Chapter 538: Sniffing Out The Trail
(Brendan POV)
"Wait... So Senior Sister Lian Li is coming here personally?"
Senior sister Manami chuckled through our telepathy call, "Ufufu~ It seems so, Brendan. You and your 'merry men' might want to find somewhere to hole up before the entire place gets turned to glass~"
I looked at my men gathered behind me, looking just as worried as I was.
"How much time do we have?"
"Oh, I'd say about another half an hour or so. Lian Li is really motivated in finding Master after all~"
Great, less than an hour to hide twenty of us from the wrath of a girl that has the power to wipe out an entire continent while trying to locate any trace of Master.. No pressure, Brendan.
"Ara, if this Tenebris Sect agrees to our demands, maybe junior brother Brendan wouldn't need to do anything?"
"You and I know that is impossible at this point, senior sister..."
"Ara, ara~ In that case, Brendan should get to work fast, shouldn't you? Ufufufu~"
I'm not sure if that was an indication she really trusted me that much or is this some sort of senior sister bullying the junior brother kind of thing.
I am inclined to think that it's the latter.
"I'll see what I can do..."
"Ufufufu~ Good luck~~" She giggled before cutting our telepathy call.
I turned back to the group of men behind me, "Well you heard her. Seems like our plan to infiltrate into the town as travelling alchemists backfired on us. This town's probably going to be destroyed in the next half an hour and there's no way out for us."
One of them stepped up to me, "That day when High Priest Brendan came to save us in our God's name, we were already prepared to die. If we have to give up our life here to ensure High Priest Brendan lives on to spread our God's holy name, we would gladly do so!"
I shook my head at him, "No, no, no. You got it all wrong. We're not in danger of dying at all, not with me here. Senior sister Lian Li also isn't so inexperienced that her Technique would target us. The issue with our current situation is that we were supposed to find out if the energy signature here belongs to Master which we have yet to do so."
The men looked at each other.
"Then... When High Priestess Lian Li destroys this place, we wouldn't be able to find out if it really is our God's energy signature?"
I shook my head again, chuckling, "Oh no, not at all. Senior Sister Lian Li would still be able to figure it out but this is a matter of pride you see. If we got here first and yet couldn't finish this mission assigned to us, we'll lose a lot of face. And if Master finds out how useless I had been..."
The men finally realised the severity of the situation, knowing that the God you worship harbours disappointment for you would deal a huge blow to your mental state.
"What do we need to do?" One of them asked, worry clear on his face.
I took out my storage ring that had a Monster Crystal strapped to it, a little trick I used as my solution to the restriction on this Plane. I took the idea from sister Elaria's of course, though mine is nowhere as elegant as hers.
"I didn't want to do this if I could help it... But I guess there's not really much of a choice for me at this point," I sighed.
Searching through the ring, I materialised a pill bottle and popped one of the pills from within on to my palm, swallowing it without hesitation.
Within seconds, I felt my body change, my features softening to become more feminine and myself getting a little shorter.
My senior sisters have all claimed that I look 'cute' in this form, which I would very much like to take at face value if not for the fact that I have witnessed how Master looks in His female form.
If Master claims His female form was the second most beautiful in the entire Universe, no one will dare claim the top spot.
Even I was absolutely entranced by Master when I laid eyes on Him.
If that was my first time seeing Master, I would have believed He was Divine right there as well.
My men watched my change with open-mouthed awe, a few of them even gaping at me like a fish on dry land.
"High... High Priest... Brendan?" One of them asked, looking at me up and down.
"Yes, it's still me," I assured them in my new voice. "That was a gender change pill which I had hoped I could avoid using. With this, I should be able to track if Master has visited this--"
Before I could even finish my words, a bolt of lightning struck down from the sky and blasted several buildings at the end of the street to smithereens.
Senior Sister Lian Li... It hasn't even been ten minutes you know? What did they even do to you that you immediately started eradicating them?
Just in case, I erected a water barrier around us, not that it would help if Senior Sister Lian Li actually decided to throw a lightning bolt at us but it's just in case any debris flew our way.
With the barrier properly set up, I quickly set to my task of identifying the various Quark signatures in the air, spreading out my senses to sift through the energies that were floating around us.
If I wasn't so pressed for time, I would have used one of my potions to search for Master's Quark signature. It would change colour if Master's energy was indeed here, since I've had it locked onto Master.
It won't be as fast as what I'm doing now but it would be more accurate and wouldn't require me to change my gender for it to work either.
The other problem would have been the effective area was limited to around five cubic metres around the bottle.
It was the best I could come up with in these circumstances ok?
And now my efforts were rendered moot anyway since I had to resort to using my female form.
I had to ignore the various explosions going on outside as well, the Techniques being thrown outside not at all helping the mass of energies already in the air and making it harder for me to sift through.
Damn it, I'm not even sure if I can find Master within all this chaos. It's almost as bad as trying to find a needle in a haystack. If only I could...
That...
That's Master's Quark signature!!
We found Him! We found Master!
In my excitement, I unwittingly removed my barrier and in front of me was a wasteland where the town had been before.
I guess they must have done something to really piss Senior Sister Lian Li off...
Ah, but the most important thing is I found--
"Cai Hong found Papa!" A voice I was not expecting to hear shouted from my right.
All of us turned to see a little girl with rainbow hair standing there with a proud look on her face, when did Cai Hong even get here?
She looked at me and pointed to a direction with a bright smile, "Papa's smell! This way!"
Right... Of course the loli dragon can track Master by His scent alone...
What am I even doing here?