With a huge effort, the woman parried off the stinger and dodged the pincer of the scorpion.
"Haha, human. You will by my first kill. Then I will eat you slowly" The scorpion yelled at the woman. She moved very nimbly and dodge almost all the attack with great precision.
Boom. . .
Lan Long and the group suddenly appeared on the scorpions back. The deviants, who were all awake were terrified out of their minds. This cultivator had bought them to the beast mountains within moments.
"Human, how dare you stand on me. Let me eat you now." The scorpion said as he whipped his tail towards the group. Jiang Long parried the attack while Huang Ren stomped on the scorpion immediate smashing it into the ground.
"Hey, filthy scorpion, we can kill you as easily as flipping over our hands. Now listen to our brother." Jiang Long said as he sheathed his sword. The woman on the other hand was amazed at the strength of the two men.
"Take us to your cave." Lan Long said in a low voice. The scorpion who was now terrified as well, immediately began to walk towards a low hill. The small cave appeared and the scorpion walked inside. The place was filthy beyond imagination, the floor was wet with some sort of goo while the corners were littered with bone.
"Answer truthfully. Do you like human flesh?" Lan Long asked.
"Yes, but I can swear that I won't touch another human." The scorpion said as it shivered lightly.
"I will take that promise in exchange for a limitless supply of human meat." Lan Long waved his arm and carefully laid a formation within their dantian that allowed them to restore their Ki but never improved. They could freely live without food but could never move. They could speak but could not use their Ki to yell. Then Lan Long transferred a common healing potions recipe into the scorpion's conscience. "Eat the flesh of their limbs and stomach and back but do not let them die. Use the healing potion whenever they become too weak. Never let them escape, or else I will come and kill you." With that said, Lan Long threw the deviant of the scorpion's back. They tried to scream and rum but could not rum away. The fat cried and begged but the scorpion grabbed his fat body and bought it closer to his mouth and took a bite off his stomach, savoring every moment of it. Lan Long then grabbed Jiang Long and Huang Ren disappeared from the cave. Soon, they stood in front of their mansion.
"Let's talk to the girls." Lan Long said as he entered his room. The girls were in the same position as he had left them about an hour ago, he then sent this consciousness into all the girls and forcefully woke them up. The girl immediately gained some color on their face and began to weep miserably.
"Brother Lan, please kill us. We don't want to live." Almost all of them said as they regained their senses.
"Look, I can make you forget the entire thing. Your bodies are restored and I will make everyone forget as well." Lan Long said as he grabbed the girls hand looked intently within her eyes.
"Please, anything but this." She said as he lowered her head in shame. Lan Long set his conscience and erased the awful memories from everyone including Jiang Long and Huang Ren. Soon the memories were replaced with the memory of him arriving on the scene on time and saving them without any effort. With that done, Lan Long lead them outside and towards the infirmary. The girls were immensely thankful but had realized that they had forgotten something. With nothing to remember in the first place, girls joined up with Su Ming and the other sister who was cultivating due the heaven's Dew. Soon, all the girls were given a drop each and escorted to the Fire Clan residence.
Su Ming and the other girls immediately hugged each other and after a few tears everyone was deep into their cultivations. Jiang Long on the other hand was quite frustrated as he recalled the fake memory, he immediately knew that his memory was tampered with but was unable to determine how. As the night fell, Jiang Long walked into Lan Long's room and glared at him.
"Did you make me forget something?" Jiang Long said as he clenched his fists as he glared at the floating body of Lan Long. Lan Long opened his eyes and immediately returned Jiang Long's memory to normal. Jiang Long's eyes turned red as he emitted a ferocious killing intent but not at Lan Long, it was directed at those filthy excuses.
"This was why I had removed the memory. Those girls would have wanted that event erased from existence and I tried to do that. Unfortunately, I am not strong enough." Lan Long sighed as he explained. "You can go now." Lan Long said as he closed his eyes. Jiang Long walked back to room and began to cultivate. He had realized that he was far too weak to accomplish anything. The next day, Lan Long had called every one of the group and had them take a seat.
"Guys, you all have been with me for a long time but I think it's time for me to part ways. The adventure, I am searching for doesn't have anything to do with achieving a new power or making a stand against something. What I want is to see the world as it is and try to understand it. I will be moving on my own from this point." Lan Long said as he looked at all of them. Jiang Long was unperturbed but both Huang Ren and Su Ming were slightly shocked.
"Brother Lan, where will you be if we want to meet you?" Su Ming said as she sighed. She already knew that Lan Long was going to leave them behind sooner or later, but she had not expected this to have happened this soon. Lan Long looked at her and took out three papers and imprinted them with his soul sense. He then gave them to the three.
