"How are we going to proceed young master Xue," I asked as I kept a close distance from the leader of the group.
The man looked around and said, "We'll first head to the rim of the formation, and try and group up with the rest of the forces. Once everyone is here we'll attack the formation together, it shouldn't hold if we focus our fire." Xue said.
"Oh, that's impressive, I'll follow suit," I replied and began formulating methods on how to make his current goal as hard to get as possible.
"I wonder, how come you can resist the Breath Sealing poison? All of us are in the Soul Formation stage, and we're barely able to maintain proper function," one of the four people following Xue said to me.
His tone wasn't gentle, and he looked suspicious of me.
After all, I'm a Nascent Soul Cultivator who can do what others of a higher cultivation rank than me can.
I then smiled pointed at my face and said, "This plague, or whatever this ugly constitution I have, apparently blocks the Breath Sealing Poison on this area. But that doesn't mean I can use my prows, as a matter of fact, I'm only able to preserve the Qi within me, and can't harvest any from the outside." I said.
"Hmm, seems like a blessing in disguise, but a blessing that is only temporary and only works in this area." The man said.
I nodded at the man and said, "If it's something to help our invasion, then I'll use it to the fullest of my ability, because like master Xue said, I need to rack achievements and merit, perhaps after this war, I'll be able to get a cure if I'm achieving enough." I said.
The four cultivators ignored my presence after my statement.
It was obvious since I was speaking of 'glory' and future, hope, and actual goals that I'm seeking. For these cultivators, all I was speaking was nothing but hopeful dreams and aspirations, that someone 'like me' will never obtain, so why bother with a dreamer.
Soon enough we had to stop as Xue asked us all to wait. It seems that he discovered something and from the area, we're at, I could guess what.
"There is blood here," Xue said and went on one knee.
He dipped his finger in the blood pool and put in his mouth, tasting it.
That's very unsanitary, yuk.
"This…"
"What's the problem, young master?" I asked.
"This is a Soul Formation Cultivator's blood. Seems that someone came before us, and died here. Everyone be on your guard." Xue said.
With his words spoken, several waves of divine sense were shot all over the place to inspect the area only to have the waves return back to them, broken and shattered due to the severity of the Breath Sealing Poison.
"Keep your divine sense close to your body, otherwise It will just exhaust your Qi reserves for no reason, and will cause you to have a slower reaction time," Xue said and visibly shrank his divine sense to be just a few feet around his body.
The other four did the same while I only coated my body with a thin layer of Divine Sense.
"That's the disadvantage of having a low cultivation stage, with such low Qi output you can barely coat yourself with divine sense. If you're attacked you'll die before you know it," one of the four said.
"I know the risks, but I can't do anything to change this, unlike your vast and steep cultivation base I'm still too weak. I'll have to rely on your guidance," I said to the cultivator.
He snorted and said proudly, "Yes, stay close. Lest you die with no achievements."
And so I did, as I stayed closer to the group as they approached and carefully strained themselves looking for an enemy that didn't exist. At least not yet.
Once we got to the rim of the area, Xue frowned and said, "It seems that we're trapped." He said.
"What do you mean Brother Xue?" asked one of the cultivators.
"This whole area is surrounded by the same formation that is protecting the whole planet."
"That just means that we can't get past it anytime soon, but with the concentrated effort of the army we can breakthrough, isn't that right master Xue," said another.
"I think what master Xue I referring to is the fact that we're unable to freely use Qi, while the army outside the planet can easily bombard it from outside… We're basically trapped here and at the mercy of whoever just killed the cultivator whose blood we saw earlier," I said explaining, and at the same time pitching in the conversation.
"Little Lu is right, this place is a closed trap, we need to group up with everyone else here, that way we'll have better chances at survival. Whoever was able to take out a Soul Formation cultivator without making a sound isn't someone simple. Let's head out," Xue said, turned, and moved away from the barrier.
