~Grrr~
Little Shrubby stirred from his trance and woke up. His eyes gleamed in a fiery light, while his vibrant red fur shimmered with small sparks of fire. His aura started to leak out as the spirit Qi waves reappeared.
~ROAR!!!!~
Taking a deep breath, Little Shrubby let out a thunderous roar.
The roar spread for over five hundred kilometers, alarming all beasts and humans that were living in that radius.
"Heavens! What is that sound?" A group of cultivators was hunting near the edge of a forest.
"That sounded like a beast's cry! RUN!" One of them quickly turned tail and ran to the outskirts.
"FUCK! That is no normal beast cry! Run for your lives!"
Without even checking if there really was a beast coming towards them, the humans ran away. A similar scene could be seen in other areas too where there were humans. The beasts were already running away from the mountain that the roar had come from.
A few Nascent soul realm beasts that lived in the forest directly fainted from the bloodline aura that had risen from Little Shrubby. The weaker beasts couldn't sense it so they were ironically safe.
A village that was located twenty kilometers from the forest too heard the roar and its people decided to directly abandon it. Women, children, and old people were evacuated while the able bodied men and warriors stayed behind.
And when herds of beasts started running out from the forest, the humans truly realized that something had happened in the forest. It was unknown what kind of a beast could cause this, but they knew it was best to stay as far away from the forest as possible.
Lin Mu and Little Shrubby were unaware that anything of this sort had happened. With just a cry, thousands of humans were displaced and tens of thousands of beasts fled.
But even if they did know, it wasn't something they would care for now. There were far greater things they needed to worry about.
"Congratulations on your breakthrough, Little Shrubby." Lin Mu couldn't help but praise.
"Thank you, master. I'll become stronger and more strong! Then we'll eat for a hundred years and no one will stop us!" Little Shrubby stated his little dream.
~chuckle~
"Sure," Lin Mu couldn't help but chuckle upon hearing Little Shrubby's words.
"What do we do now, master?" Little Shrubby asked.
Lin Mu furrowed his brows as the next few steps appeared in his mind.
"Since you want to keep on getting stronger… we will do exactly that." Lin Mu replied.
"Okay~" Little Shrubby agreed straightaway.
"Come… we have more places to go." Lin Mu said, and the two left the mountain.
~BOOM~
In a few seconds, a loud explosion was heard as Little Shrubby sprinted away with Lin Mu on his back.
Days later, several cultivators would visit this place to check the anomaly but would find nothing other than a cave that had the aura of a strong Dao Shell realm beast.
Lin Mu and Little Shrubby ran toward the north east direction now. Their destination was a place they had been to once before. Lin Mu had even fought there before.
It was none other than the Ripple Mist Sect!
~SHUA~
A sea of clouds flowed high up in the sky, as two dots that were almost invisible to the naked eyes appeared among the boundless clouds.
Lin Mu gazed upon the sect that seemed a bit different to him. His brows furrowed and he looked around.
"Strange… why are there so few disciples here?" Lin Mu wondered.
The last time he was here, the number of disciples was easily over a hundred thousand. And that was only the ones that he could see out in the open. There might be more in the thousands of building that dotted the sect.
Lin Mu's spirit sense probed the barrier of the sect and easily passed through it. The barrier which had mistaken it was the same as before and let his spirit sense pass through.
'They never rectified it, huh…' Lin Mu reckoned. "At least it makes things easier for us."
Lin Mu's spirit sense brazenly spread across the sect, the sects of all disciples laid bare. He listened to their conversations and learned what had been happening in the sect. And it didn't make him feel calm.
"The disciples have been sent to mandatory seclusion and haven't left for two years?" Lin Mu learned.
Apparently, the Ripple Mist sect had ordered a majority of their disciples to enter seclusion, with the claim that they were weak and tough times were ahead of them. The disciples were disinclined, of course, but couldn't defy the orders of the elders.
The ones that were sent into seclusion first were the disciples that were lower in the rankings. But over the years, more and more were sent, and now even some of the core disciples were sent to the seclusion.
