"Correct..."

Blade's face completely changed, going back to its usual countenance of indifference, his mentality was already at a very high stage, almost equal to mine, so pulling himself out of this wasn't actually that hard.

The only reason he acted differently just now like a normal person was that his recent discoveries were just too much as their complications ran too deep, besides, his mental energy was somewhat weary and exhausted from the thorough mind search that we had just employed.

Although it would have been much better if we found about this earlier, the current situation was still salvageable, there was still hope to thwart the demons' plans now that we had knowledge of it and its details!

"...It's not the time to think about the past, we are running out of time… What are your thoughts on how we should deal with the guests that are soon to come? Should we simply capture them?"

Although Blade wasn't here when the clone mentioned that some demon seeds were coming to this underground room to get me, he already knew this piece of information after the mind search. In reality, while the mind search contained a great amount of information and made it seem like a lot of time had passed, it only lasted for about 5 minutes, so the demon seeds didn't arrive yet, but they were bound to be here very soon.

How we deal with them was naturally a crucial matter to consider, after all, simply killing or capturing them was bound to point out for the rest that something has gone amiss…

Naturally, that was why Blade was asking for my opinion, while I was indeed weaker than him, the whole event that just took place was proof that I was qualified enough to judge the situation.

"Killing them is indeed not an option, but capturing them is also not that ideal, that would definitely alert the demons to what happened and they may even make a change to their plans, rendering half of the information we obtained useless…"

"I also agree that keeping everything as it is would be to our advantage, but Crane's clone is already out of service, it wouldn't have even cooperated if we kept the clone sane, I do know some disguise arts but it can't imitate this strange energy that this clone had, not to mention that their target is you…"

"I think I do have a way of deceiving them… if senior Blade trusts me then you can leave this to me and head out to catch the original traitor before he catches wind of what happened."

While the original Crane wouldn't find out what happened to his clone immediately, he was bound to find out sooner or later now that the mentality of the clone was completely screwed, detaining him before he finds out was also necessary to keep our cover.

"Very well, if you believe you can take care of this matter, then I shall leave it in your hands, I do have a score to settle after all…"

After staring at me for a few seconds and throwing one last glance at the drooling clone, Blade finally nodded before stepping into the hidden stairs that lead outside of the hidden room…

'Good, I should start getting ready…'

Though I was unsure if the reason behind Blade approving and leaving quickly was his trust in me or his desire to exact revenge on Crane quickly, I didn't really care about it for now since I had to deal with this current ordeal quickly before the guests arrived…

"Long, time to do work again…"

`~~`~~`~~`

As the sun shone on the towering trees of the Great Elemental Forest, two black-robed figures made their way around them as they seemed to be in quite a hurry…

"Sigh… why were we the one sent for this stupid errand…?"

One of the two figures complained but his partner's only answer was gesturing for him to keep his silence, there was simply no room for being careless...

After all, even though his partner described it as a stupid errand, it was a mission of great importance that was given out by the orders of the commander himself! Not to mention that they were currently very close to the territory of the Elemental Blade Sect, it would be very troublesome if they were discovered.

Of course, that didn't mean that he disagreed with his partner's opinion, they were both actually grand elders of the Supreme Metal Sect, but they were sent for a simple captive retrieval mission, it was basically both an overkill and a great waste of time…

However, since the commander had sent his orders, they couldn't disobey unless they wanted to lose all the favor they spent a couple of years' efforts to accumulate.

"It should be here…"

As the two figures stopped before a certain thick tree, the silent one whispered in a low voice as he pressed his hand on a certain part of its bark.

Tsk.

Although the part he put his hand on didn't move a faint click could be heard before a big part of the bark on the tree's opposite side collapsed as a set of stairs that went down was revealed.

"Let's go, remember to show some respect, that person's position is only inferior to that of the commander…"

"I know, I know. Let's just get done with this…"

As they descended the rotating stairs, the silent one removed his hood, revealing a big scar that went through one of his eyes as he checked the large bag hanged on his back, the one that they were supposed to transfer the captive in before he put it back, he could already see the light in the room they were headed to.

However, as he stepped down the last step of the stair, the first thing his eyes laid on was… a guy with blue hair and rolled eyes that was laid motionlessly on a chair… it was obvious just from the looks that he was dead.

"Deputy Black Fire, this is…?"

Suppressing his surprise, the guy with the scar could only direct his healthy eye towards the black-bearded man standing by the corpse's side before asking...