Chapter 668: Messy

It was a mess. An absolute mess. Even after a couple of days of clean up.The appearance of Cassandra only lessened the chaos a bit. However, it did make everyone feel a lot safer. Having a Tier 6 protecting you did that.

It wasn’t long until others arrived. The next ship was full of healers and support mages who did their best to help. They were able to finish the healing of everyone who’d been injured but weren’t able to be fully healed on account of the low number of healers and resources.

There were a lot of them, too. Kora was actually one of the luckier ones. There were many disciples who’d lost limbs and other body parts. Some of them weren’t as easily recovered. The long time between the injury and the healing only made it that much harder.

Julius made sure he did his part, his part being a mana battery for Drasil, who had easily become one of the favorite people in the entire camp. Everyone who walked by made sure to thank Drasil or say hi. They didn't exactly ignore Julius, but they seemed a lot more nervous and tentative around him for some reason.

However, since Drasil was the one getting attention, he couldn't be too upset.

It was about time Drasil got his recognition.

He was helping load a bunch of stuff onto the airships; with this recent incident, the sect had decided to give up on this expedition. There had been too many casualties and wounded for them to continue. It was better to cut their losses now than push on.

He didn’t know what the sect had in store after this. He wasn’t exactly privy to all of the meetings the elders were having with Cassandra. On top of the healers and support mages, there were at least several elders who arrived with the new airship. One of them appeared to be a grand elder.

It was one he hadn't seen before. His name was Grand Elder Rhynus, and from the passionate discussions he was having with Cassandra, Julius suspected they were disagreeing about something. He had caught Grand Elder Rhynus’s gaze lock onto him more than once and couldn’t help but be wary of the man’s interest in him.

As he was loading another box, he spotted Zev and Kora coming toward him. Kora had gotten healed as best as they’d been able to. But there was still extensive damage to the nerves on her face, and she still didn’t have any hair. He offered to help her, but she insisted she was okay and said there were many other people in need of healing. Hers were primarily aesthetic, and nothing a little time wouldn’t be able to heal.

Much like Kora, Zev had been heavily wounded during the battle. He’d lost an arm, half of his leg, one eye, and a bunch of other smaller wounds. The leg and other wounds were healed without issue. But the eye and the arm hadn't healed all the way.

The corruption had done a lot of damage, and he’d need to see a specialist and perhaps consume a few treasures to heal himself. Julius wasn’t worried about that though, the older boy had proven himself a talent worth investing in.

Both of them had. Kora had been instrumental as well; her aura and flames of purity were extremely effective against the corruption. More than a few disciples were saved due to her actions. He already heard others spreading rumors that they would be elevated to core disciples once this was done. He wouldn’t be surprised if this were the case.

“You sure you don’t want to let others handle this? You should be recovering as well.” Kora asked him worriedly.

He waved her off. “It’s alright. I didn’t want to just sit around doing nothing.”

She scoffed. “If anyone deserves a break, it is you. You did more than anyone else. Let the others handle this stuff.”

“I didn’t do more than anyone else,” he retorted.

“You think people are blind? All disciples and teams were required to give reports about what happened. Your name came up more than once, with many of them saying you saved them when they were about to be overrun."

He didn’t have a response to that and instead loaded up another box to avoid answering.

She shook her head when she saw this. “That’s not what I came over for, though. I was told to bring you over to the elders. They have something they want to talk to you about.”

“Do you know what it's about?”

“No, they didn’t tell me.”

Julius frowned. There were only a couple of reasons why they would want to talk to him. Especially after this long, it was obvious they didn’t see him as a priority, since they waited a couple of days to contact him. Or they were waiting to gather more information of their own. Perhaps, a bit of both.

Seeing that he wasn’t going to get any answers this way, he nodded and put his box down, following Kora.

When he passed by Zev, the one-eyed guy nodded slightly in his direction. But considering his usual stoic attitude, this might as well have been a kiss on the cheek. Julius responded with a wide grin, reaching over to pat Zev on the back. But the older boy shifted to the side, dodging it easily.

Julius stifled a laugh.

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When they arrived, Kora literally pushed him inside without another word. He stumbled through, and he was greeted with the blank stares of several elders. He spotted Maya off to the side; she had arrived with the other airship. They hadn’t been able to talk much, but from what he gathered, since she was a core disciple, this cleanup mission would provide her with some needed experience for when she eventually became an elder of the sect.

She gave him a soft smile, one which he returned.

“So this is him?” One of the elders asked pensively while he examined Julius. While it was very subtle and almost went undetected, he felt several of the elders reach out with their auras. He very gently but very firmly denied them access.

He saw a few intrigued expressions on their faces when he did this. Most of them didn’t seem to care that he batted aside their attempts, but he did notice two of them who looked miffed.

Cassandra finally looked up from what she was doing. “Good, she was able to find you. I was worried that you’d run off again. We have some questions we need to ask of you.”

“What kind of questions?” he asked carefully.

