The Tamed

Sacrifice

And the wind blew violently. Dust rose up around them, causing Wen Zhuliu to look around wildly in shock. It was chaos. Xiao Zhan stood unfazed in the middle of it with his hands raising his flute to his lips and his head tilted to face forward, a smirk still evident on his face. His expression was calm and collected but the air around him was dense with energy forming thick vines of black smog which soon becoming a swirling maelstrom of darkness. A short sharp note rang throughout the area. A heavy silence followed it for a couple of seconds before dark clouds formed rapidly overhead and the air started crackling with red charges.

When Wen Zhuliu's vision got clearer, he saw many silhouettes lining up behind Xiao Zhan like he was their respective master. Their faces were all distorted in anger and malice. They were not humans.

"What are those things?" Wen Zhuliu wondered to himself before he froze in place when he saw the crimson eyes in front of them staring back at him. He stepped backwards, "What are you??"

Xiao Zhan didn't bother to answer him. Instead, he spoke in a low voice, ordering his undead army, "No one in Wen uniforms shall leave this place."

Then he blew into the black ghost flute once more, feeling like some malevolent energies was bursting out from his center, fueling his body with endless power and emitting intense killing intent as he played an eerie piercing melody that caused goosebumps to erupt over the skin of those present. The ground shook in fear and there were several loud rumbles that signified that cracks were forming beneath the earth itself. From the hole in the ground, something resembled skeleton hand slowly clawing out and grabbing on the ankle of those dressed in attire with Sun motifs, digging into their flesh and preventing them from escaping.

Among the shadows, there was a female vengeful spirit cladded in crimson Hanfu which gave out an ominous battle cry. The rest of the spirits responded to her piercing shrieks and started attacking the group of people who couldn't run away and now begging for their lives. The lady in red giggled creepily as she led the massacre, her long fingernail slashed a deep cut and drawing blood with every strikes. Some spirits were tearing their prey's limbs like pulling a doll limb out of the sockets. Some used their teeth and gnaw deep into the meat before pulling away leaving craters.

Xiao Zhan's mind was clouded with the amount of resentful energy that coursing through his veins and flooding through his senses that he was no longer rationale nor humane. He felt enthralled and comforted even as his fingers moved to cover and uncover the holes on the flute and creating shrill of beautiful but deadly melody with his breath. Aside of that, he couldn't hear anything else but the screams of agonizing death and the thuds of fallen bodies or limbs. The blood pooled and the smell of it reeked, penetrating his nose. But he didn't care about all that as he lost himself to the desire to slaughter his enemy and his bloodlust was overpowering his moralities. He who used to shudder at the thought of blood or the one who got scared of flying cockroach now didn't even blink at the sight of floating ghost slicing and dicing human beings to their end until they were just stacks of meat, bone and spilled organs at this point. It was brutal, cruel and gruesome.

As he stood there unmoving, many of Wen soldier had fallen and those who still alive, were struggling to fight with everything they got as those creatures kept coming at them. The battle was one-sided to say the least.

".....Ying! Wei Ying!" A voice he recognized was finally registered in his ears. A feeling of tight grips on both his shoulders stopped him from blowing into the flute. It's like the veil over his eyes was lifted up and he saw a worried face decorated with a white ribbon on his forehead.

"Wei Ying, stop now." Lan WangJi said, looking at him pleadingly. His hands on Xiao Zhan's shoulder were squeezing firmly.

Xiao Zhan could feel the tremble of the pair of hands as if the shaking was meant to wake him up. For a second, he just stared at the person in white robes blankly before finally saying the name, "Lan Zhan. You're finally here."