PtM Book 14 - Chapter 28: Adventures in the Void (3)

Chapter 2/3 this week!

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Travelling in the strange jungle got much harder after his theft and harassment of the Paper Tiger Clan patrol unit. What he’d initially thought to be a small group of Paper Tiger Clansmen turned out to be an army, which included even a few middle fusion realm elders strong enough to serve as the backbone of their own kingdoms on the Inkwell Plane.

It was clear that they were up to something, but Huxian couldn’t worry about that. Instead, his priority was survival. He needed to find a way out while evading their detection.

A pulse of fusion-realm energy swept across the jungle just as Huxian was bemoaning his terrible luck. He’d healed from the wounds he’d sustained stealing the five-cycle chrysanthemum, recovered his blood essence, and even strengthened his bloodline slightly thanks to the blood essence he’d devoured. His main losses were in terms of materials goods, which included the time-based armor upgrade core, which had shattered, and half his supply of voidbane dust.

Unfortunately, his wounds made him an easy target to the other creatures in the jungle. He was forced to use his dwindling consumables to escape.  In the end, he was left with the following items to work with:

Night unlimited rations in the form of demon cores, and a variety of natural treasures that could be used for recovery in a pinch. The five-cycle chrysanthemum, which he could use as a deadly poison if he had to. He really regretted not taking the lunar true water, since that would have been a great poison, but it was no use crying over spilt milk. Negative thinking was a liability.

Huxian still had four bags of voidbane powder, which could be used to disable lesser void techniques and traps and irritate the senses of just about any void-aligned creature. He had two blast fruits remaining in their own spacetime capsules, which, in the right circumstances, could be downright lethal. He only had eight voidbane spikes remaining, which he could use in conjunction with an eight trigrams formation if he had to.

Anything else Huxian carried was largely useless in this place. Most mundane goods were too weak to affect the general situation, and his most powerful measures were ill-suited to fighting with the Paper Tiger Clan or void creatures in general.

Huxian’s abilities were not very useful here. He wasn’t skilled enough in teleportation to teleport in the void, and any inherited abilities he had were very weak because of his lack of control over his primordial god beast bloodline. Xiao Bai’s words had been painful but correct. There were consequences to telling his ancestor to shove it.

You could have just swallowed your pride and apologized, and he probably would have forgiven you, Huxian told himself. But No, you just had to be prideful and stubborn.

Now what do we have to show for it? Clones that can’t superimpose? Lackluster void breaking techniques? Amateurish void manipulation that can at most make fox burrows so you can hide like a coward?

He was actually proud of that last one. A small-scale spatial maze that twisted his surroundings to the point that even creatures five ranks higher than him couldn’t spot him was a work of art. Even his ancestor couldn’t do that. Unfortunately, without his inheritance, he lacked offensive capabilities, speed boosting abilities, and vitality boosting abilities, among other things. If I make it out of here, maybe I’ll try to reconcile, he thought. Then again, who was he kidding? He hated his old man. A little less though, because his idea had saved Mr. Mountain.

Huxian waited for the inevitable second sweep of fusion realm senses before continuing his slow, tortuous movements through the dangerous jungle. He didn’t even think about stealing, plundering, or picking treasures, or even sniping off the lesser tiger clansmen turning the jungle upside down to find him and the flower he’d taken. Perhaps the chase would lighten up if the flower happened to pop up in a box near a patrol, but that flower was important to Gua, and he wasn’t giving it up. Because that’s what friends did for each other.

Several hours passed before he forced himself to stop, hid from the two sweeps of fusion-realm senses, then continued. This time, he only travelled for about an hour before he spotted an anomaly: A cluster of Paper Tiger Clansmen had formed a small encampment not far away. He would normally avoid such gatherings if it wasn’t for the goods they were transporting. Or rather, the demons.

“Inkwell Clan?” Huxian muttered. There were a dozen of them, easily identifiable by their inky black hair and the black runes that ran down one side of their face. All of them were in their human forms and had their demonic qi restricted thanks to a pair of manacles that tied both their hands and their feet.

