《Zhizhu》 Prologue: Zhizhu Prologue: Zhizhu On a beautiful moonlit night, where not a single cloud was in sight. There, strolling down the street was a woman, being around 20-21 years of age, and having an appearance that could only be described as angelic if only her attire were more suited to her body type. She had straight, long blond hair, deep blue eyes that could pull you in, and a tall slender figure that would make most models cry tears of blood in shame. Her small nose, pale-white skin, and thin pink lips only seemed to make her seem even more flawless. The clothing that she wore out, while seeming not to fit her figure, could be said to bring out another side of her charm. Wearing a black, hooded jacket, dark green tank-top, and black jeans, while wearing steel-cap boots. This out-fit seemed to reflect her tomboyish personality, and despite it being cold out she wore her jacket open, as if she was unaffected. The street that she walked upon was particularly dark, and empty with only the illumination of the moon to guide her way. She, like always, was on her way to the nearby convenience store to buy herself a midnight snack. Normally the street she was going down had at least some light, but she really couldn''t care less about this. After all there were very few situations that could cause her to hesitate in this world. While walking through the eerily silent street the ¡®Blonde-haired-woman''s¡¯ usual carefree expression suddenly turned sharp. Quickly pivoting on her right foot counterclockwise by 90 degrees, and raising her leg. Slamming it right into the side of the neck of a black-clothed man, breaking his neck, and sending his dagger flying away. Yet again making her move, she ducked down with her right leg before she even pulled back, and swept around her in a circle with her left, knocking over another man. Standing back up, she then delivered a quick, and powerful kick straight to his temple, effectively killing him. This all occurred in mere seconds, and she had already managed to effortlessly kill two grown men. The two of them were obviously not normal thugs, as was apparent by their attire. Slightly moving her body to the side she barely dodged a throwing knife that came from behind her. Two shadows then charged out at her, judging by their figures, one was a man the other a woman. Dashing towards one of the attackers, she then jumped, and landed with one foot on the shoulder of the man. Then using her spare right foot, she kicked him in the face, sending the both of them flying back. Using the momentum of the knock-back she then executed an axe-kick upon the woman. The woman brought up both her arms in a cross to block the kick. What struck on the woman''s guard, rather that the actual leg, was the joint at the back of her knee. Which she then bent, breaking the ¡®Dark-clothed-woman''s¡¯ guard, and causing her to stagger. The ¡®Blond-haired-woman¡¯ then started to bring her left leg down to the ground, while her right leg, which was tucked in, started to rise. When her left foot hit the ground her right was only 10 cm away from the woman¡¯s chin. Applying pressure to the ground with her left, her right then sped up just enough to reach its target before she recovered from her stunned state. Her right foot stuck strongly, and elegantly against the woman''s chin, delivering major brain trauma, and knocking her unconscious. This entire time her hands had stayed in her pockets, moving. Looking around one would see, the corpses of two men while another man, and woman were unconscious with heavy injuries. She then surveyed her surroundings, noticing the fact that there was another seven, black-clothed people on the roof-tops with bows drawn. All of the attackers were wearing a band with an eight legged blood-red spider on them. Upon seeing this emblem, the ¡®Blonde-haired-woman¡¯ had a wry smile float to her face, as this emblem had once been her own. At further inspection, all four of those that had engaged her, were familiar faces, her own subordinates. Though see saw this, she felt absolutely no remorse or sadness at the what she had done. After all they are assassins, and she had already killed countless more people. Something on this level was not able to move her heart at all. ¡°Hey, there little Zh¨©zh¨±! fancy meeting you here!¡± a melodic voice called out, as the figure of a woman appeared from within the shadows. This woman was wearing dark-grey clothing that hid the majority of her figure, revealing just enough to know she were female. She had short violet hair, sharp eyes, and an aura of majesty that one could not explain with words alone. Looking over at her, Zh¨©zh¨± (The Blonde-haired-woman) had an icy expression on her face. ¡°Stop it with your games ¡®Trinity¡¯¡± she said with her voice void of emotions. The woman by the name of ¡®Trinity¡¯, is as her name may imply the third ranked of the underground organization by the name of; ¡®Ragnarok¡¯. This organization is a group of highly influential, and powerful people which only have one objective, to judge the world¡¯s inhabitants for any sins they have committed. There are a total of nine units in Ragnarok¡¯s assassin division, with nine assassins, three lieutenants, and one captain. Each of the nine units are captained by Ragnarok¡¯s rand second through to rank tenth, with the first rank being the leader of Ragnarok. Zh¨©zh¨± herself was the captain of the eighth unit, and ranked ninth among the entire organization. