Sun felt tired after climbing as far as he climbed on the mountain, but it wasn’t because the trip was tough for him, it was rather the mental state he was in as he climbed the mountain; it made everything more tiring, and he get even more fed up with his dirty fur, and became even sadder.

  He thought some sounds were coming from down the mountain, but when he tried to focus and hear them, he couldn’t hear anything.

  Thinking it was a trick of the wind, he continued climbing up the mountain, when he suddenly heard sounds again, but this time they weren’t coming from behind him; they were coming from up the mountain.

  Multiple voices of humans that were trying to be sneaky, Sun was scared thinking they were coming for him, and as he heard the voices coming from the left and right of the path he was taking, he found no other way to go but the middle path that looked like it might be a dead end.

  It was a narrow path that went inside the mountain, but the path was full of greenery, and Sun could hear running water coming from inside.

  He faced away from the narrow path and started moving backwards as he looked worriedly in front of him, afraid of getting caught unawares.

  Hou Kun, who was closest, asked his team, “Are we close? Do any of you hear them?”

  Sun turned his head at the word them, since it meant that they were looking for more than one person; they might even not be looking for him at all.

  Wind Lei answered him, “I can smell them on the wind, but I smell something else closer; I don’t know what it is.”

  Hou Kun replied, “The unique skill that gives you a heightened sense of smell, brother Lei, is something to behold. Is that thing you smell a human?”

  Sun got scared and walked backwards even faster into the narrow path going into the mountain’s heart.

  Wind Lei said, “No, I don’t think it’s human, it’s...”

  Huo Kun cut him as he said, “Forget about it then, we want those Yin cultivators; it might just be a lowly animal.”

  Sun felt sad, as without cultivation this was true for him; he was just a lowly animal, nothing more, nothing less.

  His eyes filled with tears again as he turned his back to the forest and was about to head further onto the narrow path when he heard shouts coming from faraway.

  “Sun, where are you? Please answer me; I am sorry for whatever happened. Please, come back and let us talk about it.” Seph shouted from afar.

  Lilith followed, “Sun, make a sound if you hear us. If you are in trouble, we are all here to save you.”

  Even Divinity shouted, “Sun, come out, I miss playing with you!”

  She had never really played with him, but they had both enjoyed petting Kafka’s cats together.

  Sun was happy his friends were searching for him, but he got extremely worried for their wellbeing since he heard the cultivators who were trying to sneak up on them.

  He rushed to the beginning of the narrow path to reach his friends first, but even before he got there, his body suddenly hit an invisible wall and he flew back a few meters.

  He was groggy as he stared up at the rocky ceiling of the narrow path, but got back up again despite the pain.

  He crept towards the forest until he got to the invisible force field, and he tapped it, to find that he was locked in there, whatever that place was.

  At that moment, he saw flying high in the sky the bone dragon Baby. He tried to scream and warn Baby, but to no avail. Even the cultivators didn’t turn back upon hearing his screams, which meant his voice didn’t make it past the invisible force field.

  Still, Baby noticed the cultivators and circled back towards the group. The cultivators didn’t even see her, as they didn’t expect their opponents to have a flying dragon doing reconnaissance.

  Sun didn’t know what to do, he wanted so bad to get back to his friend Seph, and help him to not get ambushed, but it was too late, there was only one way to go, and that’s further into the heart of the mountain.

  Not knowing what might wait for him in there, he went inside regardless, because he thought maybe he could find a way out to somewhere else on the mountain.

  ***

  Seph was getting very frustrated because they couldn’t find Sun; he felt so guilty as he didn’t know what made Sun run away to begin with.

  Lilith and Divinity felt sad for him too, but there was nothing they could do to help more than just shout into the void, and hope for Sun to shout back.

  The group was still unaware that they were about to be ambushed, but suddenly Baby came back, and descended onto Lilith’s hands.

  Lilith asked her, “Did you find Sun?”

  Baby shook her head negatively, and then made an aggressive face as she looked behind her.

  Lilith said, “Oh, everyone, I think there are hostiles closing in on us; Baby must have seen something coming towards us and came to warn us. What should we do, Seph?”

  Seph didn’t want to give up the search, and he didn’t know how strong those hostiles would be, so he said, “We will move forward and take them head on. I want to find Sun before sunset. Do you think you can fight them with me?”

  Lilith was worried since Seph’s words meant he was going to fight them by himself regardless; she wouldn’t leave him alone though. “Yes, I will fight anyone, anywhere, with you. We are in this together.”

  Divinity’s eyes went wide as she heard Lilith’s sweet words, and she said under her breath, “Are they a couple? Goddess, she sounded infatuated with him when she said that. Does Seph even know?”

