A Demon’s Paradise - Volume 1 Chapter 10 Her Tricks
Moyin jumped onto one of the shelves in the corner, hiding as far from sight as she could.
What was making her freak out about the guards coming inside the room was that, even with all her tricks, if they looked hard enough, they could easily sniff out her location, and she wasn’t exactly strong enough to go toe to toe with them.
The Killer Lizard mask concealed her presence and made her invisible, but it had limits. If someone had a cultivation much higher than hers or physically touched her, they would be able to tell that she was there. She made it all the way to the top floors relying on the skills from her past life, a bit of luck, and the fact that they, as a whole, didn’t really look up when they were indoors. If they actually knew she was there and tried to capture her, she’d be helpless.
No sooner than she had gotten comfortable, than the door creaked open, a sliver of light streaming through the quickly widening crack. Throughout all of her sneaking around, Xia Moyin had been using the night vision that came with the Killer Lizard mask. In reality, it was nearly pitch black everywhere she had been.
It swung open fully, revealing a newly bright lit hallway, and four people. Three tall and study men, two standing on each side and one in the back, directly behind a scrawny teenager in the front.
He was short, and thin, wearing a deep blue robe and an arrogant expression. There were various jewels embroidered into his clothing and in the jewelry on his person, centered on his neck, hands, and arms. He was covered in gold and silver, so shiny he practically gave off his own light.
His features were handsome, though a bit despotic and privileged, a holier-than-thou expression ingrained into his face. He had short black hair, and large eyes the color of autumn leaves, a mixture of yellow, orange and red. A large knife sat at his waist, covered in precious gems, probably completely useless except for decoration.
Upon seeing the completely blank back wall and missing tub of Heavenly Spirit water, the guards went as pale as ghosts, their hands instantly going to their weapons and taking a defensive stance around the kid.
The still unnamed prince paled even more than the guards, his eyes going wide.
“Buzzing Fire…Heavenly Spirit water…they’re both gone…” After he said that, the prince’s face flushed, contorting into fury as he started shouting.
“WHAT HAPPENED HERE?!”
The guards, though they jumped slightly, kept calm. For just a moment, they ignored him, scanning the room, looking Xia Moyin.
They looked at each other, a hidden message passing between them as one went into the rows, the other leaving, while the third stayed back with the kid.
“WHERE IS EVERYTHING?” The prince roared at him, gesturing furiously at the back wall, his chest heaving. Despite his slim frame, he had a good set of lungs, a really good set.
“Your Highness…we…..I…” The guard stammered, trying to calm him down. The prince just yelled louder.
The guard walking searching the shelves looked back, glaring at his partner for a moment before ignoring them both and continuing. He was about four rows away, and fast approaching.
Three rows, two rows, one….
He turned onto the last one, looking around carefully. there seemed to be something different about this row, a faint feeling of unease, making him feel as though he was missing something.
It was in perfect condition, as were the rest of the shelves, nothing missing. He was about to walk back and start looking for clues in the hallway when he noticed an empty spot, right next to the wall, where the really high level Spirit Beast Cores were. It was a bit too high up for him to see anything so the guard walked over, reaching up and feeling the empty space with one hand. He was looking for any forgotten Spirit Beast Cores or clues left by the thief.
Xia Moyin shrank back even farther, practically melding into the wall. The guard’s hand was less than six inches from her feet, so close she could practically count all the pimples on his face. If he got any closer, or just so happened to figure out she was there, she was toast.
She couldn’t escape through the door because the prince and the guard were blocking it, and although it had worked in the halls, slipping through the open crack in the door wouldn’t work because they already knew something was up and would be looking for discrepancies in the air around them. For a new presence to just show up and try to sneak past them would definitely sound the alarm.
She slowed her breathing and sat completely still, not even blinking. Her heart slowed as she shut down her body, forcefully making it stop working.
It was a trick she learned when she was fifteen, a way to simulate death without losing consciousness or freedom of movement. It completely shut down all of her bodily functions, her heart, lungs, stomach, everything.
To others, it was as if she had died, and it was the perfect way to stay under the radar. When people are looking for someone who is alive and well, they generally don’t think of looking for a dead person, and it neutralized any sort of sound her body made from others.
Once a person either cultivated long enough, or trained hard enough, they could eventually come to a place where they could hear the functions going on inside of someone else’s body. The one she had learned before, which shut down her body, also made it so they couldn’t move, and when you’re getting chased by someone who wants to kill you, no matter how quiet you get, you don’t generally want to stay in one place.
It was exactly in those conditions that she had discovered it, and had been using it ever since. She could hold one position for days if she had to, without breathing, and she could keep her body in ‘death state’ for up to three days before she really would die.
The guard was three inches away, almost touching her foot. Xia Moyin shifted away, ready to run as soon as she had enough room. She did have her knives, though they wouldn’t help that much if she wasn’t able to surprize or sneak up on him.
Three inches….two inches….one inch….
She was primed and ready, about to stomp on his hand then stab, when armed guards started flooding into the room, making her jump and him remove his hand as he turned around. `
Xia Moyin came out of her ‘death state’, letting out a tense breath. For a moment she wasn’t really sure whether she would have to fight her way out or not…
The new arrivals were led by the guard that had left earlier, apparently made up of the higher ups that were technically their bosses. They were a mixture of angry and scared, their faces switching in between a volcanic red and deathly pale.
“Finally, someone who isn’t a COMPLETE imbecile! Explain to me how this could happen on YOUR watch!”
The prince stomped up to them, still yelling, though a bit quieter. They were the Head Guards of the Imperial Treasury, after all. He could yell and scream all he wanted at the regular guards, but to those who were close to his father, he had to act at least neutral to them.
Xia Moyin didn’t stick around to hear the rest of their conversation.
The door was wide open, and without a fussy prince standing directly in front of it. Though there were about fifty armed guards there instead, there were so many that they wouldn’t notice the slight difference, especially since they were distracted with whichever prince was jumping up and down in front of them. Their spirit power fluctuations would cover it up.
Each and every living thing interfered with the natural flow of spirit power in the world, forcing it to the side and creating ripples, like water. These ripples were called Spirit Power fluctuations, and depending on how many there were in a space, it could help or hinder. If there was a small amount, they would enhance each other, making it extremely easy to pick out if there was extra fluctuations. If there were too many, they would interfere with each other and actually make it harder to pick someone out.
The Killer Lizard mask covered her tracks and minimized her Spirit Power fluctuations to an almost imperceptible amount. The guards weren’t too strong to detect her on the lower floors and as long as she avoided them, it was very easy for Xia Moyin to slip past them especially since they weren’t explicitly looking for her. Earlier, when it was only the guards and the prince there, she wouldn’t dare to move. It would have be child’s play for them to detect her minimal amount of aura if she had made a move to leave. However, now that there were so many fluctuations interfering with each other, she would have to be a fool to give up this chance to escape.
Xia Moyin clawed her way up the wall, climbing sideways until she got above the door. Using the same trick she had been using ever since she entered the building, she slipped out the crack at the top when someone else had the door open.
Not far from the door, in the hallway, there was a small window. She promptly broke it, not even caring that there were fifty plus armed cultivators right behind her.
Xia Moyin jumped out the window and into the night air, vaulting up and into the trees next to the building. She immediately took off, disappearing into the dark.