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.Trinity started pouting, and speaking in a playful tone she said ¡°Aww, and here I wanted to have a nice reunion with my best friend. I even brought along my entire unit to have a party with you~¡± When Trinity finished saying this a total of twelve dark-clothed people appeared on the roof-tops surrounding them, with composite bows drawn. All of them had a sash with a bow, and dagger crossing each other, which represented the second unit belonging to Trinity. Seeing this, Zh¨©zh¨± just gave a sigh, and dashed towards Trinity, keeping her hands in her pockets. The assassin¡¯s fired their bows while trying to kill her, but all they hit was the roadside as she weaved, and bobbed out of the way casually. Just as she reached Trinity, and was about to deliver a roundhouse kick straight to her kidney, another eight silhouettes showed up behind her. The eight of them launched a volley of arrows at regular intervals to force her back, and also forced her to leap into the air while retreating back. Taking a closer look, the eight of them are her own former subordinates that had gone through thick and thin together with her, but not this time. While she was in the air, the assassins surrounding her rained down arrows at her from above with renewed vigor. Due to being in the air Zh¨©zh¨± could only twist her body in an attempt to dodge the arrows. Even though she is an extremely talented, and strong individual, she was still human, so as a result, she was hit by of the arrows that were fired at her. One of them had hit her right shoulder, while the other two had struck against her left thigh, and knee. Landing on, and sliding across the ground, Zh¨©zh¨± managed to get into a kneeling position while gritting her teeth to try to distract herself from the pain. Her right hand had already left her pocket, and exposed it¡¯s mutilated form to the outside world while hanging at her side limply. In the past Zh¨©zh¨± had been ranked second in Ragnarok rather than her ninth rank. This was until during one of her missions, when she was only 18 years old, there was an accident, and she lost use of her right arm, while her left was weakened to the point where it could only go through everyday life. At this time she was demoted to ninth rank, and lost most of her fighting potential. Needless to say that if she was uninjured then this situation would not be so dire. Trying to rise into a standing position again, Zh¨©zh¨± could feel the arrowheads grinding against her bones, causing her to cry out in pain as she fell back to a crouching position, completely helpless. She couldn¡¯t use her arms to try to fight them off, and one of her legs were incapacitated, causing her to be immobile. The pain was just too much for her to try to fight with just a single leg. Slowly, Trinity walks towards Zh¨©zh¨± with an ornamental dagger in each hand. Truth be told, Trinity wasn¡¯t really that great of a fighter, but was rather an amazing tactician during battle, and was able to obtain her rank by using her head to out-smart her opponents. When she finally reached Zh¨©zh¨±, and was looking down on her she had a face as if she was dissatisfied with the way things were ending. Standing there for a while she finally said ¡°Why did you have to betray us? Why did you have to leave us? Was it really worth it to throw away everything just to be free for only a year or so?¡± Trinity seemed as if she could not understand the actions of her former comrade in arms. Zh¨©zh¨± looked up at her with a slight smile on her lips, ¡°How could I not, when I have finally escaped my fate as a mere dog that follows the will of my master? I was never someone for loyalty as taught to me by the very man who raised me himself. I am someone who can not trust others no matter how much I want to, and my heart yearns to seek my own place in this world outside the shadow of a titan like Ragnarok. I am nothing more than a venomous Zh¨©zh¨±.¡± She said expressing her heart as much as she possibly could. Trinity looked at her skeptically. ¡°I don¡¯t understand.¡± she said. ¡°I don¡¯t understand a thing you''re saying to me. Would it not be better to seek survival? Rather than throw your life away in some foolish quest for something you could never obtain?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t need to understand the heart of another, and I don¡¯t need to live to gain freedom.