I figured it might be interesting to let readers influence the course of the story in a direct way. If you have any ideas for cultivation methods or artifacts (can be weapons or any other magical item) that you want to see in the story, comment on this post.
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If I see something that fits, it might appear later in the story among other cultivators that the Newman Sect deals with in the future. This may include Pateirian cultivators with classically xianxia-esq methods and artifacts, unorthodox backwoods shamans from the middle of nowhere, and so on.
198 - Visions of Dragonshot
During her first time visiting him after her return, Zelsys delivered a bevy of materials to Ingvald, including Eisengeists blade. Massive thing that it was, it demanded its own sled and had to be strapped down in a roundabout manner, as its edges just shredded through anything they touched. It utterly seethed with the same type of incredibly dense magic she had felt from the torn-out dragonstone of Ten Billion Fathoms and from Von Wicktens entomodragon form.
The visit was rather impromptu to begin with; Zel and Zef absconded from the ongoing feast with the help of Yvonnes illusion magic, who then went on to recount the ill-fated jungle expeditions which had, in retrospect, foreshadowed the whole incident. Despite the absolute state he was in, half-dead and pumped full of elixirs, Gunnar absolutely insisted on not only representing himself in the play, but transforming to boot. For all his injuries, he managed to do just that - for exactly the duration of the battle against the maddened leshy, after which his transformation messily withered away.
Jorfr took a fairly prominent role in the play, making full use of his newfound draugr powers to make a show of himself at his parents behest. As they left, Zel couldnt help but notice that the norseman seemed awfully fond of his new hair; it was functionally just a smaller, significantly less shiny version of the great mane he had manifested upon his resurrection. She wasnt surprised. It did look good on him.
Unsurprisingly, Ingvald was utterly beside himself when they brought the blade to him, barely paying any mind to the terrible damage the city had sustained. He acknowledged it, but his mind clearly skimmed over it in favor of the gleaming metal.
This With the stars heart It will yield more material than I will need. Is there aught else you would ask of me? I shant accept the metal as payment.
He was obsessed, clearly not in his right mind, and neither Zelsys nor Zefaris had the will to oppose him. So, the blonde simply asked: Can you reinforce my guns without damaging their spirits?
Huh? Show me them.
Zef handed over both guns alongside their manuals, which included copies of their blueprints.
Pentacle elicited a wordless reaction wherein the smith just nodded and grumbled along as he took the gun apart and put it back together. Meanwhile, Tempesta elicited an altogether different, yet nonetheless positive response.
What in the Is this a Type-3 flintlock carbine converted to a sparklock converted to a slide Slide-action? And it looks like the receiver is enveloped in a mildly fulgur-burned piece of ballistic-grade brass, he guessed, correctly.
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He then looked to Zefaris and gave his verdict: The handcannon, I can replace the cylinder, put in a better spring, maybe tune up the trigger for better sensitivity. Whatever glyphwork is inside the barrel surpasses my knowledge of kineticism, but I can reinforce it without damaging the glyphs, itll just take some finagling. As for the shotgun Ill have to replace a large majority of the receiver and internal action. Some of the parts have been worn down more than they rightly should be if the conversion date in the manual is to go by - nothing to blame on the gunsmith, and the metal is good, it just cant keep up with what youre putting it through, unlike the revolver. That said Ill still have all too much metal left over
A sudden glint sparked in Ingvalds eye. He cast it towards the fancy bullet moulds he had only used for Zels pills up until now, then back towards Zefaris.
...I will create bullets, shot, slugs, and shell casings for you, the likes of which the continent has never seen. Each and every one shall be inscribed with runes of return, oh yes! Runes to manage spin, to change trajectory mid-flight, to become lances of liquid metal on impact only to return to their original forms moments later Even your bullets will develop spirits of their own, just you wait. And coins, perhaps thirty such ones, with base glyph circles instead of faces; that alone will save you a fortune in no time. Oh, I can scarcely wait! Here, take them back for now. I will call when Ive finished work on the Butchers new body, I will know how much spare metal I have then.
The smiths expert eyes thereafter turned to Zels arm, and without error, he decided that it was indeed time for his experimental procedure. It proceeded exactly as he had described, yet turned out not an iota as gruelling as Zel had expected, though she hazarded a guess that it was up to her own sensory control rather than the process being any sort of painless.
For hours, Ingvald hammered away at her arm and made her consume several dozen bronze pills in the process. Zef left at some point to await at the Silverhand tavern. Sheet after hair-thin sheet of strange bronze were merged into her skin, increasing in thickness over time until Ingvald switched to broad headed nails. Hundreds of them sunk in and vanished somehow, the only plausible explanation the eerie glow of his charred arm, with whose iron grip he held Zels arm still just above the elbow. She came away from the experience feeling absolutely great; any lingering creaking or stiffness was gone from her arms joints, and the everpresent itching which she had been suppressing all this time was gone.
The moment she left his smithy to rejoin her lover at the Silverhand tavern, Ingvald was already upon the massive hunk of divine metal.
Ingvald Forgehand worked without rest for days on end. He worked not in his smithy, but outside, tending to an alloying-furnace which he had built solely for this purpose. It was not built using clay, brick, or any other normal forge-building materials, but a complex geopolymer of rare minerals from the Boiling Lake and ground-up skymetal from the Teutobochus Fallen Star. A great deal of hard work had gone into preparing the mixture and building it all by hand, with special accommodations made for all the arcane materials he would use. He had used azoth-auric amalgam as an insulator only where it was absolutely necessary, detesting the G-Kaisers flagrant overreliance on the substance.
199 - Visions of Dragonsteel
The Dragons Neck, he had come to call it in his mind, for its towering height and the flame which would billow out of its top. It was not built to last. One use, and it would be worthless. Its purpose was to burn up and become a spent husk in the process of alloying the immaculate homogeneity of a fallen stars heart with the unique structure and sublime arcane power of metal taken from a dragons own body. There was no other option, this was a ritual implement as much as it was an alloying tool. His humble request for the beasts blood and rods made of its bones had been fulfilled by the Revenant Kings magnanimity, stoking unending gratitude in his heart.
It was not lost on him; the terrible tragedy that had transpired to make this possible. He was well aware that thousands had lost their lives, that Oasis City and Borea as a whole had been wounded by the unraveling of the conspirator-clans wretched plot. Ingvald wouldve put himself to task in aiding the repairs, had circumstances been different, but this wasnt his choice to make.
The Great Work demanded to be done. Within his breast, the Forgemothers fragment burned and drove him on. This was the price of his union with the Forgemother, to render himself vulnerable to being overtaken by the deific archetype. Ingvald knew, even back then, and he had chosen to do it anyway. There was no regret in his heart.
Only a burning desire to see it through. Even without the Forgemother forcing him forward, he wouldve done this. Of that much, he was certain.
All this magic, the Jade Dragons and Hun, would be a small facet of the myriad means by which the blade would be empowered, but that facet would be utterly vital. The supporting enchantments would stem from them, allowing the full brunt of Eldartha to be dedicated solely to tempering the blades strength. And the Seven Suns Equinox Ingvald had no tangible proof, but he had grown convinced that anything forged beneath the Seven Sunss twilit glow would be blessed by them. He was no astral smith, but even he knew of magical blades forged beneath and empowered by blue moons and eclipses.
There was no weapon more worthy of calling a Great Work than this one. Just the circumstances of its creation would be sung of in sagas for millennia to come. Ingvald could scarcely imagine what feats would be achieved by that blade and its wielder.
Under any other circumstances, Ingvald wouldve ground up the metals he meant to alloy, so best combine them even before subjecting them to the flame. That was not an option. It was fortunate, then, that he could cheat; at least, thats how he thought of it. Through the Forgemothers power, he could even forgeweld ice-cold metal and turn scrap into cold-iron. When he was sure the preparations were ready, he called on his proteg, finding that the boy had just completed the body work on one of Newmans sturmgandrs. He felt out the limits of his stock, sky-high as they were,
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For days on end, great tongues of blue-gold flame would issue forth from the ritual site near Ingvalds smithy.
The displays of divine smithing would only grow greater now that he at last had his alloy, a black mass of tarnished metal that seethed with draconic power.
When Zel brought up Ingvalds offer with Victor, the redhead seemed hesitant at first, clearly not wanting to part with the memento that Dumas Spear was to him. His tone changed rather quickly when he learned that Forgehands powers of divine smithing meant he could reforge the spearhead with dragonsteel and have it come out with its identity intact.
Ingvald called Zelsys to his smithy, with the rest of her party coming with. There she handed over the Broken Butcher to him so that he might ascertain how its final reforging would take place and how to create its new form. It was a real conundrum, given how clearly unstable the blades weapon spirit had become from having to dwell within an unsuitable vessel. Hed put a great deal of thought into how such a delicate identity transfer would be achieved, and Eldartha would certainly make it easier, but this was choosing between a tightrope or a rotten wood beam over a bottomless abyss.
It wasnt until his eyes chanced upon the aquamarine gem embedded in the chest of her young proteg that he knew he had his solution.
Boy. Is that a soulstone? A An Antediluvian Gem? he asked.
When he received a nod, he lit up and immediately began sketching the design for a device that would let the gem act as an intermediary for the blades spirit during the transfer Only to realize that he couldnt expect Zelsys to perform such a delicate operation. Nobody in Borea could do that. None besides him. As he turned to racking his brain once more, the answer came to him like a flash from the blue; or rather, a very literal blue flash. The fragment of the Forgemother which dwelt in his chest interceded, his arm blazing blue for a moment when it did so.
A partial reforging. He would replace the damaged, lower-grade metal which remained of the original blade with the first segment of the new one, and in that same act he would prepare the blade for its final unification. Its segmented design would facilitate its rebirth. However, there was still the problem of the handle.
It is Bonded to the blade as only blackstone could be. I would marvel at such a handle if I werent tasked with separating it from the blade without harming the weapon spirit.
Zel exchanged glances with her companions and a tacit decision was made.
I know of one in Oasis City who can manipulate blackstone to the same degree as a Dungeon Core. Would you accept her assistance? she said somewhat reluctantly, not particularly eager to subject her precious weapon to Reds hands.
200 - Visions of Dragonsteel Pt. 2
The hard part wasnt getting Ingvald to agree. It was convincing Red and making sure she wouldnt try anything. Zel used the Black Contract to secure their agreement, and a lengthy negotiation was had as to the exact terms. In the end, Zel conceded certain trade concessions to Arches that she absolutely did not have the right to concede. The duchy would receive even more bleeding-edge equipment than they were already going to, as well as a tariff reduction on the ore they would sell to Willowdale. When Red tried to push for more, Zel simply reiterated that she would be neither able nor willing to fight her if she kept it up.
The good lady Zhumei Karmesin proceeded to demand a full case of Winter Peach Brandy, and with that demand acquiesced to, the deal was sealed. It wasnt lost on her; the weight of her treason to the Empire. Nothing she had done thus far was a greater act against her own homeland than this, that much was certain. And yet She felt no remorse, and not just because this was a matter of personal, selfish satisfaction.
Even if Zelsys Newman survived their next battle - a possibility Karmesin had come to terms with long ago - she would still act in Karmesins interests. Indeed, the Divine Maxims supported her action, or so she told herself. She needed Cao Hu and Von Wickten both gone, and she needed pressure on the Divine Emperor to continue his New Era of Cultivation so that the homeland would continue the course she wished for it.
Kill with a borrowed knife; to use a third party, whether friend or foe, to damage ones enemy. Or in this case, a borrowed cleaver.
This course of events, regardless of its outcome, would in the end benefit her.
Night after night, massive flares of blue-gold flame erupted from his smithy, and it wasnt long before the Forgemother made an appearance. A gigantic woman made of blue flame, smashing down with a spectral hammer to the rhythm of Ingvalds own hand. Again and again, Ingvald conjured these deific manifestations, each time subtly different based on the arcane reagents and enchantments involved.
On the seventh day of continuous work, Ingvald Forgehand had given form to a seven-part blade with few equals in the land And it was still far from finished.
The Lady in Red arrived at Ingvald''s smithy as quickly as she would depart. She spoke to him little, employing her eldritch, northlight-coloured magic to facilitate the very same partial reforging he had conceived of. Both Victor Khestun and Zelsys Newman were present, the former due to the involvement of Koscheis Key and the latter because she wanted to watch. Red did precisely what was asked of her, not an iota more or less, and she was gone with the wind the moment Ingvald confirmed that it had worked.
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The smith proceeded to forge thick rune-etched bands of starmetal around the blade, forming mighty seals that would keep it stable until it was finally made whole.
He handed over the stabilized blade alongside its future segments. Even now, the Butcher shuddered in her grip and seethed with a violent magic.
All that magic wouldve sufficed to forge an arcane armament fit for a Clan Elder And all I did was apply the support enchantments, the smith laughed. The manic presence still shone behind his eyes, but it had calmed somewhat now that his part in the grand ritual was complete.
I admit, I did wonder how much power I was going to get out of those Hun. Its still just money, after all; hell, I saw a deck of Jade Dragons for sale at an underground auction, Zel said.
All about how you use it, in the end. I can do ten times more with a deck of Jade Dragons than some just-good-enough army smith. You speak true, however. The power already present within your weapon, the involvement of Eldartha, Eiengeists own essence, the Brass Stake - all these different factors will serve to multiply the blades true potential. I could not have produced a blade with an iota of this ones potential had you given me ten Jade Dragon decks and nothing else good to work with. Now
Ingvald turned his eyes to the mass of golden-glowing dragonsteel which still remained. Once more did the manic countenance possess him, and he turned a desirous gaze towards Zefaris - or rather, her guns.
I still have work to do. You You And you, as well, he pointed to her, then to Victor, and lastly to Jorfr.
However, Jorfr refused, shaking his head.
There is already a weapon which calls to me; one equal to your work.
The blacksmith knew what he meant, and he understood.
Alright, very well. Lady Zefaris, you wear an armored corset, do you not? I will make new inserts for it.
Ingvald was utterly set on using up the dragonsteel he still had left, and so, they acquiesced.
He did, however, keep some of the legendary metal for himself.
For a personal project, later down the line.
One morning, Zel chanced to come upon Jorfr and Fryg in an otherwise deserted hallway of the Bjorns great estate. From what fragments she caught at the start, it seemed that Jorfr had decided to petition his ancestor for specifics on what it was to be a draugr. In particular, he seemed concerned with the mass of glacierglass which had filled the hole in his chest. It was opaque now, a pale white rather than translucent, barely distinguishable from his already ice-white skin at a distance.
The glacierglass will eventually be replaced by living flesh, but you will forever retain a scar of your first death. Mine
She turned around and lifted her hair, revealing a small, circular window of glacierglass on the back of her neck, flesh visible beneath.
...Came from a foes spear through the back of my neck.
How long is eventually?
A few months, maybe years. Not long. It will not impede your cultivation, its Not truly the material it appears to be. Its more like flesh reinforced with the particular essentia.
Like my arm, Zel suggested.
Fryg nodded in agreement.
Where do you think the epithet Ice Witch came from? There was a time when I was made of more ice than living flesh! she laughed.
201 - Kurgan Burial
While Zelsys and her companions engaged in revelry and worked towards the Butchers rebirth, the Revenant King spent that same time unraveling the conspirator-clans plot and meting out judgment.
The Revenant Kings powers of insight made themselves known during the investigation, as he unraveled the conspirator-clans schemes merely by asking questions and compelling those involved to answer with truths whose full scope they themselves often did not know. Members of the Hulson Clan and their allies were present in the throne room throughout the whole thing; most of them came and went as they needed, but Fryg remained throughout. She, it seemed, was among the few able to withstand the Revenant Kings presence for protracted periods of time. She also had no need to rest or eat; or, at the very least, watching the schemes of those who had sought to destroy her family was sustenance enough.
Kristinas plans for Eisengeist mostly lined up with reality, the only major differences being unforeseeable factors C that is to say, Jorfr Hulsons return with his foreign compatriots and the debacle resulting from Asgeirs mishandling of the situation. She had intended to use the dragon as a means of exterminating the Hulsons as well as several other households that she feared might bring accusations against the conspirator-clans. Where things became truly severe was the revelation that the Ramdalls and Buhaugs had been working in concert with Pateirian and Ankhezian outlaws who dwelt in the Crescent Jungle, all for the purpose of taking control of other sapdragons just the same as they had done to Eisengeist. The true nature of the mask used on Eisengeist was not that of a Number Eight, but a Number Nine, a further evolution on the already experimental design that allowed a degree of direct control over the victim by actively altering their perception of reality.
This raised up the grim possibility of the Divine Emperor somehow learning of the incident and resurrecting the original project, but the Revenant King himself dispelled it: IT IS NOT THE DRAGON WHICH WAS CONTROLLED, BUT THE ANIMAL WHICH REMAINS WITHIN EISENGEIST; THE SAPDRAGONS ARE YOUNG, YET TO EMBODY DRAGONKIND IN FULL. SUCH AN ARTIFACT COULD NEVER TAKE HOLD OF A TRUEBORN DRAGON DESCENDANT. I SHALL SEE TO IT THAT SUCH PETTY WEAKNESSES ARE SCOURED FROM THE SAPDRAGONS, IF THEY ARE TO REMAIN GUARDIANS OF THE CRESCENT JUNGLE.
The Ramdall, Eisen, and Buhaug Clans were dissolved, catastrophic loss of members being a factor in this decision. The Aase had been terribly wounded by their involvement in more ways than one, but one of Gjermunds offspring took over, pledging that the name Aase would earn the honor of belonging to a Primary Clan before the next Seven Suns Solstice.
Many who claimed to have been uninvolved in the conspiracy were deemed guilty nonetheless, some outright killed, others sentenced to outlawry. Many still were either innocent, or only possessed a modicum of guilt, and so the dissolution of their clan was deemed a sufficient punishment and they were allowed to join non-ranking families.
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Most of these innocent members of the conspirator clans chose to go a-viking as a form of self-imposed exile, in an effort to regain their honour through deeds in foreign lands or die trying.
Most grave of all, were the punishments faced by the likes of Kristina Ramdall. Those who had awakened the Immortal Blood and who bore full guilt in the conspiracy, three in all they were - Kristina Ramdall, Adrius Buhaug, and Ignar Tande.
Their punishment was Kurgan Burial. A means of sealing immortals in burial mounds where the Stillness of Death ruled, whose flow of time was a hundred times slower compared to the rest of the world. There, beneath these Kurgan Mounds, they would be interred in glacierglass sarcophagi in dreamless slumber. They would be all but dead to the world.
Many fragments of the Serpentkiller Black Rod yet remained, even after it had been shattered. Fryg, with her grasp over ice magic and near-unparalleled wisdom in the mystic arts, learned several antediluvian glyphs from the remnants of the Serpentkiller Black Rod. She did not reinstate the Hulson Clans practice as it had once been, instead expanding it to the replication of past feats whether their originators were living or dead; henceforth, the art would be known as Sagacalling.
As for the Serpentkiller itself, it was buried underground until the Revenant King compelled Sprengfaust to retrieve the Black Rod fragment it was melded into. The spear thereafter remained stuck inside the pyramidal hunk of glacierglass-blackstone composite, none able to grip its shaft properly, their hands always slipping off the metal. After recovering from his injuries and partaking in the celebrations to the fullest extent, Jorfr was finally able to make his way to its resting place. The voice of Wide-wuth himself had bid him to come. There, guarded by druids, it awaited, glistening in the Seven Suns twilight glow.
They made no effort to stop him, only watching as he stepped into empty air and stairs of ice took form beneath his feet.
Jorfr Hulson grasped the Serpentkiller in hand, and his grip did not slip from its shaft. The antediluvian armament reached a silver tendril up through his arm deep into his soul, and a thunderous voice echoed inside his skull.
THOU, WHO HATH RESTORED THE HONOR OF THINE CLAN. THOU, WHO HATH RESTORED THE MEMRY OF MINE CREATOR. GIVE ME A NAME.
A name?
I WAS WROUGHT TO SLAY THE GODS OF OLD, AND MINE NAME MATCHED MINE PURPOSE. DEICIDE, HUL CALLED ME. THE WORLD IS BEREFT OF MY PREY. THY KIN, IN FORGETTING MINE TRUE NATURE, CALLED ME SERPENTKILLER. DRAGONPIERCER. DRAGONKIND BECAME MY PREY, THOUGH NONE OF MY WIELDERS SUCCEEDED IN THEIR ATTEMPTS AT DRAGONSLAYING. NOW, MY TRUE SELF RESTORED, I ONCE MORE LACK A NAME TO GIVE ME PURPOSE.
GIVE. ME. A. NAME.
Jorfr Hulson, he who had done battle against Ubul the Beast Reborn in Stone, he who had awakened the Immortal Blood, he who had brought about the restoration of his clans honor, smiled.
202 - Superbia/Spirit Grove
The goal he had feverishly pursued all these years was finished, yet the fire of yearning in his breast didnt so much as waver. A spark of egoism, of superbia, had perhaps been passed on from the woman by whose side he had done all this.
Then I would wield you in pursuit of glory, so that Sagas may be written in the honor of myself and my shield-siblings. You will break the backs of the wretched things in this world, be they mindless beast or vile tyrant. Our names will be sung of while we yet live, and those who would stand against us shall curse them in fear and awe of our coming.
A memory surfaced; from that time, in the Leyline Well, when he had risked turning his friend to stone in order to bestow her the power of the earthly spirits. He remembered what they had said through him. Yes, that name would do.
Your name will be Superbia.
TO DESTROY EVIL IN PURSUIT OF GLORY. YES I SENSE THAT THINE HEART IS RIGHTEOUS. THOU ART WORTHY, SON OF HUL.
He pulled it free, the Black Rods obsidian-gleaming matter crumbling around it. It was a simply shaped thing, its spearpoint a thick, four-faceted spike with a diamond footprint. Meant not for slaying men, but beings with skin of stone and iron. Each of its facets was as though a northlight-tinged mirror and each of its edges was razor sharp. The whole thing was one solid piece of antediluvian starmetal. Its metal was twisted where the spearhead met the shaft, and the bottom of its length was twisted just the same, widening out to a mushroom-shaped counterweight.
When he freed the spear from its tomb of ice and blackstone, it shuddered in his grasp and its head twisted ninety degrees. In the blink of an eye, the spear of legend had become a beaked warhammer. It was as tall as Jorfr, but knowing of its shape-changing powers, he made the mighty hammer shorten its shaft such that it could easily fit on his belt.
He found it asinine that the only weapons he had encountered which possessed such powers were either legendary artifacts of Borean provenance, or Ikesian Captains Cleavers. But then, the Sage of Fog had visited Borea when Jorfr was but a child; he recalled hearing of his visit. Unlike theirs, the Sages time in Borea had barely left a mark.
Perhaps he just got inspired, he thought.
The druids who had guarded the spears resting place politely stopped him before he could leave. One of them snapped into a trance, his eyes glazing over and filling with ice-blue light as he looked at Jorfr. The druids presence grew a hundredfold in that moment, and his voice boomed with a semblance of the Revenant Kings own speech.
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HULS WEAPON. I WOULD SEE IT.
Jorfr raised the hammer, and willed it to extend to its full length.
...TRULY, YOU HAVE IT. GOOD. YOU MAY GO.
That druid proceeded to snap out of it just as Jorfr made his way away from that place, and he dispersed his compatriots, turning their efforts to something more productive than guarding nothing.
His return to the Bjorn longhouse served to reignite the revelry to a yet higher fever pitch than before. The fact the legendary weapon of Hul was now a hammer roused only marginal surprise, with the strongest reactions nearly universally consisting of people double-taking at its shape and then suddenly remembering that it could, indeed, change its form. Though knowledge of Hul had been restored to every living soul under Boreas sky and every trueborn Borean in the world, many had simply never thought of Hul or of the Serpentkiller, so it took a direct and overt trigger for this new knowledge to surface.
Time continued to pass. While the Revenant King enacted his righteous judgment upon the guilty and the citys hardy people came together to rebuild, Zelsys, Zefaris, and Ingvald worked on preparing the Impelling Arm for its protective role in the Butchers final reforging. In compounding Antediluvian glyphs with Ingvalds own skill and knowledge, they created an array of five starmetal talismans and a great array of supple fabric bindings. Both of these were densely populated by eldritch glyphwork; Ingvald chiseled, etched, and inlaid the talismans, while Zefaris used a great amount of precious ink to inscribe the bindings.
Zel had looked forward to hunting down the beasts to use as sacrifices for empowering these talismans, but it was cut short when several clans stepped in to offer beasts from their own vaults. From what shed done publicly to the recently-revealed truths of the Hulson-Ramdall Blood Feud and the restoration of Huls memory, it seemed that many people in Oasis City felt indebted to her and hers. Knowing well that it wasnt a good idea to deny a Borean the opportunity to settle a perceived debt, she accepted these offers.
The sting of disappointment was quenched by five absolutely massive frozen beasts, lined up on a heavy-duty cargo sled. With these beasts in tow, she ventured to the Spirit Grove, deep within the Crescent Jungle, leaving the Butcher with Zefaris so as not to risk its spirit manifesting in that place. She expected it to take several days to transport the sacrifices to the grove, as she had assumed that the sled wouldnt be able to go there directly. A high-up path built between massive trees proved her wrong; as it seemed, the Crescent Jungle had some significant infrastructure, when it came to important locations.
Guided by druids to this sacred place, she found that the feelings it elicited were unsettlingly similar to the Leyline Well beneath the Newman Sect grounds, and yet, the atmosphere was also fundamentally different.
Neither visiting the Spirit Grove nor creating the talismans for the Impelling Arm led to any incidents of note. In fact, the Spirit Groves druidic order seemed to be nearly totally disconnected from the politics of Oasis City. As far as she could tell, they were merely loyal to the Revenant King, rather than acting as a direct arm of his authority. They had been largely unaware of the Hulson-Ramdall Blood Feud, or its wide-reaching consequences.
203 - Spirit Grove Pt. 2
Huge animals seemingly made of living wood dwelt in the grove, which, as she learned, served as mobile hives for the groves monads. There were even leshies just walking around, tending to the trees. In its center, past a small towns worth of spiritual plants and druidic holy structures, there stood a gigantic, gnarled tree of golden leaves. The trunk and branches twisted such that one could see the images of a dragons wings and head all over it, and veins of gleaming amber ran all the way down its trunk, pooling near the roots. Ten giant irminsul obelisks surrounded the dragon tree, and at their bases, on the outer perimeter of the ring they formed, there were equally giant slabs of rune-carved stone. The druids helped Zel in arraying her five sacrificial beasts on five of these slabs so that there was an empty one between each of them; they ran the gamut from a coiled-up springspitter to a beetle the size of a tank and even a brambleback. The druids aided in other preparations as well, but in the end, Zelsys was the one to perform the numerous sacrifices necessary to empower the talismans.
It was not this that stood out to her, nor the number of great beasts that fell for just one part of the Butchers rebirth. No, it was the fact that with each sacrifice made and each talisman empowered, she felt a presence reaching out to her. A spirit that dwelt within the Impelling Arm. One of the groves druids noticed her looking strangely at the sleeve after the third sacrifice had been consumed by silver brambles. When she brought it up with him, he responded with not an iota of surprise: Of course, such a thing was inevitable. I know not the full extent of what you are trying to achieve, but it would be best to have a direct understanding with the armaments spirit before you attempt to make it bend one way or another. I could perform the Rite of Blades Awakening for you, should you so wish. If the armaments spirit possesses a strong-enough self-identity, it shall manifest itself and gain the ability to do so even outside the Spirit Grove.
Zel had assumed that the armament had likely already developed a spirit of its own, of course; she just hadnt expected it to make itself known now, of all times. She hoped it wasnt an attempt at protest.
...Of course. Once I am finished with these, she readily accepted, gesturing to the two remaining sacrifices. After doing as she said she would she gave the sleeve over to the druid, who performed a rite of veneration over it and beckoned the Spirit Groves vast monad-swarms to give form to whatsoever spirit might dwell within the sleeve. The rite took place on the ground at the dragon trees foot, with the druid seated with his back to it, while Zel knelt face-to-face with him and the tree.
Several wooden beasts gathered round, kneeling in a semicircle around the two of them. Tiny motes of light escaped from these forms, which lost their glow and became inanimate as the monads formed into a vast multicoloured swarm swirling around the dragon tree. Their flight rustled its leaves and swayed its branches, and it stirred within Zelsys the strange sense of an inconceivably vast beings breath underfoot. It was true that similarly golden-leafed trees were scattered about the grove, and for all she knew, even beyond its limits. The dragon trees roots probably reached far and wide.
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There was no single moment when it happened; the Impelling Arms spirit didnt manifest abruptly, as the two halves of Deaths Lieutenant did. Rather, the process took the better part of ten minutes, with an aura of vague light coalescing around the Impelling Arm and slowly flowing into a congruent figure. It took shape starting with its left hand, its arm being a fully-encased, automaton-esque version of the Impelling Arms plate armored design, attached to a formless, but clearly masculine figure.
Slowly it stirred into motion, folding its hands behind its back and smoothly shifting to a wide-footed, militaristic stance.
Then it spoke; a stern mans voice, croaky like a chain smokers.
At last we meet, Commander.
Since before the Butcher, I have been thy companion. Forgotten prototype of a forgotten prototype. The seventh son of a seventh son, I am. A heretic prophets ballistic messiah. A foolish side project, they called me, waste of developmental resources, they said, those fools at Central Command Weve proven them wrong, have we not?
The rest of its body followed suit; a rune-shod man of steel now stood before her, the lower half of his face resembling a metal skull, but enclosed, more like Zefs mask. A hole gaped where his nose ought to be. The upper half of his head was still formless.
Under this skin of steel there lies no flesh, no heart, nor even space between. I have no bones nor blood nor living brain; I have no desire for petty things And I shall not see my Commander denied the heads of kings.
Finally, the top half of his head took form. The upper half of his face, everything cheekbones-up, was pale-white skin, and a pair of bright green eyes stared back at her. They were of a natural shade rather than the emerald-green of Homunculus Eyes. A mane of dense blonde hair swept back from his forehead in a mild widows peak, falling down just past his shoulders and strands of it framing his face. He blinked a few times, catching himself in the middle of the esoteric monologue.
Ah Let us observe proper protocol.
The spirit held up his right hand in salute.
Reporting for duty: Thundercannon I. Arm. Heavy Ballistics Specialist for the Free Cities Alliance Irregular Doppelsoldaten Corps, codenamed Newman Sect.
A peaked cap and officers trench coat, both made of lightning, manifested upon him, the latter draped about his shoulders as a cloak.
204 - Ripples Into Waves
I understand that I am to play a role in the recovery of our comrade, Codename Butcher, to a combat-ready state. I regret to see that he is not here with us, but I understand that the risk of his manifestation given his less-than-stable condition would pose a liability. I only have one request.
What might that be, soldier? Zel smiled, deciding to play along with the weapon spirit.
He smiled back with his eyes, appreciative of the gesture: Thundergod Number Eight; the Stormblooms Blazing Thundergod. It agrees with me more than the others. I believe it would be beneficial to our combat performance if you channeled it through me.
I will see to it, she nodded.
Without speaking another word, Thundercannons spirit saluted once more and dispersed.
There were no further incidents between that moment and Zels return to Oasis City with the fully-empowered talismans and bindings in tow. She carried them around her waist, their magic too potent and unstable to store in her Tablet. Several gigantic trees were being dragged towards the city, and the Boreans were repairing the damage which Eisengeist had caused at an utterly stunning rate. More and more it sunk in why Boreans were on another level as a people; it was their work ethic. Everything got one hundred percent; be it honor, battle, craftsmanship, or insane, malicious plotting.
She arrived just in time to see the first Exile Caravan depart for the Long Road South. A long, long train, boarded by hundreds of people, and well-supplied at that. It was clearly intended to actually reach whatever far-off destination was its aim, not to send its passengers to their deaths in the cold.
No, those who were wanted dead had simply been killed wherever they could be found, with the manhunts still ongoing even now.
The near constant draw of attention towards her had barely changed since her shed left for the Spirit Grove, the impact of her arrival right alongside the Revenant King still resonating through the city. Disappointingly, none dared to approach her and issue a challenge; even a friendly one. Zel could feel that a fair number of Oasis Citys stronger individuals actively considered challenging her, but the overarching circumstances forestalled them. She supposed it was at least nice in the sense that there stood no setbacks between her and Eldartha.
The ripples of her actions had grown into waves, and Zelsys couldnt help but smile. Victors growth, Zefs gun upgrades and new ammunition, even Rikke as a new sect member, she had foreseen the possibility of such events in one way or another. After all, a giant meteorite and a giant dragons blade would obviously make for far more material than she could conceivably use to make a new body for the Butcher. But Jorfrs meteoric growth? His reception of his ancestors blessings, awakening of the Immortal Blood, and now taking-up of the antediluvian, god-killing weapon Superbia? That, she could have never predicted. Even the full scope of Victors new abilities was beyond what she had anticipated.
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Unlike herself, Victor didnt have that air of untouchability about him, and she got to watch him fight one time after shed returned from the Spirit Grove.
An absolute terror, he was, even without his armor, which the duels terms had dictated. He riddled his opponent with so many fragments of devilbone that he became capable of using them to lift the two-hundred-kilo Bjorn warrior through sheer force of will. The man conceded the fight before Victor could drop him onto a bed of flaming spikes. By the look in his eyes he didnt look like he was actually going to do it, but few could discern intent the way Zelsys could. The redheads drive hadnt slowed in the slightest, either; she noticed him constantly trying to use his Eating Hand techniques to absorb Eisengeists flesh and bone, tiny bit by tiny bit; hed fashioned small trinkets from them that he wore on strings around his wrists, constantly working away at them when he had his hands free. The unrotting nature of the dragons made it a fair bit less macabre than it wouldve been otherwise. Zel hadnt even known that the King had cut the bones into such small pieces.
She couldnt wait to see Ozmirs reaction to everything she would bring back. And Makhuss, given that he would be undoubtedly ecstatic to work with ultra-high-grade alchemical ingredients. Everyones, really. Just two of Eisengeists tendrils added up to an utterly massive quantity of every component that made them up. The dragons paralytic blood that had been salvaged massed in hundreds of liters, congealed into great jiggling purple masses inside its glyph-glass containers.
It hadnt quite sunk in just how far shed come to reach this point; not until these final days preceding her departure for Eldartha.
Her bidaily visits to Ingvald continued, to ensure her arms metamorphosis would continue optimally. One of these days, when Zel had come with Zef in tow, he brought up dragonsteel ammunition. Particularly, the sheer amount of standard-diameter bullets, shot pellets, and slugs he could make from his spare dragonsteel.
It would be the opposite of a problem normally, but this ammunition will return to you a short time after you fire it; as we have discussed earlier, it will simply fly into the gaping maw of your magic cylinder. So you see, it would be pointless to make too many. I shant protest using it all, but I thought it would be best to consult you two before I do so. Do not worry about compensation, this This is personal work. For me as much as it is for you.
The obvious answer would be to ask that you reinforce these, Zel said, raising one of her braids, holding up the bladed shard at its tip. But that will require very little material. So
Zel took two shells out of her ammo belt. One with a solid ball, and a Type-1a high-velocity anti-cultivator round.
I would also ask that you make projectiles for these and casings from normal starmetal. I also use standard-diameter bullets for shotgun shells, as such a greater ratio of those is justified. I do not have a storage medium for ammunition as convenient as Zefs black cylinder, unfortunately
205 - Ripples Into Waves Pt. 2
Ingvalds attention focused on the Type-1as spitzer nose right away, and just as quickly as he took it in hand, he muttered: As softer main body with a hard, narrow penetrator in the middle. Yes, I can make this. Dragonsteel core, soft starmetal projectile body.
He looked up at Zel again.
I could simply tie the return destination to your Tablet and fashion a proxy fog vortex generator artifact so you dont have to have the big thing out all the time. It will be a trinket about yay wide that you can hang off of your belt, he said, measuring out around five centimeters with his fingers. He continued: And tell Jorfr to visit me. I wish to see what became of Serpentkiller; I was, after all, the one who gave it that form. And I feel regret for not being able to work on something of his besides Perhaps some starmetal armor
Despite everything, Zel didnt feel like she was making a demand of Ingvald. He was the one in a position of power in this negotiation; they had no choice as to whether he would make things from the leftover dragonsteel, the Forgehand was merely being gracious by letting them choose. Were she given a true choice, Zelsys would have taken some back with her But she knew better than to make that suggestion.
When they departed Ingvalds forge, he stopped them on the way out, clearly having just remembered: Oh, and the new chassis for one of your motorbikes is finished; I let the boy use starmetal for all the bits that demanded cold-iron, so it ought to run better, control tighter, so on. I wagered you would want to pick it up, given that the journey to Eldartha would take you days by sled.
He was right, though Zel had some doubts as to whether using a sturmgandr would be the best idea for such a journey. The Butchers instability had been somewhat rectified, so shaving a day or two off of her travel time was no longer a top priority. Moreover, sleds had a distinct advantage over sturmgandrs; the beasts that pulled them could take her back to Oasis City on their own. That alone made them a serious consideration when the possibility of becoming incapacitated by Eldarthas trials was at play.
All these things did nothing to lessen the impact of first laying eyes upon the glorious beast which now housed her sturmgandrs engine. The young blacksmith looked utterly manic as he wheeled it out from behind his workshop, he had several substantial arc burns, and clearly hadnt gotten any sleep And the reason for all those was absolutely magnificent. It was somehow even more monstrously massive than the original, easily large enough to accommodate three people as well as a decently sized back trunk over the rear wheel. Its most eyecatching feature had to be the miniature metal mammoth-skull at its front, the headlights blazing in its eye sockets. Real mammoth tusks swept down from it, protecting the front wheel on the sides and protruding frontward as rams. They were elaborately inlaid and capped with blued starmetal, thus reinforcing them. The young blacksmith assured her that they were just whittled-down material from an adult animal, and not taken from a juvenile, so they wouldnt break easily. Zel of course had no way to know that a juvenile mammoths tusks were brittle by comparison to those of an adult.
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I took the liberty of tuning it to maximize power output and efficiency with the new center of mass. It screams down the road like nothing else, so it does. It ought to be able to survive however far you push it now, short of something sufficient to just detonate the engine, he said, patting the monstrous bike.
Everything about it was handmade, and everything was utterly perfect.
How was it to work with? As far as I know Borea has no direct analogue to this technology, Zel asked.
He laughed.
The manual made me wonder how we havent come up with this kind of thing centuries ago. Guess theres been no pressure when beasts of burden more than suffice. The bears down south are something like Smaller than this thing, no?
Theyre also generally not smart enough to speak, Zefaris grinned in response.
Ah, right, he nodded. A manic glint - or, at least, one even more manic than before - shone in his eyes. Ive never left Borea, you understand. Perhaps I ought to go a-viking after this, see what I might learn from the great smiths of Grekuria and Kargaria
Unless youre a monster like Ingvald, I would suggest building yourself a means of defense first. Perhaps a sturmgandr that can transform into tank suit-like armour, Zel thought aloud, only to furrow her brow at the thought as she saw her words sink into the young smiths head. The cogs spun behind his eyes, trying to collate incomplete information; he had no way to know of how tank suits functioned.
I would be most glad to do such a thing, but Know you of where I might learn more about these tank suits? Ive heard tales of them, of the demonic vampire-armor Bloody Zero and the holy crusader of Iusticia, Chalybes Pontifex, but only as myth. Myth shant suffice as sufficient basis for artifice, not for me - my skills are not yet so advanced Im afraid.
Zefaris stared a hole into the side of Zels head, tacitly pushing her to take responsibility for her own words. Zel not-at-all-reluctantly offered up aid, feeling indebted for services rendered: We can take you with us on our return trip south, or arrange for you to have a place in the caravan which is to make the journey some time after our departure. The home city of my sect also happens to be the foremost in the development of new tank suits, and Im sure that with some leverage I can ensure that you receive tank suit mechanic training. Assuming you would be able and willing to undertake such a journey, of course.
206 - To Eldartha
The young smiths eyes, once more, lit up. One could see him give into a sense of relief, and then, he broke. In seconds he went from an utterly manic visage of sleeplessness, to a dead mans slumber splayed over the massive machine by his side. With some care, Zel picked him up and carried him inside, making note of the meticulously organized nature of his workshop. It was a sharp contrast to his countenance, as well as to the chaotic mess that was the great big work table in the corner. Through the window of his back door, she also saw the half-finished body of Jorfrs machine; its design was similar to hers, with the major difference that instead of an iron mammoth skull it used an iron rendering of a stern, brick-like face, with a long beard cascading down over the front wheel as protection. It was stylized enough that it didnt resemble anyone in particular.
They didnt return straight to the Bjorn longhouse. Rather, the iron beast would howl through the city and around its outskirts for the next hour.
On the morning of the next day, Zel visited the Revenant King once more. He bestowed upon her a further blessing to ward off hostile weather, and shared with her the knowledge she needed to actually find Eldartha. This knowledge, though he had told it to her, could not be put into words. It was, in fact, an eldritch, abstract seed which he had planted into her mind. Whenever Zel focused on this seed, this idea, she felt a tugging in a northeastern direction.
The preparations had long been completed, and she departed before noon upon her rebuilt sturmgandr. Solving the problem of Zel possibly becoming incapacitated had been simple; Jorfr would come with her. It had been Zef who had suggested the solution, though the blonde had of course wanted to be the one to accompany Zelsys. The reality of the environment Zel was heading into, however, dissuaded her. Even with proper camping equipment and heat-sealing body wraps, she would be gambling with death, and the odds would not be in her favour. Comparatively, Jorfr was a perfect fit. Trusted by the Revenant King to not attempt leaking Eldarthas exact location, a Borean, a draugr, and someone with natural affinity for gelum to boot. At the absolute extreme, he could possibly encase himself in construct-ice while keeping his own insides warm, and resurrect upon Zels return.
So it was that, resolved in seeing this through, they departed Oasis City.
Driving on through the frigid waste, they journeyed beyond the edge of all known maps.
Passing frozen wrecks of ages long gone they tore through a great cyclone of near-absolute-zero wind as if it werent even there.
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They passed the eyes of a mighty beast of antediluvian provenance, frozen deep beneath glassy glacierglass. Yet, even as its form laid otherwise motionless beneath the ice, its eyes turned to stare up at them.
Further on, they drove, until they came upon a sprawling, hostile field of glacierglass spikes, stretching skyward at awkward and unsettling angles. They reflected light in just the wrong way, focusing even what little sun reached this place into rays of death.
It was here that the Revenant Kings blessing of knowledge came in most useful, for by following its guidance, the duo were able to navigate this deathly labyrinth.
Nearly twenty kilometers of that hell led them to the inner perimeter of a truly vast crater - a crater whose scale alone rivaled the crater in whose center Willowdale sat. Its concave shape was a fair bit more obvious here, where the landscape hadnt changed in millennia.
Far, far in its center awaited not a flaming abyss as she''d expected, but a temple of ice wrought in the same cyclopean fashion as the Kings own throne-fortress. It was a vast tower, spiraling out from the ground up towards the sky, thousands of darkened archways staring imposingly from its walls. The way it was built, it looked hollow on the inside; a giant chimney. It possessed a giant, monolithic gate inscribed with an equally superlative glyph of undeniably antediluvian origin; only such glyphs gleamed with unnatural iridescence and dragged at the eyes when looked upon like this one did. A long procession of ice statues led up to that gate, all of them faceless, armored figures, bearing giant spears. Each statue-warrior held out his spear so it crossed with that of the statue across from it.
Between them and that procession towards the tower, however, stood an army of icebound monstrosities wherever else they looked; they ran the gamut of design and size. From humanoid, to bestial, to ominous collections of abstract geometry, as well as from the size of small animals to that of buildings. Stone-still and silent they were, and so they remained as Zel drove past them. Eventually, one moved. Then, another, and another. They broke their shells, huge chunks of razor-sharp ice crashing down around them as the largest of Eldarthas guardians turned to merely look at them. Even without hostile intent, Eldarthas iceborne guardians unknowingly threatened their very lives, and it took absolute focus to maneuver the sturmgandr between them. Zel wondered about the reasoning for such elaborate obstacles in favor of something simple like the multi-layered curse barrier surrounding the Blackstone Cathedral.
Drawing closer to the tower, it glistened in the sun, giving off an aura of unearthly grandeur. Zelsys instinctively slowed the sturmgandr to as slow as it could reasonably go as they passed through a procession of spear-wielding warriors. Their hollow eye sockets stared down at them, even as they remained motionless and without sign of life or magic. The towers great gate did not open at their approach, but melted; at first in mere droplets running down its surface, then a waterfall that soon became a deluge. It flowed around them, yet never once came close enough to splash them. This water was alive, within it glittering the same otherworldly iridescence as the Revenant Kings armor.
207 - Eldartha
The living water surrounded them, forming a great serpent, only to slip beneath the sturmgandr. The viscous mass rushed them into the towers confines, leaving the machines wheels as well as its riders feet slightly damp. Upon setting them down, the water-serpent rushed through the air in an elegant arc and flowed back into its place as the gate, freezing into a solid slab in moments. Only then did either of them manage to get a good look at their surroundings, and it sunk in that all their worries for the one to stay behind had been unfounded. The way back would be treacherous for sure, but there was no risk of Jorfr freezing to death. Rather much like the interior of the throne-fortress, so too was the towers environment actively working to warm their cold-stiffened extremities. Zel felt comfortable enough to pull the heat-insulating wraps away from her face. Still following the Revenant Kings blessing of guidance, Zel drove to the left through the sprawling hall, into yawning darkness. Channels which ran alongside the halls sides, mere centimeters from walls and pillars of ice, suddenly blazed to life with pale blue flame that illuminated the path ahead.
For nigh on twenty minutes, Zel cautiously drove the machine deeper inward, following the Revenant Kings ethereal guidance to weave through a seemingly endlessly interconnected labyrinth of empty hallways. Inwards and down, in a terribly roundabout way, until she reached a dead end with two options to go forward. Either a right turn, or a small lift that she felt in her gut would lead them back to the entrance. Making that right turn, the duo entered into a chamber with a great hole and a walkway that led to a platform of ice in the center.
I kept track of our path thus far; we are not anywhere close to the towers center. This might be a trap room Jorfr commented.
No, were here. I can feel it. The Kings blessing points here, Zel disagreed, dismounting.
Then why- began the draugr, only for this chamber, too, to be illuminated by magical flame. Upon its walls, the tale of the towers purpose was told in ancient murals. It even spoke of the challenges which they had bypassed.
The Unending Storm. An endless, artificial cyclone able to freeze all and shred iron like paper.
The Leviathans Brother, a great beast once compared to the Leviathan of legend, buried beneath the ice to watch for intruders. It would shatter the ice sheet and drag entire armies or even ancient dragons under if it didnt see the Revenant Kings mark upon them.
These two were not for men, but for creatures which had long passed into myth. The murals own sigils described them as a way of stopping dragons from reaching the forge of dragonkilling spears.
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The Labyrinth of Mirrored Death, filled by illusory false turns and killing light. A realm of illusions so densely layered that few, if any, methods of piercing illusion could defeat it.
The Field of Eternal Battle, an enchanted killzone where endless warriors would rise to oppose anyone who might have somehow bypassed all the previous obstacles.
Then, there came the Procession of Spears. Thirty-six giants wrought by the Kings own hands. Quality to counter the previous obstacles quantity.
As for the towers interior, the mural spoke of a labyrinth truly impassable to even those who could see past illusions, and of a nebulous final protection.
As she peered down into the bottomless pit which surrounded the platform, she received the answer to her curiosity from earlier. Just below the platform, a barrier could be seen. It didnt impede visibility much at all, being a barely-visible pale-blue membrane with a few bands of runes flowing across it. However, there were so many layers of barrier in the shaft that she could still barely see more than perhaps a hundred meters down.
Zelsys looked to Jorfr. Their gazes met.
Go. I will be here.
Zel nodded back. Gathering her resolve, she crossed the threshold and stood upon the platform. Everything was here, with her, bound to her back by these wraps. The talismans, their bindings, the Brass Stake, the Butcher and its parts.
The ground fell out from under her feet, or so it felt. In an eyes blink, the platform rocketed down into the earth with nary a noise; the only hints of its horrifying velocity was the wild whipping over her own hair and the sensation of blood rushing to her head. She was certain that she would have lost consciousness if she didnt force her own heart to beat more forcefully. Passing through hundreds and thousands of barriers in rapid succession, Zel felt and saw herself burst into a blue blaze, but it was not fire. With each barrier she passed through, it was prevented from making contact with her body by an unseen force. Each barrier flared at her passage, which tore away an iota of its power and left it with her. Soon enough, all these infinitesimal barrier-fragments collected into a runic patchwork thickly layered all over the surface of her body.
It was a terribly, terribly long way down. The lift raced against sound itself for minutes on end, possibly hundreds of kilometers into the earth. Ahead of her awaited a long hall, filled with just as many barriers as the shaft above. After a brief stop, the platform continued on a horizontal course ahead. It only stopped before an archway within which seethed a barrier so dense it could not be seen through.
Zel stepped off, and following the Kings guidance, walked through. It stripped away the cloak of warding which had formed around her, and left even the insulation-wraps scorched at the edges And beyond it, yet further trials awaited. An octagonal chamber with an altar in the middle, and at its other end stood an imposing figure, a massive warrior resting his hands upon the hilt of an equally massive ax. He was not wrought of ice or stone, but flesh; flesh tattooed to blackness just as the Revenant Kings own, and his presence was nearly as crushing as the Kings.
208 - The Butcher Reborn Pt. 1
Beyond the warrior, between his wide-set legs, waited a passage to a large cave from within which scorching heat flowed. He did not move to attack, or to block her path. Instead, he opened his blue-burning eyes and she felt his gaze bear down upon her.
YOU BEAR THE KINGS MARK. YOU MAY PASS. LEAVE ALL THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT NEED UPON THIS ALTAR, ELSE THE FORGEMOTHER SHALL BURN IT AWAY REGARDLESS.
Without a moments hesitation, she approached the altar and shed everything she didnt need. Clad in absolutely nothing but the Impelling Arm, she used this moment to bind the talismans to it. One by one, bit by bit, she felt its plates contort and shift around her arm, until it didnt resemble itself in the slightest. A warped thing, wrapped top to bottom by ritual bindings. Before she moved forward, she swallowed several pills and partook of Vitae elixir. She carried the Butcher in her left hand. Its segments and the deck of Jade Dragons which she would use, she carried with her hair, and the Brass Stake in her right hand.
The antediluvian warrior regarded her with a look of curiosity as she went through her preparations. He thundered down at her in a melancholic tone: HAVE WE FAILED? DOES THIS KALPA YET HAVE TYRANT GODS THAT REQUIRE SLAYING?
Not those which you speak of, I can assure you of that, Zel replied.
THEN I WILL BE GLAD TO RESUME MY ETERNAL VIGIL WITH THE HOPE THAT ELDARTHAS FLAME IS NOT REQUIRED AGAIN.
Zel passed the warriors precipice, and instantly felt otherworldly heat searing her bare skin. She had no choice but to channel Metallum just to withstand it, and pushed on. The chamber itself was not merely a cave, but the very bottom of an inconceivably deep hole, which Zel presumed to reach all the way to the surface and up through the tower. A stone ledge encircled a deep, open pit, in whose center a lone, glacierglass platform floated, its underside perpetually sublimating and re-freezing in battle against the heat blasting up from below. The beginning of a walkway stretched out over the pit, but reached no further than a few meters before devolving into a molten stump. Still, she felt the Kings guidance pointing that way, and that distance wasnt even remotely outside her ability to leap across
Or, so she thought, until she approached the walkways edge to peer down, and deep within the pit witnessed a lake of molten metal. Through the many cracks in its surface, the same northlight as that of the Shifting Labyrinth shone; the light of the Foundations of the World. It was not this that stalled her from jumping, but the heat which rose up from there. That, alone, was enough to make her reconsider, nearly scorching her face with but a brief glimpse. Had she not channeled Skin of Iron beforehand, her eyes surely wouldve been burned from their sockets.
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Ere she could dedicate any real time towards formulating a plan of traversal beyond the scorching abyss, her path arose before her from the molten lake. It stirred, bubbled, and swirled around in its crater, and from within it arose the form of a great goddess! That being of glistening metal and blue light, a womans form; she was tens, perhaps even a hundred meters tall, behind her trailing a mane of myriad metal segments shrouded in blue flame. Zelsys felt as though she might be scoured from existence at any moment, such was the Forgemothers incandescent glory, and as she arose, the orange glow of her skin faded into case-hardened iridescence. She arose before Zelsys, holding out a hand for her to step onto, and despite the great heat, Zel did just that, turning her feet to iron in hopes of sparing herself from overly severe burns. It was Warm. Not burning, not scalding, not even hot; just warm. The Forgemother brought her over to the central platform and set her down. This, too, was warm; the contrast of absolute cold and absolute heat somehow equalized the felt temperature. There was no anvil; instead, the Forgemother simply placed her curled fist against the platforms side, her little finger outstretched overtop it, the surface of its nail perfectly flat and still.
IRONHEARTED ONE. HAMMERFORGED ONE. YE, OF ADAMANT WILL. YE, FAVOURED BY MINE SKINLESS BROTHER. YE, WHO BEARS THE REVENANTS MARK. YE, WHO BREAKS THE WINDS OF FATE. TAKE UP THINE HAMMER AND DO AS THOU WILT. THY TRIALS ARE NOT YET ENDED; THEY HAVE MERELY BEGUN. SHOULDST THOU LIVE THROUGH THIS LABOR, IT SHANT BE JUST THINE BLADE WHICH WILL EMERGE REFORGED.
Zel set the Butcher upon it, followed by its segments. The deck of Jade Dragons followed, one by one, arrayed in four concentric circles around the blade. Three, five, seven, ten. At last she took the Butchers handle in hand, steeling herself, channeling Metallum. Despite standing on glacierglass that wasnt attached to solid ground at any point, the essence of metal all but flooded into her with nary a tug. It only made sense, she supposed. Thus, drawing in vast quantities of Metallum, Zelsys metallized her own flesh as thoroughly as she could while remaining confident that she wouldnt end up turning herself to a statue.
Skin to bronze, flesh to iron. Thick scales of metal formed across her right arm, its patina racing upward until it met the join-seam past her shoulder.
First, she had to break the stabilizing bands. Raising the Brass Stake, she brought it down upon them. With but one strike, the first band exploded straight off the metal like a cut spring. The second met the same fate, and Zel felt a familiar thrum reaching up her arm from the Butchers handle. With the third, faint electric arcs began to appear near the blades edges.
Seven sealing bands, there were in total.
With the fourth, the blade shuddered in her grasp.
The fifth and sixth seemed to have no consequence.
The moment she struck the seventh, a bolt of lightning raced up her arm; a serpentine tendril winding itself about the limb and progressing over her chest, to her stomach, and down her leg.
209 - The Butcher Reborn Pt. 2
Arcs jumped between the Butcher and its next closest segment, not yet conjoined. Zel turned the Brass Stake in hand, pushing past the sense of trepidation to raise it overhead and bring it down with full intent.
Mimicking that motion, the Forgemother, too, raised her arm, and in her grasp a ghostly imitation of Zels instrument took form. The goddess brought it down upon her own hand much in the same way as Zelsys brought down its real counterpart upon the Butcher.
CLANG.
There came a brilliant, golden flash. A single, tiny crack made itself known within the Brass Stake; too small to be noticed otherwise, yet infinitely significant in this very moment. With that blow, the world shook. It shook not in the sense of an earthquake, nor the forceful shockwave produced when metal struck metal. Nay, this reverberation was one which carried through the invisible, undefinable fundamental nature of reality itself, the world itself wavering. Zelsys felt a change begin to take place, and she knew that it would take far more than a single strike to bring it to fruition.
Zelsys focus total, her will resolute, intent honed to an infinitely fine needlepoint. Carried forward by a thoughtless, trance-like state of pure drive, she brought the Brass Stake down upon her blades seven segments time and again in repeating sequences; one to seven, seven to one, then one-three-five-seven-four-six, one-four-seven-three-four-five-six, and so on. Eons seemed to pass. With each hammerblow, each resounding CLANG and flash of draconic essence, with each radiant deluge of ache racing up her arm and threatening to split her head, there came tides of otherworldly light. Exploding upward from the molten lake below, great deluges of northlight surrounded her. By the time the eldritch colours faded, her surroundings had always changed, yet she remained solidly within the divine smithy, upon the platform, surrounded by the Forgemothers embodied form and a lake of molten metal.
One moment, she found herself atop a windswept peak. Another, in the midst of a busy street utterly filled by motorized vehicles, right in the path of a racing tram. As she hammered away, she moulded a core of lightning in her second stomach, intending to use the ignition of Conquerors Mantle as the final step.
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CLANG.
The bottom of the ocean. Crushing pressure. The water boiled away around her, and the sand turned to glass beneath her feet.
CLANG.
The dream-desert, littered by hundreds of fulgur-glass blades and just as many eldritch thoughtform monstrosities. Once more, the sand turned to glass beneath her feet.
CLANG.
Ubuls Tomb.
The mud boiled around her and became dust.
CLANG.
Those woods.
Trees caught aflame and, like torches, blazed up in the night.
CLANG.
That bunker.
It was all askew and monochrome, long sunken into the Sea of Fog, yet still half-real. Its Core yet struggled to keep it afloat, even as that place continued its doomed descent into cosmic waters. The Faceless Things from one of its upper floors now wandered its halls, and in her presence, dozens turned to human-shaped embers. Her lightning whipped at the walls and cut open the pipes of the very machine which had given her life.
CLANG.
The war room. An utterly unassuming man stood across from her. With a grim resolution he spoke: Despite everything weve done, the war is lost. There is aught I can do, short ofventuring into Agartha. I will raise Hedans Wall.
All this while her surroundings burned, including That Mans form. He didnt seem to notice.
CLANG.
That same mans eyes, now tired and sunken in, hidden behind a blackstone mask that depicted a flawless, statuesque face, including curly hair and a wreath. Everything below the diagonal line from his left shoulder to his right hip was blackstone, and in his right hand was a staff.
He was standing at the edge of a bridge she recognized, deep in the Shifting Labyrinth.
It almost felt like he knew she was there, even though he stared right through her. He thumped his staff to the ground. It struck at the exact same moment as the Brass Stake struck the Butcher.
CLANG.
Another battlefield; the tunnels beneath Willowdales city hall.
CLANG.
The final chamber of the Willowdale Dungeon, devoid of locust infestation, the shriveled remnants of hive-material the only evidence there had ever been one.
CLANG.
A deserted square within an untold city of cyclopean architecture, at the shore of an iridescent lake, beneath an alien sky.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
210 - The Butcher Reborn Pt. 3
It was not the dragonsteel which gave way, and neither did the physical impact of her blows impart any change. Empowered by the Forgemother and Skinless One in concert, each of her blows altered reality itself, hammering the Butchers very existence into what Zelsys perceived as its true, ideal form. With each strike, all sources of the blades power grew, each different source of arcane might resonating and amplifying the others. There was not a single remotely scientific system that could explain what was taking place, for it was fundamentally not possible under the normal laws of the world. Here, in the heart of Eldartha, near the Foundations of the World, by the power of two Old Gods, the antediluvian laws of kalpas long past were brought into effect for just long enough to create a blade whose existence defied explanation. Its existence would conform to the laws of the world, but there would be no recreating it by any diluvian means, mundane or arcane.
Eventually, after the passage of what felt like an eternity, the Brass Stake began to crumble And she was nowhere near done. There was still time. Time enough to ignite the Conquerors Mantle, to dig as far down as she could reach, and then to dislocate her own shoulders so she might dig deeper.
Zelsys gathered her strength, drawing in a breath, gathering as much Metallum as she was able without regard for her own safety, feeling it rush up her legs and into her chest, then down her arm and into the Brass Stake. Tendrils of iron grew from her hand and over the stake, while her joints and flesh stiffened with terrible creaking, and for a moment, she felt as though she had frozen.
Then, she felt it. The Butchers presence, the blade resonating in her hand as its spirit reached out and made contact with the First Thundergod.
Ignition.
In an instant, brilliant white light surged all throughout her body, shining from within her chest, her Silver Conduits burning beneath her skin. Like the rising sun reflected off of the ocean, the brilliant glow danced across the chambers walls for a moment. Then, all at once, layers and layers of metal slag-scale burst away from her with the force of a fragmentation bomb. In the same moment she brought the Brass Stake crashing down. The bronze and iron antlers which had grown upon her brow branched out to a span wider than her arms, each tremendous mass made up from construct-metal weighing in the hundreds of kilos. She barely even noticed the weight.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
It was here. Across the abyss, at the edge of the pit, sitting there. The Skinless Ones figure, watching her cross-legged, resting his chin upon a balled fist, a grin of broken teeth spread wide over his eyeless visage. He nodded in rhythm with her hammer-strokes, as if counting down.
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In the far land blessed by the guiding light and nourishing water of Karga, an accomplished Fog-sailor suddenly found himself perturbed by Something. Something far in the distance, a stir in the Sea of Fog. Deep in a meditative trance, half-submerged in the Sea of Fog in pursuit of inspiration, he was given it plainly.
Indeed, far in the north, he saw it. The blazing form of glory, a form whose faint echo he had witnessed before, when he was yet blind and foolish, thinking that the echo surely could not be that far from the source. How wrong, he had been, on that day, when the G-Kaisers set loose the god-shard in their forge.
That fog-sailor, gripped by profound inspiration, plucked a brief sequence of chords upon his sitar, and spoke that which flowed through his soul.
A flame that burns so bright, to lighten the darkest night sky
Elsewhere, far from Kargaria, in one of Grekurias splinter-churches to Iusticia, a pious vicar felt himself struck by that same divine inspiration.
And through the years gone by, the righteous path, turn the page weve just begun. We forged allegiances with the strong and true, unite, defend the meek and small
Indeed, just as visible as it was within the Sea of Fog, so too could any living soul upon the continent witness the feat. The Forgemother, manifested in her full glory far into the night sky, into the very atmosphere backed by four counter-rotating rings of talismans, brought her hand down upon Eldartha, time and again. A display utterly beyond what was necessary, one born from the goddesss own pride in this particular creation. Though limited in the scope of free will, defined by her archetype as the Old Gods were wont to be, a craftsmans pride held a prominent place as part of the Forgemothers identity.
So it was that the Forgemother made this feat clear for all to see, caring not for the consequences of that act.
Scores of artisans, from poets, to musicians to metalsmiths, found themselves under the influence of an Old God, struck by sudden inspiration. Besides every living soul in Borea, a scant few witnessed and heard the Forgemother in her full glory; those particularly enlightened, or those in especially receptive areas.
Many more would bear witness in their dreams, and many still would find this inspiration coming to them in fragments over the course of weeks as its ripples reached them.
These words and thoughts were not those of the Forgemother, but of the human who wielded her as a tool. They were no more the Forgemothers than a sword was the product of a hammer; true in a sense, but undeniably guided by the smiths hand over all else.
They would speak of flames able to banish deepest darkness, of the will to do eternal battle for all that is right. An undying will to expunge the vile things of this world, to act as beast-butchering fangs in the place of those who have none of their own, and to grant fangs to those who require them.
Forevermore, the rebirth of this blade would be sung of, spoken of, recorded in history books, chiseled into stone and metal alike. Ere it could even be wielded, already it will have passed into legend.
211 - The Butcher Reborn Pt. 4
Floating in cold nothingness.
Bound by bands of starborne steel, at once restrained and kept from falling apart by them.
Unthinking, unfeeling.
Time itself seemingly at a standstill.
Then, a sudden hammer-blow, releasing one restraint.
Another, and another.
This form, no longer broken, but nonetheless insufficient.
Time passed. Change came.
There, in the iron cage which had choked her, the many-fanged blade-spirit once called the Lightning Butcher awoke And saw that no more was she bound with starsteel bands, and no more did the slightest motion threaten to rip her vessel to pieces.
More hammering. More change. This felt nothing like the pneumatic hammer which had birthed her. Nay, this was This was like that godsmiths touch, yet altogether incomparable. The metal of her vessel went unchanged, and yet the vessel changed nonetheless.
A vast sea of shining, golden light flowed in and swirled about her, and above, pale blue aurora sprung into being to shine down upon her from the skys purple expanse. Twenty serpentine dragons wrought of jade entered into the thoughtspace, and the graven light of sacrifice also shone in. Then, as if all at once, it became part of her.
Fangs, once splintered, now whole and unbreakable.
The masters thoughts called to her, and the Butcher heeded the call.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
Her chest heaved with exertion.
Every muscle in her body ached.
Brilliant, splitting pain seethed in her head, as if a red-hot blade stabbed straight into her skull. It was no pain of the flesh, but the pain of total spiritual exertion, of strain that would have torn to shreds the souls of others. It also happened to be the most stable anchor for her focus.
If her focus were to waver even an iota, if even one stray thought were to enter her mind, she would ask herself if this was how Red or Victor felt when they pushed their magic to its limits. It didnt waver.
Each and every Jade Dragon was gone. Spent. Consigned to become part of the Butcher. She hadnt even noticed how exactly they had vanished, but she was certain that they had been spent when she was being shown places from all throughout space, time, and memory.
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Once more, she raised the Brass Stake and brought it down.
Just before it hit, she saw the Skinless One lean forward in anticipation.
CLANG.
The Brass Stake exploded into a million pieces in her hand, and with its annihilation a great flood of golden, draconic essence liberated itself. It was as though the bursting of a hundred-liter tank filled with molten gold, only it emitted no heat and flowed through the air of its own volition. Zelsys in her gut knew that this was only the final one-third of what essence the Stake held; not because she had taken that much from Eisengeist, but because it had been magnified to such a degree by all factors at play. At first it took the shape of a winged serpent, then a wyvern, then a stereotypical dragon, only to twist into the image of a Thundergod and flow towards the Butcher. The cleaver was enveloped for a moment, and the next, Eisengeists essence had been consumed.
Northlight erupted upwards from the molten-metal lake one last time, and she was once more in another place, another time.
It was in the midst of a vast throne-chamber, the entire floor polished stone, with numerous columns standing to either side of her. This space alone could house a small city.
Hundreds of men with shaved heads and long single braids stood arrayed before a stairway. Atop it loomed a tree-like, mutton-fat jade throne, dozens of spidery green jade armatures arrayed behind it, with one of them extended out so that its occupant might look at the mirror attached to it. A man sat atop that throne. It was a man with an inhumanly perfect countenance, one divorced from emotion, age, or the tiny blemishes that made a person look like a person. A living wax sculpture. Tian Feng, Xin D, the Divine Emperor.
As she was not truly in that place, she couldnt feel his aura. For all she knew this could be just another weird unreal vision.
He was speaking Pateirian into the mirror with a dismissive, yet commanding presence, only to freeze.
Then, he stared right through her, furrowing his brow. A look of alarm flashed over his face, something that all of those men seemed to notice, and it was something that terrified them. He called for someone, one of the men scaredly raising his head and answering the call. A barked command later, and the servant ran off deeper into the palace.
The ground gave out from under her. Zelsys fell into the Sea of Fog, and in the next instant found herself back upon that platform, the Forgemothers blue-flame form in front of her, while the colossus of her physical form had gone, including her hand. The Forgemothers pure essentia avatar itself stood easily five meters tall, and it looked down at her. The Butcher was gone; not a trace it had ever been there remained. Moreover, she felt something strange in the middle of her back, around the height where she usually wore the Butchers sheath. It was a burning feeling just beneath the skin, and that was the least of her concerns. Zel found herself unable to move, or rather, she found that her body moved so slowly it may as well have been still. Time had been brought to a near-halt without impeding her ability to perceive, somehow. Off to the left, she saw the Skinless One; he howled with unsettling, backwards-reverberating laughter, slapped himself on the knee, then vanished in a burst of blood and silver brambles.
MY WORK IS DONE AND MY STRENGTH IS SPENT TO THE VERY LAST. IT WILL NOT BE LONG ERE I RECOVER, JUST AS A MORTAL REGAINS BREATH, BUT I AM NONETHELESS SORRY FOR PLACING THEE IN THIS SITUATION. THE PLATFORM BENEATH THINE FEET SHALL COLLAPSE, FOR IT WAS MY STRENGTH HOLDING IT IN PLACE. IT IS FORTUNATE THAT THE VERY FACT WHICH PUTS YOU IN DANGER ALSO NEGATES THE VERY HEAT WHICH MADE IT NECESSARY FOR ME TO CARRY YOU OVER THE MOLTEN LAKE.
FARE WELL, IRONHEARTED ONE. I SHALL AWAIT WHAT MARK YOU CARVE UPON THE WORLD WITH THIS GREAT WORK.
Time resumed.
212 - The Butcher Reborn Pt. FINAL
Time resumed.
Where is- Zel choked out, but the Forgemother was already gone. She noticed that the gigantic antlers which had formed upon her brow were gone. Another individual stood in the Forgemothers place.
In a split-second, Zel scanned its form.
It was a form of black metal and shining edges, of strong figure, curvaceous with the silhouette of an hourglass, and exactly the same height as Zelsys. A long, tapered tail of numerous blackstone segments extended out from her hind, flickering electric arcs connecting each segment, cylindrical ridges replacing sawteeth as the things that ran down its length. It tapered down until the final segment, which was just shaped like an L, with the long side being the tip of the tail. Her head was somewhere between that of a human and a predatory beast vaguely adjacent to a Thundergod or perhaps a False Drake, with forward-facing eyes within which blue lightning burned. A forward-pointed blade jutted from the top of her head, forming a mohawk-like ridge, immediately followed by a row of familiar sawteeth that ran all the way down her back as well as the length of her limbs; her fingers and toes both possessed hooked talons. The shape of these talons and her bladed mohawk was identical to the hook on the frontmost, seventh of the Butchers new segments. Six lines segmented each of her limbs; one each at the major joints, one between the shoulder and elbow, and two between the elbow and wrist.
The manifestation raised her hand and looked at it, the arms segments floating apart and back together.
FANGS OF DEFIANCE
BARED AGAINST THE SKEINS OF FATE
GODFORGED BRAND OF RIGHTEOUS VIOLENCE
CARNIFEX FULGURIS
Carnifex Fulguris; that name had been dragged to the forefront of her awareness at that moment. It was just a translation of "Lightning Butcher", and Zelsys took this as the blade spirit choosing its own new name.
At the instant immediately afterwards, the spirit''s gaze snapped back to meet Zelsys own, and the manifestation crossed her arms, whipping her tail toward Zelsys. Its final segment was, indeed, the unmistakable blackstone handle.
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One word. That was all the weapon-spirit uttered. A question spoken in a voice that sounded like the idling of an engine twisted into speech.
Us?
Us.
She reached out, the platform starting to crumble beneath her feet. St. Elmos fire grew from the tips of her fingers and the manifestations tail, soon growing into contiguous arcs between the two. When her fingers grasped that hunk of blackstone, there no longer stood two figures on the crumbling mass of glacierglass.
The First Thundergods ghostly form rushed down her arm, biting the cleavers handle. At that moment, the light of Conquerors Mantle surged within her and she felt a strength which had eluded her since that fateful day at Ubuls Tomb, yet one which surpassed even that brilliant light. That day it had been a desperate gambit, carried through on grit and raw magnitude of the source from which she had drawn. A self-destructive endeavor, burning herself in the hopes that her foe would give in sooner than she did.
This had none of those flaws.
And the Butcher- nay, Carnifex - was perfect. Between its new shape, material, and increased girth, its separate parts had weighed easily thrice as much as the original. Yet now, in her hand, it felt nearly weightless. With a spark of will, Carnifex split apart, twin arclines surging between its segments. The sound of lightning arcing was surprisingly absent; the cleavers metal merely hummed and vibrated in place with a faint high-pitched buzz as proof of the arclines presence. The huge blade was purring in her grasp.
Even with the platform crumbling beneath her feet and careening into the pit, Zelsys still felt not an iota of alarm or urgency. She whipped her arm upward, using Carnifex as a grappling hook against the broken walkways edge. With a surge of Fulgur and a physical pull, she retracted its arclines and sent herself flying upward. Soon she landed at the pits outer perimeter, her cleavers segments rejoining into one solid mass.
Zel let the Conquerors Mantle dissipate. The Mantle would have its time in the sun.
The Impelling arms bindings burned, and its talismans clattered to the ground as worthless hunks of metal one after the next. Even what metal remained of them crumbled to dust, leaving no trace. The sleeves distorted form buckled back into its rightful shape in moments, one horrible metallic groan after another. It almost sounded like the sleeve was sighing in relief. Nonetheless, she felt that the Impelling Arm had been inextricably changed in some fundamental way, a change which would probably take some time to manifest upon the metal.
Despite the urge to examine her reborn weapon more closely, she spun it into a reverse-grip and continued back into the giant warriors antechamber. He neither greeted her nor spoke a single word at her return, but she felt his gaze upon the blade nonetheless.
As she moved to begin dressing herself, she felt a powerful aversion to letting go of her cleaver. That spot on her back burned once again. Following her gut, she raised Carnifex to that spot and focused her thoughts on that burning feeling Only for the cleaver to vanish from her hand. Nonetheless, she felt the presence of its spirit; that figure of segmented dragonsteel.
Then, that metallic voice echoed inside her skull.
We are as one. Call me; I will answer. I am our fangs.
213 - Carnifex Fulguris
Tracing the surface of her back in the spot which had burned, she felt a raised area of skin and simultaneously saw, in her minds eye, the appearance of a sigil. It was a seven-segmented, abstract design which ran the length of seven vertebrae across the lower half of her back, ending just above her tailbone. It was clearly patterned after the aggressive shape language of Carnifex own segments, but not a mere silhouette of the blade itself. She vividly felt the dense bundles of silver conduits which led to and from the sigil; it wasnt a tattoo, but a part of her skin.
She left it while she dressed and only then inspected it further. A touch of intent and a bit of Pneuma directed to the sigil were enough to make the many-edged spirit manifest by her side in a swirl of blades, offering up the end of her tail. Both Carnifex manifestation and transformation into her true form as the cleaver took a split-second, but by simply giving it more Pneuma, she was able to shave it down such that it was faster than physically pulling the blade ever could be. To most eyes it would look like the cleaver just appeared in her hand. A part of Zelsys wondered if that was the only change the Reforging Rite had affected upon her, but she also knew in her gut it wasnt.
Zelsys made her way to the lift.
Unlike the way down, the barriers opened above her before she would pass through them.
Having been right there in the lift chamber, Jorfr had gotten an altogether unique perspective of the Reforging Rite. He was in no place to see the Forgemothers manifestation directly, yet it had been burned into his brain. Each hammer-strike reached him both as a ripple in the world and a tremor through the ground.
Even he wasnt sure how long exactly it had taken, but he knew that it stopped with a great tremor after which everything fell silent and still for some time. Then, he heard the lift approaching, the barriers buzzing in sequence as the platform passed through them, and an ominous pressure approached alongside it. Static and the smell of ozone filled the air. It was obviously Zelsys, it had to be, but her aura had changed somehow.
It wasnt active pressure insomuch as it was the sense that, were she to stoke her aura and release it, it might rival the Presence of a Hundred Men technique.
Her figure rose up into view exuding a sense of triumph, based on how she held herself, devoid of all the implements with which shed descended. Devoid of those implements and something she absolutely should not be devoid of.
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Youve returned. But where- Jorfr began, momentarily worried at whether something may have gone awry or if some bizarre thing may have happened. He was interrupted by the flash of her beartrap grin as she stepped off the lift and held out her hand. A being of metal and blades suddenly took shape next to her, a woman just as ridiculously built as Zelsys herself, with segmented limbs and a long, also segmented tail that ended in the Butchers L-shaped handle. Zel grasped it, and in an instant, the spirit snapped into the form which Jorfr had anticipated.
He felt a faint aversion to looking at the blade, as if merely laying eyes upon its edge could cut him. It radiated a vicious killing intent directed nowhere in particular.
Then, she let go And the cleaver was gone.
Lets get out of here, she said. The only thing I need right now is a good long bath.
Jorfr laughed, relieved of a worry he had held only subconsciously. It was still her; she hadnt been changed into the likes of the Revenant King through her interaction with the antediluvian.
Xin D knew that something was terribly, horribly wrong from the first. He could pinpoint the exact moment when it happened, when it felt as though a foreign presence had appeared within his throne chamber, the world itself rippling. He stared at that spot, used each and every form of supernatural sight he possessed, and all he had to show for it was the sight of a vague figure and the feeling of a northward direction, past Hedans Wall. Then, another ripple, a hundredfold as forceful as before, and the presence was gone.
He had the entire palace searched in every manner he could think of, and while his eunuchs and court wizards carried out this task, he received a grave and unsettling message from the north. It was Von Wickten. The Armor of Pure Purpose suited him far better now, after the two had been given time to adjust to one another, but There was no reason for Von Wickten to call, unless it was a truly pressing emergency, and indeed it was. After all, the possibility of eliminating Zelsys Newman wasnt by far his only reason to save Adalberts life; it was also the opportunity to have some degree of monitoring on her. Where scrying failed, the connection of whomever wore the Armor of Pure Purpose to their main target functioned in an altogether different manner, being closer to a curse than any scrying ritual, yet it also superseded the weaknesses of most curses. As such, he was not just useful as a combative asset, but also for monitoring of Zelsys Newman as well as her compatriots. Specifically, Jorfr Hulson and Victor Khestun; these individuals Von Wickten had possessed a sufficient focus on before his transformation.
The Armors silver guise appeared before him, having by now shifted into a statuesque face in vague resemblance of its wearers original body. It made him think of old Roman statues, or gladiatorial masks, though it also had parallels in this worlds history; high-fidelity, paint-stripped stone statues werent exactly a rare feature of architecture. Theyd even become an aesthetic trend here. As he recalled, the cities of that Nameless bastard were once filled with whitestone statues of him and his friends. How he still reviled those Three Bastards, even now.
214 - Damage Control
Your Divinity, Von Wickten began, I am certain that you are already aware, however, I felt that I ought to report to you regardless: The Heretics Daughter has obtained the fangs in search of which she ventured north. As a Storm-soul Cultivator, she is an order of magnitude more dangerous now that her spirit-weapon is no longer crippled; likely far more dangerous than she was at the time of Ubuls waking. I also sense that the Hulson has awakened the Immortal Blood, and grown stronger in some other manner which I cannot discern. And Khestun There is something terribly wrong in him, but I cannot sense what; my connection to the boy has weakened since Ive attained clarity of purpose. I am, however, certain that he, too, has changed in some abominable way. Cao Hu has voiced his own theories, but I would not dare suggest such asinine-
Speak freely, the Emperor demanded. He wondered why Cao Hu wouldnt just call him directly, but it wasnt surprising. The Curse-eating Generals own transformation wasnt exactly proceeding smoothly; it was possible that he had passed the theory along in a moment of clarity, and was now once more in the throes of tribulation.
Von Wickten collected himself without an iota of surprise, and continued: He believes the youth to have consumed the soul of an ancestor as part of an esoteric process called the Enantiomorph, one which permits two individuals to become as one. Cao Hu believes the other soul to be specifically Koschei the Undying, Second of the Triarchy, who ruled Ikesia during the ah The Three Kings Era, which your Divinity ended. I am not permitted to know why, but it seems he has good reason to believe this to be true.
Xin D didnt know whether to laugh or to cry. An equally unsettled and unsettling grin grasped his face, and soon a cackling laugh erupted from him as he grasped for his face with one hand. His voice rang out through his throne chamber and washed over all those present like a miasma of utter terror; his subjects had no clue how to deal with the outburst, and so, in fear for their own lives and those of three generations of their clans, they ignored it. This He hadnt felt this strongly about anything in centuries, and that was the fourth or perhaps fifth time hed had this thought in recent memory. Time and again, he got drawn out of the mire of his own absolute success. He took control of himself, and with but a gesture, emptied his throne room. Hundreds of eunuchs and guards flooded out in unison before the doors slammed shut behind them.
This wasnt about privacy, Xin D could easily just sound ward his immediate surroundings or even create an opaque bubble to block sight of him. He wanted to be physically alone. Xin D called to himself all his scrying mirrors, initiating conversations with all his most trusted advisors across the Pateirian heartland.
What else? he questioned.
Cao Hu has been progressing through his tribulation as expected, and work on the other project proceeds apace. Furthermore, I have a request-
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My answer remains no, as it has been since last you asked. I shall consider your request after the project comes to fruition. As it stands you would be marching off to your death, should you go after the Heretics Daughter. Your debt to me precludes you from choosing your own death, Adalbert.
Von Wickten bowed before the Black Mirror Array on his side and his image flickered from view.
Good, good, good he muttered sarcastically to himself. Sarcasm. Annoyance. Even such emotions had been beyond him for who knows how long. He hated this as much as he enjoyed it.
Several days later, he had learned just how widespread the aftershocks of that abominable rite were. Several of his court artisans had reported strange and mutually congruent strikes of inspiration, and that same pattern continued not just throughout the empire, but even in Ikesia and other far-off provinces. Agents planted in Kargaria and Grekuria reported much the same.
There were none alive who knew of Xin Ds true nature as a transmigrator But there were a few among his advisors whom he had made familiar with his unfiltered way of speaking. They were made to believe that it was the Heavenly Dao speaking through him with knowledge from other worlds, and through this roundabout method, he was able to talk freely on occasion.
I have foreseen that many across the empire will soon be struck by inspiration from the Demonic Dao. All manner of artist and craftsman will find his work tainted by ideas such as iron fangs bared against fate, of a Walking Tribulation meting out violence against those who rightly use their own strength which the Dao bestowed upon them through myself. I would not see them killed or made destitute, for it is not their own fault. Memoryhole them. Do not take direct action against them, but ensure that they never hold any significant sway and that their works are forgotten. Co-opt what they create for the homelands purposes, change details and invent new characters so that these poor souls misguided work is not wasted.
He knew better than to act directly in contravention of occult, antediluvian magic But he also knew that it could be tricked and worked around. He hoped that this was among the old magics which could be tricked and worked around.
Xin D turned his mind towards dealing with the Newman situation as it was. All sides, including the Grekurians and Kargarians, had plans in motion. The most obvious move was to just come after Newman as soon as possible, or to galvanize efforts to counteract the efforts of Willowdale and the Free Cities Alliance at large.
However, the abrupt growth of his foe came with a silver lining. Major breakthroughs tended to be followed by plateaus, especially if a cultivator didnt encounter challenges to push them into surpassing themselves. He was certain that, of all people, she would be able to push herself through sheer will alone, but he still had to be wise about how he proceeded forward.
Rather than keep up the pressure, Xin D decided to turn his resources elsewhere; both at other targets, and inward. He would take measures to ensure that his next clash with the Heretics Daughter would be on favourable grounds. His own New Era of Cultivation plan would take some time to get going, and the potential cultural disturbance of Newmans deed had to be curtailed at all costs.
215 - The Divine Emperor in the City of Glittering Petals
Xin D took a jaunt upon a flying sword to one of his many secondary palaces all across the empire, this time to the south-central City of Glittering Petals, a center of gambling and crime. The city was a pipe dream for many, being isolated from the rest of the country by dangerous land full of outlaws, just as Xin D had intended when he decided that it would be built there. It was Las Vegas of a sort, and its political purpose was to serve as a capital for the Land of Lingering Smoke, a containment zone for the shady elements that the state apparatus could not control. As such, ensuring that it remained somewhat separate from the rest of the country was paramount.
There, in his mansion in the City of Glittering Petals, Xin D summoned one of his most loyal and trustworthy servants, a rugged man by the name of Shen Liang. He was not a chancellor, an official, or a general, and his cultivation, for as long as he had lived, was mediocre at best. Mediocre spirit roots, mediocre constitution, mediocre martial aptitude, mediocre to the last, at least by the standards of the era of his birth. Were he born in modernity, he would be the prodigy of the generation. Out of all those who had warred against the Three Kings by Xin Ds side when his name was still Tian Feng, this man was among the few to not just survive, but to somehow avoid ever making himself the target of a political purge. The man wasnt just a good politician, he was a phantom, Xin Ds own shadow. Not only could he face down Xin D without so much as flinching, he could stare him in the eye. Indeed, Shen was easily comparable to the Divine Generals in raw power, and far outstripped most of them in terms of sheer skill and experience, for that was what it had taken for a mediocre man like him to reach greatness and immortality through the Supreme Law of Drunken Dreams. There was no master of deceptive martial arts equal to him, though Xin D hesitated to call Shens style Drunken Fist. Rather, the potent illusions conjured by Shens motions brought to mind psychedelics. Just watching him for a few moments could send those with weak minds into seizure or entangle them in phantasmagoria. So potent was the art that even those able to see through illusions could be overwhelmed by contradictory stimuli.
Shen Liang also happened to be a prolific crime lord, a hidden hand of the Emperor in the Land of Lingering Smoke, subtly manipulating events to ensure a careful balance and to curtail elements that could eventually threaten Xin Ds rule. None save Xin D himself and Shen Liang knew of this arrangement, for they had both formed a soulbinding pact when they were both yet mortal men.
How long has it been since we last spoke like this? Twenty years? Thirty? Do you still like wine? the lavishly-dressed criminal asked, taking from his belt a large gourd, bound in silken red rope and wrapped top to bottom in a single excessively long seal. The truth was that they had last drunk together no more than a year and a half ago, but Xin D knew this was not what Shen had meant. The question pertained to drinking face to face, in private, in an unofficial capacity, unknown to the world.
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Xin D knew well that the poisonous concoction within had as much to do with wine as Ikesian CP-T had to do with gasoline. He nonetheless answered: Yes, I do.
The two men, for once each able to let down at least one of the many masks they wore, drank tiny shots of a swirling, glittering liquid whose beauteous hues belied a poisonous blend so potent it would melt any mortal man from the inside-out. To compare this liquid to the most potent of mundane acids or poisons would be an insult; it was a horrific, bitter, burning thing, even for the likes of Xin and Shen. Baijiu for immortals.
So, heard you decided to finally go back on that Cultivation Suppression Edict of yours. Looking to take another go at conquering Ikesia when that wall loosens up a touch more? Shen asked.
Let us not speak of such things just yet, Xin D said. It embittered the already horrid taste of this wine to think of the small betrayal which he would soon have to carry out upon his old friend. This was, in fact, not a casual meeting, but one of serious and wide reaching consequence.
There was one particular facet of Shens character that Xin D had developed a sort of envy for: The ability to live day-to-day as if he were mortal. No apathy, no detachment from the world of the living. Xin D could not understand it.
They spoke and drank without care for some time, and for that short time, Xin D once more became Tian Feng. Unfortunately, that man could not remain in control long, and the man-god Xin D soon returned to the forefront. It was prompted by Shen himself, mentioning something of import.
I guess I should let you know that several months ago, I returned one of the Borean Exiles to his homeland. An elder of one of their clans, one Kristina Ramdall, called in a debt for her familys cooperation during Cao Hus attempt to conquer the Scorchlands. However, I did not predict that the womans inner demon was so powerful as to drive her to attempt taking over the great capital of Oaseby by the force of a mask-maddened dragon.
Xin D chuckled; he knew, by the look in Shens eye, that besides what he said, he also intended those words to bring to mind one of Xin Ds own failures. Ten Billion Fathoms, that mighty trump card in his war against the Three Kings, which he had so woefully misplayed. It, too, was deployed as a last-ditch effort to put down a single city, and it, too, met its end by way of one of Koscheis titans. He hated it when history rhymed like that.
216 - The Divine Emperor in the City of Glittering Petals Pt. 2
Seven hundred years to get that Dragonstone back, he sneered disdainfully, drinking his dish of baijiu. Shen laughed softly at his response, refilling the dish before emptying his own and doing the same.
But who else to stoke Kristinas inner demon into foolish action than Zelsys Newman? That Walking Tribulation Xin D sighed, much to Shens continued amusement. He, unlike the Ankhezians in antiquity, had never made the foolish choice of warring with Borea. He, unlike those elves, knew better than to try conquering an icebound hellhole whose capital stood a thousand leagues from his own borders. Even with modern machinery, it would be a logistical nightmare with minimal returns. That land had no worth to anyone but Boreans and the few cultivators adapted to thrive in the ice, and even the cultivation resources of Oaseby had possessed little value to Xin D under the Cultivation Suppression Edict.
Truly, those northern lands are a hellscape, and their people may as well be monsters born from the ice itself. By comparison, those Ikesian snow devils are a preferable foe. At least theyre not warriors to a man like the Boreans, Shen said. Another dish of baijiu was emptied. The Lord of Lingering Smoke continued: The hard land grows hard plants, hard animals, hard people. As unyielding as the glacier, as fierce as the brambleback, such are Boreans. We are fortunate that those of them born outside Borea grow weaker with each generation until they become like any other human. They cannot be conquered, but in turn, they cannot expand, unless the world itself becomes just as harsh as their homeland.
Another round of drink. It was a truly magical experience; as Xin D drank, poisons of different natures took effect in different ways and at different times. Simultaneously, his physique constantly broke them down, even though he willfully suppressed his own immune system to better enjoy the drink. In this way, not only was the oncoming intoxication evershifting, but so was the flavour, as his tongue and nose were both numbed in different manners by the poison. The baijiu remained the same, but his perception of the taste continued to change. It never once for a moment became anything less than scorchingly acrid.
Indeed, ensuring that they remain bound to their homeland was one of my reasons to suppress cultivation all across the continent, he said to Shen. With opponents sufficient to challenge them, they would have spread like a plague, as they had done when Ikesia was an Ankhezian province. The records in my personal library show that the Ikesians of that era were nearly as strong as Boreans. The Revenant King is of an inscrutable spirit, and though I do not believe that he is conquest-minded, I believe that should the correct leaders of his people choose conquest, he would provide his backing. I went to such a length to forestall the continent from being vulnerable to conquest from the north, and now, all that work must be undone lest we be overtaken in cultivation by the so-called Free Cities Alliance.
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What of the Sanger and Black Horse Sects? Or the other minor sects in the country, or the noble families which practice cultivation, be it Virtuous or Demonic. Those fools with stones in their heads still possess strength, even if they are doomed to never reach a phase in which they could become a threat. When a thousand ants come together, they can still smother a man; one mantis cannot stop a chariot, but ten thousand will tip it over with the mass of their corpses.
They are not a source of concern. I permitted them to exist because they are a perfect image of impotence; they are too bound up by internal politics and tradition to evolve. It may seem as though I am a hypocrite, for the sects of Pateiria, too, are traditionalist and bound by internal politics, but this was intentional. After all, I need only give the word and the elders of even the most traditional sect in my empire will comprehend the Dao in a new way, and decide that, after all, the true way to preserve tradition is to continuously evolve it. An absolute ruler is, indeed, not a luxury which Ikesia can claim. I have made sure of that. The puppet which I made of their government shall make no resolute decree; they shall lead the country into a Managed Decline So was my intent, at least. The Federal Government may very well lose control of half the country within a few years if we do not intervene.
You have not been this talkative in two centuries Ah, make that three, Shen grinned, waving his sleeve. Six dishes fell out, and in the same motion, he filled them all. With another wave of his sleeve he threw six more dishes over to Xin Ds side of the table. Then, he set the gourd back down with a thud, and raising a filled dish with his left hand spoke again: I must wonder what, or perhaps who, it was that returned this human warmth to you, Feng. You loved the World of Cultivation so much, I cannot help but think that perhaps that Manufactured Paragon, Zelsys Newman, dragged you from the morass of apathy by resurrecting cultivation in your homeland.
Shen kicked back his drink, hissing as his eyes rolled every-which way, projecting rays of light and thus casting a ridiculous lightshow through the room. It was a petty parlor trick which Shen had performed so often while drinking to entertain Xin Ds Divine Dragon Sect that it had become an unwilling tic when he got truly drunk. Fortunately for his reputation, it took exceedingly rare brews for Shen to become truly drunk, brews of the sort he would only drink in private or with Xin D. He whacked the side of his head and his eyes returned to normal; at first look, a simple palm-heel strike, but Xin D knew it acted upon a specific pressure point.
Your campaign worked, and look where it got us, Shen said. Perhaps, if you had been less heavy-handed, Ikesia might have never turned away from cultivation. The War of Fog would have never gone out of control, for it would have never taken place to begin with.
217 - The Divine Emperor in the City of Glittering Petals Pt. 3
There was no living soul in this world which Xin D would allow to speak to him like this. Indeed, were it not for that soul-bond, Xin D was certain that he would have slain Shen long ago, when he had been more arrogant than he was now. It was this reason, among others, that had led him to avoid his martial brother for many decades; they had no choice but to talk things out. The bond had been wrought so long ago that removing it would tear both their souls apart, much like a cage of iron bands could not be removed from within a great tree that had once been held together by those same bands.
The Sage would have become a problem regardless," Xin D said. "Who knows what devilry he would have invented if he managed to worm his way into a proper sect. That man Did you know he could fly solely under the force of his Qi? And he had the gall to say he did not know martial arts when we met. Speaking of martial arts, I must disappoint you, as I have not come just to see my martial brother...
Xin D waved his hand, and six thick scrolls made of Serpent-tree scalewood slipped out of his sleeve onto the table. They were bound in cord of varying colour and held shut with mutton-fat jade seals.
What are they?
Six cultivation manuals for methods which I devised over the last six centuries. They are written in Hundredfold Divine Wisdom Sigils, making each a library unto itself. Breathing methods, fitting martial arts and weapons, breakthrough conditions, tribulations, pills and elixirs, arrays and formations, even favourable terrain conditions. I want you to distribute them to those who will use them to give the most face to my New Era of Cultivation.
He gestured at the two leftmost scrolls. One bound in red, the other in jade-green.
Two of them are Yang. One is Yang Complimentary, the other is Yang Contrasting. The first must go to a man with a strong inner Yang, and the latter to a woman of the same nature.
Then, to the two rightmost scrolls. One was bound in pale blue, the other in dark purple.
In the same way, these two are Yin. It is up to you to find the recipients of these four. The Scholarly Toad Sect contains a high number of eunuchs who did not pass the imperial examinations or were not selected for other reasons.
The middle two were last, bound in black and white respectively.
These two are neutral. They require excellent spiritual strength, and the White Scroll requires a strong affinity for a single element, while the Black Scroll benefits from the absence of any one strong affinity. Send one of these to the monks of Er Shan, and the other to any small monastery in the countryside.
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A flick of the Emperors finger sent them sliding across the table towards Shen. Another wave of his sleeve. This time, artifacts fell out. Rings and bracelets, slips of jade, a trio of immaculately-crafted jade swords bundled together. A forearm-length knife whose edge reflected uncounted copies of itself lined up. A thick, curved, golden-edged sabre whose spine jangled with six rings of varied, but equally complex design, each made of material aligned to one of the five principal wuxing elements. Lastly, a silver dart attached to a length of sinew-rope. At the ropes other end was a six-sided weight with a spiked underside, bearing numeral symbols on each of its flat sides. One, five, ten, thirty, fifty, one hundred.
Everything bore the imperial seal in some form; a white dragon curled in a circle around a peach flower. The knife had it on its pommel, while the swords had it on their scabbards, and the sabre on its basketlike guard.
These shall accompany the scrolls.
Once more he sent them over to Shen, and summoned a whole new wave of scrolls and artifacts. They bore a different seal, one not used in any official capacity, but Shen felt the same magic radiating from it as the seals on the previous objects. While some of these artifacts seemed of reasonable design, others were so grim and radiated such ominous auras that Shen could not expect them to be anything but the tools of killers. He presumed that his liege intended to use these as equipment for a shadow sect, or perhaps to found a demonic sect that would serve the Emperor without even knowing it.
And these. They are to go to outlaw cultivators, or to those who have sought cultivation in the past in contravention of my mandate, but take care that they are not overly likely to become a subversive or rebellious element. These Seals of Abyssal Wisdom contain my mercy, but I would regret invoking it. They are to serve as twofold proof of my intent to see Pateirian cultivation reinvigorated, rather than to bait cultivators out of hiding for a purge."
But These do not bear your seal. How are they to be tied to you?
They are not. Whereas these heroic cultivation manuals and artifacts shall be bestowed by the Heavenly Dao, these unheroic counterparts shall be bestowed by the Abyssal Dao. In this manner, both sides of the Dao shall be aligned to my intent. Coincidentally, a particular convergence of stars is about to take place; a thousand astrologers across the empire will behold this event and correlate it to the appearance of divine and abyssal artifacts in the hands of a new generation of cultivators. See to it that the Dao bestows these treasures upon worthy candidates. My Seals of Divine Wisdom and those of Abyssal Wisdom will ensure that a candidate is compatible and grant them the guidance to make use of these gifts; otherwise, the candidates spirit will be devoured. I will not hold an error or two against you, but that error is yours and yours alone - the Dao does not err. Those who are bonded to these artifacts shall become the Sons and Daughters of Fate, destined for greatness as living proof for my edicts righteousness under the Mandate of Heaven. They shall become generals, sect-elders, instructors at the White Tiger Cultivation Society, heroes on the battlefield. I want you to find the prodigies among prodigies. However
218 - The Divine Emperor in the City of Glittering Petals Pt. 4
This time, he placed the objects he conjured from his sleeve upon the table with his own hand.
Shen choked on his baijiu. His pupils constricted, his face went white. He knew that scroll.
Did you not intend this for yourself, or should be unable, for your eventual heir-to-be?
Of course, I already practice it myself. However, I was able to simply force my way past the breakthroughs one after the next, thanks to my mastery of the Wuxing Supreme Law. I wish to watch a new practitioner walk this path in order to ascertain that it is viable and so that I might adjust it as necessary.
Call it what it is: The Walking Way of Five Elements. We are not in public.
Xin D smirked in such a devious, yet genuine manner as Shen had not seen in centuries: It would not do for the Divine Emperor to practice an art devised by the Ankhezians. Indeed, their Walking Way of Five Elements was naught but egregious misinterpretation of the Dao, whereas my Wuxing Supreme Law is the true form. This is not a lie - one could never reach my state or degree of power through the Walking Way of Five Elements.
"You are not one to take foolish risks. Even a seemingly perfect subject might be led astray. If a practitioner of That Law suffers qi deviation or becomes possessed by a heart demon, it could spell catastrophe."
The aura of facetiousness which he had exuded suddenly evaporated, and his usual ultra-stoic personage returned. He gestured next to the scroll, and an artifact fell from his sleeve.
Of course not. That is why this hand mirror is the first artifact I chose to accompany the manual. It functions as a scrying mirror, as the highest grade of storage artifact, and it contains a logic automaton over which I have direct control. The Heavenly Dao shall guide this mirrors bearer. As for the second
Another gesture. A small peach-wood box fell out, with the imperial seal carved into its lid.
The Unending Pill Box. Whatsoever pill its owner requires shall appear within within days if he offers up a prayer to it; that is to say, I shall send it to this box. Lastly
Xin D rose up from his seat, and took from beneath his robe a weapon with a round gold-coloured grip wrapped in dark, faintly iridescent sharkskin. A strange, round gem was set into its pommel, and its circular guard was even stranger. Rather than just one, it had two guards; the one closest to the handle was made of green jade and set with four spherical gems identical to the one in the pommel, while the guard closest to the blade was in the shape of the imperial seal and wrought of golden metal.
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This rod I shall leave its name to its rightful recipient. Dantian-piercer, meridian-severer, blade-shatterer, forged with one-hundred and eight Jade Dragons arrayed into thirty-six trigrams, quenched in the blood of a hundred and eight enlightened sages. Fang of destiny, to be bared against devils who would seek to undermine its wielders fate
Whose soul-seeds are those? Shen asked, already knowing the answer.
A smirk.
The Five Immortals of Mt. Qu-Bu, of course.
They were the only conceivable source of five identical soul-seeds. They had cultivated for three centuries for the purpose of eventually becoming part of the Imperial Regalia, as they owed their lives to Xin D. The Five Immortals of Mt. Qu-Bu werent just renowned or famous, they had long passed into the realm of myth and legend. They were - or rather, had been - quintuplets, born as the consequence of a mad Ankhezian thaumaturge attempting to subvert the very magic which had rendered his people nigh-immortal and nigh-infertile. The consequence of Ozrai Kerruns work was a small, yet prosperous Ankhezian enclave near the borders between Pateiria and the Ankhezian outlands. Its name was Alnasta.
Their births were just as infrequent as those of normal Ankhezians, but always produced at bare minimum two, and often three children. Their women, as a result, practiced a form of body cultivation called the Walking Way of Kishimojin from a young age in order to ensure that they and their offspring would both survive. Over the course of a century, an Alnastan woman would have ten or even twenty children.
Despite Xin Ds highly pragmatic, even callous nature, Shen knew that Tian Feng had rescued those children from a situation of near-certain death, after their parents had been slain by a rampaging bioweapon of another Ankhezian splinter-state. At that time, he had argued that it was better if the Ankhezian enclave believed that the children had also been killed, as this would spur them on to destroy the other party and take their resources, thus benefitting the Ankhezian race by diverting resources to a faction which could actually grow its population.
It wasnt the callousness of this act that had taken Shen aback, but the fact that Xin D turned out to be completely right. That village had, in the present-day, become the second largest Ankhezian state after the faltering imperial heartland. The fury of body cultivator mothers over their children was truly a terrifying sight to behold; meanwhile, those same children had been spirited away to Mt. Qu-Bu and left in the care of monks.
This same pragmatism was also why Alnasta was one of the places which had generally amicable relations with Pateiria, managed by Xin D himself. They were a buffer state and a means of sourcing Ankhezian resources without dealing with the imperial remnants, which rebuked him at every turn.
The rod. Show me.
It is not a savage weapon. There is no spirit which dwells within. After all, it is intended to grow with its wielder, Xin D smiled, pulling the weapon from its scabbard. A bian with a needle-like tip, split into subtly concave segments, the ridges between them edged with gold and sharpened to beyond a razors edge. Its endmost segment was substantially longer than the others and shaped like a diamond with concave sides, to permit for cutting. The entire weapons taper was so subtle and gradual it could not have been produced by anyone short of the Blacksmith Immortal, Vasalery, an Ankhezian defector who had lived in Pateiria since the height of the elven imperium. Shen could scarcely imagine what leverage Xin D had put against the elf to make him forge this, as the ancients power, wisdom, and skill made him able to refuse even Xin D without fear of reprisal.
219 - Supreme Law of Gold and Ebony
Shen could indeed sense no spirit from the weapon, and yet, it already emitted a fearsome sword qi. He felt as though he might be struck, or cut, or run through at any moment. This was of course due to the fact Xin D was holding it, but the fact the blade could resonate so strongly without a blade spirit spoke volumes to its quality. An unsettled feeling in his stomach told Shen the reason behind all this. There was no other possible reason for Xin D to take such action. It was the Vision of Seven Fangs which had swept across the continent recently. Always the same inspiration, and always containing ominous omens of opposition to Xin Ds rule. If he didnt take heavy measures to redirect this, subversive elements would latch on to argue that the Heavenly Dao had forsaken him for his failure to fully conquer Ikesia in one fell swoop.
Raising the weapon into the air with just the force of his qi so that Shen might get a good look at it, Xin D spoke again: I have ever held the square truncheon as an unfairly overlooked sibling to the noble longsword; after all, it is a weapon of armored elites even in the Divine Army. It benefits from many sword techniques, it can penetrate armor with concussive and thrusting force both, it is easier to use for nonlethal purposes than a longsword And this particular design is one I am particularly fond of. Not only can it cut well and produce swordlight with its frontmost segment, it can coalesce Sword Qi into coherent manifestations with a fraction of the effort normally required, and its natural shape means that even the crudest manifestations will be useful.
It was clear that the Emperor was terribly fond of the weapon. Shen wagered that the only reason he did not keep the weapon for himself had to be that he possessed something greater still.
These treasures ought to go to a nobody. A nobody with the willpower and appropriate aptitude to practice the Supreme Law of Gold and Ebony, but one foolish and self-righteous enough that I shall be able to steer him or her as I see fit.
Xin D made the other things float as well, and with a gentle wave of his finger sent them across the table to join the sects worth of treasures already lined up in front of Shen.
Create a hero for me, would you?
It was a rhetorical question, of course. There was no choice. Shen gave a resolute nod. The two of them drank and talked for some time after, speaking both of light-hearted and heavy matters.
Shen continued drinking even after Xin D left.
The Supreme Law of Gold and Ebony
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It was a terrifying method born of a terrifying intellect; not for its demonic provenance, or its upfront power, but because there was theoretically nothing it could not do, no one user it could not adapt to. A foundation that could be broken and mended freely without detriment, yet whose strength and stability did not suffer a bit for this property. A soul entirely made up of golden cores, or Golden Grains. It was a scaffold that would elevate any other cultivation method the user practiced, or as Xin D had once said: It is the method by which any art may become profound and worthy of an emperor.
A great procession and time of revelry awaited Zel and Jorfrs return to Oasis City.
One thing she noticed, rather a thing she couldnt ignore, was the absolute absence of any trace of Eisengeist. Not the destruction the dragon had wrought, that was very much plain to be seen, but rather any trace of its severed flesh, fur, scales, and even blood was utterly absent. Not even the tiniest stain of his lively ichor remained anywhere it had been split, save for the wood which had been struck and permanently warped by it. It had not been burned, but rather now burst with new given radiance in unnatural colours adjacent to those of the beasts own bones and flesh; black and purple.
The colours of black and purple were to be found at the feasts as well; after all, the Boreans had claimed a share of that which Eisengeist had left behind, and it seemed that some of it was indeed being used here. A preternaturally large razorflayer had been butchered in such a way as to make it appear more like Eisengeist with fake scales set into its hide and one foreleg completely stripped of skin. Its meat even had the appearance of Eisengeists.
One of the chefs who had worked on it boasted that it had taken only one in twenty parts of the dragons blood to produce a brine which had imparted that colour and flavour, and a unique flavour it was. Zel also partook of the small portions of actual meat from Eisengeist which were offered, chopped into tiny thin strips, served raw with strong drink and purple blood-bread. She found the meat to be so flavorful and invigorating that there was no wonder these portions were so small; it was not the only reason to limit portion size, either, given the paralytic toxicity of the dragons blood. This was absolutely not a meat to be eaten in large quantities. That aforementioned chef also raucously recounted how he himself, alongside several of his assistants, had paralyzed themselves through extended exposure to Eisengeists blood.
That tingling in your mouth? Thats all you get at first, and its nothing more than that until you try to turn around and you cant! he laughed as if it wasnt an absolutely mortifying situation to find oneself in.
Zel wasnt getting tired of such celebrations per se, but they were very much bleeding together at this point. As far as she could tell by the end of it, three or perhaps four days of drinking and making a show of herself passed before things settled down once again. Several artisans had taken a surprising degree of interest in Carnifex humanoid form, enough that Zel eventually found it tiresome to distinguish between the weapons true form and its spirit; she decided that, when distinction was needed, she would refer to the cleaver as Carnifex and the spirit as Fulguris.
