Chapter 449: Gardens Within Gardens

After so long preparing, Omilaena was almost insulted that the actual break-in was so easy. She had confirmed with Nymidria, received another set of illusory leaves, and then headed to the barrier. By the time she arrived, the outer wall had been disabled in order to allow the Verdant River sect to counteract the disease infecting the trees. With the barrier down, she slipped through the rest of the security just like she had been preparing to do since she arrived.

The interior of the area wasn't much different from the exterior, aside from having denser qi. However, somewhere in the middle of the forest, there were three critical locations: the Loam of the Gods, a region that created the immortality elixir, and wherever they were taking the corpses.

Things looked worse inside than she expected, even accounting for the wasting illness that was spreading through the trees. Omilaena easily evaded the cultivators trying to work on that, only to find numerous thin or damaged trees even beyond. Not dying, exactly, just drained of strength. Even the qi was weak, relatively to the level in the atmosphere. Most likely it was being drained into something else, perhaps the immortality elixirs.

As she neared the central point, Omilaena finally began to spot cultivator guards. Far fewer than there would have been otherwise, and she could have torn through them if she didn't need time to evaluate everything. The Loam of the Gods was an Insanity, after all, and it was always possible that it would resist being stolen.

She saw an interior barrier around some sort of garden, one they hadn't been able to cheat any way through. Well, that was inevitable, but now that she was so close she could risk a smash and grab. Since that needed to be her last action, Omilaena instead scouted the periphery to look for the immortality elixirs Zin Nim wanted.

Around the side of the innermost garden she discovered a surprisingly large alchemical workshop, emitting fumes that made her eyes sting from a distance. There was an expensive-looking terrace on top of the building, but the interior looked shabby and was filled with workers bound by qi chains. These clearly weren't the top alchemists of the sect, though there did seem to be a lot of immortality-related materials. Nothing that would justify such powerful effects, which was where the Loam of the Gods must come in.

There was a woman standing guard over the second floor of the alchemical workshop, wearing a cultivator's robes but not paying enough attention. Omilaena moved behind her like a shadow and slipped a needle into her neck, injecting the poison deep into the muscle. The woman lost a mouthful of blood, but thankfully she did it quietly and so Omilaena eased her into a hiding spot.

Now she had access, and it looked like there were plenty of supplies to be had. Another barrier that would be difficult to get through without Zin Nim, so she'd need to smash it. Before she could take a complete inventory, Omilaena heard voices from above and crept closer to listen.

"Are you sure you didn't fuck this up too?"

"No, I swear! This doesn't even seem related to the Loam!"

Two voices, both young men. While Omilaena shifted to try to get a better look at the next floor, she suspected that she already knew them: Kai had known about two major political forces that had gone over the barrier, the young masters of the Verdant River and Purple River sects. Unfortunately, she could sense more cultivators along with them, silent but prepared to fight.

"Then exactly where did the disease come from?"

"Well, it seemed to spread from outside the wall. These things happen from time to time, ever since... you know how it's been." The wheedling voice was likely the heir to the Verdant River sect, overruled by Yul Wei Ren and disrespected by nearly everyone.

"What happens if you let this mess stop immortality production?" The cold voice was presumably the one they called the Poison Prince, then. Despite being outside his sect's region, he definitely seemed to be the one in control of the conversation.

Omilaena crept up to the door to the third floor, further analyzing all the presences. When she peered through a crack, she pinpointed the guards and took a look at the two: the heir to the Verdant River sect looked like every young fop she'd ever seen, while the Poison Prince was a much trimmer figure. Definitely pissed, too.

"We're wasting time here," the Poison Prince said. "Xir Xan Khan was right: this is just a distraction for the enemy to hit your vaults again."

That sounded bad to Omilaena, and it got worse when the other man responded: "He's paranoid. How could our enemies hide this long in the swamps? I'm telling you, it's just some tree disease, so if we let the alchemists take care of it, production can begin again."

"Can it? It seems like those miserable rebels have destroyed your supply lines."

Their entire plan had involved separating their opponents, and Kai was carrying more than his share of the burden by starting a war, but there was an unexpected wrinkle. This Xir Xan Khan - Zin Nim's ostensible fiance - had apparently not been taken in. Even if his theory was wrong, did that mean he was searching the swamps?

Unless he had a massive force or unprecedented sensory skills, it was unlikely that he'd find the Krysali camp. But Zin Nim had no idea that she was at risk, in fact she was probably waiting to create a distraction for either of them if something went wrong. If there was another major faction of their enemies bearing down on her...

Then, just to make things worse, the Poison Prince happened to glance in her direction and see her through the hole in the door.

Him looking at that exact angle at that moment was unlikely, a hundred to one chance, but now that it had happened the odds were one to one. The Poison Prince began yelling in the same moment Omilaena moved. If he had shouted for the guards to form a barrier or retreat, it might have helped them, but instead he ordered an attack.

In the time it took him to do that, Omilaena burst through the door, exhaling a cloud of poison. It swept over the nearest guards, killing them instantly and threatening the others. All of the guards with the Poison Prince began to use anti-poison techniques, which didn't help them when her needles went through their eyes.

