Matt felt a bit perplexed as he looked at the rotund man that was rubbing his forehead. The manager and the lady tried to help their boss up to his feet, but he was just too heavy for the two of them. They fell on their butts after the woman slipped and lost her grip on her boss' arm. After the people were done with their comedic routine they finally started to talk, recounting the previous day.
"He came at sundown, he somehow managed to remove the cities protective formation. The experts in the city cowered in fright and didn't even dare to come out to face him... damn cowards..."
The man blew his nose and continued speaking in a solemn tone.
"The demonic aura soon filled the whole area, it was truly overbearing. He said that he demanded ten beautiful women as his brides and that he would pick them out himself. He then used some kind of strange purple glowing treasure that looked like a medallion."
The chubby merchant wiped some sweat from his brow, he looked like he was about to cry again.
"He started pointing that thing at the poor girls, t-they got sucked into it, he got my little girl too..."
Matt rubbed his chin while listening to what the man was saying, it looked like the demonic cultivator probably captured the women to perform some kind of ritual. Could also be part of his cultivation method, he knew that some cultivation methods required people to sleep with each other. He didn't like where this was going, would he sacrifice those girls to some demon, or suck their life energy? None of those choices was any good.
"Hmmm..., tell me where he went. There is probably not much time left for those girls."
He didn't want to sugarcoat it as he replied in a serious tone, he would try to save those girls but he didn't want to give these people high expectations. The manager stepped in this time around, telling Matt in what direction the man left.
"Also when that man come here? Did he touch anything? Or do you perhaps have something that belonged to your kidnapped daughter?"
He had his tracking skill by now, maybe he could get a whiff of the man's aura that would point him in the right direction. He might also be able to home in on the aura trail of the girls. He received some kind of hair accessory that was giving off a faint spiritual signal, he could see a purplish energy trail going all around the merchant house which didn't help him out that much. In the mess of trails he could point out an ominous looking one.
It looked like a strand of vape smoke just drifting about and out of the front door. He stepped outside to follow the trail that was mixing with some other random aura trails. If he didn't home in on it in the merchant building he would probably not be able to single it out in this piled up mess.
"Okay, I got his trail, I'll be leaving then."
He jumped up into the air, skillfully removing his flying sword from his spatial ring and wooshing into the distance before the people around him could say anything back to him. Truthfully the merchant and his workers didn't expect much from this man, they thought that he would either flee or die, still the father prayed that his lovely daughter would be rescued.
*The more I stay in this world, the bleaker it gets... demons, monsters that kidnap infants in the night. People that care more about power than the well-being of others, rapists and murderers everywhere... not sure why people like these kind of worlds in those novels, prefer them less chaotic, wonder if I can change the peoples mindset...
He rubbed his glabella with the eyes closed before opening them up and following the smoke trail. He was set on rescuing those women, hoping that he would make it in time before it was too late. He tried to be positive but the surroundings were throwing him curveballs every time. The trail brought him towards a mountain range that looked even more gloomy than the town he was previously in. The wind was whistling and storm clouds were gathering, lightning and thunder filling the surroundings. It looked like these were the so-called dread peaks.
The moment he got close he noticed that the trail was getting thicker and thicker, leading him towards one of the mountain peaks. He arrived at the spot, his sword drawn as he could feel quite a bit of demonic Qi around. But besides some trashy looking demonic beasts there was no one in sight. He focused on the trail, but it turned from one smoke stream to multiple ones and soon just filled the whole surrounding area so much that he had no way of telling where the demonic cultivator went. His sytem map didn't show much either, just pointed out some dots here and there but it could't pierce through the mountain not showing any life signals.
*His demonic qi is filling the whole mountain top, I can't tell where he went from here... is there some kind of secret passage?*
The cultivator was at a high level and he managed to survive for so long even with people on his trail. It was wise to assume that he had some kind of hidden lair or some kind of treasure that hid his presence. Maybe if Matt could find the entrance he could figure something out, but his tracking skill wasn't pointing him to it.
He thought about the hair accessory that he received from the merchant, he pulled it out in the hopes that maybe he could home in on the woman's aura instead. The tracking ability was quite easy to use, he just needed to concentrate on one energy signature and it would show him the trail if that type of aura was in the surroundings. He concentrated, the dark smoke vanished as he focused on the accessory that gave out its own light purple smoke signal.
*Okay, I've locked on to it... let's see if I can find something here...*
He looked around while hovering on his sword, trying to pick up the purple aura. It only took him a couple of flights to finally spot the trail in question. He followed it to an unsuspecting wall, it didn't seem like there was anything there just a part of the mountain, not even a cave. The purple smoke was clearly going into the rocks, telling him that there should be an entrance somewhere.
*Should I just bust through? But won't that alert that guy to my presence...*
He changed his trail vision back to the evil cultivators, dark smoke filling his vision as he looked around. He spotted a certain spot that was a lot darker than the rest, it was a tree stump with a hole in it. After fiddling for a second he actually found a lever in there, after pulling on it he could hear some kind of mechanism getting turned on. The wall started rumbling and suddenly vanished into thin air revealing a corridor behind it.
*Great, more corridors...*
He placed his flying sword back into his storage ring while pulling out his Spirit Infusion Longsword, he also thought that the name for his weapon was a bit too long. He would have to give his weapon a better name like 'Lightbringer' or 'Thunder-fall'. For now, he hid his aura as much as he could and went into the tunnel, inside he was rewarded with some stairs, though they were going upwards into the mountain peak and not down this time around. The peak in question stretched into the mountains for quite some time, so this might have been a long walk.
*What's with all these damn stairs... *
He focused back on the purple trail that continued on, the daughter of that merchant had to be here somewhere he had to hurry up and rescue her along with the rest. Luckily it didn't take him half an hour like last time as he came to a clearing and could even hear some voices in the distance.
He started sneaking towards the noises, there was light coming from that area and the door seemed to be open the demonic cultivator probably wasn't expecting any visitors. Matt tippy-toed his way and slowly peeked out of the door entrance while remaining vigilant. It wouldn't be funny if he got attacked the moment he looked in, so he kept his guard up.
What he saw inside was a strange-looking room. He was on the upper floor and there were handrails in front. When he looked down he could see a circular room, the ten women were there. The females were bound and strung up on what looked like one of those bondage contraptions. It was in the shape of an 'X' with spaces to bind the hands by the wrists and legs by the ankles. There was a large bed right in the middle and there was a woman on it. She had a collar around her neck with a chain attached to the bed, she was trying to yank herself free while a man was disrobing himself.
*I didn't think they called him Ravager due to his pervy tendencies...*
Zhang Dong looked around, the women looked to be fine for now just naked and bare. They all were kind of shapely, guess the demonic cultivator liked the voluptuous types. He was about to pounce on the sexual deviant but then he looked at the woman on the bed, she was really familiar looking...
*Wait... what is she doing here... Was she that fatties daughter? *