Chapter 442: A Chance Encounter
Xu Qing looked at the young man for a moment, then gave a curt nod.
The previous night, he and the Captain had rebuffed the young Holytide’s pleadings. For a time. In the end, they agreed to his proposal. The plan was to slip through the swordsage dragnet by hiding in the Holytide caravan.
Xu Qing didn’t ask whether or not the caravan would actually end up in the duchy of Heaven Zenith.
Their hiding spot in the caravan was on the surface of one of the fourleggers. It was a clever technique that masked auras; clearly the Holytides were skilled in such concealment arts.
“Your humble servant is here to handle all your needs. Now that we’ve successfully slipped past the swordsages, the rest of the journey should be much less eventful. In a month, we’ll reach Holytide territory.”
With that, the young Holytide took out two lotus leaves from his bag of holding, which he respectfully lifted over his head.
“Your humble servant has only seen members of the supervisory species twice before. In both cases it was from a distance. My father has told me a lot about your customs and way of life, but truth be told I’m mostly ignorant. That said, I’ve heard you enjoy moonlight-touched dew harvested just before the break of dawn. So I sent a few of my people out to collect some.”
Xu Qing’s facial expression was the same as ever, but inside, his heart skipped a beat. Though he knew a bit about Nightshades, that knowledge was very superficial. For instance, he had never heard anything about them liking moonlight-touched dew.
The young Holytide’s tone of voice seemed a touch ambiguous. On the surface, he appeared to be speaking casually, but at the same time, Xu Qing got the sense he was probing them a bit. That was one reason why he wasn’t yet convinced that Nightshades actually liked moonlight-touched dew.
As a result, he said nothing.
Meanwhile, the Captain chuckled and waved his right hand, causing the two lotus leaves to fly over to him. Without hesitation, he drank some of the dew. Then he dipped his fingers into it and wiped the dew onto his black eyes.
The dew immediately caused a thin film to appear on the Captain’s eyes, covering them. He sighed contentedly.
“Very considerate of you. You’re dismissed.”
The young Holytide’s expression didn’t reveal any suspicion, only fanaticism. He bowed low and respectfully backed up nine paces, then straightened and left. After flying off of the fourlegger, he returned to his usual size. When he sat atop the beast, his expression seemed completely normal.
Half a month passed.
During that time, the young Holytide was very circumspect. For the most part, he left Xu Qing and the Captain alone. Only occasionally would he request an audience. When he did, he would stay a good distance away, and would only approach when he had permission.
None of his words or actions betrayed any sense of suspicion. It seemed that he really was just acting like the subsidiary species, and was escorting them down the road.
However, he would occasionally ask some very delicately worded and clever questions about Nightshade customs. Whenever he did, his expression was one of rapt attention.
Xu Qing didn’t know much about that topic, so he never said anything. The Captain handled it all. The Captain had obviously taken the responsibility seriously. He knew far more about Nightshades than Xu Qing, so much so that on two occasions he pointed out mistakes in what the young man said.
“Who told you Nightshade Mountain is all about sacrifices? Moonfall orchids bloom there, and a god once set foot on that spot, which is where the temple exists to this day.”
“The city of Crowscale? At the foot of the mountain? Sadly, the broken face of the god looked at it about a sixty-year-cycle ago. It’s gone, though few outsiders know about that.”
The Captain seemed authentic in every facial expression and choice of words. To Xu Qing, it almost seemed like the Captain had actually lived as a Nightshade for a good period of time.
Meanwhile, the zeal in the young Holytide’s face grew more evident. That said, he never ceased with the probing. Then one day, when the noon sun was at its brightest, the canopy of hair overhead shifted, allowing sunlight to land on Xu Qing.
Frowning, Xu Qing waved his hand, which caused the hairs overhead to shift back into place and block the sun.
Small things like that happened with enough regularity to be concerning. But Xu Qing and the Captain handled them all smoothly. Toward the end of the half-month period of travel, they ceased.
One day, after they had crossed the border into Tidefall Prefecture, the Holytide caravan approached Skymoon Ravine.
Skymoon Ravine was so huge that, given the caravan’s rate of travel, it would take three days to pass through it. After coming out the other side of the ravine, it would take another week to reach the border.
Because Tidefall Prefecture bordered Holytide territory, once the caravan reached the ravine, the Holytide cultivators breathed sighs of relief, and finally started to relax. They spent the first night uneventfully in the ravine, then woke at dawn to continue speeding on their way. The next day passed quickly.
By evening, they were about halfway through the ravine. On either side of them, craggy boulders rose high, blocking the sunlight and filling the ravine with shadows.
***
Some distance away, hidden in a cliff side cave, was a young woman dressed in red, sitting in meditation. When she opened her eyes, they glittered coldly. The young woman wore a mask and had an evil ghost scythe lying next to her. She was none other than Qing Qiu. She had been camping in this spot for about half a month, specifically waiting for this caravan returning with cloudmother stones.
There were big caravans and small ones. In order to avoid beating the grass and startling the snake, she had already let several smaller caravans pass, all to make sure she had a shot at this, the largest of them all.
“It’s here. It’s here!!” the evil ghost said into her mind. “This is the caravan you wanted me to look into. They’re from the duchy of Heaven Zenith in Eastern Wasteland County. It’s a small nation, but they always get the biggest haul of cloudmother stones. I just scanned them and found over a hundred Holytide cultivators. There aren’t many in Gold Core, and the strongest among those has six palaces. But that’s more than enough. A six-palace cultivator would be perfect for us to end things in mutual destruction!
