Back in the days where he was stuck at the Qi Refining realm, when he woke up after his third advancement attempt. Similar to how he felt after his second attempt, he was ashamed of himself.
As he exited his room, he was expecting the same as the previous time: pitying gazes from his junior brother and master, and likely a few words midway between scolding and encouragement from the latter. Probably weak smiles from his parents, too, as they would try to cheer him up.
Instead, he was greeted by only the first two, but in a really strange manner: both his master and junior brother seemed saddened by something, and Baotian even felt as if they were avoiding his gaze. Maybe they were just too ashamed to look at him? No, that didn't sound right.
"Master? Zhenyun? You two seem strange, what is the matter?" he asked. "Did something happen while I was unconscious?"
The two looked at each other with a knowing gaze, which bothered Baotian: since the moment where Zhenyun surpassed him, even if his master never showed favoritism, a part of him always felt like his junior brother was slowly taking all the place in Liu Jianhong's heart…
However, it was quickly replaced by a strong sense of worry:
"You two… please tell me, what is happening?" he asked, before noticing something that made him freeze on the spot: "Where… where are my parents?"
He couldn't see his mother nor his father around. As Liu Jianhong and Zhenyun lowered their heads, he felt like life itself was leaving his body:
"M-master, junior brother, where are my parents? Did… did they stay at home because they felt tired"
He received no answer. Clenching his teeth and ignoring his current weakness, Baotian immediately used a basic wind spell to accelerate himself, running as fast as he could toward his home.
"Wait, Baotian!" Zhenyun shouted, ready to stop him.
But he was stopped by their master:
"Let him go, disciple. We can't shield him from this"
And so, Baotian returned to his parents' home, sweating profusely from the effort, but found no one.
"Mother? Father?" he called. "Mom! Dad! Where are you? Please, answer me!"
But he received no answer from them. The next moment, he felt the familiar hand of his master on his shoulder:
"I'm sorry, disciple. They… they left us just a few moments after you passed out, I was unable to keep them alive long enough"
"Ahh… Ahh…"
"I'm sorry, Baotian. I-"
Not listening to his master any longer, he went directly to the clan's cemetery. And there, after long minutes of research, he finally saw them.
His parents' tombstones.
"Ah… no… no" Baotian cried, falling to his knees. "Wh-why, why…"
He began to bite his fingers, quickly drawing blood.
"Why couldn't it just be a few days later… Why couldn't I wake up earlier… Why… why didn't I just…"
He began to bash his head head against the ground:
"Why couldn't I just solidify these damn Qi Pieces! Why couldn't I just manage to advance after three fucking tries! Why… why am I such a failure that I couldn't even be there for my parents' last moments! Why, why, why!"
He was a transmigrator, a man born on Earth and then reincarnated into this body, after dying in an accident when he was thirty. Truth be told, he wasn't that much younger than his 'new' parents. Yet, for him, they were the ones who mattered the most across the two worlds, more than anyone.
After over sixty-seven years in this world, he had come to a conclusion: he loved this world the most. How many times, back on Earth, had his parents left him alone to go to work, or even to a party? How many times, because he had misbehaved, his parents called him a failure? How many times did they promise to take him to a nice place, only to end up cancelling, and then tell him to stop throwing a tantrum when he complained?
He didn't hate his Earth parents, he just felt indifferent to them. Truth be told, after so long, he had not only forgotten their names altogether, but also his former name. His name, as much as he cared, was Baotian, the name he was given by the parents who actually cared for him to the best of their ability at every step, every minute of his life.
And now, they were gone.
"They… they can't be gone… it's just not possible"
He stopped bashing his head, blood dripping from his forehead, and just cried in front of the grave. His junior brother and master remained at a distance, remaining silent to not disturb his grieving.
It was all his fault. If he didn't fail his advancement, he wouldn't have fainted and he could have sent them off. It was all his fault.
"Death… it's just… too terrifying. No matter what, I don't want to go through this"
Eventually, he left the cemetery. And as he walked through the clan, he heard it for the first time: a snicker.
He hastily turned his head in this direction, causing a cultivator to quickly look away, but it was too late: Baotian had seen what was on his face, a mocking smile.
'Was he… laughing at me?'
From this point on, Baotian accorded more attention to his surrounding whenever he moved in the clan, and that allowed him to discover one simple fact:
'I am… the laughing stock of the Liu clan'
After three failed advancements, it seemed that people had finally decided that he would remain a Qi Refining weakling all his life, and die at his hundredth anniversary. These people, they didn't care about his pain, his grieving, they were only happy they could enjoy the fall from grace of someone with a better status than them, so they could forget their own misery.