220 - Further Consequences of the Hulson-Ramdall Blood Feud
Over the course of these celebrations, in the small amount of time she got to herself, Zel also learned that Thundercannons spirit could be made to manifest unassisted. However, he took a significant amount of energy and barely had a solid form, remaining semi-immaterial just like Deaths Lieutenant. In fact, it only sunk in now that Carnifex Fulguris was undoubtedly an exception among exceptions as a weapon whose spirit had not just self-awareness, but a fully physical body. Thundercannons manifestation had been permanently warped in subtle ways, the spirits armor now bearing draconic motifs, as if engraved.
A highlight of the initial celebrations were the songs which had been written of them. Not just her reforging of the Butcher, or the blood feud at large, but strangely specific things. From the terror which Zefaris and Victor both had rained down, to the undying fury of Gunnar, to the treacherous insanity of Ismaar Aase. While they worked as individual songs, they were also built into the framework of a sprawling saga detailing the known events of the past several weeks.
One which stood out most to Zelsys, however, was not one about herself, Zefaris, or Victor, but Jorfr. The performer, a member of one of the Secondary clans which Zel didnt recognize, impersonated Jorfrs draugr state to an admirable degree. His build was already close enough, he wore a long-haired wig made of tundrabear mane while bleaching his own beard, and he painted his right arm as well as a spot on his chest in blue to signify the ice. White wouldnt have exactly stood out against a Boreans skin, after all. Rather than embed an actual metal sigil into his forehead, the skald just glued an Aegishjalmr onto his skin. Moreover, he used some type of magic or other to create ghostly constructs in imitation of the secondary projections from Jorfrs Presence of a Hundred Technique, and even wore a breastplate made of construct-ice as supplied by Fryg herself.
He stood atop a cleared-out feasting table, opposed by a man dressed as Asgeir, who put on a downright cartoonish portrayal of the dead Ramdall elder, cackling and hunched in mockery of the man. He even had a pet raven that cackled along with him.
The skald playing Jorfr sang of the immortal blood coursing through his veins, of how he wouldnt be denied and how Asgeir was doomed from the very start. He sang of his gruelling, metaphorical swim out of the Fog-seas churning depths, of how he had done it fuelled solely by the determination to rend Asgeirs flesh from bone.
Destined to fight, even in death!
Indeed, he sang of icebound spears rising with the revenants breath, of the bones which the foes of the Hulsons had thought they had shattered would never rest. Jorfr, Fryg, and Yvonne were absent at this feast; the Sagaborne had claimed that it was to fully ascertain the consequences of his recent growth, but Zel wagered he wasnt one to watch someone impersonating him and boasting of his feats in such theatrical fashion. Gunnar sat at her right-hand side, with Zef immediately to her left and Rikke behind her, who had been rapidly gaining weight since the Blood Feud. Merete sat right behind Gunnar, with Victor to her right, and Torhild to his right.
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The Saga of Honors Rebirth, theyve come to call it. The whole thing, that is, Gunnar giddily leaned in as the final verse rang out. We argued for days about what specific event or person to name it after But theres too much to use an overly specific title, so we settled on something that fits both the Hulson Restoration and the reforging of your cleaver. Itll see many changes over the years before it is carved into an irminsul as a long-term record, but something tells me this part will go unaltered.
Some time later, as the work-in-progress sagas performance wound down and the , Gunnar broached another topic.
What would you say if I offered you to take some distilled primary spring water back with you to Ikesia? We even have some secret alchemical recipes and procedures that might benefit your clan.
It took slow head-turns and quizzical looks from both Zel and Zef to get the berserker to explain himself properly.
Ah, right, you werent there for much of the trial. Most of the Ramdall, Buhaug, and Eisen properties are ours now as part of the blood price for an unjustified blood feud. The King even gave us some of the Aase properties for their participation in the feud Including one of their distilleries. Recipes, equipment, the whole lot. The new elder, a handsome young man called Julius, was so ashamed of the whole affair and grief-stricken at Gjermunds death that the poor lad nearly blood-eagled himself rather than live with it. I convinced him to just help us keep the distillery running. The distilled product is terribly toxic, of course, wrecks your liver and gives you ulcers if youre not careful
Gunnars eyes briefly unfocused and his face hardened as he recalled a harrowing memory, only for him to snap back into his usual good-humored demeanor.
But Ive used it myself in the past, to great results! Perhaps sophisticated Ikesian alchemy might even be able to refine the formula into a safe form Safer, at least.
Will it not be an issue if we take Primary Spring water out of Borea?
That seemed to give Gunnar some pause, and at that time Torhild leaned in to answer in her fathers stead: Oh, it would be, were you not You. Some primary spring water is nothing compared to a sapdragons flesh, blood, or the heart of a fallen star. Besides, it has been exported to honored blood-brother clans in the past. The only condition is that you do not sell or otherwise supply the water to outsiders. The honor of access to a Primary Springs benefits even in the Everfertile Valley of Willows is one which flows from your great honor and blood bond to the Hulson Clan, the honor system would not permit others to partake of that benefit.
I am immensely thankful for the offer, after all your clan and the Borean people at large have done for us already. I only have one question: What if we use the Aase techniques to develop our own version that does not use water from the Boiling Lakes source springs?
221 - Further Consequences of the Hulson-Ramdall Blood Feud Pt. 2
There should be no problem with you using the Aases refinement methods to develop your own. Its mostly about the water, Torhild shrugged. We cant very well keep our techniques secret, and if a foreigner manages to learn some of our techniques, then that speaks to their skill and worthiness, be it through reverse-engineering an enemys techniques or by befriending a Borean. The water, however, is a resource unique to Borea, you understand. It is akin to the vast reserves of jade which are found beneath Pateirias many mountain ranges.
I see no reason to refuse, then, Zel said. She was more than glad to accept, as she had been curious what Makhus or Ozmir would make of everything she would bring back with her.
The festivities continued on for several days after this exchange. Never once during these days of revelry did Zelsys use Carnifex as a weapon. She only made use of its unique properties in conjunction with the Impelling Arm and her magic to create elaborate performance routines, dances of blade and lightning.
It was a matter of principle, and none dared to question or object; the Borean people understood exactly what she meant by it when she refused to use the blade in combat even against captured beasts from the Crescent Jungle.
She did, however, partake in gambling; though she disliked games of pure chance on principle, Borean gambling games involved a healthy balance of both luck and skill. It quickly became known that Zelsys Newman was as savage in gambling as she was in combat. Zel couldnt help herself; planning around randomness and accounting for the hands of her opponents managed to entertain her in a way similar to combat without being actual combat. There was also the advantage that skilled gamblers were much easier to find than combatants who could give her a satisfying fight. She ended up coming away with a profit of four starmetal hrivns and some small trinkets, as she had won only perhaps one-tenth more often than she had lost, due to learning the games and playing for fun rather than to win. Several of her wins came from opponents backing out from sheer intimidation, a fact which Zefaris found terribly amusing.
You were glancing at them like you might spit lightning any second, of course they pulled out! the blonde laughed.
I was just reading their body language to figure out if they had good hands! Zel defended herself.
So the festivities went on.
As for Carnifex, the Butcher Reborn, the blade would see its first real battle against Zhumei Karmesin.
Incidentally, their duel couldnt take place until the feast ended because Red spent the entire time locked in a cycle of drinking contests.
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Such a delay was the bare minimum for Zel to get reacquainted with her blade. It was in part simply shaking off the rust; she hadnt used a great-cleaver with any significant frequency for the better part of a year, after all. That took only a short time, however. The real challenge came from dialing in the exact proper application for the techniques shed developed in anticipation of its new form. While wielding Carnifex in its cleaver form was all but instinctual, properly controlling its segmented form posed a greater challenge than shed anticipated. A visit to Ingvald right after her and Jorfrs return, however, proved exceptionally helpful And amusing to boot.
Ingvald all but fell to his knees and worshiped at the clawed feet of Fulguris when he bore witness to the spirits manifestation, only to catch himself and get back up as if he hadnt just done what he did. Much to the spirits quiet confusion, the Forgehand looked upon her as if she were precious offspring, the dissonance only rendered more severe by the cartoonish disparity between their heights.
May I see the cleaver form? he requested.
Zel grabbed Fulguris tail, sitting down on the ground with the massive cleaver in her lap so that Ingvald could get a close look.
Oh, oh this is even better than I couldve hoped he gushed as he ran his fingers over the cleavers flat. Hidden runes shone through from beneath the black-crusted surface, tracing the natural pattern of a Lichtenberg figure.
Not even looking up from the blade, he spoke to Zelsys: I do have a piece of advice to give you, and I truly hope that it will be useless because you already know, but Ill tell it to you just in case: Take time to get reacquainted with your blade. Im sure you were well aware when you conceived of the segmented design, but the fundamental nature of your weapon has changed. You cannot treat it as a mere great-cleaver, or even as its original saw-cleaver form which you used in the Blue Moon War. Why, I would go so far as to say you could develop a whole new martial art around this weapon, merging techniques for cleavers, saws, meteor hammers, rope darts
That was my plan from the first, Zel lied. She hadnt planned it as much as she had gone with the flow, forging what she already had with the flame of inspiration. In retrospect, this was beneficial. Had the Butcher never broken, she wouldve never gone through all this and she wouldve never become stronger this quickly. In this way, she was thankful for hardship. The development of Arcline and Fulgarrow, her aggressive refinement of the Conquerors Mantle, her continued development of alternative Mantle variants such as the Eight-Armed Avatar of Destruction Formation It all stemmed from the need to compensate for the crippling power loss from the Butchers breaking.
Hold it like this, would you? he asked, striking a pose with one of his mockups of the blade as a stand-in. I wish to take charcoal sketches.
Zel was more than happy to oblige. The Forgehands focus remained steadily fixed on the blade. He took several sketches of it both in one piece and separated, obsessively comparing how it had changed from the original segmented parts to the final blade.
Alright, now the spirit, can you make it turn back to the spirit?
He repeated the same exact process with Fulguris. It was notably more strange this go round, though Fulguris quickly got a feel for posing by simply following Zels example.
222 - The Difference Between Righteous and Idealist Cultivators
In this time, Zefaris quietly took several photographs; from Ingvald inspecting Carnifex Fulguris, to him feverishly sketching it both as a weapon and as a spirit. She managed to catch a moment where he rubbed out a swath of charcoal in anger at his own failure to capture the true thickness of Fulguris thighs.
Gradually, the Fey Moods hold over Ingvald loosened. His obsession had been satisfied to the fullest conceivable extent, and with the power of the Forgemother having been exhausted for the short-term, his mind was now clear. It took a short time after this before he fully calmed down, as even without being gripped by divine insanity, he was still enamored with both forms of his Great Work. After seeing Zefs photographs, he asked to see the manual, if she had it. Giving it a brief read led him to use an oblique alchemical process to create full-colour, metal printed copies for himself.
Its not so complicated, what that machine does to fancy paper Dont tell those SuFeSh guys that I copied their process, eh? I wager theyd get upset, going by all the legalese on the first page.
Afterwards he went into the back to retrieve something, but this was only after he had hung several of the metal-prints up around his above - notably one which captured Fulguris in her full glory, flexing with one arm and pointing skyward with the other.
Ah Right, here, Ingvald said, holding out a small, palm-sized rectangle. It was starmetal, of course, engraved with a complex glyph on one side and etched to reveal the starmetals damascened pattern. You can link it to your Tablet. If you find someone with the knowhow and tooling, you might be able to get em to transfer the logic automaton into it wholesale, rid you of that cumbersome stone thing. Not my forte, sad to say. Ive got a couple more blanks that I made in case I fucked up on the first go round. Take them.
Ingvald, youve already given me-
-enough to make us even. Not an iota more. And even if I happen to give you another thing, it will still be enough to make us even and not an iota more. I watched the whole thing; the Forgemother showed me. Her - your - words still ring inside my head, yknow; a flame that burns so bright to lighten the darkest night sky, all that. Didnt take you for such an idealist.
What did you take me for? she grinned, raising an eyebrow.
Theres a worlds gap between a cultivator with principles, a righteous cultivator even, and one who truly sees herself as a righteous destroyer of evil. I suppose there has to be a reason you have the Charred Judges face, the Forgehand grinned right back.
Now siddown and turn around, I want a look at that seal on your back. It cant be a typical Fog Storage deal, so I wager
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Zel had spun on a heel and dropped to the ground by this point, with the Forgehand instantaneously lurching forward to closely inspect the strange seal which now seemed to contain Carnifex Fulguris. He ran the coarse fingers of his burned hand over it, hemming and hawing until he uttered: Oh, I see whats going on. Throw all my theories right out the fuckin window, I guess.
You know how the glyph works already?
Me? Hell no, I couldnt figure this shit out if I stared at your asscrack for a year! My piece of the Forgemother just up and told me, just now. Youve forge-welded yourself and that cleaver together; siamese twins dont have souls this conjoined. This glyph must be like one of those curse-marks that parasitic spirits manifest out of, but For a weapon spirit. The cleavers now a part of you as much as that bronze arm. Helluva way to take Storm-soul Cultivations union with the blade tenet to the next level. I just wish I could take a look inside to see if youve got seven starmetal vertebrae to go with the glyph.
Forge-welded together, you say? Youd think that I wouldve noticed changes by now, she grinned.
Only if your weapon spirit happened to be of a different disposition to yours, which uh
Ingvald glanced at one of the metal prints, depicting Zelsys and Fulguris in the same exact pose, smugly pointing a finger at the camera.
...I dont think it could be any less the case. In the most extreme circumstance, a weapon spirit might simply refuse to cooperate or even fight the wielder for control over the body, if the spirit is ancient and the would-be wielder is some dipshit that pulled the shiny sword out of a rock in the woods. Though, I doubt that even one of the Seven Slaughtering Swords could take much of a hold of you. I would very much like to say that I have advice as to how to deal with being fused to an inhuman spirit, what with my own cohabitation with the Forgemother and all, but I dont. Youre on your own.
He slapped Zelsys on the back. By the time she stood back up, the Forgehand was already gone again, and returned with a small handful of Hun coins.
Next thing, the money. I said I only needed three-thousand three-hundred thirty-three in Hun, but I ended up using nearly everything you gave me for the reinforcing enchantments. The power in those coins is Not so great. I would suggest that you do not become enamored with Jade Dragons, either; they are not unique by any means, and derive their greatest value from their ability to stabilize far vaster flows of magic through their use to form trigrams. A blade the likes of yours couldnt be forged only using Jade Dragons and mundane steel even if one had a whole storehouse of the things.
Zel smiled.
I never fully expected Jade Dragons to suffice to begin with. Why else do you think I chased after every other opportunity that presented itself? You, the Fallenstar Heartmetal, Eisengeist, Eldartha itself. Though, I cant help but ask - what exactly did you use my Hun for?
Momentum Control Assistance and Center of Mass Adjustment. You could say I used them to smooth out the edges of those enchantments, so to speak. Before you go, come back in a couple days. I''ll have everything else finished by then. Bring Jorfr. Now leave me be, I need to rest my old bones and ponder what I shall make of the dragonsteel I kept for myself. A classical wolfblade sword, perhaps
It was abundantly clear that he was forcing himself to shoo them away, his gaze constantly magnetized by Carnifex Fulguris. Zel acquiesced, and departed his abode for the time being.
223 - Breakthrough
Days passed.
Zel continued shaking off what rust remained, and for once, she did so in seclusion, away from prying eyes. Deep, deep beneath the Bjorn longhouse complex, inside a vast natural cave in the permafrost through which a Primary Spring river ran. Constant popping and creaking accompanied the rivers sound, the vast mass of glacierglass struggling against the heat of the water and steam inside great pipes. The particular location where she trained was far from any operational equipment, of course. She had gone into seclusion after determining the exact date her and Red''s duel would take place, leaving her six days to prepare. It wasn''t as if she wanted to stay in Borea much longer, either; not for dislike of this land, but because her stay here had already outlasted the original plan by over a month.
In the time since her return from Eldartha, Carnifex adjusted its form yet further to better fit her. This, too, had been thoroughly recorded for future sagas. These were minute changes to its shape on the blade side, but its sawteeth transformed completely. The numerous, smaller teeth which it had been designed with changed to something more closely resembling the huge feather-like teeth of the form it first took at the Exclusion Zone''s border. Each segment grew on its spine a daggerlike fang, slightly curved forwards, except the second segment from the front, which for some reason also developed a second, smaller fang.
Looking back, the reason couldn''t be more obvious. Zel had kept the smaller sawteeth thinking that they would still be a better choice against hard targets, but she had overlooked something Fulguris thankfully didn''t. These huge individual teeth would each act as warpicks to bite into a surface initially, and their oscillation combined with all other factors would combine to far outpace any advantage realistically-sized sawteeth still had.
With a supply of Fulgur they not only oscillated with incredible violence, but horrifying arcs of lightning leapt between them; the saw-side''s ability to act as a saw had only grown. These larger sawteeth granted the extra advantage of acting as grips if she needed to engage in truly brutish cleaverwork, as they simply became dull when she grabbed onto them. Conversely, the blade-side became white-hot in moments and without much energetic investment, and could also perform sawing action just as she had planned when she drafted the segmented design.
For these mutations in its form, Carnifex Fulguris had gained the moniker of "Self-reforging Blade". Rumours quickly spread that a piece of the Forgemother was embedded in each of its segments.
Her Fog-breathing, regardless of technique, barely produced any visible exhaust by now, and the quantity of actual air she moved had dropped since Eldartha. By her estimate, her Fog-breathing now drew nine-tenths of its power directly from the Sea of Fog. Merely operating her breathing method to generate Fulgur caused little beads of lightning to emerge near her head, spontaneously forming from the tiny bits of Fog and the Fulgur-field which shrouded her.
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The Fulgur which her body constantly, passively generated had also grown, as she had expected it to. It had taken some deliberation, but she was certain that her passive output now surpassed the maximum Fulgur she could generate at any point during the Willowdale Dungeon Incident, not accounting any uses of the Retributive Battery.
It very nearly felt like cheating, to be able to just throw lightning without having to do a breathing technique, even a basic one; though, admittedly, the Impelling Arm made it easier. As for her connection to the earthly spirits, it no longer felt as though a distinct internal reserve of Metallum with a hard upper limit. Whenever she reached out for Metallum, it was just There. Waiting, offering itself up to her. She was now drawing from a bottomless well, and its only limiting factor was the failure point of her spiritual musculature.
More out of curiosity than desire for guidance, she checked her Tablet.
The Logic Automaton struggled ever more with each advancement she made. It had completely given up trying to guide her, only giving her surface-level trait and attribute readings. At this point, she barely paid attention to the attributes beyond a brief glance and a satisfied smirk at their expected growth since her blades rebirth. Finally, an S in Force. It barely meant anything. This rating system had been designed and calibrated in the Dark Age of Cultivation, after all.
Her traits had changed, too.
The Core of Earthly Iron was gone; rather, it had become something else.
By the Tablet''s flickery messages, it seemed that her cultivation in Borea had advanced it to a further stage, and Eldartha had completely reformed the core into something new: The Hammerforged Heart.
By the distinct absence of a second heartbeat, Zel wagered the name was not literal. She was ever so slightly disappointed by this fact, but then... Perhaps the Hammerforged Heart was in fact located inside her heart, just as the Necrobeast''s Azoth Stone had been located inside its heart. She couldn''t exactly sense something that might be weightlessly suspended inside flowing liquid, but since her blood flow had not changed, she didn''t worry about it. There would be time to determine the physical consequences later.
The Tablet also implied another possibility that she had considered, this being Carnifex Fulguris possibly awakening whatever tenuous draconic blood had caused her eyes to be as they were. It showed as a trait with no effects, named "Dragonkin (Nascent)". At least the Logic Automaton came up with an advancement plan for this one: Consume refined draconic essence. In short, she would rely on the expertise of Makhus and Ozmir to make pills and elixirs for her. Zel couldn''t imagine a particularly pronounced result, but even gaining the weakest possible Dragonstone, one equivalent to an Ankylodragon''s, would be helpful. It would certainly add to her intimidation factor, that was for sure.
More interestingly for the moment, a new Skill Trait appeared: Fang-cleaver Expertise. At least, that was the name the trait manifested when Zel laid eyes on it. It showed up strangely overlaid overtop of Great-cleaver Expertise. She didn''t mind.
224 - Seclusion Training: Uncoiling Scolopendra
At this time, Zelsys made the decision to clean up her techniques list somewhat, collapsing Beast-butchering Arts and Formless Butchery into the single category of "Butchering Arts", for simplicity''s sake. Geheimnis would remain as a category for more esoteric and non-combative techniques.
Despite all these changes, despite having returned to the peak of her strength and surpassed it by far, Zelsys was down here, in seclusion, frustrated.
The reason was simple: Even now, she couldnt produce swordlight.
Swordlight, that energy which some manuals described as Armament Aura when it came to unorthodox, non-swordlike weapons, or even armor and shields. She could certainly form constructs of Fulgur and launch them just as she would do with the Flying Thundersaw technique, but this was not swordlight as any tome or scroll described it, and she had more efficient methods of attacking with lightning. In the most orthodox sense, Armament Aura was a spiritual phenomenon formed when the soul of an armaments bearer came into resonance with the soul of the armament. Unorthodox methods, such as the Walking Way of the Formless Sword, centered around generating swordlight with anything the wielder got their hands on. The Formless Sword achieved this by creating an armament spirit which dwelt inside the wielder''s own soul in a manner not unlike Thundergods or other elemental daemons. The user would then extend this spirit into anything from a floppy sleeve to a stick or his own hand. It was said to be one of the arts devised by Sagruhel Ironhand, alongside a mysterious, forbidden art that gave him total control over his own body.
Even in orthodox manuals, Storm-soul Cultivation was explicitly listed as one of the methods whose practitioners most commonly achieved swordlight
And here she was.
Wielding a blade which had torn the Living Storm from the heavens, which had slain one of the divine generals, even before it had been reborn. A blade forged from the heart of a meteorite and the "claw" of a dragon, a blade which had been brought to new life with the token of the Skinless One as a hammer, a blade bathed in the essence of the same dragon whose body had given part of its material. A blade forged with all the power of a living god of craftsmen.
And she couldn''t even make it spit out a stupid sword beam. She could feel Fulguris seething over this fact as well, the blade''s individual segments shuddering and its twin arclines flaring in anger.
It really shouldn''t have ticked her off as badly as it had, but she figured if she was going to take a go at seclusion training in preparation for her duel with Red, she might as well resolve this annoyance before it can grow into a mental block.
Thus, she set herself to iterating on the Flying Thundersaw to a degree which would entirely divorce the technique from a mere imitation of flying blades and swordlight waves.
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Carnifex split. Lightning arced between its segments.
One swing. Five blades flew out.
Three days of continuous refinement passed in the blink of an eye. Zelsys had only eaten once in this time, and it was not out of need, but because she had grown frustrated with lack of progress and decided to clear her head for a few hours. Her sole meal fell into this rest period.
At this moment, she finally felt ready to attempt distilling a new technique.
Fulguris appeared by Zelsys'' side.
Upon her mistress grasping the handle that was the end of her tail, Fulguris became Carnifex.
A core of Metallum contained in the second stomach, side by side with a core of Fulgur. Both of them containing vast and terrible elemental power, compressed with terrible fierceness, but in a short span of time. Unstable. Then, both cores were smashed together.
Carnifex grew. And grew. And grew.
One after the next, dozens of new segments appeared between the first and endmost segment, coiling into a spiral around Zelsys.
One swing.
The many-segmented monstrosity uncoiled with terrible violence.
Dozens of gashes appeared in the glacierglass around her, from the floor, to the walls and ceiling, forming a spiral pattern.
She called back all these disparate blades, repairing them with some more Metallum and arraying them back into their places, with equal numbers of construct segments between each real segment and the next. For ease of distinction, she decided to refer to her blade''s real segments as True Fangs, and construct segments as False Fangs. Having already decided to only separate the middle five Fangs from Carnifex due to their mutual similarity, Zel also decided to distinguish the first and last segments from the rest: The Root and Crown.
Further repetition.
Many gashes now scarred her environment, despite her environment''s constant and quite aggressive regeneration, which was accompanied by creaking from the growing-in glacierglass. If she didn''t know better, she might think it was the ice sheet itself groaning at her for making it exert effort.
A new technique was born, named for the ultra-lengthened Carnifex''s unsettling resemblance to a giant centipede.
BUTCHERING ARTS: UNCOILING SCOLOPENDRA
Three more days.
Beneath the Bjorn longhouse, there were people in subterranean chambers. Some were in seclusion, meditating or communing with the earthen spirits, or perhaps those of the glacier itself.
Several of these individuals felt an untoward tremor at that moment, however. Not merely physical, but spiritual. As if some overwhelming intent to tear them limb from limb had just surged up from beneath. In the following days, the still-recovering Bjorn clan''s head would find himself dealing with questions about a terrible beast sealed away under the estate, and whether that beast might be breaking free.
Their concerns were anything but placated when they learned that the source of that inhumanly savage aura was none other than the hero who had woken the Revenant King.
The majority of her time before the duel had passed, and Zelsys had deepened her precision control over Carnifex''s segments. She hadn''t expected that such precise control was even possible, but here she was, able to completely remove the five central True Fangs and rejoin the remaining two into a hooked cleaver. If need be, she could fill in the missing True Fangs with False ones to make up for the lost size, though this would obviously not be a perfect replacement. The issue of losing segments didn''t concern her, as she had quickly figured out that she could simply demanifest the blade, including all its separated True Fangs, and it would be whole when she next summoned it.
225 - Seclusion Training: Fang Ripper
Her efforts in supplanting swordlight had also progressed to a point she was satisfied with. She had started with manipulating individual Fangs into projectile forms by causing their sawteeth to straighten out and grow to a spearlike length. Then, she would spin the resultant Fang Spear, bringing it to a white-hot glow before throwing it with a whipping motion. The False Fang Spear embedded so deeply into the ice that she just left it to disintegrate rather than try to call it back, gouts of steam erupting from the wound for a short while afterwards. The thunderous crack of its breaking the sound-speed barrier was no longer a jarring noise, but merely the satisfying sign that she had successfully combined the benefits of Fulgarrow and Thunderclap Sting in a repeatable format. She couldn''t help but feel pride when she brought out all the blades she had accrued for use with Fulgarrow and compared them to a False Fang Spear, finding that its properties completely overshadowed every single real, well-forged blade she had, even the Dragon Knight ones.
The Fang Spear was ideal as a direct armor-penetrating attack, and one that could be used with her braids at that. The effort to result ratio wasn''t just good, it was great. Sure, it was no Bloodstar Impact, but she wasn''t entirely sure where to even begin breaking that down into a normal technique due to all the different factors that enabled its use. Reproducing a normal version of it, of course, was far more plausible.
It was, however, not a true replacement for swordlight. No, that came from the combination of three Fangs into the shape of a buzzsaw. Even while split from the main body, individual Fangs still benefitted from their usual properties, their sawteeth oscillating and violent arcs leaping between them. Two were not quite enough, with the arcs struggling to clear a 180 gap, while using four or five started to give diminishing returns. Thus, she settled on a three-Fang composition as a baseline, and five for when the additional power was truly needed.
First, a version using False Fangs.
Formation; the growth of False Fangs between True Fangs.
Joining; removal of False Fangs from the main body and their conjoining into a buzzsaw.
Spin-up; infusion of Fulgur to empower the chakram. Arcs formed between individual teeth and magnetic fields spun it up to thousands of revolutions per minute, combined with Zelsys physically spinning the whole thing like one would a sling.
Launch; the whipping motion to actually launch it and optional severing of the arcline if the projectile was to reach further than roughly 15m, or for any of a myriad other reasons.
Such was the process, and the result was a screaming glaive that could casually tear holes into glacierglass. Naming it was as simple as observing it in action.
BUTCHERING ARTS: FANG RIPPER
She sicced it upon a target pillar instead of just the wall, and found that even as a fire-and-forget option, the Fang Ripper had the curious property of hungrily sticking to a target, revolving around its perimeter until its energy ran out or the target fell to pieces. Already, ideas of dismembering giant beasts by setting two or three Fang Rippers on one limb swirled through her head.
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Despite producing a far flashier result, the nascent technique ate up less Fulgur and Metallum than the old Flying Thundersaw.
The reason was twofold:
Firstly, Carnifex Fulguris was orders of magnitude more powerful as an amplifier than the Lightning Butcher had ever been. It didn''t just offer up far less resistance to any Fulgur or Metallum she poured into it; there was no resistance. It greedily drank up what it was given, only to turn around and spit out three or fourfold the expected result.
Secondly, Carnifex was designed from the first to produce False Fangs. It was as natural a part of the blade''s function as splitting into segments and rejoining. The old Butcher''s enchantments had to be finagled into letting the back edge split off and to then grow a new one.
The technique wasn''t just a ranged attack; she could remotely control the projectiles to a degree and re-establishing an arcline connection was downright trivial. If she so wished, she could even join the arcline of a Fang Ripper to Carnifex''s handle and insodoing transform Carnifex into an entirely different weapon; a sickle-and-chain of sorts. She didn''t see herself using this option particularly often, but it only served to demonstrate the staggering versatility of its design.
Next came the version using True Fangs, and its downright brutal cutting power only made Zelsys feel all the better for choosing to develop this option. With the need to create the projectile removed, the True Fang Ripper would be as readily accessible in a split-second situation as any other of her more involved physical attacks. When formed into a Ripper, any constituent True Fangs subtly shifted in shape to match one another, without even requiring the overt command to do so.
The tactical value of the technique couldn''t be understated.
False Fangs still made for strong rippers, and were visually indistinguishable from True Fangs. The real trick came in with the fact she could form a saw from True Fangs and use their supreme properties to imbue them with a hidden payload, using False Fangs as a diversion.
Despite her single-minded goal, Zelsys had by no means tunnel-visioned on the solitary purpose of creating a swordlight analogue of greater sophistication than the Thundersaw. The absence of a continuous "saw" surface on Carnifex''s back edge and the blade''s inherent properties made the Thundersaw obsolete to begin with. It could produce Thundersaw-like effects without the need for a special technique.
On the whole, her grasp of Carnifex had grown by leaps and bounds. This was not the realm of untrodden ground and murky waters, after all, but one of dialing in what she already knew to make it fit Carnifex as best as possible, and then building ontop of that pre-existing foundation.
It was this training that had reinforced what Zelsys already knew to be the nature of her own cultivation. No great breakthrough came without a monumental foundation, and in the same way, she built upon everything she already had, everything she already knew. There could be no innovation without looking back at what was already known, and merely by re-applying old knowledge in new ways and combinations, the paradigm could be made to shift.
The fundamentals of saw-cleaver combat and basics of weaponizing Fulgur.
The full involvement of the whole body in every strike, leading up to Thunderclap Sting.
The Flying Thundersaw, a technique born of mere fancy, previously good only for chaff-clearing.
Fulgarrow as a compensatory method of sustained ranged combat to make up for a crippled melee range.
Advanced lightning control culminating in Arcline, both allowing Thundergods to take proper form and allowing Carnifex Fulguris to exist in the first place. After all, the segmented design had been born from an application of Arcline to temporarily return range to the Broken Butcher.
Even her experience using the torn-off mandibles of locust-men would be applicable when she would form a Five True Fang Ripper, and thus would need to shorten Carnifex down to just the Root and Crown Fangs.
226 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise
Before emerging from seclusion, Zel took a few moments to double-check that the new Fog Storage bangle from Ingvald was safely attached to her belt, and that his new shells were securely on her belt. She hadn''t dared actually fire them down here, after the horrifying output they demonstrated during the test-fire on the surface.
The shells and projectiles of course weren''t the only factor by far, but even with Atrine-enriched powder, they somehow produced around two-and-a-half times as much power as normal brass, and sent back half the usual recoil. Zel could scarcely wait to return with her spoils and find that Collier had some insane powder formulation that would be useless for anyone but a cultivator with dragonsteel shells.
On the dawn of the next day, two larger-than-life figures departed for the Crescent Jungle, both enigmatic and surpassing humanity in a way not many in Oasis City did; clan leaders and honored elders, great druids and warriors without equal. Draugrs. Living legends and reclusive immortals. Beings who could no longer be considered entirely human as far as "being human" meant being bound to a limited body with a limited lifespan.
Even many cultivators fell under the umbrella of humanity... But neither the Lady in Red nor the Manufactured Paragon fell among their ranks.
Indeed, they were inhuman creatures.
They departed from Oasis City side by side, one upon a blackstone dragonfly, and the other upon a monstrous motorbike with a metal mammoth''s skull at its front.
There were none who witnessed their bout from a close enough distance to document it; or rather, none who would speak of it and make its course or its result known to history.
It was a terrible battle which forever left marks upon the Crescent Jungle and the ice sheet alike, marks which remained as they were because the Revenant King willed it so, commanding the leshies to only repair what damage had to be repaired.
That terrible battle, which unfolded over the course of three days in waxing and waning bouts, took place many meters off the ground, rarely ever reaching the undergrowth of the Crescent Jungle. Whether jumping from tree to tree, simply flying, or using manifested Thundergods as grapples, neither Karmesin nor Zelsys had any need to conform to the grounding demand of gravity. At times, Zelsys would even put electromagnetism to task in levitating herself or slowing her fall by manipulating her own semi-metallized flesh, but she could not fly in the same unfettered manner as Red.
A carnivale of deathly northlight filled the ancient jungle, rays and myriad arrows screaming through the air and filling it with a phantasmagoria that would send those with weaker minds into seizure or else force them to temporarily blind themselves lest they be struck to the ground in convulsions. Uncountable pillars dotted the treescape, a twisting maze that only grew more complex with time, being added onto faster than it could crumble away. For the better part of ten hours, they battled around the perimeter of a single tree, and in the course of this battle, Karmesin uprooted it with her constructs, slowly, undetectably. She then brought it crashing down straight onto Zelsys, after having already surrounded her with a formation that would hold her for mere seconds, but that was enough.
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Karmesin dared not hope when the tree crashed down on her foe and silence reigned. Her hesitation to hold out hope was proven right when the absolute terror of a woman simply emerged at the tree''s edge, having dug through hundreds of meters of root-strengthened earth with barely any air, as if her breathing technique no longer required it. By comparison, the feat was akin to digging through the same distance in solid mundane stone. She had prepared, however; she had detected Zelsys'' impending emergence and prepared, arranging three of her subcores as the pillars of a formation, while herself using the fourth as an amplifier. The rainbow orb floated in the palm of her hand, reflector plates revolving around it and sending rays of northlight to each of the pillars in turn. Her skull threatened to pull apart. Three more horns emerged from the back of her head as the crystal substance of her nervous system strained. Blood, so filled with northlight strands as to nearly lose its crimson shade, poured forth from her eyes, her ears, her nose and mouth, from the very gaps where the Crown of Horns grew through her skull. She hated that shape, hated it for reminding her of the wretched form she''d taken in the Dungeon, but it was the only way she could exert the world-bending power that this formation demanded.
From the surrounding soil and wood, and couple out of thin air, eleven black pillars slammed into place to enclose the emerging Newman Elder as she exploded out from beneath the fallen tree. Between each pillar, further branch pillars formed connections. They weren''t mere faux-blackstone. The accursed lilac magic of the Black Rod pulsed through them. Back then, during the blood feud, a fragment of eldritch knowledge had lodged itself into Karmesin''s brain. Unlike mortals, she hadn''t had the privilege of merely forgetting or going mad, she had to parse it and learn what it meant, just as that Doppelsoldner had done.
The formation pressed inward until the physical space within it was no more than, at most, half a meter across.
What better to suppress the Walking Tribulation than the power which imprisoned the Sun itself?
IDOLATRY SIGN
SIX TRIGRAM ELEVENFOLD BURIAL
CRIMSON COMMAND: PANDORA 66
Zelsys found herself trapped in another plane, in a dome of blackstone pillars, half-submerged in the Sea of Fog. Almost like that time back in Arches, but much, much smaller, barely large enough to stand up in. She prepared to simply smash her way out, but the blackstone pulsed with lilac light illustrating uncountable trigrams on the dome''s many surfaces, and merely glimpsing them dragged at her eyes and made her brain ache. She found her strength waning, a crushing, choking pressure robbing it from her. It was almost as if she had just been forced back down to the state she was in on the road from Arches to the Meat Market. Almost.
She sat down, closed her eyes, and did what she could.
This was halfway between the material world and the Sea of Fog, after all.
Karmesin had inadvertently handed her the means by which she would break this formation.
227 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. 2
Just as she had gradually and carefully purified an ignition core in her battle against Von Wickten''s Entomodragon form, Zelsys did the same here. Trying to exert power through her own body was meaningless, she felt it just from how this antediluvian power crushed down upon her. However, the Conqueror''s Mantle in itself was not an external exertion of power. It was a set of strengthening techniques which added up to vastly magnify Zel''s ability to project power, primarily through forming a short-lived Fulguric reactor core in her second stomach. By orthodox cultivation terms, it was a complex method of creating a False Core without suffering permanent consequences.
As the light of Fulgur flooded her eyes, and the antlers grew from her head, Zelsys poured everything she could into her connection with Fulguris, bidding the spirit to make itself known.
Relief flooded her when Fulguris manifested in her full glory, seething with Fulguric power and the heat of her many blades, which also all oscillated such that the Fog-water underfoot stirred into a churning frenzy around the spirit''s feet.
"Carnifex Fulguris... Do as you will. You know your task."
On the outside, Karmesin could scarcely believe what she was seeing. It was not the fact the Walking Tribulation had somehow managed to break a formation based on trigrams formed from her fragmentary understanding of antediluvian sealing magic.
"Two minutes and thirteen seconds!" the Lady in Red exclaimed smugly, already having called back her subcores into a typical formation of four Flying Eight-trigram Reactors. They acted both as supporting thrusters for her self-propelled flight and as weapons. "I expected you to break it in a minute and a half at most."
Zelsys lashed after Karmesin while her Thundergods grew and coiled around her in preparation to pull her along, spitting a deluge of ball lightning all the while. The Lady in Red had no issue dodging or otherwise neutralizing the suppressive fire, it was Carnifex that she was concerned about. She''d come to understand that Zelsys favoured a particular number of extra segments when attacking with her strange, living weapon at range... But it was barely reliable. Using that knowledge could, at best, give her a one-third chance at dodging one of her attacks on reaction. Leveraging her own superior range was the only way she could win, as it nonetheless took time for the segmented blade to unfurl into a great enough length. Though... Something felt off. She couldn''t shake the feeling that Zelsys was holding out. She hadn''t even used the Mantle yet. Red had sensed it for a moment when that blade spirit of hers broke Pandora 66, but it vanished the moment the spirit turned back to a weapon.
Red zipped off deeper into the forest, and Zelsys followed close behind.
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The battle continued on as if it had never come to a halt in the first place.
Carnifex, with its edge reverberating faster than any eye could see, tore through Karmesins blackstone as a flaming sword would cut through wood. Its segments carved holes straight through the jungle''s giant trees, leaving waterfalls of burning sap cascading down their trunks. A number of great beasts made the foolish mistake of straying into the path of the red and blue death-comets as they clashed against one another. They disturbed a mansion-sized hive of man-sized killer bees, but even these mighty armored insects soon learned better than to come after either of the two battlers. Dozens fell to northlight-hued arrows that had not even been intended for them, and dozens more were rent asunder by the incessant whip-like lashing of a terrible blade that didnt just pass through them as if they were not even there, but shredded them to bits with its mere touch.
It wasn''t until the third day of their battle that Zelsys deigned to bring out her newest tricks. It was not out of a sense of superiority or part of some elaborate plan, and it wasn''t due to a desire to keep her abilities hidden, either. She had simply become so engrossed in the battle that she hadn''t thought to use them.
Indeed, it was Karmesin''s own deluge of devilish and delightful stratagems that forced Zelsys to employ these new techniques. An ambush formed from dozens of self-detonating blackstone insects. Hundreds rained down upon her as if out of nowhere, as Karmesin had cleverly disguised pillars behind tree branches, and upon these pillars, like fruits, her constructs had grown. When man-sized spiders that exploded into shrapnel and northlight arrows rained down, Zel realized that she had been in this particular part of the jungle. It was hard not to recognize that unique pattern of environmental damage. It had been around twelve hours ago, during a lull in the fight, when she and Karmesin had engaged in a three-hour-long shootout from a distance of over half a kilometer. It was true that Zelsys herself had laid her own plans in that time, but she hadn''t expected Red to go for a tactic like this.
She bided her time picking off the first landers while the rest careened down towards the ground. At this point she already knew that dealing with this would demand the Mantle, and though it was still the crude version which Zelsys had devised as a compensatory aid, she entered that state in the span of seven breaths. From a last-ditch grab for power, the Mantle had become an invaluable tool to squeeze out extra output when she really needed it... And then turn it off until she needed it again.
When had Red figured out Servitors to begin with? Were these even Servitors, or was this part of her advancing along the path of a Pseudo-Dungeon Core? If she could just raise an army under her own strength, Red would be a nightmare to deal with in a proper armed conflict... Unless the Newman Sect''s own forces could do the same. She already had a start, between Victor and Jorfr.
Twin cores of Fulgur and Metallum. Carnifex grew. Dozens of segments, passing the mark of hundreds as the serpentine blade coiled around her.
When she felt the timing was right, when she felt the approach of Red''s falling army... That was when she let it rip. Indeed, she felt their impending approach; they had disturbed the field of Fulgur which extended out from her in all directions, and now, she had the capacity to react to anything within it, even to distinguish shape and texture.
BUTCHERING ART: UNCOILING SCOLOPENDRA
228 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. 3
It took several of these terribly demanding swings to exterminate the veritable construct-army, but now Zelsys had the constructs'' slightly-delayed detonations to worry about. As thousands of northlight arrows came raining down, she didn''t stop swinging, instead changing her swing pattern and adjusting Carnifex into a spiraling, parasol-like formation overhead. She exhaled great gusts of swirling Fog that were caught up in the motion, forming a solid cover off of whose surface Red''s arrows simply bounced off. For how horrendously inefficient it was, Zelsys couldn''t help but hold out favour for this external application of Rebound Pulse. Only now did she have the output to seriously consider using it, and even now, its gluttonous power demand stifled her willingness to use it. All in all, it was an unbelievably powerful defense, but... It only worked fully against purely physical attacks. She could sense many arrows slipping through the barrier and striking Carnifex. The flaw partially extended to the technique proper, but for some reason which escaped Zelsys, that flaw had expressed itself to a far lesser degree with her usual skin-surface application. Kineticism already being an extremely user-specific form of magic, she didn''t expect to get any answers anytime soon.
Besides, the rain of death had stopped and it was time to put away the parasol.
Dozens of False Fangs fell to the ground, released from the arcline as Zelsys pulled Carnifex back into its normal configuration.
Karmesin descended before her, and for a moment, the two faced one another down.
"You should not have discarded your constructs so soon," said the Lady in Red. Her octagonal death-ray cannons arrayed in awkward directions as both them and her directed a deluge of death at her daring duel-partner. None struck her, of course. Many she dodged, since most of those rays and arrows were just meant to occupy Zelsys'' attention. However, those few which had a hope of striking true, the only ones which Red had actually intended to strike true... Those found themselves dispersed when bolts of lightning struck the ground and, in an instant, segments which Carnifex had shed leapt up in threes as spinning discs of death, discs off of whom Red''s northlight bounced without harm.
The Walking Tribulation, bent over backwards in an awkward position after dodging three different attacks at once, turned to look at the Lady in Red with a smug, razor-fanged grin on her face, a ball of lightning seething in her right hand while her blade comfortably rested in her left.
"You should not have assumed that I had discarded them."
Yet another aspect of her recent growth which Zelsys didn''t think she could appreciate enough: Range.
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Before, it had been a whole process of carriers and proxies to act upon the external world with her own magic. She had even come to believe that the manner in which she harnessed magic was simply limited in that way; she was, after all, an outsider doing things every-which way other than the established one.
But now... Now Zelsys could just reach out and touch anything within a twenty-meter radius of herself, give or take depending on various factors. That range doubled when she ignited her Mantle and grew by that same amount in Fulgur-rich atmospheric conditions, compounding to an effective maximum of sixty meters. This was what it had to be like for Fryg and the Smoke Witch.
Great tongues of lightning lashed out from the maws of her Thundergods and from the very surface of her skin, washing over her surroundings. False Fangs slammed together in threes. She had, after all, purposely made their number divisible by that fraction, she had purposely dropped them, and she had begun forming a whole new Fulgur core right after initiating the Uncoiling Scolopendra.
The Lady in Red fled. Both of them had done so many times up until now, and the chase was, in Zel''s opinion, the best part of their fight.
This particular chase wasn''t long, though not for Karmesin''s lack of speed. By the time she realized that the number of Fang Rippers chasing her didn''t line up with the number Zelsys had formed, it was very nearly too late. She just about managed to throw up a defensive formation, enclosing herself in what was effectively an inverted Pandora 66, with its suppressive trigrams replaced by reinforcing ones. From the exterior, it appeared as a tangle of trigonal pillars formed into a sphere.
Dozens of Fang Rippers revolved about the perimeter of that ominous floating sphere, most of them carving channels into it before their power ran out and they fell away.
The truth was, this whole maneuver was Zel''s own version of one which Red had used to catch her out on the first day. It had put a hole through her liver the width of a fist, and two more straight through her stomach. One death-beam struck her Carnifex Fulguris Sigil, only to ricochet back and nearly hit Red herself. What Red had hoped to be a weak point was, in truth, possibly the least susceptible part of Zelsys.
The tactic was as simple as cutting off the escapee at an unexpected point, tricky to pull off with Fang Rippers, but Zelsys had managed to do so by letting the main chasing group go on independently while giving the ambush group the needed extra speed with direct arcline connections to constantly feed them the needed extra power.
Red''s defensive sphere, however, resisted... And so Zelsys let all her False Fang Rippers fall away, instead removing Carnifex''s five central segments and forming from them the Five True Fang Ripper. Her plan to break that shell wasn''t as simple as this.
It also involved Thundercannon.
The process of setting the Five True Fang Ripper on the sphere and having it gradually carve a line around its equator demanded a constant stream of Fulgur; the structure''s pseudo-antediluvian reinforcing magic wore away at the ripper''s power in the same way it had suppressed Zel''s effective cultivation level. It was even less merciful to the False Fang Rippers, breaking down the constructs from the first in a manner entirely unlike anything else she had seen. Nonetheless, being grown from supreme stock, they had held up well enough even without any extra Metallum.
229 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. 4
While the Five True Fang Ripper ran a feverish, screaming track around Red''s seclusion orb, Zelsys loaded the first of Ingvald''s spitzer-nosed hi-pen shells into Thundercannon, building up a great and terrible Fulguric charge both within and without. This was of course slowed somewhat by the need to fuel the ripper.
Nonetheless, the charge built, and she had a fairly substantial one already built in her Retributive Battery. She wound her braids around her left arm, her Thundergods biting down on the gun''s barrel whilst a flame-like expulsion of lightning formed from its muzzle, on its own as long as the gun''s barrel.
Calling back the ripper to rejoin Carnifex, she simply leapt down from the top of the sphere, catching herself on one of its many ridges before she buried her arm-cannon into the carved-out channel along its equator.
For a moment, just a moment, she could swear the myriad tongues of lightning which whipped around her had formed into the likeness of the armored sleeve''s spirit, floating right to her side, pressing his own left hand into the gap.
That was just a moment though.
A press down on the lever, ever so familiar.
Click.
Click.
"THUNDERCANNON!"
Blinding white brilliance flowing through her body.
Dozens of blackstone pillars scattered about the surroundings, wedged into the earth and trees like shrapnel. The shell''s path could be easily traced by uncountable flickering sparks in its trail and the man-sized wound it had carved through several huge trees right behind the blackstone sphere.
The recoil threw Zelsys like a ragdoll, albeit in no small part because she let it. She casually met the ground with the lashing-forward maws of her Thundergods, using them as tendrils to right herself and gently descend feet-first. She worked her gun''s bolt as Red careened to the ground, the lower half of her torso completely missing, her heart visibly hanging out the bottom of her ribcage, beating. Dozens of thin, trickling streams of iridescent blood rained down. Her veins glowed in an unsettling blend of iridescent and purple, while her bones were utterly pitch-black, the cracks upon them bleeding the same purple light. Her heart didn''t beat, it pounded, and the furious grimace on Red''s face was evidence enough of the reason.
Zelsys, though, couldn''t be more impressed.
She leaned slightly to the left as if to get a better look at the environmental impact of her attack, despite being able to see it just fine as she was, then leaned back when she returned her gaze to Red. Notably, Zel noticed the distinct absence of her subcores or any of the constructs she used to weaponize them. She had assumed that they were required to create such a powerful defensive formation, and perhaps might still be buried in the rubble. As she performed this gesture, she used a braid to remove the spent shell and let it return into Fog Storage, to be joined later by its sibling, the bullet.
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Abruptly, the fury melted from Red''s face; her furious grimace turned to a smug grin. A calm one. Somehow, that was more concerning than seeing her at her most psychotic.
"You know how this goes," she said, transitioning to a tone that suggested she was repeating something. "Did you really think that would work?!"
As far as Zel was concerned, it had worked better than expected. Her only goal with that tactic had been, after all, to break the shell; she''d half-expected Red to emerge somehow entirely unharmed.
The truth was, using the Recreation of Past Self had a major limitation; it could only be used once with each subcore, requiring a massive energy investment to re-arm each subcore after the fact. After Arches, it had taken her until she had formed her pseudo-dungeon in the Crescent Jungle to achieve that, though with it set up empowering the other subcores had been much faster. Red had already quietly used it once before in their fight, and was thus left down to two uses, assuming she could manage to set up the sacrificial effigy in time.
Zelsys didn''t know that, though, and Karmesin wasn''t about to reveal a major weakness. Three subcores emerged from behind her, slamming into place. At that exact same moment, all of the rubble from her defensive orb stirred to life, ripping itself out of the scenery and piling on around Zelsys in order to enclose her.
Just as numerous blackstone panels took form to shape a mighty cannon around all three subcores, so too did Red''s sundered form erupt in northlight, and moments later, she was mended. Another moment, and the fourth subcore joined the other three, forming a pyramid.
Zel couldn''t quite find a way out, especially since simply breaking her way out was not an option, and she didn''t see herself deflecting what she knew was coming with a parasol defense.
Carnifex Fulguris slammed back together into a solid blade without her input, then demanded a huge influx of Fulgur.
"Yeah. That''ll work."
Spiritual muscle strained, Metallum flooded in from below, the already faintly metallic-bronze sheen of Zel''s skin momentarily becoming impossible to ignore. Her entire right arm became encased in green patina, and Carnifex grew. Segment by segment snapped into being between the True Fangs, until the cleaver was half a forearm''s length longer than Zelsys was tall.
Carnifex''s edge swiftly turned to white, and its entirety began to shudder as huge arcs of lightning climbed from its hilt.
Both of them were ready, and for nearly ten full seconds, they stared one another down, one daring the other to strike first. It was Karmesin whose hold over the mighty power she had built up wavered first.
Karmesin''s hold over her own magic did falter, but it was not for lack of ability. She could''ve held back the technique for another twenty seconds if she really needed to.
No, it was a gut feeling. She''d heard of sword qi, of how a skilled or merely particularly violent swordsman might exude a sharp aura; in turn, she had also heard how a particularly spiritual sword, or one bathed in much blood, might have the same sort of aura even within a wielder.
230 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. 5
At that moment, just before she released her technique, Karmesin felt the overpowering sensation that she would be torn limb from limb at any moment, much like one would feel when facing down a predatory beast ready to pounce.
Thus, for the first time in a very long while, Karmesin acted on pure instinct and set the beam loose. A screaming ray of northlight ripped forth towards her foe, carving a swath through the earth and turning the air around its edges to chittering plasma not through brute force of heat energy or fulgur, but through the world trying to snap back into place in its wake.
It was a near-instant attack, the beam itself faster than lightning.
CRITICALITY SIGN
SUBCORE EMBODIMENT
CRIMSON COMMAND: MASTER SPARK
And yet, Zelsys slammed her blade down into the ground head-first, crouching behind it. It ignited into a screaming wedge of lightning, the beam was parted.
It fell silent, and when vision returned to the both of them, the Newman Elder rose up, her weapon wreathed in an aura of northlight-coloured lightning, for a swath of the beam''s power had been torn from it as it passed over the blade.
"But that''s... Not physically possible," the Lady in Red uttered, rearranging her subcores back into the usual setup of four Flying Eight-trigram Reactors. It wasn''t disbelief that she felt, but a mixture of surprise and confusion. She genuinely did not know how mere lightning had split her attack, one which, by all accounts, harnessed a higher-order energy, one powerful enough to suppress even a dragon''s magic.
"Did you not feel it? C''mon, I saw it in your eyes. I don''t have Sword Qi... Because I have this. You must''ve felt it even back in the dungeon, when I went for weak points that even you didn''t know you had. Even I didn''t know what exactly it was, but at the end of the day, putting a name to it changes nothing of the truth that I''ve been cultivating it all along, this Predator Qi of mine..."
Zelsys tore her blade out of the ground, splitting away its extra segments to form a pair of False Fang Rippers, which took with them that rainbow lightning as she sicced them upon Karmesin.
"...And there is nothing my fangs cannot tear into. You, of all people, should be aware; you helped forge them."
Two of those death-discs were a pain, but they weren''t a major threat. Sure, with that coating of lightning mixed with her own stolen power, they could go straight through blackstone like butter, but Karmesin still had enough material reinforced with Black Rod Trigrams to entomb them and make them run themselves ragged. Even that was tricky, those rippers maneuvered in cleverer ways than they had any right to when Zelsys wasn''t controlling them. It was mere seconds between when they had been sent out and when Karmesin entombed them, of course, but seconds meant a great deal more when both combatants could think five or ten times faster than a baseline human. Mind games and complex tactics could be executed on the scale of fractions of a second... Even if they rarely were.
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She didn''t have a retort to what Zelsys had said regarding this "Predator Qi", because she was entirely right. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could sense it clearly. That was why her eyes were like that, why her face seemed to change structure when she grimaced, why she exuded that languid, yet vaguely dangerous aura even when she was calm. Newman was as much as cultivator-beast as she was a human cultivator.
At this point, Karmesin was fairly certain this fight couldn''t be brought to a conclusive end with anything short of a miracle, and if she just kept up this way, she was utterly certain Zelsys would manage to exhaust her two remaining uses for Recreation of Past Self. Karmesin brought out an attack which she had conceived of specifically to defeat Zelsys. It was imperfect as of yet, but it would nonetheless be her trump card. Shed prepared the formation''s markers over the course of their fight, intending to set it off right after the Rain of One Thousand Spiders. They were still just about within the formation''s boundaries.
Karmesin screamed. Her horns rang. The world around the two of them shuddered, bent, and fell away. In its stead, a realm of blackstone and ominous pillars, surrounded by the void of nothingness. A tiny platform floating atop the Sea of Fog, its mercurial waters up to ankle-height from the very start. This unstable pseudo-dungeon would sink in minutes, but that was longer than it needed to last.
Four more subcores took shape by her side, now arrayed in a circular formation, each holding within it one of the eight trigrams. That was the purpose of this realm, to let Red stretch her power twice as far and even beyond that; it gathered power from the Sea of Fog and funneled it to her much in the same way a real dungeon funneled power to its Dungeon Core. The Black Rod Trigrams which she had made part of the structure also acted to curtail the possibility of her opponent deriving benefit from merely being in the Sea of Fog.
Karga shone in the far distance, and Red couldn''t help but feel she was being watched by two sets of eyes... Though they were neither the Revenant King nor the Divine Emperor. The feeling abruptly vanished when she noticed it, and she returned her focus to her formation. Newman was clearly doing something of her own, and Red wasn''t about to give her more time to pull another new technique out of nowhere.
Eight subcores multiplied by eight thrice over; to the power of four. Four-thousand ninety-six subcores. Four-thousand ninety-six Flying Eight-trigram Reactors. Only eight were real, but that made no difference. Her power was spread so thin that each could only fire once, but that made no difference either. The power of this formation was to defy causality itself. To deceive the laws of the world. If the beam from any one of her Flying Eight-trigram Reactors happened to strike Zelsys, it would retroactively become one of the eight real ones.
In a way, she had hoped exactly for what she''d gotten, and doing this was her tacitly saying she was ready to move on regardless of the result, even if Newman were to survive it. Not to move on from her desire to strike Zelsys down, but from this particular fight.
MULTIPLICATION SIGN
SPLINTERING EIGHT TRIGRAM FORMATION
CRIMSON COMMAND: 8x8x8x8 BLACK BLOSSOMS
"TELL A LIE ENOUGH TIMES, AND IT BECOMES TRUTH"
231 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. FINAL
Zelsys had a response; one born from every facet of her seclusion training put into practice all at once. Donning the Mantle to respond to one of Red''s stratagems was, at this point, no longer new. A vast and terrible deluge of Metallum followed, all of Carnifex''s Fangs screeching and splitting apart. Like slag flying from a mass of red-hot steel on the anvil, copies of each segment split from them and swirled around Zelsys. With each swing, it was as though Carnifex Fulguris multiplied, but this illusion quickly broke when these many disparate segments flew not like a segmented blade being swung, but like a great and terrible swarm forming many concentric, offset rings around their master.
SHREDDING FORMATION
MYRIAD BLADES DANCE IN UNISON
GEHEIMNIS: THOUSAND-FANG FLAMENCO
Much like her Blue Moon War-era tactic of creating swarms of Thundersaws, this technique was optimal for only two things: Cutting down many weaker foes at once, and defending against many weaker attacks at once. Ideally, both; it was ideally suited to keepaway against a horde of fodder. Strangely, most of the rays which struck her formation barely did anything, leading Zelsys to believe that Karmesin was using some advanced illusion.
The clash went on, until eventually, Karmesin let go. Zelsys wasn''t sure why, even though she could tell each cannon out of that huge swarm fell apart after firing once. Only some twelve or thirteen beams had pierced her defenses, and eight of those had come close enough to hitting that she considered them a graze. Of these, five she had blocked with Carnifex, one she had split apart, and two more she had used her Thundergods to, for lack of a better term, bite trough. She could barely say she dodged them...
And yet, Karmesin just stopped. All at once, her remaining cannons swarmed off into the surrounding forest of pillars and didn''t return. She was more than happy to stop this game; keeping up that many False Fangs was exhausting; had she not reabsorbed most of them, she would''ve stopped using so much metallomancy for fear of overstraining herself. Her head did ache, for all she knew she might''ve given herself spiritual strain already. Even so, she would be satisfied; that many False Fangs, sustained for that long, was a feat orders of magnitude beyond anything she had done with metallum before Eldartha.
Hundreds of False Fangs gathered around her, swirling and evaporating all at once as a vast deluge of Metallum flowed back into Zelsys. She was enveloped in a cocoon of black scale, out of which she stepped forward as if nothing had happened. Karmesin looked... Positively ragged. Zel wasn''t surprised, she''d pulled some extremely impressive tricks thus far. The fact she could not just keep up, but give her one hell of a fight, was testament to either the Lady in Red''s freakish growth in power, her mastery of the power she had, or, more likely, both.
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"I''m impressed. And I mean that. You almost had me a couple times. And I mean that, as well."
Despite the fact she had come to terms with letting the fight go if Newman survived the 8x8x8x8 Black Blossoms, her own body didn''t agree. It kept pestering. One more go. One more try. Even if victory was out of reach now, something inside Karmesin wanted to go for just one more bout. Vestiges of the martial artist which Karmesin once was wanted to go down fighting, rather than just admit she had no tricks left and walk away.
"Go to hell," the Red Mantis spat, but the anger in her voice had no vitriol. It was pure, combative fury. The tactical foreplanning was gone; all her plans had already been burned through, after all. This was just sheer defiance driving her. Her horns had become nearly dull and colorless, but with a hardening of her face into a pained grimace, she forced them once more to ring out. Each of her subcores floated into place somewhere on her body; two next to her shoulders, her forearms, her hips and her knees. Bulky, crimson-red armor began to form around her such that it would join them, resembling something halfway between a Third-model tank suit and Iron Rider armor.
Then, it stopped, and Red let out a deep-chested sigh, letting the construct fall away entirely. The anger wasn''t gone from her, but it seemed as though she had gotten it under control.
"Oh what am I thinking, that''s just tasteless. Crimson Command: Imperial Regalia!"
All eight subcores arrayed into a circle above her, revolving as they took on a glow. With a swift downward motion over her body, Karmesin was clad in armor not of the bulky and oversized kind, but subtle, understated plating in the places where she had lacked it. The subcores simply floated back into place behind her, forming constructs similar to her usual cannons, but slimmed, and indeed, what erupted from them were slim, rapierlike blades. Karmesin took up a low martial stance, extending her mantis-blade, coating its edge in northlight while gesturing with her left hand.
"One more round. I''ll not use any true ranged attacks, only these Flying Eight-trigram Impalers. No major techniques. First to land a hit wins," Red challenged.
"Hell, you had me at one more round," Zel grinned.
Their final bout was not one of life and death, as neither could kill the other within the restrictions they had agreed upon and within any reasonable span of time. It still looked nothing like a mortal fight. By the end of it all both were utterly exhausted and riddled with wounds.
It seems That we are at an impasse once again, Zelsys grinned, leaning against her cleaver.
"So it seems," Karmesin agreed, doing the same with one of her impalers.
Karmesin''s pseudo-dungeon sank beneath their feet, crumbling away as they both fell into the Sea of Fog. Then, they were back in the Crescent Jungle. Despite their murderous conflict, or perhaps because of it, the two of them returned to Oasis City in high spirits, contrasting with their exhausted state.
232 - Matters of Perspective
It had been a hard-fought battle for Zhumei Karmesin, a constant uphill battle, but she had, after all, set herself up for just such a battle when she not only permitted Zelsys Newman to recover, but supplied her aid in the reforging of Carnifex Fulguris. She certainly hadn''t expected Newman to grow so aggressively, but there was no undoing it now; not by any means which she would abide by. Karmesin wasn''t even sure any known methods of crippling another''s cultivation would work on Newman.
In the end, Karmesin had nearly resorted to the very last backup plan she had prepared, and a spark of pride inside had steered her away from it; from that armor which could have been enough to inflict something permanent, in exchange for her own power. The Imperial Regalia and the Eight-trigram Flying Impalers had been crude and conceived of on the spot... But they had worked. That, in combination with the undeniable fact that Newman was now once again the more powerful between them, was more than sufficient motivation for Karmesin to continue pushing ahead after her return to Arches.
Zelsys hadn''t enjoyed a fight this much since Ubul. As far as she was concerned, the past three days had been possibly the best way to stretch her wings and explore her own capabilities. Red''s many tactics had not only pushed her to apply Carnifex''s unique properties in ways she wouldn''t have conceived of on her own, they had helped her work out major flaws in her technique that needed to be fixed.
It was undeniable that she was stronger than Red for the moment, but she was nothing less than extremely impressed by the fact it wasn''t a one-sided stomp on her part. There was no doubt in her mind that The Good Lady Karmesin would catch up to her and challenge her to another duel before long... On a cultivator timescale, at least.
The three days of their battle had also spanned some of the final preparations for their departure from Borea, and so, with just one more day for necessary recovery, both the Newman Sect''s representatives and Zhumei Karmesin would soon depart from Oasis City.
Meanwhile, far south in Ikesia, the exploits of Zelsys Newman and her compatriots in Borea had already reached the ears of nameless men who hid from their foes and friends alike. An aetherwave receiver rang in one of the hidden field offices of the Counterpropaganda Bureau.
Questions were asked about how it should be handled, how the raw material should be treated to achieve ideal results; that is to say, how the truth should be spun for the most ideal impact.
The man on the receiving end, one Strolvath, had taken notes while the tale was recounted to him, and now read off his summary to ensure he got everything right: The hero given birth by Ikesian science, after suffering a crippling injury brought on by her valiant effort against the Divine General Ubul, has ventured to a far off mystical land to seek recovery. There, she restored the honor of a great house falsely scorned, received the boon of an immortal god-king, and defeated a dragon in battle. Now, she and hers return to Ikesia bearing yet greater strength and treasures from the north, ready to bring to heel the corrupt sects who bow to the Federal Government
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We also have it on good authority that their actions will lead to a future increase in trade with the Boreans, as well as a higher number of Borean mercenaries available for hire. Should any alterations be made to the story, sir? came a response.
Strolvath grinned into his beard and took a swig from his flask. His inner flame had slowly grown tolerable ever since that time in the Dungeon, but both his hair and his clothing now seemed to be in a perpetual state of quietly, smokelessly smoldering. This frigid drink helped keep his condition in check while he chipped away at trying to permanently get it under control. His most recent effort was an import from another continent to the far east, called the Blazing-black Destruction Scripture. The main body of the technique had little use to him since it hinged on capturing a spirit of wildfires the same way Storm-soul cultivators captured lightning spirits, but the supplementary insights had been terribly useful nonetheless.
Publicize it without alterations and target known witnesses for Truth Elixir interrogation, he said. Ensure that the results are leaked and the witnesses compensated appropriately.
He took another swig, chuckling into his beard. This story alone would suffice to stoke smoldering discontent into acts of anti-occupationist terrorism or even open revolt in at least three occupied municipalities.
The heavens have given us perfect propaganda: Truth itself.
Somewhere in Oasis City, twin brothers wore the disguises of random, elderly Boreans. They vanished off the street into a house which they owned, which had remained impeccably clean despite going unvisited for decades thanks to the golems which inhabited, cleaned, and defended it.
There, in their home away from home, inside five layers of barriers against spying, they finally returned to their natural forms, robes of white and black included.
They had journeyed here in a hurry in order to perform in-person reconaissance in the wake of a historical event, but also to observe one particular subject. Indeed, these twins had been among the few to witness the duel between the Newman Elder and the Lady in Red up-close... Or at least as close as they could get. With their senses, they scarcely needed to draw near what they wanted to observe.
What a horrific weapon, Hedan remarked.
What a terrific weapon! Wodan countered.
Hedan, pinching the bridge of his nose, vented his frustration with what he perceived to be his brother''s pet project: Whats with her? All that show at those feasts, and not an iota of swordlight! And the same in the duel, why is she still holding onto that flying saw idea? She ought to be able to form swordlight by now! By the Architect, she has a fully physicalized weapon spirit at least a full phase early, if not two phases.
I doubt she even knows of the Architect''s Cultivation Framework... And she does not possess Sword Aura besides. When has she ever fought with that implement of hers as if it were a sword? Wodan asked, smugly.
233 - Matters of Perspective Pt. 2
Cleaverlight, then! Ive lost legs to unorthodox bastards with cleavers! Hedan exclaimed in frustration. Does she not- Hold on. Has she simply made no effort to develop swordlight at all?
Now you understand. Why bother with swordlight when you already have a weapon with the range of a flying sword? The Dao of the Gun and the Cultivation Dark Age she was born into both precluded her from adopting the idea of a blade as a ranged weapon in the traditional sense. As far as I know, she has never been seen without that gun on her arm or that cleaver in hand. It makes even more sense when you look at the form she chose for her blade. Not only is it a cleaver, it is now a whip, a rope dart, it is six flying swords, it is a meteor hammer! Only Sagruhel''s Mercury Blade comes to mind as a blade with such breadth of adaptability, but this is not a liquid-metal sword.
I have seen swordlight techniques adapted for use with whips of all sorts, even meteor hammers in some cases, but this
She could likely perform an Eight Trigram Eradication with one-fifth of the spiritual effort normally required. It is no wonder that it was her who caused Tian Feng to renege on his Cultivation Suppression Edict. Now tell me, brother. What sort of creature cultivates guided by instinct and environmental factors? What sort of savage thing becomes wise while retaining the capacity for savagery?"
"...A cultivator-beast. Are you trying to insinuate that she arrived at cultivation in the same manner as an animal?"
"In the same manner as ancient man, but your guess was close enough. Do not forget that we have evidence of human cultivation practice far predating any mention of "flying ships of living gold."
"But she went into a Dungeon-"
"After surmounting a self-invoked Tribulation from the Living Storm and forging a Storm-soul foundation, again, without being consciously aware of what Storm-soul cultivation was. That is not even accounting for simply being able to perform Fog-breathing from the earliest point of my observation, from the moment she was born if her own accounts are to be believed. It lines up perfectly with my theory regarding ancient man''s primeval ur-cultivation practices, and the gradual atrophy of mankind''s baseline cultivation due to transition from hunter-gatherer to agrarian societies... Or purposeful suppression by a more advanced civilization. Perhaps the same civilization which is so often conflated with the Dead Gods in continental creation myth, despite evidence of the Golden Ship Civilization being far younger than the Deicide. There is also the possibility that Mankind was in a cultivational and technological state comparable to the Golden Ship Civilization prior to some armed conflict, but... That is nothing but conjecture on my part. Any of these theories is equally plausible."
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"Barely plausible at all, sure."
The two of them would remain for a short time after this, continuing their in-person observation. They would return in the guises of merchants as part of the southbound caravan which would ferry most of the Newman Sect''s spoils from Eisengeist; half as a means of traveling to Willowdale without rousing suspicion, and half in order to ensure the caravan would actually reach the city unimpeded. Wodan could''ve done it himself, but he had browbeaten Hedan into tagging along so that his brother would have no choice but to see the stark differences in development across Ikesia with his own two eyes. The artificial storms and bioweapons Hedan had unleashed to block the Long Road were long gone by now, of course, as Wodan had forced him to do away with them during their journey to Oasis City.
In a private subterranean chamber beneath the Bjorn longhouse complex, Jorfr sat face to face with Fryg and Yvonne, a stone-carved ritual bowl the only thing between them, water swirling inside it. He placed his left hand into the bowl.
The Ice Witch held her hand out over it, and its surface froze into glass, and peering into this mirror, she performed divination upon him.
It appears that your physical state has stabilized for the time being, Fryg said. The reason for this checkup was simple; the physical changes he had undergone during the Blood Feud were significant enough, but the huge mane of hair had half vanished, leaving behind a nonetheless significant replacement. The living ice which replaced his missing flesh continued to change, becoming opaque, and soon becoming subtle enough that sometimes even he forgot his entire right arm was made of it.
As for your traits, you no longer possess the Core of Earthly Ice, his mother said. He couldve just checked himself using his Tablet, but this was the way he was familiar with, and he harbored a strong dislike for the feeling of an attribute-readers silver tendril going up his arm. She was obviously just saying it this way to mess with him, going by the expression on her face and by one other factor, which he brought up in response.
Explain. I clearly have not lost the power, and I feel my connection to the earthly spirits more clearly than ever, Jorfr said, raising his hand. The ice which made up the limb blended nearly perfectly with his natural skin tone, only betrayed by its subtle shine. He closed his fist, and, flowing down from his shoulder, the pale shade suddenly became like a glaciers abyssal blueness. He released, and the arm returned to its previous colour.
The Core of Earthly Ice merged with your being, there is no longer a distinction. You ought to know what this means.
I broke through to the next stage of monadic cultivation. I wonder when, or whether it was a single moment of breakthrough at all Jorfr pondered. He was fairly certain that it was most likely the moment of his death and resurrection, but there were enough plausible alternatives to make him consider them.
234 - Matters of Perspective Pt. 3
Fryg smirked at him, and dispelled the uncertainty.
When else, but when you awoke as a draugr? By southern terms you can consider death the tribulation, and awakening the Immortal Blood the breakthrough. Having experienced death once has also strengthened your affinity for the Stillness of death, which you should be familiar with considering your gun-wielding shield-sister. I was doomed to defeat when I marched against the Smoke Witch, but my powers grew such that I could slay her where she stood after my first death. Subsequent deaths shant grant you further strength, so do not play the fool. I had hoped that to be the case, and learned the hard way that it was not.
The traits name has changed to Hyperborean Heart. It seems to have merged with your inherent Gelum Font as part of the advancement, which in itself has grown enough to have independently advanced to Gelum Wellspring under different circumstances Yvonne further confirmed, beaming with pride. She smugly glanced to Fryg, remarking: Less a black sheep than a dark horse, no? My boy is our clans first genius since his grandfathers generation!
What of you and father, or uncle Agnar?"
Both of them laughed.
I am glad that you hold us in such high esteem, but it took us each a decade what you achieved in a handful of years. Neither myself, nor your father have awakened the Immortal Blood, either, though it is only a matter of time for him, and even if I never reach that state, Ive already taken measures against death But we are not draugrs. You are the first since Fryg, not for lack of Runars capability to wake the blood. For all we know he might one day decide hes had enough rest and break out of the burial hall; its happened before."
Jorfr was familiar with the saga. It was one of the more popular ones, after all.
"When the Ankhezians thought to invade Borea," he said. "When they reached the first border settlements, they found their armies set upon by honored dead emerging from the burial mounds, each draugr even more powerful than they had been in life... Only to return to their tombs when the threat was repelled."
"Most of them did," Fryg grinned.
Jorfr was also familiar with this part of that same saga. It was often not included in serious retellings or skimmed over due to the focus on re-awakened draugrs finding themselves in farcical fish-out-of-water situations.
"There is one last thing which I wish to ask you about," he said, looking to Fryg. "I have not slept since the feud. I take it that this is not a matter of concern."
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"It is not. A draugr does not require sleep to function, and rather than sleep, we enter a state of half-death wherein we maintain a limited awareness of our surroundings. However, you will find that you recover from wounds and fatigue at a vastly accelerated rate if you let yourself enter the deathly sleep."
"You say that a draugr does not require sleep to function, then tell me that my battle-wounds will heal ten times as quickly if I sleep. Are you sure draugrs do not become senile?"
After this ritual, Jorfr visited Ingvald upon the smith''s request. He knew the reason; he had called him to the smithy some time earlier, measuring him and asking him a bevy of questions regarding his combat style and usual tactics. Jorfr didn''t exactly have that, given how rapidly is capabilities had changed recently, but he could describe his own current state and how he expected it to develop in the near future. He was fairly certain he could guess what Ingvald had made for him by how long he took inspecting the anchoring runes on the soles of his feet; ginfaxi and gapaldur.
Now, it was time to collect. Or rather, it was time for Ingvald to force him to take what he had made.
They were greaves. What Ingvald had made were full-plate greaves, their design blending elements of Borean and Grekurian plate armor. By their rugged, slightly uneven design, total lack of decoration, and dark, tarnished metal, they could be considered crudely made. That was, however, a purely surface-level reading, and anyone who saw the armor in person would instantly know it to be a great work. They outright radiated an immovable presence, one which Jorfr couldn''t quite place until Ingvald insisted that he put them on. The draugr glimpsed the runes on the inside, and instantly knew what mighty magic they contained.
"I''m fairly certain these runes won''t work for anyone other than you specifically. Oh, they come with this, too. Still not sure what to call them, so if you get any ideas, feel free."
Ingvald handed over a loincloth of sorts, simple in design and much heavier than its material would suggest. It was clearly filled with armor of some kind.
"The main thing is that your anchoring runes, the greaves and the girdle together form a horseshoe-shaped circuit. Besides the obvious effect of strengthening your ability to anchor yourself, you ought to be able to walk on walls if they''re made from a Terra-conductive material. It should work even with ice or other non-earthen material, the effect will just be diminished. The power of the earth further flows upward towards your Aegishjalmr, amplifying your aura and granting you greater protection at all times. There arent many mortal weapons that can even put a scratch on you while you wear these, and thats before we account for the Hulson Clans aura magnification arts. Go on, try it right now. Walk up that wall over there, just don''t step on my metalprint of Fulguris."
It turned out to be, to both Ingvald''s and Jorfr''s great joy, a correct assessment. It felt utterly bizarre at first, but he quickly grew accustomed to the feeling. It wasn''t just walls, either; ceilings worked just as well.
"Oh, and they''re not one-way either. Anything that involves drawing power from the ground or manipulating it will be easier."
That covered a significant portion of Jorfr''s arsenal.
235 - Matters of Perspective Pt. FINAL/Sturmblitz Kunst Vol. 2 Epilogue Pt. 1
"I will be certain to bring great honor upon your works, master smith," Jorfr said as he returned to the ground, well aware that Ingvald''s disposition precluded him from accepting the very idea that someone felt indebted for a gift.
"I look forward to turning away clan elders trying to get me to make knockoffs for them. Be on your way, I doubt Runar would be happy if you just left without visiting him beforehand."
Jorfr didn''t quite leave yet, standing in place, stroking his beard as he fished through memory. There was something there, a name for the great gift he had just received, he just had to remember. An obscure legend.
"...Garganta''s Girdle and Garganta''s Greaves."
"Huh? Oh. Oh right, that invincible giant that could walk up sheer cliffs. Leave it to a sagacaller to remember that tale. Good name. Be on your way, then."
And so it was.
Ingvald was well aware of Garganta, that work of ancient artifice which his clan had once used as a guardian and means of conveyance for their clifftop ritual sites. He had, after all, built the thing, over a millennium ago. He wondered if it was still there, guarding that ritual site, watching over the desolate crater which had once been the birthplace of the continent''s greatest smiths. His name wasn''t Ingvald back then... But then, he no longer remembered what it had been.
Forgehand walked back into his smithy and returned to work. It was all he knew how to do, and not being able to smith was akin to not being able to breathe for him.
It had been a long, long while since he''d had hope that a new generation might instill some lasting change; something more enduring than a couple centuries.
The sheer quantity of spoils and gifts which the Newman Sect representatives received before their departure was such that they had to source two additional storage artifacts. Before now, Zelsys hadnt even known the storage limits of her own White Marble Tablet; its capacity seemed slightly more than that of an Ikesian cargo tractor, with the complicating factor that certain objects of arcane potency took up more capacity than they ought to. Some, such as Carnifex Fulguris in its cleaver form, simply could not be stored within the Tablet at all; the Fog Vortex would reject them. It was doubly strange, then, that Pateirian Hun took up exactly as much capacity as one would expect from small coins, despite the Silver Eagles and Golden Tigers being fairly potent in the power they held.
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During their final visit with the godsmith, Ingvald handed over a whole crate with the things he had still been working on, mostly bullets and shell casings, but also some miscellaneous smaller items such as brooches and buckles. It felt somewhat like he had used it as an excuse to dump many of the smaller trinkets he''d turned out since receiving the Teutobochus Fallen Star, knowing that they would get the requisite level of use he demanded for his creations. At the bottom of the crate, Zel found a small box with a set of six daggerlike blades, plainly designed to replace those she used at the ends of her braids.
Zel had originally plotted the return trip such that they would pass through several places despite not needing to; Stormbloom Hill, the Logging Hamlet, Fort 57, and Arches. However, in the end, they split. She and Zefaris headed to the Logging Hamlet, while Jorfr and Victor would visit some old hidden Three Kings Era ruins before the two groups would reconvene at Fort 57. Koschei''s knowledge, though fragmentary, was nonetheless vast.
Down the Long Road which cut through the Ikes Mountains to join Borea and Ikesia, an eclectic collection of steeds rode. Two great iron beasts roaring down the road, a blackstone dragonfly humming overhead, and a giant beast of flaming bones sprinting along.
Elsewhere in the world, halfway across the continent, a peasant boy trudged through the woods in search of things to harvest and sell. Shao Lei had a good eye for herbs and mushrooms, and a strong enough back to carry great amounts of wood if his haul of more valuable goods turned out particularly poor But his secret was an unearthly knack for finding special plants. Plants imbued with essence beyond what was natural, plants which could be used to concoct pills of great efficacy. They were rare and difficult to sell without being killed or robbed, but his home towns eccentric herbalist bought them from him readily. Each harvest of just one such herb could set Shao Lei for weeks, but he knew better than to live off the money and then scramble when it was about to run out. He had nearly saved up enough to buy himself a nice protection talisman to go with the sword he carried for defense against wild beasts And bandits. Something had stirred him to push himself to strength, a strange dream hed had recently, one coinciding with a warning about the demonic dao influencing people to thoughts of revolt against fate. Shao knew that his dream could not be that, as it stirred him only to become stronger so he could protect others weaker than himself; a flame burning brightly enough to illuminate all darkness.
Physically, he wasnt a particularly outstanding specimen. Neither particularly tall nor muscular, but he was strong and fast where it counted, and his appearance was innocuous enough to not draw too much attention, but good enough that people treated him somewhat better than normal. He was well aware of this, and though he was not vain, he took care of this small talent which the heavens had bestowed upon him just as fastidiously as he took care of the rest of his body.
The young man was torn from his aimless mental wandering by the twinge of his special sense. Following it led him to a strange grove of bamboo that somehow drove his gaze away from itself, forcing him to stare at the ground and navigate blindly. Within it, he found a skeleton with curious robes... And between the corpses legs grew the source of that twinge.
236 - Sturmblitz Kunst Vol. 2 Epilogue Pt. FINAL
The plant growing between the skeletons legs was unmistakable, being one of the most desirable ingredients for virility pills: Virile Turgid Ginseng.
It had all the hallmarks, especially the stench, which was a blend of fishiness with the stinging of horseradishes. Its root shape was correct as well, bulbous and with vein-line protuberances. By the aura of the corpse, still lingering nearby, as well as its clothing, Shao knew that it was a rogue cultivator And there was a scroll right next to the corpse, on the ground, clutched in its skeletal hand. Shao took it, thinking of perhaps reading it later, but cautious for now.
Old Man Hao was ecstatic when Shao brought the root in, noticing it well before the young man could say anything. A crowd had in fact formed behind him and outside the store, as its stink could not be masked by anything short of placing it into a storage artifact.
Two months passed in peace and prosperity And his village came under attack.
Bandits. As always. They usually demanded food or other tribute, and were usually smart enough to take an amount that wouldnt decimate the town so they could return later.
Not the usual gang this time, it seemed. These monsters seemed to be here just to plunder and pillage, razing the village to the ground And Shao couldnt let that stand. He knew that it was best to run, but the flame in him wouldnt let him just stand aside and let his home be ravaged, its people killed or taken away to slavery.
He managed to cut down a handful of them, having fought off bears and other beasts of the woods before. Most were just mortal men - martial artists, but mortal. But a few A few had the same aura as Shaos late father, Fang Lei, who had taken him to this village and taught him how to forage in the forest before dying. His body seemed to just unravel into individual strands bit by bit, his bones melting into dust, starting from the ends of his hands. Once the affliction reached his shoulders, it suddenly accelerated and killed him right before Shaos eyes as he was explaining the differences between two herbs. It left a pile of vague gore. Shao couldnt get that image out of his head; not the gore, but the resigned, yet regretful look upon his fathers face when he realized it was the end.
Fang Leis last words were what drove Shao to do this foolish thing instead of saving his own hide: Live righteously, even if it might lead to your demise, even if it seems as though opposing the heavens themselves is the righteous thing to do. I only regret that I did not begin to live by this creed until it was too late.
The bandits leader was seemingly untouchable, smashing people aside with an iron whip and leaving them as crumpled piles on the ground. It was a strangely elegant weapon, and a second, narrower one resembling a sword was also on his waist. His presence alone was enough to put pressure on Shao - the man was a cultivator, as were likely most of his direct subordinates.
The young man walked out into the street in opposition of the bandit leader, his sword in hand and protection talisman safely affixed to his belt.
You will not pass.
Oho? The mortal trash dares? Kowtow before me thrice and slit your own throat, and I may consider leaving your corpse intact.
You. Will. Not. Pass.
Very well, then. How about this? I fight you, one on one, for the fate of this whole nowhere-town. I wont even try to kill you But if I win, and you survive, youll watch me raze this whole place, take all your women as cultivation cauldrons, and you will live the rest of your days to tell others not to oppose Winding Behemoth.
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The fight was short.
Shao had managed to land exactly one strike on his opponent, and before he knew it, he was on the ground with a broken leg, broken arm, broken ribs, and having coughed up at least five mouthfuls of blood.
Nonetheless, he struggled to his feet, his bone by some miracle having broken such that it didnt try to go out of place. He was still standing on one foot and barely managing to hold onto his sword with his off hand.
Winding Behemoth grabbed his blade and tore it out of his hand, tossing it aside with laughter, spreading his arms wide and showboating to his subordinates as he erupted in raucous laughter.
Then, Shao felt something. A call, from The other weapon at Winding Behemoths waist. He reached out, not just with his hand, but with that strange extra sense And felt it straining against something. His head pounded as if about to split, and then the weapon tore itself from Winding Behemoths belt, flying straight into Shaos hand. Unsheathing it with his teeth, he found it not to be a sword But a square bar mace. A bian. One of intricate and exquisite design, thrumming with strange power.
He knew not whence it arose, but for a moment, Shao felt as though all the strength had been returned to him and his injuries undone. For some reason he saw the mental image of his broken bones being mended with molten gold, and the broken areas burned about as much, but he was sure it was just the pain of partial breakage. The protective talisman turned to dust in his pocket; it was one meant to temporarily mend the bearers wounds so he could drag himself to safety. He pushed through the pain even as fire spread from his stomach and through his body, hefting the bian with both hands.
Winding Behemoth whipped around with a look of confusion and anger on his face, yelling at Shao, waving his iron whip. Crushing qi flooded out from him, smashing surrounding buildings and breaking the ground with each swing of his iron whip. Shao guarded himself with the bian, only to find that the waves of Behemoths qi broke against the weapon and left Shao nearly unaffected.
He drew a breath in. Strange mist clouded the edges of his vision as he breathed out, and yet more fire flooded his body, this time gentle, easing his pain.
Shao then, with renewed vigor, set himself to battle against the towering bandit leader, only to find that He was winning. The strange bian seemed to be shifting its weight as if to aid in his strikes, and it smashed apart the bandits iron whip as if it were made of rotten wood. Why had he not used this weapon itself? That question didnt cross Shaos mind for a moment.
He ran the weapon through Winding Behemoths heart, and the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the scattering swarm of his subordinates.
When he awoke in the back of Old Man Haos shop, he found that not only was the strange bian by his side, but it felt as though he had been healed, soothing warmth flowing through his body and mending everything that had been broken.
How he started, trying to sit up, only to cough up a mouthful of blood and fall back down.
The old man just smiled at him and handed over a small bowl, helping him to drink its violently herbal contents. Was that A hint of Virile Turgid Ginseng?
Welcome to the World of Cultivation, the old man said. It seems you unconsciously awakened your latent potential in that fight So I thought it a shame to let you die, what with His Divinitys New Era of Cultivation and all. I gave you one of my True Mending Pills that I had leftover from when I won an alchemy tournament in my youth. Take the rest of them, they will be of more use to you on your journey Their side effects shorten ones lifespan by a year for each pill, so there is no value in them for a man with one foot in the grave such as myself.
Shen Liang woke from a deep trance and let out a long sigh, emerging from a meditative elixir bath. His body was covered in transmission talismans, and the chamber was likewise plastered in them. He still wasnt used to the sensation of dying, even after having lived out hundreds of puppet-lives. A part of him knew this to be a good thing, that it was one of the things keeping him in touch with mortality.
Things had gone exactly to plan.
A flesh-puppet of such a high grade had been a hassle to put together quietly and quickly, plus forming a whole bandit gang around him had taken quite some effort But it was done.
The puppet was dead, having fulfilled its task: Delivering the Will of Heaven to the Son of Fate.
Now it was up to the boy.
Shen hoped he had picked right; that the boy would at least stray a bit from the direction Tian Feng intended for him, but not quickly or rapidly enough for Tian to notice. He wanted to change the old bastards perspective, and that would take time; more time than the Son of Fate would live if he was sent to face down the Living Tribulation any time soon. Hopefully never.
237 - The Red Ladys Return
Karmesin''s return to Arches had gone almost suspiciously smoothly.
None in Arches knew of her escapades in Borea beyond the fact she brought back a bounty of rare resources and relics that could buy a city. Some were what she had taken from the Crescent Jungle herself, some she had traded with the exiles, and some she had received as gifts for participating in the subjugation of Eisengeist. Most valuable among them, to her, was some of the dragon''s own flesh and blood. The quantity was comparatively small to the huge haul the Newman Sect had taken with them, but on its own, Karmesin''s share would still be considered a superlative bounty... Which was why she had to keep it hidden, mostly from anyone from Pateiria who might think to divest her of her spoils. It still felt utterly bizarre to have foreigners admit to her claim, and without protest at that, but here she was. Her opinion of Boreans had grown quite significantly during her time in their land, even if she still found their honor system to be asinine.
The good duke, bless his mildly schizophrenic mind, was over the moon over a single cask of Borean blood-mead.
Karmesin couldn''t just up and found her own sect, certainly not the way Newman had done. Not for lack of ability or knowledge. She did, after all, qualify for the program that turned her into a Tiger-class chimera by fighting her way up through the local world of martial arts. But she was not a cultivator in the traditional sense, the path she trod was one whose very beginning had been a fortuitous encounter on par with meeting a hidden elder and being given a cultivation method for the tiniest, flimsiest excuse, like helping the old man pick herbs. She still didn''t look back on those weeks of gruesome metamorphosis fondly, especially since she had grown into a local bogeyman in that area, but... Karmesin''s path was not one that could be passed down in a manner befitting of a real sect''s doctrine. At best, she might be able to formulate something new using her own experience, especially pertaining to managing constructs and spiritual strain.
Perhaps her understanding of the Black Rod Trigrams would one day grow enough to be written down as a scripture, but she suspected it would be a long while before then. She''d been concerned that merely using the Trigrams would risk anyone who saw them gaining insight, but something in her mind pushed back against the idea, perhaps the very knowledge of the Trigrams themselves. Searching back, Karmesin narrowed down the moment when the splinter of knowing had lodged itself into her. She had thought it to be merely looking at the sigils on the Black Rod she had helped Zefaris create, but that wasn''t it. It was her involvement in the formation, somehow... And something else. Some vague sense of approval from the very idea of the Black Rod Trigrams themselves. She may have discarded that idea if it was not entirely in line with the symbols'' eldritch nature. Merely imagining them still exerted a tickling strain behind her forehead.
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Regardless of potential future insight, right now, she lacked the means to properly make the most of the New Era of Cultivation. Forming a sect under her own control was nonetheless high on her list of priorities, being that such an organization was an all-in-one package of military, political, ideological, and economic influence. Some of Ikesia''s regions even extended a whole bevy of benefits merely for placing one''s sect within their borders; compensation for the deterrence factor.
The political implications were another thing to consider. She couldn''t afford to place herself as the head of a sect, not without obtaining the Emperor''s direct approval. Though she was fairly confident she could achieve that, it would place her sect directly under his control by one means or another, and would attract more of his attention than she liked. At this moment, she felt comfortable having the exact amount of His Divinity''s attention that she did; enough to bypass bureaucracy and receive support if she truly needed it, but not enough that He paid her any personal attention on a regular basis. So long as the White Dragon of the North received his tael of silver, he would leave her be.
Sourcing disciples would be no issue, especially since Arches already had a martial arts school whose disciples showed enough promise to worry the old Order of the Dragon on occasion.
No, the hard part would be sourcing actual techniques to make use of.
Her trusted right-hand man and contact in the Land of Lingering Smoke, Meng, was just the man for the job.
When she gave him the assignment of sourcing a cultivation method, she did so with the explicit instruction to avoid manuals that seemed to be extraordinarily special, desiring a method which didn''t demand specific relics or constitutions. In short, she wanted something that could be practiced by a medium-sized sect without rousing suspicion. It would be, after all, her sect''s surface-level cover method, while she herself would work on sourcing something for the core disciples.
Before he left her, however, she asked him another question. One of curiosity.
"Meng, what is your actual name? You just took the Emperor''s mortal name and replaced one letter for your alias."
"It was the most common name at the time I picked it, Lady Karmesin. If you wish to know a more truthful name to call me by, or perhaps one which does not hearken back to His Divinity''s mortal past, then I would offer up Fu Chen," he replied. Nothing to his voice or aura suggested any deception to his words, but Karmesin knew that this, too, was an alias. That wording was almost aggressively noncommittal. For all she knew, the man might have so many aliases that his own name was lost among them.
"Before you go... Keep an eye out for promising alchemists."
"As you wish, Lady Karmesin."
238 - Return to Fort 57
Finding a competent alchemist wasn''t hard. She had some, right here, in Arches; those who had worked with the Order of the Dragon were skilled and some of them learned quickly, but quickly wasn''t good enough. At least she didn''t have to be worried about obtaining raw resources to make pills from.
She did, after all, have the corpse of Ten Billion Fathoms and the unique ecosystem which had sprung up around it. It wasn''t quite the flesh and blood of a living Dragon Descendant, but she fully believed it might possibly be even better. After all, there were 700-year herbs growing in the Dragonsblood Lake and who knows what draconic fish swimming in its somewhat shallow depths. It alone was a vast treasure trove that had been left all but unexploited, and what remained of Ten Billion Fathoms would also provide a significant amount of valuable material... Even if it couldn''t compare to something fresh from a living dragon. Ten Billion Fathoms had been, after all, a reconstructed body for the Dragonstone of a long-dead Dragon Descendant, and it had been slowly dying over the course of centuries. Its greatest potential laid in its inherent compatibility with humans, since Ten Billion Fathoms had been made from a genocide''s worth in human bodies.
Karmesin poured herself a glass of Winter Peach Brandy, flicking her free wrist to set a subcore into motion. It slotted into a nearby blackstone pedestal, out of which eight styluses floated Then began filling in paperwork that was strewn all across her desk. She was endlessly thankful to the heavens for the fact that mortal bureaucracy was simple enough to cease being a nuisance at her level.
Fort 57 had, in the past few months, seen a burgeoning growth. With much of the military infrastructure still in place, it was merely a matter of clearing out rubble and repairing what absolutely had to be repaired. Thus, the fort had grown into a small town; part by virtue of attracting those displaced by the war, part due to being a waystation on a resurgent trade route, and part due to being close to one of Ikesia''s few alkasnail farms. The eggs of alkasnails turned out to be exceedingly resilient, and now the once-desolate farm was once more burgeoning both with normal produce and a small herd of juvenile, man-sized snails. A solid jade statue which had come to be known as the "Sufferer of the Emperor''s Mercy" was also a factor, but the tourism brought in by a single statue wasn''t remotely enough to transform Fort 57 in a few short months.
Despite the fort''s growth and the addition of various other establishments in its old buildings, one particular tavern remained the most prominent among them.
It was right at the edge of the fort, in the main concourse which was the only part that most traders saw. Since the weather was warming up and there were more patrons than could fit inside, an outward-facing window had been added to the bar and many tables were arranged just outside the entrance.
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The oasis of drink was beset by an ornery blonde-haired woman with a giant, crescent-shaped sword, its size exacerbated by the fact she was no more than a meter and a half in height. In her wake went several others, men and women alike, all carrying blades.
Altogether, the group of seven radiated a significant and rather sharp presence, causing most of the patrons to forego any action for fear of being cut down.
"I''m not gonna sugarcoat it fellas, you''re all shit outta luck. A fortified trading post with a giant hunk o'' magical jade right in the middle of it? That''s just asking for trouble. So, my generous benefactor has seen fit to extend the offer of protection to this little... Settlement you''ve got goin'' on. Protection ain''t free, of course, and it''s not as if you lot''re payin'' taxes to the feds anyhow, nobody in these parts does that. So we''ll be the ones running the place from now on, capiche? We can start by doin'' a little inventory of everything in the fort."
She swept her gaze over the patrons, the silence undercut by the sound of what seemed like a hundred or two hundred other thugs swarming in outside, harassing the locals, but not taking any action besides that. There was also the sound of a large engine.
The total lack of any reaction to her demands clearly frustrated the bandit leader, and, unsheathing her sword, she barked: "The fuck''re you waitin'' for you bums?! Get out an'' get stacking money! Or does anyone wanna play hero?"
I would strongly suggest that you leave this place and never return, came a quiet, rumbling proclamation from a hooded figure drinking nearby at an outdoor table. The only concrete thing about the man that could be readily discerned was his superhuman size, making the very normal-sized bench and table seem undersized by comparison.
"And who are you, big man? You should know that just being big will get you nowhere against cultivators," came a smug exclamation from the bandits leader.
The man quietly drunk the rest of his ale and rose up from his seat, towering over all those who stood around him. Snow-coloured skin, an off-white beard, and piercing-blue eyes were the only things that could be readily seen beneath his cloak. It was only a few seconds, as he stood there in silence lazily sweeping his gaze over his surroundings, but to those upon whom he looked, it was as though an eternity.
"Ek erilaz, Jorfr haite. Do you know what that means, little lady?"
"A big man reciting dead languages and asking what it means may work on the average bandit, but again, we''re cultivators. Unless you want us to wipe out your family to the third generation or whatever, stand aside."
"I see that you are ignorant. Pity. Perhaps this will be easier to understand."
The hood was blown from the man''s head as an overpowering aura blasted out from him. A great mane of wispy, backswept hair revealed itself, as did a metallic, eight-pronged sigil embedded in his forehead. Much in the same way, his cloak was parted, revealing a bare, heavily-muscled chest when he raised his left hand. Upon its middle finger shone a golden ring enveloped in dark, glassy ice.
239 - Return to Fort 57 Pt. 2 [+Artwork]
His ring alighted with a pale-blue glow, and so too did the sigil in the man''s forehead. In a sudden flash, a ghostly projection of the eight-pronged sigil manifested itself over the real thing, thrice as large as the original and seemingly held in place by a ghostly headband, forming a circlet.
It was not through the formation of a helm or cloak that Jorfrs presence manifested itself, but through the living ice which made up one-quarter of his body. Its subtle whiteness, barely distinguishable from the rest of his skin, gave way to blackest blackness and deep blues like the fathomless voids of great icebergs.
SIGN OF AWE
AEGISHJALMR, THE GREAT HELM OF TERROR
HULSON CLAN ARTS: PRESENCE OF A THOUSAND MEN -LIVING GLACIER VESTMENT-
It wouldn''t have been a particularly grandiose display if it were not for the wave of dark-blue aura which blasted out of him as he bellowed: "KNEEL!"
The ground froze around his feet, and it felt as though the air itself might freeze at any moment. Out of over sixty strong individuals, all but nine were thrown to the ground. Despite struggling to stand, those behind him seemed to be mostly unaffected, at least by comparison to the would-be raiders.
"Those of you who value your lives, do not try to stand, else you will perish on the spot."
Over a dozen of them indeed died on the spot as they tried to get up, freezing where they knelt, immortalized in the last moments of their lives, bloody tears erupting from their eyes. When they placed the strength of their spirits against his aura, they were crushed in an instant.
The Borean named Jorfr undid his cloak''s clasp and let the whole thing blow away from him. Just his physical presence alone equaled that of ten men, easily surpassing two meters in height and not lacking in bulk in the slightest, despite an apparent absence of much body fat. It seemed as though the Borean''s milky-white skin was mere moments from bursting, so tightly wrapped it was around his musculature. His lower half was clad in a loincloth of sorts tied in place by a bright-blue, buckle-less belt, as well as heavy-duty leather boots and trousers made up of lengthwise alternating blue-white stripes. These garments served as the underlayer for dark, full-plate greaves that clad his legs from the thighs down to the boots. On his belt was a hammer of twisted white metal, its chisel-like, diamond-shaped head as long as its handle, and its material reflecting light in iridescent shades.
Despite the release of his presence, a handful among the self-proclaimed cultivators still stood, and they readily sought retribution for the deaths of their compatriots, despite the fact they had been warned.
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Metal and steel, fire and ice, were set against his naked brow. They all were repelled, no matter the might; nothing they brought to bear could harm him. One among them thought to tear mistletoe from a nearby tree, and to turn it into impaling spears with his viridimancy, and all but one of these were frozen ere they could even touch him. The one single mistletoe spear which struck him merely shattered against his skin, freezing in an instant.
Jorfr stomped once, and in an instant, statues of a great man with a spear and shield erupted from the ground, one right in front of each of those among the bandits who had attacked him. One man tried to slip past, but when a statue ran him through before he could even reach it, the others thought better of doing such a thing. Another stomp, and a phalanx made from no less than three-dozen icy spears formed itself not just in front of him, but in front of the entrance to Fort 57. He took his hammer from his belt and in an instant its shaft lengthened to be as tall as him, and as he rested it upon his shoulder, he lowered himself and buried his hand into the frozen earth. The next moment he tore a shimmering, broadheaded hammer of ghostly energy out from the ground. It floated next to his arm as he straightened back to his full towering height.
"Ek erilaz, Jorfr haite! I, mage-warrior, am called Jorfr. A cultivator, if you will... But then, you wouldn''t have needed to understand Borean to notice that if you were truly cultivators. As it stands, you are nothing but thugs with more power than you ought to have. Leave this place and never return."
The pressure of his aura released itself just enough that those who had not killed themselves trying to fight it could now stand, though they could not do much more than that.
In that case Ek erilaz, Idda haite! Idda proclaimed, raising her sword to point at him. It was a foolish proclamation for which he rightly should have killed her, but he didnt get to do that. Cmon, big man. Fight me, yourself. No tricks, just weapons. Surely, a high-and-mighty true cultivator such as yourself will not oppose a challenge from a bandit, right?
An obvious provocation. The womans aura felt sharp enough that Jorfr wagered she might actually put up a fight, if not a very good or long one. He didnt get to answer, however.
"I am afraid I cannot let that happen, senior. The part about them leaving. Especially not human-trafficking scum like Idda," came a stern, steely voice from an approaching figure, cloaked just as Jorfr had been. The figure wore a mask, but he recognized something; the sword she carried. It was just as tall as her and just oversized overall, but unlike Iddas, that was due to the fact it was a longsword designed for a two to three-meter man being carried by a woman of average height. Average height for Ikesian women was fairly tall, at 175cm, but it was still significantly smaller than the intended wielder.
It was one of the few dragon knight swords Zelsys had considered good enough to use. He''d last heard of it when Zel recounted her investigation into the nearby farmstead and subsequent slaying of a Black Rope-infested alkasnail. An ex-cultivator mercenary had followed her, and after hearing out how the mercenary had been chased out of the Sanger sect by a nobleman, Zelsys had simply let her take the sword. If he recalled correctly, the woman''s name was... Lydia. He was 75% sure of it.
240 - Return to Fort 57 Pt. 3
"Explain, if you would," Jorfr prompted, intensifying his aura just enough that the bandits wouldn''t flee but not enough to kill. A handful nonetheless collapsed, and one did so in an unfortunate manner, smashing his forehead on the road.
Slowly, Lydia approached, flicking her wrist upward. The sword Vysaga dragged itself out of its sheath, slowly rising until it freed itself and slammed into the ground by her side. It slowly dragged along, its handle only centimeters behind her outstretched, open hand. There was something weird about it.
"I left Fort 57 in the hopes that my absence would lure in these morons so I could come back and tear them out by the roots, though I admit that I did not expect them to bring a force of this size. I suspect they did so specifically on the off-chance that I was not truly gone."
As she approached, Jorfr realized what the strangeness was: The Smell. Petrichor.
...But this many wouldnt have been enough, even without a walking glacier in the tavern. Not nearly enough.
The woman was a cultivator, a proper one unlike these bandits. Jorfr felt the same blade-like aura from her as he did from Makhus. But there was Something else. Something familiar, but somewhat new, something that Zelsys had. An arrow was set loose from beyond the treeline at the speed of a bullet, arcing through the air to bypass the reach of Jorfrs statues and strike - not at him, but at Lydia. It didnt get through, with one Wide-wuth lunging into the way to block it. The statues movement opened up a gap, and through it, three more arrows flew. The archer had made a bet and won it. One of the bandits also tried to slip through, but Jorfr simply retracted one of his spears, moved it within his reach, and used it to impale the man where he stood. The whole surrounding area was his domain.
Lydia flicked her wrist again and Vysaga rose up in front of her, revolving in place as the blade became wreathed in lightning in the colour of cherry blossoms. That was it. One of the Stormblooms Thundergods. The colour was strange, but the feeling it gave off was unmistakable.
One arrow managed to curve so aggressively it circumvented the defense, struck the side of Lydias mask and continued further, both severing the string which held it on and tearing the hood from her head. The entire right half of the womans face was covered in a scar in the shape of a lichtenberg figure, and though her hair still miraculously grew, the right half of it had turned white.
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Anger flashed over her face at that and she approached Jorfr, who had by now raised yet another Wide-wuth to widen his defensive line. Senior, I would request that you ensure the safety of the Fort and permit me to enact a selfish vendetta.
Dont use sect honorifics with me. Here. I will know to come if you are ambushed.
Jorfr quickly formed an ice bangle designed to break and send out an aetherwave pulse if its bearer was severely wounded or activated it themselves, whether consciously or out of panic. The frequency was tuned so that only his Tablet would receive the pulse. He tossed it over to Lydia who caught it with her outstretched hand, and it shrunk down to tightly clasp itself around her wrist.
The woman sprinted towards the treeline like an absolute maniac, waving her right arm while performing hand-seals with the other. Vysaga lashed out at her command, cutting down and impaling one man after the next. To Jorfrs relief, she mostly limited herself to striking down those among the raiders who were not immobilized by his aura. Besides them, she picked out several clearly specific individuals, and Jorfr reasonably assumed that she had reason to slay them. He did, however, release his hold on those he saw her going for, to give them a chance to fight back or flee, as was right.
Rather quickly, though, Lydia came to blows with the leader of the raiders. Jorfr did not directly intervene, besides manipulating his statues to make it abundantly clear that he would not stand for attempts at interference from Iddas lieutenants. One lost his life when he tried to intervene anyway, and another was sent careening through the air with a forceful shield-bash. It was clear that Lydia was not having an easy time of it, as Idda demonstrated impressive defensive swordsmanship and ability to project auratic blades strong enough to rip through the ground and cut apart nearby small boulders poking out from the ground. Her offense was surprisingly dextrous and persistent, using her strongly-curved greatsword as a counterweight to keep up a near constant attack.
In terms of raw power it was a low-level fight, with either combatant equaling at most the strength of a dozen mortal soldiers. However, Jorfr had to give credit where it was due. Iddas technique was impressive If not a bit familiar. He wasnt sure which, but he was certain she used techniques from either the Black Horse Sect or Sanger Sect. Perhaps she belonged to some low-key splinter sect that took in former members of both the Black Horses and Sangers.
By contrast Lydias style blended her strangely extensive telekinetic control over Vysaga with the Sanger Sects lower-echelon defensive style and various applications of the framework detailed in Sturmblitz Kunst 0. This created a style with potent, stable defense overall and savage, explosive offense in moments of opportunity. At times she used Vysaga as one would a long pike, while other times she set loose unstable, shortlived blades of pink lightning that just barely registered to Jorfrs senses as swordlight. She seemed to use an adaptable breathing method capable of continuous, consistent output as well as outbursts of high performance. However, not being an advanced Pneuma user himself, Jorfrs reading was far from expert.
