"Peekaboo, anyone home...?" Cade exclaimed, breaking through the milky white barrier and entering through the cade-sized hole she created with Niwal's Spear.
"Who are you!?" a man with a shaved head exclaimed and attacked without giving her a chance to answer. Was it a rhetorical question? She would never find out. She evaded his fist strike instinctively and moved in for a counter.
Her palm struck upward, hitting his jaw. The monk's face imploded as his bones gave way, and the rakshasi shoved his own jaw to the back of his skull. Blood and gray matter splattered everywhere, getting her armor dirty.
"Aww, shit. What the fuck? Disgusting. Why is such a weakling just charging at people!? God damn it." To her own surprise, Cade let out a rare curse, facing the sudden mess. She expected the guys walking around here to be at least above lv.100, but this guy was probably barely more than lv.40.
After letting out her aggravation, her attention turned back to the inner sect. Except for the safety measures and the walls of stone being polished, there was no distinct difference between the levels below. To her, it felt like a maze of streets, squares, hallways, prayer halls, training halls, and rooms. It actually took her a moment to realize that she was caught in one of those formations.
However, since her resistance to mental status effects was over 80%, she doubted it was something that actually messed with her mind. It was probably something that manipulated her senses from the outside. She thought for a moment before she brought out a couple of standard golem knights.
Not the simple mass-produced commercial stuff, but the armored orc knights they had used in the battle of Delta. Seth allowed the strike teams to take as many as they cared to load in their inventory
The reason she did so was that she surmised that this kind of formation wouldn't work on golems, who didn't rely on any of the five normal senses, or even whatever the cultivators understood as divine sense. They had the vision of the undead; she doubted that any formations here would be able to mess with the sight of the soul.
"Go kick some stuff," she gave them the command to wreck the place. The 10 golems charged in all directions. Ignoring the solid walls she perceived, they vanished from her sight. Her suspicions were confirmed.
She was caught in a formation, but she was already working on getting out. By her understanding, formations worked because of a certain pattern or arrangement of objects, as long as the golem broke the right-
The buildings before her started wavering, as if shifting out of focus. Angles and perspective began changing wildly and collapsed before her like a kaleidoscope. Now she stood in the center of freshly created ruins. Rubble, destroyed wood, and crushed cultivators surrounded her.
"That was something else..." she thought to herself, looking around to find the golems, but she could only hear the sounds of destruction in the distance. Those guys were off, fulfilling her command to a t.
"Urgh, please help..." a monk buried from the waste down mumbled when he heard her steps. There was actually someone still alive. Looking closer at him, she had to correct her observation. It was half a monk, lying on top of the rubble. He just didn't know that he was already dead. However, using
Status: Sacrifice of the Devotee...>
These guys were actually as strong as she had expected. The problem was their status. She didn't get to look at his whole status screen, but Cade was lucky enough to check the unknown status effect before he breathed his last breath.
'Sacrifice of the Devotee' was like a curse that took away half of all their stats. Every attribute and stat Cade was able to see was lowered by roughly 50%. There was no explanation of how they got this debuff, but the name suggested that it was their own choice.
Whether they wanted to make that choice or not was a different question. Whatever it was, Cade didn't have a good feeling about this. She had her fair share of experience with zealots and crazy fanatics. Zarkists could be called an infectious religion in the past...
Anyway, with her sight now unobstructed, she was able to have a new take at the inner sect. She jumped on the roof of a nearby, still-standing manor and took a loot. It was actually not that different from the illusion, just a little less labyrinthine.
For the lack of a better goal, Cade decided to go to the biggest temple in the center of the peak. This was the only place especially splendorous, with spires reaching to the sky and their roof shining in a warm golden hue.
Moving over the roofs, she quickly got there. The weakened monks trying to attack her on the way ended as little more than additional stains on her armor. A golden-violet palm racing through the air abruptly halted her advance.
The attack crushed the very building below her feet, and she was forced to land at the edge of the vast square in front of this main temple. Guarding the door of this, she found two incredibly tall and wide monks, the left being the one who had stopped her advance.
Had the proportions of mountain trolls, but someone had pushed the slider for muscle definition and size to the max. Their veins were so distinctly popping out that they looked like wriggling worms.
It was like a train wreck, a sight so horrible it was hard to look away.
"Phew," she whistled when she checked their levels.
According to the little translation chart she had learned, that meant they were somewhere in the middle of the Dao Seeking Realm, which couldn't be quite right. Apart from the Abbot, who was presumed to be an immortal, there was supposed to be only one Dao Seeking guardian Monk left.
"Are you the intruder that had been wreaking havoc in our monastery? Have you planted this demonic tree?" Phi Fei asked; his void was rumbling like a rockfall. His bulging eyes were fixed on her, unobstructed by her illusion. The look of his eyes, almost popping out from their sockets, was the most disconcerting about the man.
"Conversation is useless, brother. It does not matter. Let's crush them," Pho Fam interrupted him, once again not giving her any time to answer questions. This guy was the opposite of the former. His eyes were so far back that his eyelids looked barely open. But the gap of the lids was completely black, and the discernible glint gave him a twisted, almost demonic visage.
"You are right, brother," the other said with a nod. As if this were some signal, both suddenly struck a pose, flexing their muscles even more. A golden aura started enveloping them, pulsing and expanding outwards.
Cade was lv. 134. Even with her high-ranking classes, in the past, she wouldn't have had a chance to beat even just one of the two people before her. But things were different now that she had Seth's legendary armor set.
She didn't know why there were two Dao Seeking Experts, although she had her suspicions, but as the big dude said, it didn't matter. Placing the spear in her inventory, Cade decided to match their energy.
Cade transformed, and her body grew. With some clinks and clanks, the armor perfectly accommodated her shift in size. The plates that had fit well previously were now a snug second skin covering her imposing figure.
Shrouds of darkness rose from her body as she cast her summoning spell to call her familiar. Empowered by the Demon Dragon Armor, her Djinn appeared beside her, his level and muscles not falling behind the two bouncers.
"This is nothing personal, so I will make it quick," she said. With a 'tsching!" her fingernails turned into poison claws, ready to tear the monks apart.