~~~

Feng Zhi allows them to enjoy the Bright Phantasm Sect’s hospitality for exactly one day. Liu Jin supposes it is his way of being kind. Unfortunately, it is not Liu Jin’s idea of a pleasant time. For one day, they are constantly fawned over by the servants, their every whim treated as an absolute command.

Liu Jin made exactly one offhand comment about the hot humidity of Night Phantasm City. That was enough for a servant to show up at this side moments later with a large, feathered fan. Since telling him there was no need for such things would have been too embarrassing for the man, Liu Jin endured it in dignified silence. At least, he’d like to think it was dignified. The way Lu Mei’s eyes shone with mirth throughout the whole thing told him she knew exactly how uncomfortable he had been.

It is only late at night when Feng Zhi gathers them in a room, away from servants and disciples. Only Patriarch Wong and Wong Shou are with him. That is when he explains the situation to them. It is just as Wong Shou told Liu Jin the other night. There have been several attacks on areas where herbs and fruits precious to the Bright Phantasm Sect are located.

“Couldn’t it have been a Spirit Beast?” Bei Hong asks the obvious question. The Bright Phantasm Sect harvests resources from the Night Forest. If some areas of the forest have been damaged, assuming it is the result of one or more rowdy Spirit Beasts is only natural.

“Unlikely.” Feng Zhi shakes his head. They are all seated around a large map of the area. Feng Zhi taps the attacked areas. “The attacks were far too methodical for it to have been a Spirit Beast. If it is a Spirit Beast doing this, it is one with a high degree of intelligence. However, the most likely alternative is that we are dealing with a faction that has decided to destroy the forest’s resources as opposed to stealing them.”

Patriarch Wong’s frown is easy to see, even in the poorly-lit room. Feng Zhi’s words just now have probably been on his mind for a while.

Destroying over stealing.

No wonder Patriarch Wong decided to ask Feng Zhi for help instead of trying to hide this matter for the duration of their stay. Suppose these people really aren't interested in taking the resources the Bright Phantasm Sect controls for themselves. That would mean their goal is not to strengthen themselves but to weaken the Bright Phantasm Sect.

"Our disciples have been patrolling the Night Forest with increasing frequency. However, I regret to say they haven’t had any luck finding the culprits," Patriarch Wong says.

"There is no shame in that," Feng Zhi says. "The Bright Phantasm Sect's disciples are spread too thin right now. You simply lack the numbers to protect and search."

Feng Zhi’s gold eyes seem to glow as he looks at them.

“You shall make up for the difference.”

~~~

“We haven’t seen a glimpse of them.”

Liu Jin looks at Bei Hong out of the corner of his eye. The two are moving through the forest at a moderate pace. The dense blue mists make it hard to see more than a few feet away. If they move too fast, they might end up running into a tree.

“Surely, you did not think it would be easy?” Liu Jin asks while inwardly thinking he has had a conversation with Huang Shing that went a bit like this during the Selection Exam. No wonder the two became friends so quickly.

They are equally impatient.

“Putting the mists aside, we have yet to reach our destination.”

Liu Jin holds up his left hand. In it, there is a wooden compass with a purple needle pointing north. It had been given to them by Patriarch Wong. A Mist Pointer, he called it.

The mists of the Night Forest are not just dense. They create illusions that could and did confuse travelers. That is why Mist Pointers were created. The metal with which the needles are made works similarly to the petals of a Lovers Crimson Blossom. It will naturally point at itself. This allows the Bright Phantasm Sect to mark specific spots in the forest for ease of navigation.

The Mist Pointer in Liu Jin’s possession is leading them to one of the attacked areas. They are to investigate it while Feng Zhi handles a few diplomatic matters within the city. Lu Mei and Huang Shing are serving as his escorts, a situation that is undoubtedly not to Huang Shing’s liking. He had volunteered to go to the forest as well, but Feng Zhi had shot down his suggestion.

“There is no need to send more than two people. Bei Hong is the strongest of the four of you, and that one’s work in the Apothecary means he should be familiar with most of the plants in the Night Forest. They are the best combination for this.”

Feng Zhi’s reasoning, much to Huang Shing’s misfortune, was completely sound. The Young Master of the Eternal Flame Clan had not been lying when he said he had gone over their records.

It is, to be honest, slightly worrying he knew so much about them.

“I know we are not in the exact location,” Bei Hong says. “However, we should have already seen signs of the damage they did! They kept talking about areas of the forest being destroyed and harvests being ruined. Think of our fight in the Summer Forest. We wrecked that area. You would have easily been able to see that level of damage from above, but we saw nothing of the sort while we flew over the forest.”

“Fair point,” Liu Jin admits. “It is possible the mists concealed the damage or maybe....”

Liu Jin trails off as he sees the needle suddenly point south.