241 - Return to Fort 57 Pt. 4
Do you really think my backers will just let you walk away even if you somehow kill your way out of here? You, a demonic cultivator with a cursed sword?! Idda spat, seeming to wholly believe her own words. Jorfr knew better, both about Lydias cultivation and her sword, but he kept his mouth shut. Another arrow from the treeline. This time he was ready, and a Wide-wuth leapt ahead to intercept it before leaping back to its original position.
He quietly sent out an aetherwave message to Victors tablet.
Whatever or whomever you are occupied with, come to my location. I need your eyes. Focus on the treeline, there is an archer and possibly other hostiles.
There was a delay of a few seconds, but Jorfr received an affirmative ping.
The Raider Leader dropped into a particular stance, her blades edge gleaming with power. Alarmed, Lydia raised Vysaga in defense and leapt out of the way, and a moment later, the Raider Leader performed a wide slash that formed a crescent moon-shaped blade of white aura. It remained around her as she prepared for another slash, doubtlessly to send the auratic blade forward.
In that moment, Lydia herself stabbed Vysaga into the ground, activating its main function with a hand sign. It suddenly exploded in a mess of flame-like, pink and white lightning, far beyond what someone of Lydias level should be capable of. Jorfr at least knew enough of the sword to recognize that this power came from the weapons flame-wreathing functionality, and that the presence of Lydias Blazing Thundergod within the blade was transmuting its fire into this form At least that was his guess. For all he knew Zels use of the sword might have permanently warped its arcane circuitry so that it simply produced lightning instead of fire, and Lydias Thundergod was just amplifying and slightly adjusting it.
Lydia seemed to stop, holding a grip-like hand-sign towards Vysagas handle with her right hand outstretched forwards. Meanwhile, with her left hands thumb touching the point of her index finger and the other fingers straightened, she held her left arm horizontally such that it formed a cross with both Vysagas upright shape and her own right arm. Jorfr didnt have the sharpest sense for these things, but even he could see the wild lightning of her blade calm down and sharpen around it; it was still wreathed in a seething, cherry petal coloured maelstrom, but at least that lightning was no longer actively tearing holes into the surrounding undergrowth.
The Raider Leader, visibly straining, performed another wide, powerful spring, a flash of light from her blade carrying the light-crescent forward. She bellowed out an invocation, but her voice didnt carry far enough to be heard. Jorfr still read her lips, catching the words "Crescent Cutter".
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LUNAR SIGN
EXPRESSION OF PURE KILLING INTENT
MOONLIT SLAUGHTER SWORD: CRESCENT CUTTER
Lydia waited, biding her time, only to raise her right hand skyward while performing a horizontal slashing gesture with her left. Vysaga tore itself out of the ground in an upward arc, pointing silently to the sky as all its lightning suddenly went tearing through the ground and air alike. It took the form of flattened ovoids, swirling and zipping about as they flowed forwards in the vaguest possible approximation of an auratic blade But it still was one. There was no way Lydia couldve clashed against Iddas technique just with her armament aura alone, so using Vysagas own power generation as a counterbalance was a good move.
From a distance, it vaguely resembled a blade-shaped flood of cherry petals. Very vaguely But it was there. A technique that had yet to reach its true form.
STORMBLOOM SIGN
ART OF KILLING BLOSSOMS: PETALS OF SPRING -NASCENT BREEZE-
The collision of their techniques couldnt truly be described as a clash, because Lydias technique simply flowed around and through Iddas Crescent Cutter, tearing it apart in the process of making its way to its actual intended target. The much-weakened Crescent Cutter still had some effect, putting a shallow horizontal cut into Lydias stomach While the Petals of Spring put numerous small cuts all over Iddas body. The force of it sent her stumbling backwards as her tattered clothing quickly soaked with blood, and with animal fury in her eyes, she redoubled her assault.
The battle went on, and Jorfr noticed a clear trend; the Raider Leader leading the fight closer to the treeline, and the occasional arrows had slowed down significantly before they stopped altogether. It was obvious what she was doing, but he couldnt just leave all these bandits here, and they wouldnt die from the pressure of his aura if they didnt struggle against it. He could slaughter them to the man, but that, too, would take more time than it would for the two women to move their duel into the woods.
Fortunately, Victor arrived well before that could take place, riding atop Dawnwolf, still trying to buckle up his shorts. His hair was a mess and his skin glistened with sweat.
First-circles throwing swordlight left and right, I can only imagine the face Mistress Zelsys would be making if she were here to see this, the redhead said in an amused tone. Jorfr didnt disagree. For all the effort she had gone to, she could never produce armament aura of any sort. He thought she was better for it, and he was certain she knew that, but he also wagered that it was a matter of ego for her to be able to match the abilities of other cultivators.
Despite his remark on the fight, Jorfr was confident that Victor was also doing as he had asked him to. Thanks to his strange spiritual circumstance, he could not only think ten times faster, he also effectively had the ability to fully focus on two trains of thought at a time. That trust was confirmed with a clandestine aetherwave message a moment later: No archer, but I see the tracks of at least three or four people. Both physical and astral. Looks like Maybe one strong-ish cultivator or two lesser ones? Its hard to tell, the monads are already swarming back in.
242 - Return to Fort 57 Pt. 5
When he had taught the redhead tracking and other hunting basics during their time together, Jorfr hadnt expected him to use the disturbance in environmental monads to trace his prey. He still sucked at it at the start, but it nonetheless felt strange that some people could simply see the spiritual side of the world, even if those eyes came from merging with an ancient and powerful ancestor. He had been worried that Victor might become arrogant or that his fortune might be lost on him, but he had also quickly learned that his worries were unfounded. Victors meteoric growth in recent months had only caused his sense for threats to develop such that he took precautions even against relative weaklings like these bandits.
Jorfr sent another message: Ping the frequency sixteen increments above this one and follow the only trace. Your target is our pink lightning user; escort her. Do not reveal yourself unless it seems as though the target is about to be killed, captured, or wounded to a severe degree. Watch out for archers or other hidden reinforcements.
The redhead turned to Jorfr and gave a nod, grinning. His staffs jade rings jangling, he rode off towards the treeline upon his bony steed. Dawnwolfs flames dimmed down to near nothing and its movement slowed as it entered, while Victor simply willed his staffs smaller rings to remain still. That servitor was downright unsettlingly stealthy when it needed to be.
Several dozen people had gathered behind Jorfr by now; mostly civilians, but a few fighters and even a handful of cultivators. By the looks and auras of them, two of the Fort 57 cultivators were not new, but rather ones who had come out of hiding recently. Such cases werent too rare in the wake of the war, but the Pateirian Emperor officially ending his Cultivation Suppression Edict was what it took to open the flood gates. He supposed that if Tian Fengs cultivator genocide was in anyones living memory, it would be immortal hermits.
One particular cultivator came up to Jorfr from behind, emanating a powerful yet subdued aura, and smelling like the smoke of a wildfire. It was a little, hunched old man, emaciated and wearing only trousers, with tied-back white hair and a wispy goatee. By his light brown skin and hazel eyes, he had to be a Grekurian. His body had tattoo-like tracts of black resembling a Victory Demons burns, but the patterns werent harsh enough, and he felt much too old to be a Victory Demon. In his hand he had a large pipe with a bulbous, metalshod end and a distinct handle, and it spewed dark, dense smoke. It was obviously intended for use as a weapon.
What shall we do with these bandits, my young martial brother? Your spirit pressure cannot hold them forever. asked the old man.
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I suspect that some among them are merely victims of the war trying to eke out a living But many among them also likely deserve death, or at least some other punishment.
Very well. I shall invoke Omniudex to arbitrate he said, taking a long drag of his pipe.
He then wheezed out a multi-sentence incantation and exhaled with great force. Nothing happened. He furrowed his brow.
Surely, the Black Judge cannot have completely lost his power in a few hundred years. Ive only had a failure like this once before Has there been a second Renegade Inquisitor lately?
A third one, but yes. Last year. Alcerys the Charred Judge. A sister to my sects founder.
Jorfr knew the relationship to be an ancestral one, but it felt wrong to say that, given how the two interacted on the rare occasion he had seen them do so.
The smoking cultivator seemed taken aback by the implication that he had missed a whole Renegade Inquisitor during his time away from society, but he quickly took a puff of his pipe and gathered his wits.
Well then I suppose one of his children ought to do.
The same process took place, with a different incantation.
His smoke formed the image of a plate-armoured woman with long hair and two swords, many seals dangling off of her limbs as well as her back, forming a short cloak. She flew forward, passing over each bandit in turn, leaving smoky images of swords hanging over a few of their heads. Roughly thrice as many got the image of manacles and a numeral, most of which were low. Some got no image at all, and others were just left out - specifically, those strong enough to resist Jorfrs aura pressure.
Theres your answer. Sword means execution, manacles mean imprisonment for so many years.
And what would the judging criteria happen to be, martial brother? Jorfr asked, trying to be polite to this man-out-of-time.
Rather than answer, the smoky cultivator dragged from his pipe again and blew smoke in Jorfrs face. Knowledge of a foreign conception of justice rushed into his mind as abstract concepts rather than words, thus demanding a bit of time to process. The name of the god came with it: Iusticia. All in all, Iusticias idea of what crimes warranted death or imprisonment was surprisingly close to Jorfrs own views. Notably, the killing of another human, even outside a combative context, wasnt an automatic death sentence, especially if one held remorse within their soul.
Whats that look for, viking? These parlor tricks only work on mortals and bottom-rung First Circlers, I rarely ever get to use them. Go on and ask the suspects, they cant lie for the next couple minutes.
Jorfr was a bit doubtful, not being one to immediately trust a stranger, so he did ask And found that the bandits reactions ranged from total refusal to speak to admitting to stealing things to peddle for food and equipment to steal more. A few grinned at him and freely admitted to killing, trying to act as if he was somehow the same as them for killing his enemies in combat. This was of course not the issue here, as several of those with no punishment mark expressed surprise due to their own guilt over having killed someone.
243 - Return to Fort 57 Pt. 6
See, Omniudex wouldve marked these pussies for punishment too, just something lighter to satisfy their guilt, like some light scarification or what have you. Iusticia is soft like that, the smoke cultivator commented.
Very well, let us hear what the people of Fort 57 think and we can make the final decision.
That didnt take long thanks to the fact a number of the bandits were known by people in the fort, and in the end, the judgments would turn out very close to those rendered by Iusticias Phantom.
However, while these brief deliberations took place, a battle raged in the forest nearby And Victor quietly snuck around, watching it from a distance. Despite its size and fiery provenance Dawnwolf possessed the countenance of a predatory beast, and its controlling servitor, Gamma, was based on a hunting dog. It also possessed a steadiness and smoothness of movement impossible to a normal living thing, especially in this low-output mode of operation. As such, the sizable monstrosity had no issue sneaking through the Ikesian woodland, and at the distance which Victor could maintain thanks to his eyes, the two of them barely even had to be stealthy to stay out of the combatants notice.
Mistress Zelsys doubtlessly picked out this Lydia woman as a future disciple when we last came by here, I should take care that she survives without serious injuries, he thought. Though he knew that Jorfr wouldnt like him doing this, Victor judged the situation to be low-level enough that he could afford to use it as a live test for a new method of forming his Devils Teeth. He created a shape from devilbone, a pentagon squished inward until it had roughly the same proportions as a rectangular talisman - thrice as long as it was wide, and about a centimeter thick. This was one of the shapes prescribed in the Itrian Scroll. He made it taper down to as sharp an edge as possible, and twisted it around its central lengthwise axis until it resembled his normal Devils Teeth. The empty spaces within the twisted spiral were also the space where he placed the fuel mixture, forming hair-thin bone membranes to keep it from combusting prematurely. This design didnt have many advantages over his normal Devils Teeth, but it was a work in progress, designed to eventually let him merge Itrian talisman magic with the far superior maneuverability, durability, and direct attack power of Devils Teeth.
Only months ago, the construct would have been unstable, but as he was now, Victor could just let it sit unattended and it wouldnt go off on its own for hours. While he had it with him and maintained its structure, it was completely stable. As he snuck around in observation of his target, Victor gradually built up several dozen of these Devils Teeth, having Dawnwolf eat them.
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Lydias battle with Idda continued, with the latter fleeing in a manner which was an all too obvious attempt to draw Lydia deeper into the woods for an ambush. Their path was marked by scars upon the forest wrought both by their blades as well as crescent-shaped blades of swordlight and gusts of cherry petals made of lightning. Inevitably, Victor bore witness to the individuals who had previously acted from beyond the treeline. He knew it was them because of the particular manner in which their presence disturbed their immediate surroundings, their spiritual footprints in a manner of speaking. Five of them - three with bows, two with swords. They spread out to cover multiple firing angles as Lydia and Iddas battle carried into an open area
He continued drawing in closer, preparing to ambush those who thought themselves the ambushers.
Lydias aggression had reason beyond simple animosity for her foe. If she had fought more conservatively, Idda wouldve been able to outlast her. Even now, she was walking a razor-thin margin of energy expenditure and combat power. She hoped that she would be able to finish things before Vysagas power ran dry.
Just as she leapt over one of Iddas crescent blades, bringing Vysaga point-down to deliver the final blow, an arrow came ripping out from the underbrush. She just barely managed to pull her blade back in defense, instead landing a flying kick against Iddas defensively-raised blade while Vysaga spun in place to her left. Several ambushers revealed themselves, fulfilling her fear from earlier. They hadnt retreated after all. She wasnt surprised, just annoyed at herself for giving into her own wrath and overcommitting. She sought means of escape, wholly willing to turn tail and run, but before she could do such a thing, a strange beast made itself known. The air grew warm as the stomping form stormed through the forest, causing Iddas reinforcements to draw nearer in panic.
Lydia glimpsed it, a beast the size of a False Drake, sprinting along with a man grasped in its claw-ended tail, whipping him back and forth like a ragdoll. A red-haired young man with a strange staff rode atop it, grinning ear to ear. It skidded along the forest floor, darting into the immediate vicinity And spewing bullets.
At least, that was what she thought them to be. The bullets left trails of white-black flame and tore through trees as if they were butter. The beast threw its victim over Lydias head, and nailed two fleeing others where they stood, riddling each with holes. It directed several more in Iddas direction, tearing chunks out of her arms and legs just with grazing hits.
Before the bone-beast and its master could wipe out every single one of Iddas allies, one of the archers drew back his bow and launched an arrow skyward, which exploded in a burst of red smoke.
Lydia, knowing better than to let slip an opportunity like this, closed in and ran Idda through from behind, skewering her with a downward stab. The raider forced herself to turn even as she was pinned to the ground by the giant sword, fury and hatred in her eyes rising as she hacked up blood and raised her sword in a final act of defiance. Ere she could act, she was torn apart from within by a swirling outpouring of chittering petals, the last of Vysaga''s power spent all at once.
244 - Return to Fort 57 Pt. 7
Before she could ask the redhead who he was or why he was here, he just Fell into his steed. In a few brief moments it transformed around him and formed a monstrous armor.
More are coming. My swords power is spent, but I can still fight, she said to him, pulling Vysaga free of Iddas still-warm corpse.
Take care that you do not suffer serious injury. I will handle the reinforcements, came a rather young-sounding voice from within the helmet. He brought out a strange key of bone and blue gemstone, floating in the palm of his gauntleted right hand, and slotted it into that strange, bulky belt on his waist. He took a brief time to move the bodies around, for some strange reason. Then, he simply walked to a tree near one of the bodies and leaned against it. Lydia knew well enough to get into cover.
In a suspiciously short span of time, both of them felt a group of presences drawing near.
They had been prepared in the forest, just in case trouble arose. When the signal went out, they sprang into action with the fervent eagerness of rabid beasts Only to arrive at a site of slaughter, one of their targets hiding behind a monstrous cultivator with a strange staff and even stranger armor. He exuded a powerful aura, but nothing of the sort that could incapacitate the veterans that they were. After all, they were all former members of the Sanger Sect to a man, elites acting as supportive pillars for Iddas gang from her benefactor And Idda was dead. This would just be cleanup, including what they expected to be an easy brute-force raid on Fort 57.
Ive found a new appreciation for enemy reinforcements, lately. It just isnt the same when I have to use trees instead of corpses, said the monstrous cultivator. As if to demonstrate, he waved his staff and a gnarled, thorny vine erupted from the bark of a nearby tree. It separated, and burrowed into the man he had slain only moments earlier.
They all fell upon him at once with full killing intent, and at that same moment, he turned the key in his belt. With the belts opening and the ignition of its core, a blast of heat flowed out from him and the corpse he had implanted with a vine began to writhe as if it were a bag full of snakes. Flesh-brambles erupted out of the body, muscular tendrils with spikes of bone growing between individual bundles. Where the vine had seemed strong and quick, it hadnt seemed a threat, but the sheer destructive force of these horrors threatened all but the three strongest among the cultivators.
Lydia barely got to do anything besides watch. The redhead danced with a snappy, unnatural motion, flagrantly disregarding any semblance of normal martial arts in favour of eclectic, confusing motions only made possible by the violent blasts of flame that erupted at his command from the many vents all across his armor. As he fought, his brambles rapidly surrounded the clearing, spreading from corpse to corpse in seconds, each erupting with them in turn.
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He slew three men in the span of three seconds. One had his head separated from his shoulders by a rocket-propelled punch from that giant gauntlet of his, and a second had his ribcage crushed by the rocket-propelled roundhouse kick which followed immediately afterwards. A third was run through by his staff-spear, grasped in the bony hand on his back. While this took place, his fleshy tendrils engaged the other enemies, and the tendrils spikes continued to grow into strange, drill-like shapes. One particular man battled with the red-haired mage and seemed to be holding his own, a withered man with a scimitar.
In moments, those fleshbrambles of his had enveloped the entire clearing. One of them lashed outward and grabbed hold of a man with two guns in hand and four others floating to his sides, dragging him into the mass. Just as Lydia had gotten a good grasp on the great scale of the situation and the actual capabilities of the enemys individual fighters, they were already out of combat And she was outside the tangle of death, just barely, clearly excluded on purpose.
Synchronous waves of swordlight from the surviving twelve flowed all across the constrained field of battle, yet none could strike the bone-armored wizard. Some he dodged, but that wasnt all; white-black flame erupted from his armor with such force that it blew the aura constructs to pieces. One managed to force him to directly block, striking at him with his blade wreathed in swordlight, so forcefuly and quickly that the armored mage slid back into his own wall. It was yet again the man with the scimitar..
That will be enough, the armored wizard said, leaping out from within his own formation, a hole just big enough for him opening up amidst the brambles.
Rapidly forming hand-signs, his fleshy constructs suddenly struck out at their foe and bound the few of them who had still been free. Then, all at once, their drill-like spines fired off like bullets. Of the thirteen survivors, six bore such wounds that Lydia thought they were still alive. Of these six, one had only sustained three glancing hits - the Scimitar-wielder. He was also the only one yet unbound by the brambles.
Facing away from the two of them from having defended himself earlier, he turned his head to glare at Lydia, then at the mage. His blade-like aura suddenly surged, and before Lydia could warn her ally, the scimitar-wielder slashed in an upward motion. Every iota of his aura shot out with that slash, tearing open a gap in the brambles. He passed through just as the formation re-sealed itself, a grunt of frustration coming from the redhead as he signed to make the re-sealing happen Only to let it go.
Ah. It doesnt matter. Theyre all dead anyway.
Lydia clearly saw that they were not, in fact, all dead. Not yet.
245 - Return to Fort 57 Pt. 8
The redhead stabbed his staff into the ground, stepped away, and began performing an impossible hand-sign sequence; his left hand for perfectly possible ones, his right hand for strange, stiff signs befitting its size, and his third hand performing serpentine, undulating signs behind him. His dome of brambles closed in and closely enveloped all his victims. A bead of black flame formed within the ring of his staff, the core of his belt flaring and his armors many vents spitting small gusts of the same fire. The staffs four jade rings spun around, and the next moment, a deluge of fire erupted from it, and his fleshy pyre erupted in flame as if it had been soaked in accelerant.
Rather than burn things, however, it seemed to petrify them No, it was turning them to bone, and somehow, the flame exclusively affected the redheads own gruesome creations and the people they were entrapping.
ERADICATION SIGN
A TASTE OF THE SEVEN HELLS
MAGUS GESTALT FORMATION: BONEYARD CREMATORIUM
It was only brief, a few seconds, and when it was over, he immediately took his staff and turned to Lydia: I will see if I can catch the one who got away. Stay here for now, if I do not return within half a minute, go back to Fort 57.
Lydia nodded.
Then, in a blast of flame, he soared upward past the trees crowns. Such a feat, normally reserved only for immortals of legend, made to seem casual and inconsequential by his demeanor.
Flying was by no means an inconsequential feat for Victor. It was significantly more energy-efficient than hed expected, but he still didnt default to this mode of movement. He hadnt exactly gotten much time to get used to it since the blood feud.
Victor chased after the escapee, quickly closing the distance as he followed the disturbance left by his strong aura, but It was his scimitar that he found, while the man himself had evaded him. The sword had been flying at a believable running speed, and fell to the ground the moment Victor landed next to it.
Frustrated, he returned to Lydia, transforming Dawnwolf back into its beast form. Riding atop the servitor the two made their way back to Fort 57, where a mass execution was taking place If it could be called that. It was in fact Jorfr inside a circle drawn in the dirt, surrounded by a number of the surviving would-be raiders. A strange, small cultivator with a huge pipe stood off to the side, alongside a few others with tangible auras and a crowd of normal people. They seemed to have been waiting for his and Lydias return.
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Now, the trial by combat may begin! the pipe man called out.
To describe what followed as a battle was not accurate. It was a slaughter. Jorfr refrained from summoning simulacra or exerting his aura, perhaps as part of some self-limiting agreement or for his own amusement, but that made little difference. Superbia just went straight through his foes like they werent even there, and the explosions of just one of Iceberg Breakers impacts turned half of his foes into mushy gore. He was surrounded by corpses in the span of moments.
Thus Iusticias judgment is carried out! the pipe man once more shouted, spinning on his heel and walking towards the fort. Now take their things and lets get some drinks.
...I could use a drink, Lydia agreed.
And so, as the people of Fort 57 moved in to devour those who had sought to devour them, our heroes sat down, drank, and talked. The sole reason they were granted peace was that Jorfr plainly stated that they were not to be bothered, and none dared go against him.
Questions inevitably arose as to how exactly Lydia had arrived at her current state.
Well I already had the foundations of Sanger Family arts and a sword controlling technique. That technique was what got me chased out of the sect, little princeling or dukeling or whatever the fuck he was didnt like a commoner doing something he couldnt, even with access to all the sects limited-access scriptures. From there, I worked off of this, she said, taking a Sturmblitz Kunst 0 pamphlet out of her pocket.
My swordlight is weak, and since Vysaga already made lightning, I just went for the one method I knew of that could support it. I wont get into how I got my hands on a Storm-soul Cultivation scripture. But, yknow, funny thing about who knows how many centuries of barely any cultivation going on Is that I just walked my ass on up to the Stormbloom and called down a tribulation without asking Then used pills made from two-century old herbs to heal myself afterwards. And all I had to do was help a creepy old man pick those very herbs. Sure, I got some burns from it, and my right eye is just fucked, but all in all, it was a hell of a trade.
Why not come to the Newman Sect? We can replace that busted eye of yours, but youll have to stick around for a little while so we can be sure you acclimate to it properly, Victor offered. He had good reason to make the offer; it was the same reason he and Jorfr had split from Zelsys and Zefaris, or at least one of them. The place to which they had ventured, a concealed Three Kings Era ruin, had been one of Koscheis old laboratories. Everything organic within the ancient dungeon had either decayed beyond use or was far inferior to on-hand alternatives, but the place had held several very interesting things. There were manuals and tomes, included among them one detailing the concept of a mask by which one might draw out dormant aspects of ones mind. More immediately interesting, though, was a great stash of dungeontech - prosthetics making up much of it. There were also blackstone tablets and strange tools intended for creating and modifying dungeontech. Koscheis vestige remembered that Nameless, the First King, had been the only one to create these tools.
246 - Return to Fort 57 Pt. FINAL / Unassuming Logging Hamlet
Sure. Ill hold you to that offer, Lydia smirked, snapping Victor out of his brief descent into internal pondering. I was already planning on taking a hike down south anyway. You just gave me a reason to do it a little sooner. Turns out, the Sangers dont like it much when youre walking around using their techniques and mixing them with a rival sects teachings.
What rival sect? Jorfr asked.
Yours. Who else?
Oh? I was not made aware that either of Ikesias two major Dark Age sects considers us a rival, the draugr said. He added in a facetious tone: What an honor.
Ill make an off-handed guess: They conveniently took no issue with or happened not to notice Iddas gang, Victor chimed in.
Of course not. Their backer is a high-up sect member. I want to say its the same nobleman who ran me out of the sect, but that feels Paranoid.
Ive read that the World of Cultivation is small, and that was in books from the Three Kings Era I also remem- er, heard it from people who were alive back then. I imagine its even smaller now, after what, six hundred years of Cultivation Dark Age?
The redhead squinted as if he was trying to remember something, his strange pupils briefly contracting to almost form pointy plus signs. ...Actually I think its closer to seven-hundred if you count from the point the Emperor went against the Three Kings. I think.
He is not wrong. The number of cultivators in this country is tiny compared to mortals; even low-level ones like our bandits. A proper cultivators grudge can last centuries, especially if their primary means of immortality is of the unchanging type, Jorfr said.
As I said, I was already planning on leaving this place, too much trouble. I would stay if I was concerned for its future, but So many rogue cultivators have been coming and going lately, I dont think itll be easy prey even for a proper sect. Theyve even had geomancers build fortifications around the alkasnail farm, proper geopolymer ones that can hold up to a cultivator. Place just needs a barrier.
They remained at Fort 57 for some time, waiting to reunite with Zelsys and Zefaris.
A woman chastised her husband as he went on his way out of the house.
Im going for my morning walk.
The old road again?
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Yeah.
Why do you keep going up there? Im telling you, nobody uses that road.
Call it a gut feeling, the man smiled, flipping a golden coin between his fingers.
So you found some tracks and a ten-gelt coin up there months ago, what do you expect, that whoever lost it will come back the same way and give you a sovereign if you keep dutifully walking the same trail every day?
At this point, I think I just like the trail.
That wasnt entirely true, of course. He still felt a strange sense of comfortable longing when he walked that road, but he couldnt place it.
Morning, Franz! a neighbor greeted him. Could you ask Kaira if shed be willing to fix some blueberry jam for me? Weve got a huge harvest this year and I dont have enough glassware to turn it all into wine before they rot.
Sure, we can get the Haurlosens in on it too. I hear theyre fixing to slaughter a pig next week! he replied.
Franz passed through a shimmering, faintly iridescent bubble at the hamlets edge, walking over a line of wooden slats embedded in the ground. He still remembered the face of the old man who had put them there; upon his arrival he had regarded even the hamlet as if it were an overpopulated city. Franz thought back on that day as he reached the top of the hill and sat at the edge of the road, watching over his home from there.
The mans shriveled, hunched-over frame and antiquated clothing only served to highlight the huge bundle of swords on his back. Without even introducing himself, he demanded to be given wood from a tree at least fifty years old. Franz was the first to come out and question who he was and what he wanted with the hamlet of Arthal, despite feeling as though he might be cut down at any moment when the old man squinted at him. When the old man narrowed his eyes, He was certain the end of his goatee was cut at that moment.
Troubled times ahead. Tian- he started, only to shake his head as he corrected himself. The Pateirian Emperor has lifted his Cultivation Suppression Edict. The continent will soon be set ablaze with new cultivators rise and old cultivators re-emergence. I am here to offer the protection of the Free Cities Alliance; Willowdale, Rigport, others. To carry out my work, I require old wood. Spiritual wood. I will create a barrier for your hamlet; one which shall render it invisible to those with malign intent and protect it from direct attack. A very small Blackwall, if you will.
Why?
The old mans blade-like gaze drifted to the statue in the hamlets center, then back to Franz.
I am merely on a journey to another place, and it so happens that this hamlet - or rather, this forest - was on my way. Consider this repayment for giving me access to the woods. I will only take some herbs from deep within it.
He glanced at that statue again.
I would speak with your wise-man, or failing that, the elder of your village.
Arthal was run by a group of elders, Franz being the youngest among them, and so they gathered, and spoke with the stranger. There, in private, he said: What I said to you upon my arrival was entirely true. I have been journeying across Ikesia for the better part of a year, creating rudimentary magical defenses for unoccupied villages and towns such as yours. The forest of yours is old, and holds precious resources - precious not to mortals, but cultivators. It will be easier for me to acquire these resources if I ensure that this hamlet continues to exist. The forest has acknowledged the legitimacy of your presence here, and in turn, by rendering my aid to you I will enter the forests good graces.
247 - Unassuming Logging Hamlet Pt. 2
The statue. You kept looking at it. Does it have anything to do with this offer of yours? Franz asked.
There is power in the monument, yes; it attracts and houses minor spirits. Were it to be destroyed, the forest would not fall upon you - the forest needs not a monument as a reminder. However I shall be able to harness the power of what your monument represents to fuel a protective array around your hamlet. I only need local materials to channel the power.
A melancholy silence fell over the room at that, but none spoke of the matter. The villagers of Arthal provided what the strange old man asked, as they had the tools to ascertain a trees age without killing it. It was a simple necessity, as the hamlet had originally been built to supply the very type of wood the old man asked for. There was no surprise as to why; such ancient wood had superior properties in every aspect, and could be used for applications with strange material property requirements.
Franz sat up there, watching quietly. He would normally spend around half an hour like this before coming down, but his time of peace did not pass as normal this day.
There was a distant rumble, like the engine of a cargo half-track, but far fiercer. Then came the slight rumbling in the ground. He got up and walked a short distance to the top of the hill, and from there he saw a machine comparable in size to a tractor, but with only two wheels and carrying two figures. The machine stared at him, its headlights stylized as the eyes of a mammoths skull, its tusks as rams protecting the front wheel.
It tore down the dirt road, only to slow and come to a halt right next to him.
Standing there, having to look up at a woman, Franz was absolutely certain that these were the exact people that the strange old man had built the hamlets barrier to defend against. The one driving, a towering, monstrous woman with a bronze arm and eyes like a wild beast, felt like a wolf staring at him from the treeline, like she might tear his throat out at any moment. The sky was clear, so why did the air smell like an oncoming storm?
The other, a blonde in a strange, pseudo-militaristic dress, wore a skull-faced mask and possessed a single, double-pupiled eye. But There was something unsettlingly familiar about that blonde. Where had Franz seen her before?
You wouldnt happen to be from that logging hamlet down there, would you? came a question from the giant woman. Her voice was deep and husky, yet boisterous and open all the same. Franz, however, knew well enough to play it safe with someone who broadcasted her cultivator status this brazenly.
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Yes, lady cultivator. However, our hamlet is of no interest.
No honorifics. I am Zelsys Newman, either of those names is fine. This is Zefaris Newman.
What a curious coincidence, one of my neighbors children is a Zefaris. She ought to be around your age, Franz remarked, desperately trying to release the tension which he alone felt.
Zelsys twisted her neck to an uncomfortable degree to look back at her co-rider, who had started staring a hole straight through Franzs head. It was at this point that he noticed the guns on her hips. The blonde reached up to her face and removed the mask.
I know, father, she said. I hope she wont be angry with me for borrowing her name.
Confusion turned to surprise and sudden relief as Franz recognized his own daughters face, changed so severely after all these years.
...Sophia?
It was an awkward, but belated reunion.
The whole of the hamlet - that is to say, a few hundred people - gathered to welcome the returned daughter who had, to them, passed into folk myth for her act many years prior. A generation of children had been raised being told of her deed and how drunken fools had chased her away for doing what they themselves had been too cowardly to do. Many eyes gathered to Zelsys as well, as was inevitable, though for once, she made an effort to not stand out. It was a futile one, but she made the effort nonetheless. The people of Arthal had the good courtesy to mind their own business, and only a few tactless children tried to peer through the windows of Zefs familys home Soon after which the angered barking of their parents drew them away.
It was a modest, but well-built home, with a structure of thick, treated logs and an interior of pragmatic simplicity. Most of the furniture was clearly handmade, yet once more, the makers skill showed through, and only a few modern essentech amenities were to be found, primarily a water heater and water purifier. The home had a single central, L-shaped room, with a few doors to other rooms and a small upper floor.
There was significantly less crying than Zelsys had expected. Indeed, neither Zefaris nor any of her direct family shed tears or played out other overly dramatic displays of emotion. Zel bore witness to a great deal of hugging and listened to the blonde recounting her long and storied military career, while she herself ended up dragged into playing the role of heavy machinery in pulverizing blueberries within a large basin. It was a bit inappropriate to put Carnifex to task in this manner, but the efficacy of a Fang Ripper as a giant blender could not be understated.
Both her father, Franz, and her mother, Eva, looked exactly how Zelsys had expected them to from Zefs brief description of them. Both were blonde, tall Ikesians, with Franz having pale-blue eyes, a square jaw, and a triangular nose, his hair short and graying. Eva had hair tied into a thick braid that went halfway down her back, green eyes accentuated by deep crows feet, and a narrow face that retained a youthful appearance despite her evident age. It was obvious where most of Zefs facial structure had come from. Zel liked Evas demeanor, how she showed not an iota of fear or apprehension towards her, treating her as if she were nothing more than a daughter-in-law, and treating the Fang Ripper as nothing more than what it was being used for at that very moment - a very handy tool.
248 - Unassuming Logging Hamlet Pt. 3
Sophia. That was what her parents called her.
Zel was well aware that Zefs original name was Sophia Gottfrid, but until now, it had been just a piece of information no more relevant than her hometown. It was something Zefaris had told her once, and neither of them had mentioned it since - when Zef had shared her old name, she said it as if she had merely wanted to rid herself of a weight. It felt quite strange hearing the name actually used, and considering Zefs own reaction, she seemed to feel the same way.
From serving in the military, to the trenches, to becoming a Doppelsoldat, losing her eye, and hiding in the Exclusion Zone - all the way to meeting Zelsys. It was then that the atmosphere shifted a touch.
Right. So youre a cultivator now, and you got with a Body cultivator? Is that what you are, dear? Eva questioned.
Of a sort, Zel nodded. She wasnt truly a participant in the conversation, not yet. The moment she got her answer, Eva returned her attention to her daughter. Frankly, Zelsys was astonished that the lady even knew what a body cultivator was. She herself could barely define the term besides the broadest possible definition.
...A body cultivator. And youre set now, is that right? You dont look like youre starving, but I cant be sure with that getup, and youve always looked thin.
I wont have money problems any time soon, dont worry.
Well, thats good. I wouldve liked it if you came back with grandkids for me, but cant help it now. Your brothers already took care of preserving our family line anyway, even if the kids live half a days travel away. So, Zelsys- mind telling me your side of how you met my daughter?
I was just trying to get out of the Exclusion Zone and happened upon the three of them when I found a road. It really is that simple.
Alright, but why were you in the exclusion zone? Come now, its not as if you have any reason to fear us little people.
Mother- Zefaris cut in.
No, no, I dont mean that badly. I mean look at her! She can barely fit inside the door! And those muscles, I cant fault you in the slightest. I can scarcely imagine what story lies behind that right arm.
Zelsys didnt remember ever feeling the exact sense of discomfort she did at that very moment, being fawned over by her lovers mother. She gave Zefaris a questioning glance, and only once she received a resigned, yet affirmative nod did she admit what she was. Of course, she omitted most of the details, merely summarizing that she awoke in the bunker and that, as far as she knew, she was likely an artificial human.
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Well no wonder you turned out like you did, then! I cant imagine a real person with your build, Eva laughed.
Youd be surprised, we just came back from Borea and I very nearly felt normal-sized there.
A short span of time passed, filled by idle talk, wherein Zelsys and Franz quietly worked away at a comically huge stockpile of blueberries while Zefaris continued to talk with her mother. Despite not having exchanged even a word with the man, Zel felt a tacit kinship with him. Slowly, conversation turned to the children of Zefs brothers. She asked where they lived, receiving the answer of Togerby... And a heavy silence to follow.
I hope not many followed in my stead when the recruitment calls went out, Zefaris said.
A handful followed in your stead, though considering who they were, I wager they wouldve found another excuse for seeking glory even if you had stayed. Most of them returned, thank the Dead Ones, but Well, we had our own troubles. A few raids, starving Grekurian soldiers nearly every time. We gave shelter a handful of fugitives, too, but-
What is it? Theres something youre trying not to bring up.
Your brothers. They actually returned home to visit a while back, but theyre gone now. A drunken quarrel with some soldiers who were sheltering with us at the time. It was raining, and they got into a fistfight in the sawmill somehow. Barnabas fell in a bad way and got caught in one of the waterwheels. Hector hit his head. The soldiers didnt end up any better, one of them got sawed in half. You can still see the stains. We Buried them out back.
The life drained out of Zefaris. Her expression and gaze became hollow and cold, the motion of her body came to a halt as if her heart and breath had both stilled. The temperature in the room plummeted, and one could see hoarfrost forming on the windows. It felt as though time slowed down, just a touch - not enough to be noticeable to the two mortals, but Zelsys could tell.
Oh. I see. Its a shame. That those soldiers died by accident, I mean. I wouldve liked to kill them myself.
Zelsys and Franz watched the tub full of blended blueberries turning into sorbet as her Fang Ripper tore through the fruit and mixed it up. Thinking quickly, Zel reached out and snapped her fingers in front of Zefs face, the action ringing out with metallic resonance. Instantly, she returned to her senses.
I would Like to see their graves, Zefaris said.
Of course.
She didnt weep over the grave, or mourn in any overt manner other than pouring out a shot glass of winter peach brandy over both graves. The atmosphere, somber as it was, gradually returned to normal as Eva broached other subjects with her daughter. The four of them ended up partaking of the incidental sorbet which Zefs outburst had created, though most of it melted quickly.
The conversation drew on for some time afterwards. After much convincing and many refusals of any gifts of valuables, Zel and Zef shared some of the more benign things theyd brought back. One thing led to another, and before long, the whole hamlet had gathered in a small feast.
249 - Unassuming Logging Hamlet Pt. FINAL/Burial Ground
A pig was brought out to be butchered, and Zelsys was once more put to task as organic heavy machinery, this time in killing the creature. Remembering the captive-piston tool used by many modern butchers, she turned to the pigs owner, who was holding the fat thing in place alongside several other men.
You dont need the skull intact, right?
Of course not.
With that, she simply pressed her fist against the beasts forehead, drew it back a few centimeters, and with a motion too fast for mortal sight she caved its head in. In a spray of brain matter, it was dead on the spot. She realized she couldve just killed it with a shock through the brain, but the uproarious reception proved to her that this was the better option. It didnt matter to the pig anyway, its death instantly either way. Her work wasnt over yet, as she helped foist the carcass onto a hook, but after that, the men of the village took over with their long butchering knives. The butchery was accompanied by so-called Slaughter Rolls, a type of pastry filled with fruit preserves. In this case, that filling was blueberry jam scooped straight out of the pot.
There came up, of course, the question of the statue and the weirdly familiar barrier, to which Zefs father, Franz, elucidated with a description of a weirdly familiar cultivator.
Both Zel and Zef found the whole affair to be slightly surreal, and so did the original Zefaris, who jokingly chastised Zef: My name?! Werent my lunches enough?
They looked nothing alike - Zefaris Eberlin was a short, thickly built woman with hazel eyes, freckles, and screamingly-bright orange hair.
Looks like youve done well for yourself despite Stephans rejection back then Eberlin continued, looking Zelsys up and down. But I really expected you to go for some huge military officer when you said youd find someone a head taller than him.
Zefs eye went wide as an old memory came to the surface, and she muttered: I had forgotten I ever said that.
Well, you always did go for the tall ones. It just took you a while to find a tall one that went for you.
Its not my fault nearly all the boys my age were barely taller than me.
The modest feast went on for some time, and the duo remained well past that point, only departing late into the night. Zef had quietly left behind some minor gifts that wouldve been refused had she tried to give them over openly, but before they could leave, Franz followed them with a strange bundle in hand.
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Some two years after you left, I met a leshy in the woods. It had these three small little antlers on its head, and when it saw me, it just tore the middle one straight off and gave it to me. I I think you were supposed to have it. Take it. Have scales for that gun of yours made from it or somesuch, whatever you cultivators do with this kind of thing. Remember us by it.
Zefaris briefly considered suggesting moving to her parents, but she killed that thought and simply took the gift, bidding her father one last goodbye. She knew that they would refuse and that the obscurity of Arthal made them safer here than anywhere within a hundred kilometers of Willowdale.
The two of them went on to reunite with Victor, Jorfr, and Lydia at Fort 57. From there, the journey back to Willowdale went more or less without incident, save for a heretofore unplanned detour of Zefs suggestion. She had suggested it right after her and Zelsys left Arthal - a stop at a particular battlefield. It wasnt widely known, or a lucrative target for scavengers.
Its just Just the place I rightly shouldve died is all. I knew I would die if I obeyed the command, so I pulled the stunt that landed us in the Exclusion Zone. I figure I ought to pay my proper respects to the poor fools who did end up meeting their ends atop that hill. At least a full third of all badge-carrying doppelsoldaten met their deaths there, as far as I know.
And so, their last stop before entering Willowdales territory was that battlefield,
Between Fort 57 and that place, however, was still Arches. Their visit to the small city went utterly without incident. If anything, the duchy was doing better than before. The Duma School, too, was doing well. Victors brief appearance had his former classmates and instructors taken aback, Duma most of all. The old man called him inside, and they spoke in privacy for the better part of half an hour. He spoke nothing of what they had discussed, but both his and Dumas moods seemed to have improved.
From Arches, it was straight to that battlefield. It was well away from any major road, away from any significant strategic target like a city. They reached the edge of it, and from there, Zefaris walked out on her own.
I have to do this myself, she said, and none among them disputed her words.
Here she was. The field upon which she shouldve died. One where the bones of thousands yet lay, their bodies buried not just by mud, but by a sprawling field of flowers - Burial Lilies, a cultivar dating back to to the height of Ankhezia. Each flower was a single thin, forearm-length stalk crowned by a flower of eight pointed petals with a purple stripe going halfway down the middle. There, in that field, a handful of yet taller blossoms stood, pointing up on stalks as thick as fingers and with flowers of six split-ended, purple petals. Zefaris knew those flowers, their value, their killing poison.
She wasnt here for them.
She was there to honor the dead, those by whose side she should have rightly fallen. There, atop that hill, they still stood and knelt and laid, in the broken ruins of what had once been a small lookout fort. Wrecks of early one-man tanks dotted the land around the ruins, and inside them, more fallen were to be found. Doppelsoldaten to a man.
250 - Burial Ground Pt. 2
A grisly mirror of Ubuls Tomb, this place was; the only thing that forestalled the perfect completion of that mirroring was the absence of any Pateirians. This battle had been between Ikesians and Grekurians alone. With her left eye, she could see the evidence of several dead inquisitors as well: Aquila Calibur swords stabbed into the earth, suits of inquisitorial full-plate still shining from amidst the white-purple flower carpet. One Inquisitor in particular caught her gaze, a doubled-over figure kneeling in place, gloved hands clasped around an Aquila Calibur, gas mask hanging round the neck of a picked-clean skull. His armor was still immaculate and unrusted, nearly untouched, were it not for the three holes in his chest. It nearly felt as though that Inquisitor might stir in his death, to try and drag her to her rightful burial place. Much of this battlefield felt like that - it lacked the pervasive stillness of a truly dead battlefield. She remembered feeling the same way at Ubuls Tomb, at points. The battle was done, and the dead were at rest But only most of them. A few exuded an unnatural lack of stillness, just like that Inquisitor.
She wasnt here for him, either. Slowly, she made her way across the battlefield, flipping one of Ingvalds coins between her fingers. It had a skull in an officers cap engraved on one side, and Eisengeist reared-up on its hind legs on the other. Zefaris had intended to collect their badges, and give them a proper burial. However, it seemed that she would not be permitted even this small act of penance for deserting her comrades.
A man wandered out across the field, from beyond the hill, to meet her before she could even begin the climb.
On his waist were six swords, and several more hung from his back. He was garbed in archaic, badly worn clothing; simplistic robes that faintly echoed the vestments in which the Grekurian Orthodoxy depicted their saints, yet he nonetheless exuded an aura that didnt command respect so much as it insinuated that one might lose their head if proper respect is not given. The shape of the mans face and the shade of his skin suggested him to be from the near-tropical fringe regions of Grekurian territory, and though his hair was full and black, the shriveled texture of his skin betrayed the fact age had caught up to him. His eyes were milky-white with cataracts, and an archaic form of the Brass Eye sigil was embedded into his forehead.
I am the blind man started, only to squint and go quiet. He pondered, and Zefaris wasnt sure whether he was trying to remember his own name or make up one on the spot. Toza. You are Like me. Our eyes have met. One of us will die this day.
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Why? I have no quarrel with you, Toza.
Death has seen to it that we meet here. You, too, are here for the fallen warriors who rest here, are you not?
Zefaris nodded. She already knew the old man wouldnt let her walk away without a fight, and the others were a hair short of half a kilometer away. It wasnt that far, but it was far enough that a lethal duel could take place before any of the others could intervene.
You have yet to answer my question. I am here to honor the dead; unless you mean to despoil them, I have no quarrel with you.
Toza stopped walking, nearly exactly thirty meters away.
Dont lie. Youve noticed by now that my aura is like yours. We both walk with death, regardless of how our paths differ. We both know death as one would a trusted comrade. Perhaps you did not come to know death in single combat, as I did, but that makes no difference either.
He unsheathed two of his swords, and in perfect synchronicity, numerous ghostly hands appeared around him to unsheath all the others. All of them were a faint greenish shade, translucent and glowing.
Feeling the mans killing intent as acutely as if he were only a single step from her, Zefaris instinctively clasped her mask to her face and pulled Pentacle. She pulled four more coins from her pocket and pressed her closed hand to her mask''s outlet port, exhaling hard.
It matters not to me which of us walks away from here, he said. While he spoke, ghostly figures formed around him, and Zefaris, too, used the time to summon the two halves of Deaths Lieutenant. Either I win, and add a few truly sublime blades to my arsenal, or I lose, and pass on my art to a worthy inheritor.
By the time Deaths Lieutenant had fully formed, so too had a band of ghostly warriors taken shape around Toza. Their weapons and physical forms varied widely, as if each one was based on a different real person. The sword saints strange spirits came into being already falling apart, corroded. Some were missing limbs, others were merely humanoid shapes dragged around by the motion of their weapons. Even the fully-formed among them were decayed. Their clothing was not frayed and it didnt look as if their flesh was rotting; rather, parts of them were simply missing, like a painting in the midst of rotting away.
Now give your life to me, or take mine in turn!
Dozens of ghostly blades flew out towards her, some sailing straight through the air while others tore through the ground. Some curved their trajectories or even zigzagged around. Despite Zefaris being the one with the guns, it was Toza who possessed superior ranged firepower. Were this the only factor at play, closing the distance would be the obvious solution. Zefaris, of course, knew that would just speed her to her death And so did Toza, considering how hard he was trying to close in.
Two shots in his direction; one from Zefaris, one from Deaths Lieutenant, a ghostly, yet perfect mirror of the real projectile.
251 - Burial Ground Pt. 3
Zefs bullets tore straight through the ghosts which leapt into their trajectory, one prevented from striking true by a sudden block by Tozas ghostly limbs and the other by a near-inhuman spot dodge. His blades were exquisite, exactly of the sort one would expect in an ancient cultivators arsenal, and yet, one of them simply snapped where Zefs bullet struck it. The other bullet whistled by Tozas head, its trajectory having changed by nearly fifteen degrees closer to its target. His blind eyes went wide and a grin gripped his face.
Zefaris cheated, compressing time. Nearly the exact instant after the last, she fired another shot, appearing as if she had skipped forward by a split-second.
Phantom warriors coalesced well ahead of the advancing sword saint, crossing their blades in defense of their master. Appropriately, the ghostly bullet of Deaths Lieutenant was the one that struck them, and scattered their ghostly mass all about the surrounding flowers. It nearly instantly gathered back into humanoid forms, but the real bullet had already flown well past. With a sideway step and a deflection using five swords at once, Toza sent the bullet well away from himself. Its impact, however, visibly caused him pain, and carved a gash into the flat of every sword hed used against it.
By this point, Toza had closed in to barely more than twenty meters. Zefaris threw her coins skyward. A third shot, a decoy, immediately followed by a fourth. Their mirrors followed right after. Phantoms ate one bullet, a second was dodged, a third was blocked, and the fourth Toza cut it in half with a lightning-fast upward slash. It set forth a flash of swordlight so intense that it made a ravine through the ground and would have split Zefaris down the middle if she hadnt used Stutter Step to dodge it.
Zefaris raised Pentacle for its final shot.
Zelsys saw something that should have been impossible. Deaths Lieutenant fired before Zefaris. She knew the spirit, and knew that it somehow drew the power to fire its ghostly sparklock from Zefaris actually firing one of her guns. In her mind, it was not unlike a swordsman needing to actually slash with his sword in order to send out a burst of swordlight. But then, the next split-second, the truth of what she had done revealed itself, heretofore concealed by the fact Deaths Lieutenant hadnt moved an iota until now.
The trick was nothing more than the application of Stutter Step to the spirit and the spirit alone. Deaths Lieutenant skipped forward to the point of its personal timeline where it was firing the mirror twin for a bullet which had just now left Pentacles cylinder. That bullet at this moment rode a pillar of smoke and flame into the sky, striking a coin, from which it ricocheted with yet greater velocity than before, not towards Toza, but to another coin. One after the next, until, after the bullet struck all five coins, it came ripping through the air like a comet, flaming tail and all, towards Tozas head.
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He deflected it.
The bullet that had been fated for his head instead tore a hole straight through his chest. Despite the gaping wound, despite the severance of Tozas spine, the total annihilation of his heart, and the rupturing of his left lung, he yet stood. His ghostly soldiers all returned to him, as did his many summoned ghostly arms, and their ghostly glow entered into his flesh. Each step filled with great struggle, he forged ahead towards Zefaris. The swords slipped from his grasp.
Heh This technique is meant for last stands, but there is no world in which I can strike you down in my current state, he wheezed. Zefaris walked forward to meet him, still ready to blow his head off at any given moment, but the swordsman only stood there, face to face with her. He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a thick, boxy object of dark wood with rings of metal on one side. It took Zefaris a moment to recognize what it was: A rolodex inside a sheath-like protective sleeve.
He held it out, and the book flew out of his hand, floating in front of Zefaris. He began to speak, wheezing out each word, a waterfall of blood pouring down his front.
Take it. All that I know, save for my sword arts, is contained in this Sword Phantom Scripture. It is an art by which one might gain strength from the lingering fighting will of fallen warriors. That is my Walking Way. It was my masters, and his before him, but Coward that I am, I hid myself in fear of the one your era knows as the Emperor. The blade of my soul has grown rusty from an absence of blood to polish it. I came to this place hoping to take from these fallen the strength to reforge my souls edge, but it seems that I only walked to my judgment all the same. Do me this favour, if you would
The ghostly light faded from him. He coughed, and struggled out his final words: ...Pray read the scripture before you leave. Put these peaceless warriors to rest.
Toza slumped over, and breathed his last.
Among the four of them, only Zelsys could even hope to fully grasp what had just happened. Victor had the visual and mental faculties, but he couldnt quite parse what all had transpired. Jorfr wasnt a visually focused fighter to begin with. As for Lydia She stood in wide-eyed awe, unable to comprehend, yet struck by sudden enlightenment nonetheless. While Zefaris had spoken with Toza for a short time, it was an eternity compared to their fight. A handful of seconds at most; the man ran at her, his swords and ghostly servants swirling about him in a lightning-fast dervish, auratic blades spewing out of him. Zefaris rapid-fired a few gunshots at him, hucked coins into the air with inhuman force, then shot upward. Light drew a constellation in the air, and then, a flaming meteor put the old man on the ground like he was a straw doll. Indeed, the bullet had traveled more than quickly enough to set the air ablaze merely with the friction of its passing.
252 - Remnants
After a brief exchange with her opponent immediately preceding his death, Zefaris returned to them with a strange rolodex in hand.
Lets make camp. Well have to stay overnight, she said.
Without a moments questioning, the four of them sprung into motion around Lydia and had a campsite ready within minutes. Jorfr sat by the fire, using a cast-iron pan to simmer cuts of pork from Arthal while Victor looked on, furrowing his brow as he struggled to remember a recipe from Koscheis time. Strange roots and mushrooms from the nearby forest soon accompanied the meat, and some sort of blueberry and herb sauce bubbled away in a second, smaller pan.
Meanwhile, Zefaris cautiously pulled the rolodex from its case by its rings, and found that it was not paper or wood, but thin sheets of damascened metal with razor-sharp edges. More than merely sharp, in fact, the rolodex exuded an intense aura of sharpness Yet Zefaris handled it without issue, running her fingers along the edges of its pages without being cut.
Zel peered at the rolodex, but found herself unable to keep her eyes on it. Lydia made the same attempt, and found herself instinctively pulling Vysaga partway from its sheath in defense from a nonexistent attack.
It seems the scripture can be passed on master to student, through the bearers death, or if someone manages to overpower its aura Zefaris remarked, cautiously turning a page. She spent the next several hours poring over the text, while Zelsys inevitably took interest in Lydias swordsmanship.
In Willowdale, deep in a subterranean chamber, a retired dragonslayer fog-walked through a solid wall to enter that place of respite. He had felt the severance of a life connected to one of his incense sticks, and instantly knew who it was when he saw which stick had gone out.
Toza I hope you fell in battle with a worthy heir, rather than rust away as you so feared you would.
Zefaris read, and read, and slowly came to understand the so-called Sword Phantom Scripture. At first, it seemed to be aimed exclusively at sword-specialist cultivators, thus making it useless to her, but this revealed itself to be merely its primary intended practitioners. The scripture explicitly declared itself to be suited for any weapon specialist who walks as one with death, mentioning The Walking Way of the Eternal Soldier by name. From her studies, she was well aware that this referred to the cultivation path which she had unknowingly stepped onto and which she now walked with full knowledge of its existence, though she found actual texts on the Walking Way to be woefully nonexistent.
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Comparatively, the Sword Phantom Scripture was a godsend. It was all there, every last bit. She briefly considered leaving it be, as just as she got into the main body of it, it seemed to be some macabre method of enslaving the souls of the dead. The scripture, once again, proved this initial assumption wrong as its author went on for several paragraphs admonishing those who would seek to capture and enslave the actual souls of the dead. She found not a single moral argument against it - the scriptures author solely focused on expressing the opinion that it was a waste of effort and an unnecessary danger to the practitioner. Actual enslaved souls were compared to swords that would try to cut the wielders neck at the first opportunity.
On and on the scripture went, alternating between stream-of-consciousness type writing as if the author were simply speaking to the reader, and somewhat more structured, mysticism-steeped specifics on the actual techniques and concepts at its core. Zefaris had developed some degree of skill in peering past the overly-mysticized writing styles in old manuals, and this one was still significantly more straightforward than most. The author complained about how other masters made their manuals unnecessarily obtuse, writing that a scripture ought to be no more or less abstract than it needs to be.
Slowly, piece by piece, the pieces fell into place. They were only a handful out of a thousand, true, but they fell into place nonetheless, and Zefaris understood.
She understood why Toza had come here, of all places, why he had spoken to her as he had, why he had bid her to read the scripture.
Zefaris stood from her seat, and beneath the starlit sky, she strode through the flower-blanketed battlefield.
Slowly she made her way to the peak of that hill, and there, she paid her respects to fallen comrades. She recognized only one or two among them from the small details of their surviving equipment, but they wore doppelsoldat badges to a man. She scaled the tallest part of the ruined fort, such that she could look out over the whole of the battlefield. A blazing-white ray flashed forth from the Philosophers Eye as she took to carving a great glyph whose scale she hadnt attempted since Ubuls Tomb. This time, it didnt need a whole storm to power it just for a few seconds; all it needed was to be completed, and it would take effect.
Then, she would see them.
The restless remnants of those who had died with powerful will to continue fighting.
Not truly restless spirits, but mere Remnants, the echoes of a fallen warriors fighting spirit. Ripples of a soul long gone.
It took her the better part of half an hour to complete the Remnant Revealing Array, not for some preternatural complexity, but because she was translating someone elses conception of the glyph into her own format and scaling it up by orders of magnitude on the spot. There was no guarantee it would work - if this battlefield wasnt as rich in Remnants as Toza had insinuated, her great big glyph would just do nothing and she would just have to try again, smaller.
At first, when she completed carving out the perimeter, nothing seemed to happen. Then, one by one, she formed six man-sized spears of black ice, themselves laden with glyphs, and launched them to equidistant points around the perimeter.
Only then, with an absence of fanfare, the array simply took effect.
They all came into view, all at once. Remnants of the fallens will to fight.
253 - Phantom Core
Incoherent, flickering, repeating phantoms, all across the battlefield, wrought of ghostly non-matter in hues of pale blues and cyans. Most of them were barely even recognizable as people beyond their shapes. Those who still held vaguely person-like forms repeated the same motions over and over again, or simply remained in one place, hiding behind cover that wasnt there, guarding against an enemy that would never come. The least coherent among them were just vaguely humanoid clouds of energy floating or twitching in place.
The Sword Phantom Scripture had described them just like this; Scattered Remnants, it had called them. Fragment, vestiges, frayed threads of fighting will.
Hundreds of them littered the battlefield, and they were merely the secondary subject of interest.
The Scripture had placed the utmost importance on their counterparts: Coherent Remnants. They were the Remnants of the vanishingly small handful who''s fighting will had been so powerful it created an entirely new spiritual entity upon the persons death.
She looked down into the ruins of the fort, and there among the broken bodies of her fellow doppelsoldaten, she beheld them, ghostly figures looking up at her in stoic silence. Beings of pure fighting spirit, absent will or agency of their own, waiting to be given purpose. Daemons born from the passing of dying warriors by any other name. Out of the doppelsoldaten who had fallen to guard this fort, three dozen had left behind a Coherent Remnant, and dozens more had left Scattered ones. Among them, five Tankmen stood, three of whom had somehow left behind Remnants that included their tank suits, battered and riddled with holes even in death. She knew not how it was possible, short of the pilots having developed a spiritual unity with their machines. She also had no way to know just how far the limits of this phenomenon could stretch, and she didnt dare to make a guess.
Looking out over the field of battle, Zefaris picked out more and more Coherent Remnants, one after the next. She turned her gaze to Toza, and saw that he had left behind no remnant at all. His fighting will had utterly left him by the time he fell to her.
Out of the fallen Inquisitors number, every single one had left a Remnant of some kind, and a wholly disproportionate number of them had left Coherent Remnants, matching or possibly even superseding the ratio of the doppelsoldaten. The more she watched, the more she noticed subtle details; some Remnants, particularly Coherent ones, exuded the faintest weapon aura, as if a shred of the originals prowess had imprinted on the remnant. She couldnt distinguish between types, only sense it in the faintest possible sense.
That Inquisitor in particular drew her attention, and she saw him there, standing upright, the hollow eye sockets of his skeletal remnant staring at her from inside a ghostly gas mask. The Scripture didnt give a special name to Extra-Coherent Remnants, but it was quite obvious that not all Coherent Remnants were equal.
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The hard part was yet to come.
The Sword Phantom Scripture centered around a method by which the remnant will of fallen warriors may be gathered together, compressed, moulded to form a spiritual construct at the practitioners command. Taking the first step on that path, assuming the practitioner already possessed the pre-requisite affinity for death, was to form a so-called Inner Phantom. As Zefaris understood it, the Inner Phantom was effectively a man-made daemon. The scripture described how an aspirant would need to experience life-or-death combat in the vicinity of others deaths in order to form anything beyond a basic foundation. It also mentioned that if she was reading this as an aspirant, she had likely already gone through that preliminary stage, and that the difficult part would be grasping her Phantom Core to begin building upon it. Once more it recommended doing so immediately after a life-or-death combat encounter, specifically no more than half a day later.
Of course, being a complete manual, the Scripture included guidelines on the actual process of finding the Phantom Core and forming it into an Inner Phantom. The formation part didnt worry her, as it entailed taking Remnants into herself, it was finding and grasping the Phantom Core that was a cause for concern, demanding her to meditate on the moments when she came closest to the concept of Death, though not just the moments when she herself was closest to dying. During that time, she was to use an enclosed mantra and mental exercise to find Phantom Threads in these memories, pulling on them to eventually find where within her own soul the nascent Phantom Core was located. Sighing, she shut the scripture, sheathed it, and sat down. It would be unpleasant going back to quite a few of these memories, but shed dealt with them by now..
The first time she saw an animal being butchered.
The first time she put a bullet in a deers head.
The moment when she slew the Leshy.
Her first live-fire exercise.
Her first actual battle.
On and on it went, a slideshow of vignettes from her long military career, most of them unremarkable in anything other than being close to death. Only a few of them stood out, and even fewer of them contained those strange strands on which she pulled to get closer to the Phantom Core.
Near-misses one after the next. Sniper duels. Being bombarded by some drugged-up cultivator that couldnt handle the idea of mortals wielding firepower comparable to him.
Her first assignment as a doppelsoldat.
The Battle for Stonog, when inquisitors infiltrated far behind the lines and Zefaris was, herself, stuck behind Grekurian lines, trying to snipe them while a handful of tankmen engaged in close-range.
The battle where she had lost her eye. An insignificant battle in the grand scheme, the incident nothing more than a particularly close call.
Four different incidents with various mutants in the Exclusion Zone.
The first meeting with Zelsys.
Various points in the Dungeon: Her time in the simulated trench-maze. Her quick-draw standoff with that skeletal statue. Her duel with the subcore. The entirety of the final battle.
One thread after the next.
She knew where the Phantom Core was, but she nonetheless dreaded arriving there.
254 - Phantom Core Pt. 2
It was the moment when she witnessed Zelsys torn limb from limb. Back then, when she fell into that trance and carved the glyph of Eternal Snow upon the Living Storm.
That was where her Phantom Core waited, in the middle of her memory of Ubuls Tomb. She found herself standing in that thoughtscape, striding through a frozen snapshot of it at the exact moment when Eternal Snow took effect. The Core wasnt a physical object, of course, but in her mindscape, it took the form of a wispy, floating orb, trailing a foggy tail, floating in the spot she had believed might be Zels final resting place. As she drew nearer to it, reminding herself that the lifeless, disembodied head of Zelsys was just part of the memory, the Core expanded out into a vaguely humanoid shape. It took on more and more of her own features, but quickly diverged well before it could even start to match her in appearance. By the time she reached it, Zefaris stood face to face with a maimed upright corpse in a tattered garment halfway between her current dress and her original, generic Ikesian olive-green uniform. It was bedecked by badges. The Phantom Core lacked a hat, had short hair, and only had one eye - not the Homunculus Eye, but a Brass Eye in the left socket, while the right one was a scarred-over pit with no eyelid, a chunk of glistening shrapnel sticking out of its brow and forehead. It wielded the sparklock which became Tempesta, stock replaced by a darkwood, gold-inlaid one and a long, thin scope sticking off to the side.
The Phantom Core was, in effect, a mishmash of every heavy consideration Zefaris had given to the possibility of her own death. She reached out for it, and the nascent spiritual construct snapped into a stiff salute just before Zefaris plunged her hand into its chest and grasped the spherical form it had originally taken. At that moment, both the humanoid representation and the thoughtscape of Ubuls Tomb vanished. Zefaris looked into her hand, and saw the wispy, barely-visible swirl of bluish-white grasped between her fingers, glimmering threads tangled around her hand. It wasnt a physical object, not truly there; she had merely found where it was buried within her astral body and learned how to grasp it, just as one could learn to control an obscure muscle.
Before she moved forward, Zefaris went over the actual Sword Phantom section of the scripture, particularly how one went about forming a Sword Phantom.
It required only a Coherent Remnant as the foundation, and any number of other Remnants, Coherent or Scattered, as material. Zefaris, however, felt that something was missing. The Scripture focused on the idea of the practitioner using their own armament affinity to create Sword Phantoms that would wield ghostly versions of the practitioners preferred armament, but it also mentioned that other means of empowering the Phantoms for combat were possible. It also mentioned the spiritual strain inherent in manifesting already-formed Phantoms, though the scripture described it as a natural limit on the number and power of Phantoms any practitioner could maintain, even referring to techniques for temporarily going over that limit while mitigating risk of spiritual strain injury. That all was irrelevant to her for the moment, however.
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Zefaris had a faint gut feeling that blindly following the Scripture would likely lead her to make subpar choices. Most obviously, she felt it would be wasteful at best or counterproductive at worst to impose her own armament affinity on a Phantom if her base materials carried an affinity that contradicted firearms, such as a sword or a weaponized suit or armor. The problem was, she couldnt reliably discern the affinity of Remnants for whom it wasnt excessively obvious, like That Inquisitor. It was obvious that he carried an affinity for the sword and for his armour, even if Zefaris couldnt detect them with her own spiritual senses, but many other Phantoms were not coherent enough to get a read on them visually or didnt retain ghostly weapons. So, she decided she needed help to sort them all out. The Remnant Revealing Array wouldnt go anywhere; the strain of its operation was minimal, and the Stillness of this battlefield was more than enough to sustain it for the time being.
Forming a kinetic glyph halfway between herself and the ground, she leapt down and made her way back to their campsite. Having the time, she had a second, small portion of the pork dish Jorfr had cooked, explaining a simplified version of the Scripture, what she had done, what she still had to do here before they could leave, and the roadblock she had run up against with her own lackluster spiritual senses.
I should have guessed that there was an art centered around drawing power from the ghosts of battle, Jorfr commented.
Before she could even ask, Victor swallowed a half-chewed chunk of meat and pointed at the nearest Remnant. The man wielded a war-knife in one hand and a pistol in the other, had gaping holes through his head, and a featureless head with only the outlines of eye sockets.
Gun.
Another point. Another man. Rifle in hand.
Gun.
Another. An Inquisitor with an Aquila Calibur.
...Gun. Huh.
A different Inquisitor.
Sword.
Next one, a woman.
Uh Not sure.
Jorfr got up, walking over to that particular Remnant. He inspected it from a few steps away, then returned.
I felt roughly the same degree of blade-like and gun-like aura. You will need to know the affinities of all these strange battle-ghosts then, yes?
Zefaris nodded.
In moments, Jorfr inhaled what was left on his plate.
Let us go, then, while this formation of yours yet holds.
With Victor readily following after the borean and Zefaris joining them moments later, the three of them took account of each and every Remnant with a distinct armament affinity, with Zefaris carving a corresponding symbol into the ground under each Remnant.
Thats Thats all of them done, I think.
With that, they returned to the edge of the formations perimeter and Zefaris made her way around the battlefield, picking out Remnants with no discernible armament affinity and incorporating them into her own Phantom Core.
255 - Deaths Platoon
The process of assimilating a Remnant was quite like grasping the Core itself: She felt out the location of the Remnants densest portion, then placed her hand at that location after having brought out the Phantom Core. From there, she had to unravel the Remnant and wind it around her core. It had been described as convincing the Remnant to join her, necessitating a fighting will stronger than that of the Remnant, thus making duels the easiest way to ensure one could actually subsume a Remnant. The Scripture had even warned that trying to absorb a powerful Remnant could place the practitioner at risk of possession, driving them into a lucid rampage.
Zefaris encountered no such challenge, not in the process of forming her Inner Phantom at least. One by one, she simply pulled remnants apart and took them for herself in the form of glistening, ghostly threads. One by one, her own Inner Phantom took shape, starting as a barely-humanoid wireframe and growing into the humanoid form it had taken in her thoughtscape. The Scripture had said that she would know when it was complete, that it would be an obvious feeling, and it had been correct. It had taken over a platoon of Coherent Remnants and another of Scattered Remnants, coming up on a total of forty-eight. Using solely Scattered Remnants had been an option, but on this matter, Zefaris deferred to the Scripture, only moving on to Scattered Remnants to fill in the gaps.
She inspected the Inner Phantoms manifestation, recalling a section of the Scripture which spoke of how it should look.
Any imperfections in your foundation will reflect upon the Inner Phantom as wounds and signs of decay which your Phantom Cores human shape did not carry. Should it take a skeletal form, quickly disperse it and start over, else you shall be stuck with a crippled foundation. Thus, should your Inner Phantom take the same shape as your Phantom Core, you may consider it an ideal foundation. Take heed and do not carelessly employ your Inner Phantom in combat, as any injury it sustains will be reflected upon you.
Now would begin the work of transforming all these other Remnants into Phantoms.
She began with the Coherent Remnants of four doppelsoldaten from the fort, matching others of the same affinity to them. It went along much like forming her own Inner Phantom, the difference being that it took noticeably less to complete one and she could control what form the Phantom would eventually take. One by one, the remnants of many fallen became four complete Phantoms, two Gun Phantoms and two Sword Phantoms, clad in the same fictitious doppelsoldat uniform as her own Inner Phantom. The Gun Phantoms took the same skeletal countenances as Deaths Lieutenant, both of a female build, their uniforms shaped as if they werent merely skeletons. The swordsmen, meanwhile, were wide-shouldered, masculine figures with tied-back ponytails, their faces obscured by fog-filled gas masks. Only once the Sword Phantoms were finished did it dawn on Zefaris she had made their hair, their only truly distinct human feature, identical to Makhus hairstyle.
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Gradually combing through the whole of the battlefield, she came upon one more Remnant as distinct as That Inquisitor. It wasnt a doppelsoldat, or a tankman, but an utterly mundane foot soldier, his skeleton splayed out on the ground, overgrown by flowers. By the damage to his uniform and the broken ribs, he had died instantly from a bullet through the heart. His right shoulder, visible through the tattered rags of his uniform, was abnormally thick, as if it had been repeatedly damaged and healed. An archer, maybe. It wasnt unheard of.
His Remnant knelt, bracing a huge bolt-action rifle against his shoulder. Zefaris knew what that was; one of the field-test prototypes for the mass-production model of the Type-Z Anti-Cultivator Cannon. His steely gaze momentarily locked onto her, but he was still just an echo, a remnant. That made for a total of five Extra-Concrete Remnants that she was aware of: The Rifleman, That Inquisitor, and three Tankmen. They would be her top priority to complete. First, however, Zefaris brushed aside the flowers, and found, buried in the mud, the Riflemans still-intact Type-Z. After extracting it from its untimely resting place and putting it in Storage, she returned to work.
Long into the night and unto dawn she worked, and by the end, she had completed two Inquisitor Phantoms, gas-masked and clad in coats like Alcerys; thanks to the Inquisitors training and a careful experiment in trying to balance the overall armament affinity, she managed to make them both come out with a ghostly Aquila Calibur in one hand and an inquisitorial pepperbox in the other. Every single Tankman Remnant, alongside several others, had become a single Tankman Phantom.
Then, there came That Inquisitor and The Rifleman. Having looked over the Inquisitors corpse, Zefaris now knew that he was Brother Manus, a fitting name given the perseverance of his will to fight. Thus, he became Phantom Manus. The Rifleman, however, inexplicably lacked any identifying marks, and so Zefaris decided on the Nameless Phantom.
In both their cases, the number of Remnants required to turn these two supreme remnants into Phantoms was a fraction of the others, and Zefaris made no attempt to shape their forms, merely reinforcing them and filling in the gaps.
Lastly, she made five Formless Phantoms, wrought from Remnants with no distinct affinities. She gave them forms to match the Gun and Sword Phantoms as well as Deaths Lieutenant, mentally folding them all under the Deaths Platoon as a mnemonic aid. Having peered deeper into the Scripture to see if she could store Remnants for later if she didnt have an appropriate Phantom to feed them into, Zefaris stored eleven more Scattered Remnants as Remnant Seeds inside a glass phial. They were tiny, pearlescent grains barely two millimeters across. The same passage that detailed the creation of Phantom Seeds also touched on Soul-Seeds:
Should you be so fortunate as to chance upon the Soul Seed of an enlightened sage, treasure it. They are valuable materials for developing your Phantoms at later stages.
256 - To Familiar Shores
Zefaris had no issues remaining awake for days on end, and she wasnt physically exhausted, yet she wanted to do nothing more than to pass out. Only now, having ended her work, did she notice the persistent, strangely ephemeral headache, somehow perfectly spread throughout the inside of her head. Slowly and deliberately, she gathered the badges of every fallen doppelsoldat she could find, moving their skeletal remains such that they all sat, at rest, leaning against the wall. Then, she moved over to Toza and went through his possessions, finding a curious Fog Storage bag that contained a small fortune in Gelt, though they were of a truly archaic minting, between the imagery and dates. It also contained a variety of filled phials, boxes with herbs, and blade maintenance supplies of every conceivable sort. Zefaris noted the distinct absence of goods for personal comfort besides a small, ivory grooming kit. She took his swords, one by one putting them in storage, leaving the blade which felt like it would chop off her arm if she so much as tried to touch it. It looked downright demonic, glistening red as if it were permanently coated in fresh blood, and was somehow situated well within Tozas grasp despite him having let it go. Zefaris didnt want to be responsible if the sword somehow animated its wielders corpse, so she thought to just shoot it until it broke, or failing that, to damage Tozas corpse beyond usability. The sword floated up in front of it and sheathed itself, then slammed itself into the ground right next to Tozas hand as if to illustrate that it had no such intent.
The motion somehow cut the petals from all the flowers immediately surrounding Toza, and they swirled through the air to form words: Wait. Here. For. Next. Hand. Waited. Before. Wait. Again.
Not being in the state of mind to deal with this, Zefaris just left the sword to its likely decade-long wait for a new wielder as she made her way over to the campsite, where Zelsys sat wide awake, poring over a rough manuscript for the next iteration of Sturmblitz Kunst 0.
She sat down, and at that moment, the Remnant Revealing Array collapsed. All at once her pylons went up in bursts of black steam and the formations energy collapsed like a giant rubber band snapping into the center before popping out of existence.
Howd it go? Got an army of ghosts at your disposal now? Zel asked offhandedly. Zefaris reached inward, grasping for the Inner Phantom, and in that same place, right next to it, she found all her Phantoms, neatly grouped around it. Some may have thought as stars in the night sky - even the Scripture described the Phantoms appearance as such - but Zefaris visualized them as soldiers arrayed around their commander, a sight she had seen many times on all three sides of the War of Fog.
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More of a platoon than an army, and Im not sure how many of them Ill be able to manifest at a time, the limitations of the method Really, not sure about much of anything besides how to make the phantoms. Who knows how advanced Toza was in the method, and he did what, a dozen phantoms plus however many phantom hands? Who knows what sort of spiritual strain manifesting a phantom inquisitor will put on me Zef said, pulling out the Sword Phantom Scripture to flip through it in hope for some answers. She thoughtlessly leaned against Zels side.
Only one way to find out, Zelsys said.
Not exactly in my peak condition, but I ought to at least try, Zefaris agreed, sitting upright and flipping through the scripture to reach the section pertaining to actually bringing out ones Phantoms. A handful of methods were described, from gestural to vocal to ones involving sigils. In the end, they were all means of making the process easier. Zef stowed the scripture and opened her left eye, carving a handful of glyphs in the air before herself as well as on the ground, modifying the lyrics to a nationalistic folk song as the incantation: Should your flesh be rendered to dust, should all your works be swept away, never shall you rest until vengeance has been had, and those who killed you will never know peace
The strain was rather like lifting something after strenuous resistance exercise. The pressure and ache in her head rose as she poured herself into the incantation, only to ease off when the ghostly shape of a gas-masked Ikesian soldier took form; a Sword Phantom. Strain, and thus ache, was still very much present, but Zefaris had no issue handling it even in her current, fatigued condition. The Sword Phantom stood, straight-backed, a hand rested upon the handle of its equally ghostly war-knife. Zefaris willed it to perform a simple sword training form, feeling no noticeable increase in the strain as the phantom moved. Not wanting to push herself, she dismissed the spirit.
Sighing, she allowed the exhaustion to overtake her. Before long she would have to wake again, but for now, she had comfort.
The remainder of their journey to Willowdale transpired without incident.
Colorful, supernaturally fertile fields and verdant forests stretching on as far as the eye could see. That was the sight of Willowdale, one which so starkly contrasted with much of the country.
Zelsys had sent out a message on two particular frequencies early that day; one to alert the sect of her impending return, and another to do the same for Crovacus Estoras. Nine gigantic statues towered outside the city wall, the pedestals for five others occupied by the beginnings of their would-be occupants. The Fourteen Reborn, the citys vast barrier generator array, to be powered by its four bleeding-edge fulgur-igneic reactors of Kargarian make. The wall itself had been not just repaired, but rebuilt ground-up and expanded in a fair few places. Smaller wall guardian statue-automata had been placed atop for a significant stretch of its circumference, which would presumably continue until the whole wall had a defense line of this sort.
257 - A Warm Welcome
A welcome party awaited them in front of the gate, made up of members of the Newman Sect as well as the citys tankmen, both in Third-model and Second-model suits. It wasnt the whole sect, or even a substantial portion of it, just two handfuls of people, including Mata Gano, Vaceran, Joseph the Mercenary, Fendas Pohlem, Nesgon the Immortal Groundskeeper, even Halxian Estoras. The Estoras Heir had grown nearly ten centimeters and bulked up a fair bit since the Blue Moon War, gradually approaching his fathers likeness in appearance while mostly retaining his vaguely androgynous appearance. The reason he stood out to Zels eyes was twofold: Firstly, the similarity and contrast between him and Victor, and secondly, the fact he managed to meet her gaze from hundreds of meters away with that insufferable, smugly challenging look. A number of other non-members were present as well, such as Ezaryl Krishorn. In fact, Ezaryl and Sigmund stood to either side of an unidentified figure, who had, for some reason, placed itself at the forefront.
It was a hulking beast of metal and bleeding-edge essentech, two-and-a-half meters tall, its right arm plated in black-gleaming damasite alloys, glyph-etched phials at the elbow on full display. The towering form strode forward to approach them, carrying upon its shoulder a two-meter curved blade of cold-iron; not a kriegsmesser, a war-knife in the traditional sense, but a grossemesser, a great-knife, its bulk laden by gold-mended cracks end to end. The armors torso was designed to invoke the image of a sneering demon, contrasting the helmets expressionless countenance. The helmets sole standout feature was a trio of glowing spheres as eyes of a sort. A bulky belt occupied its waist. It was an engine-like tangle of glyph-glass tubes armored in the same black plating as the armors right arm, with two slots for miniature storage tablets, two slots for phials, and strange buttons on both sides. Most stand-out of all was a revving handle just outright copied from Sturmgandr blueprints, sticking out of the belts left side.
The mechanized monster was halfway between an Iron Rider suit and a Third-generation one-man tank.
Took you long enough to get back, and with Two new disciples? We only heard of one!
The voice of none other than Makhus echoed forth, amplified and distorted by the armor.
She was a last-minute pickup, and theres still another one or two coming in on their own. Looks like youve been busy, too. Is that the final version of Acala Nova, or just another prototype?
There was barely anything left of the minimalist design that embodied the Iron Rider philosophy. After all, Makhus did not practice the battle-arts of the Iron Brotherhood, and thus had no need for the design specifications that best suited those arts.
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Youre one to talk about being busy. Face open.
His helmet unsealed, its faceplate slowly crawling up to the top of his head, revealing the swordsman-alchemists ever-familiar visage. A handsome face with sharp eyes plastered over by a confident grin, slicked-back black hair. His perpetual five o clock shadow had given rise to a light mustache in two distinct halves. No bloodshot eyes, no daytime dust yellowness around his nostrils, and only a slight neurotic twitchiness to the way he looked around. Makhus had done well for himself, doubtlessly in no small part thanks to the fact he had easy access to alchemicals that made his frequent manic, sleepless episodes perfectly viable.
His aura was sharp as a razor.
Just a prototype, but it can pull combat output long enough for a single-strike spar. Close face.
Dropping into an abnormally wide-legged stance, Makhus grasped the revving handle of his belt.
Iron Philosophy: Opus Two
You want to do this here?
Where else? No problems with collateral, the ankhezian road will just regenerate.
Dont complain if I break your sword.
He glanced up at the crack-laden mosaic of a blade resting on his shoulder.
I do like this one But what the hell, this is a special occasion! Lets see how badly youve outpaced me. I need to know how hard to push the re-tuning before I can consider this version viable. Just dont bust up my suit too bad, alright? No upper-back shots.
Zel considered for a moment. Just a moment. Then, she got off her sturmgandr. She supposed this was as good a first time to reveal Carnifex Fulguris to the sect as any. Already, she felt curious gazes and heard hushed questions as to where the blade was, what was that weird tattoo on her back, what had happened to her arm, and so on and so on.
Butcher!
____________________________________________________________________________
Makhus held no expectation of being able to match Zels level. Perhaps right before she had left, but now, there was no way. He knew, and she knew, and she knew that he knew that she knew. In short, he trusted her to pull her strike, or whatever completely unreasonable thing she was going to do. His own intention in initiating this face-off, however, was very much testing out both his own and Acala Novas capabilities. If he could see it coming and react, he would be content to go ahead with aiming for these performance metrics as the baseline for the next iteration. In the current version, Acala Nova could barely sustain this output for ten, maybe twenty seconds, and the latter would without a doubt go right past strain and into damaging the parts.
Hed heard of Carnifex Fulguris, of course; accounts of the so-called Hulson-Ramdall Blood Feud and the events surrounding it had reached Willowdale a while ago. But mere descriptions of the weapon, let alone ones distinctly lacking in any substantial use, werent exactly enough to get a good mental image of it.
A sword? Makhus could imagine a sword, even if it was a complex or unorthodox design. The same went for axes, and guns, and nearly any reasonable weapon, including great-cleaver variants. But he just couldnt quite picture what in the everliving hell Carnifex Fulguris was supposed to look like in motion; neither the blade, nor the supposedly humanoid form it took.
258 - A Warm Welcome Pt. 2
From where he stood, he felt her aura; they all did. It was a familiar sensation, as if being in the immediate presence of a predator about to lash out. The difference was that in the past, it only got this intense in her immediate vicinity and when she was fighting. Makhus stood a good thirty meters away and he felt it as if he was no further than five. The sensation, stoking his fight-or-flight instinct and raising the hairs on the back of his neck, grew no lesser when she raised her hand and called out: Butcher!
For a moment, there was nothing. A split-second that stretched for what felt like a full minute. Makhus felt Acala straining to parse what exactly she would do next, predicting two-dozen different possible ways she might attack, but he terminated the armors divination prematurely. He didnt want to see it in the ghostly minds-eye foresight granted by the Third Eye of Acala. A figure came into being, taking form out of a mass of swirling blades, a woman made of dark metal with an identical figure to Zelsys, yet otherwise lacking in any truly human features. She existed for just a few seconds, her tail of many floating segments insinuating itself end-first into Zelsyss waiting hand. The next moment, there was no more woman-of-blades, just a huge, brutal cleaver.
Makhus understood what exactly segmented meant when Zelsys pulled her arm back and the weapon separated, six segments floating away from the handle, joined by twin arcs of lightning.
What came next was neither a fight nor even a real clash. Makhus surged forward, an explosive mixture of elixirs coursing through his veins. White light ran from his belt, illuminated the face on his chest-plate, then down his arm and enveloped his sword, granting it twice its normal length and vastly amplified cutting power. He saw it coming, of course; Acala couldnt show him any possible path in which he would reach, let alone strike Zelsys before she could hit him.
A thunderclap reverberated. Makhus saw something coming straight at his face in prediction, only for that something to swerve out of the way and rip past him. He stopped where he stood, knowing he had been intentionally spared a direct hit.
That something had been the Crown Fang, Carnifexs endmost segment. Zelsys had wholly understood the alchemists ploy, and in truth, she was impressed with just how far he had gotten. Shed taken every precaution she realistically could, willing Carnifex to reduce its weight as much as possible and to dull the section of its edge which might hit him should her control over it prove insufficient. It didnt, and now Carnifex was stretched out over twenty meters right beside Makhuss armored head, his sword outstretched, having gotten surprisingly close to reaching her.
You keep getting faster at a quicker pace than me, cant blame me for leveling the field with parlor tricks like this, she said, pulling back the cleaver. Its segments flew back to her, then rejoined into a single mass. Then, the next moment it was gone from her hand, the metal-wrought, many-bladed feminine form of its spirit appearing once more by her side. Zelsys walked ahead to meet Makhus face to face, Fulguris trailing just behind her while Zefaris had already scooted forward to take over driving the sturmgandr. What she said wasnt a lie; Makhus pure speed had grown noticeably more than her own, in no small part thanks to his mastery of the armour. Near-instant reactions were one thing, but pseudo-precognition was a whole other way of not getting caught off-guard.
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They met in the middle, Makhus opening his helmet just before they joined in a left-handed handshake. Its good to be back, Zel said, then with a grin, leaned in close. You wont believe the things weve brought.
To the partys relief, although their return to Willowdale and the sect at large was met with celebration, it was rather more subdued than any of the numerous feasts they had been subjected to in recent memory. Both Zelsys and Jorfr made known their growth, freely displaying it to the rest of the sect. Victor disappeared into the sect compound and later into the city, citing that he had always wanted to see Willowdale for himself.
Elsewhere in the city, Crovacus Estoras breathed a truly heavy sigh of relief. Finally, he could tone down the aggressive tankman patrols and redirect the resources toward building up Willowdales forces now that his strongest deterrence factor had returned. In just the months during which three of the Newman Sects Pillars had been gone, a disconcerting number of dangerous beasts, outright monsters, and even legitimate bandit gangs had cropped up within Willowdales territory. The number was such that even with the sects aid, they simply couldnt be dealt with quickly enough. Crovacus had no confirmation, of course, but there was not an iota of doubt in his mind that She would go after them of her own volition.
A few days passed. While Zelsys was busy being hounded by Makhus and Ozmir regarding what she had brought from Borea and what was still incoming, Zefaris imposed herself upon Collier. The gunsmith was finally in a place that permitted her to accept walk-ins, though Zefaris readily made it known that she had something truly special to show her and that she would regret refusing or delaying. Zefaris had understated herself; she had much more than just one special thing to show the gunsmith.
Collier examined the revolver up-close, disassembled it, then looked at Zefaris with the eyes of a hungry beast circling its prey. Then, she took the barrel and peered down it, furrowing her brow. She looked angry.
Whoever did this aint a mortal man. This What the fuck? How did- These are my glyphs, but theres not a single sign of this being my original barrel. I dont know how, or that it was even possible, but whoever worked on this for you completely replaced the barrel and transferred my original glyphs onto the inside of it. I thought they were copied, since thats possible, but no. Thesere mine. The ones I put inside Pentacles barrel when I first made it, exactly the same ones. Who did this work for you?
Ingvald Forgehand. The same blacksmith who worked on reforging Zels cleaver.
259 - Amaryllis Belladonna
Collier froze at the mention of Forgehand, furrowing her brow as she tried to remember, then finally looked back at Zefaris.
...I dont know who that is, but its no wonder he worked on That Monster if he can pull sorcery like this. Tell her to come around as soon as she can, aye? Field maintenance isnt enough for what she does to that gun of hers. Now- You said you had a request for me, was that right?
Zefaris nodded, handing over a small box.
I need someone to make me new grips for Pentacle from the wood inside. Dont open it here, your countertop will sprout. Its Leshy wood, willingly given. I figured you might be able.
I can, but I am not the ideal one for this. My wheelhouse is more metal and gunpowder. But I know someone. Ill contact her for you. Shes like Ozmir, but much harder to get out of her shell. One problem though - Ill need to keep Pentacle here with me as a token to convince my friend, a week or two at most. Is that alright?
I can manage with Tempesta. I intend for the new grips to serve as a means of solidifying Pentacles weapon spirit; Tempesta already has enough of an identity to manifest separately, but Pentacles still struggling to coalesce fully. I wish to include a floral design on the scales. I can provide the necessary materials. The flower is to be a Giltine Amaryllis Belladonna.
She took out two photographs. One was of the flower. The Giltine Amaryllis Belladonna had a flower that started out white, with a funnel-like shape, transitioning into pink as its six petals spread out. Each petal split a few millimeters before the tip. Comparatively, the Giltine Atropa Belladonna had five wholly bluish-purple petals that spread out right from the flowers base. Unlike the Atropa, which grew on a bush, the Amaryllis grew in lone, leafless stalks. The Amaryllis also only grew in places deeply steeped in death, such as graveyards and battlefields, whereas the Atropa could be satisfied by merely planting it in viscera-based compost. The two were considered sister plants, with the Amaryllis producing much smaller quantities of poison than the Atropa. The poison was in exchange so potent, variable, and sublime, that it was said it could kill anything with a single dose and could not be planned against, each dose functioning in a fundamentally different manner than the last that depended on tiny variables in the plants growth.
Zefaris felt the two flowers to be perfectly fitting in their origins and nature of operation - the Atropa was a plant which could be grown in comparatively large quantities and which had a comparatively simple, even brutish poison, while the Amaryllis demanded specific, usually rare circumstances and killed in a subtler, more precise manner. A perfect reflection of how Tempesta and Pentacle differed.
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The other photograph was of her own Philosophers Eye wide-open, with the stylized Amaryllis design drawn around it.
Taking inspiration from Carnifex Fulguris, Zefaris decided to rename her two guns Tempesta Atropa and Pentacle Amaryllis, the second words being the names of their individual weapon spirits.
Regarding payment she said, taking out her Tablet and setting it perpendicular to the counter. Bit by bit she moved it along, the Type-Z rifled cannon sliding out.
I found it on a battlefield. Cant say where. It looked like a near-finished field test model, as compared to the more crude designs Ive seen on tank suits.
That Would be very correct. I had no clue the project ever went this far, they made it sound like it was over with the moment they disbanded my unit. Oh goodness me, theres even a working recoil compensator in here, and the bolt is straight pull! This is beyond sufficient payment.
Id also like you to play part in formulating ultra-high-pressure gunpowder for the sect, then. We have the alchemists, we just need a ballistics and firearms expert.
Thatd make us even, sure. Ive been curious what kind of pressures you could push with dragons blood as a catalyst. You hear these stories about mighty warriors enchanting their arms by quenching it in dragons blood, whos to say gunpowder wont work just as well? Bet that stuff will impart some utterly unholy power on the bullet if we get it right.
Collier, you understand that the blood of Eisengeist is a limited resource which we cannot procure more of, yes?
And? So is Atrine, and Mogralt for that matter, less you go and suck off some Ankhezian technologist so good he decides to give over the secrets of the suncage grid. At worst youll just have to use it sparingly and well work out a mass-producible formulation with different ingredients, Im making dragonsblood explosives no matter what. Speaking of, show me those bullets of yours. Yeah, yknow the ones, ythink you could keep quiet and I wouldnt find out, huh?!
Collier spent some time examining examples of dragonshot, both bullets and buckshot, cursing Forgehand as one would a cheating competitor. As she made her way out of the store nearly two hours later, Zef witnessed a pair of strangely youthful women struggling to figure out how to work the bright-yellow gun vending machine. Their demeanor betrayed their true age, as did the shimmering, faintly scaly texture of their skin.
Weeks passed in a flash.
Plans which had been forestalled by Zels crippled state were set into motion; despite not having any plans to expand as of yet, a number of small local schools had submitted requests to become branches of the Newman Sect. Quite a few among them were former branches of the Willowdale Black Horse Sect branch, but a fair number were truly independent, and a small minority were still counted under the Black Horses or Sangers, but claimed to be being neglected or even actively discriminated against.
Zefaris journeyed to battlefields all across Ikesia, gathering up Remnants and bringing back bits of equipment here and there, usually when she ventured into places too dangerous for typical scavengers. Bit by bit, her phantom contingent grew.
260 - The Pride of Ones Family
Zelsys burned through outstanding Slayers Guild contracts one after the next, treating them as the amusing diversions they were for one of her caliber. She took along other guild and sect members for whom the contracts would have been too much, letting them keep the payouts on the condition that she gets first pick of any spoils. Out of ten contracts she only invoked her condition in three cases.
Meanwhile, Victor threw himself wholly into two avenues of research and training. The first was developing a working version of the strange mask of which he had learned in Koscheis laboratory, which he claimed would allow him to more effectively draw out Koscheis surviving knowledge. The other was the Itrian Scroll, particularly storage talismans, servitors, and a strange new version of his Devils Teeth. Every day he was seen sprinting like a man possessed, clad in a skeletal, bare-minimum version of the Dawnwolf armor. It wasnt long before he developed a reputation similar to that which he had possessed in Oasis City, though to a less severe degree. He fortunately had the good judgment to keep quiet about his true nature as the direct inheritor to Koscheis legacy, while the fact that he was one of the Second Kings descendants couldnt be kept under wraps for long
Halxian couldnt help but feel there was something familiar about that androgynous redhead the Hag had brought back with her. Besides those freakish eyes with their inhuman glint and the fact he dressed in a way that obviously mimicked the hag, that surname kept gnawing at the back of Halxians mind. Khestun. Khestun.
He decided to ask his father.
Im surprised you remember at all. We sat at a table adjacent to the Khestuns at the debutante ball held by Duke Mengen for his daughter. They are - or more likely, were - one of the families which could trace their lineage back to the Second King, Koschei the Undying. I wonder just how Newman came upon the boy and how much of his seemingly advanced cultivation took place since she found him Regardless, do not make trouble for him for no reason. Perhaps challenge him to a friendly spar, just do not make too much of a show of it on the off chance that he doesnt turn out to be a freakish genius like the other pillars. There is a great deal more face to lose in a defeat that cannot be easily chalked up to your opponents overwhelming and unexpected superiority.
Is This some sort of roundabout way of telling me to train harder, father?
Hm? Oh, Iusticias mercy no! I only Well, I assume that there is a good reason why Newman chose him as her disciple. You have seen the beast he rides around on, who knows how he came about it and what it can do. All I am saying is that you should be careful and not to underestimate him. Youve been advancing faster than I did at your age; how is your third implant feeling? Does it still wake you in the night?
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It still aches, but Makhus made me pills for the rejection flareups. I may be able to use it if things come down to that.
That is good to hear. Do you think you might be able to learn the recipe?
I asked, but he said to come back in three weeks when he has a consistent version ready.
Good, good. Go along then, Ive another thrice-damned meeting with Duke Von Hoedorffs people in half an hour. Something about trade agreement adjustments that Newman made in my name
Halxian turned to leave as his father toked from his cigar and began frustratedly leafing through paperwork, only to hear him call before he could open the door.
Ah, one more thing- Try not to get on Her nerves too much.
You know she prefers it when I insult her to her face instead of putting on a polite facade.
I know, I know. Just dont do it too often. Im proud of you.
Crovacus couldnt properly articulate the true height of pride he held for his son Or the worry. It was unsettling just how quickly and how hard that boy pushed ahead with harnessing his bloodlines unique and painful cultivation method, which their ancestors had developed immediately after the Second Renegade caused the collapse of the greater orthodox church. The art, famous for its foundational offensive techniques, the Seven Calamity Armaments, had allowed the Estoras bloodline to rise to fame, fortune, and power in spite of old money merchant clans trying to push them out.
He himself knew well how harrowing it was to advance in it, both the implants and the tattoos. Ones body could simply decide that enough was enough and tear their skin open with a massive allergic reaction to the ink, yet Halxian was advancing four or even five times as rapidly as Crovacus ever had. Ever since the Blue Moon War, the boy constantly challenged his sect elder and pushed back against her, only to jump back up every time she slapped him down. At first Crovacus had feared that Newman would eventually decide to just crush his impudent offspring, and so trained him personally, only for both her and other members of the sect to come asking about him.
It took some time for Crovacus to realize why Halxian was advancing so quickly, and in retrospect, he kicked himself for not seeing it sooner. This sect, if it could even be called that for its radical departure from the Sangers and Black Horses internal politics, acted as a wildly varied support network, allowing its members to grow far quicker than they ever would on their own or confined to a group made up solely of other practitioners of the same methods. From the manic, nearly self-destructive genius of Makhus Newman, to the sagelike viewponts of Nesgon and Sigmund, the advanced immortal cooking of Ozmir and the strange, outsider genius insight of the sect elder herself.
261 - The Pride of Ones Family Pt. 2
The resources of the Krishorn Clan, the Iron Riders, and the Kargarians at large could not be understated, either. The ink of Halxians chest and back tattoos was fundamentally different from that on his arm, utilizing an advanced composition hybridized with the ink used for Iron Rider armor trackers. Many of the sects alchemical advancements could be chalked up to Makhuss possession of the Philosophers Heart, and in this matter, Crovacus was glad that his gambit was paying for itself hundredfold. It was true that he had given over a precious relic of the Estoras family, but he retained the ownership seal on it, and no Estoras alive since Estoras himself had been able to bring out the artifacts full potential. If it came to it that Makhus Newman used the Philosophers Heart for long enough to erode the ownership seal, then Crovacus would be content with it remaining in the alchemists possession. He was a manic innovator of a sort seen even more rarely than the archetypal reclusive savant, one possessed of great intelligence, but limited enough that he retained a connection to the struggle and ingenuity of a villages wise-man or hedge-wizard. In Crovacus eyes, Makhus Newman was a better alchemist than a genius who could synthesize gold in great quantities; the burgeoning cosmetics industry which his creations were spearheading was a better goldmine than a trick that would wreck the value of a resource.
Halxian, at his young age, already had his full arm, a quarter of his back, and a quarter of his chest covered in glyphic tattoos. Even Crovacus himself only had his arm, his whole back, and half his chest done. A small part of the governor - no longer provisional as of a referendum the previous month - envied his son, but then, there was nothing stopping him from advancing his own cultivation Even while he was swamped in paperwork too important to let a secretary deal with it. He drew in a breath and began cycling his cultivation method, feeling the blue-blazing flame ignite inside his forearm, racing outward to its surface, down his fingers, and to his pen. He meticulously clamped down on the reaction and used the flame alone to write his signature.
When Halxian next visited Makhus in his laboratory at the sect, he found him, Victor and two of the sects lesser-known alchemists hovering over the strange woman from before, Lydia. She was laid out across a bed. One of the scorchlanders was also there, a man who refused to give anyone a real name and insisted that they call him Old One-arm Because he had one arm.
He kept quiet and watched from the doorway for some time, observing as the alchemist dripped some sort of solution into Lydias empty eye socket and pressed in a black orb. She immediately shot up, clutching at her right temple as the eye wildly rolled around in its socket before settling down with a ragged, burning-white horizontal line as the pupil, tapering towards the ends as if it had been cut into the eye. Veins bulged out around the socket and she quickly closed the eye, with Makhus warning her that it would take a while before she could fully open it for more than short bursts.
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Makhus then handed her a small, seal-wrapped dropper bottle, instructing her to apply three drops twice every day and roll her eye around until it ran out, to help the eye settle into place. She gave a quiet thanks, and with a gesture made that giant sword of hers float over to her as she made her way out. Following her path, Halxians presence was inevitably detected, prompting Makhus to remark: Just in time, I have your pills and the formulation right here. I assume your father wants it, is that right?
Nodding, he said: You cant blame him, it would be shameful to risk losing improvements to our familys cultivation method. Was that a Philosophers Eye you just gave Lydia?
No, it was What was it called again? Makhus turned to Victor. Him? He knew but the alchemist didnt? Who was that redhead?
Formless Eye, I think. It was intended to take on properties best suited to the user through a
He furrowed his brows in thought.
An auto-transmutive reaction catalyzed by the implantees aura; its got a bit of dungeon core-like power inside that it burns up to retroactively make it so it has always been correctly fitted to the user. Im not sure I understand it either. It should also cause less spiritual strain, but it doesnt work as a casting catalyst or essentia battery. One-arm, over here. Which one?
The redhead, seemingly giving it no further thought, smoothly transitioned to calling One-arm over to the bed. Only now that he had gestured to them did Halxian notice the three different blackstone arms laid out on one of the tables.
While this took place, Makhus seemed to realize something and gestured for Halxian to come over to a nearby cabinet, taking out and handing him a bottle with amber-coloured oil.
How long has it been since youve gotten the section of your back inked? Has it fully healed yet?
No, not yet. It has only been three months, it will likely be another month before it is fully healed. Is this supposed to help?
Nodding, the alchemist popped the sealed cork.
It should accelerate skin regeneration in a way that wont disrupt the tattoos. I made it for when I had the essentia storage glyphs on my tattoos touched up, and it was a true godsend for me. I remembered how I made it when I was refining those bonemelding painkillers for you.
This smells like Snake oil.
Thats the base, yeah. Its great for anything meant to heal the skin, the Honest Snake-oil Salesman is bringing me a whole extra wagon of the stuff next time the Krishorn Caravan stops by On the condition that we give him a hefty cut of the profits from sales of anything with the oil in it as a major ingredient while hes here.
262 - Once Again, Cogs in Motion
Makhuss manic explanation was interrupted by One-arms choice: I suppose I shall take the middle one. It feels as though it will conduct my flame the best of these three.
He turned on a heel and immediately began helping get the arm attached to the old man. Halxian saw his opportunity and finally called out the redhead: Hey, Khestun. Are you too busy for a spar?
Er Right now?
Sure. I can wait, if I must.
Just to be clear, youre not trying to put me in my place or some stupid dominance hierarchy play like of that sort, right?
Theres obviously something about you that only the Pillars - the elders inner circle - are aware of. She wouldnt have picked you if there wasnt. I want to find out what it is, and knowing Her, fighting you is the easiest way to do it.
I can just tell you.
Id rather fight. You can tell me after.
Halxian saw an unsettlingly familiar grin twist Victors abnormally pretty face into a battle-thirsty grimace.
Then we have a deal. When, where and what rules?
Despite the time that had passed and the monsters she had slain since, Zelsys still didnt feel anywhere close to fully grasping the potential of Carnifex Fulguris. This was not a subject of frustration, but rather excitement; she could just keep pushing forward and discovering new ways in which the blade subverted and openly defied the idea of limitation. As such, it was her own body that required honing. Just as Forgehand had said, there was a caveat to Carnifex Fulguris becoming fangs that can bite through fate; that caveat being a wielder capable of drawing out its full potential. This was partly a matter of simply growing stronger in straightforward ways, but also a matter of something deeper. She felt it, in her gut, a gnawing desire that couldnt be sated with any amount of training. It only ever abated when she carried out acts of violence, even if they were not necessarily of the archetypal sort, including anything done with great intensity and drive - from training, to drinking, and even sex. It was this gnawing that had driven her to go out on a near-daily basis to fulfill Slayers Guild contracts meant for whole parties. There was substantial profit to be found from huge beasts and groups of neer-do-wells, mostly the former rather than the latter, but it was the visceral violence and struggle that drew Zelsys. That was who she was. Thrice now, she had visited neighboring branches of other sects; twice the Black Horses, and once the Sagners, who were holding frequent invitational tournaments in an effort to recruit new members. During these tournaments, higher-ranked members fought members of the other sect in friendly exhibition matches.
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Only once did she officially get to participate in such a match, with the Sanger Sects Arkaley Branch. They had the good judgment to offer to just have a large number of their members come at her in rapid succession, and in the end, both sides were left having improved their relations and learned something from watching the other. Zel was left impressed by how much the Arkaley people had grown since she had clandestinely sent them copies of texts from her predecessors private library. Only a small handful had seen abrupt, meteoric jumps in power, but she noticed numerous small additions and improvements here and there, enough that they made a significant difference.
Out of the three visits, this one also had an overtly political purpose. Gideon had personally invited her to visit - albeit not specifically for this tournament - to speak on the matters of sect allegiance.
Gideon had, in truth, wholly expected Zelsys to beat his disciples within an inch of their lives, and had hoped that the friendly context, the match format, and the sheer number of them would at least spread out the injuries.
He was, then, pleasantly surprised when she merely beat them well out of fighting condition, but clearly took care not to inflict serious injury. Several of them were being given blood transfusions from the number of shallow, individually superficial cuts they had sustained. The blades which had inflicted these cuts radiated an aura that felt like they could, at any moment, shred flesh and bone and tendons apart with a grazing hit. He and many of his acquaintances had both heard and dreamt of the blades forging; there were none within his circles who were not aware of Carnifex Fulguris. Even now he wasnt sure how exactly she was making it perform such delicate maneuvers when she plainly lacked any Armament Aura at all.
Several more of his disciples had broken bones from being punched or otherwise struck a bit too hard; somehow, that woman had acquired a living metal arm since he had last seen her. Gideon was well aware of such a possibility, but not that it could be done in such a short time. He was also well aware of the fact these bone breaks were not purposeful, and it was merely the lot of body cultivators to occasionally miscalculate the appropriate level of strength in relation to their opponents durability.
Gideon was certain that this exhibition alone would lead to more than a handful of epiphanies among the Arkaley Branch. He himself already had a dozen ideas. There was a profound sense of intentional forcefulness to everything about that woman; from her clothing, her demeanor, the way she spoke. Even while she was utterly calm, while she spoke and drank with him in good spirits, she gave off the implication of possible violence. He quickly realized it was similar to the way a sword cultivator constantly gave off a feeling of sharpness.
His confusion regarding the matter of Newmans arm was at least partially assuaged when she caught him staring and admitted that it was still a work in progress, then proceeded to throw three bronze pills into her mouth And broke them with her teeth like they were walnuts.
263 - Prodigal Politics
As the woman sat across from Gideon, one of her braids shifted into motion, and from an out-of-sight storage tablet it lifted a sizable growler bottle onto the table. It was a pale blue colour, constantly gave off an ice-like chill, and blood-red liquid sloshed about inside. Faintly-glowing Borean runes were carved on its surface, and the stopper was the fang of a beast carved with subtly-twisting fins that locked into the bottleneck.
What is this? he asked.
A gift. Borean blood-mead in a glacierglass bottle. A drink fit for a sect elder, or any cultivator who has surpassed the effects of even alchemical alcohol. Ive heard that a shot of it can force a First Circle cultivator to come to terms with whatever is preventing him from dissolving his Azoth Stone Though for most cultivators at that level its also terribly poisonous. For us, its just a very stiff drink.
She said all this as she casually opened the bottle and filled her own and Gideons cups with the bloody substance. It was only one-fifth of the cup, two shots, but just the smell of it made Gideons eyes water. The liquid was also ice cold.
Another braid rose up, with another glacierglass bottle, this one opaque like glacier ice and densely covered in runes. Its stopper was also much simpler. She poured what looked like water into her cup, and then into Gideons, thinning the blood-mead 1:3.
This one is water from Tertiary Springs of the Boiling Lake. Roughly three hundred liters of it, as I recall.
Somehow, even after being thinned out that much, the liquid still seemed wholly opaque like blood. Gideon waited until Newman took a swig, though he knew it to be a pointless measure, as he was well aware that she couldve just used a poison she herself was immune to. Nonetheless, he also had no good reason to suspect her of having ill will towards him; it was just his cautious nature speaking up.