  Seph then spoke to Divinity, who was mumbling to herself. “I understand if you want to go back, Divinity; this might be very dangerous. No hard feelings though, I am thankful that you stuck with us this far.”

  Divinity cocked an eyebrow and said, “What are you talking about? I am not going anywhere; let’s smash whoever is coming down this mountain to ambush us!” She giggled after she said that, as she gave Seph a big childish grin that made his heart ache a little as it reminded him of Sun.

  Seph bowed respectfully to Divinity and said, “Okay, ladies, I have a plan. I want you to hide behind the trees, and leave whoever is coming down to me. After they have their full attention on me, you can attack them; that way we have the element of surprise on our side.”

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  Lilith smiled mischievously and said, “They thought they were going to ambush us, but we shall show them an ambush that will haunt their nightmares.”

  She then looked at Baby and told her, “Baby, fly as fast as you can, and try to warn Gabalawi and Kafka. Hopefully, they will understand your warning. Help them in the fight, but don’t put yourself in a lot of danger, okay?”

  Baby nuzzled Lilith’s chin affectionately before she took flight to warn the second group.

  Lilith and Divinity went to hide behind a tree on the right and left flanks of Seph, while he stood ready in the middle of the clearing they were in, and took out one lump of pestilence in each hand.

  Eventually the cultivators made it to where he stood, and Hou Kun said, “Oh, what a bummer, there is only one of these abominations here, fellow disciples. I will erect a stone wall to block his escape path, while you two bury him in the earth; mother will cleanse this corruption.”

  Seph threw a lump of pestilence toward Hou Kun and threw another at the disciple with the wind sword.

  Hou Kun whispered an incantation that covered his body with a light sheet of earth armor, while Wind Lei cut the lump in two, with his sword, the lumps would have still hit him if that was a normal sword, but after the sword cut the lump in two, a gust of wind originated from the sword, pushed the lumps back making them miss Wind Lei completely.

  Light Ren raised her hand toward the sun which she couldn’t see, but could feel with all her being, since it was the source of her power, and a ball of light formed in her hand that kept getting bigger until it became the size of a pomegranate.

  She then ran towards Seph, but before she could reach him, Divinity jumped from behind a tree and hit her clean with her hammer, which launched Light Ren into a nearby tree, causing an explosion because of the charged ball of light that she had in her hand.

  Hou Kun was alarmed as he warned the group. “Be careful, Wind Lei; there was more in hiding. Light Ren might be out of the fight; take care of that brat who hit her.”

  Wind Lei nodded as he ran towards Divinity, meanwhile, Hou Kun focused in front of him at the earth wall he was summoning, and his eyes went wide, as he saw Seph running straight at him, he clicked his tongue in annoyance as he let go of the earth wall he was summoning, even though it had drained some energy from him already, and he summoned a stone boulder that he launched straight at Seph’s chest.

  Seph felt the danger especially because of the déjà vu feeling he got, since a similar boulder ended his life a while back, and he dropped to the ground before the boulder hit him.

  Hou Kun said, “Tsk, looks like you are skilled and will be a nuisance for me, but I will get you yet, you undead piece of shit.’

  Meanwhile, Wind Lei had reached Divinity and launched a sword strike against her; she blocked it with her hammer, but a gust of wind that followed the strike blew her away.

  Wind Lei smirked, as that was how he usually got an advantage over his opponents.

  Lilith was already running towards the little girl to help her against Wind Lei. She had been in hiding when she had seen Divinity take out the Light disciple and had realized that her opponent had been drawn to Divinity instead.

  Lilith was so worried about Divinity especially after she got knocked down, and she knew she wouldn’t reach her in time, but Seph noticed what was happening, and got out two lumps of pestilence and threw them at Wind Lei, with his enhanced strength they were fast enough to hit Wind Lei in the back of his neck.

  Wind Lei touched the substance on his neck, and looked at it in disgust before he waved his hand off to blow the substance away, but once he saw his relatively cleaner hand he became alarmed, as he saw black dots spreading over it, and his skin started tingling in such a nasty way.

  He looked with even more worry as he saw Lilith running towards him, and Divinity was already getting up off the ground, he looked at Hou Kun feeling sorry for what he was about to do, and started running away atop the mountain leaving the Earth Inheritors disciple behind to an unknown fate.

  Lilith reached Divinity and asked, “Are you okay? Do you need a healing pill or something? I have many!”

  Divinity giggled and said, “Oh, don’t worry about me, I am fine, but thanks for asking. Should we help Seph?”

  Lilith looked towards Seph and said, “No, it’s already a one-on-one fight. This is good training for Seph. We could intervene if we see him in danger, but I believe in him.”

