Chapter 425: The Great Verdant River Sect

Dispersing the slaves slowed them down slightly, but Kai estimated that the distance they moved south in a month couldn't have been completed much faster. The others must have made the same estimation, and considering that they needed time to train and prepare, they didn't complain about his do-gooding. Though in the cases of the Cloudspire peasants, he wasn't sure how much he had actually helped them.

Now their ship only had a number of Krysali with them, and though Kai had been careful to remember their names, the fact remained that he only really knew Cragrila. The others had known him, of course, but far more people recognized him in Krysal than he could possibly know. Thankfully they treated him with that odd sort of veneration he remembered, so they didn't expect him to be a close friend.

Along the way, he continued to train his monstrous abilities. Back in the Western Wilds, Omilaena had urged him to specialize, and after trying that with Manticore's Quill, he realized that it could work in many ways. When he used the full power of Thunderbird's Wings, he released shockwaves that devastated weaker fighters, but he could fly without shockwaves using only one form of energy. With qi, he could hover more like a cultivator; with mana, he flew completely silently; and with chakra, his wings grew out and allowed easier direction shifts. If he could master all three, Thunderbird's Wings would become more effective even if it wasn't stronger in absolute power.

The closer they got to the deep south, the more excited Zae Zin Nim became. She seemed certain that they could unlock the Masterful Crown clan's new secret to immortality and he could only hope that she was right. Whatever else was true, the Verdant River sect was supposed to be a powerful one, so it wouldn't be easy to simply steal their secrets.

Omilaena was the one who was truly energetic, though, bouncing from experiment to experiment. For once she didn't seem to need much from him, since her work was related to purely human attributes. She had described her revelations to him and he thought he understood the premise, but his monstrous soul was a massive unknown compared to all the rest. When she flounced up to him he had no idea which direction she might go with the encounter.

"Kai, do you know if the Frontier elites ever integrate new types of energy to enhance their abilities?"

"I don't know more than you do," he told her. "If you didn't get any specific information from them when we were there, you're out of luck."

"Damn. I'm just trying to figure out if every possible combination of soul parts is viable. Surely some must be better than others, right?" Omilaena leaned against him like he was a wall, less seducing than just distracted. "Some are obvious: the Essence and Element aspects are very close together, so they synergize. Some seem like nonsense: what would it mean to mix Physique and Soul? I need more data if I'm going to draw any real conclusions, because it's all a bit too complex to be neat and tidy..."

"What about Classes that use chakra?"

"What? Tell me."

"When we first went to Rosemount, there were some immigrants from Deadwaste who attacked me. They had Classes that were stronger than average and I saw them as 'Chakra-engorged Classes' in my spiritual sight. None of them were particularly powerful though, and they didn't have refined Class abilities."

"Holy shit, I could kiss you." Omilaena grabbed the sides of his head, her eyes wide. "In fact, I might as well. This is exactly the sort of thing I need, weird offshoots that haven't been polished by generations... so what exactly were they like?"

Kai did his best to remember the minor details of a bunch of thugs he'd fought years ago. Even though it didn't seem all that interesting to him, Omilaena soaked up the information, ending up plastered against him. By the time he'd finished, she was wiggling happily, and he still had no idea if she was going to fuck him or go run off to do an experiment.

"Forget a kiss, that's worth something more." Omilaena practically thrust her tongue into his mouth, but at that moment there was a shout from the prow of the ship.

Omilaena barely seemed to notice, but Kai reluctantly peeled her off and went to go look. Cragrila stood at the front, staring forward, and now turned back to him with a grim expression. Despite her apparent determination, he saw that she looked a little pale.

"We're almost to the work site," she said. "I know there's a major sect headquarters near here, and I could lead you to the hidden site, but I don't know anything else about the geography. You'd better scout before we run into anyone else."

"Where's our resident expert?" Omilaena asked, now just leaning off him in a casual pose.

Zae Zin Nim emerged to stand beside them, frowning at the landscape. "As far as I know, the Verdant River sect is primarily stationed just south of here, with agricultural land further south. The region must be heavily guarded, but I don't know exactly how."

"Then we'd better head down before we accidentally run into someone. Someone else should take a sword and see what they can notice."

