Jack hears another muffled cry of 'HELP' yet his feet don't move from their spot. His eyes scan the area but given the visibility he isn't able to see far. This all feels strange and a bit too convenient, and given the large pool of blood by his side, he isn't about to rush to some voice coming from the darkness.

"H...elp"

The voice sounds like a male voice, a hoarse and quiet male voice. Lunamarie is still getting changed within eyesight but she has her back to Jack watching him from the corner of her eye at times to ensure he doesn't peek. This doesn't bother Jack as he has been watching her with his divine sense all this time to ensure nothing happens.

Her pristine and jade-like skin sullied by the blood, slowly being revealed as she wipes it up carefully from her delicate looking skin. It's almost translucent and perfect, giving Jack a moment of pause as he just watches her via his divine sense, wishing that he can continue to do so for some time.

The groans of the person nearby bringing him out of his almost-stupor.

He lets out a sigh and brings back his divine sense from Lunamarie, she's still within visual range with a small torch nearby and uses it to feel the way forward discovering a disgusting sight waiting for him just a few metres ahead beyond visual range.

Piles and piles of dead bodies, humans and non-humans stacked up in a haphazard pile, all of them clearly dead. Their dessicate and dried out flesh, the skin flaking away from the exposed bone underneath. The humans, goblins, kobolds, wolves, sheep and perhaps even pig nosed orcs scattered throughout the pile, yet above all of that are two large exoskeletons of spiders or spider-like insects.

The large insects are curled up in a ball as though they're dead, giving Jack some relief, but it's only temporary as he hears the hoarse voice yet again. Jack uses his divine sense to work out where the voice is coming from and discovers that it's coming from somewhere in the middle of the pile.

"Xueli, what do you think? Is this a trap?" Jack quietly asks.

'I doubt it but even then, why would they set up a trap here? I've been inspecting this place since we arrived, I have discovered nothing moving or even living. This place was most likely used for a ceremony with that altar in the middle.'

Jack quickly sets into motion, digging through the disgusting pile of dead bodies. His upper body caked in dried blood from carrying Lunamarie, disguising the smell of putrefaction as the flakey skin sticks to him as he moves the countless bodies to the side. Jack does this while trying not to think about what he's actually doing.

Jack moves several bodies to uncover a large insect carcass buried underneath it all. A single arm is moving beneath this large insect carcass, too large to even move as Jack finds out after straining himself to lift it even slightly. Given no other option, Jack presses his hand down on the carcass causing the insect to disappear revealing the yelling man.

A husk of a middle-aged man who looks like nothing more than skin and bones, yet his eyes contain the flame of life as though he's not willing to give up.

Jack's first thought upon seeing this man is that there's no point even trying to rescue this person, he won't survive long afterward anyway but as he looks into the man's eyes. He can feel the man's will to continue living. He can feel the man doesn't want to die here. He can feel that this man needs to survive.

"Too..k you..r time"

The man looks at Jack with his thin boney face, with his dark sunken eyes, but the ends of his mouth curl slightly upward. Jack quickly reaches down to lift the man up. His body is devoid of any muscles and fat, making him incredibly light within Jack's arms.

Jack's mind races, thinking about the best course of action will be to treat the man when Lunamarie from the distance yells out.

"Ah, where did you go? Don't leave me here!"

"Don't yell! I'll come over to you!" Jack responds as he walks over carrying the man. His mind recalling the various documentaries about starvation and dehydration during famine and wars. The man hasn't shut his eyes as he stares at Jack.

Lunamarie comes into view with the dim torch by her side. She has changed into Jack's black-and-white robe, which comes down to her upper thigh. Her hair luckily avoided sullying, allowing it to shimmer in the flickering of the torch. Jack inwardly curses this situation. He could spend hours just watching Lunamarie walk around in his robe like this.

Jack carries the man into view. Lunamarie exhales in shock upon seeing Jack carrying the man before rushing toward to check on him. Her expression is grave as she holds his wrist. The man is just weakly breathing as Jack holds him.

"This man doesn't have long left."

Lunamarie lets go of the man's wrist while shaking her head. Jack furrows his brow while the man inside his arm weakly lifts it, pointing in a particular direction.

"Leave me... exit there"

The group looks toward where he's pointing, but it looks like a black space. Jack looks down at the man who has closed his eyes now and appears to have given up finally, his body appears to be rapidly aging in Jack's arms.

