V4C13: First Arrivals

The next day, most people awoke satisfied. They were also not being barraged by the constant, unending sounds of sex, which was also a positive to those that wanted to get on with actual work.

One person awoke with the blatant inability to sit down in the near future, so she stood around whenever it was necessary, and while great care had clearly been taken to help her clean up, it was hard to avoid a number of the signs of her activity the day before, especially since they had all clearly heard her moaning in ecstasy with an impressive volume.

Her partner, on the other hand, only to the surprise of Huang Yu Di as the others knew at least about her immense stamina, while some also knew of how calm she was able to remain in so many instances, appeared to be as clean and as calm as anyone that had spent a night in a usual camp. Even her hair was in a perfect state, as if it had been tidied the moment before anyone laid their eyes upon it. That also didn’t surprise most people from the prison realm, but the one that was meant to be under their protection, at least for now, looked upon her once again and noticed something else.

The previous day, he had been too afraid of her, and too focused on the features below her face, to actually pay much attention to it, but now that he looked at her again a little more calmly, he saw that she actually looked rather beautiful.

No, not just beautiful, but absolutely gorgeous, as if her every feature was the absolute peak of what her facial type could possibly be. Even with everything about her that did not fit his particular interests, as well as the aggressive manner in which she so often behaved both in and out of the bed, or so it appeared, he found himself taking quite a liking to her, although he was able to stop himself from wanting to get to know her better.

In his eyes, such a thing was either a truly fortunate coincidence, or a plot of some kind, and if it was the former, he was sure that he could try his luck later to see if she had any similar interest in him.

If it was not, then the plot would truly be devious in order to deceive his sturdy mind and twist his own preferences against himself, and so it would be prudent to stay as far away from her and these Hunters of the Cosmos as he possibly could. If they were just playing nice for a little bit to earn his trust and then stab him in the back, it would truly be a failure on his part to simply go along with it.

‘I had thought he might have been odd at first, but this confirms it. Even if he isn’t outright delusional, he is certainly very paranoid,’ Wei Yi noted as she viewed his memories at the same time as performing some basic exercise in the sandstorm to keep up appearances, ‘To be entirely fair to him, he is right that not everything is at it seems, but I had certainly never done anything to make myself look more attractive in front of anyone… Then again, the Dao of Lust… Still in the Minor Achievement stage, good. Even if I don’t use it intentionally, it might very well be influencing the people around me to an extent.’

She didn’t think that she was controlling the minds of those she spoke with, as that was too difficult a task to accomplish unconsciously even for the mighty Ascendant that she was, but it was likely that the Dao nudged things along to cause those who had previously not shown interest in women to suddenly discover them, or for some to develop a longing for her more quickly than they might have done without the Dao’s influence.

As a great enemy of mind control of all forms, she wasn’t entirely sure to feel about this.

On one hand, as this was a mere nudge, one that could have occurred just as easily by accident if Wei Yi or the person it was affecting had taken some particular action, or did it in a particular way, and did not require any influence to be placed onto the mind.

On the other hand, this very same kind of nudging was what had caused her to dislike Yi Jiazhi, even if she was later forced to work alongside him in order to get out of the Kong Holy Grounds with even a single person surviving rather than being devoured by the void and the warped space that was being generated at an incredible pace.

Neither one was the full picture, and neither one suited her entirely, but it was rather difficult to choose any stance without partially ignoring at least one other. For now, all that she knew was that she did not possess full control over the Dao of Lust, nor any other Dao that might be influencing her or others like this, although she thought that she could soon obtain the Full Success stage of the Dao of Law and then see what that would bring her. At that point, perhaps it could grant her additional influence over the other Dao, or perhaps it could somehow assist her with arriving at a conclusion that she could agree with in full without any argument against it.

‘Still, what a kind guy Yi Jiazhi was. He had pointed out so early on that I had no feelings in my mind for men, and me, the naïve kid that I was back then, didn’t take the hint for quite some time. That naturally doesn’t make up for any other thing he had done, but… he’s dead anyway, I guess…’

She did not like thinking back to what happened in the Kong Holy Grounds, nor in that district in general, even if she had gotten better at it than she had been when it first happened, but it had been a truly terrible tragedy for the Yi family. So many people were lost, and the only survivor was quickly hunted down and forced into the Kong Prison Realm before they could learn anything from her. Seeing as she never ended up reporting to the guards or the family, it was possible that they never even understood what had occurred.

