Another Breakthrough?
Mayton's unexpected outburst that evening would have saved Zgar from the hunters' teasing for a long time to come, but it seemed Zgar was destined to be free of their teasing either way. Because five days later, the hunters' found themselves in no mood to joke around.
The armory across the street was sold recently and now it got refurbished as a clothing shop. This, per se, had nothing to do with them other than losing a good neighbor. The real problem was the new owners desire to buy their tannery and have complete control over the supply chain.
At first, a young merchant in extravagant clothes came with a bodyguard and offered them a price slightly under the market value. But it was obvious he was ready to buy their shop from the market value after a bit of haggling. Unfortunately, the hunters didn't want to sell their shop no matter what. This shop was not only where they earned their living, it was also their place of residence. Without the shop, they could not stay in the city.
But the merchant did not accept no as an answer and threatened to return with more muscle to convince the hunters. This only served to make the hunters angry at the merchant and in their anger, they booted out the young merchant and his bodyguard from the courtyard rather roughly.
Same day after a short period of time, the merchant returned, this time with more muscle by his side just as he promised. Not counting the bodyguard from earlier, he had twelve heavily armed man wearing plate armors with him as they tried to barge into the hunters' courtyard once more. The armored men looked like seasoned warriors which scared the hunters a bit, but what made them really despair was the black hammer painted at the chests of the armored men.
They knew of this symbol. Actually, the whole city knew of the symbol of House Maiken, especially after the recent events surrounding them. The execution of the young master of House Maiken could be missed by the hunters but everyone in the market district learned about the wedding of the Young Lady Herdis and Young Master Georg of the Aras family. Because after this wedding, the presence of House Maiken in the market district started to skyrocket due to the financial support of the Aras family.
Thankfully, the hunters' residence resembled a small fortress. It consisted of three separate buildings encircling a small courtyard with their doors opening to the courtyard, and high walls closing any gap between the buildings. Using the structure of the residence to their advantage, they could at least ensure their safety for the short term.
So as soon as the hunters saw the young merchant and his men at their door, they barricaded the only entrance of the courtyard, a heavy wooden door, to prevent them from entering. After hacking at the door for a few times futilely and realizing that they couldn't force their entry, the young merchant and his men vandalized the place a bit by breaking some windows and left the place.
They didn't go too far though. The whole dispute started with the merchant buying the store across the street in the first place, this store was also where they retreated to. From their taunts and mocking laughter, it was obvious that they were waiting to see how long the hunters would stay holed up.
The first person that came to the hunters' mind to solve their problem was the mysterious young girl who saved Mayton before but, unfortunately, after meeting with Mayton she refused to meet anyone anymore, including Mayton, despite his insistence to meet her that rivaled Zgar's. Thus they went to the second best option, Old Mert.
When all this trouble was happening, Old Mert and Mayton were in secluded cultivation together. Even though Old Mert was not a high level cultivator, he was still in the mid qi gathering phase for a long time. Too long for his liking in fact. Unfortunately, despite being at the peak of the mid phase, he was unable to take that last step and become a vaunted late phase qi gathering cultivator. But for the past three days, Old Mert's misfortune was being converted to good fortune for Mayton by the way of sharing the experiences.
Now Mayton was sitting cross legged in his little room, trying to break through for two days already. His body for some reason started the absorb the fire qi even faster than before after his meeting Leyzhen and the following blackout he suffered.
He suspected that even if Leyzhen was not the reason behind his increased qi absorption rate, she at least knew something about it. But all his efforts to meet her in the past days came to naught as she didn't even answer without opening her door, let alone meeting face to face.
He wasn't sure if trying to break through under these circumstances would have any hidden dangers or not, but his body was already filled to the brim with fire qi, and he needed to break through lest he suffered from the same symptoms he did while they were traveling towards the Flaming Heart City.
His desire to avoid the inconveniences of having to hide from the sun and his thirst for revenge after finding a clue about the perpetrators of his parents' murder, made him decide to try breaking through sooner rather than later.
Thus this morning, he entered secluded cultivation with Old Mert. Actually, he didn't really need Old Mert to be present by his side at the moment of his break through after learning all of his experiences, he only insisted on it because of his strange situation. Old Mert broke through to the mid phase before after all so he would be able to spot anything out of the norm easily.
