Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 42. Splitting Up.

“It really is all over huh.” Laien looked over his shoulder, taking one last look at the two sanctuaries, at the lake and the Holy Tree before ascending the stairs to the surface. “It feels a bit like a dream,” he added with a laugh; it was as if he would close his eyes for a bit and then wake up somewhere in the forests of the Anarchic Lands and realize it had all happened inside his head. However, the sensation of Qi lazily flowing through every inch of his body and the warmth of the Soul Imprint upon his soul were both there, very much real.

“It really does feel like a dream, doesn’t it?” Yin agreed with a quiet chuckle. His whole body felt as if submerged in a pleasantly warm bath the whole time; he could feel his Martial Realm slowly stabilizing and he the essence the azure-haired youth had used nourished his body and soul. It was a bit hard to say how long this effect would last, but it would probably take him from a few days to a week to fully absorb the remnants of the essence. By then he should have advanced to the early ninth mortal realm, but his physical strength would likely be just barely at the threshold of a martial master of the third rank! As for his speed and agility? Even he had trouble guessing how much they would improve.

“Let’s go,” Laien said with a smile. “Those guys are probably a bit worried about us,” he mentioned with Ruan and the rest of their group in mind.

“Want to rush up the stairs?” Yin suggested casually, just in the mood for some competition. He and Laien were yet to spar after all the gains they had made, but they were already leaving the temple; maybe they could have stayed a little longer to train here… but they would need to rest after sparring too, or they would need to stop fighting before they were satisfied. It was better to bear with it for some more time and find a good moment to have a fight later.

“No way I’m winning that,” Laien replied with a laugh. “Let’s just take it easy,” he added and after exchanging a glance with Yin, leaped up the stairs and so did Yin.

The two of them crossed well over twenty of the stairs with one jump, what meant that they were crossing about forty meters each time they leaped. This tempo was a fairly leisure one though; after all, neither of them used their Qi or other abilities and techniques to move faster. In the end, it took them slightly over fifteen minutes to get back to the surface, only to be greeted by a few dozen of anxious villagers who jumped up like terrified cats the moment they emerged from the tunnel.

“It’s you…!” one of the women said in shock, remembering the two boys from a few days ago when they were led to the Sacred Temple by Uluan. “How come you are here? What happened to the High Priest and everyone?” she asked bashfully, her tone implying that she for some reason held it against the boys for being alive.

“They are all dead,” Laien said with a snort, the attitude of this woman ticking him off a little bit. “I guess you would have preferred if it was us dead instead?” he asked bluntly, but could see the woman and the rest of those people were refusing to trust what he was saying. Well, one couldn’t blame them; who would expect two children to kill one thousand adults?

“Feel free to go and check,” Laien added with a shrug of his shoulders. “By the way, your Divine Seal is broken too. The ‘Demons’ went away and your ‘curse’ is gone,” he said casually, only intending to offer a proper explanation to the six-year-old and his caretaker. As for the rest of this clan? They could feel free to believe whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted.

The woman and the few dozen of the villagers stared at Laien as if he had just told them that the earth was actually round. After exchanging a few words some of them headed down to the temple to see with their own eyes what had happened, whereas at the same time more and more people began leaving the buildings near the central plaza and subsequently crowding around Laien and Yin.

Laien smirked helplessly and shook his head. “We would like to leave, can you make the way?” he asked, finding it pretty laughable that this bunch wanted to stop them. Almost none of them were at the fifth mortal realm with the majority being at the third or second; they were weaker than children in the Sarkcente Kingdom, but they wanted to bar the way for him and Yin?

“We can’t allow you to leave,” a youth, perhaps fourteen years old stepped forward and said grimly. Judging by the black staff he held in his hand, he was probably a son of one of the village elders.

“Eh,” Laien and Yin sighed at once, then exchanged a somewhat amused glance. By the looks of it, they found this situation similarly annoying.

“Big brother Yin! Big brother Laien!” a very surprised voice of a young boy broke the silence. Seeing the Holy Priest and his caretaker, the crowd of villagers made the way and allowed them to freely approach the boys. The six-year-old stopped in front of Laien and Yin, but he didn’t quite know what to say or what to ask. The events of the past few days were way beyond his scope of understanding.