"Can you save him?"

Lunamarie and the man look at Jack in shock.

"Yes, but it won't be easy or quick. I didn't bring many herbs with me, so I can't be sure I'll even have enough." Lunamarie answers, almost upturning her nose at the man in Jack's arms. Jack and the man exchange a deep glance. He says nothing, but the powerful will behind his eyes says enough.

"Try to do what you can. We need to find out what happened in here"

Jack looks down at the man who is mouthing the words, 'Thank you', as Lunamarie sets into work.

The bunny girl quickly sits down on the ground as she fiddles with the several storages rings on her fingers, pulling out several bowls and water filling them up and placing several fragrant herbs, each one with a separate colour and name but she works too fast for Jack to keep up.

"He has been drained of nearly all of his fluids and qi. His muscles have withered away, and it seems like several of his bones were broken and healed incorrectly. He hasn't eaten in over 7 days and... his body has been invaded by demonic qi so even if he's returned to full health, he'll be labelled as a demonic cultivator."

"It doesn't matter, just do it"

"Ok place him down"

Jack lowers the man down to the ground as Lunamarie feeds him the first lot of liquid. He struggles to drink it and without pause; she replaces the empty bowl without another one. This happens several times as many minutes go by as Jack quietly watches the process, inspecting the man's body interior as his body slowly restores itself.

The man's body has a soft silver glow as the energies from the herbs and pills from the bunny girl seep into his body. His muscles plump up as the energies flow around, but the man's eyelids grow heavy as tears develop in the corners of them. The man falls asleep as the last few pills enter his stomach.

"He should wake up in a few hours. Do you do that for all the injured people you come across?"

"No. Can he move because I want to go check out the exit where he pointed?"

"Leave him until the medication settles. I can watch him for you."

"Ok good. I'll go check it out. Do you have a weapon in case something happens?"

Lunamarie flashes the white dagger that she stabbed him previously with. Jack subconsciously hides his hands upon seeing the blade. She clumsily waves the dagger around, snickering upon seeing Jack's reaction.

"Take care. Be careful." She continues to snicker while cleaning up the medical items surrounding her.

Jack walks in the direction that the man pointed in, the opposite direction that he walked previously. It doesn't take long for him to come across a passageway which leads to a thick wall that looks like it was previously as an opening but is now sealed shut.

He tries launching a Dragon Qi fireball, but the opening doesn't budge.

He readies another round of fireballs, but a moving shadow catches the corner of his eye.

Jack quickly turns to face the shadow coming up behind him, but he's greeted by a sight of the shadowed girl.

She is looking back at Jack with her big beautiful eyes, but most of her face is still covered, not allowing him to see anything else. He wants to speak out, but the girl suddenly disappears before him as her words enter his ear.

"Bathe the dagger in the Sacrificial Pond. " (idk, maybe something about it being the only answer)

Jack looks at the smooth passageway one last time before turning around and walking back to the pool of blood, it's only been a few minutes so Lunamarie is still cleaning up but she watches Jack as he walks to the side of the pool.

He pulls out the 'Fang of the Night-Demon' from his pants, holding it for a moment before lowering it into the pool. As the black dagger contacts the surface of the pool, something strange happens. Several thousand black lines come from deep within the 'water' rushing towards the blade as if they're filling it with energy.

Jack can feel the dagger strangely get heavier as the energy accumulates and enters the dagger. This starts the process that happened previously, the dagger is converting the strange energy from the 'water' and turning it into the dark grey qi, 'Moon Yang Qi' or just Moon Shadow Qi.

The energy being forced into him is massive as the 'blood pool' emits a subtle glow, Jack grits his teeth but forces all of this extra qi into the forehead stars as his veins are ridiculously saturated. It fills his veins almost thrice over as the energy converts into qi flowing into his body.

The dagger vibrates within the 'water' as he's holding it there, the hilt changes as a strange eye symbol appears on the side. Jack looks at this change when the eye on the hilt suddenly shifts to look at him almost causing him to drop it, but new information flows into his mind.

'Shadow Strike'

Information about a brand new skill fills Jack's mind yet it's not attached to a vision or anything leaving him slightly disappointed, a skill that uses the moon shadow qi as an attack yet the only information is about how to use the skill.