It was surprising to see them here, as he’d heard they were all but extinct. These demons had all reached the investiture realm, and their leader, a pale but fierce looking woman covered in bruises, had reached the peak of the investiture and was bordering on the fusion realm. She was young. Not much older than forty or fifty.

Huxian agonized for a bit before deciding to edge closer to the encampment. Knowledge was power, and maybe those demons were his ticket out of here.

The leader of the group of twenty Paper Tiger Clansmen was a strong initial fusion realm demon. Approaching them undetected was a cakewalk. He made slow progress towards the camp, prioritizing stealth over speed via his fox burrow technique. He laid down a thicker tunnel network this time, and even built in several escape tunnels in case they were needed.

A few hours later, he finished the last of the network before edging closer to the encampment with his main burrow. “I’m telling you, they’re not worth the trouble of carrying,” one of the Paper Tiger Clansmen said. “They never give in, no matter how hard we try.”

“Perhaps not this time,” the fusion-realm paper tiger said. “But give it a few years, they will grow more desperate, and then they will cave. Who knows, we could get lucky with this batch. You know just as well as I that their ancestral knowledge contains one of the keys we require. Besides, it’s not like we’ve never succeeded. How else would we have secured the last two parts of Raging Waves of the Inky Sea?”

Another paper tiger clansmen rolled his eyes. “There’s no way they gave that up willingly. A high-level clansman probably just copied it.”

“Perhaps,” the fusion-realm tiger said. “Well? You’ve been listening in. Have you decided already?”

Huxian’s heart caught in this throat. He’d been careful. How had he been caught?

He only relaxed when one of the prisoners spoke. “We’ll never surrender to the Paper Tiger Clan. None of us have ever turned, and none of us ever will. You might as well consume us for our bloodlines and be done with it.”

The fusion-realm tiger clansman chuckled. “Still so stubborn. We’ll see how much backbone you can show after you’ve spent a few weeks in our main encampment and we’ve had our fun with you.”

The inkwell clanswoman gave the paper tiger clansman a venomous look. “Why are all of you the same? Always destroying instead of creating, stealing instead of putting in effort.”

“We’re quite hard working, actually, as you well know,” the fusion-realm clansman said. “We’ve been widening this void fissure for only a few centuries, and the damage is already leaking over into the plane and weakening the plane’s will.

“In the end, it really doesn’t matter if you submit or not. We’ll have your bloodline and your inheritance either way, and we’ll destroy whatever remains of the Inkwell Ancestor. This world will break apart, and our ancestor will be able to directly descend and gather our people before devouring everything else.” The inkwell clanswoman began to cackle madly. “What’s so funny?”

She winced painfully and caught her breath before replying. “You all think your ancestor will some and save you from this world that hates you, but in the end, you’re just like us. We’re orphans because our mother died, and you’re just as orphaned as we are, because you’re just remnants of remnants your heartless ancestor doesn’t care about. He stole our ancestor’s secrets long ago when he devoured her then left to do something else. You’re all just wishing for something that will never happen.”

“You dare say such heresy?” the fusion-realm demon said coldly. Huxian heard a slapping sound, then the sound of breaking bones.

“Elder, you shouldn’t beat her so badly,” one of the paper tiger clansmen said. “The young master was quite clear that he didn’t want damaged goods, and only the best materials would be acceptable.”

The elder harumphed. “Fine. Consider yourself lucky, woman. You have a few days left at most to change your mind and give up your bloodline and knowledge willingly. Only then will your life be spared. Only then will you gain some semblance of mercy.”

The camp of tiger clansmen continued as normal and began preparing food, conversing, drinking, and whatever it was that tiger demons did. Huxian hadn’t gotten a good glimpse of everyone involved, or the situation since the fusion-realm demon was agitated, so he took advantage of their decreased awareness post-outburst to take stock of the camp and the prison.

The camp was well laid out, with scouts in all the right places. The tiger clan’s eyesight was quite good, so the moment he made a mistake, he would definitely be spotted.

