Chapter 8 -The Escape

It was the end of the day in the area of residence of Squad 9. Right now, two guard of the Nell Clan were standing guard at the gate, which was directly pointed to the far away forest. According to the records, in the past the forest occupied all the plain that was between the residence and the current forest.

However, during the establishment of the Stygian Clan, when the first Squad 9 was created many decades ago, the patriarch at the time had used his impressive power to completely cut down the trees that stood where now the plain was and killed all the beast that were inhabiting the place. 

"With this, even if they tried to escape, they won't be able to escape your sight." The records say those were his words.

With such a terrain, even if there was an escapee, the guards wouldn't be able to miss them.

"Oi, you two!"

The guards, ever unexpressive, turned around looking for the voice.

It was Markus Nell, the instructor for Martial Arts of Squad 9.

"Your shifts are about to end, right? Let me go already, I don't want to fill those damn papers, seriously, what's the problem of me entering and leaving under the watch of different guards?"

"I'm sorry, sir. Those are the orders. But rest assured, since you decided to leave early, you have always caught us in our shifts, successfully avoiding the need to fill the paperwork."

"Best decision that I ever made, second only to that time I tricked the Young Master into giving me a vacation to the beaches in the west. Those are incredible."

"Surely, there were better decisions, sir."

"Well, when do the other guys arrive?"

"They should arrive in around half an hour, if they are not late."

"Well then, I'm leaving."

Having said that, a sudden burst of Qi came out of his body, and under the gaze of the guards, Markus flew straight into the sky.

After a while, two new Qi signatures entered their senses.

"Good Night."

That was the only greeting they exchanged, before collectively starting to walk in the direction of a small building in order to register the exchange of shifts.

However, without them noticing, a green blur surged forward in the direction of the faraway forest.

This was Nio, using various blades of grass, he had made his cloak camouflageable.

He was using the most chakra he could use to enhance his body to run as fast as he could. The guards normally took around fifteen minutes to complete the process.

He needed to cover as much ground as he could. Once they ended the process, he would be forced to sneak in order to make use of camouflage.

So he needed to be fast. With his current stats, he was slightly faster than he was in his previous life, not by much, but faster.

The guards that stood guard changed each couple of years, the reason being the increase in strength of the members of the Stygian clan. Working as a guard for one of the residences that still housed kids was the only work for new recruits or the members of the Nell Clan's forces that stood on the weaker spectrum.

Their senses were dull and inexperienced, and besides, the kids hadn't started to learn how to cultivate yet, so what was the issue?

The problem was that they would never expect that one of the Stygian kids was capable of using a power system unknown to them, let alone at that age.

Caught off guard and in disadvantage, the guards did not notice Nio sneak past and running full throttle in the direction of the forest.

It was then that, suddenly, Nio dived into the ground, covering himself with the grass cloak. According to his mental counting, the time needed for the guards to complete the process needed to shift turns was over.

Not even a minute later, two streaks of lights flew over him in the direction of the forest before making a huge turn to the left, disappearing into the night.

Glancing sneakily towards the gate, that now stood really far away, Nio noticed the silhouette of the guards staring into the grass plains. He then looked in front of him.

He had only covered a third of the way! 

He didn't panic and started to slowly walk in the direction of the forest, making sure to not raise his body too tall to not get noticed, as well as making sure that the grass cloak covered all of his body.

Due to the trouble that it was to sneak around like this, Nio didn't bring his makeshift spear, as it would be too dangerous to carry it while sneaking out.

Similarly, he was not carrying anything with a lot of weight.

He had discarded certain parts of his equipment because they would slow him down or would get in his way when sneaking around.

He walked slowly, mostly crouched, making use of his child body to shrink himself as much as he could.

Because it was dark, he already covered a lot of ground and the strength of the guards was not that big, he was able to remain undetected.

There was no need to hurry, the night was young, he had time. Once he reached the forest, he would be safe to run around more comfortably.

Naturally, the second problem would then emerge. How to find the entrance of the cave system.

However, he had studied the maps of the forest for a lot of time and had identified some spots as potential entries.

An hour passed.

There wasn't much space for him to cover.

The closer he got to the forest, the bolder he became.

Right now, he was only half-crouching and was walking at a decent pace. Nio would soon reach the forest and nothing was going to stop him.

A few minutes later he was already so close to the forest and so far from the gate that he had risked it and was already sprinting towards the forest.

As soon as he reached it, he hid behind a tree and took a sneak peek behind him.

No flashing lights.

No screaming voices.

He was safe.

He had remained unseen and safely reached the forest.

He blew a sigh of relief, tension leaving his body, forcing him to drop himself to the ground.

"I did it."

Nio had escaped, however, he still had work to do.

"Now I only need to find the entrance to the cave system and find my way towards the residence."

Without wasting any time, he boosted his body with chakra and surged forward, recalling the directions towards the places he believed to be the entrances to the caves.

There were three in total. One was nearby, close to the start of the forest.

In the censured version of the map, details about that particular zone were completely discarded. There was no information whatsoever.

The other two were found deeper into the forest, far apart from each other, as well as the initial one.

Nio was heading towards the nearest.

Using chakra, he approached his goal with good speeds.

He remained alert, though. This was a forest commonly used to hunt, and it was not the mundane hunts, either. They hunted beasts.

Animals that had started to cultivate out of instinct.

Their methods were much more simple than human's but most of them were mutations.

In the Western Continent, these beasts did not exist in the past, after all, without big enough levels of Heaven and Earth Energy, those were rarely found. However, after the Storm and the occupation of the Eastern Continent, due to the certain influx of cultivation treasures that were sometimes lost in forests and other remote places, the animals there accidentally consumed them, mutating themselves and their offsprings. 

There were, of course, some of them that were just invading species, beast brought from the other side of the world for different purposes.

In the case of this forest, the censored information didn't cover that, making Nio believe that the species here were either invasive species with a higher purpose or created via mutation, caused by something or someone that shouldn't be known, at least to someone from the Stygian clan.

Soon, his worries were proven true.

While he was running, a snake, much larger than he remembered them to be, jumped towards him attempting to bite its fangs in his arm.

Thanks to being on guard, Nio had time to react to the strike, focusing more chakra on his legs than in other part of his body, gaining a sudden influx of speed. He had successively dodged the snake.

"Is it alone?"

That was one of his worries. Knowledge of which beast inhabited the forest had been also censored, so Nio didn't know the habits of this type of beast, and therefore didn't know if they hunted in groups.

The snake slithered at an enormous speed and prepared to leap again, but it was stopped by a construct of paper thin threads.

Nio had shaped his chakra into strings and controlled them to form a cocoon. If the snake moved and collided with the strings, Nio would tighten the hold of the strings on the snake.

"You have no way to run."