The qi continues to flow into Jack's body for several minutes when suddenly the dagger forces itself out of the 'blood pool'. Jack staggers back several steps from the force of the dagger. Steadying himself, he looks at the dagger that has changed slightly.

The blade itself looks the same with vein like lines going throughout it. The hilt has changed with the very centre featuring an opened and moving black eye ball appearing as though it's engraved within the hilt.

Jack frowns upon looking at it and brings up the system information:

[Fang of the Night-Demon]: Grade: (?????) Stats: Strength+20, Agility+15, Dexterity+10, Description: A strange dagger fashioned from the tooth of a creature called the Night-Demon. This weapon contains a spiritual entity. <asdldfgkljhdfgg>

His eyes go wide upon seeing the difference.

The stats have barely changed, but somehow the weapon has a spiritual entity now?

He wracks his brain trying to work out when this change occurred but gives up after deciding that it's not important. He holds the dagger while circulating the moon shadow qi in accordance to the skill that he just learnt about. The qi flows through his body, strangely gathering towards his feet.

Jack lowers himself and stabs at the nearest wall around 10 metres away.

A draining feeling comes across his body as the moon shadow qi leaves his body and travels in a straight line along the ground toward the wall.

The black line crawls along the ground quickly, crosses the 10 metre distance before climbing up the wall.

The black line climbs up the wall until it reaches the position where Jack stabbed at where it expands, it expands from a single dot into a large 1 metre in diameter circle.

*WHOOSH*

Lunamarie turns to look at the strange sound where she can see that the wall now has a large, perfectly smooth sphere dug out of it. Jack's mouth is agape in shock while Lunamarie's eyes go wide upon seeing the power behind that single stab.

"Did... did you do that? Please tell me that was you." Lunamarie asks while stuttering.

"Don't worry, that was me"

"Where did you learn that? Why didn't you use that attack before? What sort of attack is it?"

Jack walks away from the edge of the pool. His body won't be able to accommodate anymore qi for now and that stab using 'Shadow Strike' only used about 10% of his current reserves of the Moon Shadow Qi giving him another combat option. The only downside is that it takes time to charge and can't be used against moving targets, possibly targets that aren't on the ground too.

"I just learnt it. It seems to attack using shadows. Are you done cleaning up?"

"All done, can we please exit this disgusting place?"

"I'll try to make an exit but can't guarantee anything. Is he ready to be moved?"

"As ready as he'll ever be in this condition... hey since when did you have shadow qi too?"

"I'll tell you after you tell me about that cultivation stuff from your training school, something about Myriad something."

"Oh... Uhhhhh I'll tell you when we're out of this place"

Jack walks back down the passageway, stopping about 5 metres away from the door.

He's holding the dagger circulating the moon shadow qi, it only takes a few seconds but that's in this dark passageway with no distractions. It's a far cry from an actual life and death situation.

'Shadow Strike'

Jack stabs forward, aiming at the very middle of the door as the black line travels along the ground from beneath him.

*WHOOSH*

The single dot expands into a larger circle, about 1.5 metres in diameter, leaving a smooth sphere dug out of the door.

Unfortunately, this doesn't reveal the other side of the door so he launches another strike forward causing the same effect and digging a further 1.5 metres away from the already dug out sphere. It's like the rock/stone just ceases to exist after being encased by the black sphere.

This effect leaves Jack curious as to what's going on but these thoughts are interrupted by the sight of light from the other side of the wall, a small hole reveals a faint red light coming from the other side. The hole is tiny so with one final strike, he opens up a gap over 1 metre big allowing easy passage.

Jack sends his divine sense through the gap to inspect the other side, but he's surprised by what he sees.

"Alert!"

The sounds of several people yelling can be heard as a wall of soldiers holding spears and shields stands steadfast, pointing their weapons towards Jack.

Jack chuckles and walks forward, the setting sun leaving a red glare of everything as the view of a burnt out husk of a mansion is revealed.

The soldiers are visibly nervous as their weapons shake, one of them yells out.

"Stop right there! Identify yourself!"

Jack doesn't stop walking forward as he exits the newly created hole, putting away the dagger and stretching his back after leaving the narrow hole.

"WE WILL BE FORCED TO ATTACK IF YOU DO NOT IDENTIFY YOURSELF"

The soldier yells with a vicious growl, but as someone else suddenly appears, he kneels before Jack.

"Lord, welcome back!"