Chapter 22 - Seeker (2)

"Looks like there is human life around here after all! About time I found something worth looking for..."

Yu Yin was ecstatic to see that people lived nearby to his current location for many reasons, most of them being rather obvious.

'Right now, I'm completely alone in an unknown world of which I know nothing about.’ Yu Yin thought to himself. ‘Wandering around in ignorance like this is bound to get me killed eventually! What if I accidentally offend some local superpower? My current strength is too little for me to hope to resist and I really don't want to face an enemy out of my league for the second time..."

Yu Yin's deadly confrontation with the coffin found in the hidden plane of Evergreen was actually his first ever real battle. His first true fight was against the remnants of a true [Solid Soul] expert while he had zero knowledge when it came to combat; not a pleasant experience to say the least. While now he was a little stronger being at [Stage 1] of the [Rousing Soul] realm, he was still technically at the bottom of the pecking order. Sure, he could probably face anybody below [Stage 7] of the [Rousing Soul] stage with the help of his bloodline magic; but was just a theory on his part. After all, he hadn't actually fought another cultivator before. Yu Yin was only basing his strength on his brief spar with Layla before he got eaten by a coffin, but he had good reason to believe she wasn't fighting seriously with him back then.

'Now isn't time to think about fighting! I've been alone for far too long and I'm long overdue some company!'

Yu Yin followed the track of footprints across the forest, studying his surroundings as he walked. The huge lake he had woken up by was now far out of view. He was surprised by how far the body of water had stretched across the land. It had actually taken three days of travel until he lost sight of it. The plants around the area were a lot less vibrant than Yu Yin would have liked. Unlike the vibrant floral life of Evergreen the trees here were a lot more plain looking; the shade of their leaves so dark that they almost looked brown. But when push came to shove, the leaves could still only just be called green. Yu Yin couldn't help but feel slightly frustrated by the dull scenery.

'Tch! If I'm going to be a lone wolf in this forest, at least give me something good to look at!'

Yu Yin suddenly narrowed his eyes and crouched down under the cover of some nearby bushes. He could hear voices! He rotated his soul power around his body, predominantly near his ears, in hopes that he could overhear their voices.

"OH, would you look at that! A little worm thinks he can just walk on over in our turf and leave unharmed!"

"Those Windwing village rats are really pushing their luck, do they really think we won't just slaughter them all!"

The first voice laughed and jeered for the second time.

"Hahaha, kid you really are asking for death!"

Their voices sounded deep, rough and rather unintelligent, their owners definitely being male. Yu Yin flinched a little, thinking that these men were talking to him! He was just about to walk up to them and show them why it's wrong to be rude, but then he heard a distinctly different voice speak up in response.

"B-B-But this is the gathering grounds for our village! H-How are we supposed to eat if you people won't let us search for food! The village won't let you get away with this!"

This voice sounded a lot younger than the rest, most likely belonging to an adolescent boy. His voice was trembling with fear, yet he had still gathered enough courage to talk back to these other men. Yu Yin shuffled forward until they all came into view. The young man who spoke up looked to be about 14 years of age and was only half a head shorter than Yu Yin. There were three scary looking men cornering the young man who was half frightened to death.

Despite his childlike figure the youth's face was rather manly, although one wouldn't be able to tell from his rather awful appearance right now. Tears could be seen clinging onto the corners of his amber-coloured eyes, refusing to fall no matter how dire the situation came to be. He looked at his aggressors directly, his short brown hair swooshing in the afternoon breeze.

Although this brave youth looked plain in almost every way, Yu Yin couldn't bring himself to pass him up as ordinary no matter how much he wanted to. There was something unique about him, something that made him different than the norm. Yu Yin tried to figure out what about the young man made him come to this conclusion, but he couldn't put his finger on it. In the end, he just chuckled that the first person he came across gave him such a strange vibe. He laid himself back against a nearby tree and continued to watch the ongoings nearby.

Although the three thug-like men practically looked identical in Yu Yin's eyes as unintelligent orcs, they were as one might have expected, not actually identical. For example, the one stood at the front who was seemingly the leader had a distinguishable lizard-shaped tattoo plastered across his left cheek. He growled at the young man who dared talk back to him and pulled out a knife. In mere seconds the young man had been slammed into a nearby tree and was being held up against it by the neck.

