“Arhhh …!”
“You …!”
“F*ck …!”
Leo heard sounds of surprise, anger and pain the moment the familiar light flashed, transporting the forty disciples to another realm. He, of course, knew to close his eyes to avoid it, but unfortunately after opening them he saw only darkness.
The sounds of someone getting attacked caused a slight panic in the crowd and, when he heard a sword being drawn right next to him, Leo instinctively squatted down. A moment later two people tripped over him at the same time and began to curse indicating they were fine except for being angry.
“Light! Someone light up a torch or something!” Leo heard Nathan’s commanding voice and a moment later Marco, the leader of the second group, lit up a piece of cloth that he had put at the tip of his sword.
The small flame threw a poor light on the surrounding disciples and Leo could only discern their silhouettes, but the concerning thing only followed.
“Someone’s dead!” One of the disciples suddenly shouted, “F*ck! It’s Aaron!”
“Oh, no! Hugo as well!” Another one realized his buddy was down.
In a few moments the crowd found out that four of the disciples had died and judging from the whispers around him Leo guessed each of them belonged to one of the groups.
“First group, gather around me!” Silvio Sconi commanded and the other three team leaders followed the suit.
“We need more light!” Nathan said, “Pass me a torch!”
Somehow all four team leaders appeared to be surprisingly calm considering the situation. Each of them lit up a torch, pulled their group off the teleportation platform and then met up in the middle where the four dead bodies lie.
Silvio squatted down near the closest one, inspected it and said, “Looks like Lucas has been stabbed in the back. The dagger is still there.”
“Same with Karl.” Marco said with a frown.
“Ok, so someone has attacked us the moment we arrived and swiftly assassinated four of our people.” Nathan sad, “Their belongings are still there … let’s check the surroundings! Maybe we can find something. Stay together!”
It all would’ve been great if few moments later everyone didn’t realize they were actually in a large cave hall and the only exit was barred with a stone from the outside.
“Damn it!” Silvio cursed, “How the hell did they escape so quickly? What stage of cultivation one has to have for that?”
This time even the faces of the other three group leaders turned weird. They could put up with the play, but there was no need to pretend to be this stupid.
It didn’t take long for the crowd to understand what happened. Even Leo guessed that the four leaders had killed one of their members each and after pocketing the spirit pills threw their bodies to a side.
“Alright!” Silvio continued with a straight face, “Loosing four of our brothers is a tragedy, but we must move on! There is a mission we have to complete! You, you, you and you! Take the bodies and help me to carry them outside. We’ll bury the boys as soon as possible to let their souls rest.”
Ben and Marco quickly moved the stone away freeing the exit and one after another disciples proceeded out from the cavern with the teleportation platform. Unfortunately everyone quickly realized that instead of getting out they found themselves in a large tunnel where five or six men could easily walk side by side.
Silvio and Nathan walked in front carrying a torch each while Marco and Ben ‘watched everyone’s backs’ after pushing the stone back in its place. In theory this should’ve been the correct and safest formation, but every singe disciple felt they were trapped. Of course, no one dared to accuse the team leaders of anything, but the four didn’t attempt to attack anyone else as well. Even though they were at the Foundation establishment stage, at least half of the disciples were the same, although not at the late stage thus weaker than them.
Most of the people currently tried to figure out a way to sneak away or directly escape the four leaders who for now were in a complete control of the situation, but Leo had other things to worry about. The moment they stepped off the platform, Cleaver’s weight suddenly doubled. Apparently one of the master Shaw’s formations stopped working almost breaking Leo’s legs under the sudden increase of load.
Just as he was becoming comfortable with the weapon on his back, Leo was suddenly thrown three months back in the past when he could barely take a step while carrying the weapon.
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‘Why now?!’ Leo was upset, ‘Of all times now when I have to be ready to escape any moment!’
Fortunately no one payed any attention to him and disciples were more occupied with their own problems.
It all took another turn for the worse when after a couple of hundred steps Silvio and Nathan stopped simultaneously exclaiming, “What the f*ck?!”
“What is it?”
“Any danger?”
“Do we retreat?”
One after another disciples reacted, but Silvio calmed everyone down, “It’s a just few larvae. We’ll kill them as we go.”
Leo, just like the most, couldn’t see what was going on in front, but soon he heard someone chopping up pieces of flesh that was followed by squeaking sounds. The tunnel soon was filled with a stench of rotten eggs making everyone nauseated.
“Don’t step into those things!” Nathan commanded, “We don’t know how far is the exit and when we’ll be able to wash ourselves.”
Under the poor light of four torches, Leo soon saw that ‘those things’ were dog sized dark colored larvae with armored heads and four small legs. The strong guys in the front brutally cut them in halves and didn’t even slow down in the process.
