The man on top of the winged horse once again shouted, "Hear Ye Hear ye! And listen to his decree!" he said.
From where we were, we could see many cultivators prostrating themselves to the man holding a golden scroll that seemed to exude a powerful bloodthirsty aura from it, capable of forcing anyone to their knees if they dare look at it.
Mental coercion from what I could feel, but it had little to no effect on me, nor did it affect Shen Fu.
"His lordship the Red Sun has decreed that They have sensed the intrusion of foreign powers within their lands, they ordered us to seek and hunt them down. Anyone who gives us clues about their whereabouts shall be rewarded with an outer discipleship at the Red Sun Sect. Anyone who catches or assists in catching the intruders shall be rewarded with an inner Sect discipleship at the Red Sun Sect. The intruders are said to be…"
And the herald proceeded in giving a detailed description of me and old man Fu.
The both of us looked at each other and turned to the Queen of the Ant Cave.
"I guess I'll be taking you up on your offer," I replied.
She frowned, "Didn't you say that you didn't have enough reasons to go to the Sea of Demons?"
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Yeah, but in case you didn't notice, we're now wanted by the Red Sun. I'd rather get whatever you want from that auction house for now, and obtain the protection you promised," I replied shrugging.
"Fair enough, do you need escorts?" she asked.
I shook my head, "No, me and brother Fu are enough, escorts will slow us down and like you just saw, might even betray us for that discipleship."
"Hold," spoke Shen Fu. "I sense eyes on us."
"I assume the people from the market earlier had identified the both of you, you need to leave now," she said as she pulled a map from inside her chest.
"How many things do you have hidden there," I mumbled.
"More than you would like to know," she replied in a sly grin.
The map was warm to the touch, but that wasn't something I should be thinking of right now. I looked at it memorized its content then nodded at her, "We'll need to head inside the Ant Cave I suppose," I said.
"That's the only way for you to avoid the eyes of the herald and the people here. If you follow the directions of the map you'll find yourselves outside the territory of the Red Sun. You'll need to proceed further north to enter the Sea of Demons, it's not a short journey by the way," she said.
The two of us then hurried out just as we heard the sound of the main palace door being broken down. A mob of people seemed to have entered the palace wanting to capture us, but thanks to the map and a couple secret tunnels inside the palace we were easily able to go into the Ant Cave.
The Ant Cave, like its name says, was a bunch of cave systems with almost infinite number of holes, entering one without a map would probably get you lost nine out of ten times. The Map was thankfully detailed enough allowing the both of us to find the path we need to go through.
Several powerful Divine Senses began spreading through the cave. And only then did I realize why this whole Ant Cave area was a place where not many cultivators used Divine Sense.
Something within the caves, maybe it's the formation itself or the structure was greatly disturbing Divine Sense, making it bounce and reflect against every wall. Receiving information back from one's Divine Sense was like trying to decipher a programming code without any tools. It was straight up confusion.
No wonder this place was a hub for the low lives of the region, anyone could come here and find a tunnel to hide in. And no matter how hard people try, unless they physically come and search every nook and cranny of this Ant Cave they won't be able to find them.
"Keep going forward, two hundred more miles we take the tenth tunnel from the left," I said
The two hundred miles was nothing to cultivators our level, it was barely two breath worth of time before we crossed it, and in that distance, we passed hundreds of thousand more tunnels. Making it even more difficult for our pursuers to find us.
Once we entered a new set of tunnels, we couldn't even perceive Divine Sense from anyone following us so we managed to escape as it appears.
"Why did you accept her request?" asked Shen Fu, "I thought for sure you would just take the request and ignore it after we're escaping, but you're following the map to a tee." He said.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Because I think I know the Laughing Slaughterer," I said.
Shen Fu frowned, "You mean, you, a person from the Vast Expanse, know one of the Eight Suns of the Beyond? How?" he said.
"I also am familiar with the Lord of Lords, and have a tool from the Wisest Sun," I grinned as we moved forward. "But to be honest, I never expected the Laughing Slaughterer to be one of the Eight Suns, the Red Sun nevertheless," I said.
"I find it hard for me to take that information in, not one, not two, but familiar with three of the Eight Suns… And you mentioned that you saw the arm of the Darkest Sun, that is not something the majority of the people in the Beyond could say they had achieved," he said as he entered the next cavern I pointed to.
The two of us continued blazing through the caves as fast as possible while discussing. "The Laughing Slaughterer had left an item of his in my home planet, I have no idea how it came to exist there, but it was there and I found it, call it fate. And now it's back to the Beyond," I said.
"Then if you have an item of his, why not just present it to him directly or to someone of power who'll do it for you?" he asked.
I shook my head, "The moment we show our faces, the people of power, someone like the Herald will either have our heads, or will take our belongings, we're currently 'spies' in the Beyond, and unless we finish the Ant Queen's request and obtain the temporary immunity of the Red Sun, we can't approach the Laughing Slaughterer."
"Then what are we going to do when we reach the Sea of Demons, she never told us what she wanted from the auction house or anything," he said.
"She already shared what she wanted, it was a painting of sorts, the details are within the map, for now we'll need to leave the Ant Caves first, once we're out of the Red Sun territory we'll think up of ways to finish up this request." I replied
Right now we're in unfamiliar lands, so we need to be very careful right now, we have little knowledge about the Beyond, and what's a better place to get information from than a cesspool of degenerate people who have nothing to lose.