The Dawn of the New World

The urge to land a roundhouse kick on Burak's face almost drowned Hao Xuan's mind but he managed to keep his cool at the very end.

Instead, he looked away after forcefully shaking his head, "No...no touch...ya cunt," he mumbled the last words in English so as not to become an accidental casualty in this foreign place.

Burak laughed merrily as if he was expecting it. He was far too relaxed when compared to the others which angered Hao Xuan even more.

Hao Xuan moved around and examined some of the other marks and indentations left in the door. He carefully touched some of the smaller ones before letting out a breath of relief.

'I have to be more careful. It would be a huge problem if I started seeing these memories in the middle of a fight. And I don't know why some of these are showing me things while others are not.'

'Plus, the creature that left those marks in the door might still be around. The feeling I got from it was one of anxiousness and dry appetite. Like a kid trying to find his way back home on an empty stomach. I better start cultivating again unless I want to become its lunch...'

Hao Xuan was hoping to have a few hours or even a few days to himself so he could focus on figuring out what happened to his cultivation and recovering some Qi but from the looks of things that would be not happening anytime soon.

He glanced towards Burak who had moved to a corner and was laying on his side as if he was in his own living room.

"Are we...not going?" Hao Xuan asked confusedly. What were they waiting for?

Burak thrust his pinky finger inside his nostril and dug out a sizable booger, "When door opens," he said lazily while throwing the booger in his mouth and chewing it quite loudly.

Hao Xuan felt his left eye twitch. He wanted to punch Burak so badly that it took every fiber of his being to keep him from doing as his heart desired. He looked away with a disgusted expression and moved to the other side of the hallway.

'Baracus, can you tell if there is a control panel nearby? Or someway to open the door?'

*Beep*

'Follow the ether tracks on the walls. They should lead you to one.'

Hao Xuan looked at the wall beside him and found the tracks hidden behind some sort of a fleshy web-like material. It was black and grey in color, covering most of the tracks in the last few hallways that they had crossed to get to this point.

When a portion of it was pulled off to reveal the tracks underneath, a thick inky liquid spilled out onto the floor in heaps.

Hao Xuan's brow furrowed upon seeing the large amount. It was hard to tell in the darkness but it looked like there was something moving inside it.

He tore a piece from his shirt and dipped it in the liquid. It was absorbed instantly even though his shirt was supposed to be 'water-proof'.

The same webbed/veiny patterns appeared on the cloth and it started spreading outwards from the initial point of contact. Hao Xuan quickly threw it away before it could come into contact with his skin.

'What the hell is this thing? Baracus, can you identify it?'

'Analyzing...'

Hao Xuan was so busy talking to Buracas that he didn't notice a small portion of the liquid that had accumulated on the ground had disappeared. It was moving by itself, flowing along the wall towards a nearby mediating Barbarian.

Nobody, not even the Barbarian himself noticed when the liquid came into contact with his clothes and inconspicuously seeped into the hard leather. It flowed up his body until it reached his head at which point it attached itself to the nape of his neck.

The Barbarian's eyes suddenly jerked open but the rest of his body didn't move an inch. His eyes swiveled left and right towards the other barbarians in hopes of finding somebody that was looking in his direction but to his dismay, they were all busy doing their own things.

Thick worm-like blackened veins started spreading from his spine towards the rest of his body.. He tried to resist but the more internal energy he directed towards this 'corruption' the faster it spread, like using petrol to put out a fire.