John stared at Rydan for a moment, before he glanced over towards Adam. "Is what he says true?" John asked, as if he was entertaining Rydan's idea.
"Yes, he's not lying. Rydan does come from one of the higher status families in the clan, and his lineage is quite impressive," Adam confirmed. His words caused a ray of hope to appear in Rydan's eyes, as it seemed like Adam was agreeing with his words.
"However, Kadin won't care if we slaughter the lowest dreg of the clan or his own father. In his eyes, any move on the Starforge Clan is an insult to Kadin directly, as if he's an untouchable god. He's incredibly arrogant and haughty, and would seek revenge even for the slightest insult, let alone us killing some clan members," Adam replied, his words instantly dashing the growing hope Rydan felt.
"Well, you heard it from Adam himself. It seems like Kadin would try to kill us regardless, so we might as well carry on as planned," John said to Rydan. "Besides, that friend of yours that escaped won't be gone for long."
"What do you mean? He's already fled away, your pet has no hope of catching him," Rydan replied. "Gideon is fast, even faster than me. He's long gone."
"Haha," John broke out into a slight laughter. "And Kirii is even faster than me, by quite a bit. In fact."
John's gaze shifted to the horizon from which the sun was starting to set behind. After a moment of silence, a figure appeared over a distant hill, illuminated by the setting red sun.
In less than a few seconds, the figure darted from the distant hill to where John and the rest were standing and stopped right next to John. Kirii dropped the dead corpse of the Starforge youth that had fled, his body mangled and torn. Afterwards, he nudged his head against John's chest, who patted him in return.
Even John couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at what he saw, as he didn't know Kirii was capable of such brutality. However, such a thing didn't concern him, as any enemy of his deserved such a fate.
Rydan's expression of slight defiance instantly shattered as he saw the body of the Starforge youth, as his last thing to threaten John with had been crushed.
"Now then, you chose a rather good place to ambush us," John said as he gazed around. "It truly is quite a desolate area, and even after all this time we haven't seen other disciples walk through it. That should give us plenty of freedom to take our time with you."
"Wait, wait!" Rydan cried out in panic. His gaze shifted to Adam, a pleading look in his eyes. "Adam, we come from the same clan. We're of the same blood. Please spare me. Spare me and I'll convince Kadin and the Elders to drop their pursuit of you!"
John, Iris, and Chase all remained silent as they allowed Adam to handle this however he pleased. Adam stared at Rydan, his gaze growing angrier by the second.
"Despicable bastard," Adam replied as he kicked Rydan in the ribs, causing him to cry out in pain. "I still remember you and the other youths, your snickering expressions as the judgement of my exile was passed down. You all felt pretty great at having the greatest threat to Kadin's ascension removed, huh? And now, instead of letting me live my life in peace, you hunt me down? Fuck you!"
Adam's breathing had become heavy, his chest heaving up and down as he focused on calming himself down. The rest of the group raised an eyebrow in surprise, as they had never seen Adam act like this before. Clearly the events of the past were still a sore spot for him, and rightfully so.
"Oh, and a bit of news for you. I've seen what John does to extract information from others before," Adam whispered softly into Rydan's ear, his voice more frightening than if he had been yelling. "Let's just say that your next few hours alive will make you wish you were never born."
Rydan's body turned stiff upon hearing this, and he felt a chill of pure fear crawl up his spine as John's hand pierced forward towards his stomach. For the next few hours, agonized cries drifted amongst the desert wind before silence finally settled over the land.
…
"So even after all that time with Rydan, he wasn't sure exactly what the Starforge Clan wants from you, only that they want something," John said to Adam as they sat around the campfire they had made. Night had already settled in, and instead of venturing through the unknown desert at night, the group had decided to rest instead.
"I'm not sure either," Adam replied with a shrug. "However, Kadin definitely knows."
"I'm sure he does," John replied as he bit into some meat the group had cooked. "We'll no doubt eventually run into him in these lands. In the meantime, we should rest up whenever we can to keep our energy reserves at maximum. Unlike the other youths who are all in the Heaven Tribulation Realm, our bodies are still mortal and require food and rest. We're at a disadvantage in that regard, so we should take every opportunity like this we can."
After some more conversation amongst the group, Adam set up a perimeter formation to give them warning of any potential invaders before the group went to sleep. At sunrise the next morning, the group ventured out into the arid desert once again. Wanting to stretch his legs and get some sunlight, Kirii had opted to join the group on foot as he walked alongside John.
They had already walked for dozens of miles at this point, and ventured another fifty at this time. Nothing but the arid desert had greeted them thus far, causing them to question if this training realm of the Jade Dragon Empire was still functional, or had fallen into ruin after all these years.
Disciples of other sects were occasionally spotted in the far distance moving forward as well, but the groups stayed away from each other as they progressed deeper into the land.
"There's something in the far distance," Iris suddenly chimed up, his face brimming with hopeful excitement.
The group all gazed forward across the arid desert, but were unable to spot anything yet. However, they trusted Iris's eyes, and so the group ventured towards the object she had spoken of. After walking several dozen more miles, an object finally came into view, as did a number of other disciples groups. All of them were streaming towards the object before them, which was a massive coliseum. A small town filled with various buildings existed outside the coliseum, while a large archway stood at the front entrance of the town. Dozens of disciples were streaming past the arch every minute, with more arriving by the minute.
It was the object of any note the group had seen since entering the Jade Dragon Empire training lands.
The four different symbols of warrior, alchemist, formations expert, and healer were carved into the top of the archway, causing excitement to appear on the faces of John and the others. They all sped forward towards the arch, as did the other disciples who had spotted it from a distance. The symbols on top of the arch indicated one unmistakable thing; the first trial!
