cultivate for revenge

Divine Potential

...

A few hours passed since the ship sailed.

Out of nowhere, panic started spreading through the criminals on the ship.

Jong Ji overheard a conversation that was going on between two criminals a few meters from him.

They were all in bruises and spoke in a low, weak voice. It looked like they could die at any moment.

"Where are we? How long until we arrive?" One of the criminals asked in a weak voice. He was in a much worse state than the other.

"Arrive? We have just entered the death sea." The other criminal replied in a somehow joking manner.

"The death sea? So there is no chance of survival." The weak criminal said in a calm voice. There was not an ounce of panic in his voice. Like he has already accepted his fate.

Jong Ji turned his head to his mother. They looked at each other, confused.

Jong Ji couldn't even speak a single word to his mother when the ship trembled slightly.

Jong Ji, his mother, and everyone else jumped from their seats as the trembling increased with each passing second.

Before anyone could notice, dark clouds appeared and covered the sky.

It was a terrible scene.

"Is this the end?" Jong Ji said, looking at the dark sky in despair as the old bag fell from his hands.

However, little did he know that that was just the beginning.

The water became restless.

Splash!

Like from a geyser, water splashed in the sky. The shot water reached a height of about twenty meters.

However, soon the water started falling, and everyone's heart skipped a beat.

They couldn't believe the sight they were witnessing.

"Aghaaaa!" Screams echoed all over the deck.

As the water fell, it revealed a monster hiding below it.

A giant, two-headed black snake revealed itself.

Although Jong Ji couldn't precisely determine its height, it was no less than twenty meters (65 feet). Its body was at least ten meters thick.

It was just horrifying.

"Hissssssssss!" The snake let out a long hissing sound. The hissing alone brought pressure that crushed everyone on the ship to their knees. The ship started falling apart under enormous pressure.

"Intruders! How dare you enter the territory of the great Asmodeus!" The giant snake spoke in an angry tone. "YOU should all pay!! Ghaaaaaaa!" The two-headed snake let out something like a roar.

However, the pressure that the roar brought with itself was just terrifying. The enormous pressure crushed everyone to the ship's floor.

Jong Ji looked to the side, and the sight he saw brought unimaginable pain to him. He felt like millions of needles pierced his heart at the same time.

He saw his mother crushed with her face to the ship's floor. She was bleeding from every hole in her face. She was drowning in her blood.

"Mo...ther!" Somehow, Jong Ji made a sound under the enormous pressure that made it hard for him to breathe.

The sight of his mother dying and the pressure caused Jong Ji such physical and mental pain that it caused him to lose consciousness.

However, the pressure didn't crush everyone on the ship.

The captain of the ship was a cultivator and was able to move. Of course, he was no match for the monstrous snake. But unnoticeably and slowly, he moved to the edge of the ship.

He jumped into the water. While still in the air, a smile appeared on his face. As long as he escapes the pressure of the giant snake, creating an air bubble with his wind element class and breathing underwater was not a problem.

Then, when he swims to a safe distance, he can fly away.

However, it didn't go as he imagined.

As soon as he jumped and got close to the water, he saw something that crushed his hopes.

The water was full of snakes. Tens of thousands of hungry snakes were lurking in the water, waiting for their meal to arrive.

"Aghhhhhh!" The captain screamed as he hit the water.

Snakes immediately entangled around his whole body, making him unable to move. His legs disappeared in mere seconds.

He was screaming in pain.

However, the snakes didn't let that slide. Snake after snake began entering through his mouth into his body, and he couldn't even scream anymore.

Tears silently rolled down his cheeks as he felt the snakes moving in his insides and slowly being eaten from the inside out.

Soon the man disappeared, and only a red puddle remained in the water where he fell.

Everything happened in mere seconds. A living being disappeared just like that.

"Foolish humans!" The snake spoke again. "Die!"

It screamed as out of the water came a thorny black tail and raised above the ship.

The snake swung its tail down.

Smack!

The tail hit the ship across the middle and halved it. It soon sank, and the giant snake disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

Screams filled the air from the people being eaten alive by the snakes, but soon everything quieted down.

