It turns out that the squad guarding the teleportation platform was employed by the local lord who resided in a larger city to the east, called Magreta. Apparently there was some kind of a dispute between the local immortal and the one ruling over the neighboring region and the town that was previously built around the teleportation platform was destroyed due to one of the frequent skirmishes between the forces of the two rulers.
After gathering valuables and storing the bodies in the spatial bracelet belonging to the squad leader, with intent to later toss them out in a more inconspicuous spot, Leo and Musa turned into two streaks of light, light green and purple, and dashed up, into the clouds and then rapidly flew towards the east.
While flying in this manner was annoying because of the por visibility and the clothing that instantly became wet, it was much safer than traveling along the treetops. While they didn’t know how far exactly the city was, it was clear that if an immortal ruled over it, it had to be sufficiently large for them to not miss it.
“Although I left a long time ago, the general political situation should still be the same.” After flying for a while in silence, Musa finally spoke, “The Blood immortal realm is governed by the three Blood lords, all of them residing in the capital, formally called ‘the Capital of Freedom’. Don’t look at me like that – I know it’s a stupid name, but except for the formal occasions everyone simply calls it ‘the capital’. Anyway – most likely the people behind the disappearance of the Hubert island are the three Blood lords and it’s the best place for us to start to investigate. Of course, we need to get the general feel of what is happening in the realm on our way there so we should spent a bit of time in Magreta to do that.”
“Isn’t our best clue the huge formation that replaced the Hubert island? Shouldn’t we be looking for a secret place where it was built? Or a city where the most advanced runemasters of the Army of Freedom reside?” Leo voiced his thoughts.
“You think in the right direction.” Musa nodded, “But there is a flaw. Everyone or rather – the general public in the Immortal Alliance think that the thing that caused the disaster in the Golden city was build somewhere in secret and then used as a weapon during the attack. I disagree though. I’m almost hundred percent positive that it was built almost openly, except no one knew what that was at the time and the fact that it was built openly allowed it to escape the eyes of the spies of the Immortal alliance.”
Seeing Leo’s confusion, Musa explained, “Imagine you have to build this enormous thing while under the watchful eyes of hundreds if not thousands of spies. And the process might take centuries, maybe even millennia! If you try to do it in secret, sooner rather than later someone will find out something suspicious – be it flow of rare materials or workforce in the form of genius runemasters. On the other hand, if it’s built openly, for example as a flying island for that formally is built for one of the Blood lords – not only people won’t pay attention to it, no one would dare to question the project!”
“Sounds logical.” Leo had to agree.
“Mhm.” Musa nodded, “That’s the only thing that makes sense. Therefore I’m positive the Hubert family and your sweetheart is surely in the capital.
“And we are not going directly there because you don’t know the direction?” Leo asked with an innocent expression, but Musa didn’t mind the tease and replied the same way.
“Who would’ve thought! You are much smarter than you look!”
The they both snickered to themselves and Leo asked, “What about the Blood lords? What do you know about them?”
“This is where our problems begin.” Musa immediately turned serious again, “Apart from knowing that one is a genius runemaster and the fact that they are incredibly powerful I know squat. I was in the capital many years ago and only for few days. Our master took us away to train elsewhere.”
“Are there many immortals in the capital?” Leo asked.
“No idea.” Musa shrugged, “Maybe half a dozen, maybe less. You see, the elite forces of the Army of Freedom are not particularly concentrated and the immortals here … well … let’s put it this way – they are aloof loners who joined the Army of Freedom in name, out of convenience. They are not a bunch of old dudes with common interests like our elders in the academy. These guys … they would gladly cut off each others heads of if they could. And sometimes they do. Of course, there is this one person everyone is afraid of and that keeps the most in check.”
Flying through the clouds almost made the two forget they were deep in the enemy territory and they continued to chat until far in the distance underneath them they noticed a city, probably similar in the size to the holy city Avila. They entered it under the cover of the night, wearing hooded cloaks, just in case someone took them lightly because of their youthful appearances.
As per earlier agreement, they went with the easiest strategy – during the next two nights they went from tavern to tavern and from alehouse to the next, carefully listening to what locals gossiped about. Strangely enough, no one ever mentioned the events in the Golden city. Musa was certain that the fiasco of such scale should’ve been discussed, at least in secret, but no one ever did – contrary to the realms belonging to the Immortal Alliance where all people did was talk about the failed attack and how the genius master Shaw saved everyone.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
This approach didn’t lead them anywhere, but they couldn’t go and ask random strangers about the disappearance of the Hubert island. In the end the only thing that was left was the good old method of buying the information. Musa carefully picked more harmless looking bartenders and waiters and asked about ‘anything interesting’ that has happened lately or if there were any places they could get a ‘quick score’.
