The two friends floated in the clouds for a while and observed the place in silence. The tall wall was not the only peculiarity about the place. While the area behind it was rather large, there were only few smaller buildings around the perimeter with one bigger pavilion-like structure in the middle.
“The estate looks weird.” Leo scratched his head in confusion, “Why is it built in a circle?”
“Sigh. It’s not a circle, but an octagonal formation.” Musa explained. Leo had his moments, but sometimes he felt helpless with his young friend not knowing the basic stuff, “That’s clearly a prison, guarded by a multitude formations. See – there are the rune markings on the walls and formation flags on the corners … and the smaller buildings look like a part of another formation. Looks like the place is made to hold someone strong and important.”
“Madam Henrieta?” Leo pondered out loud.
“Probably … or rather – it’s possible. But the Blood realm is huge and there are many people Blood lords might keep locked up.” Musa said with a tinge of regret in his voice, “Ok, let’s go back. There is nothing we can do here.”
“What? Why? Let’s try to at least get closer to take a look!” Leo slowly but surely grew excited.
“No way!” Musa shook his head, “Even if you see anything – how you will get in? It’s built so that even an immortal couldn’t pass! And see those people slowly moving around – they all are at least at the Nascent soul stage!”
“Then I’ll get in after dark.” Leo confidently said and suddenly Anna’s image appeared in his mind, “I was taught by the best infiltrators in the world …”
“Leo!” Musa turned fully serious and looked Leo in the eye, “I acknowledge we are friends and this trip has been kind of fun, but it’s a suicide. The formations that are in place …”
“I can bypass!” Leo interrupted him, “That’s another ability that I never told you about … ye, sorry by the way. A couple years ago it turned out I was regularly passing through the protective formations elder Li set and after he told me that I tested with another few in the Academy. From what I understand it has something to do with my Qi …”
Musa stared back at the freak of nature for few moments, but then said, “It doesn’t matter. Let’s assume you’ll get in. Then what? What if no one’s there? Or even worse – what if a couple immortals are there?”
“I have a plan.” Leo confidently stated, but it only resulted in Musa’s impulse to smack him unconscious.
“No.” Musa plainly said, clenching his fists and taking a deep breath, “This is as far as we go. We need to go back, man. Otherwise there won’t be another chance – we are not in the Golden immortal realm! If you slip up – you’ll find yourself in a test tube or your nascent soul absorbed and fueling a forbidden weapon.”
“I agree!” Leo nodded, still looking confident and Musa still held back the urge to smack him, “You will go back to the Golden city and report on everything we did. Pass the Swan’s rings as well – maybe there is a stuff our researchers will find interesting. Of course, the spirit stones are our loot so we should keep them for a rainy day. And take along his body as well.”
“And you?” Musa helplessly asked, “You intend to die for her?”
Once again Leo furrowed his brows in displeasure when it was implied he came here to save Alice, but then shook it off and said, “No one will die, trust me!”
Till dusk Musa tried to persuade his younger friend to give up on the crazy idea, but no matter what arguments he used, Leo wouldn’t listen. After helplessly sighing one last time, Musa patted Leo’s shoulder and left, but an annoying feeling that everything was going to be fine didn’t leave his mind despite the common sense dictating the opposite. Of course, he blamed Leo’s hyper-positive attitude that as a contagious disease poisoned him, but it didn’t matter. All he could now was to go to the Golden city and report while hoping for the best.
Leo was absolutely confident that he would wing it this time. He was not clear how, but knew it would go smoothly. There was no logical basis for such confidence, but his intuition screamed the plan was bound to be successful. The ‘proof’ he presented to himself was that the previous plan, the Swan’s assassination, turned out to be great despite the few flaws, thus this one had to be the same.
While Musa left the ‘love stricken fool’ behind in order to try to get reinforcements, Leo didn’t consider himself love stricken at all. He actually did this because of the adrenaline rush and the adventurous experience, although his friend’s arguments against it did sound kind of logical. Everything they did after the arrival to the Blood immortal realm reminded him of the times in Dreadlands which, with few exceptions, he considered the best time of his life. And somehow he longed for the feeling from back then that he lost after stepping into the Nascent soul stage and becoming omnipotent, by the standards of a mortal realm, of course.
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The idea of a nightly infiltration ignited the passion in him once again and Leo simply didn’t want to let go of this feeling. And all he had to do was to check the situation within the prison right? In the end, if it turned out to be possible to somehow get madam Henrieta and her daughter out, it would be a nice bonus, but first he had to make sure they were kept there.
Slightly before the midnight Leo descended between couple of mountains not far from the prison and proceeded to stealthily fly towards it, slightly above the ground. He didn’t go too fast to not leave any visual trail in the form of purple Qi particles, but at the same time kept constantly revolving Qi alongside the lightning element through the Qi pathways – back at the lake master Li came to the conclusion that this was how Leo was capable of bypassing the formation protecting the Divine tribulation trees, but to Leo’s disappointment the old man refused to call it a ‘technique’.
