Overcoming The Beast

In the dark alleys of the clan Leon walked slowly reminiscing about his memories. The clan wasn't like he remembered. It was less bright and extravagant. It wasn't as powerful and big as it was in his past life.

The fact he wasn't chosen as the next Flame emperor had not influenced its development so it was still the small clan it was.

Leon reached a clear hard ground with a few practice dummies to train with. There was also a few wooden swords and bows.

Leon walked up to a place he was sure couldn't be seen from far and sat down.

Red gas came out from his body as if it was sweat. It slowly encased him and allowed Leon to think.

The 'slaughter aura' was what Leon called the red aura since it had formed and grew when ever he performed a slaughter. It was his strongest power by far, it made killing enemies just a flick of his wrist.

But the origin was quite mysterious. He was never able to figure what it was, higher demon beasts had something similar. However he noticed that his was 'smart', it could move by itself and did what was best for him without his command. It was also much stronger.

Now the slaughter qi had become a part of him to the point it's presence was like an essential organ in his body.

Everything has a price and so does great power, and even more so something so malevolent. What he had paid to use it was his existence. The slaughter qi would slowly take over and replace him.

In his past life he hadn't thought much about it, until he started having these fits when ever he felt an emotion grow strong. Rage led to slaughter, laughter led to slaughter, tears led to slaughter. Eventually he became immune, he stopped truly feeling and always kept collected.

The fits were his insane double personality formed from the slaughter qi. At first he had wanted to fight against the insane personality, and try to control it. It was after it failed over and over again, he gave up, slowly accepted it and then became it, leading to his final moments.

"Well, it looks like I won't be having any fits for now, time travel has weakened you as well."

Leon controlled the gas and let it wrap around his body and flow to his hand. It confessed and formed into a small red diamond.

"It has decreased immensely, the colour is lighter and the amount is not even 1% of what I had on the day I died."

Leon then molded it into different shapes.

First it extended into a long and thin needle. Then it widened and formed a rough knife shape. Leon now had to completely focus on the red object in his hand, drops of sweats started to form and drip form his forehead.

The knife in his hand going through constant changes. The handle being slowly detailed and blade curving to form a dagger.

"My soul is to weak to form a detailed object" he ran his finger along the blade "even the sharpness is effected."

With a flick the dagger changed to a reverse grip and Leon launched himself at the practice dummy in front of him.

CLINK

Leon stood in front and of the dummy with the dagger trying to push into the dummy. But it barely made a dent.

Leon jumped back and tried again this time going for four continuous strikes. He then fell to the ground onto his back and the dagger in his hand dissipated into a red gas and disappeared.

His c.h.e.s.t moving up and down with his heavy breaths.

"I need to figure out a way to get stronger or I wont be able to train."

"Slaughter aura has four main abilities, transformation, intimidation, enhance and control. In my past life I was able to use all four since I had awakened it. But looking at how weak it is, I shouldn't try using enhance and control since they have draw backs."

"For the other two abilities that I can use, I can form only very basic objects with simple structures, as for intimidation I'll need someone to test it on."

Leon then got up and coated his hands and feet with the aura. He then closed his eyes and thought then started shadow boxing. He visualised fighting his younger past self. He still had all the fighting experience he had gained through out the 600 years of his past life. During this time he had fought all types of people with many types of fighting styles. He himself had made his own style. But at the moment he wouldn't be able to fight the weakest opponents he remembered so he thought back to himself.

During his younger years he was talented but had a very restricted life style so he barely had any fighting experience. His style was completely step by step shown in books, making it predictable to any veteran. This way of fighting was robotic, it was enough to defeat anyone on his level and some above his level.

To the current Leon this was the perfect opponent at the moment. Although the opponent completely outclassed him strength and speed, he held the advantage of technique. This would be his main in fights until he gained soul energy.

In the dark world of his closed eyes he saw his younger self, even younger then he is now standing waiting for his attack. Leon attacked with a punch and saw himself easily blocked, he continued to punch looking for openings.

In the moon lit training field a dark silhouette could be seen moving with light footsteps and punching out with aura covered hands and feet. Leon in a continued motion moved every move connected to the last. His breaths were rhythmic making sure he wasn't out of breath and conserved as much energy as he could.

The glow around his hands and feet decreased as it spread around his whole body to stop him from collapsing. It eventually spread evenly through out his body holding him like a puppet on strings.