“I guess these things are the reason why the exit to the cave room with the teleportation platform was barred.” Leo heard someone nearby thinking aloud.
The large group continued like this for a short while until a loud shriek of pain startled everyone and it was immediately followed by another one.
“Watch out!” Ben’s warning came way too late.
Two centipedes, a couple yards long suddenly appeared out of nowhere and directly bit off heads of two disciples. Fortunately the rest were not helpless children and immediately chopped them in tiny pieces.
“They’re coming from the walls!” Before anyone could relax Nathan shouted, “Watch the holes!”
Suddenly the whole group was surrounded by strange ‘chi-chi-chi’ sounds and one after another centipedes, similar to the first two began to rush out the foot wide holes in the walls.
This time no one was caught by surprise and the crowd happily began to vent their stress on the poor insects. The problem was that the centipedes kept on coming and the Sacred Order’s disciples were rather cramped in the dark tunnel. In addition, either it was the saliva or even the blood of centipedes that had a corrosive effect and while only few got injured, they immediately began to scream in agony.
“Move! Follow me!” Nathan shouted the moment he realized they would simply get overrun at some point, “Help the injured!”
While continuously chopping left and right, the crowd began to quickly move forward. Even Leo under the heavy Cleaver pretended to punch and kick from time to time even though he was out of breath right after, but at least he didn’t stand out too much.
Outside was a starry night and the moon threw long shadows of the people who one after another emerged from a large cave. With drawn weapons in their hands they inspected the darkness weary of another strange attack, but fortunately all they saw was a mountain wall behind them and outlines of more mountains somewhere in the distance.
When everyone finally got out in the open, there were less than thirty people left. Strangely enough the ones who survived had very slight injuries at most, but Marco and Ben who came out last indicated there was no one left.
“Why … the hell … I’m out … of breath!” One of the disciples at the Foundation establishment stage cursed and the rest realized they had similar problem.
With the adrenaline pumping through their veins no one noticed how tiring the fighting in this realm actually was, while Leo didn’t feel the difference. He was getting this tired when he first began to carry the Cleaver and the only things he could think of back then was food and sleep. Now that it doubled its weight he once again returned to that state and followed the crowd while cursing master Shaw, Cleaver, this realm and his own weakness.
The four group leaders were the only ones who appeared as if they were on a leisure walk, but in the dark others didn’t notice it. From all the people who were sent on this expedition only they knew beforehand there is almost no natural Qi in the environment and thus while fighting centipedes didn’t use any Qi techniques to not expend it.
While the view under the night sky was beautiful, no one was enjoying it. Realization that they were somewhere in mountains in the middle of nowhere upset everyone, even the team leaders. They ordered the crowd to move further away from the cave’s entrance and rest for the night, but meanwhile gathered for a short meeting.
Most of the disciples were still catching their breaths when the four already had split the spoils – the Qi recovery pills they had gathered from the fallen comrades. From this moment on they were going separate ways – not only because they didn’t trust each other, what was definitely the case, but also because they agreed on this back in the Sacred Order.
In the morning the four groups went on their separate ways with Leo’s one being the biggest consisting of eight people. Silvio and Marco had seven people in each group, including them, but Ben only had five underlings left.
The beginning of the expedition turned out to be much worse than anyone expected, even for the team leaders despite their relatively successful scheme at the start. Most of the disciples in the morning were as tired as last night, the morale was bad and if there was a water and food sources nearby, it would’ve been highly likely they would simply spend a year or two by the cave and then go home empty handed with an excuse they couldn’t find anything.
The hike on the mountainous terrain turned out to be quite hard for most, but especially torturous for Leo. The moment the first rune formation on Cleaver went out, he already knew it will be this bad and was morally prepared, but the rest of disciples found it strange they got tired so quickly despite their relatively decent cultivation base.
The only positive was that there was no lack of water – mountains had tens of small springs and brooks with cool and surprisingly sweet water. The lack of wildlife though forced everyone to march with empty stomachs the whole day.
There was a short incident in the afternoon when Nathan came over to Leo who was trailing behind the main group perspired all over.
“I think you should give me your Qi recovery pills so I can make sure you don’t loose them.” He said.
“Huff … huff …” Leo tried to catch his breath to answer and what he said almost made Nathan’s eyes pop out, “I’m sorry … huff … I left them … huff … back in the sect.”
Nathan stared at him in disbelief, but when Leo offered the team leader to search his pockets, the answer was, “You moron! No food for you today!”
Weirdly enough it turned out there was no food for anyone. When the sun set the group still hadn’t seen any beast or even a small tree or a bush to make a campfire. The only greenery was lush moss that covered most mountain slopes and the only wildlife were small insects who lived in that moss.