Unsheathed - Chapter 5: Revelation

Martial Soul, the essence of innate talent, encompasses the grade of countless stars, with one to three stars being Low Level, seven to Nine-star being Advanced, and a Ten-star Martial Soul as a Heavenly Gifted Spirit, known as Spirit Martial Soul, one in ten thousand!The world asks Luo Cheng: “How many stars is your Martial Soul? What grade?”Luo Cheng stares at the endless galaxy within his Martial Soul and mutters:“That's a lot of billions, it's hard to count!”

Lorelai is an unwanted princess; a puppet in the hands of the royal family.Born weak and raised loyal only to her kingdom, she has no real power and is constantly abused by both her stepmother and her son.Her value lies in one thing only––marriage. Thus, she is to marry Duke Kalder, an old but powerful and influential man whose previous wives have all gone missing under mysterious circumstances.That is until she meets him.Tall, dark, strong, mysterious, irresistible, seductive.The King of Lycans. The King of Beasts. The Gypsy King.One who was once a slave now controls the biggest and strongest, most feared kingdom of the continent. And for some reason, he has his eyes set only on Lorelai.Important note: this is a historical fantasy novel and in its context, the word “Gypsy” is only used as a name of a nomad tribe and is not used as a slur.

Zhang Ruo Chen was the sole male heir of one of the nine emperors of the Kunlun Field. Ruo Chen’s father was known to all as the “Enlightened Emperor”, however Ruo Chen didn’t just leech off his status as emperor’s son. He proved himself to be a dragon amongst men, possessing a heaven defying body, and managing to cultivate to Greater Perfection within the Yellow Horizon Realm, at just the young age of 16.

'Nina?'The thought hit me before I even really processed who it was. Nina Shoka from my class. She was just walking along, probably listening to music, totally unaware that this car had lost control and was sliding right toward her.I didn't think about it. Didn't weigh the pros and cons or consider my options. My legs just started moving.I dropped my phone and sprinted toward her. The car was maybe three seconds away from hitting her when I slammed into her side, pushing her as hard as I could toward the sidewalk.She went flying, landing hard on the concrete but definitely out of the car's path.Me? Not so lucky.The impact felt like getting hit by a train. One second I was pushing Nina to safety, the next I was flying through the air. Then I hit the ground and everything went wrong at once.I couldn't move my legs. Couldn't really move much of anything, actually. There was this weird warm feeling spreading across my chest and stomach, and when I tried to breathe, it felt like drowning.'Well, this sucks,' I thought, staring up at the sky. 'Guess that's what I get for being a hero.'My vision started getting all swimmy and weird, but I could make out Nina crawling over to me. She had pulled out her earbuds and there were tears streaming down her face.“Why did you do that?” she kept asking, over and over. “Why would you do that?”I wanted to shrug, but my shoulders weren't really cooperating. It seemed pretty obvious to me - she was in trouble, so I helped. That's what you do, right? Nothing fancy about it.She was talking to me, saying my name a lot. I didn't realize she even knew my name, to be honest. We had been in the same class for like three months and I don't think we had ever actually had a conversation.“Kofi, stay with me, okay?” she was saying. “You're gonna be fine. The ambulance is coming.”