56 Liam and Carrrrrmen
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"What did I even expected." Sieg couldn't help but smile wryly.
After continuous walking and resting in between, he finally reached a 'civilization' according to the map, it was called Blight Town.
Normally he should see several huts, maybe some light source and a few noises coming from the town but he forgot that the Gray Crags isn't a normal place.
Sure there were few light source but it was vastly different from what he expected. Instead of a yellowish light, it was like a blurred blue-ish version of light that emitted a very solemn aura. The containers for the light are in a shape, if not, of a skull.
There were some few shelters built but their made out of rotten planks of wood which made creaking sound everytime someone stepped in it followed by some crumbs of bark signifying it's instability.
Sieg also heard a few noises hear and there, but he was so damn sure that it didn't came from a human soul.
"Well, might as well check it out, they won't place this in the map if it didn't have a purpose right?" Sieg said lightly and walked towards the entrance of the town.
He placed his hand on the wooden gate and used a bit of force to push it forward, he was afraid that if used too much force then he might just destroy the gate entirely. Contrary to his expectations though, the gate didn't even budge so he tried using a bit more force.
After trying a couple more times he was shocked, he was already using 70 percent of his strength but the gate won't still budge. That seventy percent became seventy five, eighty, ninety, until he was already using all of his strength but the gate is still immovable.
"Spiritual Energy young friend."
Sieg froze as heard the voice, he tried searching for the source of that voice but he couldn't find it, he calmed himself down and decided to follow the instructions of the mysterious voice.
He placed a bit of spiritual energy on his hands and pushed the gate lightly.
Loud creaking sounds echoed as he did, the gate finally moved after a couple of tries, then he finally saw what's like inside the town.
"Welcome to Blight Town young friend. My name is Liam, a small figure in this town."
Sieg turned his head around and saw a figure looking at him while smiling. Sieg became confused, it was obvious that the voice came from a man but as he turned around, what he was different.
Head of a bull, torso of a human, lower body of a horse, and scaled arms with sharp and deadly claws are the things he saw as he turned around.
"Greetings, my n-name is Sieg." He was flustered as he saw the appearance of the 'person' who helped in entering this town.
"Hahaha." The 'person' laughed heartily as he saw the surprised and flustered reaction of Sieg, "Don't worry, you're fine. You are not the first human soul form that had reacted like that toward my kind so it's okay."
"You mean there's someone who came here before me?"
"Yes, and their reactions are more violent that you had. Someone even started attacking hahaha." Liam said answering Sieg's question.
Sieg was a bit startled, he didn't expect that some of his fellow disciples already managed to find this town. After a bit of thinking, he figured that those people got the information the same as he did, which is killing fellow disciples, or just through sheer luck.
"Is there any place where I could get more informations about this whole area?" Sieg asked Liam after a period of silence.
"Yeah, follow me." Liam smiled at him and then started walking ahead while Sieg silently followed.
As they walked through the streets of this town, Sieg couldn't help but be creeped out by the things that he saw. To be totally honest there's no thing that looked normal in this place. He saw a crow that had two-pairs of wings, dogs that are as big as a plam, headless beast and many more, coupled with the gloomy environment of this place, the closest description of these would be the word: cursed.
Sieg noticed that Liam entered a small shack made out of the same wood as the gates earlier, Liam placed his claws which were covered in faint white light and pushed the door open.
After which, a waft of ancient air greeted Sieg's nose. The floors made some creaking sounds as Liam's hooves stepped on them, then they went towards a lone table and saw a small stature creature sitting there.
It was a cat whose size is larger than normal, it's ears were as big as a grown man's palm and as pointy as a knife, the fur on it's body was colored gray with some red stripes here and there. The cat was making some purring sounds while scratching the table.
"Carmen, we have a visitor-" Liam said to the cat but before he could finish the cat interrupted him by saying:
"How many time should I repeat myself to nya~? It's Carrrrrmen..." the cat glared at Liam.
"Okay okay, I know!" Liam said exhaustingly then he continued: "Anyway, this is Sieg, he wanted to know the lots of informations."
"G-greetings." Sieg clasped his hands and saluted the cat, Carmen only eyed him for a while before vanishing in thin air.
'A talking bull head and a talking cat, what else could surprise me?' He thought silently.
Suddenly a strange commotion happened inside the shack. Carmen appeared out of nowhere and landed gracefully in the table. She had couple of jade slips on her mouth which she spat towards Sieg without warning.
Sieg was startled but his fast reaction allowed him to catch the jade slips that Carmen gave her.
"You got what you need, now scram for this old lady nya~" she no longer paid attention to them and went back to scratching the table again.
Liam saw the confused face of Sieg and he told him: "Don't pay much attention to her, it's better to do what she says cause even if there's a hundred of you, you won't be able to touch a single fur from her body." Liam no longer said anything and walked outside the humble shack, Sieg was startled by this information and hurriedly followed Liam outside.
Liam then continued by saying: "There's a nice Inn there." He said while pointing in front, "You could stay there temporarily to digest everything in those jade slips, if you want some clarifications, you could find me where we met." He smiled at Sieg and turned around to go back to where he was before.
All of this things made Sieg very confused, but he knew that he would get clarifications once he read the contents of these jade slips.
***
"So that's how they're playing this huh?" Sieg smiled bitterly as he said this.
Saying that what the sect directors or even the old man gave them minimal informations would be an understatement. They simply gave them nothing at all!
The contents of this jade slips are the whole information about this 'game' that they built and what he knew so far was merely akin to a drop of water to an ocean.
Just like others, he thought that everything that he needed to do was to kill, get stronger, kill again and get some inheritance. But he was gravely mistaken.
Now he was thanking the merciful heavens that he did not met any Vengeful Souls earlier or else he would be dead by now. The reason is because no matter what he did, he won't able to defeat any souls above the Wandering class unless he entered a civilization and know these informations.
Anyone who was lucky enough to enter a civilization would be able to know the whole informations about this particular round, but the gist is that they need to ask for it, if they didn't, then they would not get anything at all.
Sieg looked outside and saw a massive hall made out of metal, this place only became visible to him upon reading the jade slips.
"Rewarding stations." He murmured, this is the name of this place. This is the place that he absolutely needed to go in order to get a Soul Vessel.
Soul Vessel are exactly what it sounds, it is a vessel for souls, not just any other souls, but souls above Wandering class or souls of fellow disciples.
He needed to have a Soul Vessel to imprison souls which are ranked Vengeful and above, the reason why he was thankful for not meeting one is because even if he deal dreadful damage to it, it wouldn't die, it would just heal back up all of the damage he dealt which would be a massive waste of effort. What he needed to do is to heavily damage it and imprison the soul inside the Soul Vessel. After which, he need to go back inside the civilization and enter the Rewarding Stations to purify the soul and covert it into few things.