"Listen here punk! Nobody cares about your stupid little village or how they might die; they can eat each other for all we care! There is one thing we do care about Is that this land here is ours!"

He leant in with his ugly face until it was only mere inches away from the young man's, not forgetting to hold up his knife to the boy's neck.

"And while I am in my land, I will get the respect I deserve!"

The young man averted his eyes away from the ruffian's intimidating gaze. He clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails almost drew blood! Yet no matter how scared he was, he wouldn't give them what he wanted! There was no way he'd show any sort of subservience to these inhumane people. At this point, the hulking figure standing to the right of Lizardface decided to speak out, Lizardface of course being the name that Yu Yin had designated to the leader of the brute brigade.

"Hey boss, I think I recognise this brat! Isn't this the kid that the village threw out a while back?"

The man that spoke was two heads taller than Lizardface and had skin so tanned that it almost seemed as if it were bright orange! Yu Yin decided to call this one "Brickface" simply because he looked like a walking brick. He stared intently at the young man in contemplation, desperately trying to recall the young man's name.

"I can't remember for the life of me what his name was."

Lizardface smirked at the young man and loosened his grip on him.

"Tell us your name brat!"

The young man was still terrified, perhaps even more so than before, but he still found the courage to look into Lizardface's eyes in a confrontational gaze.

"My name is Seeker."

Lizardface blinked a few times.

"Pardon?"

"My name is Seeker."

"..."

After a few seconds of silence, Lizardface and Brickface broke out in raucous laughter! The third man whose face was covered by a hood didn't laugh with the other two and seemed rather out of place while the others laughed. Yu Yin didn’t quite understand what was so funny. Sure, Seeker had a weird name, but was it really funny enough to merit this kind of annoying laughter?

Seeker's right eye couldn't help but subtly twitch with anger, but it was quickly hidden by an expression of shame and fear. Lizardface cleared his throat once he had regained his demeanour which caused Brickface to quickly shut up. He gave Seeker a mocking smile before addressing him one more.

"So then Seeker..."

He chuckled upon saying the name,

"... there are two things that are going to happen now. The first is that I'm going to kill you, and the second is that our Black Thunder Bandit Troupe is going to slaughter and plunder your Windwing village! We won't wipe them out completely though, that would be uncivilised. We're just going to teach them a lesson they won't forget. Of course, you wouldn't care about the second part! After all, they cast you out just like the scum you are!"

Seeker’s pupils constructed into pinpoints and his eyes widened.

“You’re going to slaughter the village? How?! What about the Bounded Laws?” Seeker asked timidly as his voice shook.

“The Bounded Laws huh?” Lizardface smiled sinisterly as he spoke. “It just so happens that we recently found a way to get around those.”

“That’s impossible!” Seeker retorted “Unless…”

A hesitant expression replaced the certainty in Seeker’s voice. He seemed to reach a certain conclusion as began trembling even more than before.

“…You have connections with the Crimson Cross?” said Seeker.

Lizardface stopped smiling and instinctively looked to hooded man behind them who hadn’t spoken yet.

“So you know of us? How interesting…”

The hooded man approached Seeker and raised his head to examine him. With the man now closer, Yu Yin could finally see what was under his hood. Expecting to see his face, Yu Yin was surprised to see that the hooded man was wearing a white mask. His mask covered his entire face and depicted some sort of grey wolf with a bloody red cross had been painted across it, making it seem even more intimidating.

“Should I kill him?” Lizardface enquired.

“No, no. I’d like to know how he knows of my organisation before I make decision.” Said the hooded man as he approached Seeker. Lizardface nodded and released Seeker who dropped to the ground in heap. The hooded man reached out his hand to grasp Seeker’s head but stopped just short, as if he had suddenly realised something. Although Yu Yin couldn’t see the hooded man’s face, he could have sworn that he was smiling behind that mask.

“I see, you’re one of our seeded aren’t you?” The masked man asked, although it was more of a statement than a question.

Seeker opened his mouth to try and speak but no words were spoken. It seemed that the fear was too much for him, although the confusion in his eyes spoke volumes about what he was thinking.