Apparently the formations set around and in the prison were so potent, no one bothered to physically watch the area surrounding it. At least that was what Leo thought – he had no clue that most of the formations were designed to keep the prisoners from escaping and the residing immortal was enough to catch any trespasser.
At first Leo had the impulse to try and dismantle the formation flags around the perimeter, but fortunately the common sense won and he simply flew over the wall. Then, according to Anna’s teachings, he stealthily got on top of one of the smaller buildings surrounding the pavilion to gain the height advantage, lie on the roof and observed the situation.
The moment he got over the wall, he could already hear the presence of several people, two of which currently were in the room below him. There were few other’s who leisurely strolled somewhere further in the distance, apparently without a distinct goal, but judging by the fact that their feet didn’t touch the ground they were surely at least at the Nascent soul stage.
“… so are you going to place a bet tonight or not?” One of the guys below asked, “Don’t tell me you’re gonna chicken out!”
“Chicken-shmicken!” The other one snorted, “The stakes you are suggesting are too unfair to even call them moronic! I still have few brain cells left, you know?”
“Ok, ok!” The first one tried to pacify the second, “She hasn’t won a single time yet, but she kind of did come close last night, don’t you think? Your chances are getting better by day!”
“Ye right!” There was another snort for an answer, “Do you really believe that a genius like young master Raynolds can loose to an alchemist? And a hundred times at that? He’s having fun, while the girl has this delusion that she’ll hone her combat skills while constantly sparring with the young master.”
“Well, you know, she is from the Huber family and also a genius …” The first one still argued, but got interrupted again.
“Like it would matter. The girl can’t win and sooner or later will marry the Blood lord’s son. It’s just a matter of time, so stop pestering me with your stupid bets!”
“What if …” The first one had another idea, but the joyful shouts from from further away forced to end the discussion and the two flew over to apparently watch ‘the Hubert family girl’ spar again. Leo hasn’t had a single breath from the moment he lie on the roof in order to completely hide his presence, thus the moment the two left, he finally could have a breather and not only literally – from what he heard it seemed that Alice was somewhere here and it was highly likely that he could find madam Henrieta as well.
In the dark he could discern people rushing towards one spot on the other side of the grounds and he counted around a dozen. The moment they gathered, a spar began along with few heated discussions, while Leo tried to discern whether there were more people around. The fight was going on for a while now, when Leo used the opportunity and stealthily proceeded towards the central pavilion. It wasn’t that hard, because the smaller buildings surrounding it had only few weak lighting formations and the place was mostly pitch black.
The closer he got to the pavilion, the more careful Leo became, but it seemed that all the people were gathered on the other side, most of which continued to cheer for ‘the young master’. Apparently the spar the two guys earlier spoke was coming to an end and took attention of everyone in the prison, thus there was no one around to even notice the infiltrator.
Only when he was almost right next to the pavilion, Leo noticed that its walls were of a glass-like material. But since apparently it was completely dark inside, he couldn’t discern if anyone was in there.
He listened for a while while holding his breath, but apart from the sounds the small crowd made in the other end of the grounds he could only hear his own heart beating. Realizing he won’t get any results like this, he really slowly poked his head up to take a look inside, but unfortunately the glass was so dark it could’ve as well been a wall – a weird glass-like wall, maybe even a part of formation.
At the last thought Leo did get a bit panicked since he just touched it without infusing Qi in his fingers, but since nothing bad followed, he relaxed. But the next moment he almost got a stroke though.
“What the f…” Someone was about to curse right next to him and Leo reacted purely on reflex.
The person appeared at his side like a ghost, without a sound and purely on instinct Leo assumed it was the local immortal. As the result he used the only technique he knew that ‘worked’ against immortals and hit the person with both palms while channeling his all lighting Qi reserves, trying to target them in the abdomen.
Fortunately, even though Leo could only tell the enemy’s location by the sound, they were so close he didn’t miss. On the other hand the downside was that the person turned out to not be an immortal and their body exploded with a loud ‘plop’ sound, covering the surroundings and the pavilion’s glass wall in gore. He could tell that the body most likely belonged to a Nascent soul stage cultivator, but fortunately the guy was caught by surprise and the strike was precise enough, and the purple lightning made sure the nascent soul didn’t escape.
Leo wasn’t sure if he just triggered some kind of formation, because the next moment two balls of fire shot in his direction, but he managed to defend in time and two precise palm strikes disposed of them. Afterwards a brief moment of silence filled the surroundings and Leo began to quickly weight in his mind whether he had made a too large of commotion and if he should try to hide or immediately escape.