“Is something wrong?” Bei Hon asks, stopping as Liu Jin slows down.

“We... passed it over?” Liu Jin half-states, half-asks.

“That’s not possible.” Bei Hong waves his arm around. “There is nothing here that’s even remotely destroyed. Did they give us a faulty pointer or...” He frowns. “An illusion?”

Liu Jin thinks about it a while, his Qi reaching out to the area around him.

“No.” He shakes his head. “At least, I don’t think so, so maybe…”

He leaps back a few yards.

The needle goes back to pointing north—the corner of Liu Jin’s mouth twitches.

“Imagine that.” He holds up the Mist Pointer so Bei Hong can see it. “This is it. This is the area.”

Bei Hong takes a moment to look around. The lush trees. The chirping birds. The small mammals squirreling over the area, safely hidden by the mists.

“This?” He spreads out his arms. “This is the damaged area? There’s nothing here! What damage? What attack? What foes? The wind? Are we meant to fight the wind?”

Liu Jin is about to reply when he catches sight of something, a small blackened thing lying on the ground. He immediately jumps over there and realizes it is not just one. There are many like it scattered all over.

“Here.” Liu Jin tosses one to Bei Hong. “That’s a fruit. Or rather, it was a fruit. Decadent Night Plum.”

Decadent Night Plum. A fruit that could only grow in areas with relatively high-concentrations of Yin Qi. It acts as a mild hallucinogen, meaning most wildlife avoids it. Only humans had the knowledge necessary to make full use of its properties.

“It’s burned,” Bei Hong says, squeezing the fruit into ashes. His gaze now takes a more thorough look at their surroundings. The branches, which had looked perfectly fine at first glance, now reveal their imperfections to him. The way they’ve been broken and twisted, their fruits ripped away and rendered useless. “So this is what they meant.”

Destroyed. The word had not been used lightly. This year’s harvest of Decadent Night Plums is a lost cause. Whoever had done this had methodically rendered every single one of them useless. Certainly, the trees are still intact. In time, they’d give fruit again, but that is the problem. It would take time.

No wonder they had not even considered it could be the job of a Spirit Beast.

“If this has been happening in other areas of the forest, I can see why the Bright Phantasm Sect is worried.”

Bei Hong snorts. “They’re worried because they are incompetent. If they had kept better watch over their territory, this wouldn’t have happened. They have gotten too used to us protecting them.”

“You may be right,” Liu Jin admits, still examining the burnt fruit. “Still, it is best not to say something like that where someone could hear.”

Bei Hong snorts. “I should take offense to that, but it is true I have never cared for such things. Diplomatic training was always a waste of time. Still, what do you think did this? They are burned, so I want to say it is a fire technique, but...”

“There is something weird about it,” Liu Jin admits, nodding. “I don’t feel any lingering Yang Qi.”

If it had been a fire technique, then Yang Qi would have been a natural component to it. However, Liu Jin feels nothing of the sort. More importantly, why not just use fire to burn everything indiscriminately? Burning the fruits one by one is the same as announcing this is a deliberate attack.

“It could be the forest,” Bei Hong points out. “The balance here is lopsided, so any Yang Qi would naturally disperse in search for balance. Just as water automatically seeks the lowest point, Yin and Yang naturally seek… what?”

The question is aimed at Liu Jin, who is staring at Bei Hong with mute shock.

“I am sorry. I was just… surprised. That is all.”

“Just because I prefer to communicate with my fists does not mean I don’t know things. The Golden Fist style is Yang-based. I’d be a complete embarrassment if I didn’t know this much,” Bei Hong points out dryly. “By the way, is it twelve or thirteen? I can’t quite tell.”

“Fifteen,” Liu Jin replies.

“Really?”

“They are doing a good job hiding, and the mists make finding them difficult, but I feel confident in my assessment.”

“I see.” Bei Hong nods and then puts his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice before yelling. “You hear that, trash!? We know you are there! You might as well come out now!”

Silence follows Bei Hong’s words, unnatural silence, seconds in which the Night Forest goes almost perfectly still. Even the smallest of mice dares not make a sound.

They appear.

On the ground. On the trees and branches. Over a dozen people armed with daggers and dressed in dark, hooded robes appear all around them. Their gender, ages, and even their faces. All are concealed. It is as if their clothes cast unnatural shadows over them.

Bei Hong cracks his knuckles.

“I count twenty. It seems both of us were wrong.” There is not the slightest worry or hesitation in his voice. It is not that he is overconfident. His eyes have already gone over every single one of their foes. He has taken in their measure and found them wanting.

“That does seem to be the case,” Liu Jin says, taking out his spear. Like Bei Hong, he is not particularly worried.