The prison containing the Inkwell Clansmen was in a well-guarded portion of the camp but not directly in the center. That was where the fire was, and the cooking took place.

The small bonfire they’d built crackled with the occasional gray void spark, and the flame had a slightly gray tinge. Huxian attributed that strangeness to the void fragments present in the wood they were burning. Most of the materials and tools they used were built from materials that could be obtained in this hybrid realm, as anything else would deteriorate extremely quickly due to void or material realm pollution.

Most of their clothes were fashioned from furs or leathers obtained from the plentiful hybrid void beasts roaming the jungle. The rope they used was weaved from void hemp that they’d evidently cultivated in large quantities given how much they were using.

The prison cell was built out of a same void-based material. Thick bars of void-contaminated metal ran vertically to connect two six-inch-thick plates of pure metal above and below them. These bars were inscribed with runes that formed a void prison. It was evident that the prison wasn’t built to contain the Inkwell Clansmen but premium void beasts instead. They were improvising. Therein lay the possibilities.

Maybe they can point the way out of here if I save them, Huxian thought. Assuming it was even possible in the first place. He wasn’t one to take unnecessary risks, so he extended his fox burrow until it lay directly beneath said prison before piercing the void and sending a mental message to the leader of their group.

Stay still. Remain quiet. Don’t give me away. If you do, I’m leaving, and you’ll never get out of here.

The inkwell clanswoman didn’t stir. She simply blinked, looked around briefly, then replied tentatively. Can you hear me?

Yes, Huxian said. I’ve pierced this void cage to facilitate communication. It’s not enough to escape, but enough for us to converse silently.

I don’t know what to say, the Inkwell Clanswoman said. Out situation is quite dire. My name is Darkmoon, and I am obviously from the Inkwell Clan. Can I know which senior I am speaking to?

Not a senior at all, Huxian said. Call me Eight Directions, Darkmoon. I happened to be passing by and saw your predicament. Who could have guessed that the Paper Tiger Clan has been here all along, destroying the Inkwell Plane piece by piece from the void. Everyone wondered why the Inkwell Clan vanished. They thought you’d died out, but you clearly migrated to the void in order to fight your enemies.

As much as I’d love to explain our clan history, our time is rather limited, Darkmoon said. I suggest you get to your business.

Hm. Yes. I suppose that’s best, Huxian said. I can help you escape and temporarily cover your tracks. I can buy us five minutes of covert travel at best, after which they’ll be able to discover our location thanks to the middle fusion realm experts periodically scanning the jungle.

In your opinion, is this enough of a window to make contact with helpers and escape, or am I wasting my time? Alternatively, I could try finding your seniors and pass on information about your predicament.

Darkmoon thought for a moment before answering. You give us too little credit. It won’t be a problem to evade capture for two hull hours if you can free us. I’ve done a lot of this sort of running, so I have confidence.

Is that enough? Huxian said. Like I said, I’d hate to expose my position. I’m a bit of a fugitive as it is, and I’d be relying on you to make my escape.

So that’s how it is, Darkmoon replied. You’re caught in their net and would like to make a joint escape.

Quite right, Huxian said. That being said, I’m confident in being able to escape eventually, so I’m really just doing you a favor and hoping it pays off.

If you can get us out of here and break our manacles right away, I believe we can make our escape, Darkmoon said.

That’s all I wanted to hear, Huxian said. Get ready.

Huxian had been preparing a formation all this time. It wasn’t a very good formation, and it drew on the eight trigrams, but Huxian only had access to six of its supporting elements thanks to his friend and the BFF Circle. The key to this operation was the voidbane spikes he’d refined. They could be used to slay void creatures, but their best usage was in breaking barriers.

It took him about a minute to finalize the formation, after which he formed a few hand seals and poured the power of space and time into the formation. The voidbane spikes shot into the metal, and even though he tried dampening the impact, they still let out a soft thunk. The guards keeping watch on the captives flashed a light across the cage to make sure everything was all right. Then, finding nothing, he returned to the book he was reading.

