Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 39. The Demons.

“I wonder if Yin will agree,” Laien mused quietly, then glanced at Yin and laughed in a somewhat troubled manner. Yin’s clothes were as tattered as his own, but his body was still covered with over two dozens of cuts; mainly all over his torso and arms. “Before anything, how about I heal you again?” he brought up with a smile, thinking he should have done that right after Yin finished his training with Altair and not only now.

“Nah, I’m fine.” Yin shook his head with a smile. “You should also tone down on using magic to heal yourself every time. Now that you advanced a lot in your martial cultivation your vitality should have shot up by a notch too; you will heal quickly even without magic,” he explained and raised his forearm to show Laien. The cut he had gotten there was one of the deeper ones, but after just a few minutes had passed it no longer was bleeding and already started closing up. With a few hours of time more only a slight scratch would be left and after around eight to ten hours, the wound would have healed as if it was never there to begin with.

“Well, you are right… but it still hurts.” Laien smiled weakly and shrugged his shoulders, at the same time releasing his new technique and allowing his body to return to its normal state. He knew that using magic to repeatedly heal oneself would weaken the body to a degree, and it wasn’t like he was that bad at enduring pain… he just didn’t like to be hurting. He would keep that in mind for future though; as long as the wounds weren’t too bad he wouldn’t resort to using magic unless necessary.

“Those small wounds only hurt at first,” Yin said with a laugh, then changed the subject. “What now? Want to take the ‘spoils of battle’ first?” he asked, more excited for Laien than himself. To him, material goods were a nice cream on top of a cake, but he didn’t really need them for anything. Laien, on the other hand, would probably find some good uses for the surplus of coins and items.

“Yeah, let’s do that first and then rest,” Laien agreed with a nod. He briefly considered swapping his destroyed shirt and ragged pants for new ones, but in the end decided against it. He was all sticky and needed a proper bath anyway while collecting the interspatial rings and weapons from the area would at most take him ten minutes or so even without hurrying too much. He could have of course used a spell to clean himself… but he was in the mood for a long and hot bath. He had all things needed in his interspatial ring and there was a lake nearby, so there was no problem.

The High Priest and the village elders would have likely vomited blood if they knew Laien intended to use the lake in their Sacred Temple to bathe himself, but as people were saying; what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.

As Laien expected, it took him and Yin only a moment to quickly collect all items. After briefly counting everything up they found 13 top-quality weapons of various kind, 3 top-grade interspatial rings and well over three hundred high-grade ones. There was also around five to six thousand crystal coins and a mass of various items, pills, potions and other things. All in all the wealth of those bandits and black-cloaked men amounted to well over ten thousand crystal coins. There had been quite rich; they had had almost a third of the wealth Laien was currently carrying on himself.

After arguing about it for a bit with Yin, Laien reluctantly accepted to take sixty percent of everything, including two out of the three top-grade interspatial rings.

“We should have around twelve hours to rest, right?” Laien brought up while taking out a large wooden bathtub along with two stools and two smaller basins from his interspatial ring.

“What do you have on your mind?” Yin asked with a laugh, able to tell that Laien wanted to do quite a few things to which all he looked forward to.

“Nah, let’s rest first. We can train a bit and talk about everything later,” Laien replied with a smile. He was feeling good enough, but he could tell that despite acting as if everything was fine Yin was extremely tired, especially mentally; he needed to have some good sleep to recover.

“I guess I’m up for that,” Yin said contentedly and took out some necessities needed for washing and stored away his destroyed clothes in his interspatial ring.

The area by the lake that had just been a field of a life-or-death battle returned to its original calm state. As one could expect, the High Priest and the people from the village weren’t stupid nor desperate enough to ignore the demand of Shade’s for no one to go down to the temple for the next twelve hours. In such a way Laien and Yin washed up, then climbed up onto the Holy Tree and after locating a comfortable spot where they could lay down, went to sleep.

Before today the two of them would have had been somewhat reluctant to simply sleep in some strange place, and both at the same time at that, but now that they have comprehended the complete foundation of the Aspect of Awareness there was sparsely anyone in the world who could sneak up on them. Even Shade, Altair himself would have found it impossible to launch a sneak attack against them, much less the people of this not-so-hidden-anymore village. Thus, eight full hours of the calmest and most peaceful sleep the two youths have had for many weeks passed.

“It sure feels good…” Laien said quietly, looking at the palm of his hand with half-open eyes. “The feeling of Qi flowing through my body… from the Qi Origin, through the Qi paths… into bones, muscles, skin… even hair!” he mused, sensing how his body had taken this time of rest to adjust to his sudden leap in cultivation base. His new Qi, which had been transformed by the nature of the martial art he had created… or maybe, cheated a little to create, nourished his body and was marvelously powerful, and most importantly extremely easy to control, just like his spiritual energy.

