章 103: Prisoner of Blue Fire

Bao Du brought Shin Sumi through the areas of the Sky Earth Sect's tower which had already been cleared by the Blue Fire Sect's army.

At this point of the battle, all of the experts had been taken down and the last resisting disciples were being hunted restlessly.

Shin Sumi didn't know how many had been killed in the process and her only wish at this point was that she wouldn't be one of them. Her shoulder has been broken and all of her equipment, treasures and items had been taken from her by the same guy who held her captive.

The Blue Fire Holy Restraints prevented her from moving her arms or mustering enough Shinsoo for any rebellious act. She was completely stuck.

Once outside of the tower, Shin Sumi was taken to where all the prisoners were gathered, guarded by a dozen male and female disciples with robes slightly different from the rest.

As they approached, she could see that all twelve guards seemed to be very young compared to the other disciples. Most soldiers she had seen while walking through the battlefield with Invisible Crane of Oblivion were men and women middle-aged. She had even thought, at the time, that the Blue Fire Sect had not wanted to send any of their youth to war, and yet the twelve people guarding the prisoners were all less than twenty years old in appearances.

Some of them she wouldn't have said to be over fifteen years old. The others looked barely out of their teen years and yet something was completely off with them.

All of them had dark marks around their eyes, so dark that Shin Sumi couldn't tell if they were natural or tattoos made to look like they never slept.

Second of all, their robes were not jet black like the other disciples of the Blue Fire Sect she had seen so far. They were wearing grey robes, but so dark that from afar she couldn't have told the difference, embroidered with very thin golden patterns.

Each pattern looked different for each of these guards but Shin Sumi couldn't properly see them all from where she was.

The only thing she could properly probe was their cultivation level, bringing another look of surprise and shock on her face.

"The twelve of them are all late stage Liquid Realm cultivators!"

She couldn't help but think of Fen Wudao, whose strength and talent were unrivaled in the Dark Sky Starry Sect. Right in front of her, encircling all the prisoners, were twelve people who could compare to Fen Wudao.

"Stay here," Bao Du instructed, leaving her side for a couple of steps.

As if she would dare to move under the eyes of the twelve young guardians.

Bao Du spoke a few words Shin Sumi couldn't decipher to a young boy who looked so nonchalant and sleepy she wasn't sure he was listening. The boy never seemed to reply and yet Bao Du nodded deeply in a half bowing manner.

Shin Sumi's captor threw her bag of holding behind the young boy where a large pile of similar bags were amassed in great numbers.

"Oh no, I will never be able to find mine, even if I escape," Shin Sumi lamented interiorly. Even though she clearly had no option available, she still hadn't brought herself to accept the loss of her bag.

Her thoughts were cut off by the returning Bao Du who once again held her collar and forced her to walk.

Now turned to face all of the other prisoners, Shin Sumi could see that most of them were seated on their knees by groups of ten, all of them with a vacant look in their eyes. Just like her they must have lost everything to the attackers, except Shin Sumi had come alone from afar whereas they had also lost their homes, friends and teachers.

Shin Sumi was taken to a group of nine people, all visibly bearing the same Blue Fire Holy Restraints. Surprisingly, they seemed to be a lot more lively than the rest of the prisoners.

None of them were talking, but some of them had looks of defiance in their eyes, others had fear, others were clearly bruised, hurt and in deep pain.

"That's one more batch," the young boy with the golden laced grey robe called out behind Shin Sumi, startling her. She had not felt him approach at all.

Without another word, the boy waved his hands and brought them together in a circle.

It was a simple gesture but the power emanating from him was absurdly strong. In a second, a giant sphere-like barrier appeared around the ten captives.

As soon as the barrier was erected, Shin Sumi could feel her arms being untied to her body and her Shinsoo slowly returning from her dantian into her meridians, circulating. From the exclamations, sighs and general sounds of relief around her, Shin Sumi could tell that the other nine prisoners were also freed from their restreints.

For a very short moment, she forced all of the energy she could to her shoulder, soothing the pain of her broken bones and magically replacing the different parts together. Only that moment didn't last.

After his call, the young boy had been joined by the other eleven young prodigies. As Shin Sumi and the other prisoners were tending to themselves in a hurry, the twelve guards were focusing their energy together, preparing a large scale incantation. When they next spoke, it was all of them at the same time, in a grave voice, directing their energy towards not only Shin Sumi's group but the hundreds of other prisoners as well.

"State of Sleep, form three: Extension!"

Behind Shin Sumi and her group, a very large invisible barrier encompassing all the other prisoners started to shimmer into view. After a second, the shimmering focused on only one side of the large barrier. The next moment, a protrusion was forming, rising towards the new batch of prisoners.

It only took three seconds in total for the barrier to enclose Shin Sumi's group within the enchantment. Given the added power of the twelve young guards, it only showed how strong the barrier was and how inescapable the magical formation had become.