Breaking through to the mid phase was similar to breaking through to the early phase. The only differences were the increased pain and the amount of qi needed. The pain was not a huge issue for Mayton since the most painful part of the process, cleansing the glabella, simply didn't exist for Mayton. With his overabundance of qi thanks to his recent rapid absorbing, he had no worries about the amount of qi needed too. So he was assured of success. And things were indeed going smoothly like he predicted, until the part he needed to cleanse his glabella came, that is.
When he tried to force the qi to his glabella in a bid to cleanse it, he, like the previous time, lost control of the qi as it started to cleanse his head. But unlike before, with the control of his qi, he also lost control of his body as he felt a suction force pull him through a narrow passage. It was like together with the qi he was absorbed into his glabella as the scenery around him changed. It was exactly at this moment Old Mert also left the room because of the hunters' urgent calls of help.
Mayton saw a world of fire around him. A blazing inferno was consuming the world itself as the ground was being liquefied at an alarming rate. From the looks of the situation, all living things already went extinct a long time ago. At least Mayton couldn't fathom something living in a place this hot, and there was no living being around to prove otherwise. But the supposed extreme heat present only felt like a warm breeze to Mayton. This prompted him to check out his body and what he saw gave him a scare.
He was completely transparent and was floating in the air without anything to stand on. 'This must be my soul' Mayton thought as he remembered the soul slave from the fair of souls and thought himself in pieces of cloth to be visible. He had time to think about such silly things because there was simply nothing to do in this place. All he could see was flames and lava.
Bored, Mayton started to tour this strange world. After floating around for what felt like weeks to him, Mayton finally saw something other than fire. In the horizon stood an enormous mountain. It was so huge even though Mayton has been traveling towards it for a very long time but he still couldn't see it in its entirety.
Unfortunately, he couldn't reach the mountain in the end as a sword of bright light with a sacred aura slashed open the sky and the whole world started to disintegrate except the mountain. Just when Mayton's soul was going to suffer the same fate as the world, he felt a suction force pull his soul, and following the same feeling of passing through a narrow entrance, he lost consciousness.
Meanwhile, the hunters and Old Mert were talking about how to solve their crisis. No one was in favor of completely falling out with the House Maiken, but it seemed like the House Maiken were adamant of pushing them until the point of no return. In the midst of their brainstorm, they heard sounds of fighting coming from the streets followed by a scream of agony which made everyone's face fall.
They knew the owner of this scream so they rushed out of the courtyard to the streets. What they saw confirmed their suspicions. It was indeed Doyle*, one of the hunters, returning from the slums where he went to buy some leather before the merchant came to purchase their property, who screamed in agony.
Doyle was flanked by two heavily armored men bearing the black hammer of House Maiken on their chests, preventing him from running away while another man, the young merchant who came to purchase the hunters' property earlier in the morning were stabbing Doyle slowly with a short sword.
''What hell are you bastards doing?!''
Old Mert let out a roar and leaped towards the men flanking Doyle like a lion trying to defend its cubs as soon as he saw what was going on. He punched one of the armored men in the face while pulling Doyle closer to himself with his other hand. Only after saving Doyle and retreating back to the door of their courtyard Old Mert realized that the man he punched in the face was lying on the ground without a hint of life, in a pool of his own blood. He did regret his impulsive action, but it was already too late for it.
No one gave any reactions for a moment, because everyone was dumbfounded by Old Mert ferocity. The young merchant started to shiver as he realized this mad man might kill him despite his association with the House Maiken.
''Me-men I order you to def-defend me.''
The merchant stuttered as he ran into his new clothing store while his men followed after him, disregarding his unreasonable order. They were experienced mercenaries and they knew what they were dealing with. The young merchant who wasn't even their employer wanted them to fight against a cultivator, what a joke!
After the armored men and the young merchant ran into the store, there was only the bodyguard of the merchant left on the street, facing Old Mert and the hunters. He seemed to be not afraid of Old Mert as he looked at him and said;
'' This won't end here. I hope you won't regret your actions in the future''
After glancing at the residence of the hunters one last time, the bodyguard started to walk, not towards the clothing store but down the street. In a moment, he was out of the hunters' vision as he disappeared among the crowd gathered to watch the show.