My eyes recovered. Lucia was going through the items belonging to the Eternal Shadow Sect disciples, and Senior Mu pointed out a treasure that could cure my blindness. They were two black marbles made of an unknown substance. I’ve never seen or heard of items like them before, but Senior Mu, with all her wisdom acquired from her twenty-thousand years of life, traded Lucia some fruits for the marbles and gave them to me. Perhaps “gave” is the incorrect word to use here. She gouged out what remained of my eyes and shoved the marbles in my bloody sockets. It was painful, and I thought I was going to lose my mind for a moment, but after the ordeal was over, I found my vision had returned. In fact, it was even better than it was before. I could see spiritual energy moving within people’s shadows. At least, I think it was spiritual energy.

“Eternal Shadow Ring,” Lucia said from her spot on the couch. That’s right. She had pulled a couch out of her interspatial ring earlier and placed it down within the jet. Speaking of the jet, Senior Mu was piloting it towards the next location. She claimed she was driving us towards the void dragons, but I had a feeling she was trying to find the untouched sects of the seven great sects. She wasn’t one to suffer losses by herself.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do with it?” Lucia’s bodyguard asked. She, too, was sitting on the couch.

“Yeah,” Lucia said and nodded. Her hand slipped into her robes as she put the black ring away. “I’m going to save it for Softie. She’s a bit weak, and if she wants to protect Sophia properly, she needs all the help she can get.”

I’m still not sure what an Eternal Shadow Ring does, but it’s clear the item is precious. Only the representative of the Eternal Shadow Sect had one; his bodyguard wasn’t even equipped with one either. Softie was Soft Moonlight, the vice-sect leader of the Righteous Holy Sect. I’m assuming Lucia’s trying to capture a void dragon to bring her family to the immortal realm; it’s the only reasonable explanation. If that happens, will Ilya Pentorn be arriving as well?

Nyooooooooooooooooom!

“Hmm?” Lucia sat up straight and looked around. She hopped off the couch and went to the open door of the jet, poking her head outside. Through my divine sense, I could see the glow fading away from the engravings carved on the jet’s belly. “Hey, Mrs. Mu? Did you fire the cannon just now?”

“Yes. There were a few pests in the way.”

Lucia scratched her head before shrugging. “I guess that’s alright,” she said and returned to her seat. “I don’t remember seeing any birds or other animals around. What kind of pests where they?”

“Scum from the Mourning Wood Sect.”

Lucia blinked. “Did you know them?”

“No,” Senior Mu said from her spot by the display. “But every person from the Mourning Wood Sect is a scumbag. If you see them, kill them on sight. They’re really easy to tell apart from other sect disciples because they’re the only ones that wear green and black robes capable of offending anyone with eyes.”

“Is there a rivalry between your sect and theirs?” Lucia asked and raised an eyebrow. “Or is it just their clothes?”

Nyooooooooooooooooooom!

The jet’s spiritual energy beam fired once again. I thought I heard a faint scream at the very edge of my divine sense’s perception range, but it was hard to tell. I could check by walking towards the door and sticking my head out, but I’d rather not do anything that’d bring attention to myself. After all, I’m trapped in a vehicle with three crazy women who’re capable of ripping my testicles off simply for the fun of it.

“What a persistent cockroach,” Senior Mu said and pressed the button on the display again. A third beam of spiritual energy lit up the sky, shooting past my range of perception. Despite the short interval between the spiritual energy shots, there wasn’t any noticeable decrease in destructive power. How much ammunition does this jet have?

“Who is it!?” a voice shouted. Accompanied by the sound, a mass of black, gnarled tendrils was approaching from the horizon. As the tendrils stretched and grew, more tendrils grew out of them, and soon, the whole sky was covered by them. As Bloodmoon, I’ve had to preserve my life by escaping through unsavory methods: one of which was hiding inside of a burrow beneath a tree’s roots. The scene outside was quite similar to what I saw within the burrow with the roots hanging over me.

“What an extremely persistent cockroach,” Senior Mu said and frowned. She didn’t press on the display; instead, she turned to look at Lucia. “If we work together, we can capture that scumbag alive for you to Soul Scour him. Although the people from the Mourning Wood Sect are no-good bastards, they’re good at finding plant-related treasures. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had knowledge of a symbiotic treasure capable of producing spiritual energy.”

“A symbiotic treasure capable of producing spiritual energy?” Lucia asked and tilted her head. “Isn’t that one of my goals?”

“It is,” Senior Mu said. “What do you think? It might seem like we’re working together on the surface, but we both know you make the final decisions.”

Lucia nodded. “As the boss”—a small chuckle came out of her mouth—“I say we capture the no-good bastard! Even if he doesn’t know anything about a treasure, we should still imprison him in the jet’s dungeon. Everything in this ancient ruin belongs to my good friend, Ilya, since she’s a descendant of Patriarch Atlantis. We can’t let people go around taking her stuff. It just isn’t right.”

Senior Mu and Lucia, it’s not a surprise they get along so well. They’re both good at using people, and right now, they’re using each other. Along with my past as Bloodmoon and Lucia’s bodyguard’s coldblooded genocidal tendencies, I suppose the saying “birds of a feather flock together” works perfectly in this situation. It’s not every day I meet someone sicker in the head than me, but somehow, I found myself in the company of three of them. It’s a little terrifying.