The moment Harry saw Crystal Mine City written on the sign, his mind was made up.
For a long time now, Harry had been itching to return and get his revenge on the Dursleys. He had been considering it ever since he gained the strength to face Vernon Dursley. There were nearly 17 years of mistreatment to make up for, and the idea that the Dursleys were still living well made him feel unpleasant.
Vernon Dursley and Dudley Dursley were the two people he hated the most, by far. And Petunia wasn't too far behind. Once he got a few answers out of Petunia about why she had dumped him at Wool's Orphanage, he was definitely going to give the three of them a taste of pain – or worse.
Though Harry had been meaning to get revenge for a while, he was stymied by one issue – he didn't actually know how to get back to Crystal Mine City. All he knew in terms of geography was that it was close to West Minster City, but even that wasn't very helpful, as he didn't know how to get to West Minster City either.
But the necklace teleporting him to this area, along with all the recent events that led him here, must have been a stroke of fate.
Just as the sign stated, it was approximately three days of travel to reach Crystal Mine City. Harry was in no hurry, leisurely walking down the infrequently trodden road. Thoughts and fantasies of his revenge grew in his mind – just what would he do?
At the very least, he was going cripple the three Dursleys. It wasn't just his own revenge – it was for all the common folk in Crystal Mine City. The Dursleys relied on their superior cultivation to rule over the city and mining industry with an iron fist, but their cultivation was just a joke to Harry now. Once the three of them lost their power, the rest of the city would get revenge themselves. It'd give everyone a chance to vent their anger.
'After I get my answers out of Petunia, maybe I'll even hang Vernon and Dudley on their own gallows,' Harry mused to himself. It would be a poetic payback.
Near the end of the third day, Harry climbed to the top of a small hill, and all of a sudden, a small yet very familiar town came into view. There in the distance was the town he knew so well, yet also hated so much. The mere sight of it brought hundreds of memories rushing back. As he walked down the path, towards the city blissfully unaware of his return, all those memories painfully surfaced in his mind.
'There's the field I used to play in as a kid, with the other orphans. And that's also where Dudley liked to beat me up…'
'There's that tree I climbed up to the top once… and also where Dudley beat me up once.'
'There's the general store… I think Dudley beat me in front of there a few times, too.'
'And there's the place people count and pack Qi Crystals – oh yeah, and that's also where I got beaten up once...'
Needless to say, most of his memories of this city were unpleasant.
Finally, Harry walked past a cliff wall. Though it looked like an assuming cliff, Harry knew this was where the mines were located. Entrances to the mines were dotted around the cliff, with cart tracks leading in and out.
This was the cliff he had spent so much of his childhood under. Years of his life were wasted away, hacking Qi Crystals out of that dark hole.
He thought back to those tormenting days, of back-breaking work and blisters on his palms, of dust in his eyes and nose and the threat of a cave-in at any moment, a morning of sweat only to get a meager 20 Qi Crystals. And once he turned those crystals into Ms. Cole, and had his lunch, it was back to the mines to get Qi Crystals for cultivation.
'How pitiful I was back then,' he sighed. In those times, it took him months and months of painstaking effort just to advance to the 2nd level of the Body Tempering Realm. His cultivation only soared after he left this desolate area.
Harry recalled that dreadful day that started this all, when he exited the mines and was confronted by Dudley and his gang. A brief "fight" had occurred, which ended when he accidentally tripped Dudley and Dudley flew into a rage, then proceeded to beat him senseless.
'Vernon Dursley, Petunia Dursley, Dudley Dursley…'
'We'll be settling our accounts today,' Harry sneered at the thought of seeing them again. Back then, Dudley was at the 5th level of the Body Tempering Realm. What was he at now? The 7th level, perhaps? And Vernon and Petunia were at the high-level, though Harry wasn't sure about their exact strength. But unless they had magically advanced to the 8th or 9th level of the Qi Absorption Realm, Harry wasn't worried at all.
'And I won't just be settling accounts, I need to question Petunia about my mother. Just how could she have left her nephew in an orphanage?'
This whole time, Harry had turned that question around and around in his mind, unable to find an answer. According to both the Exalted Cat and Slughorn, his mother was a very talented cultivator and Alchemist, and should have been famous even in the whole empire. Why then, did her sister live in this remote area, virtually unknown? And why did Petunia abandon him, to the point of not even caring if Dudley or Vernon killed him? Today, he was determined to get his answers.
'And over there is Grunnings...' Harry abruptly halted in the middle of the road.
