65 Discovered

Half a minute later, Jack realized that the young man from the Slaughtering Sword School planned to stay in the house for as long as he could. After he thought about it for a second he figured that he wouldn't want to rush out at someone that had a rifle armed with only a saber.

"Come out, you coward! Your disciple sister is getting chased down like a dog while you're hiding in a hole like a rat!" Jack shouted towards the house. When no one answered he chuckled at himself as he thought 'Worth a try. Looks like we're doing this the hard way.'

He took a deep breath as he steadied his heartbeat and started walking towards the crumbling house. While he walked he cycled his spirit energy through his legs, just enough to activate Moon Step as soon as possible while not damaging his meridians for a short time.

The welcoming room had no one in it so he passed through it after a quick check and went through the connecting door to the rest of the house.

Dust flew everywhere in the debris-filled hallway. Jack held his cylinder up to his shoulder as he scanned for any movement. A few seconds later, he walked towards the first couple of doors that split the hallway into three paths.

The one in the middle led to the deeper part of the house that held the room in which Jack killed the Senior Brother and the collapsed staircase to the upper floor. The two doors on the side led to two large rooms.

He stopped a meter away from the doorways to the two rooms and crouched down to pick up a couple of rocks from the rubble. After a quick imbuement, he threw the rocks into the rooms, one each.

As soon as the rocks bounced a few times in the rooms, Jack felt a buildup of spirit energy to his left. He activated Moon Step immediately and dashed forwards to the room in the back.

A split second after he dashed away, a blast of spirit energy blew out the wall that previously hid Jack.

The whole house shook as the violent saber slash destroyed the wall and cracked the opposite one. A couple of seconds later, the two rocks that Jack threw into the two rooms added to the chaos of dust and debris.

When Jack reached the room in the back, he stored his cylinder in his Star Bag, took a deep breath, grabbed his knife, and started running when he heard the two rocks explode.

Cursing followed on the tail of the explosions as a few rock fragments made some light wounds on the young man's body. He had pushed spirit energy through it for protection, but a few of the more vulnerable spots got hit too.

Just as he blinked his eyes to clear his vision of the swirling dust, he felt Jack's spirit fluctuation rush towards him. His eyes regained his focus as he readied his saber.

A second later, Jack ran out from the protection of the wall and threw his knife at the young man from the Slaughtering Sword School.

The young man saw the knife fly towards him, but the throw looked sloppy and his saber already moved towards its flight path to block it.

During that moment when he focused on the knife, he registered that Jack kept running, but he didn't notice that instead of going down the hallway towards the outside, Jack entered into the same room as the young man through the saber-widened doorway.

Jack allowed one more pulse of the Moon Step technique to course through his legs as he jumped at the oncoming wall of the room that he entered. In the air, he stopped performing the Moon Step and activated the Chaotic Hawk Assault technique to strengthen his legs.

He landed on the upright wall with his legs and kept running. The stomps left spreading cracks on the wall as he ran across it.

The momentum from his dash carried Jack close to the connecting wall, in front of which the Slaughtering Sword School disciple stood.

As Jack launched himself from his horizontal position at the young man, he had just deflected the incoming knife and tried to move out of the way.

Before he could take one step, Jack's right leg lashed out and slammed into his right arm and side.

His saber left his hands as his right arm broke, and the power of the kick slammed him into the wall opposite of the one from which Jack launched himself from.

Jack didn't fare much better, his leap carried him straight to the other wall. He could only cover his body with what little spirit energy he had left and curl up.

The young man lay on his side and coughed out blood for a few seconds while Jack circulated his cultivation technique to gather as much spirit energy as he could.

With a shake of his head, a battered Jack picked himself up from the floor. He had a bloody abrasion on his forehead; his hands had scrapes while his knees and elbows felt bruised.

'I hate the damned Chaotic Hawk Assault technique.' Jack thought as he stumbled to his wobbling feet.

The young man just started to crawl towards his dropped saber when Jack grabbed him by his left ankle and dragged him away from it.

With a twist on the ankle, Jack made the young man flip over to his back. Jack saw that the young man had trouble breathing and concluded that a rib must have punctured a lung. He reached to his Star Bag and took out a camouflaged cylinder.

The young man's eyes widened in panic as he tried to crawl to his saber again. Jack just watched him go as he took out a metal ball and loaded it into his cylinder.

