Chapter 61: Treating Wounds and Further Problems

A/N: Hey everyone! Last chapter of the week. Hope you all have a good weekend!

Chapter 61:

“Hold still while I extract this. On three. One—”

“Gah! Why!”

I gritted my teeth while holding my right wrist with my good hand. The pain of having the crystal finally removed was far more agonizing than I thought it would be. A final ‘fuck you’ from that damned fox Tian Gui. That, and the fox tail I now sported, which stood straight up thanks to the pain. 

It still annoyed me a little that I was continuing to emulate the animals I’ve had such bad encounters with so far. But it wasn’t like I hated foxes so much that I would give up the advantages their Skills gave. So I would just have to suck it up. Just like I had to suck up the pain of having the blood crystal finally removed.

Though it didn’t help that more than a couple of people from the city’s forces had given me looks filled with suspicion. It made sense, given our enemies were people marked with a bunch of animal traits, and my fox tail was something like that. But that didn’t make it any less worrisome. Especially since I had no intention of getting rid of my fox tail any time soon. Both because I had already seen with it, but also because I was not willing to give up the advantages it gave while we were still in danger.

At least, given the company I kept—even if some of the nearby Alchemist Guards were also eyeing me—no one made a real fuss about it. So I just did my best to ignore the occasional stares I still got. 

I tried to do the same with the pain in my hand. It didn’t help that Lin had decided to pull it out so suddenly. But at least the potent healing pill Sun Yun gave me was working already. The powerful medicinal energies were already rushing to the opened wound and were hopefully closing it.

“The anticipation would have made it worse,” Lin said, grabbing my arm and pulling my hand closer for her to examine. Her own wounds were already tended to and healed.

I reluctantly let her, and she started to pluck and tug things out of my hand. Must have been more shards of that blood crystal. I tried not to look too hard at it, though, as while I was more used to wounds and pain now, that didn’t mean I wanted to see it. 

“I think the surprise made it worse,” I said with a grunt as she pulled a particularly big shard out of my hand.

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Lin said, having the audacity to roll her eyes at me. “Yun gave you a Seven Springs pill. You’ll be good as new in no time. And this is the fastest way.”

I sighed but let Lin have the last word. After everything I’d been through, I wasn’t feeling up for arguing about this. She was probably right anyway.

Lin continued to work, applying some clean bandages to my hand despite what she’d said about the pill. As she did, I couldn’t help but let my eyes wander to the people around us. Though I studiously ignored any suspicion-filled looks I still got from some.

It had not been long since Zhao Wei appeared and ended all the battles. The various allied forces had grouped up amongst ourselves in the northern area just before the bridge and began to treat the wounded. The dead—ours that is—had also been collected by those able to, bringing tears to more than a couple of faces.

The enemy’s corpses had been left on the bridge after being looted. One of them had a familiar blue glow on it, but amongst so many other people, I had to leave it behind. I couldn’t have even asked Sun Yun to help, since she didn’t know I could use my ability on people.

The atmosphere now was solemn all around. Which was made all the worse by the sounds of a far too powerful battle in the far distance. So far away, it sounded like a distant drum, though one with a far more irregular beat. It was a constant reminder that things were not over yet, and there could still be more losses to come.

I grimaced at the thought and turned my eyes away from a young man closing the eyes of a dead woman. Instead, I turned to my right, where Xing Yaling was not far away. 

She was resting amongst our people—Sun Xia’s people, that is—and the Alchemist Guard. Sun Xia had offered her a healing pill as well, which Xing Yaling had taken with gratitude. Now she looked better, her back straighter and less hesitant when she moved. Yet she also seemed very alert, her eyes scanning everything and everyone around us.

At first, I assumed it was the assassination attempt, making her extra cautious. Unnecessarily so. But then I realized that it might not be so unnecessary. After all, given what that Fox Tian Gu could do, and what else the people behind him might be able to, it was possible that there were more of those people within our ranks.

That realization made a shiver go up my spine. I couldn’t help but glance around me, noting anyone that I either didn’t recognize or didn’t know well. We were amongst mainly the Alchemist Guard at the moment, and close to our group was the Azure Tigers—the same mercenary company that had helped with Sun Yun’s rescue. 

