Lander
Death.
Sending his senses around the Violet Mountain Blessed Land, Lander Haxor couldn’t help but feel everything in his life had been pointless.
He’d clawed, tricked, and betrayed his way to become number two in the Violet Mountain Sect, and he had enjoyed great wealth and privilege as a result. But what would he be remembered for?
It wouldn’t be for the trade deal he’d renegotiated with the Vin Clan and the other four powers. It wouldn’t be for his secret murder of the sect’s previous lawyer elder. And it wouldn’t be for the fact he’d managed to reach level 360, the highest possible level for a C rank.
Instead, if he was remembered at all, it would be as the man who led his sect to complete destruction at the hands of a couple of E ranks.
Within the blessed land itself, there wasn’t a single F rank still conscious, every single one having entered into a coma of some kind, and most were already dead. Of the E ranks, there were maybe two still conscious, core disciple warriors specialized in vitality, but they were fading and their energy was being eaten away by the plagues.
The D ranks were a bit better off, but they, along with all the C rank elders, were already infected. And, so far, they’d only figured out how to eliminate one of the ten different magical diseases they’d discovered, but that one’s purpose seemed to be only to put them to sleep so the others could produce even more of an effect.
Given enough time, they’d be able to figure out ways to eliminate the others as well, but the Violet Mountain Sect didn’t have many healers among the higher ranks—this was one of the reasons Sarra Lin’Talic had been so valued—and their healers specialized in diseases were all already dead.
“Whoever made these plagues is a genius.” Farrah Fillior, stood up from the apparatus she’d been looking into, a magical microscope which allowed her to better see the magical signatures of the nine other diseases they’d managed to isolate, but both her expression and aura showed resigned sadness, not confidence. “Each of the nine has a different primary element, so no single solution would enable us to counteract all their effects. And each is also supported by at least five other elements as well, which is ridiculous.
“All nine seem designed to eat our qi, mana, and psyforce, and they all propagate extremely quickly. Three, upon killing a cultivator, even use their energy to randomly teleport within a couple thousand kilometers.”
She looked over at Lander and Weselin, who’d been staying in the room with her so they could immediately get anything she needed. “Even if I gave it my all, within six days I’d only be able to find a way to eliminate one of these disease types without doing more harm than good, and that would only work for cultivators with life element mana. Yet I only have two days to live at most.”
“Is there really no other chance?” Weselin asked, lightning flickering in and out of his body as he killed all the magically enhanced bacteria and viruses which tried to enter, wasting a lot of his energy, but nowhere near as much as if he allowed the diseases to fully take hold and start to reproduce inside his cells, as almost all the other elders, Lander included, had accidentally done.
“You said Sarra was allied with the two who introduced these plagues.” A slight bit of hope entered into Farrah’s aura as she mentioned her former pupil. “We’ve already determined these diseases seem designed to target humans, jinn, and hybrids, but, while monsters like the two perpetrators wouldn’t have to worry about them, Sarra, as a hybrid, would. If you could find them, they’d almost certainly have vaccines or antidotes to counteract the diseases.”
“Yeah.” Lander shook his head, feeling resigned. “But the two disappeared and could be anywhere on the planet. Gods above, given the disguise skill Sarra showed off to escape and steal from us, it’s even possible the two left the planet before blowing up the teleportation platform, leaving Sarra here to die.”
“Sirs!” Interrupting their discussion, Xander Rogar, one of the three subheads of the Violet Mountain Sect’s disciplinary committee, ran into the room. Then, without waiting for them to even acknowledge him, he continued. “One of the D rank inner disciples has a high grade Soul Sight skill and the souls of the dead are moving! All of them in the same direction!”
It took a second for Xander’s words to register in Lander’s mind, and his entire body started to shiver in fear. The plagues were bad enough, but if someone was gathering the souls of the dead, the first thing which came to his mind was curse magic.
Then he remembered that someone, likely Sarra, had disguised herself as Elder Nivali and stolen his Bond Holding Orb.
