Ning Rong Rong shouldn't have been there. Her father had wanted her to just wait at the family's castle for their servants to fetch a spirit beast for her second spirit ring. If only she hadn't been so proud, maybe she wouldn't be in this situation, staring death in the jaws. Several pairs of jaws.
Five massive heads, each covered in black scales and looking like the cross between deer heads and serpents. All attached to a single broad ox-like body the size of a large house covered in the same dark scales. Each neck was as long and thick as the surrounding trees in the Forest of Winds End. They made a sound similar to the crash of thunder each time the necks smashed together as they thrashed about.
Rong Rong was huddled back with the other children of her Clan who had been sent to find their spirit rings, cornered in a small valley as the escorts they had been sent with tried desperately to protect them.
With twelve children who were all hardly trained and only five adults, running was not an option. The creature was just too large for them to outrun. Fighting also seemed fruitless. Even with three Spirit Ancestors and two Spirit Kings, they could hardly even scratch the monster's outer plating.
It was a Storm Wrath Black Dragon, an extremely rare and dangerous breed of Spirit Monster. One that should have been much deeper in the forest. The breed was born with only a single head but grew a second one after it turned two thousand years old. After that, it grew another each time it's age doubled. This leviathan must have been at least twenty thousand years old.
Ning Rong Rong was scared. Any ten year old would be. She was the heiress of one of the most powerful families in the entire empire, the Seven Treasured Glass Tower Clan, second only to the Imperial family itself in influence. She was too naive and childish to even realize that she shouldn't wear her bright yellow ballroom dress into the forest.
One of the heads hit Lin Qi, a man who used an Owl spirit essence, out of the air. "Great Owl Spirit: Fourth Spirit Skill: Winged Barrier." Lin Qi said, his wings folding in front of him and starting to glow with his spiritual power. The Monster Head smacked down on the folded wings again and again, trying to muscle its way through the shield, and making sure that the owl-man couldn't move.
Rong Rong was staring in horror until Chen Yan, another one of the children stepped forward. She was twelve, just a bit older than Rong Rong herself, though they had both only just reached rank twenty and retrieved their second spirit rings. She was shaking a bit too, but she tried to hide it with a determined look on her face. "I can't just keep watching this. I'm going to help."
"Yan, you can't." Rong Rong said.
"I have to." Yan said, her hand going to her side as she called up the blade that characterized her Clan; the Seven Kill Sword. The long, double sided, pink crystal blade seemed to glow slightly, its golden hilt containing almost no guard at all. It looked like a work of art as much as a weapon.
Standing there with her sword held at her side, she looked a bit like her grandfather, though her long silver hair was tied up on one side with an ornament that looked like a crescent moon. Her pale skin reflected the light coming from her sword, and her honey golden eyes were sharp and determined.
"Please Rong Rong, I'm not strong enough to do this alone. Support me." Chen Yan said, steadying her weapon.
Rong Rong slowly started to nod. Her family prided itself on being the best support class Spirit Masters. She couldn't let her own fears stop her from doing what she had always meant to do. Her hands clasped together and when they parted, she was holding a beautiful crystal model of a seven storied tower. "Seven Treasured Glass Tower: First Day: Power, Second Day: Speed." She said focusing her spiritual power to bind her strength with Chen Yan's.
Chen Yan rushed forward, her speed greatly increased by Rong Rong's spirit skill. As she moved towards where Lin Qi was being pinned, she gripped her sword in both hands, pushing more and more spiritual power into it. Then, the single sword split into two. "Divine Sword Art: Fated Crossroads!"
It didn't matter how old the Essence Monster was, its hardened scales weren't enough to stop the legendary piercing power of the Seven Kill Sword. The cross slash dug into the monster's extended neck, cutting a deep gash into it. The head reared up, screaming in rage and thrashed about some more.
Chen Yan had to guard as the thrashing brought the damaged neck slamming into her, knocking her down. She gave a gasp of pain as she hit the ground hard, a throbbing sensation in her side making her dizzy. As she got up to her feet, her world spinning slightly, she saw the head she had attacked looking straight at her. The cut on its neck was quickly closing, smoke coming from the edges of the wound as it was covered by new scales, leaving only a cross shaped scar to show that the injury had ever been there.
Chen Yan froze, all of her swordsmanship training abandoning her at the sight of the monster's glare.
Right as the attack came, Chen Yan felt herself being pushed aside by Lin Qi. The owl spirit user had pushed her out of the way of the monster's attack. Chen Yan's skin crawled as she heard Lin Qi give a scream of pain.
Teeth sank deep into the man's arm and he was hoisted up into air and shaken about. His arm was broken and deep cuts were being ripped into his flesh, causing a loose rain of blood. "No!" Ning Rong Rong shrieked as the head threw Lin Qi straight up into the air and began to position itself underneath him, preparing to swallow his broken body whole.
"Tensa: First Spirit Skill: Arcing Chains." A black chain flew through the air, wrapping around Lin Qi and pulling him out of the way of the monster's jaws.
Eyes followed the chain back up to its source. A black blur moved into the clearing stopping in the path of the falling Lin Qi, catching him before falling down to the ground and skidding across the earth to come to a complete stop.
Neither Chen Yan or Ning Rong Rong could believe what they were seeing. It was a little girl, no older than eight, sitting on top of a large black cat the size of a young horse. The black chains, her spirit essence, was laced around her arms and into her hands, where she had guided them to saving the man's life. Her short black hair and silver eyes had a sort of wild grace to them.
