Chapter 130 - Be Prepared (Part IV) (Patreon)

Once again, Lucian was watching the Sailor School. He had waited until the day after his talk with Wang Chen to come here.

Part of the reason was to give himself more time to act, from sunset until sunrise. The other reason was that he had spent the day ordering people through his mental seeds, knowing the other forces would begin their moves tonight.

What differed greatly from the previous days of surveillance, however, was that this time he had come in his human form instead of relying on the Rune of Sloth.

Feeling the Qi flowing through his middle-stage Qi Gathering natural cultivation, Lucian made sure all six of his opened meridians were filled to the brim with Qi. He wore his black robes and kept his senses fully active.

One important thing to notice was that the two Qi Condensation artifacts, the crystal ring and the orange ring, weren’t with him.

Grasping the nearby presences through Qi perception and his natural senses, Lucian found nothing unusual. No cultivators were near the school, and the guards appeared as lazy as ever. Nothing changed from the previous days.

But while the environment didn't change, Lucian did. He had learned a valuable lesson a couple of days ago.

Just like the pagoda where the women of the Shadow Alliance had gathered, the Sailor School must be protected by a formation, he thought.

Days ago, he inspected the pagoda's location after the assembly was over. To his eyes, it appeared to be nothing more than a collection of inns stacked along a hillside, with guests and workers constantly entering and leaving.

Those people were real, but the structure itself was fake, deceiving the observer's perception, with certain corridors forming loops. Unfortunately, Lucian had not found the opportunity to investigate further. Given the Shadow Alliance and the City Council's imminent clash, he focused on other tasks.

Now, as he waited for hours in the dark for this hidden clash to happen, he suddenly felt a tremor. It was faint enough that most people would have ignored it entirely, but Lucian's senses detected that it came from beyond the noble district's walls and was caused by a massive explosion.

It has begun, he thought, narrowing his eyes.

Accelerating toward the rear of the Sailor School, Lucian moved like a shadow, but at half his full speed. Then, he vaulted over a wall without concern about getting caught. 

The map provided by Little Crab, now named Hao Bang, proved useful as Lucian crossed a garden and quickly reached the first annex building marked on it, just as he had memorized.

Soon, Lucian entered the kitchens and forced the doors open.

Watch closely, he thought, his eyes flashing a cold light.

Kicking open door after door, Lucian acted as though he were hastily searching for something. Eventually, he reached the financial office beside the principal’s chambers. Finding a locked coffer, he broke it open with a few punches, grabbed the silver coins, and stuffed them into a leather pouch.

Once he finished, he left just as quickly. Several coins fell onto the floor and clattered loudly. It was as if Lucian was showing how careless he could be. He even broke furniture, moving hastily.

Above the city walls of the noble district, near the Sailor School, the guards noticed nothing. Their attention had been drawn to fireworks exploding near the docks, and they were busy discussing what had happened.

Their current theory was that an accident had occurred among the fireworks being prepared for the festival a few weeks away, prompting them to laugh at someone else's misfortune.

Meanwhile, after causing a ruckus, Lucian continued pretending to search for valuables. He spent some minutes with this charade until he passed a room and narrowed his eyes.

Found it.

Though faint and hidden beneath countless other scents, the metallic smell of blood lingered in the room, indicating that a considerable amount had once been spilled inside. Picking up the trail, Lucian chose not to rely solely on his senses and invoked the Rune of Greed.

Above his half-open palm, an eyeball formed from blood and Blood Essence, drawing in tiny particles of blood from the surroundings.

Releasing it, Lucian allowed the crimson eye to float forward, watching a thin red mist seeping into it. This mist was connected to a crack in the floor, just a few inches from him. At the same time, he felt another tremor from outside.

I don't have much more time, he thought.

Next, he empowered his body with both Qi and Blood Essence, carefully masking his true strength, and kicked the cracked floor.

To his surprise, the stone fractured further, but it did not collapse.

Unable to sense even a trace of Qi beneath it, Lucian proceeded to the next step. Clicking his tongue, he dismissed the Rune of Greed, causing the eyeball to burst apart, and rushed into another room.

