The next day Bjorne and Fen Chang once again split off from each other. This time however Fen Chang doesn't head into the mountains but instead towards the forest where he saw the blood stain.
'That blood stain seems suspicious. Normally when the mc comes across something like that it normally ends up being a part of either some secretive plot of some evil faction or some mysterious evil beast. I am not particularly interested in either of those, but at the same time the mc in these situations always finds some treasure.
Ill use my stealth skills in combination with the ghillie I have to stalk the blood splatter location and send some shadows to search for more. I'm not bothered to go through the life and death fights mc's normally go through with these things, I just want the treasure or if it's a beast to maybe make it a war beast or something.
Since I am not going to get as much training done fighting, I should train to camouflage my aura to perfectly fit into any environment.'
Once he reached the forest, he took out a giant body suit that is covered in white bits that look like snow. He slowly and carefully makes his way to the bloody location from yesterday, using his nose and memory to navigate him.
When he arrived the blood, stain was still they're and the tree was still cut over. What made him cautious though was when he looked at the blood closer, he could see that the blood is still fresh.
His first thought was that it might be some powerful cultivator blood since that normally has a similar effect but then looked more carefully and found a few droplets of blood on the sliced stump, which means that could only have happened after he had cut it.
He goes around 10 meters away and hides himself at the bottom of a tree stump. He dives his body into the-meter-deep snow with a little above him which looked like snow that fell from the tree for him to look out of.
He then suppressed his aura as much as he can, before then getting ready to recite a mantra. Before that however he releases some shadows and low rank 1 birds which are tiny.
He addresses them all saying. "I want you to search the area for anything suspicious, 2 shadows will stay here while I want a bird covering all angles. Shadows with hunting experience I want to search for the culprit of the blood, search all near by caves if nothing comes up. Go."
The shadows quickly sink into the ground and merge with the shadows under the trees as they swiftly spread out. The birds split off, with a few staying in the area to keep an eye on different angles. While the rest went flying off to get a bird's eye view to look for the targets.
He tames these birds ages ago because since they are only low rank 1 he can tame them in mass and doesn't have to care if they die. They also make good spies as they are tiny, only the size of a hand. Almost everyone would just ignore them due to how pathetically weak they are, and the size of them is too small to provide anything useful.
With the birds and shadows sent out, he starts to recite a mantra in his head. It was an assassin mantra that helps completely hide Qi and blend his presence into the surroundings.
The mantra is very hard to speak due to the mysterious power contained in the words. So far, he is only able to say the first verse out of 8 but even then, his Qi and presence are completely gone. No one below stage 6 can see him, unfortunately he has to stay still and concentrate quite a lot on the mantra, making it not useful right now for actual assassination.
He waits and waits. The sun quickly reaching its peak before plummeting the world into darkness. He has now spent the whole day waiting, looking at the fallen over tree and the puddle of now dried blood.
The shadows have long been back from their search in the area and found nothing. They now lie in wait for their master's next order.
When it was midnight Fen Chang was still sitting under the snow with his presence completely hidden. He used the whole day as a chance to cultivate and recite the assassin mantra in order to try to increase his understanding of it.
With only a few hours left till sunrise Fen Chang is almost ready to leave and just have a shadow keep watch but as he thinks about this something finally happens.
A bird to the south starts chirping like normal bird, except he knows differently. As this is a signal, he taught the birds to make when it spots something. The bird chirps however are cut off, but even if its cut off he now knows that something is coming from the south and clearly isn't friendly.
He sends a signal to the bird above him, and it starts to chirp very similar to the one before except this time a slight difference in pitch. The different was so unnoticeable, and even if it was noticed it wouldn't be odd for different birds to have different pitch chirps.
The shadows got in position focusing on the south, the previous birds around the area left for safer locations while some went around behind whatever is coming so it can call out if it turns around.
Within a few minutes a shadowy figure came out from the snow-covered trees. It was an old hunchbacked man. His face was covered in wrinkles as he eyes where deep in his head. He had along witch type nose and many mole like marks on his face.
His entire body was covered in a thick cloak with only his face visible. He was carrying behind him the body of what seems to be a young woman. The womans body was completely mangled up with arms seemingly in the wrong location, an eye hanging out of its socket, a misshapen right leg and a almost beastly left leg.
Her hear was overgrown, with the hair roots running down her neck and back creating an almost lion main hair style. She looked like a human beast more than a beautiful young woman.
Seeing the woman in that state made him knit his eyebrows a little. He can now clearly tell that this man or the group this man belongs to isn't a good one.
The man completely unaware of whats going on starts muttering as he walks with the young womans body. "Damn those old geezers giving me the job of taking out the trash."
He then looks at the deformed young woman with eyes roaming all over her body. "Well at least I get a taste of her before she gets disposed of. I better get this done quick before those old geezers complain and yap all day."
Fen Chang was interested with what he hears. "I wonder who these other old geezers are he is on about. They at least seem to be comrades as he is addressing them so lightly and instead of saying punish him, he instead says yap and complain. Shows there relationship is friendly and are on a similar level to this man.
He also says he gets to have a taste of this woman. I wonder why they wouldn't have before, it might be that this is the only old man who wants to do it while the others are less interested in mortal pleasures. Is he really that desperate though? This woman is horrifically deformed after what ever they did to her and until he said he gets a taste of her I thought she was dead. How the fuck is she still alive?
So many questions. This old group of geezers seem dangerous though if the pile of blood here is so dense, they must have dumped a lot of bodies. Let's check his cultivation… Hmm, stage 3 level 8. This means the others he is on about should also be at least stage 3 and maybe more powerful as otherwise they wouldn't be able to push him around as much as to take out the bodies. So they are likely level 9, the leader may even be a stage 4.
I need to question him to find out. Ill wait for him to let down his guard before I have the shadows rush in. As for the girl… well normally in novels the ones who go through horrific things like this end up as super beauties. Well, I can try to heal her and see how she looks. Maybe she developed a special power even if not looks.'
With the idea of taking down this stage 3 level 8 cultivator, he does a discrete signal to the shadows by lightly having the tree near him drop a few flakes of snow. Something completely normal to outsiders but to people who know, then a few flakes means attack and capture.
With the order given they lie in wait surrounding the old man in the shadows waiting for the opportune time.
The old man goes to the centre of the blood stain on the ground and chucks the woman's body on the ground. He then does a quick look around with a serious face, before his face becoming lustful as he starts to undo the front of his cloak.
The woman previously unresponsive looking like the dead started to show panic in her only remaining eye as a few tears dropped, freezing as they left her eyes.
Waiting for the man to position himself to her rear, he gives the signal.
*Bang*
He smashes against the tree causing loads of snow to fall from it. The man stunned by the noise and falling snow doesn't even realise as multiple shadows came up from behind him.
Using their strength, the shadows quickly overwhelm him and force him to the ground. One of the shadows then sends a Qi fist into the man's stomach causing him to wheeze from the loss of breath, before going into panic as the feeling of his Qi being disorientated from the attack.
With him being completely immobile and his Qi disrupted Fen Chang walks out from under the snow showing off his perfect camouflage. He ignores the mans screaming out threats as he puts his hand to his head and swiftly enslaves him before destroying his personality and making him nothing but a thinking puppet.
He looks down at the man that now has lifeless eyes and gives an order. "Tell me about these old geezers you talked about."