Outworld Liberators-Chapter 220: Where Fortune Led the Four

The Radeon Terraces Arena adjusted on its own, folding and dividing until every master and teacher had been placed inside a private room of their own.

Calyx had been given a task. Radeon ordered him to copy the memories of the ghosts feeding the masters’ and teachers’ screens, taking the raw sight as it came.

After that, he was to cut away every failure, every foolish blunder, and every sect secret, along with any clear view of the inheritances won, before the scenes were shown to the wider audience in the arena.

When Calyx asked why, he earned nothing but Radeon’s frown.

That, in Radeon’s eyes, was the old ghost’s weakness. Calyx had skill, but his political sense was thin. If he truly meant to rule ghosts one day, he needed to understand such things without having them spelled out for him.

Three hours after the participants entered the secret realm, the masters and teachers could already feel the pressure weighing on their disciples and students.

Horrors like these did exist in the world, but to see them gathered in such number still stirred the soul in an ugly way.

Even so, these youths were no mortals. They were talented cultivators, and so it was no surprise that not one had been eliminated yet.

"Everyone, your attention please," Eldric said. "I will be sending a small agreement to you all. Worry not, this is not a hostage taking."

That earned wry smiles from the masters and teachers. If Eldric truly wished to hold them hostage, there was little they could do about it.

"This agreement concerns showing your disciples to the general audience. Please read it carefully."

They did. There was nothing offensive in it. Any shameful scenes would be removed. Only brave and heroic actions would be shown.

No private words spoken by their disciples would be heard, and even the inheritances gained inside would remain hidden.

Any display of their naked bodies would be cut as well.

After reading it through more than once, every master and teacher agreed.

It was the simplest choice in the world.

This was reputation. To cultivators, reputation was no small thing.

A cultivator who saved a mortal city in youth might still have his name sung there a thousand years later.

No one foolish enough to understand fame would refuse such an offer.

Once the agreements were signed, the mortals and wandering cultivators were finally allowed into the arena seating.

The plan itself was simple. They would be shown a view delayed by three hours, though there was no need to tell them that.

Even so, the masters and teachers remained tense. Each of them wanted their disciples to appear brave before the million watching eyes, and heroic enough to be remembered after the secret realm was done.

Radeon meant to milk the audience this time as well.

Ticket prices varied by seat. The cheapest cost one spirit stone, while the best views went for ten middle grade spirit stones.

Each seating lasted only six hours. Since the secret realm would not conclude for a full week, there was also an option to buy out a seat entirely.

Even the cheapest seat could be reserved for the whole event at the price of fifty six spirit stones. That was twice the cost of simply buying one six hour ticket after another, but the buyer kept the same seat throughout.

The reason was simple enough. Radeon had noticed long ago that the people of this Samsara Realm had a taste for such spectacles, and more than a taste, a hunger for them.

Since he was doing business, he saw no reason to act like anything less than a proper businessman.

As people paid those exorbitant prices, the participants within the Preta Lurienna Labyrinth wore grim faces.

The disciples quickly realized the truth of the first round. To survive it, they needed to gather.

From those born of super forces to the students of the smallest schools, everyone began sticking together, since none of them could find the companions from their own sects or academies.

Radimir, disciple of the sect master of Netherdemon Sanctum Court, had gathered the largest group.

"Pin the creature with defensive earth walls," Radimir commanded calmly.

It was another elk horror with a man grafted to its head, much like the one Fay and Jenkii had met, though not the same.

Different colored walls of stone rose at once and hemmed it in. Sand and mud sealed its front and back, trapping it where it stood.

"Llong range attacks. Proceed."

Fire, sword arcs, arrows, and elemental spells rained down upon the creature. It wailed in agony, then collapsed.

The disciples moved almost at once. Those with the lowest consumption spread out and formed a defensive perimeter, while in the middle, the ones who had spent the most stood clutching spirit stones and hastily recovering their energy.

A few others, skilled in stripping corpses, went straight to the fallen elk and began checking it for any materials worth taking.

By leading instead of fighting directly, Radimir had not spent a single drop of qi on combat.

His goal was not to seek inheritances here. His goal was to find the door to the second round.

Radimir was not so narrow minded as to be distracted by small gains, and if he had understood correctly, the second layer would offer more stable ground, since entry there no longer depended on stumbling across the right path.

He used his qi to create unique snowflakes that would not melt for a full day, marking every stretch of land he had already crossed. In his sharp mind, a clear map was already taking shape.

Others handled things far less cleanly.

One group, numbering eight disciples, had just cleared an inheritance ground after a brutal fight with three Stitched Butchers, the same kind whose heads Oswin had blasted apart earlier.

Their ruined flesh still sizzled off to the side, filling the air with the smell of scorched meat and old blood. Yet when the dust settled and the reward was uncovered, there were only three portions of pills.

"I am the son of a Supreme Elder of Summer Flame Sect. Give me some face. I only need one pill," the first youth said at once.

The others did not look persuaded.

"I am a distant niece of an Inner Elder of the Hemal Tithe Cult," another claimed.

A girl barked back before the lie had even settled.