Over the next few seconds, he robbed the library, gathered several valuable items from the teachers' offices, and then left. As soon as he vaulted over the walls, he unleashed more of his true speed, and his figure became a blur.

Behind him, within the school grounds, two invisible presences were alarmed by his sudden burst of speed.

“Who the hell is that?” one of them asked, her voice feminine.

The other grunted, sounding unconcerned, “He came to steal and found nothing we should care about. Let him go.”

When they were about to return, an old man's voice echoed directly into their minds, akin to a blade cutting into their brains.

“He found one of the entrances to the Sword Vein. Kill him.”

Without replying, both figures moved, their forms revealed because of the sudden Qi flow emanating from them. One was a petite woman carrying a dagger in each hand. The other was a broad-shouldered man with a massive axe wrapped across his back.

Flicking her wrist, the woman produced a black talisman burning with silver fire and threw it into the sky above the Sailor School. With a noiseless explosion, a silver wave of fire spread across the school grounds and the surrounding neighborhood, concealing the Qi fluctuations within the area.

Sharing a glance, the pair shot forward in pursuit. Neither used a movement technique, yet they were still fast enough to close the distance separating them from Lucian.

After a few turns, when Lucian seemed to have discarded the silver coins and books, along with his clothes, they felt a wave of Qi and a spike of Qi deviation.

“He stopped,” the man said, gripping his axe as a meridian connected his arm to the weapon.

“Don't hurt anyone else,” the woman hissed. “We don't need more problems.”

After the man nodded in agreement, both cultivators stiffened. In their perception, Lucian suddenly vanished. Fortunately, they were experienced and reacted instantly. The man continued forward to search for Lucian while the woman turned back toward the school.

Too many things could explain such a disappearance, from formations to specialized concealment techniques. However, if this were a distraction intended to lower their guard while others infiltrated the Sword Vein, the consequences would be disastrous.

Concerned about the sudden change, the woman accelerated.

This time, she employed a movement technique, leaking faint traces of Qi as her speed surged beyond anything Lucian had displayed moments before. From her Qi fluctuations alone, it was obvious she had reached the peak of the Qi Condensation realm.

While moving back, she didn’t forget to use Qi techniques to search for anyone who could be chasing her. To her relief, there was nothing emanating Qi, be it a person or a technique. Next, as she entered the school grounds, her body became translucent, and her scent and sound of footsteps vanished completely. Soon, this also applied to every other sound she emitted.

Moving with silent steps, she reached the corner of a building where an ordinary well stood. Then, she hastily pressed a hand against an unremarkable stone and activated several hidden talismans as it sank inward.

After she finished, a platform rose above the water as part of the well shifted aside, revealing a concealed doorway. With practiced movements, she stepped into the hidden passage.

She was about to seal the entrance behind her when the old man's voice cut through her mind once more.

“You were followed.”

The woman's pupils shrank instantly. Without turning back, she regained her physical form with a burst of Qi and swept both daggers backwards.

Two arcs of silver Qi filled with tiny black specks shot behind her.

In the same motion, she pivoted and launched another pair of slashes, maintaining her technique while leaking as little Qi as possible. Her eyes darted from place to place, yet she found nothing following her.

Even so, she did not stop.

Throwing one dagger to the ground, she activated a movement technique and sprinted deeper into the passage. Then, the dagger exploded into hundreds of silver threads, slicing through the corridor and causing it to collapse.

Several threads nearly reached her, but she escaped before they could. When she arrived in a larger chamber, she sent Qi to her eyes and forehead, and unleashed her perception to search for any trace of an enemy or of a Qi technique.

Finding nothing, she raised her remaining dagger before her face and whispered, “Did I kill them?”

“No."

Goosebumps spread across her skin. Just now, the voice that answered her wasn’t from the old man, but it still sounded in her mind!

Instantly empowering her body with Qi, she spun around, her dagger shooting backward.

Empowering her investigative techniques, and spitting blood as a price, she finally discovered something.

Two tiny bats clung to the walls, with dust and blood staining their fur, evidence that they had been in the previous explosion.

