Chapter 294

  Moonlake City (VIII)

  Over the three following days, I honestly felt like I was living right next to an airport--at any time of day or night, there'd be whizzing sounds shooting above us as yet another 'more important than anyone else' figure appeared in the city.

  It was borderline abuse, though the abuse came with the realization that I couldn't take my morning walks anymore--there were far too many fucking people. It was like being a sardine and being shoved into a tiny can.

  As such, we mostly stayed in the house, cultivating, eating, and chatting.

  I haven't really spoken with the old woman since I handed her the art, though I occasionally felt her eyes on me just a touch too long.

  Just as we were preparing to enjoy a nice, hearty meal--something I'm realizing I don't know how I'll live without going forward--the ground shook as a ballast of Qi swept through the surroundings.

  It was beginning to feel like an earthquake before abruptly stopping; I don't know who stopped it, but we all stood up and left the house, peeking out to see what happened.

  About four hundred yards south of us, just next to the lake, we saw two figures doused in a myriad of Qi storms floating about a hundred yards up, screaming at each other. The only reason I knew they were screaming was because I could just barely discern their expressions through the stormy haze of Qi, and oh boy were they angry.

  A mere breath later, the storms collided--winds swept up as the rooftops started rattling, though, by some miracle, none were uprooted. Jets of water from the lake shot up, aroused by the blasting of Qi, and the two men started unleashing an assortment of arts.

  One on the left seemed to be using weapon arts--saber primarily, from what I could discern; the attacks were slow and deliberate but also destructive. On the opposite end, the other man used dagger arts--he did not so much cause the wind as he moved with it, bobbing and weaving between the destructive attacks the best he could.

  They were both around the peak of the Revolving Core Realm, as evidenced by the fact that I could occasionally catch a glimpse of a spinning halo when they would commit to a greater attack.

  I learned about this phenomenon a bit--the lesser the 'quality' of the core, the more visible it tends to be without special arts to hide it while fighting. As the system rewarded me with what I think might be one of the highest-quality cores, I've never actually seen it 'appear' when fighting or using arts.

  I very much doubt people will outright assume I have a super rare core and will just assume I have some secret art to hide it.

  The most shocking thing remained just how little the city was affected--sure, there were some trees that were ripped out from the outskirts, and the city received a nice, deep clean from the lake water, but none of the buildings were so much as chipped, let alone destroyed.

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  "The fun bit," Lao Shun said. "Is that nobody really knows why this is the case."

  "Hm?" I looked over at him. "It's not a high-tier array?"

  "It might be," he shrugged. "But if it is, it's one so high-tier that nobody has been able to locate it in thousands of years. It's been here as far as the records go; whatever is built within the specific limit is protected from most external factors."

  "What are the limits?"

  "What you're seeing right now," he said. "Anything outside this specific layout is not protected and gets destroyed."

  Well, you learn new things every day.

  I turned toward Long Tao, but all I got was a shrug--but it wasn't a knowing shrug.

  ... he didn't know either.

  Hm.

  Okay.

  That's actually a bit worrying.

  If he doesn't know, either it's so inconsequential it's not worth knowing, or...

  Yeah.

  Best not to think about it.

  The battle slowly began to wind down; the dagger-wielding guy clearly had the upper hand for most of the fight, slowly chipping away at the other one by never letting himself get hit and inflicting smaller but stacking wounds.

  And then he got hit.

  Blood splashed out like a fountain; his entire body was literally decimated into thousands of tiny pieces. It rained red, chunks of flesh and organs coating the rooftops.

  Before I could see more of it, however, something happened--something I very much expected to happen.

  Darkness covered my view as a tiny pair of hands--nope, those were four tiny hands--combated to cover my eyes.

  Light and Xing Feng were now in competition, though the two settled on cooperation a moment later, with each taking up protecting one of my eyes. I could hear stifled laughter from the back and could only crane my neck toward the sky and sigh.

  "I'm okay," I said.

  "No, Master!" Xing Feng said. "There's still chunks flying! You will get sick if you see more of it!"

  "Yes, yes! Good job, Feng'er!" Dai Xiu proclaimed, even clapping.

  "He he~" he chuckled shyly, and I sighed yet again as Rayce, I think, coughed.

  Yeah, sure, buddy. You haven't coughed in months, but a sudden burst of mucus in your throat just happens to come up today.

  "Okay, they've cleaned it up! You can look now, Master."

  As I opened my eyes, they came in direct contact with the old woman--she was looking at me oddly, with a mixture of pity, bemusement, and even a tinge of awe... for some reason.

  I smiled, and she smiled back, and I turned around.

  Just as I did, the world shook yet again--and then once more. At either side of the city, though outside its confines, two fights broke out, with the one on the northern side shaking the world up far more.

  I frowned, as the energy was quite... overwhelming. They were both at least two major realms above me, and that's being conservative with the estimate.

  "It's those two again," Lao Shun sighed.

  "You know them?"

  "Everybody knows them," he shrugged. "They used to be sworn brothers back in the day, then they fell in love with the same woman, and, well... they've been trying to decide who 'deserves her' by fighting ever since."

  "... wow."

  "She got married about eight hundred years ago to someone else entirely," he continued. "Nobody's even sure what they're fighting for any longer..."

  "I hope it's not pride," I commented. "That would be rather depressing."

  Just then, a horn suddenly blew up--it was deep and droning, so deep, in fact, that it rattled around inside my head and confused me for a moment. A clear energy, though, immediately burst forth from my dantian and swept that confusion right out.

  I immediately noticed, however, that most others weren't like that--the kids were fine, but even Lao Shun was frowning and seemed slightly out of sorts.

  All the fighting stopped, at least, and a voice spoke up, echoing throughout the entire city.

  "Come to the plaza," it said. "The assembly begins."