These people are all in the Nascent Realm. Not even in the late stages of it but rather in the mid-stages. Nothing Liu Jin can sense marks these people as a threat to him. That they are human and clearly trained in combat means they will be more challenging to fight than a Spirit Beast of the same level, but that is all there is to them.

And yet…

He had sensed fifteen of them.

Liu Jin does not mean to boast, but his ability to sense Qi is by no means terrible. To analyze the state of a patient, sensing Qi is a necessity. As such, it is a skill he has honed quite a bit. That is why he had been confident in saying there were fifteen people spying on them.

There are twenty people around them.

The mists may be interfering with his sensory skills. Still, if that is the case, then he cannot dismiss these people. He already missed five of them. Who is to say that is all he is missed?

“I will take half,” Bei Hong says confidently.

“I am surprised,” Liu Jin says, moving so he and Bei Hong have each other’s backs. “I thought for sure Brother Bei would want to take all of them for himself.”

“I know. I surprise myself with my generosity. I figured you’d relish the chance to hit something after everything that’s happened.”

That is… pretty thoughtful of him, actually.

“You have my deepest thanks, Brother Hong.”

As soon as Liu Jin aims his spear at the enemy, they attack. Four come at him from the side and three from above.

One comes from below.

Liu Jin jumps just in time as a pair of arms burst from the ground to grab his legs. Twenty-one foes instead of twenty then? The thought passes through his mind all too quickly. Liu Jin swings his spear, hitting one of the dark-robbed attackers and slamming him into another. His spear spins as he stabs it into the ground, stopping himself in midair to dodge an attack aimed at his legs.

A grunt.

A twist.

Liu Jin’s heel slams against one of the attacker’s heads.

As that happens, another one of the dark-robbed figures goes flying over Liu Jin, courtesy of Bei Hong. He uses no elaborate movements. Instead, he keeps a firm stance and methodically hits anything that gets close to him. He’s holding back. That much is obvious. Otherwise, his hits would have killed his foes already. Daggers try to dig into his skin, only for them to break as it flashes gold.

Liu Jin leans to the side just in time to avoid a stab to the back of his head. No cry accompanies the motion. No dissatisfied grunt leaves the mouth of his attacker when he misses. No pained growl escapes his mouth when Liu Jin slams the butt of his spear against his stomach.

None of them make a sound.

The leaves crunch as they run over them. The air whistles when they swing their daggers. However, no sound comes from their bodies.

Liu Jin cannot even hear them breathing.

His spear pierces right through one of their shoulders. No blood gushes out. He cannot feel any bones or muscles stopping his path. It is not the body of a Spirit Beast. It is not the body of a human.

It is just… a thing.

It takes all of Liu Jin’s self-control not to give away his shock as the body he just stabbed fades into black smoke.

“What the—?” Bei Hong’s words tell him all he needs to know. He, too, has found out about the curious nature of their foes.

“Do not panic!”

“Panic! Who’s panicking?” Bei Hong yells as his arms turn gold. He hits one of his assailants, and his fist goes right through his… its head. No blood goes flying. The body fades into wispy nothingness. “I am just angry I held back for nothing! I thought we should make sure at least one survived for interrogation!”

His left fist blows right through someone’s chest.

“Clearly, there is no need for that.”

“My apologies,” Liu Jin says, the blade of his spear slicing one of the… shade’s arms. Just like the others, the level of damage is all it takes to make it fade away. “Clearly!” He cuts a leg next. That does the job as well. “I!” This time, he tries a foot. That is enough damage too. “Misjudged!” Finally, he cuts just a finger—the pinky one.

It is not enough.

“Interesting, a lost limb or sufficiently deep stab wound will cause them to fade, but a minor loss, such as a finger, won’t,” Liu Jin says, slicing its head off. Then he moves to slam the shaft against another one of the shade’s heads, using enough force to crack its skull. “Blunt works too, though I am guessing you already knew that.”

“Not!”

Punch.

“Really!”

Punch.

“Interested!”

Punch.

“My apologies,” Liu Jin says as he goes back to fighting, tearing through the shades with ease. In less than twenty seconds, Liu Jin and Bei Hong have destroyed all of them.

“Was that all?”

“For now, at least,” Liu Jin replies, taking a look at his spear. As expected, there is no blood on it. Those things were empty. “It doesn’t feel like the controller is nearby, at least.”

Bei Hong turns to look at him.

“We’re thinking the same thing then? Those things are the product of a technique, and whoever is using it is controlling them from a distance.”

“It is the most likely explanation.”

And most certainly a cause of concern.

By the end, there had fought well over twenty foes, all of them in the Nascent Realm. It may not seem like much, but the level of skill and coordination they had shown is nothing that should be dismissed.

Whoever is behind this, it is surely someone dangerous.

Bei Hong smiles.

“And here I thought this would be a boring trip.”

~~~