Chapter 904

As they started racing out of the city, Lily voiced her concerns. [Kat... are you ok? The other two might not have noticed but there’s no way you could sneak it by me. Not only would I recognise the look on your face, the mental connection makes it nearly impossible.]

*I... I am personally fine. I can’t find anything wrong at all, which is part of the problem. I just have this niggling suspicion something isn’t quite right despite it all. I stayed up meditating all night instead of sleeping, which would normally be fine but I was actively searching the whole time and I just feel a bit warn out.*

[I’m not sure what to tell you Kat. I didn’t have the same feeling until you shared your own worries]

*Lily no!*

[Lily yes! Kat. I’m going to listen to your instincts regardless of if you do or not. I trust you Kat. Maybe you’re paranoid maybe you aren’t... but I’m more inclined to believe you. Especially with my own lacking experience.]

*It’s not like I really have that much experience with this sort of thing! I’d have thought Xiang or Yang would know. They likely have more experience then both of us put together.*

[But much weaker senses]

.....

Kat grumbled under her breath but Lily was right. Or at the very least, Lily was much more convincing than her own internal logic.

—

That night while everyone else was sleeping Kat was once again meditating. This time though, she decided to be both more and less careful. It took a few stops and starts to keep it up, but Kat managed to keep a small flame lingering in her palm even as she sunk deeper into meditation. She needed the rest just in case... but if people were watching she hoped they weren’t willing to risk it while she was obviously summoning up flames. When the morning came and nobody could be seen, Kat wondered if she was on to something or not. Lily was still firmly in her camp... but she didn’t voice her suspicions.

Despite not voicing them, Yang noticed and summoned her club to rest in its holster on her back, and Xiang noticing that, paid some extra attention to the surroundings. When they made camp on the second night, there was a silent conversation over if they should post guards... but they couldn’t really justify it. Not yet.

—

They were running into the sun. It wasn’t quite straight on but it was close enough as they made their way across country. It was looking to be another boring morning until something twinged in Kat’s mind. The hand holding Lily pulled her in closer to her chest as Kat sped up tackling the two cultivators. With her left hand occupied, Kat used her tail instead, wrapping it around Xiang, while grabbing Yang with her other hand and throwing them both down into the ground. Kat following right after, though spreading her wings out over the group for that little bit of protection.

A moment later a large explosion was set off in front of them, the place they’d all have been standing if the group had continued running unabated. Kat acted first, obviously. She unwrapped Yang and then spun in circles before launching Lily up into the sky. It was the safest place Kat could think of for her girlfriend, especially because she didn’t trust that Lily would be safe in her arms.

[Kat?] Lily’s confused voice echoed over the link, much faster then it should have been, but Kat just responded with a quick. *Stay high!* Before trying to work out what was going on. Kat pulled on her wings and flapped them heavily to disperse the smoke clouds to reveal a large crater that didn’t really surprise anyone after the noise.

Yang and Xiang were shakily getting up to their feet. Something Kat had misjudged, was the strength of the cultivators’ eardrums. Kat’s had healed quickly and not truly been pierced. Xiang and Yang were bleeding from both ears, and Lily only managed to avoid the same fate because her head was tucked into Kat’s body where she was still resting before all of this went down.

So while the cultivators were up and mostly unharmed. They were not particularly balanced at the moment. What they did have, was combat experience. As one they unslung their weapons and put their backs up against each other while they watched out for attackers. They were soon rewarded for their patience by the sound of loud clapping.

Stepping out from behind one of the nearby trees was a man dressed in dark green with lighter green patches over himself. A strange sort of proto-camouflage. From the other side, three men in black walked out, while from the back two women, one in black, one in the weird camouflage stuff walked out. “You know? I’m actually a little impressed you managed to avoid that. Seeing as you might be a little tougher then expected... how about a chat?”

*Um... Lily? Do we say yes?*

[Obviously. Xiang and Yang need to recover a bit from the explosion.]

*Oh. Right.*

Kat waited a few seconds for one of the other two to say something... but they didn’t say anything. The man had a full face mask and neither of the cultivators could hear anything just yet. Kat realised this with a quick glance when she noticed the blood around their ears. “I suppose we could hear you out,” said Kat with confidence. She wasn’t really all that worried. They didn’t seem to have noticed Lily, or just couldn’t get to her. As long as Lily was fine, Kat knew she could take these guys. Her instincts weren’t complaining anymore so it was Kat thought it meant she’d noticed the watchers, not that they were all that dangerous in a fight.

“Good, Good,” said the man standing all by himself. “See, those little pills you picked up? Well in the right hands it’s easy to make the price of them back and then some. Of course, that’s before somebody,” Kat gets the feeling he’s glaring at Yang, “gets into a bidding war and goes over the standard price by 25%. Now, that’s still not an impossible margin to make up for, but if they kept going well...”

The man shrugs in a ‘what can you do’ sort of way. Though that was more of a guess, considering nobody could make out the details of his face. “So, I’d like to offer you all the chance to hand those over. Afterwards, we can just go our separate ways. A rather simple exchange yes?”

*Yeah but a rather shitty one. Let’s see how he takes this.*

“A simple but rather unbalanced one. You do realise we were the group that submitting the large snake head to the auction? It was a Rank 3 Spirit Beast. Are you sure you want to fight us?” asked Kat, more in a hope that the conversation would continue, then anything else.

Mask man scoffed. “Ah yes, I’m sure it was an intense fight with a snake that size. It’s a shame I don’t believe you killed it all by yourselves. While I can’t properly make out your cultivation, your two friends are just Rank 1 themselves. Perhaps you’d like to reveal your real cultivation and maybe I’ll think on my offer some more?”

*How the heck do I answer that? Obviously I’m not a cultivator. Do I say Rank 2? I honestly doubt he’d believe I was a Rank 2 cultivator if we’re trying to claim we took down the beast. Actually... that’s probably the issue. You’d need a team of Rank 3’s normally but I got to its weak point and I’m a demon.*

[Yeah I’m not sure what answer you could give that would actually de-escalate the situation. You literally can’t lie, so saying ‘Rank 3’ or ‘Rank 4’ is quite literally impossible. So that leaves us with Rank 2 as the only accurate ish, answer and that’s really not all that helpful either. I... hmm... I’d like to say stall as best you can? But honestly I’m not sure how you’d go about that.]

With Lily not really having anything helpful to offer, Kat tried to go for enigmatic. She summoned a small bit of flame on her finger. The other masked people flinched but the leader held up a ‘stop’ hand. Kat let it grow, slowly of course, all the way to the size of her head. The area around them was starting to take a dip in temperature. “Simply telling you my cultivation is a bit boring, perhaps looking at this fire you can take a guess?”

Kat had no idea what they’d make of her demonic flame, but apparently it was making the grunts uncomfortable. They couldn’t help but twitch and fidget while looking at the thing. Even the leader could feel that Kat’s flame was extremely dangerous. His instincts telling him not to get it on him, regardless of what other damage he’d need to take. This combined with Kat’s speed and instincts that let her avoid the explosion. Well. This wasn’t shaping up to be the easy mark they’d planned for.