Deke County City was much smaller than Basil Provincial Capital.
Its walls were not high, and its streets were not wide.
But many merchant caravans entered the city from the north.
This was an important passage between Northwest Province and North Sea Province. The goods passing through were not particularly valuable, but the people traveling through had complicated backgrounds. Merchants, mercenaries, noble retainers, and clerics in ordinary robes passed through the city gates every day.
Linley's group attracted no attention.
They entered the city as an ordinary mercenary squad.
Linley carried the Black Jade Heavy Sword on his back, with Bebe sprawled on his shoulder. Haeru suppressed his magical beast aura and followed at the rear. Sessler wore a loose black cloak that concealed his white hair and half his face.
Lina and Rebecca walked behind Sessler.
The two looked like ordinary girls of sixteen or seventeen.
After entering the gates, Linley did not immediately head for the courtyard in Perry's memories. Instead, he circled through the streets twice.
"The street on the left," Sessler said quietly. "Another three hundred meters."
Linley nodded.
Sessler kept his voice so low that only those beside him could hear.
They crossed a street paved with stone slabs and turned onto Huating Street.
Most buildings on either side were small, three-story houses with their doors and windows shut. There were no shops here, and few pedestrians. At the end of the street stood a sizable residence, its courtyard walls fully four meters high. There were no emblems atop the walls.
Sessler stopped.
"This is it."
Linley looked up.
The residence's main gate was shut, with neither chains nor guards.
"The location from his memories?" Linley asked.
"There's no mistake about the location," Sessler said. "Perry was responsible for receiving personnel from the outer ranks, but he wouldn't know the specific targets in advance. All he knew was that this residence belonged to the Church."
Linley observed it for a while.
"There's no one inside."
"Are you sure?" Bebe asked.
Linley did not answer.
His spiritual energy slowly spread out.
Thick dust lay throughout the residence, and weeds surrounded a dry well in the courtyard. The buildings' doors and windows were shut, with no footprints beneath the eaves. Even the water vat in the rear courtyard held a layer of fallen leaves.
No one lived there, indeed.
Linley looked across the street.
"Rent the residence next door."
"It's already arranged," Sessler said.
Bebe blinked.
"When did you arrange that?"
"Before we entered the city."
Sessler took a key from his cloak.
There was still dirt on it.
Clearly, he had already sent someone to take care of it.
The residence next door was not large either.
The front courtyard, main house, and rear courtyard together could accommodate no more than a dozen or so people. The rooms smelled of old wood, and dust covered the tables and chairs. Clearly, no one had lived there for a long time.
Linley checked all the doors and windows.
An old locust tree grew in a corner of the rear courtyard, its branches extending toward the neighboring residence.
Bebe looked up at the branches.
"I'll go over from here."
"Don't approach the target residence during the day," Linley said. "Familiarize yourself with the city's streets first."
Bebe nodded.
"What about at night?"
"Don't rush inside at night either."
Bebe's face immediately fell.
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Investigate the convoys entering the city."
"All right."
Bebe vaulted over the wall. His figure flashed, and he vanished at the end of the street.
Haeru watched him leave and said quietly through mental transmission, "His aura is too obvious."
"He'll be careful," Linley said.
Haeru said nothing more.
He walked into the rear courtyard and lay down in a shaded corner. His black fur blended into the shadows. Without looking carefully, no one would notice the enormous black panther lying there.
Lina and Rebecca were assigned the innermost room in the main house.
Sessler drew two simple magic formations on the floor.
"Summon."
Lina looked at the bone fragments beside her feet and took a deep breath.
She raised both hands.
Gray death energy flowed from her fingertips and sank into the ground.
A faint scraping came from beneath the floor.
A fourth-rank skeleton crawled out of the earth, two green flames kindling in its hollow eye sockets.
Lina's face quickly grew pale.
"Maintain it," Sessler said. "Don't let its aura leak out."
The skeleton trembled slightly. Clearly, she was doing her best to control the puppet.
Its fingers dug into the ground, as though it might slip out of control at any moment.
Cold sweat broke out on Lina's forehead as her spiritual energy poured forth.
The skeleton finally settled down.
Sessler then looked at Rebecca.
"Your undead hounds."
Rebecca immediately cast her spell.
Two gray shadows crawled out of the corner, landing without a sound. They crouched beside Rebecca, their noses twitching gently.
"Have them remember this residence," Sessler said. "Wherever you go in the future, as long as they can still sense this place, they'll be able to recognize the way back."
Rebecca nodded.
She closed her eyes and divided her spiritual energy into two streams, connecting each to an undead hound.
