It was really Lucia. How the heck did I end up running into her all the way over here? Ugh, and she’s stuck in a terrible situation too. It seems like she was struck by Old Hong’s spiritual attack. She’s just standing there while that man, who I’m going to assume is Old Bai, is slowly freeing Lucia’s hostage from her grip. Do I interfere? If I interfere now…, I don’t think my relationship with Pill Valley holds that much sway. As for why they’re not attacking Lucia right away, I think they don’t want to shock her into waking up. She’s holding that poor bound woman by the neck after all. If she comes to and squeezes her hand by accident…, ouch.

But it seems like all the Holy Beasts Sect’s forces are gathered here. Even Gwey’s flying up there to confront the phoenix by Lucia’s side. I wonder what would happen if suddenly six more quasi-immortals and a hundred sky-realm experts decided to help Lucia. My sky-realm experts and maybe one quasi-immortal can take on the sky-realm experts of the Holy Beasts Sect while the remaining quasi-immortals can work with the phoenix to take on Old Hei or Lan. I think they’re the weakest of the four. As long as Lucia can defeat the last three quasi-immortals by herself, it’ll be our victory. The thing is…, she’s already fallen victim to Old Hong’s attack. How can she win by herself? I don’t think she can.

However…, with a little help from my immortal fox eye artifact, even Old Hong’s spiritual attack should be dispelled. I’m a little upset. Why can’t Lucia do anything without me? When I wasn’t around, did she get stuck in stupidly dangerous situations like this all the time? How did she survive? Ugh, there’s one thing I have to do before I help Lucia though: I have to free my bodyguards. “Brother Gwey!”

Gwey appeared in the boat across from me. “Y-yes?” His eyes were slightly widened, probably because I changed my form of address. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to participate in this fight. No one will judge you poorly for it.”

“That’s not it,” I said and shook my head. I sighed and stared at my toes. When using a soft method of persuasion, I find mimicking Softie’s actions bring about the best results. It made me a bit uncomfortable, but I rolled my eyes up to take a quick glance at Gwey before staring at my feet again. “I’d like to help you fight against the squirrel and phoenix. With the help of the bodyguards I brought, don’t you think it’d be safer for everyone?”

“But—”

“Don’t worry, Brother Gwey.” I clenched my hands, making sure they were visible on my lap, and raised my head. “All of them are loyal to me. As long as I give them orders, they’ll listen. Please, I want to make it up to the Holy Beasts Sect for damaging the killing formation.” Yeah, that previous malfunction with the formation was because of me. I didn’t even intend on helping Lucia, but I saved her life in advance. I figured the sect’s defensive formation would be troublesome, so when I barged in by destroying the mist wall, I aimed the residual energy from my anti-Lucia cannon at the core of the formation. There wasn’t enough energy to destroy it completely, but scrambling up the lines to alter its functions was doable.

“That wasn’t your fault, Sister Ilya,” Gwey said. “Don’t blame yourself for it. Don’t worry, I’ll head straight to the sect’s punishment hall to set your people free. The elders and disciples in charge of the hall should’ve come out due to the gathering signal. If they knew why the gathering signal rang, I’m sure they would’ve let your people out before coming here.”

“Thank you, Brother Gwey. I won’t let you down.” I watched Gwey fly off into the distance, disappearing from view; that’s one thing taken care of. Am I a liar? All nobles are liars; it’s an ironclad rule of life. It’s not my fault sheltered sect disciples are inexperienced and fail to realize such simple things. By tricking him like this, I’m teaching him a valuable life lesson. Educating the hopes of the future, surely that’ll bring about good karma, no? …I’m not going to check that karma-determining crystal; it’s broken and doesn’t work.

As soon as my bodyguards arrive, I’ll figure out a way to give Lucia the immortal fox eye artifact. Without it, she can’t win. The reason is pretty simple: she’s an idiot. People of lesser intelligence are highly susceptible to mental and spiritual attacks. Just look at her now. Ever since she took out that hostage, she fell into Old Hong’s illusion. If Old Hong wanted to, I bet she could keep Lucia in a daze for an indefinite amount of time as long as no outside force disturbed her. But even when Lucia’s in a daze, she’s still Lucia. It seems like Old Bai is having trouble freeing his disciple from Lucia’s grip. Isn’t he supposed to be the strongest person of this generation? He represents the white tiger too, so I thought his strength would be higher, but he can’t even pry apart Lucia’s fingers.

No, there must be something else. Before teleporting Lucia here, Old Bai clearly fought with her; otherwise, how would his disciple be taken hostage? If anything, Old Bai would only teleport Lucia here if he needed the sect’s help to win. Then…, he was already defeated once by Lucia? It seems like Lucia really can win if I give her this immortal fox eye to stop Old Hong’s attacks. Old Bai is still weakened from his previous fight with Lucia—perhaps he used a technique similar to Crazy Hong’s blood burning. And if I have my quasi-immortals tie down Old Hei, that only leaves Old Lan, who specializes in speed. Maybe I should tie down Old Lan instead of Old Hei; I’m sure Lucia would like smacking someone with a hard defense instead of chasing after someone who’s fast. The problem is Old Hei could help defend the other quasi-immortals from her attacks. Lucia might like fighting him better, but since she’s practically begging for my help, she doesn’t get to have what she wants.

“Sister Ilya, I brought your people over!”

Great. “Thank you, Brother Gwey. Jin Mo, take command of all our sky-realm experts. Your targets are every disciple and elder below quasi-immortal in the Holy Beasts Sect. The rest of you, your mission is to deliver this necklace”—I handed the immortal fox eye to Chen Tao—“to the squirrel. After doing that, work together with the phoenix to subdue Old Hei. You don’t have to defeat him, just make sure he can’t interfere with the squirrel’s fight.”

“S-Sister Ilya?” Gwey asked with wide eyes. “You, why?”

“Jin Mo. Do your job.”

“Yes, Master,” Jin Mo said and raised his hand. With a swift punch, Gwey was knocked unconscious. “All sky-realm experts, follow me!”

Well, now it’s up to Lucia. If she loses, I can always still escape. I’ll lose six quasi-immortals and a hundred sky-realm experts though, so I really hope she doesn’t. She better not. I even have an immortal artifact riding on this bet.