Chapter 171 - The Journey Back
Even while cultivating Lin Mu could only focus on it because he was chanting the severing heart sutra, which was suppressing his thoughts and emotions. Perhaps without it, he would have never had the will to cultivate and would have only kept on thinking about senior Xukong's words.
The morning soon came and the team of twenty people began their journey back to the camp. Their journey this time was rather uneventful, and the only difference that they observed was that the number of beasts in the area had increased again.
'Hmm, seems like the effect of the great slumber beast's roar has finally worn off. At least we won't have to unnecessarily fight the beasts when we get closer to camp.' Lin Mu thought to himself during the journey.
Ten hours later they had reached the camp and were greeted by the rest of their companions. Looking at them, Lin Mu could tell that everything was normal while they were gone and nothing untoward had happened. It was evening now and all of them decided that they would be returning to the Northern town tomorrow morning.
The people who had stayed back at the camp wanted to know what they had found out at the culprits' cave, but Hei Bao had suggested that they wait till reaching the town before informing the rest. He didn't want them to lose their morale or worse, become agitated.
They could not afford to make any mistakes now, and the situation had become even more serious. While the members of the Hei Corps were fine with this decision and were willing to obey the orders, it was not the same for the mercenaries.
It took the combined effort of Teng Xiaolian and his team in order to placate the mercenaries. Even Teng Xiaolian was in agreement with Hei Bao and knew that it could be devastating for the mercenaries to hear that their comrades were being sacrificed for their blood.
During the night, Lin Mu and Hei Bao went to check up on Hei Yingjie's condition but did not find much difference. He was still unconscious and when Lin Mu observed him using his spirit sense, he could see that his internal injuries were the same as well.
"It's as if his recovery has halted." Lin Mu spoke.
"It does seem like that, but we can't be sure. Once we get to the town, I'll get a physician to take a look at him. The lord should send a good physician from the Wu Lim city at the first message." Hei Bao replied.
"Yes, that would be good." Lin Mu spoke in a straight tone and stayed silent.
His expression was rather cold as well, and Hei Bao was feeling strange upon looking at Lin Mu like this. But he did not question him as he did not want to bother him and he too had a lot of things that needed to be dealt with for now.
Hei Bao walked out of the tent and came to stand in front of his subordinates.
"We shall leave tomorrow morning, some of you shall carry Hei Yingjie and stay in the center of the party. The rest should guard and keep an eye out for any dangers. We don't want any more misfortunes." Hei Bao ordered.
"Yes, captain." The members of Hei Corps replied in unison.
Hei Bao then went and informed Teng Xiaolian about their departure tomorrow as well. Lin Mu too walked out of the tent and looked at the people that were sitting around the bonfires.
~Sigh~
"What is right… What is wrong… I hope time will show me…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.
Lin Mu returned to the tent and decided to sleep for now. He did not enter Sleepscape either and just went into a deep sleep. He felt like he had heard too many things to deal with and simply wanted to get a rest for the journey tomorrow.
It would after all take them three more days to reach the northern town if they were lucky, as this time many of the people were injured and could not continue on at the same pace as before. The biggest thing of all, they had to take care of Hei Yingjie who was still injured.
At the first light of dawn, the entire camp was awake and ready to go. The tents had been rolled up and stored away for the journey. Hei Yingjie was being carried in a makeshift stretcher that was made by attaching some branches and bedrolls.
Lin Mu too had woken up early and was similarly ready, although he was still feeling a little tired mentally.
The entourage of eighty people began their journey and continued on for three days. During their journey, they encountered beasts multiple times but were easily able to deal with them. Lin Mu didn't leave this chance behind as well and fought too.
He wanted to take every chance there was at getting some training in. Not only that, but he was also practicing the Thousand armament blade scripture and was using the two slim swords that he had got from Hei Wan. Lin Mu could observe that he was improving at a much greater speed by directly fighting beasts than he did while in the Sleepscape.
Another thing that Lin Mu did was to store the corpse of every beast that they encountered. Teng Xiaolian and Hei Bao had an agreement that they would be selling the beast corpses to the mayor in order to compensate the mercenaries.
It would have been an impossibility for them to carry the corpses by themselves, thus Hei Bao had asked Lin Mu for assistance. Lin Mu was fine with it, on the condition that they would give him some of the meat from the beasts.
They did not deny him that and were rather just happy that they were gonna get some compensation at least. Back at the camp as well, Lin Mu had stored the remainder of the steel back wolf corpses in his ring. They had already eaten nearly half of the meat anyway, and the rest was for Lin Mu to take.
Hei Yingjie's condition did not improve during the journey either.
Three days passed by and on the afternoon of the fourth day they had finally reached the Northern town.
"Finally…" Lin Mu muttered in an exhausted tone.