章 12: The Slumbering District
The thin and scholarly man nodded and allowed the veiled woman to approach.
"Go ahead." The thin man said.
The veiled woman then produced a scroll in her hand, likely from a spatial treasure, and passed it to the thin man.
"I've taken the liberty to compile all the intelligence we've gathered, my lord. There are some parts you'll find rather, fascinating." The veiled woman spoke with a respectful tone.
The thin man opened the scroll and started reading it with his full concentration. At first, the man's expression seemed rather disinterested, but later it became more interested until finally, it reached the peak of elation.
"Hahaha!" The thin man laughed out loud.
"You've done well, very well. Seems like we have an interesting contender here." The thin man spoke with a joyous tone.
"How do we proceed, my lord? Do we bring him to you?" The veiled woman questioned.
"We know that his senses are sharp and he's been able to detect our people before. We also don't know who's backing him, but considering his strength and talent, I would say it's someone strong."
The man said and paused before continuing,
"Don't approach him for now and just observe him. Try to get a clue about his backer, if it's someone from our 'list', eliminate him. Otherwise, we may have a new pawn to play with." The thin man said.
"My lord, we still have one of our men watching him. He still has the old orders and is following them. He may end up making contact with the boy, which may end in conflict." The Woman added.
The thin man stroked his beard before speaking,
"Hmm, this does make it a little difficult. Try to send a message as soon as possible and if something does happen, try to avoid further conflict. We'll compensate him later."
"As you wish, my lord." The veiled woman respectfully spoke and turned around.
But just as she was about to leave, the thin man spoke up again.
"Just in case, assign one of our higher corps members to him."
The veiled woman seemed to be surprised, but it could not be seen from because of her veil.
"Are you sure my lord? All three of our higher corps members are currently assigned to long-term missions. If we recall any one of them, then all of their progress may go to waste." The veiled woman asked with an unnerved voice.
The veiled woman was rather shocked by her lord's words. She did not expect that her lord would place such a big importance on that cultivator who was still a teen. She knew how much every higher corps member was worth. Each and every one of them was a Core condensation realm cultivator and was trained in reconnaissance and assassination.
Even she herself, who was considered to be the closest person to her lord, couldn't compare in strength with the higher corps.
"Yes, if he is what I think, then it would certainly be worth it." The thin man answered with determination in his voice.
"Who should I assign then, my lord?" The woman asked.
"Assign the second member of the higher corps. His character would suit this mission." The thin man ordered.
"The second member of the higher corps is currently in the Black Dawn kingdom, my lord. I estimate it would take him ten days to reach the designated location." The veiled woman replied.
"It may take a little longer than that, as the current mission is rather sensitive and he will need to sever all ties before returning." The veiled woman added with a little hesitation.
"That's fine. Until he reaches there, you may personally oversee this assignment." The thin man spoke with a calm voice.
"It will be done as you say, my lord." The woman replied respectfully before leaving.
A few minutes later, after the woman was gone, the thin man stood up and withdrew a jade slip out of a spatial treasure. He held it in his hand and let it activate. The jade slip shone for a bit and then buzzed.
"I may have a new solution, elder brother." The thin man spoke.
*****
Back at the Northern town,
Lin Mu was patrolling his neighborhood. So far he had not seen anything strange or unusual. He also had a doubt whether the townsmen who disappeared were taken by the darkly dressed men or someone else.
He had seen the guard follow the townsmen who had entered the town all the way to their houses. He had also seen the guard withdraw a strange contraption from his sleeve.
Because of the darkness, Lin Mu was not able to see what it was but could guess that it was something metallic, as it gave off a glint. He knew that it was not something a guard would carry and was specially made for an unknown reason. The guard was a definite suspect as he had disappeared later as well.
'Perhaps I should have focused on that guard from the start.' Lin Mu thought.
In the blink of an eye an hour went by and it was time for him to return back. He reached the square and saw that three people were already standing there. The only person who was missing was Xiao Lu.
The portly man approached Lin Mu and spoke.
"So did you find anything unusual?"
Lin Mu shook his head as he replied,
"No, everything seemed to be normal. All the houses are silent and everyone is sleeping. Except for a few stray dogs and cats, there's no one wandering out."
"That's good. Now we only have to wait for Xiao Lu to return and report." The portly man spoke.
Fifteen minutes passed by and there was no sign of Xiao Lu. The portly man seemed to be getting nervous now. Five more minutes passed and the portly man was just about to speak something when Lin Mu interrupted.
"Ah, there he comes." Lin Mu spoke.
The three men looked around but could not see anyone there.
"Where?" The three men asked in unison.
Lin Mu then understood their confusion. The men could not see as far as him in the darkness, no wonder they were confused. He then pointed at an alley and everyone followed his finger.