Grunnings the building looked the same as always, somber and grey and dreary. But one thing had changed. Before, there was a single gallows outside Grunnings, where whoever pissed off Vernon Dursley last was hung. Once a new person invoked Vernon's wrath, the old corpse was replaced. Harry had very nearly ended up hanging on that gallows himself.
But that single gallows was gone now, replaced by a newer one, a longer one with enough space to hold ten people.
And hanging off the new gallows were precisely ten corpses. Their bodies were in various stages of decomposition, making it impossible to tell who they were. But based off the size of the corpses, Harry could tell – one was an adult, and the rest were children.
In a flash, Harry's anger peaked. He was painfully reminded of being dragged along the road of Crystal Mine City to the gallows, under hundreds of spectating eyes, reminded of the rope descending over his neck and the tightening of the noose – just what had mere children done to piss off Vernon Dursley?
Harry grabbed ahold of a man passing by, his arm shaking in rage, rather rudely yanking the man in front of him. The said man was going to protest, until he noticed the furious expression on Harry's face.
"Who are they?" Harry demanded, pointing at the gallows.
"Who?"
"The people on the gallows!"
"You – you new here?" the man blinked at Harry. In a small place like Crystal Mine City, pretty much everyone recognized each other.
"Tell me, who are they?"
"T-t-they, well I d-don't know their names, but they were from one of the orphanages," the man stammered. He was just at the 4th level of the Body Tempering Realm, with no way to resist Harry's strength. Harry's iron grip was clawed into his shoulder, but Harry didn't care, not when seeing the sight in front of him.
One of the orphanages...
A bad premonition surfaced in Harry's mind. It couldn't be...
"Which orphanage?"
"It – it – it was called Wool's Orphanage, I think," the man stuttered.
Numbly, Harry let go of the man.
Wool's Orphanage...
That was his orphanage...
Then these people were...
"What happened?"
"You – are you ok?"
"Just tell me!"
"Yes, yes. Well, it happened a few months ago. Vernon Dursley – that's the man who runs Grunnings, the building there – he tried to execute one of the orphans. His name was Potter – Harry or something like that. But the boy had some kind of magic which saved his life. He teleported away, and Vernon was furious, with no way to take his anger out. He erected a bigger gallows, then the next week, hung the rest of the people from the Potter boy's orphanage."
When he heard that, Harry felt the ground was going to open up and swallow him up. He no longer paid any attention to what the frightened man was saying, too lost in his own thoughts.
Then, the adult skeleton was Ms. Cole.
The rest of the corpses, the children, were the orphans he grew up with at Wool's Orphanage.
And as for himself, he survived it all, but indirectly caused their deaths.
None of the orphans could be considered his friends, as his relationship with them was quite poor. They mostly avoided him, because they knew Dudley Dursley liked to target Harry Potter. As long as they didn't interact with Harry, they would be left alone. As such, Harry grew up friendless, even more so than usual in an orphanage.
That being said, these were still the children he grew up with, the companions who had suffered with him for a decade and a half. He would be lying if he said they didn't share some kind of bond.
And as for Ms. Cole, though he spent most of his life hating that woman, he knew that deep down, she was a fair and caring person. In this cruel world, few people would bother to run an orphanage, even if it involved exploiting child labor. Yet, Ms. Cole had done it.
'Vernon Dursley... Vernon Dursley!' Harry felt the blood in his body seething, trembling in rage. He did nothing to hold it back.
All his plans to spare Vernon's life but let the townspeople deal with him went straight out of his head. Vernon Dursley was going to die – and he was going to do it.
It was time for a reckoning.
Without even meaning to, he was already making large strides towards Grunnings, past the corpses of his old comrades, towards the large door that separated him from the most despicable man he had ever seen in his life.
"Hey, where are you going –" the man Harry had grabbed tried to ask, but before he could finish, Harry had already kicked down the front door to Grunnings.
BANG!
"VERNON DURSLEY, COME OUT!" Harry roared.
His voice, magnified by his power of Qi, rang through the building like a bomb blast. Glass shattered, the windows exploded, and people screamed. Some looked at Harry with fright, some looked at Harry like he was crazy.
"GET THE HELL OUT!"
"GET THE HELL OUT!"
"GET THE HELL OUT!"
His voice echoed and reverberated through the building. Doors shook, chairs and tables rattled, and in the middle of it all, people ran for cover. A madman had entered Grunnings!
A door on the second floor opened, and a large man with a resemblance to a walrus stepped out. Vernon looked the same as Harry always remembered, though there was a furious expression on his face. He strode over the indoor balcony, looking down on the ruined entrance, and spotted Harry.
