Chapter 361: Reveal yourself! |
The sun began to set over the town as the streets soon filled with nightlife as many of the residents finished up work and came out into the streets to go back to their homes or grab food as they passed some of the restaurants on the main street.
Haru walked along the busy road as he looked around. From the information, he had gotten from the man's soul he knew not only that he was in danger but the people that were looking for him had managed to bribe someone to give away his location as Annabeth had made it pretty clear that the men that had tried to kidnap her martial sister were not allowed into the city.
So that meant not only did they manage to get information from someone within but they had spies hidden within the town.
'Should I let them know first? I'm not really sure who I am up against but someone who is able to control a large force of people in a world of cultivators has to be incredibly strong. There is no way that a regular person would be capable of making so many people follow them willingly.' Haru thought as he knew that there were a lot of things that were required for a man to lead an army of cultivators.
He thought back to when he gathered a bunch of cultivators on earth to fight the demons in shanghai. The forces had a few conflicts as they didn't want to follow the orders of people they didn't know the strength of. It wasn't until the old men from the black star sect showed their true strength that they were able to fall in line and work as one.
'Who am I kidding. This whole situation is so much bigger than me. The only reason that they came after me is that they were too scared to get on the bad side of the city lord and Annabeth's mysterious teacher.' Haru thought as he came to the decision that he should inform Annabeth about the attempted assassination.
Haru kept to the alleyways while making his way towards the city lords mansion in the centre of the town as he tried to keep himself from being spotted by any guards that might have been looking for him for the little scuffle he had gotten into with them before.
There were no issues along the way as he finally arrived at the mansion but there was a strange feeling in the air that he couldn't quite figure out as he got closer to the entrance where there was a large gate at the base of a steep stone staircase.
Haru looked up towards the top of the staircase and saw a faint glow in the air that seemed to be a colour in between green and blue. He couldn't quite tell what it was but he knew that it was caused by something with a lot of power.
The perimeter of the property was somehow enchanted with a sound blocking formation as the music couldn't be heard from outside but as soon as he stepped foot into the property it became obvious that someone was rehearsing a song that they had played thousands of times.
Haru felt a sense of calmness as the song promoted peace and made him feel safe and protected despite being in a place where he could be swarmed by guards at any moment. But as he listened he soon realised that each note played contained a trace amount of Qi within it that would immediately be absorbed by whoever heard it.
It wasn't just someone playing a song but someone playing a song to improve the cultivation of others. Haru was surprised that someone would be willing to do such a thing but it reminded him of how Lao had sung him a song to help him learn the language of the dragons.
He knew that only a teacher would be willing of sharing something like that with their students. Haru smiled as he now knew where he would find Annabeth. If it was in fact her teacher that was playing the song he knew that she would be at the source of it.
Haru followed the sound up the stairs until he was met with the sight of the city lord's mansion that was elevated above the rest of the town on a hill of stone. He looked around for a few moments before spotting a guard in the distance.
He activated his cloaking spell and then walked forward knowing that he hadn't been caught just yet. Haru looked at the building for a few moments while listening to the sound of the instrument before determining that the sound wasn't coming from within.
He walked around the back of the building to see a smaller building that was semi-attached to the main building with a bridge since it was in the centre of a large pond that was in the ground.
There was a flickering light within the smaller building on the pond which confirmed that there was movement inside. Haru hoped that he would find Annabeth as he took a few steps forward but he wasn't paying enough attention to his surroundings to notice a small branch crunch beneath his feet as he got closer to the pond.
The song abruptly stopped as a flash of light shot from the building. Haru watched as time seemed to slow around him. A sword flew towards him with the blade pointed directed towards his head.
Although time slowed down the sword was still moving at a speed that made it nearly impossible for Haru to even react to it. He raised his arms in front of his face to prevent it from hitting him in the head but he expected that it would cut one of his arms to the point of no repair without magic but he was surprised as he heard a clang and the sword stopped moving upon contact with his arm.
The sword dropped to the floor with a thud as he looked down to see that it was now laying in the dirt. He felt confused for a moment but then quickly remembered that he was wearing the bracers that Li Jun had given to him with the rest of his clothes. He knew they were armoured but he didn't expect them to be enough to prevent a flying blade from causing him even the least amount of harm.
"Who's there!" A voice shouted out from within the smaller building. Whoever was inside had clearly acknowledged Haru's presence but he decided to remain silent in hopes that they would think that he had already left but it wasn't that simple as a large mound of dirt was torn up from the ground and launched towards him.
Haru dodged the dirt for it to crash into the ground behind him and cause more dirt to rise into the air which formed a huge vortex that began to spin around and around before being launched towards him again.
Haru dodged again but it was no use as it seemed to learn his movements and followed him a little closer. The dirt moved through the air like a snake as it trailed his movements to the point where Haru had no choice but to put an end to it with force by facing the impact head-on and punching the dirt that was flying towards him/
Haru struck the dirt with his fist as hard as he could which caused a large shock wave in the air all around as the dirt dispersed quickly and rained down on the ground once again.
'You seem too skilled to be with that group of fools in the north. Who are you!? I demand that you reveal yourself right in this instance. If you do then I might spare your life!' The voice called out again as the owner tried to sound intimidating but for Haru who had often conversed with a dragon it sounded like nothing but an empty threat but he still knew that he had to be wary of whoever was within the building.
'Maybe I should leave?' Haru thought as he didn't want to push his luck too far as he wasn't sure just how strong his opponent was since he couldn't them but they were still able to push him back without even being in his line of sight.
But just as he was thinking about retreating, the sounds of marching footsteps emerged from behind as the guards ran towards where they heard a commotion to see that the ground around had dirt scattered as though an explosion had happened but they weren't able of detecting Haru as he stood still with the cloaking spell still activated but he knew that if he moved or activated another spell that they would find out exactly where he was standing and he doubted that he could take on that many people as there looked to be around thirty to forty guards with their weapons drawn.
"I will give you one final chance to make yourself known or I will reveal you to the guards and let them deal with you however they seem fit" The voice shouted out again as the guards looked around in confusion as they were unsure where the voice was coming from.
Haru felt stuck as he couldn't see any other way out of the situation he now found himself in without fighting either thirty people or one extremely strong opponent.