Perhaps some would assume that the only survivor had played a part in it, and that perhaps she had killed some of the people there and led to the collapse of the mission, or that everyone within had decided to flee and she was chosen to report the false information of their deaths for some reason, but that hardly mattered to her now.

When she does return to that district, she would not do so with the same name, and even if some of the people there recognised her, she would not respond to the old name. The Yi family had not cared for her then and failed to protect her when only two of the third generation of the Great Yi appeared on their doorstep demanding her head. If any of the upper members of the family truly wished to stop her death or imprisonment, whatever the Greats had wished to do at first, they could have interfered and stopped it, and might have even gotten away with it if the Great Yi Family didn’t think that it would be a good idea to stir the Yi family too much.

However, even without a full comprehension of the potential danger of the Great Family, or perhaps in part due to it, they did not act, and left alone when she had needed them most.

Now, they could whatever they wished until she had some authority over the continent, after which point there would be a stern interrogation involving whoever had been able to step in and yet refused to do so.

She glanced into the distance, ‘Now, I wonder where the first group will be by now…’

Judging by Huang Yu Di’s speed as a second realm person with average techniques and little training, anyone with more experience would be able to get to a place closer to the outer edge of the sandstorm in a short period of time, and if they had set out at a similar time as he had by stopped for supplies and a bit of rest or preparation, they would be nearing this fake camp within the day, possibly getting here near the night depending on their speed and wariness.

Ideally, they would arrive nearer to the day so that nobody had to rise from their sleep to deal with random intruders, and so that none of them had the chance to come up with the plan of sneaking in and killing them or robbing them before asking questions. They wouldn’t have anything valuable to steal, and Wei Yi never slept in the first place, so they wouldn’t’ be able to catch them off guard, but to need to respond to a bunch of people already interested in killing you while being forced to retaliate wasn’t the best possible outcome.

At best, they would distrust them for the rest of their time together, and at worst they would conclude that they were the people they were searching for due to their actions and try to attack them nonetheless.

Naturally, given everything that they had done to put the camp together and prepare, that wouldn’t be ideal. While she was pretending to exercise within the sands, which wouldn’t do her any good in reality, she was also looking about for opportune spots to plant some kind of evidence that other groups could use to find them, perhaps even including something to completely ward off suspicion within it.

First impressions often made a big difference, as she could attest to with Yi Jiazhi and a number of other people and entities, so to set them into the right mind-set from the start would be ideal.

‘The only issue is that I have no idea what everyone else thinks they know of Primordial Cosmos, Primordial Deity worshipers, or what they believe to make a group suspicious. If they find mostly obvious trails suggesting a particular outcome, would they consider it to be the truth, or a ruse planted specifically to fool them, and what would they then conclude from it?’ she asked herself, finding quickly that she was unable to replicate the exact thought process that an average person would have, ‘I hope they don’t make it unnecessarily difficult, regardless of what I do.’

Since she and the Ascendant’s Arbiters were fighting for Yi City, its restoration and freedom from the Greats, she naturally didn’t want to randomly slaughter those who inconvenience her, nor did she want to attract unnecessary attention as it could easily be used against them, but avoiding those things was much more easily said than done. Had they all come here as illusions, forming any kind of impression and suffering any kind of damage or attack would be entirely fine, but no planar construct or manifestation of spiritual will could condense anything that would fool everyone within the fifth realm or above, no matter what methods they used.

Even if there was something, it would likely require very specific conditions and circumstances to perform at their realms, which would likely create more suspicion than having no such preparations at all.

Essentially, they once again needed to have more power, and they lacked it or the ability to get it quickly, so they had to make do with what they had. Depending on the people that find them, and how much interest they have in all of their actions, everything could go perfectly smoothly, and might not even have required them to put as much effort in. The only group that would be almost certain to understand things right away would be the one called the Hunters of the Cosmos.

That did not appear to be something that actually existed, fortunately enough, or else…

‘Someone’s coming,’ Wei Yi noticed all of a sudden, quickly passing the message along to Great Dark so that he could be prepared for any potential questions, ‘Not sure who yet. The sand is too dense.’