“Who would have thought it was actually possible to mix your spiritual energy and Qi?” he thought to himself, chuckling quietly in amusement. He couldn’t wait to spar with Yin again! This time he would be able to contend with him and not need to have Yin hold back in the slightest! Which one of them would prove to be stronger?; he wondered impatiently.

“What are you so excited about?” Yin opened his eyes slightly and asked, still not moving out of the furs he had been sleeping in. It was so warm and cozy in them he didn’t want to leave just yet.

“I can’t wait to fight you,” Laien replied honestly, after what he felt Yin wake up thoroughly. The two of them looked at each other, both of them smiling and with eagerness shining in their eyes.

“Not here though, okay?” Yin mentioned with a laugh and left the fur he was sleeping in before quickly scooting over into Laien’s bedding. “First tell me about that breakthrough of yours,” he said with a wry smile, having already had suppressed his curiosity to fall asleep. He really couldn’t wait anymore!

“Huh? You mean you didn’t notice?” Laien raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I even used Freezing Nova; ah, that large-scale freezing magic. I used both my Qi and spiritual energy, weren’t you able to tell?” he asked, pretty sure that everything should have been apparent enough.

“Of course I could tell that much,” Yin said with an ever so slight frown on his face. “I was asking how did your martial art work out! I can tell it’s water element, but is it top-grade? How good is it?” he explained patiently, wondering why they couldn’t understand each other on this matter.

Laien was a bit startled by what he was hearing. “Don’t tell me you couldn’t sense that my spiritual energy and Qi were fused?” he asked, then to answer the confused look Yin gave him raised his hand slightly and accumulated a small cluster of Qi and a cluster of spiritual energy above it. Without any effort at all, he made the two energies intermingle, then mix into something that was neither Qi nor spiritual energy. “Oh!” Laien suddenly realized why Yin failed to notice anything!

“Wow, it really mixed,” Yin said in awe. “Its aura is still like that of ‘pushed together’ Qi and spiritual energy, but it actually mixed! No wonder, I think even Altair didn’t realize what you did! Unless you pay extremely close attention it’s impossible to tell it apart from a normal cluster of physical and spiritual energies! And you can only tell them apart while they are in this pure state; after they change into a technique or magic, no one will be able to tell what is going on!” he explained all at once in a very excited voice, to be honest making Laien feel startled. Laien was the one wielding those energies, but he was yet to deduce as much about them as Yin understood from taking a brief look! It looked like their respective amount of studies was at an entirely different level.

It wasn’t too strange of a fact though; Laien had almost always relied on trying everything out on his own, but Yin learned from his grandfather’s vast collection of books and scrolls for many years. With Yin’s comprehensive ability it would be strange if he didn’t become knowledgeable about the more subtle aspects of practice.

“It looks like you already know more about it than me,” Laien said with a helpless laugh. “What I can add is that I can control my Qi as easily as my spiritual energy. I can do whatever with it without any limitations; I don’t need to rely on a present of Primary Arts or martial techniques,” he said proudly, at least trying to use some of the common terms. Yin knew so much about everything while he knew so little! It made him feel rather ashamed. “If we fight again…” he brought up again and smirked wryly. He just couldn’t wait to spar with Yin! Why couldn’t they do it here anyway?

“Yin?” Laien asked after a few seconds and glanced sideways, only to see that Yin closed his eyes and had a dreamy look on his face. “What is he…?” Laien wondered, but soon enough sensed Yin’s aura fluctuate and grow stronger. “He broke through to the late eighth mortal realm?” Laien laughed weakly. It wasn’t too surprising considering what kind of fight Yin had gone through yesterday; and now that Yin had reached the late eighth mortal realm, he would according to his own explanation reach the peak in two or three days and quickly step into the early ninth mortal realm!

“And again we don’t know who will win,” Laien said with a sigh, but he was by no means dejected or sad. Before this advancement of Yin’s he was about fifty percent confident in winning against Yin in case Yin used both his human and magical beast forms to fight, but now… that confidence fell to below twenty percent. In the end, Yin’s extreme speed was the perfect counter to his primary magic skills! He would need to train a lot to create some proper martial techniques to use. He might have derived his own Ice Body from the Dragon’s Body of the Red Dragon Arts, but to defeat Yin he would need more than sturdy defense.

Yin opened his eyes and chuckled, sensing Laien’s emotions very clearly. “Right, let me tell you about the Aura Manipulating Art,” he remembered and repeated the things the six-year-old had told him. As for Laien, he picked up on the aura manipulation almost instantly, what wasn’t surprising to Yin given their new insights into the Aspect of Awareness.

