I AM NOT A SLAVE!

Chen spat thick saliva onto Tao's face while he was unconscious, and they all laughed loudly.

"Wake up!"

"Wake up, you fool, I have to take you to the camp before sunset," he growled into Tao's ear.

Slowly, Tao regained consciousness and found himself bound and surrounded by unfamiliar faces. He realized the harsh reality of his situation and fought against his restraints.

With a victorious grin, Chen walked up to Tao. "Welcome back, 'Immortal.' I hope you enjoyed your little nap."

The bleeding from the knife wound had ceased, but there was unimaginable pain tearing into his gut where he was stabbed.

Tao stared at Chen, anger burning in his eyes. "You can't keep me here. I have to go back to the air towers and put a stop to Na'ru."

Laughter spread through the group of warriors. "The air tower again? You really are delusional," Chen mocked.

Tao remained determined and focused on channeling his Qi to break free from the shackles. But to his dismay, the energy that once flowed effortlessly seemed to be missing.

"What's wrong, immortal? Can't you perform your little tricks? Chen derived pleasure from mocking Tao, finding joy in his obvious weakness.

Tao gritted his teeth, frustration boiling up inside him. His objective was to find a route back to the Air Tower, recover his abilities, and foil Na'ru's evil reign.

Chen and his companions kept mocking, while Tao desperately thought of ways to escape and recover his strength.

"Since you are awake now, it is time to take you to the Master of the desert," Chen said, pulling him back up.

All six of them climbed up on their camels and rode through the pile of sands of the desert.

"Get up and walk, fool!" Chen shouted as Tao struggled to keep up with the pace Chen's camel was moving.

His cuffs were strapped to Chen's camel, and even though he was in pain and weak, he had to keep moving as long as the camel was moving and as fast as Chen was riding.

"Try to keep up!" Chen spouted.

As they kept riding and he walked behind them, soon, he could see through the dust-filled air, thousands of tents. It was a village.

Children were running and playing around the tents, but as Chen and his men dragged Tao along as they passed with their camels, the children stopped and glared at Tao's naked form and laughed.

"He must be a slave!" The children murmured, pointing at Tao, and he felt humiliated.

He was never meant to go through such humiliation. He was not a slave; he was a powerful immortal back in his world, and no one dared to do something like this to him.

As they went further into the village, they walked past a group of maidens.

"Oooh.. he is so handsome..."

"He must be the master's new servant, but he is the most handsome of them all..."

"He is so handsome that the master's wife might secretly sleep with him..."

Toa could hear every word they were whispering. The maidens who were at the market square gossiped about him; their eyes fixed on his prominent manhood.

"I won't blame the master's wife if she cheats on her husband with this servant; I would cheat on my husband too if someone like this offers to spend a night with me," one of the maidens whispered to her friends and winked at Tao.

Chen stopped riding and uncuffed Tao when they got in front of a tent. He saw that Tao was losing so much blood, so he decided to get him some treatments before going further.

"You must meet the master alive; you are not going to die in my hands. The journey to the Master's quarters is still far ahead; we will resume by dawn tomorrow," Chen said, dragging Tao into the nearby tent.

Arriving at the tent, Chen dragged Tao behind him until they met a beautiful maiden. Her hair was long and shiny, and she had a perfectly cute face.

"You are a healer, aren't you?" Chen said, pulling the beautiful maiden by the arm, arrogantly.

"Yes, I am.." she replied, her eyes not on Chen but on Tao's injury.

"I'm Commander Chen, and this here is Tao; he is the Master's new servant. You must patch him up before I take him to the Master," Chen instructed her and shoved Tao towards her.

Chen left them both alone in the tent. Tao knew he was in their camp now and could be killed if he tried to escape. He knew that even as Chen had left for now, he was still around somewhere.

Tao saw how the maiden was staring at his feature below his waist, and he covered himself with his hands that did little to conceal what he was hiding.

"My name is Lin," the maiden said, resisting the temptation to look down again. She tried to focus her eyes on his eyes.

"I'll get you some clothes to put on before we can start with the treatment," she said, disappearing into the inner tent.

Tao sat, his vision blurry from losing so much blood. The pain could no longer be endured. He was never used to feeling pains; his body was not meant for it.