“It’s good to see you are fine,” Yin said with a smile. “I have good news for you,” he added and crouched before the six-year-old, glancing slightly up at his face. “The two who had been sealed in the crystal went away. The curse is gone, the rituals aren’t needed anymore. You can live and do whatever you wish,” he said slowly and calmly, expecting the six-year-old to take a while before understanding what was going on.

“Big brother Yin… is that true?” the six-year-old asked, much to the displeasure of the listening villagers. They were sure this outsider child was lying to their Holy Priest, and so the youth, a future elder spoke up for everyone.

“Lying to a Holy Priest… do you have no heart?” the staff-wielding youth asked, but weighed his words. For some inexplicable reason, he was wary of those two young boys; he couldn’t explain why, but deep in his heart he was scared of them!

“When those who went down return you will learn whether I’m lying or not,” Yin said dismissively, unable, or rather unwilling to be bothered to pay much attention to that youth.

“Enough, make some space,” Laien raised his voice, beginning to feel annoyed by the presence of all those people who were ready to jump him at any moment. They were all weaklings, but even a dragon would be annoyed by a swarm of rodents squeaking at him from all around.

Before the young elder or the villagers could protest, Laien released his aura. In normal circumstances such an act wouldn’t have held much meaning as people without a battle sense or a spiritual sense would at most be able to perceive the aura as a peculiar sense of danger, but those villagers were all extremely sensitive to auras! All of them without exception abandoned any thoughts of attacking Laien and began backing off in panic, many of them falling on their butts and stumbling upon each other. They had never in their lives felt an aura on this level! How could they not be extremely terrified of it?

It wasn’t all that surprising that even without any killing intent mixed in, Laien’s aura was absolutely unworldly; in fact, ever since he had reached initial steps in fusing his spiritual energy and Qi his soul started growing stronger and stronger! His soul had also been nourished by the fiery-haired woman’s energy; in terms of the soul alone, Laien was comparable to supreme spiritual master!

“Wow! You are so strong, big brother Laien!” the six-year-old exclaimed happily, not scared of Laien’s powerful aura in the slightest. Why would he need to be scared of it? It was super strong, yes, but Laien wouldn’t harm him. “Did you get so much stronger after you finished your breakthrough? Also, what happened to all those bandits? Right, and to the High Priest and the others! Are they really all dead?” the six-year-old asked one question after another, too impatient and too excited to restrain the flow of words coming from his mouth.

With the six-year-old acting in this way, Marie calmed down quite a lot. She also hadn’t backed away from Laien, but her face grew quite pale due to the pressure of his aura. Moreover, unlike the six-year-old and the rest of the villagers, she was already almost certain that those boys weren’t lying. She knew what Uluan and the High Priest were planning for those two; there was no way they would allow them to leave the temple just like that, without anyone to keep them in check.

Laien laughed weakly and glanced at Yin. Since Yin managed to make friends with this kid when he was meditating, Yin should have the honor of explaining everything to kid; himself Laien wasn’t in the mood to act as a storyteller and summarize the recent events and what those two had told them about.

Yin smirked a little, aware that Laien was being lazy. However, he didn’t mind the role at all and began telling the six-year-old about the events of the last twenty-four hours. He left out most of the details with regards to the battles and the gains he and Laien had made, but told the six year old and all the villagers that were listening about the Divine Seal, the so-called ‘curse’ and about their ancestors who had tried to capture two powerful beings, but ended up leading their own clan to a downfall with their irresponsible and outright evil actions.

The six-year-old wasn’t too shocked by this revelation. Rather, he appeared to be happy and relieved. He didn’t care about the past; to him, the most important thing was that he would be able to live! And even better, he would be able to leave this village and live where he pleased!

The villagers, on the other hand, especially the older ones were having a great deal of trouble with accepting Yin’s words as reality. They had been taught their whole lives that their clan had saved the world from two demons… but in truth, their ancestors were the evil ones? And their legendary High King was the one to use the power of their bloodline to create the Divine Seal, thus bringing that detestable curse upon everyone? How could this story that was nothing but a bad joke be true?

