“Wait,” said Nolan, who had been absentmindedly staring down at the ring of well-cultivated farmland that surrounded the city. “Delia, take us back to the outskirts of the forest for a bit.”

Nyla raised an eyebrow. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, I want to avoid any unnecessary headaches, so I was thinking about coming up with a schedule or something for what we’ll do once we’re in the city.”

Delia complied without a word, and soon the group was standing at the base of one of the many deciduous trees that mixed in with the conifers in the areas of the forest that were closest to the sizeable settlement.

“Okay,” he said as soon as they were situated. “First off, I think Delia and May should keep hidden while we’re in town.”

May didn’t seem too pleased by his suggestion. “Why is that?”

“You’re both pretty famous in these parts, so I’d imagine that it’ll be easy for people to recognize you.”

“What does that matter, though? Even if the people here know who I am, it’s not like they can do anything to me.”

“We don’t know for sure if the Falling Rain Sect has given up on catching us. This is the only city in the region, so it’d be pretty easy for them to guess where we’re headed.” The last time he’d offended an entire sect they had chased after him for thousands of kilometres, giving him many headaches in the process. People could be particularly petty in this world, and that Tems fellow seemed to have a pretty distinct hatred for him. Now that he and his friends had killed thousands of people from the Falling Rain Sect, there were bound to be others that felt the same way as their sect master.

Ian scratched at his head. “I don’t know, Nolan. We barely survived that encounter with the spirit of the lake and it attacked the sect’s fleet head on. The most powerful people in their sect were there, and there’s no way anyone survived that. What do we even have to worry about?”

“Tems isn’t dead.”

Everyone looked at Delia, who had spoken up without lifting her gaze from the ground.

“And how would you know that?” said May. “I don’t suppose your little lover told you before Nolan’s master sent him away?”

“He did, actually. He was under the impression that Tems and I were close friends, so he assured me that no harm came to him. That should tell you something about him, since he truly hates Tems for being responsible for his demonization, and also for the rampage that followed.”

“Even I almost died from a single strike from its tail, and I was pretty far from the point of impact. Like Ian said, the fleet was hit head on, and more than once.”

“Oh, almost everyone that followed us died from the first attack,” said Delia, who stooped down to pick up a small stick bug that was crawling over a large root adjacent to her left foot. “Everyone except for whoever was on Tems’s boat. Apparently they used a treasure similar to this girl’s painting”—she pointed at Nyla with the bug as if it were a pointing stick—“that teleported the entire boat somewhere else.”

“Wait, don’t tell me…”

Seeing May’s reaction, Nolan gave her a questioning gaze. “Do you know what he used?”

She nodded. “An old treasure that’s been passed down from sect leader to sect leader over the past several hundred years. It can teleport several hundred people all the way across the continent if the user wishes it so, but it’s only supposed to be used in the event that the sect is at risk of being destroyed. Tems’s father didn’t even dare to bring it with him when he rushed to save his son all those years ago.”

Delia laughed. “Such a thing sounds like a priceless treasure. I bet Tems used it just to head back to his island so he could hide in his house.” She snapped the bug in two and tossed its squirming remnants aside.

“You’re probably right,” sighed May. “If his predecessors learned of this, they’d likely wish him dead.”

“You two are the only ones that know this man,” said Nyla, who had been listening patiently along with the others. “Do you think he’ll come after us?”

“Yes.”

“Being subordinate to him all those years, I can say that he definitely will.”

“Alright,” said Lyra. “So what do we do? Lay a trap and fight him? Bypass the city and keep onward to Frostport? I’m up for either one.”

“I’d rather avoid any unnecessary fights,” sighed Nolan. While he wasn’t one to back down from a life-and-death battle, he also wasn’t one to seek them out. “But at the same time, I don’t wanna be looking over my shoulder every day for the rest of our journey. I’m tired of being chased around my whole life.”

“What do we do then?” said Esteban, who seemed a bit nervous. “Can we beat them without…you know, any of us dying? I don’t wanna fight if it means some of us will die.”

Seeing the frown that had worked its way onto the boy’s pale, freckled face, Nolan patted him on the shoulder and said, “There’s always a risk some of us will die. That’s how fighting works.” He pulled out one of the divine fruits that he’d looted from the spirit of the lake’s den, as well as a barrel of heavenly dew. “But we’ve got some great cultivation resources on our hands, so we might as well use them while we wait for whoever it is that might come after us.”

“They could come any time though,” said Nyla, whose breasts perked up as she crossed her arms in thought. “What if they come tomorrow? We’d hardly be any better off than we are now. With Uncle Grey out of the picture, I don’t think waiting around for a fight would be a good idea, especially one that we aren’t guaranteed to win.”

“He won’t come after us for a while,” said Delia, her tone certain. “He might be a fool at times, but he’s too greedy for his life to take action before getting his hands on another life-saving treasure like the one that he just wasted. Knowing him, it’ll probably be at least a month before he follows after us.”

“A month?” said Lyra, who seemed unenthused at the prospect of remaining in the Northern Wilderness any longer than they had to. “Frostport’s supposed to be a way nicer city than this one. Why don’t we just go there?”

“Does it even matter?” said Sean. “Either way, we’ll be doing the same thing regardless of the place we’re in.”

Everyone seemed to agree with Sean’s point, especially Alicia and Aine, who were eager to relax after all of the stress and danger that they had dealt with in recent weeks. The two girls had gone through a lot of traumatizing things in a ceaseless sequence, starting with fleeing from their hometown after its destruction at the hands of the forces of the Red Mountain King, then joining a caravan that ended up suffering such a savage and merciless attack that saw most of their fellow travellers massacred, only for them and their friends to be abducted by a rogue city of brigands and bandits. After narrowly escaping the fate of being forced to marry and reproduce with some of their captors, they had lost some of their loved ones—Aine’s sister June dying during the rescue while Zess and the other survivors were eaten by giant serpents on the way to the Grand Isle of Weston.

“Please?” asked Aine. “I mean, if it’s the least safe option then of course we don’t have to. Rather, we shouldn’t.”

Following his train of thought, Nolan considered the fact that almost immediately after their arrival on the island the group had provoked the animosity of an entire sect. After nearly dying countless times during the epic game of cat and mouse that saw them flee the enemy territory, they had been chased by an entire fleet and almost lost to the seas during the group’s encounter with the spirit of the lake.

What the hell. No need to rush to a new city when we only just got here.

“I’m thinking we stay in Tallgate.”

Hmm, should I get these girls a gift or something? Tallgate was a merchant settlement after all, so he figured that there would be no harm in handing them each large sums of money and sending them off to do some shopping at some point. Shelving the thought, he went on to lay out a basic plan of action for the weeks to come, handing Delia the necklace that he’d forced her to give him earlier on.