“So you don’t remember?” The masked man said as he shook his head. “That’s fine too I suppose.”

The masked man raised his hand to signal to the other two and then turned to leave.

“Tell the rest of the bandits that I’ll be making my move in the next 10 minutes.” He said to Lizardface.

Seeker stood up in shock after hearing the man’s words.

"W-Wait! Y-You're an emissary of the C-Crimson Cross right? P-Please don't harm my village! I promise I'll never set foot here again! I'm sorry for offending you so do what you want with me. J-Just please don't hurt those innocent people!"

The masked man chuckled at him.

"The Crimson Cross has their own motives for doing this and sparing the people of that village certainly doesn’t create any conflict of interest for us. As for the Black Thunder Bandit Troupe… If the Windwing Village wants to obediently offer tribute to the Bandits, then I'm sure that they'll live happily ever after. Your village is in possession of spirit stones no? If that’s not enough...well... It's out of my hands at that point. I'm afraid that I, Vakhtang, simply have no say on the internal affairs of some random bandit troupe."

The masked man, or rather Vakhtang, turned around as if he were going to leave but stopped in place and suddenly looked in Yu Yin’s direction. Yu Yin flinched in reaction and prepared himself for a quick escape. He began circulating his bloodforce and soul energy, so that he was ready to strike with an [Acceleration] blade slash followed by a full power sprint in the opposite direction. If Vakhtang was capable of detecting Yu Yin then that meant that he was almost certainly a cultivator, and although Yu Yin believed he could win a fight, he wasn’t prepared to take such a risk without any decent payoff.

For a tense 5 seconds, Yu Yin and Vakhtang continued staring each other down, unknow to the rest of the people present. In the end Lizardface addressed Vakhtang cautiously.

“Emissary sir, is there a problem?” Lizardface asked.

“No, it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me.” Vakhtang replied. “Let’s go!”

Vakhtang headed off towards the west after finishing his command. He was followed closely behind by Lizardface and Brickface, both of which were trembling in anticipation for the attack on Seeker’s village. Left behind was a seemingly emotionally broken Seeker lying on the ground and a concealed Yu Yin sat there in a daze.

Yu Yin knew that Vaktang has noticed him with certainty, although he guessed that the masked man had come to the same conclusion as him: fighting without a purpose is pointless. Nevertheless, Yu Yin wasn’t sure who would come on top in a fight between the two. He had no way of determining the other’s level of cultivation currently, and therefore had no idea how strong Vakhtang was. Judging by the way the energies of heaven and earth behaved around him, Yu Yin could only make a guess that Vakhtang was somewhere in the [Rousing Soul] realm like him.

Yu Yin vowed to himself to be more careful in the future before moving his thoughts to the much more pressing thing on his mind. He focused his attention on Seeker who now thought he was alone.

The boy got to his feet and brushed himself off before looking in the direction where Vakhtang had left to. None of the fear and weakness from before were found on his demeanour, nor was there any of the previous courage neither. All that was left was indifference and a cold look in his eyes.

"Tch! Trust my luck to meet the Crimson Cross here of all places."

Seeker massaged the red marks on his neck as if to drive away the burning feeling on his throat and then chuckled under his breath.

"Serves that old man right for kicking me out the village.” Seeker Said. “I'd like to see him worm his way out of this one!"

Seeker smirked and turned around, preparing to walk towards the North from which Yu Yin came from. Meanwhile, Yu Yin himself was blinking over and over in surprise. So all that fear from before was …just pretend?

"Eh?! No wonder that kid was giving me such a strange vibe!” Yu Yin muttered under his breath. “What did Xue'er call this type of person again?"

He looked in the air in contemplation but couldn't remember what that type of person was called how much he tried. He shook his head to refocus his thoughts before chasing after Seeker with a menacing smile on his face. During his confusing conversation with Vakhtang and the others, the term ‘Spirit Stone’ had been mentioned and it was heavily implied that it was something the Windwing village possessed. The village had lots of them, and each one sounded to be of immense value.

Yu Yin smiled in anticipation. He had now been in this new world for a week. It was about time he added to his collection of treasures…