114 The Horror of Seara Island Part 1 (2/2)

This island contained sparse vegetation, and yet, it was inhabited by a reasonably high number of people for its size.

The inhabitants of this island didn't number more than thirty thousand, and appeared to be simple people. They lived in roughly built villages right on the shore, and survived by fishing, hunting, and gathering fruits and berries from the surrounding vegetation.

There were cultivators present in the island, but due to the small amount of ranked beasts, the majority of the cultivators had reached the fourth rank of cultivation only after the seventy years of age.

The reason why Daniel and the rest had left the pocket dimension in this island, was because they were looking for suitable saltwater fishes to add to their sea. An island inhabited by fishermen was a good place to ask gather that kind of informations.

Unfortunately, they had been welcomed by the villagers with fear, as they hadn't seen cultivators of such high ranks for a very long time.

Daniel immediately noticed that something was wrong after seeing the poor conditions, and the lack of children in the various villages.

He had taken the habit, while looking for people to help, to keep his eyes open for every possible sign of distress. In this case, the lack of children despite the large amount of healthy and young people, had made him suspicious.

Instead of leaving right away, he took Roley, Jerigh, and Alesia, and asked around.

In the past year, Jerigh had managed to breakthrough to the ninth stage of cultivation, and reached a perfect mastery of his single-edged sword. His studies were now focused on the double wielding.

Thanks to the group's effect, the time sphere, and the various resources within the pocket dimension, Roley had reached the early eighth rank of cultivation, a perfect comprehension of earth, and a near perfect comprehension of water, wind, and wood essence.

He and Imblen had given a chance to a romantic relationship between them, but due to the fact that Roley had become too focused on his cultivation, and showed no interest in starting a family and settling down, the two had parted ways.. Since then, they had never gone back to being the kind of close friends they used to be.

Alesia was now at the peak of the seventh stage of cultivation, and thanks to the weapon mastery training room upgraded by Jerigh, and her talent in swordsmanship, she was able to reach an extremely high level of mastery in the sword.

Her parents Edmund and Emelnie were now in charge of the group from within the pocket dimension. They also had another child. A healthy boy called Tigue.

Heimart and Alis had put their training and cultivation momentarily on hold, due to the fact that they were parents now, and had two kids of respectively two years and six months of age to take care of.

Ligart and the unnamed red headed girl were now together, and only a few days earlier, the two of them had expressed their intention of marrying each other to the rest of the group. Ligart's cultivation rank had reached the peak of the seventh rank, while his soon to be wife's was at the early eighth rank.

Finally, Imblen had decided to adopt the two orphans, and teach them the martial path of cultivation. Her cultivation had slowly increased to the early seventh rank, just like Heimart's and Alis's.

Now that a large portion of his friends had settled down in the world within his pocket dimension, Daniel had found himself moving around with Roley, Jerigh and Alesia more and more often.

When Daniel and the rest had asked about the reason why there weren't many kids in the various villages, they had been shocked by the answers.

Apparently, the various chiefs of the villages were required to send most of the children to a castle situated in the middle of the island.

After reaching this castle, the children would never return. Disobedience had lead to the destruction of more than one village in the past.

The island wasn't large, but it wasn't small either, so, it wasn't possible for Daniel to scan it all with his spiritual essence. Instead, the group flew in mid air in search of the aforementioned castle.

After two full days of search, they finally found a castle in ruins right in the middle of a forest. Inside it, Daniel could feel a few low-ranking cultivators moving around.

As Daniel and the others landed at the entrance of the castle, they were welcomed by a large group of guards at the fourth rank of cultivation. These guards weren't well dressed by any means, and instead, wore tatteredclothes, and appeared underfed.

”Who are you?!” Asked one of the guards, visibly scared.

”Take me to see the one in charge of this castle, before I turn it into dust.” Said Daniel with a threatening tone.

Sensing the oppressive power that the four of them emanated, the guards ran back into the castle with shaky legs.

Instead of waiting for the guards to come back, Daniel and his friends took the liberty of exploring the castle on their own.

The place was in awful conditions. There were no decorations on the walls, and a stale odor had settled for what seemed to be hundreds of years.

When Daniel attempted to push his spiritual essence through the corridors and the rooms of the castle, he found out that he could not reach further than the room or corridor he was currently in. A powerful formation forbid him to.

Unable to scan the place, Daniel and the rest decided to walk further into the its depths.. but before they could reach far, a large group of people came out from the various corridors, and surrounded them. They were all low ranking cultivators, and didn't seem to hold any ill intent.

An old woman took a step towards Daniel and said ”It's not safe here.. Please follow us.”

A powerful formation, an unknown old woman, a shady history.. Daniel had many reasons not to trust these people. He was about to refuse and demand explanations, but then, he noticed Jerigh follow her steps into a dark corridor.

While Daniel had noticed the red number on the woman's head, Jerigh had noticed a different detail.. Buried deeper into the woman's expression. The expression of a person who was forced into performing evil acts, and felt a deep hatred towards themself for not being brave enough to chose death instead.

The woman lead the group into a large hall inside which the formation did not reach. In this room, there was a large table surrounded by about ten ancient looking chairs.

After taking a sit at the table, Daniel decided not to waste any more time, and asked ”Why are you taking the children of the village?”

”We don't take them for ourselves.. The masters make us..” Said the middle aged woman with guilt.

”The masters?” Asked Alesia with curiosity.

”The masters have been demanding tributes from us villagers for the past fifty years.. It was any sort of people at first.. Then, they started to ask foryoung women.. Now..they want children, and many of them.” Said the woman with a broken voice.

”How many?..” Daniel asked with a dead serious expression.

”T-two hundred.. Every year..”