Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1599 - 1598 - Vultures

Once Lind was sure what he was dealing with, his Art of Defiance swept outward across the village with impunity. The poison was purged and all the arrays began working again, save the damaged teleportation controls.

The hum of power from the walls roared but then settled. He informed the pair it was safe to enter while he got to work. He was able to make pseudo-Dao level before so grade 8 was a joke to him.

Further, teleportation arrays work on similar principles regardless of grade. The grade usually only allows greater distance.

By the time Misham and Karu got to him, they were ashen faced. Misham was also enraged.

"Who did this?! Why?!" It was clear he had dealings of good nature with the village previously.

"Another alchemical guild. They took only what experts would acknowledge as treasure." Lind was speaking calmly but Karu flinched at his tone. While he might chock that up to her future knowledge, he had gone into a similar mode with the bounty hunters.

His bottomline had been crossed.

"That is impossible! The Sylvan Alchemy Guild is highly respected and backed by several Master Tiers! They would not allow any branch of their business to be treated even remotely disrespectfully let alone killed!" Misham was angry and confused but Lind did not have the context he did.

Instead, he simply knew greed. The actions had been brutal, meticulously planned, and all evidence erased save for his unique skill set.

Without his vast experience and study to improve his weaving as well as Annabelle's various advances in formations she taught him, no one could trace a teleportation array with its controls destroyed as he could.

There was also a possibility Misham overlooked. While many powers are likely backed by Master Tiers, they do not endure forever. Undercutting and commercial tactics were also something that a Master Tier could do little about.

"How did a poison get by the artifacts? Surely they would have excellent detection and defenses against such a thing?" Lind perked up at Karu's question as he had wondered about that but Misham pointed at the metal pin in a pile of dust.

"Anyone with that pin is protected or treated as safe. They are tied to blood and soul so they cannot be faked. They also cannot be given unless by a Grand Maester of the guild. They are strictly made on a need basis only as well." Strict safe guards and a Dao Grade expert was not easy to raise even in the Divine Lands from what he had learned.

All excellent security but it still ignored the one truth. Hearts are fickle.

"What is someone planned to betray the guild?" Lind asked as he already knew what happened but Misham grew grim before he could only shrug.

"They should have to take Oaths but they can't enslave them. It is simply my best guess." Lind nodded but had another idea come to him.

"Erosion Core Poison used as an aerosolized attack rather than an ingested or planted poison on a resource. Ever heard of it?" Both Karu and Misham snapped their heads to him but Lind kept working as the silence stretched.

"If–if a Grand Maester used Dao to expand its ability to spread and attach to Qi, it would work but it would also be lethal to the user." Lind nodded along but said nothing. Karu spoke of it but that feeling she knew more was clear to both men before she continued.

"The Glass Palace had people dealing in poisons and it was rumored they were trying to upgrade or improve existing ones if a Grand Maester would accept their mission." Both men stared at her that time.

There was nothing inherently illegal about improving pills or elixirs but to specify poison seemed a little hard for anyone to ignore. Yet, Lind could think of a sound argument. If the Glass Palace knew they already existed, they might want to replicate to find an antidote.

Someone had. They at least had a way to walk through it without endangering themselves.

Teleportation arrays would rip any poison apart exposed to the spatial distortion.

Lind finally saw life come back to the controls but it was not enough. He needed to enter the coordinates.

"Ah, good. We can reach the guild or another power to come and investigate–" Misham smiled but Lind's cold reptilian eyes locked him in place.

"Get help? What do you imagine they would do? The people who did this left no evidence behind save the poison. I had to purge it to let you both in here. I had to use my Art to completely remove it or any trace would simply propagate as soon as you both walked in." It was a tenacious poison that lingered for weeks.

A dead body could be lethal until it was reduced to nothing. Only then did the poison begin to break down.

It was almost like a virus and he had no doubt someone based it off of the same concept.

"So, what are we going to do?" Karu asked but she seemed to suspect his answer.

"I know where they have gone. I will go there, I will find them, and I will raze their place to the ground for answers and for justice. I am exhausted. I am tired of seeing innocent people killed for greed, Fiend consumption, or simply because someone has the power to do it! I am tired of having vultures attack when there are far bigger issues out there! These bastards wiped out a village to line their pockets and I will not let them go!" His scales appeared as his hands and feet turned to claws.

