Conan swiftly ran amidst the forest. fluidly maneuvering himself to evade even the slightest obstacles. With wind propelling him further, each of his steps aroused gusts, leaving a trail of dust in his wake.
After sending the 'notice' to grab the 'attention' of the Enforcers, so they could know the location of the hideout of the Goose Creeds and rescue the girls they haven't killed yet or perhaps, kill the Goose Creed members that he hadn't killed.
He didn't check all the doors except for the one that he found the Lamia in, and before he left, he could still sense heat signatures radiating from those rooms.
Hence, the explosion, and really, he wasn't expecting the explosive arrow to be that effective. It was just a prototype after all.
Knowing that he had grabbed the attention of the Enforcers—no doubt— he ran towards the Duchy as fast as possible to avoid further troubles. He felt his spirit tugging at him to go back and check on his babies as soon as possible but alas, a baby had checked on him already.
As he ran, he heard the sounds of explosive footsteps coming towards him, accompanied by an aura he knew well. He slowed down and looked back to confirm if he was hallucinating or not but the reality was cruel, it shoved the image of Liam following his tail, clad in his battle suit to his face ruthlessly.
"Liam!?"He exclaimed in shock and lost control over his movements. He stumbled and Liam, unable to control his movements also rammed into him and they were both propelled by the force to a considerable distance.
They rolled on the ground, father and son hugging each other tightly, the force pushing them forward slowed down considerably after they both collided against a huge tree after they had broken several other trees to break their momentum.
The roots crackled and uprooted and the unfortunate tree threatened to fall. Cracklings and shatterings of the solid foundation of the tree echoed to a great distance, but the father and son duo didn't care about that for now.
Conan pushed Liam off him and asked worriedly with his mask off his face "What are you doing here? what about the rest? Are they sleeping now? Liam, what did I tell you that you mustn't come out at night or when it's not necessary? You're no more an immortal, you're supposed to sleep every night or you will have severe headaches..."
Of course, the last part was an exaggeration, a cultivator of their level could remain awake for over a month, but sleep is just as good for a cultivator as for a mere mortal.
Conan bombarded Liam with questions in a fit of worry. To which Liam replied with a smile "...Come on father, I know mortals sleep but even if I'm in a mortal form, I'm not a mortal am I? Sleep is for the weak!"
"Answer all the questions I asked, I don't like to repeat myself..."Conan said and rested his back against the trunk of the same tree they almost uprooted.
"Well, Kitty, Zoe, and Loki are not asleep yet, but from what I saw, they seem to be planning something," Liam said, making Conan frown deeply.
"Kitty and Zoe aren't sleeping?"He saw them himself, they were fast asleep and were even dreaming to the point of having mutual dreams of them fighting.
Then he thought about it, was all he saw an illusion projected by kitty? If it was, then it explains the reason behind the flux of spiritual energy he felt before going to check on them.
"You trusted us too much."Liam chuckled, his mask shifted from his face, and revealed his bruised face.
"Indeed..."Conan absentmindedly uttered but then, the bruises by the sides of Liam's lips and cheeks caught his attention.
He frowned and asked a question that he didn't want to know the answer to, and if he gets the answer, he hoped that it will be negative.
"Did you meet anyone?"He asked the question. But again, the reality was harsh.
"Oh, yeah... I met a group of sassy and strong vixens..."Liam said in an enthusiastic voice, his draconic eyes brimming with excitement as he spoke.
"What?"Conan was shocked. His mind worked cognitively to process the information.
"They gifted me these bruises and believe me, the fight I had with them enlightened me in ways not possible back at the citadel."Liam continued, not knowing that the mind of his father had entered an isolated mode, working in deliberation.
"They said, they'll become my harem if I play hide and seek with them. While we were doing so—."
"Liam shut up."Conan finally spoke, he looked round carefully, his instincts tingled and he knew, he felt the thrill, he was in danger. It would have been more thrilling if not that his son was with him.
He spread his senses out immediately, picking up a vague presence of multiple entities that were perfectly hidden in the dark. His spiritual senses couldn't penetrate their veil, which took him by surprise.
It seem as though, they were one with darkness.
"What, why?"Liam cluelessly asked, due to him always sparring and never being in life-or-death battles, he wasn't picking up the strange phenomena that happened around them.
"We are in danger..."Conan muttered to Liam and pointed at the fog that was rising from the earth at a pace visible to mortal eyes.
Even he was weary of what lies beneath the darkness, and they seem to be powerful entities.
