The blood was still trickling down Ser's face and hands even after she was done with tying the weapon on her back. She used a healing chant to stop the bleeding which helped a little but was not enough to completely stop it from trickling down. It was rather evident that the scar on her face and the loss of her left thumb would remain as it is , for even the attachment chant had failed to heal those wounds. In the end Ser gave up, thinking about the bright side of things, of how she had acquired a weapon and the little loss of a thumb or a scar on her face was nothing in comparison to her being finally able to fight alongside her brother in the grand battle. The thought cheered her up , if not anything else then at least she could die fighting a battle rather than just being someone insignificant who would forever be tossed around by everyone. She had a shot now ,a shot at proving her worth, that was enough reason for her to be happy.
Mu qing on the other hand was still a bit concerned about his sister's wounds, he tore a little bit of fabric from his robe and wiped aimlessly at the blood on her face. She let him smear her face with the rouge of her own blood. Then noticing that the other's hands were shaking while wiping the blood away she signed in order to comfort him a bit ,"It'll be okay.... in a day or two it'll get better on its own" and only after hearing this did he stop looking like he was going to die out of guilt of not being able to protect his sister.
They were now headed towards the area of mysterious magic as it had been planned. The little lion cub had still not left them, he followed behind the twins looking all high and mighty. Mu qing had tried to make it go away,even pushing it away ,urging it to go in a different direction but without paying any heed to that he still followed them around. The weapon of wrath seemed to have a special sort of enmity with this little lion cub. It had tried to attack on it sneakily for almost more than 5 times in the timespan of their journey towards the forest area of the Mountain. As soon as Ser would put the weapon down it would try and strike the cub and Ser would have to put the weapon on her back again so as to stop its sneak attacks. The little cub on the other hand seemed a bit too smug about remaining unharmed by the weapon, it playfully made circles around Ser, not out of his endearment for her but just to tease the thing on her back. Not being able to take their exchange anymore, Mu qing picked up the cub and carried it in his arms, while giving it a tight squeeze.
A few nights were spent exploring the different areas of the forest especially the said area of mysterious magic but they hadn't come across anything eye-catching for the entire time except for the few travellers who had come in search of the weapon of wrath and obviously the twins had tried their best at hiding away from these beings in order to avoid further trouble and had managed to successfully do so with much effort. By the time the sun came peeking through at the end of the 20th night of their stay in the forest ,they had given up on their futile effort of finding anything mysterious in the area and decided to make their way back to the city. They knew that they couldn't stay longer than a month in any of the empires for it would make them look extremely suspicious and draw attention towards them which was not at all a good thing and it had already been almost a month since they had entered the empire of death.
"It's time to leave" Mu qing said in the most gentle tone he could muster, as if coaxing the little lion cub to leave the two of them but the lion cub still didn't budge. It kept on following them so in the end they decided to take it with them. Mu qing had placed it rather skillfully in his inner robe's hidden pocket and as he walked he could feel the weight of that little thing, dragging down one side of his clothing, for some reason he thought for a second that he looked like a thief who had stolen a sack of potatoes and felt a little helpless at that but kept on walking anyway.
As soon as they reached the area of the 2nd City, they could hear the gossip again
"That thing has been quiet for sometime now"
" Has it left from here"
"What are you saying? Are we blind? Do you think we won't notice if that terror made its way through the city?"
"Then....."
The gossip suddenly fell silent as all eyes turned to Ser who had the said "terror" that they were talking about snugly tied to her back.
No one dared to move in order to confront her on how she was able to get a hold of it. The weapon of wrath on the other hand gave a shrill cry to display its joy as well as to put forth a warning to not come anywhere close to its master.
They didn't but still their eyes remained fixed on the twins as they made their way through the crowds, countless eyes stared at them as if they were some kind of foreign creatures with a different skin on them and as soon as they would leave a particular area of the city , the voices of hundreds could be heard, whispering, accusing, cursing the two of them
"A girl!"
"A girl got a hold of it?"
"Maybe the weapon wasn't that special after all if someone like her was able to control it"
"Yeah you're right, it actually might have been just a useless rumour at how difficult it was to control that useless weapon"
They lied to themselves and continued to do so , repeating themselves like broken records so as to believe their own lies. In the end they all knew that they were just not ready to believe that a girl was able to control such a weapon that the supposed "worthy" ones had tried ever so hard to get their hands on yet failed to do so no matter what they did in order to gain control over the said weapon that was now being deemed as "useless trash". Soon the rumour spread throughout the empire of a girl controlling the terror of a weapon and how the weapon was not all that special as it was rumoured to be. The circulation of the news was quite evident by the way the beings would come running to see the twins from wherever they passed by, as if they were caged animals meant to be watched but not touched.
