Damsel in Distress

About two days before the fair of souls, back at the village, Old Mert was standing at the center of a hexagram with strange symbols drawn all over his surroundings. In front him, just outside the hexagram Leyzhen was sitting cross legged, her eyes closed tightly.

After days of setting the formation in the village, a bright column of light descended from the heavens down to the village, blinding Old Mert temporarily in the process. When he could see again, what he saw terrified him. The abandoned village was gone. There was nothing in its place. Not even a bit of a bump remained as the village turned into scorched, flat land.

Seeing the village disappear just like that, Old Mert looked at Leyzhen with terror in his eyes. While Old Mert was trying to muster his courage to protest Leyzhen because she destroyed even the graves of the passed on villagers, the cute little girl tidied up her robe, and said something that made Old Mert swallow back the words he was preparing to say; ''Old man, now it's your turn''.

This situation reminded Old Mert of Mayton and his exaggerated fear of purification. For the first time, he thought Mayton had a point. Now Old Mert was waiting for the cleansing like he was waiting for his execution. He was clenching the pendant with the strange eye on it and muttering the name of someone.

''Old man, I said I won't hurt you too much so many times. Why would I deceive you?''

Leyzhen's eyes snapped open as she berated Old Mert. This old man was really not acting his age. She was going out of her way to help him while it was easier to just kill him off and be done with it but this old man was acting like she was out to get him.

If Old Mert knew of her thoughts, he would without a doubt fly into a rage. Who was the one not acting age his age here? He even started to suspect that this little girl was actually a bored old monster who was having fun masquerading as a little girl. Also what was up with this 'won't hurt you too much' ? Who would feel reassured after you level a village to the ground and then say that?

But since he couldn't get out of this situation Old Mert gritted his teeth and sat down cross legged like Leyzhen and shut his eyes down while thinking 'Hmph I won't argue with a little girl'.

Actually, the cleansing ritual needed the people it targeted to be as calm as possible for reducing the damage to their souls. That was why Leyzhen was trying so hard to calm Old Mert down.

She was not some saint who helped everyone in need, but she was feeling partly responsible for the plight of the village. After all, Mayton's reincarnation to this world was planned by her parents as a way to solve the mystery of their disappearance as far as she knew and from the way things looked the perpetrators of the massacre came looking for Mayton.

Seeing Old Mert had calmed down a bit, Leyzhen started the ritual by chanting some abstruse incantations. About half an hour later, the same light descended from the heavens, but this time it was mild, soothing and limited in scope, unlike the scorching light that devastated the whole village.

''Old man it's done already. We should start moving now. We are already delayed for too long.''

Old Mert didn't even realize he bathed in the light as he sat down with his eyes still shut. Only after he heard Leyzhen did he find out the cleansing was over.

''Huh? It's already over? Wait, what do you mean 'we' should start moving?''

''Old man, do you think you are the only one who needs that cleansing? I need someone to help me with locating the other villagers. If not you, then who? That's why we are going to travel together until we find every single survivor from your village.''

Old Mert didn't really want to travel together with Leyzhen, but he knew that she was the one calling the shots. Thus he didn't try to argue. He was already resigned to his fate.

''Okay, then let's get a move on.''

Leyzhen took out a silver compass but its cursor, instead of showing north, pointed towards the Flaming Heart City. After she checked the compass, they started traveling on foot. Since both Leyzhen and Old Mert were cultivators and they weren't burdened with excess baggage like the hunters, after an uneventful day of traveling, they arrived at the place the hunters got ambushed by the bandits.

While they were on their way, Leyzhen continued to check the silver compass and after a quick glimpse always took it away. But this time, exactly at the place Mayton talked with the master of Angeza, Glittering Calmness, she looked continuously at the compass for almost a minute. Then she asked Old Mert;

'' Are you absolutely sure the survivor went to the Flaming Heart City?''

''How can I be absolutely sure? You saw the message they left too. I don't know more than that.''

''We will separate here then. If you value the well being of your fellow villagers come to the Flaming Heart City as soon as possible.''

Leyzhen thought for a minute as she played with his hair before saying in her usual emotionless voice. After that, she left without waiting for Old Mert to ask anything. Since she now didn't have to adjust her speed to match Old Mert's she was moving much faster than before. In next to no time her figure faded in the horizon, leaving Old Mert dumbfounded.

She first insisted on traveling together and then left him behind without an explanation. Old Mert was not a fool. From Leyzhen's hurried actions he guessed that there was something wrong going on. Thus without wasting any time, he also raced towards the city.