Gideon woke up the next morning with a head-splitting headache and a copy of a strange manuscript on his table. It looked new, but also handmade.
When he opened it, a note fell out.
Contact me again if you still think your proposition to be a good idea when youre sober.
Zelsys Newman
With the flaring of his headache, he remembered what that note pertained to. He had, in his intoxication, convinced Zelsys to accept the Arkaley Sect as a branch of the Newman Sect. It was true that he had wanted to split off from the Black Horses for some time, since the Arkaley Sect had been functionally independent for as long as it had existed, but What he remembered himself saying was significantly more straightforward and hostile than he had intended.
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Fortunately, the Newman Elder had taken it well.
He looked over and saw that both the glacierglass bottles were still there on the table and no more than perhaps half a liter of the blood mead had been drunk, out of a total of around two liters.
Then, once more turning his bloodshot gaze to the manuscript, he started reading. It took him nearly five attempts at the first page before he realized what it was, and he nearly dropped it.
It was a fragment of the Severing Scripture, a lost great work, on whose fragments both the Sanger Family Arts and Black Horse Family Arts were based. More than that, it was a fragment specifically pertaining to swordlight, albeit in opaque and metaphysical terms.
Gideon sat there in a daze as he weighed how many years it would take to pay off this debt, how much strife and trouble it would bring to snub the Black Horses and start practicing something the Southern Tarpans first elder had hidden from the main branch in his personal library.
In the end, he decided it was worth it.
How could he decide on anything else?
As for Zelsys, she hadnt given the scripture fragment much thought beyond whether it was suitable to the Arkaley Branch and its hyperfocus on swordlight. She had found the original inside an unlabeled, seemingly random tome in her library, and though it read like pretentious horseshit at first glance, she could tell it had real substance and that it would be good for a sword cultivator.
Of course, she made copies of it available to the more trusted among the Newman Sects members. However, the Arkaley Sect would doubtlessly be the ones to benefit the most. Makhus was the only inner-circle Newman Sect disciple to harness swordlight, and his use of it was basic due to how spread out his focus was. Out of the entire Newman Sect, the number of dedicated sword cultivators could be counted on one hand. Certainly, this particular Severing Scripture fragment could benefit others who harnessed armament aura, but that benefit would be far lesser for someone like Jorfr or Vaceran If Vacerans ghostly arms even were auratic in nature. Zelsys didnt know and Vaceran wouldnt tell.
As for the blood mead and Tertiary Spring water, she knew well they were valuable, but she had a secondary storage tablet full of them and she knew the Arkaley Sect would benefit much from just such a gift, given how badly starved for resources they were. To this day, Zelsys had no clue where Makhus had gotten his Rubedo storage artifact bottle, and neither had she managed to learn whether they were common or rare. Every source on the matter that she found contradicted the last, and it didnt help that such sources were all at best decades and countries apart.
There was no doubt in her mind that, compared to any one craftsman in Ikesia, it was far easier for Oasis City to produce glacierglass storage artifact bottles in numbers. The abundant glacierglass, the environment, the peoples natural affinity, the Crescent Jungles resources; it was no wonder they gave over several dozen artifact bottles full of various basic liquids as part of her departing gifts. They had warned her, of course; that placing so-called Cavernous Bottles in Fog Storage was one among a handful of edge cases that worked like this, that such edge cases only went down one layer, and that she would be suicidal to attempt any matryoshka dolling of storage artifacts.
264 - Hidden Sect Contact Attempt Gone Wrong (Gone Violent) (COURTING DEATH)
Eisengeists blood was, of course, much too intense to be stored in such a bottle. Most of what she had gotten in such bottles was made up of Tertiary Spring water, sap from a specific kind of tree, the honey of the Crescent Jungles bees, and several kinds of beast blood useful for alchemy. Coincidentally, all of these things were somehow involved in making blood mead.
During her second attempt at inter-sect contact, Zelsys visited the Fourth Inheriting Branch of the Black Horses, located in a mountain gorge in southern central Ikesia, isolated from the rest of the country and only accessible through the Valley of Six Streams. She had learned of its location from her predecessors records, and had chosen to go there based on his personal notes about them, regarding them as relatively welcoming, being respectful to anyone who manages to find and reach them. It was one of the few sects that hadnt lost significant numbers due to the war, thanks to being so isolated.
Though it didnt take her long to reach them, she understood why they would be known for welcoming travelers. Anyone who went through that trek was either a fairly strong cultivator or absurdly determined and at least somewhat lucky. The trek alone demanded respect, not even including the forest with numerous naturally-occurring confusion formations, innumerable venomous, sentient plants, and monstrous animals. The so-called Artat Mountains, and by proxy the Valley of Six Streams, were hazard zones and treasure troves in equal measure, completely uncivilized save for the Fourth Inheriting Branch.
Clearly, things had changed since those notes had been taken, as they met her as if she were there to directly attack their sect. The Branchs Elder, one Archibald Branstein, came out to face her personally, declaring that he was a direct descendant of the Great Founder, Lord Branstein, and that a pretender to the mantle of the disfavored branch would not take a step into his courtyard so long as a single member of his branch sect lived. They remained hostile despite her making it abundantly clear that she had no ill intent towards them and that her sect made no claim of being Black Horses or being affiliated with the Root Branch.
At least answer me this, then - how come the last Elder of the Willowdale Black Horse Sect had your branch marked in his records as welcoming and respectful to any who managed to find you?
My fathers foolish openness very nearly led to our sects downfall, it is not a mistake I will make! I will strike you down here and now, you who would so brazenly invade our territory!
Archibald, alongside some two dozen other sect members, activated a supposedly impenetrable defensive formation. It was all rather impressive, from the meticulously synchronized breathing and movements, to the unified flaring of each participants aura. Firstly, each supporting participants sword flew out, forming a perimeter around the sect grounds. Giant, ghostly versions of themselves took form, creating an auratic wall as an additional layer on top of the sects permanent barrier.
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As Archibald so readily made apparent in his exclamations, the uncreatively named Ghost Sword Wall was a secondary aspect of the formation; it mainly allowed him to puppeteer dozens of swords at once and amplified his own Armament Aura to such a degree that he could wield each sword as if it was the only one under his control.
Perfectly content to accept this offering of violence, Zelsys engaged the man, pushing herself to produce as many Fang Rippers as possible. When it inevitably and rather quickly became obvious that her Rippers couldnt match a whole sects dedicated entrenchment formation on their own terms, she let her Fang Rippers fall apart, baiting Archibald into attack. She formed Carnifex into a many-segmented spiral around herself, and when Archibalds many flying swords fell upon her, she uncoiled the spiral with great violence, scattering them all about. Into the ground, the trees, the canyon walls. Several unfortunate trees in the vicinity were torn down, and a cloud of dust and deris obscured her position, only for a machine-gun deluge of lightning-beads to come zipping out from within, peppering the Ghost Sword Wall.
PREDATION SIGN
AN INDISCRIMINATE ACT OF HYPERVIOLENCE
BUTCHERING ART: UNCOILING SCOLOPENDRA
Three swords got through.
Two struck her, one of which inflicted a grazing wound to her side as it swerved in an attempt to compensate with her dodging. This was in spite of her having used Skin of Iron, thanks to the sword being absurdly sharp and sheathed in powerful swordlight to boot.
One got a direct hit. It would have gone through the right side of her chest, only, she caught it before it could even reach her ribcage and tore it out. The sword was very pretty, with a needle-like quality without any distinct guard or handle, and a similarly wicked point. She managed to make out one of the disciples calling out: The Flying Needle!
Zelsys hadnt at any point gone out of her way to destroy any of the formations swords Until this one. She felt it trying to tear itself out of her grasp as Archibald pulled back all his swords, blood running from his nose, eyes, and mouth alike from the exertion. Zel simply let go of Carnifex, gathering a vast charge such that the air around her turned into a little storm and bolts of lightning struck down the small handful of blades that were sent her way in an attempt to exploit her apparent lack of defense.
There was a weak point in the Ghost Sword Wall. Well, there were several, by virtue of its design, but her instincts drew her to a particular point. She forced her own power on the Flying Needle Sword, forcibly pushing the First Thundergod into the blade until Archibalds influence over it vanished. Then, cracking and resonating just as many blades had before it, the Flying Needle was whipped with a supersonic crack into the Ghost Sword Wall. It tore straight through the construct and passed unimpeded through the permanent barrier underneath, with one of the supporting disciples grimacing in pain as the backlash made blood dribble from his nose.
265 - Archibald Bransteins Plight
The Flying Needle Sword flew into the courtyard, and striking one of the sect buildings decorative pillars, exploded with a directed blast of lightning. The pillar broke, as did the Flying Needle, spraying fragments of both stone and metal across the load-bearing wall behind it.
Zelsys, seeing Archibald visibly struggling to stabilize the formation, shouted out that she had no ill will towards his sect and that, as much as she enjoyed it, continuing this fight was pointless. Still he pushed on, sending swords to attack her and using some to fling beams of swordlight, and she defended herself By summoning Fulguris and letting the spirit take care of it. Doing it this way was certainly more expensive, but it also sent a message all the more clearly. She could clearly see that he was shocked, but when he valiantly kept up his defense and refused to back down, she simply thanked him for entertaining her, offered that she would welcome friendly contact in the future, and threw down several swords as a gesture of repayment for those she had broken. Then, she left. Just like that, she walked away, defending against the formations lashing-out even as she got onto her sturmgandr and drove away.
Archibald Branstein felt a wrenching pain in his liver as his disciples collected the strangers swords and found that not only were they utterly devoid of any curses or other traps, they were of good enough quality to usurp spots 12 through 18 in his personal Top 20. He recognized two of them as having belonged to Toza of the Fourteen Guardians, though in his prime, they would have easily topped the ranking. Even as badly decayed as they were now, they were both instant no. 12 and 13 And it drove Archibald up the fucking wall.
How? Who is she? What is she?! Contact the Root Branch!
But, Elder Archibald, your Seclusion Directive-
-is null and void as of now. Clearly, the War of Fog hasn''t crippled the continents cultivation Or it has recovered absurdly quickly.
Or That Woman is some old monster that just came out of seclusion to screw with us.
I surely wish that to be the case. An old monster is infinitely easier to deal with than an upstart savant that neither understands nor cares for the delicate balance of sect politics
Sighing, his hands shaking, Archibald Branstein retreated into his personal chambers and began drafting a letter. He didnt care if this made him lose favour with the Root Branch, he wanted to know who he was dealing with and whether she would listen to reason.
The truth was, Archibald had hoped that activating the Hundred Hands Sword Union Formation would suffice to drive off the unwanted visitor without needing to actually use it. The Formation had been conceived by and for his fathers use, and he had yet to adjust it for himself; it was at best half as powerful as it shouldve been, and far less stable, evidenced by the backlash issue. It had worked several times in the past, and on powerful wandering sword cultivators to boot. It had worked on Toza of the Fourteen Guardians, just months ago, though no confrontation had taken place back then.
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He had wanted to back down the moment he saw that woman bring out the Fangs of Defiance, that impossible weapon of whose creation he had dreamt, alongside several others in the sect. However, the duty of keeping up a strong facade bound him, and Archibald had thus attempted to resolve the conflict without anyone dying. Therefore, how this supposed Newman Sect Elder handled the situation was actually the best possible outcome for him, allowing him to keep dignity by lying through his teeth about how friendly the exchange actually was. The way she had handled the confrontation was, by sword cultivator standards, a master-class in conflict de-escalation. Nobody died, and as far as he could tell, none of his disciples had been gravely wounded either.
Archibald really hoped this Newman Sect wasnt just remnants of the Willowdale Branch, but truly a new sect. If that were the case, amicable relations could still be established, even if it came out that the Root Branch didnt like them for some reason. As one of the four Inheriting Branches, the Artat Sect had more independence than others.
Many questions as to this Zelsys Newmans identity and cultivation gnawed at him. Despite the extreme interference of his own sects barriers, he had managed to discern a few things. Not an iota of swordlight, even less than the least talented among his disciples, and yet his swordlight broke against her techniques like waves against a cliff, despite having the special property of simply flowing around most obstacles. Clearly, her aura was both dense and strong, but it was more like that of a cultivator-beast rather than a human cultivator Yet he felt undeniable humanity from her, smothering the possibility of her being an advanced cultivator-beast in the crib.
Then, there was the matter of Seven Thundergods; the womans practice of Storm-soul Cultivation was abundantly obvious, and the fact she somehow gave six of them in physical form left no room for doubt that she had at least seven of those daemons dwelling within her soul. It was impossible short of some absurdly specific foundation. The only other explanation for that which made sense to him was, perhaps, being born as a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, but that was no better than a guess. Her Silver Conduits were absurdly overgrown, to the point where Archibald genuinely wondered if it had something to do with how forceful everything she did was. Perhaps that was the level of force required for her to generate any level of internal pressure with those riverbeds she had in place of channels.
Her appearance, the implication of draconic ancestry in her eyes, the weird armored sleeve with a small cannon on the forearm, that distinctly non-Ankhezian automaton steed None of it made sense. Twenty years. Just twenty short years, and it felt as if the world was sprinting ahead so it could have a laugh at him when he brought his sect out of seclusion.
266 - A Thorn to a Root
While his second-in-command contacted the Root Branch, Archibald penned a polite letter of first contact, folded it up, and sent the paper bird on its way to the old city of Willowdale. Hopefully the sect grounds were still in the same place.
Archibalds poor liver wouldnt get much rest any time soon, as he realized when one of his core disciples requested additional resources to attempt developing a facsimile of the semi-autonomous spinning cutters which Newman had used.
The third time, visiting another Black Horse Sect branch, this time a small auxiliary in Hadegoke, she was welcomed as a guest. She had announced her arrival to them two weeks in advance. They simply admitted that their tournament wasnt planned with a visitor like her in mind, and that they couldnt in good faith put forward any of their strongest members, as they were already assigned brackets. She understood the reasoning; exhaustion from previous fights would jeopardize ones performance in subsequent ones, and Zelsys herself didnt want to go into a friendly match with the unfair advantage of her opponents exhaustion. It was a small sect on par with the Arkaley Sect, having only twenty-one inner disciples to begin with, though its facilities were designed for at least two hundred; they had clearly lost many members in the war.
As such, she was content to watch the tournament, and offered to exhibit both techniques of the Newman Sect and her own, personal techniques, as a token of good faith. Most of what she showed was either derived from Sturmblitz Kunst 0, or so specific to her that an onlooker wouldnt be able to copy it; any reproduction would be its own, new technique.
She got the impression that her brief exhibition went over very well, especially the parts where she purposely re-enacted sections of the routine at a slowed-down pace, breaking down what she was doing. As for the tournament itself, she got her own share of amusement from each and every match; even those which were barely a few steps beyond human ability, involving only Fog-breathing and a handful of truly special techniques.
Then, as she drank in good spirits with the sect elder, Reimund Groessin, she felt an interesting burn in her drink. Seeing the elders waiting face, she thought to compliment it, to say that she appreciated his thoughtfulness for going so far as to give her sufficiently strong drink.
Before she even finished her compliment, however, she knew that it wasnt thoughtfulness; she had been poisoned with a substance meant to kill or at least maim her. Whatever it was burned in her stomach, but she used Skin of Bronze to metallize her stomach and her Metabolic Alkahest quickly broke the poison down before any real damage could be caused. After the first few sips, her immunity had been formed. From then on it still burned on the way down, but as it was broken down, she felt an intoxication building up, a vague euphoria of sorts.
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Rather than make a scene, she maintained the facade of friendliness and asked for some more. Then, after three glasses, she said she could tell that it was a reinforced drink, and asked if she could be shown whatever the elder had reinforced it with so she could get some for herself later. Nervous, confused, and seemingly glad to play along, the Hadegoke Sects elder brought out a small bottle ground wrapped in ancient seals written in script she couldnt read. A Cavernous Bottle.
It lined up with what her own body had discerned from the poison; relatively stable, attacking with lower-order compounds whose efficacy didnt suffer without particularly specific storage conditions.
She sniffed it. Cloyingly sweet. Pouring some on her finger, she found it to have a sap-like consistency. Licking it, she immediately had to focus on breaking it down, feeling parts of her mouth start to go numb nearly instantly. It was strong, as evidenced by the sect elders briefly hopeful eyes followed by disbelief when she licked her lips and drizzled some of the poison into the bottom of her glass. Then, she brought out some Winter Peach Brandy to mix with the poison. Dissolved as such, the bite was taken out of it.
For the next two hours, she tormented the sect elder by using his would-be assassination tool to amuse herself.
Tell me, my good man - what is the name of this poison?
The- It is the Sap of Grinning Death, so it is. It is said to induce euphoria and melt the victims organs so that the tree it comes from can eat them.
Ill take it. Consider it a gesture of good faith. If you find any more interesting poisons you wish to give me, I would suggest you do so in the open next time.
Reimund got the message loud and clear, nodding.
Before I make my leave Was it your own idea to be so considerate, or did someone else bring forth the suggestion?
It was someone else; I know nothing of who it might have been, they were wise enough to use an intermediary and take precautions...
He was lying, but not fully. She stared at him, visualizing all the ways she could kill him right then and there, letting the predatory instinct in the back of her head seep out. The mans own aura was mighty, like the edge of a two-meter-long razor, but this wasnt a clash - just tacit communication. After a short while, he relented.
Fine, it was someone from the Root Branch. I was not lying about the intermediary or the precautions, I only happen to be familiar with how the Root Branch likes to operate. They have been doubly careful in communicating with the other branches since their sect grounds are under the noses of the occupationist government. Some of my acquaintances have theorized that the Root Branch may have planned to move out of occupied territory and you shoved a thorn in their eye by claiming the Willowdale grounds. I personally have nothing against you or yours, this was just a matter of fulfilling my duty to the Root Branch.
267 - A Thorn to a Root Pt. 2
She stayed for some time after, to keep up appearances, and when she left, she took a swig straight from the poison gourd just to really drive it in And because the sap was starting to feel a great deal more like strong alcohol than a poison.
As for Reimund, he was well aware that he had been thrown from the pan into the fire. Whatever machinations were at play, both from Newman and the Root Branch, flew far above his head And yet he was sat in the middle caught in the crossfire. The tiny sects elder sighed to himself; he really wouldve preferred to establish relations, but no, some high-and-mighty fuck had to twist his arm behind his back with threats backed by the weight of the Root Branch. Those bastards barely even supported the smaller sects, he and his disciples were barely better off than being out for themselves; the phantom backing of being a Black Horse Sect branch and access to mostly lower and middle-ranking techniques In exchange for toiling like feudal fucking peasants growing herbs to pay the tithes.
A memory floated to the surface of his mind. An argument with one of his core disciples, several years ago, after which the aforementioned disciple left the sect to become a rogue cultivator.
The last words the two men had said to one another were:
May you live in interesting times!
And I wish the same upon you, and may Perkunas thunderstrike you!
His eye twitched. For a few moments there, he had worried that the thunderstrike wish would come true.
Several more days passed.
Zelsys went on with her usual training, momentarily trading hunting excursions for meetings with the governor and time spent in her chambers. Some of this time was spent reading through her predecessors texts, some went toward trying to rid herself of a mental itch by writing. It felt like a word that she knew, but which she couldnt quite grasp, and the more she tried to capture it, the more ephemeral and out of reach it felt. Inevitably, every time, she gave up and took out her frustrations on a target block. Ever since Eldartha, she had felt herself reaching for something truly profound, like enough pieces had fallen into place that she could make out the general shape and contents of a puzzle, but there were still tracts of it missing.
Most normal body training had reached such a point of diminishing returns for her that it may as well be pointless. Fortunately, lifting was still perfectly viable, she just had to turn to the target blocks if she wanted to push herself. This inevitably became a spectacle every time, as did one of Zelsyss own self-made training methods, wherein she pitted her own musculature against itself.
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The image of Zelsys holding a pose, flexing while somehow emanating a sense of incredible violence even in utter stillness, became a part of everyday life at the Newman Sect. The dust around her undulated in hypnotic patterns following the electromagnetic fields flowing around her feet, and arcs of lightning flew from her into the air despite her making no effort to induce the effect. The creaking and popping of her semi-metalized bones straining could be heard all the way across the courtyard.
On one such day, a paper bird flew down through the Newman Sects barrier. On this same day, since the weather was particularly nice and many disciples had gathered in the courtyard to train, Ozmir had dusted off one of the old pop-up auxiliary buildings. It was made in the same style and high standards as the main structures, but mostly using wood and other, lighter materials. A simple thought-impulse was enough to make the structure unfold into a large stall, from which the ankhezian went on to serve that days refreshments. He placed it all the way across the courtyard, condemning those in the middle to walk no less than two hundred meters to quench their thirst or quell their hunger.
Sure, most of the inner disciples didnt need this; their front courtyard wasnt particularly large, only some five hundred meters long and a third as wide, but disregarding the needs or comfort of outer disciples was a surefire way to end up with a dying sect full of bitter old cunts. Ozmir knew that. Hed seen it happen first-hand.
And frankly, he didnt feel like being in his kitchens right now. Even now, his arms itched to hell and back, black scales pushing through his skin from inhaling a bit too much of the fumes from cooking dragon meat. They were wondrous ingredients, everything the elder had brought back, but by the Dead Ones did cooking it fumigate the living hell out of everything. He was thankful that the previous sect cook had sealed off everything specifically for cases like this, from doors to pantry cabinets, it all had total isolation seals.
Ozmir saw that bird flutter down, and head towards him.
The Artat Sect? Why would they
Before he could call Zelsys over, she had already shifted to another kind of training, and was halfway across the courtyard. As they had each time before, so too did now several disciples gather to watch, not the least among them Zefaris, turning from her absurd coin-shooting. Keeping up her flexing, the sect elder proceeded to summon four Thundergods and using them alone she scaled the height of the sects towering height.
One-hundred and eight meters. That was the totality of the highest tower. She scaled its heights time and again, and then leapt off, allowing herself to fall like a stone, only to force herself to a slow descent through a great and terrible feat of fulgurmagnetism.
The first few times, she had landed so hard that she had to dig herself out, and Nesgon had to fill the holes in - not because she would not do it herself, but because the groundskeeper insisted upon it. At this point, she landed from the leap lighter than she stepped normally.
Ozmir used a special identifying hand-sign to try and call the bird, and found, to his surprise, that it obeyed, despite the Black Horse branch being officially dissolved. He read it over, and by the time he was done, Zefaris had already come over, curious of what he had received.
268 - A Friendly Spar Between Two Young Masters
...It appears that the Artat Sect Elder wishes to dispel any possibility of hostility and establish friendly relations, Ozmir explained, himself still reading the letter. He looked up, seeing Zelsys approaching.
Far be it for me to pry, Elder, but did you not come to blows and break through their Hundred Hands Sword Union Formation during your visit?
So I did.
Then it seems that, despite my expectations, the Artat Sect yet holds to the ideals of Lord Branstein in truth, rather than interpreting and disregarding them as it fits petty politics And that you did not insult them as much as I thought at first.
Nobody died, and I gave back swords to replace those I broke, she laughed. Of course I didnt insult them. How do we respond? Not the contents, the method. I somehow doubt they left a convenient aetherwave frequency.
These birds can return to sender, Ozmir said.
And so, later that day, Zelsys penned a letter in response.
Meanwhile, beneath the sect, two young men faced off against one another.
The ring was twenty meters across, elevated from the stone floor, inside a basin filled with a strange kind of dirt that absorbed impacts exceedingly well. Another nearby ring had hard, black sand to accommodate others.
As per their agreement, they both left out their most destructive techniques, leaving them for after the spar, to be demonstrated to one another against dummies, target blocks, and the illusions of the recently-completed Phantasmagoria Ring, the complex array designed to create illusory opponents to train against. It had been completed by a group consisting of people from inside and outside the sect, using various pieces of bleeding-edge essentech and an obscene number of Tablets strung together on a rack to form a Gestalt Logic Automaton. Neither Halxian nor Victor understood the deeper machinations, and neither dared tinker with the machine beyond what was explicitly permitted for its operation. That would be for later, however.
At first, Halxian felt very much like he had the upper hand, and it was true. Victors in-close fighting style had gaping holes in it, despite his number of little tricks. Blasts of air, gouts of oily, bloody, sticky mud, horrible bone-thorned flesh-brambles whipping and grasping, walls and great spikes of bone.
They were all just that - tricks. They were applied in accordance with the principles of Sturmblitz Kunst 0, but Halxian had the advantage of a practical martial art developed over the generations specifically for his unique abilities. By comparison to the Estoras family''s refined style, Victor was fighting with an impressive, yet nonetheless ramshackle prototype.
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Halxian''s spear blazed blue and darted about with the stinger-like deftness emblematic of the Third Calamity Armament Style. Some, his father said, derisively called it an imitation of true flying weapon arts. Some, his father said, had met their ends to this so-called imitation, despite being masters of those flying weapon arts. Halxians tattoos blazed alive, burning beneath his skin, pain shooting through him, yet remaining wholly bearable. This was for three reasons; one-third thanks to Makhus painkillers, one-third thanks to the snake oil ointment, and one-third due to Halxians own rapidly-growing pain tolerance, which he had achieved through establishing partial contact with his Primordial Self. It was a long and difficult process for him, attuning to that animal self and finagling it into doing what he wanted, but slowly, he had managed to widen the hole in the mental wall between his two selves, and convinced the Primordial that the burning, scorching ache was inevitable, and that it would be better for him to be able to ignore it.
Out of all of Victors techniques, the rocket-drills gave him the most trouble, and it couldnt have been more obvious that he was pulling his punches with them. The horrid things screamed at the speed of bullets through the air and tore into Halxians skin, leaving splinters on direct hits. On glancing hits they scraped like hell, and even when he blocked or deflected them their spin threw his spear out of alignment or tangled his wrappings. It was a mercy compared to the alternative, he wagered; these little bone rockets insides were hollow and mostly empty, they were brittle, and turned into dust and then nothing within seconds of striking.
For a short time, Halxian remained on the offensive. His spear was longer, and lacked the ring that further shortened Victors reach, and that was before the Third Calamity Armament Style came into play. It wasnt just the spearhead or the haft, but his bandages, too, blazed alight with flame, and before long, Victor was covered in first-degree burns, being so minor only because this was a friendly spar. Had it been a real fight, his flesh would still be burning all the way down to bone. It had been a desire to replicate the Calamity Flame that had inspired the invention of CP-T, or so father had said to him. Then again, had it been a real fight, Halxian would by now be riddled with holes as wide as fists.
Moments later, Halxian found himself no better off. As he lashed out with his spear across the whole of the ring, he suddenly found himself beset by fleshy tendrils from below, while Victor sprinted towards him, a great big gauntlet forming around his right arm while flame coalesced in the ring of his staff. Just as he managed to retract his spear and tear himself free, Victor held the staff in front of his face and blew, and a blinding-white blaze erupted from it, washing like a wall of pain over Halxian. Before he could regain his bearings, he felt a battering-ram smash into his stomach from below, throwing him back-first into the ceiling such that he came careening to the ground disoriented and gasping for breath.
Another moment, and the redhead appeared within his vision with a smile on his face and a hand held out in an offer of aid. His bulked-up gauntlet, with firework-like vents still spewing black flame, crumbled away.
Took me far too long to tune that so it wouldnt take your skin off, he gave a wry grin, and as Halxian reached out, thinking nothing of the numb burning sensation all across his hands and face, he felt it. The crackling. As if he had been cast alive in plaster, an eggshell-thin layer of bone crumbled away from his skin, exposing the layer immediately beneath. Blinking twice and shaking off his hand, he took Victors offer and let himself be pulled to his feet.
269 - A Friendly Exchange of Techniques Between Two Young Masters
They moved into the Phantasmagoria Ring, the machinery whirring to life as the setting they had entered beforehand took form. A great ring of metal and tubes rose up to enclose the whole arena, spinning in place, hovering above inverted Ankhezian hovercraft repulsors. Silver threads of Fog swirled up from below and into the arena from the metal ring, spiraling into a tall, humanoid shape in the center.
The Fog Ogre, as it had come to be called over the past months, was the largest preset, and was a humanoid made of congealed fog, so densely packed that it was effectively real, so long as the Phantasmagoria Ring worked. The Ring even built the Ogre with a hardened internal skeleton, flesh-like internal matter, and an elastic skin, but its eyes were empty and it looked, more than anything, like what it was - a great deal of Fog compressed into a humanoid shape.
Incomplete though it was, it made a great target dummy for determining how an attack might affect an actual person So long as it was a purely direct attack rather than one reliant on anything subtler like pressure points.
At Victors request, Halxian went first, unleashing all the moves he had used in their spar at full power. In moments, the Fog Ogre was run through with a dozen holes, Halxian throwing out and pulling back his spear at a machine-gun cadence, using the elasticity of his wraps as an aid. Moments more, and the Ogre was wrapped head-to-toe in blue-burning wrappings. Halxian then anchored himself and focused his Calamity Flame, turning the subtle flames into a pyre that consumed the construct, cutting it to ribbons through the combination of the Calamity Flames precise, controlled burn and the pressure of Halxians wrappings.
Uoh! That looks kind of like one of mine, but it works completely differently, the redhead remarked with great enthusiasm, rushing in to get a better look. His pupils expanded out into diamonds as he stared into the flames, only to contract down to stars when he looked at Halxian. A shiver ran down his back, and he pulled in his spear, letting the Calamity Flame go out.
By the Dead Ones your eyes look creepy. What did you mean by that? Does your black flame not use Ignis for fuel?
A mischievous grin grew on the redheads face, and he opened his eyes wide into a freakish, unblinking stare, his pupils contracting down to pointy crosses as he asked: Really? Its the eyes, not the flesh-brambles or the bone plates growing from my skin?
With a bell-like laugh, he stopped that unbelievably creepy trick and explained: I can see the essentia patterns in the fire if I try, yours are completely different to my Bonefire. Its nearly pure Ignis, whereas mine is part Ignis, half Ossum. Thats why it calcifies things. Honestly, the patterns in your fire look the most like the ones Elder Sigmund gives off when he turns blue. Also I think I noticed some sort of congestion. The Estoras family uses tattoos to aid in directing the energy of their family cultivation method, yes? May I see yours?
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...Where did you see the congestion?
Upper back, just above the right shoulder blade. It doesnt look like anything is building up, but I dont really have full use of my eyes yet, so I may be wrong. Its probably fine for now if you havent blown anything out yet.
He was right. Halxian had been trying to work that out for weeks, at first thinking it was a flaw in his technique, then thinking he had some sort of muscle knot in that splot. Thrice now, he had allowed one of the other disciples to take a mallet and chisel to his back, and once even got Mata Gano to try and unblock it with her own Ignis, to no avail. By the Dead Ones, that woman was hot - in the literal sense. Halxian could barely take her massage for half an hour before he felt as though he might get heatstroke.
You are right. I suppose it would do well if you took a look.
Sounds good, but later. The Ogre looks like its just about done reforming.
He backed off, somewhat perturbed by the fact the redhead seemingly possessed a visual ability of occult myth on par with other such arts from the Three Kings Era. It was exactly the sort of ability he would expect from Koschei the Undying, the so-called King of All That Lives, but he was not aware of a single Khestun who had eyes like that, be it in appearance or function.
Clearing his head, Halxian reignited his flame and continued with the Seed of Calamity; a blue bead of flame formed within the hole in his spears head. He stabbed the Fog Ogre, quickly retracting his weapon, and moments later, a small geyser of blue flame came pouring out of the wound. A short time later, the ogre crumpled to the ground, its insides spewing out as it burned inside-out. It could also be planted in the ground with only a slight shift to the energy, allowing the Seed to blossom into a destructive geyser of flame on command.
Then, there were the first three Calamity Constellations that Halxian knew, these being more complex sets of movements or advanced techniques. Halxian showed the first and third, the first being a collection of ways to attack from awkward, absurd angles with the Bound Spear, while the third was a method for achieving rapid-fire, long-ranged thrusting attacks without tiring oneself quickly or sacrificing power. His version of the Second Constellation was even better thanks to modifications made at the elders suggestion.
The Second Constellation was, in no uncertain terms, a move that couldnt be made nonlethal by its very nature. Halxian stripped down to his waist for this, knowing that it would destroy his clothes. The Bound Spear was wrapped entirely in its bindings and set ablaze in his hands, and, with a rapid barrage of thrusts he directed a combination of his flame and his armament aura towards the target. His tattoos began to ooze flame, setting his right side ablaze, yet it did not harm him. Dozens of strikes became hundreds, a deluge of ghostly spears of flame, each of which implanted a tiny Seed of Calamity.
270 - A Friendly Exchange of Techniques Between Two Young Masters Pt. 2
The Fog Ogre looked about ready to fall apart by the time Halxian was done mere seconds later, and then, the explosions came. In rapid sequence, the congealed pseudo-matter of the glorified target dummy was torn to shreds and scattered all about the ring, still burning until Halxian willed the flame to go out.
His back hurt like hell. This was nothing new, he knew it would be like this.
He felt something flying at him, and instinctively caught it, finding it to be a small bottle of that newly-improved vitae elixir they had brought back.
No wonder Mistress Zelsys called you skilled and insufferable in equal measure, though I suspect that second half is solely to do with her, the Khestun grinned as Halxian gathered himself. It took some amount of effort to suppress the urge to ask if she had really spoken of him with such high praise.
The Estoras heir was just as skilled as Victor had been led to expect, and now it was his turn.
Best to show the basics. Not an iota more. No storage talismans. No servitors. No Sealing Fangs, said one of his internal monologues.
The other countered: Ive already promised to show him the technique to which his flame-binding is similar.
Then the basics and that, but no more.
I must admit that I will not show you my strongest trick, as it is Dismantled, lets put it that way. Remember that great big beast I ride around on? Its that, it turns into something akin to an Iron Rider armour. So Ill just show you the things I can do here on the spot without special conditions.
There were the obvious parts; all the moves he had used in their spar, but full-power. The Devils Teeth tore holes thrice their diameter through the Ogre, flesh-brambles crushed it like a rusty old can, and the Volcanic Fist tore its head clean off its shoulders. As for Fight the Night, well
White-black flame gathering in the staffs main ring, forming a swirling ball.
Jade sub-rings spinning, spitting sparks.
Unleash, fire and flames alight
The ball collapsed.
Full force, strike! FIGHT THE NIGHT!
An explosion. Not a blast of flame, or a wave, or a flamethrower, but a singular instant of concussive pressure. A white-black cone flashed through Halxians vision, smashing into the barrier meant to protect the Phantasmagoria Ring from any collateral damage. The heat washed over him, and he realized the Fog Ogre was just gone, erased, leaving only the somewhat comical image of two smoking feet on the ground.
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Its a pain to get it that focused without my armor, hence the invocation, but the wider spread is better in most cases. Really proud of the part where the white crown is so solid that it blinds the target like a flash of bright light.
Halxian stepped back a bit further. The only comment he could muster was: Thats Really something.
Last, came a technique that, much like the Second Constellation, melded multiple things into a hyperlethal combination. Great, big, thorned flesh-brambles to surround and choke the target, their thorns weird and off-putting until Hal realized that they were Devils Teeth. The next moment the Ogre was riddled with holes, and Victor put the whole thing to the torch with a great gout of flame from his staff, incinerating the Ogre in bonefire. It crumbled to the ground, a burned-out shell, shattering like a rotten plaster bust.
After all that, he seemed Disappointed. Apologetic, even.
Eh Its much faster and more impressive with corpses around to fuel it. Yours is better without those factors.
They quickly agreed that, as things were, neither of them could claim to be undeniably stronger, the two made their way to find Makhus, as he was the only other sect member with any sort of in-depth knowledge of Halxians type of tattoos. It fortunately didnt take long; he was outside, suited up, practicing a weird slashing form thirty paces away from a target block. His sword blazed with white light.
He made a cut, standing stone-still in uncertainty. A moment later, a gash appeared in the block. Cheers abounded from the small crowd of onlookers around him, and it took some effort to get his attention afterwards.
When made aware of the diagnosis, he dismissed his armour right away and brought them down into the infirmary, or rather a former growhouse in the second sub-basement that had been converted into the infirmary after a mass of rampant dark-dwelling plants was cleared out. A smaller laboratory was attached to it, lacking a Philosophers Heart apparatus but otherwise just as well equipped as the main one.
Its Here, Victor pointed to an inconspicuous spot on Halxians back as the Estoras lay on his stomach. Ignite it for a bit, please.
Halxian did so, and Victor looked closer.
The flow is circling back on itself and creating a vortex that goes nowhere. This spot here is just eating up power with no benefit instead of amplifying and feeding it back like the other dead ends.
Sounds like a sublayer ink blowout. Smaller ones can be hidden by the tattoos intact upper layers. It can be fixed. Ill need to call Ezaryl for it, though, Makhus said.
And that he did. The Krishorn Heiress cited that she would have to examine Halxian first, and when she did, she decided she would need two days to consult with an Iron Rider tattoo artist to adjust the corrective procedure for the different ink formulation, as well as a partial copy of the source showing how that section of tattoo should properly look.
Within that three-day span, during a dinner, Halxian shared with his father what he had learned of Khestuns capabilities, including his belief that he likely had capabilities well beyond what he had seen. This was not a surprise in the slightest; it merely left the question of why Newman took him as a disciple unresolved.
During that same dinner, Halxian also received a missive to deliver.
271 - Hellfire Manifesto
One morning, Halxian came to Zelsys with a message from his father, asking her to visit him to discuss an interesting affair. This was code-speak for a truly severe and urgent problem, one that threatened global repercussions and required the direct intervention of the Newman Sects strongest. The mere fact he brought over a missive himself was enough to suggest great importance.
She had noticed the Estoras brat getting along surprisingly well with Victor. A part of her wouldve preferred for a more heated rivalry to develop, but this was also perfectly acceptable. They seemed sufficiently motivated to outdo one another, and that was all she really wanted. She truly wished to see the brats reaction when Victor finished whatever modifications he was making to Dawnwolf.
As for the interesting affair, it couldnt have come at a better time. Over the past weeks, Zelsys had grown acutely aware of the fact that Conquerors Mantle was simply not cutting it anymore. The technique hadnt been created with her current state in mind, and so it was falling short. It was now easy to initiate and she could maintain it without burning out in a few minutes, that was nice, but the flow of Fulgur through her silver conduits wasnt pushing them as far as they could go; she no longer felt the same white-burning pressure that told her she was coursing with as much power as she could possibly handle. The quality of energy she was generating was also vastly improved, but once again, there was no doubt in her mind that she could do much better.
The biggest weakness of Conquerors Mantle was its former main advantage - the low level of symbiosis with the Storm-soul Cultivation Method. Before, it was necessary to simply not rely on the Butcher for the reaction; sustaining the original, Living Storm-powered version of the Mantle for only a short time was among the things that had led to it shattering in the first place. That aspect was nothing but a detriment now, even the possible flaw of losing her weapon wasnt a factor. She couldnt be disarmed besides in the literal sense, having her arms severed, and even then she could wield Carnifex by other means or simply manifest it as Fulguris instead.
Both she and Carnifex had outgrown Conquerors Mantle by far. It was like using an engine design a full generation behind and merely applying better materials and fuel to it; it was better, but not nearly as good as it could be. A redesign was needed, and though shed been making progress trying to work it out, something more substantial to chew on was sure to be just what she needed to break through.
Indeed, it felt like the secret to fully refining the Conquerors Mantle would come from the same place as whatever she needed to leap the gap in understanding to finally grasp the cause of that annoying mental itch.
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There was still some time before the time when Crovacus wished to meet with her, which conveniently fell into a free spot in her schedule. The governor knew better than to try and make her play by his own schedule.
Indeed, there were still things for her to deal with before then, as the sect Elder.
For instance, the impending arrival of a contact from the Counter-propaganda Bureau, as Vaceran so readily informed her. He made no effort to hide himself, and no wonder. That man, in his trench-coat and bearded visage, smouldered like a walking ember as he walked through the street. Each other step gave the thump of metal on stone, and while one eye stared with an emerald-green double iris, the other was a brass sigil that burned inside its socket, perpetually glowing a dull cherry-red.
She waited for him at the steps of the sect, having sent Nesgon to the gate so he could open the barrier for her guest.
From across the wall, his singing and strumming echoed:
Ill be your demon, your devil, your bulwark for hate. Spit your accusations at me, Ill just say Ikesia above all else!
So long as one of us lives, Ikesia cant know defeat, so long as one of us breathes, Ikesia wont know defeat!
In the face of all tyranny, I shall exact retribution! Ill gladly cloak myself in hellfire to shield the fate of my nation!
Strolvath, in his grim dignity, strummed a new instrument, a zither, as he walked, singing with a growl-like voice that Zelsys had only heard in the Dungeons final chamber. If she didnt know better, if her senses werent sharper, she mightve thought that the man was somehow in a perpetual state of pseudo-Hellfire Mantle. Certainly, he exuded that kind of power, but this was nothing compared to that scorching blaze. Just the low roar of a furnace without enough air.
He repeated the second verse. Ikesia cant know defeat, Ikesia wont know defeat. Slowly, almost leisurely, he walked through the courtyard. Quite a few disciples broke from their exercises to look or listen.
You can hate us, accurse us, but well never bend or break! Just another tyrants crony, your strength so frail and fake.
And even should our bodies be turned to naught but ash, should all our works be swept away, turnd to rubble and dust Never shall our spirits rest til vengeance has been had, and neither shall our killers know peace, their children ever-damned.
Slowing down even further, singing more softly as he got within only a few dozen meters and locked eyes with Zelsys, Strolvath ended his song.
At the end of the world, when we are long forgotten, so too shall be those who thought to kill us.
And even when all is gone to the winds, Ikesia still wont know defeat.
A final strum, and by then, they were only a few steps apart. Despite sitting, Strolvath still had to look up to look Zelsys eye to eye.
Whatd you think? he asked, casually. Im thinking of titling it The Hellfire Manifesto.
The last three stanzas could use some work, she said plainly.
Strol emitted a frustrated sigh-groan that sounded somewhat like the roar of a fire being blown into.
I knew youd say that. Lets go somewhere private, Ive got a good reason to come in person like this.
272 - Hellfire Manifesto Pt. 2
A few minutes later, in a warded private meeting room, the two sat across from one another. Though Zelsys had offered him several different kinds of liquor, even a medicinal meal straight from Ozmirs kitchen, he refused all. Since it was now time for her breakfast, she engaged in the conversation while also eating a whole brisket of dragon meat seasoned with herbs from the Leyline Well Meadow and smoked using shavings from an oak tree struck by lightning. It was served with a side of 300-year-old culca leaf salad, which was made sustainable by the fact a culca plant grew continuously and its roots made up the true plant body. Further accelerated by the Leyline Well, the Newman Sects outer disciples got culca leaf sides once every week, and could buy more meals at reasonable prices given a disciples median income. The cut of meat, of course, came from nowhere near Eisengeists chest.
I see that youve truly grown into the role and stature of a sect elder, Strolvath remarked.
And I see that youre still struggling with Victory Echoes. Yknow, Sigmund could likely help you the same way you helped him.
Im afraid that his Tranquility Method would not suit me, especially since I cannot afford to stay here and learn from him Though my current state is, indeed, the reason I have come to you.
He brought out several items. The first was a wood-slip book with deep red cover slips, inlaid in gold with flame-like patterns. The second was a wood-slip scroll, charred, worn, and rough. The third was an actual book, shaped like a wedge due to a substantial number of missing pages. Next came a stack of several thinner, paperbound documents, and lastly, a small, bronze box.
Where to start, where to start he sighed, taking a flask out of his coat. He took a swig and put it away, and the smouldering of his being subsided to near nothing. Well, lets start here.
He took the damaged book, and slid it across the table to her. Its cover was illustrated by the image of a white figure with black patterns and surrounded by flames, and all around it, black figures on the ground.
Official name, Manuscript Fragment Eighteen-C. Colloquial name, the Burning Man Manuscript. Its one of the recovered documents that led to the development of Victory Wash, at least, the only one we have at the Bureau. Most of the surviving material pertains to alchemical materials, but its obvious that the original was likely an in-depth, advanced manual on Ignis-centric cultivation. Its written in a mix of Ankhezian Merchant Script and archaic Old Ikesian, dated to the final centuries of Ankhezian presence in Ikesia. And these
He patted the paperbound documents.
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...Are an abridged copy of the Victory Wash developmental records. Useless, on their own, unless you have the Fragment to contextualize everything inside. You will see how these relate to the others in a moment. This-
The red-gold scroll.
-is the Blazing Fires Secret Record. We know for a fact this was used by adherents of Kamatok during the Three Kings Era. In the hopes that it might help me gain control over my state, I recovered it from the ruins of the Flameborn Children, deep in the Exclusion Zone. They were a group of mercenary-monks, and several of their members were involved in the development of Victory Wash - hence how I knew the location of their sect grounds, despite not being supposed to. Honestly, this is useless to me. I cant make heads or tails of anything besides the martial arts diagrams, and Im not much of a martial artist. Lastly, the Blazing-black Destruction Scripture. Its a daemonic cultivation method just like Storm-soul Cultivation, and though I dont have an Ignis daemon, it has helped me get some modicum of control.
One by one, Strolvath slid all of the documents over to Zels side of the table. She was nearly done eating by now. He rested his hand on the box.
I will place all of these documents into your stewardship on two conditions. Firstly, you make an active effort to complete the Burning Man Manuscript and share the results with me. Im sure pyromancy will find a broad appeal among your disciples, and you have Scorchlanders among your ranks besides. Secondly, I want you to produce for me a particular pill detailed in the Manuscript. Ive sourced some of the ingredients myself, but there is one in particular that I cant find And that you have an abundance of. The blood of a Dragon Descendant.
Finishing her meal, Zel licked the blood-like juices off of her plate and leaned back in her seat, regarding the documents for a few moments before meeting Strolvaths gaze.
Sure. Just tell me which pill it is and what it does.
Really? Thats it?
Yeah. I dont see any reason to be opposed to the proposition, unless its something absurdly shady. I assume the pill in question is supposed to stabilize your fucked cultivation base, yes?
A slow nod.
Page two-hundred thirty-six. The Dragonheart Bolus.
She conjured a Thundergod, using one of her braids to bring the manuscript to her. It felt hot to the touch, and as she opened it, a wave of heat spilled out at her. The letters spilled out of the page, unfolding from a compressed state into mid-air. After ascertaining that the written effect was as described, she was satisfied and closed the tome. Even with over half of it missing, it was still an absolute unit of a book, half a meter tall and a good twenty centimeters thick.
Good! Then weve got a deal. Just one question - is this for yourself, or for the Bureau at large? You obviously have copies of these texts.
Of course I do. I will also admit that Ive found the Bureau to be a touch under equipped to carry out our day-to-day operations in occupied regions. It would certainly make disposing of enemy materiel and corpses easier for our agents.
By the Dead Ones, I hope I dont have to one day root out you slippery bastards.
Strolvath laughed.
And I hope that I dont find myself trying to evade you. We have a deal, then?
Zel took out a bottle of blood mead, proclaiming: Yes, once we drink to it.
273 - Facade Obscura, Metropolis Obscura
Later that week
Zefaris had reached a point of being able to use the Philosophers Eye for hours at a time without issue, and was certain that it wouldnt be long before she could simply have it open continuously. And then, one day, Victor came along to one of the sects libraries where Zefaris had been reading through forgotten manuscripts on glyph arrays, finding that they made a surprising amount of sense. The hard part was visually parsing the array patterns, and she, if anyone, was the best suited to the task, not only thanks to the Philosophers Eye. Just the Homunculus Eye alone could handle most of the patterns, and was in fact better-suited to many, due to being able to take in the whole thing all at once. Victor was playing with two Philosophers Eyes as if they were toys, rolling them around in his hand.
She immediately noticed the Crow Mask on his face, and he quickly approached the other side of her desk, bending over to rest his elbows on its surface and bring his eyeline in line with hers.
You still dont have access to your left eyes full performance, you know, came the young mans voice, tinged with the crow-like timbre of Koschei. Theres a two-year time lock, and another that only disengages when you clear three dungeons. Seeing as that second one is impossible to fulfill Ill just disable it myself.
Before she could answer, the redhead held out his hand to Zefs face and uttered: Manual Release.
There. You should be able to set the eye into high gear, so to speak. Im not sure how heavy the strain is; Koscheis memory being fuller of holes than Ubuls back and all So be careful. But I dont need to tell you that.
Zefaris blinked, giving a thought-impulse to the implant, and suddenly found a deluge of visual information flooding into her mind. The Philosophers Eye had jumped in performance and intensity to a degree comparable to simply opening the eye when she had first started using it But the sheer quantity and fidelity of data was astounding, and unlike back then, Zefaris could handle it, at least for short periods.
Another blink, and the eye returned to normal. She rose from her seat and flicked one of her coins into the air, firing a low-powered kinetic beam at it. With a light flash, it reflected and smacked straight into the back of Victors head, sending the redhead face-first onto the metal-inlaid cover of an ancient tome.
That mask isnt an excuse to play fuck-fuck games. Ask before you do something like that next time. For all you know the eye might have been stuck in its high gear and Id be stuck getting used to it all over again.
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When he got his bearings, Victor tore the mask off his face and hucked it into the floor.
I apologize, I was testing the reusable version and forgot to take it off, he said, audibly frustrated over his own actions. You dont even notice how it changes your behavior But thats part of how it works, I guess. Ill be more careful. Maybe put a hard time limit on the next iteration, or restrict it to only work inside a specific formation.
Uh-huh Zefaris trailed off, before calling out to him again. Hold on, come back here for a moment. How far along are you with handling dragonbone?
He reached under his right arm, where his Tablet was holstered, and retrieved a small, simplistic bar of the black material, shaped to look as though it had been carved in a simplistic way.
Small things. I made a needle out of it recently. Why?
She pulled out a photograph which she had drawn over with two colours of ink - black and white. She gestured to the larger group, done in black.
Can you do pieces of this size and shape?
Sure. Are you having scales for Pentacle made to match Tempesta? I noticed you havent had it on you since you went to that gun shop in front of the city hall, what was it called
Colliers Equalizers, yes.
A few days later, Zelsys Newman met with Crovacus Estoras in the latters office, a boxy slide projector set up on the governors table and aimed at a white projection sheet.
Several weeks ago, we lost contact with the city of Eberheim, he said, moving the projector to the first slide. It showed a map of the immediate region, centered on the city. Eberheim was north-east of Rigports territory, close to the Grekurian border, and right ontop of a trade route that connected both to Grekuria and Rigport. The city was labeled as a soon-to-be member of the Free Cities Alliance.
Not only is it a center of trade, but also an industrial hub, and as such, capture of Eberheim and her factories was among the main Grekurian public goals early in the War of Fog. It is now known that all heavy manufacturing had been removed from the city weeks prior to any hostilities, and it was simply surrendered before siege could be laid to it, allowing it to go largely unscathed Though most of the manufacturing equipment has been lost. Nonetheless, it has become more pivotal than ever, being the primary land trade choke point between FCA member states and Grekuria. Many naval imports that arrive in Rigport also go through Eberheim, due to the extremely unstable, nearly decivilized state of the territories immediately between Wilowdale and Rigport.
Another click. The projector cycled. A cluster of two smaller municipalities that separated Willowdale and Rigport proper, one each falling under either city-states purview. Both were filled out in red and dark-blue crosshatching - the Mevenverton and Whitecliff region respectively. She skimmed the notes in the free spaces of the slide. The town of Mevenverton was marked consumed by the Exclusion Zone, and Whitecliff wasn''t much better-off. Keverley, the largest settlement in the region, could barely be considered a town at this point, relying heavily on imported goods and constantly under threat of locust raiders, possibly offspring of the Willowdale Locust Queen.
274 - Facade Obscura, Metropolis Obscura Pt. 2
Attempting to regain control of the two regions has been difficult work, even with the open cooperation of Rigports occupation government. To add onto our troubles, Eberheim has
Another click. Back to Eberheim, but a real photo of the city from an elevated position, likely a nearby hill. A huge cathedral stood proud in the middle of everything, spires reaching for the heavens. Another click. The same location and angle, but there was no city; the sky and everything around the city was shrouded by crimson fog.
...Vanished. Its not officially occupied or under siege, at least not by Grekurian or Pateirian forces as far as were aware. The whole city has somehow been made inaccessible to the outside world, completely cut off. The land immediately surrounding it is shrouded in thick, red fog, as you can see; a few of our people went in, but never came out. The Woodsman believes it to be the doing of a heretofore unknown, possibly Three Kings Era sect, an advanced isolation formation of some sort.
Of course. If individual cultivators are coming out of the woodwork after hiding for centuries, there is no reason an entire sect couldnt have hidden itself for that long Zel said.
Exactly. I decided that it would be best to give you, the elder of our citys sole sect, the opportunity to deal with the situation as you see fit And I would frankly prefer it personally as well. Not only out of a desire to avoid having our military deal with factors they are, for now, unprepared to deal with, but because I believe this to be a prime opportunity for a show of force. A city so close to Grekurian borders is Extraordinarily visible across the border, in a manner of speaking. Of course, due to its great strategic and trade value, I would be willing to calculate compensation based on prevented financial damage after the situation has been resolved and the severity of the incident has been evaluated. Should it surpass what we can pay through liquid funds, the Newman Sect may stake claim to a portion of imported goods and export profits for a set period of time Ah, there I go again. We can discuss it later, rest assured that you will be compensated appropriately. Just try to minimize collateral damage, you know how these things go.
Zel nodded calmly, suppressing the impatient excitement already growing inside. There were still preparations to be had. Fortunately, she could fit a great deal of preparation into a very short time.
I want the Hellhound Outriders, a couple squads of Third-models And Strake.
They wont be able to keep up with you. Certainly not the Third-models.
It doesnt matter. Even if I can wreck a building in one swing, I cant take and hold a city by myself, and Im not going to muster the entirety of the sect for this. Even if I did, our numbers wouldnt suffice. Well go on ahead with a small force, just me and whoever I need to bring down the isolation array, and the Hellhounds go in afterwards to back us up. They can hold their own, and Strake is a cultivator in all but name. That machine of his was the most lethal thing in Willowdale for a short time after Ubuls Tomb.
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The governor went silent, looking through his papers, toking from his cigar in consideration. Zelsys instantly knew that she would get what she wanted. She leaned over the table to drive her point home: Crovacus, I need dogs of war to root out the rats while I butcher the dragon that has perched itself atop that cathedral''s spires.
The Grekurian-style cathedral stood proudly in the middle of the old city''s central square. It was in a strong tactical location, and likely sturdy enough to work as a fortress. He looked up at her. A smoke-filled sigh.
Fine. A platoon of Hellhounds and five squads of Third-models - three Steelwings and one Gundream commander unit each And you can try to drag Strake out of his cafe on your own. Im sure youre well aware that hell cut into your payment.
I couldnt care less, she smugged. How long?
One No, two days. Some of the Gundreams just had new armaments fitted and they still need to be zeroed. Is that acceptable?
Two days it is. Six in the morning, at the northern gate.
The governor gave a nod, and that was that. Zel left his office intent on obtaining the Rook to go with her Knights and Pawns.
Of all things, opening a cafe was among the last that Zelsys wouldve expected from someone like Strake. The place had, however, become quite well known in its few months of operation, in no small part due to the striking sculpture out front - a burned-out first-model tank suit locked in a melee with an Inquisitors armor, filled by a skeleton made of scrap metal and with two holes through the chest that perfectly matched the diameter of a tank-suits pilebunkers. It was in a street-corner building, on the turn of a street in the same north-eastern quarter of the city as the sect. The sign above the door was made from a salvaged piece of armor plating, with COFFEE AND BAKED GOODS painted in military font. Next to the door hung a string of several smaller signs of the same make, advertising several kinds of hand-rolled cigarettes and a dedicated smokers area, as well as teas, pastries, and even frozen desserts.
The interior was gorgeous, and a grizzled man with the same crosshatched facial scars as Strolvath manned the counter, wearing a dark apron and his hands covered in flour. She hadnt been here in a while - not since before her journey to the north - and it showed.
Good day, Ulrich! Is the boss in? she asked cheerfully, striding through the store, even as Ulrich and a handful of patrons tracked her every movement with wide-open stares. One of the sweets in the display case caught her eye - a so-called windmill, a round choux pastry with two circular halves, a filling of caramel cream in the middle and a thick layer of sugar glaze on top. And give me Lets say twenty of these. You have twenty, right?
Oh, youre- Id heard that you were back, but I didnt expect you to come. Sure, I can do that, Ulrich stammered. Hed always been nervous, ever since the war, and none held it against him. Every single employee of this cafe was like that, forever scarred by warfare and without any desire to return to war Well, the second half didnt apply to Strake himself. Ulrich skillfully stacked twenty windmill pastries into a wax paper lined box, conspicuously not answering Zels question about his boss.
Ulrich. Is the boss here? Cmon. I wont bite him. That was one time, and we were just sparring. Ive got something serious to talk about with him.
...Alright, hes in the back. As far as Im concerned you forced your way past me.
275 - War Dog Cafe
With a smile, she dropped a cold-iron sovereign and a golden coin on the counter, taking one of the pastries as she passed behind Ulrich. Three gelt for a pastry. She vividly remembered paying a single gelt for a full meal her first time in Willowdale. Such was the price for a stabilized economy; that single gelt back then had the buying power of five gelt now.
The back half of the so-called War Dog Cafe was what made this location special. The front half, the cafe half, was a refurbished store, with walls having been knocked out to connect the whole first floor of this building. The other side was a bakery and storage, but it also included a garage. There, in the open, facing into a particularly wide service-access alleyway, Bloody Zero stood, that monstrous thing. At this very moment, Strake stood on a ladder fiddling with a gun that, weirdly, Zelsys recognized.
Youre welcome for the gun, she said, smugly, with a mouth half-full of pastry.
He twitched as if a bullet had just whizzed past his ear, despite the fact Zelsys knew that he was not the type of man to twitch from a bullet flying past his ear. A frustrated, preparatory sigh escaped him, and he slowly turned to face her, sitting on Zeros shoulder.
I heard that you were back. Didnt think youd think to visit lil ol me, o high and mighty sect elder. Whatd you want? he hissed.
Eberheim.
That word alone, and the fact she purposely said it without any sense of jovial lightheartedness, got Strakes attention.
What of it?
Surrounded by impenetrable red fog. The whole city. Woodsman thinks its some hidden sect doing something shady with the city. Id guess theyre setting it up as a permanent base of operations, or preparing some kind of mass human sacrifice ritual.
And whatd you want me for? I dont know shit about arrays or formations. If Woodsman couldnt take it down, I dont know who can.
She smirked.
Me and mine will handle opening a path and hopefully taking down the whole array. I need a mobile force that can clear and take sections of the city once the barriers down, while also effectively fighting against lower-ranked cultivator forces. Ive got a platoon of Hellhounds and five squads of Third-models, youre the only missing piece.
And what if you cant find the arrays weak point, huh? What then? Dyou expect me to sit on my ass cookin in the cockpit for hours, days on end? Hell, I could manage, but Zero wont like that.
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Im not too worried about that, but I understand where youre coming from. Hows Zeros drive train holding up? she asked.
Been better. Been worse. Wasnt designed for the highest output peaks, gotta let the girl rest in between bursts Or feed her. Added some aux lines to offload some stress, but now Ive got a heat problem, he played along with a glimmer in his eye.
Sounds like a materials problem. How bout I source you something better than cold-iron for those cables, huh? Ive got nerves from a dragon as thick as my forearm just laying around And I might have a way to stabilize your Victory Echoes, too.
My conditions stable, Strake hissed. In an instant, the rise in his mood from the offer of such an exotic material as dragon nerves was dashed to an even worse state than hed started at.
Oh, Im sure it is. You dont look like you get rubedo seizures or anything... But wouldnt it be nice to be able to pull a stunt like you did back at Ubuls Tomb without frying yourself alive?
He scowled at her.
Ill think about it.
Were leaving in two days, big man. Think hard.
As she walked back to the sect, Zel devoured eight windmill pastries, and left the remainder for later. Upon her return, she found that both Zefaris and Victor - the first people who came to mind for dealing with a formation - were nowhere to be found. It was swiftly elucidated to her that: Lady Zefaris took Disciple Victor to one of the private rooms on the second floor and asked not to be disturbed, citing that she intended to carry out an experiment of some description.
Instantly, she knew what was going on; they were testing Crow Masks formation-restricted version. Zel decided to take this time to fulfill other preparations for the excursion. She visited Makhus in his primary laboratory, finding the alchemist alongside Sigmund and Old One-arm poring over the Burning Man Manuscript. An alchemical apparatus, nearly completely enveloped in various seals, bubbled away, with a flask of purplish water as the source. The smell was unmistakably Eisengeists blood. This alone was an achievement - Eisengeists blood didnt dissolve in water on its own, and alkasnail alkahest was too aggressive. It was Ozmirs expertise that had led to a method by which the blood could be brought into a lower-concentration solution.
Minor problem with the Dragonheart Bolus, Makhus said. What we have is too strong for the other ingredients. We can try to reduce the potency of the blood by several orders of magnitude, source blood from a One-eyed Dragon Descendant like an Ankylodragon, or try to reconstruct the missing next step on the ladder - the True Dragonheart Bolus.
Well? Youre the alchemist. I cant make judgments on the matter in your stead. Im just here to pick up some Witchs Brew.
Such was the name Makhus and the other sect alchemists had come to call the Smoke Witchs improved vitae elixir. It had spread like a plague through the sect - both the elixir and the name. It was no wonder. The liquid was borderline magical, in the sense of pushing the basic concept of a vitae elixir to its limits. The trees and herbs required for its creation, likewise, had grown like weeds in the Leyline Well grove, and continued to do so after being transplanted elsewhere, some to indoor greenhouses and others to the surface grove.
Already running out? the alchemist asked.
No, but I expect to need more than usual. The governor called. Someone not affiliated with any known state power took over Eberheim - the whole city is hidden by weird, red fog. The Woodsman thinks its some hidden sects isolation array or formation.
Eberheims a pretty sizable city Makhus rubbed his chin. Well need bodies on the ground. A main force to go in once theres a way to go through the fog.
276 - Dracofulminate and Black Seven
Im sure our disciples will be glad to get in on the action, but Ive already solved the problem of numbers even if nobody volunteers. Plenty of tankmen, both Second and Third-models. Strake, too.
Really? Howd you convince him?
Dragon nerves for Zeros drive train.
Ah. That makes sense. I never expected that, of all things, nerves and lymphatic fluid would be some of the most magical parts of a dragon. Speaking of
He laid out several bottles of Witchs Brew, then dove back into the cabinet and brought out a box filled with thin, dark-purple sticks.
First prototype batch for that new high-performance propellant.
The stuff made with dragons blood?
Yeah. It came out as thick paste, so we ran it through a pasta machine and used a dehydration bath to remove any remaining water. I call it Dracofulminate, but collier insists on What was it again? he asked, turning to a Kargarian alchemist that Zel didnt recognize. His typically Kargarian appearance - aggressively well-groomed and adorned with face paint - clashed against the heavy protective apron and gloves that he wore.
Eisenhaar, half of Eisengeist and half of the old ikesian word for whiskers, the man answered.
Right. As youve noticed, using these whiskers will leave a great deal of empty space in the shell, and there is a good reason for that, as the propellant reaction is Not a conflagration, the way it is with any mundane powder. I will not go into the eye-wateringly occult details of what we did or how we did it, but
Why is the whisker design practical? Zel interrupted, having noticed a rant coming on. Whenever Makhus said he wouldn''t get into obscure details, he always inevitably did just that.
Ah, right. Theres a liquid component, its a two-part propellant - Dracofulminate and Black Seven, since its black and takes seven cycles in the Philosophers Heart. Two more than Fivefold Philter! he said, exclaiming in disbelief before taking one of the Dracofulminate filaments in his hand. He inhaled, then snapped his fingers and produced a small, white flame, holding the filament in it until it fizzled out from lack of Pneuma to feed on. As these are, you could toss them in a bonfire and nothing would happen. Even your arm-cannon couldnt ignite them.
He turned to the Kargarian, putting the filament back.
Damlech, check on Fritz, if you would. Bring him if hes willing, otherwise just take a sample of the Black Seven.
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With a nod, Damlech vanished.
How did you come up with the formulation so quickly?
I just mentioned Fritz. How else did you think? Between him, myself, and the rest of the crew, we spent the last three weeks working on this proto-formulation day in and day out, he said, gesturing to the handful of alchemists that milled about the laboratory. Some of them were familiar sect members, others were trusted non-members. Two of them were reactor technicians for the citys in-progress power grid, and another, Zel recognized as the head of research at Colliers gunpowder manufacturing plant.
Ive developed an even greater appreciation for the Philosophers Heart And a reverence for the bodily fluids of Dragon Descendants. For example, the paralytic effect recorded in the Saga of Wide-wuth - nothing to do with a purposeful poisonous quality. Eisengeists blood contains volatile Rubedo compounds of such potency that just a brief unprotected exposure, just having a bit of it on your skin, can send you into a seizure, and unlike those suffered by malignant Victory Echoes holders, its unlikely to go away quickly. Thats for normal humans of course. Hell, every single source I looked into claims that a dragon descendants lymphatic fluid can be used as a youth restoration elixir without any further refinement
You were talking about Black Seven, she tried to steer him back on-topic.
Right, right. So Black Seven is refined from his blood, muscle, and certain rare minerals - a very small amount, in fact, the yield is incredible Though the refinement process is painstakingly time-consuming. While the Dracofulminate is easily made in a few hours, the first batch of Black Seven took the better part of a week. Weve gotten it down to around three, four days with the third batch. Thank the Dead Ones it doesnt demand constant supervision like Fivefold Philter.
The sound of approaching footsteps approached from outside while Makhus talked, and before long, Damlech returned with Fritz in tow.
It is also Eh Incredibly corrosive! Fritz cut in, with his comically thick Old Ikesian accent. He looked exactly how one would expect an alchemist to look. His hair was wiry and bleached-grey from unprotected exposure to alchemicals, and parts of his face were leather-like from fumes contacting them through the gaps between his goggles and face mask. He had the same mad glint in his eyes as Makhus did at times, but for him, it was constant. Zel knew him well; he just showed up one day after the Blue Moon War, identified himself as Fritzgerald Adolphus Boschhausen of the Fourteen Guardians, and demanded to be employed. After confirming his identity with Kanbu, he became a mainstay of the sect, treating Makhus half like a colleague and half like a young idiot who didnt know any better. That treatment quickly changed when Makhus proved that he did indeed know better, though Fritz remained staunchly traditional in many of his opinions on alchemy. He claimed the right to use sect facilities for personal purposes as his compensation.
Truly, the last time I worked with anything this vile has to have been Well, better not to mention that incident. It is not as if the place still exists but you never know. So! Black Seven, Fritz continued, bringing a sealed up flask to the table. It had three layers of glass, inscribed with glyphs and with a barrier shimmering between each layer. Inside, an unsettlingly alive-looking black liquid swirled about. This quantity of Black Seven can be used directly for I would estimate perhaps twenty shots from Lady Zefaris Pentacle, or, alternatively, two shots from your arm-cannon - these are crude estimates, we have only done very limited testing using stand-ins. The volumes may sound like they do not add up, and this is true! The larger shell space and more powerful ignition glyph necessitates a weaker priming compound; yours will be diluted.
277 - Crow Mask
Do not worry, it does not corrode cold-iron. It does, however, do this
Fritz took out a long glass pipette and put it to his mouth, drawing in precisely one single drop of the compound after Makhus opened the flask for him. Then, he dropped it onto a shank of chicken meat which he had pulled out of somewhere in his many-pocketed apron. The single drop of Black Seven struck the meat and instantly began devouring it. In seconds, half a kilogram of chicken had become a puddle of black, tar-like substance. In the middle, a very slightly smaller droplet of Black Seven could be discerned, surrounded by purplish flesh.
We think it consumes any slightly organic matter on contact in an attempt to reconstruct a draconic body. I hope that one day we may be able to use this effect to create potent cultivation pills, but for now, just ensure that any shells loaded with it are sealed properly.
How much do we have?
Besides the batch this sample is from, three more. One more batch is in progress.
How long?
Three days, give or take.
Try to make it two, if possible.
Deadline?
Ideally, six in the morning the day after tomorrow. A delay of a few hours is acceptable. I want you to dilute half of our reserve for my cannon and leave the rest for Zefaris.
Fritz smiled, his eyes widening manically. With a giddy voice, he said: Where there is a need, there is a way. Makhus, my friend, you have made the Fivefold Philter before, yes?
The alchemist shot Zelsys a half-pleading, half-accusatory gaze, but nonetheless said: Yes, I have.
Good, then we can take shifts watching over the accelerated refinement process. I shall take the first shift. In the meanwhile You, Damlech. Come-with and bring back two batches.
Its alright, Ill just do it myself, Zel stepped in. Half to make absolutely sure there was no incident, and half out of curiosity for what eldritch glassworks the Philosophers Heart was buried inside this go around.
As they walked, Zel said to Fritz: I must admit, I did not expect you to so easily adapt to modern technology. Going by Kanbu, you were more reclusive than the Woodsman until recently.
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Eh, its all the same. Artifice advances, recedes, then advances again. We had weapons as advanced as yours, in my day, merely of a different kind - at least when it came to firearms. I cannot speak to the Fangs. It was not your countrys technological supremacy that caused things to be as they are, but the fact that technology was freely placed into the hands of the common man. Such advancements were normally kept closely guarded by the sects and the nobility, meted out only in limited forms that could not be reproduced by the peasantry.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the sect, in a private chamber
A glyphic circle had been painted on the floor, and three further layers of white-glowing energy glyphs shone mid-air. Six pillars of black ice stood around that same perimeter. Within it, Zefaris and Victor sat across from one another. Despite still being angry at the redhead for such carelessness, there was no contesting the reality of things; the difference in the limits of her Philosophers Eye now and only weeks ago was as unfathomable as the depth of the Boiling Lake. It had taken her a fraction of the time it wouldve otherwise to calculate and scribe the formation that, simultaneously, strengthened Koscheis Crow Mask and restricted its function to its confines.
Victor donned the Crow Mask. A third eye hole yawned over Victors forehead, only a dot of paint behind it.
In an instant, his form went limp, and he then sat back up, stiff and awkward, moving like a puppet as he raised his hands, looking at them.
This is An absolutely wretched sensation. Oh, I truly hate how this feels, said a crow-like voice from beneath the mask. Then, he turned to look Zefaris in the eye; despite sharing a colour and pupil shape, the eyes under the mask werent Victors And a third one now held a place on his forehead.
I understand that you have questions, and I may or may not have answers, for as you know, I am not Koschei in truth, but a mere vestige, and the same goes for my knowledge of that which Koschei knew in life. We have An incense stick or two. Twenty minutes perhaps. After that, this ritual must not be carried out until the next lunar month.
Hundreds of questions swarmed in Zefs head, but they had prepared specific questions ahead of time.
I would ask you of the Three Kings cultivation system, the Four Circles. Our knowledge of it is woefully incomplete and myths abound.
Wasting not a moment, Koscheis Vestige answered: To start with, we invented the system as a basic framework based on the observation of contemporary cultivation methods. That is why Thirds Oracles are found in our dungeons, they were meant to help steer up and coming cultivators and help them figure out their True Path. As for the system itself, where to start I suppose the end is as good a place as any. The Fourth Circle, Opus Ad Infinitum, was so named because we at the time believed that one may well remain in that stage forever without stagnating, due to the vast breadth and depth of cultivation which it covers. It was also the final stage we willingly revealed to our population, expecting those with the aptitude and merit to learn of stages beyond it through their own ability And because we, ourselves, never reached past it. For all I know, there might not be a Fifth or Sixth Circle. Cultivation, much like the whole of our world, is bottomless and beyond the ability of mankind to explore in full. I wholeheartedly believe that even the most advanced cultivator in human history had not reached the true apex of human ability.
Elaborate on the boundlessness of cultivation.
Without a seconds hesitation, Koscheis Vestige broke out into another diatribe.
278 - The Sun is Also a Warrior
Know you, how vast your own world is? Know you every tree that surrounds Willowdale? Every city in Ikesia? Every country and tiny municipality on this continent? Every continent and island on the face of the planet? This planet, why, this Sun, is only one, and look how many shine in the heavens. Who is to say that other worlds are not going through their own Revolt Against the Heavens or War of Fog at this very moment? Or, from another perspective, who is to say that our sun is the only one which has been imprisoned with Black Rods? For all we know, the masters of those living-gold ships of which ancient myths speak may have ruled hundreds, thousands of worlds like ours. Perhaps our world is only a province that was lost to a rebellion and forgotten, or, perhaps, the Sun and the Sun God are not the same being. Why would I think such a thing? Simple. Never once did I come across any suggestion that the Infant Sun, or any of that deitys previous incarnations, emerged directly from the celestial body. They harnessed the same power, but your Zelsys is not the same being as the Living Storm despite the fact it is whence her cultivation originates. Of course, it is undeniable that the Dead Gods are fundamentally different existences to our own. Nonetheless, I could not help but wonder, for such was my lot in life, and such will be my - Victors lot as well. It is the nature of what - who - we are.
Elaborate on the Sun as a non-divine body. What other purpose could the Suncage have? I have seen, with my own eyes, that the same technology - magic - power - whatever it may be - imprisons the Infant Sun.
And now, it restrains me to ensure I do not overstay my welcome. If the power of these Antediluvian Glyphs could restrain the Sun true, then it only makes sense they could restrain a being with a Constitution of Pure Sol - not the concept of Drive, but the essentia of the Sun. Regarding the Suncage Perhaps, in the same way the Ankhezians reverse-engineered and hijacked the Suncage Grid as a power source and weapon of war, the Suncage itself was put in place not to imprison a star, but to harness its empyrean power as a weapon of another kind - a cosmic one. A deterrent as potent as the Blackwall, but on the scale of our whole solar system. I gained such thoughts when I observed our Sun, and witnessed the Seven Black Rods flare to life. All at once, the suns wroth was thrown outwards into the cosmic void. Months later, a great and terrible explosion lit up the sky in hues of red and gold, and it stayed there for weeks. The Red-Gold Second Summer, we called it.
Elaborate on the Sun as a Weapon.
Regardless of its true nature, be it as the seat of old divinity or as a mere celestial object, it is not a weapon. Just as you, one of your war machines, a bear, or a storm, the Sun is also a Warrior. I have naught more to say on the Sun for the moment.
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Cultivation, then. We work without an overarching system, due to our woefully incomplete knowledge of yours. Would you be able to assist us in reconstructing it?
Able, yes. Willing, no. At the time of Tian Fengs grudge-war, I was already working on an improved framework drawing from Ankhezian nobility, the reclusive sects of our time, and even the Eagle-men of the far east. A fraction of that knowledge remains with me, still, and more of it may yet be found in my hidden laboratories, but it is of no use to you as of yet. Look below; my Tree of Life Ziggurat, my greatest work, lies below this great city. The only true Dungeon not of Namelesss making, it was, with a core of its own. Know you its true purpose, beyond strengthening the lands vitality and managing the leylines? It was to be a vast logic automaton, harnessing all the land and life within its purview as part of its calculation, so that the Triarchy might gain greater insights into the nature of life and cultivation. I suspect that Tian Feng sensed his time was growing short, for he struck against us mere weeks before I planned to awaken it. Should you truly seek to create a new cultivation framework, bring Victor as deep into the Ziggurat as you are able, and bid him to wield his authority as the Second of the Triarchy. With this power in hand, traverse the Ziggurats depths to its Core, where the true Tree of Life joins with my comparatively tiny structure. Awaken Veles Perkunas. Then, perhaps, one of my incomplete labours may see its fruition, and you may yet conceive a cultivation framework for the new era.
A horrifying cracking sound came from the mask, which, by all accounts, should have been impossible. It was made of dragonbone, after all. Yet, it cracked all the same, and Victor-Koschei grinned. A dark, evil-sounding laughter rose up from his throat. His voice distorted, each phrase coming out as if it were chopped out from a different conversation.
Perhaps He may teach you How to be A Three-eyed Pagan God Like me!
He broke out into full-throated laughter. Then, in an instant, Zefs Black Ice Pillars and the Crow Mask shattered into thousands of pieces. Victor was left, the only suggestion of Koscheis Third Eye was a small boney scale on his forehead, which the redhead peeled away when he came-to and instinctively rubbed that spot.
Did Something go wrong? he asked, looking around.
I dont think so Though I fear that we may have a limitation on our hands if the mask is doomed to destruction each time we use it like this. Do you think you can repair it?
He had already called the shards to his hand, but only less than half of them actually came, with the others smoldering on the ground.
...Maybe. Something has changed in the bone, he said, slowly beginning to mould the shards together. Slowly, yet at a breakneck pace compared to how long it took him otherwise. A change that Zefaris had seen take an hour took him only a few minutes.
279 - What Good are Fangs
This material feels different to what we got directly from Eisengeist. It obeys more readily. Maybe refining more in this way will eventually lead to a truly reusable mask. Did you at least get some answers?
Roughly the same number of answers and questions.
A best-case outcome, then What is the Walking Way of Veles? Did Koschei mention anything like that? I cant help but think about it, but I cant recall any context.
Zefaris spent the next short while recounting the full conversation she had with Koschei, while Victor gathered the refined dragonbone into a single mass.
...That explains the third eye, then, he said. I was wondering if I would just get one eventually or if that was something of his own doing. Guess looking into Veles Perkunas is as good a place to start as any before we commit to anything inside the Ziggurat.
It soon became clear that both study into Veles Perkunas and exploration of the Ziggurat would have to wait, as Zelsys waited for them right as they left the private room. From one meeting to the next, the Newman Sects elders gathered trusted disciples.
After recounting relevant information, from her meeting with the governor to her intended party and the availability of Dracofulminate, discussion went on for some time, starting with a fruitless debate theorizing on their fragmentary intel about the Red Fog Array, and moving into more concrete tactics.
We have a direct Ankhezian road connection to the city, and thanks to going mostly through FCA or FCA-adjacent territory, we wont need to worry about stealth Zel said. If I push it, we might be able to get there in a few hours. Jorfr is out leading a joint hunting expedition with the Arkaley Sangers at the moment and wont return for another week, but I think I should be able to dismantle the formation or at least open a hole in it with your and Victors help.
Ive learned my share about seals and arrays, but I am not an array or formation specialist, he protested.
Zel shut it down: You know more about arrays than nine out of ten of our sects members, and that wont change if you continue studying the Itrian scroll as you have been. Your eyes alone will be useful, to ensure neither my nor Zefs senses dont miss anything. How many secondary servitors have you got in storage seals? Is Dawnwolf ready?
Ive filled up thirty seal-spaces; several hundred servitors if I count the tiny ones, twenty-six if I exclude them. And yes, Dawnwolf will be ready by the time we leave.
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One of these days Ill learn how to make storage seals myself Zel said, staring off into empty space. Her thought process kept snagging on something, looping back around.
What is it? Zefaris asked, immediately noticing her absent stare.
I just Keep thinking of what Koschei said. The sun is also a warrior. Theres Theres something there. Im sure itll make sense later. Oh, right - Victor, have you tried releasing the restrictions on the Black Cylinder the way you did with the Philosophers Eye?
Hm? No, I havent. Should I?
After exchanging a glance with Zefaris, the two elders nodded in concert.
Half an hour of attempts later, Victor managed to discern and disable only one restriction - the one that wouldve caused the Cylinder to self-destruct if attempts were made at reverse-engineering it.
Guess we cant hope for a huge jump like that every time, the blonde shrugged.
Still, imagine a whole battalion of gun cultivators with their own Black Cylinders Zel added.
An image of the future, Im sure, Zef replied.
A few things of interest happened between that moment and the fateful morning.
Goings-on within the sect continued without disturbance. Zefaris finally got Pentacle back with its new leshy-antler scales with dragonbone and gold inlays. Victor completed several things hed apparently been working on, including an upgrade to Dawnwolf incorporating some Eisengeist materials and a provisional field-test version of his new Devils Teeth. He spent the better part of a full day in the citys own Reactor 4, apparently having agreed on helping them conduct a generation test just a week after arrival to Willowdale. In exchange for acting as a human diagnostic tool, he received ultra-high-purity Ignis gems to convert into fuel cells for Dawnwolf. A handful of disciples also signed up to come as a support corps to join the tankmen, including Mata Gano, Old One-arm, the Mercenary whose name Zel kept forgetting, and Vaceran. Halxian expressed his wish to come as well, but apparently his father had vetoed it ahead of time.
Zelsys spent a full night loading shells, meticulously filling her dragonsteel shells with Dracofulminate by the whisker and doling out Black 7 Solution 3 to fill in the gaps. Normally, there would be need for various assistant materiel such as wads and sealant, but no such thing. She just pushed the wicked-looking spike of a bullet into place, exactly to the mark, and it seamlessly attached to the shell casing, not letting an iota of Black 7 seep out.
She did all this with assistance from Fulguris, as, being wholly inorganic, it was safer to have the spirit handle Black 7 instead. It also ran no risk of some freak elemental reaction, unlike manipulating the volatile substance with her Thundergods. Her shell belt being already full, she willed Fulguris to just put the finished shell into Fog Storage. The spirit picked up her Fog Storage bangle, since it was within reach, only for it to vanish.
What good are fangs if not to devour with
Those words ran through her head. It came from a serial that less-than-subtly took inspiration from everything it could, including her own books. Conqueror of Storms, it was called. She liked that serial; easy to read, long-running, good mental background noise for tedious training sessions... Even if her replacement in its story was a gangly albino with an atrocious side-swept haircut.
The reason those words ran through her head was a feeling, one coming through her connection with Fulguris. The instant the bangle vanished, she felt it enter the spirits inner world.
280 - Fortress of White Stone
Without another thought, she willed Fulguris to consume her Tablet as well. Then, she called Fulguris back to herself, leaving everything as it was, and closed her eyes to begin meditating. Inward, she looked, delving far down, and she found it. Fulguris inner realm, the spiritual representation of both the spirit itself and the weapon.
It was unlike the Dream Desert that represented the place between her Thinking and Primordial selves. Bladed mountains of steel, golden sunlight, serpentlike dragons flying through the sky alongside Thundergods, rivers of glowing, molten iron that exuded a heat no more or less intense than was pleasant. Lightning struck left and right, yet it somehow felt warm and welcoming. The realm of Fulguris was clearly segmented into seven parts, held together by chains of lightning.
There, in the First Realm, the Root Realm, it stood. A fortress of white stone with a gate of dark steel, gleaming with the unmistakable iridescence of dragonsteel. In one step, seven leagues passed and she was at the gate alongside Fulguris. Within the fortress many vaults, everything she had placed into Fog Storage could be found, and where one might expect a throne room, she instead found a four-armed statue-automaton in the same classical style as Willowdales stone sentinels, with a great tablet in its right arms and quills in its left.
Out of habit and a desire to see it in motion she checked her Traits, and left the Logic Automaton alone afterwards. It moved in just as stilted a manner as she had expected. Returning to the material world, Zelsys took a shell casing in hand and held it to her back with the intent to put it into storage And poof, into storage it went. She tried to recall the storage bangle as well as her tablet, and for this, Fulguris herself appeared with both items in hand.
...Can you devour other objects?
The weapon spirit shrugged.
After some testing, it became abundantly clear that there were some sort of criteria that made this specific interaction possible, as Zel couldnt find a single other item that Fulguris could consume in this manner. She assumed it required special arcane properties of some sort. More importantly, she found that the space in which she could pull things out of storage out of the Sigil was somewhat generous, and the transfer was nearly instant - meaning that, since Dragonsteel Shells played nice with Fog Storage, she could completely forego physically carrying her ammo until she came across an ammo type that demanded it. She had worried that Black 7 might forbid her from storing them like this, but it seemed that dragonsteel was more than sufficient to protect and stabilize the substance.
She continued with loading more shells; as meticulous as it was, it was also tedious, and so she passed the time reading scriptures, in particular her Severing Scripture Fragment and a copy of Lydias Storm-soul Scripture. The Storm-soul Scripture held no promises of advancement beyond where her own cultivation stood for the moment, but it did nonetheless hold some interesting insights, and Zel felt that she hadnt yet extracted all of them. As for the Severing Scripture Fragment, she honestly didnt know if it would, in the end, be useful; the damn thing was so dense and esoteric that she hadnt even gotten halfway through it yet. Despite that, she had dug up some promising kernels of knowledge on the winding, hard-to-see path to externalizing ones Armament Aura in a focused manner.
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Despite this knowledge, she still found herself unable to do anything directly analogous to swordlight using her own Predator Aura. Every recommended exercise, even after adapting them for herself, produced only a frustration most easily compared to a muscle whose presence she was aware of, but which she couldnt precisely control.
Nonetheless, after all this time, she felt close to grasping it.
So close.
Just like that itch in the back of her head.
On two fronts now, she found herself bottlenecked, yearning for a piece to complete the puzzle. Real combat against other cultivators had to be the key. Otherwise, she wouldnt have felt a sense of progression when she fought the Artat Sects Ghost Sword Wall.
Soon enough, she would see if she was right.
Like their war-golem predecessors of ancient myth, steel-skinned giants ran over an Ankhezian road, flame and lightning their lifeblood. Designations: UOT-114-03 Gundream and UOT-314-01 Steelwing.
At the packs head, a head taller than all the others, was a bloody beast, thirsting for the ichor of fleshly things. Designation: UOT-014-02 Bloody Zero G-3 Refit.
Behind them, a column of six half-tracks drove, proudly bearing the insignia of Willowdale on the side; these machines, TR-04-02 Bullhead Combat Transports, were rebuilt and upgraded wartime transports. Within each was a driver, a gunner/aetherwave operator, and eight passengers, all clad in elite Second-model tank suits. Designation: UOT-214-05 Hellhound.
The gun turret was semi-motorized, exploiting the gunners own armor to operate it while making it a less appealing capture target - this also made it infinitely easier to train gunners, since the tank-suited human served as the targeting system and thus there was a minimal disconnect. In effect, the turret was a heavy-duty gunner harness for the Second-model tank suit.
Its guns were twin Type-Z2 Cannons, equipped with very simple mechanized magazines that allowed them to fire at a respectable rate - designed to deal with things the crew couldnt, mainly monsters and old tanks whose armor could be pierced by the advanced weapon. They even carried a limited supply of rounds with Atrine-enriched powder and spitzerhead bullets, with a body of steel and a cold-iron penetrator. They were patterned directly after the Type-1a experimental rounds which had been made famous by the Newman Sects elder.
The column was tailed by a handful of huge, heavy-duty motorbikes, atop which rode an eclectic group of cultivators from the Newman Sect.
Meanwhile, well ahead of the pack and quickly growing even further, a sturmgandr and a giant flaming bone-beast tore across the road at over 200km/h. In mere hours, the fog-swallowed city of Eberheim was in sight.
281 - Breaching the Red Fog Dome
The colour of the sky had gradually changed from a semi-cloudy blue-white, reddening and growing overcast with a dolorous red. People fleeing the region forced them to slow slightly in a few places where vision was blocked by hills, but otherwise, Zel continued pushing without reprieve. They reached the spot from which the Woodsman had taken his photos before noon. Beyond this point, the Red Fog lingered near the ground and gradually thickened up until becoming a solid wall, forming an impermeable dome consuming the city.
Zel couldnt see any weak points on the dome, but she felt a flow to the movement of the Red Fog, and she was utterly certain that she could find a weak spot. After observing from this vantage point for some time, they collectively decided to circumnavigate the perimeter and get a fuller picture. Fortunately, having absorbed her White Marble Tablet didnt impede her ability to send and receive aetherwave messages - if anything, it smoothed out the whole process. Actually navigating the citys outskirts was a challenge, albeit a minor one, as the Red Fog in its lower-density form acted as a disorientation effect, placing a strain on all their senses. It kept trying to turn them around and send them deeper towards the city, and in the end, it became more of an annoyance than an impedance. There were signs of recent conflict to be seen; gouges and bullet holes in the buildings, and other kinds of environmental damage that implied a level of destructive power well beyond the reckoning of mortal men. Though covered by the fog, trails and smears of blood could not be mistaken, either. And yet, no corpses. Not a single one.
Its an entrapment array, with only secondary defensive features. There are more measures to prevent someone from leaving than there are to prevent entry Likely some sort of method of killing or incapacitating those who come through Zefaris commented as they started the third circle around the whole city. She had studied arrays and formations, but knowing what patterns meant and actually finding those patterns were two different things. Her visual capabilities were making up for her relatively shallow experience in the discipline.
With Victors eyes to determine how the arrays operation disturbed the local environment, Zefs visual calculus, and both Zefs and Zels different methods of seeking out the weak points of things, it wasnt long before they managed to find two specific weak spots, determining a method by which an opening might be made in the dome.
Zelsys positioned herself at a south-westward angle, a distance south of the ankhezian road, the 7:30 position relative to the Cathedral. She formed a Five True Fang Ripper and a number of False Fang Spears. She stabbed them all into the ground, with Zefaris carving a number of Antediluvian Glyphs down their lengths. Then, she and Victor rode off towards a spot somewhat on the opposing side of the city, roughly the 2 o clock position. On their way there, they worked in concert to form weakening pylons, with Zefaris actually dictating the design while Victor provided devilbone structural support to her black ice. The fundamental idea behind these pylons was to act as resonators - Zefaris would send a ripple across the dome, which would bounce back and forth until it headed towards Zelsys, who would strike at the right moment to cause localized catastrophic structural failure in the arrays structure. A split-second later, Zefaris would do the same thing on her side, thus opening a second hole. Such was the theory, the hard part was putting it to action.
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The lack of external guards alone slowed their progress, given how aggressively suspicious it was. Even if it was purely a capture and containment array, it still didnt explain the utter absence of anyone on the outside. Zel supposed the arrays makers had to be truly confident, or they might have just not cared about someone getting in.
It was, in the end, not much of a problem. They ended up waiting some time for the tankman contingent to arrive; though it was all but certain that the initial opening would be short-lived, it was best to be sure that the tankmen could flood in at a moments notice if a more lasting opening was made from the inside, or if the whole array went down.
With half of the tankman contingent waiting some distance behind her, Zel readied to carry out her half of the breaching procedure. Holding Carnifex between her teeth, she spread her arms out and began Engine Breathing. She formed a core of bronze and iron-aspected Metallum in her second stomach, suffused it with Fulgur, forming layers and layers around it, compressing more and more power into it.
First step.
Second step.
Third step.
Fourth step.
Fifth step.
Sixth step.
Seventh step.
With the rapid cyclic rate of Engine Breathing, and with each step only taking one lungs breath, it only took a few short moments to complete the cycle. Conquerors Mantle also no longer demanded any reinforcement beyond her bodys natural durability, but now Metallum served an additional purpose in the transformation in addition to enhancing her durability, which itself was an evergreen benefit.
In moments, a maelstrom of lightning poured out from her, great tongues of it whipping out and grabbing the Fang Spears, pulling them into the waiting maws of her just-manifested Thundergods.
The Five True Fang Ripper made known the abrupt spike in her output the most visibly; it had been revolving at a breakneck pace already, but now the velocity of its revolutions and fulguric power wreathing it made it appear more akin to a disc of screaming, killing light than the buzzsaw which it was. The cutting power of All-severing Scream, now contained in this remotely-controllable, flying package that just kept going without the prep time or split-second timing demand of that technique.
Meanwhile, at the other side, Zefaris and Victor once more cooperated in forming a construct. He provided the raw propulsion, entombing the Oculus within the base of their White-black Rod and forming a spiraling detonation engine around it.
282 - The Plight of Roderick Von Burgghusen
Zefaris provided most of the structure, glyphs, and a number of reinforcement and velocity magnification glyph circles in the rods flight path. Its design wasnt a spear, but a battering ram, with a gigantic seething glyph at its flat head. It was the most discordant, disruptive Antediluvian Glyph Zefaris knew of - at least, those were the feelings it evoked. Sifting through her mental vault of these ancient symbols was entirely unlike remembering actual letters and symbols, and more like running her hands through a tub of weirdly-shaped puzzle pieces until she found one that fit the picture And each one could give her a splitting headache or evoke hair-raising feelings of any variety. It was a small mercy that all these phantom sensations were so vividly separate from her own, easily filtered out once they had passed.
Zel felt an aetherwave ping, and another moment later she both felt and saw the wave coming. A ripple traveling across the whole dome, only to strike one of Zefs Resonators and bounce off in a slightly different direction. The Resonator shattered at the moment of contact, but the ripple grew.
From afar, Roderick Von Burgghusen, Core Disciple of the Order of Six Truths, held close watch over the westward road from Eberheim. It was nearest to one of the Crimson Fog Arrays weak points, so a large contingent of Outer and Inner disciples was stationed here, the outermost layer a kill-corridor of hidden weapon specialists so they could annihilate any would-be intruders through sheer volume of projectiles. Roderick himself had several flesh-puppets around, both to act as disposable bodies for his destructive combat arts and as extra eyes. His real body, meanwhile, was buried three meters underground, immobile and defenseless, but also extremely well hidden.
This, the Living Puppet Sutra, was a truly treasured manual, on which even the famous Walking Way of the Stone Soldier was based, so renowned from the Divine Emperors war.
The Crimson Fog Array was a specialized and potent tool, following its creators Heuristic Truth, one of the Orders numerous Pseudo-Truths. Its main role was to capture, ensnare, and entrap large numbers of mortals and weak cultivators across a wide-spanning area. It was also easy and fast to put up, allowing a small team of formation experts to encircle a target area and deploy the array before they can be detected. Even more importantly, it was ritualistically non-disruptive; unlike other capture arrays of similar size and potency, any rituals conducted within its limits could be carried out as if no array was in place at all, requiring no adjustments.
None of these things was a coincidence; the Crimson Fog Array had been designed specifically for this eventuality. With supply of human resources from the Land of Lingering Smoke and the Meat Market in particular dwindling due to anti-human-trafficking actions taken by various groups, the Order of Six Truths now had to act openly. As far as Roderick knew, the Six Truthseekers, elders of the Order, had planned to remain in hiding despite the Emperors lifting of the Cultivation Suppression Mandate Until the whole issue with the stoppage of human subjects. The Order still had years, perhaps decades of supply for normal operation, but with the Third Truthseeker on the cusp of a major breakthrough, they had been burning through people like kindling in a pyre. Thus, they had scoped out mortal cities in the region, and decided to exploit the weakened state of the mortal world; they had decided to harvest one without too big of a population and without a strong cultivator presence that could put up a fight. From there, the plan had expanded.
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Thirds ambitions had pushed it from lets conduct a harvest and go back into seclusion for another 50-100 years to something beyond that point, though Roderick wasnt high-ranked enough to be allowed to know what it was, let alone participate. That was, after all, why he was here, guarding. A mass sacrifice ritual of some kind, no doubt.
Even now, his subordinates and one of his puppet bodies worked on gathering the sacrifices, the few who had managed to elude them for this long. One by one, they were dragged from their hiding holes, be they random, already-checked dwellings or places obscure enough to have previously evaded notice. Mere mortals that they were, their struggles were in vain But the weapons some of them wielded had become bothersome indeed. Nothing sufficient to wound or kill any besides the weaker among outer disciples, but then, a large mortal with an axe could kill an outer disciple if he got very lucky. Their proximity to mortals was why they were, and usually remained, as outers.
Besides the circumstances and environment, this was all rather routine. Roderick had to actively try to keep his attention on the capturing and wrangling mortals part of the job, rather than the architecture, the Crimson Fog Array, the special hidden weapons issued to him Basically anything besides the part where he and his subordinates sought out stragglers to throw on the sacrifice pile for Thirds breakthrough. With this many bodies, though - tens of thousands - it might as well be equivalent to the Creation of a Great Man ritual, even if the Order didnt know how to carry it out.
With another group of three - a man, woman, and young girl, possibly related - extricated from their den, Roderick shifted focus to another of his bodies. He was always aware and in control of all his flesh puppets, but his true focus could only be split so many ways; at any given time, he could control four bodies with full efficiency, with exceptional focus dedicated to one. Personally, he thought of himself as a human battle formation. His superiors treated him as a human panopticon And right now, he saw something alarming. The dome, rippling. It absolutely wasnt supposed to do that. A breach in one of the weak points didnt look like that, any proper array expert would just scatter the Fog in a small area to open a passage. He sent back an alert, but only received a deluge of admonition, from which two sentiments arose: We can see it too, you fool, it is nothing and disturb us again and you will count among the sacrifices.
283 -The Plight of Roderick Von Burgghusen Pt. 2
The ripple intensified and changed direction, as if Bouncing? No, that couldnt be right. And yet, that was exactly what seemed to be happening. The ripple had taken a substantial time to traverse the whole diameter of the dome, and now, it was not only moving faster, but was more intense and less uniform, more unstable.
Another bounce.
Another.
A concerned message came. It was from a direct disciple of the Fourth Truthseeker, one Rosa Diettberg. Neither Roderick nor anyone else he knew had never met any of the Six besides Three or Four, and the same went for their disciples. The seat of the First was an empty throne situation, while the Second, Fifth, and Sixth had all gone into seclusion roughly around the same time as the Emperors initial extermination of cultivators. They werent dead, that much was known, but Roderick was almost certain they had been crippled in some way that forced them to become glorified administrative officials. So, in reality, the Order had two active elders.
As for Rosa, she was a horrid, shrill, cruel-natured woman well-known for turning subjects into abominable living weapons and wasteful living art. Her pretentious artworks rarely survived more than a few years, poor imitations of Fourths human bonsai that they were. She had been sold to the sect by her own family as a Subject-Disciple, and, just like Roderick, she had managed to advance quickly enough to become a proper disciple. She still held a grudge over it hundreds of years down the line, demanding only obviously-Ikesian subjects as material for her works. Roderick didnt understand it himself; not the grudge-holding, and not how she had advanced this far while obviously holding onto such a pathetic, mortal grudge this long. Then again, the Emperor had toppled the Three Kings for a similarly petty, mortal reason, so what did he know.
She was sending out an alert to all defensive formations, to be ready for intrusion. With two of his bodies currently leading sacrifice retrieval squads, he had them just immobilize the mortals with simple paralytic venom and drag them into the street for later processing. The dosages on his non-lethal throwing needles would probably leave them disabled for life, but that wasnt his problem, and it wouldnt be their problem for very long either.
Roderick gathered his four puppet bodies and had them ready their longer-ranged weapons. There were normal throwing weapons, flesh-sculpted living crossbows that could fire dozens of venomous bone barbs before being spent, and innumerable others.
This was his pride. His combat arts of choice originated in the Stinger Eye Sutra. Contrary to the name, it didnt involve housing insects within ones own flesh; that was the Human Hive Scripture. No, the Stinger Eye Sutra was a hybrid of low-level daemonic cultivation and extreme hidden weapon arts. A daemon of wind - a Galegod by any other name - was captured, and its powers would be used to confer great speed and accuracy upon hidden weapons, while also allowing them to be propelled with minimal motion. This combined with the core of the Stinger Eye Sutra, allowed someone to be completely naked and still have an arsenal of hidden weapons. Indeed, it was a method for hiding innumerable hidden weapons inside the practitioners own body, from actual needles in the throat, stomach, hands, and so on, to more complex mechanisms grafted to the skeleton, roof of the mouth, and once again so on. The eponymous Stinger Eye, for instance, involved replacing ones tear ducts with parts from a rare beetle found only on one island to the far east, allowing them to fire the beetles stingers from their eyes. Since the host was inoculated ahead of time, the venom would also work as a substitute for tears. In this case, the flaw was that maintaining the glands required the practitioner to eat the same things the beetle did - extraordinarily revolting grubs that themselves consumed specific poisonous plants.
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The problem, of course, was that with all the poisons and pointy bits and mechanisms, many of which would damage the body as part of their operation, practicing the art was not just absurdly painful and precarious, but it also destroyed the practitioners ability to function as a person at an advanced level. It made perfect sense given its creators and first users, an order of hermetic assassins who severed themselves from their own humanity and effectively became puppets to their own ideals.
Rodericks method of dealing with the Living Hive Sutras flaw was similar. The flesh-puppets had been living people, once, and they still were, by some rather low standards. It was the highest form of the Flesh Puppet Sutra, with lower-level techniques creating crude puppets that had huge flaws, from acting as literal flesh-puppets to rotting away in mere weeks or requiring verbal commands and occasionally turning on the puppeteer. These, however, were true proxy bodies, the True Puppet Body Art - they could even be made to cultivate after a fashion, each having its own galegod, but Roderick had to actually put them through the motions, so they couldn''t use cultivation techniques that Roderick himself couldn''t. They had been put through a rigorous regimen of elixirs meant to break down the mind and leave a hollow, but still-living shell - a vegetable, with a maimed, but still-present soul, stabilized by an artificial core that turned their half-souls into extensions of Rodericks own. Their spiritual cores, what might well be considered the astral counterpart to the brain, had been excised, replaced by that aforementioned artificial core, slaved to a similar implant in Rodericks own brain. He himself lacked the skill and resources to carry this out, it had been Elder Fourth, in an uncharacteristic show of favour that Rosa had taken as a slight and still held against him.
The ripples bounced back and forth, back and forth, rising to a fever pitch, and it rapidly became obvious that it was no mere coincidence. There would be a serious intrusion; either some other sect, or a small handful of powerful individuals. Either way, it was a black mark on the Orders foresight. Sure, this was a trading city But it wasnt a truly important place like Rigport down south, or Willowdale in the west. It just happened to be on a crossroad of the Great Ankhezian Causeway. What did they care if the mortals that lived around it went? Mayflies that they were, they would just spawn and swarm again in a few years, the same way they would in the wake of the Fog-War.
284 - Explosive Entry
Outside the dome
Hellhounds! Disciples! Zelsys bellowed. The reply was a concussive blast of amplified sound, a mixture of warhorns and warcries. From her disciples she received flares of magic, bellows of determination, and waves of essentia and aura alike.
Follow in my wake. You know your orders; exterminate hostile cultivators, rescue civilians, secure the city. Strake
DRAW HOSTILE ATTENTION. BREAK DOWN ENEMY MORALE. MAKE THEM RUN WITH THEIR TAILS BETWEEN THEIR LEGS.
Correct! she grinned. Two more bounces.
Finally, the moment came, the penultimate ripple, converging right in front of her. Her breach would send it back, and Zefaris would in turn tear open a path on her end. Shed had all the time she could want to build up a sufficient charge, and now, it was time to use it. She whipped the Five True Fang Ripper forward, instantly taking a pair of pre-charged Fang Spears in hand. The Fang Rippers brilliant cutter collided with the Fog Dome, the ripple closing in around it as it ever so slowly pushed in. Like a solution of starch in water, what had once been a mere dense fog suddenly became as though solid crimson stone.
And yet, the Ripper acted in accordance with its name.
For an agonizing seventeen seconds it hung there, slowly carving into the dome, while the surrounding fog twisted and bunched up, as if a mass of torn muscles being made to contract. Finally, it tore through, a hole opening much like a cavity opens in a water surface when a pebble drops in. Zelsys instantly threw her spears, intent on preventing the fog from rushing back in to close the gap. In rapid sequence, six thunderclaps in a row, her spears roared forward and skewered the fog, forcing it into its pseudo-solid state. With sickly veins of purple light pulsing out from where each Fang Spear had struck, a tunnel through the Red Fog now yawned.
Zel surged forward without another thought, leaving her sturmgandr behind as she sprinted headlong into the opening, tearing gashes into the ground with her feet and gathering the separated pieces of Carnifex. Before she could even get through, when the first rooftops came into view, she was attacked. It came from two, maybe three dozen figures, perched on the roofs and in the windows and some on the ground. Each of them, giving off the unmistakable aura of a cultivator, which had felt like an ephemeral, vague something to her not so long ago. They all wore archaic robes, some black, some green, and a small handful, crimson-red; such convenient threat level identifiers. A deluge of metal flowed in her direction from all sides, some of it only falling short of the sound-speed barrier by a hairs breadth. Needles, knives, spikes, all aimed; some at where she was, some at where they thought she would be at the time of impact, and others at spots where she might possibly dodge, meant to cut off vectors of escape.
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There was, indeed, no conceivable way by which she could dodge all that, not even with perfect full-body Graze Pulse.
She didnt need to dodge. She was aware of them all, of each and every projectile, entering her zone of influence.
All at once, with nothing but brute fulgurmagnetic force, she brought them to a halt, every single one. A flowing mass of poisoned metal, seething, threatening to burst at any moment under her Thundergods power if the strain wasnt being shared across enough metal to make up three or four Captains Cleavers.
With a swing she sent them all back, unaimed, but nonetheless lethal. Three Black Robes fell dead on the spot, and two more retreated, plucking needles out of themselves and screaming that they had been hit. She could feel her Fang Spears straining under the arrays desire to reform, but they would hold for now.
Zels job right now was carving an opening for the Hellhounds, and that, she was more than happy to do.
Fulgurkinetic magnetism, vastly superhuman physicality, a metal arm. Rodericks mind ran rampage with guesses at who and what this intruder could be. The fact it was some variant of Storm-soul Cultivation was obvious; Roderick wasnt even aware of any monadic cultivation method that harnessed Fulgur, and couldnt imagine it being possible under any circumstance other than some mountain sect with access to a peak that so happened to be in the right height range to be swallowed by storm clouds. Even then, monadic Fulgur cultivation would just end up being a support for the daemonic, looping him back around.
Going by the full-metal arm, he estimated that she had to be some hidden expert, at least fifty, very likely over a hundred years old. It also clued him in on her secondary cultivation method likely being daemonic metallum cultivation of some type, perhaps not even a specific method. As for her left arm, Roderick felt a pang of confusion. It sort-of looked like a Roaring Thunder Cannon, but it was much too thin, thin enough to be some kind of out-there hidden weapon, even, but it wasn''t hidden, it was out in the open. Maybe a convenient way for setting off flares and delivering explosives? A mortar, rather than a cannon?
And the way she moved That was no mobility technique he was aware of. It was more like a panther or perhaps a cougar running after prey than a human, yet the savagery endemic to techniques that drew on the inner beast was tempered No, it wasn''t tempered, it was still there, but it was as if the beasts intentions, somehow, perfectly lined up with those of the human self. How? Had she by some secret method fettered the beast and beaten it into subservience? The only peoples Roderick knew who could do that were the Boreans of the far north.
Two things sparked alarm - panic, even - within him.
First, the manner in which she had opened a gap in the Crimson Fog Array, particularly what was holding that gap open. Not the spears themselves, but the sigils on them - Black Rod Glyphs.
285 - She Who Speaks the Universal Tongue of Violence
These purple-burning sigils were unmistakable in the cursed, ancient power they held, and irreplicable to all but a select few enlightened souls with eyes like scalpels to glimpse the glyphs and ironclad wills to withstand the strain without going mad. It was said that the First Truthseeker had journeyed to Agartha to look upon the Prison of the Unborn, and was struck blind for his arrogance, with his fragmented knowledge becoming the foundation of the Orders unique, high-level glyphology.
