"Leona... is taking a picture of a butterfly?" Jack looked to him in bewilderment.
Ruggie raised a brow and smirked, "Maybe he's taken a liking to them in the botanical garden?"
"That's not it!" The Dorm Leader grumbled, "I've been here longer than all of you have. Have you ever seen a clear winged butterfly like this?"
"Eh?" Ruggie looked up in surprise and hurried over to it on the ground, "It really is see-through!"
The butterfly flew around them and began to fly into the direction it came from. Leona furrowed his brow and hesitated as a thought came to mind instantly before speaking up, "Let's follow it. It's probably on our side."
"Huh?!" Jack looked to Leona bewildered, "How did you...?"
"Come on." Ruggie shook his head with a sigh as he dragged Jack along, "If Leona says we should follow a butterfly, we'll follow the butterfly."
"Ugh... Got it." Jack grumbled nervously as he embarrassedly followed after the butterfly.
He never thought he'd see the day his so-admired dorm leader would do something like following after a butterfly...
.....
Deep in the Elephant Graveyard, Lotus followed the butterfly carefully when she smelled the scent of blood. Lotus continued to tread lightly as she made her way to an old wooden shack. She frowned when she saw that the place was unlocked with the door wide open and walked in just in time to find the Queen of the tarantulas curled on its back dead with the sword sticking out from it. She frowned and didn't think much to know what had been going on and asked Crystal, "Where's the boy?"
"In the trunk."
"Who's there?!"
Lotus frowned and brought out her pendulum Ying Hui silently.
"Ying Hui." Lotus demanded as she dowsed with the gold pendulum in hand.
The pendulum pointed towards her as she lept aside barely missing the attack of an outstretched palm. Lotus stared down upon the man she had been following before. Sure enough, with the gray and dark clothing, it was him. Behind him in a dark blue struggling to stand from the ground was the man from before.
Lotus carefully evaluated her situation before figuring out her next step and pulled out a few spare thread of the silk as she sent her individual threads to encase the entrance and windows.
The man that had targeted her looked around in confusion but couldn't find the thread as they were clear and thin to the naked eye. Instead, he pondered if the miasma had gotten to his head. He turned to the fool of an assassin and scowled, "Where's the boy? Kill him already!"
"Y-Yes!" The other man whimpered and hurriedly scrambled for the trunk and opened it to which she saw Cheka was in curled up sleeping peacefully into a deep slumber.
She frowned quietly before pulling back the thread. The man doubled back from the sudden force of the thread as she also cut off a piece of the wooden beam. The beam fell towards the older man as Lotus quickly reached out for Cheka. The younger man launched towards her to which Lotus shot out Ying Hui in her ball form. It slinked around the man's neck and hit him square in the back of the neck knocking him out.
Lotus then turned to the older man who had already pulled the blade and got closer towards her. Lotus hurriedly grabbed a hold of Cheka and put up a shield. However, the older man's power was stronger than hers and the sword swiped at her shin. She grimaced and pulled back up to the beams again.
The older man laughed and shouted, "You think you can run?! Now that my Sky Vow sword got your blood, it'll follow you to the depth of hell! Go!"
Lotus grimaced as the pain shot up from her leg but she smirked quickly after and responded with the sleeping child tight in her arms when she saw the blade come for her, "Ha! Really? Then, don't blame me for taking it!"
Lotus quickly lowered Cheka from the strike zone and caught the blade with two fingers Than inserted her internal energy throughout the blade.
"You want to take it?" The older man sneered when he felt her internal energy force from her, "You're too weak to take anything from me! ...Wha-?!"
The man's sneer was quickly overcome with an expression of disbelief as he could feel his internal energy pushed out from his weapon.
Seeing his stupid smile vanish, Lotus smirked as she lept down from the beams and sneered, "If I'm too weak, then you're too stupid to have a Sky Vow Blade. Don't you know? You haven't even made a contract with your weapon yet and you dare call it your own?!"
Lotus now have full control of the weapon as she commanded it to strike for the man. The man scowled and dodged it as he went straight for her with a scowl much to her surprise. She quickly lept back but the force was fast so she could only shield Cheka with her uninjured arm. She crashed through the wall as she used her body to shield the young boy from the impact with the threads catching her from the hard ground.
She quickly found her footing again and realized that her ability was no longer any good against the man. She withdrew her ability as she coughed out blood from her lips and smirked at the enemy through her pain. She swiped the blood away from her lips and checked to see that none had gotten onto the little boy.
Having seen her, the man already had a victorious smile on his ugly mug when his eyes rested on the purple and gold eyes piercing at him and the red and gold hair. His smile vanished as he realized who he was dealing with, "A member of the Hui family!"
Not only was she a member of the Hui family, she was the one they were searching for! She looked to be only fifteen too! Calculating the time between their worlds, he realized who was it he was dealing with and scowled. Beginning Nascent Soul at fifteen?! It took him fifty years to get himself to that stage and this child has only spent fifteen years! He must not let her live!
The man grimaced and launched an attack at her catching Lotus off guard as she swiftly shot out her own wave of internal energy. The man sneered, "I'll show you the strength of an advanced Nascent Soul!"
It was then that a few thread had held him back to which he spun around when he was pulled back and found that his underling had yet to regain conscious. So, who could it be?
Lotus quickly shifted the energy in her eyes again and this time, the gold shifting in her iris turned into sharp needles pointing to her sharp pupil. She watched as the man caught eye to eye contact with her.
Shocked by the sight of change in her eyes, the man felt as though his heart stopped and the internal energy in him suddenly began to attack his own dantian. There was a pain in his dantian and his heart as he crumbled to his knees with hand clutching his chest and throat in horror. This little gal had actually reached to this level?! She was actually capable of doing this?! Horrifying! Simply a monster!
He struggled to make a word but failed as the air was sucked out of him and he collapsed onto the ground lifelessly.
Lotus could feel that the life force in him had died away as she used the blade to slit his throat making certain that he was dead before burning his corpse in a bright blazing flame. She then turned to the other man who was still unconscious and stuffed two different pills into his mouth forcing him to swallow. He then bound the man with thread before dragging his body out of the burning shack he had built.
She then went ahead and quietly placed another pill into Cheka's mouth to which the boy took in. It was only after doing so that she began to take them out of the elephant graveyard.
.....
Leona had just gotten closer to the dark place of bones when he noticed a strange dark shadow in the midst and halted in his steps.
"What's up?" Ruggie looked up in confusion.
"Grr..." Jack could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise as he growled, "Something is there..."
"Eh?!"
Leona narrowed his eyes as he watched the shape began to appear closer and closer almost slinking out of the darkness.
"Life's not fair, is it?"
Leona's eyes narrowed as he held his staff tighter in his hand once a dark voice echoed the area. It was then a dark trudging figure appeared from the green mist of miasma. Leona's eyes widen in surprise as the younger students behind him jolted in bewilderment. Ruggie jolted in surprise when he noticed a visible scar on his face. His eyes widen in bewilderment as he pointed out with hushed excitement, "There's a scar on his face... Don't tell me..."
"The King of Beasts..." Jack gasped in bewilderment, "B-b-but, he's passed away a long time ago..."