At that moment, Vernon's pupils shrank. Though Vernon didn't recognize Harry since Harry was still wearing the mask, he tried to sense his cultivation, but failed. That could only mean...
"Who are you?" he asked. Others may not have noticed, but Harry could sense it. Vernon was frightened.
"DAMMIT, HOW COME YOU'RE STILL ALIVE?" Harry incoherently screamed.
"SO MANY PEOPLE DIED, BUT YOU'RE STILL LIVING WELL?"
"Who the hell are –"
"SINCE THERE'S NO JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD, I'LL CARRY IT OUT MYSELF!"
Burning Blood!
With a single leap, Harry jumped straight from the front entrance to the second floor balcony, perched precariously on the ledge. His foot shot out like a whip, landing square on Vernon's bulging stomach, blasting him backwards into the room he had just exited.
To get from the entrance to here, it had only taken him a second. Vernon didn't even have a chance to react, much less resist.
'I waited my whole life to do that.'
And now that he had done it... it felt even better than he imagined.
Harry stalked through the hole in the wall Vernon just made, like a predator chasing its prey. Vernon was lying in a crumpled heap on the opposite side of the room, against the far wall. Harry took no notice of the rest of the room, and picked Vernon right off the floor, and smashed him against the stone wall.
"Fuck you!" Harry yelled, and punched Vernon in the face as hard as he could.
There was an odd and unnatural squelch, and his fist sank a bit deeper into Vernon's head than Harry had been expecting, but he paid it no attention.
"How dare you kill Ms. Cole?"
Vernon didn't give any response, so Harry punched him again.
"How dare you kill all those orphans?"
"How dare you hang them on the gallows?"
"Who let your son bully me?"
"Who let your wife dump me in the orphanage?"
"Fuck you!"
"Fuck your wife!"
"Fuck your son!"
"Fuck your whole family!"
Each time Harry yelled out a question, he slammed Vernon's meaty body against the wall, each time he cursed Vernon's family, he landed a powerful blow onto Vernon. His fists sank into his fat body, causing showers of blood whenever they hit.
When he finally stopped yelling and the rage died down, he dropped Vernon and looked at what he did.
There was no more Vernon Dursley, of that he was sure. The man was unrecognizable. Though Harry hadn't realized it, his very first fist had gone straight into Vernon's face, ripping his head into two. Everything else was unnecessary, and he was just beating up a sack of meat. Blood, flesh, guts, all of it lay pooled around his feet and stained on his hands.
'I've really changed,' Harry stared at his bloody hands. After witnessing the massacre of the Swan Sea Sect, and the other cruelties of the cultivation world, seeing blood or gore didn't bother him anymore. He looked at Vernon's corpse with calm eyes and a steady heart, not feeling a shred of remorse for the man he detested so much. His only regret was... it was over far too quickly.
Harry sighed as he wiped the gore off his hands. He looked around the room – and saw a fat, cowering figure huddled in the corner.
"Dudley! You were here too!" Harry exclaimed in delight.
"W-w-who are you?" Dudley stuttered. A wet spot could be seen in his crotch, and he stared at this crazy man in front of him with pure terror. He tried very hard to not look at the brutally mangled corpse of his father.
This madman had just done unspeakable things to his father, but even worse, the deranged man actually knew his name! With a moan, Dudley passed out when he realized what might be coming next.
"Wake up!" Harry snapped, and slapped Dudley across his fat face.
Dudley's eyes flew open, then seeing Harry's bloody face just inches from his, he immediately passed out again.
Four more times Harry slapped Dudley, and four more times Dudley woke then immediately fainted in sheer terror. Finally, Dudley couldn't faint anymore, and just sat there shaking and shivering. Harry could determine his cultivation with a single glance.
"Only 6th level of the Body Tempering Realm? Turns out I overestimated you."
"W-w-why did you k-kill – w-w-what do you want?" he finally managed to say.
"What do I want?" Harry grinned. "Of course, I want your life. But first, I still need you for one thing."
"W-w-w-w-w-"
Harry grasped Dudley by the scruff off his neck, and dragged him out the ruined room, down the stairs, then outside, where a large crowd of people had gathered. Harry paid them no attention, and walked down the street, Dudley trailing close behind.
It was just like that scene all those months ago, except the roles were completely reversed. People gawked as they saw Dudley Dursley, the son of local terror Vernon Dursley, being dragged like a dead animal behind an unfamiliar man.
Some people ran into Grunnings, as if to report the situation to Vernon, only to run back out moments later, vomiting and in shock. Even in the cruel cultivation world, such a bloody and gory scene was rarely seen.
