Ever since he learned about the existence of the corrupted druid, Aksai had been studying all he could about the demonic cultivators from his homeworld, Dadangar.
This was because he felt that there were some similarities between the demonic cultivators and the corrupted druid from Martial World Sharang.
Know thy enemy. Aksai had always believed in this line.
So when he started to understand the practices of the demonic cultivators, he also began to form hypotheses about the corrupted druid himself.
Aksai believed that the corrupted druid was cultivating the negative emotions of all living beings inside the Devil’s Den. He was using these negative emotions as a catalyst to achieve a breakthrough into the 2nd Spirit cultivation realm.
As far as Aksai could tell, the Devil’s Den and the demon tree served as parts of the Yantra in the corrupted druid’s Spirit cultivation technique.
The isolated barrier refined the emotions of the living beings inside the Devil’s Den. The demon tree served as the Array Eye of the Tantra, enabling the corrupted druid to use the emotions of the living beings to expedite his Spirit cultivation by leaps and bounds.
Aksai had never heard of such a form of Spirit cultivation technique present even among the demonic cultivators from his home world.
However, he guessed that such a technique was too high-grade in every aspect and thus had to belong to some upper-realm world.
***
When this hypothesis took root in Aksai’s mind, it also started answering all the other doubts that Aksai had about the Devil’s Den.
Aksai’s first doubt was regarding the existence of the Devil’s Den. He wondered why a corrupted druid who supposedly belonged to an upper-world realm would create a Devil’s Den and torture the insignificant martial artists.
Aksai also wondered why the corrupted druid would sit under a demon tree and not attack the survivors inside the Devil’s Den himself.
The tree devils, corrupted druids, and Devil’s Den had been Martial World Sharang’s reality for centuries on end at this point.
However, in every case recorded by the annals of history, there were always some survivors who had endured the horrors of the Devil’s Den.
Aksai could tell that the corrupted druid had the power to get rid of any martial artist below the Argent Body Realm with a flick of their fingers. They could take their time in killing all the survivors if killing everyone was their sole objective.
The existence of survivors even after the conclusion of the Devil’s Den could only mean that the corrupted druid didn’t want to kill everyone present within the Devil’s Den in the first place.
Each corrupted druid who had erected a Devil’s Den for themselves in the past wanted to cultivate the negative emotions of the survivors, feeding on feelings of fear, dread, hunger, and other cocktails of emotions blooming within the hearts of the survivors.
The demonic cultivators were masters of manipulating people’s emotions. They would often cause terror among mortals and low-level practitioners to expedite their progress in their respective progression. However, the scale at which the corrupted druids did these things was completely insane.
This was why Aksai wanted to invest in the 2nd-order Barrier-bypass talisman. He wanted to get the survivors who couldn’t fight out of the Devil’s Den.
If his guess was right, the corrupted druid wouldn’t be able to advance in the 2nd Spirit cultivation realm if the majority of survivors were to escape from his clutches and leave the Devil’s Den.
The survivors were akin to small cells that formed a complete battery circuit. If one or two cells within the battery died, it would have no impact on the output. However, if the majority of the cells died, how could a battery keep functioning the way it had always been?
The corrupted druid would have not enough negative emotions to cultivate if too many people died or too many escaped. He would never allow something like that to happen willingly.
***
The 2nd-order Barrier-bypass talisman was a way to weaken the corrupted druid.
However, Aksai couldn’t reveal the existence of the 2nd-order Barrier-bypass talisman in front of all the survivors in Serenity Peak. Nobody would come to fight with him if he did that.
He also believed that his attempt to use the talisman on the Devil’s Den would be interrupted by the corrupted druid once he learned that Aksai was trying to get the majority of the survivors out using the talisman. He needed to create a diversion in the form of an all-out war.
This was why Aksai chose to give the talisman to his headmaid, Zinnia.
He told her to reveal the existence of the talisman to all the survivors of the Devil’s Den and lead them outside once the main fighting force had gone to battle with the corrupted druid. Of course, he had told her to wait for some time so that he could be face-to-face with the corrupted druid himself before the talisman was used on the Devil’s Den.
Zinnia was very diligent in carrying out Aksai’s orders to a T.
She waited for some time and allowed Aksai and others to make sufficient progress in their charge towards the city square. She then used the men and women under her to gather all the survivors of the Devil’s Den who couldn’t be part of the fighting force.
It hadn’t been long since Devil’s Den in Serenity Peak had been created. Thus, there were a lot of survivors still present in the safe zones of the city that were isolated from the rest of the world.
Most of these non-fighting survivors were mortals who couldn’t perform any martial arts. Many martial artists had injured themselves.
All of them couldn’t help but answer Zinnia’s summons when she told them she had a way to create an exit route.
An exit route that would allow the non-fighting survivors to escape the Devil’s Den before it was dispersed naturally. It was akin to an early parole.
Of course, a majority didn’t believe in Zinnia’s words.
How could an inconsequential maid from Everwood Palace create an exit route to bypass the Devil’s Den?
It hadn’t been done by even some of the powerful Argent Body realm martial artists. Was Zinnia better than the Argent Body powerhouses? The thought was ludicrous.
However, the disbelief in Zinna’s words didn’t stop the survivors from answering her call. They wanted to see Zinnia fail so they could laugh at her face and call her an idiot.
And if she succeeded by some miracle, they wanted to be one of the first ones to escape this nightmare with her.
Basically, these survivors were praying for Zinnia to succeed and fail in her attempt to end the nightmare for all of them at the same time. A duality in mindset.
One would have to argue what was wrong with the mindsets of these survivors who wanted the world to burn in front of them for one moment and find a ray of hope in their lives the next.
***
After making sure that almost everybody had answered her call, Zinnia led a huge group toward the edge of the city where the wall of gray fog was churning in front of her. She ignored the comments thrown at her and took out the talisman her master had given her.
Swoosh. Zoom. Sway.
As soon as the talisman was taken out by Zinnia, it flew out of her hands on its own and was struck by the ever-churning wall of gray smoke on its own. In the next moment, something happened that silenced the whole crowd behind Zinnia’s back.
Scree! Scree! Scree!
The 2nd-order Barrier-bypass talisman started to create a spacious tunnel in the isolation domain. This tunnel soon expanded in height, width, and length.
Soon, a passage was created that connected the inside of Serenity to the outside world.
Even Zinnia was surprised by the effects of the talisman Aksai had handed to her. Even she had doubted Aksai’s words in her heart when he had given her the task.
However, when she saw the bright light coming from the other end of the tunnel, she knew that she could leave this nightmare behind her and escape the slow torture.
The surviving people screamed in joy and surprise when they realized Zinnia had really managed to do what she had claimed. Some of them started to run towards the exit right away, whereas the others hesitated and looked behind, hoping the ones who had gone to battle the corrupted druid would escape with them.
After all, there were many relatives and friends of the survivors who had gone with Aksai to fight the corrupted druid’s tree devil army.
“We don’t have time. The talisman’s effects are not permanent. This pathway would soon collapse on its own. Run towards the exit while you still can.”
Zinnia shouted behind her before charging towards the exit. The other maids of the Everwood Palace and some other staff followed right behind her.
***
When the corrupted druid sensed Aksai and his allies making a move against him, he didn’t pay much attention to them. He was busy cultivating the negative emotions he was able to harness even from this commotion.
However, he couldn’t help opening his eyes when Zinnia used the 2nd-order talisman on the isolation barrier. He stood up, eyeing his opponents who were charging towards him with angry and ugly expressions.