Leon had already been fighting himself for 4 hours until he fell to the ground.

"I wasn't able to defeat myself in a fight, I could barely get a hit. But I could dodge and and redirect attacks."

The slaughter aura disappeared from his body and Leon blacked out.

....

Leon felt a tap on his cheek.

"Excuse me, are you okay?"

Leon opened his eyes and saw that it was still dark. Barely ten minutes had passed since he passed out.

He looked at the small face closely looking at him with concern. A girl around his age was crouched down next to him, looking down at him.

Leon sat up quickly starling the girl back.

"I'm fine." he said as he got up and then had a better look at the person next to him. She had sky blue eyes and dark blue hair. Holding a wooden spear with one hand she had come here train.

"Thanks for waking me up." Leon casually said.

"I'm Eos, you are?"

"I'm Leon."

"What are you doing sleeping here, Leon?"

"I just fell asleep while resting." As Leon judged his improvement and seemed uninterested in the conversation.

Eos seemed to understand and said, "well I'll be going to train then."

As she left Leon looked at her and from the way she walked he could tell she had trained in martial arts. And an idea popped up.

"Hey, do you want to train together?"

Eos turned and looked at Leon, "I don't mind, but I'll have to do my routine first."

"I don't mind. I'll be waiting here." Leon then sat down. While Eos left and started jogging with the spear in hand.

Leon forgot about his surroundings and was engrossed in his thoughts.

"I understand the limits of this body, now I need to think of a way to train."

"First I have to strengthen my body, If I do that I should be able to form soul energy and become a summoning apprentice and start forming my soul seed. I'll need to reach summoning scholar to awaken it and form a soul book."

"To strengthen my body, I could simply use medical pills but I don't have money. If I train like crazy I should be able to catch up before the awakening ceremony is in two months. But to exceed my past life I'll need to come up with something soon."

Leon continued to run the internal energy around his body helping it recover and improve.

In around 30 minutes Eos approached Leon.

"I'm done now, so how do you want to train?"

"Let's spar, what was your rank in the last sparring exam?" Leon asked as he got himself a wooden spear as well.

"I was ranked fourth, what about you?"

Leon wasn't surprised by her answer, she was clearly hard working and also talented.

"Okay so let's spar." Leon brandished his spear and got stood a distance from her.

"Wait so what rank were you..."

Before she could finish her sentence Leon attacked.

"Hey why are you distracted, are you not taking this seriously." Leon then sweeped the spear and kicked her in the belly launching her back.

She landed on her knees with a hand on her stomach and the other still holding her spear. She grit her teeth and stood up.

"I'll get serious then." She raised her hand parallel to the ground and closed her eyes to concentrate.

Leon watched and didn't do anything. He could attack but this was a spar. Before was just a joke to move on from the topic.

"She is summoning her soul book I, I'll need to use my slaughter aura then." A red glow spread across his whole body and spear.

In around a minute a book appeared in front of Eos. It was a thick book with a bronze cover. The cover had slight engraving in forming a random pattern.

The book opened and flipped to the third page, it was a yellow stained page with a few centimetre long rune perfectly in the center. It then had two smaller runes around it.

"Cloud Steps."

One of the smaller rune glowed a mixture of white and blue as it activated. Eos then looked at Leon and attacked. The book floating around and following her.

Leon moved in tandem with her. Her moves were light and glowed like the wind. But Leon kept up with her pace, blocking and redirecting the attacks.

"Wave breaker." Eos then slashed down with all her strength. The slash was fast and left a glow making it seem like a solid glow had formed.

Leon blocked with the spear he used the slaughter aura to hold our for a few seconds but then he ran out of energy. The wooden spear then broke into two and Leon jumped back.

"You're pretty good, Let's go again." Leon picked up another spear and attacked. This time actively attacking.

As the two fought slowly the had reached the horizon and the sky had a light blue as the morning breeze passed.

They both fell back and sat on the ground as they finished training. Eos had brought a bag and took out a drink from her bag.

As she drank she looked at Leon, "Do you want some, this is red skyberry juice my grandpa made?"

"Sure" Leon then drank with her. The juice was made from a rare fruit skyberry. Skyberries came in many colours while red was onw of the most common it still had a strong effect for recovering.

Leon stood and stretched.

"I'll be going, it was fun training with you." He then left to reach home before his parents wake up.