After sitting in the raucous inn for a while, a a well built man aged about 25 wearing a blue robe approached and sat in front of him without any greeting, he smiled with perfect symmetrical white teeth.
The man who was a head taller than Hartley had dark short hair and eyes as dark as a pool of black ink,
"I am Lou Tai and I'm in charge of this mission," he said and cupped his fist, he then showed a token provided by the clan signifying a core disciple.
Hartley cupped his fists and then produced his own.
"The others are already upstairs we are having a meeting, you are the last one to arrive, let's go ." He then led the way and Hartley followed.
In a spacious double room on the second floor of the inn which had two beds positioned next to the opposing walls, there were already three occupants inside patiently awaiting the arrival of the last members of the team.
The door opened with a long squeak shattering the silence of the room as Hartley entered in front of Lou Tai.
Lou Ang and Lou Rylai who were both core disciples of the Stellar mountain were sat quietly on the bed at the right side of the room a couple meters away from each other gazing in different directions, on the bed to the left , sitting comfortable was Qin Li who was the other core disciple from the Violet mountain.
Everyone identified themselves as the team got introduced and acquainted pretty quickly, Lou Rylai was a woman with long black hair, a slim body, pale skin, and dark eyes.
She was a wood elemental at the 2nd layer of xiantian realm, she was from the Stella mountain and
seemed shy and reserved, seeming to be a woman of few words.
Lou Ang who looked about the same age as Lou Rylai was the other core disciple from the Stella mountain, he had an air of haughty arrogance, he was a typical young lord who hardly put anyone in his eyes, believing himself to be above others who weren't raised and groomed to be the young lord of the clan. He was an earth elemental 2nd layer xiantian realm expert.
Apart from Lou Lee this was the first time Hartley had met other core disciples from the Stellar mountain
Qin Li, like Lou Tai was from the Violet mountain and Qin Li was a wind elemental expert also a 2nd layer xiantian.
Hartley had a good impression of Qin Li from their small interaction, for someone to become a core disciple in the Lou clan without being a direct descendant or a branch family member, one could imagine what he had went through, he was older than the rest at around 30 and had worked himself up from a servant disciple which was a feat almost comparable to a miracle.
The meeting started promptly as they proceeded to discuss their tactics and strategy moving forward with the mission.
Hartley was uninterested in the mission planning and left it for Lou Tai to form a plan but with Lou Ang who disagreed with everything and put forward his own supposedly superior suggestions at every turn, the meeting went on much longer than it should have.
Lou Tai was the one placed in charge of this mission and he would have the final say, every now then he gave questioning looks at Hartley, wanting the handsome youth's input but was disappointed when the young man was uninterested, he was impressed after seeing the life and death battle Hartley had fought against Lou Lee and was even able to fend off a attack from Lou Pangie.
As an experienced expert with plenty of real world experience Lou Tai had witnessed the nuances of the fight and knew that the youth had won with graceful tactics and not just brute force.
Two hours later the plan was finalized, In Hartley's opinion the final plan should have taken no more than fifteen minutes, they had decided to go out and patrol the main road where these attacks have been taking place, capture and interrogate bandits until they got a lead.
In a search and destroy mission, the searching was always the hardest and it was proving to be the case in this instance. They had camped out along the main road between the provinces about a thousand meters apart to cover more road, Lou Tai had ordered them to capture at least one and kill the rest of any bandit gangs operating on the region...
On the first night of the mission Hartley found a spot in the sector he was supposed to operate in, now that he had the power to just walk up vertical surfaces, he just walked up a tree about 20 meters tall and sat in cultivation through the night, staying vigilant on the look out for bandit activities.
The team would returned to the inn in the daytime to investigate further, trying to gain more information from the regular patrons of the businesses and pedestrians who frequented the area.
This went on for a days without success.
The routine of camping out during the nights and investigating during the days went on for five days. On the night of the fifth day, Hartley was cultivating in tree when he heard a sharp shrill scream of a whistle in the darkness of the quiet night.
It was a signal from one of the core disciples, the Lou clan had provided special signal whistles which could be heard from miles around.
Hartley flashed away and rendezvous with Qin LI who was in the sector closest next in line to him, Qin Li pointed to the south and they both flashed away towards the others. Hartley matched his speed with Qin Li and he arrived at the scene that the rest that had gathered about ten minutes later.
They arrived to see bodies and body parts scattered around and the wreckage of a Carriage laying upside down with one of its wheel still spinning back and forth slowly with an annoying squeak.
A slim disheveled figure in dark robes was tied to a tree weeping and coughing, while Lou Ang who had a gleeful look on his face was cutting flesh from the man's bloody arm yelling "TALK" every now an then. Lou Ang seemed to be having the time of his life, he was secretly hoping that man would hold out for a long while.
Lou Rylai sported a squeamish look on her scrunched up face and looked away at times, while the others stood back and let Lou Ang enjoy himself with his demented idea of fun.
The prisoner's weakening screams of pain swelled out into the dark night, the sweating man held out for while and every time he was about to pass out Lou Tai would call the squeamish Lou Rylai forward to heal the bandit for a bit so he would remain conscious, after a series of bone-deep cuts were inflicted from shoulder to elbow and salt applied to the ghastly wounds the man finally broke to the disappointment of Lou Ang.
The bandit coughed up the information the needed...