Iris was treated as a queen and was given the most lavish carriage in the whole caravan. She was allowed to sit towards the front where she could enjoy the journey without having to deal with the crowd towards the middle and back.
Immortals almost never meddled with them, so when they did, they made sure to respect them a lot.
Ning watched the caravan leave and switched his attention elsewhere. While the little girl was on her journey, he could go meet a few people before coming back.
He kept an eye on Iris just in case she got in some trouble, but mostly he focused on other things.
He teleported to another continent where he arrived in a city and entered a sort of guild where people could take up missions to earn money. There, working as a clerk was a Klavian, a girl who was related to one of the original few Klavians that Ning met a long time ago.
The girl was surprised when Ning found her and told her who he was. She didn't even hesitate to accept the opportunity and in fact, requested to be taken to her people.
She was feeling lonely recently after coming to the world in the last 50 years and wanted to meet her family again. However, she hadn't found a way back, so all she could do was try and live her life, and hope that her parents and relatives found a way to this exact planet.
"Wait around for me, I have to gather more people before I take you all back with me," Ning said.
The girl nodded and Ning left elsewhere.
Ning found Anya's nephew who had come with his own wife long ago. They were both in a sect where they were assistants to actual alchemists and were learning from them.
They had lived an okay life, but they were definitely not going to refuse Ning's offer to move back with their own people, especially after he mentioned that they could become stronger while doing so.
Ning was about to leave for another person when he noticed that Iris was about to get in slight trouble.
It wasn't going to be much of a problem for her, but it was definitely a roadblock and he wanted to see how she would act in this instance, so he teleported close by and started watching.
Bandits suddenly attacked the caravan that Iris was in from all sides, They jumped out of the bushes to ambush them.
Formations were laid on the ground at once to confuse the guards of the caravan and quickly they started killing them.
Iris wasn't alert, so it took her a moment to realize they were being attacked. However, never before having come across such a problem, and she didn't know what to do.
The guards were dying left and right and Iris was all alone. Without even thinking much, she brought out her spear and went on the attack.
The bandits were much weaker than her, with only two of them being in the Spirit Transformation realm, so none of them were able to handle her.
However, they were able to handle the other guards who they were killing.
Iris got angry. "Stop it!" she shouted at them, sending fear bubbling through every bandit. The bandits stopped and fell to their knees in fear.
They had finally realized that they were dealing with an Immortal here. They immediately kowtowed in front of her.
"P-please spare us, immortal senior. We were wrong." They slammed their head on the ground as they apologized.
"Miss, please kill them quickly," the head of the caravan said. "They are bandits, you need to get rid of them."
Iris hesitated. She had fought a lot and knew that she was strong, but she had never killed before. Killing someone was a foreign concept to her who lived her entire life inside the Origin that was filled with nothing but friends and families and thus it was nothing but peaceful.
She was told that she had to learn to kill at some point in the future, but she didn't know if this was the moment.
Was it honorable for her to kill a bunch of weaklings instead of killing someone that was comparable to her? But then, they were bandits. They deserved death for not only trying to steal but also killing so many of those around here.
"What will you do?" Ning's voice drifted to her ears. "Will you kill them for their transgression, or spare them despite of it?"
"I…" Iris's heart started beating faster as she didn't know what to do. She had never had to make such a decision in her life and there was no one to help her through it.
The bandits cried for forgiveness, while the merchants asked for slaughter. She didn't know who exactly to listen to.
"Don't think much," Ning said. "Don't listen to anyone else. Listen to your own heart. Don't let the others decide for you."
Ning's words helped her calm down a little. She took a deep breath as she blocked out the appeal from both sides and came to a conclusion.
Her spear moved with an incredibly quick and precise movement as she stabbed through the navel area of all the bandits, instantly crippling all of their cultivation bases.
"As much as they deserve their death, I do not believe I should be the one to deliver it," she told the person of the caravan. "Please capture them and give them to the authorities in the next city. Maybe you can use some rewards that are on their head to—"
The guards from the caravan that had 'died' started getting up one by one and their blood had suspiciously disappeared.
"Wha—"
"Miracle!" everyone started shouting. "Thank you, Immortal senior."
The people started thanking her and started capturing the bandits while Iris herself looked blankly. "But… weren't they dead?"
"They would've died had I not intervened," Ning said. "I stopped the killing blow from landing on them."
