The trio ran for two days and they are followed by these people for two days without any rest.
Only after some beasts within the woods hooked up with these two guys did they have enough privilege to take a break.
After that, they continued to move towards the imperial capital.
They don't know what exactly these church guys are planning, but they seemed to be completely weird and extremely dangerous.
Particularly, their brainwashing methods and turning a normal person into this weird freak like this.
From what heard from the shadow mouse, the couple turned into Novices, but the people who chased them are on verge of being Nascent stage cultivators. No, it would be rather fitting to call them organisms than cultivators.
After another four days, they finally arrived at the imperial capital.
Now, their first objective is to report the situation to the emperor, but it would be too difficult to reach him directly and they couldn't just go and tell him that some freaks are wreaking havoc right under his territory.
It would be a surprise if they don't beat the crap out of them just when they tried to enter the imperial palace.
They couldn't think of any solution went straight towards the imperial palace to try their hard luck, but as expected they were kicked out, at least not physically, they were sent back politely.
After thinking of all kinds of weird ideas, they finally came to a decision and that is use a most straight forward method they could possibly think of and that is creating a scene.
They immediately went on to work. After an hour, Watt is flying near the imperial palace as he started showering the streets with pamphlets, they created themselves.
This caused quite a big commotion and soon, a beast flew into the sky and they caught Watt.
Philip and Jack joined them in the middle. Sam is tied to Philip's back.
They surrendered quite peacefully and didn't cause any scene; they didn't answer anything too. Only after they reached the court did they speak and that too because there is the Emperor sitting on the top.
"From the looks of it, you guys seemed to be quite talented, but that doesn't excuse the fact, that you caused ruckus over the imperial palace.
Considering your talent and amount of hard work you should have put, I will let you explain yourselves, but before that can you tell me what happened to your friend on your back?"
The trio exchanged glances and Philip opened up.
"We will be completely honest with you right now. We are not from here, I am Philip, he is Watt and he is Jack, the one who was tied to my back is our friend Sam.
There is a faint possibility that you might have heard of his name at least, but I would still explain.
Two and a half months ago, Sam caused a ruckus at the Beast faction and we killed more than half of their mid-tier members, their Nascent stage cultivators are almost all dead and there are countless Pre-transcendent stage casualties too in the fight.
Finally, in a desperate situation he used a forbidden technique to transport use here and this is the backlash he is suffering." He paused and looked at the emperor who stood up by now with his mouth wide open.
"Call the crown prince over." He ordered an attendant and then turned back to Philip and said in a hurried tone.
"Are you telling the truth? That guy is Sam from the western continent, who survived the Beast faction?"
"Yes."
He didn't know what to say, he didn't expect that he would be able to get to meet a person who is completely legendary right now.
Not just him, every emperor in the whole planet knew Sam at this moment, his name was publicized like that.
After a few minutes, a young man walked in and saw Philip, Watt and Jack. He was shocked to see Philip and Jack as he saw them before, he looked at Sam whose head is resting on Philip's shoulder and halted in his tracks and gulped for a second.
That face is not something he would be able to forget in this life. For him, that sleeping face which has a black patch covering half of it, is a symbol of terror and fear.
The Emperor who wanted to ask his son for confirmation, didn't even bother to ask anymore.
After a while, they sat down in the court talking privately, there was even a bed that was prepared for Sam in the room.
Turned out that this kid is a member of the Usaine Sect. and he is also part of the core members who came to resource competition.
At first, he felt wary, but he didn't think so later, because he remembered that even the Sect head wasn't able to recognize him in the resource competition, there is no way for this guy to even realise who he is.
"May I know what you wanted to tell me? The pamphlets you threw in the air are extremely vague."
"Have you heard of the Church of the Guide?" Philip asked the emperor's face turned solemn.
"I heard of this organisation. I even received a news yesterday from one of my scouts that they are nothing but a cult. Why are asking me about this?"
The trio didn't even know how to respond to that.
"Just a Cult? Seems like your scout is also part of the Church, there is no way they are just a normal cult, they started converting the non-cultivators into cultivators with some weird pills.
The people will turn into a strong creature overnight. Not only will they gain strength, they will also be brainwashed. Apart from the brain washing these commoners, they also targeted a wide range of young cultivators just to not let out their secret.
We literally escaped from them in your Orange flame city and came here…"
Philip went on the explain the situation completely and the face of the emperor turned extremely grave.
He doesn't know what happened to the scouts, the Dukes and many other officials that are stationed in the whole nation, but it seemed that his network has been completely annihilated and was combined into the church or whatever.
He doesn't know how to react to this situation or how to take care of it.
He was just staying the palace thinking that everything is f.u.c.k.i.n.g great and didn't even find out that a great power is growing right under his nose.
He felt like he was failure of an emperor.
"Wait, even if they could do what they wanted to with the normal people and my staff, but what about the four major towers?"
"We honestly don't know. They didn't seem to target the towers, they might need the towers themselves anyway, so they might have just left them alone and anyway, there is no way they would make a fuss with the four major towers, there will be repercussion from the central continent."
Philip replied again.
"Please stay here for a moment, I will just come." The Emperor left the place and started commanding all his subordinates.
"Empty out all your treasuries and store them with you, alert all the people in the imperial capital and command all the troops including the imperial guards, the city guards, the personal guards of the crown prince, the harem guards everyone should gather right at this moment.
Transfer all the citizens to the imperial palace grounds and make sure to stay on standby to activate all the defensive formations of the city.
Call, for the Old dukes, old marquises and all the other retired candidates from the Bamboo pavilion, including the old emperor.
Unlock all the guarding beasts including the forbidden cave and stay standby at that cave until the old emperor comes.
Anyone who is a Grand realm cultivator or stronger who are within the citizens should join the reserve troops.
Publish a new list of assignments within the mercenary guild. Hire every mercenary in the Imperial capital.
I want everything to get ready by noon." The Emperor came back and looked at the trio and Sam.
"Are you going to join the battle?" They thought for a moment and Philip asked.
"What is your back up plan?"
"My back up plan is to activate the teleportation formation to transfer everyone to an empty island of the Usaine Sect.
It was actually, my reward for the highest tax they got from me. My nation is extremely prosper and there is a lot I have gained from it, it was just I was too used to the peace, I kind of completely let go of my guard and didn't care about the whole situation.
Although, the island is a superficial thing that they used to just brush me off, I spent a bomb on it and created a space-gate on that.
But the only thing is that there would be a scarcity of the spiritual stones."
"Maybe, you don't have to worry about that…" Watt said as he exchanged a glance with Philip.