The Heavens rumbled and both felt it. The rage of a True Lord and a dragon combined was not something to incur lightly.

"You know where they went? How? The console was destroyed. Any record was likely intentionally destroyed as well." Misham questioned it but Karu did not. She knew! She knew what he could do!

"They went dead west about 5000 kilometers. What is in that direction and distance?" His precise answer made Misham's eyes go wide but then he seemed to grasp something before his own anger rose.

"Victory Sect! Pompous bastards are an all rounder sect but arrogant beyond their means! They wanted the Sylvan Alchemy Guild to ally with them a few years ago but I recall their being a huge fallout but not why. The guild was very righteous and would not stand by if someone they allied with betrayed that stance." Lind nodded.

He had a possible name but waited to see if there were more. There were.

"There is a city there as well that has 2 rival guilds. Sky Hawk Alchemy Guild and Eternal Flame Guild are powerhouses in elixirs and pills. While they are fierce rivals, I could not see either of them approving of this. Yet, they do have Grand Maesters that could make the poison." Three leads.

He could work with that.

"All in the same relative place?" Misham shook his head.

"They are 2 different spots but they share a teleportation array between them. That is dead west of here and the limit of this array." Lind nodded. He then summoned several peak grade 7 crystals and beast cores before he began to Forge.

He had reached the end of his ability to repair, now he had to make his own interface.

Both watched in shock as the materials became liquid in his glowing hands before being molded like so much clay into a display and controls that fused to the original artifact!

It lit up instantly and the array activated! He had fixed it!

Lind frowned. It would work, but only once. After that, it would fry again. He was melding 2 different grades of items and processes together. It was not a stable match. Still, it showed he had much to learn.

"Get on. We are leaving." He then stopped and bowed to the piles of sand around them. The other 2 did the same. "They will pay."

The platform lit up and space began to distort until a pop was heard and the village vanished. The last thing Lind saw was the controls bursting apart.

Still, they worked. They abruptly appeared on a much larger platform and found shocked humans and demons working on the controls as the trio materialized.

They had various robes but they all had a symbol emblazoned on them. It was a star and moon surrounded by black. Misham bowed low.

"Esteemed members of Night Stream Guild, I am Misham, former City Lord of Shadow Seal Cove. Is a leader available to talk to? We have rather–" Lind saw it just for a moment. A man behind a demon looked terrified at the name of the cove!

He moved before anyone knew and grasped the man by the throat. His Authority flared like the sun and made even the humans and demons tremble.

[Truth! Do you know where the killers of the village are? You MUST answer!] He felt a chunk of vitality leave him but not as much as he expected. His transmission was not hidden and the group blanched.

The man tried to respond but nothing worked. He realized he could not lie!

[SPEAK NOW!] Another small chunk was gone and the man seemed to start to bleed from his orifices. "A damned Oath!"

His Art of Defiance flared and the restrictions were lifted! The man's eyes went wide in terror as he realized there was no escape. He tried to activate something but it failed!

[SPEAK DAMN YOU!] Lind felt nothing leave him that time as the man began to talk all right.

He admitted to so many sins it was disgusting. He had apparently been bribed by many but he finally got to what Lind wanted.

"All they said was I had to send them to this little village to the east. It was connected to the Sylvan Guild but they had one of them with them! I did not think they would do anything but they paid me a lot to edit the records! The backups too!" His words made the others nearby enraged.

[How did you know they killed?] The question caught all off guard by the man blanched before he began to weep like a baby.

"The–the Oath they made me take. If I broke it, I would have my existence erased! They used poison that made my insides burn until I agreed!" The description matched.

[WHO WERE THEY?!] Several powerful auras were closing in but Lind did not care. All he cared about was the answer.

"They–they were hiding who they were, save the Sylvan Alchemy Guild member, but he didn't come back. I only saw one for sure that I recognized when I gave the Oath. I swear to Heaven and Earth it was Lord Zhu of the Victory Sect!" The final words were followed by the man dying but not by Lind's hands.

He looked back to find a Journeyman Tier with bright red and white robes and a sword emblem on his right breast.

He did not need to be told who he was from. The anger and arrogance was clear.

Good, more answers had arrived.