Sprinting through the waist-high grasses of the island’s interior, Nyla was overwhelmed with worry for Nolan. Watching him vanish from her sights as he was held tightly within the grasp of one of the most powerful people that she had ever seen had been a terribly difficult thing to witness, but she wasn’t so foolish as to urge the group to risk their lives in an attempted rescue. There was more at stake than just her and Nolan, and besides, Uncle Grey wouldn’t simply stand by while Nolan was killed by that woman, would he?

“How is it, Nyla?” Sean had pulled up beside her from where he’d been running on the edges of the group, looking almost as worried as she felt. “Can you sense him?” His dark eyes were weighed down with anxiety, his angular face pale and pocked with light amounts of stubble.

After using her framed canvas, they had appeared a good distance away from their attackers, though at the cost of all of the energy within one of Nyla’s dantians. Losing so much at once had caused a brutal backlash that had seen her inner essence scrambled in disarray, which caused a few tears into her intestines from within. She healed these within a few minutes after swallowing down some medicinal pellets and Divine Spirit Fountain water, and carefully taking control of her inner energies. Once her internal situation had stabilized, she relied on her inner essence to assist in repairing her injured organs. Just after she had transported the group, she had just barely been able to sense Nolan’s aura. Unfortunately, he’d begun to move in another direction shortly after and then quickly disappeared from her perceptions.

“No, but there’re a lot of people running around.” It was safe to assume that they would now be a target of any Falling Rain Sect members that they might encounter, which only agitated her unease.

There were over ten thousand people within this region alone, though most of them remained indoors, residents of the many settlements in the area. Of the hundreds of auras that were in constant motion, all of them were travelling in groups, and all were in the Integration stage.

They had to be disciples of the sect, she thought, and powerful ones at that.

“Why are we always being chased around?” complained Esteban, who had been the only one to beg the others to go back for Nolan. “We never even do anything!” His freckled face was as pale as Sean’s, a pallor that they shared with the rest of the group.

Nyla sympathized with the boy, since it seemed as if her entire life had been spent running from people that wanted to kill her. Even after how much stronger she’d become since she had met Nolan, it seemed that she was destined to live a life of sweat, stress and blood.

“How many people?” continued Sean. “Are they part of the sect?”

“At least five hundred.” Nyla’s spiritual sense was expanded to its fullest extent, a bit more than two leagues in every direction, or eleven of Nolan’s kilometres. “And yeah, I think they’re disciples.”

“Five hundred,” breathed Aine. “I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but so many people are already looking for us?”

“We’ll be fine,” said Ian, whose injuries had completely healed in the short amount of time that they’d been on the run. “Whatever comes, we’ll face it head on like we always do.”

“He’s right. We’re not the same as we used to be, Aine. This time around we can actually contribute.”

Looking at Alicia with a worried smile, Aine gave a light nod and directed her baby blues straight ahead. Both of these girls were at the fifth level of Integration, which was substantially higher than most of the disciples that were currently roaming the area. The same went for the other members of the group; Sean was at the seventh level of Profound Entry, and Esteban the eighth, and the two could take on opponents up to an entire stage above them. Lyra was at the seventh level of Integration, her brother at the first of Genesis, and both were able to fight one or two levels above their cultivation. As for Nyla, she was at the eighth level of Integration and could physically take on most people in that realm, to say nothing of her capabilities as an arrayment practitioner.

What worried her were the elders. She could sense a couple of them off in the distance, distinguishable by their heavier auras and their leading positions among the search parties that she perceived. All of them were at the peak of Integration, meaning that they wouldn’t be easy to fend off for anybody in the group aside from her and Ian. If they happened to encounter multiple elders at a time, then there was no guarantee of safety for her and her friends. Not only that, but there always existed the possibility that they might encounter a group that was proficient in arrayment formations—arrayments powered by multiple people to bring about a greater effect. Even if their enemies were in the Integration stage, depending on the number that contributed to such a formation, even Genesis-staged cultivators like Ian would have to be wary of them.

Thankfully, none of the surrounding forces were able to sense their location. So long as they maintained a certain distance then they would be able to bypass any of these roving search parties. The question was; where should they flee to? The initial plan had been to retreat to Elmer, where they had intended to steal a boat and sail back to the opposing shores where they had initially set off for the Grand Isle of Weston. This plan might have worked if they had been able to discreetly make their way towards their destination, but they had immediately been faced with three of the most powerful people on the island who appeared to have alerted the entire sect of their presence.

Is this my fault? If she hadn’t woken up the beast within Nolan and seduced him into enjoying a brief session of sensuality, then they might have left the tower before any of this could have happened. She had been the one to put the idea in his head, which almost always stopped working when she approached him with such intentions. She had known this going in, but would never have thought that a mere twenty minutes would spell the difference between safety and danger for her and all of her friends. It was because of her that Nolan had been captured.

Seeing the gazes that her friends constantly sent her, Nyla shook all useless thoughts from her head and berated herself for being distracted by guilt in such a crucial moment. Somehow or other, the others had come to rely on her, and were currently looking to her for direction.

“Ian,” she eventually said. “Do you think you can fly us across the lake?”

“I’m not too used to using spiritual energy, but I think so.”

“Then we’ll keep heading for the coast. Once we get there, it’ll be up to you.”

He gave a solemn nod, glancing at his sister as a light frown pulled at his lips.

The storm was still raging at full strength, with trees swaying violently, some bending precariously and others breaking outright. The rainfall was so hard that it likely would have drawn bruises on Nolan and Jason’s skin back when Nyla had first met them, the lands battered by winds that moved as fast as their group was able to run.

They steered clear of any settled areas, sticking to the remote regions of the countryside as they circumnavigated around any groups of potential enemies that happened to draw near to them. This plan wouldn’t work forever, as the number of auras in the area was increasing by the minute, which vastly reduced their paths of escape. She and her friends all knew that a confrontation was inevitable, and so they were always on guard in anticipation of an unexpected battle.

From what she remembered of their journey to the Desolate Spirit Tower, there were still dozens of leagues between their current location and the southern shores of the island. Since this was the only path that she had traversed before, it was also the only trajectory that they could follow where she would be able to use her treasured canvas to relocate them in a pinch.

Heavens help us.

The first clash came within fifteen minutes of their palpitating sprint. Somehow, all of the sect members in the area began to converge on their current location, many heading to cut them off from farther ahead. This abrupt change coincided with the arrival of a powerful aura on the same level as Ian’s, who also sensed this person’s arrival within the vicinity.

Rain bounding off of a subconscious concealment of inner essence, Ian shot her a heavy golden stare. “This isn’t good.”

At the Genesis stage, the individual in question had to have been a great elder of the sect, and it was more likely than not that they were able to sense their location just as easily as she and Ian could sense theirs.

Everybody prepared for battle the moment they were notified about the incoming crisis, though Nyla knew that they wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the oncoming force and thus pulled out her framed canvas and readied it for another use.