Chapter 263

263 Perfection Needs Sacrifice (3)

(Tom’s PoV)

One, two, three, four...

There were many of them; inside and outside the house. There were even some of them that kept coming. It was like an endless stream of black, white, and grey. And it was still in the morning!

I noticed that it was not normal. I remembered the time we first arrived in this villa, the number of these entities were not this much. After we stayed here for some time, especially after the time where the Cloud Army came, most of them disappeared, leaving only the guardian of the land that resided in the back yard of the villa.

Now, they came back! They even brought some friends with them! It was either they came to bully us or something was attracting them to come here.

With that thought in mind, I became even swifter in taking care of these uninvited creatures. I cleaned up here and there and put my mark there so that they wouldn’t come near the house again. However, before I finished cleaning up, someone came and took my share of work.

With a thin greyish spear in his hand, he scared those creatures away in instant. His greyish bolts marked some spots that he had passed, a sign that it had been cleared up. His arrival looked so epic that I envied him a bit for that.

Capture it in a video, put it in slow motion, and add a fantastic background sound. Moreover, the morning wind swayed his clothes a bit and the greyish spear in his hand complemented his heroic action.

It was the exact image of every man’s dream!

.....

I wasn’t a damsel in distress, but if I were one, I would have fallen in love with him. But, I am a man, so there’s no way it would happen.

“Why did many of them appear here?” He asked.

“How would I know?” I shrugged and continued what I was doing.

The work finished faster with his help. After making sure that everything was fine, we entered the house only to find Jane was talking to Siji with a serious expression. Whatever they were talking about, it must be really important to her.

“Is there something wrong?” I sat on the chair across her. Siji straightened up his back and returned to his usual stoic face.

“Not really.” Jane shook her head. “Welcome back!” She shot a dazzling smile towards Sanji.

“I miss you.” Sanji went ahead and hugged her tightly.

“We miss you, too. I thought it would take a long time to finish your meditation.” Jane said as she hugged him back.

“Well, it went well. That’s why I could come out as soon as possible.” He pushed himself to take a better look at her. His hands cupped her face while inspecting her. “I’ve heard from Siji what has happened to you. Are you really okay?”

I convinced myself that I wasn’t jealous. I wasn’t jealous. I wasn’t jealous.

“I’m okay.” Jane nodded her head to convince him. Maybe after he was assured that she was fine, he withdrew his hand and put a distance between them. He sat next to me and his expression turned serious. “What is it this time?”

Jane took a deep breath. Her eyes were clear and she looked serious. The seriousness in her eyes betrayed the youthful look of her face. “There is an invitation for us to go to a Grand Meeting held by the Ten Rulers in three months.”

I took a deep breath. There’s no wonder her expression turned that serious. We all knew what the Ten Kingdoms were. After the meeting with the Masters of Astral Armies, here came the meeting with the Ten Rulers of mystic world in Indonesia. It didn’t sound as important as the previous meeting with those weird Masters, but it was still vital to us.

After all, there would be no human this time. Moreover, these Kings and Queens were the legends that had taken part in the war between human’s kingdoms before. Their power and their influence were unquestionable. There were many small kingdoms every where, but only ten of them were worth mentioning. It didn’t mean the others were weak. It was just these tens were ridiculously powerful.

By these facts alone, I knew that we couldn’t take it lightly. Not to mention that this meeting was a super rare one. I mean, mostly they were indifferent towards the others. They were different with how humans were; where humans would often meet up for any important issues or even fight to expand their territories. These astral creatures wouldn’t attack each other or even meet if there was no serious issue. They really just minded their own business in their own kingdoms.

“Do you have any idea why we are invited?” Since Siji was the one who delivered the message, he must have known something.

“Is it related to when she visited the South Sea?” Sanji speculated. His thought was aligned with mine perfectly. I also thought that the reason we were invited to the meeting was because of her visit to the Kingdom of South Sea.

Siji pondered for a moment. He really looked like he was clueless and he was just acting as the mailman all along. However, knowing this stoic face’s behavior, I really needed to ask such questions to him. There might be a chance that he didn’t deliberately conceal the reason, but he was too lazy to say anything unless we asked him properly.

“It might be. I really don’t know the reason. Someone came to me before, holding a meter of red silk with ten different energies inside.” Siji took out something in a bundle. It was being covered with a black cloth but anyone could detect the power inside. It was intimidating, with a bit of warning yet soft at the same time.

“Is there something written on it?” Jane asked curiously.

Siji blinked his eyes. Then, he opened the black cloth covering the bundle in a flick. He looked careless in treating something that could be considered ‘magical’ in human’s eyes. As expected of the Advisor of White Army. It was either he didn’t care about the importance of the power in the red silk or he looked down on the owner of the power.

The beautiful red silk appeared within our sights. The color was bright and vibrant that it looked almost otherworldly. Similar to Jane, I was expecting some words being written on the silk, maybe using creepy font or, on the opposite, beautiful letters. However, once again we were tricked by Siji.

He picked up the red silk and flicked it open from its folds. It was clean, without any sign of ink or anything. Personally, I could only feel the power inside. But, once Siji injected some power, various voices, dialects, and tones were overlapping to each other. All of them said one thing;

“See the Master of White Army... Seventh full moon... From now... In The Floating Hidden Island...”

I was stunned hearing the message. It was an audio message! I thought only human used it. It seemed like those entities were following the trend as well.

And I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Looking at Sanji and Jane’s expression, they must be thinking the same. I coughed into my hand to snap them out from their daze.

Jane shook her head cutely. “Floating Hidden Island? So, this time, it’s not a hidden village, but a hidden island? Can we even find this hidden island? Can we get there safely?”

“She is right. Do you know this hidden island?” Sanji sounded so serious as he shot him a look, as if saying ‘you must know it, right? Don’t even try to say you don’t know it.’

Honestly, we all knew that Siji was a walking map and book of knowledge. There was only some little things in this world he didn’t know.

“I know.” Siji nodded, confirming our thought about his ‘awesomeness’. “But, with your current condition, you can’t go there yet. It’s too risky.”

“Our current condition? What do you mean?”