She was prepared to attack them when her instincts screamed.

Sweeping her surroundings with a burst of Qi, she cried out in pain as she felt a sharp pain tear across her back.

Turning around, she saw a third bat spitting out a strip of her clothing and flesh.

Her throat tightened as she noticed none of the creatures emitted Qi.

“For your sake, you'd better know something useful,” Lucian said through the Rune of Lust, directly into her mind.

He was mildly irritated by how events had unfolded.

To mislead his pursuers, he had used the Rune of Sloth. He had tested it, and it allowed him to dissipate his cultivation once his Qi was exhausted, making him invisible to Qi perception. The only issue was that he would have to gather Qi to replenish his inverted and his natural cultivation from scratch!

He was sure that, in higher realms, it would become impossible to use such a trick. And to make matters worse, because of the woman's speed, he had been forced to keep all three bats close together, focusing entirely on stealth and pursuit. As a result, he had reacted too slowly to her counterattack, suffering some wounds.

Fortunately for Lucian, cultivators trusted their Qi perception more than their natural senses. Even after attacking him, the woman neither saw nor heard the bats approaching. Just like everyone else he had met until now, she didn't expect something completely devoid of Qi to exist.

Yet she reacted and attacked once we entered this hidden entrance, Lucian thought. Which means she has another way of detecting me. Or something in here can do it.

The woman appeared to be analyzing the situation, but Lucian knew she was merely buying time for her companion outside to arrive and for the people inside the Sailor School to react.

He would not give her that time.

Three bats shot toward her, their speed exceeding her expectations.

She barely dodged, spitting blood again due to the strain on her Qi flow, and retreated deeper into the chamber, entering one cave.

However, she failed to notice that the bats were not trying to hit her.

Crashing into one another, the three creatures exploded into Blood Essence, and with sickening sounds, a humanoid figure emerged from the crimson mass and lunged after her.

Able to see the creature but unable to sense any Qi within it, she abandoned all thoughts of fighting and focused entirely on escape. Her instincts warned her not to become entangled with this unknown enemy, so she wanted nothing more than to leave!

Lucian did not care what she wanted.

Empowering his body with Blood Essence to enhance his speed, he maintained his inverted cultivation so that he could use the physical enhancements more quickly if necessary.

When the dagger-wielding woman saw that her pursuer was faster than he had previously revealed, she suddenly spun and somersaulted backward.

Then, she thrust her dagger toward Lucian in one fluid motion. The weapon was filled with Qi, ready to erupt into countless razor-sharp lines.

However, as soon as he turned, Lucian's eyes flashed crimson, and for an instant, her vision turned red.

The brief moment it took her soul to resist the illusion created by the Rune of Lust was all Lucian needed.

He appeared behind her, wrapped his arms around her body, and sank his fangs into her neck. Holding her tightly, he began draining her blood, aware that in a couple of seconds, she would be dead.

It surprised him greatly when her muscles contracted, expelling his fangs.

Next, sharp strands of Qi erupted from her dantian, piercing her body and exploding outward. The technique damaged her severely, yet it also sliced open Lucian's chest and covered his arms and legs with deep cuts.

Even his middle appendage was not spared.

Both combatants had expected the other to be dead by now, so both were surprised by the damage they had suffered. They took a few steps back, holding onto the walls.

Lucian, for example, felt he was moments away from having the Curse of Wrath activated without his control, as the sharp Qi kept damaging his body until now.

The woman, meanwhile, felt dizziness overwhelm her as her blood and Qi reserves plummeted. Several meridians showed signs of Qi deviation due to the sudden depletion.

Forcing herself upright, she turned to Lucian and prepared another attack, hoping to capitalize on having nearly killed her opponent.

But then, Lucian vanished.

“This is why I prefer my human body,” he said, appearing beside her. “It's faster and tougher than those bats and rats.”

He wasn't taunting her. He was forcing intent directly into her mind through the Rune of Lust, worsening her dizziness. The more he talked, the more advantage he could gain in this situation.

After grabbing her arms, he slammed her into a wall, pinned her there, and pressed his body into hers, ready to kill.