The Dawn of the New World

"Any big news?" Hao Xuan asked eagerly.

Monk looked at Hao Xuan's face for a couple of seconds in silence. His brow still furrowed.

Right now, Hao Xuan had much shorter hair. Before they went down to his shoulders but now they were barely enough to be combed back.

His pupils still shone with a dim green light in total darkness, undulating incessantly like some sort of unsteady lights.

There were dark circles around his eyes and he looked much thinner than before. The previous feeling of robustness that he gave off naturally had diminished considerably and he looked a lot more 'normal'.

He wasn't overly handsome but he wasn't ugly either. His face was completely symmetrical down to even the facial hair, which when observed for an extended period of time, made the observers enter a strange hypnotic state if their will power wasn't strong enough to look away.

Monk hadn't noticed any of this before but that still wasn't the reason he was feeling uneasy in Hao Xuan's presence.

The Jia was a clan of giants, albeit of very low blood purity.

Their ancestor had an Earthern Bloodline and so by their very nature, they felt closer to the earth and nature and all the things that grew from the ground.

Yet right now sitting across from Hao Xuan who had been his master for so long, he detected a menacing aura that he had never felt before.

He knew the person in front was the same old Hao Xuan he had known quite some time now, yet something deep inside him said differently.

He could tell Hao Xuan had changed. Not physically, not in any obvious way, but something had been set in motion. And his instincts were firing warning signals one after the other.

It felt like he was sitting across from nothingness. Instinctively, Monk closed his eyes and sent out his spiritual sense towards Hao Xuan but as soon as it made contact with him, his heart almost stopped.

Although he couldn't 'see' anything in the usual sense, he could still feel it through his mind's eye.

An image quickly took shape in front of Monk's closed eyelids. He saw a black mass, churning, stirring, boiling without pause.

An unnatural and primordial feeling crept into his being. His soul power wavered, threatening to leave his body and be sucked into the well of darkness.

*GASP*

Monk opened his eyes and unconsciously dragged himself away from Hao Xuan.

He was covered in a cold sweat, his breath unsteady.

His stomach reeled and he almost vomited on the spot.

He looked at Hao Xuan with fear, true fear.

But Hao Xuan had no idea what happened. He was staring at Monk with a half-open mouth, gobsmacked at his strange behavior.

"What's wrong with you? Are you okay?" Hao Xuan extended his hand to help him up but Monk visibly recoiled, making Hao Xuan scowl.

"The hell is wrong with you?!" he asked, irked at his actions.

"N-Nothing," Monk shook his head and pulled himself back up and dusted off his clothes.

Ensis who had been silent the whole time was observing everything from the corner of his eye.

Monk got back up and sat down across from Hao Xuan again, but this time he was a little further away.

Everyone noticed, no one commented.

"So...what's new?" Hao Xuan asked again, clearly in a worse mood than before.

Monk explained everything swiftly. From the Purifiers (CH415) to the movements and plans of the Temple, well, as much as he was able to find out, which wasn't a whole lot.

Apparently, the Temple had been exploring the underground prison a lot more than they were letting on.

To date, they had sent more than thirty independent parties through the prison's many entrances.

Twenty-six of them didn't make it back, while the ones that did were in terrible condition.

Monk had managed to hack into one of Spirit Bands of the people that were in charge of this whole operation using the custom Spirit band provided by Baracus and copied over a large portion of the files.

Hao Xuan received the files and nodded approvingly.

"Good job," he mumbled while glancing over the files but was disturbed by the sound of footsteps before he could look into it more.

Hao Xuan raised his head and saw Monk standing near the entrance with his back towards him.

"They will be looking for me, I should get back," he threw out the words before quickly walking out before Hao Xuan could say anything.

"What's wrong with him?" Hao Xuan muttered to himself but his rhetorical question was answered by Ensis a beat later.

"I believe it's your Law, master," Ensis commented.

"My Law? How so?"

"I believe you have chosen to cultivate a Law related to Chaos, that is why he was so uneasy. He doesn't understand it himself yet which is why he was acting strangely."

"How would my law affect him?" Hao Xuan asked, confused.

Ensis smiled.

This Sever of him, perhaps the only one that would serve him with true loyalty even without the effects of the constitution, was worlds apart from all the others.

Hao Xuan often forgot because of his handsome, 'human' features but, Ensis was the clone of a God Fiend. An entity worshipped by many evildoers.

Ensis's knowledge and power would continue to grow exponentially as time passed and his understanding of the path of cultivation would bring Hao Xuan many precious gifts, if he let him.

"The essence of your being, master, it is incompatible with his," Ensis explained.

"He is a child of the land, of nature, whereas your Law is bringing you to a more primal state of being. You would not feel any different but for him, it would be like standing in front of something ancient, something that brings out the primitive instincts in him without him realizing."

"It's the same feeling of helplessness and weakness that the Abyss and Chaos beasts bring out in every sentient being.. But once you gain control of your powers, this effect should lessen significantly, if not completely hidden."