The voidbane spikes were extremely effective against the void elements in the cage’s metal. A few flicks of his wrist had the spikes moving in a circular motion, cutting through the metal as though it were butter. He removed the circular plate and dropped it into his fox burrow, then used a spacetime folding technique to create a realistic illusion for the jailors before hopping into the cage.

The Inkwell Clansmen had been warned, so they made not a sound. Huxian darted over to their leader and used his demon weapon to cut apart the manacles binding her hands and feet. He then flashed over to each of them, cut them lose, and ushered them into the fox burrow.

Within seconds, the cage was empty. Maintaining a convincing illusion for long was difficult, but Huxian split off as many incarnations as there were prisoners and had them assume disguises. He also covered up the hole at the center of the cage.

“Let’s go!” Huxian said, popping back into the fox burrow. The group of prisoners ran as quickly as they could using the tiny tunnel system. They emerged a few hundred meters out of the camp. “I hope you have a way to move everyone,” he said to Darkmoon.

“Not a problem,” Darkmoon said. She formed a few hand seals and coughed up a glob of black and silver blood essence before activating a technique. The inky energy and void energy of the hybrid realm converged on their location, and a black and silver ship appeared out of nowhere.

The inkwell clansmen were clearly familiar with this vessel, because they immediately hopped onto it and assumed their positions. “Get on!” she hissed. Huxian did so, then proceeded to gape as the ship flew away with remarkable speed.

“I can’t believe you can use the energy here so efficiently,” Huxian commented as he observed their surroundings. The trees were parting like ocean waves, and they didn’t have to perform many evasive maneuvers.

“It’s not a common skill,” Darkmoon said. “Most of my clansmen can’t manage this, and those that can are in the second or third generation.”

“You mean…”

“That’s right,” Darkmoon said. She flicked out a droplet of black blood at Huxian, who dissected it to confirm his guess.

“The Paper Tiger Clan came here because they are suppressed on the Inkwell Plane,” Huxian said. “To fight them. you moved your entire clan here to adapt the Inkwell Bloodline to the void so that you could better use this hybrid space. The Paper Tiger Clan’s has also adapted to the void, but their bloodline is still incompatible with the Inkwell Plane, and so you still maintain your edge.”

“That’s right,” Darkmoon confirmed. “Hang on, they’ve spotted us, so we might as well send up a signal flare.” She raised her hand and shot a blast of inky silver through the foliage and into the void ‘sky’. “Now it’s only a matter of lasting until reinforcements arrive. Oh crap.” A pair of ships appeared on their left side and began shooting weapons powered with void energy. “Adopt evasive maneuvers and return fire!”

The Inkwell Clansmen immediately activated their bloodline abilities to manifest weapons that fused with the ship. These clansmen were weaker than Darkmoon by a few ranks, but like her, their bloodlines had adapted to void energy. They summoned harpoon cannons as demon weapons and used the element of surprise to down one of the pursuing ships.

Several smaller vessels appeared. They resembled a cross between a ship and motorcycle and could only accommodate a pair of passengers.

Fusion-realm Paper Tiger Clansmen had also appeared. They immediately fused with their manifestations, appearing as giant stripeless tigers wearing paper-thin demon armor. Huxian was not fooled by this deceptive fragility, as he could tell that not only was the armor strong, but it could also be manipulated at will.

“Hang on,” Darkmoon said. “We’ve got a ship closing in on our right side. My clansmen can’t take care of it. I’ll need you to lend a hand.”

Huxian didn’t immediately see what she meant, as things were moving too quickly. A ship suddenly pulled up beside them and stopped only a few feet away. It latched onto their ship with grappling hooks before he could even react.

Huxian didn’t know the best way to deal with such an attack, but quickest was best in his books. He threw out his demon weapon in Shuriken form and used it to shear through the grappling hooks. The ship fell away but maintained its position on their right side. “Um, any weakness I should know about?”

Darkmoon shot him a peeved glance. “Their hulls are made of void alloy, which allows them to move unhindered. Pierce that and they’ll fall behind.”