"How shameless can you be? I have not seen a single blood technique from you. How are you from the cult?"

Then another disciple, mischief bright in his eyes.

"I am God Eldric’s grandson. Give my grandfather some face."

That was the end of it.

Sword lights flashed. Qi arts burst loose. Weapons swung with all the restraint of panicked animals.

A moment earlier they had fought together with clean coordination. Now treasure had split that teamwork apart like rotten wood under an axe.

The most peaceful group, oddly enough, was the one that might well have been the strongest.

Fay, Oswin, Jenkii, and Jackson had just brought down another lesser structure, a thing that had disguised itself as a house.

Jenkii thumped the two large boxes she had been carrying and looked at the others.

"What do we do with this? Should I split it open?"

"No, no. Let me check it first," Oswin said.

A small torch sprang from his fingers and began cutting an opening into the box.

Jackson watched with open surprise. He could feel no qi from the flame at all. Even Jenkii stared, plainly amazed and not at all certain how the man before her was doing it.

Soon Oswin pried the thing open. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The first box held a leather mask. The second contained a soft crystal the color of wet mud.

Oswin recognized it at once as a rare flux, the sort best suited for crafting delicate artifacts.

The mask looked crude, little more than a cut of leather with rough holes in it, and Jenkii thought she might as well bring it home for later use.

She snatched it up and put it on as a joke. The moment she did, her face twisted and reshaped into something horrific, turning her into a zombie version of herself.

Jackson checked the crystal, raised a brow, then lost interest and passed it to Fay.

"Let the diviner have both," he said, pointing at Oswin.

No one objected.

Jackson was not well versed in divination himself, though his master had forced enough books on him that he knew the broad shape of it. Because of that, he asked the question at once.

"What logic are you applying in your divination? I think it would be best if you locate the door to the second area, no?"

Oswin already knew he could not reveal Fay’s strange luck, so he answered with care.

"I am using luck as the foundation, then following the concept of fortune," Oswin said.

Jackson nodded. That sounded reasonable enough. More importantly, it was not the sort of divination that would drain a man dry, so he let the matter rest.

Then Oswin took Fay by the shoulders and started spinning her in place.

The sight was ridiculous. There was no helping that.

When she finally stopped, Oswin pulled out a pendulum and began putting on the appearance of a proper divination, even letting qi leak from him so Jackson and Jenkii would believe it.

Soon enough, they set off in the direction Fay had pointed.

Not long after, they spotted cultivators fighting in the distance.

At once, the four of them slipped behind a rock and lowered their presence. It was the same group battling over the three pills.

While the others watched, Oswin used his mirror spray and quietly stole the pill bottle they had set aside on a tree for the eventual victor of their struggle.

Then they slipped away from the fighting and followed the direction Fay pointed.

After an hour of controlled running, they had met only a handful of creatures and not a single disciple.

The land began to rise beneath their feet, and before long they came upon a bank of fog so thick it looked poured there by hand.

All of them knew at once that this was no natural mist. It was an array.

"Let me try it," Oswin said.

A thin rod slid out from his middle finger and extended slowly, growing until it reached nearly ten meters. Through its tip, Oswin could see and feel what lay ahead.

He moved it with care, probing the fog, searching for the hidden nodes of the formation.

The others waited in silence while he worked.

After more than a dozen minutes, Oswin finally turned to Jackson.

"You can cast long range spells, right?" Oswin asked.

Jackson nodded at once.

Oswin raised one hand, and a thin line of light shone from his finger. It held no force, only a mark to guide the strike.

"I only need it as thin as a toothpick at thirty meters. Can you do that?"

Jackson nodded again. He understood at once. They were aiming for one of the array’s sensitive points.

He bit down on a dried cube of blood, his own, prepared beforehand, then followed the line of light with sharp focus.

When he spat, the blood shot forward in a tiny streak. A small pop answered from within the fog, followed by a hiss. Jackson had struck the node exactly.

At once, the fog thinned by a few degrees.

"Jenkii, can you spin in the direction I point?" Oswin asked.

By then, Jenkii already thought the man was incredible, so she obeyed without question.

Oswin shifted the light ahead, and Jenkii spun forward, carving the path open. Thirty meters in, the shape before them finally revealed itself.

It was no common structure.

An enormous pyramid stood hidden within the fog.

Oswin remained in the back while Fay and Jackson looked around.

Jenkii, however, stayed close to him, plainly impressed by what Oswin could do.

It was the first time she had ever seen a cultivator like this, a man with all manner of strange things hidden in his own body, tools and tricks appearing from him as if he were some walking treasury.

She stayed close enough behind him that Oswin could feel her breath at his back. He nearly turned to complain, then caught the open innocence in her curiosity and swallowed the words.

After the proper spirit connection was restored, the array flowed again and the fog thickened back to what it had been before.

No one complained about the delay. This was their fortune, and none of them were saints eager to share it.

More than that, a diviner’s path was built on glimpsing the future and deducing what might come to pass, so to Jackson and Jenkii, Oswin’s actions felt perfectly natural.

Then Oswin raised the bottle of pills he had stolen.

"You three should consume these first," he said.