Their whole journey through the treasury continued on exactly like that. Someone from the sect would find a way inside, making Bianca fear that perhaps this was the moment when the ruse would finish and she would be caught, but then Huang Su just waved her hand or even simply looked in the disciple’s direction and then everything was solved.

Whether thanks to a huge wall of flaming feathers, a strong force that pushed them aside, or a coating of feathers that restrained their movement, none were able to stop them, or even slow them down.

After a while, she couldn’t doubt the situation any longer. Whatever the true reasons Huang Su had – since she was almost certainly hiding at least a few details about the situation – Bianca knew that she could trust her for the moment. Therefore, she allowed the kitsune to be the one on edge, which was obvious from her confused expression, and instead looked out for the wooden set of wings that the Sect Master had mentioned.

A few twists and turns later, they ran straight into them, a strange wooden sculpture reminiscent of the wings of a bird. Bianca had expected them to be roughly the size of a person, imagining them to be something usable for flight in some way, but these were small enough to be held in the palm of the hand, a small toy rather than anything special.

“Is that it?” she asked just in case.

“Yes, Mistress. With this small talisman, I’ll be able to spread my movement skill further, and then all of your friends will get away safely. We will be able to travel for roughly… a few dozen kilometres before we need to rest, and that should be sufficient for us to escape pursuit. Afterwards, I can contribute my movement skill to aid in our travel until we reach whatever destination you have in mind, Mistress.”

“I don’t have anything yet, but… yeah, sounds good. How does that set of wings- you know what, never mind.”

“If you do wish to study talismans, I have a basic understanding of the subject. The Phoenix Sect has the Emblazoned Feather method for crafting talismans, and while it isn’t my strongest point, I ought to be able to assist you in grasping the basics,” Huang Su said.

“I’d appreciate that… fucking hell, how much longer do we have to go?”

“This treasury is incredibly complex for a reason. If anyone enters it and attempts to steal the sect’s treasures, they will likely find themselves lost soon afterwards. The passageways and sections of this place will feel as though they move around.”

“Oh, so it’s like an array, so stuff moves around?”

“Mistress, I said it was figurative. The place is just incredibly large and incredibly confusing by design, with every room and hallway being as indistinguishable from one another as possible. It’s a simple security system that combines with the fact that breaking out is significantly harder than breaking in – something that’s causing us issues, I will admit.”

“Frankly, you could’ve fooled us if you wanted to. This place looks far smaller on the outside, too small for every single corridor and room to have windows,” Xue Yaling muttered, “How does that work?”

“I can explain the layout afterwards. It’s nothing special, just a small passive array of sorts that confuses perception to an extent. It works on all of those whose spiritual perception isn’t strong enough,” Huang Su explained, “The sixth realm is more than sufficient, and generally, items that would require hoarding from someone in that realm would not be stored here. There is a far less public space for such treasures.”

“Yeah, probably best not to do this right now… since this is quite the jog,” Bianca said.

She had way more stamina and endurance than she had back when she first appeared in this world, but at this point it felt like they’d been running for half a day at least. Perhaps it was a purely mental kind of exhaustion – in fact, she was nearly sure of it – but the less time remained of this endless sprint, the better.

Fortunately, the end came soon enough, as they reached a wall that looked no different than any other, but then Huang Su raised her hand and unleashed another wave of flaming feathers. They felt slow, as though they barely moved, and yet they seemed to hit the wall in an instant, each feather erupting into a powerful explosion that nearly deafened her.

The Phoenix Sect’s Sect Master rushed towards the explosions before the dust even began to clear, and they followed, emerging on the outside atop one of the set of walls that led to the outside.

“H-How?” Bianca mumbled, as she hadn’t recalled climbing a set of steps for quite a while.

“This place is indeed rather confusing, I know,” Huang Su said, pointing in a direction, “Mistress, rush that way. Once we reach the edge, I’ll be able to carry us away.”

Bianca nodded, then used her movement skill to take the lead, skipping ahead by a few steps and then maintaining that lead. She felt that Huang Su could get past her with ease, same with Xue Yaling, but the way in which they let her take the lead was nice… even if it immediately pushed all of the attention onto her.

Without the cover of the walls and whatever arrays the treasury employed, it was far easier for other disciples of the sect to spot them, and soon there were many that had caught sight of them and rushed towards them. Some employed advanced movement skills, others simply ran and climbed, but all were clearly concerned about their Sect Master running along the walls with two random people. Perhaps some could even tell that Bianca was wearing the Weave of the Senses, given that her clothing didn’t cover that much of her body, certainly not enough to hide it from attentive eyes.

“S-Sect Master?” a disciple called out, and then the attention upon them multiplied tenfold.