‘Got it… If they are someone that might be hard to deal with… we should prepare for battle right away, appearances be damned,’ he used the spiritual will thread to get back to her, as his range of spiritual perception wouldn’t be quite enough within the sands, ‘If that happens… so long as we finish them off quickly enough… we can plant some of your planar energy on them.’

‘Could work, although someone might be able to link my energy to me through the stabilisation of the Monolith and the core.’

She broke their link right away then, as it just wouldn’t do to have someone so seemingly dull converse with the leader through spiritual will, although it would be unlikely to be something that the vast majority could observe no matter how much effort they put in.

Regardless of all that, the policy that needed to be adhered to before they had enough strength to make it through regardless of any potential failures, and even then, was that taking unnecessary risks was never a good idea unless they could pay off immensely. At that point, they would hardly be unnecessary, so the absolute statement would no longer apply, which would render this entire tangent as having been entirely pointless in the first place.

So that she would not seem suspicious, she got back to her exercise routine, stopping only when a more normal person would have been able to tell that someone was coming towards her.

Turning towards them, she kept her guard up and assumed a pose that would allow her either to defend herself, attack, or even flee if the situation demanded it, she did not immediately call out to the person. That wouldn’t do for someone that wanted to fight everyone, nor would it make sense to bring attention to herself if she had not yet been seen.

The person got closer – a man, as she was able to tell at that point – and nearly cut the gap between them in half before he demonstrated any sign of recognition. He paused, squinted, as if that would give him a better view through the sand, then proceeded onwards a little more quickly.

Once he got far enough that his voice would reach her through the sands, he called out.

“Announce yourself, woman!”

‘He was able to tell that I’m female despite the distance? Didn’t realise that my figure implied that, but whatever,’ Wei Yi noticed, already being able to tell that this man was not entirely simple despite his third realm cultivation, which she was able to see now that he had gotten even closer, “My name is Wei Yi, from the Hunters of the Cosmos. Who are you?”

“Hunters of the-” he repeated before a stray mass of sand entered his mouth and forced him to spit it out. In that time, he got close enough for the two of them to be able to distinguish one another clearly, and that revealed a few curious details about him that she had not noticed before this, and that also exposed something that nearly caused her eyes to widen. As per the typical fashion of the north, he wore little but the most vital pieces of armour, all of which were made from a pure black metal.

It wasn’t just dark, as that would not be unusual with the vast variety of metals and alloys in the world, but what he had on him was entirely black, as if it didn’t just have no light but also absorbed the light from around it, creating a rather curious effect.

Furthermore, on his back was a weapon, the scabbard being held by a strip of cloth tied around his chest that appeared to be loose and feeble enough to allow it to be torn off at any moment and be put to use if necessary. She couldn’t see much of it with her own eyes, sand or no sand, but her spiritual perception told her that it was likely made either with the same material or the same process as the pieces of armour, so it would be just as dark and consuming as the armour, if not more so due to the greater degree of work that went into it from what she was able to tell.

“Ahem. Hunters of the Cosmos? You are? Where’s the squad leader at?” he asked with strange familiarity.

‘Wait a minute, this guy… A random fucking name got me this? The fuck are heavens at this time? If I next claim to be from the Great Chen Family, will I come across one of them just striding casually into camp to confirm that we’re doing everything according to regulation?’ Wei Yi questioned internally, but on the outside, she simply pointed behind herself, “Thereabouts somewhere.”

He raised an eyebrow at the carelessness with which she spoke but did not question it.

Instead, the man headed directly in the direction pointed out by her, and after walking for a dozen more steps than he absolutely needed to, he ended up within the barrier of the camp, where he raised his other eyebrow as he saw the state of things.

After a little while, the amount that someone curious but not particularly so would spend before following the subject of their interest, she followed him, and was able to confirm that even if he was not from the real Hunters, which she hadn’t even known existed prior to this, he had to have some familiarity with how they typically did things. Their camp, while not perfect, was laid out sufficiently well, so he would need to have some very high standards to be disapproving of things just for the sake of it.

As such, she sent over a spiritual will thread that she severed before it even connected, carrying only a short message.

‘Step outside in a natural manner. It might be the real Hunter of the Cosmos.’

Even without being in Great Dark’s tent herself, she could almost feel the confusion emanating from him, one that she shared in its entirety. It has to be mentioned that the world was a large place, with two full continents that were apparently not that small when compared to the greater number of continents in the other world the demons all come from, but the number of names that were yet to be used, or that no longer saw use, was incredibly large.

