A God in a Xianxia world

Chapter 61 - Lucian Makes His Move

Lucian stood, in the dark hours of the early morning, at the edge of a grassy field in the western territory, looking out towards a village in the distance. Beside him he was accompanied by several elites of the clan and although he couldn't see them in the darkness, he knew that there were yet more dotted around the surrounding area, hidden and waiting.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Absolutely" replied Jeffrey with certainty.

"This is it. Not only was the woman I questioned quite forthcoming after a while but I also found more evidence in their residence at Acorn that pointed towards it as well"

"And the whole village is a fake?" questioned Lucian.

"Yes. I have no idea how long it's been like that, but at some point, the bandits cleared everyone out of the village and have been using it as a hidden base ever since. No one ever realised because of how out of the way it is"

[Tsk tsk] thought Lucian.

[To think that they were able to get away with something this brazen. Our eyes have been too confined these past few decades. Isolationism may have helped us build our strength but it has left us blind to the goings on around us. It certainly doesn't help that other matters have drawn our focus away too. I'll have to send out reliable people to get a better handle on things. This is not the time to have hidden threats in our own backyard]

"Not even the larger border towns? Surely they would notice something was up when it came time to collect the tax?" said the 8th elder incredulously.

It wasn't exactly farfetched for the Cardinal clan to be unaware of the situation here as it was outside the Cardinal clan's zone of control and it truly was just a small, out of the way village, not falling on any of the major roadways in the area, but still, it would have to be a mind bogglingly large oversight for the town the village payed tax to, to not realise that there was something amiss here.

"Well, you know what the border towns are like. The governors there don't exactly govern. So long as they get the tax on time they probably wouldn't ever send anyone out here to check on things. That or they knew and just didn't care" explained Jeffrey.

"Their complacency or ignorance isn't important right now. Even if they were in collusion, it can be addressed at another time. Right now, the only thing that matters is the village. Jeffrey, tell me, do you know what kind of forces they have there?" said Lucian.

"Apparently this is one of their major bases in the western territory so it has a qi condensation warrior in it, though at what level I have no idea. It's also meant to house a few hundred body strengthening cultivators and a couple dozen qi expansionists" Jeffrey replied.

"Hmm, I see" said Lucian, pondering over the situation with mixed feelings.

[It's a pity. I'd have liked a clearer picture of their forces beforehand but news of what happened in Acorn will quickly spread and we can't risk them bolting. If we don't strike while the iron's hot, we may miss our greatest chance yet]

As someone who liked to plan and prepare long in advance whenever he made a move, the current situation caused Lucian to feel a bit ambivalent. He was happy that his efforts had finally payed off and that the clan had uncovered their greatest lead yet on the bandit organization operating in the North, however, the time constraints with which he had to move and the lack of clarity on the situation made him unhappy.

Despite this, right from the get go, he was aware that should the plan to use Tom as bait pay off it would likely require fast action on the part of the clan. It was why instead of chastising Jeffrey for leading forces of the Cardinal clan to raid the bandit residence in Acorn in broad daylight, he actually agreed with the move. He knew that from the very moment Jeffrey had saved Tom from a group of the bandits within the Tainted Forest, the timer had already started.