The abilities she showed were troublesome, certainly, proving in his mind without a doubt that this was some heretofore hidden powerhouse. Perhaps a hidden rogue monster, or the elder of a hidden sect just like the Order.
The second thing, however, was what truly pushed Roderick over the edge, changing a call of alarm into one of true emergency.
That Blade.
The Seven Severing Fangs.
He had dreamt of them. Every higher-ranked disciple of the Order had. Most of them, Roderick included, interpreted it as a set of seven flying knives that could multiply, or perhaps a seven-petaled needle-thrower weapon.
Certainly not that. Not a giant cleaver.
Out of his bodies, two wore the scarlet robes that identified them as true Core Disciples, whereas the two others wore the blue robes of Inners.
He willed one of the Blue-robed Bodies to throw out a series of needles, and in their midst, three Black Thorns were hidden. Not only were they not magnetic, but not metallic at all. They came from a vile, parasitic bush, that shot them out into unsuspecting animals, wherein they grew, spreading through the whole animal and taking control in seconds. The parasite then puppeteered the animal into walking as far from the original bush as possible, and wherever the prey fell, a new bush took root. It was a mercy from its Ankhezian creators that the bush could only sustain itself in an ecosystem that wouldnt be harmed by its presence; normal animals died to the vines initial infection As did humans, because it was particularly aggressive within them, with the Black Thorn Shrubbery having been bred as a hidden weapon plant to begin with.
Roderick wasnt confident in the trick, but he at least felt like it might work.
It didnt.
Out of the dozens of tiny, buzzing lights that surrounded the woman, several instantly came after his Black Thorns, striking them from the air. They burst into balls of tangled thorny vines, still flying at the woman at the same speed, but that blade of hers suddenly split into seven and with a mere wave of her hand she obliterated the whole barrage, whipping the weapon forward. A concussive shockwave erupted from where its endmost segment struck, right in the midst of the needle-and-thorn cloud, obliterating everything within it. The shattered metal needles were magnetized to the blade, and as it retracted, they were consumed by its mass.
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You dare? Is this how you greet the Elder of another sect, juniors?! she laughed, mocking the very words which she spoke with her tone of voice. Cmon, at least talk to me! Sect, rank, name, right now! Did you think a trade hub city was free for the taking just because it didnt have a local sect?!
She barked with authority, yet the implication of immediate hyperviolence was undercut by a pervasive, giddy amusement, like a child right after figuring out Fog-breathing.
As the little-storm that surrounded her calmed a little, and needles and knives ceased being thrown in her direction, Roderick realized yet another unsettling fact. No Armament Aura. There was aura there, certainly, mighty and violent, but it was not Armament Aura - an absurd, outlandish fact when it came to Storm-soul Cultivation, which pigeonholes its practitioners into wielding one specific weapon. The Seven Fangs made that even more absurd. Was that a restriction of such a mighty weapon, perhaps? Did it greedily suck up its wielders armament aura and concentrate it along the edge?
Before she could grow restless, Roderick brought forth one of his scarlet-robed bodies.
I am Rogarius, Core Disciple of the Order of Six Truths! We have come to this city at our Elders behest, to harvest mortals for his breakthrough! What opposition does this Elder lay to our actions?
Wh- What opposition? To harvesting mortals?! she laughed incredulously. I will make you an extraordinarily generous offer: If your Elder gives the order to cease whatever demonic rite of sacrifice you are preparing, I will only claim one of your lives for each of this citys inhabitants you have killed thus far!
Roderick instantly knew there was no resolving this without a great deal of bloodshed. There were righteous sects, and there were those who weighed the lives of mortals as heavier than specks of sand. The latter were either too young to have learned better, or powerful enough to defend such maxims - usually because the deaths of many mortals would somehow harm their bottom line, but righteous acts were righteous acts regardless of motivation.
He willed a command to spread amongst his subordinates, using a short-range aetheric communication technique. Not everyone could be issued an expensive communication artifact, let alone a full Tablet. Two of his blue-robed bodies spread out, and a number of disciples to distract with a variety of different weapons. A deluge of bolts, needles, thorns, darts, explosive beads, a small fortune in ammunition to distract her.
To distract her enough to get two simultaneous shots of the Stinger Eye into her sides
And Roderick felt both his blue-robed bodies die. In an instant, they just dropped dead. The one to the womans right-hand side had been cut to bloody shreds by some kind of spinning saw made from three deformed copies of her weapons segments, while the other had been Ripped apart. Three serpentine forms, extending from her braids, had ripped him apart, and in so doing annihilated the stingers he had fired.
Rodericks blue-robed bodies had seen flashes, blurs of motion, and nothing more.
So be it! If you wont listen to words, then I will make my point clear with the Universal Tongue of Violence! Come, and let me harvest you for my own breakthrough!
286 - Dark Powers
Oh. Oh no. Oh, that was not good. Roderick felt that. All his bodies and subordinates felt that. Her words - they carried a Pseudo-Truth. The world itself reverberated and carried her speech, as if acknowledging the legitimacy of that maxim, or perhaps unable to deny it: The Universal Tongue of Violence.
Come the next moment, Roderick learned what she had meant.
Dozens of the Orders disciples did, and they all met their end. Hed seen Elder Third in action, his imperious presence and seemingly omniscient power, his genial manipulation of blood, both his own and of his victims. Even at his most savage, it wasn''t like this. Nothing like this.
Bolts of lightning and zipping beads of it alike struck at anything within That Womans vicinity,
The Seven Fangs whipped back and forth as if it were a weightless whip, nay, as if it were somehow more than weightless. Its number of segments seemed to grow and shrink at a moments notice, and it simply changed direction to follow after its victims even when they dodged. No escape. No escape. None but to simply not be a target. That was the conclusion Roderick reached. His scarlet-robed bodies barely managed to escape by inverting their garments to turn them black and suppressing their own auras.
Alien vibrations came through the earth, an onerous tune began to blast. Stomping. They came through. A small army of metal-armored war-automata, unlike any Roderick had ever seen, moving like living men. At their fore, a crimson devil emanating bloodthirst beyond reckoning, screaming over the trumpets that blared out of its mechanisms.
RESCUE THE CIVVIES. CLEAR THE STREETS. AS FOR THE CLOWNS IN ROBES KILL EM ALL.
The crimson demon came screaming down the road right in the womans wake.
Terror. Absolute terror. Roderick led a hasty retreat of the most mobile few, a force of four-dozen disciples reduced to just thirteen in moments And their killer, advancing, laughing it up. She was playing with them.
Zel was, indeed, playing with them Though only partly.
She was in fact trying to suss out where they were retreating to, and, if the opportunity presented itself, catch at least a handful of them in the firing line. What good were Dragonfire Shells if she didnt even get to test them before a serious fight?
Eberheim, as a city, was structured into an Outer, Middle, and Central City, separated by heavy-duty tram tracks to facilitate its trade and industry, with the Outer City being a mix of industry and housing, the Middle City being commercial and housing, and the Central City being a center of culture and religion. Just now, she had chased her prey into the Middle City, lashing the buildings and pulling herself along at breakneck speeds using her Thundergods.
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It seemed abundantly clear that they were retreating towards the city center, the Cathedral.
However, she found herself halted. A veritable tsunami of boiling blood came crashing through the street, reaching all the way to the top floors of the apartment buildings. Zel leapt upward and pulled herself onto the rooftop before the wave could reach her, but it seemed, it was too late.
The presence of another made itself known. It was, undoubtedly, the source of that blood-wave, and it looked exactly how she imagined an archetypal cultivator. A woman with long hair, clad in a billowing, crimson robe, her face obscured by an elaborate, polished brass mask. Beads of blood orbited her head, and she floated, as if weightless in mid-air, some two-hundred meters ahead.
The Hemomancers attention was spread out between the weaker first-line defenders that had fled from her. With a few gestures, wounds were forced close and disloacted limbs popped back into the rightful places. Then, she turned a wrathful gaze in Zels direction, and she felt it; her presence weighing down like five hundred kilos, feeling as if it were trying to pull the blood straight out of her. No, it wasnt truly pure aura. Zel felt the real weight, or rather, the downward pull. Her feet broke the shingles.
A hissing inhalation between her teeth, followed by a laugh of realization.
Seriously? Fake Aura Pressure?! she cackled in mockery of her foe.
A flex of her will. That was all it took to snap the Hemomancers hold on her like a twig. It rippled out from her, the whole roof cracking, shingles ripping themselves free, floating up and being struck by her lightning; the force was not that of her own aura, but of the Hemomancers hold on her falling apart and lashing back. Her foe, alarmed and angered both, glared murder at her. Then, she outstretched her arms to her subordinates. All their auras flared at once, manifesting in deep red, flowing back into the Hemomancer. It felt like they all pooled their strength together, and it showed in that same way, with the subordinate members becoming faster and more concrete in their presence.
It wouldve been impressive if Zel couldnt feel the stench of blood sacrifice so obviously fueling that feat. She wondered how many lives paid the way to give her a real fight.
SCARLET SIGN
UNION OF BLOOD FORMATION
The combination of thousands of liters in blood alongside all the disciples projectiles was, admittedly, an impressive offensive, one that very nearly compared to one of Reds stratagems. Even if the Hemomancer could repeat that feat, however, Zel didn''t feel particularly worried. She gripped Thundercannons trigger-lever. This was a good time. Yes, now was the right moment.
"Thunder..."
Click. Click.
"...cannon!"
A fiery bolt of dragonsteel and lightning tore the formation to shreds.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the dome
While Zefaris worked to alter the battering rams shape and glyphs to let it pierce straight through at the correct time, Victor pulled out seven talismans wrought of dragonbone and cast them to the ground. In the Oculus absence he had to perform a series of hand-signs instead, and finally the seven came alive. They floated a few centimeters off the ground, aligned into a perfect pentagonal formation, and began spinning in place, revolving, the symbols drawn upon them coming alive with nearly pure-white bonefire, contrasting the black dragonbone.
A shimmering, bubble-like, barrier-like membrane formed in their midst, and they began stretching it, slowly rising as bony feet fell out and touched the ground. He was able to carry this out far faster, but there was no need, and he instead directed that effort to refueling the battering-rams Spiraling Detonation Engine.
287 - The Other Side of the Breach
Meanwhile, two-thirds of the supporting force waited behind them. Zelsys had retained a few sect members, Strake, three Third-model tankmen, and three squads of Hellhounds. All others had been assigned to Zefaris and Victor. It was no surprise, between Lady Zelsys and Strake, there would likely only be a tiny fraction of enemy forces to clean up. Victor was sure that it wouldnt be nearly so easy on their side - not because he thought himself or Zefaris lackluster, of course.
Once Victor was finished refueling the battering ram, he accelerated the summoning. It was a bipedal, digitigrade beast with hands based on his armors gauntlet, a monstrosity with a thick, claw-ended tail and a wide, horned, drake-like visage. It was the size of a Dragon Knight And only one of two that would hold open the gate. Zefaris had already began carving it with the requisite Antediluvian Glyphs before its counterpart was one-third conjured.
It was A curious coincidence, that he had grown towards wielding Servitors and Zefaris had come upon the Sword Phantom Scripture. His Servitors and her Phantoms functioned fundamentally differently both in operation and in their actual use cases, of course, but He couldnt help thinking of the account of the Blue Moon War - specifically the technique that a certain unknown cultivator used to turn Ubuls clay soldiers against him by imbuing them with the fighting will of fallen soldiers. Surely, it was a mere coincidence combined with his mind seeking connections where there were none. After all, the Itrian Scroll contained a vast breadth of knowledge, with servitors merely being one. He had kept it to himself, but the depth and breadth of the Itrial Scroll was truly vaster than any single text he had seen. It felt very much like a work whose fragments could become foundational texts for entire sects And for all he knew, it could very well be that. The Smoke Witch was exactly the type of temperamental immortal said to bestow such treasures on a whim.
The fact that even individuals who fully grasped the power in the scroll couldn''t stand up to Tian Feng spoke volumes of his great and terrible strength. He had no choice but to push further, to dig deeper, to merge the esoteric knowledge of Itrian shrine guardians with the philosophy of Sturmblitz Kunst. Thus
They had been born; his Rising Sun Drakes.
These beasts of bone and flame, wrought in imitation of not guardian golems But of tanks. As they were, they couldnt really fight - or rather, Victor couldnt make them fight for an extended period of time while doing anything else. Having them hold open a gate would be no issue, though.
Ready? came a question from Lady Zefaris.
He brought out three items; firstly, a dark gem, encrusted with dragonbone, white flame swirling inside. A Black Sun Core, refined from a ruby and imbued with power from vast quantities of crystallized ignis, owing to the fuel enrichment chambers of Reactor 4. The other two were dragonbone keys, based on his own, with their own Black Sun Cores in the stead of his Antediluvian Gem. With a gesture, all three flew into their places; the Black Sun Core into Dawnwolfs waiting maw, and the two keys into the backs of his Rising Sun Drakes. Dawnwolf lunged in his direction and swallowed him whole, collapsing into a swirling mass of muscle and bone that soon became his armored form, subtly and invisibly strengthened in places by small amounts of bone and muscle from Eisengeist. Being wrought of Teutobochus, certain areas were simply better left alone; determining where Eisengeist tissue served better was half of the challenge. The other half was working with it.
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Another gesture, and with turns of their keys the Drakes rumbled to life, bonefire blazing in their hollow eye sockets. Needing no further instruction, they sprinted over to their rightful places to either side of the battering ram. Victor, his belt closed and helmet open, turned to Zefaris: Ready.
The time window was hair-thin, but theyd worked out the ignition delay and acceleration time from the first firing. Like a gigantic drill, the battering ram careened forward, spiraling, meeting the final ripple. It went on spinning, twisting, pushing, pulling, piercing, tearing away the Red Fog, winding it in long reams along its own axis as it screamed against the barrier.
Then, it went through. Not slowly or gradually, but all at once, screaming right into the city atop a column of explosions. The Rising Sun Drakes rushed in to hold open the tear, the Red Fogs solidified, stone-like form collapsing in around them, and only solidifying further when their rune-carved claws halted its influx. Waiting not a split-second more, Victor turned Koscheis Key and set ablaze his armors beating heart, flying forward and grabbing Zefaris as he went, right after she had barked a simple command to the supporting force. He set her down right when they were inside, in a tactically sound position, before he zipped over to where the Black Rod Ram had fallen - embedded within a once-regal three-story house. The citys occupiers were prepared for them, and unlike Lady Zelsys, he and Zefaris found it prudent to fully rely on the support of their contingent.
The enemy force could only be described as dense. It was most easily compared to the forces of the Conspirator Clans, with even the weakest among them having notable abilities. Three core archetypes were the most prevalent: Hemomancy, Hidden Weapons, and Living Weapons. Flesh-puppets. One or more humans twisted into weaponized forms and controlled through doubtlessly abominable means. From there, supporting archetypes were even more varied, though wind magic was commonly employed to manipulate the hidden weapons and give them extra velocity. Victor lifted Zefaris onto a rooftop, and took off before a barrage of needles and bolts could come their way. From observing their impact on the buildings, it was clear that the penetrative power was easily comparable to contemporary sparklocks, while the volume of fire surpassed them by far. Dodging was, thankfully, not a problem for either of them, and neither was eliminating the opposition. Lady Zefaris certainly had no issues.
288 - Terminal Fangs
In the seconds after Victor had set her down on the roof, Zefaris carved several kinetic mirror glyphs into surrounding architecture and set forth a deluge of bullets, both physical and ghostly. The bullets of her phantoms were Unsettling. Immaterial. They just passed through enemy projectiles, and then struck in such a way that bursts of ghostly-blue erupted out of their victims backs With no wounds left afterward, despite the fact they tumbled down, dead. Even the survivors were left writhing, clutching their bodies despite the absence of visible injury. Shouts about spiritual attacks followed soon after.
He wasnt sure whether the Dragonsteel Bullets were merciful or even more cruel by comparison. They flew unimpeded by any attempt to shoot them down or divert them, they tore through aura and shield and summoned walls of blood alike. Though the entry into their victims left only pinholes, once inside they underwent such violent deformation that, once they came out the other end, their victims were instantly liberated from a third or even a half of their total body mass. Then, in an instant, each bullet snapped back into spherical form and vanished, instantly returning into Zefaris ammunition stocks. Victor genuinely considered whether near-instant evisceration of the physical or spiritual kind was the preferable way to go.
As for his own firepower, the Devils Teeth had serious problems, requiring five or six at once to eliminate even one Black Robe. It was in part due to their impressive ability to shoot down the projectiles, throw them off-course with blasts of wind or blood, and in part due to other, more straightforward defenses, from conjured barriers to physical cover. Many of the Blue Robes had auras so dense they passively slowed down the missiles, and the Red Robes could simply force up to two of them to a stop if they focused - which didnt happen much, since it was a fairly niche, ideal set of circumstances.
That was just the testing, though. The control group to compare his evolution of the Devils Teeth against: Terminal Fangs, named after what they were based on, the Demon Extermination Talisman. When he was still testing them, their working name had been Sealing Fangs, but they didn''t exactly seal things. In the beginning, they were just the original talisman designs made using devilbone instead of paper or wood from some obscure Itrian spirit-tree, shaped like a vertically stretched pentagon. The special part came from using his unique abilities to twist them into a spiraling, screw-like projectile without damaging the delicate glyphs on the inside. In fact, in their flat, initial state, the glyphs were distorted to account for the twisting that came afterwards. The hardest part had been figuring out how to make the propulsion work But it did work, and now Victor had a truly outstanding weapon suitable both against other cultivators and arcane beasts.
When met with an enemy defense, his Terminal Fangs frayed it and twisted it apart with their passage, and even the enchanted soft armor of the Blue and Red Robes lost some of its potency against them. They didnt pierce as effortlessly as dragonsteel bullets, that was true, but Victor was ecstatic with this result. He floated above a group of three black-robes and two blue-robes, each of them having been struck by one or two Terminal Fangs. Before, they had buffeted him with such strong winds that he had to dedicate much effort to just not spinning out of control or falling out of the sky, but now the strength of their collective efforts had fallen no less than by two-thirds, and it was all thanks fo the Terminal Fangs interfering with the flow of essentia within their bodies as well as with their souls grip on it.
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Some would have called this flagrant misuse of sacred techniques. The Itrian Scroll had made it abundantly clear that its techniques were for protecting what was sacred and exterminating demons, after all. It never actually described what a demon was, but based on the techniques and his own deduction, Victor had a good idea of it; they had to be highly magical beings, likely advanced cultivator-beasts and/or living curses, like the Ikesian False Wendigo.
Bullets, shot, and high-velocity shells screamed from below. Some of the Hellhounds and sect members scaled the buildings to higher ground, while most of them supported the Third-model death machines. Ruthless death squads, they carved a path into the city, busting down conjured barricades and shooting down black-robed enemy disciples. Even as they retreated, they still tried to drag along their prey, and, arrogant, they thought to strike at the tankmen. The unyielding strength of industry and artifice met with flesh and bone reinforced by centuries-old martial arts and mutagens And found the latter wanting. Mere mortals in metal suits, none older than forty, crushing cultivators among whom even the failures universally surpassed sixty and looked no more than thirty.
Despite the tankmen and sect members supporting them, they found themselves mired down by the enemy, slowed to a near-halt. The constant machine-gun clanging of Lady Zefaris revolver only spoke to the strength of their foe.
As the weaker forces evacuated, more and more blue and red robes came in, and with them, so did abominations. Terrible things, tangled together from human limbs and faces and artisanal mechanisms. They screeched with chorus-voices that shattered glass and roof tile, they smashed and stomped and leapt about with strength and speed utterly impossible for any human. These abominable beasts spewed barrages of acid and poisoned arrows and boiling blood, and snapped with teeth and claws and blades wrought of singing steel easily on par with any weapon of the Newman Sects disciples.
Terrors they were, puppeteered by shimmering fog-wires connected to red-robes and fiercely protective of them.
While the Newman Sects forces valiantly engaged them, with the tankmen using the city to pigeonhole the monstrosities into firing corridors and Zefaris just tearing them to bits from afar, Victor also did his part. He was concerned that, if their advance was halted, the enemy would have time to put up a counter-offensive, that their own powerhouses would show up. So, he wanted to even the numbers disparity with monsters of his own. Informing Zefaris with an aetherwave message he flew to an opportune location, at once away from the main battle lines and perpendicular to them so that any attack from there would be a flanking one. Then, he brought out over thirty storage talismans, for ten servitors in total. It wouldnt take long if he fully focused on summoning them.
289 - Phantoms vs. Flesh Beasts
Zefaris had instantly assigned the new creatures the name of Flesh Beasts, differentiating them by unique design elements. The fact they were numbers of human bodies twisted-together with automata didnt matter for now; for now, they were just threat factors.
A three-legged abomination with five bladed arms and crossbows in its mouths leapt straight at Zefaris. She withdrew Amaryllis, Pentacles weapon spirit, which she had been wielding this whole time. In truth, she had given into a bad habit she had absorbed from Zel: Sandbagging for fun. She wasnt fighting to her full capability in the slightest, though it was true that she was trying to probe the enemy for how they would react before forming a strategy.
She found it truly ridiculous, that she could just Will Amaryllis into physicality, where mere months ago she had needed a minute of prep with assistance from a fogging canister to manifest Deaths Lieutenant.
There was also simple trepidation. She had never used Phantoms in real combat, and no amount of training could compare to the real thing. These bioweapon monsters, though, combined with the slowing advance of her forces, were more than enough to snap that mental barrier like a twig.
The Tripod Beast scuttled towards her like a mobile blender, spewing poisoned bolts every-which way. But then, a brilliant lance of green from the left tore it in half. The Nameless Phantom, so insignificant, heretofore unnoticed, had fulfilled his purpose, and with a salute, began fading away to reload.
That was the Nameless Phantoms power: To go unnoticed and strike when least expected with overwhelming power. It wasnt invisible, it didnt use illusions to hide itself, but instead simply had a knack for escaping notice, specifically the notice of those who were strong, those who were above the common soldier. It was truly, absolutely invisible on a battlefield full of other, insignificant foot soldiers.
A furious howl followed. The controller of that weapon, a woman in red robes, came careening from afar, blood and flesh swirling around her. Three more Flesh Beasts followed in her stead.
Monsters setting upon us from both sides! the woman screeched. No It was more like her shrill, angered voice was being blasted out at an amplified volume. Her body didnt move in a way to suggest speech, either. Unlike that other woman, you do not seem insane, so I will ask you this: Who are you, and which sect are you from, that you dare to oppose the Order of Six Truths?!
I am Zefaris Newman, Second Elder of the Newman Sect of Willowdale. I presume that the other woman you speak of was terribly large, brown, and wielded a segmented cleaver, yes?
So it is, the masked woman hissed.
She is Zelsys Newman, the Newman Sects Founder and Main Elder. I assure you, despite appearances, she is perfectly lucid - if she refuses to negotiate, it means that you or your subordinates most likely spoke to her with the high-and-mighty arrogance typical of cultivators, or, much worse You likely spoke of mortals as if their lives were worth nothing. Isnt that why youre here? Trying to harvest mortals?
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While Zefaris spoke, she carried on a brief conversation with Zelsys over aetherwave to formulate her next sentence. She also learned that this figure was utterly identical to another figure on Zels side of the battle. Either this was an identity-concealing uniform, or these figures were just even fancier flesh-puppets that allowed the real user to project some of her strength through them.
What gives you the right? What made you think that they werent protected? Did you buy into your own hype, is that it? Did you become deluded into legitimately believing that cultivators are somehow altogether above and separate from the mortal world?
While she spoke, she holstered Pentacle and reloaded Tempesta. The Red-robed Puppeteer drifted downward and deflated, turning her head sideways, almost like a full-body eyeroll.
Spare me the moral lecture. You believe the lives of these mortals should not be spent to facilitate our Elders breakthrough. The reasons behind that belief do not matter. The only thing that matters-
Is power, is that it? Zefaris interrupted. Isnt that what your ilk always spouts?! So be it! If I prove myself stronger than you, will you admit wrongdoing?
Spirits sprung up around her. At first, Amaryllis and Belladonna, merging seamlessly to form Deaths Lieutenant. Then, two Gun Phantoms and five Formless Phantoms, altogether forming a firing squad. Two of the Puppeteers monsters tried to approach, only for the Gun Phantoms to shoot them right away, leaving both of them with a few limp, crippled limbs. Zefaris, not paying the exchange any mind, continued her scornful tirade.
No, of course you wont. Youll scramble and bite like the rabid dogs you are. Youll even try to appeal to my righteousness, saying that by killing you I would somehow become as bad as you.
The puppeteers third beast, a five-legged thing with several large ballistae merged with acid-spewing mouths, twitched into motion.
Falling silent isnt good practice, you know. Its an easy tell that your focus has drifted somewhere other than the conversation.
Phantom Manus swirled into existence in front of Zefaris at that same moment. He came into being already holding a defensive guard, with the grip of his long Aquila Calibur above his bent knees, the blade held pointing off-centerline at the ground. It was one of the two versions of the ancient Guard of the Iron Gate, typically only seen in pre-Three-Kings swordsmanship treatises. The Ballista Beast fired, its bolts cracking like thunder as they tore open the sound-speed barrier, only for Manus to cut two of them from the air, stopping the third shot with his own ghostly body. It seemed as if he were unaffected, as he had already lunged forward in a counterattack, a spear of ghostly flame extending from his sword. A flare of the Puppeteers own aura, combined with a shift to the side, sent the beam careening into a nearby house. It seemed to only punch a hole through, only for an explosion to blow out the buildings windows and tear open its walls a moment later.
Manus fell down to his knees, mirroring the position in which he had fallen, only to get back up as if nothing had happened, leaving the bolt which had struck him on the ground. The hole which had been torn into him simply closed, and he once more took up the Guard of the Iron Gate.
Weak, Zefaris spat. Weak and delusional. What a waste of people, these puppets of yours. Those mortals couldve become the same armored soldiers that are taking the city from your disciples at this very moment. Whoever you have for an elder isnt even worth ten mortal lives, let alone ten thousand!
290 - The Battle for Eberheim
You dare! screeched the Puppeteer, two more red-robed individuals rushing to her aid, one controlling a duo of Flesh Beasts and the other, seemingly nothing Though he exuded danger all the same. Hidden weapons, without a doubt. They all seemed to be using wind magic of some kind to achieve limited flight.
Zefaris didnt allow them the courtesy of preparation. Hoarfrost spidered out around her feet. In an instant, she went from a derisive tirade against the Order of Six Truths to holding a smoking gun pointed at the Puppeteer. Eight shots went in that direction; seven were ghostly and immaterial. One was dragonsteel. It roared forward not with the report of hammer on anvil, but with a seemingly impossible roar-boom. From Pentacles barrel came not flame and black smoke, but a golden-tailed comet, tearing at reality itself as it accelerated even in flight.
BELLADONNA SIGN
RECOLLECTION OF IKESIAS FALLEN
PHANTOM SCRIPTURE: FIRING SQUAD
In an instant, the Puppeteers body was torn in half, revealing that she, herself, was a puppet, golden draconic flame eating away at her twisted, machine-grafted flesh. The clockworks in place of her heart was breached soon after, the spring exploding and shredding her to bits. Neither her subordinates nor their beasts were spared either, with the beasts left crippled or severely wounded, while their controllers slumped down, their souls rent asunder. Once more she flashed-forward, her gun held up seemingly to a random spot to the side. A dragonsteel bullet tore out, as did seven more shots from her firing squad, all in different directions. This bullet, and the three remaining in Pentacle, wasnt propelled by Dracofulminate; that single shot was all she had allowed herself.
A moment passed while her bullets flew.
Then, they bounced off of kinetic mirrors she had prepared in advance. Six of them struck the surviving beasts, killing them. One tore out the head of a red robe who had thought to sneak up on her. Another struck the back of a blue-robe who was about to get the better of a lone Hellhound.
There wouldnt be much time before more, stronger enemy forces came in But for now, Zefaris had a clean-ish field, and a plan. If these cultivators had been in seclusion for that long, and if they were all this arrogant and stupid, encirclement tactics would work on them just fine.
Allowing her Phantoms to vanish, she climbed to the highest point nearby, the tower of a small chapel. With an exertion of her will she awakened the Philosophers Eye to its full output. In moments, she carved dozens of kinetic mirrors all over the surrounding buildings; they also acted as actual mirrors, albeit far from perfect, but she didnt need them to be. She sent out an aetherwave message to tankmen and disciples alike.
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A Hellhound runs through the bloodstained streets of Eberheim, separated from his squad and the commanding officer by rubble from an exploded apartment. Its not for lack of ability to open a path, but a desire to deceive the enemy, making them think he was crushed only to flank them.
He is surrounded by the whirring of machinery and the constant knowledge of the lightning-engine on his back, which could fry him alive at any moment if it were to be damaged, and he happened to get unlucky.
A Black Robe in his viewfinder. The armors Logic Automaton outlines him in red. The plug in the back of his head buzzes, and faster than any human ought to be able, he raises his gun.
The bark of twin barrels spewing leaden death. A man thrice the pilots age and twenty times his worth in investment falls dead, torn to shreds, the only proof of his resistance a cluster of needles ineffectually hedgehogged into the Hellhounds breastplate. The living metal pushes them out and rights itself before long. The click-clack of the break action, shell carriers swinging into place and depositing new brass, only to be smacked back into place by the actions closing. Iron skin stomping through gore, smearing the glistening meat of cultivators over the cobblestones.
He makes his way forward, deeper, circling the enemys position as tremors rock the ground and beams of white light flash overhead. A woman on fire goes screaming from a rooftop, blasting rays of fire past the roofs edge from gun-like wands. Gouts of fire from her feet slow her fall, and she rebounds back up, resuming her battle with whoever had thrown her off that roof to begin with. His armor identifies her as Mata Gano.
This is a war zone. Despite the comparatively small numbers of combatants, the destruction wrought on the city and its people will be easily comparable to a full-scale military engagement. The Hellhound has seen worse. He has fought in the War of Fog.
The part of him that was once terrified of the very idea of a place and event like this has long died And with it, a part of his humanity, if Provisional Commander Sodan is to be believed. The Hellhound understands the point of view. He doesnt agree, but he understands. If Sodan is right, then he prefers being less than human; the red-eyed mask of terror that stands side by side with Willowdales cultivators. A proper monster rightly deserving of the fear and hatred with which his peoples enemies had already regarded him when he showed his face and wore a clean green uniform.
The Hellhound runs resolutely on, jumping over the pool of molten slag. More robed scum come into view, ducked into a blown-out storefront. He sees blue. By now, he knows he can match a single Blue Robe, though its a 50/50 shot as to whether the Blue Robes abilities will be manageable.
Two of them, with a coterie of three Black Robes, however It doesnt matter in the end. The Hellhound has been noticed. The armor screams. Its plates glow red at the edges. Needles and bolts strike him, they dent his plating and punch holes into it, but the metal defiantly ejects them and snaps back into its proper shape.
He is death now, more than human. An infernal beast in iron skin. Hell send them down and send them screaming.
291 - The Battle for Eberheim Pt. 2
Death encroaches.
A flying form in crimson-red, tank-sized beasts of flesh and metal at its beck and call, with whirling blades and ballistae easily able to run the Hellhound through.
Death encroaches.
The Hellhound sends the call. A simple ping from the Reapers Bride is all he received as affirmation that his request has been heard.
Dozens of needles strike close to vital points, they come within milimeters of piercing skin or a vital conduit, poisoning him to death or crippling his armor, but somehow, he survives for long enough to see a golden bullet soaring overhead. It bounces off a window and turns the Red Robe into a shower of pulped viscera. The jagged mass of meat and metal that now resides where the Red Robe had once been snaps back into a sphere and vanishes.
Six more shots follow, each ghostly-green light. Flesh Beasts, Black and Blue Robes, all fall where they stand with no wounds to show for their deaths.
Hail death, the master! the Hellhound sends back over the aetherwave, expecting no response.
Hail, comes the reply.
The Hellhound continues in his original plan, arriving to find that his comrades were still fighting, though not without a casualty. A pair of flesh-beasts, a Red Robe controller, two Blue Robes, five Black Robes. Bullets and leaden shot both scream down the corridor, his squads firepower seemingly sufficient to suppress the enemy, but not much more. There are no Mirror Circles in sight from this position, making it clear why the Reapers Bride hasnt smashed apart the enemy opposition from afar. He resolves himself to tip the scales. A flurry of communications passes between him and his squadmates. A brief argument over his proposed course of action is cut short by the captains agreement.
Bolts and knives and needles fly at him without end, grazing and striking his armor. He has already burned out one of the suits three capacitors by pushing too hard; it cant be recharged even with the help of a First-models engine, only replaced. Nonetheless, the Hellhound charges ahead, pushing harder and harder. He meets a lunging flesh-beast head on, leaping over its blade by no more than mere centimeters.
His shotgun only has two shots left.
They tear off the flesh beasts blade, and he drops his gun to grab for it instead.
The Hellhound once more pushes his suits output into redline, feeling the heat rise around him, the conduits beginning to scorch his skin, but he cares not. With the beasts blade in hand, he turns, a Type-Z shell tearing through the air overhead towards the Red Robe while a barrage of well-aimed shotgun slugs suppresses the weaker enemies, even killing two Black Robes. He makes his move, pushing his armor well beyond its limits. It somehow holds, and the Hellhound leaps upward at the Red Robe with such force that the flesh beast under his feet is thrown to the ground and his own shin bones crack under the force. The pain is utterly brilliant and seethes just like the overheated power conduits burning into his skin, but he has done it.
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In the absence of weapons to spare, the Red Robe flares his aura, crimson and swirling like ghostly blood. It collapses in on the Hellhound, trying to crush him, his armor buckling and threatening to burst And then the pressure falters.
The blade has run his foe through. Stunned, but clearly not dead, the Red Robe struggles, redoubling his defense, but its too late. The Hellhound had never meant to kill the Red Robe - just immobilize him.
A high-velocity anti-cultivator round from the squad captains Type-Z Anti-cultivation Cannon turns the Red Robes head into a fine, glittering mist.
He is closer to Death now, an iota more than human.
At the center of the city, in the midst of preparations for Elder Thirds breakthrough, tens of thousands of mortals were gathered in the cathedral for the sacrifice ritual. Thousands more, however, were already being sacrificed. A bit over a hundred had been spent to maintain the isolation array, not for lack of the disciples ability, but because spending their own energy was a waste by comparison. Several thousand were being used to build up the appropriate energies around the ritual site, ritualistically tormented to death to ensure the maximum yield. Others, still, were prepared to serve as living batteries for the cathedrals defensive array, in light of the incursion from the Newman Sect. In this, Rosa was put to task, sculpting them into piles of flesh and limbs, connecting them with serpentining umbilical cords, forming a network of nodes around the cathedral.
But then, one by one, she felt pangs of pain. Cries of anguish. Her creations and subordinates alike, being slain by these trash who didnt know their place. The final straw was when one of those black-armored mortals struck down a rather promising flesh-sculptor, and using one of her precious creations blades no less! At least, that was how she saw it. It was obvious that were it not for him, that lumbering golem with the Roaring Thunder Cannon wouldnt have gotten a direct shot.
Rosa thus, consumed by fury, quickly delegated the rest of her duties to others and set eyes upon the spares, the would-be sacrifices who had been set aside or whose fates hadnt been determined yet. She reached into her dress and brought out a talisman that was very precious to her, an adamant bronze flesh-sculpting knife gifted to her by none other than Elder Fourth. It carried within it a fraction of the power of Fourths own Brass Skinning Knife, a token of the Skinless One.
With it in hand, she began chanting a sublime incantation And dancing. The knife slipped from her hand, animated by her aura, and it flew at breakneck speeds, slashing necks and wrists, cutting away at flesh where it would be joined.
TORMENT SIGN
PURPOSE TO THE PURPOSELESS
DARK REBIRTH IN THE GARDEN OF FLESH
FLESH-SCULPTING ARTS: CALVES OF THE SLAUGHTER
292 - The Battle for Eberheim Pt. 3
Zefaris wholeheartedly wished she had Victors multitrack thinking and hypercognition. She was splitting her mind between keeping track of fire-support requests, trying to advance, keeping watch towards the center of the city, and trying to analyze the Red Fog Dome to see if it could be broken.
Then, a scream. Not one that was heard, but felt. A ripple of inconceivable suffering and wretchedness blasted out from the city center, washing over everything like a sickly tide of pure negativity. It was Familiar. Unsettlingly so. She had felt something like this on the few occasions when she had ventured towards the center of the Exclusion Zone.
Not more than a minute later, her focus collapsed into a single point when she beheld a deluge of flesh beasts marching, hopping, skittering, and even flying from the center of the city, many of them purely organic and twisted together such that still-screaming, still-thrashing humans were included in their mass. Several Red Robes led them, alongside a woman in a dress-like scarlet-and-gold robe. She could only be described as the opposite of Red; unequivocally beautiful on the outside, while everything else about her suggested nothing but the most revolting personage imaginable. To say Zefaris determined it based on subtle tells would have been a lie; this woman absolutely radiated cruelty and malice.
Zefaris double-checked that the Nameless Phantom was ready and that he had gone unnoticed. The soldier, nestled in an attic window some hundred-fifty meters to the left, gave a thumbs-up. All her kinetic mirrors were set up, and just in case, she willed the Black Cylinder to prepare an all-Dracofulminate reload for Pentacle. Expensive, but this enemy had no clue about her true firepower, so it had no strategic value if she didnt use it.
Which among you worthless meatsacks dared strike out against my precious works of art?! Come forth and slit your own throats and I shall leave your corpses intact! screeched the woman, commanding her beasts of twisted flesh forward.
Four hundred meters out and rapidly approaching. Tankmen swarmed below as they struggled to get into opportune positions, active enemy resistance waning as the survivors retreated to join up with the horrid woman. The Flesh Sculptor, if her words were to go by. Zefaris dispelled Phantom Manus and called out her Sword Phantoms, which, including two Gun Phantoms and five Formless Phantoms, left her near her limit for what she could sustain without straining. Weirdly, the Nameless Phantom didnt levy a noticeable strain on her soul to keep around, only when it fired, and even then it was an easily-tolerated momentary spike.
Zefaris sent out a request for aid from any disciples who could reach her, and in moments, she saw both Vaceran and Mata making their way over. Vaceran used his ghostly arms for mobility, sending them out as far as ten meters from himself, whereas Mata blasted around with bursts of flame in a similar but much more limited manner to Victor. She was sort of Skating or skiing around, it looked like. She came to a halt nearby, remaining in place and simply breathing in a measured manner, her flames flaring around her, only to go from orange to yellow, retreating into her body. A version of Sigmunds Tranquility Echoes adapted for one with a naturally igneic physiology.
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Silent and resolute, Vaceran clapped his aura arms together and began to recite a prayer in an unknown language. His aura, just as lilac as his arms, flared around him, and dozens of shingles and bricks tore themselves free to fly towards him, forming a pair of utterly massive, rough arms floating next to his stumps. Using his aura alone he brought out several paper seals, which adhered to these stone arms, ghostly chains extending between his stumps and the limbs. With a second clap, the masses of clay and rock transmuted into statuesque limbs of near-perfect dark stone, and a third clap solidified the ghostly chains, which, despite appearing fully real, still lengthened and shortened as his stone arms floated up and down.
Understandably, the Flesh Sculptor had her beasts move ahead, throwing out a flying knife of her own that crackled with an unsettling power and darted back and forth with great agility, even while flying as quickly as the bullet from a sparklock pistol. Mata and Vaceran readily met the Flesh Beasts in battle, Matas rays and missiles of condensed flame scything and tearing away at them without issue. Meanwhile, Vacerans fists struck out with the force of cannonballs while he maintained a meticulous safe range from his foe, pounding away at the beasts one after the next without relent, turning terrible beasts into torn-up piles of meat one after the next. Any damage his arms suffered didnt seem to be an issue for him, already repaired by the time the limb had returned to him and the next punch was chambered.
All this, from the initial preparation to the clash, spanned a few precious seconds. In this time, Zefaris annihilated four Flesh Beasts and struck down three Blue Robes, each over a kilometer away.
From where she stood, she could see Victor as he came flying back, a pack of bestial servitors leaping from one rooftop to the next, each leap accompanied by blasts of black flame and further jets of it as they flew, alowing them to move with speed and grace second only to their master. Each and every one looked like a smaller, sleeker, more draconic dawnwolf, clearly closely modeled on false drakes, with the addition of grasping tails like dawnwolfs own. They wouldnt get here in time. Zefaris let go of all but the Nameless and two Sword Phantoms. Before the Flesh Sculptors flying dagger could reach her, Manus flickered into being and grabbed it out of the air, digging his heels into the roof and even using his sword as an anchor as the weapon tried to rip itself free. It pushed and pushed, until, when Zefaris felt Manus couldnt hold it any longer, she willed him to spin around and throw it back at the Flesh Sculptor.
293 - Vs. Flesh Sculptor
Eyes wide, the Flesh Sculptor pulled the weapons course away from herself and made it smash into a nearby house, tearing right through and coming out on the other side. By then, Manus had already followed through on the motion and launched a flaming spear from his blade. At that same moment, two more Inquisitor Phantoms took form flanking him to either side, firing off a barrage of pepperbox fire while also setting loose waves of flaming sword aura from their blades. The Flesh Sculptor effortlessly evaded the onslaught, but that was not an issue. The Sculptors twisted creations gradually encircling Zefaris whilst firing potshots of acid and organic needles, however, was an issue. These things were well beyond any mere meat-abomination, above and beyond the capabilities of mere locust-men. Their acid was potent enough to cause explosions of steam and molten clay wherever it struck, and their natural projectiles tore forth with force more akin to a high-powered sparklock rifle than a pistol, embedding into the masonry without much issue.
For all her screeching and visage of petulant fury, the Flesh Sculptor had utterly meticulous control over her small army of abominations. She prioritized harassing Zefaris with her flying knife and damaging her Phantoms as much as possible, moving her abominations in and out to give them time to recover and remould themselves, as if they were mere clay. Even those which were seemingly decisively struck down reformed and got back up, shedding unusable biomass as the only evidence they had been struck down. Both Mata and Vaceran quickly noticed this, and shifted their tactics from efficient, clean elimination to mangling the beasts as much as possible.
Zefaris shifted focus to Tempesta, letting off bursts of dragonsteel shot that turned one beast after another into shredded gore, flash-freezing and shattering sections of them thanks to being imbued with gelum. In combination with the firepower of her own Phantoms, it was enough to push back against the tide, but not with any reasonable speed. Every couple shots, at irregular intervals, she had the Black Cylinder load a slug shell into Tempestas quickloader tube, which she popped off towards a kinetic mirror so that the Flesh Sculptor always had something to worry about. The arrival of Victor and his servitors served to tilt the tides of battle in their favour; just like her phantoms spiritual bullets, so too did his Terminal Fangs temporarily cripple whatever flesh beast they struck, pulling away a shred of the Flesh Sculptors attention to have the beasts mass expel it. He soared overhead with a deep rumbling sound, dozens of these drill-missiles zipping out in his wake, interspersed with globs of sticky bonefire and blinding blasts of Fight the Night directed to the Flesh Sculptor.
The servitors, though not many in number, proved invaluable. Their agility and small size by far outstripped that of the Flesh Beasts, and their ceaseless blasts of bonefire served to slow down and permanently, irrevocably damage the beasts.
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In his few and brief clashes with the red-robed woman, the fact that the redhead was punching well above his weight class quickly came to light. For all the factors playing to his favour, he just wasnt as developed as his older, more experienced counterparts, be it in tactics or in strength and refinement of spirit. He had, in a spiritual sense, gained a giant, inhumanly strong body, but he hadnt come close to making full use of it. He had just been throwing his spiritual weight around in displays of arcane might, but against someone of similar spiritual magnitude with decades or even centuries of experience, he was barely able to harass her, and certainly couldnt keep up in a straight up one on one But what he could do was distract her. And that worked, long enough, until, out of nowhere, she had several flesh-beasts launch their projectiles skyward, while some just jumped, all in an obvious effort to throw him off. Her flying knife grazed him and took with it both a chunk of flesh and bone - not from him, but from his armor. Like a monochrome comet, he went careening out of the sky, and only through use of his staff managed to land semi-safely, several precious seconds later.
Victor stumbled as he landed, his armor sputtering and struggling to pull itself back together. He had spares, prepared ahead of time specifically in case his suit got damaged, but the repairs would still take some time - and mere seconds could turn the tide in a battle like this, while his repairs would be on a timescale of a few minutes.
He ran over what he couldve done differently as he began the laborious process. Hed tried, time and again, to grasp for the seemingly unaccounted-for meat, but even what that seething madwomans creatures had discarded remained Hostile to him, was the easiest description. Sure, there were corpses on the ground, but that was the problem. They were on the ground, thirty meters down. The cost-reward of bringing them up here to use, plus the risk of the enemy cultivator just taking them over first, made the proposition not worthwhile. Fighting the Flesh Sculptor for control over her own beasts felt a pointless endeavor for this same reason, it was pointless exercise in mutual struggle, too straightforward compared to harassing her and destroying her beasts; that is to say, Victor hadnt yet devised or remembered a technique for usurping the works of other practitioners who used arts like his own.
Mind racing at a million miles a minute, he focused every ounce of will he had and brought his own perception of time to a near-halt. No such thing truly took place; he merely pushed his Hypercognition to that point so he could get a moment of absolute clarity. The stress of it would have him nursing a migraine later, but that was a problem for later.
Out of the tangle of memory, he picked a viable tactic: Bid Lady Zefaris to impose her Phantoms over his constructs.
294 - Vs. Flesh Sculptor Pt. 2
Neither Victors Servitors nor Lady Zefaris Phantoms truly had wills of their own, and if he just ordered his Servitors to act subordinate to the Phantoms unless an override command was given, any control conflicts would be minimized. The artificial cores passively fuelling his servitors combined with the remnants of a warriors fighting will would easily equal, or perhaps even surpass, Old Kanbus Dragonfire Reignition technique. Moreover, the numbers of Lady Zefaris Phantoms surpassed the limit of what she could maintain, so lightening the strain would allow her to express her full arsenal.
Thanks to his unique connection to them, he could still command his servitors from this distance, and alongside the reconfiguration command, he also sent Lady Zefaris an aetherwave message detailing his plan.
For now, he had to remove himself from the fight, and thankfully, the Flesh Sculptor didnt consider him enough of a threat to send more than a pair of beasts after him.
Fools, rang out his second internal monologue.
He noticed the sculptors hold over her beasts weakening with distance. Normally invisible, he could see them; the hair-thin umbilicals of red aura that connected them to her. Perhaps Perhaps he could just cut those strings and try to assert his authority.
We would only get in the way as we are if we tried to rejoin the main battle.
Spending some of his own stored-up reserves, Victor sent a tendril down the side of the building, into a top-floor room. There were corpses there. A double suicide by way of sparklock. He didnt worry about it.
May as well use these abandoned dogs for experimentation.
With his source of fuel secured, he bound the beasts at once, bathing them in bonefire without wait until they were immobilized.
We shall require an understanding of their internal structure to usurp them, so that we may change them beyond their creators understanding before she can try to reassert control.
One of his flesh-brambles split apart, forming a number of special tendrils, ones which Victor had only learned to form recently. Thin, gangly, supremely flexible, with a needle-like point and eyes set right behind it. He could see through them, if he focused with an unerring precision. The structure of an eye was far more complex than he had anticipated in some ways, yet also far simpler in others.
Truly, that is what made Koschei the King of All that Lives: A supreme anatomical understanding beyond all others.
Then let this battlefield vivisection begin.
Zefaris hadnt been entirely sure what Victor had meant by his message, but it clicked when she saw his servitors gather in front of her and twist into humanoid forms, opening their backs towards her. She just had to reach out and grab them, just like Zel had done to Midnight Wolf back in Agartha.
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With no more effort than a thought, the servitors were hers to control, and like men stepping into tank suits, her Phantoms took shape already midway through entering into their new vessels. The merge was almost unsettlingly seamless, but Zefaris, Mata, and Vaceran had to fight twice as hard to protect them in this brief time of vulnerability.
An improvised combination technique?! How quaint! the Flesh Sculptor cackled, but her shift of target priority showed that she took it completely seriously.
Phantom Manus, both Inquisitor Phantoms, all her Sword and Gun Phantoms, and three of her Formless Phantoms all found their places within the ten shells Victor had provided. The instant they sank into their boney forms, something changed.
There was the lightening of the strain on Zefs soul, making it easy to call out her remaining two Formless Phantoms and even the Tankman Phantom, but that was perhaps the least of it. The monochrome of Victors bonefire blended with the pale-blue of Zefs Phantoms, imbuing all their attacks. They were slower in pure movement, that was true, but any loss of mobility was made up for by being able to put rocket-thrust into any motion. Moreover, they acted with just a touch more independence, requiring a bit less micromanagement thanks to the assistance of Victors servitor-spirits. Their guns blazed with both spirit and bonefire, blades cut spirit and flesh alike, leaving the lingering scourge of bonefire to calcify the wounds.
EMBODIMENT FORMATION
FIERY VESSELS FOR THE DEAD
MAGUS GESTALT HANIWA MARCH
A phalanx just fifteen strong marched ahead, with but one to serve as commander and fire support at once, but that was enough. This alone turned the tide against an encroaching wave of twisted flesh.
As most of the Phantoms carved ahead, the Tankman Phantom served both as heavy fire against the Flesh Sculptor and cover for Zefaris. She had finally found the time to make her move. The Flesh Sculptor was losing patience, and so, Zefaris set her plan into motion. The occasional stray bullet, the occasional flash of light from her eye, that was all it took to set it up. The Flesh Sculptor was too busy dealing with her and her allies onslaught to notice it.
A command to her Phantoms was the final straw.
All at once, they spread out and opened fire on the Flesh Sculptor. She caught on and sent the flying knife right at Zefaris, but the Nameless Phantom shot it out of the air, sending it hundreds of meters off-course before the Flesh Sculptor managed to reassert control.
A barrage of dragonsteel shot and slugs, imbued with gelum, crashed in from all directions. Previously frozen in time upon the surfaces of her kinetic mirrors, now released to strike their prey, forcing the Flesh Sculptor on the defensive.
BELLADONNA SIGN
RECOLLECTION OF IKESIAS FALLEN
PHANTOM SCRIPTURE: GHOST PLATOON
Five gleaming coins soared skyward, each painstakingly forged by a divine smith, each glistening in the sun. Zefaris relished seeing the Flesh Sculptors eyes go wide as she saw her raise her gun, but not aim at her.
Perhaps five shots of dragonshot were a waste, but Zefaris didnt see it that way.
In the span of a second, she flickered five times, and nearly instantly, five comets of blazing gold soared skyward. Deaths Lieutenant held up its pistol, but the sudden deluge of draconic power made it twist and grow, expanding into a golden, dragon-mawed cannon in a near-instant.
295 - Golden Death From on High
Deaths Lieutenant pulled the trigger at the exact right moment, no sooner and no later, to ensure that its single shot would strike at the same moment as the five others. It was not a mere comet, but a meteor worth comparing to the great feat enacted by Sigmund during the Battle of Ubuls Tomb.
For a moment it felt like the world froze, even without any input on Zefs part, and her eyes met the Flesh Sculptors.
Five hammers from the heavens descended, five bullets forming the claws of an illusory dragon-claw to tear apart their prey, and in their wake, a ghostly, snarling head of Eisengeist, wrought of ghostly-green, eyes and maw both billowing golden flame as it flew.
In the next moment, the Flesh Sculptor was gone.
No body, no clothes, not even the slightest sign she had been there remained.
Counterintuitively, the collateral damage was minimal. The vast and terrible power of a Dragon Descendant had been given a clear purpose, and swiftly scattered once that purpose was fulfilled. The shockwave had torn the shingles off of the buildings in the immediate vicinity, and a substantial chunk of architecture had been outright erased below where the Flesh Sculptor had floated But that was it.
Zefaris shivered. It was half out of thankfulness that Eisengeists power had been spread out over such a large area, stifled by the cursed mask And mostly directed at Teutobochus.
The other half was excitement to see what a Thundercannon would do to one of these shells.
Meanwhile, halfway across the city, a man known by many in his own sect as The Mercenary, found his solo tactics to have turned against him.
Joseph had spent the battle picking off stragglers with his mace and custom rifle, as well as shooting off obscuring rounds to screw up enemy intelligence. But now, he had been tracked down by a group consisting of a Red Robe, two Blue Robes, and five Black Robes. Normally, not an issue, but these eight were clearly a cut above the rest.
He fired a kinetic proliferator round into the chest of an eight-meter-tall humanoid made of swirling crimson aura. Within its mass floated all eight of the cultivators. The white crystal bullet ignited, streaking towards the formation-creature like a shooting star, only to explode in tendrils of white just before impact, smashing into it in an effort to throw it backwards. All such an expensive round did was stop it for a half-second. His mace thrummed on his hip, having built up a huge kinetic charge But it was beyond safe limits. He couldnt swing it without either breaking his arm, or doing something that would unequivocally reveal his true identity.
Then again, he was far from any of his fellow sectmates. Putting his rifle on his back, Joseph focused on escape for now, taking a sharp turn into an alleyway too narrow for the giant to pass. It would just change shape, but that was an extra delay to give him time. He quickly kicked back a mouthful of Witchs Brew, keeping it in his mouth as he also took a crystalline pill. It crumbled between his teeth like rock sugar, but unleashed a burning flame into his mouth, only to be flushed down alongside the elixir. A power he had never quite gotten a full handle on ignited within him, and the Mercenary took his wood-knot mace in hand, exiting onto the open street and turning to face his enemy as it came out of the alleyway.
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He would need some space for this.
Eight Stars of Calamity shine in the heavens. They bring death upon the fools who stand before me!
The correct incantation was: They bring death upon the enemies of the Estoras name!
But that hadnt been the truth since the time of Estoras himself.
His mace thrummed with power, blue flame seamlessly mixing with its vast kinetic charge. The noise and feeling when he brought it down were both truly concussive, and no wonder. Where once had stood buildings, between which enemy cultivators charged at him, was now only a desolate channel. It had half blasted, half burned a path straight ahead, forming a tunnel five meters across and coated with a fine, fleshy slurry.
Joseph collapsed on the spot as his flame sputtered out. He dragged himself through the streets, killing three more Black Robes on the way before he set down in a nicely out of the way building for the time being. He would recover thanks to the Witchs Brew, but the battle would likely be over by then. Cultivator battles tended to either go on for weeks, or end within a few hours, with next to no nuance of timeframe.
The Estoras Familys secondary line had lacked the resources to properly practice the Seven Calamity Armaments, so they had developed their own version, allowing them to harness the same power without all the tattoos, instead leveraging the secondary lines access to certain unique alchemical ingredients. They had mutated themselves into being able to wield the Calamity Flame in a more limited manner that demanded special pills. Joseph personally didnt give a rats ass about inheritance disputes, that was centuries apart from him. Hed just figured that if anyone could give him the resources he needed, it would be the Newman Sect. Thus far, it had worked. That Ersatz Soulfire Pill had been made only weeks ago.
Something caught his eye as he set up his rifle; a burst of red light from an apartments windows, followed by a man leaping out of it onto a rooftop. He wore a tattered crimson robe, showing swollen, pink flesh beneath, and a dagger dripping with blood was clutched in his hand. A deep red, almost burgundy-coloured, miasma wafted off of him. Joseph loaded his longest-range bullet, and, going off of the trail of destruction in that area to determine Strakes proximity, he sent an aetherwave message to the man to point out the priority target.
One shot wouldnt be enough to take the man down But it would be enough to slow him.
Atrine-enriched powder, packed tightly around a single hair of Dracofulminate, which he had glued in place with a paste of gunpowder soaked in Black 7. Hed found simply asking to go much further than it would in any other sect And it helped that he was one of the few disciples who had a gun that could withstand the power, making him a prime tester candidate for when the elders were away. The bullet was a spitzer-head made of a steel on the softer side, with a cold-iron penetrator.
The golden comet tore off the mans arm, sent him careening to the ground And smashed the living hell out of Josephs shoulder. It wasnt dislocated or broken as far as he could tell, but it absolutely warranted another swig of Witchs Brew.
296 - The Demon Named Zero
It had been unsettlingly easy to integrate the Dragons Nerves with Zeros drive train. Their glistening-yellow, almost golden-looking tissue didnt react until Strake fired up the engine. But the moment he did, they greedily began drinking up all its output. Hours later, the bundle of nerves had split apart and enveloped the drive train, like a parasite desperately latching onto a new host.
There was no doubt in Strakes mind that the reason was the special fuel cell additive he had been sent in addition to the nerves. Dark marbles seething with miasma, yet also with unprecedented power. Supposedly, they were created as a side product of refining dragons blood; this so-called Black Nine could be simply dropped into the Thundercharger to inject its power. Just a single one had been enough to spur the dragons nerves into motion.
Zero hadnt just gotten faster and more responsive. Its disposition had changed. The bloodlust, previously unfettered and savage, now felt Tempered. Like the machines spirit had somehow been elevated, given the faint gleam of reason. He couldnt run the engine always using Black Nine, of course; it caused thrice as much strain as Thundercharger. Nonetheless, he carried all the black beads hed been given.
In the end, he didnt care for the why or how of it. That was for the garage, for later.
Right now, all that mattered was the battle.
A message came in from Joseph, the Mercenary. A priority target in the area. Joseph intended to fire a bullet that would produce golden light at the target. The golden ray streaking through the sky made it easy enough to track him down, and thereafter to corner him. Sure, he had to smash through several houses since the alleyways were too narrow, but he didnt mind.
Slaying the red-robed disciple came easily, given that he was in shock from having lost his arm; simply grabbing him was enough. The pilebunker did the rest.
However, Strake received another message from Joseph. A sizable enemy force closing in from the sides, trying to encircle Zelsys position. That just wouldnt do, that wouldnt do at all. Just like he had done in the War in countering Inquisitorial deep strikes, Strake now used these same instincts to counter another enemy tactic of the same nature.
Strake opened the emergency hatch and pulled out one of the cables, now covered in yellow nerve-webbing, its plug glistening with alien nervous fluid. Into his side it went, burning and thrumming, Zeros cables and machinery becoming truly like part of Strakes own body. An unconscious laugh cackled out of him. It wasnt exactly safe, but he wasnt too worried. The Blue Moon War had turned his liver into a mass of scar tissue already; his new homunculus replacement could take this much abuse, and it had a dedicated plug interface.
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Being a Tactical Supremacy Asset has its perks, after all he thought as he went through preliminary checks.
A fulgur capsule went into the Thundercharger and an alchemic iron pill went into his own mouth, followed by a cigarette and a swig of something special. Half Witchs Brew, half an improved version of Victory Wash; for unknown reasons, mixing a vitae elixir with Victory Wash directly wouldve normally caused an explosion. This liquid merely had a habit of producing bubbles that created small detonations inside the flask when they popped.
The smell of burning hair failed to overpower his cigarette, and like a crimson comet, Zero went sprinting down the city streets, running through buildings as if they werent even there. One-hundred klicks per hour. One-fifty. Two-hundred. The reactor purred. Not a single solitary sign of heat issues. This was magical.
Not Black, Blue, nor Red Robes could harm him, and their beasts became paste beneath Zeros iron feet. Only one gave him a fight worth talking about; a huge construct of aura formed by three Red Robes and three Blue Robes. It was almost like being back in the war, pounding away at Ubuls titanic form, only much less satisfying since this was aura rather than living stone.
Bit by bit, he tore it apart.
Pilebunker by pilebunker, high-velocity shell by high-velocity shell, which screamed deeper into the city long after penetrating the target. He didnt have any canister shot. He had simply forgotten to bring his macroshotgun at all.
It didnt matter.
Of the six, three were mangled corpses, and one was a fine paste splattered across Zeros frontal armor plate, slowly withering away as the machine digested the mans remains. Horrifying metallic screeching kept emanating from it as its deformed plates forced themselves back into shape.
The fifth was in Zeros grasp, impaled by a pilebunker through the spine, his arms broken.
The sixth He was unharmed.
Unharmed, but cornered.
WERE YOU TRYING TO ATTACK THE NEWMAN ELDER FROM BEHIND, OR WERE YOU PERHAPS RATS TRYING TO ESCAPE THE CITY? DOESNT MATTER. DIE AND BECOME FUEL. SCUM.
Who are you to speak to us with such disdain, golem? Was your maker truly so arrogant as to waste time teaching you to pass judgment on humans?! the Red Robe retorted, but fear filled his voice and his eyes darted back and forth in search of an escape route.
The slit in the front of the crimson demon opened. The disciples eyes went wide. Demonic eyes stared back at him from behind the thick barrier in the slit, shining orange and obscured by swirling smoke. Not a mere golem. This was a fire demon entombed in a coffin of screaming iron. The red golems pilot spoke, his voice still blasting out with the unnatural, machine-like distortion: IN ALL THE WORLD, THERE ARE FIVE REASONS TO MAKE WAR. THREE OF THEM CAN BE RIGHTEOUS. YOURS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE THREE. YOURS IS A REASON OF GREED AND ARROGANCE. YOU. ARE. SCUM.
With just one shot from the Type-Z, before he could give his response, the Disciple of the Order of Six Truths became a corpse. With a single stomp, he became an organic repair slurry. Baruch Hickeller, a Core Disciple. True age, 76. Physical age, 31. A man who had consumed albedo extracted from dozens of tortured and sacrificed mortals, who had been thought of as a combat formation genius of the new generation.
Now, a fine paste.
297 - Prayers
Within the cathedral, upon its topmost floor, two men stood, both wearing gold-embroidered white robes. One looked no older than twenty five, agelessly stuck at the peak of physical condition, while the other had a long, white beard and hair, and his face was scrunched up with wrinkles.
The preparations are nearly ready, Elder Third, said the wrinkled man.
Good, smiled the Third Truthseeker. He took a sip from a gilded chalice, plundered from the churchs altar, now filled by a milky-white, glowing liquid. Liquid Albedo, the substance of the spiritual body, extracted from the sacrifices thus-far used for purposes other than the Ceremony. A pathetic amount, a drop per mortal. Ive waited a century, I can wait a few more minutes. Once Ive broken through, it will be a matter of waving my hand to rid us of these pests.
However
However?
Theyre praying, sir.
So?
Weve lost several Inner Disciples to moving statues since it started, and yields of resentful aura for the purposes of strengthening our disciples have dropped by nearly one-third. It will not impede the Ceremony, but It seems the city was not as unprotected as we had thought.
Where is it going? The aura cant just vanish into thin air. The statues?
We thought so as well, but No. Its going somewhere we cannot follow. Somewhere beyond the Sea of Fog. There is great disparity amongst the mortals prayers - some pray to Omniudex, the Black Judge. A few recognized what we are doing, and prayed to the Skinless One for intervention before taking their own lives; those few were what caused the statue incident. They pray to saints, to any and every god they can think of, to their ancestors, to the Boar Knight, founder of Eberheim. They even pray to the so-called Walking Tribulation or to the New Man. But its all going elsewhere. We dont know where. As if some higher divine artifact is redirecting all that spiritual energy, and we dont know what it is or where it is going.
Surely, it cannot be this cathedral.
No, no. It is a potent leyline well and ritual site, but it merely amplifies the energy, without discrimination.
Then we have nothing to worry about.
I am sure that is the case, sir.
Meanwhile, elsewhere across the city
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Victors combat vivisection had gone perhaps a little too well. It became abundantly clear, almost right away, how the Flesh Beasts functioned. Whatever horrific rite had been used to create them caused the constituent humans to merge together not just in body, but in spirit. Even more disturbingly, their hearts fused to become the beasts core, their brains broken down and reassembled into many nodules that allowed the beast to function even when badly mangled. The one weak point, the heart, was not a weak point at all. It was the toughest part of the creature and constantly moved throughout its inner volume.
As for what secret he found out It was within that composite heart. A shining, seething core, a crimson jewel that spilled out resentment and suffering so potent he thought it would kill him if he so much as came near it.
Perhaps it might have, if the Oculus had not reacted. The accursed crimson force spilled out and raced up his observer-tendril, shooting out of it towards Victor, but the staffs eye sucked it in before it could touch him. An overwhelming sense of anger burned in the back of his head; not his own, but that of the staff, or perhaps the anger whatever force had just caused that reaction.
His mind fell upon Dumas words regarding the Oculus and the Eight Onbashira. After killing the beast, he quickly used his third hand to bring out the Itrian Scroll as he took to working on the second Flesh Beast.
A technique he had looked into, but which he hadnt thought he would need soon.
A technique specifically for dealing with demons who turned animals and people into monstrous pawns. Not one specifically for this circumstance, but close enough.
For anyone other than him it wouldve been difficult to the point of impracticality, as it demanded the memorization of sacred chants and constant, flawless mental recitation in order to perform.
Its no Teutobochus, but fortunate coincidence is not to be scoffed at, he thought as he memorized the chant in a few reads and began repeating it under his breath. A truly two-track mind was a wonderful thing.
After witnessing the core of a Flesh Beast, he found that he could focus in and pick it out even from outside a beast, a spiritual hot spot.
The Oculus, in its role as the implement of purification, fulfilled its role to staggering effectiveness. The moment he struck the second Flesh Beasts core - the very moment his spear touched the heart without even piercing it, in fact - the Beast fell limp and its animating force rushed up into the Oculus.
There, he burned it, and found the cursed essence unraveling, only to come back together in a different way. Knots within it came undone, and the spiritual fetters that had kept the Beasts malice pointed away from its makers had been replaced by the simple knowledge to recognize the demonic arts that had given birth to it.
In short, Victor showed the beast who it should be trying to kill.
The fact that he used his dominion over flesh to rearrange its physical build was just a bonus. He decided to call it a Flesh Union.
With the newly-freed Flesh Union going off to chase after the Orders members, Victor returned to Lady Zefaris and enacted the fruits of his experiment. As he flew, he skimmed the rest of the technique, and something curious caught his eye. It was, supposedly, spiritually taxing in the extreme. Although the abnormal state of his soul explained a part of why he felt it to be only somewhat challenging, there was something else there: Prayer. The scroll explicitly recommended the technique for defense of shrines and cities:
...For it is through the Onbashira that the prayers of those we protect may be rendered into strength to do so.
298 - Flesh Unions
Zefaris received another aetherwave message, mere moments after having struck down the Flesh Sculptor.
Elder Zefaris, I request that you minimize physical damage to the flesh beasts if it does not impede forward progress overmuch. I wish to make use of them, Victors voice rang out inside her head.
Are you certain that your plan will work? she asked back.
If what I wish to do fails, I will abandon it, came an answer right away.
It was not an unreasonable request, so she chose to trust him.
The beasts were stunned without their commander for a few seconds, and even once they resumed attacking, they had lost the precise tactics that had made them so dangerous. A few Red Robes and even Blue Robes moved in to try and retake the reins, but they all met their ends at the muzzle of her gun.
Victor thereafter returned, carrying in the ring of his staff a blazing flame tainted by the same cursed crimson light as that which the enemy harnessed. He flew unsteadily, holding the khakkhara in a death-grip, using all three of his hands. Then, he stabbed the first flesh beast he came upon, and the crimson drained out of it and into his staff, the creature falling limp Only to reflux back down its length and return into the beast.
He left it behind and moved onto the next beast, repeating the process. Meanwhile, by the time he stuck the third, the first beast had begun transforming. Its flesh twisted undulated, bones cracking, meat squelching, skin ripping and reforming. Gradually, the substance of four humans that had been brutally merged together was transformed into a giant humanoid with two heads, a face on its chest, and another on its back. Its build was immense and deformed, with a barrel-like torso and trunk-like limbs, sagging flesh everywhere. It turned a wrathful gaze towards the nearest member of the Order.
E-VIL! the beasts four voices screamed all at once as it leapt towards the cultivator, slashing with its clawed hands, spewing acid from its mouths.
One after another, the same thing repeated with each and every beast Victor struck with his staff. It looked like he was pulling the crimson energy out of them, changing it, and then returning it somehow. Each time, the flame in his staff grew, and Zefaris instinctively felt it to be different somehow from bonefire. What was he doing?
She didnt want to disturb him in case it was particularly delicate, and so she shook off the shock and focused on covering him, belting out a command to Vaceran and Mata, who were also similarly shocked.
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Ensure that Victor is not disturbed, protect him from the enemy! she shouted.
The air felt strange. Winds began to pick up, coming from the city center, and it wasnt just the air that was moving. She could see it; not clearly, but it was there. An ominous aura swirled about the cathedral, but streams escaped the mire and flowed Somewhere. Not only that, any stream in Victors vicinity was sucked into the eye of his staff, not being consumed, but passing through it and growing in intensity twofold. It was a holy artifact, so she supposed it might be naturally amplifying the desperate prayers of Eberheims people.
Zefaris didnt expect divine intervention to come But she supposed the Newman Sect and its allies were close enough.
The redhead soon enough landed by her side, his helmet open, rivulets of sweat running down his face as he leaned on his staff.
Their advance deeper into the city from that point forward felt almost too smooth. Zefaris dared not presume there would be no further major resistance, but That turned out to be the case. The vanguard of Flesh Unions did all the hard work for them, tracking down the Orders members with greater effectiveness than any of the Newman Sects members, as if they just knew where they were to begin with.
In the absence of a constant, incessant demand for her full attention, Zefaris decided to look ahead And asked Victor to lift her high into the sky. At this point, she was certain that a fall from terminal velocity would do more damage to wherever she landed than to her, and she was certain she could stop herself before that came into play.
He brought her up there, over a hundred meters above everything, and there she carved a glyph into the air to stand on.
If I may, why this far up? Do you mean to carve a glyph of Eternal Snow around the whole city? Victor asked, basing his assumption on what he had read of the Blue Moon War.
No, no. The environment which allowed that to happen doesn''t exist here, I just wanted a good vantage point. Look she pointed towards the cathedral at the center of the city. Countless bodies were strewn about its surroundings, a small lake of blood in the center of the square in front. With normal sight it looked as if huge piles of meat were placed around the perimeter, but Zefaris saw what they were; people, melded together, yet still alive. For some reason dead Order cultivators and smashed-up statues were also spread around the place in a few spots.
The bodies?
No. The array patterns. The inconsistent channels gouged into the ground, the torn-out cobbles. Even the way the meat snakes over the square and climbs up the cathedral. Theyre not just painting a giant array glyph, but turning the entire square into a
The words caught in her throat as she saw the bigger picture.
...No. Not the square. Its the whole inner city.
I Admit that I cannot see much more than the base pattern. Like a spiral closing in on the cathedral.
Thats enough for you to help me.
With what?
Sabotaging the array, she stated matter-of-factly. We will time our entry into the inner city so that Zelsys takes the bulk of their attention, and while they are distracted, we will plant resonators at key points around the glyph. Its designed to first expand and magnify the energy of the sacrificial rite by tapping into some well of power beneath it, probably a Leyline Well. The second step is capturing it and harnessing it in some way I cannot quite make out, as the glyph continues into the cathedral.
Despite the certainty of her words, she wasnt.
299 - Array Patterns
Zefaris herself wasnt sure how, but the great array unfolded before her eye as if it were far simpler than it truly was. She kept noticing patterns, one after the next, half-consciously picking out smaller glyphs whose functions were only made evident by their placement in the greater whole. It was half the labour of her eyes, and half mental conditioning kicking into overdrive.
Shed felt this before.
Back then, in the killing fields. She had known a handful of techniques, techniques she had burnt on the pyre of freedom when she rewrote her own soul-signature. Looking back, it was the most obvious possible instance of destroying ones own cultivation, basic though it was. One of these techniques had been born from repeatedly identifying human silhouettes at a distance, and it felt almost exactly like this.
An eye technique for recognizing both patterns and breaks in them. The gap in her spiritual muscle memory had naturally mended, just as a man who had once been strong could more easily rebuild his strength than one who was building strength from nothing.
What shed possessed back then didnt even hold a candle to this, of course.
...Lady Zefaris?
Shush. Almost done.
Almost done discerning the rough positions of the disruption pylons. They wouldnt be resonators, but something else. It was fine. She would figure it out on the spot. The array had gaping holes and vulnerabilities; masked, but undeniably there. At first shed thought it was just not finished, but that wasnt it. The Order of Six Truths was trying to replicate a greater, older formation, filling in the many gaps with their own glyphs, ones which were unsettlingly similar to the Black Rods Antediluvian Glyphs. They didnt pull at the eyes, didnt pulse with ancient power just from merely being written, and they certainly didnt brand their meaning onto the world, but a trace of the real thing still remained in them. They were echoes of something greater and more real, just like the entire array.
Alright, bring me down. Did you notice anything that stood out about the array? Besides the gore.
Uh The spiral structure? It will likely generate a whirlwind of some description, or a whirlpool.
What of its construction? Not the design itself, the way it has been made.
Oh. That? I thought I was seeing something incorrectly, but I suppose it looks Unfinished? I struggle for words, my eyes are not as good as yours. Perhaps a closer look will help me.
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A closer look did indeed help, once they had advanced far enough. It was still a good distance from the Inner City; Victors sight was, after all, still far beyond that of any mortal. They stood atop glyphic platforms carved into the thin air, a swarm made up of Phantom-possessed Servitors, Tankmen, and Flesh Unions carving a bloody swathe forward. Across the city, the carnage and chaos of Zelsys advance was still easily tracked by what seemed to be a localized storm. She was well ahead of them in terms of proximity to the Inner City.
Even as they watched in relative peace, the both of them rained death on the enemy; it was merely not their full focus at the moment. The cathedrals state was among the first things to become clarified with a nearer vantage point; a vortex of crimson aura already swirled around the building, its source undeniably at the cathedrals highest point, the belfry. This, combined with its elaborate, grekurian architecture, masked certain things, but from up close, it was unmistakable. What had, at first, seemed like a handful of fleshy tendrils crawling into the front door and up the spire, was in fact an elaborate latticework of flesh covering the whole structure.
He turned his gaze towards the great glyph itself, and, just the same as the cathedral, so too were previously unseen aspects of its construction revealed with a closer-up look. Victor focused his gaze, dialing it in on the flow of the same accursed energy that still blazed inside both his staff and the Flesh Unions, stubbornly unwilling to depart until its resentments were sated. What had been quite tricky to pick out before now jumped out at him, highlit by the manner in which that resentful energy coursed through it.
Well? Do you see it? Zefaris questioned. Her tone of a teacher trying to tease the right answer out of a student was becoming increasingly more prominent.
It looks like a tapestry I once saw in my familys home. It had been half eaten-away and patched up just well-enough, with fabrics that were barely good enough, themselves not woven into the correct patterns, but dyed and embroidered to fit. The more you look, the more the patchwork jumps out and overshadows what is left of the original
Before he could even finish speaking, a thunderous, yet familiar CLANG resounded from the belfry.
An amused laughter sounded to the side. Zefaris merely shifted her focus, but Victor felt it. He felt that thing, well before he heard its warbling, sexless voice. The Skinless One.
IT IS STARTING, rang out its voice, amused beyond belief. It vanished from awareness, but its presence was unignorable.
A pulse of crimson light issued forth from the top of the cathedrals belfry. It crawled down the cathedral and into it. Victor, thinking quickly had already grabbed Zefaris and came careening toward the ground like a comet. She barely seemed to notice, throwing coins and firing Pentacle. The landing site had been guarded by a contingent of Red Robes, even shielded by a crimson vortex shield similar to the cathedral, but it was as if her bullets just didnt care. They struck the barrier, but all the barrier achieved was turning precision kills into spears of molten metal that scythed their victims apart. A few more shots served to finish them off. Truly, Forgehands work in worthy hands was a gracious terror to behold. In the middle, a man within a cocoon of his own twisted flesh writhed in unimaginable agony, sigils carved into him powering the barrier.
Of course, the god of sacrifice wouldnt miss out on something like this Zefaris deadpanned as they landed, moving in to close in on the vortex barrier.
300 - Meanwhile, the Elder is Having Fun
I thought they would try to hide the weak points instead of so openly defending them, Victor said.
I do not think they had a choice with this one. Look - they were trying to shore it up when we interrupted them, Zefaris said, pointing to a shredded corpse with what looked vaguely like the remains of painting supplies. A bottle of crimson-red paint spilled out across the cobbles, the puddle somehow remaining separate from the actual array pattern. Come, help me break the barrier.
That process entailed Victor forming a large devilbone blade around his spear, its surface covered in an upscaled version of the same pattern as the Terminal Fangs. The vortex split open around it, and while he held a section of it wrenched-open in this manner, Zefaris fired several small Black Nails into spots around the barrier glyphs perimeter to further weaken the vortex.
All this, in an effort to possibly save the man being used to power it. The moment Victor came into the cocooned mans vicinity, though, he knew. It was fairly obvious just from the fact he seemed to go comatose the moment the barrier dispersed, but Victor knew for certain.
Hes doomed. Whatever they did to him caused similar internal and spiritual deformations as the flesh beasts. They turned him into little more than a Living battery.
He looked up at Zefaris, whose attention seemed to be on the pillar of ice which her eye was carving from thin air at this very moment, though he knew she was listening.
Do you mind?
Hm?
I can do the same thing I did to the flesh beasts. Remove the spiritual restraints and turn whats left of him against the Order.
Go ahead, she deadpanned with a grim detachment.
Compared to the flesh beasts, a living battery was trivial. The energy within it, though seething and resentful just like the flesh beasts, didnt lash out at him. Instead, the moment he undid the Orders security enchantments, the batterys energy eagerly reshaped itself to his intent. Its return into the body induced a violent transformation into a hulking, musclebound biped with three-segmented arms. Bony plates formed over its skin, spurs erupting from its elbows, knees and heels. The ape-like Flesh Soldier began feverishly patrolling around them, only to catch sight of two Flesh Unions engaged in battle with a Blue Robe. Screaming in mindless rage, the beast went bounding towards them.
Victor didnt have time to observe, as he immediately had to focus on helping Zefaris construct the array disruption pylon. While they worked, Victor recalled his servitors to guard them, while Zefaris recalled all of her Phantoms to dedicate every iota of spiritual strength to this task.
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Meanwhile, a short time earlier across the city
Zelsys hadnt enjoyed herself this much since Borea. Sure, this bunch wasnt anywhere near able to truly push her, but what did that matter? They were good enough to stretch her wings, to really get a good feel for how Carnifex worked against a near-peer enemy. The hardest part of piercing deeply into the city had nothing to do with keeping herself safe, and everything to do with safekeeping the tankmen and her fellow sect members.
A handful of unique foes made a clear effort to halt her advance as she neared the inner city, but none of them managed to do more than slow her down. None of them were Red. Well, quite a few of them were red in terms of clothing, but none of them were Karmesin.
Streaks of draconic flame tore through the sky, the thunder of cannons in the distance, Zeros absurdly loud speakers screaming derision at whatever poor fool tried to argue his way into a few extra seconds of life. Zel found herself faced with a trio of Red Robes, all clad in a unique version of the garment. Two men and a woman; one man and woman had cloudy, flowing patterns in silver thread embroidered into their robes, while the third, apparently the leader, had a more complex version of those same patterns in gold. All three were Ikesian, resembled one another as siblings would, and looked as youthful as one could, but Zelsys could see the decades behind their eyes, no less than fifty or sixty for each of them. She mentally nicknamed them Silver Sister, Silver Brother, and Gold Brother.
Refreshingly, they didnt try to talk down to her, or to do the whole outraged cultivators gimmick. The only thing she got was a question: One, two, or three?
Three, she answered out of curiosity.
A faint nod and a series of gestures later, and the trios auras flared in unison as they floated into a triangular formation with the Silver Sister in front. Something was different about them; though still tainted and tinged crimson, their aura didnt come off nearly as revolting as the others. Perhaps a different cultivation method, or a different sub-faction of the same sect. Of course, none of the still-lingering trash on the periphery stopped circling her and trying to take pot shots, but that was fine. They put on a rather impressive show, revolving about one another only to end up with the woman in silver facing Zelsys, with the other twos aura seemingly pouring into her. Veins bulged under her skin and her eyes blanked out with a bright glow, drawing out a bayonet-like stabbing sword and a small buckler with razor-like edges. Powerful aura blasted out from the woman, only to implode back into her and enshroud her armaments. Meanwhile, the brothers brought out their own weapons. Silver had a long, slender basket hilt sword in one hand and a crossguard dagger of the same slender countenance in the other. Gold, meanwhile, brought out seven heavy knives attached to long, glyph-embroidered ribbons that moved as if alive. It wouldve impressed anyone other than Zelsys.
The trio set upon Zelsys with an utterly perfect synchronicity, the Silver Sister unleashing attacks of impressive power and accuracy. For once, she actually had to pay attention and take some care not to get hit. A part of her wanted to just use every opportunity available to break the three of them as quickly as possible, but she felt something there.
So, she played with them just as she had done with those before them, pushing the fight further and further into the city.
301 - 77-Tailed Death God
Carnifex writhed and darted about at her command, its many-segmented mass encircling the enemy. It seamlessly formed into differing numbers of Fang Rippers between each lash, changing its length in awkward ways that forced the three siblings on the defensive. The opportunities began all but offering themselves to her, but Zelsys pulled back, allowing the Silver Sister just enough room to do something. She didnt disappoint, gathering armament aura around her shield and forming a giant, ghostly version of it. Then, she threw the actual shield, spinning towards Zelsys, attached to her arm by an aura thread.
The technique inevitably shattered under the relentless buzzsaw ripping of multiple Fang Rippers bearing down on it at once.
The actual shield soon followed that fate.
The Silver Sister seemed wounded as if she herself had lost a limb, despite the visible absence of backlash. She shook it off quite quickly, choosing to rotate out with the Silver Brother.
He was Notably more impressive. He managed to hold his own against her onslaught for some time, deftly deflecting her strikes with parries that, physically, could not possibly have achieved what they did. It was kineticism, no doubt about it.
Zelsys relished in purposely letting a riposte slip. It was a huge, mighty thrust, empowered by armament aura and surpassing the speed of sound several times over. It was brought to an anticlimactic halt when it struck, penetrating no more than a centimeter into Zels skin, robbed of its momentum by Siphoning Pulse. The smug look of self-satisfaction on her face was more than enough to spark a realization in Silvers mind: I can do that too.
Before he could draw his blade back, she had already grabbed it in hand and forced one of her Thundergods into it. The beast emerged near the hilt and savagely bit into Silver Brothers wrist, forcing him to let go of his weapon. His eyes jumped between his weapon and her face, and he gave her a furiously indignant look that almost made her feel bad for taking the sword from him. It really was a very nice sword.
Dont worry, I wont use your own weapon against you. See, my cultivation method has a crippling flaw Zel explained, letting the rapier slide through her grasp so she could take it by the handle. Meanwhile, Carnifex retracted, its many segments connecting into an absurdly long shape before quickly collapsing down into its normal length. Several Fang Rippers also returned to her side, coated in gore from slaughtered fodder who had tried to sneak around back. As this all took place, the three siblings rotated once more, the Golden Brother taking the helm. The Silver Brothers blade cracked in Zels grasp, and the blade snapped off halfway down its length. She dropped it, completing the sentence: ...It tends to place terrible strain upon any weapon other than those bound to me. However, I find that it has become more of a neat trick than a problem.
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Rather than try to strike out at her again, the Golden Brother prioritized fending off Zels ceaseless barrage of probing attacks. Long-range strikes with Carnifex, similar attacks using some Thundergods while others threw Fang Spears, shots from her arm-cannon of all sorts, from high-velocity to shotshell to pure lightning. At any given time, no fewer than three Fang Rippers constantly tried to surround the siblings and eviscerate them. Sometimes, she just had one spend all its energy on launching one of its Fangs as a spear, recovering the idle construct once it was within her souls reach. All throughout, bolts and beads of lightning wrought from her own aura were peppered in.
Out of anyone on the battlefield, Zelsys was the most keenly aware of how ridiculous it was to call this onslaught casual. Yet, that was the truth. Compared to the heights of violence her current self was capable of, this was casual, this was toned-down. And, the triplets, to their credit, not only weathered it, but managed to strike back with an intensity that very nearly matched hers. In the wake of their battle, a swath of utter desolation was left. Neither Zels nor the Golden Brothers strikes spared anything they happened to strike, passing seemingly unimpeded through buildings and the solid ground. Every once in a while - or, by mortal perception, every other second - one of the Golden Brothers ribbon-bound blades managed to not just graze her, but to strike well-enough that it caused damage. They were precise, frighteningly so, striking at the exact points to paralyze, to cause wracking pain, to turn a vein into a gushing fountain or to inflict catastrophic organ failure with tiny injury.
It brought Zelsys to a truly hideous, cackling grimace. Her body had weak points such as these, for they could not be eradicated, but they were both few in number and well removed from their places on a normal human. The Golden Brother quickly noticed, but not quickly enough, not quickly enough to avoid over-investing. His aura blazed up like a human pyre in his latest, valiant effort, a flurry of blows creating innumerable phantom blades to accompany the seven. Despite having the power to tear apart solid stone and simply go through grown men as if they were not even there, Zels defenses caused less than one in twenty attacks to land, and all these managed to do was riddle her body with small, shallow wounds, cutting some veins and nerves here and there by virtue of chance.
77-TAILED DEATH GOD SIGN
CERTAIN DEATH BY A THOUSAND LASHES
The chase briefly came to a halt at the precipice of the inner city, as the siblings landed on a roof to recenter themselves. Zel did much the same, recovering from the effort she had spent on defense, though it was more of a light breather for her compared to the Golden Brothers heart-scrambling, buckled-knees struggle to stay upright. The triplets stared at her with disbelieving eyes as she not only didnt explode on the spot from having all her weak points struck over and over again, but also healed from her injuries right there on the spot. There was an insidious aspect to them; with each strike, the Golden Brother had injected some of his own aura into her. It wouldve been an issue, had her own Predator Aura not torn it to shreds; after all, she wasnt spending it on constructs or spilling it out willy-nilly, so it was that much stronger within her body and immediately around it.
302 - Formless Destroyer Sutra One: Everything is Violence
The Golden Brothers killing technique was, most of all, very interesting. Zelsys had seen a move like that; one of Halxians. Regardless of whether there was a real connection or if it was simple coincidence, that move was an awe-inspiring display that would serve to grow Halxians techniques.
In that same sentiment, the triplets were monstrous. Stronger than anyone she had fought before Ubul, perhaps among the strongest in the country And they were doomed. Doomed to be consumed, to have their meticulous arts dissected and incorporated into the growing behemoth of Sturmblitz Kunst.
It was undeniable.
And yet, the Triplets didnt seem like they were even considering giving up. They exchanged uneasy, yet determined glances, and Zelsys felt excitement rise, knowing that they were going to pull out some final ace. A few hand signs followed, and something changed, so quickly it could be a blink and youll miss it moment to anyone without a substantially superhuman mental processing speed. Before, their formation had served to empower just one of them. Whatever they had just done gave all three of them that same feeling of magnitude, and they moved to fall upon her like one mind in three bodies, rather than three individuals in near-perfect sync.
PINNACLE FORMATION
ABSOLUTE UNION OF SPIRIT
THREE KINGS ASTRAL CONJOINING
Roderick had seen them practicing the formation through the Three Kings False Conjoining, a lesser version, and he was also among the few to see the real thing, exactly once. The formation, though named after the Three Kings of yore, had little to do with them; the Triplets family just so happened to be descendants of nobles from that era. In combat, it had no weaknesses. The problems came after the fact. Separating could be charitably described as traumatic; the last time they had done it, the time Roderick had seen, the Triplets were out of commission for months, and they were never quite the same afterward. That was the second major flaw - the separation wasnt perfect. The triplets personalities and memories bled into one another. Since they were already near-copies of one another it wasnt a major issue psychologically, but rather due to the fact it disrupted their martial arts and forced them to undergo remedial training after each use.
Taking this opportunity, Roderick clandestinely ordered all his surviving subordinates to coordinate attacks with the Triplets.
At first, it looked to be working.
It looked like she had been consumed by the combination assault.
That hope of Rodericks was dashed when he caught a glimpse, and beheld a swirling dome of blades and lightning, enclosing the Living Tribulation. It refused to budge against any attack and moved with such terrible violence that it seemed to be creating a dome of force, but Roderick sensed no energies that would suggest such a defensive formation. Terrifyingly, rather than a spiritual or magical method, the defensive technique was repelling attacks through incredibly potent magnetic fields And sonic booms. A constant tsunami of thundercracks in all directions. What few attacks managed to penetrate these outer layers were either simply bounced off or torn to shreds like paper.
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If there was any appropriate moment to pull out the stops, it was this. Zelsys felt herself on the precipice of grasping another thread of enlightenment No, that wasnt it. She was grasping in an effort to spin her own thread from thin air, forming a new truth rather than trying to comprehend someone elses. Combat elixirs of her own bodys making flooded into her veins. In a near-instant motion she summoned a bottle of Witchs Brew, melted a tiny hole in its bottom by wreathing her thumb in lightning, and effectively inhaled its contents.
MYRIAD BLADES DANCE IN UNISON
GEHEIMNIS: THOUSAND-FANG FLAMENCO -ENLIGHTENMENT REPRISE-
Suddenly, she stilled. From an implacable blur of motion, blades, and lightning, the Walking Tribulation suddenly came to a halt in the middle of the open street, amidst carnage and desolation.
With her head tilted back and eyes cast skyward, she was smiling. Not grinning, madly, consumed by violence, as she had been this whole time, but smiling. Her smile widened, and with it, her ominous, invisible aura flared, and then seemed to retract into her. That whole time, a deluge of strikes and magicks rained down upon her, mighty techniques smashing against the whirling wall of blades that was her weapon. Thousands, tens of thousands of needles and daggers swarmed towards her from the Orders hidden weapon specialists, yet the only purpose they seemed to serve was to become more mass in her metallic aegis.
I get it now! Everything is violence! Everything is predator and prey! All of existence can be interpreted as nothing more than an unending dance of predation and violence! The sun, yes, the sun, too, is a warrior, a predator, guarding its territory!
A deep, roar-like laughter thundered out from her, and then, utter tranquility came over her as she tilted her head forwards, sweeping her gaze over those before her, and then the ground. Her next utterance, though clear, was far quieter, meant for herself. Nonetheless, he heard it, and knew that his death was nigh.
...anything can be my fangs, and anything can be my prey. It feels like Ive always known, but only now has it truly fallen into place.
In a flick of her arm, defense became offense. An inconceivable upsurge of lightning poured out from her, as if shed just been hiding the power of a storm within her all this time. It was, of course, the Retributive Battery, fed so generously by the battle up until this point, but Roderick had no way to know that. In an instant, her blades dozens of segments lashed out. There was a roar-like, prolonged thunderclap. A hundred heads fell to the ground, their bodies riddled with their own throwing daggers and needles.
With the return lash that drew back the blade, the Triplets also met their ends. Given the positioning, Roderick estimated that it had been intended to behead them. It was more accurate to say their necks were simply gone, shredded out of being. Their bodies suddenly became ravaged with wounds that hadnt been there before, as if caused by the claws of some invisible beast.
STEEL FLOWS AS LIGHTNING
LEAVING NONE TO HEAR THE THUNDER
BUTCHERING ART: BEHEADING SCOLOPENDRA
303 - Anything Can Be My Fangs
Some among Rodericks forces yet lived, having avoided the attack or simply not having been among its targets For a few seconds. The undulating lightning-bound chain of blades had retracted to its mistress to defend her once again, but by the time it did so, Roderick bore witness to three dozen more of his subordinates being torn limb from limb by invisible force. It wasnt just them, but their surroundings as well, stones and shingles torn from buildings, gashes and tears made by nothing.
In utter stillness, after the undulating mass of blades that was her weapon returned into a solid form, the woman stood And nothing could touch her. Even as his forces redoubled their assault, their weapons were torn to shreds by invisible forces. Those who strayed too close - which was much further away from Her than one would expect - were, just the same, torn limb from limb. Neither the ground, nor the buildings and lamp posts were spared. She was utterly calm, yet her aura struck out with the violence of someone who had succumbed to berserk.
He had seen something like this before.
A Sword Saints first epiphany, the rampaging Sword Aura slashing anything in the immediate vicinity. It was just like that. But The range of such a side effect was normally far more limited, and a Sword Cultivator typically had their first epiphany at a point just after one could qualify to be an inner disciple. Not to mention, this wasnt Sword Aura. It was far more akin to Beast Aura, yet at the same time, it had a wholly different degree of focus. If he were forced to describe it on the spot, he would say it had the brutality of Beast Aura with the precision of Sword Aura.
Such strength, you possess, and yet only now youve had the epiphany necessary to exert your aura directly upon the world! What are you, some humanoid cultivator-beast?! he exclaimed, throwing his voice, half in disbelief and half trying to confirm a hypothesis. Hed met cultivator-beasts with more convincing human disguises than this one And this situation was frankly too absurd for him to believe any other possibility. The only other reasonable option was that this woman had cultivated her aura to this advanced degree without ever learning any external techniques, even the most basic expression of it. The absurdity of such an idea was doubled by the fact that the two publicly-known Survivor Sects were both fairly aura-focused due to deriving their manuals from fragments of the Severing Scripture.
Im afraid not. I have merely been focused wholly on other facets of my cultivation up until now, you may consider me a truly unorthodox cultivator. Why, I fought against a remnant of one of the Divine Generals without being aware of what aura even was! she laughed in response.
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Roderick felt a sharp stabbing pain in his liver and bile rising in his throat at that ridiculous proclamation. The Divine Generals mustve truly fallen far if that was the case, yes, that had to be it.
It didnt feel like some great breakthrough to Zelsys. Rather, she felt as though she had managed to figure out how to directly control a particularly obstinate, well-hidden muscle And now that she knew, she put it to task right away. She had only studied some rudimentary Armament Aura techniques out of curiosity, but combined with this newfound deeper grasp of Predator Aura
Anything can be my fangs. Even the air.
With just a stare, she ripped out a mans throat. Not only that, with a mere glance, she made another freeze dead where he stood, like a rabbit desperately freezing in the face of a wolf. It was inefficient. Wasted effort, like glamour lifting, better put to task in a more practical application, but she would have been a filthy liar if she pretended for a second that she didnt immensely enjoy this transcendent sense of power.
Now that she knew how to do it, it was simple. So, so very simple, by comparison to wrangling lightning. And yet, she knew that the skill to externalize her Predator Aura would find its greatest strength in reinforcing her existing abilities, building upon her existing combat style. Anything could be her fangs, that was true. However, just as a Sword Saint preferred his own sword over all others despite being able to use anything as a sword, there were no fangs greater than those which were truly her own.
She pulled her aura back in, wanting to attempt at least a semblance of efficiency.
At that moment, she felt that with her epiphany something had changed, deep within.
The world came to a dead halt, at the peak of what felt like a deep breath of the soul. Zelsys felt an all-encompassing shiver pass through her; muscles, tendons, veins and nerves, the very cells of her being shifted and settled, and the self-same thing occurred within her spirit. Her connection with the Primordial Self suddenly felt an order of magnitude stronger. If before it had been a small window, it now became a doorway, roughly carved open by savage claws. This was the least of the ensuing changes.
In some way, somehow, beyond her understanding of essentia mechanics, the fulguric reaction within her second stomach collapsed. A pang of ache came from her heart; not the organ, but the orb which floated within it, her wellspring of Metallum, the Hammerforged Heart. It drank up every last ounce of Fulgur she could give, drained her of all she had, and it strained her spirit as if it were spitting out enough Metallum to form a tidal wave of swords. Like a starveling beast, the ravenous spark that had just been born within Zelsys consumed all it could And in the very next instant, it erupted with a fulguric outpour of magnitude and intensity she could scarcely believe. The world returned to its normal flow, and she realized what had changed.
304 - Evolution
Rather than use a pseudo-core formed in her second stomach, this reaction was rooted within the Hammerforged Heart. With each heartbeat, she felt her insides shifting. The Primordial Self wished to do something drastic. The Thinking Self let it. Red-black sludge rushed out of her lungs with a single hacking cough, only to be consumed and digested the moment they reached her stomach. Her reserves of vitae, previously abundant and vast, dwindled to a puddle as her body tore itself apart and remade itself in the span it would take anyone else to carry out a basic technique. Zels lightning, a blinding deluge mere moments ago, suddenly flickered out, only for a dense, flesh-pink aura to begin wafting from her. Unable to bring herself into greater movement at this moment, she walked forward, preparing to defend herself from newly-emboldened enemies who falsely assumed this to be the sign of her exhaustion. Her engine was only halfway through upgrading itself; the spiritual side was done, the flesh had to follow. The Primordial Self had deemed it of utmost importance, beyond her own safety.
As if appearing out of nowhere, a small band of Black, Blue, and Red Robes emerged. She recognized them. Some by the subtle damage to their robes, others by their eyes or stances. They were the small few who had survived her initial incursion.
You fools were here all along, waiting for your deaths she chuckled, her lungs no more than air-sacs at the moment.
One of them, for once, responded in a way that didnt make her want to roll her eyes out of their sockets. With grim conviction, a Blue Robe flared his aura, took a pair of unfolding mechanized crossbows out of holsters on his legs, and proclaimed: I will admit that you are still a monster, even with your lightning gone, and you shall most likely strike down the greater portion of us yet, but it is not our place to finish off a wounded beast. It is only our place to harry it and usher it into the hunters waiting spears!
I assure you, this little breather is just the eye of my storm! Zel bellowed, even as oxygen deprivation began creeping into awareness. She would be fine for some time, but the more she exerted herself, the more she would burn the rather short wick. They fell upon her, and she struck them down with lightning wrought of the Fulgur which she constantly produced even without breathing. She shored up this lackluster fount of power with her newfound spiritual fangs, minimizing physical movement with tight, efficient motions. A pair of Fang Rippers remained operational. They proved vital tools, her passive Fulgur supply sufficient to puppet them and slow their inexorable march towards failure. Fortunately, exerting ones aura did not demand pneuma And Zel had a terribly, terribly large reserve to draw on. As her Thundergods flickered out of being for the moment, the surviving Red Robe alongside a pair of Blue Robes thought to take the opportunity.
Mustering every bit of strength she had, directing focus towards her spirit just as she would towards her body when lifting something at her limit, Zelsys dug in. Of the Blue Robes, one got foolishly close and was dispatched by Fang Rippers. The other met his end when she snared him using several serpentine maws formed from a pile of rubble and put a high-velocity round through him. The fact that it only went into the building behind him rather than all the way through was testament to the Blue Robes durability.
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Meanwhile, she directed the full brunt of her Predator Aura at the Red Robe. It was Roderick Von Burgghusens last surviving puppet body.
The Red Robes body contorted. His own clothes and skin rose up against him; the puppet bodys aura, anemic as it was, crumpled like an empty can at ten hundred leagues beneath the sea. A panicked flare of his aura didnt save him so much as it ensured that rather than his own clothes, he was torn limb from limb by invisible maws wrought of thin air. Their gruesome shapes were briefly outlined by the splattering of his blood and the strange poisons that filled his guts, only to dissipate the moment the body died. It clattered to the ground like a sack of tools, and exploded into shrapnel as countless mechanisms inside the meatsack went off.
Still, Zelsys didnt feel entirely herself. Breath returned to her, but trying to Fog-breathe had her faltering. It wouldnt work without the Truth of Fangs. Zel tried again, this time flexing her spirit and her aura in concert with her body. She reached out the same way she normally did when Fog-breathing, just Further, using all of her faculties rather than the leftovers of ancient evolution that all humans possessed. At first it felt like liquid rushing into her lungs. An ethereal, immaterial liquid. Fuel. Fuel the likes of which she had only gotten a taste of. It felt like shed been running on fumes all this time, until this very moment.
At the apex of each slow, deliberate breath, lightning exploded within her chest, a blue glow shining out between her ribs. No more Fog. No more painstakingly dragging the essentia out of the air. With each inhalation, she drank from the Sea of Fog as a thirst-wracked lion would from an oasis. With each breath it became easier, and she gained a greater grasp of her lungs altered structure. They werent merely flooding with the Fog-seas ethereal liquid, but taking in a small portion and dispersing it into a vapour before breaking it down with a combination of Predator Aura and Metabolic Alkahest. The Primordial Self, in its animalistic genius, had redesigned her lungs to well and truly match the technique name Engine Breathing.
EVOLUTION SIGN
GEHEIMNIS: ENGINE BREATHING -LIQUID FUEL RETUNE-
It was finally all in place. The missing piece, the Truth of Fangs, had opened her eyes to the method by which she would make Conquerors Mantle grow into its full potential. She just had to grasp the process. To restructure the technique on the spot, in the middle of warzone, in the time it took the Orders next assault to catch up with her. On the whole, not too bad. Zel moved ahead with her incursion into the inner city as she invoked the Despot of Self and took active full control of her insides to better work it out.
If the Hammerforged Heart is to be the core, it may be simpler than anticipated
Second stomach. Ballast chamber.
Will that work?
With reinforcement. New lungs will not endure full output for long; flesh constructs. Used Eternal Beast to force the change. Will require some time to grow in permanently after this is over.
How long will they last?
Long enough.
305 - Evolving on the Spot is Not Easy
The Third Truthseeker stood atop the Eberheim Cathedrals belfry, in his hand a brass sacrificial knife. He looked over the macabre implement, feeling its arcane power thrum in his hand. It had originally belonged to the previous Third Truthseeker, who had once forged it from a piece of some dead god of sacrifice. Thirds Predecessor had tried to hold it over his head that the blade, the Orders strongest sacrificial implement, would shatter if he were to ever die. It was this that had led Third down the path which he trod, and which had ensured the Predecessor would never be allowed to die, now a slumbering mass of undying flesh sealed away under the Orders compound.
He was torn away from reminiscing by two things.
First, a disturbance. It was just as abrupt as that which came when Rosa met her end.
The Triplets were gone. Extinguished all at once. The only possible cause had to be a wide-area attack of sufficient intensity to overwhelm them. If that was the case, it was masterfully contained, because Third didnt sense something to suggest such a destructive power in that area.
Seconds later, his trusted right hand arrived to confirm what he already knew.
Lord Third, it appears that the Triplets have fallen as well, said the outwardly-older man matter-of-factly.
And after using the Three Kings Astral Coinjoining, at that, the Third Truthseeker replied in a conflicted tone. He was at once impressed and furious at the intruder, while also being disappointed in the Triplets and regretting their deaths. Losing Rosa had already been bad enough.
He wanted to go out there and put the intruders down himself, but that was no longer an option. Fleshy, crimson tendrils snaked up through the belfry and around the bell, conjoining the thousands of sacrifices. Third was a half-step from his apotheosis; he could initiate it at any moment, but he was hesitant, as it would force him to wholly focus on taming the vortex of sacrificial energy.
Friedrich, do something for me, said the Third Truthseeker.
Yes, sir.
Ensure that our intruder doesnt reach this place before I am in a state to dispose of her. You are not to put up your life lest it is absolutely unavoidable, do I make myself clear?
Any other specifications, sire?
No. Do what needs to be done.
As you wish.
Zelsys felt him coming before she saw him.
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An unassuming, older man. His aura wasnt oppressive or seething with sacrificial taint, though it was undeniably tainted and amplified just like the others. He didnt come soaring in on a flying sword, instead jumping along at a velocity entirely unfitting for his leisurely stance, hands clasped behind his back.
He met her no more than fifty meters from the Cathedral Square. She wouldve already breached it if she had focused wholly on hurrying along, but she would be that much further from grasping It. The next iteration of Conquerors Mantle.
Its one after the next with you lot. You wouldve done better if you had thought to come all at once, she said to the man. Despite her enhanced breathing technique and its superior output, she somehow didnt feel certain in being able to defeat him quickly. Something about him just didnt feel right. He was Familiar. Yet at the same time, foreign.
I am afraid I was otherwise preoccupied, the man said. The Core Disciples of our esteemed sect were deemed sufficient to deal with the threat you posed. I see now that we had overestimated them And underestimated you.
Zel mentally glossed over most of what he said, readily using the time he gave her to take the vital steps. There was no need to create a Pseudo-Core or compress vast quantities of Fulgur into it, but there was a process all its own. Much like the original iteration, this one, too, caused her to sprout antlers of bronze and iron. These, however, were smaller in mass, appearing swept back over the top of her head, and they were not accompanied by the skull-like manifestation from before.
It was abundantly obvious that she was doing something. Zel made no attempt to hide it, and Friedrich simply observed her as he talked. Only once he shifted his stance and held up his hands did she finally realize what it was that felt odd about him.
His eyes. Always observing. Always picking at the smallest shifts in her posture, at the subdermal muscle twitches. He was like her. And he had a real chance at winning if she didnt work out the successor to Conquerors Mantle very quickly. If only it were so easy as simply pushing huge amounts of Fulgur into the Hammerforged Heart. There was a pattern, an indisputably correct pattern. If only she could work it out.
For now, she would have to make-do, and make-do she did.
She made-do so very hard that her first clash with Friedrich obliterated everything in a thirty-meter radius. Neither of them was wounded by the brief clash. Friedrichs martial arts, though plain at a glance, were refined to such a degree that he seemed to have no apparent issue redirecting a Thunderclap Sting. From there, it became a more cordial conversation. As they fought, they spoke, probing at one anothers defenses. These were cordial introductions, a prelude to the real fight, which would be far shorter and incomparably more violent.
I shall see to it that such mistakes are not repeated in the future. I take it that you are the elder of this Newman Sect, yes? Zelsys Newman, correct? I am Friedrich, a Direct Disciple of the Fourth Truthseeker overseeing the deployment of my masters arrays in this city, as he is otherwise preoccupied. I wish to apologize on the behalf of those disciples which failed to show the proper respect you are due, and if you were to simply leave, I would see to it that no grudge is held
Ill have to interrupt you here. I came to this city on behalf of the Free Cities Alliance to break its isolation, suppress whoever was responsible, and take whatever actions appropriate to the reason for the citys isolation; that is to say, I have come to judge your sect and to thereafter enact the punishment with my own hands. Feel free to state your case, but Ill simplify it for both of us. Youre sacrificing people, are you not?
306 - Conquerors Mantle Superseded: Kugelblitz Incarnation! [+Artwork]
We are sacrificing mortals, Friedrich corrected.
Ah, I see. That does change things.
Yes, it does, Friedrich agreed, a relieved smile creeping into his face. It was fake, of course. A mere courtesy.
Dont misunderstand. It makes your crimes that much worse. Even if I were to give you a pass on using human sacrifice to begin with, you are effectively sacrificing children because they wont fight back.
I must disappoint you if you expect me to repent or beg for forgiveness. This is simply how we, the Order of Six Truths, have done things for as long as we have existed. It is not my place to speak on the morality of it.