Only then did Liam realize that they were really in danger but unlike what Conan expected, Liam even spoke louder "they are here, the girls, my first harem!"He said with excitement and anticipation.
But unlike what he was expecting, a metallic ball was hurled from somewhere behind the fog and was quickly caught by Liam who inspected it in curiosity.
" Is this a gift?"He smirked dumbly.
Conan craned his neck to inspect and saw the intricate mechanism of the ball, which consisted of different machinery and spirit codes to form one whole ball. Made of porcelain-textured metal. What the ball worked for exactly was what the two didn't understand.
Liam turned the ball in his hand and saw a protruding part which the word "joy" inscribed on it. Out of curiosity, he pressed it before Conan could stop him and triggered the mechanism of the object.
Will it give him joy?
The fact that the ball didn't suck in Spiritual Energy made Conan relieved a little, and let his curiosity take control of his mind to see what the ball worked for.
Seeing the parts of the ball protruding with clicks and turning and changing positions as it buzzed, flashy its blue energy-filled insides, a thought suddenly hit him.
Will their enemies just throw them a toy out of the blue for them to play with?
"Liam throw that thing away."Conan urgently said, but Liam was fascinated with it. The Spirit Codes in the thing were arranged with such advanced details that he wanted to decipher them and for a moment there, when Conan spoke, he thought he was speaking in Spirit Codes.
So he didn't hear what Conan said.
And that moment was enough for the ball to reach its climax and released the compressed Spiritual Energy stored in it all at once, exploding into Liam's smiling face, the force hurling him to a distance while Conan was thrown in the opposite direction.
Trees that both of them collided with broke like twigs, leaving a trail of deforestation behind. Even the tree that acted strong since the beginning now collapsed under the sheer wave of the Spiritual Energy explosion.
Conan jumped out of the branches of leaves that he was buried in and cursed "Who in the damned planes is joy?"But he didn't wait for a single second and rushed over to Liam to check his condition, if he was affected by the explosion or not.
On getting to where Liam was, he found him moaning and cursing his mortal body as he clutched his chest.
"What's wrong with you?"Conan worriedly asked and offered a hand to help him up but the playful dragon rejected it.
"It's just a mild fracture of my ribs, will heal up in no time."He said and shrugged the pain off but didn't forget to curse "But really, this mortal body is damned!"
"You'll get used to it..."He said and just when he said so, he looked up and saw silhouettes walking in the fog toward them. They were three, and their footsteps were eerily silent.
They came into appearance and Conan realized, the men of Kongieus were but an utter waste of time—he found the information he wanted though.
The ladies that exited the fog were tempting, with wavy black hair and bright purple eyes, curvaceous bodies that swayed as they walked in elegance towards the two.
They were in purple vein-like suits that seemed to be as tight as drawings on their bodies. Full of gashes as though riddled with cuts that revealed the pale, alluring skin underneath and especially their appealing cleavages and curvy proportions.
Conan's serpentine eyes narrowed in thought. That simple-looking outfit that looked like sexy rags seemed to be made out of divinity and its durability purely depends on the strength of the user.
It was the same for his form-shifting battlesuit but the difference was that the battlesuit had a limit and cannot work for those above the immortality stages and can't even work for mortals.
Which proved the existence of pseudo-immortals true. Because their suits of armor can be donned by deities[Anyiquities].
The three tempting ladies came over to Liam who was beside Conan.
"Hiya! Virgin dragon! Come here let's play! Haha."The whimsy one among them latched to Liam, pressing her suppleness on him provocatively.
This one looked even younger than the rest and had an air of whims around her. She looked no less than a teenager but her body proportions said otherwise.
Another came excitedly and further separated Liam from Conan "Heyy... How I'd like to take your virginity!!!"She shrieked and stood on her toes as she almost buried Liam's face in her cleavage.
Conan was about to interject when the third woman suddenly came between him and Liam who was probably being subjugated through god-level charms that he will never be able to resist.
Even Conan was affected for a moment.
"Hey! I know you, you're the waiter from the restaurant..."The third lady said, her full-throated bosom threatening to spill into Conan's hand.
And it was at that moment that he realized that his mask was no longer on. He tapped his face in disbelief but he got over it soon enough
"Well then, since you've seen my face, I guess I won't spare you then."He smirked devilishly, however, he cringed on the inside.
'Damnation, I'm not an assassin, why do I have to say that?!'
Those were the girls at the restaurant...
The tempting.