“Help?”
Even Jiang Qing’e was confused by Li Luo’s words. The students were the only ones in this area. Anyone else would be deeper in—the Four Star Hall students and the Gold Gleam mentors.
Even so, they were too far away.
Who else was going to come to their rescue here?
Duze Honglian glared at him. If there was help to be had, they would have gathered them long ago. As if Li Luo had anything to offer at this moment.
“When two tigers fight,” Li Luo offered tentatively, “they wound each other.”
Confusion greeted his enigmatic statement.
“You mean…” Jiang Qing’e’s eyes widened in realization. “The spirit beast in the forbidden zone?”
Was that his idea of help?!
“Li Luo, you’re insane,” Duze Honglian said witheringly. The suggestion was so ludicrous, it insulted their intelligence.
“Let’s not even get into whether the spirit beast will just destroy us all when it arrives. How are you even going to get to the forbidden zone and lure it over? Impossible tasks, one after another!
“Or,” she said, “are you using this as an excuse to run away?”
Bam!
Jiang Qing’e slammed her sword into the ground. “Duze Honglian. Don’t think I can’t finish you off even when I’m injured.”
“Oh, as if my reasoning is any less valid! Does he think the spirit beast is some kindly little puppy? Besides, the principal’s seal can’t be unraveled!”
Li Luo was silent. Duze Honglian was not wrong in her fleshing out of the challenges. He struggled with the same difficulties too.
“Can it get any worse than our current situation?” Jiang Qing’e countered. “The defenses of the purified spot look like they can’t hold out until reinforcements arrive. And when it falls, we will die with it. If we’re doomed anyway, we might as well let Li Luo try.”
Duze Honglian did not listen to a word of it. She was sure that Li Luo had deemed them doomed and was just trying to get out alive.
But so be it. Li Luo was not important to them. If the purified spot fell, where could he run to?
The Others would run rampant all over, the corruption would increase, and a mere second-tier Resonant Master would be dead sooner or later. And even if he did manage to eventually get out alive, the school would investigate him thoroughly.
And then expulsion was sure to follow.
She crossed her arms. “Do as you will. Your lies will be exposed in the end.”
The others stood in a more moderate stance, conflicted between hopefulness and doubt.
Ultimately, none of them saw any chance of success in Li Luo’s plan, but neither did they fancy arguing with the likes of Jiang Qing’e over that either.
Jiang Qing’e turned to Li Luo. “Do you need any other help for this plan?”
He shook his head. “I’ve scouted the terrain before. There’s a river leading from the back of the purified spot all the way to the forbidden zone. I can move quickest with water resonant power to get there. As for the other problems that she mentioned, I’ll find a way.
“More cooks are going to spoil the broth here.”
Jiang Qing’e nodded. “Just be careful you’re not cooking hot soup and jumping in yourself. Go, then. Bring us hope.”
Time was of the essence, so Li Luo did not linger. “Three days. I will find a way to save us all.”
“You will succeed… Or we all die here. And for us, House Luolan dies with us. Wouldn’t that be a waste after all these years?” Li Luo grinned and nodded, then he left.
Bai Mengmeng and Xin Fu had rushed up as well, but they knew they could offer no help to their leader.
“We trust you,” they said simply.
Li Luo was touched. Others had laughed at his plans, and Duze Honglian had probably voiced the thoughts that were on their collective minds. But not his squad.
After all the time that they had spent together, they understood Li Luo quite well.
“I’ll be back,” he said to them. Then he leaped off the high wall, wending his way through the purified spot towards the back.
Yi Lisha, Qian Ye, and Si Qiuying watched him go as well.
“Do you guys think he’s for real? Or is it an excuse?” Qian Ye asked.
Yi Lisha rubbed his chin. “Sounds harebrained as hell, to be honest. I don’t see how he’s going to overcome all that’s needed to make the plan work.”
“I don’t know if the plan will succeed, but I don’t think he intends to run away,” Si Qiuying said softly.
While Li Luo might look like an easygoing guy, he was probably just as competitive as Jiang Qing’e deep down.
A proud guy like him would never run away.
“Well, hardly anyone will agree with you once the news spreads.” Qian Ye wrung his hands.
“Who cares what they think,” Yi Lisha said grumpily. “If the plan fails, we all die. Then there’ll be no thinking left.”
The sobering statement made his squad fall silent.
They had not expected the Umbra Cave to be this dangerous. It was their first time here, and already it seemed likely that everyone would be wiped out.
Everything was up to fate now.
While they were lost in their own melancholy thoughts, Li Luo had already left by a passage from the back and reached the river he had mapped out.
It would lead him straight to the forbidden zone.
With the river’s speed boost, he could save a lot of time.
But getting there was not the hard part. Everything else was.
He rode the river, propelled forward by his water resonant power. He looked like he was skating on it, zipping forward out into the unknown.