Thats not disappointing at all! she laughed. Ive already decided to wipe out the lot of you; first in this city, then wherever the rest of your sect is hidden. It will be a refreshing change of pace to see filthy beasts in human skin die with a modicum of honour.
As they spoke, Zelsys still circulated Fulgur within herself in rapidly-alternating patterns, all based on the Hammerforged Hearts structure, all stimulating the organ in different ways. It was close. So. Damn. Close.
Ah. There it is.
The moment it fit was unlike any other. To compare it to being struck by the Living Storm was an insult to the flame which had just ignited within her, whose spark she had merely tasted before. It was no wonder that the Truth of Fangs was required. The absolute violence of this reaction was something beyond even a fulgur-igneic reactor.
Friedrich responded right away. His aura shifted in a subtle way, flowing within him as he drew in a breath. There was barely any tell, yet the effect was undeniable. Almost as if mirroring her own techniques, Friedrichs body whipped forward into a double-fisted punch, and from it erupted an invisible shockwave of truly terrible power.
Friedrich didnt see it.
He didnt see much of anything; the light was blinding.
One moment, he was stalling her with the classical tactic of interspersing combat with conversation. Hed felt her doing something, some kind of strange internal technique, a nonsensical one with no apparent pattern. It seemed almost as if she had lost control over her own lightning and was trying to recapture it, though the way she employed it with wild abandon certainly spoke to the opposite of such a possibility. Just what was she trying to do? Confuse him? Was this some elaborate method of covering up her real internal martial arts? She wasnt using any breathing technique that he recognized, that was for sure. The glow from inside her chest resembled the appearance of someone drawing power from a pseudo-core that was beyond what they could handle.
All of Friedrichs theories went out the window when it clicked. Even he felt it. The womans aura collapsed completely; not just that strange Pseudo-Beast Aura, but also the field of Fulgur that extended out in every direction around her. He couldnt even feel her spiritual presence for a moment.
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All he could sense was blinding light. An utterly, seethingly, brilliant outpour of light, and heat, and noise, a lightning bolt howling from the ground towards the heavens. Despite lasting all of a split-second, the intensity of it had made it feel far longer. Friedrich reacted without thinking, harnessing the only technique of his own that he imagined could possibly counteract or disrupt that energy. It burned away years and years of his lifespan with the strain of its usage, and it would regress his cultivation by months of seclusion training, but what had to be done had to be done.
DELUGE SIGN
A DAM IS BROKEN
A STREAM BECOMES A FLOOD
ALL ARE SWEPT AWAY IN THE DELUGE
HEURISTIC ART: DAMBREAKER CANNON
A small part of Zelsys felt bad about what she was about to do. A very tiny part, one which empathized with who she saw in Friedrich; a man who could have been a respected ally, even a friend, under different circumstances. That is to say, if he wasnt an active member of an extinction-worthy organization like the Order of Six Truths.
She simply brought out Carnifex, and just as she had done against Red, used it to form an umbrella-like shield, this time shrouding it in Predator Aura in addition to Fulgur. A shield of whirling blades accompanied by claws and maws of lightning took shape, its bluish hue almost creating the appearance of water swarming with horrifying monsters.
The impact of Friedrichs Dambreaker Cannon would not be denied, however. Whatever was behind it, it created a truly terrible power, one sufficient to send Zelsys flying. In the process of clashing with her own defense, the blast of force scattered so violently that it separated Carnifex many segments and, for lack of a better term, carried them off into the surrounding environment.
Zel righted herself as she flew, effortlessly pulling her scattered Fangs back together before she landed, sliding a short distance before she managed to halt herself using her left hand as a brake.
Friedrich stood, wavering, staring at her. He gathered himself, and as he did, so did she.
He had rudely interrupted her, denying her the opportunity to name the frightful power beating in her heart, this terrible thing which she had created within herself. All along, this was what Conquerors Mantle had been imitating. All along, she had been reaching for this, like a blind man trying to paint the sun, and only now did she have eyes to see.
Only now did she have everything needed. To call this a Mantle would be incorrect. She wasnt playing at a storm, or taking on the aspect of a Thundergod. This was hers and hers alone.
ABSOLUTE VIOLENCE SIGN
A STAR OF LIGHTNING WITHIN ONES HEART
FORMLESS DESTROYER SCRIPTURE: VOLUME ONE
GEHEIMNIS: KUGELBLITZ INCARNATION
Friedrich beheld a human, a beast, and even a creature possessing such a presence as to warp the world merely by being And yet, it was alien. By all accounts she gave off a presence alike to Lord Fourth in magnitude, yet she was unfamiliar, unorthodox, abnormal. The womans aura did not spill out, and she did not burn with such spiritual pressure as to destroy her surroundings.
Metal. Lightning. Flesh. Fury. Clarity. Evolution.
Ego and Violence.
307 - Blood Implosion Holocaust
Despite being acclimated to the presence of such a cultivator, despite having been trained to withstand such a persons directed killing intent, Friedrich briefly locked gazes with that being and nearly fell to his knees.
He instantaneously realized why she had withstood the Dambreaker Cannon, and in that same realization, he also became aware of the fact he could not conceivably halt her without putting up his life.
Thus far, he had kept up with her thanks to the Heuristic Truth. By this Pseudo-Truth, he could learn from any foe, and devise how to defeat them within fewer moves than he could count on one hand. He had thought, at first, that she practiced a similar Pseudo-Truth, but it wasnt so. In this moment, when he locked his gaze to the pools of burning light that her eyes had become, Friedrich felt her Truth wash over him.
Violence.
Pure and brilliant, simple even.
That singular obelisk of Truth, however, stood upon a foundation so vast and complex he could not comprehend it. It was not a simple, reductionist vision of the world, no. It was a vast network of beliefs and insights weaving together into an apex of Truth, exactly matching Lord Fourths own description of an ideal pseudo-truth. It could be as simple or as complex as she wanted it to be. By comparison, the Heuristic Truth felt as shallow as a stream, despite being regarded as the second most comprehensive of the Orders Pseudo-Truths.
Friedrich snapped out of his trance after only moments had passed in reality. He could see no path to victory But there was a path that would take him distinctly closer than others.
He brought out a bronze knife wrought in the image of Lord Thirds own sacrificial blade and enchanted in the self-same way. How many had this blade felled? How many times had he heard the Skinless One smugly commenting on the dark works in which he partook? He couldnt recall But he had learned something from that capricious god.
Its warbling speech echoed in his skull, almost like it was right here, whispering to him at this very moment. Indeed, Friedrich felt as if the skinless ones ever-bloodied hands rested on his shoulders right now. It felt so very real that he wanted to look around to see, but he knew better than that. It was a truth that contradicted everything the Order stood for; a truth exalting willing sacrifice.
From that grain of enlightenment, Friedrich had wrought a technique of self-sacrifice, with help from both Lord Third and Lord Fourth. It had taken several weeks of grueling mutagen treatments to prime his body and alter his blood composition on the off-chance he ever needed to do this.
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At that moment, as he held the blade and plunged it into his own heart, he saw the Skinless Ones form appear before him, floating over to whisper in his ear: The First Truthseeker awakened to the Truth of Sacrifice, and the others slew him for it. That is the legacy of your Order: Delusion and conceit.
With a cruel, mocking laughter, the Dead God floated away, vanishing feet-first as if it was unraveled, first into muscle fibres, then into nothing. Soon only its head remained, encased in a fully-enclosed helmet with numerous blades running through it. Even it began to vanish soon enough. Friedrich, meanwhile, set his own blood and spirit ablaze. It nearly felt as though time stopped for him, slowing to an absolute crawl. Unable to speak properly, he thought the incantation: For the Order, I shall give all that I am, all that I was, all that I would be. For the order I shall render up even my future incarnations, so that I cannot be reborn for a thousand years as anything but a cripple!
Suddenly, the Skinless Ones nearly-gone body reformed, and plunged its arm into Friedrichs body. It gripped something deep inside him, and pulled. An inconceivable pain shot through Friedrichs spirit as if the Gods fleshy hand were made of white-hot iron, dipped in poison, and wrapped in razorwire. It was such a terrible ache that it ought to have killed him in shock, but he remained agonizingly aware, awake, and clear-headed all throughout. His perception of time came to a dead stop, only the Skinless One being excepted. It painstakingly pulled and pulled, tearing out something even more vital and essential than the heart or the brain.
YOUR FUTURE SELVES ARE NOT YOURS TO SACRIFICE, FOOL.
When it finally removed its clawed hand, Friedrich felt a yawning hollowness, his sense of self diminished. Something inside him became vividly aware of the fact he would be a mindless vegetable within mere hours, a problem he would not have to deal with, since he expected to die within minutes. A glistening, iridescent orb about twice the size of an eyeball rested in its hand.
I SHALL, INSTEAD, TAKE THINE TRUE SOUL AND INCARNATE IT INTO A DYING CHILD IN THIS VERY CITY. YOUR NEXT SELF SHALL GROW TO REVILE YOUR ORDER AND ALL IT STANDS FOR. TAKE SOLACE. THERE ARE SHARDS OF MYSELF WHICH WOULD NOT BE THIS MERCIFUL.
The Dead God, with Friedrichs spiritual core in hand, once more began to vanish, leaving him to face the resumption of time with these words: LIVE OUT YOUR REMAINING MOMENTS AS A FLESH-AUTOMATON ANIMATED BY THE EMBERS OF THIS SACRIFICE.
His heart collapsed, consumed into a growing bolus of compressed blood that seethed, like a brown dwarf, with untold power. Soon there was not an iota of liquid blood left within him. In seconds, his body withered into a mummy-like state. By contrast, he felt the strongest he had ever been, the strongest he could conceivably be. In fact, no part of him cared for anything besides his objective: Halt Zelsys Newman. What shreds still remained of Friedrichs personality were irrevocably swept away in the growing maelstrom of power bursting out of his withered form.
SIGN OF SELF-SACRIFICE
HEURISTIC ART: BLOOD IMPLOSION HOLOCAUST
308 - Blood Implosion Holocaust Pt. 2
Zelsys could scarcely believe the deluge of power suddenly pouring out of her opponent But she felt the Skinless Ones presence, and thus knew this to be a high-level sacrificial technique.
So it was that they clashed, and in their conflict shook the earth below and set the air ablaze. For the first time in this city, she met one who could meet the full brunt of her violence head-on.
Thunderclaps and explosions rang out, a maelstrom of lightning and flame. Friedrich set forth one explosive shockwave after the next, noticably weaker than the first, but so close together that it didnt matter.
And with each clash, Zelsys unraveled him.
To say he was now a mindless berserk beast was inaccurate, but a certain nuance had been lost, replaced with an unwavering resolve. He was trying to kill her, but it right away became evident that was a secondary objective to preventing her from reaching the Cathedral Square.
More importantly, he had stopped learning. Before, it had been a fight as much as it had been a contest of who could be faster to analyze the others tactics and devise countermeasures. Friedrich had completely lost that. It was Somewhat familiar to Von Wicktens Entomodragon transformation, albeit far less revolting. Others soon joined in, swarming in as if called to this place all at once, several Blue and Red Robes, setting upon her with a sense of urgency that betrayed their panic. It was this same urgency that allowed her to slaughter them to a man within moments, slaying no less than four Blue Robes with a single lash of Carnifex. Smashing into a narrow apartment, the return-pull sent her fangs tearing through it, two more Blue Robes falling with its collapse. Fang Rippers cut them down before they could regain their bearings, and she turned one Red Robe into a fine mist with a shotshell. Despite not invoking Thundercannon, its effect was comparable to the very first time she had ever invoked that technique. With the same ease as throwing a punch, she called forth all six Thundergods and tore to shreds a pair of Red Robes that had gone around to flank her. Neither did they have time to attack nor to scream; the savage storm-gods struck with all the savagery of true lightning, and tore through their victims just as savagely - entering and exiting their bodies only once each. A liquid, boiling slurry of viscera burst out of the Red Robes wounds when Zel called them back, their smoking, convulsing forms toppling over.
Only two of Friedrichs reinforcements stood out. Another Hemomancer, even stronger than the first, as well as an individual whom she could not identify, because they were completely surrounded by a swarm of knives. She mentally labeled him as the Knifedancer.
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Friedrich completely ignored them, maintaining a single-minded focus on Zelsys. In turn, she had to focus on him whilst also defending from the pair. The Hemomancers attempts at directly affecting her, fortunately, lashed back before they could even take hold, but the Knifedancers blades did, in fact, dance, outmaneuvering her Fang Rippers. A small fraction of them - perhaps one-tenth, no more than three or four - would occasionally blaze with brilliant, azure flame, accelerating to a degree hard to keep track of even for her. If she could focus just on the Knifedancer, Zel was sure she would have no issue keeping up, but as she was, she was splitting herself two ways And the Hemomancer continued to pile stones onto her back by shifting to a defensive role, somehow manipulating Friedrichs blood-aura into shields.
For a short time, they got her on the defensive. Zelsys found it necessary to re-evaluate how she defended herself, growing increasingly aware of the fact she wasnt properly incorporating all her new tools. Instead, she was merely using what she was already familiar with, merely adding Predator Aura on top. Her sense of urgency rose with each passing moment, keenly aware that she didnt have time for a prolonged engagement, and with it, so did her anger. It bubbled and seethed, like water in a great steam engines boiler, empowering her with its explosive drive. Nonetheless, she retained her full faculties.
Absolute anger, yet absolute calm.
Absolute violence, directed with a scalpels precision.
Absolute control over her own movements and minimal dodges, motion enough only to make a strike miss, or to otherwise disarm the attack through deflection.
These were the foundations of her defense.
Skin as hard as metal, yet one which causes strikes to slip off or bounce away.
An aura of lightning that strikes at the enemy.
Fulgurmagnetism to twist foes blades aside.
Thundergods to act as extra limbs, whose loss would not harm her.
These were the floors, but when she had only possessed Rebound Pulse, that had been her ultimate defense, and had she not acquired all these other tools, she would have instead developed Rebound Pulse and her own physical defensive skills more than they were right now.
This was how she had explained it to the Newman Sects disciples, for their own sakes, so that they would understand how a layered defense compared to a monolithic one built on the total mastery of a few defensive tools.
It was just an analogy, of course.
Zelsys found the analogy of an ever-changing chimera to be more appropriate to her own martial arts, and it was high time for another metamorphosis into something yet greater and more terrible. There was a shift in the air. Her aura took hold of her immediate surroundings, reaching out, staking claim, insisting upon its supremacy. Its expansion ceased, for now, at the border of her fulguric sensory field.
Lightning struck out at anything entering it, yet did not merely impact as it had before, instead turning to a beast of serpentine form, a form of shimmering aura and lightning, made a touch more real by a gleaming skull of silvery metal. It was something akin to her Thundergods, yet quantifiably different, fleeting and without a consistent form, forced into shape by aura alone.
309 - Chrome Skull Viper
The aura-beast came in and out of existence the way a territorial viper came in and out of hiding. It snapped at one of the Knifedancers blades, only to vanish and instantaneously appear at the other side of Zelsys to do the same against blades from that same pincer attack. Even less than a Thundergod, it was not truly a being in any sense of the word, but a pure manifestation of the the Truth of Fangs, writ large in Fulgur and Metallum. The first issue Zelsys could discern was the fact it ate up much of the spare Fulgur output she had been using to pepper her enemies with lightning-beads, but she felt it a small price to pay. No, it was the fairly substantial draw on her aura that was the real problem One to be solved later. It was just another tool to use as needed in most circumstances, and to employ liberally when the situation called for the full, widely varied repertoire of violence at her disposition.
She took advantage of the storm-snakes behavior right away. Feinting a mighty strike against Friedrich, she managed to get ahold of the Hemomancer and dragged him in.
The serpent entwined its victim and tore out his throat, returning with the prize of a hunk of flesh, still suffused by aura. In a single bite, the lightning-beast made both vanish, and in turn, Zels aura grew by a small increment. The Viper then bit off its victim''s head, leaving behind only the Hemomancer''s charred robes. Zelsys felt an influx of replenishment as his aura was subsumed into her own, flares of crimson light rushing through the Viper as it broke down and transmuted the Hemomancer''s aura into her own. She immediately felt excited for the prospect of what this aspect of the aura-beast could achieve; even without other expenditure-reducing factors, she could devour the aura of her opponents to bolster her own. At first she had thought it to be no more than a manifestation of the Territorial Aggression aspect of the Truth of Fangs, but she saw that it also included the aspect of Consumption.
Given the beasts serpentine form and metallic skull, there was only one appropriate name for it.
WITHOUT THOUGHT OR MERCY
STRIKING WITH THE SPEED OF FURY
SAVAGE SERPENT, LASHING TYRANT
CHROME SKULL VIPER
It was not merely the lightning which had been changed. Being her own it reacted the most readily and so gave the most impressive result, but the Chrome Skull Viper was not the sole deterrent in this newborn defensive perimeter.
Wherever the Viper wasnt, savage maws of myriad variations struck out from empty air, the stone underfoot and the metal of the lamps. The world itself acknowledged her territorial claim and moved to enforce it.
ABSOLUTE VIOLENCE SIGN
DEVOURING ANY AND ALL INVADERS
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FORMLESS DESTROYER SCRIPTURE: VOLUME ONE
GEHEIMNIS: TERRITORIAL EXCLUSION ZONE
Friedrich rushed right back in without hesitation. Why he chose this tactic in the stead of his shockwave attack, Zelsys couldnt tell. His aura had been gradually waning the whole time since he stabbed himself, so she guessed it might be a matter of wanting to make what he has left last as long as possible.
Zelsys, with the intention to get him away from herself, struck out at him with a low, forward-step left punch, due to her right hand being presently occupied with countering the Knifedancers incessant, admittedly impressive assaults. It could be accurately said that the sky above Zelsys and Friedrich was swarming with blades, Carnifex lashing back and forth like a great serpent, stirred into these giant motions by a combination of Zels arm movements and pure intent. By comparison, the Knifedancers wild gesturing appeared downright wasteful, but where his motions were light and near-effortless, bursts of light erupted from Zels back and shoulder muscles with every swing, and her arms metallized surface creaked under the strain.
In the brief moment this bought her, she worked Thundercannons bolt with one of her braids. Dense white fog erupted forth from its vent, the shell tumbling out, only to bounce off the ground and fly to her back, where it vanished. Another shell took its place, marked with warning seals. It was noticeably heavier than all her other shells - nearly twice as heavy, in fact. With the force of destiny, Zelsys slammed Thundercannons breech forward and locked it into battery. At the moment it was sealed, so was Friedrichs fate.
Before she could brace herself, let alone fire, something happened. A familiar reverberation flowed out from the great cathedrals belfry. It was the bell being struck, of course, but there was something else in its sound. An unearthly, divine frequency. She clearly wasnt the only one to feel it, because both Freidrich and the Knifedancer turned to look at it, as if unable to stop themselves, a purely reflexive reaction. Neither of them actually stopped fighting her, but there was nonetheless a disturbance in their focus, and Zelsys exploited it by shredding the Knifedancer apart with one of the Fang Rippers she had been using to counter his flying knives. It merely happened to be the closest to him, and so she had it suicide-charge into him, exploding into shrapnel just as it went through him. There wasnt a corpse so much as there was a light shower of faintly iridescent gore and bone fragments.
The swarm of flying knives continued blindly attacking despite their masters death But with him gone, defending against them became an order of magnitude easier, and Zelsys guessed they wouldnt continue on like this for long. She was right, though not in the way she thought.
Friedrich, a hole through his stomach, retreated closer to the Cathedral Square, and Zelsys followed. She pushed forward until he moved to stop her, noticing him reaching for the knife in his heart, twisting it in deeper. Then, as he performed the preparatory motions of his Dambreaker Cannon, his aura flared up once again. Hed done this before. The time between how often he could perform this technique had been widening after each use. Despite this, and despite the fact he had been continuously growing weaker in all areas, Friedrich was still a real opponent. At this point she was certain she could win, but who knew how much time she still had to finish out the fight? She couldn''t afford to waste another minute.
At that moment she flared her aura, smashing Carnifex into the ground. As she raised her arm to aim Thundercannon at Friedrich, all six of her braids came awake, whipping forward - not to bind Friedrich, but to embed themselves into the ground as anchors.
Before she could fire, however, another ring echoed out from the cathedral belfry. The frequency was even stronger, and Friedrich froze in place.
A third ring of the bell came right after.
310 - Apotheosis in the Garden of Flesh
The tormented cries of thousands, a unified scream, blasted out from the city center, and Zelsys didnt just hear them, she felt them. Both Carnifex and her own right arm resonated at the sound, in the same exact tones given off by the Skinless Ones Token when she had used it as a hammer.
A wave of crimson light washed over the whole city. Each and every survivor counted among the enemys number suddenly sprung up with renewed vigor, their auras blazing thrice as brightly as they had at their previous peaks. Even those among them who had been mutilated beyond recognition, yet within whom some spark of life still dwelt, were dragged back from the brink, twisted into new forms by the careless hand of this unholy energy.
As for Zelsys and all those affiliated with the Newman Sect, its passing was like a wave of boiling blood that left neither burns nor filth in its wake, but still created an all-encompassing sense of impurity. Zelsys, Zefaris, and Victor all felt an uncanny familiarity in it: It reminded all three of them of the rubedo lake they had encountered on their journey to the north. Comparing this revolting outburst to that place, however, was like comparing a tsunami to a small stagnant pool.
Friedrich was dead.
He had stopped moving just before the outburst, and now that the wave had passed, he was stone-still, his body frozen in the resolute stance immediately preceding the Dambreaker Cannon technique. His skin was like baked red clay, and he stood, permanently anchored to the bridge.
A short time earlier, atop the Eberheim Cathedral
The Third Truthseeker, fully aware of Friedrichs sacrifice, rushed through the final preparations, driven half by urgency and half by grief for the loss of one of the few individuals he considered trustworthy. Entirely absorbed by the complex mental rituals necessary, he was shut off from the outside world, a half-step from total blindness as far as anything outside the belfry was concerned; such was the singular focus the preparations demanded. It was an inherent vulnerability that came with this rite But there were still things he could sense, so bright and distinct they pierced into his awareness.
One among these was the flaring beacon of Friedrichs Blood Implosion Holocaust technique. Third had been, after all, the one to adapt it so that it would work for Friedrich, he had been the one to work out the eldritch formulae behind it, he had created the mutagens that altered Friedrichs blood and cardiovascular system to form his entire body into a living sacrificial circle But he also knew of a possible method by which his life could be saved. His body would die, that much was certain, but a part of Friedrich would live on as part of Thirds cultivation.
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He would come out with a smaller gain, but as far as he was concerned, a loss of efficiency in the ritual was a worthwhile sacrifice.
The Third Truthseeker rang the bell, chanting a call to the Skinless One, offering up the unworthy lives of the mortals within the sacrificial circle. In truth, however, it was a double-sided incantation. Using ancient Ankhezian, the incantation gave lip service to the god while using euphemism and double-speak to effectively tell the Dead God to do what was needed, but not an iota more, to not interfere in the rite. It was the Orders own meticulous work that powered the ritual, a fractured and restored version of the Creation of a Great Man ritual circle. Third considered it a blessing that they had not discovered a complete version, as the Orders version, the Orders rite, had a distinct advantage: The beneficiary would remain fully himself, and the subjects did not need to be even slightly willing. The Creation of a Great Man ritual, by contrast, remade the beneficiary into a new being, and the sacrifices had to be willing to offer up their lives. Sure, the efficiency was a fraction of the original with fewer than several hundred sacrifices, but mortal lives were not hard to come by.
With a final strike upon the bell, Third felt the shockwave travel down the many fleshy tendrils connected to it. He smiled as he heard the screams. Without hesitation, he plunged the sacrificial blade into his own heart and began a complex dance, twisting his body in impossible ways, joints popping and bending in ways impossible for any mortal. As he danced, so too did he sing, mimicking the Skinless Ones throaty, warbling tone.
It was this method which would let him take control of the rising spiritual tsunami via the glyph in whose middle he stood.
SIGN OF MASS SACRIFICE
WHEN MADE PART OF AN IMMORTAL BEING
THE LIVES OF MAYFLIES ARE GIVEN WORTH
APOTHEOSIS IN THE GARDEN OF FLESH
Meanwhile, at the city outskirts, several hundred survivors had been gathered in safe buildings, guarded by a number of tankmen while most of Willowdales mechanized soldiers continued to push deeper into the city. Their core objective was, after all, not to reach and take the cathedral, but to rescue civilians and exterminate any members of the Order who had slipped past notice.
Clad in ominous black armour, the armored men wore the faces of wolves rendered in iron. Shimmering, white Fog poured from their snouts, lending further life to the beastly image. In their hands were giant guns, with twin barrels side-by-side and twin enclosed tubes out to the sides.
Hellhounds, they called themselves, claiming to be the warriors of Willowdale and the Free Cities Alliance, here to rescue them while the mighty cultivators of the Newman Sect slew the monsters who had taken over the city.
A young boy, having passed over the precipice of death, suddenly awakened in his mothers arms, much to her relief and elation. He looked upon the beastly countenances of the Hellhounds helmets, and saw the human faces of the few who had doffed the gas masks, and knew them to be saviors. Within the helmets muzzle, a canister was seated.
311 - Apotheosis in the Garden of Flesh Pt. 2
The boy looked out through the shattered, half-barricaded windows, and saw corpses in robes of various colours - from black, to blue, and a few red. Hatred and anger bubbled up within him, and he knew that he wished to be like these Hellhounds, or perhaps to join the Newman Sect, if it meant he would be able to ensure scum like this would not walk free again.
The child had died, for all intents and purposes. His breath and heartbeat had halted. The churn of chemistry and spirit joining body to soul, sustaining both, had ground to a halt. His spiritual core had departed, and his soul had begun fraying apart just the same as Friedrich. And yet, here he was, alive and well, returned from deaths door. His soul, barely scarred, now revolved around a spiritual core an order of magnitude stronger than that of any normal adult. The memories of his childhood up to this point were more vivid and clear in his mind than they ever could have been, but there were others there, too, buried deep by the same hand that had buried Friedrichs spiritual core into the boy. A new understanding burned within him. He simply knew what the Order of Six Truths stood for, and it only served to fuel his newfound hatred for them.
By the Skinless Ones hand, he had been remade. Was the child the same being that had died? Some would argue he was an entirely new being. Others would say that if the spiritual core could be replaced, then doing so would no more make the child a new entity than replacing a failing heart or lung, yet others still would consider the spirit core a spiritual equivalent of the brain rather than the heart.
No such scholars were present in this place, and neither the boy, nor his parents, nor even the Skinless One particularly cared what the truth was Even if the Dead God knew. It knew well that neither the spirit core, nor the soul itself, nor the brain nor heart actually made up all of a person. Any change would alter the identity. The child was now cosmologically a reincarnation of Friedrich, but he was not Friedrich any more than the Walking Tribulation was the Charred Judge.
Such was the unfortunate truth of things: Many conflicting answers to the matter of an individual existence were correct, but each only partly. That was why this particular shard of the Skinless One didnt particularly care. Nuance was boring, it was lunar. Nuance didnt drive great men to do great things, it didnt drive throngs of faithful to carry out great acts of willing sacrifice.
With the sacrificial shockwaves approach, even this place of brief respite was not spared. The tankmen sprung into motion, both those in human shape and the giants outside, stomping and mutilating the corpses of the Orders members. The reason for such actions clarified itself in the chatter: All of the Orders dogs besides those utterly, irrecoverably dead were rising back up.
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Strake felt the shockwave as much as anyone else. Zero shuddered around him, and he felt the machines bloodthirst rage. He knew well that whatever had caused it would be a big fucking problem very soon, but there was no stopping it; despite the fact it was tantamount to being completely doused in blood in terms of stimulating Zeros self-repair, the machine was absolutely furious. Or rather, the machine felt all the pain, sorrow, and resentment in the shockwave, and in turn Strake did too, arousing an abiding fury within him. This, in turn, aroused the same emotions within Zeros spirit.
For all his mental training, going so far as to look into those ridiculous wishy-washy cultivator books, he still found it all too easy to mix up his own thoughts and those coming from Zero. This wasnt helped by the fact Strakes and Zeros thoughts often coincided, even more so since the dragon nerve upgrade.
Driving hard down Eberheims streets, he found himself tearing through gruesome abominations of twisted flesh. From masses of Black Robes merged together with Flesh Beasts, to individuals with huge chunks of their bodies replaced by meat, it grew increasingly obvious that the wave had brought back a number of the enemys forces. Many were still laying dead without their head or with holes blown in their chests, and some were strewn about in pieces, so Strake wagered there was some limit as to what the effect could achieve.
As he neared the inner city, he felt an unignorable sense of foreboding. Like another wave was coming, but it never did. Instead, above the Cathedral Square, he saw it. A gathering of crimson clouds far too low above the ground with wisps of blood-red swirling about, gathering and multiplying. Before long, a bloody vortex enveloped the whole square. Ghostly screams carried through the air.
Despite his best judgment, he pushed onward alone, knowing full well that dragging along even those in Third-model tank suits would just be condemning them to death. He wouldnt be much use as a commander once the fighting got tough anyway.
Finding himself faced by an enemy force that would definitely bog him down and probably cause some damage to Zero, he made the judgment call. Fourth gear. Fifth gear. Heat rising. He downed another dose of Witchs Brew, feeling it absorb into his stomach the instant it got there. In the midst of smashing, stomping, and punching through a barely-coherent aura construct the size of a house, Strake reached for an overhead lever that was bound in place by a layer of talisman papers.
Before the upgrade, this systems limitation was mere seconds before most of the metallic surfaces inside the cockpit got hot enough to burn him in an instant, and the air became near-unbreathable. As he was now, he was sure he could use it for at least a minute But who knew how quickly it would deplete Zeros fuel.
No. His hand snapped from the lever to a small glass capsule to his right, lightning writhing inside around a tangle of crystal tubes. He shoved it into a slot to the side and pushed the adjacent slider forward; it was an upgraded, custom Thundercharger module that properly interfaced with the rest of Zeros systems rather than something ripped off of a Blitzgandr.
312 - Apotheosis in the Garden of Flesh Pt. 3
As lightning surged through Zeros cabling, the tanks engine howled and its pile bunkers took on a white glow. With an exertion of his will, Strake made yet another lever work itself. Thruster-vents opened up along Zeros chassis; four on the backs of its legs, and a giant twin-chamber one straight out of the engine. A recent upgrade owing to a collaboration between Willowdales Iron Riders branch office and a certain unnamed wizard.
In a great burst of blue-white flame, the multi-ton war machine exploded upward and went flying on a meteoric trajectory towards Cathedral Square. In his wake was left a molten crater full of boiling meat.
This jump wouldnt get him all the way there, but it would be enough. He prayed that it would be enough. As if in answer, Zeros thrust abruptly jumped, and Strake realized it would be just enough to land him right at the edge of the giant ritual circle, just outside the square.
From his vantage point well above the citys buildings, Strake saw not just the rapidly-growing maelstrom of crimson energy, he also saw the epicenter of it: The Cathedral. Fleshy tendrils covered much of its surface like cancerous ivy, spreading out to connect huge mounds of quivering flesh spread out all over the square. He knew they contained people, not because they were even remotely recognizable, but because of the constant, ceaseless screaming. With another ring of the bell, pulses of light ran down the flesh-tendrils'' length. Another wave of screams erupted when the pulse reached the flesh-mounds. With it, both blood and that crimson energy burst out, as if being squeezed out of a fruit. Before long, the entire square would be flooded.
The belfry crumbled apart under the maelstrom, shingles and stones torn away until only the bell remained, tethered down by fleshy ropes that attached it to the cathedral, alongside the figure of whom he presumed to be "Lord Third".
With the burning brass brand encased in glyph-glass that was Zeros single cycloptic eye, he also caught sight of his allies on the ground.
Zefaris and Victor were both to the east, working on a pylon of bone and black ice shod with those ominous purple glyphs. A number of similar pylons stood along the whole ritual circles perimeter, and by his estimate, only two were left to go before the circle was complete. Something was strange about that staff of Victor''s; the veins along its handle shone bright white, and a burning red sphere was suspended within its ring. A bright white core burned in the spheres center, whereas its exterior was enveloped in pitch-black flame. It felt almost like the tainted energy used by the Order, but Purified, somehow, and infinitely more concentrated.
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As for Zelsys, she stood on the ground well inside the ritual circle, just on the outskirts of the Cathedral Square. With her arm cannon aimed at what was likely Lord Third, she seemed to be anchoring herself. Not merely taking a wide stance, she stuck her cleaver into the ground and did much the same with her lightning-serpents as if her braids were anchor-cables. Strake could swear he even saw the stone under her feet rising up to wrap around her legs.
The Third Truthseeker, alongside the bell, floated further and further above the belfry, the sacrificial maelstrom simultaneously expanding and flowing back into him. Strake''s flight came to an end as he reached the apex of his trajectory and, like the multi-ton mass of metal it was, Zero crashed to the ground.
Then, there was light.
On the ground, Zefaris and Victor toiled away, not even knowing for certain that their plan would work. The further along the ritual circle''s perimeter they progressed, the less and less fragile it seemed, a chimeric monstrosity that concealed its resilience beneath a haphazard surface. It was a patchworked-together tapestry just as Victor had guessed, but that patchwork nature meant that unravelling one section wouldn''t affect another section in the same way, or even at all. A swarm of Flesh Unions stalked the streets in their immediate vicinity, ruthlessly warring with the Order''s survivors; their strength was replenished and their wounds healed by the ritual just the same, despite their changed allegiances. It seemed counter-intuitive, at first, but unlike the Flesh Beasts, the Unions weren''t mere puppets. They were living curses driven by furious, unrestrained will to take revenge for the humans they had once been.
What she had hoped to complete long before the rite could begin was now still two steps from completion while the rite was in progress. The only hope of seeing this plan through was to have Zelsys slow the maelstrom''s expansion somehow. It would be ideal if the Third Truthseeker''s concentration was also disturbed when the counter-array came into effect, but that was just Zefaris hoping.
It didn''t help that Victor had grown markedly less helpful since the ritual had begun; rather, he wasn''t any less useful, but his staff was reacting in a strange manner, greedily sucking up every bit of sacrificial aura while refusing to function in its intended role as an arcane amplifier. The redhead was working under his own strength alone while trying to wrangle the Itrian artifact back under control, chanting strange mantras under his breath all along.
She felt it. Something unearthly shimmering around that staff, just like before, when he turned the Flesh Beasts against their masters.
Not more than half a minute earlier, Zelsys sent out a wide-area aetherwave comms burst to warn all of Willowdale''s forces to stay away, be they tankmen or lower-ranked cultivators. She rushed past Friedrich''s petrified corpse and jumped three stories straight up to reach the top of an apartment building, and immediately went flying over the roofs at breakneck speeds, reaching Cathedral Square in no time. The few enemies who managed to even try striking at her were left throwing needles and firing bolts at nothing. The even smaller few who managed to, by some miracle, intercept her in her path, were torn apart by Carnifex with just a twitch of her wrist.
313 - Clash of Wills
Without a moments wait, she anchored herself in place and prepared to fire. She instantly felt an immense pressure fall upon her, Third''s fiery gaze piercing her. Just as with the Hemomancer, it felt as if her blood was being pulled from her body. Zelsys flooded her blood with metallum, reinforcing her veins to the extreme, raising her blood pressure to explosive levels. Veins, like overpressurized pipes, bulged out under her skin, showing even on her right arm. With a mighty flex of muscle and aura both, Third''s grip on her blood was broken. A wave of backlash came rippling through the blood-maelstrom, tearing a short canal in front of Zelsys and kicking up a fountain of blood from the rapidly-growing lake in the square''s center. A number of flesh-cables were severed, but the meat quickly squirmed back together. Zel wished she had Victor here to subvert the flesh construct, but she also knew he couldn''t withstand this environment for long, and Third''s retaliation would at best incapacitate him.
Another ring of the bell. More screaming from the sacrifices. The maelstrom grew to envelop her. It felt, at once, like a vortex of boiling blood filled with invisible clawing things that desperately wanted to rip the life out of her. She pulled Carnifex out of the ground, and with a single swing, carved a swath into the maelstrom. Choosing to trust her other means of anchoring herself, she dedicated Carnifex to the duty of simultaneously shielding her from the maelstrom and disrupting its flow. At the point where the flow rejoined to her left, it crashed together and caused violent implosions, sending destabilizing ripples all throughout the flow.
Third once more focused his gaze on her. She felt the briefest, faintest urge to just throw down her arms and kneel, but it was snuffed out so swiftly and violently that it only served to galvanize her resolve. A far less subtle intrusion followed. The mental clash which followed lasted barely two seconds in reality.
Third couldn''t believe this. That the enemy elder could withstand his aura pressure was one thing; it only proved that she was, in fact, worthy of being called a sect elder. Everything else, however... It just didn''t add up.
To start with, Third couldn''t figure out how or why the Severing Fangs could cut through the ritual''s aura vortex. A weapon imbued with sacrificial power could achieve a similar effect, but it would demand a specific technique, or a profound strength and purity of aura... But the aura around the blade was no more intense than that which swirled around That Woman. It was a surpassingly intense display of spiritual strength, that was true, but it didn''t feel like the right answer. The blade just glided through as if it was going through water, rather than the sum life and suffering of thousands.
And that gun on her arm. Something about it felt foreboding, but he couldn''t tell what it was. It felt as if the dragon-head on its muzzle was alive, but surely, that was just the weapon spirit manifesting itself.
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He formed a servitor and sent it out on an infinitesimally thin thread of aura in an attempt to mount a subtle mental attack, expecting it to at least momentarily disrupt her, to buy him time. He felt the backlash of his servitor''s destruction the instant it made contact.
With engaging the Newman Elder in direct combat being out of the question, Third portioned off a section of himself to maintain the ritual''s stability while he mounted a direct assault on her mind and spirit from within. He counted himself lucky that she didn''t know not to directly meet his gaze, but couldn''t shake the feeling of staring into the shining eyes of a predator waiting to tear his throat out. Truly, whatever unorthodox version of Storm-soul Cultivation she practiced was profoundly in-tune with the bestial side of mankind. Third decided to use this to his advantage, intending to use the Newman Elder''s inner beast as a weapon against her. There was a risk to this technique, as to any, but thanks to using it countless times to break down the minds of future living puppets, Third had reached a point where even the maximal backlash wouldn''t cause him any permanent damage. In the worst-case scenario, his attacking mental partition would fracture into countless pieces, minimizing the backlash and destroying all but the tiniest, subtlest cognitohazards, which would be easily stamped out when, mere seconds later, his mind reformed without so much as a mental scar to show for it. Thousands of test subjects and dozens of gruelling brain operations, carried out by his own hand, had been the cost for this: The Fluid Mind.
Such a scenario was, of course, absurd; the technique''s sole flaw was that its superb characteristics demanded a majority share of his mental faculties.
With but a glance, Third infiltrated the deepest reaches of his foe''s mindscape.
LIVING PUPPET SUTRA: EGO KILLER
He found himself within a desolate desert spreading out into infinity in all directions, with jagged mountains on the horizon. A gigantic blade of glass split the thoughtscape, lodged into the skull of some three-headed abomination of equally prodigious size. His own thoughtscape, too, was littered with subdued heart demons... Albeit none of this magnitude.
From far above, seven serpents of lightning descended, six of them already giant, with the seventh - or perhaps the first - dwarfing all the six nonetheless. From beneath the sand, twin monstrosities that blocked out the stars emerged:
To the east, a form of bleached-white bone and writhing flesh in the vaguest form of a bear.
To the west, an equally titanic monster in quasi-human figure, with gangly, clawed limbs and sodden hair hanging down over bloody antlers.
Third had seen this before. The Cultivation Identity Defense; a means by which some cultivators, usually unknowingly, transformed aspects of their cultivation and martial arts into mental constructs in the case of a cognitive attack. He''d seen it... But never like this. Never this refined. The mental focus required for thoughtforms of this magnitude and this number had to be inconceivable. Bit by bit, Third''s respect for his sadly doomed opponent grew.
314 - Clash of Wills Pt. 2
He tried to move, to simply evade these clumsy thoughtforms rather than waste effort and precious real-time milliseconds subduing them, but found his legs ensnared, monstrous serpents made of iron sand wrapped around them, biting his thighs.
At that moment, he felt her presence, and the next moment, saw her thoughtform. It was identical to her real appearance, lacking even an iota of self-perception-induced changes. That alone was proof in Third''s mind that he was dealing with an equal.
He tried to speak, but found himself choking out a voiceless wheeze. The very air was forming a maw and clamping down on his neck. With a mental effort he willed sound to come out of his mouth regardless: "I am impressed-"
His voice was carried away on a blast of pressure that accompanied Her words as she interrupted him: "I CAN''T SAY THE SAME. HARVESTING MORTALS - SERIOUSLY? IS THAT THE LOWNESS OF THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE US?"
Another presence loomed. Third knew this one, too. The Primordial Self. He grinned, thinking that she must have been drawing on it for power and that her control must have slipped when she reacted to his intrusion.
Then, it appeared, right behind the Thinking Self; not a monstrosity, but a primitive, naked, skull-masked version of the Newman Elder''s physical body. An uncanny intelligence burned in its eyes, one that absolutely did not belong there.
"YOU DARE TO INTRUDE? WHAT A FOOL," came a booming voice full of amusement and derision, pressing down on him from all directions. "WATCH. WATCH THE ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY WITH WHICH I REIGN OVER THE VAST EMPIRE THAT IS I. SHOULD I WILL IT, YOUR AVATAR IN THIS PLACE WILL SIMPLY CEASE TO BE; I CAN ERASE YOU WITH A WORD."
The thoughtform of Zelsys Newman''s Thinking Self spread her arms, and at once, the desert became a vast plain of bronze and iron. Rivers of molten magma flowed through it, and spires of glass stretched to the storm-cast heavens. With a snap of her fingers, the mindscape shifted once again, this time to a bitterly cold plain of glacierglass with no discernible landmarks in sight. Another snap, and it was back to the desert. The entire time, Third exerted every iota of mental power he could in an effort to reach something, anything in Newman''s mind, but no matter how he tried, it was like running in place. This was impossible, he couldn''t have fallen into a mental trap like some amateur. There had to be some secret technique at play.
His shock, in a lapse of self-control, showed through on his thoughtform. Third instantly regained his composure, but Newman had already noticed.
"You think there''s a trick. I will disappoint you, and you will think that I am lying: There is none. Every muscle, every memory, every cell, every thought, I rule myself in full. You doomed yourself the moment you stepped into my domain," she said, this time speaking through her Thinking Self''s thoughtform.
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Despite no longer bellowing at him, her words still pressed down on him, carrying an overpowering sense of superiority.
In an instant, Third saw before him a tower, vast and monumental. Its heights stretched beyond the clouds, and it stood within a bottomless pit. Its surface of black iron looked to be wrought of countless fragments, and glyphs of inlaid bronze sprawled over each of its facets, shifting in perpetuity. They described everything from surface thoughts to personality impulses. He knew what the obelisk was; the metaphysical spindle around which one''s mind and very soul were wound. A thoughtform representation of one''s spiritual and mental core, the Seat of the Self.
Violence. All of it was tinged with violence. If he didn''t know any better, he would have feared that the obelisk would upturn itself and run him through. This... This wasn''t a Pseudo-Truth. It was just a Truth, in full. This monstrous woman had attained a Truth of Violence. No... Not quite. There was something more, something animalistic and primal, but Third couldn''t comprehend it, in no small part because his focus wasn''t on trying to comprehend his foe''s Truth. He already had his own, it was a fool''s errand.
She had willingly brought him here, arrogantly meaning to mock him by placing her greatest vulnerability within sight but out of reach, but he didn''t need to be able to move to attack. He just needed to see it with his mind''s eye, to find a fault, and Third had learned to find faults in even the most monolithic of selves.
Only... Wherever Third looked, the monolith''s surface turned to a perfect smoothness with neither a crack nor a scratch. Before he could find a weakness, certainly in the last second before his victory, it was snatched away from him and Third found himself brought back to where he started. He raised his arms, forming a glyph using them as well as his fingers, intending to carry out a suicide attack to at least ensure that his foe would end up in a worse state than he would. Newman''s Thinking Self raised an eyebrow. Suddenly, Third''s arms turned into serpents. He knew this feeling, this was the nature of her aura acting on his thoughtform. Beyond the bizarre effects, Third couldn''t understand how exactly she could just impose it upon him. He didn''t feel it pushing against him, his defences never once clashed with it, there was no conflict at all. It made no sense.
Yet more thoughtforms made themselves manifest in rapid succession. The dunes behind Zelsys Newman shifted and out of them arose a giant snake with a body of sand and a skull of gleaming iron. It lashed out at him, only to freeze in time at the raising of Newman''s hand. She brought out her blade, seemingly summoning it out of nowhere, only to let it go. It twisted into a monstrous, long-tailed woman made of metal. In the same manner, she pointed her left hand up and pulled the lever on that ridiculous gun of hers, firing a bolt of lightning into the heavens. A bolt descended in response, and a man made of exquisitely carved armour took form, the only flesh upon his countenance being the upper half of his head. A stern, hard face, with steely, green eyes and slicked-back blonde hair. A long coat and peaked cap made of lightning took form around him.
315 - Empire of Self/Dragonfire
The mindscape shifted. The rolling dunes fell away, becoming a level plain of sand.
A small army rose up behind the twin thoughtforms of Zelsys Newman and her weapon spirits.
Hundreds and hundreds of humanoid thoughtforms, differing wildly in build. At first they seemed vague and formless, poorly put together, but he soon realized that was not the case. Despite the fact most of them were merely shapes, they were sharp and solid. A fair few were recognizable, but only perhaps fifty in the very front were clear and distinct, fully defined. In the very front, Third saw two individuals: The first was a short-haired woman in Grekurian Inquisitorial Full Plate, with a face unsettlingly similar to Newman''s. The second was an unassuming, thin Ikesian man in glasses, messy black hair hanging down into his forehead.
"I am an army unto myself in more ways than one. What you seek to achieve in this city - this pathetic endeavor of yours - is an insult to the arcane science from which I was born. Knowing that you care not for morality, consider this my reason to erase you: Your continued existence offends me."
After the first few hundred, countless more thoughtforms spawned, these being truly just humanoid silhouettes without faces or distinguishing features. An endless sea of bodies suddenly sprawled out in every direction. Not thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions, but billions of them. They felt different from the first few hundred, somehow.
The Primordial Self and Thinking Self spoke at once, and Third felt an overwhelming killing intent. He had never felt a pressure so intense even in his days as a mere disciple when he had angered the previous Third Truthseeker.
"UNDYING WORM. EATER OF CHILDREN. CONCEITED WEAKLING. SUB-HU-MAN. BE GONE FROM MY DOMAIN."
All at once, in a singular instant in time, the mental energy of every thoughtform Zelsys Newman had conjured came crashing down on Third. Were he anyone else, the mental backlash would have struck him dead. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and bloody tears burst out of them, but he was alive, and his half-broken mind was already gathering back together.
Zel''s awareness seamlessly returned to reality just in time to see the shockwave of backlash blast out from the line of eye contact between herself and the Third Truthseeker. It closed up in an instant, but Third now floated frozen in place, seemingly maintaining the ritual, but not doing anything to advance it. A small part of her was equal parts disappointed and unsurprised that obliterating his thoughtform hadn''t killed him, but she wasted not a second longer, bearing Thundercannon to bear.
At the instant just before the trigger lever clicked for the third time, Zelsys pulled Carnifex back to herself, leaving an umbrella-shaped swarm of False Fangs to fend off the maelstrom''s flow while she used the cleaver itself as a recoil anchor. She felt Thundercannon twisting, its maw opening wide and its eyes blazing with light. The gun roared in Eisengeist''s voice as a torrent of golden flame came pouring out. It pushed her back as it burst forth, her Thundergods tearing out of the ground as the stone failed. Carnifex dragged for meters through the ground despite having dulled itself to better act as an anchor. For the first time in over a year, the recoil impulse was outright painful.
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The flame, it felt Right. As it poured out of the maw that was her left arm, Zelsys felt it arouse the faint vestiges of draconic heritage she had inherited from the Monk-nobles of the far south. Despite the terrible violence with which it poured forth, never for a moment did she fear being burned or blinded by it.
It wasnt enough.
Such empyrean power, and it wasnt enough.
The maelstrom swept away much of the golden comet''s flame, the screeching spirits of the sacrificed clashing with quasi-draconic serpents that manifested from the stolen flame. The bullet itself, however, reached the Third Truthseeker. With force enough to tear through numerous buildings or to directly overpower Ubul''s defenses, it seemed to trigger Third''s self-preservation instincts. Even with his conscious mind out of commission, he still raised his free hand in a twisting gesture, whilst using his sacrificial knife to perform a long, shallow drag cut through his robes. His own aura flared to an intensity that, compared to the soul-maelstrom, was as a raging inferno compared to a campfire. His hand suddenly erupted in blood and flesh, exploding out of his skin as a deluge of gruesome, bladed tendrils. The Dragonfire Bullet, violently drilling through vast masses of conjured flesh, eventually broke through... But it had lost so much power by then that it merely ripped through Third''s clavicle. All that power, for a bullet-sized hole. Even so, this was enough to strike him dumbfounded, his eyes going wide as the soul-maelstrom began to destabilize and flow in discordant directions. Panic - and awareness - flashed over Third''s face, and he redoubled his efforts in finishing the ritual, once more returning to gestures, chants, and strikes upon the bell.
She pulled Carnifex back out and began defending herself with it once again, the maelstrom''s pressure and viciousness having grown nearly thrice over. Her focus shifted solely towards devising a means of penetrating Third''s defenses, and she felt a cold hand gripping her own. In the swirling maelstrom of aura and essentia that surrounded her, the spirit of Thundercannon had willed himself into being. Tinged golden by what remained of the dragonfire shells firing, the iron soldiers stern gaze met her own.
The next moment, she felt another presence to her right. It was Fulguris, manifested of her own will just the same as Thundercannon.
Zelsys instantly realized the solution, working Thundercannons bolt and loading her second dragonfire shell right away. The eruption of golden, fiery Fog was such that it utterly consumed her surroundings, and would have doubtlessly spread for at least twenty meters if it hadn''t come to clash with the maelstrom. Even the Impelling Arms concepts of Purification and Concealment had been empowered by dragonfire. In turn, the golden fog responded readily to her aura and took on the appearance of numerous mawed serpents writhing about within it, waiting to strike at any invaders. Waves of crimson death crashed against it, but the higher-order energy of dragonkind carved a swath into the expanding vortex.
316 - Thrashing Scolopendra
Chrome Skull Viper itself took form, its skull gleaming gold and fire exploding from its mouth as it lashed out at the flowing souls in perfect concert with Carnifex. Zel began multiplying Carnifex, forming countless False Fangs only to merge them together. The ground beneath her feet turned to iron as she strained the reactor of her heart to create Fangs as close to True as possible.
Before she could put her solution into action, however, Third struck back at her, directly manipulating the maelstrom to focus its wrath specifically on her. Hundreds of mangled human shapes within the aura merged into one, crashing against Chrome Skull Viper''s golden form. The sacrificial monstrosity pried open the aura-beast''s jaw, only for the viper to vanish altogether and strike from the side. The monstrosity dissolved, reforming in the viper''s blind spot. In this manner, the two constructs became locked in battle. Meanwhile, Third cut himself again and unleashed another deluge of flesh and boiling blood. His right arm inflated, then burst into a deluge of tentacular, clawed appendages, swimming entirely unimpeded through the maelstrom. Even the sonic booms of their acceleration somehow didn''t disturb the flow. They moved as to encircle Zelsys, those on the outside purposely going faster.
The Uncoiling Scolopendra was far from ideal here. A more focused technique was necessary; an intermediate between it and the Beheading Scolopendra. Already having expanded to dozens of segments in length, Carnifex coiled up into a hemisphere in front of Zelsys. Lightning and aura both surged through it. Without a single stray thought, she conceived the variant technique and put it into motion, swinging her entire body on one foot, setting Carnifex into a purposely chaotic flight path that resembled a centipede thrashing about after it has grasped its prey. The spiritual exertion made her feel as though her head might split at any moment, but she pushed on. She still had aura to spare, this pain would pass. The new technique variant solidified in her mind just as a shower of high-velocity gore came raining down on her, only to be devoured by her aura. It was densely packed with Third''s aura, after all, and she had just torn it away from him. So long as she took care to weigh the aura gain from destroying others'' techniques, she could stretch what she had very far.
BUTCHERING ART: THRASHING SCOLOPENDRA
Very impressive! I can see why you were the one to claim that inheritance in the far north. I cannot imagine using such a weapon. However, your struggle is at an end now! Third gloated, striking the bell for a final time. The maelstrom intensified such that Zelsys felt that she couldn''t withstand it even using Carnifex as a defense, and Chrome Skull Viper expended far more aura than it gave back, forcing her to dissipate it.
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Regretfully, she leapt backwards, dragging herself out of the maelstrom before it could consume her. From where she stood, she could clearly see that the vortex of sacrificial energy would fill the ritual circle''s boundaries very soon. She suddenly received an aetherwave message:
"Am I coming through? Please respond."
Zel responded with an affirmative ping. She managed to pick out Zefaris, and closed the distance in moments, leaving broken rooves in her wake.
"Good, finally. The disruption array is ready, but I don''t think it will have much effect unless his grip on the ritual is broken, even momentarily. Any ideas?"
Before she responded, she reformed the Crown Fang to add a handle and whipped it down towards Zefaris. The blonde grabbed on the moment she realized what it was, and soon stood beside Zelsys. The upper-right quarter of her face was covered in bulged-out veins, but she didn''t seem in any hurry to close her eye.
"You''ve seen the first dragonfire shell firing. Do you think one of your coins can reflect something even stronger?"
"...I think so, since they''re dragonsteel. I will take special measures with the enchantment to be sure."
"Good, then do that, but first-" Zel started, pulling the dragonfire shell out of Thundercannon, tilting it bullet-first at Zefaris. "You know what it needs."
With a nod, Zef''s eye expanded out and she began carving. Only four symbols; one on the front of the bullet, and three around the neck of the shell. While she worked, Zelsys did much the same, also preparing. She knelt down, gathering all of Carnifex into Fang Rippers. The Root Fang was the first, and she willed it to temporarily distort into a tubular shape, an extension for Thundercannon, melding it near-seamlessly with the firearm. A Two False Fang Ripper came next, then three, four, and five, ending with a Six True Fang Ripper at the very end. Rather than set them as anchors, Zel wrapped her six Thundergods around her left arm, all the way down Thundercannon''s length.
"Where''s Victor, by the way?" Zel asked as they prepared.
"On the other side. The array needs someone to set off each of the resonators, and besides you, he is the most mobile. I''ve set mirrors in case he can''t get to them."
Third, of course, didn''t just leave them be. Though the vast majority of his focus was on the ritual, in the process of pushing it toward its next stage, his grasp on the maelstrom grew such that he could send a construct of sacrificial energy out of its boundaries. It took the form of a distorted human upper body, wrought from hundreds of skeletons and draped in tattered flesh. Four monstrous arms extended from its torso, and an umbilicus of bone and flesh extended from its spine deeper into the maelstrom, seething with dense aura. The Sacrificial Revenant moved faster than it had any right to, flagrantly defying gravity by darting back and forth in a zigzagging pattern as it closed in on the duo.
Before it could reach them, however, a ghostly bullet smashed into its head from the side, tearing out a piece. Zelsys didn''t wait a moment and usurped the piece, momentarily freeing one of her Thundergods to drag it in for Chrome Skull Viper to devour. A very physical followup shot followed from below, and another, and another - Zero.
317 - Total Limiter Release
Despite mostly passing through the Revenant unimpeded in the physical plane, the passage of Zero''s shots still seemed to impact the Revenant, tearing away pieces of its form as they passed. Though the damage was only around a third of what the Nameless Phantom''s shot had caused, Zero''s suppressing fire still disturbed the construct such that its focus shifted towards the screaming machine for a second with each shot before returning to its real targets. It was, perhaps, made more effective by the fact Strake screamed out a tirade of admonishments against the Revenant and the Order in general. A second, smaller Revenant emerged at the ground level, possessing two giant arms and sprinting forward on six legs, with a skull covered in eyes. Writhing, boiling flesh spilled out of a maw that split its chest down the middle, interlocking rib-teeth stretching down its full length.
Without waiting a moment, Zel sent an aetherwave message:
"If you have any aces left up your sleeve, use them now. Keep it away from us. It will not be long."
This was in the middle of Zero exchanging blows with the Six-legged Revenant whilst also firing on the Sacrificial Revenant.
After just a few clashes with the Six-legged Revenant, Zero''s pilebunkers were completely mangled, with fleshy webbing growing up its arms. The machine''s heat, however, kept the growths at bay, causing them to shrivel, while the Six-legged Revenant regenerated. Zelsys, knowing the stakes at hand, dug deeper to form a pair of False Fang Spears, flinging them over to Zero by sheer force of will.
The machine didn''t pick them up. The militaristic, brass-and-drums music which had been blasting out of its speaker suddenly grew distorted, cutting in and out. In a literal sense, Zero was screaming.
__________________________________________________________________
Strake laughed at the suggestion. Aces up his sleeve, she said. He glanced at that sealed-up lever. Pulling his hands out of the control sleeves, he forced his fingers through the seals and grasped the lever. With his free hand, he reached for a pill bottle in the emergency kit, dropping three of them into his canteen, still 1/3 full of Witch''s Brew. They were part alchemically activated iron, part stabilized Ignis crystal, part Rubedo dust. He didn''t know what to call them, but he knew he really hadn''t expected to take them this soon.
"Listen to me, you rabid dog... Just this once, do whatever you need to do."
He didn''t know if he was talking to himself or to Zero. Strake kicked back his canteen, downing every bit of Witch''s Brew alongside the three pills as he forced the lever forward. It didn''t slide smoothly, or click forward; there was a tremendous, immovable resistance, a solid steel pin stopping it from moving. The pin snapped, and with it, the lever locked forward.
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STEEL COMMAND: TOTAL LIMITER RELEASE
Maintenance and emergency access panels started bursting open around him, and for a moment, Strake thought Zero was breaking apart. There was the hissing of cable locks coming undone. A hive of black serpents set upon him, over a dozen connectors piercing his back. By some cruel miracle, none punctured his lungs, but his heart wasn''t spared; the Main Governor Cable, overgrown with draconic nervous tissue, embedded itself there. Another, the Main Control Cable, pierced the back of his skull.
Zero''s entire chassis shifted, vents and thrusters extending, built just as heavily as the unit''s primary armour. Jets of flame, like welding torches, blazed out of them, shifting in hue from orange-blue to a furious red. Explosive bolts and physical locks snapped away, a layer of metal purging from the tank in an instant. Two sets of three heat sinks extended from its back, glowing orange, lightning arcing between them. A perfect, circular impression was blasted into the ground right beneath Zero as it floated into the air by only a few centimeters, no higher than the usual height for its kinetic skates. A second circle followed, deeper, but with a smaller diameter, and a last, third one. Boom. Boom. Boom. Three concentric circles in total. At this point, Zero appeared nearly weightless, just hovering there, screaming. In this timespan, the Sacrificial Revenant was able to refocus on attacking Zelsys, and Zefaris was still busy engraving the Dragonfire Shell. Phantom Manus manifested to meet the monstrosity in combat, and soon, so did the Tankman Phantom. The twin phantoms did mighty battle against the combined abomination, the Tankman Phantom''s twin cannons thumping out a steady twice-per-second beat while it grappled with the Revenant. Manus, meanwhile, continuously fought against the tendril-arms that the Revenant constantly spawned, each just as powerful as Third''s own version of that attack. The only difference was the vastly reduced frequency. The brave phantom''s flaming sword scythed through this accursed flesh and struck back with blazing rays of holy light between each swing, but even this wasn''t enough. The duo barely sufficed to keep the Revenant at bay, and the strain of fuelling them showed; the final stretch of engraving the Dragonfire Shell, the fourth antediluvian glyph, had taken Zefaris nearly as long as everything leading up to it.
Both Zelsys and Zefaris knew that, if the vortex kept advancing at this rate, the ritual would move ahead before they could intervene. They pushed ahead anyway, as this was the only plan they had that could conceivably work. Nonetheless, Zelsys couldn''t help but remember a prayer - one of the many otherwise vestigial memories she had inherited from her progenitors. She had never prayed, but in retrospect, that was itself somewhat illogical. The existence of divinity was undeniable - even more so here and now. She couldn''t see the presence of the divine, but she felt a sense of the sublime. Just as there was an inconceivably grief, wrath, and suffering, she felt the opposite of that coming from the few survivors, far off at the edge of the city. It hung in the air, swam in it, passively suppressing the wretchedness of the Order''s techniques and strengthening her own. She also felt the vague energy gathering, not to her, but to six places through the city: Five churches, visible even from here, and a sixth, at the other side of the vortex.
318 - Gore-drinking Victory Demon
Zelsys continued to prepare, pouring the overwhelming majority of her power output into Thundercannon and the assembly of Fang Rippers revolving in front of it. They had been merely spinning before as they normally would, but the more power she poured in, the more violent their revolutions became. They were no longer recognizable as collections of blades, but as shining rings of white-blue death, each having a number of notches equal to its number of Fangs.
The Six-legged Revenant had regenerated by now, and was once more coming after Zero. The machine reached out, and its arms, in defiance of mechanical limitations, extended out to grasp the two Fang Spears Zel had sent over. With the motion of their return to normal, Zero''s arms also subsumed both Fang Spears, replacing the old pilebunker rods. Zero vanished from its place with a sonic boom, smashing into the Six-legged Revenant. Shockwaves erupted from their clash, only for Zero to fire its pilebunkers and obliterate two of the Six-legged Revenant''s arms. The machine proceeded to vanish yet again, blasting itself to the side and behind the Six-legged Revenant. Floating right behind the Revenant even as it tried to turn to face Zero, Zero blew apart the Six-legged Revenant''s torso with a rapid sequence of pilebunker strikes. While this took place, Zero also resumed firing on the Sacrificial Revenant. Zero''s aura-wreathed slugs now tore into their target with full force, ripping chunks off of the aura construct with each shot. It was no longer just annoying enough to get its attention; instead, Zero was harming the Sacrificial Revenant badly enough to force it to go on the defensive.
EVOLVED PROTOTYPE
GORE-DRINKING VICTORY DEMON
ULTRA-HIGH-PERFORMANCE ONE-MAN TANK
UOT-014-02 BLOODY ZERO G-3 REFIT -DELIMIT PILOT FUSION-
By only a hair''s breadth, Strake managed to distinguish what was himself, and what was Zero... But that line had grown so thin and blurry it may as well not be there. Any sense of pain was gone, there was only heat, drive, and Zero''s endless fury, growing in intensity just as quickly as the engine''s power output.
Strake had already thought of himself as a dead man walking. This was as good a place to die as any. Were his head clear, he would''ve scoffed at that idea. It wasn''t. He thought it was, but it wasn''t.
A screaming, flaming wrecking ball, zipping around at speeds that would kill any pilot. Zero had already been monstrous, barely fitting the description of "war machine", but that term couldn''t even partly apply to it at this point. In every sense of the word, Strake and Zero had collectively merged to reach the transcendent point where an entity could no longer be impeded by mortal strength. Zelsys had noticed it many times throughout her short life, and though she wasn''t quite sure where the demarcation line laid, she knew it when she saw it. It was one thing to be stronger and tougher than any single normal human, to wield a giant slab of metal like it was a sword - normal field cannons could still put someone like that down. Someone like that was still human.
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Strake had just taken the final step on the tenuous path between man and something more - something beyond human, or perhaps inhuman, just like Zel''s invocation of the Living Storm at Ubul''s Tomb. The question was whether he could come back from his tribulation.
Wasting not a single moment after dispatching the Six-legged, Zero blasted up into the air, rocketing towards the Sacrificial Revenant while still firing its cannon. The weapon ran out of ammunition halfway through the flight. Zero''s arms shot out, growing countless additional forearm segments to reach their prey, swinging the Revenant around as Zero flew. With thunderous force, the two collided, and a gale-force shockwave washed over the rooftops. Like a python, Zero squeezed and squeezed, but the Revenant wouldn''t budge, so the machine instead unwound its arms and swung the aura monstrosity into the ground before flying down towards it. While Zero''s left arm remained lengthened to that absurd degree its right snapped back to normal with a thunderclap. Even the left began rapidly shortening as Zero closed the distance, remaining always just long enough to keep the Revenant pinned in the crater which its impact had created.
Zero''s landing was an explosion of gore, flames, rubble and aura.
Nothing remained of the Revenant, besides the hyperdense sacrificial aura which had given it form. It scattered through the cloud, wailing wraiths flying out, only to be sucked in. The dust cleared, revealing Zero standing, legs wide, arms dangling from snapped joints... With its frontal armor gaping like an open maw. It was wrong - mechanically impossible, even. Not only were there no joints there, that area had been reinforced with experimental compound plating made from damasite cold-iron alloy, adamant bronze, and azoth-auric amalgam.
Regardless of what engineers through possible, the machine had opened its cockpit as if it were a mouth. Within it, Strake sat, pierced through the back by thick cables. Barely recognizable as human, he was enveloped in furious, blood-red flame, his eyes blank, his body charred black. His clothing had long burned away, and his shoulders were shrouded by a commander''s coat made of flame. It was unsettlingly similar to Strolvath''s Hellfire Mantle, yet it surpassed that form by order of magnitude in intensity.
As the machine drew in the wailing souls and shreds of aura that had once made up the Revenant, not only did its arms snap back into proper position - pulses of red light flowed through the cables into Strake. Once the Six-legged had been devoured, Zero''s frontal armor closed shut.
Then, there came the ring of a bell.
Not the Cathedral Bell, but one from a church elsewhere in the city. Then, another, and another, five in sequence from all different directions. In total, there were five churches across Eberheim, and despite having been swept by the Order''s men, they hadn''t been emptied. Entombed within the bell towers, long-dead men carried out a timeless duty, ringing the bells and presiding over the faithful in silent vigil, watching through statues of themselves. Watching. Waiting. And now, acting.
319 - Knights of the Boar
Now, stirred into action by the prayers of the faithful, the Five Abbots spoke and their voices resounded through the city:
"HARK, RIGHTEOUS ONES. HEAR THEM. HEAR THE SLAUGHTERED CHILDREN OF EBERHEIM CRY OUT FOR VENGEANCE. HEAR THE PRAYERS OF THOSE WHO YET LIVE. KNIGHTS OF THE BOAR, ARISE! ARISE FROM YOUR HALF-MILLENNIUM SLUMBER!"
From five directions, five five-meter statues of knights in Eberheim''s livery came flying out of their respective churches. Faster than statues had any right to move, soaring through the air, they collectively stopped dead just outside the ritual circle''s perimeter, floating a hundred meters up in mid-air. An immense pressure descended, and Zelsys felt that strange, sublime sensation grow into a tangible, divine pressure; it was akin to what she had felt before the Revenant King and the Forgemother, albeit significantly less intense.
"RAISE UP THY SHIELDS AND BLADES, O KNIGHTS OF THE BOAR! GRANT SUCCOR TO THE HOUND-FACED KNIGHTS OF THE WILLOW IN THEIR TIME OF NEED!"
The Five Abbots had not seen a single one of the Newman Sect''s members. They had, however, seen the Hellhounds who had gone into their churches to clear them. They had also recognized the ancient crest of Willowdale upon the Hellhounds'' armour, the same crest worn by her warriors in centuries past.
The Knights of the Boar, their helms fittingly styled to resemble the heads of boars, were much like Willowdale''s own statue guardians, stone plated in metal. Their armaments were giant swords, as long as they were tall, and monolithic tower shields of the same height, wrought of stone and densely scribed with presumably holy words. All at once, with wordless yells of exertion that sounded like stone grinding together, the Five thrust forth their shields. The ground and air alike quaked with power, and a five-sided barrier sprung up around the sacrificial vortex, keeping it at bay. Zel instantaneously knew it wouldn''t last long; for one, it wasn''t strong enough to sever the Revenants'' umbilical cords. Moreover, after only seconds had passed cracks were already showing upon the barrier, reflected physically on the Knights'' shields. She was certain that they were mighty, perhaps mighty enough to break a siege from within or to repel any plausible attack on the city. The Third Truthseeker''s wretched ritual, however, had created a spiritual phenomenon the likes of which the Knights'' builders couldn''t have reasonably foreseen. Its intensity was beyond a natural disaster - it was somewhere between the Living Storm and Eisengeist''s rampage, and a thousand times more evil than Ubul.
Yet another thrice-damned Revenant made itself known, smashing into the barrier from the inside. It was at least twice as big as the other two, with reverse-jointed legs, a chest-maw just like the Six-legged and thick, bony, three-fingered arms that reached all the way to the ground. Numerous eyes littered its torso around the maw''s exterior, and in place of a head it had a mass of writhing, whipping arm-tendrils. Its assault threatened to shatter the barrier, with many cracks spreading across it and its respective knight''s shield.
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Like a starveling beast that just smelled its next prey, Zero smashed headlong through the weakened barrier and subsequently into the Revenant. One Knight''s shield shattered into pieces, and with it, so did that segment of the barrier, with the maelstrom spilling out, beginning to eat away at both adjacent panels. Zero, smashing apart the new Revenant faster than the maelstrom could repair it, was going berserk. With each step into the vortex of souls, Zero distorted. Plates and panels were crushed and pulled away from its body, a meteor-like corona formed around it, and... It just kept going. Somehow, some way, Zero''s self-repair abilities nearly matched the damage being done to it. Nearly. It was doomed, nonetheless. Zero managed to sever the new Revenant''s umbilicus and consume part of it before its constituent aura could be taken back by the maelstrom. The rabid iron beast that it was, it tried to delve deeper into the vortex to reach Third, like a moth to a flame. Both Strake and Zero were marching to their deaths. The background noise of wailing had risen to such a fever pitch that it drowned out all other sounds. Another panel of the barrier was gone by this point, another shield shattered.
While this went on, Zel and Zef received an aetherwave message from Victor: "How much longer? There are monsters banging on the barrier on my side, and I don''t think I will be able to usurp them and activate the pylons."
Zefaris, having finished carving the shell and enchanting her coin, conjured the Tankman Phantom, speaking as she handed the shell to Zelsys: "I can try to clear Strake''s mind or at least drag him out of the vortex, but... It''s a fifty-fifty that my Phantom will reach him at all."
Zelsys, loading Thundercannon and seething over the fact she couldn''t just get up and do something right now, called out to the Knights: "Well?! Surely you can do more than a fragile barrier! COME NOW, IS THIS THE STRENGTH OF FAITH?! CLEAR A PATH! DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING!"
A third panel, gone. Only the two on Victor''s side remained.
The Five Knights'' heads snapped to meet her gaze. She knew it, even though she could only see three of them. Then, they nodded. They fell out of the sky, or more accurately, flew down, smashing down right next to one another just at the edge of the once-more expanding vortex. All five were without shields; the two whose barrier segments were still in place had simply left theirs floating in place.
The Knights'' blades and bodies both came ablaze like holy torches and they waded into the mass of aggrieved spirits. Somehow, someway, they formed a clear path through. The ground and even air itself burned brilliant white, repelling the unholy energies of Third''s ritual.
Wasting not a moment, Zefaris sent the Tankman Phantom in after them.
Without speaking a single word, the Five Knights reached Zero and laid their eyes upon the maddened machine, and somehow made it halt its doomed advance. Their white flame spread over Zero''s armour in moments, not suppressing its own crimson flame but enveloping it. The constant, distorted screaming blasting out of the tank''s speakers became less so, and suddenly, Strake realized that he didn''t actually want to die here.
Dying here wasn''t his mission, his mission was to lead the tankmen and support Newman in her battle with the Order''s elder.
But... He didn''t know where he was, and Zero wouldn''t obey him. It wasn''t actively fighting him anymore, as if the infernal beast had suddenly ceased to be rabid, but he didn''t have the strength of will to command it. Trying to reassert full control over the machine felt like pulling on a stuck control stick with broken fingers.
320 - Panzermensch Sanctus Dominus
A ghostly tank skidded into Zero''s space, perfectly matching its posture and seamlessly merging with the machine. His soul''s fingers were no less broken and the metaphorical control stick was no less stuck, but, somehow, Strake suddenly felt like a dozen other tankmen were helping him wrench back control over Zero. In fact, he could swear he saw the faces of strangers and comrades surrounding him, ghostly-green phantoms of the dead. Not just that, but for some strange reason, five knightly figures in boar-head helmets joined them, embodied in pure-white flame.
Voices echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once. They were not the voices of fallen tankmen, but five voices carrying a thunderous timbre and a noble presence. In perfect unison, they boomed inside Strakes head:
OUR FIGHT IS LONG DONE. OUR STRENGTH IS SPENT.
YOU, BEARER OF THE SPIRIT OF STEEL, SHALL CARRY ON IN OUR STEAD.
CARRY FORTH THE BANNER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, STRAKE SODAN OF WILLOWDALE.
FROM THIS DAY FORTH, THOU ART A KNIGHT TRUE: THUS SAITH WE, THE KNIGHTS OF THE BOAR.
WE DO NOT ASK YOU TO QUEST ACROSS THE LAND AS A KNIGHT-ERRANT SLAYING DEVILS.
SO LONG AS YOU CARRY ON AS YOU HAVE THUS FAR AND REMEMBER THAT WE ONCE EXISTED
IT SHALL SUFFICE.
IT SHALL SUFFICE.
IT SHALL SUFFICE.
IT SHALL SUFFICE.
IT SHALL SUFFICE.
As for Zero, Zero didn''t fully understand. It had only known hunger and anger until now. It had only heard the wailing cries of torment and smelt the dense, tantalizing scent of lifeblood, the self-same nourishing force that made the flesh and blood of its foes perfect repair material. Yet now, it suddenly knew all these... New things, heard new things. Those strange statues, that white flame, all so alien. Zero felt a disease spreading with each rev of its engine, an infestation, inexorably and irreversibly burrowing into everything the machine was. Knowledge that could not be unlearned.
Zero heard the cries for salvation of the sacrificed, the prayers of the living, and its anger not only grew, but changed. From raw, animal impulse, to a heretofore alien blend of disgust and wrath. Zero didnt want to eat the man called Third because it was hungry. It wanted to eat him so it could burn him up in its engine and leave not a trace of him in this world.
Zero also heard the voice of Strake and a dozen others, all giving it the same exact command... And although it could have fought back, Zero now understood why the command was being given, and it obeyed.
Out of the swiftly-collapsing white-flame path came a burning tank, a machine painted in crimson-red, its thrusters erupting with golden-red flame, its speaker blaring a heroic march of drums and trumpets. An outer layer of sacrificial aura trailed from over the machine, bleached white of corruption, almost like sacrificed souls were clinging onto it as a vessel of salvation. A strange sapience now burned within the tank''s cycloptic eye - a black dot in the center of the glowing sensor, surrounded by three black lines forming a cornerless triangle.
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A MAD MACHINE BECOMES HOLY ARMOUR
A DOG OF WAR BECOMES A KNIGHT
JUDGED BY THE RIGHTEOUS DEAD, YE BE WORTHY
PANZERMENSCH SANCTUS DOMINUS
Halfway across the continent, Zero''s sibling, V-2, stomped at the head of a sacred procession on its way to subdue a newly-awakened monstrosity. Suddenly, its pilot, Chalybes Pontifex halted his war-engine, and for the first time in months, emerged into the sun. He looked westward, feeling a strange sense of the sublime.
But that was there, and Strake and Zero now hovered at the ritual circle''s edge. Then, with a thunderclap, it zipped elsewhere just outside the circle, circling its outer perimeter.
"What is that?!" came a distressed aetherwave transmission from Victor, garbled by interference.
A series of impacts sent tremors through the ground, Zero''s comet-like form dragging another Revenant into the air. White-red flame enveloped the monstrosity, visibly burning away its aura''s corrupt, fleshy colours.
A followup soon came: "False alarm. Just... Zero. I think. Hard to tell under the holy flames and phantom armour. It intercepted some kind of aura construct just as the construct emerged from the vortex. I think the window to start the disruption sequence is closing, please advise."
These messages were not voice, but thoughts encapsulated in verbal form, transmitted and received near-instantaneously.
Zel and Zef exchanged glances. The remaining two shields shattered. Zel sent the go-ahead, not even bothering with words, just sending the very idea of "yes" and "begin". She could hardly manage more in her current state. As she sat there, on the roof, the tiles baked beneath her feet and phenomenal elemental power raged barely contained within her grasp. Neither the Fang Rippers nor Thundercannon itself could be recognized as individual parts any longer. Everything else was drowned out by blinding light and ear-splitting snapping and buzzing of thunder. Screamingly loud and bright rings of pure light now drifted away from her, expanding in diameter as the terrifying power coursing through them demanded more space. To mortal eyes, even the rings could no longer be distinguished; the countless arcs leaping between them would blend together into a cylinder.
And indeed, mortal eyes did see. A scant few survivors, holed up in hidden attics and tall towers, bore witness, and they beheld a kneeling figure with hands outstretched, grasping a gigantic bolt of lightning. Next to her could be made out, just barely, the vague silhouette of a woman whose long hair billowed in the gale force winds, somehow giving off the feeling of death itself even across this vast distance.
Mortal eyes were not the only ones who saw. Immortal brothers, drawn here by the isolation array, had been watching the Newman Sect''s efforts all along, neither able nor willing to intervene in any substantial way. If they revealed themselves, after all, it would be an infernally slippery effort to put that genie back in the bottle. Despite their disagreements and self-limitation, however, the immortal brothers did intervene, and would do so in the future. By apparent coincidence, not a single one of the Order''s members would escape the city. The small number of those who slipped by would be found mysteriously dead, as if their hearts had decided to stop beating.
The immortal brothers were not the only ones whose attention had been drawn to this place, however. The Order of Six Truths was, after all, not the only sect which had survived the Cultivation Suppression Edict by going into seclusion, and one of those other sects just so happened to have eyes in Eberheim: Enkis Tower, a circle of wizards that had never engaged in sect culture any further than they had to. They held the high esteem of being able to claim their founder had invented the mental exercises that would later be simplified into the arcane mathematics used by some noble cultivator families.
A Wizard of Enkis Tower, alongside a rogue practitioner of the same type of mental cultivation - a Hedge Witch - had been drawn here by the isolation array. They had entered the dome undetected through their own, much subtler method of incursion.
These two watched from the rooftops, not for lack of ability to fly like the Immortal Brothers, but out of a desire to go undetected. They weren''t the only other observers, either.
321 - Watchers
Agents of both the Black Horse and the Sanger sects resided in the city, and had successfully hidden themselves during the Order''s initial takeover. Afterwards, they had quietly worked to undermine the Order and rescue civilians, contributing over 20% of the current survivor numbers gathered at the outskirts.
Despite it looking otherwise, Ikesia''s world of cultivation had its eyes on Eberheim, and word of what happened in the city wouldn''t spread like a wild fire - because it already was spreading. It had started the moment Third broke the isolation dome.
Meanwhile, the Witch and Wizard stood atop a building right next to the westernmost of the Five Churches, using its vast divine presence in concert with a double-layered concealment array to hide themselves. Well, the Wizard stood. The Witch was in a low squat, looking over the city with frog-like eyes. Hiding on a battlefield where one was not a participant was, somewhat counter-intuitively, exceptionally easy, at least for masters of Lunar-aligned arts such as these two.
"This might end up more trouble than benefit, if Fourth manages to rally the rest of the Order beneath himself. Not only could the Order become an unstable weight upon the scales, they might throw things out of balance by funnelling even more resources into the Land of Lingering Smoke in the effort to replenish their ranks," said the Witch.
"Somehow, I am not too worried," the Wizard answered. His attention, at this moment, was wholly fixed on the scene unfolding in the city center. So many powers colliding, such seamless application of techniques in support of one''s allies, and that wasn''t even getting into the conceptual implications of the clash.
Despite how troublesome it might be, the Wizard could not help but be excited. This... This was what a real cultivator battle looked like. It was downright nostalgic. He hadnt seen one in a long, long while. That War of Fog It had been far too barbaric for the Wizards tastes. The vast majority of it had been cultivators slaughtering mortals and, in turn, mortals using their sheer numbers to butcher cultivators the same way cultivators butchered great beasts. It was nice to see a return to honour and glory, even if it was tainted by something as barbaric as the Third Truthseekers desperate bid for a brute-force breakthrough.
"I must admit, I did not expect the Manufactured Paragons power to jump so aggressively after her epiphany. Manifesting an Egregore solely through one''s pure understanding of a Truth, and a defensive one at that..." the Witch remarked after some time.
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"Your infos out of date. Theyre calling her the Walking Tribulation now.
Feh, the Witch dismissed.
Far more than a mere upstart, don''t you think? the Wizard asked.
The Witch scoffed derisively: Leave it up to those conceited fools in the sword sects to see someone achieve more in a year than they have in half a century, and then dare to call that person a mere upstart. On top of all else, a Son of Fate as her disciple! Come on. Old Yaga already decided that the only explanation for her apparent lack of any destiny is that she herself is a hand of fate, brought into the world to guide it back onto the proper path. Preposterous. Its clear that she is the result of a revolutionary improvement upon the Creation of a Great Man Ritual. If only I could find her birthplace
They watched for a while longer, observing the deployment of the Five Knights and the events that transpired thereafter.
At the moment of Zeros re-emergence from the vortex, the Witch commented: Huh. I didnt think Armor Spirit Union would work with a machine.
She spoke with the same level of interest as one would have for an oddly-coloured animal.
Its not so different from golem armour, the Wizard said.
I suppose not, the Witch shrugged. I suppose his spectacle is wasted on our eyes - do you think we should give that tank-man an epithet? This is the second major cultivator battle he has been in within one year.
Three. Rigport, Ubuls Tomb, and here, the Wizard corrected.
The Witch countered: I dont count Rigport. The Charred Judge and Lady in Red are the only ones who actually fought the Curse-eating General.
True the Wizard thought aloud. How about Red Emperor?
The word Emperor is tainted. Will be for a while, the Witch croaked.
Well hes got fire, and theres that paintjob and the vitaphage enchantment on the armor Blazeblood Kaiser? the Wizard suggested.
That ones good, the Witch agreed. How about the blonde? Oh, right, shes Reapers Bride. That ones good enough. The redhead?
I dont know. His abilities seem eerily similar to the Second King, but then theres the flame and the fact he somehow got his hands on one of the Onbashira, and he seems to know Itrian Shrine Guardian Arts as well I must admit that I regret not finding that child before the Walking Tribulation did, but it seems that methods leaning towards the Solar suit him better than ours.
Gestalt Magus, the Witch deadpanned. Thats what he calls his servitor-armor - Magus Gestalt Dawnwolf. Itll catch on, I think.
I dont like it.
The Witch turned her head, smugly looking up at her older brother: Its certainly better than the Swampweed Lord.
322 - A Mere Inheritance
Sensory overload. That was the only appropriate description for Victor''s current situation that came to his mind. There was the maelstrom, the disruptor pylons, the Dawnwolf armor, his Servitors and Flesh Unions fighting against the Order''s gruesomely-revived survivors, not to mention his staff''s strange state and the threads of divine energy that were becoming increasingly more visible. The flying statue knights forming a barrier that was already nearly gone, then the giant aura monster coming out around the barrier''s remnants, only for a barely-recognizable, flying Zero to intercept it.
Despite having the raw mental processing power to parse it, his actual senses couldn''t keep up - anything he didn''t actively focus on kept blending together into noise. He missed Borea. Piloting Teutobochus against Eisengeist and later raining death on the Conspirator Clans'' forces was relaxing compared to this.
"Focus. First pylon, now!" his second inner voice commanded in an effort to keep it together.
Thrusting his hands out towards the pylon, fingers locked into painful gestures by his armour, Victor awakened it. The eldritch runes flared to life, painful to glimpse even from the corner of his vision. It leapt up into the air and turned so that its sharp bottom end pointed into the vortex at an angle, against its rotation. Then, it began revolving like a drill, and a ray of lilac light erupted out of its point, while a jet of monochrome flame came out of its other end, slowly pushing it towards the vortex. On its own, the one beam had barely any effect, blasting a small, shallow cavity into the maelstrom and only slightly disrupting it. By the time the first pylon had begun firing, Victor had already awakened two more pylons. One by one, they rose up and began forming the disruption array.
One by one, turbulence built up.
When Victor hit the array''s halfway point, the maelstrom''s previously near-perfect spin had already destabilized into a wobbling mess. Masses of wailing spirits began tearing away from it, flying outward and smashing into the surrounding buildings. Some of them just dispersed, while others possessed statues and corpses in an effort to blindly lash out.
Zero, like a hungry beast, began to consume them. Now, however, there was a duty to it, not just hunger. They were, after all, not souls - they were resentful, tormented aura constructs born from the ritual. The true souls of the sacrificed had already passed on, and these resentful spectres would linger and plague the living if they were not purified. Indeed, Zero''s enlightenment had actually caused it to be even more thorough in its consumption, driving the machine to draw into itself even the tiny scraps that it had left behind previously. Zero was, however, only one machine, and it could only consume so much, even when it was just burning it all to get rid of it. Besides Zero, Victor''s staff sucked in utterly disproportionate quantities of sacrificial aura. He didn''t even notice it, as it was held in his third arm while his focus was trained completely on activating the disruptor pylons.
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By the time he awoke the last one, the maelstrom didn''t even look coherent. It wasn''t a vortex, but a roiling mass of contradicting currents, listlessly thrashing in place while geysers and meteors of sacrificial aura tore away from it. Victor landed inelegantly near his starting point, his boots tearing a gash into the ground, with a pair of his servitors catching him while two more gathered in front to shield him from any ejected aura. He lurched forward as he tried to get his bearings, whipping his third arm forward and stabbing the Oculus into the ground as a support, grasping the staff in both hands. A strange trance had come over him.
As for the disruption array, even its already-impressive effect was like redirecting part of a river into a local creek. The vast majority of the maelstrom still remained well within the ritual circle and mostly within Third''s grasp. At this rate, it wouldn''t lose even one-fifth of its total mass by the time the ritual was complete.
The reason for the disruption array''s lack of effect was simple: Third was fighting it the whole way. He was even starting to slowly take back control, contending against the array''s disruption, even though the disruption itself continually shifted specifically to counter any attempts at mitigation. In short, Third was just that much more skilled and experienced at this.
But it wouldn''t save him.
Zelsys herself struggled to comprehend the magnitude of power she had built to tear through the Third Truthseeker''s defenses - it was such that her body could not contain it. Zefaris had retreated to the next building over. The air in Zel''s vicinity had become lightning. She was no longer kneeling on the rooftop, but floating in mid-air, suspended effortlessly with the sheer power of fulgurmagnetism. Giant flares of lightning leapt from the bottoms of her feet and from her horns, joining together behind her into wings of lightning tens of metres tall. In order to exert a hold over all that energy, she had to stretch out her aura, and the sheer intensity of energy surrounding her had given form to Chrome Skull Viper and countless lesser auraic manifestations - as a mere side effect. A swarm of chthonic horrors wrought from screaming-blue plasma swirled around her, waiting to be given a command, themselves screeching and growling in the eardrum-rupturing frequencies of thunderbolts.
This whole time, what Third said had been stewing in the back of Zel''s mind; specifically what he had called Carnifex: Inheritance. That''s how the Third Truthseeker saw it: Something passed down from her betters, from some ancient cultivator who had locked it away for a worthy successor to find. Mere indignation had become true, seething anger, and it wasn''t just her own. Where her right hand grasped her blades blackstone handle, it began to thrum with an intensity unfelt since her early months - so insulted, Fulguris was. She couldve simply controlled it, kept her calm, but she didnt want to. There was no reason to. No matter how furious, she wouldnt lose control of herself. This was the comfort afforded to her by the Walking Way of the Despot of Self.
Inheritance? There was no inheritance. Carnifex has never been wielded by another! I turned Borea upside down for the means to forge it! I awoke the Revenant King, excised the heart of a Fallen Star, harnessed a living god! YOU DARE call Carnifex Fulguris a MERE INHERITANCE?!
323 - DRAGONSLAYER THUNDERCANNON
The Third Truthseeker felt many things.
The intoxicating sense of power and growth came first; a perpetually-intensifying ecstasy that only redoubled each time he thought it was at its peak. The wailing and screeching which surrounded him felt as though the most exquisite music to his ears. It put the greatest of his works to shame, no orchestra of living instruments could compare to the sound of countless, worthless mortals being rendered into the fuel of Third''s apotheosis.
He also felt anger and regret, knowing that he was being robbed of that which was rightfully his with every passing moment. Despite his efforts, the self-righteous frogs hell bent on dragging him down the well of mediocrity continued their work in subverting the ritual. It would have surely collapsed and devoured him had he not taken such great pains to reinforce it and to ensure there was no single point of failure.
Third couldn''t sense anything besides himself, and the maelstrom of sacrificial energy. Even then, he couldn''t see any further into the maelstrom than those outsiders - a precious few metres from where he floated. The means of reading the maelstrom''s status were, however, built into the ritual circle''s control arrays as a necessity.
All this time, he had been interpreting fluctuations in the maelstrom''s outermost layers to guide his decisions. Even the Revenant constructs were fire-and-forget, as any information they could try to relay back would be lost within the maelstrom.
So then, why did a sense of impending doom fester in the back of his mind?
He ignored it.
No, more than that, he crushed it down and relegated it to the darkest oubliette of his mind, to be dealt with later. Preferably never.
He wasn''t given a choice.
Slowly, gradually, almost imperceptibly, that feeling of impending doom grew.
Bit by bit, he felt an intense tension building in his vicinity, like invisible hands pulling at him in all directions. All of his faculties being occupied with controlling the ritual, Third had no choice but believe that the maelstrom''s sheer intensity and his own passive defences would protect him against any attempt to reach him with an attack.
The Third Truthseeker''s hopes were, however, dashed.
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One instant, he was fine.
The next, he had been struck by lightning, run through by a spear, and torn into by countless razor-fanged maws.
And through the gap that had been torn into his ritual, he saw it.
Not a person, not a war machine, not a weapon nor a spirit. He saw a dragon made of lightning, its maw agape as it breathed golden flame, its wings of lightning stone-still, yet keeping it aloft in brazen defiance of nature.
Then he blinked, and realized that it was far worse than a dragon.
It. Was. Her.
As for Zelsys, she felt nothing besides release. For a few moments, as she pulled the trigger, she feared that the already gigantic magnetic forces acting on her body would tear her apart.
But once she uttered the invocation and the striker slammed the ignition glyph, all those worries were gone. Her lightning and aura both poured out of her like a breath released after being held for far too long.
"Thunder... cannon."
The flame of a dragon''s gullet ignited within a cage of metal. It would have simply torn it asunder, were it not also wrought of a dragon''s metal flesh.
It was not a gout, or burst, or explosion.
It came out of the barrel as a mighty golden pillar, propelling a tower of steel, both through pressure and through direct manipulation of natural law. The world bent under the will of a human empowered by the seemingly boundless might of a dragon.
One by one, the bullet passed through gates within a tunnel made of steel and lightning. One by one, it was forced to accelerate even faster, and each gate it passed collapsed behind the bullet, its constituent matter and energy becoming part of the greater, gestalt projectile.
A FLAME THAT BURNS SO BRIGHT
TO LIGHTEN THE DARKEST NIGHT SKY
EIGHTFOLD PATH TO DEVASTATION
DRAGONSLAYER THUNDERCANNON
In an instant, a beam of light tore through the maelstrom, and a deluge of constructs followed with it. Countless lightning serpents, the Thundergods, the Chrome Skull Viper biting the Third Truthseeker''s head and winding around his body in an attempt to crush his red-glowing body. He floated in place, glowing like some sort of god, and he exuded an aura worthy of that descriptor. The humanity was gone from his eyes, and his body was illuminated from within such that it could not possibly be just a singular source of intense power. His proportions were a bit too long, yet perfectly chiseled, and a long mane of scarlet, shining hair billowed about him. His face was sharp, his jaw square, his chin pointy, his nose prominent yet elegant, his burning eyes narrow and slightly tilted - all unlike his soft, quasi-ikesian-aristocrat features from before. He was the image of a living god. The man had not wasted a moment, he had been harnessing the souls of the sacrificed to reforge himself in every sense of the word.
And as all that took place, the maelstrom was cast into disarray. The gap which the Dragonslayer had carved wasn''t just hesitant to close, it refused. Golden flame burned at its perimeter, forcing it to remain open.
324 - DRAGONSLAYER THUNDERCANNON Pt. 2
Meanwhile, Third stared. He didn''t scream, or lash out, or even ask if she dared. He stared down at Zelsys, as she floated lower to the ground so she could spend that energy on replenishing herself for a potential continuation of their fight. Then, he flared his aura, and rid himself of the lingering constructs hanging onto him. Only the spear, or rather, its core of True Fangs and the bullet etched with Antediluvian Glyphs, remained, embedded right next to his heart. Brightly-glowing, silver blood seeped out of the wound, and Zef''s glyphs encroached onto Third''s reddish skin like a plague, but he raised his left hand, and by gripping the spear he halted the infestation of glyphs from advancing any further. He didn''t seem able to make them retreat, or to pull the spear out, however.
He raised his other hand, and did a simple revolving gesture with his finger. Despite everything, the maelstrom lurched, as if to try and right itself. The opening narrowed, and in places, the maelstrom seemed like it wanted to return to its normal revolving motion.
It seemed as though even this would not be enough, as if Third would retain his focus in spite of this, only for a ghostly Type-ZZ Anti-cultivator Cannon shell to follow immediately in the Dragonslayer''s wake. It struck Third''s stomach, and what little order the maelstrom still retained was now erased altogether. A barrage of bullets and swordbeams followed, by some miracle striking exactly the right spots. Despite the lack of physical impact, the spiritual impact was undeniable; great cavities in the maelstrom exploded out of Third''s body right across from where each spiritual projectile struck him.
BELLADONNA SIGN
RECOLLECTION OF IKESIA''S FALLEN
PHANTOM SCRIPTURE: GHOST PLATOON
Indeed, Zefaris hadn''t just stood by idly recuperating. She, too, had prepared, pushing herself - not just to prepare to summon as many of her phantoms as possible when the time came, but to prepare a barrage ahead of time.
And now, it was time to make use of it.
Previously frozen in time at the moment of contact with one another, dozens of bullets bounced off of dragonsteel coins and hammered into Third in rapid sequence.
Thereafter, five simultaneous dragonshot bullets followed, compressed into the space of a single shot through flagrant defiance of the laws of time. Tears of blood ran freely from the socket of the blonde''s blackstone eye and the veins around it bulged out of her skin, but even now, it burned glyphs into thin air with a machine-gun cadence.
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BELLADONNA SIGN
ILLUSORY TRIBUTE TO IKESIA''S FALLEN
HEADPIERCER ARTS: GHOST BATTALION -PHANTOM REPRISE-
"You. Shall. Cease!" came an earth-shaking proclamation from Third''s lips. He was barely opening his mouth, barely whispering, and yet his words blasted out from him and were echoed by most of the maelstrom even as the rest of it gradually, irreversibly slipped out of his grasp. Bit. By. Bit. His focus wavered. Thousands of revenants, twisted echoes of sacrificed souls, spilled out and began swarming, fearfully avoiding those with substantial presence.
Zefaris stumbled. The pressure had become too much, and Third''s wrath cast her to her knees.
Then lightning struck him.
And again.
And again.
And again.
A rapid-fire cadence of lightning strikes, every single one powerful enough to rip apart a tree, each greedily drank up by the Dragonslayer Rod. With each strike, the plague of antediluvian glyphs spread further over Third''s body, the divine glow within him becoming just as unstable and uneven as the maelstrom around him. His previously perfect posture suddenly shriveled, as if his entire being was gripped by a horrific cramp.
The cause was none other than Zelsys.
Walking forward through the rubble, her hands held up, her weapons still merged into one. To her left stood the armored figure of Thundercannon, and to her right Fulguris. Behind her, the imperious brute that was the Primordial Self had also manifested, its arms crossed as it strode ahead.
Between each step, lightning exploded inside her chest several times. With each explosion, a furious tendril of blue-white death shot out from her gun and unerringly joined to the spear in Third''s chest.
"How does it feel? To meet a tribulation worthy of your transgressions, filth?! I suppose that, in the end, I cannot expect the heavens to do all the hard work!"
"You..." the Third Truthseeker struggled out, but he couldn''t finish it. He didn''t have the strength to express his incredulity.
Of course she dared.
She considered - she knew - herself to be his superior. In morality. In cultivation. In Truth.
And the worst part was, something inside the Third Truthseeker agreed. Something wretched inside him wanted to acquiesce. It was something that he crushed down and pulverized.
Third decided that enough was enough. Even as he was, having refined only somewhere between three and four tenths of the sacrificial aura, he was already stronger than Fourth. Not by much... But by enough.
"Fine. If you would rob me of that which is rightly mine..."
He held out his right hand and drew in as much of the maelstrom as he could reach. As much as would obey him at this instant. A few hundred souls'' worth of sacrificial aura filled and enveloped his hand, then his arm, all the way to a small section of his torso. Thusly protected, he grasped that accursed spear and leveraged the sacrifices of hundreds against those accursed glyphs.
They made the glyphs retreat, if only partly, but they did not suffice to make the spear budge. So, he repeated the feat with his other hand. All the while, that accursed woman kept hammering him with lightning, each strike erasing dozens of lives worth of energy. It was absurd; he knew of single mortals who survived lightning strikes.
"Then I shall burn it all, and you shall perish in the flames!"
325 - Contact With a Deity
Moments earlier...
With each pylon, Victor had felt a quasi-divine pressure building, but he had thought it was just a side effect of the disruption array. It wasn''t. It was the Oculus. Like a hungry abyss, it drew long ribbons of fleshy-red aura into its ring, which was now completely filled by a seething star. It seemed like the ring would burst at any moment if Victor didn''t marshal every iota of his remaining strength to compress it, and so he did. The Oculus'' jade secondary rings began violently jumping back and forth in a rhythmic, clacking ruckus, and the bloody star collapsed with the same ease as compressing bonefire to prepare a cast of Fight the Night. When it became the size of a marble there came a thunderous sound, and he found himself sinking. Boom.
The Oculus'' aura suction redoubled, and Victor decided to move the two servitors in front of him out of the way. A geyser of dislodged aura erupted as if to sweep him away, only to be consumed in its entirety, with the Oculus'' star once more growing to fill the ring.
Victor repeated the compression process. Again, and again, and again. Each cycle took only two seconds, but he felt his entire soul straining with effort. Inevitably, blood began dripping from his nose, but he kept going. He didn''t know why, but he knew he had to do this. It wasn''t a matter of whether he could do it - he would do it, because there was no other choice.
Boom. Boom. Concentric, circular impressions were blasted into the ground where he stood. One after the next, moving outward, the one wherein he stood growing deeper with each blast. With each one, it felt as if something was coming closer, as if something was reaching out.
He remained keenly aware of the goings-on, and it took truly superhuman willpower to remain fully focused and ignore Mistress Zelsys'' incredible combination technique which shook the earth, the heavens, and the air in between. This was not an overstatement; unnatural, pitch-black clouds gathered overhead just after the Dragonslayer Thundercannon went off. His awareness collapsed into the task at hand, and remained so until the moment the Third Truthseeker howled in rage and defiance:
"Then I shall burn it all, and you shall perish in the flames!"
The Third Truthseeker tore the Dragonslayer Spear out of his chest, and with it, a mass of flesh that would have killed any mortal. The moment it was out, however, his flesh returned to its rightful place in reverse-motion, the injury undone rather than healed. He tried to throw the spear at Zelsys, only for its constituent metal to unfold into a pair of inward-facing Three True Fang Rippers that shredded away at Third''s arm. With a howl of anger, he lashed out in a random direction. Thousands of tendril-arms made of burning-red aura exploded out of him in that direction, scattering the Fang Rippers and flattening everything in a twenty-meter diameter.
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Well, everything except for the red-haired wizard whose presence was comparatively so diminutive that Third didn''t even acknowledge him. He was a threat, yes, but not nearly as much of one as Zelsys, Zefaris, or Strake. For this reason, he didn''t notice that the portion of his attack that would''ve obliterated Victor was seemingly erased out of existence.
Just as it seemed like the power of the Third Truthseeker''s outburst had vanished for no reason, an iridescent tear opened in the staffs eye. It was nearly identical to the strange spatial tunnels down in Agartha, but shimmering and unstable, and leading to A destitute ruin. There was nothing there to be found, only the feet of a wrecked statue overgrown by grasses. And yet, a mighty voice thundered forth from the spatial tear, a voice that rang out like a giant iron bell struck by a battering ram, echoing inside Victors head.
YOU KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME, BEARER OF THE ONBASHIRA, SUCCESSOR TO HE WHOM TIAN FENG, THE DESTROYER OF MY SHRINE, SO HATED. YOUR PUPPETS. GATHER THEM. ALL OF THEM. EVEN THOSE OF FLESH. I REQUIRE A VESSEL."
They are not mine to command.
This was true. The Flesh Unions were on his side, but he couldn''t control them. At best he could try to steer them in their vengeful anger.
CALL TO THEM WITH MY VOICE. THEY SHALL LISTEN. I REQUIRE A VESSEL.
Victor had designed his Servitors so they could combine and interlock in order to take larger forms and fulfill a wide variety of roles, but he hadnt been able to get them to cooperate properly in anything larger than a two-servitor combination for the complex, full-animal designs. But now, they were all coming together. Every single one, gathering at his call, their embedded servitor-spirits being overridden by something altogether greater.
And it wasnt just his servitors.
The Unions, too.
All driven towards a single point, merging together seamlessly with only some effort on Victors part. All he had to do was guide it, and guide it, he did, forming his servitors into the composite giants helmet-like head, while the faces of the many people who constituted the giant all gathered on its chest. The vessel''s form, in the end, would be a twenty-meter humanoid of merged flesh, with Victor''s servitors forming the head and some reinforcing plates. Its size was simply too great to armor in full.
As he worked, and as fear once more built within his chest, he once more heard that voice. It suddenly felt as though an inconceivably large presence was staring at him through the spatial bridge within his staff''s ring, but there was nothing there. Just the vast, trunkless legs of an ancient idol.
"DO NOT FALTER NOW, YOU HAVE COME THIS FAR. FOCUS."
With that command, his focus snapped back into place.
326 - Momentary Quiet Before the Final Bout
The Third Truthseeker, in his rage, reached out and grasped every shred of aura he could. This was of course the aura that was the closest to him, as he had already begun refining it in preparation to take it into himself. It amounted to a little less than half of the rapidly-decaying maelstrom''s volume.
In an instant, the maelstrom''s slowly scattering mass was turned into two distinct masses. The inner mass, under Third''s control, imploded into him, surrounding him in a spherical bubble. The shockwave of this act, conversely, caused the remainder to scatter even more violently, a spiraling flood of weeping, directionless revenants.
Zero had, at this point, spun down. Its movements had grown slower, less violent, and it walked the earth once more. The machine, for lack of a better term, was tired. It wasn''t out of fuel yet, but it couldn''t sustain its peak level of output, dropping to about 50% above the normal combat baseline while retaining the quasi-transcendent abilities of its Delimit Pilot Fusion state. Strake was part of the reason for this drop. He, as the core organic component and sole source of Zero''s aura, was a limiting factor to how long peak output could be sustained.
Zelsys and Zefaris weren''t much better for wear. Zefaris had finally caved by closing her eye, and Zelsys could feel the crash rapidly approaching. Her construct-lungs wouldn''t hold out much longer. Maybe not even a minute. But that would be enough. It had to be enough.
As for what to do next... Zelsys didn''t know. She gathered her True Fangs back together and reformed Carnifex into its proper shape, but she wasn''t sure how to proceed with dealing with whatever Third''s ball formation was. It looked dense. Surpassingly so. A solid ball of crimson with Third''s elongated figure as the only dark spot in its centre. Her first guess had been that it might be a bomb, but it didn''t feel that way to her gut instinct. It felt more like an egg. Its surface rippled and writhed as the disruptor array adjusted its beams towards the ball, but one after the next, the pylons shattered and their rubble came raining from on high.
For the moment, she was busy protecting herself and Zefaris from the few loose revenants that were mad or feral enough to try attacking them. Carnifex ripped them apart without issue, and, after summoning Chrome Skull Viper, the territorial construct greedily devoured any that got near. The aura was filthy, and Zelsys was utterly certain that she would have to painstakingly rid herself of its impurity later, but it was necessary replenishment. She really didn''t look forward to puking up congealed impurity like that time with the Necrobeast Serum. Perhaps Metabolic Alkahest and the Truth of Fangs would suffice to obliterate it altogether. Hopefully.
From where she stood, Zel clearly saw Victor doing something, something she didn''t fully understand. He was building a giant servitor, that much was clear, and he was also, somehow, purifying stray sacrificial aura. It was obviously something to do with Itrian Shrine Guardian arts, but what, she couldn''t hazard a guess. She was familiar with his cultivation and his techniques, but this wasn''t anything he had ever practiced or talked about in the past. It vaguely resembled his ill-fated attempts at combining his servitors, sure, but the scale of it was far beyond that. If she didn''t know better, she would think he was trying to build a miniature Teutobochus.
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In short, the redhead was the least drained between the four of them. Zelsys decided to send out an aetherwave pulse; a call to anyone who would listen, and anyone who would dare. Only a few tense moments passed, and she already heard the thumping steps of Third and Second-model tank suits. They weren''t anywhere near the totality of the Newman Sect''s forces, of course. No, these Hellhounds were the brave, or perhaps suicidal, souls who had pushed deep into the city and then decided to stick around after the ritual had begun.
Among them, utterly unsurprisingly, were also most of the Newman Sect''s members who had come along. Mata Gano, Old One-arm, and Vaceran. One-arm looked to be doing substantially better than the younger two, and somehow, his dungeontech arm had become twice as large and now had an under-arm nozzle dripping liquid flame. She supposed it was to be expected of blackstone with the limiters removed. It was inevitable that the construct would adjust itself to best suit the user.
The reinforcements didn''t ask any questions; there wasn''t time for such things. Zel''s call had included the basic situation briefing, and she frankly didn''t think she could explain much more in a reasonable timespan. The command was simple: Suppress the Third Truthseeker when he showed any sign of vulnerability, but don''t try to go against him directly. Several Gundream Third-models had hunkered down and anchored their feet, their twin cannons settling on their shoulders. The Hellhounds took mortars from the Gundreams'' backs, setting them up in an encirclement around the cathedral''s wrecked remnants, above which Third hovered. They had slug rounds for their shotguns, but Zel frankly didn''t think they would do much of anything at these ranges. The barrels on those things weren''t more than thirty centimeters, and they weren''t engineered for at-range precision like Tempesta. A tiny, tiny handful set down man-portable Type-Z rifles - three in total. The Hellhounds were terrified. Zelsys could feel it from them. But they did what they thought was necessary nonetheless, and did it with resolve. That was what made them worthy of their tank suits.
