A Word With The Higher Ups

'Do whatever I want to? Kill whenever I want to?' Ciemnosc couldn't tell whether Grand Elder Jing Zhu was trying to order him, give him a hint, or warn him; he took all of them at the same time with that hidden message on the documents before signaling the one that he ended up signing himself up for - disobeying Valeria's words, uh oh.

The 2 missions to choose from weren’t as if changing one whole’s life, they were pretty simple in their own, small goals, and their final goal was to basically purge all other forces not belonging to the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect or that didn’t side with them. And they didn’t have some sort of name or code. After all, the battles for and in the Little Lake always ended badly in the end.

There was one which was the ‘easiest’ to manage; the one that Ciemnosc would basically need to cover ‘their’ entire side of the Little Lake facing towards them, which wasn’t little but to which they’ll be counting with the sect’s best in terms of speed, armor and even with attacking properties - vehicles that the sect can offer with their current resources and technological advancement.

This entire mission would have a lot of people positioned from the central zone of the Region around the Little Lake to even more than half of the Moribund Yearning Cult’s organizational territory down the south, where a few mountains barely allowed the passage of a good amount of qualities and gave them perfect view to the deepest level of the Little Lake.

With mountains covering them mostly and even a forest covering them a bit farther to the north from the southwest possible point to station fellow sect disciples, the one in charge of this mission would have to fight off and stop any enemy forces from coming close to the Little Lake’s Self-Mutilating Honores Sect’s ‘side’.

They weren’t to fight to the death though, at least not for those who had excellent views to the deepest levels of the Little Lake, since nobody in their right mind would just try to create any kind of structure leading to the dark, deepest blue of the Little Lake, as they even failed to build anything on the most shallow waters of the same for more than some time.

At each place that the fellow disciples would station on land, they would have to build an outpost of sorts at the very least, to defend and react as best as they ever could whenever an enemy attack was to be received.

But it wasn’t as if just a little over 10,000 fellow sect disciples would be all against millions from the other major organizations and their villein; for starters, the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect had their own villein, and they were many more for that matter. Also, due to their incredible, most hospitable, and less fought after territory’s conditions besides the west of the Region, the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect’s villain was also much stronger and bountiful.

And more than obviously, the sect wasn’t going to find itself fighting off millions of other major organizational people since both the northern and the southern borders have all been beginning a blockade of sorts, and even if fighting was ongoing but not fully at it; it was bound to be anytime soon and that was for sure.

As such, only some smallish forces would come out from the blockade of the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect. While the 4 major organizations would keep a much larger portion of their forces still at their organizational territories in order to fend off any invader instead. Or invaders, for that matter, which was anything but new for the Region to deal against.

So, it wasn’t the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect facing off with the advantage of numbers in their defended outposts, but they would even face smallish forces than even 1,000. That alone could give them lots of a much better understanding and it would be even easier despite the still ‘lacking’ amount of manpower to protect the land and keep their ‘territory’ around the Little Lake still left intact.

As for the other type of mission, the one that Ciemnosc chose to lead. It was a mission that not only also involved building. But that had the matter of ‘building’ given fully into the leader’s hands.

To pick this mission basically meant that Ciemnosc accepted becoming the most important target for the sect’s enemies and rivalry, jealousy, and disdain from the core disciples and acting elders of the sect. It was quite the shaky position for an inner sect disciple that wasn’t even at the Phrenic Realm, to begin with.

Ciemnosc, if nothing went wrong or turned stupid and he made his way to the Little Lake without any trouble nor complication or even change of plans, he would have under his command just a few more over 100,000 disciples - and that was just with the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect’s disciples and some acting elders; there were bound to be many more from the villein - other smaller organizations.

And so, Ciemnosc would also be left with the mission to build at least one port, to allow the entire sect to build its ships and finally install them with the weapons that have been designed for hundreds of years and were now finally being put to use after a long, long time of planning.

But building was only one of the many things to consider. Ciemnosc was to expect, in the near future, from several to even dozens of attacks daily from both the south and the north. As the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect would of course not send their entire forces to cover all of the terrains that were all over the Litte Lake, they could at most only scout out the movement from the enemies and not stop or fight them while they move towards ‘their’ side of the Little Lake.

These attacks were bound to be more brutal and constant than the disciples on the land would suffer and have to fend off against, but that the enemy would need at least about another month or 2 before such brutality could begin happening after they’ve accumulated enough people in the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect and could finally send out an offensive. Then the war would have started at last, and whether ‘their’ Little Lake was to belong to their sect all depended on this boy’s shoulders.