Sadly the only result this tactic gave were several set-ups out of which in three they easily disposed of the Core formation stage attackers, in one – killed off two Nascent soul stage cultivators and fled from the last one where six Nascent soul stage experts tried to catch them in a peculiar flag formation Musa was certain they would never survive in case they got trapped.
Fortunately the local lord, the immortal, was either busy, out of the city or simply didn’t care, thus the two managed to escape despite the pursuers flying after them for half the night. Apparently they had some special artifacts that allowed to keep up with the two youths whose forte was speed, but in the end they could only give up.
All in all the stay in Magreta was eventful and even a bit fun, although the only useful information they got was the direction of the capital. The main bonus was the respectable amount of spirit stones they looted from the corpses of attackers, but after the chase there was nothing left to do, but to fly to the capital, on the way trying their luck out in other cities.
Sadly everywhere they stopped the results were similar. Of course, them becoming richer was not a bad thing, but that was not the reason they came here.
When a month later they got to the capital they were completely worn out and mentally tired. Even though both were at the Nascent soul stage, they felt half dead and agreed to have a good rest before finally starting the investigation. And only the next afternoon after they both slept like drunken babies they felt refreshed enough to continue.
After having a sumptuous meal, Musa called over the innkeeper and directly inquired where the three Blood lords lived. The question voiced in the confident manned and the immortal spirit stone that Musa put on the table was enough to not arouse any suspicions and the innkeeper gladly poured out everything he knew. For additional three immortal spirit stones he even brought a worn out map of the city, marked all the important locations and packed some snacks so the ‘Sirs’ would have something to bite while sightseeing.
Only now the two realized their mistake. If they would’ve pretended to be some kind of big-shots from the beginning, it was highly likely they would’ve avoided most of the trouble they had on the way. That led to the next step – they found an expensive looking tailor shop and completely changed their attire to resemble heirs of an immortal or at least, someone really rich and important.
The next part went even easier. Now dressed in rich clothing and with confident expressions on their faces they flew over to the northern side of the city where the innkeeper said one of the Blood lords, the genius runemaster Swan resided. Obviously they didn’t intend to visit the lord, but to have a glance from the distance if there was a possibility that the Hubert family was imprisoned there.
On the way they did get stopped by the local law enforcement squad and had to pay a fine of five immortal spirit stones each for flying in the capital. Still, since both of them acted confident, although clueless, and they were allowed to go without any complications.
Besides getting their feet dirty on the dusty streets, the ‘no flying’ policy in the capital was bound to be a serious obstacle for the further investigation. While there were larger buildings and mansions in the city, it turned out that the Blood lord Swan’s residence was not a mansion and not something that can be called an estate. It was more like a town within a city, hidden behind a tall wall from the eyes of the passersby and there was only one carefully guarded entrance – the main gate.
The two were already having ideas of investigating from the above during the night when they noticed a couple of stray dogs chasing rats around a large pile of rubble a couple hundred yards away from the main gate. The pile was at least as tall as a four storey building, but it resembled something more like a crumbled cliff than a building even though there clearly were some elements constructed by a human hand.
They walked over in a leisure manner like two bored aristocrats while chatting about the weather for the twentieth time since leaving the inn, but then suddenly stopped with their eyes widening in disbelief. Neither Leo nor Musa himself though the latter could’ve been so on point regarding the way the Army of Freedom handled the Hubert island incident. What made them both shocked were the two neatly placed marble blocks that once proudly decorated both sides of the entrance to the Hubert mansion – they both even still had the Hubert family crest on!
“This looks nice!” Musa was the first to react, “Is it art?”
“No idea.” Leo came to his senses as well, “We’ll need to ask dad.”
Then they continued their casual stroll, changing the subject to the weather forecast for the upcoming days.
This was hilarious and tragic at the same time. Blood lord Swan surely had a sick sense of humor, taunting the Immortal Alliance in such direct fashion. Not only it showed that the Army of Freedom didn’t have any boundaries, they clearly were not afraid of any consequences either!
Obviously this was a trap as well. It was highly likely Blood lords had their people monitoring the reaction of the passersby and weed out potential spies. Both Musa and Leo realized it and didn’t discuss anything of importance before they made several chaotic circles around the city and, after making sure they were not followed, left it and flew to the clouds for a discussion.
Both had a reasonable time to think of what to do and both had some ideas, but Musa spoke first.
“I don’t think they’re there.” He said, “Not only it would be too obvious and simple, there is a slight risk that the Hubert family patriarch looses the common sense and in order to rescue his beloved wife throws the caution to the wind, and comes here with a bunch of other immortals. I believe the place is as impenetrable as the Golden city.”
It sounded logical, so Leo said, “Ok, but what do we do? Apart from the fact that we know they have been in the city, we have no other clues. Do you have a plan?”