Mad God

The streets of Solarum were busy even after nightfall. The lamps at every corner radiated sun-like warmth and light, not letting any of the cobblestone-covered main roads be darkened. Right now, Ren and her group were sitting inside one of the inns on the main street, enjoying the region's delicacies. From the second floor, they had a good look at the streets below while enjoying the barbecued meats served before them, dripping them into their unique, spicy sauce.

"This is… really nice…" Ariana whispered, enjoying it fully while Ren was leaning backward with a grin, sipping on chilled wine.

"Mhmhm!" Kyu nodded, stuffing her little face with two hands, munching loudly, cracking open even the bones, and gulping them down, leaving nothing on her plate.

"Their delicacies are really nice! Back home, we have way less spice; we really need to step it up~ Plus, I think Kaipan is going to like this!" Ren chuckled, swirling the wine in her cup. "I'll send back a bottle to him when Ophy is finished."

"This city is completely different from any in our part of the world!" Ariana said, wiping her mouth on a red napkin. "There are cultivators left and right! While we walked around the market square, I counted around 30 different uniforms! That means 30 different sects, Master!"

"Mhm." She nodded, emptying her glass. "I also saw four kidnappings and two murders," she said calmly as she put it down on the table, making Ariana's hand freeze that was just grabbing towards another piece of meat. She was alert all the time, yet she missed all of those?! How? Her affinity should be sensitive towards such things! "Don't worry!" Ren looked into her eyes, seeing her thoughts clearly. "It is because you are yet to acclimate yourself to this chaotic air surrounding us! Try meditating throughout the night and filter out the noise! It is a good training regimen! For both of you!"

“Master… shouldn’t we…” Ariana said, but Ren just raised a hand.

"Help? No, Ariana. We can't help everybody and especially can't cause too much trouble here! Sects are always going to fight other sects. This is their inevitable nature. Alliances and animosities are bound to rise and fall; that is human nature! If you go around to help everyone, you are going to work yourself to death in a week! Plus, how do you know those you help are innocent? Do you know the history of everyone you come across? Even if you feel they are not lying to you at that moment... What if they do believe they are in the right? Ariana, I know this may sound harsh, but you can't help everyone! When asked, we may help, but we won't butt in others' businesses; it is theirs to solve!"

"Wise words!" a third party's voice arrived, and when turning towards it, at the neighboring table, a group of youngsters or at least young-looking cultivators were sitting, having dinner. Four, in fact, two girls and two boys. They had differently colored robes, but all of them wore the identifying symbol of the Lotus Mandala Sect.

"Thank you." Ren smiled, watching their faces, quickly measuring their strengths without them being aware of it.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop." the boy continued. He looked like someone in his twenties, with short, black hair and a friendly face with deep, blue eyes shining with the power of the ocean. "My name is Kolkat, an inner disciple of the Lotus Mandala Sect!" He greeted them, cupping his hand towards the trio.

"My name is Ren," She returned the gesture with a smile. "She is my disciple, Ariana, and my daughter Kyu."

"Mhm!" Kyu nodded, face full of sauce and meat, making the girls at the other table laugh out at her antics, finding it really cute.

"We are from the Immortal Wonders Sect." Ren finished the introduction, making them look at each other, thinking how brave it was to call a sect something like that, but in the end, they did not mention it. "I assume you spoke to us because you need help with something?" Ren asked, drawing a wry smile onto Kolkat's face.

"I see that Senior is a straightforward person!" he chuckled, standing up and bowing toward them before pulling his chair to their table.

"Please! I think I am younger than you; I'm not even 50~" Ren grinned while Ariana rolled her eyes, watching her master place the man in an awkward position.

"Well, age means nothing in cultivation! Someone can be younger than you but still be your Senior!" Kolkat laughed in the end, dodging Ren's playful yet elegantly probing words. She aimed it at him to let her see what kind of people she was dealing with.

"Hmmm, you have a good master!" Ren said, refilling her cup with wine. "Let's hear it then!"

"It's nothing major!" Kolkat chuckled, "I just simply heard what Senior said, and I couldn't help but agree! Also… someone with these sharp senses may know something about what we are here for! If it is not a big problem, can you take a minute and look at these? Maybe you met with one of them!" he said as he took out six images of youngsters, clearly disciple brothers and sisters of his. "I'd like to ask if you have ever encountered any of them!"

"Hm? Missing?" Ren asked, only looking at the images for a brief moment.

"Yes." He honestly answered, "All of them are still young disciples; the strongest is only at the 9th stage of the body refinement realm. They were on missions outside of our sect; it should be nothing major, specifically tailored to their strengths, yet they went missing. My partners and I are here to look for them; we only wish to discover what happened to our brothers and sisters!"

"Did they go missing at the same time or at different intervals?" Ariana asked, watching the images, committing them to memory.

"All at different times, different places; the longest one has been missing for three months by now. What is similar is that they all had missions in the nearby regions."

"Regions under the ruling of the Sect of Dawn." Ren finished his thoughts, receiving only a nod. "We just arrived, so we did not meet any of them, sorry." she shook her head, and even as Kolkat sighed, he still cupped his hands.

"Thank you for listening to me."

"But we can help." Ren finished, drawing the others' curiosity onto herself. "Take it as a friendly gesture!" She chuckled, not elaborating on their relations to their sect as these disciples were clearly out of it for a long time, not knowing the previous week's happenings and their arrival.

"I am thankful for the offer…." Kolkat said before smiling, "But this is an internal matter of our sect."

"Don't worry about it! We do it as a friendly gesture~" Ren grinned, "No need to overthink the details! Plus, we are friends with the idea of walking the road of Immortals!"

"That is good to hear!" Kolkat returned her friendly smile, "In that case, I wouldn't mind a helping hand! Three extra pairs of eyes can see more!"

