Chapter 16: Godhood Isn't the End
The next day there was a large hustle and bustle as the whole village was preparing to evacuate. All of the villager's belongings were being loaded onto ox and horse drawn carts outside the village gates. Many were unwilling to leave the ancestral lands on such short notice but seeing how in consensus the elders were on the matter and with the urging of the four experts they got into line. Thus evacuation preparations proceeded swiftly even without the intervention of Philip who remained meditating in his tent throughout. Meanwhile a red fog breezed out of the edge of the Dire Swamp. Marching inside the fog was an army in full armour carrying banners. No beasts dared approach the red fog because it smelled of blood of powerful beasts. It was in fact a blood mist of all the creatures that had attacked this regiment. At the centre of that blood mist was a man in red amour riding a black stallion in golden chain-mail. Any beast that entered the blood mist would wither rapidly into a corpse by bleeding through all it's orifices and finally the blood would thicken the fog. It was an eerie scene that had sent shivers down the soldiers spines but as a result they had not fought a single battle crossing the notorious dire swamp. An eagle flew over and landed on one of the army commander's shoulder. The fog did not assault it and there was a message tied to it's leg. After reading it he sent the bird away and approached the man on the black horse. "Your Highness, a legion led by the Ice Queen is also heading for the treasure,they have docked at World's End Mountain." Unperturbed by the report the red eyes under the helmet only glared sinisterly for a moment. "That little girl overestimates herself. Onward." came the calm reply. "Onward!" the commander relayed the order and the whole army marched into the grassland. The red blood mist gathered onto itself and vacuumed into the gaps of red armour the man was wearing, vanishing completely in a few moments. Now that they had left the swamp it was not needed any more.
Chief Saito was in the tent briefing Philip on the completed preparations. there was the planned routes and the tactics to deal with the Han Mountain Tribe. "Use the eastern route, lets go." Philip finally replied while standing up after the full brief. He walked out with the chief behind him reverently and calmly sat on one of the prepared ox carts. Curious glances fell on him from the villagers but no one dared to look him directly in the eye. "Head out! To the east! " Chief Saito announced and joined Philip in his cart. A few more elders like Charles also sat on this cart. The caravan set off slowly in the direction of the mountains in a straight procession, with Sir Ainsley leading the front, Orlov bringing the rear on horseback and Telerin and It to either side also escorting on horses. This was the basic formation of a guarded escort by an adventurer team, the bread and butter of adventurers who protected merchant caravans in transit from bandits and wild beasts. It had indeed been a long time since Shadow Team had taken on such trivial work that usually fell on Silver and Copper ranked adventurers. Yet here they were like the good old days when they started out. Telerin couldn't help but sigh whilst reminiscing. The caravan proceeded smoothly and soon left the village in the clearing behind, desolate yet gathering a mysterious fog. Little did they know that by heading east they had gone around two well equipped armies and avoided certain doom.
The ice queen and the blood emperor were converging on the same location at haste from the north and south. Mithamo had long since sensed them in his perception. Having cultivated his third eye he had already gained [Spirit Sense] and nothing could escape his senses within a thirty kilometre radius. Every blade of grass,every living creature, every structure, the were all clear in his perception. This area was his domain and this was what made the third eye so terrifying. While other cultivation techniques gave spirit sense it was only true Ancient techniques that fully opened the third eye. A common cultivator would only sense a three kilometre radius around them when they first achieved spirit sense. This was merely a tenth of Mithamo's capabilities it could not compare. As someone at the pinnacle of cultivation, the lower cultivation levels posed no problem at all to him even if he was re-cultivating. The biggest issue was in fact a lack of cultivation materials otherwise he could directly breeze through the cultivation levels and recover his strength. A mortal world was really lacking in this regard. This was why he targeted Worlds End Mountain, though it looked like any other mountain it was in fact a Spiritual Mountain with cultivation resources. Cultivation was like building a tower, the stronger the foundation the taller the tower. As a God one could say Mithamo was already an experienced skyscraper designer. Even so he had chosen to forsake that already tall skyscraper and start from scratch. This could already be called madness. To be motivated to such an extent, the only plausible reason as in the analogy, was a far superior tower design. Whilst he had breezed through the first nine levels of the first step this was because the environment was conducive, the building materials were there so to speak. The elders of the Nyasanga clan were a clear indication of the 'ordinary' pace of cultivation, none had even stepped into the fourth stage yet. Cultivators went against the heaven by gathering energy in the form of Qi. The more the Qi the less the were mortal. The cultivation levels were a tower of stacking Qi until it culminated in Godhood. This was the belief for aeons and aeons. However, Mithamo had discovered something that flipped it all on its head. He discovered that not all Qi is the same, and Godhood isn't the end.
Weekly Power Status
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