The calm before the storm
The afternoon sun was shining at a clearing near the campsite of the Evil Cloud sect, there were dozens of disciples forming a circle, inside the circle were laying two dead bodies of inner disciples and a young man clad in white robes adorned with clouds was examining their bodies.
Taking a tiny yellow bamboo from the hands of one the smell of gunpowder was still lingering in the bamboo he was about to say something when another yellow lotus bloomed in the sky.
Getting up, his eyes narrowed at the sight of the yellow flower blooming in the sky "Looks like the enemy already found about our deeds" for the first time he spoke with a serious tone, giving all those presents a heavy feeling in their hearts.
Turning his face at the present disciples he ordered with a stern but lighter tone than before "All outer disciples pack everything up to run away, inner disciples are ready for a big fight, core disciples organize with all inner disciples, at least 2 cores for every 3 inners in a team, Sima you will be in charge of taking care of Cuifen, if something happens to her, or if she scapes it will all fall on your shoulders" when he said the last part his eyes shined in a murderous way.
"The rest of the storm clouds prepare to battle" he turned to a young man clad in leather armor and asked "there is news from Linghu?".
The young man gave a deep bow before replying, then he said "Young Master, there is still no news from senior brother Linghu".
Rubbing his chin with his slender left hand, Young Master Yun took a last glance at the two stiff bodies on the grass floor, then with a wave of his white sleeves he told everyone was dismissed.
As he was walking to the tent in the center of the camping site hundreds of thoughts passed through his mind, his sixth sense was telling him, a conspiracy was happening, one of his best fighters was missing, two guards used a yellow flare to warn the enemy and last a new yellow flare was lightened.
"Maybe the last flare was lightened by the same person? Was he using those two outer disciples as bait? but why? If he could use the flare and escape he didn't have to do it… Looks like we have some spy inside our people" awakening from his thoughts he saw he wasn't in his tent, but in the place where Cuifen was retained.
At this time Jiangu was giving Cuifen wounds an inspection, seeing that there was nothing wrong with her body she was getting ready to leave. Getting up she turned her head to the camping site and saw Young Master Yun standing there, looking at her and Cuifen, no one knew what was on his head.
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Shi was seating in a lotus pose with his back facing a big tree bark, his dantian was almost full again, after getting it full it was time to follow the yellow flare.
After some breaths he opened his eyes again, using his right arm to get up he picked up his crude map. It was way better now, it had a lot of places and beasts nests.
He was about to go forward but then his father said "You better not go there yet", stopping his tracks he was about to ask why but Long Shin spoke first "Since they took their time to get Cuifen probably she was too tired to keep fighting, at your guys level and this place spiritual qi, there is not much spirit herbs to make a 'miracle' to put her right on her best condition".
"However this didn't mean they don't have anyone who can't win against her, but probably that they didn't know her location, there will be enemies stronger than that saber guy" Long Shi advised Shi who was standing at the shadow made by the giant tree.
Sitting on the grass floor again Shi put the map on his front, as he looked at it he asked "So what do you think I should do then? Do you think it's better for me to not go there?"
"About this you were wrong, you definitely should go, the problem is to do things without information is just the same as fighting in the dark, the last fight was really hard and it was only one enemy with his martial spirit awakened" Long Shin replied.
From the Long Shin perspective, he had a big problem to solve, Shi was just too comfortable fighting with his life at risk, he would trade a wound for life or even go life for life, the last fight was a great example of it.
There were only two ways of not fighting in this insane way, one was to fight enemies with the same strength or below and the last one was to prepare yourself to fight a stronger enemy.
"Since we don't understand the two forces we don't really know how to determine a winner, but as for my point of view the Blossom Lotus sect looks weaker than the Evil Cloud Sect." Long Shin said, taking into consideration the last encounters he had.
Leaning at the tree bark Shi starts contemplating his father's words, the
"Well, they can't just put hundreds of people inside the neutral zone and hunt the females of the Blossom Lotus, and the last time when I first meet that hot gorilla she was in her sect zone and the 'coat hanger' was in the enemy zone" Shi started to feel something was not right.
"Besides this time she left the sect again and the spy of Evil Cloud already had set a hunt perimeter waiting for her" Giving more thoughts to Shi thinking Long Shin said.
"Hm, spy? How do you know it, father? I didn't see any clue about that" Shi was confused about this.
"Are you a retard? you got from that guy at the beginning of the night he said about them getting information about her leaving the sect under a disguise" Long Shin replied almost coughing blood because of Shi's stupid behavior.
Beating his forehead with his right-hand fingertips he remembered it, he was so focused on this entire situation that he almost forgot about that conversation with the young man who looked like a slug, maybe the giant wound on his left arm made him forget about his try to catch a sword.
"So if they had someone infiltrated in the Blossom Lotus I can't just go and meet them" thinking until here Shi had a bad thought what if Yue was the spy? but then this thought got away, if she was, she wouldn't be fighting one of their best disciples and wouldn't let the flare or even worst, feeling the chill coming down his spine he thought about how idiot he was if Yue was the spy she would easily kill him with that saber guy.
"Warfare is about deception, to use clever tactics and movements that are always changing. These are words from a man known as a god of war from the place I come, Sun Wu was his name" Long Shin taught teachings about the art of war from Sun Tzu book even if he was a cultivator, Sun Tzu book was incredible in its own way.
Repeating his father's words a thought came to his mind "What if I infiltrated their disciples and helped Cuifen?"
"This won't happen, there's still that bald guy that you fought back when you met your first woman, he probably remembers you and if they had a spy on the Cuifen sect, they also probably know about you too" Long Shin denied Shi idea.
"Cough... Cough.. please father, she is not my woman" almost drowning in his own coughs Shi replied at his father's joke.
Shaking this thought to the side he started to chant the
This diagram had an 'ice' rune on one edge and at least 3 meters it had another two 'spirit' runes. Reflecting on his last fight, he wanted to try something, he picked up a ring he looted and took some spirit jade from it.
Putting a spirit jade on one 'spirit' rune he started to circulate his spirit qi, but he didn't infuse it on the diagram, he waited for the diagram activated by the spirit jade.
"Crack… Crack…" Suddenly at the 'ice' rune edge, an ice crystal containing almost the same amount of energy from that spirit jade was born.
Seeing this Shi infused his spirit qi at the other 'spirit' rune next to him, after some time a low explosion was heard, because of the heterogeneous qi those two couldn't fuse, making the ice crystal unstable and exploding.
After understanding this Shi got a devious smile, he had a new weapon.
Having some discussion with his father, they decided to infiltrate during the fight that was definitely going to happen, since it was impossible for the Blossom Lotus to just let their prime disciple go and fall in the hands of Young Master Yun.
So Shi started to make some diagrams on some square piece of wood, it looked like a pentagon, it was like his old shield, but this time he was just going to use it as an explosive.