sprinted towards him and unleashed three palm strikes in a row.

  Before the ghastly hands could reach Assistant 11, he disappeared from where he stood, and appeared behind Lilith, only she didn’t notice him, but he wasn’t trying to be sneaky, and he made his presence known by saying, “I am not here to fight you, so please relax. An emissary’s job isn’t to intervene in the matters of mortals. My job that day consisted only of collecting those souls and taking them back to the underworld, but Karma had other plans for them.”

  Seph said in disbelief, “Karma — she did this?”

  “She didn’t mean to; she never does, but her powers have been all out of whack for thousands of years now since the catastrophe of Amoria. She tries to help, which means she tried to punish you with karmic retribution. Instead, a scar of fate gets born, and you get to walk away free as a bird.” The emissary couldn’t help but smirk in ridicule the entire time. It seemed like he really enjoyed exposing Karma and her malfunctioning powers, and he enjoyed seeing Seph mad too.

  Seph didn’t know who to be mad at — himself, or the emissary, or Karma.

  He already tortured himself for that horrible accident, and it was still haunting him, but it was like the emissary had thrown him another scapegoat for his anger at what happened.

  It all went back full circle to him, though. Karma tried to punish him, and the villagers suffered even more for it.

  Lilith dropped her battle-ready stance and went to Seph and put her hand on his back to assure him she was there for him.

  Seph looked at her; he looked disappointed, not with her, but with himself, and then he looked back at the emissary, his anger flaming inside his heart again as he said with a snarl, “What is it you want from me? Are you here just to gloat?”

  The emissary laughed loudly, making Seph even angrier, before he said, “I already told you I come bearing gifts, and if you continue down this path, you will probably see me a lot. I bring to you an underworld badge for the feat of killing 100 humans.”

  Seph couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Is this demon rewarding me for killing 100 innocent souls? What kind of demented joke is this?

  The emissary didn’t leave him with his thoughts for long though, as he got out a red badge with black tassels hanging under it, and he held it up towards Seph, while for the first time since he came to their camp he looked respectful and solemn like he was doing an important official duty.

  Seph was almost on the verge of screaming again, but Lilith put her other hand on his chest to stop him, and leaned towards his ear as she said, “This must be the first time you deal with the merit system, I was very sheltered myself so I never dealt with them either but I heard tales. This is a pretty standard procedure. The underworld is looking all the time to reward cultivators with merit badges, their actual intention is to push cultivators to do more evil deeds, as it helps them collect more souls. I’ve never met one of these emissaries before, and what I heard in the tales of my father, and his generals described them very dissimilar than the man in front of us. So, I never guessed who he was when we first met him.”

  Seph looked at her surprised, but then asked, “What are these badges used for? I won’t be hanging that in my room in the sect; I am not proud of what I did. I think I’ll turn it down.”

  Lilith sighed and said, “I know, but that’s the issue; you can’t turn it down. The emissary will just follow you everywhere you go until you willingly accept the badge. People don’t like their presence as they see them as a bad omen, and you already know why. They appear only where a catastrophe will take place, and nobody can ever guess the source of the catastrophe, and you never have enough time to avert it either.”

  Seph nodded at the information she was giving him, then he looked hatefully at the emissary, before he walked towards him and snatched the badge from his hands.

  “Wonderful! With this, our business is concluded. I hope to see you around another time, Seph; our badges could be the difference between life and death after all.”

  With that, Assistant 11 disappeared from where he stood, leaving behind smoke that smelled of brimstone.

  “What does he mean by that?” Seph asked Lilith.

  “Umm, I don’t know! I don’t know everything. I just heard the tales; who knows if they were all true or exaggerated. They told me some wild stuff, that I always thought they were pulling my leg with some of the wild things they said.”

  Seph used his Eye of the Appraiser skill on the badge.

  Appraising…

  Name: Underworld’s badge #1

  Type: Merit

  Quality: Uncommon

  Description: Congratulations on becoming a mass murderer.

  That’s the only way you get this badge, and you can’t take this badge from anyone else who received it.

  So, I know it was you.

  I hope you killed them fast at least!

  Effect: +5 Strength (permanent)

  How to achieve: Kill 100 humans.

  Seph was flabbergasted by what he read, but he was tired of being angry since meeting the emissary and tried to emit his yin energy into the badge, which usually works on most items, and the badge dissolved in his palm immediately.

  He checked his status screen and found that he had gained five points of strength.

  Name: Seph ???

  Class: Undead Buddhist lvl6

  Cultivation Stage: Body Dismantling (IV)

  Lifespan: 18/45 years

  Strength: 57

  Dexterity: 28

  Intelligence: 35

  Wisdom: 20

  Constitution: 28

  Perception: 35

  Luck: 15