“Weselin, gather all the elders and our strongest D ranks and meet me outside the entrance to the blessed land. Xander, take me to the D rank with Soul Sight.” Terrified, Lander sped into motion. “We’re all going to follow the souls, find the invaders, and take the antidotes. But we need to hurry.”
* * *
Mila
“Damn it.” From the edge of the forest surrounding the main entrance to the Kimali Mountains, Mila watched as all of the Violet Mountain Sect’s elders and 36 D ranks approached, two D ranks for each elder. “Aalam, do you have enough souls to curse all the elders of the Violet Mountain Sect at the same time?”
Due to her sabotage of the planet’s teleportation hubs, the Violet Mountain Sect only had one way to approach the Kimali Mountains if they were in a rush, so Mila had moved there and entered into stealth to watch, but she hadn’t expected them to arrive so soon.
She’d been in the Violet Mountain Sect for years, so she knew none of the elders would be able to sense the moving souls, with none of the core disciples having such a skill either, yet now it seemed one of the sect’s lesser disciples had the ability, and it was messing up her plan.
She, Aalam, and Isaiah were on a deadline, as, if the Violet Mountain Lord or another B rank or higher being arrived before they managed to leave the planet, they would all die, so she’d agreed to the risk of starting the collection of souls when Aalam had suggested, but now it seemed they should have delayed.
“All eighteen, no. Right now the curse could probably only debilitate three.” Aalam, because of his Id state, didn’t sound worried. “To debilitate all of them, we’d have to wait half an hour or kill a couple C ranks.”
Their telepathic communications were much, much faster than the verbal equivalent, so almost no time had passed, giving Mila a couple seconds to think.
She recognized all but one of the D ranks and, given the one she didn’t recognize was walking next to Elder Haxor and Elder Weselin, he was almost certainly the member of the Violet Mountain Sect who was able to sense the movement of souls. Killing him at this point, however, wouldn’t mean a thing.
Mila, with the combination of her Shadow Stride and Phantasmic Doppelgängers skills, would be able to approach the Violet Mountain Sect’s group without them having the ability to immediately attack her. And, given the strength of her bond with Aalam, and their mutual ability to reinforce it with their Laws, she could use Telekinesis to almost the same level as him when using his resources, which, with Aalam under the effects of Id, would allow her to kill all of the D ranks and possibly some of the weaker elders.
The main problems, however, were Elder Nivali, Elder Haxor, and Elder Weselin.
Elder Nivali was strong, probably the fourth most powerful in the sect when it came to combat force, and, as a death mage, her resistance to curses would be higher than any of the other elders. More important, however, she had a contract breaking skill, and this meant she could likely break her mountain mark if the curse didn’t immediately kill or debilitate her.
Elder Haxor wasn’t a combatant, but his stats were high and he was ancient, meaning he almost certainly had skill. Even with Aalam’s Spirit reaching well into the C rank level, it would be hard to kill him. And, unlike everyone else in the Violet Mountain Sect other than the Violet Mountain Lord, he didn’t have a mountain mark, so he wouldn’t be affected by the curse.
Finally, Elder Weselin was just too powerful. The lightning mage had higher stats than even Elder Haxor, with more skill than Epecteos. As the most powerful member of the sect with a lord line skill, he was the master of the planet they were on, so he had extreme resource regeneration, the plagues affecting him far, far less than every other member of the sect. And, given his element was lightning, which was naturally strong against death magic like curses, curse power which could debilitate three C ranks would do almost nothing against him.
Her little group of three was in trouble and Mila’s mind raced to try and figure out how to get out of it, but her eyes couldn’t help but glare at Kalin Hewin, the man who had started this whole mess, and who the Violet Mountain Sect seemed to have released.
Then, however, as her Sensory Domain caught one of the D ranks trying to quickly run into the forest after entering into stealth, she realized something, then another, and then another, and she couldn’t help but smile.
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