A few seconds after hearing the sounds of someone running, they could see the sprinting figure of Xiao Lu appearing from the alley with four dogs chasing him.
"HELP!!!" He shouted
The man who had brought Lin Mu went forward to help, but before he could even do anything the dogs stopped by themselves. They growled a little and then started yelping, in the next second they scampered away.
Xiao Lu did not see this happen as he was still in a state of panic. He stopped when he couldn't hear the sounds of the dogs behind him. He looked at the people in front of him and asked,
"What happened? Where did they go?"
The rest of the three people along with Lin Mu were confused by this development.
"That was strange, they weren't barking, only chasing." The man who had brought Lin Mu spoke.
The portly man nodded before turning to Xiao Lu.
"Why were they chasing you? Did you provoke them?" The portly man questioned.
Xiao Lu shook his head as he answered,
"No, not at all. They just randomly started chasing me when I was just about to return. I don���t know why."
Lin Mu then realized something.
"Wait, you were shouting all this time right, why didn't the residents wake up? And where's the gong?" Lin Mu asked.
"I threw the gong at the dogs when they were chasing me. As for the residents, I didn't pay attention." Xiao Lu replied.
The portly man seemed to have realized something, and his face turned pale.
"Oh, no! Ring the alarm quick, I fear something bad is happening." The portly man exclaimed.
The other people hesitated and did not understand the portly man's nervousness, but Lin Mu started banging the gong without a second thought.
"ALARM! ALARM! WAKE UP, EVERYONE!" Lin Mu shouted.
Seeing Lin Mu shouting the other's started to do that as well.
Then, the thing that they were dreading all this while happened. Not a single resident woke up nor responded. The four men were starting to gauge the seriousness of the situation by now. It had been five minutes, yet there were no results.
'There's no use, they are probably under the effect of some kind of drug. Go and check out the houses yourself.' Xukong spoke in Lin Mu's mind.
"Let's go and check the houses ourselves." Lin Mu spoke authoritatively.
Strangely enough, no one questioned him right now and just went with the flow. Even Yuan Tu did not oppose him or show any aversion right now.
Lin Mu ran to the closest house and started banging on the door while shouting. But even then, no one responded. The other men tried the same thing, but to no avail.
"We need to break down the door and look inside." The portly man spoke.
Everyone tacitly nodded and agreed to the proposition. The men braced themselves to break the door and were just about to slam, when Lin Mu ripped the door off of its hinges with ease. The four men were left with the jaws hanging upon seeing this feat.
Lin Mu paid no attention to their shock and just rushed inside. He saw the pair of homeowners sleeping on their bed soundlessly. He went ahead and picked up the man that was sleeping and shook him hard.
The four men entered the room and saw Lin Mu shaking the sleeping the man hard.
"Why are they not waking up?"
章 13: Capturing The Spy
Lin Mu had shaken the poor man to his core, yet there was no physical response from him. The other people had also tried on their own and tested the man as well but got no response.
"It's no use, lets go try the other houses." Lin Mu spoke.
Lin Mu then went to the next house and broke down the door as well. He walked inside the house and found its sleeping residents. The others followed him inside and watched as he tried to wake them up.
Lin Mu had checked that actually they were alive and not dead. They just seemed to be highly unconscious and unresponsive, while their breathing still continued.
"Why is this happening?" Yuan Tu spoke out loud.
Everyone heard his words and reciprocated with him, as they all were wondering about the reason for this phenomenon.
"We need to keep on checking the houses, there are bound to be more people that are not affected by this." Lin Mu spoke.
"Yes, this can't just happen to the entire district. We are still awake so there should be more people." The portly man affirmed.
The party of five went from house to house checking on people. At first, they would just break in through the front door but later understood that this was ineffective, as the people who were unconscious would not respond either way. In the end, they just decided to make as much noise as possible to alert anyone that was unaffected.
They had wanted to inform the guards outside the district about this occurrence, but then decided against it as they thought that staying together was the right decision at this time. Who knows what would happen if they were alone, thus they did not want to take the risk.
It took them over two hours before they were even able to find a person that was unaffected by it. They were at a rather small house, which looked old. Its paint had faded away and the wooden frames of the windows and door seemed to be pretty weathered as well.
As before, they knocked on the door hard and shortly got a response.
"Who the hell is disturbing my sleep at this time?!!" A person shouted from inside the house.
"Wake up! We have a huge problem. We are the people who are doing the night vigil." The portly man spoke.
Some incomprehensible grumbles could be heard coming from behind the door. The door soon opened and an old man appeared from behind it. The old man seemed to be at least eighty years old and had a face full of wrinkles.
"What do you want?" The old man groaned.
"We are the night vigil team. We found that people in the district are unconscious and unresponsive." The portly man spoke.
"Yes, we checked many houses and tried to wake people, but no one is responding. We even tried shaking them physically but they still did not respond, you're the first person we found that responded." Lin Mu explained.
