Chereads / Mountain's folly / Chapter 15 - Where's all the stuff?

Chapter 15 - Where's all the stuff?

The others hadn't managed to break through the barrier that Yurt still had up, so we had a little time to speak.

"That changes things, your Emerald body path doesn't look very emerald."

All I did was stare as I retrieved the token confirming my identity and validating my story.

He took it for a few moments, looking down at it and back up to me every so often, finally he seemed satisfied with whatever he was looking into beyond the basics.

"So you outrank me quite a bit."

"I suppose I do"

His face shifted quickly from his eternal frown to a glowing smile.

"Good, that means with your powers we can do some real damage and I can finally get myself a proper master."

That was a good shift in mindset, it would be very useful, I questioned the wisdom in flat out telling other people the best way to manipulate you. Still it would be extremly useful.

Having a peak foundation building cultivator on my side wouldn't phase my prime, in fact I wouldn't give someone of my power level the time of day, still currently he was an immense help to begin building a stable power base in the sect, getting any veterans on my side is incredibly useful.

Moving around collecting all the loot from the cultivators, there wasn't all that much to gain from it though. The cultivators had little to nothing on them, which was another weird sign, the usual etiquette for demonic cultivators was to take everything with you, leaving valuable items behind make it very liable to steal. The fact that not even the peak cultivators had anything of true value on them spoke a lot about the transition the Demon Hair Sect was going through.

It seemed that it was turning less from a true war between righteous and demonic, to that the Demon Hair sect was transitioning to a neutral sect, obviously removing themselves from their sacrificial rituals past, and was now just in a simple turf war between them and the Flowing Stream Sect.

The Towering Mountains interference would then become a huge political issue with the neutral sects if they recognize that the Demon Hair sect has truly transitioned.

While they wouldn't have huge clout by themselves, as a collective they often had some influence on the Towering Mountain Sect, so the repercussions from that would be a prime opportunity to accelerate a lot of chaos.

Yurt released the barrier between us and the rest of the team soon after, they tumbled down the stairs one after the other, taking in the destruction of the scene without any gravity really, which wasn't a surprise but didn't speak well towards our future as a team.

Bin Ji came bounding up towards us, her face twisted into some strange form, I couldn't even tell her emotions from her expression.

"What the hell were you guys thinking, we could have helped!"

I decided to ignore her as we turned around to begin to make our way down to the next floor. Bin ji apparently wasn't satisfied with that response, or the great destruction around her mixed with lots of dead bodys around her. Also the fact that we were still very much alive.

She even used her qi to get out ahead of us.

"I am supposed to be the leader of the troop, there should be no major tactical decisions made without my consent."

Yurt was kind enough to save me from the glaring woman's wrath.

"It was spur of the moment, we couldn't have predicted what would happen other than that many of our troop would not have survived the encounter."

Bin jis face twisted even more, but by that point we had walked past her, leaving her scowling visage behind me.

We had far more precaution going down the next set of stairs, Bin ji pushing herself past everyone to be at the front of the troop.

Yurt was quick to stop her, even she couldn't argue her way past being the first one down. I was surprised no one had questioned my increase in strength, but Id say everyone was just too stressed at the moment to worry about anyone else, Bin ji was also too upset with her power being usurped, no matter how momentarily to care about anything else.

The next floor had been retrofitted into a camp for the Demon Hair sect, there was no one left here from the initial assault, there might be someone from the ground floor ready to attack us. We prepared ourselves a little while also trying to loot what ever was left in the camp, which again wasn't much at all, even still the low foundation Building cultivators were happy with their spoils.

I hadn't communicated my worries yet, but with this new found talent for formation the Demon Hair sect seemed to have acquired out of nowhere, I am little worried about whether they have messed with the base core of the tower, because that is a great long term power source for a construct that doesn't require demonic energy to function.

"Be careful coming down, I have some suspicions about whats down there"

The majority of troop were still elated from their winnings to care much about what I said, Yurt nodded seriously, even Bin Ji quieted down from her tirade and became ready for serious combat, the others I could easily discard, but Yurt and Bin Ji would be a handy foundation for a proper team.

So we began the careful route down the stairs, listening out for any issues, It all seemed quite, which was a either a good sign or an outright terrible one. If it was just a normal construct without any intelligence we would be able to hear it. So that left two options, there was no construct, or an intelligent one.

Coming through the doorway, the giant construct three times the size of the previous one, with an even thicker skin of Hair Armour around certain parts greeted us with a roar.

We got ready for combat.