That should've been reassuring, but even amongst these two groups, it was possible there were infiltrators. How likely that was, I had no idea, as I didn’t know how common those kinds of possession techniques were. But just the idea made me nervous and understand a lot more about Xing Yaling’s caution.

“Is something the matter?” Lin asks me as she let my freshly bandaged hand go. She hadn’t bothered to treat the wound on my arm, as that had already closed up.

I grimaced and gave our surroundings one more quick look around before leaning in to answer. “Yeah. Maybe… I might be overly cautious, but back in the trial…”

As quickly as I could, I explained what we learned about Tian Gui and Qian Zhi, as well as Xing Yaling's caution and my own worries. When I was done, Lin was frowning and looking around cautiously as well.

“That is worrying,” She said. “I’ll have to talk to the Young Miss about it. However, I don’t believe we have to worry about the people still with us now.”

“Really, why?” I asked, surprised and more than a little hopeful. What did she know that I didn’t?

“Well, if there were any infiltrators, I would think they would have revealed themselves when the rest did,” Lin said.

I frowned at that. “When the rest did?”

“Yes,” Lin said, nodding. “When you first contacted us and mentioned the Black Wind Marauders in the area, I told the Young Miss right away. Given the Black Wind’s personal power and their lack of scruples, she went to Master Fang Hong to alert him. A warning was given out to the rest of our people as well, and that’s when the traitors in our midst attacked. It was two mercenary groups that had been assigned to our gathering at the village. They transformed using that technique there and attacked us just as the spirit beasts rushed the village. Then Master Fang Hong and the other Foundation Establishment Masters were attacked by hidden experts.”

My eyes widened. So that was the final confirmation that the fighting here hadn’t been because our transmission had been overheard. Instead, the enemy had already been planning to attack. They’d infiltrated this group ahead of time and even had Foundation Establishment Masters waiting in ambush. But why?

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

Lin shook her head. “I’m unsure. Perhaps they were planning to stab us in the back when we engaged the spirit beasts. From what I heard Master Fang Hong tell the Young Miss, right before everything became chaotic, it wasn’t just our group in trouble. Master Fang Hong had sent warnings to other groups that the city sent out, and during one of those conversations, the person he was speaking to was attacked. Other groups he simply couldn’t reach.”

I grimaced. The nervous feeling that had been building in me before was getting much worse. Just what were our enemies trying to accomplish with all this? “Things are a lot more complicated than I thought.”

“It seems so,” Lin said before she patted me on the shoulder. “But at least you managed to warn us in time. While the betrayal was still a surprise, it would have been much worse if it had been when we’d already been engaged with the spirit beats. Thank you for that.”

I nodded. “No problem… I was just trying to get help then.”

“It still saved us a lot of problems,” Lin said before she gestured with her head at Sun Xia. ”Now let’s go speak with the Young Miss. While I think any hidden enemies would have already revealed themselves, it’s not something we should keep to ourselves.”

“Of course,” I said, following along with her to speak with the Young Miss.

After asking for a moment of her time, Lin prompted me to tell Sun Xia everything I told her about our encounter with Qian Zhi and the fox Tian Gui. When I finished, Sun Xia had a small frown on her face.

“That is disturbing to hear,” Sun Xia said. “We will have to keep an eye out for such things. Perhaps inspect all our people with the Heaven’s Eye Array back at the compound. For now, however… There is not much we can do but be vigilant.”

“Of course, Young Miss,” Lin said, bowing slightly. 

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Li Lan,” Sun Xia said after turning her gaze back to me. She gave me a small smile that made my stomach flutter for just a second. “And thank you for your warning before. You might have prevented a much worse outcome than what has happened.”

“It’s no problem,” I said, scratching the back of my head awkwardly. Being praised for desperately calling out for help from our friends was an odd feeling. “I’m glad it helped. And I’m thankful too, cause you saved us all just now. And just being with everyone here also means we’re safe now, too.”

“Yes… from the people trying to kill Xing Yaling,” Sun Xia said, her pretty smile turning back into a frown. She glanced at Xing Yaling for a moment before turning back to me. “That will need to be looked into as well, and the Qian clan will have some very hard questions to answer to the Soaring Cloud Sect. I think—”

Sun Xia’s words were cut off when a dark aura seemed to appear out of nowhere.

