Chapter 24

Thirty minutes later elder Yui had recovered from his injuries. This time we headed out the opposite side of the grove. With my increased energy I didn’t need to get quite as close to the enemy barrier. In fact I was standing a few feet inside of the grove.

This time the fighting only lasted for a minute before elder Yui had to retreat. This time he wasn’t pursued by a group of enemy cultivators. Despite not gaining much death energy I was happy to see that he hadn’t been badly injured this time. However, he didn’t look happy at all.

“They have grouped up nearly a dozen mid level eight cultivators and a couple peak level eight cultivators to deal with me. It’s not enough to stop me from retreating. It is going to stop me from killing a lot of enemies though.” Elder Yui said.

“What do we do?” I asked.

Elder Yui thought about it for a moment. “You can teleport around the grove right?” He asked.

I nodded. “I can move around a hundred and fifty feet each time now.”

“Every fifteen seconds move your location clockwise around the grove. I’ll move with you. There are a bunch of level five and six cultivators out there. We will focus on those instead of the level seven and eight cultivators.” He said.

That plan worked for nearly ten minutes. During that time I suspected that elder Yui killed hundreds of enemy cultivators. Eventually the enemy's high level cultivators caught on to what he was doing. A horn was blown and most of the enemy cultivators retreated. After a few seconds elder Yui returned.

“They just moved everyone under level seven back. They have also moved up nearly every level eight cultivator they have. Do you have enough energy?” Elder Yui asked.

“More is always better but I think I have enough. It will be a tight fit but we will gain more energy passively.” I answered.

Elder Yui frowned. “I’m tempted to keep on attacking them until we get everyone moved. Who knows when they may come up with a way to attack the grove.”

“ It’s not worth you risking your life. I think you have them plenty distracted. I suspect they will spend the rest of the day hoping you will come out again so they can kill you. Even if they do think of a new strategy we should have plenty of warning.” I said.

Elder Yui finally nodded in agreement. “Let’s get everyone moved into the space. Then you can try to escape out of here.” He said.

“I’m thinking maybe we should just move everyone and stay inside the space for a couple days first.” I said.

Elder Yui winced. “I don’t think clan Hill will be leaving anytime soon. How crowded is it going to be?”

“It will be less crowded as the space expands. Also I’m sure they saw me teleporting around. They will probably think I teleported everyone away. If they lower their guard we can sneak out without them realizing.” I said.

“The dryads can use their magic to grow plants for us to eat. However, what will we do about water? We are going to need at least some to drink. The dryads can go a few days without, but normally they drink far more water than humans.” Elder Yui said.

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“I can use energy to create water in my space. Same with dirt and air.” I answered.

“In that case maybe we should stay here for a week or two. By that time clan Hill should have completely relaxed their guard.” Elder Yui said.

I almost agreed. But then I remembered the drake. “I don’t think we can wait that long. Otherwise the drake I captured may starve to death.” I said

Elder Yui shrugged. “Let it starve to death. You will get a bunch of energy. Plus we will be able to start using that space. You could either move the humans or the grove there. It’s not good for monsters and humans to mix together like this.”

I looked at elder Yui curiously. “Why do you say that? You’re married to a dryad. I would think you would be all for monsters and humans living closer together.”

“Eventually someone will misinterpret something. I’m all for humans and monsters communicating and understanding one another. However, in my experience they are just too different to live together. Even I have a separate hut and don’t live in the grove.” He said.

Part of me wanted to disagree. However, he was the one that was married to a monster. I hadn’t met one until this week. In terms of experience and knowledge, elder Yui was an expert.

“Either way I’d like to keep the drake alive. I may gain a lot of energy if it dies. However, I’ll gain far more if I keep it alive.” I explained.

“It’s your space. If you think that is best I won’t argue with you. I suppose we can always wait until the space is large enough and then separate the humans and dryads. Or you could create a third space. It also shouldn’t be that hard to get food for the drake.” Elder Yui said.

“Where am I going to get food for the drake?” I asked curious about the elders' solution.

“Just transport the corpses of all those men we just killed.” The elder said.

Mentally I shied away from that answer. I couldn’t help but think that forcing the drake to eat human remains would probably be a bad idea “Any other solutions? They may have been our enemies but I’d rather not desecrate their bodies that way. Plus I don’t want the drake to develop a taste for human flesh.” I said.

“I don’t know much about drakes, but I suppose that could be a problem. It is an issue with some monsters. Once they eat a few humans they will always view us as prey. We could sneak into the stables. I’m sure clan Hill has a number of mounts there.” Elder Yui said.

That was a much better solution. With any luck clan Hill would just think their mounts had been stolen. Only a crazy person would think they were teleported into a secret plane as food for a drake.

By that point the humans had packed up their meager possessions. The dryads didn’t have to pack up any possessions. Anything they owned they kept inside their trees. Their trees each had a small pocket dimension kind of like mine. Except that the only living thing that could go inside was the dryad herself. It would expand a tiny bit as the dryad got older. However, it was severely limited. Even elder Yui’s wife told me she only had a space the equivalent of a small apartment. The rest were the equivalent of a single room.

I started by transporting all of the dryads. Amazingly they all fit. However, when I checked my space I found them nearly right up against each other. Their branches were completely entangled. And in quite a few places there wasn’t even room for a human to squeeze between their trunks.

I worried that the lack of space would harm them. However, they reassured me that they would be fine, at least temporarily. Being that close would eventually harm their trees. Mostly because they wouldn’t be able to get enough nutrients from the soil and sunlight. A few days, or even a week or two, wouldn’t result in any lasting harm though.

The humans were quite a bit more miserable when I transported them. There were nearly a hundred of them. And they were completely scrunched up between the trees. I knew within a few days they would be eager to get out of my plane. Despite that nobody complained. Everyone knew the only alternative was to wait for clan Hill to kill them.

After everyone was settled in, I transported myself to the drake’s universe. The drake was still morose. However, they didn’t complain when I explained the situation and that it would take a couple days to get them some food. I took the opportunity to refill their pool of water and then returned to the other universe.

Despite the drake universe being less than a tenth the size of the dryad universe there was far more room in the drake universe. However, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable being near a monster that had already killed me three times. Even if I was fairly confident that they wouldn’t kill me again.