Zel understood their worry.
It wasn''t every day you witnessed a congealed ball of unholy power suddenly turn into a fifteen-meter-tall ghostly suit of screaming armour. There was no transformation, no gradual change. It was a violent, instantaneous snap, and with it came a shockwave that sent even Zelsys stumbling back slightly. It threw the Hellhounds off their feet altogether. A few of them were, for some unknown reason, thrown back into nearby walls. The reason behind the uneven spread of force escaped her. Thankfully the mortars were easily put back into the upright positions.
Third was still visible inside the aura construct as a dark silhouette. A pair of burning-white eyes opened upon its faceless countenance. They immediately fell upon Zelsys, and from within them burned Third''s own hatred. She readily met his gaze, and smugly found him averting his eyes, trying to mask the sign of weakness by turning the giant construct and sweeping its stare across the desolate surroundings. It briefly lingered on Victor''s giant puppet, but continued its circle soon thereafter.
327 - Mightiest of the Eight Guardian Deities
Zel genuinely wasn''t quite sure how to proceed. In terms of pure physical endurance, she could keep going. Red had pushed her much further than this. Her lungs, however, wouldn''t hold. She could already feel them breaking down. A swig of Witch''s Brew forestalled the decay, but only for so long. She knew why, deep in her gut. The Primordial Self had used a distinctly limited duration as leverage to achieve the great performance they had exhibited thus far. Third''s demonic construct floated in the midst of devastation, continuing its impression of a lighthouse.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the Truthseeking Revenant came to a halt, staring at the giant puppet. The cyclone of cast-off, loose aura had by now calmed to a relatively slow, outward spiral. It was now just very dangerous rather than guaranteed death to any mortal who came in contact with it.
She wasn''t sure of anything about the tense stare-down. Not the reason for the puppet, nor the reason it seemed to perturb Third more than her continued existence.
Both of those questions were answered for her in the next few moments.
The giant servitor was motionless, unmoving, and Victor felt what needed to be done. He felt the vast, unknowable power that flowed through the Oculus, and knew that it would be the ignition key for this titan just the same as his Black Sun Keys were the lifeblood of his individual servitors.
It was all so clear, now. Despite the crushing pressure acting on him, Victor knew what had to be done. He felt his armor cracking and its musculature tearing as he, through sheer will, forced it to move him and blast him up to the vessels head. A passage from the Itrian Scroll replayed in his mind, and he spoke it aloud as he flew towards the giants head and reared back his hand to bury the Oculus into the back of it. There was only one option. Victor felt his thrusters sputter out from under him halfway up the giants back, so he grabbed on with his third arm for dear life, climbing up to the giants shoulders with his right and third hands. Once there, he righted himself and reared back to embed the Oculus into the vessel''s head.
By this holy implement, I offer up this vessel, that the works of evil might be turned against their makers!
The Oculus'' spear-end sunk in, and Victor grasped its ring, turning the staff as if it were a key while chanting a sutra. Its words could not be understood, but the meaning within it was as clear as could be; a call to something, or perhaps someone, to inhabit the vessel. The rift within the Oculus eye flared and a burst of iridescent light ran down the staff''s length, into the vessel''s head.
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In an instant, the vessel began exuding a truly vast presence and stirred into motion. It clapped its hands with a thunderous noise, and the mouths littering its chest began repeating Victor''s sutra. In moments, every shred of stray sacrificial aura was drawn towards the giant, swirling around it. A storm of weeping revenants continuously flooded towards the Oculus, and Victor knew it was his duty to purify them. Each. And. Every. One.
Victor could do naught but keep chanting for dear life, shifting to a purifying sutra right away, and by some miracle, it was enough. By rights the strain should''ve torn his soul in two, but the same presence that had been roaring inside his head also took away the fear of that happening. For the briefest moment, Victor found himself spirited away from reality, into the depths of his thoughtscape.
There, his Thinking Self beheld a vast and incomprehensible presence of pure valor, a figure wielding a giant spear in one hand and a purifying khakkhara staff in the other. Four more, six-segmented arms erupted from its back. It stood tall, and with its four arms, it held up a gigantic meteor of congealed, weeping souls, preventing it from crushing Victor.
The giant faltered. One of his hands slipped. The meteor moved closer. Victor instinctively reached out, and he was suddenly standing atop the beastly form of his Primordial Self. The thoughtform was utterly gigantic, hundreds of meters tall. Its clawed tail whipped forward, taking on some of the weight. Together with the nameless divinity, they could bear even the weight of thousands of sacrificed souls.
The shining giant looked down upon him, with a boisterous grin upon its otherwise indistinct face, and bellowed: "CHANT, INHERITOR OF THE SECOND! MY STRENGTH MAY BE A SHADOW OF WHAT IT ONCE WAS, BUT THIS MUCH AID, I CAN RENDER. CHANT, NOW! WITH EACH REVENANT PURIFIED, THE NEXT SHALL BECOME EASIER AND MY STRENGTH SHALL GROW!"
Suddenly, he was back in reality, chanting the sutras of purification he had memorized from the Itrian Shrine Guardian Scroll... And the vessel was moving of its own accord. It rose up from the ground, fully embodying that divine presence from before. Thousands of revenants swirled around it, solidifying into armour. The countless weeping faces which had gathered on the giant''s chest also swirled together into one, forming a sneering, demonic visage with red-black fire in its eyes and fanged maw. It contrasted sharply with the faceless, helmet-like appearance of its head. It was no longer a mere vessel, but the avatar of a fallen god.
"I AM THE MIGHTIEST OF THE EIGHT GUARDIAN DEITIES!" the Avatar proclaimed. Its body, previously just humanoid, suddenly shifted, becoming powerfully muscular and perfectly proportional in a single monumental flex. The sickly, fleshy colour became as white as mutton-fat jade. In that single instant of transubstantiation, a hodgepodge of mangled mortal bodies became the temporary home of a deity.
The Truthseeking Revenant lashed out, its arm extending with explosive force. The Avatar, despite its incomplete state, weathered the assault, grabbing the Revenants arm before it could retract. As if its very touch were poison, the Revenant emitted an unearthly scream and separated its arm just above where the Avatar had grabbed it, reforming the limb right away.
328 - KISHIN-SHURA-BISHAMONTEN
"I AM THE GUARDIAN OF HEAVENLY TREASURES, THE PATRON OF RIGHTEOUS WARRIORS AND PUNISHER OF THOSE WITHOUT HONOR!" the Avatar continued to speak. It seemed as if, with each utterance, its presence became more real and less ethereal, as if introducing itself in this manner was part of the incarnation ritual.
The Avatar raised its right hand. Countless revenants were expelled from the mouth on its chest, forming into a spear at first. In its second hand, a khakkhara staff began to form. However, as both implements reached halfway completion, the avatar brought them together and they merged to become a gigantic, red-glowing copy of the Oculus.
It was just in time, as the Truthseeking Revenant began expelling from its eyes a deluge of what appeared to be boiling, burning blood. Its destructive power, however, far surpassed the source of its form, setting the air ablaze with its passing. Before the deluge could reach the Avatar, it slammed its staff into the ground, its rings producing a sound akin to several church bells ringing at once. The Revenants fire was consumed into the staffs eye.
"REJOICE, RIGHTEOUS ONES! YOU HAVE STRUGGLED GREATLY TO CALL ME FORTH, AND HERE I STAND!"
From the avatars head a mighty mane grew, wrought not of hair nor fur, but the vengeful energy of Eberheims dead. It burned with the crimson-red of wrath, transitioning to orange at points.
"HALLOWED BE MY NAME:"
"KISHIN-SHURA-BISHAMONTEN!"
With only the utterance of its name, the ground around the Avatar of Bishamonten collapsed by several meters within a thirty-meter-wide circle around the construct. The Truthseeking Revenant stumbled back as if it had been struck, widening its stance to counteract the immense weight pressing down on it. An emblem bearing a sigil in the Itrian language embossed itself onto the Avatar''s chest, just above the eyes of the wrathful face. It thrummed with power and truth, such that all who looked upon it would know what it meant.
PURIFICATION
The Avatar of Bishamonten raised up its staff-spear, thrusting it down upon the Revenant. It grabbed the spear, halting it dead, but the moment Third mobilized the power of his construct, it was torn away, drawn into the Avatar''s maw. The more the Revenant struggled, the more of its power was ripped away.
The two giants exchanged several blows that went nowhere, being either dodged or blocked. Even these few exchanges, however, sent out immensely violent shockwaves that shook the earth.
Eventually, however, Bishamonten skewered the Sacrificial Revenant, stepping forward and forcing it down to its knees. With each passing moment the aura visibly drained out of Third''s construct, gathering in the eye of Bishamonten''s staff. Bit by nigh-imperceptible bit, the Revenant shrunk, and bit by bit, Bishamonten pushed the spear deeper, closer to Third himself. Even still the Revenant struggled, grasping at the spear.
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Somehow, some way, Third managed to wrest control of the spear-staff from Victor and Bishamonten, evidenced by a shift in its colour. With an immense heave, replicating Third''s feat against Zelsys, the Revenant tore the spear out of itself, mere metres from reaching Third''s true body. Bishamonten stumbled, thrown off-balance, and, taking the opening, the scarlet titan sprung backwards. It landed unsteadily, stumbling backwards before eventually stabilizing itself against a mostly-intact building in a wide, low-down stance. It threw its head back, and power surged within it, as if it was about to use another ranged attack. Bishamonten braced himself, prepared to devour and purify, but no attack emerged. The flows within the Revenant were not stirring power for expulsion, but seemingly trying to compress as much as possible. It shrank even more, down to less than two-thirds Bishamonten''s height.
Third''s voice, coloured by simple desperation, echoed across the desolate city centre: GREAT ARMAGEDDON, CLAIM NOW MY HEART!
A light came to life inside the Revenant, spreading through it like a flame, its form distorting and stretching. For a moment it seemed like the Revenant would explode, but Bishamonten leapt through the air with an explosion of force and buried the spear into the Revenant''s chest once more.
The emblem of purification shone with blindingly-bright light, and the giant''s mouth chanted a mantra in lockstep with Victor, who still desperately clung to the avatar''s back. Boom. Boom. Boom. Bishamonten''s already immense presence multiplied, just for a moment, and once more circles were blasted into the ground beneath its feet. Bishamonten pushed, kicking out the Revenant''s feet to force it onto its back. The avatar then stepped back out of the trio of circles, leaving the Revenant skewered, the flame-like reaction inside it slowed, but not halted.
Bishamonten clapped its hands together with a sound like thunder.
The explosion came; there was no distinct combustion, one moment the Revenant was, and the next, it became a pillar of red light shooting into the sky. Even now, it was purified the moment it exited Third''s grasp, fleshy scarlet turning to brilliant, pure red and then golden-white as it pierced the gathering clouds.
In mere moments, it seemed as though Bishamonten had formed a three-layered containment formation. Those with eyes to see, however, knew better. Glyphs of power burned around each circle''s perimeter, but they were not quite those contained within the scrolls, bearing modifications based on Victor''s fragmentary understanding of Antediluvian Glyphs. Indeed, the reason for this was the same behind the merging of the staff and spear which Bishamonten normally wielded separately, and it was the reason for the alteration of its combat style to include certain techniques the warrior-god was not known to use. The Avatar was controlled neither by Bishamonten, nor by Victor, but by both of them in unison.
At first, the pillar of flame was contained within the innermost ring, then the second, and the third. The clouds changed colour from a reddish-grey, and soon enough, a rain of golden ichor fell upon Eberheim; the purified remnants of but a few of its dead, returning to their home. All those upon whom the golden rain fell suddenly felt their pains melting away and their wounds knitting back together. Well, there was one exception. A survivor of the Order, who found out the hard way that the hate Eberheims fallen held for his kind was still very present even in this purified ichor. His swift, yet excruciating death left behind only an empty, suspiciously greasy black robe.
329 - PURIFICATION
The containment formations outermost ring finally gave out, but by then, the vast majority of Third''s would-be suicide technique was spent. The burst of power that escaped was so small that Bishamonten''s avatar drew it in without any apparent effort, leaving only a pitch-black, elongated corpse on the ground. Next to it, the giant Oculus formed of aura also stood, the bulk of its constituent aura now golden, with the veins in the shaft and the metallic components made of silvery-white, while the smaller, jade rings were still gold. Despite its beauty, the power it radiated was humbling even to the Witch and the Wizard who were still watching.
Over the next several minutes, he was surrounded by the Newman Sect''s other members, as well as a pair of supremely brave Hellhounds. Strake joined them last, with Zero approaching at a pace more befitting of a human than a walking tank. The machine looked more like a moving wreck than the screaming, devouring iron demon from before, with its bright red paint completely overtaken by thick layers of dark, crusted something. When it reached the partial circle, its diameter being a little over fifty meters, it opened its frontal plating, with Strake leaning forward, hanging by the cables that were still stuck into him.
"If anyone has any Witch''s Brew, or even just water..." he began with a weak, chainsmoker-like voice. Zero replayed his words a moment later, amplified and clarified. Once a few eyes were on him, he gestured to the Third Truthseeker''s body, which most of all resembled a mass of coal.
"Please. I feel how he looks."
"You don''t look much different, either," Zel said. She held out a hand to Zefaris, who was still aiming Pentacle at Thirds lifeless form. Without missing a beat, the blonde used her free hand to pass her tablet. Zel decided to split the Witch''s Brew between herself and Strake at a 1:2 ratio. She wasn''t worried about asphyxiating, since she could, if need be, break down water in her stomach to get oxygen in a roundabout way, but she still hated the feeling of not being able to breathe.
Zelsys had been the first to dare approach. She saw him draw no breath, felt not heartbeat from him, and, indeed, he had no aura either. And yet, her gut wouldnt let her be. There was another thrice-damned trick, there had to be.
DO NOT REST YET, RIGHTEOUS ONES, Bishamontens thunderous voice echoed inside all their heads. I YET REMAIN HERE BECAUSE THE DEMON IS NOT YET EXPUNGED. A SIMPLE TRICK. FALSE DEATH.
As if on cue red light pulsed within the not-quite-dead man''s chest, and the Third Truthseeker stood up, emitting a cackling, hateful laugh.
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"Fine! You got-"
He didn''t get to speak the next word, as a ghostly, green anti-cultivator round smashed into the side of his head. A burst of aura sprayed out the other side, giving the appearance of blood. He froze in place for a few seconds, seemingly dead, only to shake his head as if he''d just been slapped.
"Oh, I hate that," he uttered, the gravity of his situation seemingly not having sunk in yet.
Only minutes earlier, Zefaris was genuinely considering whether the Third Truthseeker could even be touched, let alone killed, whether it would be better to retreat.
Looking at him now, even as he defied death, the Third Truthseeker didn''t feel so untouchable.
Suddenly, he was just a man.
An overwhelmingly powerful man.
A man who could, even now, cast down a small army of mortals with a thought.
A man who could annihilate a city on his own.
When he rose up to his feet, he was cast back down in an instant. An unexpected cannon-shot from an unexpected angle. The Nameless Revenant. It smashed into the side of his head and sprayed burning-red aura into thin air. Bishamonten drew it into its waiting maw and expelled a stream of white flame in return, melting the stone around Third but leaving him untouched; not for lack of effect. The pure aura-flame and Third''s own personal aura obliterated one another on contact as one attempted to purify the other and the other attempted to corrupt the first, forcing him to flare it to protect himself.
The Third Truthseeker was an incredibly, nearly transcendently powerful and resilient man. He was also man who lost his limbs to a simultaneous barrage of ten dragonshot bullets; three each for his legs, two for his arms.
He was a man whose soul was torn open by two more comets fired from Death''s Lieutenant, deathly skulls of ghastly green with gold burning in their eyes.
Indeed, the Third Truthseeker was terribly, overwhelmingly powerful. Zefaris held no doubt in her mind that, given the sliver of a chance, he could still turn things around on them or escape.
For that reason, he couldn''t be given the honour of a fair fight, of a warrior''s death.
He didn''t deserve what Ubul had earned.
Before he could recover, he was knocked down once again by a whip-strike so forceful its impact produced not just shockwave, but a flash of light. Again. And again. And again. The Newman Sect''s elder, still in the process of coughing up her own lungs, continued striking the Third Truthseeker, and with each strike, she tore away a piece of his cultivation as a starveling beast would tear away the flesh from still-living prey.
With each strike, the sacrifices of Eberheim were ripped from him, purified by the Avatar of Bishamonten, and consumed to fuel her onslaught. By orthodox standards, it was downright demonic; a type of aura that could tear away someone else''s cultivation. But then, she was sure she could find things a hundred times worse the Sangers and Black Horses were guilty of. Her predecessor''s archives promised that much.
Zel approached him without fear or malice, feeling only pure, caustic revulsion for this creature. Even now, Third''s presence was immense, but it couldn''t spread out as aura, it couldn''t weigh down on her as it wanted. She felt him trying. Physically he was motionless, but his soul was thrashing and howling in effort, murderous fire burning behind his gaze.
330 - EXPUNGEMENT Pt. 1
She knew why he hadn''t moved yet. He couldn''t. His body could, but his soul wouldn''t let him. The presence of the giant Oculus only meters from him, Bishamonten looming not far off, and Victor, somehow, still chanting. All together, Third couldn''t exert his aura in any meaningful way, lest it be suppressed or altogether torn away from him.
Each time she struck him, it was her aura against his, her Truth against his, the weight of her existence against his. Zelsys was vividly aware that, under normal circumstances, she would not be able to do what she was doing, and for that reason, she relished it all the more. But here, now, under these circumstances, the resistance Third put up against her was token at best. He was a wretched monstrosity with each limb in a snare, claws torn out, and teeth shattered, yet he still thrashed and writhed in an effort to avoid having his spikes and armored scales torn from his hide.
A part of Zelsys wanted to just continue like this for as long as she needed, but a much larger part of her was aware that she didn''t have the stamina to destroy Third''s cultivation completely. If she was in her peak state, perhaps, but as she was now, there was no chance.
"The last time I came across an existence as vile as you, I made the mistake of giving him an infinitesimal chance of survival," she spat. "I won''t make that mistake again."
She needed to only glance in Bishamonten''s direction. Victor''s chant changed, and therefore, so did the deity''s. It became more rapid, angrier. The avatar gripped the spear-staff with both hands, and, exhaling a huge plume of aura, formed four more floating forearms just to grip it in more places.
It thereafter raised the implement and drove the spearhead down upon the Third Truthseeker.
At first, he resisted. He even managed to stand up, pushing the spearpoint back. Zelsys whipped his legs out from under him and left the blade there, willing it to form a pair of Three True Fang Rippers around his stumps to ensure he couldn''t reconnect them. Keeping those two going, at this moment, took every bit of Fulgur she could spare, and it still wasn''t enough to keep the bastard''s legs from gradually joining back together. She summoned a Thundercharger capsule, cracked it open with her teeth, and swallowed it - glass and all. The pain that flared up her gut and shot through her body told her that wasn''t a good idea, but it soon gave way to a reassuring inflow of strength as her body adjusted. It would tide her over. For fifteen seconds, maybe.
Great bursts of Thirds aura raced up the aura-spears blade, still trying to corrupt the sanctified implement even as it was forcibly ripped from its master. There was something different, however. While the aura was being purified, it was at a far slower pace than before, and it was gradually spreading up the spears length.
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Even now, after all he had weathered, the Third Truthseeker defiantly stood to his feet, his wavering hands snapping into unsettlingly perfect hand signs as he murmured an incantation through the fountain of iridescent blood pouring out of his mouth. His aura, pitiful as it was, flexed, and his blood began to bubble as he burned it in some form of blood magic.
Zelsys glared at him. He grinned with jagged teeth at first, but then fell to his knees as the weight of her aura took effect. The maws of invisible drakes tore him towards the ground, and the foot of an invisible mammoth stepped on his back. Only traces of their forms could be seen in flickers amidst the lingering dust and smoke. Even now, forced into a sort of kowtow, Third forced himself to keep signing and to look up at her, twisting his neck to an unnatural degree.
"Your aura... Lacks the weight of time," he choked out.
Zel flexed her aching soul and twisted Third''s own hands into jagged claws with which she tore his throat out. It didn''t kill him by far, and his arteries remained intact, glowing with energy as if they were now cables rather than veins. It did, however, stop his hand-signs. In concert with directly exerting her aura on him through eye contact, it sufficed to break his concentration. In an instant, Thirds progress was erased, and the point of Bishamontens spear was driven through his chest, severing the right third of his body from the collarbone down to his waist.
With another exertion and a gesture, Zel forced her aura into his left arm, forming it into the exoskeleton for an aura-beast. Its incarnation reshaped its vessel to fit, forcefully rearranging his fingers into a jaw-like form. With popping and cracking, it dislocated his joints and snapped the bones into little pieces, and in moments, what was once an arm resembled a gruesome snake. A second gesture, and Third''s mangled left arm grabbed the right just below the shoulder. The fangs of the aura-beast possessing the limb cracked his skin like it was the surface of dried lava, red light showing through. Finally, Zelsys overlaid her own hand over Third''s right shoulder, grasping the air. In an agonizingly-long thirty seconds, she forced him to watch as his body pulled at his arm, grinding it against the edge of Bishamontens spear until it detached before throwing it into the avatars waiting maw.
The moment she released her control, Third''s remaining arm popped back into place, bones fusing back together with insulting ease. Perhaps even more insultingly, Third was grinning at her as writhing, crimson worms crawled around his stump, already growing his arm back at a rate that would have the limb wholly restored in less than ten minutes. The gaping hole where his throat had been was also closing up in the same manner. If the spear were removed, his flesh would doubtlessly fuse right back together.
"I''ll admit, that hurt," he wheezed. "Not the way you intended it to, but it did. Still, if you mean to play a game of endurance with me, know that I have more than enough vitality to outlast you."
331 - EXPUNGEMENT Pt. 2
Out of nowhere and unprompted, Bishamonten spoke: "WHAT HAS TRANSPIRED HERE SHALL LEAVE THIS LAND SEVERELY OUT OF BALANCE. THE LEYLINES SWELL WITH UNBIDDEN POWER. THE RESTLESS DEAD WAIT FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO COALESCE. UNTIL THIS IMBALANCE IS REDRESSED, THE WEATHER SHALL BE RUINOUSLY EXTREME, AND THE EARTH SHALL BEAR NO FRUIT. EVEN THIS AVATAR, AND THIS SPEAR, SHALL BECOME SOURCES OF RUIN, IF THEY ARE SIMPLY LEFT TO BE. THIS CANNOT STAND."
A heavy silence hung over them as the avatar shifted in place, turning towards the ruined remains of the Cathedral. Small sections of it had survived by pure chance, including a number of its giant support pillars.
"...THESE ARE SACRED. THEY SHALL DO."
The deity''s faceless head turned, and it knelt down. One by one, it pressed holes into the ground with its index finger and widened them just enough to fit the pillars. There were eight in total, spaced equally just outside the outer containment ring''s perimeter. Bishamonten proceeded to walk towards the ruins of the church, forming additional aura arms until it had eight in total, removing the same number of pillars to bring them back. One by one they were set into their respective recesses in the ground, and forming a hammer and chisel of aura, the god levelled each pillar''s top to be the same height. Despite the meticulous and procedural manner in which Bishamonten carried out all these tasks, it actually did them astonishingly quickly, moving with a swiftness unreasonable even for a human, let alone a titan of its size.
With a single stroke of each of its hands, Bishamonten drew a grandiose, immensely complex glyph in mid-air right above itself, ending with the right hand pointing skyward. It seethed with a profound meaning that couldn''t be discerned in a mere glance, but one facet was clear and simple enough to instantly brand itself into the minds of all who beheld it.
NORTH
With a downward gesture, Bishamonten stamped the glyph onto the top of the northward pillar, and with a sound like thunder, a circle of ground out to around one meter around the pillar was smashed down. The ancient stone suddenly took on a faint, yet undeniable golden glow.
In this manner, it continued for seven more directions, taking no more than a handful of seconds each.
NORTH-EAST
EAST
SOUTH-EAST
SOUTH
While this took place, Third continued attempting to free himself or simply lashing out in any way he could, and Zelsys continued exerting what little stamina she had left to keep him down. She wasn''t alone by any means, for the demonic elder was hammered by everything from spiritual bullets, to sword-beams, fists of stone and aura, beams of flame, and gusts of concentrated liquid flame. A few of the strongest-willed, or perhaps most foolhardy of allied tankmen even struck him with mortars and cannon-shells. None of this managed to inflict permanent damage upon him, and seemed to only make him angrier, more desperate, and less subtle in his attempts to free himself. Zel called back her Fang Rippers at this point, finding them to be no longer needed to subdue the demonic elder.
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And yet, each time a pillar was sanctified, even the mortals hundreds of meters away felt a tangible change. What fight the Third Truthseeker had left in him was being suppressed, yet the invisible pressure they felt didn''t lessen even a bit. The already-severe tension in the air only grew, the divine merely replaced the demonic, and a fair few gave into reverent impulses and began praying to whatever divinities they were familiar with. The sky only grew more overcast, yet rays of golden light began to shine down upon the city.
"ERE YOU ARE PERMITTED THE PRIVILEGE OF REBIRTH, THE STAIN OF YOUR DEEDS IN THIS LIFE NEEDST BE BURNED AWAY BY EMPYREAN FLAME AND WASHED AWAY BY THE FOG-SEA''S MERCURIAL WATERS."
SOUTH-WEST
WEST
Bishamonten stepped into the octagon before completing it, forming the final glyph before dismissing its six aura hands. Holding the glyph in place with its upward-pointing right hand, the avatar gripped the giant spear-staff with its left. Then, it cast its gaze down upon the brave souls arrayed around the circle''s perimeter.
"ALL BUT ONE OF YOU WOULD DO WELL TO RETREAT FROM THIS PLACE AT LEAST FIVE HUNDRED STEPS, FOR HEAVENLY LIGHTNING SHALL RAIN DOWN TO REDRESS THE IMBALANCES OF THIS LAND AND TO SCOUR AWAY THIS DEMON''S EXISTENCE."
The deity stopped at Zelsys.
"YOU SHALL WANT TO STAY, FOR SEVERAL REASONS. I BID THEE TO ENTER THE RITUAL CIRCLE..."
Two voices rang out after that; one Bishamonten''s, and one Victor''s.
"WALKING TRIBULATION."
"Mistress Zelsys."
Without wasting a moment, Zelsys did just that, and Bishamonten sealed the perimeter the moment she crossed over.
NORTH-WEST
At that moment, the world outside became indistinct. Zel could see shapes moving about outside, but everything was blurry and the sound was muted. With each passing second, the divine pressure inside the octagon grew, as did the tension in the air. Golden sparks flashed in and out of existence with increasing frequency. The god gripped its staff-spear with its other hand, still looking down at her.
"YOU HAVE QUESTIONS. THE ANSWERS ARE SIMPLER THAN YOU THINK. FIRSTLY, YOUR PRESENCE BENEFITS THE RITUAL, JUST AS A FIRE CULTIVATOR''S PRESENCE BENEFITS A RITUAL RELIANT UPON FLAME. MOREOVER, YOU SHALL BENEFIT FROM PARTICIPATING IN THE RITE IN WAYS BEYOND THAT WHICH IS OBVIOUS."
"I ASK OF YOU, IN RETURN, TWO ACTS IN SERVICE OF THE RITE, FOR I SHALL DEPART THIS VESSEL ONCE IT BEGINS. BRING OUT THE FANGS WHICH BEAR THE MARK OF KEIKI-AMATSUMARA, THE FORGEMOTHER, AND SKEWER THIS DEMON WITH THEM. THEREAFTER, WATCH OVER HIM UNTIL HE IS DESTROYED. THAT IS ALL I ASK OF YOU."
"Very well," Zelsys agreed, calling forth Carnifex right away. She formed each of its True Fangs into a Fang Spear and, in one gesture, impaled the Third Truthseeker such that he was forced to remain in that same kneeling position. The man''s eyes, despite his loss of the ability to resist, still burned with defiant will and hatred. Zel had to admire his tenacity if nothing else.
She sat down across from him, and waited. Victor pulled the Oculus out of the avatar''s head, and leapt to the top of the northward pillar, where he placed the staff in the same upright position as its giant counterpart. The ritual was initiated by Victor chanting a single line in concert with the Avatar of Bishamonten.
At that moment, golden lightning illuminated Eberheim. The Third Truthseeker screamed out in a combination of pain and terror.
332 - EBERHEIM ARC PT. FINAL
For three days and three nights, Zelsys watched over the Third Truthseeker as golden lightning hammered down on him.
For three days and three nights, she watched the man thrash against his restraints, screaming, ranting, monologuing.
She sat, only meters from the man, for she was the only only who could do so without being scoured out of existence by the occasional errant bolt. The first time she was struck, it felt like she was back atop the roof of that cabin again. Something that had been out of place snapped back, and it was just as painful as resetting a dislocated limb. Third seemed amused and pleased by the sight of her in pain, but it quickly turned to disbelief and resentment when he realized that his execution was benefitting her cultivation. The bolt thrummed with power, doubtlessly the divine aura of Bishamonten, but its elemental composition was pure Fulgur. It flowed through her just the same as any other lightning bolt would, burning away impurities, and in the process growing even brighter.
As Third''s stolen vitality was torn from him, the air grew thick with arcane essences, from pneuma, to sovereignless aura and vitae alike. It was a tiny fraction of the energies involved in the rite, and even what was released into the air by one strike would be inevitably consumed by the next. Even still, it was more than sufficient to sustain her, with the Essentia Crucible serving as a makeshift third lung. Zelsys shamelessly drew in what vitae she could to speed along the healing of her lungs, feeling not an iota of corruption in it. The constant hammering of thunder soon became background noise. Before long, a gnawing hunger made itself known. She could have ignored it, but she saw no reason to. And so, as an added indignity to the Third Truthseeker''s excruciatingly thorough demise, the only direct witness devoured slabs of dragon meat and hundreds of metres in crab noodles to nourish her body, while devouring whatever lightning graced her with a strike to nourish her soul.
Day in, day out, she watched him. With each strike, the Third Truthseeker came closer to final, absolute, irreversible death, and with each strike, Zelsys ascended, not merely returning to her previous prime state, but inexorably marching towards a greater one. Each strike after the first became no less intense, but just like any extreme exercise, Zelsys grew to enjoy it. In the absence of major, glaring problems with her cultivation, the heavenly lightning could only correct the countless smaller spiritual imbalances built up over the course of her short, yet extremely eventful life thus far, starting with the most recent ones.
By the end of the first day, she had regained enough use of her lungs to sustain herself. Not remotely enough to facilitate any significant exertion, but enough to not worry about it.
Time had not stopped outside the ritual circle.
The moment the rite began, Victor descended to ground level in a manner only very slightly more graceful than a free fall, and thereafter made his way to join the Newman Sect''s forces in a not-so-nearby building. He didn''t have the strength to run or even walk, and so he relied on Dawnwolf''s remaining energy, making the suit carry him. It was an astonishingly intact high-end restaurant that stood well within sight of the ritual site, but still several hundred meters away. Any insights to be gleaned from communion with Bishamonten had to wait, as did the implication of what the deity said to him before the rite had begun.
The youth lost consciousness soon after, fatigue overtaking him.
Strake Sodan was in perhaps the most severe state of them all. His condition improved rapidly following the battle, but he remained interred within Zero''s cockpit out of his own will, deciding not to take the risk of disconnection under field conditions.
Victor slept through most of the three days, awaking every few hours, usually to the sound of distant thunder, its noise dulled thanks to a formation set up by Lady Zefaris. Both his body and spirit were utterly drained of energy, to the point that all he could do during his short stints awake was watch.
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Neither a speck of sun nor moonlight pierced the clouds. So dense and black they were that they resembled a ceiling.
And yet, the city was alight, half thanks to the golden glow that issued from the clouds themselves, and half thanks to the ritual site. With each strike, the Avatar of Bishamonten and its staff were stripped of aura, and with each strike, they gradually turned to white stone. If Victor looked carefully, he could glimpse bursts of energy and spectres of the dead flowing across the fulguric channel that connected the heavens and the earth.
Rarely, terribly rarely, the golden lightning struck, only to arc from the Third Truthseeker to Elder Zelsys. On such occasions, a surge of blue-white light exploded at ground level, and a terrifyingly huge bolt of the same colour returned into the heavens on the backstroke, flowing like a giant serpent rather than a bolt of lightning and painting similarly bestial images within the clouds. So bright were these flares that they cast Eberheim into stark daylight for a few moments each time they occurred..
He couldn''t help but think back on Borea, and he was not alone.
"A flame that burns so bright, to lighten the darkest night sky."
These words echoed through the building every once in a while.
On the first day, upon learning of what had transpired in Eberheim, Crovacus Estoras could swear that his liver would explode.
On the second, he dispatched a relief force to the devastated city, and requested the same from Rigport.
On the third, he received confirmation of the operation''s success, and a strange immortal turned up at his door.
She would never admit it, she didn''t think of it that way, and Third''s final words would never escape to the wider world, but when he spoke them, moments before his death, she knew them to be true.
"In the end, all this still served the breakthrough of a real monster."
With herculean effort, Third raised his head. With broken teeth, the dead man grinned, and with empty eye sockets, he stared at Zelsys Newman.
"It just wasn''t me.
Another, bitter chuckle came out of him, and with it, a spurt of blood ran down his chin.
I leave you with this, as my final retort: Upon my death, my True Soul will ignite and obliterate everything within several kilometers. You have Perhaps ten seconds.
Zelsys felt, in her gut, that he was lying. Third seemed to realize this, as he slumped over with a cackling laugh. The next strike of lightning obliterated him, not leaving even a skeleton or a speck of dust. Nothing of his body remained.
The barrier fell, the rest of the world rushed in, and a deluge of golden rain fell from the clouds. It rained for eight seconds, causing plants to sprout and bloom amidst the desolation, and at the moment the rain stopped, the clouds dispersed.
On the dawn of the fourth day, the sun rose in Eberheim once more. The scarlet hues of dawns light coloured the stoic, stone-wrought visage of a statue that would soon come to be known as Eber-Bishamonten.
Zelsys Newman stood up and stretched to the sounds of metallic creaking and popping. She called back the Fang Spears which had held the Third Truthseeker in place, and in the same act, brought out six swords whose only distinguishing characteristics were their similar size and decent quality of their cold-iron. She took them in hand, filled them with Metallum, and one by one twisted them into approximations of her Fang Spears. One by one she replaced them, welding them in place. Finally, she clapped her hands together in imitation of Bishamonten and bowed before the statue. Only then did she return to her comrades, using a Thundergod to grab the Oculus from atop the northward pillar as she went. The previously silver conduits within the holy implement now ran golden, and an eye-sized golden star burned in the center of its ring. It gave off a momentary feeling of indignation when it first fell into her hand, just for a moment, as if it took it a split-second to realize it was her.
Zel found, to her relief, that in the time she was preoccupied, help from outside had arrived. The city and its people were devastated, but despite everything, Eberheim would live.
A new holy site had been formed, and the face of the continent had been reshaped once again. In the midst of eight pillars, two imprints had been melted into the ground. One was a scorched-black, uneven crater, filled with jagged shards by its creators thrashing and struggle. The other was a simple imprint of someone sitting, legs crossed, its interior coloured with metallic sheen.
333 - Interlude - Life at the Newman Sect
"What''s the point of demanding us to register separately? The Slayer''s Guild and the Newman Sect might as well be the same entity. Same people, anyhow," a heavily-muscled young man complained as he strapped on a beaten-up, refurbished chest plate. A fresh decal on the left breast marked him as a trainee, not yet proven enough to have a permanent license with the guild. The rest of his equipment was much the same; used and abused, mostly salvaged, but more than usable.
An older man, wearing a bulky belt on his waist, rebuffed him: "You only think that because you''re from the sect. Who do you think does the jobs we don''t take? You ever see a sect member pick up a pest extermination contract?"
"But why not just fold slayer qualification under sect membership?" he asked, letting his thoughts spill out while he mind was mostly focused on getting his gear strapped on properly. The room - one of the sect''s armories - was slightly chilly, despite the warm weather outside. All of the sect''s underground compound had been like this lately. Approaching footsteps echoed down the hallway just outside, and the monolithic metal door swung out of the way without so much as a sound.
"It''s politics, as I understand it," came a third, female voice from the newcomer. She turned to the older of the two men, stating: "Elder Makhus, the blitzgandrs will be ready in fifteen minutes."
She sounded more rugged than both men combined, and looked the part as well. Everything visible of her right side was covered by burn scars, and in place of a right eye she had a pitch-black stone that glowed with a horizontal slit of light. In her hands she carried a sword as long as she was tall sheathed in a scabbard the length of a quarterstaff, and twice as thick. Most of her form was concealed at all times by a ragged-looking cloak.
"Ah, Lydia. Good. Help Lucian with his armour while I double-check that we have everything we need for the hunt. Don''t forget your own, either," Makhus instructed, turning to walk off.
The woman impassively did as was asked of her, looking Lucian over and tugging on the straps of his gear to ensure it was all correctly in place. Lucian, meanwhile, mustered every bit of his extremely limited aura pressure training to keep his shit together. Her presence was well-contained, but she seemed either unable or unwilling to suppress its intensity even a bit. Even the slightest grazing touch felt like being shocked and cut simultaneously, mercifully without any real pain. There was no wonder why she had been invited to join the sect by the founder herself; that monstrous woman knew when she saw one of her own kind.
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After those agonizingly long few seconds, she walked up to a particular spot next to the wall and simply placed her hand on it. With a pulse of white light, the stone panel fell away, revealing a walk-in closet behind it. Lydia emerged moments later, changed into attire more suitable to what one might imagine from a cultivator: A dress shirt, form-fitting trousers, and long boots, her sword now attached to her back by a harness.
"If you uh, don''t mind me asking, what did you mean by politics?" he asked in an effort to lighten what he perceived as an awkward atmosphere.
"You''ve been in the sect far longer than I. Should you not know?" she questioned in a deadpan tone. Nonetheless, rather than let him stew in his own ignorance, she explained: "The sect which resided here before us used their position to control the guild. I would guess that keeping the sect and the guild as separate entities controlled by different people is intended to prevent it from happening again. Come, don''t leave the alchemist elder waiting."
Lucian didn''t quite understand the sect''s hierarchy. In fact, nobody did. Being submerged within it granted a sort of instinctive understanding, but besides the obvious like the two elders at the very top and their inner circle, the Newman Sect''s internal politics were at once murky and flexible. Theoretically it lined up with the view of the Sanger and Black Horse sects, but in reality, it felt different. For one, Lucian didn''t fear that he would punished or expelled just for asking questions without the express permission to do so.
He got up, taking his sword in hand, strapping it to his waist. A simple kriegsmesser, left to him by a crippled defector who had come to his home village in the midst of the war.
It had been a man with iron talons in place of feet.
A man with a hooked hand.
A man with iron teeth and a bladed tongue.
It was that man who had taught Lucian the fundamentals... And a bit more. A bit of something special. That something was the reason he had come here, rather than to either the Sangers or the Black Horses, knowing he would be rejected as a heretic. That something was, paradoxically, also something he had been keeping to himself since before he had come here. Not out of fear of rejection, but because he couldn''t make it work yet. Indeed, he had been passed a unique body cultivation method and he had only gotten as far as the very first step: Iron-blackened, abnormally sharp teeth. However, he couldn''t actually do anything with his cultivation yet. Lucian didn''t worry, keeping in mind the cripple''s words. Results would show eventually, he just had to keep at it. Part of that included comprehending the true nature of any given blade and becoming like it in some aspects; Lucian was fairly certain this was the part that was keeping him from advancing. He just wasnt good with metaphors.
334 - Interlude Pt. 2 - Going Kite-hunting
When he finally walked out into the courtyard, Lucian realized he hadn''t even been told the most basic information in the rush. One moment he had been asleep, the next he was awake; Elder Makhus had waved some kind of smelling salts under his nose. Hell, he had barely been able to wash himself, and the sun wasn''t even up yet.
"So what exactly was the cause for such a sudden expedition? And why am I to be a part of it?" he questioned as he walked up. It was just him, Elder Makhus, and... Martial Sister Lydia? Senior Lydia? He wasn''t sure.
"What have you been doing since midwinter? Assignment-wise," asked Elder Makhus.
"Tracking and reducing the population of Wildfire Kitelings in the forest on the north-western crater mountain slopes," Lucian answered. "I don''t recall the actual map name for those woods, they all run together in my head."
"Doesn''t matter," the alchemist disregarded. "The reason you''re coming along is that this is the next logical step up from what you''ve been doing. You didn''t think there was no reason for it, right? We were keeping an eye on the things ever since the Blue Moon War. What traits do the Kitelings display that separate them from other beasts?"
Thinking, Lucian recounted: "No eyes. Navigation by sound and scent. Weak but precise flame breath, formed through rudimentary monadic magic rather than internal alchemy. They hunt by setting forest fires to herd or kill small animals. Sometimes they grab fish out of the water and kill them with heat shock."
"All correct!" Makhus affirmed. "Now where do you think they keep coming from if you keep killing them? That source is what we''re after. Think, sword brain."
Lucian wanted to complain about being treated like an idiot, but he also hadn''t realized until now that there was probably a Wildfire Kite somewhere popping out the Kitelings. Despite being good at bushcraft and a well above-average swordsman with brawn to spare, Lucian was not the shiniest sword in the armory.
"Well don''t just stand there, get on. We''re leaving."
The blitzgandr ride was relatively short, bumpy, and hellishly fast as always. Lucian spent the hike that came afterwards chewing on a bayonet that still tasted of blood. Yes, while he had kept the nature of his unorthodox cultivation to himself, anyone with eyes to see would be able to deduce its fundamental nature from his habits. When they set down deep in the mountains, shortly after noon, Lucian was told to to start a campfire, while his betters looked around to secure the site. He gathered some tinder and wood, got down low to the ground, bit down on a spark-rod, and yanked it out of his mouth to get the sparks he needed. This was how he had been doing it since he lost the striker, and he hadn''t realized it looked quite strange until Lydia gave him a look that suggested as much.
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He tossed a bait-bundle on the fire, and they waited. A column of smoke rose into the sky, smelling of burning fur, meat, tree resin, and a few other things that attracted Kitelings for unknown reasons. The mixture was something Lucian held great pride in, as he had come up with the idea. It wasn''t long before the head-splittingly high-pitched screeching of those accursed creatures reached them, carrying on the wind.
Lydia unsheathed her giant sword with only a gesture, willing it to float near her hand, while Makhus lowered himself into a wide stance, but didn''t draw his weapon. In fact, be brought out a storage tablet and dumped several weighted nets onto the ground, tossing several to Lucian while he himself took the rest in hand.
"We want to catch one one or two alive, understand?" the elder instructed, manipulating that weird belt of his as he spoke. Tiny storage tablets slotted in, buttons pressed, a lever pulled, and he invoked: "Armor, on..."
Makhus was enveloped by tendrils of white fog, which were then dispersed by a burst of light that seemingly originated from his body. A giant enveloped in mechanical armor now stood in the elder''s place, 2.5m tall and with the face of a sneering demon on his chest. A kriegsmesser better fit to be called a grossemesser rested on his hip.
Eventually - after nearly ten minutes - they started gathering in the trees surrounding the site. That was when the killing started. It was at once a mercy and a curse that these things didn''t know to avoid humans. They resembled stereotypical dragons of myth, with wedge-shaped heads, leathery bat-like wings, and feet with hooked claws akin to birds of prey. Their wings, too, had grabby, clawed fingers that allowed them to be used for climbing, and their structure was such that they could easily fold up as to not get in the way. The Kitelings'' mottled, orange and brownish camouflage pattern could charitably be described as reddish, their bellies being pale beige and at times greyish-blue. Their heads were shaped as if they had two pairs of eyes on the sides, but hardened horns grew where eyes ought to be, leaving a wide, flat surface at the top, broken only by a dip where their single real eye would eventually grow in. The Kitelings'' screeching, the wooshing of Lydia''s blade flying around her, the whirring and hissing of Elder Makhus'' suit - a deluge of noise filled Lucian''s ears. Lucian, after three fruitless attempts and few new charred spots on his chestplate, managed to get one of the damnable things entangled in a net.
It would have been a sweet, merciful delusion to hope that it would end in a flash. Lucian had one bagged, and Elder Makhus had two, while the corpses of five more littered the campsite. The problem was, around a dozen more were already gathering and Makhus was pulling out short, barbed spikes with the dull ends wrapped in talismans. Lydia continued cutting down those which swooped down, but, following the lead of one clever specimen, five of the twelve stayed in the trees and started spitting fireballs. They didn''t do much on their own, as most didn''t hit, but eventually they would hit one of them in an unlucky spot or start a wildfire. Makhus quickly shoved one barbed spike each under the wing of both his catches, tossing a third spike to the ground at Lucian''s feet.
"Just stick it somewhere that won''t kill the thing and leave it in the net. We can track them back to the nest with these."
335 - Interlude Pt. 3 - Bayonet-eater
Overpowering the creature was easier said than done - they were monstrously strong for their small size, and belched flame at every opportunity. Their scales raised from their bodies to make them seem larger, and to make them spiky, thus unpleasant to eat. However, this scale-raising behavior also caused them to tangle themselves even more once caught in a net, and opened plenty of gaps for Lucian to shove the tracker-spike into. Once it was done, Makhus drew his sword and joined Lydia in the slaughter. Whereas she elegantly manoeuvred her sword through the air, accounting for its momentum as she smoothly gestured it through its motions, Makhus just dashed towards the edge of the clearing. He jumped ten metres straight up, spinning on the way up, before cutting down four of the creatures in an explosion of light and movement alongside the branches they were sitting on.
"Still too slow..." he muttered in dissatisfaction as he sheathed his blade. He turned towards Lucian and Lydia, commanding: "We''ll take the marked ones around half a kilometer to the north-east. In the meanwhile, set up a proper camp and mark the trees, do not forget that well need to get the Kites corpse down the mountain eventually, even if we butcher it where it dies. We will ping the spikes and track them to their nest in a few hours."
A few hours later, the party of three had traveled a fair distance up the mountain slope. Makhus had sent out two tracking pings at this point, and with the direction consistent, the only thing left to do was to continue following the signal direction while looking out for any environmental signs. Many of the typical signs were, however, conspicuously absent.
The further into the mountain-slope woods they pushed, the warmer and dryer the air became. Not nearly as gentle as this temperature gradient, however, was the physical transition, or rather the lack of one. There were no real early warning signs, in fact even the mundane birds and animals didn''t seem too worried - the three cultivators were what caused the greatest commotion among them, including the smaller not-so-mundane beasts. In short, the newly-awakened Wildfire Kite was not severely disrupting the local ecosystem. Yet.
They set down at the side of a small creek to take a short break and to reorient themselves. Makhus doffed his armor for this short time.
"I''ve noticed the total absence of burn areas, or even scorch marks. Usually they space them out, but not this much," Lucian remarked.
"Maybe territorial instincts kicking in early. Maybe the further from the nest they go the healthier they are. Who knows," Makhus thought aloud. "The author of ''Bestias Arcanorum Addendum Ikesia 3621'' didn''t much seem to care for the child-rearing behaviours of dragon-descendants unless it was directly relevant to how they threatened human settlements. Wildfire Kites manage their territories rather than deplete them, and they are one of the youngest dragon descendant species, so it was not documented during the Late Ankhezian Era."
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"I always found the volume number to be absurd. How many volumes can there be? Just ours is hundreds of pages, and it''s not even a complete copy..." Lucian muttered to himself, scraping a bayonet with his teeth. Its edge gleamed like a razor, and several grooves had been scraped into its flat, yet Lucian didn''t have a single visible cut.
Makhus couldn''t help but chuckle at that remark, while Lydia couldn''t help but correct the younger man: "3621 is the year it was published, sword-brain."
He wasn''t entirely wrong. The Newman Sect''s copy of the ancient bestiary detailed several types of dragon-descendants, with better-known species such as Ankylodragons getting a short book''s worth of detail. As far as other beasts went, Makhus guessed the sect''s copy covered around thirty species in total. It was clearly written for and by cultivators, detailing how the beasts could endanger mortals and sects, how they should be hunted, and how their bodies were best used.
"Dragon descendants, monsters, cultivators waking up or coming out of hiding, ancient ruins awakening, whole sects revealing themselves to the world. One struggles to comprehend how the Emperor was able to force the world to change so severely."
"He wasn''t. Not truly. I''m sure Tian Feng would be satisfied to know that you think this was his direct doing. The truth, as we understand it, is at once far more mundane and far more complex. Beasts, cultivators, and entire sects went into hiding due to his catastrophic war with the Three Kings, both during the war and after it as a result of the Cultivation Suppression Edict. It''s easy to decide that you''ll just hide for a few centuries when age cannot claim you and you can spend those untold centuries slowly growing stronger. And now... It''s all waking up again. Not because he gave his permission by revoking the edict, that was just him seeing the writing on the wall. I don''t think it''s all because of Ubul''s death, either. I think the world of cultivation would''ve woken up regardless. The Blue Moon War just accelerated it."
Makhus looked at Lucian.
"You''re living proof. How many cultivation methods were created or accidentally rediscovered as a result of the war? Victory Demons. Rudimentary Fog-breathing. Simple Armament Aura cultivation. It goes on and on."
"I don''t follow. What does it have to do with me? I mean... A soldier taught me, yes, but-"
"Bayonet-eaters. That''s what they call people like him - and you. We didn''t bring it up because we thought you simply didn''t wish to speak of the matter, but we still structured your training to push you along, at least as well as possible for that unorthodox method. Don''t tell me you haven''t caught on."
As he met Lucian''s iron-clad stare in kind, the swordsman glimpsed the cogs slowly beginning to turn behind his eyes. Lucian''s eyes went wide, and he exclaimed: "Oh, bayonet-eater, because I eat bayonets! Yeah, that''s a good name!"
Makhus'' lip twitched. He then erupted into laughter. Unbothered, Lucian hemmed and hawed as the cogs in his head spun and spun and eventually settled.
"But... Hm... If my training schedule all this time has been laid out to help me advance, am I not a failure? I have not yet been able to move past the initial stages."
336 - Once More, Into the Mouth of Hell
"You have been visibly improving week over week, so you cannot be called a failure in general terms. If you feel you are stuck in your specific cultivation method, given how unorthodox it is, we would first need to determine if it is a problem with you or the method," Makhus proposed.
"He''s soft," Lydia piped up.
"Hm? What do you mean?" Makhus asked.
"The boy is practicing a cultivation method invented by and for hardened killers. Soldiers. What have you killed? Some infant dragons. Have you ever killed a man?"
"I''ve fought bandits a fair few times."
"Not my question. Have you killed a man?"
"Well, it felt a touch too far for retaliation against some roadside muggers, so I suppose not."
"I met a few bayonet-eaters while I was at Fort 57. Iron-hard men to a soul. Each of them had an aura sharp as a knife, hard as steel. However, instead of being refined and fragile like the aura of some ''grandmaster'' that has never been in a life-or-death fight, they had the resilience, the killing intent, of someone who had survived on a battlefield for a long while. Like our own Elder Zefaris, but knives instead of guns."
"Perhaps I should have gone to Eberheim with the others, then..." Lucian mused.
"The dragon will suffice," Makhus interjected. "A mature Wildfire Kite is roughly as intelligent as a human. Therefore, fighting the beast will not be too different to fighting a strong mutagen cultivator. Myself and Lydia will suffice to slay the beast if it comes to that, but you should attempt to join in the battle as much as possible if you wish to advance your cultivation. Speaking of..."
Makhus retrieved something from his backpack; a dark, metal tablet. From the storage inside, he took two pairs of rubber earplugs, held together by string. He tossed one pair each to Lydia and Lucian respectively.
"The Kite will try to use its voice as a weapon before it ever pulls out the flame breath. The Kitelings are already bad enough, the mother will be worse. Just put them around your neck for now. Moreover, while its eyesight is not likely to be great, its hearing will still be nearly as good as that of its young. It will likely not be vulnerable to high-pitched sounds, but..."
He pulled six stick grenades out of his tablet next.
"...Low-frequency shockwaves should still work. These are modified concussion grenades, they should be strong enough to damage the Kite''s hearing for some time."
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Around twenty minutes later, the trio continued on their hunt. Makhus continued without his suit, finding the forest to be too dense and the branches too low in this area. In such circumstances, 70cm of height made all the difference.
They found one of the marked Kitelings far off from the goal, chasing a rabbit. Adjusting their course they continued onward, and eventually arrived at a peculiar section of the mountain slope, a cauldron-like shape. A smaller crater formed by a smaller impact that came after that which formed the Cauldron of Willows, but nonetheless unimaginably far in the ancient, perhaps even antediluvian past. It was around two kilometers across, and the air within it reached truly desert-like temperatures.
There, in the deepest section of the second crater, they came upon the Wildfire Kites nesting area. It was a roughly circular area of burned ground, separated clearly from the rest of the forest. The trees were charred, but most of them still stood, seemingly alive. In the very middle, there was a clearing, and in the middle of that clearing was a nest of charred logs. As the trio approached, readying themselves, a swarm of Kitelings scuttled out, followed by the raising of a wedge-shaped head at the end of a long neck. It was armored in overlaying, somewhat pinecone-like scales the colour of fallen leaves. Four backswept horns curved out of the sides of its head where the eyes ought to be. From the Kites forehead, a vertical eye stared at them. It was an unsettling, sky-like azure colour, with the emblematic cornerless triangle pattern in black, and in the middle was a small, round pupil with ragged edges that granted the beast a furious stare.
It was an image straight out of a legend about brave knights, but some of its luster was dulled by the knowledge that this was the lowest order of dragon descendants. Sure, Wildfire Kites were among the stronger of the One-eyed Dragons, but they were nowhere near the strongest. Compared to the weakest Three-eyed Dragon, this creature was little more than an animal. That was also the reason they were after it; it presented itself as a convenient alternative to trying to dilute Eisengeists draconic essence for the Dragonheart Bolus.
Makhus rested his left hand on his belt. All the main controls were nicely accessible like this, contained to a modified blitzgandr handle. A throttle, brake lever, a button on the handle''s end, and one additional button carried over from the original belt chassis.
He revved the belt, pushing his intent into it as he did, and the eldritch crystal in its core responded. As he pressed down the lever a vortex of Fog surrounded him, and in an instant he ceased to be just Makhus Newman; he was Acala Nova, the Evil Cleaving Sword.
Acala Nova, not quite yet a full embodiment of his vision, but close. So damnably close. With the addition of Eisengeist tissue to shore up the spots where mechanical components couldnt cut it, it was no longer the suit that fell short - it was Makhus himself. Still, what he could do would suffice. It had to suffice.
Makhus saw the possible paths his allies could take, subtle variations, but he foresaw no impending attack - not in the next five seconds, which was more than enough.
He revved his belt and pressed the lever again, and in another eruption of Fog, his blade appeared in his hand. Countless pieces of black cold-iron joined by glistening-gold lines of auric amalgam. The so-called "Ebony-Gold Fragment Sabre".
337 - Dharmapala
Makhus instinctively rested the Fragment Sabre on his shoulder, striding towards the Wildfire Kite alongside his companions as they plugged their ears. He had obtained the blade from a traveling Ankhezian merchant, as it was unique and happened to fit his requirements at the time. Or, more accurately, he had tried to trade for it, but Ezaryl had decided to throw around her clan''s stupidly massive fortune by buying it for the merchant''s eye-watering stated price. That was not to say he didnt appreciate it. His reason to desire such a blade was not the simple want for a larger or fancier weapon, but a twofold need. Firstly, he needed a blade that retained the same relative scale to Acala Nova that a kriegsmesser had to Makhus when he was out of the suit. Secondly, he needed a blade that wouldn''t be whittled away to nothing by Acala''s ability; what he had learned to be Armament Aura amplification. This Fragment Sabre happened to, suspiciously conveniently, also possess the ability to separate into pieces and reshape itself into smaller blades. Unlike Carnifex Fulguris, the change was quite a bit slower and only covered three fixed forms - the full-sized grossemesser, a kriegsmesser plus a small knife, and two short messers.
A never-dulling, shapeshifting blade. Fit to be a heirloom. Makhus felt bad for not appreciating it more.
The Wildfire Kite roared. A blast of wind whipped past the three of them, the ground shuddered, and dry leaves rained down. Lydia winced, while Lucian visibly grit his teeth, pressed his hands over his ears, and froze in place. The shockwaves put him off-balance despite the earplugs. Makhus was unaffected; not only because of Acala, but because he had become tolerant of far worse vibrations surging through his body.
A small, cowardly voice deep inside Makhus cried out in protest of the fact he was the vanguard.
Focus, Makhus sent over aetherwave. Lydia, support my initial attack and proceed as you deem appropriate. Lucian, get around the back and try to occupy its tail without getting yourself killed. Watch out for the Kitelings.
The only response he received was a pair of affirmative pings. Makhus placed his foot on a rock and pushed off it, sending himself flying forward. He didnt bother zigzagging until he was already within ten meters of the dragons nest, at which point he leapt straight up to avoid an eruption of flame from the beasts gaped maw. With a pulse of light from the beasts eye, the flames flowed back and twisted into spears trying to skewer him out of the air, but Makhus had foreseen something like this. Not exactly this; Acalas prediction was that the Kite would most likely pull its head up, but that was enough.
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His Armament Aura, amplified by resonance with the belt, enshrouded his blade in the form of white, brightly glowing mist. With only two cuts, Makhus shattered the dragons spears of flame, the backlash forcing the creature to blink. This particular technique was specifically suited to disrupting the arcane, and despite the dragon descendants greater power, it paled in comparison to Ubul And Makhus had grown by leaps and bounds since he had cut Ubul in half in a moment of deaths-doorstep clarity.
DHARMIC SWORD OF WISDOM
POSSESSING TRUE CLARITY OF MIND
THERE IS NOTHING ONE CANNOT CUT
PURGATION ARTS: DISPELLING BLADE
Landing atop the Kites head, Makhus attempted to drive his sword right into its eye. To no surprise on his part, it swatted at him with its tail, forcing him to jump down. He proceeded to engage the beast to the fullest extent of his abilities, evading its attacks and nipping away at it at every opportunity. The beast moved faster than any animal of its size had any right to. It spewed flame at every opportunity, manipulating it into twisting flows that resembled a striking serpent, trying to encircle and cut off escapes. It snapped at him faster than any spring-loaded bear trap and with enough force to cut a boulder in half, and its long neck allowed it to maneuver its head at angles utterly unreasonable. Even the Kites wings, which were not its premier offensive tool by far, were far nimbler than they should be. Folded up as they were, the Kite didnt swipe or scratch with its wings - it punched, and each strike shook the earth underfoot, punching holes in the ground with the thick spike protruding from that section of either wing.
Makhus gave himself over to the flow, letting his thoughts drift away as instinct, reflex, and muscle memory took over. For the years he had wasted trying to comprehend the fundamental secrets of the Sanger Sect, in retrospect it all seemed so obvious now that he knew the true meaning of the mystical bullshit. Each second sprawled out before him as if an hour, and each minute snap-movement went through with the smoothness of something performed at a leisurely pace. Yet, at the same time, the moments passed him by at a breakneck pace. The Fragment Sabre clashed against the Kites wing-spikes, at times even shaving bits off them or scraping them. Acala Nova constantly bombarded him with possibilities, and in this manner, sealed inside the suit, he mentally floated away from reality, gaining the clarity of an outside observer. He wasnt fighting for his life, he was playing a game of tactics using himself as a piece. Then, at the moment of a clash, his awareness momentarily snapped back into the here and now, only to once more pull back out when he broke off and hopped out of the dragons immediate melee range.
An opening wide enough to fit a more impactful strike would eventually present itself, but Makhus was, for all intents and purposes, a tank in this situation; meant to draw enemy fire while dishing out punishment. He fully expected Lydia to deal the lions share of damage to the beast, and she fully lived up to those expectations without a moments wait.
338 - Flowering Fulgarrow
While Makhus was approaching the dragon, so was she, but rather than charging straight at it, she merely closed the distance while telekinetically drawing Vysaga out of its sheath. As the sword rose out of its sheath on Lydias back, its golden dragon-wing crossguard unfurled, previously wrapped closely to the blade. The reason for such an accommodation was made plain by the span of those golden wings, as wide as Lydias shoulders, the golden colour of its majority contrasted by silver talons. In the crossguards center, on each side, a diamond-shaped sapphire was set. In a motion that was at once swift yet agonizingly slow, the gigantic sword floated to a spot in front of Lydia, connected to her fingers by hair-thin arcs of pink lightning, petal-like sparks fluttering around it. The grip, far too thick for any normal hand to hold, was wrapped in criss-crossed strips of False Drake leather, and the pommel took the form of a golden dragon-claw gripping a spherical battery-gem, another sapphire in this case. The pommel-claw had four identical digits, ending in silver talons. Contrasting the elaborately decorated handle, Vysagas blade was a monolithic slab of matte-black metal with a shallow, decorative fuller and incredibly aggressive, wedgelike blades. This reconditioned surface concealed lichtenberg figures that ran all throughout the swords inner structure, the scars of wounds that had healed since it was wielded by Zelys Newman.
Then, with the slightest flick of her wrist, the blade flipped from a vertical to a horizontal alignment. Pink light shone within its pommel, and in an instant, the blade was enveloped by an outpour of lightning. While it appeared as if Lydia was merely standing with her free hand behind her back, she was in fact running through a series of hand signs, this stance being a concealment tactic. For the briefest moment, it appeared as if a pink serpent wrought of lightning, having the appearance of wood rather than scales, manifested along the swords blade. At that moment, Vysaga shot out with the velocity of a cannonball, its course just as erratic and unstable as the path of a lightning bolt, an arc of which it traced between itself and Lydias hand. Around the two-thirds point in its flight, two copies of the sword entirely made of lightning suddenly split away from it, forming a truly branch-like trail. Vysaga itself followed one of these branching paths, whereas a copy continued forward, and was thus the one which the dragon was able to shoot down. At the same exact moment, Vysaga and one of its copies struck the Wildfire Kites armored hide, and a flood of stormbloom petals followed with them, shredding away at its bared flesh. The great beasts purple blood gushed out of its wounds, and its scream of pain and rage shook the forest.
STORMBLOOM SIGN
THE GOD-TREES JUDGMENT
LOOSED FROM A BOW OF CHERRY WOOD
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ART OF KILLING BLOSSOMS: FLOWERING FULGARROW -TRIFECTA-
Both Vysaga and its copy discharged bursts of power into the dragon, scales bursting out of its skin like rivets. The phantom sword faded out of being, whereas the real Vysaga was pulled out of the beast, a pink arc reigniting between it and Lydia as she threw herself into a mighty pulling motion. Despite the Kites attempt to disconnect the arc by spreading out its wing in its path, the sword tore itself free regardless, turning mid-flight so that it cut through the membrane as it returned back to Lydia. Lydia repositioned and stabbed Vysaga into the ground, beginning the casting of a technique that widnt place so much strain on her aura. The sword erupted with lightning once more, a maelstrom of lightning petals spilling out and flowing around Lydia, shredding a pair of Kitelings that had been hiding in the trees. She outstretched her right hand towards Vysaga with fingers held apart, while placing her left forearm across it perpendicularly, the leftmost three fingers held straight while the index and thumb touched to form a somewhat triangular shape. While much of the energy for this technique came from Vysaga itself, Lydia was purposely drawing it into herself and passing it back into the sword through her right eye, rather than letting it flow directly from the battery gem into the blade. For reasons she could not yet fully understand, this made the technique both more potent and more focused. Moreover, she had been able to learn an improved breathing technique from the Newman Sect, but performing it was so focus-intensive that she only switched to it for short periods when casting techniques such as this one. It was none other than Engine Breathing.
Meanwhile, Makhus continued facing down the great beast face to face, sword to claw, constantly threatening it sufficiently to force the bulk of its offensive power - and its aura - on himself. Lucian, meanwhile, was fighting for his life at the beasts rear, occupying its tail in the process. Lydia had no issue withstanding the Wildfire Kites passive aura, even if it wasnt exactly pleasant, but Lucian was visibly impacted by the beasts presence alone But he was also hardening. The young man had gone from dodging for dear life and mostly keeping his distance to actively trying to annoy the giant beast. Lydia continued honing the furious blade of lightning, building up the technique.
As for Lucian
Lucian was having a very, very bad time, not just because of the physical fight. His spirit and aura, shaped with the truth of Blades, already possessed a hardened nature. His was not Armament Aura; it possessed the toughness of a blade, but none of its sharpness. But with each passing moment, each shift of the dragons massive body, each barely-dodged swing of its sabre-like claws, Lucian felt its immense aura as well, grazing him, grinding away at him. Lucian came to a realization. There was no wonder he hadnt been able to reach the first milestone; his cultivation until this point had been a matter of refining himself into suitable stock, into the vague form of a blade. What he had needed was something to grind him and hone him to a sharp edge. It was just as Lydia had said.
339 - Flesh Becomes a Blade
As Lucian hopped back out of the way of the Wildfire Kites tail, an opportunistic Kiteling leapt down at him from a tree branch. Lucian had been aware of its presence, but his conscious focus at that moment was squarely on not getting turned into a leaky sack of charred mincemeat by the Kites spiked, fiery tail. He defended himself from the Kiteling on pure instinct, feeling the movement of the air and hearing the juvenile dragon. Lucian struck at the creature with a spear-hand uppercut; it was not the ideal strike in this situation by any means, but that was the one that came out. As his mind caught up to his reflexes, Lucian noticed the strange lack of resistance in place of the usual shock from hitting something hard with a spear-hand strike. He then noticed how stiff his hand and wrist felt, and how warm the Kitelings blood felt as it ran down his arm.
With a whipping motion, he threw the creature to the ground and brought his hand into view. The world felt as if it came to a halt. He recognized what he saw, having seen this before, but it still felt a bit unreal. His hand had become dark grey, changed into the shape of a bayonets point, three grooves visible in place of the gaps between his fingers. His middle finger as the stabbing point, a sharp, polished edge ran from the tip of his index finger, down the fronts of his fingers, and further down the bottom ridge of his hand all the way to his wrist. His thumb, which he had held mostly but not-quite flush with his palm, had taken the shape of a barb at the top.
BAYONET-EATERS CREED: FLESH BECOMES A BLADE
He felt the Wildfire Kite whipping its tail his way again, and the moment his focus shifted to dodging, his hand turned back to flesh. Everything felt Sharper, for lack of a better term. Lucian found that he had an easier time reading the path of the Kites tail-club, and he could even remain aware of Lydia and Makhus to a degree that laid out of his reach before. The dragon spun in a quarter-circle as part of a wide breath spray combined with a sweeping claw strike, its aura brushing up against his. In that same motion, the Kite stretched out its left wing in an attempt to catch Lucian with it.
He stood his ground, dug his feet in, and raised both his arms; his kriegsmesser in front, with his left arm bracing behind it, fingers held straight. This was one of the few techniques that required the first major breakthrough to function, with this basic version relying on defensive instinct as a trigger to merge the users arm with an external weapon to form a stronger defense. It was explicitly designed to counter the strikes of larger, stronger opponents, such as monsters. Nothing happened until the Kites wing was dangerously close to toppling Lucian and breaking his arms in the process, but at that last second, he felt his arm stiffen, and even felt the kriegsmessers blade, including the sensation of digging into the beasts unreasonably tough flesh. The Kite raised its wing high enough to avoid taking a deeper cut, but it was done. Lucian had wounded it, he had forced this descendant of ancient god-killers to acknowledge him as more than a bug - a dangerous bug with pointy limbs and a sharpened nail grasped in its jaws.
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BAYONET-EATERS CREED: BEARSTOPPER GUARD
He suddenly felt more than just adrenalin, he felt excited, violent impulses going off in his head, demanding him to act now, while there was still an opening, to jump onto that overgrown bats wing and shred the membrane to pieces. Without waiting another moment, he split his arm from his kriegsmesser, and then split his fingers apart too, the singular blade of his palm becoming five bayonets. With a herculean exertion of willpower and the sound of straining metal, he forced his left hand into a gripping, claw-like configuration. His fingers didnt articulate as much as they snapped from one position to another, and it was just as difficult to do as it looked. His kriegsmesser had not visibly merged with his hand, but the connection was undeniably there; the sabre truly felt like an extension of him, in the literal sense; he felt the air whipping across the blades surface, and the lingering vibrations of its movement.
Focusing every bit of his strength in his legs and burning his full lung capacity, Lucian leapt upward, turning in mid-air and grabbing for the edge of the Kites wing-membrane. The momentum made his fingers cut a few centimeters into the beasts flesh, boiling-hot blood gushing out, but Lucian was unharmed; the heat simply seeped into him, but could not burn his transmuted hand. Already the Kite began purposely whipping its wing, opening and closing it in an effort to force Lucian off, but he stubbornly held on, tearing away at the beasts flesh and stabbing away. The way the wing closed caused him to be struck on either side each time, and each time, the beasts immense aura pressed down on him, only to be cut apart by the fundamental blade-like nature of his own aura. Lucian simultaneously elbowed to the side while dragging his war-knife through the wing-membrane, only for a bayonet-blade to erupt from his elbow and stab between the Kites pinecone-like scales.
Lucian was inevitably forced to let go not by the Kites violence overpowering his stubbornness, but by a message from Senior Lydia: Look in my direction. Let go of the wing once you see me. I will strike it with a ranged attack before the dragon can adjust for the absence of your weight.
Without even thinking, he did exactly as was asked of him. While he waited for the right moment, twisting his neck to see, he held on tightly, allowing the dragons own motion to do the hard work of cutting. All Lucian had to do was keep his breathing steady and his focus honed in on reinforcing his war-knife and his fingers, even as his head pounded from the strain.
340 - Petals of Spring
And so, when he glimpsed the writhing mass of pink lightning that was Senior Lydias sword, Lucian ripped both his sword and fingers free, pushing off of the Kites wing with his feet. The dragon instinctively tried to toss him off at the sensation of pain, and in so doing, sent him flying right into a tree And through it. The charred, stone-tough body of an old fir tree was cut in half by the young mans body, as if his entire body was a blade. Having seen that tree as he flew, Lucian had instinctively marshalled the brunt of his aura to this purpose. He curled up to protect himself as he flew, and in the moments before impact, his entire body indeed turned into a blade. Crude bayonet-spurs even erupted from his joints and vertebrae. He half cut, half smashed through that tree, only to carve a channel into the ground with his head, completely losing that state of focused self-transmutation. With it, the majority of his strength was spent, and he barely managed to get himself far enough off the ground to witness Senior Lydia fire off her technique at the Kites left wing.
STORMBLOOM SIGN
ART OF KILLING BLOSSOMS: PETALS OF SPRING -HOWLING GALE-
A vast pressure erupted from Lydia, scattering the countless petals that had swirled around her.
She performed a horizontal cutting motion with her left hand, raising her right to the heavens.
Then, with a thunderous sound, the inferno of lightning around Vysaga went careening forward. Despite its chaotic nature, somehow, it created a perfectly distinct blade. As if caught in the aftershock, all the lightning-petals Lydia had scattered came rushing back in, following in the blades wake. It smashed into the Kites wing, cutting through the outermost digit and the membrane, only stopped by the middle digit. The deluge of petals that followed served to shred apart the wings membrane and scales, and even the main-body armor scales beyond it, and before it could dissipate, the lightning blade severed the second and third digits, leaving the limb a mangled stump useless for flight. All around its shoulder the dragons hide sat exposed and unprotected, and worse for the beast still, its own scales were now breaking and getting caught on tattered skin.
Perfectly synchronized with Senior Lydia, Elder Makhus hopped to a particular spot, predicting even the manner in which the dragon would reel from the pain. He dropped into a wide stance, somehow manipulating his belt in a way Lucian couldnt make out. White light flowed up the right side of his chest and down his sword arm, and after a split-second of wait, he exploded from a standstill. With a movement faster than sight and sound, accompanied by a thunderclap, he outright severed the two outer digits of the right wing, bones, membrane and all. The only part of the technique Lucian could clearly make out was the blindingly bright flash of white light, spilling out around his swords blade for the length of the swing and not a moment longer.
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IRON PHILOSOPHY: OPUS TWO
As torrents of boiling blood gushed freely from the Wildfire Kites crippled wings, the beast seemed to reach a critical point. It suddenly became far more aggressive in its usage of flame, as if it only now realized that its life was truly at risk here, that they were more than mere pests. Its singular eye blazed with a furious light, and its aura surged such that Lucian found himself cast down to the ground, barely able to breathe at all, let alone maintain a breathing technique.
Its wrath turned on the nearest reachable target: Makhus.
Fire poured wildly from the dragons maw and turned into countless different forms as it strived to strike him down, from spears to swords and whips, even to serpents and a whole extra neck and head made solely of flame. That second head existed for only long enough to lash out and turn into a shotgun-burst of spears. But the Prescient Swordsman, the Mad Alchemist, the Mediocre Genius, the man who had come to be known as the Evil-cleaving Sword for his acts in the Blue Moon War, was unharmed. Shielded from the heat by his divine armor, he danced amidst the flames, cutting them apart with his white-burning sword as if they were mere weeds.
Despite the appearance of a decisive, crippling blow, the loss of its wing membranes didnt do much to impede the Kites ability to use its wings as bludgeoning implements, and its freakish vitality sealed its wounds long before the blood loss could catch up to it. Lydia, having swapped the fuel gem of her sword, closed the distance somewhat, maneuvering Vysaga around the dragon and harassing it while keeping her distance. She made no attempt to hide the fact that she was simply conserving her strength and building it back up for another major technique, and the Kite was too blinded by rage to think so far ahead. Makhus was nothing if not good at keeping its attention. Even when Lydia was targeted, Makhus simply brought out a bundle of modified stick grenades and threw it at the beasts feet, causing a chain of blinding flashes and concussive blasts. They werent remotely sufficient to actually injure the creature, but they more than sufficed to confuse it and get its attention back onto Makhus.
The battle went on like this for several minutes, with both sides whittling eachother down and neither able to make significant progress towards the others demise. Lucian eventually managed to drag himself back to his feet, drinking half a bottle of Witchs Brew in the process. He approached the dragon with caution, trying not to get in his seniors way, but the beast, for some accursed reason, immediately focused its attention on him the moment he got even slightly close. The kite, in its fury, threw its entire body mass into a hip check, using the motion to whip its tail Lucians way And at this distance, given this speed, he didnt know how to dodge. Even if he got out of the tail-clubs path, he would still be swept away by the tail itself, possibly even wrapped up in it or smashed anyway by the tail curling inward to hit him. In his mind, there was no avoiding this attack - only stopping it.
341 - Slay the Dragon Pt. 1
Lucian couldnt use the Bearstopper Guard here; the force of the Wildfire Kites tail was something altogether different from the mere membrane of its wing. Out of desperate resolve, he took up a stance and harnessed a technique his master had gone to great lengths to hammer into him. Knifetongue had also gone to great lengths to hammer into him that he was not to use it unless the alternative was certain death until his training reached the volume where it was written down.
Despite the obvious reasons not to, Lucian shoved his war-knife into his wrist, pushing it up his arm as far as it would go, between his forearm bones, but without severing any major veins. It was infernally tricky, especially since he had not been able to practice it directly. The saving grace was that he could harden his arm partially to reduce the odds of an accident. The pain was Lesser than he had anticipated. Blood gushed out of the wound, but none of the arteries had been cut.
He slipped closer towards the Kite, biding his time. A painstaking, eternal second and a half, tilting his body back, holding his arms in a painful and awkward position to align his blade with the beasts tail and ensure he could swing it high enough to sever it before it whipped around to grasp and pulverize him.
SIGN OF DESPERATE VALOR
SHEATHED WITHIN MY FLESH
SHARPENED ON MY BONES
OILED WITH MY BLOOD
THIS BLADE IS MY LIFE
MY LIFE IS THIS BLADE
BAYONET-EATERS CREED
LIVING SHEATH CROSSCUT
Following the motion of his slash, a deluge of blood flowed out of his arm, trailing the tip of his blade. More and more flowed, until, well before blade met scale, the kriegsmesser had grown twice and half again in length.
In an instant, the dragons tail was parted from its body, and a great shockwave of crimson sent it flying whilst also coating everything in the vicinity with Lucians blood. The hemomantic construct had exploded the instant its purpose was fulfilled, for every bit of power holding it together had been spent, and then some. The dragon''s roar shook the air and the earth underfoot, filled with anger and disbelief rather than pain.
Lucian continued forward, desperately pushing his body even further beyond its limits to get out of harms way before the ground rose up to meet his face.
Makhus hopped to the side despite having an opening for an attack, trying to get Lucian in his sightline. Acala had shown him a far worse future than the one which had come to pass. Out of sixteen possibilities, there were only four in which Lucians self-sacrificial technique worked correctly. Out of these four, there were only two in which he carried it out without severing his veins and immediately collapsing. At least, such was the armours prediction.
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Whether it was luck, fate, skill, or sheer grit carrying him through, the young man had managed to sever the dragon descendants tail before jumping just far enough to avoid the barrage of fiery arrows that instantaneously rained down in his wake. His movements immediately grew sluggish, and he stumbled a few more meters before collapsing, barely keeping himself semi-upright with his sword. Rivulets of blood trickled from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears, his gaze hazy and unfocused, his body wracked by convulsive spasms; the backlash of his overexertion. Even still, he somehow mustered the inhuman force of will to bring out his tablet, pulling out a bottle of Witchs Brew and a canister of Borean wound-sealant, Frygs Salve. He didn''t smear the salve onto the wound so much as he slathered his fingers in it and shoved them into the hole that was his wrist.
The blade was not in much better shape than its wielder; the edge was completely stripped, and the fact it had not snapped was even more of a miracle. It seemed to melt into Lucians hand at the grip; the same blood that had overpowered the sword was now holding it together.
Sending out a wordless aetherwave ping, Lydia signaled that now was the right time to finish the beast. She sprung into action, catapulting Vysaga to a spot far above the dragons head. The sword already burned with a redoubled charge, more a black blur shrouded in cherry-pink lightning than a distinct blade. A moment passed as Vysaga hung there, only for the lightning to coalesce around it, forced into a shape vaguely resemblant of a blade.
With an exertion of will so great it made tears of blood burst from Lydias right eye, she howled: GO TO PERUN!
PERUN''S ARROW
LOOSED FROM ON HIGH
ATOP THE STORMBLOOM
MANS OWN DIVINE JUDGMENT
WRESTED FROM THE GODS OF OLD
STORMBLOOM ARTS
FULGURITE PILEDRIVER
Vysaga came crashing down from above with the force of a lightning strike, and the Kite''s advance was halted. The blade flowed along an erratic trajectory, adjusting its course from one split-second to the next as it sought the path of least resistance to the ground.
That path was through the dragons nostril, through its mouth, and into the forest floor, slamming it shut. Great gusts of flame erupted out the sides of the beasts maw, and it emitted a muted roar of pain as the trapped flame built up past its tolerance, scorching its gums. The discharge of thunderous power into the ground was such that the carbonized soil came alive once more, lichtenberg figures spreading out in all directions, baking the subsurface clay in a few spots into fulgurite - the reason for the techniques name.
Wasting no time, Makhus had already triggered his suits injectors and switched the mask valve. The modified helmet contained two fogging canisters: A normal one, and a special one containing a compound that didnt work as an injectable. Rather it worked, but it reacted in his blood with the others, causing internal bleeding. Thus, this alternate delivery vector was needed. His heart pounded in his ears, the breath burned in his lungs and the blood boiled in his veins.
Full Release! If I can be good enough for just a second, that will suffice!
Alert. Alert. Heart arrhythmia detected. Minor internal bleeding- Blood toxicity- Spiritual overstrain- Cognitive overload detected! Acalas stern monotone sounded inside his head, warning him of his aberrant biometrics, but he mentally dismissed them all right away. He pressed the override button, forcing the belt to resonate its core with his soul whilst also disabling all of the armours limiters.
342 - Slay the Dragon Pt. 2/The Governor Gets a Call
Plates all across Makhus'' armor slid out of the way, revealing a mixture of vents, heatsinks, and thrusters on the back and legs, inspired by Zeros G-3 refit. A deluge of bloody Fog erupted from the suit, trailing behind it as the swordsman shattered the ground and went soaring skyward.
The taste of blood and the burn of gastric acid filled his mouth.
He didnt care.
This was the only way he could be good enough.
Pinning the dragon the way Lydia had done was one thing; it was a well-documented weakness, but one that could not be used to deliver a lethal blow. The beasts braincase was far too resilient, absurdly thick and impervious to concussion. The only way was beheading, and due to the beasts interlocked vertebrae, that was a feat comparable to severing a solid beam of high-grade cold-iron.
A matte-black bullet crashed down upon the beast, possessing a white tail formed from Fog and a burning blade of white light. In a single cut, the Wildfire Kites head was parted from its body, and the slash carried forward into the forest, splitting trees and boulders and wounding the earth; not as a ponderous shockwave, but an instantaneous flash of killing light.
SEVERING SCRIPTURE FRAGMENT
CLAD IN IRON WITHOUT
AND FIRE COURSING WITHIN
WITH TOTAL CLARITY OF MIND
SURPASS THE LIMITS EARTHLY
BREAK THEM
A DESCENDANT OF DRAGONS
BEHEADED WITH ONE CUT
THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH
PARTED BY A STUBBORN FOOL
SOUL-SWORD-SINGLE-STRIKE
HURRICANE THUNDERCLAP GUILLOTINE
All fell silent and still.
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As the Wildfire Kite''s body froze solid in the moment of its death and its lifeblood fountained out of the stump of its neck, the three-eyed figure of Elder Makhus stood just as motionless. It appeared as if he was challenging the dragon-descendant''s body to make an attempt at reunion with its head, or vice versa.
It didn''t matter what Makhus was actually thinking.
It didn''t matter how he felt, or how he saw himself, or the mixture of elation, surprise, and pain coursing through him.
At that moment, he had taken another step away from the shores of humanity.
Makhus Newman, the Dragon-beheading Sword.
Dazed and confused, for more reasons than the enormous G-forces and the cocktail of elixirs coursing through him, Makhus dropped his sword, muttering into his helmet: Helmet, off.
Kept upright only by his armour, Makhus ambled over to the great beasts gushing neck-stump and slotted a storage tablet into his belt. From his palm erupted a vortex of Fog, manifesting a giant tub of rune-inscribed copper to catch the blood.
He pinged Lydia asking for help, while he half-mindedly pulled items out of storage tablets and observed his surroundings.
The possibility of the dragon feigning death remained, and they could not afford to damage its vital organs to the degree that would be required to ensure a true death no matter what.
Thus, they had to guard the corpse until the sects harvesters came, tending to their wounds as they did so. Having access to tens of liters in fresh dragon blood certainly helped.
The sound of ringing ripped Crovacus Estoras from his peaceful slumber. He instantly shot up in his chair, his mind already racing - he had fallen asleep at his desk, and had even dreamt of the matters at hand. The moment he was awake, he was ready. Without a moments thought, he downed the contents of his mug, this being about a deciliter and a half of faintly-glowing blue liquid. Tengris Tears; a fancy liquid vigor spiked with daytime dust.
He turned off the alarm clock, poured himself another cup of Tengris Tears, and returned to his paperwork.
But no more than twenty minutes later, he heard that ringing again. For a few moments he wondered if he was trapped in a multi-layered dream, but then he realized it was the aetherwave receiver. He stared into empty space for a moment, sipping his drink before setting it back down. Then, he got up and made his way to the receiver.
Several minutes passed as Crovacus listened to the voice at the other end, during which he quickly went from standing at the machine to pacing nervously like a tiger, dragging the handsets serpentlike cable behind himself. He took out a terribly expensive imported cigar and began smoking it.
...Less than a thousand civilian survivors? What of-
Silence reigned for minutes more as Crovacus listened with bated breath to a very rough and only mostly accurate account of the incident.
Demonic cultivators? Iusticia spare us. Rigport is as good as lost, then I suppose it solves the issue of housing the displaced, assuming the citys infrastructure hasnt been destroyed beyond use. Contact the others in the Free Cities Alliance. Yes, even the Red Lady. We must ensure whatever is left of the city comes under our control, even if that means shipping a gaggle of war veterans there - you know as well as I the value of such a trade hub just by virtue of its location. I hope we can at least leverage the incidents potential damage to obtain some relief. You seem awfully hesitant to speak of her. Do we have another Blue Moon War situation at hand?
In his mind, if the threat was resolved, it wasnt even a question whether Zelsys Newman was alive or not. He had learned that her relationship with death was a purely cordial one the year prior, after all. Whether she would be in any state to fight again in the next six months, however That was anyones guess.
The voice at the other end spoke up again.
...Her lungs? Coughed them up, you say?
In the end, that turned out to be an immense overstatement, but the Newman Sects founder was nonetheless incapacitated for some time. It was no wonder; all individuals involved in the incident were, at best, utterly drained and severely rattled by the incident.
And so, as the aftermath of the Eberheim Incident rang out through the country and news of it carried across the continent, those involved in that historical event spent their days resting in a manner that would seem psychotic to any normal mortal. Elixirs, medicinal baths, meditative trances deep in the sects Leyline Well, numerous small tournaments, all of this and more fell under the umbrella of rest and recovery for the Newman Sects brave heroes.
343 - Eberheim Aftermath
As for the Hellhounds, they were split. Some were too wounded to partake in active rest, while others were not of a cultivator-like inclination, treating their work as just that. Nonetheless, elite soldiers that they were, they had plentiful resources to help them deal with their wounds and their exhaustion.
As for Strake Sodan, he remained interred within his war machine the entire way back and for weeks after, flickering to a fully lucid state for only a few hours each day. It was not so because the machine refused to release him, but because it was keeping him alive. Each day, buckets of animal blood were brought to him and poured over the tank, while recordings of books played to keep his mind occupied and somewhat anchored to reality.
The alchemists and craftsmen of the Newman Sect worked tirelessly, preparing elixirs and tools to separate the man and the living machine without killing either, at the governors official request, but it was known that the man was a friend of the sect and would not have been left to his fate either way.
Meanwhile, a tale spread of the Newman Sects Elder, of her grievous enlightenment in the Truth of Violence, and of the madness that knowledge brought her. She hadnt been seen in public since the Eberheim Incident, building up a plentiful pyre of logs. To add CP-T as the accelerant, even the doors of the elders quarters couldnt contain her enormous intent, to the point that many disciples collapsed from terror merely walking up the stairs to the upper floor. As such, the decision was made to temporarily relocate accommodations to other areas of the sect compound. Barely a fraction of the enormous buildings true capacity had been used until now, after all.
Lastly, to toss a hand-grenade into the pyre, the Second Elder entered and exited the elders quarters only once every few days, and often came out bearing numerous bites, scratches, and bruises. She insisted that nothing was wrong, and it was not far from the truth; such petty injuries healed quickly and were no different from those sustained in normal sparring.
The Elders direct disciple, Victor Khestun, was in a similar state. He, alongside the sects chef, Ozmir, had retreated far underground, to the subterranean garden in the Tree of Life Leyline Well. Ozmir returned after a few days, but Victor was nowhere to be seen. The reason was simple; as a living deity created by humans, Bishamonten required a vessel to house him, and the Oculus could not serve that purpose in the long-term. And so, after explaining himself to Ozmir, whose pet project the garden was, Victor received permission to construct the shrine in the Leyline Well. So he feverishly worked, cutting down a single of the centuries-old trees and building in accordance with the righteous gods instruction. Afterwards, he continued working, forming a statue of Bishamonten out of wood, bone, and dragonbone. He did not try to replicate the form of Vaisravana Bishamonten of Itrian myth, despite the fact his scroll contained accurate descriptions of all Eight Guardian Deities.
The change of design was, in fact, at Bishamontens own request. The deitys enormous voice, thundering with the sadness of a hundred thousand grieving widows, reverberated inside Victors skull: THE ORIGINAL ME PERISHED ALONGSIDE MY WORSHIPERS AND SHRINE GUARDIANS. IT IS ONLY RIGHT FOR THIS IDOL TO MIRROR THE FORM I TOOK AT EBERHEIM, THAT WHICH SHALL BECOME KNOWN TO THIS LANDS MORTALS. ALREADY, I FEEL THEIR REVERENCE, FEW THOUGH THEY ARE.
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Rather than bearing a spear in one hand and khakkhara staff in the other, the statue in the Leyline Well took the shape of Kishin-Shura-Bishamonten, wielding a combination of both implements with two hands. Four more, six-segmented arms protruded from its back, having two elbows each.
And so, he worked, for days and weeks, caught in a trance of sorts.
Away from the eyes of the world, the Founder remained irrevocably engrossed in an enlightenment-induced trance, meditating and writing in a mad cycle, seeking to put into words a Truth beyond such mortal expression. Eventually, even Zefaris stopped coming and going, at Zelsys request. And as days passed, the sense of a ferocious beast continued to intensify. Ghostly-white serpents of Fog manifested outside her door, spontaneously from ambient Pneuma, vanishing as quickly as they appeared, as if glimmers of a theoretical world entirely composed of predatory monsters down to the most fundamental level, a world where even the specks of dirt and tiniest monads had fangs. Slowly this unearthly territory spread, filling the whole room outside the elders chambers and climbing up the sects central spire, guided upward by its special inner structure. The illusory visions within the field were all of an incredibly violent nature, but they were not exclusively of combat. It was a world of violence, where violence was as fundamental a law as gravity. The boundary between the sects grand hall and the central spires ground floor became increasingly more opaque. More and more, vision of the room beyond vanished and transformed into an eldritch realm of swirling fog and ferocious beasts.
Numerous disciples gathered in the great hall in front of the boundary, drawn here by this truly unearthly phenomenon.
Despite the alarm caused by this phenomenon, the sects most senior members vetoed any implications that something was going wrong. It was not Zefaris or anyone who had joined the sect recently, but in fact the seniors grandfathered in from the Black Horses - Ozmir and Nesgon.
For the first time since the Newman Sects founding, Nesgon, the Immortal Groundskeeper, in his mummy-like countenance, became visibly angry. He became angry at the mere suggestion of disturbing the elder at this moment, just to check on her.
Blind fools, you have eyes but somehow I doubt you would be able to see the skeleton at Titans Bane he grumbled angrily, shaking his head. With a sigh, he visibly stifled his desire to lecture his juniors.
Count yourselves fortunate! Nesgon proclaimed. In all my years, I have witnessed three epiphanies, one from each grand elder under whom I have served. Despite appearances, this is the least volatile of them all. What you witness here Is the unfolding of our founders personal Truth. This is the true purpose of the central spire: to contain the manifestation without stifling it. Those of you who have eyes to see, stay here and observe. Those of you to whom this Truth speaks, allow yourselves to enter this illusory world if you dare, but know that you may die or go mad when faced with the founders Truth. The rest of you
Nesgon stomped his foot, and a tremor spread out through the air, casting many disciples to their knees.
...Return to your training.
344 - Manifestation
And so, many of those disciples who had gathered here did leave. Many others remained, observing from beyond the boundary. A small handful walked into the boundary, and disappeared. Two were expelled immediately, one covered in deep wounds and the other seemingly having gone feral.
Fools. I said those to whom this Truth speaks, but no, they never listen Nesgon grumbled as he single handedly overpowered the duo, paralyzing them by striking their pressure points. His shriveled fingers pierced the first disciples flesh as if it was cardboard, eliciting an apologetic hiss of sympathy and causing him to be more gentle with the second man. After examining them, Nesgon let out a relieved chuckle.
Normally, the backlash wouldve damaged or even destroyed large swathes of their cultivation But these morons had none to begin with. They will recover.
He then dragged them off to be treated, purposely leaving out the fact there was a miniscule chance that this experience might end up benefiting the two in the future.
Over the next several days, most of those who had gone in returned, covered in bites and scratches. A few of them now had an animalistic shine in their eyes, including the scorchlander Mata Gano, two of the eagle-men who were named Ehecatle and Toltecatl, and four Ikesian outer disciples who had not exhibited any particular inborn talent besides an incredible dedication to the fundamentals of Sturmblitz Kunst 0. Seven in total. They inevitably gathered, sparring together with heretofore unseen savagery.
The illusory world manifested by the Truth of Fangs continued growing upwards until it reached the top of the central spire, at first seeping into the sects barrier. Not long after this, long tendrils of blurriness, like a heat-haze, began leaking from the spires top, and were soon joined by silvery Fog. They formed the apparition of an enormous, toothy snake skull, with backward-pointing antlers protruding above its prominent brow ridges. It appeared as if the apparition was a direct expansion of the sects transformed, opaque barrier.
Despite being the skull of a serpent, it was a strongly-built, wide thing, with two rows of gigantic teeth, huge fangs folded between the rows, and protruding anchor points for powerful jaw muscles on the outside of the skull. Gradually, this enormous serpent skull grew backwards to form itself a body, growing into a muscular snake hundreds of meters long with armor-like scales. Its burning eyes, like searchlights, swept over the city, and it silently watched over its domain. Strangely, this caused very little panic, with the apparition exuding a strange sense of safety; there was fear, but somehow, being aware of the giant snake also meant being aware of the fact it posed no threat to Willowdale or its people. Those few in the city who were familiar with arcane wildlife recognized the basis for the snake, despite the fact the real animal didnt have antlers and had not been documented in over two centuries. In modernity, it was simply named the Ikesian Giant Viper, but had been referred to by myriad names in the past. One among them was River Carver Serpent, as it was believed to carve rivers with its body due to the channels it left behind. In the same vein was the Sculptor Snake due to their nesting habit of carving nests straight into solid rock with their enormous physical strength and iron-hard scales. Last and perhaps most self-explanatory, was "Bear-eater Snake".
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Perhaps the most profound effect of this manifestation was on animals. Pets and livestock were the first to be affected; as if possessed, they all attempted to approach the Newman Sect, gazing up towards the antlered snake. Even those who couldnt come still looked in that direction.
Wild beasts soon emerged from the forests surrounding the city.
From the smallest to the greatest. Hares, foxes, wildcats, wolves, bears, snakes big and small, and countless strange animals that were alien to the common folk and were oft unseen due to their eclectic or dangerous habitats. A small army of beasts gathered, just close enough to be within view, and as the illusory serpent swept its gaze over them, they returned to the forest all the same. On that days evening, the gigantic serpent descended with the sun, coiling down the central spires length and then across the rest of the sects roof. The manifestation vanished soon after, leaving behind a winding, serpentine glyph-pattern that looked as if it had always been a part of the roof tiles.
The illusory world within the spire had also receded. As the sect members inevitably filed back in, with many running to retrieve some possession or other from their quarters, they found things to have changed. The founders Truth had left its mark upon the spires interior as well, warping all animal iconography. Horses changed into predatory beasts, regardless of whether they were whole statues or small details on water faucets. Some were sneering and angry, while others appeared calm and regal, depending largely on the original. Lions, tigers, snakes, wolves, false drakes and dragons, bears, all these visages were to be found, but so were the countenances of alien monsters born purely from the Truth of Fangs. The wood, too, had been affected, with strange glyphs seemingly scraped into it with ragged claws, yet also possessing precision worthy of a skilled craftsman.
Zefaris received an aetherwave message soon after, disappearing into the elders quarters. She emerged soon after with two messages: The first was a message of reassurance, confirming that Zelsys was still consolidating her foundation. The second was a request for several things.
Elder Zelsys will require double food portions for the next three weeks, five liters each of sect-formulation Liquid Vigor and Witchs Brew, half a liter of Eisengeists blood, blades which have been used for violence regardless of their metal grade, a stylus made of Eisengeists bone, and bones from the Wildfire Kite.
There were no questions. People scattered, gathering the relevant resources. Meanwhile, Nesgon, being the only individual in the sect to understand the central spires function, meticulously went up and down cataloguing the strange markings. Seeing his plight, and eager to focus on something other than Zels predicament, Zefaris began assisting him, using her left eye to scan sections of wall and replicating them on paper.
Soon, they both came to a realization.
345 - Seclusion
I want to say this is a formation, but It does not follow common formation-building rules. You said the spire contains countless formations, and as far as I can tell that is the truth, but the flow of power inside the walls has not been significantly altered. How is this formation not interfering with the others? Zefaris questioned.
It is more akin to the natural formations created by certain cultivator-beasts than a man-made formation Nesgon uttered.
They stared at one another in silence as the realization sunk in; the Newman Sects central spire had been, in effect, directly claimed as the elders innermost territory, with this same territorial claim extending to the sect as a whole, fundamentally altering the behavior of the compounds barrier. Of course, the disciples were not told it in these terms. The Founder had harnessed her enlightenment towards reinforcing the sects defenses with a formation array born from a pure Truth, too profound to be expressed with rudimentary formation rules, and that was that. This was not a lie, merely an expression of the truth that did not expose the fact she had claimed the sect as a territory the same way a cultivator-beast would.
Days went by as Zefaris and Nesgon continued documenting the territorial formation array, intermittently joined by various other sect members, most often Sigmund and eventually Victor. By this point, the Dragonheart Bolus had been completed - or rather, a lesser version of it. A half-failure by Makhus own account, and a stunning success by the accounts of all those who assisted him in the grueling synthesis. Nonetheless, even at its significantly reduced potency, it sufficed to stabilize Strakes state enough to temporarily disconnect him from Zero. A backpack was fashioned for him, with much longer cables, allowing him a mostly-functional range of movement in the tanks general vicinity.
Makhus, after being forced to rest, immediately returned to alchemy, and the days continued to pass on like they were hours. Lucians grasp on the Bayonet-eaters Creed and swordsmanship in general skyrocketed in this intervening time, even to Lydias astonishment, who had entered an impromptu master-disciple relationship with the young man, largely out of frustration and exasperation at his combination of dullness and talent.
Even still, Zelsys did not come out. At one point she requested another supply package, as well as a visit with Ozmir and Makhus simultaneously, but that was where her communications ended. The package included several dozen liters of Viriditas and Rubedo, separately, as well as large amounts of various herbs. Neither Makhus nor Ozmir would share what they spoke of with the founder, but they assured everyone that she was just consolidating her foundation. Ozmir was quick to point out that her seclusion could go on for a full year and it would still be short.
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Before long the overflowing aura of bestial violence that still leaked out of the elders quarters receded, at which point Zefaris finally went in to check on Zelsys once more.
In the main room, she found many of the materials Zel had been provided, scattered around. Sharp pieces of metal were everywhere, cut perfectly with no deformation, and others to the contrary, seemingly torn apart with claws or bitten in half. Similarly, empty meal containers were stacked up next to the writing desk, far more than Zelsys would have actually needed, beyond her already superhuman dietary habits.
There, on the table, stood a cylinder of faintly iridescent steel, its surface bearing an elaborate pattern of glyphs arranged in rings and lines. The pattern was tribal, pure and simple, akin to what one might find at the sites of ancient ruins. As for the glyphs, they seemed a refinement, or perhaps purposeful alteration, of the pure and primal glyphs that made up the main spire formation array.
Shivers ran down the back of her neck as she approached it without thinking. The aura of implied violence only grew thicker the closer to the object she got, but it was nothing compared to what she had experienced in the past few weeks. She dared not touch it, but merely looking was enough. It was a pair of dragonsteel Thundercannon shells, reshaped into a two-part sleeve. Zefaris wagered the contents were likely no less dangerous than the usual filling of atrine-enriched powder and hardened cold-iron shot.
She continued past the writing desk into the bedroom, finding it empty. The same was the case for the library.
The bath? she wondered as she made her way there.
A wall of amber-coloured steam spilled out as the door opened before her, an eclectic mix of scents assaulting her nose.
Indeed, there she was, in the bath.
Curled up, near the bottom of the pool, barely visible as a silhouette. The reason was that the water could barely be considered as such at this point. Swirling with nebulous colours and emitting a faint glow, it resembled a truly arcane elixir such as the Fivefold Philter. The scent was organic, undertones of alchemy barely present beneath a thick blanket of life. Cautiously, she reached for an empty mixing bowl and scooped up a small bit of the liquid. It burned when she dipped her finger in it, such that she was certain she wouldnt want to submerge herself. The small patch of redness quickly faded when she cleaned it off, leaving instead a patch of skin even smoother than the rest.
A few bubbles rose up from below, releasing bursts of Fog and crackling sparks when they popped.
Zefaris took account of the countless things outside the pool, trying to make sense of what all Zelsys had added in. It ran the gamut from Eisengeists blood, distilled Primary Spring water from the Aase clan, enormous quantities of Viriditas, and a number of reagents Zefaris didnt recognize. She also found a notebook, left out in plain sight. Inside was Zels handwriting.
Date of immersion. Planned duration of immersion and date of emergence.
Right below, a simple descriptor of what exactly was going on here. Frustration flared in her gut. Zelsys had told her of this, but Zefaris had not thought it would come around so soon. Certainly not now. Not yet.
346 - Dragonslayer Baptism
As if having predicted exactly how she would feel upon reading the notes, the very next page noted the reason for her unannounced use of this procedure. Zelsys described herself as feeling like she was inside a too-tight glove, like her own skin was too small, as if every iota of her body itched like a healing wound. There was also the matter of her lungs.
Who wouldve thought that rapid mutations had consequences. Rather than wrestle with it for months on end, Ive come to an agreement with my Primordial Self. I will simply solve the issue of my lungs all at once. Riding the end of that epiphany ought to make things easier.
Given these circumstances, it made complete sense to go forward with it earlier than planned. After all, the bath was an extremified body cultivation procedure. A mutant chimera grafted together from similar recipes recorded in the sects own texts as well as those provided by Strolvath, specifically the Burning Man Manuscript fragment and the Blazing-black Destruction Scripture. Zefaris wasnt familiar with the specifics, but she knew it had involved a combination of Ozmirs expertise and the work of the sects most skilled alchemists.
Now that she read it over, she understood why it seemed so disproportionately simple: Because it was. It was the opposite of a recipe that tried to achieve a great effect with a complex blend of wildly variable ingredients. This one just sought to get the most out of the blood of a Dragon Descendant in the most direct way possible, without instilling any draconic traits into the subject or exciting ones that might already be present. Several working names were written out, from the simple to the extravagant:
DRAGONS BLOOD BODY TRANSFORMATION BATH
TRUE BODY TRANSFORMATION BATH
HYBRID METHOD FLESH REBIRTH
ANTEDILUVIAN BLOOD ORIGIN REFINEMENT
DRAGONSLAYER BAPTISM
The last one was underlined.
Zefaris sat down, reading further. The baths possible effects and issues were extensive, gathered from both source texts and the alchemists opinions. The projected strain on the subject was of course immense, as would be inevitable when it came to subsuming the vitality of a much greater existence. The solution was corrosive enough to dissolve someone alive in minutes, the paralytic shock of contact with Eisengeists blood dooming anyone without the requisite tolerance. She balked at the quantity of alkasnail alkahest involved, far beyond what would be necessary to dissolve and bind the components, clearly intended to help break down the body on some level. The herbal component wasnt any gentler. Just one of the herbs was potent enough to kill with a slight overdose, let alone all together. Even with Zels absurd toxicity tolerance, Zefaris really hoped the dosages had been dialed in for Zelsys specifically ahead of time. The rational part of her knew this to be the case, but it was not wholly in control at this moment.
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Inevitably, she had no choice but to trust Zels judgment and wait until things had run their course.
And so, days passed.
Floating in warm, dark nothingness.
Or so it went.
In the boundless realm of mind, Zelsys found no oblivion.
Fight. Modify. Repeat. Fight. Modify. Repeat. Fight. Modify. Repeat.
A constant cycle of simulation and adjustment, vast tracts of dream-time passing with each real-time hour.
An army of dragon-beasts besieged her mental realm, and with each iteration, both they and her thought-form grew stronger. Were it only so easy as expelling the Third Truthseekers incursion. These were real, a representation of the actual bodily struggle taking place each time she subsumed a plume of Eisengeists essence.
It was the only way she could distract herself. The physical pain was nothing, but the spiritual strain was a whole other matter. The Primordial Self had turned her aura inward, wielding it as a tool of self-modification in concert with the bath, which she had allowed to flood into her lungs and both stomachs. With every passing hour, Zelsys broke down and rebuilt something of herself, incorporating the vitality of a Sapdragon, a being that was part dragon descendant, part cultivator-beast, and part immortal tree. With each reconstruction, the Primordial Self took the opportunity to instill even further change, dredging up the elements of ancient man that had faded away in the absence of the pressures which demanded them.
Bit by bit, Zelsys remade herself in her own image, pushing a bit closer to the ever-ascending ideal which she hoped never to reach.
Slowly, her nerves and silver conduits began drifting together, intertwining at points.
Her skin split open as she grew, instantaneously healing into tiger-like stripes of untanned, light brown. Even her right arm was not spared this fate, lines of shiny bronze showing through.
In the dream-desert, cornered by an enormous draconic manifestation, the Thinking Self merged with Fulguris and together tore the great beast to pieces. One by one, her nails fell off, extremities reforming to accommodate hooked, retractable claws. Not merely the ends of her digits, but her hands and feet both took a half-step towards ancient man, becoming more suited to her already animalistic tendencies in combat.
Both sculptor and the clay, Zelsys continued to change for as long as her aura and the bath solution held out.
She emerged one day prior to the planned date of emergence. Her eyes shot open, and with a single continuous motion, she rose out of the water. A waterfall of tarry liquid poured forth from her mouth into an empty alkahest jar, expelled by force of aura alone.
The day passed without a word to the outside world.
Zelsys spent it doing two things.
The first entailed becoming accustomed to her own skin all over again. It was one thing to wear it in the realm of mind, and another to do so in physical reality. As the hours passed, she came to the conclusion that just one day would not be enough. Even still, she had never felt better. It felt, somehow, as if the gap separating her sense of self from her physical body had thinned out into translucent gossamer. Her Thundergods felt exceedingly easy to manifest, so much so that she quickly forgot she was even doing it.
The second was reading what she had written during her epiphany. She remembered most of it, but nonetheless wanted to go back to inspect her work with a clear head.
347 - Full Consolidation
With a sound like a sword being unsheathed, the inscribed shells that made up the scriptures case slid apart. Inside was a scroll of large metal slips and animal bones. Zel partly unraveled the mass of metal and bone, then took a particular slip in hand. Its surface was densely damascened lengthwise, with only a short description of its contents visible in writing. As she poured aura and intent into it, the slip expanded in width several times over, becoming more of a metal slab, revealing the writing contained upon it. With another spark of intent, different layers of the metallic lattice revealed themselves, thus revealing different sections of text. Index marks on the side of the slip indicated which layer was being shown. She vividly remembered attempting to manually recreate Compressed Writing, giving up, and conceiving of this alternative based on her understanding of metallum and the natural structures of metal.