It washed over me in a chilling rush, sending a shiver up my spine. An actual shadow seemed to fall over everything. Looking up, I saw that the sun above wasn’t blocked, but it was dimmed by a dark barrier of some kind. A quick look around showed that the barrier was all around us, trapping us inside it like a dome. It seemed to extend over our whole group and reach all the way to the middle of the bridge, as well as the hills around this side of the river.

Sun Xia reacted to all this by stiffening before her attention seemed drawn to the massive split boulder nearby. Her eyes narrowed before she started heading in that direction. Lin and I shared a quick look before we moved to follow her, along with Jianfeng, Sun Yun, Xing Yaling, and several of the Alchemist Guard. 

However, before we could catch up, Sun Xia called over her shoulder. “Stay here for now and get ready for a possible battle.”

We all stopped at that, though many looked reluctant. Sun Yun seemed particularly put out, but a stern glance from Zhao Wei stopped the younger girl. Instead, she moved over to Lin and me, along with Jianfeng, Pan Song, and, to my surprise, Xing Yaling.

After that, only Zhao Wei, a man from the Zhu clan, and Sun Xia continued to head away from the bridge. Everyone else watched in tense silence until the three cultivators—probably all late-stage, given Zhao Wei and Sun Xia’s cultivation—stopped away from the rest of our people. Once they stopped, more started to appear from behind the massive split boulder.

I tensed when I recognized all three of the lead people. 

The first was an older man with broad shoulders, a large bushy beard, an annoyingly familiar big nose, and a big black hammer strapped to his back. The Black Hammer, a high-level member of the Black Wind Marauders. Just the sight of him made me remember what had happened back at those mines. To all the innocent people, both before the rescue and even after, who died or suffered at his and the rest of the Marauders' hands. 

If I were stronger, I would have leapt over and taken the bastard's head right then and there.

The second was a familiar young man with long black hair tied up into a tight top knot. He had a sword tied to his hip and a cold look on his face. He wasn’t wearing his Qian Clan robes I’d seen him in before, instead wearing a simple black set of cultivator robes. And he also looked a bit paler than the last time I saw him. But the agitated hiss of breath I heard from Lin beside me told me it was, in fact, Yin Tai.

The last person was a middle-aged man, whom I’d only seen once and had just been Mid-Stage Qi-Gathering then. It was the same middle-aged man that I'd seen with Yin Tai when I’d overheard their assassination plans. The one that had created such a fearful and suffocating aura that had terrified Yin Tai and even affected me despite how far away I’d been. His most distinguishing feature was his sharp goatee and cold eyes. He wore the same black plain cultivator robes as Yin Tai.

Behind these three were several dozen more people. Some of them looked like normal cultivators, but a majority of them had animal features. More beast men, it seemed. Many of them were the more grotesque kind, with their animal features looking like grotesque mutations. The most common type of mutation was one or two of their limbs being far larger and more muscular than would fit their bodies. Those limbs also took on the traits of the beasts the person seemed to mimic. Disgusting and worrying.

“The famous Young Alchemist Sun Xia and her trusty right hand, the Sword of Light Zhao Wei. And a prominent Scion of the Zhu Clan, Zhu Xiang, as well,” the middle-aged man said when their group stopped moving. He had a smile on his face that didn’t reach his cold eyes. His voice was not loud, but it was easily heard despite the distance between him and us. “It is an honor to meet such esteemed young members of the cultivators of Everlake.”

The three at the lead had stopped a dozen yards away from Sun Xia and the others, while the rest hung further back. The ones in the back started to spread out, and they seemed to be eyeing the rest of us with rather obvious hostile intent.

“It seems you have us at a disadvantage," Sun Xia said in return, her voice also carrying without sounding loud. Was it a technique or something? “Who might you be and what exactly do you intend with this formation?”

“So you do not know who I am?” the middle-aged man asked, the cold smile still on his face as he tilted his head. 

“Should I?” Sun Xia asked, seeming not at all bothered by the man. 

“Perhaps not…” the middle-aged man said. “I am not a prominent figure such as the three of you. But one would think… that you would know the names of those you work against… But perhaps not. Perhaps you only had part of the picture when you sent your people to foil our plans.”

