Chapter 255 - The Garden Of Death
"GO BACK HOME!.. I cannot explain the reason, but you have to trust your.. Almighty lord.. Go back to your families, and live the lives you had before, until the moment I will need you. This is extremely important!" Said Daniel with confidence and embarrassment.
He was really hoping that these people would not be too obsessed with him, and that they would listen to him. Taking them to Ton Bes was out of the question, as the last thing he needed during this period of staying below the radar of the many factions, was a following of crazy people.
Luckily enough, after hearing Daniel's words, the faces of his worshippers lit brightly, and they did exactly as he had asked them to do. Daniel had clearly underestimated the level of devotion which these people felt for him.
Sewah had never demanded anything for them, and he had simply tolerated their existence. Now that their lord had finally acknowledged their existence, they were too happy to simply reject his words.
Daniel felt one person after the other teleport inside the same numbers of rings in order to go back to their own worlds. The middle aged woman and the young man in front of him, were no exception. They kneeled politely in front of Daniel, then left through their own pocket dimensions.
"Oh.. damn it.. I should have told them to avoid doing bad things.." muttered Daniel while looking at the two rings on the floor. Only he and the prisoner were left on the planet now, so he gathered the rings that were lying all over the ground of the city, and put them into a corner of one of his spatial container.
He then focused on the control he had over this planet, and forced it to shrink.
Almost as if following Daniel's direct orders, the planet started to quickly shrink in size, until finally, three hours later, it had reached the size of a human's head. Once reached this size, Daniel put it into his ring as well.
"Don't worry.. They will probably keep their heads low. They will try to avoid being in prison the moment their almighty lord will have a need for them." said the prisoner from next to Daniel.
"I guess you're right.. But can you stop with the mind reading? It's starting to irritate me a little." responded Daniel with a hint of exasperation. His mind was nowhere near as powerful as that of the prisoner, and even if they were at the same level of development, he wouldn't be able to keep the prisoner out of his mind, as that was part of his special powers as a mental warrior of the Psionic Dimension.
The only person which was able to stop this, was the prisoner himself, which said "Fair enough.. Oh, and my name is Aeran." before finally revealing his name to Daniel. The faint green hue that had marked his red eyes, completely disappeared right after.
While looking at the small ring that floated in his hand, Daniel said, "Ready to go?" to which Aeran responded with a faint nod. The two then teleported into the pocket dimension, leaving the small ring to float in space for the rest of eternity.
-----
Two years earlier, Ton Bes.
"Why the hell is he taking so long?" Asked the chairman while walking down one of the corridors of the massive building, along with the middle aged man who acted as the representant of the senate.
The man was quietly following the young girl from two steps back, as sign of respect. When he was asked about Daniel's whereabouts, he said "About that.. My Lady, I bring bad news.."
The young chairman suddenly stopped walking, and turned to look at the middle aged man with anger. She then said "What is it now?!"
"Well.. it appears that the young man was not only visiting his home planet.. But he was actually trying to claim it for one of the factions." He muttered with a matter-of-fact tone.
The young woman showed a hint of surprise, but then, her anger resurfaced, as she asked "So what?! He should have been done by now.. Even if he conquered a planet for a faction, that's no reason to ignore us. He could still join us."
"It's Iewah's faction.." added the middle aged man, making any form of anger and exasperation disappear from the girl's face, and leaving only sheer surprise.
"Fine.. the assassin then.. Give him the area, and tell him to present his featured poison to the senate." Said the chairman in resignation. She then turned around, and started walking again.
With clear unwillingness, the middle aged man quickly followed her, and stopped her on her tracks by saying "My lady.. That's the rest of the bad news.. When the Orange Thorn came back, he told us that he had no idea where the assassin is.. He said that they both arrived in the kid's planet, but has no recollection of what happened next."
"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!" Shouted the young woman in rage.
Her entire job, was to make sure that the Poisonous Rose would not grow weaker during her mandate. She was in charge of picking a new family to add to their group whenever one was destroyed, and she had been late in delivering for many months now.
While the families that were part of the Poisonous Rose would not understand why the woman was so nervous about failing her task, since she was the leader of the entire organization.. The matter was extremely different for the senate, and the chairman. Only they knew that the poisonous rose was connected to a faction called Garden of Death.
The Garden of Death was a faction whose power was connected to the concepts of poison, corrosion, and toxicity. They were a relatively weak faction, as the requirements to develop the gift of their leader and become elite members, was to become resistant to all poisons.
