884. Somewhere Else (24)

A massive fleet of big Airships filled the sky above the grassy plane as they traveled westward. The sky was filled with smooth mechanical flying machines, vaguely resembling ships without sails. In a cell aboard the second biggest vessel was a man.

His body was in a terrible condition, malnourished and covered in festering wounds. He was even missing an eye and some of his nails and teeth were missing. Everything pointed to the fact that the man had endured terrible torture.

"This guy is really tough," one of the guards mentioned, looking at the prisoner in disgust as if he didn't recognize him as a fellow human being.

"At least this monster finally stopped healing.  As if it wasn't bad enough that cutting his skin dulled the tools, he also kept healing like a lizard," the other guard scoffed, looking at the mangled flesh that started showing signs of necrosis.

The pain of his wounds radiated throughout his body as he listened to these savages mock him. How had it come to this and how long had he endured this pain and humiliation? He didn't even know who these savage natives were.

The only thing he learned, ever since he was caught during his infiltration on the ship during the night, was that their leader was a frightening young girl. Not some senior fairy that had lived for millennia but used her cultivation base to keep her outer appearance young. His torturer was barely older than 15-

"I guess, he still didn't talk?" a girl with long red locks entered his prison.

Speak of the devil.  His body instinctively shivered in fear as her cold eyes fell on him. She had the presence of a devil. And the fear was personally carved into his flesh by her very own hands.

"Let's start with our daily routine~ What's your name?" she asked sardonically.

He stayed silent.

"For your information, today's turn are your teeth."

He still stayed silent, and soon he felt the cold metal of pliers push apart his lips. He tried to resist, but the guard held him down, pulling apart his jaws. He tried to resist, but he was already too weak. Tears poured from his eyes as he felt the pliers rummage in his mouth and clench on one of his front teeth.

A crunching, heart-wrenching sound echoed in his skull, accompanied by incredible pain. After all the training, after all the meditation, how could this still hurt so much? It was simply unnatural.

"Next question. Where are the people you guys kidnapped from Epsilon?" she asked, her voice freezing cold. When he didn't speak up right away, he felt the cold metal of the pliers once again.

"I-I don't know! I don't know!" he cried through his broken teeth and pain. How would he know what happened to their people? He had only been in Urth for a few months. He had known little to nothing about the city until they followed the evil creatures north.

"Oh, look at that. You are finally speaking, but what you say isn't what I want to hear. But we are finally making progress. Once again, what is your name?" she asked, her lips smiling with a cold sneer, and that struck fear deep into his soul.

"X-Xiaou He..." he mumbled, full of despair. He had given up. He had no power to resist left.

"Little Piss? What a fitting name. Why did you sneak onto our ships?"

"I saw you...these ships destroy that city and those evil creatures. I-I thought I could find the secret behind this power and bring it back to my sect. I-I-I didn't mean you any harm... I just couldn't return with empty hands after losing my whole team."

Tears and snot covered his face, as he loosely hung in his chain, crying without abandon as he confessed everything he had held back. His arrogance, his confidence, his pride, even his shame, all of the things that had him keep his mouth shut were broken. He just hoped the truth would bring him salvation.

However, the girl's face didn't look happy. Her smile had vanished, and her face had become emotionless as if everything up to now was just an act.  The sadism that had him in horror was gone, replaced by disturbing emptiness.

"Tsk, it seems like you are speaking the truth. So, you don't know where the people those like you kidnapped have been brought. This means you are worthless."

Her last words, coupled with her expression, made Xiaou He feel the greatest fear, yet. What did it mean that he had no more worth? It was clear! They would-

His train of thought was cut off as a trapdoor below him opened and he fell into the depths. The grassy plains in their refreshing lush green charged at him just before everything grew dark.

"What now?" her second in command, an old man in his sixties, asked the young girl with the red locks.

"We have to reach the other Districts and hope they fared better than us. If we find a safe place, we will take the Mark 2s and a few elites, to search for everyone," she said grimly, her eyes looking toward the horizon.

…

---A settlement in the unclaimed mountains---

"Sir, you called for me?"

A man clad in a black leather cloak entered the "office". A dilapidated room, with slightly less holes in the walls than the rest of the old buildings that made up the settlement.  In the middle was a half-rotten desk with a man, his boss, sitting on it.

"Our informant told us that they spotted one of the Lords of Minas Mar and one of the members of the field teams in TS7. They are on the way to Beta, but their sources are sure they would travel further into the unclaimed mountains," the man with an unkempt beard and a dirty armor explained.

"Minas Mar is finally stretching their hand out towards this place," the man mumbled.

"Exactly. We have to close this place down and get out of here," the man shared his conclusion.

"Why?"

"Why? Are you seriously asking that? The lord they saw was Mike, one of those beastmen siblings. Do you think they would let this business go if they get wind of it?"

He looked outside at their "business". This was an old mountain village, maybe it was once a tourist spot, but now most buildings were barely able to resist the wind and weather in these mountains. The holes in their walls were only lukewarm patched up and covered in magic circles.

The empty door frames were filled with iron bars and inside these houses were people wearing rags for the single purpose of keeping the bare minimum of modesty. This was not a settlement, but a trade center for slaves from the patchworks.

Slavery was illegal on Urth, but who was supposed to protect those laws? And for things that were not even humans? Their business had flourished here, far from the eyes and ears of the districts still left. These "businesspeople" who had followed the call to reclaim the no man's land, were more than happy to get their hands on cheap laborers.

"But how would they even find this place?"

Their base was far into the mountains, with barely a road leading to it. They did not skimp on the shield, not only could it protect them from the monsters of the mountains, but also hid the village from unwanted eyes.

"Don't risk your life for mere profit, my friend. It's not about whether they could find us, but whether we can risk what would happen if they found us. We should take what we made and leave:"

"... you are right, lets-" He was rudely by a massive, slimy tentacle breaking down the flimsy door of the room.