A moment later, one of the undead hounds suddenly raised its head.
It looked beyond the courtyard wall.
Rebecca's expression changed.
"Someone's coming."
Linley raised a hand.
Every sound in the room stopped at once.
Footsteps sounded outside the courtyard.
A middle-aged man in a short gray robe passed along the street. He walked slowly, carrying a vegetable basket. When he reached the residence's gate, he paused.
The gray-robed middle-aged man looked up at the courtyard gate.
Then he continued onward.
His footsteps gradually faded away.
Sessler beckoned.
The skeleton beside Lina immediately dissolved into a cloud of gray vapor and sank into the ground. Rebecca also recalled her two undead hounds.
"An ordinary person," Linley said.
"Not necessarily," Sessler said coldly. "An ordinary person wouldn't pause so long outside an empty residence."
Linley looked out the window.
"I'll take a look."
"I'll go," Haeru transmitted.
Linley shook his head.
"Stay here and stand guard."
A trace of displeasure flickered in Haeru's eyes.
Linley glanced at him.
"You're needed here."
Haeru was silent for a moment before lying back down.
"Understood."
Linley pushed open the rear window.
His body drifted out like a falling leaf, without the slightest whisper of wind.
The gray-robed middle-aged man was no longer visible on the street.
Linley walked forward along the foot of the wall.
Three hundred meters away, the man was entering a general store.
Linley did not follow him inside. Instead, he circled behind the store and silently spread out his spiritual energy.
The gray-robed middle-aged man was talking to the shopkeeper.
"When did someone rent that place on Huating Street?"
"This morning," the shopkeeper said. "A few mercenaries, I think."
"How many?"
"Six or seven, perhaps. I'm not sure."
The gray-robed middle-aged man fell silent for a moment.
"Did you get a clear look at where they came from?"
"No."
The gray-robed middle-aged man put down a few copper coins and left the general store.
Linley did not continue following him.
The man was merely an ordinary lookout responsible for watching the street.
His spiritual energy was weak, he had never cultivated battle-qi, and there were no elemental fluctuations when he walked.
But he belonged to the Radiant Church.
Linley returned to the residence and told Sessler what had happened.
Sessler sneered.
"Sure enough, they've heightened their vigilance since Perry's death."
"They don't know who we are," Linley said.
Linley glanced at the neighboring residence.
Its main gate remained shut.
For the next three days, no one entered or left the residence.
Bebe made two rounds of the city every day.
He did not ask directly about the escort party. Instead, he first gathered information from carriage companies, taverns, and city gate guards. Each time he returned, he brought several different accounts.
"A noble's convoy came from the north."
"A mercenary company is going to escort some magical beast materials."
"Some people also say an important figure from North Sea Province will pass through Deke County City."
Bebe sat on the table, gesturing with his paws.
"They all say different things."
"That means the real party hasn't appeared yet," Sessler said.
"Or they could all be lying."
"You've finally said something useful."
Bebe grinned.
"I've always been useful."
Haeru lay in the corner and transmitted flatly, "Noisy."
Bebe immediately jumped onto Linley's shoulder.
"Boss, Haeru's picking on me."
"Both of you go out together," Linley said.
Bebe immediately fell silent.
After entering the city, Sessler led everyone to Huating Street.
"That's the residence."
At the end of the street, the main gate of an unmarked residence stood shut. No one had lived there for a long time. It was precisely the rendezvous point in Perry's memories.
They rented the residence next door.
"Bebe, watch the city gates. Haeru, investigate the northern roads," Linley said. "Don't approach the convoy."
"Sessler, stay here. Lina, Rebecca, keep practicing concealing the aura of the undead."
Everyone dispersed.
Three days passed without any activity at the rendezvous point.
Lina could now make a fourth-level skeleton lie underground without leaking any death aura. Rebecca's two undead hounds had also memorized the nearby streets.
On the evening of the fourth day, Haeru returned from outside the city.
"There's a convoy to the north," he transmitted mentally. "Its wheel ruts are deep, and it's moving very slowly."
"How many people?" Linley asked.
"More than thirty. There are a few warriors on the outside."
Haeru paused.
"There's one very dangerous spot in the convoy. I didn't go near it."
Linley's gaze sharpened.
Haeru was a magical beast at the peak of the ninth level. Any being that made him instinctively back away could not possibly be an ordinary ninth-level combatant.
"Well done," Linley said.
Sessler spread out a map.
"At their speed, they'll enter the city at noon tomorrow."
Linley looked toward the tightly shut gate of the residence next door.
"Wait for them to come in. Get a clear look first, then act."