“It makes sense now…” the staff-wielding fourteen-year-old youth said weakly, but in the relative silence, his voice was easily heard by almost everyone. “That’s why that masked man told us we have a month to safely leave the Anarchic Lands. I wonder if he expected the High Priest to die when trying to capture you two…? He probably did,” the youth said and unexpectedly, smiled at Yin and then at Laien.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t need to wait for the news from the temple,” the youth said with a weak laugh and swept the villagers with a calm gaze. “If everyone who went down before has indeed died, then as the highest representative of our Durash Clan, I thank you for saving us from the cruel fate our ancestors left us with,” he said honestly and even bowed respectfully, causing many of the villagers to openly voice their discontent. How could he trust those outsiders so easily? What if they collaborated with those demons and actually intended to kill all of them? And why was he bringing up the taboo; the name of their clan so frivolously?

“You accepted it pretty quickly,” Laien pointed out, paying no mind to the worthless chatter of the villagers. The thought that the azure-haired youth might have done better if he had killed most of them did pass through his mind very briefly, but he didn’t ponder it for long.

The young elder laughed ruefully. “Do you think I wanted to be born in this shithole? I’ve had enough of this place. After your friend told us all those blind adults died and the curse was removed I couldn’t be happier; I can’t wait to find a new place to live, find a good wife and enjoy myself for the rest of my days!” he declared loudly, pretty much infuriating the elderly and adult people of the village… but at the same time, stirring up a fair amount of support from the younger ones.

It didn’t take long for the arguments to escalate, but before they could turn physical the young ones in support of the fourteen-year-old moved to the center of the plaza and stood by their new unofficial leader, and given the situation, more importantly, stood close to Laien. The memory of Laien’s powerful aura was very much fresh in everyone’s hearts so no one was brave or stupid enough to forcefully drag the renegades back to their homes and punish them.

The fourteen-year-old appeared to be quite quick-witted as he instantly grabbed the opportunity and spoke up. “I can see there is more of us who agree with our group; especially those children who you are keeping by your sides! Let them choose on their own; do they trust us more, or do they trust the sermons of the dead High Priest’s more!”

Laien raised an eyebrow and laughed inwardly. The lesson about rebellion he had had with Tei’ru years ago was one of the few he remembered well. There was also the problem of finding a new place for the six-year-old to live; Yin surely was thinking about that too. Thus, he decided to give a hand to that sensible teenager. He wouldn’t want to deal with the problematic fanatics, but as long as he could separate the wheat from the chaff it would make things much easier to manage.

“Those who think we are the evil ones can screw off,” Laien said plainly. He didn’t want to entice people to go along; he only wanted for the most normal of them to come. “Those who believe that our story is true, come here. The rest of you can do whatever for all I care,” he stated plainly, unlike the fourteen-year-old seeing no point in forcefully dragging the young children whose parents were refusing to let them go over to their side. There was no way to reliably ask a two or three-year-old for his opinion; it all depended on their parents, as unsatisfactory as it was.

The villagers descended into a fairly long period of silence. Some of the kids who were between four and eight, nine years old began forcing their way out of their parents’ hold and joining their friends in the center. Some of the parents restrained their disobedient children, but the moment Laien released a little bit of his aura they all let go in fear. They were angry with that black-haired outsider and that disobedient young elder, but they weren’t suicidal.

Even though almost all adults and elderly didn’t budge from their spots, there were some adults, especially those relatively young ones with babies who decided to leave the majority and come to the center with their families. They didn’t find Laien’s words pleasant, but they could tell that the youngsters wanted to break away from the shackles of the past. They wanted the best for their own children… and so they chose to follow that young elder and trusted the black-haired outsider.

In the end, around one-fifth of the villagers joined the group of renegades, with the majority of them being under the age of twenty. There were only fifty or sixty adults in their ranks, with teenagers standing as the bulk of their numbers at around seven hundred. The younger children counted for the remaining two hundred and fifty; overall, there was a thousand of them.