Ser didn't look up to acknowledge any of them. "I'll show you all ,when the actual time comes" , she thought to herself controlling her rage and letting it simmer down as she tried reciting the hymn of wrath over and over again it seemed to work surprisingly well at calming down both the weapon and herself so she continued with it all the way to the entrance of The empire of death. It had been quiet sometime since they had first entered the empire but the two guards were still standing at the entrance. Their expressions were a bit solemn after confirming with their own eyes,that the rumour of a girl being able to control the weapon of wrath was actually true. They were not laughing anymore but seemed to be fuming at the sight but apart from the two guards, a group of about 70 to 80 more such guards were also present at the entrance unlike the time when they had first entered the empire. All of them were standing firm, blocking the entrance.
The twins knew the implication of this very well but didn't really know how to react to it. They knew that if they were to kill a single one of the guards then they would bring forth their own doom because killing in a foreign empire, that too the citizens of the said foreign empire, let alone the guards of the empire would certainly bring about a lot of trouble with it that the twins definitely didn't have the time or money to deal with that at the moment, hence there was only one possible way to exit and that was to run and in the process not kill anyone on their way. The twins looked at each other and nodded showing their mutual agreement to the unsaid plan in a matter of a second.
Mu qing was the first one to move, with the loud displacement spell chanting, he drew the attention of the guards to himself while with his fast steps he climbed up the 30 feet long iron gate of the entrance, then with the help of the spell he was able to make a slight opening in the gate allowing Ser to directly move out. She was already reaching the exit with the help of her brother who had given her enough time to do so by distracting the guards. She knew very well that the guards wouldn't pay much attention to her let alone seriously fight her or anything as such, thinking she would be incapable of having an actual will to fight at all but proving them completely wrong she moved forward with the sheer force of her spiritual power. This had caught the guards off-guard giving an opportunity for the both of them to escape through the main entrance and as soon as the two of them were out, Mu qing had started chanting the same displacement spell again but this time driving the force of it from the other side thereby shutting off the iron gate for a matter of a second in which the two of them were able to pick up their paces, running as fast as they could. Mu qing was now carrying the little lion cub in his arms again and Ser held onto the weapon of wrath as she ran rather breathlessly.
The guards wanted to follow the twins but a rather heavy voice stopped them in doing so. The voice belonged to the royal celestial of The empire of death, An Zhao, a demon immortal who had successfully reigned over his empire for almost two decades now. He was one of the few royals to have a youthful appearance but a rather sharp temper . He looked at the guards with disgust in his eyes as he said rather hatefully "What do you think you all are doing by chasing after some lowly slaves?"
The guards were a bit taken aback but they still decided to answer back against their lack of better judgement
"But lord they are taking the weapon of wrath with them" they said in unison
An Zhao seemed a little displeased at the answer as he questioned "Do I look like a liar to you all?"
They didn't know what to answer to this. It had happened many a times that the royal had lied to them about raising their pay or implementing a better tax collection policy, so they truly didn't understand the question at all but in the end they went with not trying to offend their king.
"Ofcourse not my lord" they said again in unison.
The demon immortal seemed to be pleased with this unified lie. "Then get back here and do your work properly, that weapon is of no use to me anyway that is why I'd made the announcement in the first place" ,he said while turning around to walk away but after a few steps he turned back around again and said "Dicapitate the head of the one who had come up with this stupid plan of chasing after some petty slaves to destroy my vanity and I know exactly who they are so don't you dare try to trick me" then with this said he continued to walk back to his palace,each of his steps displaying an air of grandiose. A concubine that had come with the demon immortal to accompany him asked a rather stupid question to the immortal yet again
"Lord, how did you know that they were from the slave section?" She asked
An Zhao clicked his tongue, seeming visually irritated at the question "Do you think I'm blind?"
"No no my lord, I... I could never" came a prompt yet stuttering answer
"It was obviously their attire, now stop asking your stupid questions or I might cut off your tongue" ,he said then looked at her , looking as if he were really excited at the possibility of doing so.
The concubine quickly shut her mouth not uttering a single word.