"Will this be enough to release Serf?" Asked Daniel after passing the piece of paper to Alana.
The old lady quickly tried to approach her grand daughter, but before she could come to five meters of distance from her, she felt that something was wrong. A spatial barrier was preventing her from coming closer, and this barrier's power was just below her own power.
She quickly turned to look at Daniel in shock, she would have never expected that he could be this powerful at his young age.
Unable to push through without using her true strength, the old lady turned to look at Alana, who immediately read what was written in the piece of paper, and said "It's a recipe.. The items.. They are the same as our poison.." the more she read, the more shocked she became about how close to the creation of the black pills this recipe actually was.
"I want to see him. If you don't let me talk to him, I won't let you have it." Said Daniel with a threatening tone. What Daniel was expecting to happen, was that they would allow him to see Serf, and free him in exchange for the entire recipe of his Partial Poison Immunity Pill.
Naturally, he would never give up his pill, and instead, he would wait for them to take Serf out before finding a way to escape. That was the reason why he had given to them the ingredients for the pill, and not the true method. People could study one pill and find what it had been made of, but they would likely never find the true method to produce the pill.
Knowing the ingredients for this pill and not the method of production was the same as what they knew about the antidote for the poison of their family. What was missing was the method, and that was why they weren't able to replicate it even after years of failed attempts. The best they had come to it, was the production of the black pill.
Daniel was forced to put the true list of the ingredients because he wasn't aware of how much they knew. He needed them to believe that the recipe was real, or he could ended end up causing an opposite reaction, and probably lose any chance for the Navi family to trust him.
He did not fear confrontation with this family, after all, their main power came from the use of poisons, and he was already immune to the most powerful poison that they possessed. What he feared, was that they would kill Serf if he refused.
He was currently waiting for a response, but suddenly.. A few more individuals started to appear from various spots around the square. Daniel could feel their power, and he at least three of them were at the sixth stage of cultivation, just like he and the old lady were.
It was at this moment that Daniel turned to look at Alana, whom he still believed was on Serf's side, and said "I'm going to teleport you away." but before he could, he saw a faint smile grow on her face, and a small talisman appear in her hand.
This talisman was called 'Way Back', and it was a spatial talisman.
The way this talisman worked, was a mixture between a teleporting talisman and a ki flag. It would teleport the carrier through space, and close to the source of a certain type of essence, which in Alana's case, was the immortal essence of her grandmother.
The reason why it was called way home, was because the majority of people used it as an emergency tool to teleport directly back home. The teleportation would force through dimensions, and had an infinite range, but the further a person was from 'home', the more dangerous it would be to use the talisman.
For a person to avoid risk for their lives when using it, they needed to be within the same region at best. That was the reason why, even though extremely useful, the 'Way Home' talisman was not considered an object of high level when put in the perspective of the universe's size.
Alana had been given this object by her family, to use in case Daniel would have ever given the recipe to her.. and now that it had happened, she hadn't hesitated.
Normally, since Daniel was still within the same region where Alana and the Navi family territory were, she would have expected to suffer from some internal damage, or a massive migraine.. But unexpectedly, she was lucky enough to need to use it directly from within the area where the way home talisman was supposed to take her, and therefore, allow her to teleport without any sort of negative consequence.
"Here, grandma." Said Alana before passing the piece of paper that she was holding in her hands.
What had just happened surprised Daniel greatly, and yet, he did not lose his calm. Instead, he looked at Alana, and asked "Has Serf really been detained?.."
Alana struggled to keep herself from laughing at Daniel. And said with a plain tone "He was."
There was something in the way that she had responded that struck something within Daniel. For the first time since he had come here, Daniel started to consider that something terrible could have happened. "Where is he?" He asked with visible worry.
The old lady interjected before Alana could answer, and said "The pills." She was of course not going to leave the pills to Daniel. The less the number people that possessed them was, the more they would be worth in the long run.
Daniel did not say anything, and instead waited in place. He had been ignored one too many time, and all he could think about was to verify if Serf was okay or not.
Noticing how Daniel was refusing to comply, the old lady said "You still don't get it, do you?" Her tone was cold, and menacing. "This isn't a matter of whether you'll see Serf again.. This is a matter of whether you will survive this encounter or not."
Again, Daniel said nothing and waited. The bad feeling that he had felt so far was growing and growing the more time passed.
One long minute of silence later, the old lady turned to look at Alana, and nodded slightly.
In response, Alana said to him "You want my brother? You can have him." she then waved her arm, causing a large lifeless body to appear. It didn't take long for Daniel to recognize this corpse as what was once his gentle, and big friend.
