A man sat casually on top of a large boulder with his legs dangling freely over the edge. From his elevated position, he noticed a group of cultivators approaching from a distance.
Their appearances suggested that they had been through a great deal of hardship. In fact, judging by their condition, the man felt that so of them might have been trapped here for just as long as he had, perhaps even longer.
"Who are you?"
Before Aditya could respond, he continued. "Buddy, if you all are here to rob of whatever I have in possession, then you have chosen the wrong target."
"I never expected that those who are stuck here would form a group to steal from others." Hearing his words, Ayna could not help but wonder if this man was drunk or simply one of those people who believed they were incredibly intelligent while actually being the exact opposite. The confidence with which he spoke made it even worse. To her, his statent sounded so ridiculous that she genuinely questioned how soone could arrive at such a conclusion.
"We are not here to rob you."
"Then what?"
"I’m here to offer you an opportunity to leave this place with us." The man stared at Aditya for several seconds before suddenly laughing.
"Don’t joke with ." He jumped down from the boulder and landed on the ground.
"Judging from your appearances, it’s obvious that you people have been trapped here for just as long as I have, if not longer. Look at yourselves. Dirty clothes. Exhausted faces. Half of your group looks like they have spent centuries surviving in this place."
His eyes eventually landed on Aditya. "And you look even worse than the rest."
The man pointed at Aditya’s bandaged arms and injured leg. "You expect to believe that a crippled man who is clearly trapped here himself sohow possesses a magical way of taking everyone out of this place?"
The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. If escaping this prison was really that easy, then why was Aditya still here?
He turned his attention toward the people standing behind Aditya. What surprised him even more was that nobody seed to be questioning him. Not a single person looked doubtful. Instead, they all looked at Aditya with trust. So even looked at him with genuine respect. The man found that even more unbelievable than the promise itself.
"Are all of you seriously believing him? Think about it for a second. If he truly had a way to leave this place, then why is he still trapped here?"
Not letting anyone speak, he continued. "Use your brains. Anyone can make promises. Anyone can tell you exactly what you want to hear. A starving man promises food. A poor man promises wealth. And now a trapped man is promising freedom."
"Have any of you considered the possibility that he simply wants to use all of you?"
The man slowly shook his head. "People don’t gather followers for no reason. If I wanted a group of strong cultivators to work for , I would start by promising them exactly what they wanted most. In this place, that would obviously be freedom."
"From my perspective, none of this makes any sense. The man making these promises is clearly trapped here himself. He’s injured. He’s missing half a leg. Both of his arms are wrapped in bandages. Yet sohow I’m supposed to believe that he possesses a thod of escaping a prison that nobody has escaped from for countless centuries?"
His words sounded perfectly reasonable. In fact, if soone had approached him with the sa offer a few hours ago, he would have reacted exactly the sa way. After all, nobody had ever heard of anyone escaping this place. A stranger suddenly appearing and promising freedom sounded far more like a scam than a miracle.
"So tell . Why should I believe a single word you say? And more importantly, why are all of these people foolish enough to believe you?"
"He is a dumb idiot." Ayan turned to Zane and said without caring if she heard him or not.
"Agreed!"
"I heard that."
But before he could continue speaking, Aditya raised his hand and stopped him. Normally, Aditya might have been willing to humour him and listen to his argunts. Under different circumstances, he might have even found the man’s caution reasonable.
Unfortunately, today was not one of those days. His body was still recovering from severe injuries. His mood was already terrible. And after everything that had happened recently, his patience was far shorter than usual. The last thing he wanted was to stand here and listen to another long speech about why he should not be trusted.
"I can see through the purple dense fog that surrounds this entire place."
"In exchange for taking you out of his place, I want you to serve for 50 years. These people have all agreed to serve for 50 years. In exchange, I will take them out of this place once I am done recruiting."
Without saying another word, Aditya raised his hand and pointed toward a distant direction covered by the endless purple fog.
"There is a lake approximately twelve kilotres from here. On the northern side of that lake, there is a dead tree with a split trunk. Less than two hundred ters away from it, there is a cave. Inside that cave are three people."
The man’s expression imdiately changed. He knew that area. In fact, he had passed by that lake multiple tis over the years while searching for a way out.
But Aditya did not stop there.
"Six kilotres to your right, there is a group of seven wolf-type beasts hiding behind a rocky hill. One of them is injured and has a missing left eye. They are currently feeding on a carcass."
And three kilotres behind us, there is another cultivator. He is sitting beneath a cliff while trying to cultivate." This ti, even the people standing around him beca surprised. Although they already knew that Aditya could see through the fog, hearing him casually describe places and people dozens of kilotres away still felt unbelievable.
The reason Aditya stayed to chat here for this long is that this guy was a mid-7th-order cultivator. He made no attempts at hiding his cultivation.
Aditya felt that with 25 drops of his divine Dragon Blood, he could reach Peak 7th-order. Or even if he couldn’t, having another powerful Mid 7th-order subordinate would massively increase their overall strength.
After thinking for a mont, he decided to trust Aditya. "Alright! I believe in you."
This could very well be his once-in-a-lifeti opportunity to finally leave this cursed place. Compared to spending the rest of his life trapped here, serving that man for fifty years felt like a very small price to pay.
The more he thought about it, the more reasonable the offer seed. Even if Aditya was lying, he was confident in his own abilities. The mont he discovered that he had been deceived, he could simply leave the group and go his own way. Nobody could force him to stay if he no longer wished to follow them.
When he looked at it from that perspective, he realised that he was not really risking anything. At worst, he would waste a little bit of ti following the group. At best, he would finally escape from this prison that had trapped him for centuries. In essence, he had very little to lose and potentially everything to gain.
"Follow ." Aditya decided to turn multiple newly recruited subordinates into Dragonians at once. That would save him, and they could spend more ti looking for a few more powerful and talented subordinates. As for running away and not keeping their words, the chances of that happening were extrely low. With Aditya’s current force, he was confident that he could stop whoever wanted to back out.
If things get too bad, he would simply teleport them back to the Dragon Mountain Range. But he felt like, after going through so much, the chances of anyone backing out were just too low.
In the end, after about one more hour of searching and convincing, two more Peak 6th-order cultivators joined Aditya.
With everyone, he led them outside the Dragon Mountain Range. Once outside, everyone stopped to enjoy the warm sunlight and the greenery before them.
Many of them simply stood there in silence.
So closed their eyes and raised their faces toward the sky. Others knelt on the ground and grabbed handfuls of grass as if afraid everything before them was rely an illusion.
For thousands of years, all they had known was darkness, death, and endless despair.
Now, they were finally free. "Finally... we are out of that hell."
"I almost forgot what sunlight looked like."
Another woman gently touched the leaves of a nearby tree. Her hands trembled as she spoke.
"Two thousand years... I spent over two thousand years in that cursed place."
"I never thought I would see this day again." Anya was almost on the verge of crying. According to a rough calculation that she did in her head while following Aditya, she was stuck in this place for more than 2550 years.
More accurately, she had spent 2,568 years trapped inside that prison. For a long mont, she simply stared upward.
Then a single tear rolled down her cheek.
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