Simultaneously, all ten prisoners, Shin Sumi included, fell to their knees and entered a state of slumber, their vacant eyes unfocused and their minds swirling within a void.

***

Shin Sumi was walking in the darkness, her feet bare against a cold floor.

The only sensation left in her was the touch of the tiles she couldn't even see under her. As she progressed and the tiles got colder and colder, she realized that she was walking on a layer of ice.

As soon as she started thinking about the ice, it melted into a slow flowing water current. The water on her skin was soft and pleasant and she half-mindedly thought of a face.

It was a very pretty face. A girl's. What was her name again? Why did Shin Sumi think of her when the water started rising around her knees?

She shook her head and enjoyed the feeling, still progressing in the darkness.

Not one bit scary, Shin Sumi was enjoying her walk, to the point that even if she was given a choice, she would not leave this sensation.

She could feel the water bubble under her, splashing her knees and thighs. As smoothly as summer turns to autumn, the water turned into flames, licking her feet with snake-like tendrils.

Darkness, snakes, another half-memory rose in her empty mind. A strange place, a dangerous place where she had felt safe. Only she couldn't remember anything about it at all.

Not leaving her any time to focus on a particular thought, the flames changed once again, this time the tendrils solidifying into large roots.

The roots were rough and hard, but didn't impede her walk in the slightest. As she advanced, although she couldn't see anything, she could feel that the roots were connected together, in what could only be a massive tree.

The tree was far and close at the same time, familiar and mysterious.

Without knowing why, Shin Sumi knew that the roots would turn into paper, then characters written in darkness.

Only before that could happen, a sound so harsh and unpleasant wrung her ears. So out of place in this silent and dark world, the sound made her frown and she unconsciously tried to lift her hands to her ears to cover them.

But her hands were stuck by the roots who didn't seem to want to let her go.

The sound was high and low at the same time, built off of a hundred harmonics. It pierced the tree, the roots, the flames, the water and the tiles all at once.

It was only after the darkness was broken in a million pieces than Shin Sumi realized the sound was not that unpleasant. In fact it was welcome by the entirety of her soul as well as another soul, linked to hers.

It was the sound of a bell, a small bell that looked like copper.

***

Shin Sumi kept her eyes vacant when she woke up. As soon as the Copper Bell dispelled the State of Sleep, she remembered everything, the Sky Earth Sect and the twelve guards' technique.

"The Copper Bell has saved me from the illusion... It's just like in the first part of the Rising Star Tournament."

She knew that the Copper Bell had the ability to break all sorts of illusions and spirit formations that impacted the senses. Whether it was too cold, too bright, or a formation was stopping her from seeing what was really around her, one ring from the bell was enough to keep Shin Sumi grounded to reality and make her adapt to the environment.

Only...

"But I don't have the Copper Bell! It was taken from me with my bag of holding! How can that be? Can the bell function at long-range as well? Is it the link between it and my divine sense that has made it respond?"

Shin Sumi's thoughts were all over the place until she felt a second divine sense stiring within her.

"Nuan! You've awakened too!"

Keeping her face and appearance as calm and vacant as before, Shin Sumi hid her joy as she finally understood everything.

When she was captured by Bao Du, in shock due to the pain she had felt at the time, she had not paid attention to what Nuan had been doing. Now that she was finally clear-headed, her shoulder a bit relieved and she could use her divine sense on herself to focus on the leaf pattern on the inside of her wrist, Shin Sumi saw that the Lion Bat's presence was different than before. In a way, Nuan felt much larger than she was, although Shin Sumi couldn't describe it with words.

Nuan's divine sense was stronger and more complex, as if it was composed of thousands of pieces that had been made to fit each other.

Naturally, nothing was wrong with Nuan. The Lion Bat had not changed at all and the strange Shinsoo fluctuations were only due to what occupied the hidden space in the leaf pattern with her.

"Nuan, why didn't you tell me you could do that?! You mean that all along you could have kept my artefacts and resources with you inside my wrist?!"

A wave of relief washed over Shin Sumi. With a bit more focus on her divine sense, she could feel the Copper Bell's presence. Then the Void Sword and the jade compass. Discerning each specific item was hard at first, Nuan's presence overwhelming all the others, and it took Shin Sumi about fifteen minutes to completely dress the inventory of what exactly Nuan had kept hidden as Shin Sumi was deprived of her possessions.

Shin Sumi was just finished, realizing that the only things remaining in her bag of holding were bits of food, clothes and miscellaneous items that were not really important, when the twelve young guards in front of the prisoners started speaking.

"Are you okay, Brother Rat? You seem a little pale, will you be able to keep helping with the State of Sleep?"