"You have a lead that guided you here, don't you~?" Ren said, watching their eyes as she sipped on wine, flashing a smile, especially after seeing their reaction. "And you hit a wall?"

"The whole thing went cold!" Kolkat sighed after a brief pause, trusting his own instincts as a Harmony-level expert. He was attuned to his surroundings and felt no animosity from Ren. True, he felt nothing else either, not even an ounce of power, unlike Ariana, who was clearly in the Harmony realm, albeit he could not tell at which stage. "We were informed that someone saw one of the youngsters being escorted into Solarum. We asked around the city, first going to our own people who were familiar with Solarum. Then we visited some of our loose allies of other sects, yet nothing! We even tried to casually gain some information from locals, but we came up with, once again, nothing! Not even after we visited the black markets!" he leaned back, shaking his head with disappointment. "Our only remaining option is to start investigating the local guards."

"But they are part of the Sect of Dawn." Ariana cut in, "Would that pose a problem?"

"Maybe." Kolkat crossed his arms as his tone turned more serious and firm. "Still, we are disciples of the Lotus Mandala Sect! We are not tyrants, but we can act like one if it is about our own!" His partners quickly echoed his words, showing that even if they looked soft, they were not afraid of trouble.

"Isn't the City Lord a demigod?"

"The City Lord?" Kolkat tilted his head, "This should not concern him; the ones who are missing are only at the Body Refinement stage!" he shook his head after thinking about it a little "He may be upset if we start poking sensitive spots around his men, but that is all! The Sect of Dawn may have around three or four demigods, yet even those are a class weaker than ours! I doubt they would step in such mundane matters or protect the bad apples amongst their people!"

"Hmm, maybe! Maybe not!" Ren said, watching the night sky from inside the inn. "Please, tell me all you know about the ones who disappeared!"

"Sure. Maybe we missed a link." he nodded, immediately describing them, telling Ren everything he knew from their day of birth, background, and what they did while cultivating in the sect. His explanation took almost an hour to finish, and after he was done, he patiently waited for either of them to speak, letting them think it through.

"I see," Ren said, closing her eyes before turning from the window back towards Kolkat.

"Yes?" He asked seriously as the others were already standing, warding off any and all ears from eavesdropping on them.

"All of them were born at the same time." she pointed it out, but it just confused them; even Ariana was furrowing her brows.

"No, they did not…!" one of the female disciples argued.

"Yes, they did!" Ren chuckled once again. "All of them were born in the summer, when the Sun shines the strongest and when most people are born with a fire affinity. If you look closely, they were born in the same timeframe, only a month apart. At maximum!"

"But… not all of them have fire affinity!" another disciple brother of Kolkat murmured.

"That does not matter! What matters is their date of birth, falling into the same time frame. More precisely, to the same day. And I don't mean the number of the date!"

"When the Sun's blessing is the strongest…." Kolkat whispered.

"If you check the dates with those who are into studying the Sky," Ren continued, "you are going to find out that their exact date of birth was when the Sun shone the strongest and brightest that year! I am sure of it! For a normal cultivator, it means nothing, of course! He or she may have stronger fire spells, that is it." She waved her hand, as it was not the main point. "But for a Sect who, as I see, cultivates techniques based on the Sun? We are talking about prime ingredients."

"Ingredients…?" Kolkat asked with a cold voice, and the rest turned frigid at the same time.

"Yes! A cultivator who was born under that day 's essence carries a small trace of it. As to how to extract it… well… I could come up with a dozen methods. None of it is something that bodes well for those who have been captured."

"Master, you really think… that is the case?" Ariana asked, but she had already believed everything she had just said.

"If we look at it with the thought that the culprits are those who wear the Sun as an emblem on their robes, then yes. I think I am on point."

"We need to check back with the Sect." Kolkat cupped his hand, standing up and bowing toward Ren. "Can we meet up here tomorrow?"

"Sure." She nodded with a faint smile as they left. When the group was outside, Kolkat quickly sent a transmission back to his Master, asking him to look into Ren's theory, while the others were still skeptical.

"Do you believe that nonsense?"

"It is worth a shot." Kolkat replied, "I don't know about anything she said just now, but it made sense somehow. The others in the Sect should look into it more; if we get confirmation about the births of the missing disciples, it is already a strong clue for us! We will wait and decide what to do next tomorrow! If nothing else, we at least tried!" He sighed, looking back at the inn before they disappeared into the streets.

"Master," Ariana spoke up. "Are the missing disciples dead already?" she asked with a sigh.

"Should be." Ren nodded, tapping on the table. "This is a ritual originating from Skoorn."

"Are they believers?" Ariana's eyes turned cold and serious, hearing a God may be involved.

"If I am right, yes, they are," she said, rubbing the sleepy Kyu's head, who was by now occupying her lap, barely awake after eating so much. "Skoorn was tempering his blade with fire once. Trying to accelerate the growth of rust on the blade's edge."

"Doesn't he need blood for that, Master?"

"Yep, the blood of those who were born under the hottest day of the summer! Of course, it was a failure of an attempt, but he still bathed his weapon in the blood of a million people back then before determining that it did not work. The ritual was a byproduct of it! Somehow it fell into others' hands; maybe he just threw it away, not bothering with it at all as it found its way into the world. It may not have benefited his rusty masturbation tool, but it did have an effect on weaker cultivators, especially those with fire-based affinities!"

"Inhuman…" Ariana bit her lip, her voice filled with anger.

"It is! For now, let's wait and see; I am 99% sure I am right. If they come back with more proof, I'll help them out! Skoorn was always a bitch; if I can spit into the soup of those who follow that bastard, I am happy to do so~" She laughed with a nonchalant expression on her face.