AIR Chapter 171

Chapter 171

The village was situated near the northern right side of the small valley. It would be the entrance most people came to, if they were trying to cross the Great Desert Strip during the rainy seasons. It had a walkway that led directly to the northern tip of the valley and that was where the cultivator’s would camp during those times. 

Now, that was where Cultivator Town was. That was where the cultivators gathered and traded. It was a place of qi and refinement, of growth and potential… and it was a place of issue.

That was what Yai believed. 

The world was a complicated place and the Sky Dragon’s Azure robes colored the skies. 

That was a saying out there in the greater existence. 

One that was used to explain the perpetually blue skies of every world. Yai didn’t know if there were God-Imperium ranked Sky Dragons, but the sky was always blue and the clouds were always white. 

So maybe there were some sky dragons dancing near the Heavens. 

“Stop it,” Yai yelled out to a small teenage boy. 

“But-- But madam guard, I did nothing to--”

“You know what you did.”

The boy slumped and turned around. He walked by a stand and silently returned the second rank spirit stone he had taken from the man’s purse. 

Having an aura of this level meant that things didn’t need to happen for Yai to know that they would. At the fifth rank, with this much difference between ranks. It was only a matter of scanning the masses to identify malice.

But malice was malice and action was action. So Yai sensed, found, and waited for the criminals to act. 

It was surprising the amount of people that wanted to commit an actual crime yet changed their minds at the last minute. To fully commit to something wrong or illegal, it took a certain type of gusto or bravado. Bravery would be a kinder euphemism.

But mostly, it took desperation, greed, or ego. 

And people had those three things in fold. 

Maybe it was wrong of Yai to take their mindsets into consideration. After all, with more severe crimes mindset didn’t matter, not really. A lion could kill a whole family without any actual malice, and yet the whole village would hunt it down. Why should it be any different for people?

Actions were actions. Justice did exist beyond man but it also existed to serve it. 

If a man killed your family to save his own, it wouldn’t bring back your family no matter how much you pitied him.

You could understand, maybe even forgive, but that wouldn’t bring back what you lost. 

The value, Yai believed, was in what was lost. 

She could replace a stone and give out warnings. Theft, as bad as it was, could be undone. 

So the smaller crimes she could ignore, as long as the person was ignorable as well. 

That boy had been a thief and nothing more. He was lacking money and would have to go around stabling beasts of burden and hauling around equipment to live through the rainy season. But he was also at the first rank. He could leave this place and settle in a backwater village somewhere and be treated like nobility. 

He didn’t need that money. 

But Yai would watch him. If he tried this again, there would be consequences. 

The worst one, in Yai’s mind, were the ones she couldn’t do anything about. 

Some people here were cold, so cold that their skin frosted over and their hair turned white. 

Some people felt almost nothing at all and those people always kept her on edge. It was so much easier to know, to be able to estimate where evil would rise from. But the people that hid their auras made this an impossibility.

The pale skinned members of the Hidden Vipper Sect presented this issue, as did the spies of the Hollow Echo. 

But that was just something she had to deal with. 

It was wrong in some ways to spy on people’s private thoughts, even if those thoughts were about murder or kidnapping. But wrong was an easy line to cross in that regard. 

She wasn’t reading minds or inner thoughts, just small flare ups of hatred and malice. Or suspense, that was the most important one. 

Most absolute monsters worried a little before an uncertain attack. Some didn’t. Some flared up with joy before jumping a person’s bones. 

But everyone felt something before doing something like that. 

And those feelings were what she searched for. 

So far she had stumbled upon a few intimate moments of the non violent types. (She was officially avoiding the brothel from now on.) A few pseudo-criminal activities that really didn’t warrant her presence, such as small traders trading just outside of the village to avoid taxes, even though the village didn’t have any taxes. And a small clumping of children playing a very suspenseful game of hide and seek. 

The children had screamed and scattered before she could calm them down.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Yai said to Rin. “I want to have a broader patrol area but I feel as if my current area is tough enough to monitor.”

“That’s because you don’t sleep and refuse to let any crime go unpunished.”

“It’s my job,” Yai Mien grumbled. 

“Yes but it doesn’t require that much vigilance does it Yai? I mean, Bill watches over everything pretty passively as well, and Gauntlet is also here. With those two around you don’t need to work yourself so hard.”

“I know but--”

But Bill was changing. She could see it, they all could. He had been locked away recently, working with his mind focused on something else. His arrays were functional and Gauntlet was strong but was it enough?

While the words went unsaid, the sentiment carried. Everyone was feeling it, even Chin. The thirteenth rank man would come down to talk to them at least once a week and the few times the girls had gone up there, they had seen him deeply focused on something else. 

“Its my job,” Yai finally added. “I need to be able to handle it.”

“Then ask Master Bill for help and become an Immortal,” Rin shrugged. 

“What?”

“That’s what I did.”

“You asked him for help?”

“No, but he gave it to me. I’m sure he has some kind of monitoring array or technique he can give you to keep your senses afloat. And as your cultivation grows, I’m sure he can guide you to where you need to go.”

“But he’s busy right now. You’ve seen him, he’s been focused on something else as of late.”

“Chin’s up there now and they seem to be talking so why not go?” 

“Will you come with me?” Yai asked. 

Rin rolled her eyes, but didn’t say no. 

“Great,” Yai said, grabbing her sister’s hand and rushing into the forest.