Chapter 281
Fortunately for me, the Shadowed Blade Sect have quite a few techniques at their disposal for infiltration, and thanks to Elder Po, I know most of them. Karl has an area sleep spell, so he will go to the barracks first while I take the catwalks. We don’t know where the four immortals will be when we arrive, so it’s really up to chance just how much risk of exposure we will face.
With a bit of luck, one or two will be off shift and sleeping, but things rarely go that smoothly for us. I’m personally hoping there’s one up on the walls, so I can eliminate him early before he can raise the alarm.
With the help of the locals, we manage to sneak within a kilometer of the compound and find a good hiding spot for Elder Song and Lelou. From that distance, they can reach us in under a minute if they’re an emergency, but it’s far enough away that they won’t get spotted, even if they’re not entirely masking their energy.
"Ready pup?" Karl teases me while casting some spells towards the camp.
"Good to go. Have you found any of their locations yet, Elder Song?" His senses are the strongest of anyone due to his cultivation, so he has been trying to detect the exact location of the Immortal Realm Guards. I can smell the place in the wind, but that doesn’t tell me who is who.
"Nothing yet; they’ve got some barrier up to hide them from detection. It’s not limiting the prisoners powers, but they might be impossible to identify from beyond the walls without alerting them to our presence."
That makes it extra fun. They might be able to detect us, but they’ll be shielded from our search until the last second. All we can do is watch and guess, taking out our first targets by appearance alone. Karl and I both activate Shadow Meld and sneak off into the woods to wait for it to get dark. It’s a good concealment ability, but against other immortals in broad daylight, it’s just not going to work.
As the sun fades from the sky, I watch the guards on the upper catwalks make their patrol circuits. They seem to be following a routine, the same path around the prison repeatedly, except for one man. Their uniforms are identical, dark blue cultivators’ robes, but he has the presence of someone in charge and doesn’t follow a set pattern. That makes him my first target of the night.