It feels like I’m fighting Lucia more than it feels like I’m fighting the seven great sects. She’s interfering with my plan every step of the way. I keep thinking I’m planning around her actions, but it’s impossible. I can outwit a competent enemy because I know what they’re going to do, but if even Lucia doesn’t know what she herself is going to do, how am I supposed to construct a plan with no logical basis? It’s fine though. It’s fine. The apparitions Lucia summoned may be fearful, but since I disabled the illusionary formation, the seven great sects should be able to escape. Of course, I have my reliable group of elders nearby, and I’ve already given them instructions on who to defeat. The legacy holder will have a harder time since Fairy Lin won’t be around to save him from apparitions.

“Ilya! I can’t find the guy! Which way did you say he was?”

“He escaped towards the south. Turn right and keep going down the road.” As long as I can keep Lucia distracted, it’ll be fine. Why don’t I tell Lucia about all my plans and have her go along with them? Because I know she’ll blab. She can’t keep her mouth shut at all. She has to speak to herself to think properly, and once she does that, other people will hear. Thankfully, it’ll be over soon. This was probably one of the more stressful days I’ve had in the past five years.

Right now, the legacy holder is escaping towards the north. My elders are attacking from the west and east, apprehending everyone who heads in those directions. Lucia’s apparitions are coming from the south, eating and traumatizing everyone they encounter. It’s just the Blazing Sun Sect members left. I’ll activate a few traps to slow them down.

“Look out!”

“Senior Brother! I’ll hold it back! You have to escape!”

They’ll sacrifice themselves one by one. The legacy holder will feel a huge sense of loss as his sect members give themselves up for the mission. I’ll activate a few more traps here and there to push him into desperate straits….

“Junior Sister Meng!”

“Brother Yang, go! You have to take the legacy back to the sect!”

“No! I won’t! I can’t let you die!”

Oh, how tragic. It’s just a few beasts I caged underneath a building. Sure, they were starved for a while, but those disciples will only lose a couple of limbs at most.

“Brother Yang, what are you doing!?”

“Take it and go!”

What a heroic soul. I’m truly moved. This Blazing Sun Sect disciple passed the legacy to his junior sister and pushed her away with an attack while launching himself towards the beasts at the same time.

“Brother Yang!”

Is this love? The truly incomprehensible emotion that forces people to abandon their rationality. Why isn’t she escaping? Wait, is she actually going to charge into that cluster of beasts too? Lucia’s apparitions will catch up at that rate.

“If one of us has to die, we’ll die together!”

Alright, enough of that. It’s a good thing I sectioned off these areas properly. I can insert a wall of qi to block her movements, then activate the illusion formation. Once she’s done breaking through the wall, she’ll have no idea where her precious lover Yang disappeared to.

“Brother Yang! Where are you!?”

I’ll activate the audio formation to the north, using a voice constructed based on that Brother Yang’s voice. “Junior Sister Meng, I’m over here!” …And off she goes. See? As long as it’s not Lucia, I can manipulate people so easily. Speaking of Lucia….

“Ilya! I can’t find him! Are you sure he exists?”

“Yep, keep going straight. He has an interesting movement technique. It looks like he’s leisurely strolling, but he’s traveling at an extremely fast speed. Do your best to keep up.”

“Gah! Once I get my hands on this guy, I’ll tear his legs off! That’ll teach him to leisurely stroll away from me!”

Of course, there’s also a problem of how to get this Junior Sister Meng out of the Immortal Continent. In Baldie’s memories, there’s a few ways to do it like through tools that can travel through dimensions, but I don’t trust those. They have a certain chance of catastrophic failure, killing everyone on board. The reliable way would be to guide this person to immortality, help them pass their tribulation, and send them off to the immortal realm. There’s another way, but honestly, I don’t know if it’ll work at all, and that’d be to force her through the immortal door above Lucia’s head. It would be extremely nice if it did work, but I’m not sure how the door would react. I already have a way to disable the lightning bolts that appear when approaching the door, but I haven’t made any counter measures for the consequences that might occur when sending someone through it. Looking back, I can’t believe I never tested it.

What if I offered my help…? I go down, act as a savior, fend off my group of elders and Lucia’s apparitions, and protect this legacy holder? I could offer her a place to stay as she attempts to ascend to immortality to leave this place. That could work.

“Junior Sister Meng! Where is Brother Yang?”

Huh, someone managed to slip past the elders. He looks pretty arrogant.

“He’s up ahead! He passed the legacy to me and sacrificed himself to buy time! You have to help me save him, Senior Brother Gu!”

“Save him? We can barely save ourselves! I managed to retrieve Wu Xing’s interspacial ring after he was devoured by one of those hideous creatures. There’s a void dragon boat in here. You have the legacy, right? Quickly, come aboard!”

Tsk. Right after I say I don’t trust those dimension-traveling tools, one of them appears. It’s an interesting device, not as large as I imagined it to be. I imagine it’s small and compact to avoid needless collisions with whatever may lie between dimensions.

“But Brother Yang, he’s—!”

“There’s no time! He gave you the legacy to you because of the mission. Remember the mission!”

“…You go. Here. Take the legacy. I’m going to save Brother Yang.”

Love really is such a strange emotion. She passed up the chance of becoming the hero who brought back the legacy all for the sake of this person being mauled by beasts. What an idiot.