It would have almost been a noble picture, a tiny Princess of the Wild, if it wasn't for the boy's jeans and casual heavy shirt she wore along with thick shoes. Deep in the back of Rong Rong's mind, in the part of her that wasn't overwhelmed by the situation she had found herself in, she thought it was a waste that the girl wasn't in a pretty dress, something sunshine yellow and frilly, or at least a nice skirt with a top featuring a cute animal.
One of the links of the chain broke off into the palm of the girls hand before dissolving into spiritual particles. The flakes of blue light twisted together, condensing into a solid blue mass before flattening out into something resembling a throwing knife. With a quick flick of the wrist, the girl shot off the knife straight at the head whose meal she had just stolen away and which was now glaring at her in anger.
The blue knife struck the head in the eye, causing it to scream out in pain and wave about, knocking into its brother/sister heads, distracting all of them.
"I suggest you all back up." The girl said, throwing out more chains, grabbing onto the defending Spirit Masters and pulling them back. "This is probably going to be messy."
Rong Rong didn't understand. Was the child planning on fighting the monster herself?
Before she could even contemplate this possibility, a second blur came down, this one directly above the monster. It was a mass of black flames. "Getsuga Tenshou!"
The fire smashed into the back of the monster and split into a line, cutting across its back. The beast hardly had time to cry out in surprise as the wave of power seeped into its body before bisecting it.
Blood poured out of the creature, flying everywhere as the leftover power hit the ground with the sound of cracking thunder, throwing up dust. Drops of blood rained down from the sky for a few seconds as the dust slowly cleared to show a boy standing on top of the monster's corpse.
He didn't look too much older than Rong Rong herself and was dressed in rather thick but loose casual clothes. He would have looked like any ordinary boy if it wasn't for his bright orange hair. However, standing there in the middle of that bloody mess, with the monster's black spirit ring starting to form around him, he looked rather intimidating.
In one hand he held a black cleaver, one even larger than he was. If Chen Yan's weapon was a work of art, this one was anything but. Not a single piece of decoration was present on its entire body, its black surface slick and deadly, with only a white cloth wrapping around the handle. That, along with a white plaster half mask that covered his face gave him the look of a demon. As he turned towards them, they could all see black and yellow eyes through his mask's holes.
However, as he started to walk towards them, the mask disappeared and the white cloth moved around the surface of the blade, covering it as the boy shifted the blade to his back, holding it in such a way so that the tip barely didn't brush up against the ground as he walked.
He seemed to ignore all of them, walking instead over to the small girl who had dismounted from the black cat and laid the injured Lin Qi out onto the ground and was checking his arm.
The girl didn't look up as he approached, only started talking. "Ripped artery, we need to stop the bleeding or he will be dead in a few minutes." She said quickly. Her hands were over the wound and glowing bright green. "Not only that, this monster was poisonous, and a good deal of his bones are broken."
As the boy knelt next to the girl, he pulled some of the white cloth from his sword, cutting it off and quickly bandaging the man's shoulder. "We can't tend to him here. All this noise and blood is going to attract more monsters soon enough. We need to get him somewhere safe, fast."
"The Old Bear isn't going to like this." The girl said.
"He'll deal with it. Take Yoruichi and move on ahead. I'll lead this lot." The boy said, gesturing to the others in the clearing. The girl nodded and they started to pull the injured man back onto the monster cat.
"Wait, what are you doing?" One of the Spirit Kings asked as the girl climbed back onto the cat's back. The girl and the cat were off without a single word, moving quickly into the forest.
"I don't have time to answer your damn questions. That racket you made will attract other scavengers looking for an easy kill. So just shut up and follow me." The boy said, brushing the older man off. He started to walk away before stopping and looking towards the monster's dead body and the black spirit ring. "Probably going to need that."
The Seven Treasure Glass Tower Clan members were all shocked as the boy reached out a hand and called the black ring to him. Was he insane? That was a spirit monster that had been over twenty thousand years old. It would take a Spirit Emperor to absorb such a spirit, and it would take hours.
But before anyone could even think of trying to stop him, the process was already over, and he had finished absorbing the spirit ring. "Don't just stand there! Get a move on!" He shouted back at them. Hearing monster calls in the distance, they started to do as he said.
"Who... who are you?" Chen Yan asked as she hurried to Rong Rong's side, not wanting to leave her.
"Ichi Guo. Now keep moving." The boy said, not even looking back at the group.
The people being rescued need to just shut up and let themselves be rescued.
Gu Rong is the name of the Bone Douluo, and the one I'm saying that has the Seven Hells Bone Demon that people mistake Ichigo's mask for. Though it is spelled in the comic as Gu, its really supposed to have a sort of accent of some kind, and is closer to Guo. I choose to call Ichigo Ichi Guo because it felt more right than Ichi Gu, and because I didn't want to have to use the accent every single time I write his name. He's the main character. His name comes up a lot.
His given name being the same as the family name of one of the Major factions in the Seven Treasured Clan is going to cause some confusion for them.
I actually like the Manhua better than the light novel, because I feel like the characters have more personality. Yes it is a lot of tongue in cheek humor but it is actually pretty funny at times, and people's actions are more in tone with who they are with and how they think rather than simply their station in life.