The dark clouds in the sky cleared up, and the sun shone again above the dead sea.

No trace was left that something ever happened there.

The ship was already at the bottom of the ocean, sunk.

It was dead quiet without birds, fish, or any other animal making the slightest noise.

It truly befitted the name Death Sea.

...

The sun has set. The moon appeared right after and shone brightly in the clear sky, lightening the warm summer night.

A few hours had passed since the incident with the giant snake. Not far from the Dead Sea, there was an island.

Deep on an island in a forest, a reddish light was coming out of a cave.

Someone had lightened a campfire.

A campfire was burining in the centre of the cave. Near the campfire, on an improvised bed made from green leaves, lay a boy with silver hair.

A little old man flew above the boy and observed him closely. He flew like that for almost five hours now.

He had long snow-white hair and a beard, which he stroked as he observed the boy.

His eyes were closed, and he had a smile on his face almost all of the time.

Jong Ji slowly opened his eyes, and through a blurry vision, he saw a face close very close to his face. "Aghhh!" Jong Ji screamed as he felt pain in the back of his head.

Memories from the previous events rushed inside his mind.

"Mother!" Jong Ji screamed as he instantly raised his upper half, with his hand grabbing the air, and he gasped for air.

Tears rolled down his cheeks silently. He didn't even care to look around and see where he was. He just covered his face with his hands.

"Why am I still alive?" Jong Ji muttered. "What's the use of living in this world without my mother?"

"Hohoho. That's some pretty depressing words for a young child like you to say?" A cheerful and, at the same time, a warm voice sounded in the cave.

Only then did Jong Ji remove his hands from his face, revealing an all-teary face. He then focused on the old man in front of him.

"Did you save me?" Jong Ji asked weakly, with lifeless eyes from which tears were still rolling.

"I did indeed save you." The old man said.

"Then did you perhaps save my mother?" Jong Ji uttered hurriedly, full of hope.

Being able to save him from that giant two-headed snake, this old man must be terrifyingly strong. Thus, the possibility of him rescuing his mother as well still existed. There was still hope.

"Your mother?" The man muttered as he tried remembering the moment he saved Jong Ji.

"I'm sorry, but I was barely able to rescue you. Everyone was already devoured by the snakes when I arrived. I could only save you." The old man shook his head.

"I see." Jong Ji said, his hopes crushed. He could feel his heart beating, but he felt dead. As if there was a giant hole through his chest. He felt empty, like something was missing from him.

"Is this the time to be sad?" The man asked. He sounded serious. As if he didn't care if he hurt Jong Ji's feelings with this question.

"I lost my mother!" Jong Ji screamed through tears. The old man's question was the last drop that made the glass overflow. "There is no reason for me to live in this world anymore. This world just became a cold desert covered in ice and snow for me."

"You are wrong." The old man said, calmly flying in the air.

"What?" Jong Ji asked.

"I mean, there is one more reason for you to live." The old man said as he flipped himself upside down in the air. "Don't you want revenge?"

"Revenge? That's right!" Jong Ji shouted as the dawn of realization fell on him. But just a moment after, the thought of revenge vanished. How could trash like himself take revenge?

"What revenge can I take? I am trash who can't cultivate, trash with trash class." Jong Ji added, and the pain was evident in his voice.

"A trash?" The man asked. "Little boy, trust me when I say you are a genius. A genius with divine potential."

"Divine potential? What's that?" Though Jong Ji knew the old man was making up bullshit stories, he was still curious about this so-called divine potential.

"Divine potential, the potential that a very few blessed individuals by the will of the world have."

"Will of the world? Blessed ones? Divine potential?" Jong Ji still thought that the old man was trying to comfort him. However, he spoke some unbelievable things which were too much even for a made-up story.

"You possess divine potential. You can become strong enough to kill the people on this continent with a swoop of your hand." The old man said. He didn't even bother answering the many questions Jong Ji was asking. As if he didn't even hear him.

"Are you crazy?" Jong Ji asked rudely. Seeing that the old man ignored him, Jong Ji now had a reason to believe that the old man was not saying the nonsense to confuse him and take his mind off the incident in which he lost his mother, but the old man truly believed in the nonsense he was saying.