BUTTERFLIES (Arc 2&3; The Undefeatable Class 192)

Chapter 85: The New God of Stealth

Slowly, my consciousness returned to me. Thoughts began to formulate.

  I dropped my arms which had been balanced all along, chest-length, then stood up.

  Sounds of bones cracking followed my ascension. I gasped in shock. I could tell my body had undergone some tampering, but I was yet to notice the actual changes. Right now, all I wanted to do was to get out from here.

  'Eye of Insight!'

  I quickly looked about myself and found the Dragon-clawed Hartebeest lying in an isolated corner unconscious. I waved my hand casually and it disappeared into my recluse ring. Nodding, I said, "How do I get out of here?"

  The door was some metres away from me. The moment I took a step, I could not believe my body's instinctive surreptitiousness!

  'Swoosh!'

  My movement was almost akin to teleportation. There wasn't a single sound made. It wasn't too fast, in truth, but the way I couldn't even notice my own movement made it seem abnormal.

  That must have been the first stage of the Way of Stealth! The Untraceable stage!

  A smile crept upon my face as I let out my spiritual consciousness to feel the surrounding. It brushed across the whole horizon. I couldn't tell if it was day or night due to the fact that I was just a Meditation realm cultivator. However, I could still feel slight changes in elements outside. Then... movements outside! The air ripples showed that the movements were just few metres away from the cave's mouth. There was no one in the cave itself, but I could feel hidden presence outside the cave. I couldn't remember having this ability so vivid in my spiritual concentration.

  I chuckled, before walking to the face of the closed entrance. Subconsciously, I let out an aura that was hidden within my spiritual world. It sensed very much like that of Stealth God Wulin's, and the secret door opened up, surprisingly, without my even raising of finger. The moment it opened, I unreined my aura and depended completely on my Untraceable movement to blend with the shadows.

  "I hear something within! Quick! Get into formation!" I heard someone order in alarm, from outside. How I heard it was still a mystery. It seemed my senses had sharpened a bit.

  My eyes immediately locked with the golden ring on the boulder of the outer region of the cave while I swooshed out.

  'As the new Stealth God, wasn't this mine now?'

  As if in resonance with my mind, the ring shook a bit, as though unburying itself from the boulder's grasp. It immediately shot into the mid-air and dashed towards me. Still puzzled, I didn't flinch. This was because, I couldn't sense any killing intent from it towards me, like I'd felt exuding previously from it. It circled over the fingers of my right hand. It didn't stay with my storage and recluse rings which were seated on my forefinger. No. It simply slipped over my little finger.

  When I was thinking something extraordinarily would happen next, nothing actually changed. It didn't shoot out a terrifying aura to help me kill the bad guys or something. It just lay peacefully on my little finger as though the spot had always been its. Funny as it may sound, the ring felt to me like a baby. I immediately struck my chest with my right fist. Blood welled around my mouth. I spat the blood on the ring and the ring shone and shook, as though to show its joy and approval. The ring was finally mine. It immediately blended with my finger and turned invisible, as though there never was any ring sitting there. It was as if my finger had absorbed it. However, with my true essence within me, I could still sense that the ring was still there.

  Time was running out. I didn't have the time to check the contents of the ring, but quickly dashed outside.

  "There! Get her!"

  On swooshing outside really quickly, I passed through some men holding fiery torches. Amazingly, it was nighttime! I didn't even have the time to exchange "pleasantries" as I made my way out of the forest at top speed.

  'You're fools to think you could catch me.'

  The men quickly flashed the torch over the ground and stared hard, I could sense with my spiritual consciousness as I hid on a tree branch some 200 metres away in the blossom of the night's shade.

  "Huhn? No foot prints? What kind of movement technique was that?"

  In truth, it was a blend of United Heavens Movement Technique and Untraceable. My mastery over the former was already above novice, so the blend with the latter made it quite wonderful.

  The men began to spread themselves and chase quickly. They were all cultivators with unimpressive bases. Who they were and why they were searching for me, however, was still the mystery.

  "Leader, I can't find any trace of true essence fluctuation from here!"

  "Not over this region too!"

  "Not here too!"

  "Could it have been an illusion? Quick, back to the cave, it's an aversion!"

  I sighed on hearing the leader's order. They probably thought I was formidable enough to send forth a feint. Well... who cares? It's to my advantage, anyway.

  I used my Meditation realm cultivation to guide me out from the inner forest. I dashed out without turning back for even a second. Really... this Class 192's uniform was the best and most fitting for sneaking off detection!

  In no time, I found Queen.

  I observed her and was happy she'd not been hurt. She explained that I had been gone for three days, and I myself simply nodded. The moment I'd let out my cultivation base, back then, I'd clearly sensed the time passage in the night sky. Three whole days had passed. Didn't that mean the total time I'd spent away from the academy so far was two weeks and five days?! That was really horrible!

  'Gidiya, girl!'

* * *

On a tree...

  "Haha! Dongwu, Buneng! She really did it! She's comprehended stealth!"

  The three silhouettes were positioned right over the tree where the young girl had just taken the horse from and saddled away.

  "Calm down, Xiezi. Keep your ecstasy in order. This would be the JAG's little secret. When we return, tell Haggz we've accepted his request. These children are growing rapidly incredible! I'm sure from now, our threats this time on GCA has doubled more than in the previous decades. Hahaha!"

  "Hmm... Dongwu. You're right. Do you think we should clear the mess those fellows are doing inside there?"

  "Haha, Buneng, you don't need to shed any blood. We all know they're from GCA. Let them make their searches. If we appear, they'll believe we showed up. And they can't venture too far in the Dragon-clawed Hartebeest's cave either... you and I know about the legendary will inside there. The aura from that old man's bones are enough to do all the killing if they eventually crossed their boundaries."

  The three exchanged childish smiles which none could ever see in the academy. Xiezi created a portal and all three silhouettes swooshed into it and vanished as though they'd never been there moments ago.

  Their waiting had not been for naught, now they could finally catch a breather.