“I told you already that I am going to do it. However, I do not respond in a positive manner to threats.”

The beast spoke once again, and Kepa Ying dutifully repeated the words the helmet provided for her.

Her most of her hurt. She was pretty sure that nothing was broken, but she had still taken a strike from a Chosen of Heaven. It did not seem like this person knew that it was a Chosen he was going up against, and she did not feel inclined to provide that information. If he was worried about the Chaotic Demon Sect knowing about whatever they were doing, that meant they were intruders in this territory, probably trying to sabotage and pillage this town for whatever territory they came from.

Apparently the dress she bought was a signature of the Imperial Clan? That was convenient, unless she ever ran into anyone who was actually from the Imperial Clan. It implied the backing of the central controller of the entire continent, where the sun never set and monsters never spawned. Anyone from the Imperial Clan always ended up as a powerful cultivator, and unless someone was invited into their capital, the entire city was forbidden.

“Why do you say that you already said that you would do it? You clearly did not,” says the man.

“I am not the one saying it,” Kepa Ying explains, “I am interpreting for the beast.”

“You understand the language of the beasts?”

“Most certainly not. This helmet is a powerful artifact that tells me what he is saying.”

“That does not sound very powerful.”

“Knowledge is the most powerful thing in the entire world!”

“I can not argue with that. Your job is to deny knowledge to my enemy, after all.”

Sitting up from the crater she had suddenly found herself within, Kepa Ying lets the dust fall off of her naturally. Some nigh invulnerability for whatever is covered by the armor was nice too. Her leg had been the part of her body to hit the ground first, and that was why only most of her hurt. It seemed like the armor on her leg had taken most of the impact, because other wise the impact would have probably caused quite a bit of actual damage to her body. As her leg was almost completely undamaged, she guessed that it was at least the equivalent of a fourth rank constitution. That was a huge advantage, even if it only applied to whatever part of her body happened to have armor over it.

Now that she thought about it, that was usually how armor worked all the time.

Looking to the side, the beast appeared to be slightly distended in weird ways. A shriveled brown dead flower was sprouting out of the eye closer to her, and there was a bulging out of the various arteries that usually go through a person to keep them alive, which was probably the roots the guy had been talking about. As if an immortal would be constrained by the same limits of biology as a lower cultivator! Why would the beast need the blood to move, as long as he still even had blood inside of him? It might not even need the blood, how would she know? After the fifth rank, paths of cultivation diverged so much that common knowledge was not even applicable to thinking about what they were able to do.

“So how are we supposed to distract that guy if the beast is being inconvenienced by your wood keeping him entangled?”

“I will be honest,” the man responds, “I had not expected your bodyguard to survive having his internal structure replaced with roots. The intention was that you use your imperial authority to stall his investigation for a few minutes, and with that small amount of additional distraction my companion that you had kicked through the wall should be able to make his way back, and we would be able to proceed as planned.”

“In return, I would be honest as well,” Kepa Ying lies, “I would much rather not have to rely on imperial authority, and so would prefer to act through the actions of my bodyguard. You should understand fully the need to keep one's actions discreet.”

“Of course,” the man says, nodding toward her armored head. “I will simply command my plant to remove itself from your companion and…”

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Absolutely nothing happens.

“It’s dead,” says the beast.

“My bodyguard said that the flower had somehow died,” Kepa Ying interprets.

“In that case, I can probably pull it out forcibly, but it is going to hurt,” replies the wood cultivator.

“Go ahead,” says Kepa Ying. A rank nine immortal would be inured to pain, and there was no chance that ‘damage’ would be enough to inconvenience him for more than being ensnared by the plant entangling itself through his veins would be doing.

The man reaches forward, pinches the thin flower stem, and pulls back. A thick black mass moves with his arm, about two and a half centimeters wide. Spewing forth from the beast’s head, a seemingly endless tendril winds out of his skull, every bit of it coated with a viscous black goop. While the previous plant the man had instantly wound about his body as it grew, this dead lump of vegatative matter he holds out and away from himself, simply stepping further away as the black tentacle of plant grows longer as all the roots come out of the various locals of the creature’s body.

Pulled forward by the connecting herbage, the beast rises seemingly unwillingly to its feet. Kepa Ying could see how the bulges in his neck slowly shrank, as the constant flow of plant out of its eye could not have been a full, unadjusted pulling of the plant. If it were, the various tiny offshooting roots would have quickly broken, and even if they had not, the total width of the root had long since exceeded the size of the hole they were being forced out through. What the wood cultivator seemed to be doing was melding the strands of root together into one long string, and thinning the thread down to a width that would actually go through the opening, like when a regular person tried to get thread through a needle, but if the thread itself were three times as thick as the eye and one had to constantly work to force it through.

It was pretty gross.

Standing up herself, Kepa Ying moves forward to catch the beast as the last of the tendrils slurp out of his face, the creature weighing much less than she had anticipated.

“Okay, well, we will just head out now. If you see something exploding, that will probably be where my bodyguard is,” Kepa Ying says, not actually moving, since the man was standing in the way of the exit with a two meter long whip of rotting plant matter.

“There is not a single living cell in this entire length,” states the man. “I was not expecting that I would need to say this, but we do not want the Chaotic Demon Sect to investigate this matter thoroughly. Do not kill the Demon Initiate. That would make things much worse for everyone.”

“Right, of course. I will make sure that my bodyguard does not go overboard. That Chaotic Demon Sect member is as good as alive,” responds Kepa Ying, absolutely sure that even if they were to fight seriously, a Chosen of Heaven would somehow manage to escape or otherwise miraculously reverse the situation and come out the winner of a true fight. If they were just distracting him though, they probably had a chance of getting out alive once he got distracted from their distracting by the distraction of whatever it was they were originally distracting him from. Maybe she would be better off bringing the beast over to the chest full of clothes and disguising him as a regular person.

The man moves out of the way as she pulls the beast out of the warehouse. She had not gotten the arm back, but the helmet was a nice item to retrieve. At least she already knew how to use that. Other than hitting people with the arm, she had no idea if it was special at all.

“Show me where the Chosen of Heaven is,” she commands the helmet, and a red arrow points at the ship with the hole in it. He had not moved apparently, or the helmet was only showing the last known position. She was not entirely sure what the full capabilities of the armor were yet, so it was probably safer to guess that it was only keeping track of where he was when she last checked. That would still be useful, just not quite as useful. Particularly when she was in a new place, she could use that to set landmarks that she would always be able to navigate to, or make sure she did not get lost because she could always tell which direction was the Imperial Capital, even at night.

“This humble servant bought those clothes like you wanted, they are down this way,” Kepa Ying says quickly, running carefully. She had no idea what made the leg armor start doing things, and she had no intention on trying to make it do them again. She was sure it was a powerful ability, but she was also sure she would much rather that she had two legs to walk with than a single much faster leg that dragged her along wherever it wanted.

It was great for kicking though.

The beast seems to try and say something, but the helmet does not give her an explanation for what the words were supposed to mean. It was probably difficult to speak without a throat, or most of an internal structure. She avoids looking at the beast’s lack of eye, the gooey ichor that coated the plant continuing far deeper than she was comfortable examining in detail. Apparently when you ascended ranks in the divine path, you expelled ‘impurities’ that were supposed to look like that, but from what she could tell that was all that was holding the beast together. One more piece of evidence that they were the worst faction, of course.

Finally down the alley, Kepa Ying drops the beast next to the chest, and opens it up for him to peruse. As outfits start flying out of the box and dropping onto the ground, she sighs in relief. At least she can be sure that her mentor’s mind is completely intact, despite the damage.