"These contain my soul sense and if you ever need me, just tear them and I will come rushing as fast as I can." Lan Long said as he got up, Little Kong and Little Qing popped out from his sleeve and looked at the three and went up to them. After rubbing their faces to their faces, they climbed back inside Lan Long's sleeve. "This is not a good bye. We will meet again." Lan Long smiled as he faded away from the room. Lan Long reappeared a bit farther away from the village and looked back. "Damn, this is harder than I thought it would be." Lan Long said as he called out Little Kong and got on his back. Little Kong then began to run back to the Long clan.
Shen Clan. . .
"Elder, none of the local clan have yet to react to the disappearance of the Shi clan. Do you think that some other party was involved?" An elder asked the leading elder. The leading elder was still brimming with anger from the loss of his disciple but had regained enough mind to be back to making the decision.
"It is very likely." The lead elder sighed as he rubbed his forehead. He had anticipated a movement from the perpetrator clan to take over Shi territory but even after 2 days none of the clans seemed to be in a hurry to take over. This made the elder grow frustrated as the culprit was most like playing a far larger game than he had anticipated or the culprit wanted some chaos. Either way, the identifying the real culprit was now even harder than before.
"Elder, I have some news." Elder Sha hurried into the room and immediately skipped the formalities, skipping directly to consult with the lead elder. "We have found the killer of Gan Shen but he is under the protection of the Ren clan but more importantly, that is the child of the mad couple and is a prodigy of cultivation. I came as soon as possible to inform you about him." Elder Sha said as he looked at the Lead elder.
"a prodigy belonging to Ren clan but not officially? Did you kill him, at least." Elder asked.
"No, he was under the protection of a core disciple of the Ren clan and there were far too many people spectating for me to make a move." Elder Sha explained.
"A prodigy from a local clan effect no one. Let him be." Elder Sha said as he closed his eyes.
"Elder, I was not able to follow his movements and he looks about 15 years old." Elder Sha added.
"He cannot be allowed to live for a second further. Everyone follow me." Lead elder said as he moved out at his top speed towards the Green village. With the lead elder speeding everyone with him, the Shen elders arrived at the Green village within 5 hours. Elder Sha spread his soul sense but failed to find Lan Long.
"Elder, the kid seems to have left the village." Elder Sha report. Lead elder immediately sent out his soul sense and covered the area out the village as far as 10,000 kilometers. He immediately found tread marks of a huge beast that were heading towards the Long territory.
"There is a trail leading straight towards the Long territory. It might be him lets hurry." The elder said as sped along the tread marks. Although, Little Kong was not charging at his top speed, he was travelling at almost 75 percent of the elder's current speed as the elder carried all the other with him. The chase continued endlessly for a week before the elder was finally had to stop for a day. Unlike the elders who had to be carried by the one person, Lan Long replaced Little Kong as he got tired essentially not stopping at all during his journey. The chase resumed but this time the elder had chosen to drop off the weakest of companions. With the load taken off, elders speed increased even further as he was slowly reaching his target.
"Huh, looks like I am near granny flower's house." Lan Long said as he made his way to her house and stood in the court yard exactly where he had talked to her before. He waited for a few minutes before the granny's voice sounded within his ears.
"Boy, you are surprising as ever. Now, even I cannot look at your strength. Come in." Granny said as she opened the door to her house. Lan Long bowed slightly and entered back into the house. The granny was sitting on a cushion with her eyes closed and cane at the side.
"Granny, there are the manual you gave me. Thank you." Lan Long said as he sent the books to her side. The granny finally opened her eyes and looked at Lan Long.
"Hmm, Lan Long you must have reached the mortal pellet stage. Be careful from now onwards. It is at the pellet realm that the cultivators face real danger. Especially those like you. Your talent would be despised by all and they would want to eliminate you before you ever have a chance to reach a stable height." Granny said with a sigh. Lan Long's talent was truly frightening, if he had not met her prior to this, even she might be will to nip this youngster. She was about to talk further but she immediately sensed a few strong cultivators from the Shen clan approaching. "Hoh, you seem to have attracted some unwanted attention." The granny said with a gentle laugh.
"Hmm, seems like Shen clan wants me dead." Lan Long said as he looked at the direction the danger was coming from.
"So, you knew? Did you come to ask for help?" Granny said with a smile. She was prepared to deal with the boy's pursuers as soon as she had found out but it seemed like the Lan Long was already aware of his pursuers.
"Granny, please. Let me handle these things. But there is an issue I want some help with." Lan Long explained.
"Tell. Tell." Granny was not usually intrigued but Lan Long seemed full of surprises.
"I want to know the truth about this continent." Lan Long said. Granny's smile vanished and was replaced with a solemn expression.
(Sorry for the delay and please enjoy. Also, do comment and share the story.)