We followed suit and once we were a few feet away from the barrier, I smiled as the first shot from X's weapon sounded like the breaking of thunder.
I wanted to takeout Xue's head with a single shot, but sadly he was damn careful but the others weren't.
Xue dodged the bullet with incredible reaction time but X had made sure to align both Xue and another cultivator who wasn't fast enough and was taken out with a shot to the head.
"What the hell was that?!" one of the cultivators asked.
"Enemy, from outside the barrier, Shit, I think they can attack us while we can't. Let's move in between the trees!" I shouted.
None even dared question or speak against what I said, and immediately they all bolted away.
I had X shoot a couple of times my way, tearing a hole in my robes, but at the same time, every shot towards the other cultivators was lethal.
Two more died before me, Xue and one last cultivator made it behind some cover. It was basically just rocks and trees but was more than enough to cover us.
"What the hell was that!" asked the last remaining cultivator.
While, I breathe heavily, and began checking around myself.
My actions caused Xue to take note of the couple of holes I had in my robes.
"By the gods, you must be loved by fate…" Xue said.
I looked at him, and took a deep breath then said, "I Think, that luck had something to do with my survival along with the fact that whoever was attacking us was prioritizing stronger foes first. It seems that our lost brothers died first because they were stronger…I'm ashamed to say that the only reason I survived was dumb luck and the fact that I'm weaker… but I doubt It will be the case longer." I said.
"We're trapped like chicken in a pen house, and there is a very hungry wolf inside. Master Xue, do you have any way of getting us out of this damn mess?" asked the cultivator.
"I'm thinking!" Xue said.
"I can probably do something," I said.
"What can you do? What can a Nascent Soul cultivator even do in this case, where even stronger ones died!" the cultivator said. Probably more out of frustration of this situation than actual rage at me. But it doesn't matter. It's still good for me. As long as I'm antagonized, I'm safe.
"Let him speak," Xue said, "We can use all the help we can get right now," Xue said.
The other cultivator snorted and waited for me to explain myself.
"I figured out something," I said, "Whoever is shooting those deadly projectiles at us, can only do so from a certain distance."
"How would you know that?" the cultivator asked.
"While we were running, at one point even while we were on the open field, no shot came our way, meaning that they probably were unable to locate us, or had issues with range. Either way, it's good for us," that was actually bullshit, I just asked X to stop shooting otherwise it'll be very suspicious if only me and Xue remained alive.
"So, it could come to reason that probably the area we're in, the Breath Sealing Poison is stopping the assailant's detection range."
"What if he was just having issues with replenishing his shots and attacks."
'Reloading? Definitely not, but you gave me a good idea.'
"Well, that's also one of the reasons that this might still work. I have something here," I said as I pulled several pills from my inventory.
"These are smoke bombs, one of these can cover about a mile's worth of distance in thick smoke. We can use these to move away from the enemy's range."
"Visual disruption, if he has a mean to detect us through it, we're still dead!" the cultivator said, "I'm not going to follow the steps of a brat who still stinks of his mother's breastmilk if you want to die, do it alone!" the cultivator said.
I frowned at the man, showing displeasure, which also was nothing but acting.
"I don't really understand why you're being so displeased with my solutions when you offered nothing, either way, brother Xue, if you also don't believe me, I'll show it." I then threw one of the pills and it blew up creating a thick smoke layer that spread at an extremely rapid pace.
I then slapped my hands together in a prayer motion, and 'showed' exhaustion as I used the Golden Scripture Doppelganger arts.
Immediately a clone of myself manifested next to me, which was barely visible and looked rugged, yet it had the silhouette of a person.
"What in god's name!" Spoke Xue, he then grabbed me by the scruffs "You said you were a guard to the Crimson Suzaku's Worshipping Grounds! Why the hell do you have the Water Realm's Sacred Scripture!"
'Oh, seems that this guy knows where this scripture comes from… but, water realm…shit aren't they in opposition with the fire king.. This will suck to explain.'