Yousti was now thinking about his next course of action.
‘I could steal what she’s writing down but that would cause suspicion.
She will also continue to write down in it if I wait.’
He looked at the trail of hostile intent that the robed people were seemingly following.
‘I should probably just read what’s in the book and move to where this intent is converging.
Wasting time isn’t something I should do.’
Yousti found a nice hiding spot directly above where the cultists were camping for the night.
He set up a nice web of strings in the treetops so he could easily walk in the ‘air’ whenever he wished.
Eventually the sun set and the group down below went to sleep with a few people remaining awake to keep watch.
They had a shift system where they would wake up the next one or two people to watch about every 2 hours and then go to sleep for the rest of the night.
‘This should be easy.’
After successfully sneaking into the camp he quickly found and began rapidly reading what the female cultist documented.
His brain could easily memorize the contents of the book as he was reading thanks to his peak martial arts stage enhancing his brain.
The ritual of the Grand Enuncia Master is nearly complete.
I hope it succeeds because I’ve been traveling for three months now.
Everyone is really secretive on what the ritual actually does but from what I’ve pieced together it requires a choir of people who can speak Enuncia.
And that it has something to do with communing with gods.
‘Hmm.
A ritual that’s causing hostile intent to gather.
And it appears that this magic called Enuncia is some kind of magic power system that involves language.’
Yousti carefully placed everything back where it was before he left and began stealthily exiting.
He jumped high into the air and continued jumping on his invisible web to reach the tree canopy.
He looked back down with a look of regret.
‘It would be really nice if I could fight some of them.
But Enuncia is too dangerous with that many people against me at once.’
Looking at the sky the streams of red were thicker and flowing more violently than before.
Clearly the ritual was progressing.
He ran to the edge of his web before retracting every single string of silk back onto his body.
He learned how to use his strings as grappling hooks and could maneuver around like those scenes in Attack On Titan with the ODM gear.
Or swing around like spider man.
Whatever was more useful in the moment.
~
The grandmaster frowned.
“What is it grandmaster?”
“I have peered into the future and found that there will be an attack upon our choir. The vision is clear at first but after a certain point it becomes unclear.”
The cultist straightened himself up and firmly declared.
“We will do whatever you need.”
“Continue as normal. The choir is also our strongest fighting force as it is the largest gathering of those who speak Enuncia in two hundred years. There is little you can do to change what I saw.”
“So what do we do about your vision. It should settle itself right?”
“I will stand watch over the choir. Tell them to be ready to attack as they’re peforming the ritual. The Divine Silk Spirit is coming for my head.”
~
Achoo!
‘That’s weird I never suddenly sneeze involuntarily.
Someone must be talking about me.’
Yousti rubbed his nose as he charged ahead at full speed.
At some point the trees stopped and he was forced to use his legs to run over lakes and hills.
The red had become much darker and denser now that he was approaching the convergence point.
He had changed his clothes for a flowing robed martial uniform made of his own silk.
Using his internal energy he could easily harden silk to be harder than any diamond while remaining as flexible as ever.
So silk clothes were his best armor.
thousands of blue strands of his own intent emitted from Yousti’s body as he ran.
Everything was covered in a deep shade of red as Yousti arrived at some kind of Roman city.
It looked prosperous with plenty of architecture and statues.
‘This city doesn’t exist in any maps I’ve seen throughout my travels.’
But the city was completely empty.
It was a true ghost city, the first one Yousti had ever seen.
Yousti had seen his fair share of ghost towns or abandoned settlements but those were all usually small or were temporary in the first place.
Usually sprawling locations like this that were abandoned were remnants of ancient times.
‘Maybe I should visit Liangzhu.
Get credit for discovering a lost ancient city sometime in the future.’
Yousti had started wandering the city looking at everything like a tourist.
‘This is where all that red intent has gathered.
But where is the choir of those cultist looking people?’
After two hours he had finally explored every covered every nook and cranny of the city using his senses and speed.
But the city was still abandoned and nobody showed up.
‘This doesn’t make sense.
This is where all that red intent gathered and It’s not going anywhere else, I checked.’
He had once again began contemplating at this dead end of his thinking.
‘I should think about my memories, they always have some kind of answer to my problems…’
‘This city kind of reminds me of Indiana Jones.
Yeah but it really was crazy with those aliens in the last true Indiana Jones film they just flew out of the ground and…
Oh I should dig underground.’
Yousti cracked his knuckles as he prepared himself to start digging.
He found a random shovel from one of the abandoned buildings and started digging.
2 hours later
“This was a horrible idea.”
An absolutely humongous hole was dug into the ground.
However it was just that, a really big hole.
Yousti had found no hint and he just dug a hole for nothing.
‘Maybe there’s a martial art in the Martial Record that has some kind of seismic sense?’
Yousti inquired the Martial Record
‘Apparently not, my ability to sense intent is the absolute best my senses can do.
I’d have to calculate seismic waves with math and stuff to determine density I guess.’
‘What If I just reached Three Flowers Gather at the Summit and sensed intent better?
Yeah no that’s not happening.’
Martial arts requires more than just training on your own to reach a higher stage.
Some things can’t be learned just because you have time.
At a loss he ran back to those cultists from before and started following them.
And that would have been very nice for him.
If he could find them.
‘Where did they go?’
Yousti had ran all the way back just to find that all those cultists had seemingly disappeared leaving behind their camping gear and everything else.
‘Now that I think about it, I didn’t see anybody on my way back here as well?’
He sensed intent once again trying to check the progress of the red intent gathering.
“Wait what?”
He did not see the streams of red intent.
It was still just as dense as it was at the city where all the intent had gathered.
Perhaps because he had done so much contemplation he had immediately reached a conclusion on what was going on.
“This is definitely an illusion.”
“Martial Record! Give me something to get outta here!”
The Martial Record delivered.
Yousti performed a martial move that he didn’t comprehend.
The Martial Record had used itself combined with his body to perform a martial art at a level beyond the peak stage.
The world was cleaved in two with a thin string under immense tension with his internal energy.
It cut the red intent and the illusory reality as the Grandmaster was knocked back far away on the road they stood on.
“You broke out!?”