The Messenger of Death

"Back to answering my questions, from the sound of all of this, all I can take out of it is that you people are looking for ways to get stronger in the forest? Why is that?" Xander snapped Kymani out of her thoughts with his question.

"For survival," She answered.

"I already know that it's for survival, what I want is an elaboration on why. What sort of survival are you referring to? From the looks of things, you ladies are surviving pretty well."

Kymani paused for a few seconds, looking into Xander's eyes and trying to see through him. However, the longer she looked, the more she felt the hair on her neck stand. She felt as if there was something terrifying hiding within Xander, and it scared her. She looked elsewhere and said;

"Most of us in this forest were sentenced to imprisonment for over a thousand years or so. Now for Sky realm cultivators, that's more than half of our life span. If we wait till the day our sentence is over, by the time we are out, most of us will have to start preparing a will or looking for a place to spend the last of our days.

But if we can get stronger we will be able to pass the sea and head over to the second island."

"A second island?" Xander questioned.

"Yes, although it is far away from here if any of us can make it to the Heaven cultivation realm, the monsters of the sea will be less dangerous to us."

"Can't you just fly over the sea?" Xander asked.

"From the shore, on to the 242nd-kilometer benchmark, you can. After that, the rest of the sea is a natural no-fly zone. You might be able to jump into the air, but you wouldn't be able to suspend yourself. That's the reason why we Sky realm cultivators haven't crossed over to that island. Even birds and monsters born with wings will fall into the Sea after crossing the 242nd benchmark." Kymani answered truthfully.

['The Sea and island is starting to give me good, and then bad vibes.'] Al started.

['Me too. Perhaps the Midas petal isn't in this forest but that island. The fact that monsters, birds, and cultivators can't fly over the Sea at some point is giving me that same feeling I had when we went into the Agelong forest and encountered an illusion that lead us to Midas petal.'] Al said.

['Same thing that I was thinking. The system has always been able to pinpoint the general direction of the Midas petal, perhaps because it is still so far away that the system can't seem to get a grip of its exact location.'] Al mentioned.

['Then what do we do now?'] Lex asked.

['Nothing, much, after asking her a few more questions about the island, we'll change the instruction we gave to the system and have it show us a general direction of where the energy is coming from, rather than pinpoint its location.'] Al suggested.

['I agree with that.'] Xander concurred.

['Then let's do just that.'] Alex joined in.

"How did you people come to know of the island, and what's on it that you all so want to go there?" Xander questioned.

"There was a talented individual that used to work under Scar, one day, this guy was lucky enough to receive enlightenment. Before the enlightenment, he was just a rank-8 Sky realm cultivator, and after his lucky encounter, he broke through to the first rank of the Heaven cultivation realm.

At first, we thought that a Heaven realm cultivator will at least be able to make a little tear on the barrier that is keeping us trapped here, however, this was just our belief. After making several attempts, he couldn't even make a dent on the barrier.

Then this talented guy decided to cross the Sea by flying, before this, he wasn't the first to try. Other Sky realm cultivators tried to cross the Sea, but they failed and many of them that tried this died to the monsters of the Sea. But because he was a Heaven realm cultivator, no one tried to stop him and many were even optimistic that he could cross the Sea.

This talented guy first tried flying, but after reaching the benchmark, he lost his ability to fly, as all others had done, and fell into the Sea. There were already monsters in the Sea waiting for him, and he fell into the Sea, they attacked him. Unfortunately for the monsters, they were not strong enough to defeat a Heaven-rank cultivator. Then this talented guy returned to the forest of prisoners and said that we don't need to fly over, that if we could make, boats and ships, we can cross over to the other side together.

Dependency, jealously, the prisoners' hearts were filled with those. Some believed him and agreed to assist him by creating the boats if he would protect them on their way. While others cursed them and said that they were rushing to their deaths. Even we the leaders, myself, Scar, and Jarja, didn't believe in him.

On the day of their departure we gave them a communication orb, just in case they were able to make it somewhere, then they could tell us and we would figure out what to do on our own.

Days passed on and there was no word from them, we had all assumed that they had died. Then 3 weeks later, they contacted us, sounding excited and claimed to have reached an island. An island that could hand us our freedom and even more.

They told us that there was an opening on this island, one that could take us to the Ordain plain realm. At first, we thought that they were lying, but they insisted that the expert on the island wasn't lying and that the Heaven realm cultivator had already ascended and came back safely, as proof.

We still didn't want to believe them even when we know that they had no reason to lie. Right until when the expert spoke and we heard his voice through the communication orb. No, it was more like his voice traveled thousands of miles and reached our ears. It wasn't coming from the orb.

He said that there is indeed an opening on that island that can take us to the Ordain plain realm. With that expert as proof, we decided to get stronger. So the reason why we want to get stronger is to make it to that island, and the for wanting to go there is freedom." Kymani finished.

['An opening to the Ordain plain realm? Pst! Scam!! I mean would the Excepto allow that?'] Al refused to believe the authenticity of this news.

"But none of the 3 leaders are ready to give their resources to the other because they want to be the one to breakthrough and still guarantee their position as a territory leader," Xander said.

"Exactly," Kymani responded.

"How long ago did you guys find out about the island?" Xander asked.

"It has only been 3 weeks since then."

For the first since Xander arrived, Kymani saw his expression change from the cold, demeaning look to a frown.

"System, can you give me a general location of where the energy was coming from? You don't need to pinpoint it this time." Xander uttered not caring about the person in front of him. Either, she wouldn't be able to see or hear the system without his permission so it was safe to ask a question in front of her.

"Huh, my name is not system and I don't know what energy you're-" Kymani started but Xander interrupted.

"I wasn't talking to you." He said.

'Is this kid crazy!? No one here is named system… unless the person that came along with is named system.' Kymani concluded and attempted to search for an unknown aura around her territory. After reaching the limits of how much she could expand her consciousness to search, Kymani didn't find an aura that was out of the ordinary.

'The cultivator that came along with should at least be Heaven realm cultivator.' She concluded…

*Ping!

*It is doable, attempting to generalize the energy's location. Please stand by.

And after a few seconds, the system presented him with a result.

*The energy is coming from a secluded island 400 kilometers West.

"400 kilometers West," Xander muttered.

'My God, the expert that came with this kid might be above the Heaven cultivation realm. He's able to tell the direction and distance of that island, telepathically for that matter. Only cultivators at the Spirit Condensing realm and above are capable of that.' Kymani thought. This she knew because it was the same information that the people that went to the island first, gave to them.

She began looking around, trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of who Xander was talking to.

"Kymani, is Jarja's territory towards West of here?" Xander asked.

"Yes, why do you ask?" She replied, but Xander ignored her.

['Why do I feel like the expert that told them there was an opening to the Ordain plain realm is Mr. Guardian, and that we were actually going the right way before. The Skin crawler not being able to accurately pinpoint the Midas petal might be because Mr. Guardian is the one obstructing it. This might be a test for us.'] Al mentioned.