Chapter 630 The Battle in Salamander Lord's Keep
When Jin released the Emergency Raid Dungeon instance, he noticed a couple of cultivators had already teleported into the outer baileys where Gaeru was waiting for reinforcements from Jin's store.
The frog swordsman did not waste any time as they move towards the inner baileys with whatever number of cultivators were with him. (Even though Jin told him to wait until he had at least thirty over cultivators with him. Right now, he a little more than a dozen with him.)
That was why Jin had placed Kido and his fellow Penguin Ninjas at specific points of the outer bailey to guide the cultivators the quickest way into the inner part of the castle.
Xia Mao, Zi Dan and Jing Yu were among the first few to follow Gaeru. (They were lucky that when they arrive, that impatient frog was already planning to leave.) So, when they trailed behind the frogman into the inner baileys, they could not believe their eyes at how massive the walls and its surrounding environment were as compared to them. (Since they did not have the slightest idea that they were to be teleported to the Giant World at all.)
The amount of distance needed to travel was annoying far, and though the cultivators persisted, it was not as favourable as Gaeru thought it would be. He initially thought the latest group of elderly cultivator would slow them down, but they happened to be the few that could keep up with his pace.
The younger cultivators were the ones who had trouble maintaining their chi and thus, their pace was hampered. Some immediately gave the excuse that they did not have their breakfast while others said they happened to be around after some night activities and were not expecting this much running.
On the contrary, it was the elder cultivators who gave them a bump in chi and told them how to regulate on the run. Gaeru had to slow down his pace for them, but it was not terrible as they were constantly catching up with him. If not for Jing Yu and Zi Dan's aid, the young cultivators had to stop every few kilometres for a breather.
Jin who was monitoring the progress of the group eventually decided to change the teleportation point to the Inner Baileys in order to prevent the following groups of people from being in the same situation, and it also gave other cultivators the opportunity to meet up with Gaeru and the rest of the customers as well. The only downside is that Maeve might notice something was amiss, but that was no longer a point of concern for Jin.
The main giant door to the castle was menacing for most of the cultivators considering their size, but thankfully, it remained open.
So, all they had to do was to simply waltz right inside of it and fight against their said opponent as portrayed in the Raid's story.
Nonetheless, it seemed like Maeve and the Salamander King was already expecting them.
With the first step into castle, the old Trio along with the other cultivators were teleported separately into various parts of the castle. When they come into their senses, Jing Yu realised that she was paired with Gaeru as they arrived at the prison cells while Zi Dan and Xia Mao were teleported into the kitchen. For the rest of the other cultivators, she assumed that they were transported to various parts of the castle.
Suddenly, a booming voice reached out to everyone within the castle. "I lost all my servants because of that stupid frog. Therefore, all of you are to be my slaves! Serve me food! Serve me wine! And clean this fucking place up!" A female voice which Gaeru automatically assumed it was the Evil Kinkstress Maeve that was shouting out.
"The person who brings me that frog dead or alive will be instantly promoted to be my personal slave! You will have the best food and service your entire life! Not to mention powers beyond your own understanding!" Maeve continued to advertise.
Jin knew that if Maeve wanted to kill the frog, she already had the means to do so. Hence, what she's doing was equivalent to toying the people that entered her castle. At the moment, all the cultivators were accounted for within her premise with the aid of the Half Masks all of the cultivators were wearing.
He also guessed that at this point, the Salamander King was nothing but just a puppet for her to play. There might be a chance which the King himself was already killed since everyone was dead, courtesy of Sandy and none was left to serve Maeve.
Regardless of the annoucement, Gaeru had to get out of the situation he was in. (All of the cultivators thought that this was part of the raid as well and none took Maeve's words seriously.) As for the prison cell Gaeru and Jing Yu was in, the frog swordsman broken the door with a quick slash using Jin's off-hand weapon, Boo.
Up till now, Gaeru never handled a weapon as light as Boo since all he had been with his entire life was Masamune. Of course, Masamune did not appear the day his father bestowed him the weapon, it was something which he found, and it decided to embody his sword and lived within his blade. Hence, Masamune was a kind of spirit which wished to harbour inside his sword.
But how did Masamune came into contact with Gaeru was something which the frog swordsman did not wish to reveal even to the Sage Hamster. The System was not too bothered since it knew of worlds that have an abundance of Living Weapons and perhaps when Jin had cleared most of his current objectives, it would introduce that particular world to him.
As Jin noted of the trouble Gaeru was having with his borrowed sword, he assisted him in transforming Boo into a shape something similar to Masamune, including the weight and length of it. The only major difference was the crossguard and the immensely good grip which the sword possessed. Gaeru even stated that it was an improvement Masamune should have in the future.
"Perhaps, we might be able to do that in the future, assuming Masamune allowed us to modify it," Jin said to Gaeru before he departed further down the prison cells.
As for Jing Yu, the half mask she was wearing aided her tremendously, and if she was able to applaud Jin for making such a significant Ui improvement to the mask, she would have done so.
The current mask was able to show things that were already implemented during the beta testing by Xiong Da's team in the Farming World and even more.
Right now, since Jin had already scanned the area once, the full castle map was revealed to the Jing Yu, and she could instantly locate her teammates via her mask. So, her immediate concern was to protect the Frog and regroup with her team mates once more. (That is assuming she knew how to convince that musclehead frog to listen to her.)
In usual circumstances, Jin would have placed a fog of war in the maps, but this was an emergency raid he could not afford to lose. So, the dungeon supplier believed that he should be aiding the cultivators as much as he could without too much meddling.
He was also going to use the map function as an excuse to reveal the exclusive new features of the half masks before he used it for other raids or dungeon instances. The System liked the marketing gimmick that Jin employed and unexpectedly praised him for it before returning to monitor the situation.
Even though it was an unforeseen development for the cultivators to be separated, it was not much of an issue since more and more cultivators will arrive and Jin was going to use quantity to squeeze the Maeve's magic powers to the limit. Only when she was exhausted, then Jin will enter the fray as a special guest with his other bellators to finish the job.
All he hoped was that the Queen of Winter Court would not appear and make their lives as difficult as it could already be. Jin did query about the Queen of Winter Court from Hamatarou, but he was not much of a help at all as well, as they were as elusive as they could be. He only knew from legends and his druid teachers that Queen Mab was not as mischievous and …machoistic as her daughter.
And unlike the Queen who possessed mostly ice magic, Maeve possessed a certain kind of magic that would make the demons under Jin rather jealous.
The haunting capability to summon unnatural beasts into the physical realm.