“Gotcha,” Huxian said. He shot to the front of the ship and threw out his demon weapon once again, this time targeting the boat’s hull. He frowned as it clanked off harmlessly. Outside of his manifestation, which wasn’t very useful in this situation, he didn’t have great offensive capabilities. That only left one option. “Get ready for an explosion, he cautioned, then summoned one of his remaining two void piercing blast fruits. He lobbed it at the enemy ship’s hull and released his seal.”

“Holy ancestral mother!” Darkmoon cursed, veering away from the ship, which, to Huxian’s surprise, exploded in a blast of metal and wooden shrapnel. The attack was super effective. “Warn me in advance next time!”

“Sure thing captain!” Huxian said.

The explosion naturally caused the rest of their pursuers to grow wary. No one tried to latch onto them out of fear of dying a painful death via blast fruit, and they fell into a lull. No one attacked them for a good half hour, and Huxian began to grow wary. “I’m not getting a warm fuzzy feeling from this ceasefire.”

“Neither am I,” Darkmoon confessed. “We’re both waiting on reinforcements, but we’re closer to their camp.” She put her palm to her face. “Speak of the devil.” A gold and silver ship appeared behind them, then proceeded to pull up beside them, completely ignoring the threat of Huxian’s dreadful weapon.

“Is that…”

“Yes,” Darkmoon confirmed. “A mid-fusion rank void faring ship. We’ve been given the privilege of meeting the young master of the Paper Tiger Clan, Lord Baleful Vision.

“I’d prefer Prince Baleful Vision, thank you very much,” a man said as he emerged from the void faring ship. He was tall, had broad shoulders, and was admittedly quite handsome. He wore intricate white demon armor that contained hints of inky black, probably from absorbing Inkwell Clansmen like Rakshasa did.

Unlike his fellow clansmen, Baleful Vision kept his waist-length hair tied up in a braid instead of keeping it in a short mane. The various sharp implements used to tie it up were sharp and deadly weapons, just like Baleful Vision’s armored tail.

Every inch of the new arrival was bad news, but nothing was worse than the slightly purplish golden character on his forehead. His eyes weren’t pure white like his brethren and also contained a hint of gold and tiny flecks of purple.

Huxian groaned. “Seriously? Almost a king-level bloodline?”

“Oh?” Baleful Vision said, appraising Huxian. “You must be the fox I heard about. The one that stole my flower.”

Huxian scowled. “I didn’t see your name on it.”

“Then allow me to correct that,” Baleful Vision said. “I’ll write it on the box once you surrender it to me. I’ll keep it a memento for next time we meet.”

“Like you’d let us leave,” Huxian said.

“Whyever not?” Baleful Vision said. “It’s hard to find worthy opponents out there. The grudge between us hasn’t escalated to a feud, has it?”

“I recall having a mark of enmity on me,” Huxian said.

“Oh that? Let me take care of it,” Baleful Sight. He flicked his hand, and to Huxian’s surprise, the mark of enmity he’d been carrying around since he’d first landed on this plane vanished. “There. Consider that a token of my goodwill. What do you think?”

Huxian hesitated. Darkmoon was strangely silent about the matter, considering Baleful Sight was trying to poach him, but that was understandable, given their situation. Then again… Huxian’s eyes narrowed. He turned towards the self-styled demon prince. “I’m not accustomed to giving things away that I’ve already taken,” Huxian said. “If you’re willing to offer something up in exchange for the flower, however, I wouldn’t have a problem with your proposal.”

Baleful Sight smiled. “So you’re saying that if I trade you for the flower, you’ll run along and be on your way?”

“Naturally,” Huxian said. He took careful note of Darkmoon’s expression and noticed it hadn’t changed in the slightest, further confirming his suspicions. “I don’t expect you to have any great treasures, but I can’t take too great a loss.”

“That’s fair,” Baleful Sight said. “How bout this? I found it in the rift.” He summoned a crystal filled with destructive gray energy.

