destroying the array

Dammit

Fucking PESTS!!!

Daiyu had to dig her nails into the tree trunk she was hiding behind to stop herself from rushing In and slaughtering the now giggling trio of buffoons

What stopped her?

Simple, if she were to simply run in and start fighting, she runs the risk of getting caught by any other traps they may have set… and if they caught both her and Keera it was over

No, she needed to free Keera first so that if she got captured, he could free her in return, but how could she get him out?

There are three types of arrays, protective, offensive and enhancement. Defensive arrays where easily the most common and simply acted as a shield either physical or elemental forces, enhancement arrays are extremely rare and the method for creating them has been long lost to time, they provided a boost to one or many cultivation abilities or practices, such as allowing a person to cultivate faster or create pills with a higher rate of success. And finally, were offensive arrays, these could come in many forms and where extremely dangerous, some restrained like the one Keera had been captured in, some created animals or monsters out of pure chi and some even exploded when someone entered their range

There were two ways to break an array, the first was to simply overpower it through either knowledge of arrays or physical power and the other was to destroy the actual array circle itself. Only someone within the array could overpower it so she needed to find the actual array line and disrupt it.

Climbing higher into the trees she began to take a bird's eye view of the boys campsite, getting as good a view of Keera and the captured cultivators as she could without alerting the three. At this point they had begun to poke and prod him, and she had to bite her lip, drawing blood to stop herself from launching herself at them

Keera was her soon to be familiar and as such was HER property!

NOBODY TOUCHES WHATS HERS!!

Using that anger to drive herself forward she continued to search for the array but to no avail! she spent nearly an hour searching and listening to those EXTREMELY annoying voices go on and on about how they "Were set for life" and "destined for greatness"

Making her way to a larger branch and sitting down while watching Keera who at this point was taking a nap!?

"Cute" she couldn't help but mutter, sure he was an extremely big and lethal mantis but at the moment he was just tied up and snoring which was just how she liked her men…just kidding!....maybe

He was laying next to the captives, which was making them amusingly terrified as they appeared to be holding their breathes and praying, he didn't wake up. One of them shifted on his knees further away from them and that was when she finally saw it… the array!

"clever" she couldn't help but chuckle at the situation as the realized they had done exactly what she would have in their situation, although she would obviously done it better, even tired as she was.

Slowly making her way back towards the tied-up Keera she climbed down and made her way behind the closest tree, Keera was to far away from the tree line to simply sneak over to and she couldn't jump down from the branches like he had without an injury so it was now time to put on a show!

Taking a small breath and letting a likely sinister smile appear on her face she stepped out,

"Hello boys" she said softly in a dark yet seductive tone, like what you would hear if death itself were embracing you,

Slowly stepping her way into the clearing and indirectly towards Keera she drew their intention

"m-mistress Z-Zhao, w-what are you doing here?!" the closest boy yelped as he was startled, going so pale he looked like he had seen a ghost

"Nothing much…I just came here to pick up someone" she said elegantly making her way towards them and the captives "you three seem to have found them for me"

"a-ah w-well your free to take them if you want, we don't want a-any trouble" another of the three hurriedly said, it appeared that her reputation as a bloody goddess had proceeded her as the trio looked at her with pure terror mixed with a hint of lust

"Thank you ever so much" the responded happily, making her way past them towards Keera and the others, making sure to keep her guard up as to not be caught by any stupid attempts, however it appears to have been unnecessary as they just stood there absolutely terrified.

"w-which one did you want? Although! of course you can take them all if you want!!" they seemed pretty desperate to please her, which was fair as if she tried, she could probably kill them all "here why don't you take this one!" one of them rushed past her and dragged one towards her

One that she knew was booby trapped

Chuckling she shook her head and made her way towards the one who she had seen shuffle away from Keera while she was in the tree

Speaking of Keera, he appears have woken up and was now watching her every move

"no, no this is the one I want" she said taking the boy by the cuff of his robe and leaning to look into his eyes "after all he's the only one with an active array, isn't he"?

Despite disliking having to touch the boy she moved her hand, lifting one side of his robe she revealed his chest slightly, it had what appeared to be a small circle full of mystic symbols engraved into his chest, it was glowing slightly which was how she had seen it from the tree line

"now I will be taking back my pet" she said coldly as she plunged her hand into the circle and chest of the boy