Looking outside through the window of the house, Gaston could see the smoke coming from the other side of the village gradually starting to fade away.
As he looked on at the dense smoke, he couldn't help but smile at the all too familiar looking sight, 'so this is what led me here.'
With a slow shake of his head, Gaston cleared his head and regained his focus. He didn't have a way to accurately tell the time, but by now he felt that enough time had passed. The villagers had begun to sporadically return to their homes not too long after the ceremony honoring their lost ones started, and it had been a little while now since Gaston had last seen someone return.
Having come to the conclusion that most of the people living here had either fallen asleep or were preparing to, Gaston decided to not delay the matter any longer. Even if there were stragglers still out and about in the village, they were no cause for concern. Even so, to remain on the cautious side, he communicated with the others by way of thought transmission rather than speaking.
"The time has come. Siegbert, now that you're healed, you can climb over the southern part of the wall and begin lighting it on fire. Nicolaus, you do the same on the eastern part, and Ruben on the northern side. Me and Hasso will take care of those living near the gate and make sure no one comes out."
Looking around the room, Gaston kept a straight face as the last step before they were finally free from this forest was being taken. His comrades however, were not as calm.
Beginning from the time they left their homeland until now, they had been on edge almost the whole way through. Worse yet, their situation had actually worsened once they finally got off the cursed ship and reached their destination, which nearly broke some of them mentally. Now that brighter days were seemingly ahead, they couldn't help but feel that a burden had been lifted off of their shoulders.
Aside from some smiles appearing on their faces however, Gaston didn't think that any of them were taking this lightly. A fact that satisfied him, and made him more certain that his decision to enter the cultivation world alongside them was the correct one to make.
Grabbing onto the wooden spear he obtained earlier in the day from one of the Blue Apes, he continued, "Circle back to the front gate once your side of the wall is engulfed in flames and you're sure no one can climb over. This is our last day in this godforsaken forest brothers, so do your part and we will have nothing to worry about in the future."
Following those words, everyone couldn't help but remain focused on the task at hand. After everything that they had been through, they would allow for nothing to go wrong now that they were so close to escaping. With those parting words, Gaston glanced at Hasso, signaling him to follow behind, and left the house through the front door.
Earlier, while waiting for Cowden to lead his people on the other side of the village and begin their ceremony, Gaston had taught his men the method of circulating their energy according to the Bone Peak cultivation technique.
In truth, comprehending this technique and then cultivating according to it was a very difficult and time consuming process. The Bone Peak cultivation technique had truly lived up to its reputation and was everything and more than Gaston thought it would be, but as a consequence, it was very complicated.
Unlike what he could only assume most other cultivation techniques would require one to do, the Bone Peak cultivation technique required its user to draw in a vast amount of magical energy from the world, and then circulate it throughout their body in a very long and complicated pathway, spanning all 206 bones in the human body.
The trouble was however, that the wild magical energy taken in from the outside world couldn't flow through the bones of a cultivator without causing great harm to the body. It had to first be tamed and converted into one's own before becoming harmless. At least, this was the case under normal circumstances.
Cultivating the Bone Peak cultivation technique however, allowed for one to achieve a similar effect without putting themselves in harms way, by guiding the wild magical energy through all 361 acupoints in the human body, which served as pathways for the magical energy to safely travel through. In this way, the wild magical energy would still come into close contact with every bone in one's body, but in a way that didn't cause the cultivator any harm, but only benefited them instead.
The difficulty however, came with the fact that not all acupoints, or "magic pathways" as they were more appropriately called, were equally as long or as wide as each other. This meant that a cultivator had to precisely calculate the amount of wild magical energy to send through each of the 361 magic pathways, all whilst actually controlling said wild magical energy and guiding it all throughout their bodies.
A single mistake will only result in a minor internal injury, but if as a result of one mistake the cultivator loses their cool and the situation spirals out of control, something called a "magical deviation" will occur, which could cause one's cultivation to be crippled, or in certain cases, even directly end the cultivators life.
This process in and of itself was difficult and dangerous enough as it was. Yet, that was not all.
To cultivate the Bone Peak cultivation technique, one had to become so proficient in running the wild magical energy through their established magic pathways, that no thought process was required. This was because the cultivator of this technique had to put all of their attention and mental energy into visualizing the image that they interpret to represent it, which in Gaston's case, was a mountain made out of bones, a river made out of blood, and trees and grass that grow by absorbing the nutrients of flesh and blood. All of this however, then disguised by a beautiful outer layer that one would see as a mountain full of life.