“Void Lightning Crystal!” Huxian exclaimed.

“You’re quite knowledgeable,” Baleful Sight said. “What do you think? It’s only lacking a little bit, or so my ancestral memories say.”

Huxian hesitated. It was a useful item for Lei Jiang and would allow him to further refine his bloodline. With any luck, it would allow him to awaken his dormant ancestral memories, which were conspicuously absent.”

“The value is a little lacking,” Huxian said. “Why not add in a hundred top-grade Inkwell Jades.”

“Your appetite isn’t small!” Baleful Sight said. “Top-grade jades are in short supply, little fox. I have twenty on my person. He summoned them and added them to a white sphere, along with the box containing the crystal. “What do you think. Do we have a deal?”

“Fine. Deal,” Huxian said. He summoned the precious void flower and prayed he wasn’t making a mistake. They simultaneously exchanged the goods. Huxian stowed his own sphere, but before he could execute a replacement technique, a void barrier had already appeared. Baleful Sight grinned and waved a finger; he’d expected Huxian to pull something like this.

Naturally, Huxian had a counter measure planned. Eight void spikes shot out in formation, the same ones he’d used to cut the inkwell clansmen loose. Their speed was extremely fast, thanks to the power of time, and they shattered the shield the moment they touched it.

Huxian executed the exchange technique and retrieved his flower from the spacetime puzzle sphere it was trapped in, provoking an unrestrained roar from the elders guarding the prince.

Unfortunately for them, they had no time to worry about him, something the prince clearly realized. The void spikes had pierced into the prince’s ship, creating a weakness in the void alloy that the blast fruit he threw out along with them could take advantage of.

“Book it!” Huxian shouted. Darkmoon sped off, and they lost the crippled ship as though they’d rehearsed it. Which they hadn’t. In fact, he was quite lucky she hadn’t stabbed him in the back while he’d been stabbing her.

They sped away for a good minute, and usurpingly, the Paper Tiger Clan didn’t chase. “I underestimated you,” a voice whispered from behind Huxian. “I heard foxes are quite cowardly. There was no disadvantage to running.

“But foxes are quite cunning are they not?” Huxian said, turning around. He put his hands together and bowed. “Greeting, senior!”

The new arrival wore flowing black robes that matched her flowing black hair. Her right cheek was covered in inky runic characters, as was her right arm, right hand, and the exposed portion of her right leg. She smiled lightly, then turned back towards an approaching curtain of white. She let out a loud harumph that shattered the fusion-realm energy and chased it away.

The sheer power displayed made it clear that she had reached the middle fusion realm. Coupled with the fact that her bloodline was the most powerful on the adjascent the Inkwell Plane, there were few beings that could match her in this location.

“Take the fourth secret pathway to the base, Darkmoon,” the elder instructed.

“Yes, Grand Elder Voidwake!” Darkmoon replied. The trajectory of their ship changed slightly, and to Huxian’s surprise, they entered a hidden fissure in the void. It had been disguised such that even a being like Huxian would never have discovered it with a hundred years of searching.

They entered a tunnel in the hybrid void-material realm that bulged in ways that forced Huxian to question his understanding of void space. Seeing his intrigued expression, Grand Elder Voidwake gave him a short explanation. “The hybrid void here is quite stable, but it results in pockets of pure void space that can be exploited. Similarly, there are pockets of pure material plane energies that can be found here as well. Their isolation is quite useful for growing treasures. I can show you if you’d like, though not at the present moment, since we have been quite busy of late.

Huxian chuckled. “I just wanted to leave that jungle as quickly as possible and find a way back to Inkwell Plane.”

“Ah. You must have fallen into the rift by mistake,” Grand Elder Voidwake said. “It happens. It’s not an issue to return, as long as you have the right contacts. There is a colony of void specters that runs a shuttle. They’re located quite closer to our stronghold.”

“Void specters?” Huxian said. “That’s excellent!”

“You have business with the void specters?” Grand Elder Voidwake said, clearly surprised.

