"Your majesty, are you okay?" the man asked as he quickly walked up to Alex to help him up.
"No, no, I'm fine. Thanks for the help." Alex slowly got up, and the look of shock and surprise was still evident on his face.
The guard wondered what it was that got him so worked up. Was he hurt while inside the spiritual sea of the other person? "Why did you do that, your majesty?" he asked.
"Uhh… I became stupid for a moment, that's all," Alex said. He looked at the sect leader who was unconscious still. Having destroyed most of his spiritual energy, it would take him some time to wake up. "What do we do with this one?"
"Didn't you want to question him?" the man asked.
"No, not anymore," Alex said as he swiped away the storage bags on his body. "I don't think anyone who tortures children should be allowed to live. You can kill him."
The guard nodded and used a simple attack that vaporized the sect leader along with his nascent soul.
After seeing the man die, Alex looked around toward the captured individuals and searched for a way to turn down the barrier. He found a few formation flags which he ripped out of the ground, letting everyone out.
The people flew out the barriers in droves, thanking them profusely.
Talia was teary-eyed as she too came up to Alex and started thanking him.
Alex looked toward his guard and asked, "Can you handle this? I want to go look for the children," he said.
"As you wish, your Majesty," the man said and started asking the many men and women questions about what had happened in this place.
Talia quickly followed behind Alex to go and look for the children as well. "Why did you come here, your majesty?" she asked.
"There was a little girl who said you could be in trouble, so I came," Alex said. "It turns out she was right, so it was good that I came. Come on, let's go get those kids."
Talia nodded and followed, but she still had questions. "Do you know what he was doing with the kids? He captured me when I tried questioning them," she said.
"He… he was trying to kill them," Alex said. "For his own gain."
"K-kill?" Talia's eyes widened in fear. "Are you saying the kids are dead?"
"No… not yet," Alex said. "At least… not these ones."
Talia was a little confused. "What do you mean not these ones?" she asked.
"He needed those kids dead, but he also needed them a little older," Alex said. "He killed many other ones that were over 20 years old, but these new kids weren't of that age, so he simply let them be sick so that he could continue keeping them here, without the chance of them contacting the outside world."
"From what I learned, he was planning to announce that they were dead at the end of the year and hide their existence forever if he could. That was the sole reason why they are still alive, unlike many other ones," Alex said.
"What do you mean other ones?" Talia asked. "Which other ones?"
"The ones that came here before," Alex said. "The orphans that no longer had a connection with the orphanage. Those ones are all mostly dead."
Talia gasped in horror. "Are- are you saying that the ones from before… are dead?" she asked.
"I'm afraid so," Alex said.
Talia was so horrified that she started tearing up. "That… that bastard! He killed all those kids. Why did he do that?" she asked.
Alex looked at her for a moment and shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "I tried asking, but he had an oath to not talk about anything at all."
"Oh, so we'll never figure out what he wanted with them?" she asked.
"Maybe the people that were locked up know. Most of them seem to be elders of his sect," Alex said.
The girl nodded.
They arrived at the facility that Alex had learned about and quickly found the children, all of whom were hooked up to some sort of medical device.
Alex looked at it all for a few seconds and only got rid of them when he was sure that it wouldn't hurt them. Once the kids were up, he fed them a few pills that he had on his, which healed them back to normal over the course of a few minutes.
Talia looked over the children, making sure they were all taken care of. Most of them were weak and feeble, but they were healed thanks to Alex's pills.
"I'll have King Jin prepare good food to feed these kids once we are back," Alex said. "Let's leave."
They walked out back to where the guard was and saw that he was about done with questioning the people there.
"Did you get any useful information from them?" Alex asked. He still had his mask up, but most people seemed to have realized who he was, so they stood to the side, quiet while Alex asked his question.
"Somewhat," the guard said. "It's not very clear, but it seems the sect leader had found something in the sect treasury that he wanted to use. However, to do that he needed human sacrifices. These people were the ones that were against it, and as a result, they were imprisoned here."
"And they don't know what he was trying to achieve?" Alex asked.
"No, the sect leader apparently never really made it clear what he was trying to do. Only that he promised them great power if they followed him, which he made an oath to heaven to prove. I truly wonder what it was," the guard said, eying at the storage bag that Alex had taken with him.
Alex noticed that and threw the storage bag at the man. "I haven't taken anything out of here, so you can check for anything you want here," he said.
The guard hesitated for a moment and complied, looking through the storage bag. He found many things, but none of which seemed like what the was looking for.
"The sect leader already destroyed whatever it was that he learned so that he alone would know it," one of the elders that were now free answered.
"I see," the guard said. He tossed the storage bag back to Alex. "Forgive me, your majesty. But I had to check."
"I understand," Alex said.
"Also, thank you for coming here. Had you not, I wouldn't have realized what was happening here. Any longer and we would have had, no, we already have a genocide to deal with," the guard said.
"No problem," Alex said. "Anyway, I'm going to take these kids back to the orphanage. Will you be coming, or will you stay here for now?"
"I will have to stay back and deal with this until the person I have called comes. Forgive me, but can you wait until then?" he asked.
"Nope," Alex said and started walking away. "Come find me in the orphanage when you're done. Let's go, Talia."
Talia nodded, and along with the kids they made their way back from the Frosted Glacier sect.
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