She also gave Li Li his own little owl-shaped mask that functioned the same as hers. They were a matching pair in color scheme. She placed his mask on and he changed forms too. Jing's new form was of a young boy. Li Li's was that of a bat. They were now ready to act as free as they wanted. Down below them was a large pool of water, even from the height she was at, Jing could see that it was filled with disciples from both Wolfeng Gang and the other group.
She unscrewed SCP-109's cap and created a moving wave to catch her before she fell into the water like the rest. Li Li slowly flew down and landed on her shoulder as she stood on top of the water's surface using the army canteen's water. The water was incredibly clear and pure. Jing could see the drowned bodies all the way at the bottom of this large pond and it was a deep pond. Ears and Peasant just fell into the water behind her and scrambled to swim up to the top.
Jing ignored them as they would be fine with that lotus plant on their heads. She looked around to try and find the magical treasure of this place. So far, she could see nothing that resembled a spirit tool inside the water. Just cultivators swimming to the top so they could breathe. She made sure to have SCP-109's constantly shooting out water above her so that others will notice its strangeness when they notice her.
There had to be some trick to this room just like the others... It couldn't want them to swim until they get tired and drown. That wouldn't make sense nor would it follow the same patterns as the other two rooms before this one. Jing's eyes found themselves focusing on Wenling down below. There were a lot of disciples trying to get to her. Members of the Wolfeng Gang protected her by stopping the others from coming close. In her hand was a helmet and in the other was her glaive.
But that helmet was in the hands of nine others as well, who were in a situation similar to Wenling. Jing figured it was just like what happened in the room before. There were multiple copies of the spirit tool and once they are all gathered together, they would merge into the original magical treasure. Stealing this treasure won't be as fun as it was taking the rock staff in the other room.
"It's too bad I won't be able to hear your screams." Jing sighed.
SCP-109 started to spew out water at a faster speed. Jing used her body martial art, Neptune's Prophet, to control the water inside of the canteen. Behind her, two ma.s.sive tendrils of water rose into the air. With a leisure wave of her palm, it swept through the pond like an ancient monster of the sea. Bodies were knocked far into the sky or deeper into the pond. She made sure to target the Wolfeng Gang members as well.
It would endanger her ident.i.ty if a powerful mysterious figure like herself allied themselves with the Bandit Faction. People would question why would someone as powerful as that ally with the Wolfeng Gang of all groups. The only acceptable explanation that Jing could think of was they had someone precious to them in their clutches as a hostage. But even that was too farfetched in her opinion.
But anyway, the Wolfeng Gang members that got hit by her attack didn't die. They might've been injured with a few broken bones at worst but nothing life threatening. The only ones to die from her water tentacle was the other group. It didn't take long for everyone to start aiming at her for attacking them but it was a pointless endeavor. With one of her water tendrils attacking those with the spirit weapons and the other collecting the treasures, Li Li was left to defend her.
He did so without even moving a single inch. A blue ghostly Worm Dragon manifested above him and dove into the waters to deal with those trying to attack his mother. Jing made sure to remind him not to kill those from the Wolfeng Gang but unlike Jing, Li Li didn't bother memorizing the faces of those from the group! He only knew Annoying Girl and c.o.c.ky Weakling. The soul of the Worm Dragon was indiscriminate in its killing. Its ma.s.sive body was enough to shatter the bones of anything it rushed into.
Jing's eyes danced with joy at seeing the previous sparkling waters turn red. She sucked all the treasures into her spirit ring while laughing. Not leaving a single valuable object behind, no matter if it was something as common as a recovery pill or as valuable as an earth-ranked spirit tool. She could tell that everyone who was still alive wanted her dead with just their glares alone. But what could they do against overwhelming force?
Everyone cursed in their hearts as they wished death upon that stupid brat. If glares could kill then that masked kid would be dead dozens of times over. Just how unfair are the heavens that they have to suffer from something like this just because that kid's martial arts are more suited for a situation like this? If they were on land right now, that brat wouldn't stand half a chance against them!
"Bye bye, everyone. Thanks for the gifts!" Jing said with a playful smile as she pulled out a movement spell and teleported away.
"YOU STUPID f.u.c.kING BRAT! I'LL RIP OUT YOUR MOTHER'S GUTS AND CHOKE HER WITH THEM!"
"d.a.m.n it..."
"We've come all this way just to lose out on everything?"
"How many people have we lost Vice Commander?" Wenling questioned.
"Around a quarter of our men died." Ears stated after looking around.
"Let's find a way out of here. We need to make up for losing so much time and resources." Wenling said just as a figure came falling from the sky with a big splash. A little white bird came flying down slowly after.
Jing panicked as she found herself immersed in water. She couldn't tell which way was up or which way was down.
"Well almost a quarter now." Ears corrected himself.
"I'll get her Commander!" Zihao dove down to try and help Jing but it turns out his help wasn't needed in the first place.
Jing pulled out a talisman from her bag and slapped it on herself. The Wolfeng Gang watched as a bubble formed from Jing's body, pushing away any water near her and sending her straight up to the surface of the water. Now that she could breathe again, she looked around to see herself in some sort of lake. She met eyes with the various Wolfeng Gang members swimming at the top of the water.
"What the h.e.l.l kind of spell is that?"
"Seriously? Did she put herself in a qi bubble to stop herself from drowning?!"
"Isn't that one of the weakest shields a spellmaster can use? I never knew it could be used like that."
"My protégé is full of surprises..." Wenling complimented.
"Now let's see if she can do the same for all of us. I don't know about you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds but I'm sick of swimming around like a d.a.m.n fish." Ears complained.
Everyone started to swim towards Jing who was inside her bubble. Li Li landed on top of the bubble and looked down on all the swimming disciples. The gang could tell that he was mocking them just because he could fly but Jing was probably their only chance of escaping this place. Getting on the bad side of her pet wasn't going to help them in any way.
"Jing, is there a way you can help us get out of here?" Wenling asked.
"I could try and make a movement array but I'll need everyone to gather around as close as they can. With this many people, I can't choose where we're going to be teleported..."
"So, you're saying to be prepared for anything?" Ears asked. Jing nodded to his question.
"That's fine. As long as it's out of here. We need to recoup our losses, quickly." Wenling said.
"Losses?"
"We just got robbed by some stupid brat! Now we're even poorer than we were at the start of the Treasured Plains."
"Next time, I see that kid I swear I'll wring his little slender neck!"
"Oh... Sorry I wasn't any help..." Jing apologized as if she could've changed anything as a 4th stage Qi Gatherer.
"What were you doing that made you so late anyway? Were there still people up there?"
"I fell into an illusion with Li Li. It was hard for us to get out..." Jing said with embarra.s.sment.
"Did you at least gain anything?" Ears asked irritated. Her talismans would've been useful in helping them.
"I got this after we broke free." Jing pulled out a necklace of tiny skulls. Wenling and Ears squinted to try and gleam anything about it.
The eye holes of the skulls lit up and stared at all the Wolfeng Gang members. Soon after, qi started to flow out of the necklace around Jing. That qi began to shape itself into large purple skulls that hovered around Jing's head. They spun around her while staring at all the others.
"What the h.e.l.l? Why is it doing that? What are you doing?"
"It just activated on its own!" Jing said, just as shocked as everyone else.
"Well just ignore it for now. You can figure out what it does when we get out of here." Ears spoke.
"Okay..." Jing replied, a little bit creeped out by the skulls. She began to start working on the movement formation to teleport them out of here.