“Sect Master? What’s going on? What happened at the treasury?”

“Who are those strangers?”

“I-Is that the Weave of the Senses?!”

There was some other nonsense thrown in there, like some disciples seeing artefacts they didn’t have or thinking that something about Huang Su’s appearance was off. And in no time at all, those rumours escalated. The idle curiosity that the disciples of the Phoenix Sect had about their leader escalated into concern, and then into a frenzy.

“They must be holding our Sect Master hostage!”

“They’re trying to escape with stolen items from our sect!”

“That woman in front must’ve threatened our Sect Master!”

‘I just told her to kneel because I was panicking…’ Bianca almost wanted to stop and refute them, but she had enough sense not to do so.

Even if she managed to get a word in amidst all of the yelling and shouting, which she knew she couldn’t, she’d have to persuade this ravenous mob that she was just going to take their leader out on a short walk… which sounded wrong the moment she thought about it. Huang Su wasn’t some pet of hers, as much as it would definitely turn her on for that to be the case. If anything, she was currently adhering to the Sect Master’s whims, definitely not the other way around.

Therefore, she just ran, although her strengthened spiritual perception could pick up on quite a bit. Despite not looking back, she could see people attempting to get in their way and intercept them – mainly Huang Su, though they likely only intended to ask what was happening to her – and she could just as clearly see the Sect Master throw them aside or block them with flames.

That didn’t help in calming them down, not at all. The Sect Master running along with some strangers was one thing, her actively fighting against her own disciples was very much another.

‘Well, if I wasn’t already on a lot of people’s radar, I’m definitely going to end up on there now. If this place had headlines, I could imagine them already – rampant demoness steals away Sect Master, robs treasury in the process… I only took two things, one of which was on her request…’ Bianca couldn’t even manage a sigh, so she just ran faster, with the other two speeding up in turn.

With the end in clear sight, it felt far, far less tedious to sprint ahead, and when she got to the edge, it was absolutely wonderful – not in that way, unfortunately. She stopped and turned, looking at Huang Su and, more importantly, the item she was holding.

“So, what do we do now?”

“Do you see your friends down there, Mistress?”

She looked down as quickly as possible, though before her eyes could spot anything amidst the trees and foliage, she immediately felt her spiritual perception spread out, reaching far further than she had ever felt it before, and stumbled upon three living souls down there, their auras matching those she remembered from Song Ming, Yu Juan and Han Rushu. Thus, even though she had yet to adapt to this strange feeling, she pointed down.

“Right there!”

Huang Su nodded and threw out more flaming feathers, surrounding all of them and floating down to the ground below, enveloping the other three as well.

“Sect Master! Speak to us! What is happening?”

She met the gaze of one of the disciples, her lips parting as though she would reply, but no words escaped. After a painfully long silence, all of the chaos beyond them quietening down as they waited for a response, Huang Su turned around and leapt, Bianca and Xue Yaling being pulled along.

They flew off the top of the walls in an instant, and then the item in the Sect Master’s hand burst, light erupting out as the flaming feathers around them suddenly doubled in size and flew to her back. As more and more appeared, they gathered into the shape of enormous bird-like wings, as though Huang Su was a phoenix in human form, soaring through the skies.

The energy pulled the three on the ground up – much to their confusion, especially for Yu Juan and Han Rushu, who recognised the strength of the one that grabbed them, if not her identity – and then their speed multiplied tenfold. It was as though Bianca found herself on a rollercoaster during the moment of descent from the highest peak, an acceleration that surpassed anything she’d experienced before.

Her own movement skill was quick, but from her perspective, it was akin to teleportation. This, however, she felt in full, and the speed was akin to soaring over Orbis in a plane, or traversing it with a high-speed train, except she didn’t have the shell of the vehicle to absorb the wind. She felt all of it upon her skin and hair, and even if her body could endure it, seeing her surroundings change to something unrecognisable with every blink of her eyes tempted her to shut them regardless.

“Don’t worry, Mistress, you’ll be fine,” the Sect Master’s voice entered her ears, “I’ll let you lead once we land. I may be in the sixth realm, but that doesn’t mean I’ll fight all your wars for you. Also, I would appreciate a better explanation of the details of… well, everything.”

Judging by how direct she was being, this had to have been a direct transmission to her. Ordinarily, she would’ve struggled to reply properly, but the Weave combined with the lingering connection between them proved sufficient, and thus she spent a little while gathering her thoughts and trying to block out the sound of raging winds.

“I’ll try, though I’m not sure how much I can really answer. All of this stuff has been… it just happened, like a storm that I ended up getting stuck in,” she sent her reply back, “Xue Yaling had been the most active one here, so most of what’s happened has been thanks to her, for better and worse.”