He slipped straight into the room through the rear window and landed on the table.
"They're here."
Linley immediately rose.
"The convoy has entered the city?"
"It just reached the city gate," Bebe said. "It's much bigger than an ordinary convoy. The gate guards checked it twice."
"The people?"
"There seem to be more than thirty."
"Cultivators?" Sessler asked.
"There are more than a dozen warriors on the outside. Two of them have very powerful auras," Bebe said. "But I didn't get a clear look inside."
"What are they escorting?"
"I couldn't tell."
Bebe shook his head.
"The carriages at the front are all ordinary ones. There's one in the middle with a compartment wider than the others, and its wheels sink especially deep."
Linley's gaze sharpened.
"Someone inside?"
"There should be."
"How many?"
"I don't know," Bebe said. "Black iron bars are nailed to the outside of the compartment, with very narrow gaps. I only heard a single impact from inside."
He raised a paw and slammed it down hard on the tabletop.
Bang!
"It sounded very heavy."
Linley did not speak right away.
Escorting ordinary prisoners did not require such a wide compartment, nor did it require black iron bars.
"Let's go."
Everyone entered the rear courtyard.
Linley hid in the shadow of the old locust tree. Sessler stayed by the rear window with Lina and Rebecca, while Haeru guarded their escape route.
Bebe lay on the eaves, with only his shiny black eyes showing.
Linley peered through the leaves toward the other side of the courtyard wall.
At the far end of the distant street, a grayish-white banner slowly appeared.
The convoy had arrived.
Two mounted warriors led the way.
They wore ordinary black armor, with no noble insignias hanging at their waists.
Six carriages followed.
Their compartments all looked ordinary.
Only the one in the middle was exceptionally wide.
As its wheels rolled over the paving stones, the stones actually trembled slightly. The four sturdy horses pulling it lowered their heads together, white vapor snorting from their nostrils, as though they were under immense pressure.
The escorting warriors kept looking around.
They did not converse loudly.
Even their whips made little noise when they fell.
The convoy entered Huating Street.
The rider at the very front raised a hand.
All the carriages stopped at once.
The door of the wide carriage in the middle was tightly shut, with black iron bars arranged in a crisscross pattern.
Several deep claw marks scored the side of the compartment.
They ran along the wooden boards all the way to the iron bars, a full half-finger deep.
Linley's gaze settled on those claw marks.
These had not been left by an ordinary person.
Suddenly, a dull impact came from inside the compartment.
Thud!
All four sturdy horses startled at once.
An escorting warrior immediately drew his sword and shouted sharply, "Quiet!"
There was no response from the carriage.
A moment later, another impact sounded.
Thud!
The axle groaned under the unbearable weight.
A tall, burly man in the group quickly walked over to the compartment. He wore dark red armor, his arms were thicker than an ordinary person's thighs, and a heavy axe hung at his waist.
He raised his hand and smashed the pommel of his sword hard against the carriage door.
"Behave yourself!"
The blow caved the door inward.
A low, angry roar came from inside the compartment.
Even through the iron bars and wooden boards, the sound shook several nearby horses into backing up half a step.
Just then, the door of the last ordinary carriage opened.
A small, thin, silver-haired man stepped out. He was only about 1.7 meters tall, his short, silvery-white hair resembled steel needles, and his face was utterly expressionless.
The man in dark red armor immediately banished his anger and bowed as he withdrew to one side.
"My lord."
The silver-haired man ignored him and merely glanced at the wide prison carriage.
The compartment immediately fell silent.
He then walked into the courtyard where they would be staying.
From beginning to end, Linley had not sensed the slightest trace of battle-qi from him.
It was as though he were merely an ordinary person.
"Don't probe him." Doehring's voice suddenly rang out in Linley's mind.
Linley inwardly tensed.
He only swept his spiritual energy over the prison carriage.
There were five robust life auras inside the compartment, yet all were very weak, with remnants of power suppressing them still within their bodies.
Just as he withdrew his spiritual energy, the silver-haired man, who had already reached the gate, suddenly stopped.
He turned his head, his icy gaze sweeping the street.
Linley immediately held his breath.
That gaze lingered on the neighboring courtyard wall for an instant before slowly moving away.
Saint realm? Linley asked inwardly.
"And no ordinary saint realm combatant," Doehring said gravely.
Linley tightened his grip on the hilt of the Black Jade Heavy Sword.
Perry's intelligence had left out the most important person.
The convoy began moving toward the residence.
The wide prison carriage rolled over the paving stones, leaving two deep wheel ruts.
Inside the compartment, five heavy breaths mingled together.