So not only was Ciemnosc to deal with all that, he would have to build powerful strongholds around the port so that it could be protected. It was the most important thing of this entire great mission. And outposts all around the territory that they could manage. Only then would a defensive line be created, but that was just mandatory and the beginning of it all.

“Which one did you choose?” Valeria asked after looking around. She looked back at Ciemnosc over her left shoulder, bright lights of the large buildings, stores, and some hotels lighting up the left side of her body. While her right side was only momentarily flashing with not even ‘bright’ lights by the quickly passing vehicles, but most of those whole were left behind instead.

“The one with the port,” Ciemnosc answered, his chin lightly jolting at her back as he looked up, his mouth and jaw looking like a puppet’s opening and closing behind his helmet. Valeria only rolled her eyes at him for disobeying her, slightly. Before returning her sight to the front and keeping silent.

“I’ll take that one too, then.” Her words came to his ears a little later, which only a cultivator, and one like Ciemnosc, could pick up with the insane speed that they were going with. She then kept silent as well. Since she knew of his liking of silence then she was more than glad of not forcing some chatter out of politeness from time to time.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

But after a while, seemingly receiving some sort of news, she spoke again, and this time with a tone that was rather worried but excited at the same time. “Ciemnosc, I’m sorry, but you will have to hurry up tonight and make sure your new bedroom is alright and then come out. I’m taking you out to… meet the Sect Master. It’s my Master’s orders.”

“!!?” Ciemnosc was surprised, alright. He didn’t think he would be meeting such important people right away even as his permission to choose any mission his ass wanted. He really didn’t believe her words right away. After a few seconds of pondering, his eyes looked at the back of her head, and towards that picked up that beautiful warm brown hair with her helmet and said. “Am I meeting them for something in specific? Is it anything important?”

As if sensing his eyes, she had already begun turning her head and twisting her neck to meet his darkest eyes with her black ones. She nodded in a ‘for sure’ manner and spoke slowly at a low volume. “You can bet for sure that that will be the case. Not only is Master and Sect Master going to be there, but even the Grand Ancestor and the Ancestor of the sect will also be there.”

“Oh, so I’m meeting those 2’s weirdos ‘parents’ then? Valeria, is this a way to tell me that it is fine if I impregnate you and then we are forced to marry tog-” Ciemnosc seriously said, his eyes twinkling slightly as he gazed ‘admiringly’ at her. Valeria rolled her eyes and turned around, her upper body snaking a tiny bit before exerting force on her bum, which immediately shut Ciemnosc the fuck up.

…vvruuumm~ vrum~.

“We are here. Go and take care of things. I’ll wait here,” Valeria said, taking her helmet off and brandishing some of that powerful warm brown hair against Ciemnosc’s face, swinging some strands of hair in the air before slashing and slamming against Ciemnosc, who didn’t mind because it smelled very nicely. And there was no sweat to make his face sticky out of nowhere.

“Mn,” Ciemnosc nodded, turned around, and began walking towards the Inner Sect Disciple enclave. In short, its gates were similar, only that a beautiful smallish garden was all around the entrance to the enclave. From the distance, and using his Spirit Sense to look inside it as much as he could, Ciemnosc could see the very same colors as before and even the same types of housing within it.

Only, it seemed as if each building only had 2 floors…for each disciple, it wasn’t just one floor in which the disciples would have for themselves. It looked as if there was a floor underground for those on the first floor. Then there was another room for those who would be allocated to the 2nd and 3rd floor of each motel-like design for these dormitories.

Ciemnosc even managed to catch sight of a house of the same properties distanced from anyone else. And in it, he felt the cultivation of the Spirit Gathering Realm living there. It could only be the core disciple in charge of a dormitory or with affairs of the enclave like Taldes is.

Besides that, he also found out that there was green inside the enclave all around, not in vegetation, not even in a small garden placed at the side for visual enjoyment; but simply and merely grass on the ground.

“...Identification…Token.” Arrived before the encasement, which was only a slightly larger window, and with a few more decorations within the room. Ciemnosc was spoken to directly as soon as he arrived before the taller and well decorated gates of the enclave. He was lazily speaking at this time of the day, noticing it was just another inner disciple, when he saw Ciemnosc’s face, stopped for some seconds and then said with a firm attitude.

‘Another core disciple.’ Ciemnosc thought, his feet moving towards the encasement and his Identification Token appealing in his right hand as his image became no less handsome under the dark shedding of the night on his body. He placed his Identification Token at the counter, and the other side didn’t grab it away. He only took something outside of Ciemnosc’s naked eye by leaning backwards and to the left before returning to the counter.

Ping~.

