Hearing the explanation of Lin Mu, the three elders felt enlightened.
"Um, elders… do we need to do something?" The guard asked, understanding that this must be far more troublesome.
Even though they did not have the same level of knowledge as that of the ministers, they could still asses that there was a great problem from Lin Mu's words. They also knew Lin Mu's identity as the guest elder of the Hong Lin Kingdom and that his status was right next to their own king, thus his words held great weight.
"Yes," Lin Mu said, looking towards the guards. "Inform adviser Liu about this and start to increase the number of soldiers guarding the borders. Do regular patrols and inform if you see anything like this." He ordered.
"I shall do as you ask, elder." The guard responded.
"Another thing… if you all encounter a beast or being similar to that… either kill it entirely and burn away its corpse into ash. If that does not happen, and that thing injures you, make sure the person who is injured is isolated and quarantined.
If you don't do that and they were infected by any chance, we would have a far greater problem on our hands." Lin Mu instructed.
"Yes, elder!" The guard said before quickly heading off to pass on the instructions.
The three elders of the Long Cloud sect looked at Lin Mu and didn't know what to say. To them, it was proving to be more and more serious as the time passed.
"These being's infected by the invader… just how strong are they?" Elder Boqin questioned.
"Hmm… their strength depends on several factors, the main one being whether their 'host' accepts them completely or not. If they do, the power of the host will increase by a lot compared to their normal cultivation base.
For example, a Nascent soul realm beast, the Blight Dust beast, was infected by the invader several years ago. That beast could produce dust that could poison things. Normally this was limited to a close range, but… once it was infected by the invader, its toxicity increased and the range of it increased exponentially as well.
It caused a plague in my hometown which was over seven hundred kilometers from its nest." Lin Mu explained.
Jing Luo's expression turned strained as he knew what Lin Mu had lost in that plague.
"I think I know about it. Wasn't it the Tri Cauldron peony sect that destroyed that beast? But they just told everyone that it was a mutated beast." Elder Wenyan spoke.
"No… that is false. The Tri cauldron peony sect barely managed to resist the beast and even then, many of their men died. It is only became of Jing Luo's cousin Duan Ke, who intervened to get rid of the beast did they survive.
Perhaps if it were not for her, we would have had an even bigger disaster several years ago." Lin Mu said in a cold tone.
"I see… then we should deal with this quickly." Elder Boqin replied.
"Indeed. That is why I've been telling you that all this is beyond our petty squabbles. This means the survival of the entire Xiaofan world." Lin Mu stated.
"Xiaofan world?" Elder Peizhi repeated, feeling unfamiliar.
"That… is the name of our world." Lin Mu answered.
"What?!" Elder Boqin and Wenyan were surprised.
"I've read the records of the history of the world, but there are no such words for our world." Elder Peizhi replied.
"Then do you think our world has always been nameless?" Lin Mu asked.
"Yes, we just called it our world." Elder Peizhi replied.
"No… that might have been correct a long time ago. But not anymore… the world has spoken… and its name is Xiaofan world!" Lin Mu declared.
~shua~
The character of ordained glimmered on Lin Mu's forehead once more in approval and dimmed down in a couple of seconds.
The three elders clearly had some understanding about the world's ordained and had already seen the character a few times on Lin Mu's forehead. They were a bit disinclined to give into all of Lin Mu's demands since they didn't consider that a fair balance.
Back when there were other ordained in the past, everyone strong power had at least one person of their own. But now… there was just Lin Mu, which greatly tilted things in his favor.
Even if this had to do with the survival of the world, the sects would still be hesitant about giving up their benefit and power. But if others like Lin Mu appeared within their midsts, they would then cry out for a 'fair chance'.
It was highly hypocritical, but that was just how the sects had built up their power over the thousands of years they had lived. The generation that withstood the invasions had long since passed away and there were only a few that knew the true reality of it.
Thus, they were disillusioned and thought that they could do as they want to, thinking that they had enough power to support themselves.
The three elders had been instructed accordingly to negotiate the terms in their favor. Even if Lin Mu was the world's ordained, he was just one man, and they were an entire sect. According to them, there was no way he could go against them alone.
~Grrr~
Little Shrubby growled and gestured towards a certain direction, telling Lin Mu something.
"We need to hurry. Whatever it is, the scent is getting faint." Lin Mu said as brows furrowed.
~whoosh~
Then without a word, everyone followed behind Little Shrubby as he led them towards the source. Everyone had their spirit sense probes at full range and were keeping an eye for anything unusual.
The path they followed was not straight and there were a lot of curves and turns. But after about a day's travel, they realized that the place they were heading towards was their original destination anyway.
"Why… is this going towards our sect?" Elder Wenyan questioned.
