On a distant asteroid reserved as the operation base of Soul Market, a very important meeting was taking place.
The room itself looked much like a court room with elders to one side and a judge's podium up front.
"We only have half a week until the auction, is everything in place?" An old woman very familiar to Dyon spoke.
"Everything is prepared, White Mother." A subordinate responded. "The venue is prepared and the fail safes are in place. We've also received reports of those with invitations starting to slowly trickle into Cathedral City."
"Good. I won't allow any mistakes this time. Our 98th quadrant can't afford to anger these powerhouses."
The reality of the matter was that the 98th quadrant didn't have anyone on the celestial or dao floors. So, what did this mean? It meant that it was impossible for any celestials and dao formation experts to come by normal means.
This meant that the dao formation experts who were coming to take part in this auction had been travelling for decades, just for this one event. In fact, the only reason the time taken was so short was because they used the 74th quadrant as a short-cut. This was a slight blessing in disguise for Dyon although he didn't know it. The 74th quadrant didn't have anyone powerful enough to enter the dao floors, meaning that only celestials were sent.
That said, if something was ruined, how could the 98th quadrant withstand their anger?
After a moment of collecting her thoughts, the Mother of the Nunnery made a decision. "We're changing the schedule. I've been feeling uneasy the past few days… Start the transport today but leave the problem cases for us elders to deal with. Move up the auction as well, I'm sure those tycoons will be happy."
The surrounding elders shifted uncomfortably.
"White Mother, this has to be meticulously planned. Even our least populated base has more than ten million soul slaves. If we're unorganized, it could cause problems."
If they could simply transport everyone in their cages, there would be no issue. But, they couldn't.
Silver sponge metal was normally very beneficial to them, however it was a massive detriment now.
Imagine the result of placing an energy sucking metal on a teleportation array that relied on energy. The result was obvious. The arrays wouldn't have enough power to reach the power location and they could end up losing millions of soul slaves to the depths of space.
Because of this, every prisoner had to be transferred from their cage, into another vessel, before being teleported. If they rushed this, massive problems were all but certain to occur.
Unfortunately, this was a problem for Dyon too. If they opened his cage too early, everything would be spoiled.
"Do as I say."
**
"You bastards! Do you really have to treat them like this?! They already have no hope left, at least leave them with their dignity!"
At this time, two bright blue-eyed beauties dressed in pure white nunnery robes had their cheeks red and puffed with anger. If Dyon was there at this time, he'd recognize the two of them as the twin sisters he met at the Cathedral entrance, the other sister, Mia, and the younger, Bella.
Two olive skinned men sneered looking while looking at these two sisters, each holding a young woman in their hands by the hair.
The two young women were truly too pitiful. Their clothes were already in rags, barely covering their most important parts. As a result, their malnutrition was on display for the world to see.
Their skin clung to their ribs, and their arms were as skinny as a skeleton's. Despite their best efforts, their skin was horribly discolored with blotches of ugly greens and yellows covering them.
Upon closer inspection, it became obvious that this were horrible bruises rather than the effects of their lack of nutrition.
Still, as talented soul cultivators, enough to be shipped to Soul Market, they were still pretty enough to entice the lust of the two men.
Usually, it was only possible for them to "have fun" with new soul slaves when they were found late in life and also transported randomly to their branches. For obvious reasons, this was quite rare because of the auspicious signs that follow the birth of talented individuals. More often than not, they're taken in as babies, and no matter how sick the two of them were, they wouldn't rape a baby.
However, on rare occasions, like Dyon a few days ago, they would be able to intercept a soul slave that slipped through the cracks. Those few pitiful individuals were their victims.
Since Soul Market was closing soon, though, the rules had become much laxer. In fact, there would soon be orders to transfer soul slaves from their normal holding cells which would give them a great opportunity. The problem was that these two sisters kept getting in their way!
"Their dignity?"
The two men looked at each other before bursting into a fit of laughter.
"Do you have any idea where you are?" A voice that Dyon would have recognized as the first voice from when he first awoke started.
"You're defending, guarding and aiding in a market that deals in the souls of people! And you're on a moral high horse?!" Coincidentally, this was the second voice.
The twins turned red and green. Although they were angered, they really didn't have a rebuttal.
"First you two stopped us from using that little beauty from three months ago. Then you did it again just three weeks ago. If you keep pushing us, we don't mind teaching you a lesson!" The first voice sneered.
"I really want to see the look on your faces when you have to cart their lifeless bodies to the furnace room to be concocted into pills. I wonder if you'll think about their dignity then." The second voice poured oil onto the fire, stabbing the twins with his words again and again, loving it when he saw how hurt the two of them were.
The two malnourished teenage girls burst into tears, trembling fiercely. No matter how much they wanted to collapse and curl up on the floor, the two men gripped their hair firmly, unwilling to let go.
Mia's face turned cold. "Let them go."
"Or else what?" The first voice asked teasingly, reaching down and pulling the collar of the girl outward to stare down her cleavage wantonly.
"Stop it!" Bella shrieked, her tiny fists clenching hard. "The White Mother has given us command over the movement and placement of all soul slaves. If you dare take another less than satisfactory action, we'll report you for disrupting the process!"
"Given you command? Is that a joke? Who would put two little girls in command of such a thing? If you want to lie, come up with a better one." The second voice snorted, but he didn't dare move until he confirmed this as true or false.
He wasn't wrong to be skeptical. The two sisters were only about 19 or 20 years old and these proceedings were far too important. It seemed almost illogical to trust them with this. It made much more sense to have an elder oversee everything. If anything went wrong, an essence gatherer wouldn't be able to change anything.
The two sisters inwardly quivered. The two men were right, the White Mother believed in their talent, but she was also excessively cruel to them, always making it a point to remind them about their skin disorder. She definitely wouldn't make a decision like this based on feelings.
In reality, they were only in charge of monitoring the teleportation traffic, making sure everything went where they were meant to go while sending data back to the White Mother. The true overseer was a Celestial stage elder.
However, they would never let the two men realize this.
"If you dare to test it, go ahead." Mia said coldly, taking out an array plate inscribed with complex symbols and holding it out for them to see.
The two men froze.
In that moment, their demeanor changed entirely, pleading for forgiveness and bowing out of the room while leaving the two teen girls behind.
It wasn't until they were gone that the twins breathed a sigh of relief. The array plate Mia showed was only a monitoring array that would be useful to them in completing their task. Luckily the two men were too stupid to tell otherwise.
