In a lavishly built hall, a thin boy around the age of nine stood shakily in front of a headless corpse with terror in his eyes. The frozen expression on his face showed that he did not expect such a situation at all.
The elders of the Skywalker family, who sat in two rows on either side of the hall, did not even bat an eye as they watched the spectacle coldly.
A burly middle aged man who held a long sword which still dripped with blood, kicked away the head of a beautiful woman at his feet and waved his hand.
Understanding his gesture, four servants of the family came forward and cleared the corpse from the floor.
The middle aged man then walked towards the young boy and wiped the blood on his sword against the young boy's patched shirt with a disgusted look on his face, as though he was looking at something filthy.
"W..why?" the young boy finally mustered up some courage and asked in a shaky tone.
"A mere servant dares defy the orders of her master and even have the audacity to threaten me with the laws of the human alliance. Is that reason enough?" The middle aged man's eyes narrowed as an overwhelming aura swept through the hall, pinning the young boy to the ground.
"Draven." Suddenly the old man who sat at the main seat in the hall called out, and the middle aged man stepped back respectfully.
Then the old man nodded to one of his servants, and suddenly the inner door to the hall was pushed open. An armored man walked in with a little girl around the age of two in his hands.
The little girl resembled the young boy on the ground and like him wore a washed out, dull one piece dress. Looking around at the indifferent faces in the hall, she kept fidgeting her fingers in fear.
The armored man stopped some distance from the young boy and made the little girl stand on the ground. Seeing her brother weakly lying on the ground, the little girl's eyes welled up with tears and she toddled over to him on her short legs.
"Big brother... did you fall? Why are you crying?" The little girl wiped the tears from the little boy's face as she asked innocently, unaware that her mother had been murdered in the same hall just a few minutes ago.
"Unlike you, who inherited the Chaos Dragon Emperor bloodline from the Skywalkers, this little girl inherited your mother's Divine Fire Phoenix bloodline. Although for us she is not as useful as you, her blood can still be used as an ingredient for many high quality pills." The old man on the main seat said thoughtfully as he rubbed his chin.
The young boy staggered to his knees when he heard this and pleaded with a horrified expression on his face. He knew too well what these beasts would do to his little sister if he let them take her away.
"I beg the family head to spare my sister's life. I am willing to obey every command of the family head."
A satisfied smile appeared on the old man's face when he heard this. "Good, good. I will not harm you or your sister if you can willingly give your bloodline heart to your cousin. Can you do it?"
The young boy looked at his little sister who was still clutching onto his worn out shirt and nodded without hesitation.
"At least you know how to be of some use to your owner, unlike that bitch with a pig's brain." The middle aged man sneered coldly when he saw this and without a second glance at the boy walked out of the hall.
The young boy kept his head lowered as he hugged his sister close to his body, while still on his knees, until an hour later the door to the hall was once again pushed open.
This time, four people entered the hall. One was a beautiful woman and another was a middle aged man who bears a striking resemblance to the sword wielding man from before. Following them was a young man of about seventeen years old. There was also a servant carrying a brocade box behind them.
Every one of them bowed their heads in front of the family head and stood to one side. The servant, after receiving a nod from the family head, went over to the kneeling young boy and opened the box.
"You can take the gloves inside and extract the bloodline heart from your body. Remember, if you fail, I will not hesitate to sell your sister to some evil cultivators who are in urgent need of her blood." The old man said with squinted eyes as he leaned back on his throne.
The young boy shuddered from the sheer might of his voice and quickly wore the purple gloves inside the brocade box.
Taking a deep breath to steel his nerves, he slowly extended his gloved hand towards his chest. When the gloves touched his skin, like putting his hands inside water, the hand slowly went in.
But when his hand touched the beating second heart inside his left chest, a searing pain coursed through the boy's brain. His eyes bulged and he once again fell on his knees. Blood flowed from his mouth, eyes and ears, picturing a gruesome scene.
The handsome young man who followed the couple inside narrowed his eyes when he saw this. Pulling out a long sword from his storage ring, he walked towards the little girl and yanked her head upward by holding her hair before placing the blade across her neck.
"You filthy creature. If you do not want this little eyesore to die, drop the drama and take the bloodline heart for me. Otherwise..."
The pain in the young boy's eyes turned into resolve as he heard his sister's cries. Ignoring the soul rending pain he felt all across his body, with a yank, he pulled out a beating heart from his own body.
Everyone's eyes lit up when they saw this. The middle aged man waved his hand and the heart, as if held by an invisible hand, flew towards him into a special brocade box he had taken out from his storage ring.
The young boy weakly collapsed to the ground as his vision blacked out. His breathing also became extremely faint as blood started flowing from his seven orifices.
...
Leon opened his eyes with a splitting headache as a torrent of foreign memories merged into his soul.
When his eyes regained their focus, the first thing he saw was his little sister looking at him with bloodshot eyes.
"Brother..." The little girl pounced on him when she saw her brother open his eyes.
Leon comforted the little girl as he weakly leaned against the dark prison cell where both siblings were kept.
Actually he was not the original owner of this body. After he died on Earth, he found himself in this new body with a torrent of foreign memories in his head, as though he had been living in this world from the start.
Just then, the prison cell was opened and an old man with a goatee walked in with his hands behind his back. After entering the room, he ignored Leon and took out an orange stone from his storage ring and placed it on the little girl's wrist for a while. Then he nodded towards the servant who followed him.
"Her bloodline is pure. Bring me to your family head William. I will discuss the price with him directly."
The servant nodded and led the old man away after closing the cell.
"So that old bastard has no intention of letting us go." Leon's eyes narrowed as he held his sister close to his chest.
After some time, when he was sure no one was near the cell, he pulled out a pendant which had a symmetrical, ornate shape, resembling a fusion of a cross and a crest, from under his shirt and wrote something on the ground.
Then he held the little girl close to his body and after praying to all the gods he knew, pressed the pendant to his forehead.
The next second a purple glow enveloped the two and in the blink of an eye both vanished from sight.
"Boom"
The next second, powerful auras exploded outside the prison and several soldiers with a red dragon symbol on their chests appeared inside the prison cell in the blink of an eye.
"This debt, I will come back one day to collect it..." The leading soldier read the words written on the prison floor with a dark expression.
"Spread out. Search everywhere. Before nightfall, I want both of them back in the prison."
Heeding his command, the soldiers rushed out in all directions, while the one who had given the command rushed towards the main palace to inform the news to his master.
...
Meanwhile, in a tribal village deep inside a first tier forest,
a group of burly men with bare upper bodies covered in tribal tattoos chased after a wild boar with spears in their hands.
The obstacles presented by nature such as fallen trees and thick bushes were no hindrance to these expert hunters as they weaved through the forest like monkeys.
"Boom"
Suddenly an explosion was heard and the group of six men suddenly halted as they turned towards the sound.
After hesitating for a moment, the group split into two. Three went after the sound while the other three chased after the boar.
When the three tribesmen reached the source of the sound, they saw a thin boy around the age of ten glaring at a wolf with a stick in his hand. There was already a bite wound on his shoulder and claw marks on his abdomen which dripped with fresh blood, but the boy seemed to have no sense of pain as he stood in front of the wolf like a tiger.
Just behind the boy, there was also a little girl around the age of two, curled up like a ball shivering in fright as she covered her mouth to hold in her sobs.
"Victory in the name of Asura, kill!" The three men roared in unison and jumped in front of the young boy with their spears. Even before the wolf could understand what happened, its body was riddled with holes. A spear even pierced its rear, making it die a horrible death.