The Punishment
“I would advise you to surrender. You are in enemy territory”
“Why should we surrender when we have a numerical advantage?!”
The apparent leader of the band shouted, but his attitude quickly changed as two of his fellows moved in to strike ahead of the rest. Each of them targeted a different enemy, but contrary to the leader’s expectations…
…The one who approached Edrick was stomped on like a bug. The Elt rose one leg with flexibility and agility unexpected from such a muscular man, and just brought down the soles of his boot right on top of the foreign cultivator’s head, squashing him against the ground, leaving only his limbs still identifiable as belonging to a human.
As for the one who approached Chang… The Sheng scion merely pointed one finger at the oncoming assailant and fired a small golden projectile that made the approaching cultivator’s head explode. The pieces slammed against a golden barrier, preventing Chang from getting his robes soiled.
To say the ambience shifted in the blink of an eye would be a vast understatement. Without the leader having to say a thing, all of them stopped and backed off. Not a single trace of their earlier cocky attitudes was to be found anywhere.
The leader showed his palms in surrender.
“We apologise for our behaviour. We… We must have gotten lost and accidentally crossed into Leynlornd”
“You have to traverse treacherous mountains to get here. You fuckers clearly came with one of your nifty flying swords or whatnot. Grovel and spit the true reason for your presence here”
The leader gritted his teeth, finding it hard to accept being humiliated like this, but he kept his venomous words to himself and signalled his fellows to grovel as asked. Pride is for the living. It is useless for the dead…
Nonetheless, he had to find a way to lie somehow. If he survived and word got out that he revealed the details of his mission to an enemy, he would be executed or have his cultivation destroyed on the spot. He did not have the connections necessary to get away with such a blunder. He was just a random inner disciple who accepted a dangerous mission that had killed disciples from Yingzi Sect–Including an inner disciple of a strength comparable to his own.
He had only intended to do the bare minimum with the complicity of the other disciples and get a nice reward for it, but he realised that he must have committed a mistake. For those two to be here, he had to have gotten too close to a place he shouldn’t have.
The disciple inwardly cursed himself for being unable to read a map properly and soon began speaking, doing his best to weave truth and lies together.
“We are disciples from Shenjian Sect, a sword cultivation sect…”
“Oh, I knew I had seen these robes somewhere. My Valdre told me that a sect in Journomanp had been founded by a good-for-nothing from our clan”
The grovelling inner disciple would have wanted to explode with anger at the mockery, but quickly realised that if true, he had run into someone from a great clan, which meant that the giant man might also be from a great clan…
‘What did I do to the heavens to deserve this?!’
“...Our… Our mission was merely to inspect the mountain range for a possible path, but we got curious and went further inland…”
This was the best lie he could come up with on the spot. He couldn’t tell the truth, as the real mission was to find mortals and slaughter them in an attempt to sow distrust between the people and cultivators of Leynlornd… Even if it failed, it was an objective that was far less forgivable than being lowly scouts.
The larger of the men whispered something to the other, and all of the invaders were suddenly tightly bound by brilliant restraints of gold. The worst part was that it froze their inner energies completely and restrained their cultivation as a whole, making them barely any different from mere mortals.
“What do you want to do, Edrick?”
“I already said what I wanted to do”
“Oh… You… It was serious? I thought you were joking”
“Nope”
Anoteros looked at the inner disciple.
“You are the leader, right?”
“Y-Yes…”
“Perfect”
Anoteros picked up the other disciples and lined them up as if they were an audience, and then walked over to the inner disciple.
“Listen, I don’t intend on killing you guys–What about you, Chang Sheng?”
“I am fine with letting them live. They don’t matter at all. Whether they live or die is of no consequence”
“Alright, so you guys will live to see tomorrow, but we still need to teach you a lesson. I can tell Mister Leader over here lied to my face. He is a terrible liar… But I will get the truth out of you all. This will also serve as a warning that I hope you will spread once you go back home”
Edrick smiled charmingly, but it was somehow an utterly horrifying smile.
“We… We are disciples from Shenjian Sect! Even if we don’t amount to much, the sect will still avenge us! We represent the sect, and anything you do to us, you will have done to the sect as a whole!”
The inner disciple didn’t know what was coming, but he felt the need to do everything in his power to try to prevent it. There was nothing that could stop the Elt scion.
He laughed before licking his teeth.
“So… You’re telling me that I am going to be viotting the entirety of Shenjian Sect? I was already going to have a good time. You didn’t have to make it better for me”
“You’re going to do what?! Wait! Wait! Please, there has to be a better way! I’ll… I’ll give you everything you want! You… You’re from a great clan, right?! I can make it so my sect gives anything you could possibly want! Anything!”
“The folks from Yingzi Sect tried to offer me a similar deal…”
“We can offer a better one! Anything you can think of, we can give you! Even the most fucked up shit! You can… You could viot as many untouched Bloomins as you want! Or maybe you want Immunubils?! We can give as many as you want! We have so many mortals at our disposal, you could have thousands to play with every single day!”
“I am quite curious if that would actually be possible or if you are spouting nonsense, but regardless… Keep screaming for forgiveness like this. It makes things better for me”
“Please! You! Aren’t you from a righteous clan?! Stop him!”
Chang Sheng just shrugged.
“I’m afraid your presence here is an act of war–And enemy soldiers don’t have rights. So by all means… I don’t have to intervene. May I suggest that you relax so that it goes in more smoothly?”
“Help! Help me!”
Anoteros cracked his knuckles.
“That’s it. I like that energy of yours…”