16 Rescue

The dispersal of the group resulted in pairs being formed so that nobody would be caught off-guard alone. Each couple went together as a pair because they had the best co-ordination after years of fighting side to side.

Ye Qiu and his wife were looking through the poorest parts of the slums, hopping from roof to roof when they spotted a one-storey building's roof covered with black tiles. Knowing that this was probably the house since no other building had black coloured roofs.

Ye Qiu took out a talisman and spoke into it whilst inserting his Qi. "We've found the building, I'm going to shoot one of my Qi Arrows into the sky so you can track us here faster." The talisman started to decay apart before turning into dust. The talisman was a voice transmitting talisman, it was useful however it broke apart after one use. Besides the fragility it was also extremely expensive due to the fact voice talismans could communicate at a distance of 100 kilometres.

The rest of the rescue party arrived quickly in less than 5 minutes. Ye Qiu asked, "Are we going in with a plan or what?"

Mei Ling just shouted, "Screw plans! My precious dolls are inside and we are wasting our time!" She barged right through the door right after she finished speaking.

The man was sitting in the same chair and was surprised by the abrupt entrance but quickly regained his composure. After seeing the weapons Mei Ling, he quickly got into a combat position and taunted Mei Ling with a cocky smirk, "Looking for the boys from yesterday lady?"

Everybody followed her in quickly through the door when she started screaming at him madly, "YOU! You were the shopkeeper! HOW! DARE! YOU! You psychopath!" She started charging at him with her battleaxe but was quickly pulled back by Xiao San.

"Don't rush in, the man was capable of taking down cultivators with reasonably high strength. Rushing in now would just be conceding to the man's plan. He's baiting you so calm down and we'll fight him together. He won't stand a chance against everyone attacking him at the same time."

"Tsk, such a reasonable man even in the face of danger. It won't help if you are WEAK!" The man leapt towards Mei Tu and cut her with one of his knives that he had pulled out during the leap.

"Surround him! Don't give him room to move around. If he doesn't have room, we should be able to restrict his movements with my arrows!" Ye Qiu ordered from the back of the room. Ye Qiu started to create Qi Arrows and shot them towards the men, every single arrow was shot in consideration of the movements of his teammates.

Mei Ling constantly swung her battle axe whilst enforcing with Qi, pushing the man back. The constant swinging helped her build up her momentum which could be used to help her release her Qi Technique. After a terrifying swing from the side, the entire built up momentum was released into the man, making him sail through the air and crashing into the wall.

The man picked himself off the ground and looked unfazed besides the dust on his clothing. "What a nice swing you got there. Too bad it can't hurt me!" The man's figure dissolved into the shadows before he suddenly appeared beside Mei Tu. Mei Tu instantly utilised her Qi Technique, 'Galloping Steed" which helped her regain the distance from the man. Mei Tu ran forwards with a spear poised above her head before shouting, "Aerial Pierce!"

The spear barely touched the man before his figure dissolved into shadows appearing beside Mei Tu again. The man instantly thrust his daggers towards Mei Tu as she was moving towards the direction her technique had been going in. Her spear was stuck in the ground causing her to not be able to react with a block. The daggers struck a pale green shield floating around her midsection where a paper could be seen crumbling into dust.

Seeing that, Mei Tu immediately regained her balance and spoke to her teammates as she dodged the continuous dagger strikes flying at her, "I think the way he's seemingly moving to my side in an instant is due to his daggers! I was cut earlier from his earlier lunge and I was the only person that he was teleporting to! You should be able to sense the Qi increasing in his daggers everytime the ability is activated. Somebody get rid of his daggers quickly, avoid his attacks. I'll be able to hold myself whenever he comes to me."

Hearing that, both Yu Er and Xiao San activated their Qi Techniques simultaneously. "Duality of Swords: Searing Blades!" The blade of their swords started to glow a vivid red releasing a heat wave around it. The glow scorched the ground black before the two moved together, lunging at the man whilst Ye Qiu covered the escape routes with his arrows. The two struck from different vantage points forcing the man's need to teleport to Mei Tu.

Mei Tu was ready for the teleportation this time and threw her spear towards the man. The attack didn't pierce through his defence and the spear just fell to the ground uselessly afterwards. "Shit! I can't even pierce through his skin! We have to use attacks which can pierce through his defence and aim it in the same spot multiple times!"

"You think that's easy?!?" Ye Qiu glared at Mei Tu. "He's moving around too much for me to hit him accurately in the same spot multiple times."

"That's fine, I've constructed a formation which can restrict his movements." Shen Jing spoke re-entering the room with four talisman papers which were floating around him. He ran towards the man and set the talisman papers around him and infused his Qi into them. The man's movements were immediately restricted.

The others started activating Qi Techniques to end the battle quickly. Aiming at the man's head they all struck simultaneously. An explosion of dust encased everybody when the attacks hit.

