Ken didn't stick around to see the outcome and just left for the barber shop hoping that he wouldn't find it closed.
The barber shop was open so he went in and seeing Rumo in his usual seat made him feel at ease.
Rumo was surprised he came but Ken got right to the point "My house was ambushed so I am lying low for now until the noise dies down."
Rumo: "You are thinking of sleeping here?"
Ken: "I know you don't sleep if that is you need sleep. I will just use the barber chairs."
Rumo didn't object as it could help him know more about Ken and his behaviors. Ken was now in the vast rift's territory so he had to be extra careful.
He first started to see around his area including the beauty salon next door. After setting, a perimeter Ken got up on the roof where he had the vantage point as he used chimera-breathing art.
Rumo sensed what he was doing and was more interested in it as he saw him doing what a professional assassin would do.
Ken spent all day observing the surroundings for people that might have followed him but he did not find any so he started thinking why they might have specifically targeted his house who had neither outstanding candidates nor noticeable candidates.
Ken's first guess was Liu because he and his so-called band of brothers have offended many girls peaking at their bathhouses. Some women might be okay being admired but that did not mean there were no exceptions.
However, from his observation many of the attackers were men. They might be the Dao companions of these women. The second hypothesis was that they might be here for Lian Shu or Ye Qui.
Ken has been hearing some rumors going around that there might be an all-out war before the first evaluation. Ken guessed it might be come days before the evaluation but if it came now this could become a conflict not contained but might spread out throughout the whole city.
Ken needed to confirm his theories so he jumped from roof to roof undetected and watch and what he saw was more than his expectations.
Throughout the city, people were scrambling for safety, as there was no place to be safe. He saw different groups running around headless chickens. He first thought they were idiots but he remembered that most of them are just teenage kids who did not have the training or the life experience to prepare them for this event.
After going around a little bit, he went to his house to find all three of his roommates kneeling with other men and women separated by gender. They looked hopeless as a talisman was sticking in their forehead which inhibited any movements.
Ken found a good hiding place and started to watch what they were going to do, and as time went on more and more captives started to come. This went on until about midnight when the main leaders of the group came.
A man with jet-black hair emerged from the leaders as well as a woman with otherworldly curves.
The man started to talk to the women of the captives "People from the depraved profanity peak, law enforcement peak, cloud conception peak, magma coffin peak, and passionate blossom peak amongst you get up."
A few women got up and he continued, "You ladies will choose a man from our group and will become one of his Dao companions."
The woman with the curves added, "This goes for the men too."
Some had already accepted their fate, so this was a surprise but some women and even men started to cry knowing they will always be under someone if other people does not help them but in the cultivation world, this was as wishful of thinking as seeing a unicorn.
The formation of a Dao companion bond isn't a simple bond between people that were just used to dual cultivate. It was a channel that could help souls connect on a deeper level to the point of sharing comprehension at high levels.
Ken read this in the library and the other part was the bond created were different based on the agreement between cultivators.
Dao companion bond was like the mortal marriage contract and the prenuptial agreement rolled into one. Moreover, depending on the contract the advantages the cultivators get could be different.
And it looks like his roommates and the captives would be forming a heavily unbalanced one but it will be better than the people who aren't from the depraved profanity sect.
There is a limit to how much the bond can be unbalanced which is mostly 90-10 distribution in the cultivation. This kind of bond is fragile and easy to break from outside help.
After they composed themselves the men and women chose who they would like and got behind them.
The remaining were despairing at what was about to come and waited but after some time most of the vast rift group surrounded them and gave them instructions to move to the nearby practice arena which looked like an open theater.
Ken got on the roof of one of the adjacent buildings and started to watch with amazement how relaxed they were as they were confident that the nexus mountain wouldn't attack them.
The curvy woman gave a signal to quiet down as she started to speak "Now we will start the auction and no one is off the table. If you have the money you can take all the people you want."
The man in jet-black hair continued "The money from this auction will be used to buy discount passes to shops in our territory for all our members which was used in addition to the money we got from the raid today."
And like that, the auction began which was organized based on the level of the captives. Ken watched patiently as he saw many people he knew were being traded like livestock but that is how the world was and he wasn't delusional enough to think he could change this.