YM778.TV Chapter 916
It had been about half an hour, and there was one team sitting around the collapsed mine she’d baited them towards, another that was investigating Grumpy’s death and one final team near the boulder they’d stopped at for a bit. Back in the bases it seemed they were... perhaps trying to look for things that were missing? Kat didn’t really know. It looked like they were expecting some sort of follow up, or perhaps they were making sure nobody else was using the chaos to escape... or steal more shit like Ron.
Kat wasn’t certain Ron had made it out of course... but it just felt wrong to assume he’d been caught. The lack of proper pursuit following Xiang, Yang and Xuena made it seem all the more likely Ron had made off with some good stuff. A good enough haul that messing with the Ice Prick Sect in a major way was worth it for them.
Kat glanced over at the space she could vaguely feel Lily in. There weren’t any obvious signs of their passing, though Kat was rather high up. The sort of little details she needed to track things were impossible to see from this height. Kat’s vision was GOOD but not so good she could spot a footprint on the ground, through a forest canopy a multiple kilometres down.
*The question is... what do I do now?* Kat was drifting slowly in the direction she knew the others to be in... but she was much faster and they couldn’t run forever. Sooner or later a proper tracking team would be organised and start heading to retrieve Xuena. *Do I want to make sure I’m in the way of the first few teams? It wouldn’t be too hard... but if I stop the first few they’ll know for sure that they’re onto something. Would it be better to just try and keep the fact they’re on the right track a secret?*
*Hmm... maybe I should make an obvious clearing along the path? Before the river certainly... but if I did that... the river isn’t actually all that far away. I’m sure that anyone with a decent knowledge of the terrain here would be able to figure things out if I made it so obvious. So... we’re back to the issue of taking out the trackers.
I could of course go and bully the trackers that are already out... but that’s a bit different to attacking those who attack me directly. Of course... I could take out their legs or something... but I don’t really want to reveal that I can fly either? Hmm... I guess I can go over my priorities. Hiding everything is quite silly if nothing is hidden properly.*
.....
*So top priority is making sure Xuena gets away. Xiang and Yang fall slightly below that. Well... Lily takes TOP priority of course but she’s with Xuena so I can lump them together for now.* Kat ignored the small voice that sounded awfully like Lily scoffing in the background. *Below that... well I don’t really care what they find out about me insomuch as it makes it harder to keep Xuena’s trail a secret. I think I can at the very least use some of my ice techniques.*
*Considering the fact that this is an ICE SECT, there’s no reason they should jump to enemy action if there is a bit of frost on the ground... right? Hmm... I wonder how noticeable it’ll be that I didn’t make the ice with Qi. Depending on how Qi works, it could either move into the ice once I leave and be no problem at all... or super noticeable. It seems most people don’t really know about demons here so it might not be the first thing they think of... but if they notice something is strange it doesn’t really matter if they know what I am.*
[Honestly Kat. I’d say you just keep watch, or maybe duck down into some clearings and rough it all up in an obvious way. Just pick some randomly]
Kat shrugged at the idea and really didn’t have anything better to do for now so she got to work. She crashed into a clearing, leaving a massive crater, destroyed a few trees and then froze a patch of ground for good measure before flying up and repeating the process. Sometimes there was more ice, sometimes less. There was one time her fire just sort of... kept going. Kat gave that bit of fire a glare before she moved on.
All this noise and shifting location was playing hell with the trackers. Kat still brought those clothes with her. Having no place to dump them. Occasionally bits and pieces ‘broke off’ for trackers to find but it wasn’t like they could actually get anything coherent out of the beasts they were using to assist in the effort. Hours passed and the things started to settle down. Some people in the sect started to go back to sleep, many remained on guard but just at their posts.
Across the mountain, teams combed everywhere looking for signs of passage. They reported those signs higher up the chain... but the issue was of course that now there was hundreds of people crawling all over the mountain. What small tracks Xiang and Yang left initially were well and truly trampled now. The more obvious path Kat had left originally was still obvious, and Grumpy’s corpse made it obvious that somebody had been that way... but with Xiang, Yang and Xuena taking more care things weren’t going well.
It seemed that the real trackers were out doing other things. None of them were the type of teams to just sit in the sect, normally much more comfortable in the wilderness and the sect made use of that, giving them a steady stream of missions to keep them working for the sect, even while away. It was a system everyone liked... usually. With Grumpy dead there wasn’t any trackers above Rank 1 left in the whole sect.
Kat was almost surprised to see that as the sun started rising, most of the sect’s cultivators started to head back inside. There was one fast blur Kat managed to catch sight of dashing between groups and sending them back as they went. Kat had been getting a bit bored of her destruction plan and wasn’t caught... but this guy or gall was FAST, faster then Kat for sure. That wasn’t a particularly comfortable thought. If they had any way to find the group... things would go south fast.
Kat decided enough was enough. They were pulling back their forces to regroup and it seemed like a great idea to Kat herself. She flew off, taking out two airborne beasts as she went. The first one was easy, but annoying because she didn’t want to let it fall. The second was attracted to the first, and choked on the meal Kat shoved down its throat, some resentment in her mind when she did so. Of course, carrying around a dead bird for half an hour only to realise your efforts were wasted was incredibly annoying.
In the end, Kat just threw them both off to the side and continued her journey towards everyone else. They made good time, and it took Kat a few hours to catch up. It was approaching lunchtime when she spotted them, and they were looking... somewhat worse for wear. There was a difference between travelling at a reasonable pace across a nice road and going all out to get as far away from an enemy sect as possible.
When Kat landed, Yang was actually glowing. She had Lily in her arms, and was absorbing all the light nearby to keep herself running. Xuena passed out the moment Kat came into sight. Not a true combatant like the other two at the best of times, and woefully out of practice due to her incarceration. She’d been close to passing out before Kat arrived... the idea of a strong protector arrive was too much for her fatigued mind to justify it’s continued workings.
Xiang was looking pretty good all things considered. There was blood on his clothes that hadn’t been washed off, so likely something had attacked them on the way... but Lily hadn’t even woken up for it so Kat wasn’t too worried. “What’s it looking like?” asked Yang as Kat pulled Xuena onto her shoulders like a sack of carrots.
“I think Ron might have done us an extra favour. They were running around like headless chickens for a while and... well I don’t want to say ‘recently’ but I left when some fast guy, likely Rank 3, started to call everyone back to the sect. It didn’t seem worth sticking around then,” said Kat.
Yang nodded. “Is it safe to rest?”
Kat shrugged, “Probably not but I CAN carry three people,”
“Good enough,” said Yang who dumped Lily in Kat’s hands and then promptly stopped operating, like dimming like an old lightbulb. Xiang gave a scoff at Yang’s collapse, sheathed his sword and then did exactly the same thing. Kat decided just for that, he could go on the bottom. She added Xiang to her shoulder and then Yang on top of him. Lily was laying in her breasts that were held in place by her sash and Kat... well... she was rested enough. Best not move too quickly though.