By now the old man had become woken enough to understand the current predicament. He asked for them to show them the unconscious people, which they gladly did. After seeing the proof with his own eyes, the old man understood the graveness of the situation.
"What do we do now then?" The old man asked.
Everyone turned to look at Lin Mu subconsciously. Due to him taking the approach head-on, everyone had unknowingly accepted him as the leader. Although his surprising strength may have played a part in it as well, there weren't many people in the town who could just rip off doors that easily.
"I recommend we go and inform the guards at this point. This is much bigger at this point and we don't know the implications of this. We are definitely gonna need a lot of people if we want to check every house." Lin Mu ordered.
Everyone nodded without thinking much and started following Lin Mu. Half an hour later they had left the residential district and were at its exit. The guards should have been patrolling around here but they were nowhere to be found.
"Where are the guards?" The men questioned together.
'There seems to be more to this than we thought.' Xukong spoke.
"I'm going to go look for them and you guys try to see if the residents here can wake up." Lin Mu ordered.
All the men nodded in response and went ahead to do their tasks. Lin Mu decided to directly go towards the guard barracks, that way if he encountered any guard on the way he'll inform them as well.
Lin Mu started running at his full speed after he was at a sufficient distance from the men. He didn't want to reveal more of his capabilities than he had already done today. The streets were eerily silent and not even stray animals could be seen. Lin Mu was halfway to the barracks when he sensed some disturbance.
Lin Mu's spirit sense was already extended and he was completely alert, thus he was able to detect the presence that was hiding in the shadows hiding. Lin Mu probed the place with his spirit sense and found the person that was hiding there.
"Get ready" Xukong spoke.
Lin Mu instinctively withdrew the throwing daggers from his ring and threw two of them at the location he had detected the person at. A muffled grunt and clinking of metal could be heard after that.
"Come out now, I know you are there." Lin Mu called out.
Slowly a person came out of the darkness and revealed himself to Lin Mu. The person was dressed in dark blue clothes and was wearing a featureless mask with only two holes for eyes. He had a thin sword hung on his waist and was six feet tall.
Lin Mu used his spirit sense to gauge the man's strength and discovered that he was a cultivator too. The man was at the Early stage of the Qi refining realm and didn't seem to have refined his spirit sense yet.
When Lin Mu's spirit sense probed the masked man cultivation, he seemed to have detected it as he flinched for a moment and became tense.
"He's dressed differently. Does he belong to the same group of people or not?" Lin Mu wondered.
"You can find that out soon enough. For now, you just need to get the information out of him, either by hook or by crook." Xukong replied.
Lin Mu then drew the short sword from its sheath and pointed it at the masked man before speaking,
"Who are you and why have you been following me?"
The Masked Man didn't speak but instead drew his own sword in response.
"So you're not going to take the easy route." Said Lin Mu with a sharp tone.
The man advanced first and slashed, which Lin Mu easily dodged by sidestepping and responded with an attack of his own.
~shing~
The masked man was able to block it but felt the weight of the strike on his blade. He instantly understood the difference between their strengths. He was already shocked when he felt a spirit sense probe on him but when he actually felt the force of Lin Mu's attack, his suspicions were confirmed.
The masked man was not one to give up easily though, he attacked again and missed. Lin Mu had an advantage in speed as well as strength. If he wanted to, he could have ended this fight instantly but he instead wanted to get the information out of the man first.
Both of them exchanged blows one after the other. While all of the masked man's attacks missed, it was not the same for Lin Mu. Most of his attacks were blocked but some had nicked the masked man. He had multiple smaller cuts on his body; some on his hands, some on his torso, and some on his legs.
After fighting for five minutes, Lin Mu decide that it was enough.
"That's it, surrender now or I'll end you right now. You know that you have no chance against me." Lin Mu sternly spoke.
The man did not heed Lin Mu's words and instead attacked again. Seeing that the man was uncooperative, Lin Mu decided to end it quickly.
He channeled wisps of spirit qi into his short sword and slashed at the masked man. The man tried to block it in turn but was unsuccessful as Lin Mu's blade just cut through his own sword effortlessly. The blade was just about to reach his neck when Lin Mu paused for a moment and punched with his other hand.
The strengthened fist landed on the masked man's face and knocked him down to the ground. Lin Mu had not used his entire strength as he did not want to kill the man right away.
Even if he wanted to kill the man, he would avoid attacking the face, as it would just end up crushing the man's skull and disfiguring him. Lin Mu would not be able to identify the man then and it would become difficult for him to further investigate.
After being knocked on the ground the man became disoriented and could not respond. Lin Mu then placed the point of his short sword at the masked man's neck.
"Surrender." Lin Mu ordered.
Finding himself unarmed and at the edge of death, the man finally gave up.
"Okay! I surrender."
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