Chapter 362: Finding the Hideout
After taking the liquid Moriya and Arc left the meeting room. Arc hurried to return to the Imperial capital, but Moriya didn't go.
He stayed in the hotel as he supervised the Space gate construction in the woods nearby.
The Space gate was actually not hard to construct provided that there are all the materials available. And they have all the materials and almost finished the work prior to the war. But due to the war, they were asked to stop this construction and now that the suspicions are mostly cleared, they finished the construction within a day.
Moriya used the newly constructed Space gate to go back to the thunder god temple.
The Space gate near Sam's city was there for them to have easy access to the place so that they can keep watch over it and from the looks of it, there seemed to be too many encounters with Sam and the Space gate would be useful.
After reaching the thunder god temple, Moriya immediately went to the meeting spot of the central continent through another Space gate.
There the heads of the six major powers are already waiting for his report.
By now, all these people knew who Sam was and they even understood what kind of person he was. In the beginning, they only sent people to get Shadow's sword from Sam. But they never took him seriously due to his age and cultivation.
And now, they are forced to concentrate on him due to the war.
Moriya, quickly explained the details of the deal and the six heads frowned at this. They didn't expect that Sam wouldn't try to fleece them and instead use this chance to only get access to the materials.
This is a new thing for them. If any of them were in Sam's position, they would have taken full advantage of the situation and fleeced the Six major powers, they would have gotten their hands-on high-level herbs, pills, medicines, cultivation resources or techniques, and so on.
But they now realized that they are judging people by their standards too much and realized their mistake.
Sam's conditions are quite acceptable to them. Not only will they get their hands on the liquid that hinders the followers, but they also don't have to lose too many resources to pay for them. They will be getting money in equivalent exchange. Of course, they wouldn't be able to make extra profit. But they are still not making any loss.
After some initial surprise, they started discussing on how to deal with the followers and where to use this liquid and at this moment, another Space gate was activated and Former Beast faction head and Sanjay's father came out of it along with his beast.
Both the man and the beast are injured and they seemed to have been through a great battle.
The rest of transcendent cultivators are nowhere to be seen.
"Sravan. What happened to you?" Sanjay's uncle the current beast faction head asked as he ran towards him.
Sravan was panting hard and said in a painful voice.
"We found the hideout and prepared to escape, we even ran away as fast as we can, but there was an ambush waiting for us and we are not able to escape.
The transcendent stage cultivators, couldn't take the attacks and they all died and some of them fled in random directions within the woods."
He stopped talking for a second and tried to take deep breaths as he held the wound on his right abdomen tightly.
"What is the situation at their hideout?"
Thunder god temple head asked in a serious tone.
"They have a lot of high priests and there seemed to be a large ritual going there for converting all the high-priests into Consummate realm cultivators.
They have Space gates that are connected to various minor powers and major powers through which they are sending their troops.
The followers who are injured and became unable to fight, are coming back and joining this large ritual.
There are more than thirty high priests who are slowly absorbing the followers and they are increasing their cultivation as we speak.
Currently, there are around Seven Consummate realm cultivators no including the Old One."
Everyone went to a deep thought after listening to this. The situation is actually graver than they thought.
All this while, they are still a bit relaxed about the war because they are sure that Old one doesn't have many Consummate realm cultivators by his side.
Even if all the six major powers and the major associations combined, they are around twenty-five consummate realm cultivators in the world.
It is not easy to break through to the stage and they felt that the high priests are also having a hard time breaking through to this stage.
But while they are contemplating things, the other party already arranged things and even got ready to make big moves.
"What should we do about this situation?" One of them broke the Ice as he spoke and the discussion began.
After getting enough details from Sravan, they learned that all the followers are gathered in one place. So, they decided to attack the place and use the liquid on the followers so that they can stop the high priests from ascending, they are extremely confident that as long as the thirty of them are not Consummate realm cultivators, there is no need for them to be afraid.
While they are making preparations and assembling a team to send them to that place, on the other side of the Space gate from which Sravan escaped.
The Consummate realm cultivators who ambushed Sravan are feeling a bit disappointed at the fact that they missed their target and already made their way back to their hideout.
Meanwhile, in the hideout, another Consummate realm cultivator is asking the Old one about what to do.
"Boss, he escaped. The Six major powers will now know of our hideout."
The old one is looking at the Sea as he stood on the beach.
"Let them know, what would be the issue? We are going to be done in a week and if they don't make it in this week, there is nothing they would be able to do after that week. Just close the Space gate for the week, they wouldn't be able to find a way to come here and we will open it after the week for us to go there."
"But what if they find another way to come here?"
"What can they do in a week? Even if they travel on beasts, they wouldn't be able to reach this place. They would need a Consummate realm beast at middle-stage to make it here in a week. And the requirement only goes up if they want to come faster."
"Okay, Boss. We will close off the Space gate now."
Meanwhile, in the meeting spot, a team of ten consummate realm cultivators was formed and they are planning to visit the hideout. But before that, they sent half of the liquid to the other minor powers so that they could pressure their church by reducing their troops at the frontlines.
The team will be visiting the hideout and use this liquid to deal with the ritual of the thirty transcendent cultivators turning into Consummate realm cultivators.
But they also noticed that the Space gate was closed off a while ago. But the current beast faction head Sai, still reassured them about going there.
He is the one leading the team with Sravan in tow to show them the exact location.
After the team was formed, the rest of the major powers are extremely nervous and anxious as they thought about the ways to go there as fast as they can.
They don't know about the deadline of the week, but they do know that the later they go, the more Consummate realm cultivators will be ready.
After that, the team of ten who are supposed to raid the hideout made their move and started walking deeper into the woods.
After walking for more than an hour, they halted in their tracks because of what appeared in front of them.
There is a large Finch with golden feathers sleeping under a humongous tree.
The aura the bird releasing is not that intimidating to them, because they are also Consummate realm, but the presence of the bird near their meeting spot and them not knowing it made things somewhat weird for them.
They are reevaluating themselves as they thought about their safety.
This beast is a Golden finch and it is actually an early stage Cosummate realm beast, but the speed of this bird is already invincible even among the Middle-stage consummate realm beasts.
The Golden Finch, has very few attacking abilities due to its lack of strength, and its talons on beak are not as strong as other birds of the same level, but the speed of the bird is not something other birds can catch up to.
Sai looked at the rest of the team and said.
"He is the one that is taking us there. I think we will be able to reach the place within a few days."