The piece of clothing Chen used in securing his wound had been soaked up by blood, and he took it off.

His chest rising and falling as he struggled to breathe and calm his head enough to understand what was happening in his life.

"My friends, could it be that Na'ru also sent them to this world? The Portal he pushed them through, did it all lead to this same world?" Tao whispered to himself.

Lin's footsteps interrupted his thoughts.

"Here, you should put this on!" Lin said, throwing him some ragged-up clothes.

"I am sorry, but the clothes are not that good, but they are better than walking the village without clothes," she said and Tao nodded.

"Besides, the master would punish anyone who gave a servants a better cloth than this one," Lin said, and Tao's teeth clenched.

How could he make them see it? He hated to be called a slave or a servant; he was an immortal who had his own throne in a cultivation world where beings were ranked by their degree of performance in Qi cultivation.

"I'm not a slave!" He shouted through clenched teeth, the pain adding to his burst of anger.

"What is your name?" Lin asked as she offered a smile.

"My name is Tao Wei; I am an immortal cultivator of the Air Tower. Only humans can be servants; I am not a servant!" Tao emphasized, and she sighed, seeing the seriousness in his face.

"Tao, that is your name..."

"Well, Tao, if you want to live long here, you better go by the rules of the desert master," she advised.

She walked over and sat by Tao. She poured some alcoholic drink into a bowl and soaked her small rag in it and cleaned the wound gently.

"Ahhh, it burns!" Tao groaned as the alcohol sank into his wound.

"If the master hears you saying you are not a slave or servant, he'd order for Commander Chen to kill and dispose of you. Everyone here is ruled by him, though we are not servants like you," Lin explained, and he turned to face her.

"Then why am I a servant to him?" Tao asked, frustration spreading on his face.

"It is because you were picked up from the border, and you are not from this village. Anyone picked up from the border is taken as a servant under the Master," Lin replied.

Tao's heart raced as Lin brought the needle close to his open wound. He could not believe he was afraid of a mere needle. When he was in the Air Tower; swords could not even penetrate his skin.

"I need your help," Tao held her hand, stopping her from piercing the needle into his skin.

"I need to go back home. I need to find a way back to the Air Tower; I don't know this place, so I don't know the way out," Tao said with a softer voice this time.

The maiden's eyes bore into his, and she saw how serious he was. But it was strange to her; she felt pity for him because she thought he was traumatized by something.

"I know you might have been through a lot, but the best thing you could do for yourself now is let me patch up your wounds. After that, you will need some time to rest your head; maybe after then, you will realize that Towers are not built on air," she said, not to mock him but out of pity.

"No, I don't need to rest; all I want is to find a way to get out of here," he said, insisting, and Lin sighed.

"Tell me about yourself, where this Air Tower is and what your life there was like," Lin asked. The seriousness in Tao's words got her curious.

"I am an immortal; I have cultivated my Qi to the point of immortality, and I, along with my noble light warriors, were fighting against the Darkness, and all of a sudden, an incident occured that led to the Air Demon overpowering us, and he sent us through different portals and took over the Air Tower," Tao narrated.

When Tao was done narrating his story, there was quiet, and he thought Lin was beginning to believe until her laughter filled the room.

"You are so funny," she chuckled.

"You think I'm lying?" Tao said, and she laughed.

"I'll show you something," Tao said, desperate to prove himself. Even though he was injured, he struggled to get off the chair he sat and sat on the bare floor.

He sat leg-crossed on the floor of the tent and he closed his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Lin chuckled.

"I'm trying to summon my Qi. I will harness it and show you how powerful I am, then you will believe me," Tao whispered, a stern expression on his face.

He took in a deep breath, trying to gather and collect bits of energy from the natural air that flowed around him so that he could harness it and show off his abilities, but he waited for minutes and nothing happened.

He tightened his eyelids, and motioned his hands slowly in the air, trying to feel the presence of that spark, that spark he could connect to so the energy would fill his body, but it was nowhere. He could not feel it.

"I can't feel it; I can't summon my Qi," he lamented.

"Na'ru took all of it; he took all my powers, he drained me and pushed me into this world like an empty shell," Tao murmured in shock.

"How will I survive this new world without my Qi?" Tao whispered.