Chapter 289 - The Mysterious Worm
"Now, tell us about yourself." The Burkurel Ki Clan Elder had just said when she noticed through her third eye. The membrane that seemed to have been blocking the man's Kalki Qi from flowing into his head morphed into a worm.
The worm looked at her and laughed once before dissipating. She noticed the man's expression turn blank immediately. Then, followed by a breath in time, his expression returned to normal. He then looked at the people before him in confusion, looking around to see the expensive furniture of the place, sweating in response.
He then gazed at their Tikka jewellery, noticing that it was a transparent white, paling in response, assuming he was captured by someone from a foreign race.
"I'm the Burkurel City's City Lord." The lady spoke, making eye contact with the other Elder that flashed to the man's back, maintaining sight in his third eye.
The Burkurel Ki Clan Elder closed her third eye as her Tikka jewellery's gem turned red, symbolising Fire Qi, noticing the man visibly relax. But all along, she felt something was strange. After all, the man's expression before and after the worm's disappearance was completely different.
At present, he behaved no different to a person living in the Settlements. Upon seeing that, she frowned. Besides, that mysterious worm caused her to feel confused, thinking, 'Is that how my people were influenced to commit those series of crimes?'
She then did a basic interrogation on him and set him free. Once he left the place, the two Elders tailed after him, noticing that he behaved no different from usual. It seemed there was just one such person in the settlement.
The two nodded and finished scouring through the settlement before heading towards the Burkurel Re Clan's Southern Settlement. This was a planned move by the Elders, wishing to keep everything in check.
Whatever happened in Burfuna City served as a reminder to them. So, they took action. Besides, she wasn't the Burkurel City's City Lord. She had only been the acting City Lord at one point in time. So, she wasn't grounded to Burkurel City.
It was why she was able to leave the city and scour through the Settlements. Soon, they arrived at Burkurel Re Clan's Southern Settlement, scouring through it before they spotted another person where the Kalki Qi didn't flow through their head.
After making a round through the Settlement, they discovered that there was only one person in the place. Making eye contact with one another, the two Elders took action immediately. They knocked out the person in question and took her out of the Settlement.
Obscured behind a patch of trees, they placed the woman, barely in her early twenties on the ground. Then, the Burkurel Re Clan Elder placed a hand on the girl's forehead while the Burkurel Ki Clan Elder placed a hand over her neck, right above the membrane blocking out the Kalki Qi.
They timed themselves, injecting Kalki Qi simultaneously. Using the Kalki Qi, the Royal Clan Elder wrapped around the membrane, noticing that it had begun to morph its shape. She quickly condensed the Kalki Qi into a sphere, trapping the formed worm within it completely.
But, just like before, the worm looked at her and snickered derisively before vanishing. And this time, the Elder noticed the worm dissolve into a form of energy. But, this energy seemed unstable, breaking down before turning into a substance without form.
She carefully extracted it, seeing it above her palms, sealed within the sphere of Kalki Qi. The two Elders frowned, making eye contact as they noticed that the Kalki Qi began to flow into the girl's head like normal.
They left her in the same place they picked up from and headed towards the other Settlements. Soon, they had scoured through all the settlements, arriving at the Western Settlement as they carried the person with the worm in his body.
This time, they didn't try to do anything to him, only ensuring he was knocked unconscious. In the hands of the Elder were three spheres that she had taken from the southern, western, and northern Settlements.
There was some difficulty in maintaining them while preventing the unstable energy within from escaping. She then expended 80 units of her Elemental Qi and summoned her Yali with four foundations. With four foundations, it would remain materialised for a day.
The two Elders immediately boarded it as the Burkurel Re Clan Elder safely held the man they had captured. Immediately, they set off towards the Bura Fort, since that was the nearest place where they could meet with a Celestial King.
Heading towards the Water Sect would take more than half a day, and they didn't have that much time on their hands, as they weren't sure if the worm within the captured man would vanish by then. Moreover, the Burkurel Royal Clan Elder couldn't maintain the Kalki Qi sphere for that long.
It was nighttime when they arrived before a sprawling fortress wall that resembled a mountain range. There were two fortresses in the place, one belonging to their race while the other belonged to the Treka.
And, they were situated a mountain's distance away. So, at any time, they had to be prepared for war. And, a war did erupt numerous times a month.
There existed a mystical phenomenon in the place. It formed a border through the battlefield's centre, forming a layer that spanned from the ground and touched the permanent layer of clouds at the top. And on one side was the environment rich in Fire Qi, causing the place to teem with a faint red colour.
And the other side was a place rich with Earth Qi, teeming with a mild brown colour. The ambient light itself was different in the two places. And at the place they touched, there were two curtains, one red, and one brown, thick, visible to the naked eye due to their sheer density.
It was the country border, of both the Kalki and the Treka. And on the side of the Kalki, the entire fortress was created using Metal Qi, a mammoth structure since it didn't seem to end on both sides, traversing the entire range.
The fortress of the Treka resembled an actual mountain range in that it was created using Earth Qi. And, its height too was equivalent to a mountain. There were around three such mountain ranges, showing that the Treka had erected three layers of defence against the Kalki.
And the side of the Kalki was no way inferior, a clear indication by the border that was at the perfect centre of the battlefield.