Wang Tian knew he had to get out. It was his only hope of surviving.
Why would someone be attacking them? To attack another tribe was a violation of the agreements they all held - at least, not without provocation.
He was weaponless and consumed by a frantic curiosity about what was happening, but he had to save his life before he could find answers.
Wang Tian ran from the fires until he found someone who was slumped in the shadow of a tree. It was someone he recognized: the local shopkeeper.
"Uncle, what happened?" Wang Tian gasped upon finding the man. He wasn't his biological 'uncle' but this was a common way to refer to others withing the clan.
As he drew closer, he noticed a spear protruding from the man's abdomen. The shopkeeper's eyes were closed, and he looked dead until they suddenly flashed open, turning toward the boy.
"Wang Tian... is that you?" he asked, his voice hoarse and weak.
"What happened? Who's attacking us?"
"It's them... the other tribes," the shopkeeper answered. "They said... they said we were harboring a Gu Master among us. Then they started the slaughter."
A cold sweat formed on Wang Tian's forehead. Did they somehow figure out his secret? Had he gotten his clan killed?
"But how did... even then they shouldn't-" Wang Tian began to say before the shopkeeper slumped over, now quite dead.
Wang Tian began to panic. He turned and fled from the village toward the hills that marked the boundary of their territory. He might be intercepted on the other side, but staying was certain death.
In the low light of the night, he felt a strange sensation - a resonance he didn't fully recognize. He nearly stumbled into a man carrying a torch. It wasn't the man's features that alerted Wang Tian or the torchlight, but something else about his presence. It was an aura.
It set off Wang Tian's own Gu Master instincts. He flinched, pointing at the man. The stranger stumbled back for a moment before a look of realization dawned on his face.
"There's a Gu Master here!" the man yelled. "I found the one they're hiding!"
Wang Tian gritted his teeth.
The truth was, there had been no Gu Master in the Wang Clan - at least, not one the other tribes knew about. The neighboring clans had used the rumor of a hidden Gu Master as a mere pretext to wipe out the Wang Clan and seize their resources.
The Wang Clan had been doing relatively well for itself. The other clans had suffered from a series of disasters one after the other which left them destitute while the Wang Clan had escaped them.
Naturally this had fanned the flames of jealousy, much like the flames enveloping their village.
And so, in the name of keeping things 'fair' they had chosen to attack the Wang Clan. Not only that, but many people suspected the Wang Clan of causing some of the disasters which plagued the other villages.
Ironically, in their pursuit of a lie, they had stumbled upon the truth.
Wang Tian did not fully understand these details.
Without a doubt though, the attackers were hypocrites. Even he could tell that.
Even among this population that claimed to spurn Gu Master cultivation, there were those who cultivated in secret. Naturally if two of them meant they would recognize each other unless they were using stealth-type gu worms, which were hard to procure. Usually, if two such Gu Masters lived in the same village, they would reach a silent agreement not to out one another.
Unfortunately, this man felt no such camaraderie with Wang Tian.
Wang Tian immediately bolted in the opposite direction. He didn't want to fight a fellow Gu Master whose Gu worms were unknown to him. It was highly likely that this person didn't have any outstanding gu worms, let alone a full set. After all, the more gu worms you had the more likely it was that you would be exposed. Moreover, it was hard to find gu worms in the first place. Wang Tian himself only possessed a single gu.
But why take the chance in fighting someone?
He sprinted towards the hills, avoiding the torchlights of the search parties. As the sun began to rise, bathing the land in a crisp, golden light, he suddenly felt the cold bite of a sword against his neck.
A looming figure stood over him. Over six feet tall, the man was clearly a hardened warrior with a scarred face. He sneered down at Wang Tian coldly. He was a warrior who stood at the peak of the mortal realm, meaning even most Rank 1 Gu Masters and some Rank 2 would have trouble facing him one-on-one, let alone Wang Tian.
"You... you're from the Wang Clan," the warrior growled. Wang Tian was still wearing his sleeping robes, emblazoned with the clan symbol. Deception was pointless.
"Yes," Wang Tian whispered, almost resigning himself to his fate.
"I've been ordered to kill all of the Wang clansmen," the man said coldly. "However, I have no desire to slay children. How old are you, exactly?"
Wang Tian froze. Because his parents had died young and he had suffered through months of neglect, his growth was stunted. He was often mistaken for a child - an embarrassment that had led to bullying from boys and rejection from girls.
He had often cursed and lamented the fact that he looked like this, and that adults didn't take him seriously. He would often scream, "I'm not a kid! I'm an adult! You hear me!"
Now, that curse was his saving grace.
"I... I'm eleven years old," Wang Tian lied, downplaying his age by seven years. On the Fang Yuang Continent amongst most humans, it was considered illegal to execute a child younger than twelve, and Wang Tian had decided to play that card, swallowing his pride for the sake of his survival.
The man sighed, withdrawing the blade. "Well then, off with you, little lamb. But if I ever see you again, I will kill you."
Wang Tian brushed the grass off his robes and scrambled over the crest of the hill. The warrior didn't know he had just released a Gu Master, otherwise Wang Tian would've been dead for sure.
As he reached the summit, he didn't even glance back at the ruins of his village. He needed to get as far away as possible.
Tears and snot ran down his face at the thought of everyone else who was likely dead. Guilt ensnared his heart like a python - he thought that he was responsible somehow, that he had been found out.
After all, if there had been another Gu Master they were talking about, he would've known beforehand.
He nearly stumbled or tripped multiple times, but he did eventually find a path to safety. It was only when the sides of his chest burned and his lungs could tolerate no more that he turned around to see that no one was pursuing him.
He then glanced at the wide open sky, as blue and cheerful as ever, uncaring for what had happened to him and his clan.
'If there really are Immortals in this world, why don't they do something about such injustice?' Wang Tian thought to himself, wiping away any thoughts of there being Immortals as being nothing but tall tales because of this. If there was an Immortal which ruled over this world, Wang Tian thought, that Immortal must've been a cold, cruel, and callous person. Someone who was downright evil to allow such slaughter to happen on his watch. 'If I ever manage to find that Immortal, I'll go ahead and teach him a good lesson!' Wang Tian thought to himself.
But, these thoughts were little more than dreams built with sandcastles as their foundation. If he could not defeat the people who had slaughtered the Wang Clan, how was he going to do anything to an Immortal?
Once he caught his breath a bit more he glanced around him. It didn't look like they'd come after him, but it was for the best that he try and get away as much as possible anyway. The tribe he came from did not have horses but it did have other beasts of burden like donkeys so they might be able to catch up to him.
Also, that wasn't the only danger to his life currently. He had stumbled upon 'enemy territory' right now, and even if the other humans on this side of the hill didn't kill him they'd likely end up enslaving him as an 'outsider.'
He did see what looked like a settlement out in the distance, which he had to avoid at all costs. Still, the most dangerous place to be was right here.
'Maybe if I can find some other gu worms here...' he thought to himself. That would be his best bet of surviving.