Once all fifteen were through the opening, the three clan leaders relaxed their arms and watched as the hole quickly disappeared. All three of them had sweat at their brows but none looked exhausted. However, Kalos was especially excited.
Only he knew what the result of this trip would be, and only he would benefit from this scheme. He knew that in another area, another group opened a hole in the mist around the same time as them. The group entering that hole was composed primarily of assassins raised by the Clite clan along with a famous assassin from the Tower of Killers. This assassin cost a lot of money, but due to the age restriction and the unsettling variable of the prime target's true strength, he had no choice but to fork over the money.
'I told you you would pay for it.'
Meanwhile within the ancestral lands, Shui found himself alone on a grassland with a towering mountain in the distance. With one look, he knew that it was the resting place of the progenitor spoken about in Grandpa Carlos' journal, but that was no longer a major concern.
To outsiders, there were two restrictions imposed even to the descendants of the progenitor. One, that they couldn't be older than fifteen, and two that by noon of their third day, they would be ejected by the space. Even if it was just a sealed area, the laws of this area had evolved to become its own space, so everything within the area would have to obey the rules of this space. With that being the situation, Shui thought that he would have nothing to worry about. Even the dangerous gaze that watched him wasn't that worrying. However, now that he was in the ancestral lands, he was sure.
"This damn charm is a fake!!!"
He threw the small red bag in his hand and stomped on it. Since none of the charms seemed special before entering the ancestral lands, he thought it only worked once they were inside. However, even after making it inside it still didn't seem special. After a few minutes of contemplation, he opened the bag but only dirt was inside it.
He was obviously being plotted against. It might have been a coincidence, that is, if the charms weren't labelled. He didn't know who did it, but he was sure that he was trapped. The fact that he was betrayed by his own clan didn't hurt that much, he didn't trust most of them to begin with, but he wondered if these traitors were working with the Clite clan. That would be terrible since then there would definitely be someone or something sent to ensure that he was dead.
'I have to think. What's my next step?'
Without a working escape charm, he would be prey to be hunted by whoever was after him. He didn't think there would be many opponents aged fifteen and under that could scare him, but he couldn't be sure.
"Should I give up on my original plan and hide, or...?"
With him suddenly being flung into dire straits, Shui reconsidered his next move. He was originally planning on going to a spot noted in Carlos' journal and then making his way to the mountain on the third day, but now he was probably being targeted. Luckily, they were split up after entering the ancestral lands, but he couldn't be sure who and how many people were after him. Even those from the same clan as him could be enemies.
In this case, hiding was sound rather appealing, especially since he had his talismans to help. However, he couldn't be sure that he hadn't been marked somehow. Furthermore, he didn't fully comprehend how the ancestral lands ejected outsiders. If he needed to have the charm to be qualified as an outsider, then hiding would be the worst option. However, the only way he would be able take a charm under these circumstances would be robbing it from someone, and if he was unlucky enough to bump into an assassin that was strong enough to kill him...
'No. Don't get swallowed in fear and possibilities.'
Shui shook his head and calmly made his decision. He took out his usual Shin disguise set as well as three 'Hide' talismans. Layering talismans wouldn't have the same maximum effect as layering the symbols directly, but it was better than nothing. In this hidden state, Shui went to his planned checkpoint. Rather than searching blindly, he chose to go to a place he had information on, especially since he might get a treasure that could help him in this situation.
As Shui thought, the situation was very dangerous, but the danger wasn't just for him. After entering the ancestral lands, eight other children discovered that their charms weren't working. They had heard from their elders that the charm would glow with a warm red light once inside the ancestral lands, but that was nowhere to be seen. They were obviously frightened by this, but of the eight, two could no longer worry. A mere hour after they entered, two out of the fifteen had been killed.
Though Shui didn't know this, a third was being chased within a forest. It was the youth from the Heaven clan that sat on Corin's rainbow dove with Shui and Cris. He was fourteen and was one step away from the second level in the Soul Realm. He believed himself to be the future pillar of the clan, a dream that was quickly getting out of reach. Although he ran with all of his strength, the assassin dressed in all black clothes that left only his eyes exposed, was always a few cales behind him. In his anxious and terrified state, he made the number one blunder that should not have been made. He tripped.
"Ahh!!"
By the time he stopped rolling and tried to stand up again, there was a knife thrown into his leg.
"Ahhh!!!"
With one leg seriously bleeding, he could only look up in fear at the approaching assassin. The assassin was only one level above him, but the will to resist had long been erased.
"P-please! I'll give you whatever you want. Ju-just let me go. No, I'll help you too. Tell me if you want me to do something for you and I'll do it!"
No one but this assassin had ever seen him this desperate, and it would stay that way. When he screamed out to him, the assassin stopped three steps away from his fallen body and spoke.
"Then,"
'Yes, yes! As long as I live I can get revenge another day. Yes, I just need to-'
"die."
"Huh?"
Without time to process what had been said, a knife found its way into his skull.
"Too easy."
After catching him off guard, the assassin had no trouble finishing him off. He had always known that the Heaven clan was a bunch of paper tigers, but they were even more disappointing than he expected. Which was why he couldn't understand why they were ordered to be especially careful of the youngest one. In his mind, anyone under Soul Realm wasn't even a threat, even those adults who were stuck at the third level didn't scare him.
And yet, they were told to leave the youngest member of the Heaven clan that was in here to that arrogant outsider. Still, he was a trained assassin despite his immaturity so he didn't go out of his way to kill the primary target himself. However,
"If I find him, I'll do the job myself."