475 I Will Protect You From the Shadows (1/2)

Empress's palace, midnight.

Anima was a constructed planet, and as such, it did not possess a night and day system which would separate its opposite sides into two different times of the day. Just like the ground and sky, the time of the day was carried by a formation, which would cover the planet with a layer of solar light during the day, and remove it during the night, allowing the entire globe to fall into the familiar darkness of the night.

Despite this odd detail, neither night time or day time appeared different than that of any other planet, and yet, while Alesia looked at the expanse of grass that extended far away into the horizon from behind her room's window, she felt uncomfortable.

What was making her uncomfortable were not the numerous seamstresses who had been tasked with sewing her dress on her body, nor were the looks of hostility that she had had to bear for the last few days. What was making her feel weird was the unnatural silence caused by the complete lack of animals and insects.

Trapped in her own mind, she had tried to take comfort into the beautiful scenery, just like she used to do after a long day of training on Daniel pocket dimension, but for some reason, this planet felt infinitely colder. Not a living sound was produced by the constructed planet, and the otherwise noisy night was now uncomfortably quiet.

”Please, do not move.” Said an old woman right before starting to adjust the waist of the dress, which so far, looked like a crude mess of snow-white silk and golden threads.

Alesia had become dull to other people's interactions, and at this point, she had decided to live these days in her own mind, not paying attention to what was happening to her body. Not even when one of the seamstresses had erroneously pierced a needle into her pale skin, and sewn the dress onto her body, did she react, causing the seamstress to panic as soon as she noticed the bloodstain ruin hours of work.

Her dull expression was only disturbed once by a faint shine that came from a few kilometers in the distance, right behind a treeline that marked the beginning of a thickly constructed forest. However, this faint shine disappeared as soon as it appeared, leaving her to guess what its origin could possibly be, and a few seconds later, back into her estranged state of mind.

-----

Right where Alesia had seen a shine of light, was now a crowd of cultivators whose appearances were covered by large hooded robes. This crowd was divided into different smaller factions, whose leaders were grouped up in a clear patch of ground in the middle, and busy discussing an important matter.

”Why are you here?” Asked a tall man with pale skin, long sharp nails, and two glowing eyes that shone through the shade produced by the hood. Despite his disguise, all of those present were aware that this man, along with those that followed him close behind, were the members of a faction called 'Dark Crawler', a form of vampiric kind of ki warrior which would cultivate through the consumption of human blood at the expense of a weakness to light.

”We are just enjoying the majestic view.. We don't have many chances to enjoy the work of our Emperor.” Responded a woman covered in a similar, yet slightly more refined black robe. She was the leader of a small faction called 'Spirit Hunters', a minor group of spiritual cultivators that since the day of its creation, had been subjected to the spiritual emperor, and was tasked with hunting talents spiritual cultivators for the faction to accept as apostles.

After giving a vague answer, the woman turned to look at the leader of the Dark Crawlers, and asked, ”What about you? I am really curious about what reason would bring a group of ki warriors to wander a planet constructed by spiritual essence.”

”Oh, you jest. Darkness is the moment in which we are the most comfortable. If we could have wandered this beautiful planet during day time without feeling weakened, we would have.” Responded the tall and pale man with a smile shrouded in a darkness that could not hide his oddly long and pointy canines.

Similar exchanges were happening between the leaders of many other groups, who fabricated the most ingenuous excuses to justify their presence. However, no matter how clever or reasonable these excuses were, all of them knew that they shared the same objective. As part of those visited by the first bishop, after listening to his words, they had decided to try their luck, and gamble their whole existence for a chance at breaking through the limits of their universe.

However, there was only one Alesia.

While these groups stood in a stalemate, perched over a tree branch a few kilometers away from this odd assembly of cultivators, was Daniel. He had been lying in wait for hours, and now, he had finally found the first wave of cultivators who had decided to fulfill the request of the first bishop.

Since he could not use his senses to feel his surroundings, Daniel had decided to observe the entire continent with the use of some boulders he had collected from his planet, and released into Anima's atmosphere right after Yuto's visit. These boulders contained his power, and with them, Daniel had created a net of satellites with which he could observe the entire area around the castle where Alesia was being held.

After discovering the group of cultivators, Daniel did not act, and instead maintained his position, observing how things would evolve. If he was lucky, the various groups would see too many risks in acting after being discovered, and would soon disperse.

But, alas, his incredible luck was not high enough to counter the desire that these cultivators felt towards changing the destiny of their factions, and after no longer than twenty minutes, they seemed to agree on sharing the possible rewards they would obtain by giving Alesia's body to the envoy of the soul clan.

When Daniel saw them preparing an attack, he sucked air through his teeth. He then looked at the dark sky, and pointed his opened hand towards it.

In the dark sky, where the individual lights of thousands of stars could be seen, a few of these lights started to behave abnormally, growing in size, and changing color from the faint white light they possessed before, to a reddish glow.