“Mainly ones that pertain to that gorge you mentioned to Huan,” one of the elders answered with a glance at the elder who was sitting off to the side quietly. He gave Julius an encouraging nod, as if to let him know that things were going to be all right.

“Yes, I went out the other day and tried to look for it, but I didn’t find anything that matched the description of it. I’m going to need you to take me to exactly where you found it and where you exited,” Cassandra told him.

He nodded. “Sure, though I don’t know if we’ll be able to find it. The tunnels were constantly moving. I don’t know if a spatial skill or other weird ability is at play.”

“That’s fine. But I would like to exterminate this colony before it becomes an issue again. A corrupted Deepcore Ant colony is a dangerous thing and nothing like we’d seen before.”

“You said there was a corrupted queen down there?” A firm and deep voice called out. Julius looked over and noticed that it came from the man dressed in robes that denoted his status as a grand elder. He assumed this was Grand Elder Rhynus.

“Yes, or what I assumed was the queen. I didn’t get a good look at it, but from what I could tell, it was chained to something,” he admitted.

“It was chained?” Grand Elder Rhynus asked attentively.

“Yeah, it was chained down, which is probably the only reason I was able to get away. Still, it almost tore me apart.”

Several elders started to talk at once. This seemed like this was a surprise revelation to them.

“Are you trying to hint at something, Julius?” Cassandra asked curiously.

“Not really, but I certainly found it odd that something like chains was all the way down there. As far as I know, ants aren’t known to make something like chains on their own.”

“I agree. This does seem unusual. Are you certain that they were chains and not something else?”

“Pretty certain. I got decently close to it. But there is a possibility it was something else entirely.”

“Regardless, we can’t take the chance. Elder Huan has already told us about some other bewildering details about this incident. We need to go investigate this ant colony sooner rather than later. We have already been warned by the Lords of the Scorched Wastelands that our presence is barely tolerated as is,” Grand Elder Rhynus stated firmly.

“Already?” one of the elders asked nervously.

“Yes, I suspect it has to do with the fact that we sent over two Tier 6s. They seem to be fine with it for now, understanding our situation, but they have made it clear that we won’t be allowed to move that freely. As Grand Elder Rhynus said, the sooner we get this settled, the better,” Cassandra replied with a pointed look at the grand elder in question.

Julius suspected there was more to the story than she let on.

“Then that’s settled. Julius will go with Vice Sect Leader Cassandra and show her where he’d found this gorge. But before that happens, we need to ask the boy some questions. Some of the stuff he told us doesn’t make any sense.”

“We already discussed this. We aren’t doing that,” Cassandra was quick to shut that down.

“No, you made the decision on your own. You didn’t consult us,” Grand Elder Rhynus pointed out firmly.

“You don’t trust my judgment?”

“It's not that, but I don’t trust ” He wasn’t even trying to hide his true feelings about Julius. Though being Tier 6 allowed the man certain liberties when it came to being honest and straightforward. That and Julius appreciated the bluntness. It was better than someone tiptoeing around him, plotting in secret.

“Well, I do, and that should be enough.”

“Come on, you are being unreasonable, and you know it. We have no idea who he is or where he came from. We all conducted our own investigations and weren’t able to find any record of him. The only thing we were able to find was the Adventurer’s Guild profile they had on him. But the profile is empty. He doesn’t have any records of missions, and it reeks of foul play.”

“You went through my profile?” Julius interrupted with a frown. He wondered how they managed that.

Grand Elder Rhynus slowly swiveled his head to stare at him directly. “Of course we did. And I am wondering whether we should have looked more deeply. Every mission or expedition you’ve been on has experienced issues.”

There wasn’t any malice in his gaze, but it was full of distrust. He did notice that the man hadn’t tried to push his aura onto him. But that could be because of Cassandra.

“I have shitty luck,” he grumbled.

“Maybe, or maybe you are someone from another sect trying to infiltrate the Burning Sun Sect. Maybe someone from the Nine Peaks Sect. It would certainly explain your strength.”

Julius smiled briefly, flattered by the man’s comment, but quickly realized it wasn’t meant to be one and instead crossed his arms. Choosing to stare flatly at the man. Perhaps other people would have been intimidated by the Tier 6, but Julius had enough experience that he didn't really feel uncomfortable in his presence.

“You really think I’m a spy?”

Grand Elder Rhynus shook his head. “Honestly, the odds are low. But you have something you are hiding, and it's possibly affecting the sect. Look at what happened on this expedition. Not a single incident of this magnitude has occurred in the past decade, but the second you arrive, this breaks out. We have dozens of our best talents dead, not to mention how many might be crippled. Then you want to tell us that out of everyone in the expedition, it was you who found the gorge and this colony of ants? How do we know if that’s true or not? How do we trust you?”

Julius couldn’t help but wince. The man made some good points. But he suddenly grew much more concerned when he spotted Cassandra looking at him. Where there had been nothing but confidence a moment ago, he could have sworn he saw it waver for a moment.

That wasn’t good. Not good at all.