The three of them waited for a few more hours until the farmers were finally released. But they are all dejected.
As they are leaving, the Inner disciple gave another announcement.
"I know that you are feeling unhappy at the moment. But there was nothing I could do. I did my best to save your fields and only that much was possible.
I caught the culprit and after extracting the information, we would be holding a public execution and his a.s.sets will be divided among the farmers based on the losses they suffered."
After hearing this announcement, the farmers are a bit relieved, but they are still dejected and go back to their own farms to see what was left for them.
The inner disciple finally sighed after this was over. Now, he could find a way to save his a.s.s and he was closer to his goal than ever.
After another hour, Red who was completely tortured and almost on verge of death was taken to the front of the town hall where a makeshift stage was created and on top of it, they created an execution platform.
"He is the culprit that was destroyed all your hard work. In order to answer your grief, he will be executed in front of you."
With that, he took a dagger and sliced his throat.
Red looked at the Inner disciple dead in the eyes as he slowly lost his life with every drop of blood that was being seeped out of the cut on his throat.
The execution was over.
"Everyone come to the town hall in the afternoon with the doc.u.ments of your farm and the proof of the crops you grew. We will evaluate them and will compensate you for his a.s.sets."
With that, the crowd cheered and praised him before they dispersed.
The inner disciple and the guard captain disposed of the body and went back inside. But as they reached the main hall of the town hall, they saw the attendants looking at something.
A small box was placed there and there was a note left along with that.
"To the Forever Inner disciple."
That was what"s written on the note and the Young master was shocked, and soon the shock turned into anger.
He picked the box and opened it.
There is a recording crystal inside and the young master had an extremely bad feeling about this.
He sent the attendants away and after some hesitation let the Guard captain stay and played the video.
It is the video of the guards harvesting the produce from various farms. As the video progressed showing different guards harvesting different farms from different angles with different beasts, his face also showed different expressions.
From surprise to shock, to fear, and to despair.
The sense of relief he felt a few minutes ago was completely gone.
The guard captain also frowned at this. Even though they are the personal guards of the Young lady, they are also the members of the sect, if the higher-ups got the wind of this video, not only would they deal with them, they would also take advantage of the situation and deal with the young lady.
This is something that shouldn"t happen.
As they continued to look at the video, the image of the town and the farm disappeared and an image of the forest appeared.
The image moved as it went past a few trees and rocks and finally stopped at a spot where a young man completely donning black with a cloak covering his face and only his eyes out to see was sitting on a stone with a staff in his hands.
"h.e.l.lo, my dear fellow disciple. Oh, I am sorry. I shouldn"t call you my fellow disciple. After all, you are way beneath me in the status with your inner disciple t.i.tle.
I wanted to test you a bit and see how you would react, but not only is your reaction cowardly, it is utterly pathetic. Stealing produce from farmers? Do you know what this would do to our sect? I really hope what kind of punishment, the enforcement hall would give you."
When those words were heard, the face of the young master paled. It was as if the blood was forcefully drained from it.
"Anyway, good luck and wait for your punishment. I will be looking forward to it."
With that, the video disappeared, and at the same time, the recording crystal in turned into dust.
"f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k."
The inner disciple started cursing like he went crazy.
The guard captain on the other hand is calm and even closed his eyes as he thought of something.
Looking at him like this the inner disciple got angrier and yelled.
"What the f.u.c.k are you doing? What should we do now? My position in the sect, f.u.c.k even my life is at jeopardy."
But the guard captain didn"t respond back.
The inner disciple got angrier and threw something nearby onto the guard captain.
The guard captain caught it and threw it to the side, before saying.
"Come with me now."
With that, he walked outside and called for all his fellow guards.
A group of twelve guards and the inner disciple all moved sneakily and went into the nearby forest out of the town.
"Where are we going?"
The inner disciple asked from the side.
The guard captain didn"t reply. Just when the inner disciple is about to throw a tantrum again, he saw something familiar in front. The stone on which the black-cloaked guy sat down.
"This is the place they sat down."
The guard captain said as he looked at the spot and they soon found the traces of that person.
"The nearest place that could take them out of the planet other than our town is the city under the Fiend tribe"s control. So, they need to travel to another place under our control or territory belonging to a neutral place.
Either of them would take a significant time.
So, we still have a chance to catch up."
The guard captain said and he led the group following the traces.
As they moved through the forest quickly. The inner disciple calmed down a bit.
But that calm didn"t last long as he said.
"That guy must be a core disciple by the way he spoke. So, are you sure you can take him? He might have his personal guards."
"There is a reason why the young lady holds the most territory and status among the core disciples. Because she has the best team compared to the rest of us.
All you have to do is hold off the core disciple for a few minutes and we will find a way to support you to hold him off for more before we destroyed them completely."
"What would you do if he has a transference scroll?"
"So be it, as long as one of his guards stays behind, we can turn this around. All that would change is that instead of Red being sold out to the Fiend tribe, it would be him being sold out to one of our own."
"But it is a core disciple…"
The inner disciple wanted to say something, but he stopped as the guards stopped in their tracks, they saw the man in black standing in front of them with the staff in his hands.
"Why did my spiritual sense not pick on his presence earlier."
The guard captain muttered as he felt there might be an ambush in the front and asked them to move carefully making them spread a little bit and look around cautiously.
But at this moment, the guard captain suddenly yelled.
"BE CAREFUL."
The whole area was suddenly covered with wood elemental energy as vines appeared from underground and coiled around everyone"s legs crazily dragging them down.
As they tried to stabilize themselves, a bunch of spears suddenly manifested in thin air around them from various corners.
It almost seemed like an illusion, but they could feel a sense of danger. The problem is that they don"t know which spear is just a mere illusion or which spear really gives them such sense of danger.
So, they are basically sitting ducks.
The spears were launched and the targeted people could feel the strong sense of the spear intent surrounding them.
They crazily tried to get rid of the vines and blocked the spears.
Out of thirteen people seven people succeeded and even the inner disciple who panicked the most used a lot of artifacts that managed to block the attacks for him.
The six people had their bodies pierced by the spears in various spots and had grim injuries while the remaining seven, although blocked, have small sc.r.a.pes and cuts all over their bodies.
The least injured is obviously the guard captain.
He managed to block the spears in time because of his senses due to his superior cultivation.
But his main concern is towards the vines that are coiling him than the spears that were being shot.
He took out his dagger as he crazily swung it at the vines.