Everything they buried was marked with runes, though. Then they used some brushes to paint the various structures and connected them with some ropes. Everyone was doing something or another. They were like worker bees diligently working to build a hive.
Loki was a little informed, so he could tell that they were building an array, and it appeared to be a large array, as the area where they were building it was bigger than a football field. But he couldn’t tell what the array was or what it was for.
In order to know, he needed to make contact with the mind of one of them. But he didn’t want to tip them off to his presence, so he made the bird withdraw.
Since he already knew that the people of the Myriad Phenomenon Sect were coming here, he decided that rather than face all of them at once, it was better to waylay someone coming here to join the group.
So he made the bird move a certain distance away from the group and lie in wait for another member of the Myriad Phenomenon Sect to pass by. When someone passed by, he froze their mind and hijacked it.
From this person’s mind, he was able to learn the plans of the Myriad Phenomenon Sect. This made him curse and say, "These sneaky fiends. They want to take advantage of us."
He couldn’t deal with the group alone as they had two rank 5 cultivators among them, so he decided to go looking for help. Without thinking too much, he sent the bird towards the city.
He just learned why the people of the Four Directions Sect chose to set up their arrays in this area, so he knows that he can find an ally in the city. This is why he sent the bird towards the city.
As for the man whose mind he just hijacked, he used his mind to hijack the minds of another bird in the area. Then he made the bird stay behind while he sent the man towards the group to infiltrate them and act from within.
He made sure to hide his presence in the man’s mind so that he wouldn’t be detected by the rank 5 cultivators, but when the man got near the array, an alarm went off. This alarm caught him off guard because the man himself didn’t know about it.
The three commanders had never mentioned this alarm in the briefing and planning session before the battle. But the man could guess what the alarm was for because of his years of experience and because of his current circumstances.
When the alarm rang out, everyone stopped working and turned to glance at the man. Then they saw a white torrent of light come from the sky and smash towards the man.
An array had activated around the man that froze him in place, so he couldn’t evade the torrent of light. The torrent of light was also from one of the rank 5 beings, so when it came into contact with the man, it was as if acid had been poured onto metal.
The man’s skin was the first to break apart. His muscles and blood vessels were next. Then his bones and marrow were the last to follow.
When the light was done, there was nothing left of him anymore. All of these had happened in less than a second, so there was no scream of pain. The man had simply disappeared, and there was a deep pit where he used to stand.
The rank 5 cultivator that had attacked said to everyone below, "Get back to work. We are running out of time."
Then she went over to the other rank 5 cultivator who was poring over a schematic of the array with another person. The other person was a rank 4 cultivator.
When she reached them, she said, "That was someone whose mind had been tampered with. The fact that one appeared here means that the Four Directions Sect should know what we are planning."
The rank 4 cultivator, who was a man, said, "It is too late to stop now. We have invested too much and can only continue."
The other rank 5 cultivator, who was also a man, said, "It is true. We can’t stop now. Besides, their knowledge of what we are doing doesn’t change much. It is not like they can stop us anyway."
The female rank 5 nodded and said, "We have done our best here. If they can still defeat us, then they will need to pay a great price to defeat us."
"But before that, I suggest that we try to eliminate anyone who might interfere with our work before it happens. That way, we won’t be forced into a corner too easily."
The rank 4 nodded in agreement and said, "Let’s send that friend of ours to find the Mind Hunter. He likes to hunt the people of the Four Directions Sect, so he won’t mind."
The other rank 5 said, "Agreed. Let’s do that."
Since they were in agreement, the female rank 5 cultivator immediately executed their plan. She took out a talisman, which she used to reach out to one of their allies in the Nexus of Truth Sect. This ally is a rank 5 cultivator of the Seer Pathway. So finding the Mind Hunter should be possible.
After doing this, she returned to her work of overseeing the building of the array. The other two assisted her when necessary.
These three are the ones in charge of making the plans and calling the shots in the army for the Myriad Phenomenon Sect. These three were selected for this job because they are the only ones with Level 5 Dao Status.
In the Myriad Phenomenon Sect, Dao Status is not earned with merit points. It is earned through pure skill and scholarly achievement.
There are three pathways in the Myriad Phenomenon Sect, which are the Array Pathway, Talisman Pathway, and Pill Refining Pathway. Dao Status is granted to the cultivators of these pathways based on their level of mastery of the three fields.