"ALL INNER COURT DISCIPLES ARE TO REPORT TO THE SECLUSION PAVILION WITHIN ONE HOUR!" Suddenly an announcement as heard echoing throughout the sect.
Hearing this, the faces of several inner court disciples fell and they didn't know what to do now. While most were fine with the seclusion, but as more and more of the disciples were sent into seclusion, many were starting to get suspicious.
It was inevitable, and a few disciples had even tried to leave the sect.
Of course, they were caught and then imprisoned for breaking the sect's laws. After getting caught, they were never heard of again.
"Heavens! I don't want to enter seclusion, I barely entered the late stage of the Qi refining realm last year." A disciple complained.
"How are the elders even thinking? What use will be seclusion without any resources?"
"Yeah! We were not allowed to go on any missions for the past year and didn't get any merit points. How are we to continue cultivating?"
More disciples started complaining amongst themselves.
"SILENCE!" But soon a loud voice was heard.
~SHUA~
An elder appeared from the main peak of the sect and stared upon the disciples with anger in his eyes.
"DO YOU ALL DARE TO QUESTION THE ORDERS OF THE SECT?" He roared.
"N-no elder!" They all hurriedly replied.
"THEN GET YOUR ASSES TO THE SECLUSION HALL!" The elder ordered.
The disciples all scampered off to the seclusion hall until there was almost no one left.
Lin Mu who observed it all, had a bad feeling about it.
"Master." It was now that Little Shrubby spoke.
"Yes? What is it?" Lin Mu asked.
"I can smell something from that large building there… it's familiar…" Little Shrubby replied.
"Familiar? Familiar to what?" Lin Mu questioned.
"The humans we fought at the Noon Grass sect. Their bodies had a scent similar to this." Little Shrubby answered.
Hearing this, the thoughts in Lin Mu's mind linked, and he knew what Little Shrubby was talking about.
A frown appeared on his face as he made up his mind.
'I need to see it for myself… if it really is like that then…' Lin Mu thought to himself.
"I'll go down and see. I'll call for you if I need you." Lin Mu stated.
"Okay," Little Shrubby replied. "I'll watch from here."
"Oh and if you sense any others with a scent like that… don't let them leave." Lin Mu added. "Or just kill them if they attack you."
Little Shrubby nodded his head, and Lin Mu descended to the ground. He easily passed through the barrier and went into the ground. With him gone, Little Shrubby continued his watch.
But after a while, he spotted something in the corner of his eye.
~sniff~
Smelling something, his eyes glowed and he went to the eastern direction, following behind a man that had just left the Ripple Mist Sect.
While Little Shrubby did his own little investigation, Lin Mu continued his search. With his spirit sense spread around, he quickly got the understanding of the area. But in his search, he found something surprising too.
"Oh? There's actually someone that managed to hide from the elders and is defying their orders?" Lin Mu's spirit sense stumbled upon a certain disciple that was hiding in the ground too.
Lin Mu got a bit closer and found the disciple to be a bit familiar.
"Hang on… isn't this guy… from that time?" Lin Mu recalled giving this disciples a mid grade spirit stone as a reward for letting them leave the barrier.
'He made a few isolating formations and slapped as many talismans he could on top of them huh…' Lin Mu figured out the method the disciples had used.
A few seconds later, Lin Mu decided to pay the guy a little visit. Seeing his actions of defying the sect, Lin Mu reckoned there was a great chance the man might give up more information that Lin Mu couldn't learn by just using his spirit sense.
In a small area underground, Zhu Zhu had been hiding for about half a year now.
"Fuck! Fuck! The elders are really getting close now. How do I leave this place?" Zhu Zhu said to himself.
Seeing the situation, he had decided to hide away, even if the elders got suspicious. He would then bide his time and find an opportunity to escape. But even after all this time, he had not gotten it.
And now there was basically no disciple left in the division, all the inner court disciples were called.
He had heard the announcement too, as the formations only hid his presence but couldn't isolate sound.
"If you answer my questions, I'll allow you to escape the sect." Suddenly, a new voice was heard.
