93 A Tragedy (1/2)
The message that the demonic practitioners had finally made a move spread in just a few minutes. All the disciples of the Teng Yong Sect did as they were told and returned to the town as fast as they could.
Unfortunately, even though they hurried, not all of them were of a very high level and they were in the border region, after all. Even though they hadn't happened upon any so far, this was still the realm of the demonic practitioners. Thus several of the groups met with a mishap along the way.
Half a dozen disciples were hurt and one of them didn't manage to make it back at all. So far, they didn't know if this disciple was just lagging behind or if they hadn't made it out of the fight alive. They could only wait and hope that the disciple would turn up after all.
This hope wasn't very big though. After all, the rest of the disciple's group had managed to make it back already and even though they had been separated on the way, their starting point had been the same. It was strange to think that one of them would lag this far behind.
With this gruesome truth in front of them, all of the disciples were in a gloomy mood. Whether it was the one that had likely died or the ones that had been injured, they had known them for years. In fact, quite a few of them had grown up together. Nobody wanted to see this kind of ending.
Elder Baili and Elder Xing also didn't show a good expression. Just yesterday there had been the first piece of news that came back from the disciples. Mei Chao Bing had also warned them that the disciples weren't well-equipped for this kind of task. And now, just one day later, it seemed that his words had been proven true.
The disciples really hadn't been equipped with enough knowledge and experience to deal with this on their own. Now, the Teng Yong Sect had to pay the price. Not only had they lost a disciple, but the investigation had also been given away. If they notified the other sects later on, this would likely lead to a lot of trouble. Nobody wanted to be the cause of this matter.
Elder Xing cleared his throat and addressed the disciples. ”What happened today was a tragedy. We underestimated the strength of the demonic practitioners and one of our disciples had to pay with their life for that. Now, our future investigation will become even more difficult. From now on, you must work even more closely together to ensure each other's safety. This kind of tragedy can't repeat itself.”
Most of the disciples nodded and looked at the ones they had been sorted into a group with, searching for a sense of security. There were some that didn't want to let matters go that easily though. ”How could something like this happen just a day after we found out about those arrays? Could it be that we walked into some kind of trap?”
Yang Wu Huang barely managed to repress a smile. Indeed, did they walk into a trap? He glanced at the disciple next to him, urging him to speak up.
The disciple grinned but then put on a worried expression just a moment later. ”That's true, ah! I can't believe that this is a coincidence. We should investigate this. Who was the one who found that array? Maybe there's some kind of hint they could provide?”