¡± said Zh¨©zh¨± as her vision started to get blurry because of blood loss. ¡°Now if you wouldn¡¯t mind I would rather die at your own blade than to be done in by blood loss.¡± She said with a grin on her face, though it was obvious by her tone that she had little strength left by her tone of voice. Not another word was spoken from either of them that night. The road was spilled with a scarlet blood, and golden strands. The eight legged, venomous queen; Zh¨©zh¨± was no more. Not a single soul mourned in her passing. There was no room for compassion towards a spider. That, was the end of the assassin Zh¨©zh¨±, but the start of many things. _______________________________________________________________________________ AN: So I hope you liked this prologue of mine! I just want anyone that has read my other fiction know that, I will not be continuing it because I lost all motivation towards the simple plot line. This took me a long time to get done properly to my own standards even though this is not edited or proofread. I hope that you will stay around for my releases in the distant future. Chapter 1: Darkness Chapter 1: Darkness A black space surrounded what remained of Zh¨©zh¨±¡¯s consciousness, slowly eating away at it like a parasite. While these pieces were devoured they were soon spat back out by the darkness, and forcibly dragged back to the very soul of Zh¨©zh¨±. The process was excruciatingly painful to her as her mind was torn apart, and put right back to the way it was. Zh¨©zh¨± would constantly forget, and remember everything that occurred in her life, over, and over again, both the happy, and the sad memories. There was no release from the torment that is occurring to the very core of her existence, even though she herself sought it out, there was nothing that would ease her pain. That is not to say that there is nothing that could ease her, but rather there not a single entity out there that would be willing to assist this poor tormented soul that is Zh¨©zh¨±. As time went on the pain only got even more intense, it wasn¡¯t so bad if the pain was constant, because that would allow her to cope with it better rather than the rapid fluctuations between torment, and relief. Her mind though on the very edge of sanity, and insanity had absolutely no option on whether she went mad or not. This is, again, due to the fact that her very being is never the same at one time, there are even moment where she forgets what pain is. In those few seconds of time are when, Zhizhu is in the absolute most pain imaginable. As time went on, the very core of her existence was being changed, and modified according to the darkness around her. Her soul remained the same while being torn apart and put back together, but ¡®Zhizhu¡¯ herself was changing, becoming ¡®something¡¯ else. This change was not unwelcome in the least, but rather is felt pleasant to her, as if this was what she was supposed to be from the very beginning, though she had no idea what had changed or why. Time dragged further on, and a change had finally occurred in her soul. What should have been a dark-blue soul, was instead turning into a mixture of black, and a dark scarlet. This a change in the nature of her soul, and signified that she could no longer be considered human by any standards. This change to her soul had made her feel empowered and invincible. Though her soul had become fragile due to being torn to pieces over, and over again, it somehow possessed an aura of malice, and overbearingness that could cause even the most battle-hardened veterans to cower in fear. Zhizhu herself was feeling much more comfortable, though that was not saying anything in place of her current torment. Veins of gold slowly appeared over the soul of Zhizhu, increasing in number as time went on. It felt like countless years had passed since Zhizhu¡¯s death, but time was impossible to tell in her current state, because she had already lived her life thousands of times over, perhaps even millions. Everything was a blur but at the same time so, so clear, the clarity of her soul only increased with the number of golden veins, and so did her fragility. The vein acted as rope, though her soul was being torn apart faster than ever before, and held small pieces together as if they were the few parts that had finished going through some kind of sick and twisted baptism, and could finally go free. An irregular throbbing had started to occur, this was no normal throbbing since it would send mind shattering amounts of pain, emotional, mental and spiritual, through Zhizhu¡¯s soul. Soon the golden vein had started to constrict, dragging in the stabilized shards of her soul into the center of her being. Now and again more shard would be added, and would be fused with the core that had slowly started to form. Zhizhu was at long last being brought back together, along with a change to her very being that could spell either disaster or something much, much more than herself. Nearly 20% of her soul had been solidified into a core, with the golden veins being so numerous and