Inside Daniel's head, everything went blank. He was thinking of dozens of things, and yet none could stay as a firm thought in his mind. He was seeing flashes of when the two had met, of how Serf showed his thick skin by ignoring everyone who tried to bully him.. And even how he would usually see him come back to their room with a big smile on his face, after using his time to help around the city, just like Daniel's group did. Except that when he did it, was because he enjoyed it, and not because it would make him stronger.
"You've.. killed him.." muttered Daniel with eyes wide opened in shock. His hands were trembling, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"We haven't.. We were going to, after torturing him a little bit.. But the traitor didn't want to tell us anything! I've left him alone to get my tools, and the idiot killed himself." Said Alana with indifference. Yet, hidden behind her plain expression, one could feel the faint satisfaction that she felt in seeing the dead body of her brother.
Daniel was feeling shock, and anger, which along with growing sadness, composed the majority of Daniel's current state of mind. Yet, everything was slowly being masked by what was sheer and blind fury.
"Give up the pills, kid.. And you might end up better than he did." Said the old lady with a face devoid of emotions. She of course had no intentions of allowing Daniel to leave alive, but since she still needed him to give her the pills, she decided to let him think that he had a chance to survive. "And I wouldn't try to escape if I were you.. While we were talking, a spatial formation was being activated.. You won't be able to leave even if you try."
Daniel ignored the old lady's words completely. Intead, he slowly walked towards Serf's corpse, and once close to it, he fell on his knees next to it. He observed the relaxed expression of his friend for a few moments, then, he calmly took his arms, joined them together over his chest, and closed his semi-opened eyelids.
The two had met only a few months earlier, and yet Daniel had come to consider Serf a great friend. He had saved his life once, and was the embodiment of what the positive side of his karmic system was. He was sure that, had Serf been to the prairie with him when Iewah picked a champion, he would have definitely picked Serf instead.
After placing Serf's corpse in a decent position, Daniel slowly stood up. He could feel the rage and hate grow inside him, and slowly take over his mind. Before that day, he had never imagined that a sister could behave that way towards her brother.. His view of what evil meant had changed once again, and now, these people had to pay for it.
"Don't try anything stupid.. You'll end up dead. And after that, we will kill the rest of your friend as well. Why not just comply, and live to see another day?" Said Alana's mother which had quietly appeared along with the other experts. She was at the late fifth stage of immortal cultivation.
Daniel's expression turned into one of calmness, which did not express what he was truly feeling in the slightest. His hands suddenly stopped trembling, and at the same time, they started to shine of a yellowish bright color.
The light emanated from his hands was not powerful, and yet, it emanated a huge amount of warmth. On the surface of his skin, big yellow drops were forming, and streaming down his palms, before reaching his fingers, and ultimately, dripping on the cold ground. *TSSSSSSSH* *TSSSSSSH* These drops kept falling one after the other, until finally, one stopped right before touching the ground, and took the shape of the tip of a sword.
It seemed that lava was coming out of Daniel's body, which flowed down and into a sword-shaped mold which ultimately turned the cumulated drops of lava into two swords. These two swords were scorching hot, and shined as if they could melt away just as quickly as they had formed.
This had all happened in less than ten seconds, and while Daniel was creating these two sword, a few more cultivators had entered the formation.
Some of these people were clearly not part of the Navi family, and instead, were mercenary that lived in the city around the Navi family, and had decided to spend their lives working for this powerful family of poison masters.
Around Daniel, were now at least ten sixth stage cultivators, and no less than twenty more at a lower level. They were looking at him as if he had gone mad.
"Let's do it your way, kid. Just hope for your friends' sake that after we kill you, we will find the pills in your ring.." Said the old lady while taking an enormous black scythe out of her spatial ring, and taking her fighting stance.
For the first time since before Alana had taken out Serf's body, Daniel turned to look at the old lady, and with eyes as cold as ice, he said "I will kill all of you." He then let go over the control of his immortal essence, which caused his body to slowly float in the air.
Large amounts of immortal essence were moving on Daniel's back, and before anyone could notice it, he had dashed towards the old lady with incredible speed.
The old lady reacted quickly, and tried to use the bigger range of her weapon to hit him first, but just as her attack slashed the empty air, she heard a disgusting sound coming from right next to her.
*TSSSSSSGSHHH* *Thu-Thump*
Her grand daughter Alana, which was preparing to leave the area before the fight begun, had now dropped dead on the ground, split vertically into two parts.
Next to her, Daniel stood in silence.