If a series of words were to be strung together entirely at random, the chances of them being in use as the name of some group were really low. The Wind Chasers Alliance? Didn’t exist. Poachers of the Purple Pen? Those did, but that was a very specific story relating to the year 666,666. The Pursuing Pursuers of the Pursuit of Parity? Those did as well, but that was an even more specific story.

In a way, the more uncommon names saw more use, so to see something as the mundane as the Hunters of the Cosmos, with the only outstanding part being the last word, for few hunters generally attempted to hunt either the sky itself, or the countless stars that lay within it at night, or even the Primordial Deity itself. She was almost tempted to ask whether the man had come up with the idea himself a short time ago and was now pretending to know what was going on just to fit in with what he thought to be the real Hunters of the Cosmos.

That theory, as amusing as it would be if it was true, did not seem likely, so she didn’t want to approach him like that until she could see some evidence that actually pointed at something suspicious.

He came to the tent in which Great Dark stayed almost at the same time as the twin of Great Earth was attempting to exit in a natural manner, the two quickly catching one another’s eyes. As the supposed leader of the group in the desert, Great Dark had been placed within the largest and most prominent tent, although Wei Yi’s was smaller by only a small amount height-wise, and so a quick check around himself allowed the man to tell that this would be the leader.

“Your squad is also in such a terrible state? Was it as bad on your end as it was on ours?”

The question, sudden as it was, outright confirmed his status, making it some degree easier for Great Dark to play along than if he had no clue on him and needed to stride carefully as to not be too overt in either direction of the conversation.

“It was terrible,” he agreed promptly, stepping closer, “We’ve lost most of our supplies, so we had no choice but to keep looking with what we had.”

“Yeah, same on my end. We had so many people in our squad, but they were all jumped by some pale bitch with an umbrella. Everyone scattered right away, and I hadn’t seen anyone else since then. You’re the first ones,” the man confirmed, almost eagerly providing more information to help Great Dark fill in the gaps, “I’m Long Wuchu, and I managed to keep my things. What about you, and those people?”

He looked at some of the other Ascendant’s Arbiters that emerged from their tents to check out this new arrival to their camp, and rather than being unimpressed he now seemed sympathetic to the rags that they were wearing, which they were in comparison to the light-consuming armour that he had.

“My name is Da Heian. These people, well…”

“They’re recruits you picked up to bolster the ranks, aren’t they? I understand the pain of having such stragglers join your side… Each moment spent besides them is utterly terrible…” Long Wu spoke as someone with far more experience in the matter than he would have liked to have, “I’m guessing that most of them weren’t even remotely normal, and were just going north because they liked the sound of taking a look at some stars, right?”

“You…” Great Dark hesitated for only a moment before readily nodding his head, “You understand me so well, Brother Wuchu. It is good to finally meet with a like-minded soul.”

“Same to you, Brother Heian,” they got closer together until the true Hunter of the Cosmos wrapped his arm around Great Dark and pulled him to his side, “This is your tent, right? Let’s go inside. I have managed to bring a single bottle of wine, but it should do… Oh, how much we must have suffered…”

“I-Indeed…”

He was pulled into the tent, with the flap shutting on its own from a gust of wind, while the others were left to stand around and gaze at one another questioningly.

Rather, that was what they did until they realised that they could speak about as freely as they wanted to since that would be exactly what someone treating them as inept and strange people would likely expect from them, and would thus ignore even some of the weirder remarks as they would all be fitting for them.

“Do you think the two of them are going to… You know, like Wei Yi and Ru Chao?”

“Why did you have to put that image in my head? No, only those two can get away with something like that,” someone else said, shaking their head vigorously as if to get rid of the image, “They’ll probably get drunk then be all whiny to one another.”

“I think they really might, though-”

“If you have a fetish, don’t go shoving it on other people! Keep it to yourself and if they do go at it, then you can enjoy it on your own. Alright?”

“Tsk. Fine…”

While they were conversing, Wei Yi drifted towards Chao Ru, who similarly drifted towards her, resulting in them getting back together rather quickly. The latter was still visibly flushed from the previous day of effort, but on the positive side, she had been gleaming ever since then, as if to signal to the world how much she had enjoyed their activity together.