dense that they had formed outer-shell for the core. The rest of the soul was being dragged back towards the core, shattering a lot less often than before, and not because of it gaining more strength but rather that the core was gathering it near. A gold-coloured energy had been sent out from the core, drawing in the rest of Zhizhu¡¯s soul. The gold-coloured energy had started to condense around her soul. Once her soul had finished gathering and repairing itself, the gold-coloured energy had formed a membrane around her. Her core had formed what was the size of, and looked to be a scarlet-red pearl, while the rest of her soul had formed a soft liquid-like substance that radiated incomparable might. The golden veins had expanded to form a net-like pattern, and fused into the outer membrane. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Zhizhu¡¯s soul had formed into what seemed like an impenetrable fortress, letting nothing in or out, all while hiding the pearl-like core that held an appearance of true beauty. Her soul had formed into a layout where at the center was her ¡®core¡¯ the inner soul, then just outside that was the ¡®mantle¡¯ or the outer soul. Finally was the ¡®crust¡¯ the Membrane and barrier that prevented anyone from getting close to her. The darkness had gone berserk, trying everything it can to break her soul, but was stopped before it even got close to the membrane by a single ray of gold-coloured energy. The darkness even took form just to try and destroy her, it formed spears, swords,great infernos and even tried to crush her from all directions at once. No matter what form the darkness took it could never make it past the single ray of gold-coloured energy the was orbiting Zhizhu¡¯s souls like a loyal guard protecting it¡¯s queen. In fact the gold-coloured energy existed for the purpose of defending against the darkness and had manifested within Zhizhu because her soul had adapted and formed the gold-coloured energy for the sake of self-preservation. The gold-coloured energy was created to fight the darkness, and had a much lesser effect towards anything else but still had the ability to protect the soul. She had long ago stopped feeling pain, and being forced to forget and remember everything countless times over. That is not to say that she no longer suffers, her consciousness had completely been repaired. Zhizhu right now could be considered as the furthest thing from being sane, she was practically empty. Her emotions had completely left her, faded with her awakening as if they were only an illusion to begin with. Though this is only what the felt, somewhere deep inside her soul, hidden within the depths of the core of her soul was a small spark of white light shrouded by the dark hues of the surrounding soul making it impossible to see or feel, its size no more than a speck of dust. Many more countless number of years pass slowly by, with each moment the darkness becomes more and more chaotic. It had already stopped trying to take form, but instead has been increasing the shear might within each wave. Only to fail again, since no matter how much more powerful the darkness was, the gold-coloured energy would always be able to defeat it with ease. After all that was what it was made for, to fight the darkness within this void. Suddenly, the darkness pulled away from Zhizhu and retreated a great distance away, not that it changed much within the void. Nearby, space started to distort and a giant gate seemingly made from limestone with borders made from a type of gem that was coloured a right purple colour. This gate was 20m in width and 50m in height. The gate itself was covered in carvings and sculpture of many different types, all of them being on the level of a masterpiece, in fact they all linked together to tell a sort of story. The story involved death and life, of people dieing then living, and most of all of people passing through a great darkness only to be eaten alive or turn insane only to have their own souls implode. Slowly the gate started to open, releasing a violet coloured light to spill forth into the void, the darkness hissing and burning wherever it touched causing it to retreat further. Zhizhu felt as if this gate was here to collect her, and could also see that this gate was her one and only ticket out of this place. When the gate had fully opened, Zhizhu could see through it a multitude of other souls being guided towards a planet in the distance, a countless and unending stream of souls in various colours and sizes were moving along, into, out of, and even to far off places that are too long gone to see. This was the river of souls. _____________________________________________________________________ AN: Please note that future chapters will be longer than this. Chapter 1 was made shorter since if I did the planned content for this chapter it would hav not only dragged on, but I would likely have not finished this chapter due to lazyness and spent another week on it.