In response to the evil ghost, Qing Qiu’s eyes glittered coldly and her cultivation base stirred. Red light glowed all around her as she tapped into a secret magic, as well as six-palace battle prowess. Over the past few months, her cultivation base had advanced dramatically. With her four heavenly palaces, her imperial-class technique, and her secret magic, she had already reached the level of six-palace battle prowess.
“Given their speed, they’ll be here in the time it takes an incense stick to burn!”
The excited evil ghost clearly hadn’t detected Xu Qing and the Captain. And there was no way Qing Qiu could have possibly anticipated running into them in this caravan. A moment later, she licked her lips, and her eyes shone with even greater coldness.
***
Around that time, Xu Qing looked off into the distance. Only a moment ago, Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior had projected a message to him.
“Milord, I just sensed the divine will of a spirit automaton. It’s that girl in red with the evil ghost scythe.”
Xu Qing’s eyebrows shot up.
Off to the side, the Captain suddenly looked off in the same direction, seemingly surprised. Obviously he had similar means of detecting such things.
“Very interesting,” he said with a smile. He looked at Xu Qing. “You sense it, too?”
Xu Qing wasn’t surprised at all at the Captain’s ability. After a moment of thought, he replied, “If she’s not after the caravan, we should just ignore her and keep moving.”
“And if she is after the caravan?” the Captain asked with a mysterious smile.
“If we killed her in Sea-Sealing County,” Xu Qing said calmly, “people would find out. So we take her captive into Holytide territory and put her to death there.”
“You’re really going to put her to death? Hahaha! Alright. Before she dies we should take that mask off and see what she really looks like. Why’s she always wearing that thing?” The Captain grinned humorously at Xu Qing.
Xu Qing looked back at him with a surprised frown.
That evening when the afterglow of the sun was still spread out over the lands, the depths of the ravine were already as dark as night.
As the several hundred fourleggers caused intense rumbling sounds to fill the ravine, the area in front of the caravan suddenly exploded. Rocks and pebbles erupted in all directions while magical symbols descended from above, creating a spell formation like a huge net. A blood-colored glow spread out, like a blood sea, filling the ravine with crimson.
As the caravan was thrown into chaos, a petite figure flew out of the evening sky, clad in red, with a white mask and a huge evil ghost scythe.
The moment the figure appeared, an ancient voice echoed out into heaven and earth.
“Acknowledge the call of Departure; Dao lineaments are evasive; I am the Emperor, Dark Serenity; I bless this individual; let the battle soul descend on them; help the adherents who show faith in me; let the departure begin!”
The power of the voice instantly affected the surroundings, causing a vile wind to spring up in the ravine. As it swept about, the Holytide cultivators it touched shivered as they felt frigid coldness piercing into them.
The wind converged on the young woman in red with her evil ghost scythe. The evil ghost’s eyes glittered with scarlet light as it opened its mouth in the direction of the young woman’s arm, then took a bite. A tremor passed through her, and then another image superimposed over her, almost as if she had fused with a battle soul.
Standing just behind the girl in red was a semitransparent female general in a suit of armor that gave her additional cultivation base power. It made this young woman in red seem like the ambassador of death, out to harvest the lives of all living things.
But there was more. A red glow pulsed out from her, making her the source of the blood-colored light that filled the valley. It was the blood will domain from the Supreme Arbiter Immortal Society!
When that happened, another personality would take over Qing Qiu. A gruish smile suddenly appeared on her face.
“Heh heh heh.”
Her laughter seemed to contain boundless insanity as she suddenly burst into motion, bringing the blood-colored light with her as she charged the Holytide caravan. Her evil ghost scythe slashed through the air, its sharp edge slicing through everything it encountered. There was no one here who could stop this.
When the extraordinary young man shot out to defend the caravan, not even his six-palace battle prowess gave him the speed to match Qing Qiu. After all, they were just caravan operators, not the Black Guard who lived for slaughter.
Qing Qiu easily evaded him, then erupted with gruish laughter and killing intent.
“Heh heh heh heh.”
The Holytide cultivators had no way to escape her. Her scythe slashed, instantly cutting them to pieces.
Qing Qiu attacked ruthlessly, and nothing could stand in her way. She was obviously ready to slaughter everyone present. Blood sprayed everywhere, getting onto her clothes and her face. That just made the blood-colored light in her eyes grow stronger. And when she licked the blood off her lips, the insanity in her eyes skyrocketed.
This version of Qing Qiu was just like the one Xu Qing had faced when he first met her. This was why he had taken to calling her Girl in Red.
If Xu Qing and the Captain weren’t around, and the caravan didn’t have some powerful trump card to use, then Qing Qiu’s ambush would have worked.
And even if the caravan did have a secret trump card, given Qing Qiu’s current speed and battle prowess, she still would have been able to take the cloudmother stones.
Except... Xu Qing and the Captain couldn’t just stand by while Qing Qiu slaughtered the caravan. It wasn’t that they cared about the Holytide cultivators. Rather, they couldn’t just let them all be killed.
As the six-palace Holytide backed away, Qing Qiu’s scythe sliced another Gold Core cultivator in half. As she closed in, cutting down three of the fourleggers, she pulled her scythe back to make another attack. That was when the Captain made his move.
He flew out from the ninth fourlegger, suddenly reverting to his normal size. However, he still looked like a Nightshade. Eyes glittering, he gave a cold harrumph.
“Impudent human!”