The snake as well as the five birds returned to their human forms, reactivating their Human Seals. They looked somewhat unusual as their clothing returned to exactly how it looked at the earlier part of the battle, yet their bodies had just as many wounds as they ended the battle with. Most of them looked a bit frazzled, but none of their injuries were critical, they were just like Wu Chang in that they couldn’t be killed without their cores being destroyed. Once the soul had a core to be housed within, the body could be killed, but they wouldn’t truly die. That said, once the body was dead only the core remained it would take a herculean effort to rebuild a body from scratch. Worse yet, without a body, the core was pretty helpless. If they weren’t, Cultivators would never be foolish enough to carry around the cores of Demonic Beasts and trade them like a form of currency.
Sage walked over to the five of them and double checked their condition before giving them a task, “Can you please recover all the equipment and treasure from the prisoners? I’ll send you back to your home when you’re finished.”
“Boss, can we come back out when we’re done instead?”
Sage nodded, “Fine. Alright, hurry up.” Then he sent the five of them into the Inner World to disarm and strip the possessions of the Jade Horde he’d left on an island. Just a few minutes had passed, but on the Inner World they’d already been there for hours. At that moment a massive force descended from the sky and they all felt their strength greatly restricted. Suffice it to say, when the five Tiankong children showed up, they had a quite easy time taking the weapons, armor, and storage treasures from all the members of the Jade Horde. Then, they disappeared once more.
For Sage, because of the time difference, he sent the five in and then pulled them out again a couple minutes later. Then they traveled over to join Ruanfu, at which point she realized how much time had passed and finally gave Wu Chang an end. For that end, she borrowed an object from Sage, a wooden ring with a large character on its face. The Peachwood Ring, a Soul Locker. A storage treasure used for souls. Ruanfu had spent many years learning a special technique from the Timeless Master’s Library that could pull the soul out of a core. Cores were used in the creation of many magical items, and there were various uses for cores with and without a soul. A violet light glimmered in her eyes as she brutally plucked out the core from Wu Changs abdomen and then drew out his soul with the light from her eyes. It was absorbed into the Peachwood Ring and Ruanfu tossed the ring back to Sage.
The many years spent plotting her revenge meant that she had been a bit more vindictive than usual, torturing Wu Chang for a few minutes and prying his soul from his core to prevent him from reincarnating. That said, once the deed was done, she returned to her normally intense and focused attitude. She even had a little half-smile on her face, reminding Sage of the old days when she wasn’t so affected by the loss of her father.
“Alright, let’s head in and take Lionheart Town. If anyone wants to resist, just knock them out. If you run into anyone strong, flee and call for help. You five take the second level fellows…”
Tujiu interrupted, “The who?”
Baozhai smacked Tujiu on the shoulder and nodded for Sage to continue. He smiled, “Ahem, Baozhai and Sonji know who. They will direct you. Ruanfu will be with me to meet the top tier in town. If you run into trouble back each other up or call Ruanfu.”
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With the double layers of barriers, everyone in Lionheart Town was already aware of the drastic events. The inner barrier actually blocked light and sound, so they were clueless to how things had progressed, but they knew there was a battle going on between the Jade Horde, their City Lord and some other foreign party. The guards on the wall figured it would be finished soon, but they grew uneasy when they were blocked inside with no view of the outside world. Inside the town, messages were flying through the air in great numbers. The weaker groups in town started to grow fearful, banding together and forming alliances to face both the enemy outside and the other groups in town. The stronger ones, like the Hatchet Gang, the Artful Life Alliance, and the Four Major Businesses were content to just relax and treat it merely as the city gates being shut for a while. No matter the result outside, they were unlikely to be affected much.
The inner barrier returned to a transparent state and a group of eight entered the city. The new addition was a handsome blond haired man with bright blue eyes and european facial features. His arm was hooked into Ruanfu’s and the two of them looked far more calm than usual as they walked. He drew gazes when he entered the town due to his unusual look, but the group didn’t care as they split up. The five younger siblings went separate ways, but Sage took the couple along with him. The blond man was Wanqian Lei, Ruanfu’s first boyfriend and a very rare and unusual bird. His human appearance had been the most stark indication of his rarity, given that most of the people here looked very eastern.
Sage had brought him out now to help Ruanfu calm down. He’d been worried about how intense she’d become and Wanqian Lei was the only way he’d found that could soothe her. It was out of this fear that Sage had refrained from sending Ruanfu out like the others to gather information on the rest of the Seven Stars. He only hoped that that smile she’d shown was a sign of things to come. Now that she’d finally got her revenge she should be able to relax. There were also other problems that could come along with a person finally getting their vengeance after many years, but they’d deal with those later.
The Hatchet Gang were quite accommodating, happy that Sage had chosen to meet with them first. Despite their name as a gang and reputation for vicious retaliation, Sage found them to be quite pleasant. In his eyes, they weren’t a deadly gang, they were the commoners going to extremes to protect themselves from oppression. Those in this world only knew the dog eat dog world of cultivators, but Sage knew better. He was definitely on the side of the underdog and not the entitled nobility that were cultivators. Sage didn’t pay them back for Wu Chang, he was first going to audit the prior City Lord before committing to anything. Even if he had the funds to pay it off now, he’d much rather make sure the debt was valid and even then he wasn’t going to make the foolish choice to waste most of his resources again.
The Four Major Businesses of the Dou Kingdom merely congratulated him upon his new position. Their agreements were with the City Lord’s Manor that ruled the town, and not the person who sat in that seat. While the Dou Kingdom was very loose in their oversight, there were some established rules that were created to keep order. Any important position faced challengers and they’d long solved most of the issues that came from people killing each other to take their jobs. The simplest of which being the rulers of towns, cities, provinces, and so on were simply holding a sort of public position. All of their rights, privileges and responsibilities were hence connected to the position and not whoever held it. They’d learned long ago it would be very destructive to just allow powerful people to kill a ruler, completely empty the city coffers, and then disappear. Now, the personal and public assets were divided. Certainly, there were large amounts of corruption, but for the most part it helped their territory stay stable. The Dou Royal family cared little for who was in charge, but only so long as they continued to receive their tributes.
Lastly, Sage visited the Artful Life Alliance. They were the most difficult with loans to the city, so Sage initially had a bad impression of them. Later, one of their members, the Shou Clan, was involved with Hei Bai, and he was pretty sure the groups of slavers were also related to the Artful Life Alliance. They were definitely on his list of possible enemies, but for now he wished to take over the city so he saved the conflict for later.
For the most part the meetings were quite simple. Sage and the others merely informed the groups in the city of the change in leadership and a date to arrive at the City Lord’s Manor for the official ceremony.