  Divinity noticed how worried Lilith looked even as she tried to put on a stoic face of belief in her partner; yes, she thought they were partners, and she couldn’t think otherwise from that point forward.

  Seph had gotten up off the ground after dodging the stone boulder and tried to close the gap between him and the earth disciple, he launched his gourd towards Hou Kun as he saw him readying for another attack, but it was to no avail, the attack came regardless, and it was an earth column that came out in front of Seph, and Seph crashed into it stomach first.

  Hou Kun summoned an earth shield and used it to deflect the gourd away from his head, and true enough it flew past him after hitting the shield.

  Meanwhile, Seph bit his bottom lip to forget the pain of the crash, and rolled away from the column on the ground, and got up and continued running, once he had finally reached Hou Kun, he attacked him with a palm strike, which had a wondrous effect on the earth disciple, since Seph’s palm attacks were blunt force, and earth shields were strong against slash type attacks but weak against blunt force attacks.

  The earth sheet on Hou Kun’s chest shattered, and he staggered back; he looked hatefully at Seph as he said, “Close-up fight it is then; I am going to end you.”

  Seph said, “You will do nothing; we beat your friends, and only you remain.”

  Hou Kun laughed loudly as he said, “You fool, this is our mountain, our sects will hear of this, even if Wind Lei left, he will get reinforcements and come back and help me kill your pretty women.”

  Seph said in annoyance, “Tsk, you shouldn’t have mentioned the ladies; now you are going down for sure.”

  Hou Kun covered his fists in circular stone formations as he tried to hit Seph while he said, “You really think a bunch of weakling abominations are going to win against the three allied sects of Fallen Valley on their own mountain? Come on, boy, even you can’t be that na?ve.”

  Seph swiftly moved backwards away enough from the range of Hou Kun’s fist as he struck it with another palm strike, at the same time he launched another to his stomach, and said, “Well, thanks for giving me this information, you only made your end that much nearer, I will have to kill you faster now for the safety of my friends.”

  The palm strike that hit Hou Kun’s fist didn’t do any damage even if it reduced the size of his fist by 25%, but the hit to his stomach shattered his earth sheet armor, and he could feel its strength even through it.

  He looked worried but bit down on his lip as he tried to launch a punch to Seph’s face, while he thought to land a follow-up uppercut.

  It was all for nothing though as the gourd was summoned back by Seph and hit him in the back of his head, shattering the earth sheet that covered that area, he gritted his teeth as he tried to recompose himself, but Seph wasn’t letting up on him, as he landed a palm strike straight to his face.

  The palm strike didn’t just shatter the earth sheet, but it hit Hou Kun’s nose with enough force that he felt it break, and blood came trickling down his face.

  He tried to cover his face with both hands as he dropped to his knees, but he couldn’t since his fists were still a couple of stone boulders.

  He was terrified and spoke a little unclearly because of the blood trickling into his mouth and his broken nose. “Please spare my life; I won’t cross your path again. I am sorry I mentioned your women.”

  Light Ren was coming back to at this moment, and once she saw that the mighty Hou Kun was down on his knees begging, she got the fuck out of there.

  Seph spoke coldly to the begging cultivator. “I would have forgiven you, only I don’t think you would have spared me either. Rest in peace, fellow cultivator.”

  Hou Kun got so angry and tried to low blow Seph as he said, “Fellow cultivator, you think yourselves our equals? We will end you yet, starting with you, you son of a b...”

  Seph had jumped backwards out of harm’s way, and then pushed his gourd to hit his opponent’s broken nose again, who fell backwards, and Seph then mounted his opponent’s chest as he landed three subsequent palm strikes that ended his life.

  He sighed a sigh of relief as he looked up at the sky, and as he got up, he noticed his opponent’s spatial sack, and snatched it from him, and tied it to his own blue robe.

  He looked at Lilith and Divinity with sadness in his eyes, as he knew they must leave if he wanted to keep them safe, but he shouted one last time, “Sun, if you hear me, make any sound.”

  When he heard nothing back, he continued, “Sun, I will not give up on finding you, however much time that will take, I will come back here and I will find you, so please, don’t give up on me.”

  He looked to the ground as a couple of tears dropped from his eyes and he wiped them with his sleeve, before he told Lilith and Divinity, “Let’s head back, I hope Gabalawi and Kafka heard the same things from these cultivators and will wisely retreat too, we can’t take on a full sect, these guys were in the 4th level of Qi Condensation only, they must have much stronger disciples if this is their home.”

  Lilith hugged him by putting one hand on his shoulders, and Divinity nodded as she went ahead of them, to give them this moment.