“Do you have a map of the continent?” Laien asked the fourteen-year-old, causing him to return to reality from the daze of his. Perhaps the fourteen-year-old had only grabbed the chance when he sensed it and didn’t think everything would progress and escalate so quickly, but now it was too late for doubts.

“Y-yeah, we do,” the youth replied, then coughed twice to regain the clarity of thought and to appear a bit less confused. He didn’t think this black-haired outsider would so easily convince so many people to come over, especially the kids! He was sure there would be a huge argument over allowing children and babies to go with them, but no such thing happened. Although they didn’t absorb all of the village’s youth… they had over ninety percent of it within their ranks.

“You should have horses somewhere too, right?” Laien asked with a smile. “The interspatial rings of the High Priest and of the rest were destroyed though… do you have a storage of some kind?” he inquired right afterward, quite obviously asking for the things needed for a journey.

“My father was one of the elders,” the fourteen-year-old said with a laugh. “The children of every elder are with us here. Before they went down our fathers gave us their interspatial rings just in case. We have almost all ancient techniques and martial art scrolls on us. As for the food, horses and other necessities for a journey, we will go collect a part of them now,” he explained, very much purposely speaking up towards the end. He didn’t want the adults to make a scene when they would be grabbing some of the resources and the best method to assure it wouldn’t happen was to use the black-haired outsider’s strength as a leverage.

The four thousand of the remaining villagers only now began slowly realizing that most of their remaining wealth landed in the renegades’ hands, but even if they realized that fact, what could they do about it by this point? They could hope the High Priest and the others were alive… but even they could tell how unlikely it was from the kind of attitude those two outsiders had. Perhaps they really should have bent their knees and lowered their heads and joined this new branch of their clan when they had a chance.

“Mhm,” Laien nodded with a content smile. “If you could get us our horses that we left here when we entered a few days ago then it would be great,” he requested straightforwardly.

“Of course,” the fourteen-year-old agreed with a laugh. “But before that, could I ask you what are you planning?” he inquired, suspecting that the black-haired youth wasn’t acting without some kind of a goal in mind.

“Nothing too complicated,” Laien said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I come from the Sarkcente Kingdom, from Neil City. If you guys want to I can help you settle down there and form of a noble family,” he explained, thinking that it would be nice to have the six-year-old settle down within the Sarkcente Kingdom. There he would surely be safe; a family as minor and weak as this group would establish wouldn’t be involved in the struggle for the crown, so as long as they kept whatever legacies they had a secret it would work out fine; hopefully.

The fourteen-year-old’s expression immediately brightened up when he confirmed his suspicions about Laien’s intentions. Finding a good land to settle would be the hardest quest awaiting them in the next months, but now it looked like this matter would be settled easily! However… “I will ask what the others think and we will reply within an hour, will that be fine?” the fourteen-year-old asked, in the end restraining himself from making an arbitrary decision. He wasn’t the leader of the group yet, at least not officially. He also wanted to ask his friends what they thought about the idea.

“Fine.” Laien nodded, happy to see that everything went well and there were no unexpected complications. “If you have any other questions then feel free to ask. For now, I think we will go to the outskirts of your village and wait there,” he said with a slight smile, planning to leave this place sooner rather than later. Also, he didn’t find staying in the middle of a plaza where four thousand people glared at him resentfully to be a pleasant experience.

“We probably will need to bother you and ask a few things,” the fourteen-year-old admitted without beating. The proposition of Laien’s was enticing, but they needed to know more; for example what kind of standing did Laien hold in the Sarkcente Kingdom, what could they expect upon arrival, and maybe to begin with, what was Laien’s name.

“Let’s talk on the outskirts then,” Laien said and glanced at Yin, the six-year-old and Marie. Yin looked to be quite happy with what he had done; not like he needed to look at him to learn that. The six-year-old was overjoyed, while Marie appeared to be carefully happy. “Let’s go, let’s go,” Laien urged and gestured the three to follow.

When Laien began walking down the main street, the villagers instantly made a way for him. With Yin, the six-year-old and Marie keeping him company he left the village, along with eight hundred of the renegades following behind them. The other two hundred stayed to get the horses and some necessary items, what they managed to do without any conflicts rising up.