It took Omilaena only a few seconds to radically shift the odds and wipe out most of her opponents, but that was all the time she had, because the Poison Prince managed to retaliate. He only had around 1000 Power, but that included Sky Soul stage cultivation, so his beams of poisoned qi shot forth as a major threat. Omilaena had no choice but to dodge backward, twisting between them while keeping her distance from the others.

If he had been assisted by capable allies, or even a room of living guards, Omilaena might have been sorely pressed. But the other cultivators were too weak, and when the last young master attacked, he made the wrong decision.

When he thrust out both hands in some sort of formation, he summoned a massive column of water, yes. The currents of it blew through the nearby walls and shattered windows. But the main wave that struck Omilaena was met by her left hand as she drew on all her ice qi.

The ice swept from her like a knife, freezing through the laughable attempt at a water attack. In an instant the waters were neutralized and the young master was staring at his frozen hands. When he cried out in pain, all the cultivators looked shocked.

And in that moment, Omilaena unleashed another flurry of needles.

She was more precise this time, using ice needles on the poison cultivators and poison on the Verdant River sect. All of them went down, dead or dying, except for the Poison Prince. Ignoring the young master, Omilaena threw herself at him with a grin on her face.

He actually managed to hold her off for several blows as he summoned curved purple blades that hovered around him. His strength was a little lower than hers, but she couldn't take him lightly. Each blade seemed to carry a different poison, and while they weren't a huge threat to her, she wanted to take them all for later study. If only she could neutralize him for experiments...

Omilaena made a bid to get a syringe into him and realized that she'd overstepped. One of the swords sliced at her neck and actually bit into her skin. It was a bad wound, sending her staggering back and flooding her own poison to resist the invading venom.

Worse, she realized, the leaf necklace had been broken and her illusion was disappearing. She wasn't sure what the Poison Prince knew about her, but his eyes narrowed, then widened.

When he began to move, she threw her full speed into a half-phase and intercepted his escape. But in the same moment her needle left her hand, his body transformed into purple light and shot away. She was left panting for breath and holding the injury to her shoulder.

If she had tried to kill him from the beginning... it wasn't certain that she could have finished him, but the probability would have been better. She'd gotten overconfident, fighting opponents weaker than her and forgetting that she had often been able to punch up against opponents somewhat stronger. Now he'd gotten away, potentially carrying information or to bring reinforcements.

"Shit." Omilaena looked around her at the devastated room and reconsidered. Part of her wanted to rush to Zin Nim and make sure that she was alright, but she realized that was foolish emotion talking.

She was the only one of them inside the innermost barrier and this was their best chance. If she didn't take everything, all of this was pointless. The most she could justify was sending a warning via the seeds... Omilaena tried to use one of the seeds bonded to Zin Nim and received no response, which she tried not to consider too ominous. Instead she used one of her remaining seeds for Kai.

"What?" His illusory form seemed to be in the middle of a battlefield, his arm wrapped around a cultivator's neck. The man's flailing didn't particularly distract him.

"I'm in, but they have someone else tracking Zin Nim. It's her old fiance. Maybe it's nothing, but he might be able to find her."

Kai's gaze, so calm in the middle of a battle, immediately became deadly serious. "Anything else?"

"That's all I know. Verdant River heir is dead, Poison Prince got away. I should have some great treasures for you, but we have to make it through this."

"Right." The illusory Kai jerked to the side and disappeared, so she would have to leave it to him.

For her part, Omilaena needed to seize their primary objective. She went back down to the second floor and shattered the barriers on the vault with a swing of an ice knife. Just as she'd hoped, there were bottles and pills everywhere, labeled as immortality elixir and almost glowing with power. There was something strange about them, but she only checked for traps before dumping everything into her spatial satchel.

If her estimates were right, that was enough for all three of them to become immortal with a large boost of extra power. That was nice, but as far as Omilaena was concerned, it was just another step on their path. What really mattered was seizing the Loam of the Gods.

So she left the alchemical workhouse, ignoring the screams of the confused workers, and moved on the central barrier. Its qi held up for three strikes, but it couldn't stand against her either. Omilaena started to walk through the destroyed gate... and then she saw the bodies.

Hundreds upon hundreds of them, stacked in piles. Others had been processed in ways that might have turned a weaker woman's stomach and the results were obviously being plowed into the soil. In a finished section of corpse soil, she saw small trees with dark red fruit that resonated in the same strange way as the immortality elixir she'd just stolen.

Omilaena methodically and emotionally checked every detail of the scene, just to confirm the truth she'd realized immediately: the bodies were being used as a raw material to create one of the main ingredients for the immortality elixir. That was a bit morbid, but honestly not shocking - draining life to support life was a common principle. Based on the number of bodies they used versus relatively small amount of elixir, the process must involve a lot of loss.

None of that particularly concerned her, since she'd examine the elixir for problems later. Maybe the others, and Kai especially, didn't need to know about the source of the immortality. She was more interested in why they needed to burn so many lives on this when the Loam of the Gods was supposed to grow anything instantly.

She had all but one of her goals now, so Omilaena advanced toward the very center. So many barriers, so many circles... at the center of the center of the center, she finally reached a small garden. It seemed to glow with an aura of perfection, yet something was wrong. Omilaena bent down and touched the soil, letting some run through her fingers.

"Fuck!" Omilaena gripped the sides of her head as she realized the truth. "Fuuuuck."