Death... and me

3022  Nice To Meet You Again

Rean pointed in the direction Lins' group came from. "Did something happen? You seemed quite tense when you appeared."

Lins sighed and shrugged. "What else could it be? We met mobs of swordfish and couldn't get close to the Spirit Cleansing Algae. Anyway, good luck if you decide to give it a try." Without waiting for an answer, Lins left with his companions. He truly didn't risk attacking Rean.

'Quite a sharp eye that one,' Roan suddenly commented through the twins' connection. 'By the way...'

Rean nodded. 'Yea, I know. He wasn't lying, but that wasn't the whole truth either. Well, let's take a look. Hahaha!'

Rean ignored everything and made his way deeper into the caves. Lins was truly not lying. There were quite a few mobs of swordfish going down. Yet, Rean could more or less assess Lins's group strength, and these mobs shouldn't have proven a challenge to them. The proof was the various carcasses of dead swordfish floating around while Lins' group didn't seem to have any injuries.

By using his Reversive Arc, Rean easily made it past the swordfish demon beasts and noticed he was getting way deep into these caves. 'I didn't expect these tunnels to go so deep. Even the pressure is starting to accumulate quite a bit.'

Suddenly, his Spiritual Sense noticed something, and Rean immediately stopped. 'Oh! No wonder they didn't go further down.'

Inside his Spiritual Sense, Rean could feel the presence of several Stage Six Swordfish Demon Beasts. That was pretty much the same as Nascent Soul Realm cultivators in strength. Above all, it was at Stage Six that Demon Beasts got sentience, so those Swordfish were bound to be intelligent. 'They made the right choice to turn around and leave before they were noticed by these guys. Otherwise, with the advantage of the environment, Lins and the others might have really died.'

However, Rean knew his Spiritual Sense was much, much bigger than any Nascent Soul Realm cultivator. 'How did Lins notice those guys ahead of time? By the time his group's Spiritual Senses reached those Swordfish Demon Beasts, the Demon beasts would have felt it as well.' Rean shook his head. It wasn't like it mattered much. He must have used some other method Rean wasn't aware of.

But then, just as Rean was about to turn around, he also noticed something else. 'Wait, what is she doing here?'

Halfway between Rean and those Stage Six Swordfish, Rean also noticed a very feeble disturbance. If he didn't have his extremely strong soul, he would have totally missed that. When he focused in that disturbance, he was able to make his Spiritual Sense break through the camouflage, and he noticed a certain woman slowly making her way deeper.

Rean didn't mind the camouflage since Spiritual Sense was very limited. There were bound to have many treasures capable of hiding from Spiritual Sense with quite some ease. Not to mention, he wasn't putting much effort into perceiving the ambient until a moment ago, either. What surprised him was the identity of that person.

Rean faintly smiled and checked with Sister Orb. 'Sister Orb, have you analyzed the formation already?'

[Hum? Done that a long time ago. What do you want?]

The system didn't get weaker. The twins' perks still worked normally. Naturally, the system's power to hack into formations was still as good as ever. In a mortal world, hacking into their formations, even though they are much more complex than the formations back in Lisan, was still not that hard for Sister Orb. She believed the Divine Realm would be different, though.

'Oh, nothing much. Just make sure no one is watching me this time. Create holograms or whatever. I'll leave that up to you,' Rean asked.

[Alright... Done! Everyone who is following your steps is seeing a fake Rean now.]

Feeling playful, Rean nodded and immediately activated his Light and Divine Sense Bending Skill. He then shot downwards in the direction of the woman he had just seen.

Deep down, a young woman who seemed to be in her twenties swan further into the swordfish territories. Not long after, she began to pass by the Stage Five and Six Swordfish Demon Beasts Rean had just noticed with his Spiritual Sense.

Her expression was tense. She filled the treasure in her hand with Spiritual Energy, making sure to control it as well as possible. Fortunately, it was enough to get past most of the swordfish demon beasts without them noticing.

When she looked behind, she saw the remaining swordfish swimming away, much to her relief. "Sigh... finally gone. Not too far now."

"What's not too far now?" A voice asked from behind.

"The entrance to my family's inheritan-" the girl began to talk but then froze. "AHHHH!" She immediately turned around, scared out of her mind.

Only then did she see who it was. "As-Asterix! What are you doing here?!"

"Hahaha!" Ran laughed out loud. The woman was none other than Foliana Nasfivil, the same girl who held one of the platforms back in the Rusbav Festival Contest. Back then, she used history as her platform's test and no one managed to beat her. Finally, Rean and Roan came to visit her a day later and asked more about the Universe they are in, which she answered without asking for anything back.

"I believe that's my question," Rean continued. "In any case, my master asked me to gather some Spiritual Cleansing Algae, so I came into these caves. Right, my name isn't really Asterix, but Rean. Nice to meet you again, I guess?"

Foliana was still surprised by that encounter. "Rean? Right... I heard the guys outside commenting about you and the fact you were actually a member of the Gondel Clan."

Rean nodded. "Yeap. By the way, the guys I saw a moment ago, were they your friends? They seemed quite angry."

"Oh, them..." Foliana sighed. "They were sent with me for protection, but because I only have one concealing integrated artifact, I couldn't bring them with me, so we went separate ways... Well, I basically left them behind when they weren't looking. No wonder they seemed angry since they had a mission."

Foliana couldn't help but grow a little tense. "There is only me here... what do you want?"

Rean extended his hand, and Foliana immediately closed her eyes, feeling like her time had come. However, all she felt was a hand rubbing her head like she was a kid. When she opened her eyes again, Rean just smiled. "You helped me back in the capital and only asked to use my teacher's words in exchange. That wasn't very fair, so I will help you. Tell me, what do you need? Your Big Brother Rean will give you a hand."

Foliana didn't know what to say when suddenly, another swordfish appeared in her view. Only then did she notice she had stopped using her artifact, and she wasn't hidden anymore. "Careful!"

Rean turned around, seeing the Stage Six Swordfish coming straight for Foliana. "Hey! That's right! Now that I think about it, we would do much better with a mount!"

And as always, any Golden Tickets and Stones are welcome. ;)