“What do you think?” Chao Ru asked first, “Actually, what has even happened just now?”

“That Long Wuchu is a member of the Hunters of the Cosmos – a proper one. He got away from a strange ambush like the boss did, but he did so with a bottle of wine that these two are now going to drink. Are you doing okay, by the way?” she said.

“Just fine. It just takes a while to get used to, for me and my body. In a few days, you wouldn’t even be able to tell until you decide to do it again.”

Wei Yi smiled, “That depends. Are you going to finally admit that you enjoyed it, or do I need to give it to you hard again? Or, is it that it is exactly what you want, so you keep passively denying it like that? Come on, you can tell me… I promise that I’ll just give you what you want, the moment that you want it, just how you like it…”

“Guys, they’re flirting again.”

“Flirting?” Wei Yi responded incredulously, “You lot haven’t seen flirting. Here, we’re just talking about how we’ll fuck next. Actual flirting would be much steamier and romantic than this.”

“Sure, it would be… By the way, would you be interested in me?”

Wei Yi promptly ignored that girl, cute as she was, and focused instead on the conversation that was occurring within the tent, as it was far more significant to her than the chatter outside. After all, she would be the one that would need to think up of a correct response to the supposedly real Hunter of the Cosmos, while the talk here could be had with anyone at any time, so long as she didn’t just dismiss them entirely while most of her focus was elsewhere.

The practise of the Red Phantom Flood, which did not seem to have any links of the Red Shaper’s Grasp and seemed to be titled as such mostly due to the colour of the entities that it would usually create when powered normally with killing intent, had tempered her ability to perform multiple tasks at once, although the more she did so, the more unbearable and painful that ability seemed to become. Eventually, she was going to need to modify it to not outright cut the mind into separate pieces but instead to give her less exact control over the phantoms it creates, but before then, she could still put the skills she obtained from it for multitasking and general complex tasks.

Within the tent, Long Wuchu removed the sword from his back and put it against one of the wooden stools, sitting down on it as he took a bag that had been tied to his belt and opened it.

“Here’s the wine I mentioned. It’s actual authamite, and not just that watered down crap they sell over to the south,” he said, showing off the bottle proudly, “Is there a place to put this, or are we just going to need to drink it here?”

“I have another stool,” Great Dark answered.

He only managed to bring it near to them before the man slammed down the bottle – carefully, slowing down at the last moment to not damage it – onto it and sighed, raising his head and stretching his neck before he looked back down. Fortunately, as a sixth realm cultivator, even if he lacked the physical strength of some of the warriors from the prison realm and the Chao District, he was able to quickly strengthen his arms and hands to keep a tight grip on the stool, which he then placed down on the cloth floor between them.

“Sorry, I’m just too tired and thirsty. The group I was with had been bringing a lot of food and water with us, but that pale bitch took all of that down. All of the water was spilled, and I think she snuck away with some of the food,” he explained, “What about you? Which group were you with?”

“I…”

Before Great Dark could say a thing, Long Wuchu opened up the bottle loudly and poured a small amount into the cap of the bottle.

“Don’t worry, you needn’t say anything. I didn’t get to see that woman’s exact realm, but it felt like even someone in the seventh wouldn’t be able to do anything against her – not that I’d know of course… Here, you can have the first taste of it, Brother Heian.”

Great Dark accepted the cap and was informed almost immediately by Wei Yi that she was unable to detect any traces of poison or other strange substances within the wine, as well as that she was very unlikely to even be able to overlook anything below six stars due to her recent experiences, as well as her increased cultivation realm.

For that reason, he didn’t hesitate to drink it, swallowing the wine in one go and feeling it descend down his body, the taste of alcohol being significantly more prominent that usual.

“You weren’t joking about it not being watered down…”

“I’d never lie to a brother in arms, or a brother in wine!” Long Wuchu exclaimed, pouring a small amount for himself and swallowing it in a far more experienced manner, “You know, I think we should just relax. If the higher ups didn’t die to her, they’ll probably come and get us with new supplies, sooner or later. For now, let’s just get drunk, share tales of our youth, and forget about all of the shit that’s happened recently. Alright?”

Given that neither Great Dark nor Wei Yi, who could technically advise him at any moment, wanted to put more effort into persuading him than they had to, they had no reason to disagree with his proposal.