The man started to become disfigured. His legs started to elongate and became furry. His feet turned into hooves and his upper body was devoid of hair. Curved goat horns grew out of his head. Instead of being able to see the figure clearly, it was shrouded by black miasmic fog.

Ye Qiu immediately recognised the figure to be similar to a Qi Beast that he had met during one of his journeys into the wilderness. "Watch out! It's the Man-eating Satyr. It's capable of using its miasma to create realistic illusions. The horns are probably the daggers it was using earlier. The satyr was known for it's teleporting capabilities whenever their enemies were injured by the horns. It's supposed to be in the forbidden zone, how'd it get here? The zone's entrances are protected by some of the strongest cultivators in the Outer Region!"

"We don't need its background information, give us a way to kill it!" Shen Jing shouted at him.

"The best way is to get rid of the miasma by purifying it with hot flames, the combat abilities of the satyr drops dramatically once it is gone."

Shen Jing grunted, "That'll be easy, hold him off for a couple of minutes!"

The beast spoke in a guttural voice, "You'll die before you'll be able to do anything!" It teleported beside Mei Tu at a much faster speed and immediately rammed her with the horns. The horns were easily able to pierce through her defence leaving her injured. Mei Tu started to lose her balance because of the miasma seeping into her body through the injuries. As she lost her balance, Yu Er managed to slice the horns away from the satyr's head, making him unable to use his teleportation abilities.

"I'm out of this fight! Try to hold on, I'll deal with my own injuries!" Mei Tu retreated from the battle to tend to her injuries.

The other four had an easier time dodging the Satyr's attacks since the teleportation ability was unable to be used anymore. Ye Qiu managed to pierce through the satyr's body with his arrows encased in Fire Qi. He was slowly burning away the miasma but he could see that the satyr kept on producing more miasma over time.

A few minutes of attrition continued before Shen Jing managed to finish his formation. "I'm ready! Retreat now!" He gave them a warning before releasing the formation's power onto the Satyr. The Miasma was completely obliterated and the satyr looked exposed without it.

Mei Ling stepped in without hesitation to land the final blow on the satyr before it could recover, "Heaven's Swing!"

The satyr's head was chopped off in a single clean swing. "Hmph, guess he wasn't so tough after all." Mei Ling muttered before declaring that she would go look for the children.

"Wait up! I'm coming with you, Mei Ling." Yu Er jogged to catch up with Mei Ling.

They searched every single room in the building until the last door for the cellar was left. Whilst the pair entered the cellar, the others were busy discussing something over the body.

"What are we going to do with its corpse? It should be pretty rare because it was a Qi Beast of grade 3 from the Forbidden Zone." Ye Qiu spoke.

"We can just split up the profits when we sell it through an auction. It'd fetch a good price." Shen Jing nodded to the plan. "After this, I'm going to make sure the security in the capital is better. Something with such a high cultivation shouldn't have been able to pass through the capital without anybody suspicious."

Xiao San listened to Shen Jing before replying. "Go ahead, we'll be heading back to our country in a month's time at the earliest. If you need before then, I'd be happy to help."

"Thanks for the help in advance then." Shen Jing thanked him.

- Cellar -

Yu Er and Mei Ling made it down to the bottom of the stairs after a minute of walking. They spotted a rusted metal door with multiple locks and latches. Yu Er looked at Mei Ling who nodded before taking out her axe. Swinging it in a fast motion, the locks all clattered on the ground uselessly.

They opened the door slowly. Ye Xiu and Xiao Tu moved to the back of the room thinking it was the man coming in to check up on them. After seeing the two figures carefully when the light came through from door, they ran to their mothers and hugged them tightly. Yu Er finished hugging Ye Qiu before slapping him hard on the face and the same was heard similarly from Mei Ling's direction.

The two boys were scolded. "How? How could you just run off like that?!? Do you know how afraid I was about losing you? Never do that again!" Yu Er hugged Ye Qiu again before kissing him on the forehead. "Please promise you won't do it again."

"Yes, mother I do. I promise, whoever breaks the promise first eats a thousand nails." Ye Qiu reaffirmed his mother with his promise.

Xiao Tu was similarly scolded by his mother, "You were the older one in this situation. you shouldn't have been pulled along. You should've done the responsible thing and stop Ye Qiu."

After the scolding, they all went back upstairs and met up with everybody.

Ye Qiu and Xiao San just looked sternly at their sons before confirming that they would start to teach the both of them how to fight so they can protect themselves and others.

They all went home and the two boys fell asleep from exhaustion. They placed them into bed together because Xiao Tu wouldn't let go of Ye Qiu. Xiao Tu's chin was resting on top of Ye Qiu's head and he cuddled him like a teddy bear. The day was peaceful and nothing else significant occurred.