The sun had already set by now and a stormfront was coming in from the west.
Dai Zhi, Micha, Aer, and Nel stood at the valley entrance.
Nel raised her dainty little hand in the air and felt the air pressure change.
"It should be here within five minutes, and it looks like it's going to be a big one," she announced confidently.
Dai Zhi was looking into the valley but anything further than 10 meters was completely hidden by the green fog. Sounds from the caravan could still be heard but even they were going further and further away by the second.
"How big?" he asked without turning around.
Nel moved her hand back and forth a couple more times before answering, "Category 3, at leas. But it could pick up later."
Category 1 was the lowest and the higher it went, the deadlier the storm would be. At category 3 the storm would start affecting cultivators and at Category 4, it would start throwing them around like ragdolls if they were below the Profound Realm.
Dai Zhi turned around to look at the black, angry clouds that only seemed to be getting bigger by the second. They looked like some kind of monsters, devouring everything in their path.
"We better end this quick then," he mumbled.
As soon as he finished speaking, a faint red layer appeared above his skin before turning invisible. This 'layer' looked like minute blood particles moving around on their own.
This was a part of Dai Zhi's inheritance as a true-blooded vampire.
The Vampiric bloodline had been around longer than most people could remember. But what was certain were the similarities between the vampires and some of the demonic bloodlines. Many scholars had suggested that even though Vampires were a mainstream race now and fought for the 'righteous' side on many occasions, their roots could be traced back to mysterious Ancient Demons.
And as such, Vampire's inherent ability or 'Dao' was related to blood and they were experts in most of the blood arts. But this didn't mean they couldn't practice other Dao arts, but only that their bodies and bloodlines had an extremely high synergy with blood arts would progress much faster in their hands if practiced.
Dai Zhi mainly focused on cultivating energies and refining them into Laws, but that didn't mean his bloodline was lagging behind. Even without him doing anything it would progress slowly since he had such high purity.
Aer was already wearing a full body armor that looked like it was made from bronze and silver. It covered him from head to toe, exposing only his face. The armor had symbols of different divine beasts engraved on it which shimmered with a vague light.
He held a greatsword in his right hand and a massive shield on his left. The shield had the face of a flaming lion carved onto it, taking almost 90% of the total space.
He looked as sturdy as a city wall standing there. His armor created an invisible barrier that shielded him from increasingly chaotic winds.
Nel was still wearing her 'party' dress but now if looked closely, you would see small flickering winged creatures flying around her in circles. They let out different colored lights that blended in with one another and surrounded her body as well. These creatures looked almost ethereal, like projections instead of something physical.
Micha was the odd one out of the group. His defensive technique created a six-sided shield that although not anything special, did its job well. It could be cultivated by anyone using proper energies and did not have any heaven-defying effects. Simple yet effective.
Behind them, the other groups had also caught up.
Each one of them was decked out in their own armors and weapons, looking quite dazzling albeit not as much as Dai Zhi and his entourage.
Seeing the storm edging closer by the second, Dai Zhi ordered for them to enter.
Aer took the lead and entered first, followed by Dai Zhi, Nel and finally, Micha. The moment they stepped through the heavy curtain of fog, the two Wizards that were floating at the front of the caravan about 300 meters ahead both looked back at the same time.
"Arrrrrrrrrrrrr," the bigger one spoke up. His voice sounded strange, like someone was breathing backwards (imagine the 'grudge' ghost noise here, that's the closest thing I can describe it with.)
The smaller wizard nodded and took out a small creature from somewhere.
This creature was the size of an orange, it had the body of a maggot with a human child's face at the front. He squeezed lightly and the creature woke up, letting out a shrill scream that didn't go further than two meters.
About 5 kilometers inward on the other side of a closed valley, the trader was standing behind Hao Xuan showing him different cages filled to the brim with humans.
He suddenly froze before reaching out in his robe and taking out an identical creature. It was crying but no sound was coming out.
The trader looked at the creature for a few seconds before crushing it into a grey meat paste.
"It seems you are not the only one that wants these humans, dear customer," he said looking towards Hao Xuan.