Looking back on it now, it was no wonder that it took him over a week in order to barely accomplish the feat of cultivating according to the Bone Peak cultivation technique. While he wasn't sure how long it would take his comrades to accomplish such a feat, he was sure that a few hours was not all it would take.
They didn't have the time, and perhaps even more importantly, Gaston was not actually in possession of the cultivation technique. Even if he wanted to provide it to them at this point in time, he would first have to make a copy based off of his memory. As a cultivator, perhaps funnily enough, one's memory was supposed to be photographic, unless of course, an injury to the head was sustained. Then it was a different matter all together.
That was why he was confident that he would be able to write a perfect replica given enough time, and why he dared to let them practice it knowing that they could never switch cultivation techniques in the future. Unfortunately, this alone would probably take him a few hours, which meant that it was not a viable solution to have them practice the cultivation technique immediately.
This however, didn't mean that he had to give up on the idea. Having them practice this cultivation technique would ensure that they would have to remain loyal to him, something which he wasn't going to give up on. Additionally, Siegbert was still injured, and travelling with him in this condition was not something Gaston was interested in doing.
In order to kill two birds with one stone, Gaston came up with a solution that took into account both aspects, and that was to slowly but surely personally guide each of them separately to circulate a tiny amount of wild magical energy through their magic pathways just one time, to ensure that they could never switch cultivation techniques in the future.
This was something that they didn't know yet, and Gaston was in no hurry to tell them either. Once it was done, it wouldn't matter how they felt about it as they would have no choice but to let the matter go.
In any case, it was a cultivation technique that most cultivators would kill their family members for, so there was really only so many complaints that they could have with him. Siegbert especially, because with even one circulation of the cultivation technique, one was considered to have begun practicing the technique and was provided with the magic powers that came with it. Of which, the magic power of regeneration, which was immediately available to use, was of great help to the then injured Siegbert.
Considering that he had already spent more than four weeks recovering naturally, the passive effect of the magic power was enough to allow for Siegbert to recover by the time they had to head out.
Gaston too, had his answer when it came to why his own injured arm was recovering so quickly. By the time he left the house, his arm was almost back to its normal condition. With only a few more hours of rest, or perhaps even a day at most, he would be back to being fully healthy.
Calmly walking through the village in the middle of the night, Gaston and Hasso easily evaded the few remaining villagers that were still not asleep. As they separated themselves from the other three, Gaston gradually slowed down until he was walking a few steps behind Hasso.
Without knowing when, snow had slowly started to fall down, signifying the beginning of winter. The seemingly temperamental weather and the cold temperature almost perfectly matched the thoughts going through his mind.
The Thurstan Kingdom's princess was enough of a problem for him herself, he had no need of faltering brothers by his side. What Hasso had done was by no means a slight mistake either, as any hesitation in doing what needed to be done could one day lead to his death. In the end, everything had worked out since he was alive and came back to reunite with them, but that was no excuse.
They were right to assume him dead once he didn't arrive in the village within the first week or two. With that being the case, they were supposed to act according to the plan that they had made, which was to leave no survivors in the settlement, and enter the cultivation world as the last remaining survivors of the village attacked by the Thurstan Kingdom's forces.
With a perfect readily made target to blame, and leaving no way for anyone to ever check their identities, they had devised a seemingly perfect plan for themselves to enter the cultivation world.
The fact that Hasso had delayed the plan, for any reason whatsoever, made Gaston contemplate over whether or not to eliminate this potential danger. Nicolaus had his part to play in the matter as well, but he believed his reasoning. Furthermore, Nicolaus led a life isolated from people, so it was acceptable that he would not be too sure of how to act in that situation.
But just as Hasso had led him astray, Gaston was confident in his ability to gradually mold Nicolaus into the person he wanted him to be. From the time he had spent with him, he didn't think that he was too far off anyway.
While deciding between whether or not he would kill Hasso, the atmosphere between the two of them had gradually turned frigid. As cultivators, their senses were far higher than that of mortals, and considering the fact that Gaston made no effort in keeping his killing intent in check, Hasso's hands began to sweat, as they started gradually moving closer and closer to his spear.
Each step forward the two of them took only increased the pressure. If Hasso even thought for a second that he was a match for him, he had no doubt that his weapon would be drawn already.
Just as they reached the front gate, Gaston made his decision. Whispering at a decibel that only he and Hasso could hear, he said to him, "your morality dies here, brother."
With a pat on the back that he could see slightly startled Hasso, he looked at the houses nearest to the gate and continued, "Make sure none of the people living this close to the gate wake up. Do it with the spear of the Blue Apes, to prevent any future investigations from being a problem."
Walking ahead of him, Gaston held a Blue Ape spear of his own as he made his way towards the guards on the wall.