As the young man's left hand touched the saber's hilt, a soft *thump* sounded and blood painted the floor. The hand gave a few instinctual twitches before it stopped moving altogether.

Jack sighed in relief, stored his cylinder in his Star Bag, and started using the Beast Recovery Method.

A second later he looked down at his stomach and said "Oh…" In that same moment, he heard cracking sounds come from all the surrounding walls. His head snapped up as he continued "… s*it!"

Jack could only push all the available spirit energy through his body, cover his head with his arms, and crouch down as the house crashed down on him.

Over an hour later, some rubble shifted as a battered and bloody Jack dragged himself out of the collapsed house.

He took a few minutes to just lie on the rubble and breathe before he propped himself up to stand.

When he looked around, he saw a few guards with torches loitering around the collapsed building, but no one moved any closer to check out what happened.

Jack chuckled at the restriction that Immortals held towards the regular people before he looked up and saw that the sky started to lighten up.

He halted his short rest, mobilized his new grade five cultivation, and rushed away from the frightened gazes with Moon Step.

A dozen seconds later, Jack stopped in a dark alley and had to lean on a building to prevent himself from collapsing to the ground.

'Damn, can't do that for long.' he thought as he cursed the Chaotic Hawk Assault.

After a few minutes of rest, Jack started jogging down the dark streets without using spirit energy for anything else except the Beast Recovery Method.

Ten minutes later, he reached the tavern that sold information and banged on the door while yelling "Open up, I want my map back."

As soon as he said that, he heard noises come from inside the tavern, and soon, the barkeep opened the door while saying "Welcome back, Imm…"

His voice choked in his throat when he saw Jack's state. With a gulp, he held out the rolled up map in front of himself and said "Here you go, Immortal. I have filled it with as many places as that I know of, like we agreed."

Jack wiped his dirty hands on his robe, took the map, and unfurled it. Most of the villages had names on them, and even a few that weren't marked on it got added.

With a grunt of pleasure, Jack took out a pouch that had twenty gold coins in it and handed it to the barkeep as he confirmed "Your payment, like we agreed."

He started to turn around, but he stopped in mid-step and looked back at the barkeep to ask "What's the fastest way out of the lands that the Slaughtering Sword School has control over?"

The barkeep didn't even have to think about it as he answered "Follow the roads that lead towards the rising moon."

Jack thanked him, stored the map, and left the tavern in the predawn light.

Sneaking out of Cloverleaf didn't take much effort. A lot of the guards had their hands full with loitering around the collapsed house of the Slaughtering Sword School so they left the walls unguarded.

Jack used Moon Step as much as he could, but after several seconds he would start feeling pain in his legs and had to slow down to a jog for half a minute.

He kept absorbing spirit energy and using the Beast Recovery Method as he ran along the path out of Cloverleaf, but it only improved his state a little by the time he neared the Immortals' Lament camp in the afternoon.

A few bird calls sounded out from the forest, and a dozen seconds later his friends rushed out towards him with relieved expressions.

They started fussing over his wounds and asking what happened, but Jack ignored them and turned to Kuang Bindun to ask "Did you get her?"

Kuang Bindun glanced all over Jack's injuries and then looked down at his feet as he answered "No. She had some spell to remove all of her traces. Her sound, smell, and spirit fluctuation all disappeared in time. Not even old Long could track her after a while."

He looked back up at Jack and continued "Old Long kept trying to find her, but we went back to help you. When we got there we only found the ruined base of the Slaughtering Sword School, but couldn't sense you. We looked around the entire town and concluded that you went back here. After not finding you here either, we decided to wait and see."

Jack sighed and held in the curses that he wanted to spew at that incompetent old man.

A second later he dismissed his dark thoughts and said "We have to move. That Slaughtering Sword School disciple will go and inform her School and they will send someone after us."

He took out the map from his Star Bag and unfurled it in front of everyone while saying "We need to go west. I tried to make them think that we'll go north, but I'm not sure how long that will work. Those of us that can will have to carry the weaker people through the forest as we move out; we can't get spotted on the road or else…"

Jack froze as his eyes locked onto a familiar name on the map. He looked up at Shi Furui and ordered "Furui, take this map and copy the names of the places onto yours. You will lead everyone to the outskirts of White River Outpost and I will meet you there."

Everyone's eyes widened in panic as Shi Furui asked "Why?!"

Jack gave them a sad smile as he said "I'm going home to check if any of my family survived."