"No matter the world, they're always like this. Humans… people…"
These people who mocked him, Baotian secretly despised them from the bottom of his heart. And so, the hatred he felt toward himself for being a failure, from this day on, he started redirecting a part of it toward them.
.
.
.
'Ah, I see' Baotian thought as he snapped back to reality.
It wasn't when he killed for the first time, nor when he first used the Crazed Demonic Blood Burial Mantra. It was that day, on his sixty-eighth, where he decided to start hating others, wanting to make them suffer like he suffered.
"Dogshit world, dogshit, trash bastards, dogshit stupid-faced, owl, you want to kill me?" he shouted, going mad. "Today, we'll be eating Core Formation minced bird for our snack!"
So what if there was a whole realm of difference? To hell with cultivation levels, he would take out this filthy, insignificant beast before it could take him out!
With bloodshot eyes, he turned to Zi Moyan:
"Quick, use a spell to heat the storm's wind as much as possible, don't try to spare your spiritual energy, do it!"
Zi Moyan mostly practiced fire spells, which were great at attacking but much less useful for defense. That was without even mentioning that using fire spells to defend against wind spells usually only ended up combining the two, making them more dangerous. So when she heard her companion say that to her with a mad expression plastered on his face, she thought he had finally gone insane.
"We're gonna die no matter what if you don't, so stop thinking and just do it, NOW!"
Without much choice in the matter, she used her strongest heating spell, spending two thirds of her remaining energy, and used it on the hurricane. Seeing this, Zhang Baotian immediately tackled them both to the ground and, as he used a basic wood spell to create a shelter, he took at ten more liters of blood essence off his storage bag, and added to it those of the two QI Building cultivators they had killed moments ago.
"Blood Net Assimilation!"
Inserting the blood essence through the wood as thousands of small syringes would, Baotian made it so that it formed a net inside of the wood, injecting it with spiritual energy and, by sacrificing so much of his blood essence, raising the solidity of their shelter to the grand perfection stage of Qi Building!
Even then, normally, such a defense would not be able to stop the storm, which was solidly at the mid stage of Core Formation. And yet, for some reason, even under the violent attack, their improvised shelter wasn't breaking!
"How!?" Zi Moyan and the owl both exclaimed.
Baotian smirked. Ironically, even though he forgot his own name from back on Earth, he still kept in mind some details from then. For instance, one of his physics classes where he learned about a very interesting fact: heated air always moved upward!
'And since our shelter is as close to the ground as possible, we aren't even going through a fifth of the storm's original power!'
Even then, he was struggling to keep the wood shelter intact as the blood net was coming to the end of its power. The storm too was rapidly losing power but at this rate, it was less than certain which would break first. If the Core Formation owl decided to get closer to physically attack them afterwards, or aimed another spell of this scale at them, it would be over.
Gritting his teeth and hoping for the best, Baotian held his ground, refusing to die like this. The wood shelter cracked, the sound sinister to the demonic pair, and the blood net nearly dissipated from how little power it still had. Baotian didn't have the necessary spiritual energy to create a new one, so he simply focused on this one, struggling.
And finally, after what was probably just two or three minutes but felt like an eternity, the storm calmed down and, just as their shelter crumbled and they were sent flying back, the wind dissipated.
"Ah… ahh…"
"Uh… I thought… we were going to die"
Zi Moyan and Baotian were both panting as they struggled to get up. The former, hearing what the latter said, smiled tiredly at him:
"That's probably still on the menu, little brother" she said.
The two of them looked back toward the golden owl but, for some reason, it didn't look particularly eager to attack them. In fact, despite the fact that, at the Core Formation realm, physical might was supposed to be one's greatest strength, it seemed like it wanted to stay at a distance from them.
"That's unless… it's injured!" Baotian exclaimed. It must've been injured when fighting the clans' Core Formation cultivators, so it's staying away, that's why it was hesitating to attack! Senior sister, we need to attack now! Follow my lead!"
Without waiting for her to reply, he threw himself at the owl, forcing her to do the same. He wasn't sure he was right, but he knew that they were dead in every scenario where he was wrong, so they might as well bet everything since they couldn't lose more!
As Zi Moyan created rings of blue fire around her arms, he took out another liter of blood essence, shaping it into two swords, and went on to duel with the mid stage Core Formation owl. Adding to its potential injuries, it probably didn't have much spiritual energy remaining either, so the fight would definitely be over soon:
"A few minutes to kill us, uh?" Baotian shouted, repeating what the owl had said. "Let's see who will be dead in a few minutes!"