It took Leyzhen less than a day to travel the distance that took the hunters more than a week. With her speed, she arrived at the gates of the Flaming Heart City before midnight. But the gates were closed after the sunset, so she had three options if she wanted to enter the city. She could wait for the next morning like everyone else, she could show off her power and get welcomed into the city as an important guest or she could sneak in.

She couldn't wait until the next day because the silver compass lost the trail of Mayton, which meant something unexpected happened to him. She didn't have the luxury of losing Mayton's track, especially after she learned he was Mayton.

She couldn't show off her power because the other two of her targets were probably in the hands of strong sects which were the true overlord of this world. Revealing her presence here would alert her enemies, and that will cause endless troubles later on.

This left sneaking in as the only feasible option. Since she decided on her course of action, next came planing it. Even though she was probably strong enough to overwhelm everyone in the city, it was another matter altogether to do whatever she wanted without anyone's notice.

In a world of cultivation, the cities, of course, have ways to defend from cultivators. With formation set up on the city walls, weaker cultivators could forget about penetrating the cities defense. As for the strong cultivators, mere formations wasn't enough to defend against them unless the formation was controlled by a much stronger cultivator. After all, defending a huge area like a city was much more taxing for the cultivator than attacking a single point.

Thus the empires devised another tactic. They set up formations specifically focused on alerting the defenders of the presence of a strong cultivator instead of blocking the cultivator's way, together with the formations aimed at weaker cultivators. As soon as someone too strong for the formation was detected, the defenders from the city would directly engage in combat with that person.

After thinking for a few minutes, Leyzhen finally had an idea for bypassing the formation without getting detected. She moved to the edge of the formation and made an incantation gesture with her hands. When she finished her incantation a fuzzy mirror image of her appeared next to her and they both rushed towards the city wall at the same time superimposing on the way.

At the instant they touched the formation, a previously invisible dome became faintly visible rising from the walls and covering the whole city as a wave of energy transmitted from it to Leyzhen, but it got absorbed by her superimposed mirror image. Even though the mirror image couldn't last long and got destroyed almost immediately, Leyzhen landed at the other side of the walls in this brief moment.

Leyzhen's actions did alert the controller of the formation, but since the thing that tried to leap over the walls got destroyed it looked like a failed sneaking attempt. Of course, people would be sent to investigate the matter, but Leyzhen obviously wasn't going to wait until they arrived.

''Now I need a way to find out whether if he is still in the city or not.''

Leyzhen muttered to herself as she checked out the silver compass without any expectations. But what she saw gave her a pleasant surprise. The silver compass was working again and from the direction it was showing, there was a high chance of her target still being in the city.

Without thinking about the reason of her compass working again, she bolted towards the direction the compass' cursor was pointing at. As she passed by other people on the streets for various reasons, the only thing they could feel was a gust of wind. Even the guards with cultivators among them didn't realize that someone just passed by.

In a short period of time, Leyzhen arrived at the location the cursor was pointing towards. Even though it looked like desolate place completely devoid of life, the formation set around the fair of souls was too weak for hiding anything from Leyzhen.

''Minor tricks.''

Leyzhen sneered and went onto stood exactly at the same spot Mayton entered the fair of souls. Normally, it was impossible to enter without an invitation, but Leyzhen made an incantation gesture and in the blink of an eye, the fair of souls appeared in her vision. The spectacle that fascinated Mayton had no effect whatsoever on Leyzhen as she took out her silver compass again. From the minute movements of the cursor, it was easy to deduce that not only Mayton was at this spot not too long ago, he was also still nearby.

Leyzhen sped towards Mayton as she felt an uneasy feeling. Why did he disappear and then appear again? There was definitely something fishy going on. With Leyzhen's speed, it took her less than a minute to arrive in front of the stall shrouded in darkness. Seeing the magical fluctuations coming from the darkness indicating that someone was trying to extract a soul Leyzhen's face became flushed by anger. Leyzhen was someone who rarely felt intense emotions like the fear and anger bubbling up inside her right now.

She was afraid because if Mayton somehow died here, it would not only be a significant blow to her plans of finding the truth about her parents, it could even potentially be the trigger of a horrible calamity.

She was angry because the person inside was probably someone blinded by greed and didn't even know what would be the consequences of his actions.

Having no time to lose, Leyzhen took action immediately. With a wave of her hand blinding light consumed the darkness around the stall and the scene inside became visible to all.

A black robed old man was holding an over-sized soul collecting orb as he chanted incantations. In front him at the center of a formation, a boy lay down unconsciously. Seeing the darkness shrouding him was replaced with light the old man looked confused. But before he could understand what was going on his head rolled. The last thing he saw before his death was a blonde little girl shouting at him furiously.

''How dare you!''