The method which the members of this faction used to become elites, was to build a tolerance by injecting small amounts of various types of poison of increasingly deadlier power. Once they would become resistant to all poisons, the leading figure would transform their entire immortal essence into a type of poisonous, or corrosive essence, which they would then be able to use against their enemies.
That, was the gift of the Garden of Death.
The few that survived, were known through the entire universe due to how dangerous they would become, but unfortunately, not many of them managed to. Only one out of a thousand would manage to build a resistance to low level poisons.. Of them, one out of ten thousands would survive being poisoned with mid level poison, and of those, only one out of ten millions would survive high level poisons.
Using pills that would give immunity was out of the question, as the grand majority of these pills were temporary, while the rest, were kept hidden by the factions to which the master of poison that had created them, belonged.
This high rate of mortality, had caused the forces of the Garden of Death to dwindle, and its people to gradually stop in their attempt to become elites.
Witnessing to their demise, the faction had decided to send numerous groups similar to the poisonous rose into other factions, in hope to find talented poison masters which would be interested in the gifts which the Garden of Death offered.
Ever since the chairman of The Poisonous Rose had heard about Daniel's discovery, she had learned that he had claimed that the effect of his immunity pill was actually permanent, but not many had believed that.. Nevertheless, in the off chance that Daniel was saying the truth, she wanted him to join their group before the recipe of the pill ended up in the hands of Iewah's faction.
Unfortunately, it was already too late.
Just as the young chairman was about to storm into her office to pick another of the four candidates, a third individual approached her with hurry. "My lady, there are news about the candidate!" said this man.
"It better not be more bad news!!" barked the chairman while opening the door of her office with more strength than she intended.
The man froze in place.
The middle aged man that was still following the chairman, stopped in front of this man, and whispered "Say it to me.. I'll tell her." He had immediately understood that the news was not positive, and he knew that if the man gave her the bad news himself, she would have likely killed him on the spot, regardless of what the news was.
"Honourable Black Thorn.. The candidate which we have discovered was part of Iewah's faction, gave up the recipe of the Partial Poison Immunity Pill to his faction.. And.. well, they confirmed that it grants a permanent immunity to all poisons from tier one, to tier three." Said the man with a low tone, while the chairman went back to her desk.
"Okay.. you can go.." Said the man before entering the chairman's office.
The man did not wait for a single moment to turn around, and go back from the way he had come. By the time he reached the corner, he heard a loud shout "WHAAAAAAT?!"
-----
When Daniel and Aeran entered the pocket dimension, they saw a basic spatial dimension with barely any air to breathe, and ground to walk. There was nothing there, aside from a few chests which contained some valuables, some random objects, and a teleportation platform.
The two didn't stand in the pocket dimension for too long, and instead, directly used the teleportation platform. Once on the other side, they found themselves in a square filled with people.
After about an hour spent asking for information about where they were exactly, the two flew high up in the sky in an attempt to leave the atmosphere, but right before leaving, they were stopped by a woman who quietly floated in the space right in front of them.
"Two outcasts.. In my planet.." She said with hidden worry. She was at the same level of cultivation that Daniel and Aeran were, but she was not an elite member of Iewah's faction. She was simply an eighth stage cultivator which had been tasked to work as this planet's keeper of key.
After recognizing the two, she sent a message to the faction, and tried to buy some time for the bounty hunters to arrive.. But it was too late.
Aeran's eyes had already lit up with a bright green color, and a moment later, her recollection of their encounter had been deleted from her memories.
She looked at the empty space around her in confusion, then, as she witnessed the arrival of more than twenty bounty hunters, she said "What have you come here for?"
The closest one amongst these warrior looked back at her with doubt, and said "What are you talking about? You've called for us.. You've used there were two outcasts here."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Responded the woman with an odd expression.
Of course, the twenty bounty hunters were not stupid. They knew perfectly well that no one would ever call for reinforcements for no reason, and then deny it. This was the handiwork of someone which could control minds.
Noticing the state of mind in which the woman was in, a second warrior took a large book out of his spatial ring, and after scrolling through it, he said with disappointment "Her memories have been erased.. There are two hundred and eighty-nine outcasts of the Psionic Dimension still free.. We've lost them."
"Damn it.."
A few hundred thousands kilometers from where the twenty bounty hunters and the keeper of key were floating, a house sized planet was dashing through space, and into one portal after the other. On this small planet, Daniel and Aeran were sitting quietly in wait.
Their destination, was the largest of the brilliant dots which they could see right in front of them.