I tensed up at that. Did he think that Sun Xia had sent me and Pan Song into the trial to stop them? I guess the fact that we accidentally got put into a position to help might seem odd, even if that was the truth. But was this a good or bad misunderstanding?

“I do not know of what you are saying,” Sun Xia said coldly. Either she hadn’t put the pieces together, or she was playing innocent. “Me and mine have only come into conflict with your people when they attacked us with their cowardly betrayal. Now, name yourself and your intentions.”

“Is that right?” the middle-aged man said, his eyes narrowing as he kept his creepy smile. “Interesting… Ah, regardless, there's no reason for me to be impolite. My name is Hei Li. A humble man in comparison to such outstanding youths. As for our intentions… Well, it depends entirely upon what decision you three wish to make.”

“And what decision would that be?” the Zhu Clan member, Zhu Xiang, said. He took a step forward, his stance tense, and his hand resting on the saber at his waist. 

“Whether or not you three are willing to walk away,” Hei Li said, the cold, dead smile never leaving his face. “It would be a shame to have to kill such promising youths. But I have a mission to complete. One that you and yours have already interfered with, it seems, regardless of intent. But I am not an unreasonable man. If you three, and you three only, are willing to take a soul oath to not interfere nor speak of certain matters, I would be willing to let you go. Your people, on the other hand… Will have to be left behind.”

“You are quite arrogant, are you not?” Zhu Xiang said first. He stepped forward and unsheathed his saber in one quick motion. It shone with a silver light that soon began to radiate out of his whole body. The light hurt to look at for too long, despite not being bright enough to do that. Instead, it felt like it was because the light was… sharp? “Did you truly expect any of us to accept such ridiculous demands? You do not have the strength to demand such things.”

Despite Zhu Xiang’s display, Sun Xia remained unbothered and stoic, not reaching for any weapon of her own. Zhao Wei, on the other hand, unsheathed her sword, though there was no accompanying light show.

Hei Li sighed and shook his head. The smile finally left his face as he directed a cold, dead gaze at Zhu Xiang. “Ah, youthful talent… It is a sight to see and impressive. But in the end, just because you are strong for your age, it does not mean you are unbeatable. Let me demonstrate.“

Hei Li's cold, dead eyes seemed to become even more lifeless as a dark aura started to emanate from his body. It wasn’t Qi, but something else. Something familiar to me. The same thing he’d done to quell Yin Tai before, and that was just as frightening now. Killing intent, perhaps? 

For a moment, it felt like there was a cold phantom hand grasping at my heart. The gasp and shouts of alarm from around me made it obvious everyone else nearby was feeling it too. But not nearly as much as Zhu Xiang must have been feeling.

The shining silver light that had been exuding from his body shrank suddenly and violently. It seemed like it was being crushed by the dark aura. He took a step back, and it got worse; the silver light was barely there beneath a crushing dark aura that was both visible and not.

“Enough of this.”

The words spoken were soft and calm, but they seemed to cut through the air like a sharp blade. The cold feeling in my chest dissipated at the same moment the dark aura around Zhu Xiang was bisected by an invisible blade. That aura, split in two, hung around for but one more moment before disappearing like it had never been there.

Zhao Wei—the one who’d spoken—took a step forward, her sword slowly being raised as she did. There was no light to her sword, but for some reason it seemed inconceivably sharp. “My lady, shall I end this farce?”

“Yes,” Sun Xia said, Qi starting to radiate off the young woman. “It’s clear this can only end one way. So let us end this quickly.”

“Well, no one can say that I did not try to be kind,” the middle-aged man said, seeming unfazed by the display. Dark Qi started to radiate out of him, definitely at the Late-Stage of Qi-Gathering, and he dropped into a fighting stance with one arm behind his back and one arm forward in a hand-knife. “I will just have to show you that just because you are better than these bumpkins, does not mean you are not still frogs in a well.”

I watched with bated breath as another kind of pressure seemed to radiate from the fighters. My whole body was tense, and my hand—finally healed—reached down for my sword. 

Then the fighting began explosively as two figures clashed between the groups, sending out an explosive shockwave that kicked up a lot of dust.