That was actually his role - Kai didn't use it often, but Mutefang's Stealth was their best spiritual hiding technique aside from shrouds. He pulled one of the flying swords out of his spatial ring and glanced to Zae Zin Nim, silently asking if she wanted to go along. To his surprise, she stepped up onto the sword, which put them side by side.

"This is only so that I can be hidden by your ability," she said.

Kai nodded. "Right."

"If I wanted to be affectionate, I would just ask." Zae Zin Nim pulled his arms around her, so he hugged her back against his chest. "Now, let's go scout."

While the ship went under the tree cover along one of the smaller rivers, Kai took their flying sword toward the clouds. Usually that was boring, since it just made the sea of trees smaller, but this time he could see the differences in the landscape. They were clearly passing from one of the great wild areas of the Southern Rivers to real civilization again. Based on what he remembered from the map, there was another region of cities, sects, and villages from here to the coast.

Abruptly he spotted something else: a line of unnatural green cutting through the forest. It was a wall of some sort, mixing in with the foliage at most angles and yet repelling the plants around it. Worse, there was a subtle layer of qi extending into the sky that would have blocked, or perhaps fried, anyone who tried to get over it.

"What's the barrier technique protecting?" Kai asked. "Surely they don't have problems with the minor forest monsters."

"It's to keep people out, not monsters." Zae Zin Nim peered at it and then slowly nodded. "That isn't just the Verdant River sect's most secure location, it's one of the most important for the entire Masterful Crown clan. The outer wall is a shield and illusion, and there will be several more layers, then in the very center must be the Loam of the Gods."

"So they have one of the Insanities and they keep it down here?"

"They don't have a choice. In order to grow things in it, they need to keep the soil in its natural location and harvest it. I don't know where the line between legend and reality is, because they like to promote rumors about just how much the Loam can accomplish. But I'm willing to bet that alchemy using plants grown here could be related to their new immortality technique."

"What would that mean?" Kai mused. "Did they get better at using it, or is the Loam getting stronger?"

"No one can say. But we may find out soon."

Normally flying along with his wife would have been pleasant, but since they needed to scout and their journey was ending, Kai found himself too tense. Across all those barriers, there was a single object that could shift the fate of continents. He wanted to see it... however long it took them to actually get through those barriers.

Of course they couldn't break in directly, not without preparation, so instead they turned east parallel to the wall, following the ship hidden below. It was harder to spot now that Cragrila and the other Krysali had been taught a better shrouding technique, but they had the same general plan.

Before they could fly back down, Kai saw another flying ship on the horizon. At first they both tensed, ready to fight if it had seen them, but the ship drifted peacefully west. It was emblazoned with the golden crown symbol of the Masterful Crown sect and it passed through the barrier with only a ripple of qi. Since there was nothing else in the sky, Kai continued watching it, looking for any hints that might help them infiltrate later.

Instead, he saw the bottom of the ship open and dump corpses onto the land below.

Hundreds of bodies tumbled out, so small and loose from a distance that he almost didn't want to believe they could really be people. But he identified the forms and there was definitely no life left in them. The bloody mess fell toward the forest and then disappeared into the illusion, leaving no trace.

"Why would they do that?" Kai asked.

"I don't know." Zae Zin Nim pushed back further into his embrace, staring at the barrier.

When they caught up to the others, Kai was thinking about how to explain what they'd seen, then ended up saying nothing because the others seemed tense enough. Cragrila was pacing around the deck, gripping her new spear, and Omilaena leaned against one side. She was smoking with apparent ease, but he could smell the intensity of her poison.

"So you figured that's the Loam area?" she asked. "So did we. Cragrila says the main work camps are further east, and there should be other Krysali left alive there. Seems like there are transfers between the high and low security areas."

"It's still high security," Cragrila snapped, "the work camp just doesn't have those giant barriers. But yeah, they transfer dirt from inside and make us work qi or crystals into it. Sometimes they take workers in, and they don't come out. I can show you the guards and the outposts, but that's all I know."

"Since we can't take on a barrier like that now, I figured we'd start with the camp. Get more intelligence there and decide on our next move. Any issues?"

Kai shook his head, so they kept flying onward toward the source of the corpses.