The spectral figure kept glaring at everyone present, who were aiming at him with different abilities or weapons, his bow firmly in its grasp, but no arrow in sight.
It spoke in Chinese with an aggressive tone, making only a few of them here understand its words.
"Not a step taken out of my prison cell, and already armed people are trying to threaten me. What kind of era has this become that people do not recognize a Demi-god?!" it spat.
"Please calm down, Luò Rì Gōng," Rì-Chū pleaded.
The entity snapped its head toward the boy, rage in its eyes.
"You’ve done your duty freeing me. You are no longer useful to me. How you didn’t die during the process still baffles me, human, but I can still fix that."
Turning toward Rì-Chū, the being raised his bow as a black glimmer appeared on the string where he grasped it. As he pulled back the string, an arrow made of pure darkness materialized, nocked and ready to fire.
A dozen spells and abilities simultaneously launched toward the ethereal being, most of them of physical matter passing directly through it, as the magic slammed into it, making it lose balance and misfire its arrow.
It growled in anger, turning to the ones who had hurt it.
"You’ll pay for that."
But before it could nock another arrow, a wave of energy crashed into it, and a heavy pressure pushed it to its knees.
Kary looked down to where she had been holding Alex, only to notice he was gone. Looking back up, she saw his silhouette wreathed in light and flames, as wings had sprouted from his back, looking like burnt angel wings.
A two-toned, grating voice echoed in the grove, making everyone wince in pain.
"Master wouldn’t allow you to hurt his friends, so neither will I in his stead. Perish the thought of harming them, or vanish from reality," Sanguis proclaimed, holding the non-corporeal being by the throat.
The archer was about to spit hateful words in response; however, before the words left its lips, the surroundings melted into nothingness.
He realized he was suddenly floating in the middle of a plane outside of reality. He couldn’t tell up from down, as one was black, the other white, with gravity feeling absent altogether.
"Where have you brought me, you aberration," Luò Rì Gōng spat, knowing what kind of being he was dealing with.
Sanguis’ scratchy voice echoed all around him, resounding with power.
"In this space, you will be judged for your actions — past, present, and future. Your soul shall bear the weight of your actions forevermore.
"You think you can judge me?! You arrogant wastrel! I was alive before your entire civilization came to be! Release me this instant!" the archer lashed out, wriggling in place.
But his attempt at an escape was all but in vain, as he barely moved from his place, unable to conjure his weapon or strength at all.
He immediately felt a tug in his chest, and a ball of white flame with golden hues slowly pulled out from inside him. He looked at it in horror.
"No! Put it back!" he cried out, the colour draining from his face.
He knew full well what that was.
"I beseech you! Put it back! I’ll do whatever you want!" he suddenly pleaded, his arrogance gone, along with his rage.
Only something on the level of gods could pull the soul out of a living, or rather, undead being in this case, with such ease.
His mind raced as he wondered just who he had stumbled across, cursing his luck. He had thought he’d found an easy prey to help him escape his jail and finally roam the earth again.
Now, however, he was hovering gods knew where, his soul floating before his very eyes, and the realization of his misdeeds being judged striking fear within his entire being.
The legends about him were correct, up to a certain point. He had indeed saved humanity by shooting down the nine suns in the sky that refused to go back to their original cycle.
But a part was missing from these legends. A part that no one but his previous host knew of.
His reason.
Saving humanity had never been his goal. The suns were obstacles to his ascendance to godhood, and he had taken them down to grow in power.
His last prey had escaped him when the wife of Hou Yi, his previous host, had suddenly given her life to the gods, in a plea to the heavens to save her trapped husband from inside his own body.
The heavens, feeling the threat of Luò Rì Gōng at their doorstep, had answered her prayer by making her into the goddess of the moon, giving her dominion over the realm of night, and consequently, the powers wielded by the archer.
She had sapped all strength from him, preventing him from killing the last sun, and sealed him within Hou Yi’s body. But his intentions had never been pure.
He had hoped that the aging of the man would eventually allow him to break the seal, but Hou Yi had taken that possibility from him, using his own soul as a catalyst to seal the evil being away under the full moon with a ritual granted to him by his late wife in a vision.
This had been the start of his millennia-long prison sentence, one from which he had hoped to break free forever. And now, with his prison cell finally broken, in his haste to get rid of vermin, he had stepped into another jail of sorts.
One a thousand fold more frightening, at that.
Sanguis took long minutes to judge the actions and thoughts of this apparently wretched being, and his verdict came as no surprise.
"I find you guilty of evil against all living things. Your sentence shall be complete erasure. As a courtesy for your long life in a cell, I will allow you some last words. Choose them wisely."
Sanguis had no obligation of such a courtesy, but Alexander’s soul had already been corrupting his own, and his temperament had started changing.
"Please! I beg you! We can help each other if you only let me! I saw inside the boy’s mind the situation the world was in, and I can help! I know where the Tiger of the West is!"
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