Mr. Bison pulled the carriage further into the town. When they reached the town center, it was still deserted.
"What's going on?" Leyvi pondered. From his position, his spiritual sense covered the entire town but there wasn't a hint of life around.
What made things weirder was that everything in the town was completely fine, nothing out of the ordinary could be seen happening, and there was no sign of violence or struggle anywhere. How could everyone disappear without any sign?
Leyvi had a bad feeling about the situation so he immediately decided to exit the creepy town. For some reason, the air here felt stagnant. Whatever happened here, he didn't want to get involved in this mess, especially since he was responsible for his family's life.
It wasn't just Leyvi, everyone else was also creeped out by the situation. The thought of investigating this phenomenon didn't even cross their mind.
"Mr. Bison, continue moving. We are going out of this place." Leyvi instructed.
"Yes Boss!" Mr. Bison quickly moved toward the other end of the town while keeping his vigilance to the surroundings.
Soon they reached the edge of the town without any problem, until something bizarre happened. As soon as Mr. Bison steps foot out of the town's area, the scenery changes.
"Boss! Help! We are at the town entrance again. Some weird shit is going on!" Mr. Bison panicked outside the carriages. Stripey who was always on Mr. Bison's back ran to Leyvi and hid in the spirit beast bag. It was the safest place for him.
Leyvi also noticed the moment they were transported back to the town's entrance. He had now confirmed that they were trapped in a formation.
"Dammit! The problem now is not about being trapped in the formation, but once I dismantled their formation, they would hold a grudge against us for disturbing whatever plan they had in this town." Leyvi stated his concern.
"Since the formation trapped people in it, the mastermind probably only came at a specific time to deal with the prey. Logically, they would make a move at night so we still have time to run as far as possible from here." Anda analyzed.
"Alright, Mr. Bison, go to the town's border at the other end again and stop there. I will break the formation there and we run after that." Leyvi ordered.
15 minutes later, they were at the edge of the town again but didn't cross it this time. Leyvi got off the carriage, raised his foot high, thought about destroying the formation, and stomped his foot to the ground the same as he did at the Sword Grave.
CRAAAASHHHH!!!!
Once again, a loud crashing sound could be heard from all directions. The scenery didn't change entirely this time, but Leyvi and the party saw what would be the most nightmarish scene in their whole life so far.
Corpses were everywhere in the town as far as their eyes could see. Gross liquids from human remains filled the area creating many nasty slimy puddles. Maggots and flies were everywhere. The rotten and disgusting smell hit them only slightly later than the horrifying scene they witnessed.
Every single hair from Leyvi's body stood up after he registered the spine-chilling display in his brain. This was the most extreme goosebumps Leyvi had felt in his life.
Tal, Tasya, and a few of the ladies fainted immediately when they saw the disturbing scene while the others puked everything they ate today. Only Leyvi and Anda were still fine without extreme reactions like the others.
A few moments later, the horrible stench disappeared and was replaced by a calming scent. Anda had used her Heavenly Fragrant Harmony Body's ability to help everyone relax. Leyvi recovered from his shock and instantly remembered that they had to run, now!
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"Mr. Bison....Dammit! He fainted too!" Leyvi noticed that Mr. Bison had foam around his mouth as he fainted on the ground.
Leyvi rushed to Mr. Bison and transferred him into the Spirit Beast Bag.
"Anda! protect everyone, I'm going to pull the carriages!" Leyvi took over Mr. Bison's job. He grabbed all the ropes attached to the front carriage and started flying away from the town while pulling everyone.
Leyvi was using his rocket flight to escape as fast as possible. Fortunately, the carriages were designed to level and stabilize themselves at all times, so even when Leyvi escaped chaotically, the people inside wouldn't be tumbling all over the place.
Leyvi flew past through multiple hills straight in the direction of the Holy Cat City. Right now, the city was the only safe destination he could think of. After fleeing for around 50 Kilometers, Leyvi sensed a group of humans 15 Kilometers ahead of him flying in his direction. They were all in the Core Formation realm!
Are they enemies? Leyvi abruptly stopped and observed them. After he noticed that they were wearing some kind of uniform, Leyvi let out a relieved breath. Leyvi saw badges of Holy Cat City on them.
Leyvi flew toward them immediately. Soon, the group from the Holy Cat City noticed Leyvi flying toward them while carrying a few carriages.
"Halt! Who are you? What are you doing here?" A loud and aggressive voice was heard coming from a burly man. They looked ready to strike anytime if Leyvi did anything suspicious. He also noticed that Leyvi was very distressed, especially the people in the carriages, and a few people had fainted.
Leyvi observed the group in front of him first before answering. The burly man had a cultivation at the middle stage of the Core Formation realm and he seemed to be the leader of the group.
"My name is Leyvi and we come from Bara City to participate in the Alchemy Conference soon." Leyvi introduced himself.
"Oh? Are you an alchemist?" The burly man's tone softened a little.
"No no, my wife is the alchemist. She's in the carriage. This brother, may I know what group you belong to?" Leyvi asked. He wanted to report what happened in the town as soon as possible.
The burly man nodded. Since Leyvi was from another area, it was understandable that they didn't recognize who they were. "I am Vargas, the leader of Squad 20 of the Surveillance and Patrol Unit of the Holy Cat City. My team specialized in patrolling the outer city area. What happened to you? All of you looked pale."
"Brother Vargas, I wanted to report something horrifying that happened to a town over there." Leyvi pointed to the direction he came from.
"What? Tell me what happened. One of my team members vanished a few days ago, so we were actually heading there to investigate." Vargas's expression turned serious.
Leyvi quickly described what happened to the town. He left out the part where he disabled the formation instead he said the formation suddenly malfunctioned and they were able to escape the formation and run away.
"I'm sorry, but since you are the witness, you will be under our surveillance for now. Clara! Rondo! Escort Leyvi and his group to the city and bring them to our office. Treat them well and wait until further instruction. Understood?" Vargas ordered.
"Yes sir!'' Clara and Rondo saluted Vargas.
"The rest of you, follow me!" Vargas instructed the other 13 members of his team.
Leyvi watched Vargas and his team fly toward the horror town. Now that they were out of whatever kind of danger it was, Leyvi finally calmed down and he started to pity the people of that town. How many people died like that? Probably more than twenty thousand. Since it involved a formation, it was definitely done by a cultivator instead of a demonic beast.
-------
Later that night,
A person in a long dark robe with a hood covering their face was frantically entering an eerie-looking room.
"Master! Big trouble! One of our formations was broken and the sacrifices were exposed to the patrol team!" The person in the dark robe reported.
"WHAT?? How did this happen? Nobody here should have enough skill to break my formations! Impossible!" A hunched old man with many wrinkles instantly turned around and looked at the person in the dark robe.
"But master, it's true. I don't know how it happened, but they are investigating this matter now. The Bureau of Investigation team has been deployed to the scene." The person replied distressedly.
"Dammit! How? Even if someone noticed something strange was happening, if they entered the formation it would be game over! They would definitely die during the night. Who's the bastard disturbing my plan?!!" The hunched old man was furious. His spiritual sense leaked from his body and started crushing things around him despite trying to contain it.
"Ma-master! Calm down! Stop! I'm dy-dying!" The person in the dark robe was caught in the leaked spiritual pressure and was pressed to the floor. He was almost flattened and blood came out of his pores.
The hunched old man controlled his emotions and kept his spiritual sense again after seeing his underling almost die.
"Go investigate who broke my formation by any means!" The hunched old man ordered.