A small box with an empty center as if it had been broken, appeared in the gatekeeper’s hands, and he used both of such to hold it, before ‘eating’ away Ciemnosc’s Identification Token, whereas light blue lights were emitted off from its underside where the Token Identification had been eaten by the ‘incomplete’ box.

After just a few more seconds than that of 10 seconds in total, Ciemnosc heard a bell-like sound before the gatekeeper then nodded and took away the device before pushing the Identification Token towards Ciemnosc. Ciemnosc took his Identification Token back and looked at it, only to find that his status had changed and that he now even had privileges!

Small, really small, and almost negligible, but still.

“Thank you,” Ciemnosc thanked and gave his right cheek to the eyes of the gatekeeper, who then opened the gate to let Ciemnosc go in. The gatekeeper appeared thoughtful, and after seeing the gate almost fully opening up, he spoke to Ciemnosc in a clear tone but also like that of a responsible older brother. “Good luck, kid. But don’t underestimate ‘our’ people, and lower your guard, it wouldn’t be the first time a genius in something was murdered by our own fellas out of anything that you can imagine.”

“Yours is quite unique though. Nobody would have thought even the Sect Master would sign it up for you, and the Grand Elder was even the one to select this for you. Be careful.” With that, the gatekeeper let Ciemnosc on his way, supporting his right cheek with his right elbow on the counter and looking to the outside at the streets but not at Valeria’s spot; he was smart.

“Is it known already?” Ciemnosc asked without leaving, the gatekeeper nodded his head, and Ciemnosc softly jolted his head back; slowly. Ciemnosc then said with an indifferent facial countenance, his right profile still towards the gatekeeper. “I will be coming out in just a minute, keep that in mind, please.”

Step, step, step…

With that, Ciemnosc walked away, and following his Identification Token’s new information, he found his bedroom after a couple of minutes. There was indeed grass all around, and for each bedroom-wide building adjacent to one another in the dozens, Ciemnosc saw a couple of doors whereas there were, in all places, 3 floors above the ground level and one below it.

With his feet stepping on grass, which was rare in this mini-city of sorts, Ciemnosc comfortably made his way into his bedroom, which was noticeably larger; memories such as him walking through forests and desert for 2 months in total filling his head in dear remembrance.

Ciemnosc entered his bedroom, which was on the first floor and meant that he now had a little bit of an underground basement. He opened it to see a small, circular table almost right in front of the door’s view, several meters away and to the right with many tools surrounding it. While once he stepped in, with his naked eye, he was able to see a larger, rectangle shaped table with 6 chairs, 3 for each side.

And even farther away at the corner to the right from the door’s point of view, a small, semi-circular-oval shaped room was covered by bricks. Because, unlike the Outer Sect Disciple enclave, the Inner Sect Disciple enclave had their dormitories built with grayish bricks instead of any type and color of wood - only some buildings remained the same as those in the Outer Sect Disciple enclave, and the tiles at their roofs.

Almost immediately to his left, a long wall with a bit of a mini hallway made before entering the actual bedroom was decorated with some really bright lights. It was getting really dark already. But it almost looked as if the sun was illuminating the entire room outside the bedroom with practically almost no shade at all.

Walking through the small hallway, which didn’t have a door before stepping into it or before stepping into the bedroom. Ciemnosc then directly saw a pair of beds, one double sized and the other one single-type. Some lights of the same caliber as before were there on the left side of the smaller bed on the wall and on the right side of the larger bed on the floor.

There were 2 small boxes, probably to keep things, to the left of the larger bed. The small bed was to the left and almost against the wall on the opposite side of the entrance’s wall. while the larger bed was almost up against the entrance’s wall and to the right. Both were facing each other as Ciemnosc pouted, what would happen if he got a roommate now? He wouldn’t be having Valeria coming over anymore! That was horrible!!

‘Ah, whatever.’ Ciemnosc didn’t waste any more time, he appreciated the cozy environment before inscribing a few arrays on the smaller bed, he wasn’t foolish and gullible enough to believe he would need the larger bed. Besides, it would take more time off his early morning routine to wake up, eat some and then head out for the mountain-rock building, that was a definite no no.

After placing some concealing arrays, sound blocking from inside to the outside and vice versa, as well as laying over it another array for initial protection but mostly to alarm him anytime something happened. Ciemnosc then went all over the walls and items of the bedroom and the room itself, re-inscribing all around it after making two laps around the perimeter within the room.

He took 10 minutes of concentrated work on the array placed for the protection of the entire room before finishing with satisfaction showing on his face. And since he was now done with it. All he had to do now was to go back to Valeria and meet the higher ups of the sect… Only those higher ups knew what they would speak to him, sigh.

…