Chapter 234

  Legend of the Masked Children (IV)

  I'm nervous. I'm anxious. I'm excited. I'm many million things, truth be told, and they all worked perfectly in concert to make me... nauseous.

  Now, it might be because I was standing--or, well, sitting--about a thousand feet up off the ground, on what looked like a rather shabbily built platform that was currently standing suspended midair, looming over the round arena with terraced seating and six martial plateaus where the competition would take place... but it could also be anything else, really.

  I'm surrounded by a heap of people that I could not see through with my eyes, as even the cheapest would cost me around 80 points. Luckily, though, none paid attention to me; old man Gu simply introduced me as a friend and nothing else, and as soon as they saw my cultivation level and learned I'm not even an alchemist, I kind of became a ghost to them.

  Phew.

  Good thing, too.

  The excitement was palpable, even this far up, and the entire arena was packed. Like, holy shit, there had to have been at least twenty thousand people there--an insane sum. Though I'd seen bigger crowds, of course, it did not happen in this world just yet, so seeing just a massive swarm of people slowly stream in... well, it was quite a marvel.

  The conversations around me were dull--so dull, in fact, that I physically had to restrain myself from groaning and sighing. It sounded exactly like what it sounded like to listen to old people back on Earth--except they'd occasionally mention the cultivation of their kids and whatnot. Like the old people back on Earth would mention their grandkids' minor successes in school as though they were foreshadowing the life those kids would likely never get to live.

  Alright, personal trauma aside, I gripped the armrests of the chair tightly and was quite relieved to see Long Tao emerge from the ascending platform. Xi Zhao was with him, but he merely nodded toward me before he headed back down.

  "He's your most ordinary disciple." Lao was seated right beside me, enjoying everything while slowly wolfing down white grapes. "So, how come he's here with us?"

  "He's my first Disciple, so I treat him with a bit more care," I spat out a random lie as Long Tao took a seat beside me. I was still... dubious, let's say, about this entire thing. Drawing eyes on us was stupid--doubly so before the kids have reached another layer of mastery in the Art of Survival. Even if that token was a bit of a shield, that was only when there was public involved.

  We will be hunted down, and though I know that the kids' best chance for growth isn't peace but rather struggle, I... I don't like it.

  "Relax, Master," he said, as though sensing my thoughts. "Your fears are misplaced. Correct, yes, but misplaced."

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  ... what the hell does that even mean?

  No, you know what? I don't even want to know. I'll just trust the fact that he (probably) wants us all to succeed, even if he wants himself to succeed the most.

  Just then, everyone around me suddenly stood up--even Long Tao. I followed mostly by instinct, turning my head to match everyone else.

  Up above us, a figure emerged from the void and slowly descended. They were wearing a strange, almost oriental mask, with swirls and twirls abounding around its gilded edges. The mask appeared to be made out of silver, with a few etchings of gold visible here and there.

  A pair of almost cosmic eyes peered through the two holes, though never toward us--but more so through us. The sheer indifference and apathy were practically visible to the naked eye, manifested as vapors of ashen disregard.

  I'm guessing this is the 'Lady', the city's stately guardian. She looked to be on the shorter end of things, probably not even cracking five-five, yet that hardly diminished the sheer grandeur of her entrance. White robes were aflutter with discordant energies, Qi distorting into plumes of fading, blooming smoke. It was as though they were real and yet not, behaving in ways ordinary cloth could not.

  She landed with one foot, arms behind her back, and finally looked over toward the members of the Holy Lands.

  That was all they got, though.

  Just one look.

  Not a look of recognition, not a look of peerage, no... just one dismissive look, as though she were glancing at some slightly pretty foal.

  She did not look at anyone else...

  ... except for me.

  Ugh. Of course. Of course, she just had to look at me. Just as everyone assumed I was a little nobody, she just had to go and tell them, 'Nah, he's actually more interesting than you. Te~he'.

  Okay, I added the te~he, but there's a good chance she's thought it, too.

  She didn't sit--rather, she stood in front of the rest of us, offset from the platform. That's right, she chose to waste Qi by floating midair just to stand out from the rest of us.

  Damn.

  I'm actually kind of impressed.

  "Odd are the winds," her voice was... well, I'm not actually quite sure how to describe it. Less so than a voice, it was like an entire frekain' surround system. It wasn't so much that she spoke as it was that the world spoke for her, if that makes sense. "Hurried and howling. "Hm," she craned her neck and looked upward, turning northward in the process. "Like a banshee scream of one who had not been hurt in eons... until now."

  Alright.

  Good speech. About what? Hell if I know. But good speech. Sufficiently vague and stupid, but it didn't matter; they all just nodded along as though she said the most profound thing in the entire world.

  ... wait.

  Wait, wait, wait--wait just a goddamn second.

  I whipped my head toward Long Tao, who simply smiled.

  Were they retaliating?! The Sages?! Is that why he had the kids join the competition?! No, no, even he said that we weren't anywhere near strong enough to face the Sages! Shouldn't we have booked it as far out as humanly possible as soon as he realized it?!

  "Uh, Lady..." old woman Zhu broke the silence.

  "Begin the competition," the woman said indifferently, her gaze still glued northward, presumably the direction they were coming from.

  They who? I don't know! Since we're still here, I'm guessing it's not the Sages... or, at least, it's just one, and Long Tao is banking on the woman handling him, while the rest of us take care of, well, the rest of them.

  "Yes, Lady!"

  There were speeches that followed, voices ringing out across the entire arena, yet I remained deaf to them all, my heart wrung in a knot that threatened to press tighter and tighter.

  No.

  It can't go on like this.

  However terrified I may be of him, I can't let the kids' lives be at the mercy of his whims. Regardless if he claims that this is the way they will grow and improve, I don't care. Even if it costs me my life... I'll have to put my foot down, no matter what.

  Not yet, though.

  First?

  First I have to survive whatever hell he invited at our (temporary) doorstep.