“I see. I have a feeling she’s been exploiting you to a certain extent, so if it’s alright with you, I’ll try to keep that fox in check. Her name seems familiar, too, though I can’t quite place it at the moment. Regardless, kitsune have a certain history of playing with humans, so it’s best to be careful of her,” the reply followed much more quickly, and it alone proved much more reassuring than anything the kitsune has been able to provide in some time.

Unlike Xue Yaling, the Sect Master seemed to be genuinely interested in helping her, at least to some extent. She seemed to sympathise with her, to want to help her, and to want to protect her, which… on one hand, felt too good to be true, and on the other, was exactly what she wanted.

Most importantly, in the power-focused dynamics of this world, Huang Su stood far above anyone else in her little group, so for as long as she agreed to act as her servant, Bianca could keep her power and make her decisions as she wished… not that she knew the way from here on. She didn’t know the land, the people, and the ways of cultivation. She knew awfully little, even now.

She opened her eyes again, and the terrain resembled nothing that she had seen in the vicinity of the Phoenix Sect. The woods were replaced by hills, and the hills grew closer rapidly, until she feared that she’d collide with them.

Luckily, their speed slowed, and the moment she fell onto the land she moved no faster than if she was to walk, her feet settling on the grassy ground with little trouble.

“I’m afraid this is about as far as I can carry you with the power of the talisman. It was not meant for a sixth realm cultivator’s movement skill, after all,” Huang Su said, her landing being far more graceful, “Is everyone alright?”

Yu Juan, Xue Yaling, Song Ming and Han Rushu all landed decently, and the moment that they did, they stared at the Sect Master of the Phoenix Sect, each with different expressions. Of course, Yu Juan didn’t quite stare, given her condition, but the intent was obvious all the same. It felt as though Bianca had brought along some kind of celebrity to hang out with her friends, and none of them knew how to react.

‘Hm, from that perspective, it makes a lot more sense… are high-realm cultivators like some of the richest people on Orbis?’ Bianca pondered for a moment, though she put the idea aside quickly and focused on the present moment, “This is Huang Su, Sect Master of the Phoenix Sect. By some luck, my abilities were especially effective on her, and so she will serve us in establishing our sect.”

“… What the fuck is she on about?” Han Rushu looked to the kitsune, “Did she finally go mad?”

“Please don’t insult my Mistress in such a manner,” Huang Su replied first, “You treat your future Sect Master-”

“Or Sect Mistress.”

“… Or that. You treat her incredibly poorly. Back in the Phoenix Sect, we would’ve made sure that you recall the importance of the sect’s leaders.”

“… Fuck, why did we have to find someone even more stuck-up than Yan Taijun? This one probably won’t even suck my cock…” Han Rushu sighed, “Screw it, I’ll go and jerk off. If we decide where to go, give me enough time to cum at least once.”

The blacksmith walked off, leaving an awkward silence in her wake.

“Right… Um, nice to meet you, Huang Su. I’m Yu Juan-”

“The Cult of Terror got to you, didn’t it? It is one of my many regrets that I’ve been unable to track more of those lunatics down and put them down like the rabid monsters they are,” Huang Su said, “I’m afraid I can’t do much to your present injury, but it seems like the malevolent energy within your eyes is being subdued already.”

“Ah, yes, that is all thanks to Mistress Bianca.”

Huang Su glanced at her for a moment, prompting Bianca to blush a little, then moved on to Song Ming.

“Your physique is very unique.”

“Ah, yes, Mistress’ energy changed it, allowing me to use it without burning up inside… I’m Song Ming, by the way.”

“I see… Well, it appears I have much to learn, despite my status. I am sure that Mistress will provide whatever I require to serve her better,” the Sect Master said, looking around for a moment, “This will be a sufficient spot to remain for a day, but we ought to move afterwards. The sect will definitely not allow us to remain free.”

“Yes, that would be best. Should we discuss a few things, Huang Su?”

Though she phrased it as a question, Bianca started to walk away the moment that she finished, and so the Sect Master had no choice but to follow, reaching the edge of this open space before she chose to stop, her shoulders dropping a little.

“Could you put up-”

“A barrier to block out unwanted observers? I’ve done that already. So, Bianca, I appreciate that you might not wish to share every single detail, but the more I know, the better I can help you. If you forget to mention something of value, then I won’t be able to read your mind and find out what I’m missing.”

“No, of course not… I’ll try my best. So, it all began back in Xi Village-”

“Sorry, Xi Village? Heavens, this is going to require more of my focus than I had imagined… Pardon me, please proceed.”