Harry meanwhile, had stopped in front of the house he knew to belong to the Dursleys. With an ironic sense of politeness, he knocked on the front door.
It opened a few moments later, revealing a tall and thin woman.
'Only 7th level of the Body Tempering Realm?' Harry took her cultivation in with a glance. Somehow, he thought Petunia's cultivation would be higher, since she was his mother's sister. It seemed he had overestimated both mother and son.
Petunia took in Harry's appearance, and then her eyes landed on Dudley's figure.
"What have you done to my son!" she screeched, her voice as loud and shrill as ever. "How dare you –"
"Shut up!" Harry snapped, and slapped Petunia Dursley straight across her long, thin face. She reared back, the force of it so great that she lost her balance and was sent stumbling.
"Don't you know who my husband is!" she screeched from the floor. "When he comes –"
"Vernon won't be coming, Petunia. I just killed him."
That caused her to voice to stop, and she gawked at Harry with her mouth open.
"V-V-Vernon? D-dead?"
"It's true!" Dudley suddenly wailed. "He punched Dad and – and – and then –" his voice trailed off, then he leaned over and promptly vomited. Perhaps, Dudley was in too much shock to process it all earlier, and only just now realized what Harry had done.
"W-why did you kill him?" Petunia stammered.
"To be honest, I lost myself in a fit of rage. But it's justified revenge, I suppose."
"Revenge?" Petunia shrieked. "I don't even know you!"
"You've forgotten me already? Well – ah, right!" Harry exclaimed, coming to a sudden realization. He had completely forgotten!
"Haha, I've been wearing this for so long that I forgot about it!"
And then Harry lifted his hand to his neck, and to Petunia and Dudley's horror, began peeling off his face!
The mask that Slughorn gave him was a very precious artifact, one that blended seamlessly into his skin. No matter how closely someone examined him, it was impossible to tell that the mask was on his face. Even if someone stuck their nose to Harry and stared at his neck, they wouldn't be able to tell. The mask didn't cause any discomfort to him either, and Harry didn't even feel it on him. Over time, he had forgotten about it.
Removing the mask was like a layer of skin being removed, like a snake shedding its skin, and then when the mask was off and he revealed his true appearance, both Dursleys let out screams of fright.
"Y-you!" Petunia screeched.
"Harry?" Dudley yelled.
"Yes, me. Why, Petunia, it looks like you've seen a ghost. You aren't going to greet your nephew?" Harry sneered, doing his best to quell the hatred rising within him.
Petunia drastically paled, and her eyes widened to saucers.
"You – how did you –"
"That's right. I know all about our relationship... aunt," Harry spat that word out with great difficulty. Seeing Petunia's ugly, giraffe-like appearance, and knowing they were biologically related, made him feel sick. Thankfully they didn't share any features.
"Who are you calling aunt?" Dudley dumbly blurted out.
"Oh? You don't know?" Harry looked at Dudley, who immediately cowered. Then he turned back to Petunia, who was frantically shaking her head.
"So you never told Dudley. Well, I'll be the one to do it then."
"No! No! Don't!" Petunia screamed.
"As it turns out Dudley," Harry said, his voice rising over Petunia's screams – "I'm actually your cousin. I know, shocking, isn't it? My mother's name was Lily Evans – the younger sister of Petunia Evans."
Dudley's mouth dropped open, but Petunia's expression was the exact opposite. Her face morphed from terror to anger in an instant.
"Younger sister?" she screeched. "Lily was no sister of mine! She was a no-good, inconsiderate, thief! I have nothing to do with Lily Evans!"
Immediately, Harry lifted Dudley right off his feet and smashed him straight into the ground. The impact sent the entire building shaking, and Petunia let out a scream of terror.
"Say that again," Harry hissed. "Insult my mother again, and I'll kill Dudley like the pig he is."
He put his foot on Dudley's thick neck, and pressed the full weight of his leg on it. Beneath him, Dudley was squirming and crying, begging Harry to get off him. But Harry turned a deaf ear to his pleas, and coldly glared at Petunia.
"Stop it! Stop it!" she wailed.
"Not so funny, is it, when someone else is doing the beating? When your son beat me for all those years, did you ever tell him to stop? When your husband tried to kill me, did you tell him to stop? No, you didn't! You just silently watched as your nephew was nearly killed!""
"You're not my nephew!" Petunia snapped back.
"Still saying that?" Harry growled, and put more of his weight onto Dudley.
"No, really!" this time, Petunia didn't look angry any longer. Her face was filled with desperation, and Harry saw real terror and fright on it.
"When I said Lily wasn't my sister, I meant it! Lily... she was adopted by my parents!"