They then spent some time attempting to prevent each other’s strands of aura from detecting them but had both failed miserably. By the looks of it, their ability in this aspect was still far cry from Altair’s even with the complete foundations of the Aspect of Awareness supporting them.

Yin sighed inwardly, thinking that it was the right time to mention the six-year-old ‘Holy Priest’ again and ask Laien what he thought about the High Priest’s offer, even if only for the sake of bringing it up. With their strength, it wouldn’t be hard for them to eliminate the High Priest and the militia of the village, especially now that the High Priest had no access to his sanctuary and when most of his formation had likely been broken down by Altair when he had brought everyone in. However, that left the matter of that Divine Seal and those demons unresolved. Wouldn’t they break free if the people of the village stopped carrying out their rituals?

Yin had his doubts, but he didn’t want to play with the fate of the world; and more importantly with his and Laien’s lives. Thus, he told Laien the whole story; from how Kalan tried to cheat him with nice words, to how Marie tried to bed him, through the story of the demons and the threats of the High Priest. The conclusion was a simple one as far as Yin was concerned; there was no way they would aid the High Priest in his ritual. The question remained, however; would they let the village be, or would they take the risk and save the six-year-old?

“That’s what you are worried about?” Laien laughed merrily after hearing the whole story, a confident smirk appearing on his face. “Just wait and see. When those guys come down here we will have a nice surprise prepared for them,” he said wryly and proceeded to quickly explain his intentions and reasons to Yin.

Yin was quite reluctant at first, but the more Laien spoke about it the more he agreed with him. There certainly was some risk involved, but he wanted to lend the six-year-old a hand too… and after today’s experiences, he was much less averse to jumping head-first into dangers.

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“High Priest, are you sure it’s safe to enter…?” one of the young village elders who had inherited the position from his father the day before said worriedly. “We saw all those bandits running away, terrified out of their minds… who knows what happened down there?” he argued, really not wanting to share the same fate as his father.

“That Great Chieftain only told us to wait twelve hours before entering,” the High Priest reminded sternly. “Our bloodline will die off anyway if we can’t find that black-haired kid in the temple. What do we have to lose?” he asked rhetorically and shook his head. The Bewildering Formation was destroyed, but more importantly, most of the formation stones were gone. They wouldn’t be able to put a new protective formation up and with the news about their existence spreading, their village would soon become a target of various greedy groups of bandits. They could either complete the Divine Seal or they might as well commit a mass suicide; the curse wouldn’t allow them to move to another place.

Kalan, the young elder and the old elders all fell silent. They didn’t find it pleasant to be told the truth so bluntly, alas, they had no other choice but to face the reality.

The black-masked man didn’t tell them whether the boys were still alive, but he didn’t deny either. The High Priest, Kalan, the Elders and in consequence the whole village ended up clinging onto this last ray of hope. Many of them felt vengeful about Uluan’s and the High Priest’s decision to allow the boys to enter, but none of them voiced their frustrations. They all have had enough of their miserable lives in this damned place; especially the older ones thought it was good a final solution would come. They would either live free or end this sad history of their clan!

The group heading down consisted of only militia; the High Priest fully intended to capture that black-haired outsider in case he was still alive and to do so he would need a lot of people. More of the villagers wanted to go too, however, he told them all to wait on the surface as to not have them get in their way.

The group of slightly over thousand people walked down the long stairs in relative silence, only a few people exchanging some words in whispers.

About half an hour after they began walking down the stairs, the High Priest and the forefront of the group entered the great cave. They instantly began looking around; they first found some leftover blood stains on the ground in the area beside the lake, then the High Priest with his better eyesight spotted the two youths sitting on the branches of the Holy Tree!

“They are here! Both of them, alive!” the High Priest exclaimed loudly, his heart thumping with emotions. So the Great Chieftain really didn’t come here to kill those two boys! He had no idea what that man’s goal had been, but it didn’t matter! All that was important was the boys were still alive! The black-haired kid was alive; the hopes of their clan could still be realized!

“Let’s go,” the High Priest said while aiding himself with Qi. “We will first see if they are willing to help us peacefully. If not, we capture them!” he stated decisively, rousing the spirits of the militia. They had nearly given up on living, but a path to freedom had once again appeared before them! They would do anything to grasp this chance of a lifetime! No, the chance of one thousand lifetimes!

“Look at them getting all fired up,” Laien said with a smirk. He knew how to tell when a mob was in the mood to lynch someone and those villagers reeked of those stern, aggressive emotions.

