Chapter 623: A Lead (1/2)

”Whew...you guys sure cave in much faster than I was expecting.” Raven smiled 'sweetly' as he looked at the people in front of him. ”Oh well, that's for that. Not that you all can understand me right now anyways...”

Raven turned around and ignored the five people strapped in a chair he specifically tinkered for them. If one looked closely, the five people were obviously drooling, some even had white froth coming off of the corners of their mouth. Their eyes only shown its whites and they were mumbling something unintelligible.

These people were non-other than the ones that had infiltrated the sect and were caught by the Sect Master and the rest using Raven's Evil Tracking Rune.

Raven specifically told the others that he'll be handling these people. But he didn't say he'll handle them with care though...

Of course, the goal of him taking the heretics is to gather intel. If there was a roundabout way to do this, then he would've preferred to ask them nicely but he knew that's no going to work so he didn't even bother.

Additionally, looking at the captives, it was obvious that they won't reveal anything. If it weren't for the seals placed to them, they would've already killed themselves in order for their enemies to not get anything out of them. Well, unfortunately for them, Raven was one step ahead so they were left at his mercy.

Raven didn't waste time, he directly used a high-level of Soul Search on them. When he did so, he noticed that there are some barriers and curses placed on their souls. Most of them were there to end their lives once they thought about caving in and revealing important intel.

At first, Raven wanted to break down these barriers but he didn't since he thought of a good idea. Instead of breaking down the barriers and curses placed on their soul, he just outright ignored them. Using these kinds of soul barriers and curses against Raven was useless since he knew them all by heart and thus, also knew how to render them useless.

There were a few additional traps laid in their memories, which were probably things that even these people themselves didn't know were there. This would've work on anyone but not to him, so just like the ones he encountered previously, he ignored them.

In the end, Raven managed successfully infiltrate their souls and read their memories without triggering the traps placed in them. He took everything he could find and withdrew silently. But even with him being careful to not trigger the traps, it doesn't mean that the Soul Search was a painless experience for them.

If it were painless, then they wouldn't act like broken idiots right now.

”Oh come on you guys, I know you're not dead. Stop acting like one.” Raven stated as he stared at his hallucinating captives. ”Well, I purposefully left you like that, and I guess I got a little too excited. After all it's been a while since I've interrogated someone like this.”

”Anyway, you'll be fine. I still have some uses for you so you won't be dying. Well, that'll depend on me really. Haha.” Raven laughed as he left the room with the captives to report what he had seen so far.

---

”...so basically, all of them were from the same Branch. They don't have much knowledge as to how truly big their organization is but they are definitely aware that it is strong. From the memories I've seen, they've met at least 10 Empyrean Ranked Experts so for and all of them were Branch Heads. As for the Upper Echelons, they met them but they haven't seen their faces nor had any clue about their identity.”

Raven was currently explaining his discoveries in front of the Sect Master as well as the other members of the sect.

”Their organization hides themselves under the name of 'Spirit Stone Hall' located at the Crimson Cloud Great World. Well, this is just one of the branches of the Exiles. As for other branches, they only heard rumors about it. Someone said that there is a branch at the Azure Sun Great World, but we already visited that place and while we probably missed them, it's very unlikely for them to remain there.”

”There is also another one a Void Expanse Great World and at the Berserker's Mountain, however like I said, these were only rumors. Nevertheless, it is a lead.” Raven finished his explanation with a nod to the Sect Master.

”You heard him people.” The Grand Elder said, ”Does anyone have a plan?”

There was a period of silence in the hall as the Grand Elder asked this question. The intel that Raven managed to gather was priceless. In fact, this is probably the first time in their history that they managed to obtain a lead that might lead allow them to finally get rid of the Exiles once and for all.

”I'd say we go out there and raid these locations...” Logan commented, ”But I know that doing that will alert their forces into hiding once more. If that happens then we will surely lose this lead and it will be significantly harder to located them in the future so just ignore me.”