A concerned voice. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the speaker was a girl who seemed to be between fifteen and sixteen year old. Her eyes too were circled in dark, as if she hadn't slept in years. On the dark grey robe that fit her curves tightly, the golden lining looked roughly like a large insect, crawling on her left side, the head on the side of her breast and the body twisting around her back.

"I will be fine. That old bastard Green Leaf took me by surprise but Master Bronze jumped in at the right time," answered a younger voice.

Shin Sumi recognized the boy who had called the others earlier. She couldn't see him clearly, she only saw the girl get close to him and take hold of him or something.

"What are you doing, Mantis? St-stop!" the boy called Rat with shaking in his voice.

Was the girl tickling him?

"Mantis, Rat, stop teasing each other. If you have strength left, keep it for the next prisoners," an older voice intervened. A man, probably one of the oldest of the bunch at twenty or so.

Again, Shin Sumi could not see the young man who had spoken, unless she wanted to reveal the fact that she was out of their State of Sleep technique.

For close to six hours, Shin Sumi waited patiently, feigning being under the control of their technique. In that relatively long lapse of time, about ten more groups of prisoners were brought in.

By listening patiently to the bickering of some of the guards, their conversations and the reaction of a few Sky Earth Sect disciples, she was able to draw certain conclusions as to who they were and what they were doing.

The Blue Fire Sect, with its immense power, still had a structure similar to most of the other cultivation sects.

Past the Liquid Realm, only the talented could join the Inner Sect and rise through the ranks. Those whose talent would slow down their cultivation and stop before the Core Development Realm were either left to roam the world free or would settle in the sect as clercs, instructors, farmers or Elders if they were lucky enough.

As for the Inner Sect disciples, the few who had proven their worth, they were still part of another sort of ranking which, Shin Sumi guessed, could end in different factions.

The Night Twelve, Shin Sumi's captors, were one of them, composed only of young geniuses whose prospect and talent were without limit. Each adorned with their animal in the golden lining of their robe, they were also recognizable by the dark rings around their eyes, due to the technique they all cultivated.

They were under the direct command of the cultivator called Bronze Fire until they reached the Core Development Realm.

As Shin Sumi heard an old prisoner say to his comrade before they too were imprisoned by State of Sleep, in the past tens of successive generations of Night Twelves, not a single member ever failed to leave before they were twenty-five.

"All the levels have been cleaned, Master Bronze is positive there is only one more batch of prisoners left," a voice rose from behind Shin Sumi, past the hundreds of souls trapped in State of Sleep's invisible barrier.

It was the second time Shin Sumi heard the voice. The first time, the boy named Rat had referred to its owner as Raccoon. From Raccoon's tone and slightly grave voice, she assumed he was one of the Night Twelve's eldest, meaning he ranked higher in the hierarchy and was probably already in the Liquid Realm's ninth step.

"We should set up the transportation link then," Rat replied to the ones next to him.

"What do you think they'll do with all these prisoners in the sect?" Mantis' lively voice asked.

"I don't know and I don't care. Why? Do you want to keep some of them? Do you need a few more serving girls and butlers?"

"Hmpf. As if. You know I only want you by my side, helping me every day, Brother Rat!"

"St-stop it Mantis, you know I would never... I mean..." Rat's voice died, the words stopping before his throat.

Mantis was pouting exaggeratingly, Rat's red face turning away from her.

"And-and if you want to keep a prisoner as your personal slave, you need to ask Master Bronze and maybe he'll let you pick before that weirdo Master Lead Fire finds his next test subjects."

Shin Sumi took note of what she had heard, her mind immediately thinking back on Elder Zhu's dark experiments.

At the same time, she could feel the Night Twelve's energy rising in the air. They were preparing something big, something that would be as impressive as the massive spell State of Sleep. They were setting up a giant spirit formation around the entire bubble of prisoners and linking them to a transportation formation.

"Can they really move hundreds of prisoners through a formation and send all of us to the Blue Fire Sect?!" Shin Sumi wondered. Even to transport the Honorary Disciples of the Dark Sky Starry Sect to the Floating Continent for the Rising Star Tournament, Patriarch Sen had needed to use the powers of the Star Zheng, the sect's treasure.

Could the Night Twelve's combined power really rival an artifact as old and powerful as the Star Zheng?!

A few minutes later, as the last prisoners arrived and the Sky Earth Sect was officially no more than a large tower in ruins and aflame in the middle of the mountains, Shin Sumi's question was answered when the transportation formation started glowing a bright red and rotating under her folded knees.

Forcing herself to remain calm-looking and feign being trapped in the illusion like the other prisoners, Shin Sumi only closed her eyes when the red light became too bright.

When she opened them again, the air around her felt different. She was still in the invisible bubble with hundreds of others, but they were no longer in the south of the Blue Fire Mountain Range.

There was no doubt about it, they were now in the middle of the Blue Fire Sect.