“Compared to those bandits they are like a group of little puppies,” Yin commented with a laugh and glanced at Laien. “Not to mention those black-robed men of Altair’s,” he added, after what the two of them snorted quietly in amusement. Those guys really were under an illusion of having the strength necessary to capture them, weren’t they? They might have felt sorry for them if those guys weren’t so detestable, but as it was they had no sympathy for them at all.

“I’m glad to see you are well!” the High Priest called out to Laien and Yin, he and his group of one thousand stopping by the lakeside. “We need to talk. Can you come down here?” he requested, knowing how troublesome capturing them would be if they kept hiding on top of the Holy Tree.

“Why won’t you come up here if you want to talk with us?” Laien asked with a grin, not planning to go along with the High Priest’s demands and whims.

“You first threaten us, then pretend to be all amiable? So laughable!” Yin said with a somewhat vicious smile on his face. There weren’t many people who could truly anger him with their behavior, but Kalan and the High Priest were exactly the two-faced types he hated the most.

The smile disappeared from the High Priest’s face and the corners of his mouth twitched in anger. Those outsider brats, now that the black-haired one finished his breakthrough they thought they could do whatever they wanted? The village had protected them from those bandits all this time and that was the kind of gratitude they were showing in return?!

“Let us drop the pleasantries then,” the High Priest said with a snort. “Either you obey our orders and do what we tell you, or you are going to be killed right here! Let’s see if you two children can resist the thousand of us!” he threatened, but what he didn’t expect was the two replying him with a hearty laughter.

To Laien and Yin, this threat of the High Priests truly was a joke. They had fought and won against a hundred martial masters who all wielded the power of insights into Aspects and Profound Mysteries of Darkness! How were they supposed to take this militia seriously? It was akin to a toddler threatening to beat up a full-grown warrior! What else could one do but laugh at such an idea?

“You know what?” Laien spoke up before the High Priest or anyone else could respond. “It really would be quite annoying for us two to deal with you. I think I know a duo much more suited for this task,” he said with a smirk and jumped down the Holy Tree, then landed on the surface of the lake with a little splash. He glanced at the High Priest, then put his hand to the crimson and azure crystal.

“You… no, you can’t possibly…!” the High Priest shivered. The ritual wasn’t prepared at all! If that kid’s blood got into direct contact with the Divine Seal…! “Do you have any idea what you are doing?! Do you know what kind of scourge you are about to release? They will kill you, they will kill your friend, us and will destroy the rest of the world!” he yelled at Laien, feeling as if his heart was about to jump out of his chest. If he could have would have stopped him, but from this distance and with the lake between them he was helpless!

“Here goes all or nothing~” Laien said with a laugh and controlled some of his Qi, forcing out some blood out of the palm of his hand in a relatively painless manner.

The crystal absorbed the blood greedily, its light once again changing into a pure azure one, just dozens if not hundreds of times stronger than the time Laien fell into the lake!

The villagers were all forced to close their eyes and guard their faces with hands due to this blinding azure light, but to Laien the light appeared to be a pleasant blue aura instead. “Just how much blood does it intend to take?” he thought to himself, beginning to feel a little weak. He had been pushing out his blood actively at first, but now the suction force from within the crystal was actively draining it. He could remove his hand whenever he wanted… but he could tell that the aura inside was hoping for him not to do so.

Just as Laien was beginning to worry a little, along with a loud cracking sound the crystal snapped in the middle and the suction force disappeared. He stepped back, sensing an omnipotent power, one that appeared to be on the level of the man from his dreams from within the crystal.

“Ten cycles,” an angry youthful voice rang out in Laien’s, Yin’s and everyone else’s minds. “Those pitifully weak creatures sealed us for ten cycles and nearly killed us both!” he continued saying, his voice pulsing with more and more hatred and fury with each consecutive word.

“Demons…!”

“Demons are free!”

“No, save us!”

“High Priest!”

The villagers in the temple were absolutely terrified. They still couldn’t see anything, but they could heat the demon’s voice in their heads! This was dark arts, a magic of fiends! They would all be killed, the world was over! Everything was over!

“Demons,” the youthful voice snorted disdainfully, his figure emerging from within the crystal. His features hidden by the azure light, the youth turned his head and looked at Laien. He appeared to have smiled, then turned his head towards the gathered and scared out of their wits militia.

The next instant the youthful figure moved, or appeared to have moved as his shape only flickered for the briefest period of time.

It would have been hard for Laien to tell if this person truly moved from this spot or not, had it not been for the over thousand villagers who had all been turned into nothing more than clouds of reddish vapor, their bodies having been completely disintegrated faster than one could blink!