“I came here to find void-adapted mercenaries,” Huxian said. “Void specters are usually pretty amenable to such arrangements.”

“Indeed,” Grand Elder Voidwake said. “We employ their services from time to time, though they are very expensive, and we don’t have the same trade network we once had on the surface.”

“Oh?” Huxian said. A thought occurred to him. “I happen to be operating a trade network on the Inkwell Plane. A teleportation network, as it were. I don’t know where you’d find it here, but on the Inkwell Plane, it’s centered around the old Shanara Sacred Desert.”

Grand Elder Voidwake’s eyes narrowed. “I’d heard the curse had faded there. I take it you had something to do with that?”

“Me and a few friends,” Huxian said. “So, are you interested? I could probably arrange to trade resources from the Inkwell Plane for things you can find more easily here. There are goods here that could fetch a good price on the surface.”

“Indeed,” Grand Elder Voidwake said. She gave him an appraising look before summoning an inky black talisman. It was quite unlike most talismans in that its materials were weaved from a mixture of material and void fibers.

“This is?” Huxian said, accepting the talisman.

“A void communication talisman” Grand Elder Voidwake said. “These juniors are the future of our clan and the root of our resistance here in the void. I owe you a debt for saving them. Should you activate this talisman here in the void, I would be happy to assist you for a short duration, assuming the troubles you face aren’t beyond my capabilities.”

Huxian’s eyes widened, and he bowed once again. “Many thanks, Grand Elder!”

“Grand Elder Voidwake smiled. “As for the trade deal you mentioned, we’ll send envoys over when things quiet down. Perhaps in a week or so? I take it you monitor the void around your teleportation network regularly and could send someone out to meet us?”

“Of course,” Huxian said. He sent out a ball of spacetime energy. “Just toss that into the stable void around the palace there if no one is present, and I’ll immediately know its you.”

“Wonderful,” Grand Elder Voidwake said, accepting the sphere. “Darkmoon, here is fine.” Darkmoon steered the ship into another nigh-invisible slit that emerged onto a barren plain not far from an icy cliff that would presumably lead to normal void space.

The Grand Elder pointed towards a small camp in the distance. “Those are the void specters I mentioned. Should you have sufficient payment, you’ll be able to hire their shuttle and discuss any other arrangements with them.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” Huxian said.

“It’s not a problem, and in truth, it is us who are most thankful,” the Grand Elder said. “Darkmoon, stop sulking and thank your savior.”

Darkmoon blushed but did as instructed. “Thank you, Lord Eight Directions for your lifesaving aid. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

Huxian chuckled. “There’s no need to apologize. I had to fool you if I wanted half a chance at fooling that self-styled demon prince. Speaking of which, he’s trouble. With his bloodline, he’ll easily reach peak fusion. He might even ascend to the immortal realms.”

“We are aware but can’t do anything about it for the time being.” Grand Elder Voidwake said. “Rest assured that we will kill him given the opportunity.” She frowned. “If the Inkwell Plane wasn’t making it so difficult for us old timers to interfere, I’d have already done him in.”

“Interference?” Huxian asked.

“There’s no need to concern yourself about it,” Grand Elder Voidwake said. “Pretend I said nothing. And if you would be so kind as to get off our ship so we can depart, that would be wonderful. Unless you’re interested in joining our Inkwell Clan?” Her eyes flickered over to Darkmoon. “I’m sure we could come to an arrangement.”

Huxian jumped off the ship without any hesitation. He had no desired to tie himself up in an inter-realm conflict, and besides, he was a one girl type of man. Xiao Bai was the only one he needed.

The ship took off soon after, leaving Huxian to make his way over to the void specter camp on foot. Void specters were quite efficient in their interactions, so it didn’t take long for him to purchase void transportation, arrange for the purchase of an assortment of rare goods, and establish a security contract from an up-and-coming mercenary company of void specters.

He returned to find five destroyed teleportation formations, a great deal of lost ground to the Boneshift Badger Lord, and a mountain of paperwork. Despite the costs, it had all been worth it.