The writing itself seethed with pure meaning such that all who looked upon it would be able to comprehend its contents. Zelsys did not know how to write in such a way, but reality could not be denied. She came to the conclusion it was a result of her Truth being embedded in the manuscript.
The entire text exuded an aura that, to Zelsys, was as familiar as her own breath. She wagered that, to others, it would seem ominous if not extremely perilous.
It was, after all, something of the Truth of Fangs put to writing.
It spoke of violence, its nature, and how one could interpret the entire world through the lens of violence. It spoke of the nature of Man as the supreme predator, not as a matter of hegemony, but as a matter of potential despite having ascended beyond the need to be in constant contact with his Primordial Self, it was Mans clarity of mind that permitted him to stand as the weak and tear out the throats of the strong, to upturn the old natural order, cast down the Dead Gods and reign over the natural world. On the same page, she laid out the need for the strong to elevate the weak and root out wretchedness, much like any long-reigning apex predator manages its territory rather than depleting it. For this reason, the scripture incessantly stressed the need for clarity to balance out ferocity, for the Lunar to balance out the Solar. She had included explicit statements that some kind of communication with the Primordial Self was enormously helpful in this endeavor, pointing towards the Walking Way of the Despot of Self.
Further sections focused on the esoteric ideal of Pure Violence, the state of being consumed by violent intent while retaining full self-control and clarity of mind. Martial diagrams and formulas took up a fair bit, being a more complex expansion on the fundamentals of Sturmblitz Kunst 0.
Zel skimmed over large portions, mentally reciting them as she did so and hoping that she hadnt made some ridiculous mistake in her entranced state.
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Over half of the scroll remained empty, waiting to be filled in.
There was just one slip that didnt expand, the one that would show when the scroll was rolled up the cover, so to speak.
Zel flexed her aura, and with her own claws carved out the title.
STURMBLITZ KUNST 00
THE FORMLESS DESTROYER SCRIPTURE
She stored the scroll away, then made her way to the bedroom to use the mirror. The face that stared back at her was the same, yet at once different the steel-grey of her irises had been overruled by a blue glow, though it was neither as widespread nor as intense as that which manifested when she channeled truly great quantities of fulgur. It was, overall, a tiny change, but enough to be noticeable. The writhing, serpentine tendrils that were her braids had shifted in colour the metallic white had crept further downward, now reaching below her shoulders.
As far as she could tell, she had grown in height by seven centimeters. With each heartbeat, flashes of blue subtly illuminated her ribcage from within. To an untrained eye, it would seem as if she was perpetually in the state of Conquerors Mantle, and she had no intention of trying to dispel such rumours.
She spent a short while inspecting herself, taking particular interest in her new joints and the shapes formed by her newly-altered muscular structure. Her back had undergone the largest muscular changes, forming many unsettling shapes depending on how she flexed; one stood out for resembling a grimacing, demonic face.
After she was done shamelessly indulging in egoism, she dressed herself, feeling her trousers and boots reshape themselves to fit.
And so, with a bodily transformation and the completion of an entirely new scripture, the qualitative change Zelsys had begun at Eberheim was now complete.
The Founders emergence from seclusion was, at once, a momentous occasion, yet also passed without much fanfare. She certainly made no effort to trumpet-up how much stronger she was now, and many rightly assumed it was because she had no need to do such a thing. It was self-evident from just a glance, nay, from being in her general vicinity. Her physical size, let alone her newly-clawed hands, were the least of it. Curiously, at first it seemed as if her presence had retracted by comparison to the times after her return from Eberheim. It soon became evident that she was merely holding it in, as its weight bore down onto onlookers like the breath of a ten-story-tall monstrosity even when only partially unfolded rumours abounded as to what the full force of the founders aura might look like.
Strangely, of all the changes, the most eye-catching one had to be her hair. The fact the founders hair could turn into serpents at any moment was well-known, to the point this had been portrayed several times in a literal sense. But until now, it had always been deliberate. She had always clearly done it with full intention. That had changed; it was now constant, and unsettlingly seamless. Seemingly without even being aware of it, the founders hair constantly moved about, scanning her surroundings, grabbing things without direct, explicit intent.
348 - Full Consolidation Pt. 2
The colour of both her hair and the Thundergod manifestations had also changed; in most cases, the beastly heads of her Thundergods manifested in a pale greyish-blue, blending Fulgur, Metallum, and Predator Aura into a stable form that was simply solid and nothing more. In this state, her hair moved with a relaxed smoothness, but had a tendency to coil around her, occasionally snapping from one spot to the next with great violence and flashes of blue light. In an instant, however, this relaxed state could become the form she was most known for, blazing with blue-white lightning and tearing away at solid cold-iron with lashing bites.
It seemed as if the maintenance costs were simply negligible.
Of course, such a drastic effect elicited a great deal of curiosity, especially since she had never once specified what the technique was and where she had learned it. She had, after all, only developed it after the Blue Moon War, and had never given it a proper name, being satisfied with Thundergod Manifestation.
The questions were truly incessant, especially the ones that werent spoken directly to her.
It was in the privacy of Makhus personal lab that she would be finally convinced to name the technique. As had become somewhat of a tradition, bodily change was followed by an examination from the aforementioned alchemist an increasingly-advanced battery of sample-taking and testing. The only people present were Zelsys, Zefaris, Makhus, and an assistant-proteg of his whose name Zel couldnt remember for the life of her. His face and hair were both a sullen, greyish shade, contrasted by large, saturated-burgundy eyes.
Why did you not name it earlier? Its not as if youre one to lack imagination in naming techniques, the alchemist spoke, his words a mere second fiddle as he cut into Zels side. Her skin and muscle parted seamlessly before his scalpel, wrought from the broken-off point of a once-revered sword and enveloped by the milky-white glow of his Armament Aura. To call it a cut would in fact be an overstatement; no fibres or veins were severed, it was merely an opening assisted by the able to cut anything aspect of Makhus natural aura. A mass grave of edge-stripped scalpels sat piled up to the side, and numerous light lines zigzagged Zels skin, already fading.
I just settled on Thundergod Manifestation and that was good enough, she said, shrugging with her braids so as to avoid shifting the skin around the vivisection window. After that I just kept applying other developments to it, and it gradually grew into this. I had never predicted that it would reach this state, even if, in retrospect, it was inevitable from the moment I started taking it for granted.
Well, come up with a name, or people will come up with one for you, and it will be stupid. You dont need me to tell you that.
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He was right, of course. She was just putting it off some half-dozen potential names had been floating around in her head ever since she first noticed the change, before anyone had even asked about it.
It was only now that she finally gave in and chose one out of the six candidates.
Seven-headed Leviathan Method. Ill tell them its part of my Pandaemonium Scripture if they ask where its from.
PANDAEMONIUM SCRIPTURE
GEHEIMNIS: SEVEN-HEADED LEVIATHAN METHOD
There was no such thing as a Pandaemonium Scripture; not yet, at least.
That works, sure Makhus uttered, his actual focus squarely on observing Zels internal organs. She sat there, using aura to invisibly hold her own skin and muscle apart so that the sects premier alchemist and his assistant could peer underneath, observing her increasingly more alien biology directly. No blood spilled forth, and her bones appeared grey.
You mentioned your lungs, but what of your heart? Makhus questioned, squinting against the flashes of blue escaping through the vivisection window.
Atavism. I stole it from an ancient caveman, so to speak. It requires far more energy and far stronger flesh to operate correctly, but in all other aspects it suits me far better.
Her heart had not suddenly become an alien organ of six chambers it merely appeared alien due to its fundamentally more rugged design and the appearance of Zels flesh overall. Thin bands of silver and bronze could be seen threading through the deep-crimson flesh, tracing the muscular structure, further added onto by the scattered patterns of silver conduits. At this moment, it beat abnormally slowly, only once every two seconds. With each beat, a sphere could be glimpsed, illuminating it from within, albeit to a much dimmer degree than the ignitions taking place in her lungs.
Alright, close yourself up. I think Makhus began, glancing towards one of his fresh-faced assistants. The young man, no older than sixteen, was already doubling over and trying not to vomit. As soon as an empty jar was placed at his feet, he let rip his breakfast.
Makhus, meanwhile, looked down at the boy, more confused than anything.
Hes been handling all sorts of tissues and dissecting animals for months now. Ive no clue what took hold of him. Next on the list Open your mouth as wide as it will go and stick your tongue out.
Zel did as asked. Her mouth opened, and then opened some more, and some more after that. It was a yawning cavern of razor teeth, with numerous threads of saliva stretching between the top and bottom. Her tongue dangled out as a massive fleshy tendril, visibly separated into four lengthwise bands of muscle with shallow channels between them.
Zefaris, can I get the dimensions? Makhus requested.
Silence.
Makhus turned in confusion, looking for Zefaris, finding her staring with both eyes open. He snapped his fingers in front of her face, prompting her to, in turn, snap out of her daze. She blinked a few times, listing the data he had asked for.
You dont bite in fights, any reason to change your jaw?
Zel didnt answer, giving a simple shrug. Makhus brought out a sample vial, handing it over.
Spit. Were almost done here.
349 - Full Consolidation Pt. 3
The slightly viscous fluid with which Zel filled the vial was not human saliva. The alchemist turned it over inside the flask, sniffed it, poured out some onto a flat alchemical spoon, and set it over a burner. It took some time to boil, yet seemingly refused to evaporate. The whole time, he muttered about how it resembled the saliva of various cultivator-beasts and how curious it was that humans could even produce such a thing without specialized mutagens. After handing the sample off to his queasy assistant, Makhus took the last implement from the table.
Alright, last one for now, blood pressure.
The device for measuring blood pressure was a tourniquet of sorts, wrought of unknown, yet incredibly supple materials and enchanted to carry out this specific task, projecting a circular gauge with Ankhezian markings. It was a rare example of traditional, purely magical tools in use at the sect, having been found during cleanup operations in one of the abandoned underground floors.
The moment it was around Zels arm, the gauge jumped far beyond any normal human bounds, around 2/3 of the way towards the maximum.
This is, ah Makhus started, finding his words. His eyes lit up as he took the shackle off of Zels arm. I would wager that inducing blood pressure this high in others is a lethal technique in some small far-off sects; this would rupture someones organs very quickly, assuming the absence of thorough body reinforcement. My blood pressure might get this high for seconds at a time when I really push it, and even then my elixirs barely bolster me enough to withstand the strain. It certainly explains how you dont have problems with your blood being as viscous as it is.
All tests done? Zel raised an eyebrow, stepping down off the table.
Not even close, the alchemist laughed, shaking his head. But what I got today will occupy me for a while. You better not go undergoing any further wide-reaching body transformations in the next few months, understand?
Ill do my best, Zel grinned. You mentioned something else when you called me some trouble with the Dragonheart Bolus project.
Hey, consider how I feel, wont you? At this rate Ill have to make Acala taller again in no time. he said, jokingly. And the Bolus Well, its not a problem now that youre here. Bet youre itching to flex against a live target how about we make that target a Dragon Descendant?
And so, a medical examination turned into a briefing.
Makhus retrieved the Bestias Arcanorum, flipping to the page on reproductive behaviors. It was severely lacking in substantial information, covering the subject as far as it related to threats against human settlements and the hunting of the beasts. This was sufficient.
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In short, we simply got unlucky with the specimens age. It turned out to be much younger than anticipated, barely a hundred years where we had expected at least three-hundred. Its alchemically usable draconic essence had thinned out due to it spawning so many young so recently before we slew it. As a result, after what it had spent in battle, there was barely one-third as much as would be necessary for the True Dragonheart Bolus. Its counterpart, however, has not been depleted in such a manner, and if it could be killed without a fight to speak of, every iota of draconic power could be extracted. If. Slaying the first one was trouble enough, and we were working on a plan to achieve a near-instant kill on the second one up until your emergence. Couldnt be sure that you would be combat-ready by the time of the hunt
He looked up from the book.
...But its clear I worried for naught.
I wont say I wont do it, because I will, but you just reminded me why didnt you ask Jorfr?
He came back with a whole pile of harvested beast parts and herbs, requisitioned a new tablet, and immediately departed for some place called Scarlet Hill Farm he seems to be convinced that incorporating them will benefit us greatly. Been sending in reports every three days with the instruction to search for him if he failed to report in for four or more days. I dont know much about it, but Makhus trailed off, his eyes veering towards Zefaris, who had once more fallen into a trance.
She snapped out of it far more readily this time, continuing the train of thought: I was there, yes. At the Slaughter of Scarlet Hill. Didnt actually get to do anything, but I was there. It was one of the early battles involving full mechanization. The mortar crews buried the entire Howling Moon Sect under two meters of mud, shit and shrapnel. Im not aware of any farm in the area, but the place was a subject of constant bickering even before the war due to its nature as a herbal treasure trove. Its not a far-fetched thing for a farm to have sprung up now that the forces who once claimed ownership of the hill are gone.
Yalright? Youve seemed out of it since Makhus questioned.
Im fine. I just Need to go out for once. Ive been locked up for too long. Every time I close my eyes, I see them, Zefaris sighed, rubbing her eyes.
See what? Makhus asked again.
The formation patterns from the central spire, mostly
Makhus shot Zelsys a questioning glance. After holding eye contact for a few seconds, the gears in his head finally clicked into place, and he immediately moved on from the subject.
Across the land, the silhouette of an enormous man carved itself into memory. With an arm of abyssal-blue crystal, the Walking Glacier was said to be among the few to equal the Walking Tribulation in inhuman strength and righteousness. It was said he could halt the flow of a broken dam and cast small armies to the ground with his presence alone. With each passing day, his legend grew and his power grew with it for that was the nature of Superbia, the god-killing hammer that resonated with his Truth.
In Willowdale, however, the ripples of Eberheim still had yet to calm, and the Walking Tribulation was just now preparing to return into the world once more.
350 - "This must be an intentional mating display."
The trio continued discussing the plan of the hunt, working out the details. The main problem was that the second Wildfire Kite could not be found out in the open, and only exited its cavern nest once every two weeks to check on its counterpart and to feed. The location of the aforementioned nest was not known. For this reason, the only way to readily track down the beast would be to wait at the nesting site and slay the beast as it came upon the nest remnants.
It soon became evident there was no more to be achieved through debate.
Well, the plans settled, Zel said, rising from her seat. May as well go out and get it done, then.
Zefaris rose up just as readily, clinging to Zels side, and Makhus, giving a look of tacit understanding, made an excuse that the next batch of Black 7 would likely need to be checked on. This consideration would turn out to be unnecessary for the moment as if she was exerting some insurmountable feat of willpower, Zefaris peeled herself off of Zelsys.
You go on ahead, Ill change and catch up in a moment, she excused herself.
Zel did so without questioning, preparing the sturmgandr and waiting at its side she didnt pay attention to how much time passed, busying herself with the simple pleasure of reading a pulp about a power-fantasy character clearly inspired in part by her personal legend. The novels creativity with its martial arts was admirable, despite the authors clear lack of any basic understanding. Really, it was impressive how complex of a system the author had created without ever considering even the most rudimentary things that, in Zels mind, ought to come naturally to any amateur.
Finally, she felt an aetherwave ping from Zefaris. As she looked up from the pulp, she expected any of a half-dozen outfits that she knew Zef favoured for their blend of fashion and practicality. She did not expect something entirely new, let alone something so alike her own tastes. Certainly, it was unmistakably something to Zefs sensibilities in terms of militarist fashion, not something Zel would think to wear, but it was nothing like the reserved, elegant fare Zefaris normally wore.
She came out of the sects front door wearing a modified Ikesian commanders coat as a cape, all national iconography replaced by that of belladonna flowers and eyes. A dark-grey dress shirt was held tightly to her body by her usual armored corset, worn on full display rather than concealed. Her ever-present peaked cap retained its spot securely on her head, but she had tied her hair into a bun, and had clearly cut it shorter to make that bun possible. A tube-like, tight skirt, grey in colour, covered her legs down to the knees or it wouldve, were it not for the slit that climbed most of the way up her thigh, allowing her left leg to peek out with every other step. Simple, opaque black stockings covered the lower three-quarters of her legs, crowned by lace and held up by garters. Even her choice of footwear went against convention, having noticeable heels where Zefaris had rarely strayed from combat boots. Pentacle and Tempesta hung proudly by her hips from criss-crossed belts, with her skull-faced mask accompanying Tempesta on the right-hand side.
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Zelsys was keenly aware of the fact she was staring, and she made the conscious decision to keep staring. As the blonde gunwoman crossed the yard, the Primordial Self made itself known in the back of Zels head: This must be an intentional mating display.
Zel disregarded the thought for the moment, though she didnt disagree. She kept quiet for the moment, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.
The Newman Sects two highest elders rode out with no extensive preparations or fanfare, yet nonetheless were met with it from the citys people. Zel couldnt help but feel a sense of rapid change as she steered her sturmgandr through Willowdale the city, previously half-deserted, had become far more lively in recent months, with many people seeking permits for permanent residence.
Outside the gates, a procession of tankmen made their way down the road, approaching the city. She recognized several of the hellhounds she had fought alongside in Eberheim, just by the aura they gave off. They were clustered at the front and back, riding blitzgandrs. In the middle, meanwhile, marched children teenagers barely old enough to fit into their Second-model suits. The processions suits bore a new type of outer armor, polished and painted prominently with various heraldry it had been customized to integrate the aesthetics of antique knights, and their blitzgandrs bore cloth coverings reminiscent of what might be worn by horses. Singing an upbeat marching cadence, they gave off a sublime sense of glory faint, weak even, but undeniably there. At the head of the procession, an enormous titan skated along, similarly covered by a cloak of bright livery. too tall to be a First-model and too bulky to be a Third-model. It was concealed , but unmistakable.
Zel met the tank suits sensor lens as she passed it, and she could swear she felt Strake warning her to not go spreading around what she had seen.
Wonder what thats all about. Wasting tariff money on parade livery without good reason doesnt sound like Estoras she remarked.
Zero pushed for it, Zef responded. Her arms clamped down on Zel with every iota of superhuman strength she could muster, despite the fact she could easily keep her balance atop the machine standing upright at 200kph, and Zel was barely pushing it at half that speed.
...Zero? Did the Knights of the Boar influence it so much?
It believes in the knightly virtues. Wants to cleanse the realm of evil and shelter the small. Estoras took the opportunity to er Take inspiration from the Order of the Iron Dragon. Nothing official yet, but he sought our approval for the formation of a knightly quasi-sect of sorts to juxtapose the Hellhounds and help raise new tankmen separately from the city militia.
Wonder why Strake went along with it. Maybe Alcerys had more of an influence on him than Id thought.
351 - Rising Tension
Despite not saying it aloud, Zelsys felt that she knew the real reason for Strakes acquiescence to Zeros newfound chivalric virtue he was, fundamentally, a virtuous man. He had just decided to play the part of an unrepentant war-dog, and he played it to the point of fooling even himself.
The rest of the ride passed by uneventfully, and they reached the nesting site without incident. Zel found herself unable to mentally check out it wasnt just the insistent manner in which Zefaris pressed her fingers into her sides, even her scent was different. In her mind, she knew it was physically the same as always, the same unmistakable perfume, but somehow she could smell the tension through it. She ignored it for now.
A fair distance from the charred clearing, the sturmgandr came to a halt, and they reached the place not long after. Besides the battle damage and environmental disturbances caused by the harvesting of the previous dragon, it was quite clear why the Wildfire Kite had chosen this specific spot for its nest at least to Zelsys. As they circled the derelict, bloodsoaked nest, she allowed that thought to slip free: No wonder the dragon chose this spot.
Why? I dont see anything in particular. The kite set up some formations, but it couldve done that anywhere Zefaris questioned without an iota of doubt in her voice.
Not sure myself. It just feels right. I would set up a campsite here for the long term, given the choice.
Zefaris manifested the Nameless Phantom, sending him off into the treeline and well out of sight. They made their way to the planned observation site some distance away and began setting up camp. It was a remarkably flat-topped rocky outcrop, and bore signs of repeated past use for this purpose. The reason was simple: It was the beneficiary of a natural concealment formation, making it slightly, but appreciably more difficult to notice. From the marks in the rock, it seemed there had been folk formations in place at some point.
As they settled into their observation spot, Zefaris began carving a replacement for those worn-away formations, one which would concentrate and amplify the areas natural properties to the point where it could conceal them even from the plain sight of a dragon descendant.
Meanwhile, Zelsys carried out rites of appeasement to the local monads, a clumsy imitation of what Jorfr made appear effortless. She supplemented the lackluster well of power by cheating with the same instinctive attunement that had made her notice why the nesting site seemed right, adjusting rocks and sticks as well as scraping shallow channels into the dirt.
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Two hours passed in the blink of an eye. Zel had set a fire, balancing a griddle over it, with two pots. One would be a stew in a few hours, while in the other she combined Winter Peach Brandy with a splash of Rubedo and several spices to help mask it. It was no invention of her own, but something conceived by Ozmir.
Two hours. Still nothing. Normally, the tension would have boiled over by now. But Zel held off, and Zef had, for some reason, made the choice to not make the first move, despite the fact Zelsys saw right through the mask. Though unsure of the reason herself, Zelsys felt it right to hold off for now.
A bit longer, not yet her instincts told her.
Neither of them was sure of the reason for this standoff, and yet, they continued on with it all the same.
Hours passed. The sun had set. Zel could feel the tension growing, and gradually realized why she was holding off and also when she would finally stop. That time was not yet.
Zelsys had spent most of those hours reading, whereas Zefaris had fully dedicated her attention to overlooking the perimeter, intermittently carving one glyph or another on the trees in preparation for the dragons arrival. They hadnt exchanged more than a few sentences, and by now it was fairly obvious Zefaris was frustrated, having consumed 2/3 of the mulled brandy. Eventually, the gunwoman laid down on her stomach at the very edge of the outcrop, using her coat as a blanket, Pentacle in hand and a cup of brandy to the side. The dragon could, after all, appear at any moment.
A small part of Zefaris had come to worry that the new outfit wasnt to Zels liking, despite knowing full well that she would have said as much if that was the case. But now, it was clear nothing had been wrong.
Zef felt Zel approaching from behind well before anything took place, her intentions spilling out like a static field of violent want. Her coat was pulled off of her, shoved to the side in a pile. Solid, steel-cold tendrils coiled around her body, only to surge with current as they moved further. Her peaked cap slipped forward, obscuring sight and allowing loose strands of hair to fall into her face.
Coiling and tightening as if a swarm of constrictor serpents, Zels Thundergods bound her legs and arms. The fourth spiraled around her chest, burrowing beneath her clothing, while the last wrapped around her neck, so tightly she could barely breathe, and these two together lifted her helplessly off the ground as the heat and static of Zels body washed over her, soon followed by the amazons enormous frame. Zefaris felt nearly weightless, held aloft, her arms pulled behind her back and bound by the intertwining of two Thundergods. A searing-hot, pulsating spear pushed itself between her legs, yet she was denied the release of being pierced by it, its forceful twitching battering against her womanhood.
The sound and warmth of heavy breath approached her right ear, a trickle of viscous saliva dripping onto her neck. From her left, a pair of fingers pushed into her mouth, and then teeth sunk through her shirt, clamping onto her shoulder.
352 - Violence of the Flame
It was at this moment that Zefaris learned just how far her cultivator physique could stretch. That seething, thrumming thing could barely be considered of human proportion, mercilessly bulldozing into her bosom, surging with enough fulgur to knock out any mortal. A long wheeze escaped Zefaris as it skewered her the last dregs of coherent thought being exorcised.
Then it retreated, leaving an intolerable emptiness behind. The wait for its return, though mere moments, felt as though a torturous eternity. With each thrust, great gusts of dense fog erupted from Zels nostrils, and Zefaris found herself emitting sounds more fitting for a rabid beast than a human.
Each pulse of Zels heartbeat and ignition of her lungs sent surges of current crashing through her, each an inexorable demand for attention. At some point, her cap fully obscured her sight, but she didnt notice. In the timeless expanse of sensory overload that followed, there was no dragon, no hunt.
For a moment, she felt as though she might break, and perhaps something did when the fist-sized mass of flesh entered her at last, a deluge of liquid followed with the spasms. She wasnt sure whether it was from Zelsys or from herself, and certainly didnt have the mental capacity to make such a distinction.
By the second eon, she was once again made empty, and found herself blinded by the campfires light for a brief moment as she was turned over onto her back. The feeling of near-weightlessness remained, her shoulders barely touching the cold stone as her lower half was hoisted into the air. The indomitable colossus of her infatuation instantaneously blocked the fires infernal glow, eyes shining blue.
The third eon came, its coming marked by the replacement of the fiery spear with a great serpent, writhing and undulating inside her. A measure of clarity returned to her when Zelsys pressed two fingers into her rear, meeting her gaze with a tacit question. She had neither the will nor the intention to refuse, and erelong the blonde found herself being rutted from both ends to the point she couldnt discern which hole was which.
By the fourth eon, Zel lifted her from the ground as if she weighed no more than a feather, pinning her legs behind her head. The amazon muffled her utterly incoherent, ragged vocalizations by stuffing her tongue down her throat.
At some point in the pleasure-blurred eternity, it all ended and she drifted off to sleep, but that was still at least another eon away.
Zefaris awoke to the clarion call of armageddon''s trumpets, piercing through her skull like an iron nail. She struggled to raise herself up, only to find she couldnt stand her legs just wouldnt obey. She was stripped naked, yet contrary to her hazy memory of the past several hours, both she and her surroundings were entirely clean. Her hair, somewhat damp, had been untied, and the taste of Witchs Brew lingered on her tongue. Her right shoulder itched something fierce, thin scabs already peeling away from freshly-healed skin.
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The source of that horrific noise became self-evident the moment she came to her senses. It was the Wildfire Kite. Its form was distinct from that of its partner, with a slightly smaller, but much bulkier build. Its scales were larger and pointier, and had a dark gradient towards the points. The dragon was atop the plundered nest, roaring no, that wasnt right. It was screaming. With its scales fully raised, jets of flame erupted past them from its skin, growing so dense around its neck they formed a majestic mane of fire.
Off to the side, behind a tree, Zel waited, somehow having concealed herself well enough that the dragon hadnt noticed her yet. Reaching into the inner pocket of her coat, Zefaris touched her tablet and sent a ping. Their gazes met, and instantly, Zels plan of attack shifted to incorporate the Nameless Phantom and supporting fire from Zefaris. She was in no state to provide full-scope support, but that wouldnt stop her from doing everything she could.
With each passing second, the air was becoming warmer, the dragons tantrum stoking its surroundings into an inferno of smoldering charcoal. The beasts aura was sprawled out around it, but reached neither of the women. Zel shifted in place, and Zefaris immediately saw her self-concealment formation break. The kite fell silent as its attention snapped towards the foreign presence. It was then that Zef felt a ping containing the concept of Nameless, referring to the Nameless Phantom. She wasted no time in flexing her aura and directing as much as she could muster towards the Nameless Phantom, priming it to fire. It waited a moment, just a moment, before a ghostly shell came flying from the treeline, bounced off of a kinetic mirror glyph, and flew right into the beasts open mouth, smashing into its palate. A geyser of ghostly-green erupted from the back of its head, and its flame seemed to die, only to restart with even greater fury But Zefaris knew she had made the right choice. Whereas before, the flames had been bright yellow and almost elegant in how they flowed, now they raged a flickering, sputtering orange, and the glow of the Kites eye died down. This was key disrupting its ability to bring spiritual power to bear to minimize loss of draconic essence in the end product.
The rest was up to Zelsys. Zefaris didnt want to risk dracofulminate against a dragon descendant, at least not one this important. The seconds it took the black cylinder to unload Pentacle and reload it with atrine felt like hours, in no small part due to how far Zef had to stretch her own perception to make sense of what followed after the Nameless Phantoms shot.
A blur of steel and lightning exploded from the treeline, scything down a dozen trees in one fell swoop. Out from the dust, four enormous grey serpents flung entire trunks as if they were spears, which had somehow been severed from their leafy crowns and sharpened into spears in the aforementioned explosion. The dragon outstretched its wings, sheathing them in flame, and in a comparable feat of explosive motion, used them to parry the incoming tree-spears. The shape which was their source had already leapt into the air, arcing upward only for two serpents of seething-white lightning to pierce the Wildfire Kites wings. They continued further, wrapping around its legs before digging into the ground.
353 - Violence of the Flame Pt. 2
Zel came crashing down onto the beasts back, grasping Carnifex with both hands as she buried its sawtoothed back into a particular spot. Instantly, she was engulfed in fire as the dragon focused the full weight of its aura onto her exclusively, yet she seemed unscathed. With a shift of her posture, she dragged the saw all the way through, almost effortlessly. A great geyser of pulped flesh and nervous tissue sprayed out of the wound, and the Wildfire Kite crumpled to the ground its legs gave out under it.
An earth-shaking scream followed, and the air became almost too hot to breathe. Zefaris had no choice but to compensate by cooling down her immediate surroundings. In spite of everything, the dragon continued its struggle, summoning blades of fire to cut through its own wing membranes so it could free them. A dozen fiery arcs erupted all across its body, each detaching at one point and joining its wings in a backwards strike towards the spot where Zelsys stood. The degree of flexibility the feat required was such that Zelsys hadn''t expected it as a possibility, given the kite''s muscular bulk.
None of them got the chance to land, as Zelsys had already leapt high into the air, simultaneously burying two more Thundergods into the ground as anchors. The last two, she had slung around the dragons tail, using them to force it back.
At the apex of her flight, she froze in mid-air, seemingly weightless. A sound pierced through the Wildfire Kites roar. A high-pitched, furious sound, the air itself screaming. Carnifex had grown to twice its normal length, and ever so vaguely resembled a row of upper teeth. The Crown Fangs beak had elongated, and was joined by a second, temporary outgrowth from the Root Fangs shape. Fierce lightning writhed between these two fangs, coating the monstrous weapons edge in its entirety. Zelsys had braced her feet against it, grasping it both by its handle and by a sawtooth reshaped into a handle all of the back edges other sawteeth had receded so as not to risk harming her.
Out from the ground beneath the dragons neck, a matching bottom row of teeth took shape, the Truth of Fangs twisting it into shape out of smoldering charcoal and hardened soil.
Half a second. One second. The kite writhed, thrashing against its restraints.
In a flash of truly inhuman violence and with speed akin to a true lightning bolt, Zelsys fell upon the Wildfire Kites neck, dragging herself downwards by her Thundergods. A shockwave of thunder ripped through the clearing, and in an instant, the dragons aura scattered, as if its very will had been severed.
FORMLESS DESTROYER SCRIPTURE
SKIN OF BRONZE WITHOUT
AND LIGHTNING COURSING WITHIN
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WITH PURITY OF VIOLENCE
SHATTER THE LIMITS EARTHLY
REND THEM ASUNDER
A DESCENDANT OF DRAGONS
BEHEADED WITH ONE BITE
BUTCHERING ARTS
THE LEVIATHANS MAW
A royal-purple geyser of liquid life geysered towards the sky, casting the scattered dust to the ground. Instantly, the dust was replaced by a curtain of rising steam, the beasts blood hotter than boiling water.
There, in the midst of the carnage, she stood, rising from a crater of blood and carnage, the dragons head at her feet.
In an instant, it was over.
Zelsys felt the dragons life simply stop, she felt it strain and break in the midst of her dragonsteel fangs. At the moment Carnifex passed through the beasts neck, her aura completely overpowered the beasts, her existence asserted itself over the Kites without leaving any space for question or further struggle. With the slightest mental command, her Thundergods took to snapping up the vestiges that remained of what aura the dragon had manifested.
A part of her wanted to stay here and bask in it, to drink the blood from the beasts severed neck and tear raw meat straight from the carcass with her teeth, but there was no time for that. The retrieval caravan wouldnt arrive for another couple hours, even given the fact she had sent the retrieval ping the moment she saw the dragon. The slaying wasnt the end of her work with the dragon in terms of time spent, it was only the beginning. She had already picked out suitable stones in the area, and reached out to the first. A trio of Thundergods jolted out from her, winding around the multi-ton mass of rock, dragging it out of the soil while she brought numerous glyphic glass jars out of Fog Storage. She cleft it into slabs, casually spreading them about the clearing. The same fate befell two more, leaving gaping holes in the ground. After gathering as much of the kites blood as was plausible, she took to dismantling it, laying out its limbs and most easily-extracted organs on the slabs. She couldnt carry out a proper, full dissection, but she could do this much.
Its dragonstone was the only thing she left alone, as the bestiary had warned that the extraction could be deceptively delicate not due to risk of damaging the dragonstone itself, but the surrounding tissue.
Eventually, she cut a smaller slab from one of the stones and brought it back to the campsite. It took less time than expected for the retrieval team to arrive. By the time they did, they arrived to find the dragon slain and the elders dining upon its meat and liver grilled upon a heated stone, drinking Winter Peach Brandy.
Four figures sat around a table. One held a long pipe between calloused fingers, and another delicately poured tea with an equally delicate hand. The third floated above her chair just high enough to put her feet up on the table, a bird perched on one shoulder and a three-eyed toad on the other. The fourth listened to the first two argue, notating their exchanges as they took place with inhuman speed.
The first two were the Grand Elder of the Black Horse Sect, Edmund Branstein, and the Patriarch of the Sanger Sect, Alexander Sanger. The other two were the self-same Witch and Wizard who had been present at Eberheim Isidora and Cyrian respectively, their shared family name purposely buried.
Edmund and Alexander had been arguing for three days now, going over centuries of grudges. The other two had only arrived a few hours ago the Wizard had discerned how long the martial cultivators had been arguing based on which part of their long history was being argued over.
354 - Meeting of Elders
The Sanger and Black Horse elders continued their argument even as they brought out a series of artifacts in sequence, some unfolding to form miniature landscape features while others created similarly miniature landscapes on the table, including simulacra of rivers, people, and animals. They spent the next full day moving about tiny soldiers and throwing variously shaped dice. The miniatures were carved of stone, inlaid with metals, detailed to the highest degree, and moved by imbuing ones own aura into them even including a limited degree of animation upon their pedestals. Many of the larger models represented real people, both living and dead, and of course both martial elders had themselves as the strongest units in the game. This was new so new, in fact, that Cyrian hadnt seen it at the last meeting, held during the Fog-sages mortal unification campaign. During that meeting, and all meetings prior, the game of choice had been some variant of chess, or whatever obscure card game Sanger had been gambling with. Once, it was backgammon it came within a hairs breadth of causing an inter-sect war, and games of chance were banned afterwards. It was obvious to the wizard why wargames of this complexity had suddenly gained appeal with the martial cultivators they had been, after all, among the tools that allowed a mortal with very limited cultivation to turn the War of Fog into the meatgrinder it was.
Weve been playing Ankhezian wargames since our founding, but Ill let them pretend they have something new, the wizard thought. He decided not to dedicate his attention to the game fully, for the sake of keeping the peace and letting the meeting proceed apace.
To the surprise of neither of the magicians at the table, they were invited to join and given their own miniatures with their own reasonable rulesets, an obvious gesture of respect and recognition. It took some force of will to hold back from correcting the numerous small and not-as-numerous large inaccuracies, such as the fact Cyrian was represented wearing green robes and branded with his old Swampweed Lord epithet. He knew he couldnt protest it without looking petty everyone was represented as their younger selves in the game. Alexander and Edmund knew that he knew, and with their sideways glances they made it clear that they knew that Cyrian knew that they knew.
This is why I stay in my tower. Older than some cities and only growing more petty and childish by the decade he complained inwardly. This was despite the fact he had been personally murdering the male heirs of a particular noble family the moment they hit 35 for the last five generations.
The topic of the meeting showed up in the wargame as a unique piece, as large as those representing the sect elders. It was a humanoid beast that emerged from a city tile in the south of the diorama, with eight snakes made of lightning forming out of its white-red hair, and a gigantic cleaver as tall as the rest of the model. The red was wrong, being literally bright red rather than orange. The miniatures clothing was loose and flowy, wearing only chest bindings and parachute pants resembling the uniform of the Black Horse Sects least-favoured branch. The pants looked as if they were merely embroidered with the red-orange-black pattern of dragon-tree serpent scales.
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In short, the details were all wrong, intentionally so.
In the end, we wont get to complete our game unless it is addressed, Branstein said, eyeing each of the others in turn as he sipped his tea.
Sanger let out an incredulous laugh, scattering smoke as he did.
What, do you mean to march to the sect gates and put it up to a fight, like the old times? I may have taken you up on the offer, had you only made it before Eberheim.
We have no stake in the matter, Isidora refused. Martial sects are to handle martial sect disputes among themselves so it has always been.
The witch grinned in an unsettling, cattish manner only she was capable of. Despite her diminutive, teenager-like stature, her seniority was indisputable. Among the four of them, she was the only one with such control that she could perform supernatural feats without any aura signature. To mortals and low-level cultivators, the difference didnt mean much, but anyone advanced knew what an inhuman level of mastery it truly was. It was tantamount to turning raw ore into a masterwork sword directly through manipulation of its constituent metallum.
Besides, you have no legitimate grounds for what you want. If they understand our rules, you will not be able to do much more than coerce them into joining our ranks officially. You want the Willowdale sect grounds, so you can get out of the Northern Capital.
A cold anger flared in Bransteins eyes, but he had no recourse. The witch was the oldest among the four of them, and by rule of seniority, she had free reign to speak as she wished.
What do you suggest, then? Regardless of my wishes, she must be dealt with. We cant have a genius run rampage over our lands doing what she wants, squandering resources and flagrantly disrespecting the conventions which have allowed us to survive for as long as we have. Upheaval after upheaval, genius after genius, we have persisted!
Branstein thumped his fist on the table to punctuate his tirade, until, eventually, his control over his own aura slipped, and the miniature representing him exploded with the force of a hand grenade. It neither knocked down nor caused any damage to any of the other miniatures, or to anything else on the table.
Settle down, Isidora said, suppressing the sword cultivators rampant aura with a wave of her hand. She floated down into her seat, taking up a cross-legged position. I believe we are all in agreement that the Black Horses Root Branch does require a new sect ground, and that the Heretics Daughter should be brought into the fold. At bare minimum, I wish to speak with her in person and ensure she will not do something foolish that would endanger us all. Her little martial arts proliferation project is one thing, the Dead Ones know you martials need new competitors to push you from that three-century-long rut But we know nothing as to the extent of her knowledge in fundamental matters, let alone advanced leyline well maintenance methods. If we are not careful, the New Man Sect could cause irreversible ecological damage to the basin. The aftermath of Ubuls leyline flood has been troublesome enough as is. Ive not been able to adjust the weather in my territory to half the extent I am used to.
Silence reigned for a few moments as the witch cast her gaze over her juniors.
"What? You cannot expect me to simply present you with a plan of action."
She went on to do just that.
355 - Scheming
The witch spent an hour detailing the plan, but it was, fundamentally, simple and straightforward. It entailed some deception, but even this was expected to be seen through, and whether or not it was seen through, the desired outcome was equally likely to be achieved. Isidora, of course, had her own intentions, but they werent mutually exclusive with the objectives of the Four Sects Alliance.
The plan hinged on opening a new Black Horse Sect branch in Arkaleys borders, as close to the Arkaley Sect grounds as possible. Since the Arkaley Sect was in an unstable transition period from a neglected Sanger Sect branch to a Newman Sect branch, it would be easy to dispute the Arkaley Sects legitimacy. Arkaley was a growing town, bordering on a small city too large for a piddly school like the Arkaley Sect. It was also far enough from Willowdale to not automatically fall under the Newman Sects dominion by virtue of proximity. The Black Horse Sect would intentionally send disproportionately strong cultivators to the new branch as elders and core disciples, forcing the Newman Sect to supplement the Arkaley Branch with their own upper echelons. Simultaneously, Zelsys Newman would be invited to meet with the Four Sects Alliance on neutral ground as an attempt to lure her out of the sect. Regardless of whether she accepts the invitation, goes to Arkaley, or does something more drastic, for the purposes of the plan, they only needed to get her away from Willowdale.
Thereafter, one of the Black Horse Sects elite disciples would be dispatched to the Newman Sect to act as a challenger. The purpose of this would be to gain further leverage for negotiation through a bet, not to actually hurt the Newman Sect. If the elite disciple lost, the weight of the loss would fall on his head, but the Black Horse Root Branch would compensate the disciple if that came to pass.
Branstein immediately took issue: I cannot help but notice that your plan does not appear to hold transferral of the sect grounds to our ownership as its end goal, the sword cultivator hissed.
Oh, but it does. Such an outcome would be the ideal end goal. I, however, make no assumptions of how things will pan out. You, of all people, should know that it is very possible we may not be able to dispossess the Walking Tribulation of the Willowdale Sect Grounds. My plan accounts for that possibility and ensures that you will get your new sect grounds no matter what. This conflict will create an ironclad pretense for you to distance your sect from the northern capital, and place you in a good position to further disentangle from their oversight something you would need to do even if the Walking Tribulation were to simply hand over the Willowdale sect grounds.
Sanger had no issue with the plan, as he not only didnt care about the Arkaley Sect, he had not known of its existence until now so uncared for it was. He nonetheless had something to say: I will not involve my sect in any manner. By rights, I ought to assist the Arkaley Sect, as it is clear they only joined with the Newman Sect after several mortal generations of complete neglect But we all must make difficult choices on occasion.
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Branstein shot Sanger a furious stare, his aura warping the air into a finger-length blade that shot towards Sangers miniature. Sanger, toking from his pipe, countered in kind his miniature snapped into a stance with its sword pointing towards the ground. The Guard of the Iron Gate. With a flick, it sent Bransteins swordlight right back in his face.
The Black Horse elder huffed, but let it go, lest the both of them invoke intervention from the Swamp Witch.
Sanger, meanwhile, took amusement in the exchange, continuing as if he hadnt been so rudely interrupted: In light of the unacceptable state of the former Arkaley Branch, for the next two, perhaps three months, I will be busy conducting an internal investigation into the matter.
He brought out a meticulously-ornamented silver vessel, flicking it open with his thumb. Refilling his pipe with its red, stringy contents and relighting it with a flick of his thumb, he added: Should this matter not be resolved by then, I cannot guarantee my neutrality.
For a few moments, Sanger and Branstein stared each other down, cold tension building. Sanger toked from his pipe. Branstein reached for his tea in turn. The cup, alongside a ribbon of steam, had been frozen in the same moment for hours now, and it only unfroze when he lifted it off of its glyph-inlaid pedestal.
You know just as well as I do that this is not entirely up to me, Sanger said. More than a few within my sect believe in our feud to the utmost extent, or otherwise pretend to do so for the sake of their own interests.
The clanging of steel against steel echoed throughout the Newman Sects courtyard. One after the next, the Elder met the disciples in single combat, imitating their fighting styles by twisting her own. Despite the fact she pulled her punches, it was a perilous proposition one often entailing broken bones. Most found one or two bouts to push their limits.
It was the fourth round, and a young man covered head to toe in shallow cuts struggled to his feet. His right hand was merged to the handle of a battered warknife, while his left was shielded by an articulated sleeve of plates. His hair stood on end and glistened steel-grey, forming bladed porcupine quills.
Though gruesome, his state was the result of the elder being as careful as she could conceivably be, attacking using only her recently-formed claws. Even then, she only struck as part of the exercise, in order to point out the most glaring gaps in his defense and there were many.
Can Can you not at least use a sword?, Lucian choked out between laboured breaths. He choked down the last of a Witchs Brew bottle, steam rising from his countless cuts as the smaller among them began to close up.
Zel raised an eyebrow. You are aware that this is the easiest I can make it for you, yes? If youve had enough, we can stop right here.
Its not that. I want to see, he shook his head, casting the empty bottle aside as he shifted into the Guard of the Ox sword held at head height, pointing forward, adjusted for the warknifes slight curve.
Claws and punches, I dont know that, nothing to compare against. But swords, I understand. I want to see.
356 - The Elders Coaching
After giving it a few moments of thought, Zelsys nodded and held out her hand. Fulguris twisted into being from thin air, then transformed into Carnifex once the end of her tail was grasped in the elders hand. Zelsys gave form to a False Fang, dismissing the cleaver as she grasped the fang, elongating its shape until it vaguely resembled a curved sword. In effect, it was just a shorter Fang Spear with a curve added.
She could tell from the way Lucian looked at the Fang Sabre what he was thinking.
Its unfair, isnt it? But this is the only way I can do what you ask.
A glance to the side, towards Lucians quasi-official master.
Lydia, toss me that sword over there. Yes, the cold-iron one, she instructed, stabbing the Fang Sabre into the dirt in the meanwhile.
With a flash of pink lightning and a trail of crackling cherry petals, the silvery shortsword went flying towards Zels head at the speed of a bullet. She caught it in hand, and simply held it out, allowing herself to connect with it, but not pushing it in any way. Ten seconds passed. The metal began creaking and reverberating like a tuning fork. Visible cracks began to show. Just when it seemed like it would explode, she dropped it, and it shattered the moment it hit the ground.
Carnifex Fulguris is the only blade allowed to Zelsys Newman. Such is the nature of Storm-soul Cultivation. Ill make it fair, she said, whirling the Fang Sabre. A layer of black scale fell from the blade, and as she pointed it at Lucian, it was clear that the weapon had become much duller. Its fuller narrowed at an aggressive, wedge-like angle as always, but rather than an impossibly sharp razor, it was merely as sharp as any well-maintained warknife.
Round four passed without any strikes being landed, despite countless holes in Lucians movements begging for correction. Zelsys abstained so as to enable whatever Lucian wanted out of fighting her with a sword. She had no specialist knowledge in sword techniques of any kind, working solely off of fundamentals and what understanding she had gleaned from encountering them and their users.
Even still, with each clash, she realized why Lucian had wanted this, and why he was clearly so frustrated. One by one, Lucian went down the list of conventional techniques, mixing in unconventional Bayonet-eater arts such as the Bearstopper Guard wherever was opportune. Even the small repertoire of Lucians unique cards was interesting and, in some ways, novel, but a sword arm could only be so different from a mantis-blade. He just couldnt do anything sufficiently high-concept to exceed her existing reference library. By the end of the round, his self-transmutation had completely failed and he was left barely able to move from struggling so much.
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Do you Do you truly not practice sword arts, elder? Lucian struggled out.
She shook her head, calling forth a small bottle of Liquid Vigor, which she tossed over to him.
No more Vitae for three days. I comprehend them, as any good cultivator should be able to do. But I am not a Sword Cultivator, even of the lowest order. A ravine separates those who merely understand a martial art of any sort, and those who are cultivators in that style, and the only way to cross that ravine is to dedicate oneself to the style in question to a spiritual degree. I believe I made this abundantly clear in Sturmblitz Kunst 0 no matter your specialization, you must understand the arts of your allies and your enemy as well. As for you, Lucian, I wouldnt consider you a Sword Cultivator, either. A Blade Cultivator, perhaps.
Seeing the musclehead struggling to stay upright, Zel cut things short and sent him off: Now go clean yourself up before you bleed out. If you have further questions, you may come to me directly after you have recovered.
Lucian gave a shallow bow in acknowledgment, only to drop any sense of decorum the moment he had walked a ways away, biting the cork out of the bottle and swirling its contents down his throat all in one go.
Alright, who else Zel mused, sweeping her gaze over the small crowd still gathered in the courtyard. It had thinned out over the past few hours, as very few of those who took up the offer of one-on-one coaching were left in a state for spectatorship afterwards.
There were seven more individuals she truly wished to go one-on-one with today. Among their number, five counted those who had entered the Illusory World of Fangs during her epiphany.
However, out of these seven, one had suffered severely, and was still recovering it was an eagle-man who had lost most of his feathers and had broken many bones, named Sachual. Last Zel had checked on him, he was in good spirits, and his aura had noticeably taken on aspects of the Truth of Fangs, but he was nonetheless still out of commission for at least two more weeks.
Mata Gano had done the same, and though she had not suffered major injuries, she, too, was in no state to train she was working with Sigmund to rework her martial arts.
Four others were young Ikesians, two boys and two girls, some fourteen or fifteen years each. They had somehow emerged with an eldritch bond vaguely similar to the Triplets she had fought back in Eberheim, able to act as one body while clearly remaining separate individuals. For this reason, she wanted to coach them all at once But they werent here. In fact, they had spent nearly all their time in the forests, and even when they were at the sect, they were never anywhere near where she was. From what shed heard, they were trying to tame wild beasts.
The last was Victor, but he had been in soft seclusion down in the leyline well since Eberheim. He apparently came to the surface every two to three days, but she hadnt seen him even once since she had come out of seclusion. For this reason, she intended to check on him when she first got the opportunity.
Nobody? Very well, well wrap things up for now, Zel said, turning on her heel and making her way to the baths. She tossed a handful of bronze pills into her mouth as she went. The sound of metal creaking and snapping echoed inside her skull.
357 - Elders Duties
Zelsys wouldve loved to spar with those more her equal, of course unfortunately, Makhus was utterly consumed in work on the True Dragonheart Bolus, and Jorfr was working with the owners of Scarlet Hill Farm to bolster their security in exchange for the supply of their product to the sect. As for Zefaris, she had been seemingly everywhere all at once since the dragon hunt. Sigmund was able, but not willing, and so, to the baths she went.
After she was done, on her way back to the surface, Zel chanced upon Lydia in the subterranean corridors. The lightning scar that ran down her face and arm also continued down the entire right half of her body, all the way to her foot. She had also become noticeably more muscular since Fort 57, the sect life and diet clearly being a good fit for her. A touch of nerves was evident in the swordswomans otherwise serene gaze. The reason was why Lucian was her disciple, even if Makhus also involved himself quite a bit in the young mans training. His progress had been explosive since the first dragon hunt, but Lydia obviously wasnt sure if Zel was satisfied with him.
About Lucian she started, and instantly saw Lydia tense up.
Youve done well with him at this point, he just needs time to grow. Take care not to neglect your own cultivation.
A second of confused silence passed. Then, two.
I- Of course, Elder, Lydia stammered out.
Zelsys found great amusement in this, considering the sword cultivators otherwise stoic and gruff demeanor, but she didnt have the heart to lambast her for it. It was her own fault for creating such a lasting impression by using the Eight-armed Avatar of Destruction Formation. The fact it was that version of Conquerors Mantle in itself further added to her amusement, as it didnt have much going for it beyond acting as a developmental stepping-stone.
She moved to walk past the swordswoman, as to not drag out the interaction, only to be stopped: Wait. If you would be willing, I wish to exchange pointers. I understand that I ought to have volunteered earlier, but
Sure, Zel interrupted. Youre a core disciple, I can find the time. Sooner, or later?
In two weeks, if possible. I need some time to fully incorporate new additions into my technique.
Two weeks, then, Zel nodded, and went on her way. She hoped Lydia would get more comfortable around her as soon as possible she was, despite her newness to the sect, one of the strongest members. Sure, their encounter at the farm and the gift of Vysaga may have had a hand in that, but between their first and second meeting, Lydia had undergone a relative degree of development comparable to Zels own between her first emergence and the Blue Moon War. Moreover, she had begun mentoring lesser disciples of her own accord, and to great success thus far. Besides just Lucian, Lydias presence had done much for the sects specialist melee armament cultivators, few in number though they were. One didnt just stumble over an asset like that, it was like Well, stumbling over an advanced cultivation method or a mighty artifact, which, now that Zel thought about it, really happened far more often than one might expect.
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After her bath, Zel took some time to relax in her quarters, continuing to chip away at the enormous stack of truly profound and truly obtuse texts her predecessor had left her. As she read, her hands never once stopped touching a text her Thundergods did all the work of moving and sorting them. The original sorting system was a good basis, but it failed to make any differentiation between degrees of esotericism. A few hours into the session, Zef returned, and with her arrived a truly strange scent it was burnt gunpowder, but none Zel had ever smelled. White-glowing silver conduits bulged out from the skin around her left eye, and she heaved a tired sigh as she pulled the skull-mask off of her face. She brought out the Phantom Scripture as she approached the writing desk as if to sit down and read, beginning the small ritual of reading together, which had become ordinary for the pair. Instead, she just collapsed into her seat and closed her left eye as well, gripping the text without even taking it out of its protective sheath.
New gunpowder? Zel asked offhandedly. Like blowing open a dam, Zef readily vented what she had been holding in.
F-38J. Test formulation. Expansion rate, alchemical stability, generalized compatibility All characteristics, excellent. Not too toxic or corrosive, at least not enough to harm me or Tempesta. Unbelievable pain to load. Incredibly fine, and the grains repel one another. Id rather drip Black 7 into each and every shell. Hopefully Collier solves it with F-38K. If the granule-pressing solution doesnt work, well have to resort to a sculptable resin.
And? Theres something else. You dont have Tempesta with you.
Yeah. Collier wants to rebuild it again based on recovered knowledge from the field-test Type-Z we brought in. Lots of small improvements on top of modifications to the firing block to let it fire longer shells and improve the chamber seal for higher pressure. I left it with her so she could draw up plans for a prototype of the rebuild, since modifying Tempesta itself will require great care. Its promising, but
With a long sigh, Zefaris deflated into her seat.
Also a great deal of testing and broken guns. Plus, with your recent breakthrough I wont pretend that I dont feel myself falling behind. At least now I finally have the time to focus on the Phantom Scripture, so I may be able to catch up. Of course, that catching up will entail traveling to battlefields to collect vestiges, on my own, so Ill be away from the sect a fair bit.
She finally opened the Phantom Scripture, flipped through several of its bladed pages, and began reading when she reached the point she was looking for. They read in silence for a few hours, simply enjoying one anothers company. This, naturally, led to other activities.
358 - Spectre of Bitter Anguish
The blackwall shook in the night as its mechanisms worked. This was nothing new. The great wall had been set to gradually loosen its net, and it had been doing just that. Indeed, none were the wiser to the fact this shudder was different to the others not even the ankhezian brothers, for they were not watching so closely as to notice.
Meanwhile, Crovacus Estoras worked in his office, typing away whilst refining his control of the Calamity Flame. He did so by using the flame to sign documents with a pen made specially for the purpose. The eye-watering cost of commissioning such a trinket had been softened by the fact it could still work as a weapon for his martial arts. The hours passed, and Crovacus drifted to sleep a single hour of nothingness in the midst of inhuman work hours. Such was the price of ensuring everything was done as he intended it to be, the price of directly contending with the Lady in Red.
Just a few more days, its almost done, he told himself. For once it was not a lie.
In the midst of that night, Crovacus found that a traveler had arrived inside his office, bypassing all security and even his own attention. It was as if, one moment, the figure simply materialized from the shadows in the corners of the room, or perhaps stepped out of the solid wall, or hitched a ride on the aetherwave signals. The strangers form was shrouded in a ragged cloak of blackest black, the fabric flowing without weight. In his hand he grasped a three-sided staff of blackstone.
As he looked up, he met the strangers gaze. Sunken, tired eyes stared from behind a stone-still mask, as if he had plucked the head from a statue. Their pale-blue glow was as sharp as the force of will behind them, an iridescence swirling within the blue.
A strange voice, composited from two others, resounded not in the room, but inside his own head.
You disgrace us, Grekurian. To think it would be one of you
Bitterness. Acrid, severe bitterness, enough to make the bile rise in his throat.
How he asked, tentatively. It was almost a whisper, as light as ones steps ought to be in a duel to the death.
The stranger turned his head, pointing at the aetherwave transceiver box that stood off to Crovacus right. Without even needing to look, he noticed something and realized the implication the sound. The sound it made when receiving a message. By the tone and intensity, it was an ultra-high-output signal.
Secondly, he noticed the absence. The lack of substance. The strangers form frayed at the edges, swam in place, never quite fully coherent. Despite the fact his presence subtly altered the flow of dust through the air, he wasnt truly here. An ascended mirage, a projection in all physical dimensions. By comparison, the strangers aura pierced through with an alien keenness, unlike that of any living thing Crovacus had ever met. It wasnt sharp, or pointy, or hot or cold, or any of the so very human traits that ones aura was likely to take on.
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Bitter.
So, so terribly bitter.
Nonetheless We cannot deny that you have done right by our kin. In turn...
The stranger raised his staff. For a moment, Crovacus could see as a triangular halo flared to life behind his head, before the brightness became such that he could no longer see. A choking aura pressure filled the room not by its intensity, but by the terrible sense of regret, bitterness, and exhaustion it imposed upon him. By raw strength it was lesser than what his own son put out during sparring, and yet, it took the breath from him. So terrible it was that bloody tears poured from his eyes and his heart seemed to stop he thought the spectre was trying to kill him!
A fierce wind whipped through his office, coarse sand buffeting and blinding the governor. Before he could muster the will to defend himself, it all ceased, and he beheld that black sand had filled the corners of the room and scattered across every surface, and before him, three sheets of black stone now sat.
Guidestones. They lead to treasures one for the lowly soldiers, one for the prodigal sect, one for your noble line," the stranger said in both voices.
Then, his speech split, the first voice commanding: "Find them. Use them."
And the second voice finishing: "Hold out until my true return.
The aetherwave comms cabinet emitted a hissing screech, something audibly burst inside the machine, and the spectre vanished, leaving Crovacus staring blank-eyed at what he had been left with. He had no will to try interpreting the shifting images and swimming letters that pulled at his eyes his stomach was dancing in his gut, and his brain threatened to break his skull open from the inside. No, right now it was time for a Blue Sky Highball, not this. The drink in question was simply a highball made with Winter Peach Brandy as the spirit and Tengris Tears as the mixer. The violent, cloying sweetness was thinned out into a comforting cushion for any and every conceivable kind of mental anguish.
Without any fanfare, Zefaris departed for the first of many ritualistic expeditions to come. The ritual began even before her departure she left in the dark of night, in total silence, making her way to a blitzgandr that had been stashed well outside city limits. All in the service of maintaining stillness.
Zelsys had taken care to ensure she, herself, did not disturb this, forcing herself into a coma-like slumber for a fixed duration. The moment she awoke, however, it was back to work. Run rounds around the sect. Check on the alchemists, each of them with deep black circles around their eyes. A few of the older ones had faint marks of daytime dust under their nostrils, but the scattered, half-empty bottles of DDLV spoke to the preferred method of mental sharpening for most. She didnt dare actually enter the laboratory, lest she disturb the delicate work on the True Dragonheart Bolus.
Next, it was onto Ozmir. As several times before, the chef portioned out food and returned to his kitchen. He had been working on something personal for a while, now. Doubtlessly a matter of breakthrough utilizing the sects newly-bolstered resources. If anyone could use dragon flesh for his cultivation directly, it was him.
359 - Sigmund, the Hidden Elder
Sigmund, as on many occasions before sunrise, was to be found atop the central spire, producing the enthralling appearance of a lighthouse at a distance. Despite emitting great tongues of blue-white fire as he floated a meter off the floor, the air around him was perfectly cool colder than ambient temperature, if anything. His shirt hung over the railing. The historians appearance had changed a fair bit since the Blue Moon War. His skin had lost effectively all natural pigment it was a pale, ashy grey with blackened, flame-like patterns. Someone unaware of the fact scorchlanders all had pitch-black skin could possibly mistake him for one of their kind. His facial hair retained its wiry quality and even ruddy colour, which combined to make it strongly resemble a mass of red-hot filaments. His head was as bald as ever.
Youve really screwed up my plans with Mata, you know that? he complained before she could even say hello. His tone was perfectly tranquil, if a bit touched with impish mischief. He unfolded his legs as he stopped meditating, the glow of his body turning orange and fading to the degree of being barely visible as he casually walked towards the edge, leaning on the aforementioned railing.
Cmon, give me a break. I wasnt exactly in any position to stop her from going in. Besides, now you might be able to properly replicate What was it called? The Fiery Spirit-talker Dance? Zel countered, joining him in looking out over the city. Even here, at the very top, the marks of her epiphany could be seen, and without active effort on her part, she held a passive awareness of the spires interior at all times.
The name was clumsy, because the translation was clumsy. The actual name of the method didnt translate into Ikesian whatsoever in no small part because the native scorchlander dialects had an enormous number of words relating to fiery matters. Their limited knowledge of it painted it as something practiced by a handful in each tribe specifically for handling the dangerous and volatile tribe-guardian spirits.
Thats true, but we were reconstructing the Rite of Scorched Honour! Refined, dueling-type beamwand arts! Now shes gone and mixed it with animism, Ill have to write up a whole new document the historian grumbled, letting slip a true grievance.
Zel conjured a bottle, biting the cork out of it. Loose seals trailed from it, and a thin layer of dark sediment swirled at the bottom. It tasted Different. Not as if it had gone bad, but certainly different than she remembered much of the pure viriditas had faded, allowing the somewhat grassy flavours of actual herbs to come through. She downed half of it before setting it on the railing next to Sigmund using a Thundergod.
The historian gave her a dubious look, as if trying to gauge whether she was trying to pull one over on him by pretending the seal-bottles contents had not gone rancid.
He took a whiff, made the facial expression equivalent of a shrug, and finished the bottle.
Tastes like shit. Got used to the good stuff on tap, he complained, looking up at Zel to meet her gaze. Come on, something good to wash this grassy garbage out of my mouth. I know youve got a stash of Tengris Tears up your ass.
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This was true And now that he mentioned it, that grassy taste did linger a bit too much. So, Zel brought out two bottles of the aforementioned pale-blue nectar. A few minutes and a few sips later, Sigmund spoke up again: You know, theyve been calling me the Pure Flame Hidden Elder.
Looking him up and down, she replied: You look the part. Hell, you look the least normal besides me. Even Jorfr can pass for a particularly large Borean most of the time.
Yeah, well Its just a cosmetic side effect. I just figured out how to deal with my condition is all, its not like Ive been chasing power the last year. I dont recall ever becoming an elder, either, Sigmund defended himself. Taking another swig, he continued: Ive got these dumb kids coming to me to ask for help and I never know what to tell them, so they assume Im like those temperamental master stereotypes in the pulps. When they cant come to me, they try coming to one of the scorchlanders. One-arm plays into it and makes them do stupid shit. Mata just spars with them and beats them up, tells them to come back when they get stronger. Its mostly gone away by now, but Some of them just dont know how to give up.
Somehow I doubt you want me to do something about it, she replied.
Of course not. Itll do more harm than good no matter how delicately you handled it, no matter whom you got to do it on your behalf.
Hang in there, Hidden Elder, she sneered, patting him on the shoulder before she turned to leave. Youll get new subjects before long, Im sure the Krishorns will bring a few scorchlanders looking to join. Maybe give the Burning Man Manuscript a try in the meanwhile, it ought to have something that interests even you.
One more thing, he stopped her.
Hm?
Im sure you already know that some of the disciples are directly imitating you. One of them made a working Fang Ripper copy. You may want to look into him. One Kenneth Colwyn, I think. Half-grekurian half-ikesian, wears a puffy shirt and a stupid leather vest.
Zel remembered him. He had used a weird ropedart-esque weapon during his entrance exams, to sufficient effect that it qualified him. He had maintained steady improvement and overall excelled in technique, but nothing truly outstanding.
Ill be sure to do that, Zel reassured as she left Sig to his tranquility.
Immediately after visiting the sects highest point, she made the opposite journey, venturing far beneath. The lift sped down through the earth, and eventually came to a halt at the entrance of the artificial clearing which was situated overtop the Tree of Life Leyline Well.
The branches of the tree at the clearings center, once bent under their own enormous weight, were now held up by bonewrought, multi-armed idols. In some cases, these idols were enormous, towering four or five meters individually. Elsewhere, one could see numerous smaller idols stacked together, their forms interlocked, yet not fused directly.
Four great pillars surrounded the tree at a short distance, bound to it by long reams of scrawl-covered sealing paper. At the trees base facing the entrance stood a meticulous, lifelike rendition of Kishin-Shura-Bishamonten, grasping a staff-spear akin to the Oculus with two hands, while six more hands floated at its back. In front of it stood a miniature pagoda, held aloft by four kneeling, demonic figures. The scarlet staff Oculus was placed upon a ceremonial stand at the shrines forefront.
Before that shrine, a red-haired humanoid labored in a hunched-over posture for whomever resided inside that shell, he was not present.
360 - The Weight of Countless Corpses
Making her way into the grove, Zel noticed a wide array of bone statues all around, many placed particularly to let certain herbs climb up them or to support other trees. Outside the shrines pillar boundary, two distinctly different pillars poked just barely above the grass, their inner construction intricate to a seemingly unnecessary extent, whereas their surface was plain white. She knew, from speaking with Victor, that it was to be a kind of ritual gate for summoning various servitors stationed at the shrine, ones that couldnt just be transported inside storage artifacts. A footpath of blackstone squares led up to the shrine, starting at the unfinished gate. It took until she was no more than fifteen meters away, having crossed the shrine''s inner boundary, before Victors body moved to face her. His face was obscured by a smooth mask of black material its strange, semi-reflective luster betrayed its composite blackstone-dragonbone construction. Just the fact of the masks existence merited questions, but it would wait until after the truly important ones.
From beyond the masks three eyeholes, Koschei stared back at her. A sarcastic, impish chuckle came from him, before he set down his strange tools and fully turned around where he sat. Then, he waited, unsettlingly tracking her with his gaze as she closed the distance. With each step, a feeling welled up in her chest it was much akin to the sort of numb exasperation one feels after spilling a full pot of tea or finding a serious mess that needs to be cleaned.
Different mask, she said.
Different purpose, Koschei replied. Lasts longer. More practical for this use.
How long? she sighed, squatting down within hands reach of him. She still had to look down.
Seventeen days. Intermittently. The masks limit is roughly six hours within a day, in forty-two minute intervals. You have already deduced the reason, I presume.
Eberheim shook him, she stated matter-of-factly. It was the most obvious conclusion, one she had arrived at without any great deliberation.
Koschei nodded: The burden of so many anguished souls it weighs too heavy for one so young.
Zel completed the thought: So he brings you out to ease the burden.
In a manner of speaking. I am but- Koschei started.
Zel cut him off: A remnant, I know. You insist upon repeating it so often I am starting to doubt whether it is true.
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This mask as it is now it amplifies what little there is of me, he tapped on the mask. With each tap, antediluvian glyphs made themselves known on its surface, only to fade just as quickly. It makes a Logic automaton of me of sorts. A servitor, perhaps. There are moments I feel not too far from real. But an echo can only repeat itself ad infinitum. The I you speak to is even less real than that which Zefaris spoke to before Eberheim. Such is the price for allowing it to function for this long..
Koschei spoke matter-of-factly, without any sadness for the state of his being.
Take the mask off, I wish to speak with my disciple, not a glorified mnemograph recording, Zel ordered just as matter-of-factly.
That is not a choice I can make, Koschei shrugged. I may oversee the shrine, the shaping of blackstone and devilbone for continued construction, and I may read the texts within reach to be properly comprehended later. I cant even change how I work the materials if something goes wrong, just pick up a new piece. There is a sequence. I execute it. If it doesnt go as planned, return to zero. Hell, my early logic automatons were more flexible than this
He gestured to two piles off to the side. One was of blackstone, the other of dragonbone. Both were various components and icons with small but noticeable flaws. Several of these were tiny statuettes of people. With the gesture, Koschei also moved Victors body far enough to reveal hundreds of similar tiny figures covering the workbench and the altars behind it, at the base of the shrine.
I cannot even make us walk far from this spot. At most I can stretch in place.
You are well aware of the fact this is not right. Not just mentally, but for cultivation, Zelsys stated flatly once more.
Oh, this is all but pouring fertilizer onto a pile of corpses, waiting for a heart demon to sprout. I know. Victor knows. Yet here we are, said the echo of a dead king, shrugging once more.
There was no such reaction after Borea. Either Eberheim was the last straw, or it was different, Zel voiced her thought process as it occurred. She understood the young mans state, but she didnt intend to let him wallow and rot like this. Even if she had to beat it out of him, if it came down to that. Or, perhaps, a crystal-clear reminder that the Order was still out there would work better. She would see.
Despite his supposedly lessened state, Koschei responded with remarkable clarity of thought: It was the latter. The destruction wreaked in Borea was great, and many were killed. However, the vast majority of those in the destroyed sections of the city managed to evacuate. The fallen who did not count among the conspirators died through coincidence and many who were buried in the rubble of their own homes simply crawled out of it. By comparison, Eberheim was
An intentional mass slaughter.
Koschei nodded.
Zel thought for a moment, then reached out and grabbed the mask using the eyeholes. Its thickness allowed for this without the risk of poking the wearers eyes. She hoped it would just come off if she gave a strong enough thought impulse, and at first it seemed to, but a split-second later she felt it grip the redheads face all over again.
Im afraid Victor had no intention of allowing the mask to be removed from him when he put his safety measures in place. Or rather, he did not consider the possibility. I fear there may not be a non-destructive method of removing it from the outside, Koschei said.
Oh, I am certain there is.
Zel let go, rising to her feet. She held out her hand, and two Thundergods grasped the Oculus, winding around the staff.
361 - Re: Brute Unsealing
Arcs of golden fire indignantly flared from the Oculus, but Zels Thundergods pulled it into her grasp regardless, regenerating what small wounds they had been dealt in seconds. It burned her at first, but a moment later, as if recognizing her, the relic ceased protesting. The same could not be said for Bishamonten the shrines doors rattled, and the idol of Bishamonten, alongside the demonic statues which held it aloft and surrounded it all turned their heads to glower at her. She spun the Oculus in hand whilst turning it in her palm to produce a rattling sound. The staff remained unharmed, as she did not wield it as a weapon, but as a ritual implement.
It was at the moment Zel reached a particular end-pose, with the Oculus rings jangling around, that the shrines doors flew open. They revealed the golden sphere within, fiery mist swirling around it in a star-like manner, yet at once entirely unlike an actual star.
YOU DARE?! a mighty voice thundered inside her head, and a numinous pressure bore down on her. The intent it carried was to cast her to her knees and rob the breath from her lungs, but not to cause permanent harm a surprising degree of tact and caution from a warrior-deity lashing out in indignation.
Or he already knows its me a thought crossed her mind.
In an exertion of will, with arcs of lightning and the sound of thunder from within her, Zelsys suppressed the divinitys indignation, thumping the Oculus never-dulling spearpoint against one of the footpath stones.
Bishamonten, your shrine guardian suffers with heart demons, and I am not sufficiently learned in the Itrian arts to summon you properly. You will simply have to allow this disrespect to pass.
Even were I willing, I cannot simply act. The correct rituals must be carried out, in the correct manner, with full intent. I do not doubt your spiritual nature, shura, but I do doubt your knowledge of my sutras.
What if I simply carry out my own ritual? Will you supply the power required, or must I do it under my own strength and risk scorching your shrine with lightning in the process?
Both the ground and the tree behind Bishamontens shrine shuddered, and the shrines doors slammed shut.
Very well. This is permissible, the deity acquiesced.
You heard clearly when I said the masks limit is forty-two minutes of continuous operation, yes? You can simply wait, Koschei chimed in.
Zel answered: I have good reason to do it this way the shock of being forced back into reality. Now, Bishamonten!
With that, she drew in a breath. With flashes of lightning from within her chest, the grass around her began billowing back and forth. Chittering blue sparks appeared in the air around her, dust and pebbles floating up and becoming more sparks in turn.
Another breath. Countless serpent-like forms sprung forth from her head, forming a cloak of writhing snakes, among which the six Thundergods reigned supreme. Lightning writhed about her, but did not lash out. Kneeling down, she reached out with her left hand and grasped the mask. Her claws sprung forth, becoming enveloped in steel and aura in a flash, scraping into the masks material.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I COMMAND THIS MASK RELEASED,
NOT BY THE AUTHORITY OF MENTORSHIP,
BUT BY THE AUTHORITY OF MY STRENGTH!
With each line uttered, she thumped the Oculus against a blackstone tile. Red-gold light flowed down from the rainbow aperture within its ring, tinging her aura. Zels Predator Aura suddenly became plainly visible, streaming off the top of her head as an endless geyser of fanged maws, claws, tails, pincers, blades, fists and arms, spikes, any and every armament to be found upon the bodies of mighty beasts. It was thin, barely allowed to escape from Zels body, but the degree of compression only made its manifestation all the more condensed. In the same manner, so too did her cloak of serpents and her Thundergods become tinted with Bishamontens numinous power, growing horns in the process.
I SHALL NOT PERMIT MY DISCIPLE TO WALLOW IN SOLITUDE AND MISERY.
In the same manner, the deitys strength flowed down her left arm, its veins and silver conduits becoming suffused with red-gold glow and bulging out from under her skin. With a decisive motion, she pulled the mask from Victors face, and a great discharge of lightning arced between him and it.
PURE FORCE BREAKS RESTRAINTS
DIVINE LIGHT BURNS AWAY IMPURITY
WRATHFUL LIGHTNING RESOLVES IMBALANCES
GEHEIMNIS: BRUTE UNSEALING
-NUMINOUS PURIFICATION-
Victor was left unharmed, staring ahead with his hair standing on-end. Meanwhile, the mask didnt just shatter it was obliterated utterly by the backlash, which continued on to flow up Zels arm. She simply took the lightning into herself and redirected the Fulgur excess into her manifested Thundergods. As a result, Victor returned to reality to the image of his mentor grasping the Oculus and surrounded by chthonian serpents of lightning tinged with Bishamontens red-gold light, writhing around her with unsettling smoothness. Then, she retracted her aura and it was over.
Whuh- Oh, he mumbled, blinking as he realized what had transpired. I can explain.
A moment passed in silence. Zel was relieved that the ritual had worked as she had intended, employing the esoteric properties of Wrathful Lightning to clarify his thoughts, foisting most of the strain onto the mask.
Well? Explain, Zel said, sitting down in front of him, placing the Oculus across her lap. You are aware of what I said to not-Koschei, and what he said to me. If you think you can explain, then explain.
The redhead was silent for some time, considering his words.
Youre right. Eberheim does weigh on me, and I am using the mask to cope. But Im not hiding away inside my thoughtscape, wallowing or constructing elaborate mental escapes. I was doing that. The first week or so. But It didnt help. I had to surface every once in a while. The deeper I escaped, the worse it was when I had to come up for air. I knew you were in seclusion, so I tried to think what you would tell me, read through Sturmblitz Kunst 0 a few more times, that sort of thing. I determined the causes for my turmoil two of them. Firstly, the fact the Order of Six Truths continues to exist. Secondly, the revenants of Eberheim. They are with me, still. Each and every one, as I purified them, left with me a flicker of will, and in turn, each carries with it a request: To be remembered, to be properly laid to rest. Anything will do, even a nameless, upturned chunk of rubble, even a stick driven into a mound of stones, they ask. Others yet demand retribution, yet burn with the desire to undo those who killed them. Thus, with your guidance under consideration, I decided on the most direct methods of suppressing and hopefully exorcizing my heart demon.
362 - 10101
Zel glanced behind him, at the vast array of tiny effigies, realizing their specific purpose.
You have explained the reason why Koschei was doing what he was doing. You have yet to explain why you continued using the mask.
I I admit I cannot yet bear with the weight. Obtaining the strength to snuff out the Order lies too far beyond the horizon. In my thoughtscape, I can distort my perception of time to the utmost I have been using this to attempt, time and again, to create a stronger servitor, a stronger Dawnwolf. But I cant. My mastery is insufficient I lack the knowledge to make it function, I lack the raw strength to drive it, I lack the base materials to build it. So, Ive continued retreating into my thoughtscape. I admit I spend much of my time in escapism, but I also spend just as much meditating on the contents of the Itrian Scroll.
She sensed that this was not true, but also not a lie. Zel wagered that Victor himself didnt know whether that answer was the objective truth, but that he also felt as if it was true. She could not blame him. Time, within ones thoughtscape, flowed much like it did in a dream. A lapse of focus could lead to enormous jumps in dream-time. His conclusion as to how to resolve his heart demon was of sound logic, but it was also too farsighted, set too stringently on the subject of his heart demon. Unsurprisingly, such an issue impeded ones ability to resolve it. He had set his eyes too far ahead and failed to see the road that would lead him there, overfocusing on the end goal when in truth his turmoil would be resolved by the process of achieving that goal and the sense of progress gained from it. In short, were he to gain the power to exterminate the Order of Six Truths right now, for instance through the sudden arrival of Teutobochus, doing so would not actually rid him of his heart demon. A path of struggle and actual growth would be required to achieve it.
As for his speaking of revenants, she didnt think it was a delusion. The same ephemeral sensation she had felt from purified revenant aura was also present about him, having surfaced only now that the mask was off.
While Zelsys thought of how she might aid in that process, she asked him a question: You said the revenants of Eberheim left their lingering will with you. How many?
Eberheim had been a relatively prosperous city, spared the worst of the war, taken early and without combat even before the unification, it could not have been said to belong to either Ikesia or Grekuria particularly strongly. All it had taken was some paperwork to officiate the change of hands, and life had gone on mostly unperturbed. As such, it had held one of the largest populations in the country post-war, while its status and proximity to the border had permitted it to forgo significant militarization, inevitably leading to its targeting by the Order of Six Truths. Zelsys had a good idea of the estimated population and estimated casualty numbers, but those could be only loosely correlated to how many revenants actually formed from their sacrifice, let alone how many Victor purified, and of those, how many left their lingering will with him.
The redhead counted for a few moments, then settled on a number: Thirty-thousand, seven-hundred sixty-three. Of them, nineteen-thousand one-hundred and eight left with me a will of vengeance, wrath, or other desire for the destruction of the Order or their ilk. Fifteen-thousand, seven-hundred and seventy-seven wished to be remembered. Eleven-thousand and three specifically wished to be memorialized in a physical manner. There is much overlap. I believe I can fulfill the wishes of those vengeful who wished to be memorialized physically by building servitors to house their wills. From the vengeful remnants, I may be able to channel strength right away, and those who merely wished to be memorialized will indirectly strengthen me through strengthening Bishamonten. Eventually, their remnant will may naturally congeal to form powerful sacred spirits.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
How many vengeful revenants sought to be memorialized? Do you have any idea as to how many would be most fitting to entomb within a servitor?
Victor smiled.
The Pure Revenants number ten thousand, one-hundred and one. Yes, Ive counted and recounted many times to make sure. I have already given this much thought, and Bishamonten has given me much counsel. I mean to channel their vengeful will through Dawnwolfs successor. Ive already had to split the armour into smaller sub-servitors due to its vastly increased size and complexity, for many reasons, including the fact the Gate of Fantasy simply would not be able to transport it in its complete state. The restriction will also allow me to render the final armour more powerful, despite how counter-intuitive it might be from a purely mundanist design perspective. I will be able to freely control how Revenant Aura is distributed between individual pieces to maximize performance where it is needed at any given moment, or to alter the distribution in order to compensate for battle damage.
He was becoming tangled in his own thoughts again, but Zel couldnt just zap him again. She would rapidly run into diminishing returns and accumulating issues that way, especially without a technique specifically developed for this purpose. She had to give him a clear direction and a beacon to focus on, and make damn sure he stayed on that path until it became wide enough that one step wouldn''t make him fall into the metaphorical abyss below.
Enough. Show me your best prototype.
Its I- Well, I have one, but he trailed off again.
You have one, Zel repeated, gripping Victors shoulder, just hard enough to be painful but not hard enough to actually hurt him. So show me.
Its not even functional, he argued, continuing to do so even as Zel picked him up like a ragdoll. She pointed to a cluster of strange statues and obvious servitors nearby. There?
I only have so much Teutobochus muscle, and Ive yet to make any kind of dragon muscle work Yes, thats it. Anyway, I know that refining dragon musculature is possible, I simply lack the skill, or perhaps the raw power, or most likely both.
She set him down in the middle of the servitor-group, shoving the Oculus into his hands, placing her own on his shoulders, and staring him in the face from only a few widths of a finger away.
It doesnt matter, just show me assuming you can do it without hurting yourself.
I can, yes. The suit cant do much of anything, and the formation sequence is still too slow, but the basic structure works. In a combat situation, I would use another technique to call the servitors to me directly from the shrine.
Numerous small servitors, alongside two larger, skeletal ones, sprung into motion and arranged themselves in a circle around Victor as he held up the Oculus. He began a ceremonial dance, spinning the staff in hand as he cautiously yet also quickly moved from one pose to the next. The staffs secondary rings spun in place and a gap in space opened within its main ring, and through that gap, Zel could see the shining, star-like core which resides within the shrine. A familiar, numinous pressure descended, and with a sound like thunder, a circle was stamped into the ground under Victors feet, just like back at Eberheim.
Grand. Glorious. Gathering.
363 - "Daywolf"
One by one, the swarm of servitors converged on Victor. Twisting, rearranging, disassembling and reassembling, they gradually formed a lanky, awkward framework, more hollow than not. Numerous holes hinted at an elevated degree of mobility than Dawnwolf it even had full-sized vertical thrust vents on the front of its calves, protected by downward-jutting, articulated knee-plates. Its faceplate was identical to Dawnwolf, but the helmet fully enclosed Victors head. It towered over Zelsys, but not in the manner of Zero or Acala Nova, which was its closest equivalent in build it wasnt nearly as stable as either of those machines, and Zel wagered a strong wind could throw it off-balance as it was now. A dozen fleshy, snake-like servitors of varying size slithered into the gaps, attaching themselves inside the suit with squelching sounds. Lastly, a centipede-like servitor attached to the back, forming a curious, tentacle-like appendage with its legs and fangs as grippers. An open mouth waited on the units waist, with segmented plates mimicking the rough appearance of a belt. Victor brought out a stone smoldering with bonefire and fed it to the suit.
Ignition!
Black flame flowed through the armour, and the numinous force that swirled about Victor intensified greatly, such that it swept up a false wind. Pale-red aura coursed between the armours plates and tinged the silver conduits of the Oculus shaft.
Victor wasnt done yet, making a few tentative movements within the armour before taking up another stance. Grasping the Oculus with both hands, he rattled its rings and invoked: Sacred onbashira, mighty spear of Bishamonten, skewer all demons and cleanse the world of wretchedness!
With another surge of numinous force, a spectral outline of the staff-spear appeared. It was significantly larger than its true size, but proportional to the prototype and then, when Victor once more rattled its rings by raising it up, the real Oculus followed. Somehow, by a mechanism Zel didnt understand, the implement simply increased in size. It grew nearly to match its outline, only to stop, and for the red glow within its silver conduits to die.
Victors shoulders slumped with a groan of frustration.
Better than last time, at least, he uttered. At last, he approached Zelsys. The prototypes steps were unlike Acala Novas it moved more like a stilt-legged theatre costume.
I dont recall seeing that enlargement technique in the Itrian Scroll. Where is it from? Zel asked.
Er Bishamonten, Victor replied. Scrolls like mine only contained arts usable by any shrine guardian, while the Eight Guardian Deities directly taught methods of harnessing their power to those they deemed worthy, in Bishamontens own words. I have yet to complete this technique even once, so I dont even know its name yet.
Zel saw something there, in the flow of scarlet aura and the motion of his gestures and their lack of conviction a flaw so glaringly-obvious even she could see it at a glance. She kept it to herself, meaning to bring it up later.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
It doesnt matter, as long as youre making progress it might just need a few adjustments to make it fit you, Zel deflected, continuing in the struggle to keep her disciple mentally on-track. Right now, I need you to show me the prototypes mobility. Do you have a working name? Something like Daywolf?
Daywolf has been the working name, yes, Victor nodded. I cannot help but feel it doesnt quite work, but I can solve that later. For now, I will start with on-foot mobility and then transition into aerial mobility. The muscle tissue I am using is refined Hellfire Kite, thus the performance will be at best slightly better than Dawnwolf with significantly more muscle mass.
Enough talking. Just show me, Zel repeated herself.
And so he did. Daywolfs awkwardness quickly vanished once it got up to speed, and its long legs and somewhat disproportionate build allowed it to sprint blisteringly quickly. The turn radius could use some work, given how wide it was even with assistance from bonefire maneuvering jets. In the air, its mobility was at its peak even this unfinished prototype took to the air far more readily than Dawnwolf. From swimming through mid air with the appearance of weightlessness, to roaring from one end of the grove to the other, Daywolfs air maneuverability was its best-developed aspect.
Alright, Ive seen enough. Hit me. As hard as you can, no enhancements, muscle strength only you know how this goes.
At that instruction, Victor landed in front of Zelsys. He stepped back a bit, then drew back his fist, widening his stance and twisting his waist. It was clear he had at least thought far enough ahead to account for Daywolfs proportions.
Zel crossed her arms in a simple guard, digging her heels in so as to take as much of the impact as possible. From the vibrations that traveled up her right arm, she immediately knew it was roughly equivalent to a Mons Ominosus rocket-assisted punch from Dawnwolf, but not one fuelled by an extraordinary amount of power.
Impressive. Efficiency-wise, how long do you think Daywolf can operate under combat output? At least a comparison to Dawnwolf, she asked.
Opening the suits faceplate, Victor immediately answered, and spun it off into yet another defeatism-spiral: Much shorter. I have yet to optimize it for efficiency, and the Wildfire Kite muscle obeys, but puts up far greater resistance than material from Teutobochus. Ive considered simply waiting until Teutobochus arrives. Ive come to the conclusion that Koscheis estimate for the titans speed of self-repair in Boreas environment was overly optimistic, but the maximum time still places its latest arrival near the end of this year, and realistically, it will likely arrive not long after the Borean caravan
Nonsense, Zelsys disregarded the very thought. She reached out with four Thundergods and dragged Victor into a slouching posture, forcing him to lean on her shoulders lest he topple over. With her bare hands, she forced Daywolfs mask open and stared into those weird, weird cruciform pupils of his. You will rage against your own limitations here and now, to the fullest extent of your ability, and I will see to it that you are able to do so. If the time of Teutobochus arrival comes and you have yet to bend Eisengeists flesh to your will, then you may consider sourcing more tissue from Teutobochus as a temporary, intermediary solution. No earlier. Waiting for a problem to solve itself sounds easy. You become complacent. Complacency is death. Complacency is how centuries-old cultivators manage to run out their clock and die in a cave somewhere. Daywolf can run at low output for some time, yes?
A few hours, just like Dawnwolf. The issues arise with combat output levels.
Good! Then just keep it on and focus on keeping it running as efficiently as possible.
364 - The Heiress and the Living Relic
The Founder of the Newman Sect walked through the city, followed closely by a bone-wrought figure somewhere between the size of a person and a tank suit. It floated behind her upon jets of black flame, resting the sacred staff Oculus across its shoulders with its hands draped overtop it, and a terrible centipede whipped back and forth from its back. Zelsys, meanwhile, was as casual as she could be that is to say, each of her steps and even her relaxed attitude still insinuated the possibility of incredible violence. Disparities of size and demeanor aside, Zelsys was undeniably the more imposing presence of the two.
Their first destination was a building not far from the sect compound: The Krishorn Clans combination import store and office. Ezaryl Krishorn sat behind the counter with her feet up on its edge, clad in the same provocative outfit as always. She was smoking from a long pipe embellished with the motif of a serpent-like dragon, its open mouth being the bowl. A red jacket, only long enough to cover half of her upper body, with a deep cleavage and a single wide sleeve on the left, decorated with block prints of a cloud pattern in white. A flat shoulder-guard was also attached on her left. Her black, parachute-like trousers were held up by a belt of red rope and had excessively wide windows on the sides, making it all too easy for anyone to incidentally glimpse the heiresss high-waisted underwear. Black, held together by golden rings. All fog-infused fabric; once a luxury, now the norm. From her belt of red rope, a guardless sabre with a plain wooden handle and a plain wooden scabbard hung, held in place by cords of the same shade as the belt.
Her eyes lit up at the sight of Zelsys, and in one motion, the heiress pulled herself up onto the counter, then sat down atop it. The wood creaked softly under her rather modest weight.
Oh? Ohoho? Didnt expect you of all people today. Actually I didnt expect anyone, now that I think about it. Weve yet to receive any major shipments since your last visit, but Im sure I can find something. Tengris Tears, perhaps? We got a few selection crates of unnamed non-production formulations while you were in seclusion.
Ill take you up on that offer, but its not why I am here. I require consultation with a senior Iron Brotherhood engineer, as well as tank suit plans. Mainly motile system designs, joints and so on.
What for, I wonder? Makhus wouldnt send you Want to re-mould another of your joints, perhaps? Ezaryl questioned, but her gaze wandered and her speech trailed off when Victor finally entered the building. All things considered, the space wasnt cramped even for Daywolf. The ceiling was easily four meters high, and the door tall enough for the armor to pass with a slight hunch.
After glancing between Zelsys and Daywolfs skull-faced visage for a few moments, Ezaryl became a touch more serious, giving a slow nod. I see. I understand now. I can send Meiben later today at the earliest. Full confidentiality, of course.
I appreciate it. Now, about that sampler crate
With that, Ezaryls upbeat demeanor immediately returned. Soon, she was on her way with two such crates in tow, purchased for an extortionate price that was mutually understood to be indirect payment for the favor not in cash, but valuable materials, Eisengeists own nerves and tendons. Zelsys knew better than to devalue and waste such things by using them as payment willy-nilly, but this situation was exactly suitable to make an exception.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Kanbu was next the old dragonslayer whom she had met by chance, and who had gone on to play a pivotal role in the Blue Moon War. Not only had he anonymously awakened Willowdales guardian statues, he had also employed an enormous technique over a long range to empower the statues and temporarily reanimate the war-dead of Ubuls Tomb on the side of Willowdale. The green flame of his technique was etched into Zels memory, even if she had lacked the faculties to realize its nature at the time. It wasnt hard finding out who had performed the feat, as Kanbu all but made it public afterward, redecorating his restaurant to more obviously display some of his many trophies and keepsakes. She had eaten the old mans cooking many times since the Blue Moon War, and in turn, he had shared many tales of his exploits, including countless tiny glimmers of knowledge from the era of the Three Kings and the dark ages after the fall.
There was no doubt in Zels mind that, at his peak, Kanbu had the strength to go toe-to-toe with a Three-eyed Dragon Descendant with his own Dragonslayer Flame and come out on top. If anyone in Willowdale knew how to bend dragon muscle tissue to ones will, it was him.
A wall of tantalizing scents met Zelsys when she stepped through the door, and so did Kanbus piercing gaze. Behind the counter he stood, looking decades younger than when she had first met him. His long, grey hair, bushy eyebrows, and deeply-creased skin had been replaced by a visage far more like the individual shown in many of the pictures that bedecked the walls the main difference being that rather than regain colour, Kanbus hair was now pure white. He now looked to be in his fifties.
Zel took a seat and set her bottle down, while Victor maneuvred Daywolf inside. Kanbu refused to react.
At the counter, a haggard-looking man sat, nursing a steaming drink and a half-eaten plate of pierogi. His nose was swollen, flanked to either side by sleazy sideburns, his face still bore wrinkles carved into it by holding a lecherous grimace for years on-end. It was Henry and similarly to Kanbu, he had improved since she had first seen him. From a living corpse on two legs to merely haggard. She remembered Kanbu kicking him out for incessantly talking about political theory and "Ikesiochauvinists" when she and Zef first visited the restaurant.
There was also one other customer, a red-haired woman with a sword at her hip, sitting next to Henry. Narrow face. Some scars. A multicolored fly-fishing lure for an earring. Early fourties by Zels estimate.
Both of them paled at the monstrous armor, requiring Zelsys to reassure them that there was nothing wrong. It took the woman some time to recognize Victor, but once she did, it sufficed to calm her, and in turn, to calm Henry.
With a deadpan tone and an expressionless face, Kanbu questioned: You want me to ask why you made him bring that unwieldly thing in here, dont you?
No. Well, yes, that is one reason, Zel agreed, holding back a grin.
A sigh.
Very well. Why did you make him bring that unwieldly thing in here? he asked, just as deadpan as before.
She allowed herself to grin. I thought it would be funny.
It was true that was one of her reasons.
But My main reason is that I wanted to ask for your help, and you need to examine it up close, while its active. We cant exactly put it inside a storage tablet.
Kanbu dropped the deadpan act, and a faint smile took hold.
I knew you would come eventually. I just didnt think it would be for someone else.
He glanced at Henry. Close down after me and you can have it for free.
A silent nod from the haggard man was the answer, and with that, Kanbu hopped over the counter as if he weighed nothing. With similar dexterity, he slipped past both Zelsys and Daywolf, prompting them from outside: Come. I will hear you out, but not here.
365 - SIEGFRIED
Kanbu led them to a courtyard behind the building. A shaded walkway ran around its perimeter, supported by pillars, with an island of grass in the middle. A statue stood in the middle, bearing in hand a spear. It was nearly identical to the many guardian statues which had played so vital a role during the Blue Moon War. The pedestal was bedecked by a bronze plaque, polished and ageless:
Slayer of dragons near and far
Bearer of a thousand scars
Veteran of a hundred wars
Take care, remember who you are
When passing into the inner square, the background noise of the outside subtly became more distant. A privacy array one so refined neither her instincts nor Victors eyes could detect it before they were already within its boundary.
He grasped the spear, and the statue relinquished it, shifting into a kneeling bow, resting one arm on its knee and the other fist-down to its pedestal. When Kanbu held it, the armament was easily two heads taller than him.
I am Siegfried Kanberich Eberhart!
Every word of his true name shook the air and ground, as if each one spoken unsealed a portion of his true presence. And yet, she couldnt tell how strong he actually was. In a flash of green fire, the plain spear revealed its true form, but Zel couldnt help but pay attention to the flame before the spear, as she hadnt had the opportunity to see it many times at all since the Battle of Ubuls Tomb. Among all the different kinds of magical fire she had seen, no two were alike. Not just in colour, but even in the manner it burned, in how it formed tongues and moved. The spears shaft was wrapped in black, scaly hide, and its head was a three-sided spike with barbs running down its length. In an instant, the barbs folded, leaving only faint lines to imply their presence. A pair of wings was present halfway down its length, wrapped so tightly around the shaft that they laid nearly flat against it. Zel also glimpsed what appeared to be claws tightly gripping the spear, and eyes just beneath the spear-point.
Dragonslaying Aspect-emperor Body: Wings! Kanbu Kanberich bellowed, and a gout of green flame issued from his mouth, forming into wings of flame upon his back.
DRAGONSLAYING ASPECT-EMPEROR BODY: WINGS
Dragonslaying Aspect-emperor Body: Tail! he once more proclaimed, and in the same manner, a great tail formed from his lower back, encircling Zel and Daywolf as it took shape. It tapered smoothly, and coiled around Zelsys and Victor easily.
DRAGONSLAYING ASPECT-EMPEROR BODY: TAILA case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Lastly, he thumped his spear against the statues placard. A curious, bell-like ringing sound issued forth. It made Zels eyes vibrate in their sockets, somehow.
Wake up, Zirnitra.
The spears wings unfolded, and the eye atop its shaft lazily split open, revealing a shining-green dragonstone. There was no mistaking it not its appearance, nor its unique aura or the manner in which it pierced through Zelsys. Somehow, the armament wasnt just alive in the manner of any enspirited weapon, the spear itself was a living dragon descendant!
You might have many questions. All of them, I will answer, in time. First among them: Why did I not do this earlier? he said, turning to face them. He wore a mysterious smile, but there was an almost apologetic appearance to his eyes. Why did I not aid you in this manner at Ubuls Tomb? The answer is I could not have. Only through the power of secret Kargarian fog-sailing rites was I able to project what meagre strength I had squirreled away, and that ember burned out on that day. I have laboured bitterly since then to reignite just this smattering of my former strength, and even now, I cannot be Siegfried for long. Reforging my steel has been An arduous walk down memory lane. I can scarcely believe I ever gave this up willingly, even if it was to hide from Tian Feng. Dead Ones, I was a monster once. What I am now is a mere whelp by comparison. But thats enough of my senile rambling. I promised to hear you out elsewhere, and that I shall do: Take you elsewhere.
Kanberichs tail tightened around the two of them, before he pointed his spear skyward and jumped. In the span of a breath, they had gone from standing on the ground to soaring through the air. With a corona of green surrounding them, the three flew as if a comet, and the landscape zipped past at a speed that almost seemed comical. Between this and the sensation of the air, there was no doubt in Zels mind that Kanberich was riding a leyline that esoteric art which still eluded her in all forms.
The air howled in defiance, and through it, Kanberichs voice rang out in exhilarated laughter.
Far too quickly, they reached the crater-edge mountains to Willowdales north-east. Zel assumed that Kanberich had a base there, likely hidden by arrays from detection, but reality proved far stranger than expectation. They approached a particular point near the mountain range, a few hundred meters above. Goosebumps ran down the back of Zels neck, and Victor squinted his eyes, emitting a groan of discomfort as he closed Daywolfs visor. Then, they passed an invisible boundary, and a great spire of stone hundreds of meters tall made itself known. By how it emerged from the mountain, it almost looked to be carved from natural stone right then and there, not built. Windows ran down its entire length, but the outer surface was rough and covered with cubes of blackstone, embedded at uneven intervals like pyrite crystals.
Kanberich damn near ran them into the cliff-edge, only to turn on a dime and begin a sharp ascent.
At the top, the old dragonslayer let them go, himself landing on his feet without issue. The same could be said for Zel, but Victor lost balance and doubled over before he managed to get Daywolf to right itself and land on its feet.
The very top of the tower was flat, with walkways extending from the ledge in eight directions and prongs rising skyward between them, forming a shimmering barrier. The air up here wasnt any thinner than on the ground, and more than that, it was so incredibly thick with pneuma that one could see faint wisps of iridescent-silver phasing in and out of being with the naked eye.
Welcome to the Guardian Spire. From this place, older than memory, we oversaw our Great Work, the burial of the Second Kings Ziggurat. Seeing as you- he nodded towards Victor, -are the living key to its resurfacing, I thought it an appropriate location.
With a grin, Kanberich spun his spear. Its eye closed, wings retracted, and his own phantom dragon limbs also dissipated. Now come. We have much to discuss.
366 - Old Dragonslayers Manse
At a simple gesture of the old dragonslayers hand, a smaller spire rose up in the middle, about as tall as a two-story house and no wider than ten meters across. It was nothing more or less than an elevator, and with a few more subtle gestures, they rode down into the spire, perhaps even into the mountain at its base. Zel couldnt tell she experienced no sense of velocity during the journey. Inside was not an indoor complex of cramped hallways, but a singular sprawling chamber, set up to look like an exterior and containing a regal manor as its centerpiece. The chamber itself was suspiciously similar to the design elements of Ozmirs False Tree of Life orchard even down to the domed lattice of panels that imitated the sky. The difference was that the dome sat atop a vertical wall layer, making this place resemble a greenhouse more than anything else.
Through the clearing they went, approaching the mansion. It was decorated with a great number of statues similar to Willowdales original guardians. Unlike the guardians, these openly tracked their movement with their heads. Moreover, Zelsys sensed intent from them not from each of them, but a singular and monolithic intent from all of them at once, stiff and stone-like, more akin to being watched by a mountain than a living thing. Combined with the ultra-pneuma-rich atmosphere and the countless unidentifiable plants growing around the manor, this place truly felt entirely separate from the world of man, much like the residence of the Smoke Witch. Into the mansion they went, the air growing noticeably colder inside its halls. Kanberich led them through it, up a stairway, and into a reading room of sorts. The architecture and decorations were all ancient and unfamiliar, yet also unsettlingly familiar. Books were to be seen to one side, and a rack of widely varied spears to another. Next to the rack was a pedestal, and next to it an armour stand. The suit which hung upon it closely resembled that which his younger self wore in the pictures, but it was different this, too, was covered in black hide, and this, too, bore a closed eye, set into the helmet. Zels gut told her it was a distinct entity from Zirnitra, not just an item bedecked by more of its hide. Another living dragon descendant turned into a piece of Kanberichs regalia. Rather than try to comprehend how such a thing might be achieved, Zel moved on. A painting of Kanberich in full regalia hung above the fireplace, black spear and armour both, surrounded by emerald flame.
The old dragonslayer sat at the table of gold-inlaid granite, surrounded by two chairs and a couch, both of purplish leather with a lining of supple fur. Even these materials gave off a sense of power, hinting at some forgotten beast from which they had been taken. Unlike most furniture, the couch didnt so much as utter a noise when Zel set down her full weight on it. Even back then, only weeks after her emergence, she had already weighed a little over 150kg, and now, between her arm and general growth, she estimated herself to be approaching the upper end of the 100-200kg range. Victor remained standing.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Ah It has been far too long since I have come here, Kanberich said, sinking into his seat, resting his spear under his arm. He snapped his fingers, and with a flash of green flame, called out in Ankhezian. A few moments later, a golem as tall as Daywolf and significantly bulkier walked into the room, its footsteps light and soundless. Wrought of off-white stone, with a minimalist humanoid base design that was richly ornamented by inlays of gold and silver, the construct was unmistakably Old Ankhezian in design. It was as if it had stepped out of a historical treatise on the heights and decline of the Ankhezian Imperium. It carried in hand a platter with a jar and three cups, all of similarly Ankhezian design, with the jar having a narrow neck. It set them on the table through some manner of telekinesis and left. Kanberich enthusiastically opened the jar and filled all three cups, commenting: I admit, I have been waiting for an excuse to do this. Out of everything there has been a severe lack of cultivator drinks since the collapse.
The drink was clear, but it split and reflected the light in curious ways and gave off a faint mist. Sipping gingerly, the dragonslayer let out a pleased sigh that sounded like a century of tension releasing from his body.
Following suit, Zel also took up her cup and took a sip. Smooth, ever so faintly citrusy, cold, with notes of spices she couldnt name. Warmth instantly spread through her body and she felt herself relax. It was fantastic. To compare this with alchemically-activated ethanol was an insult only the likes of Borean blood mead could hope to compare. As far as she could tell, there was no significant toxicity to worry about, and she trusted Kanberich not to endanger her disciple. As such, she gave Victor a simple nod that it was safe. He stretched out his aura, forming a construct to pick up the cup with, drinking in the same way as they had. His cheeks instantly became flushed, and any stress disappeared from his face.
Hell of a drink, isnt it? All the good parts and none of the bad ones, it would be cheating if it wasnt such a pain in the ass to get it right get one thing wrong, and its poison. Drinkable, but the kid wouldve keeled over from that shot if my brew wasnt just right. At this point, Id like to say my version is the best on the continent, but Id rather not have that smug old bastard show up at my door again. Ankhezian sages are nothing if not persistent, Kanberich said, pouring a second round before stopping up the jar.
Zel wondered if this was at all relevant to Victors problem, but she felt in her gut that it had to be. Something about this whole setup felt too purposeful to be just coincidental.
Is it stable? she asked.
367 - Exorcism Liquor and Dragonslaying
Kanberich nodded: You could leave this stuff in a mundane bottle and it would still be good in five hundred years. Its like a glass droplet the components balance each-other with enormous force, such that it goes around and becomes completely stable again.
Thus, Zel brought out her bottle with the Sap of Grinning Death. She put a single drop of the substance into her own cup. The dragonslayers eyebrows went up in surprise and recognition.
...Where did you get that bottle?
The elder of the Hadegoke Branch tried to use it to kill me, at the behest of someone from the Root Branch. Sap of Grinning Death it cant hurt me, so its just a fun little thing.
I know what it is, and who made it. I am merely surprised that you have it he said with utter seriousness, before lightening up. But since you do, give me a drop as well.
Clinking their cups together, the Young Monster and the Old Monster drew down their drinks and, with grins on their faces, emitted sighs of satisfaction.
Yknow, Ozmir has his own reserve of this stuff, but he hasnt shared any of it, has he? Kanberich slurred. Do you even know how the sect got all that Culca in the greenhouses? It sure wasnt as a cultivation resource. That babyfaced bastard personally went to an Ankhezian enclave and stole a seedling so he could make booze out of it.
It wasnt long before clarity of thought and speech returned the old man, in no small part because he used a detoxification technique that involved him exhaling a gust of flame. After blinking and shaking his head a few times, he held up the last remaining, unadulterated cup for Victor to drink, prompting him with a nod. He tentatively did so, still remaining awkwardly quiet. By he look in his eyes, however, Zel somehow didnt feel that he was spiraling again. Deep in thought, yes, but not spiraling.
But Ozmir aside, I had an actual reason for this beyond wanting to share the fruits of my long-time hobby, Kanberich continued. This drink is called Aqua Prisma Prismatic Liquor. Also called Liquid Moonlight and a thousand other names. The highest grade that which we have just partaken of is called Exorcism Liquor, for its ability to at once center the mind and suppress mental disturbances. Between heaven and earth, this liquor alone may permit you to truly drink away your sorrows for long enough to resolve them properly. The limitations of its effectiveness aside, Victor being under its effects will be necessary for the next stage: My Dragonslayer Flame Method.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Both a metaphorical and literal fire lit up in Kanberichs eyes.
Thats why you came to me, is it not? he asked Zelsys, turning his gaze up to Victor without waiting for an answer. My Dragonslayer Flame Method and my Dragonslaying Spear Art are the only things I can share with you, and spear techniques are clearly not the cause or the solution for your issues.
Once more he looked to Zelsys. So come. Explain to me the full breadth and depth of the pit your precious disciple finds himself in. Eberheim considered, it is sure to be one filled with grasping corpses and its walls are sure to be slick with gore.
And so they did Zelsys implored Victor to explain himself first, and, in line with Kanberichs description of his Exorcism Liquor, the redhead spoke with remarkable clarity of thought. Zelsys then went over her own outlook on the situation, and Kanberich nodded along, eventually bringing out a supple scroll of purplish dragonhide. It was actually so dark as to be nearly black, with purple only showing through at the edges of scales and in the creases. This one was truly just dragonhide used as a material, Zel sensed no aura of life from it its aura was in fact nearly identical to Kanberichs. In the same vein, the scrolls aura also reminded her of the Sword Phantom and Formless Destroyer Scriptures, being the distilled essence of the authors personal understanding. Rather than unroll it, Kanberich gripped the scroll tightly, pressing it to the table as he explained.
From the sound of it, your attempts at refining dragon tissue are along the right track, you are merely going about it with the wrong method, and you lack the proper tools to achieve the end result through your particular refinement style. In short, dragonflesh does not acknowledge your primacy as King of Flesh and Bone. You dont lack in strength of spirit, your metaphorical flame is simply not of the correct nature to subdue the self-supremacist strength of a true dragon descendant. The flesh of a lesser descendant such as a Wildfire Kite will bend, but trying to apply the same brute approach to the flesh of Eisengeist is like trying to cage the sun in mundane iron. And so, in order to prevail over dragons, one requires first of all the simply ability to do so, to contend with them in terms of sheer power. This, you possess.
But I could not conceivably stand against Eisengeist under my own strength. Not without Deus Machina Teutobochus, and that is not my own strength, Victor protested.
Let me finish, will you?! Second, you must find and battle a dragon. Then, another, and another. Even if you lose, even if you must crawl away, what matters is to stand against your betters, even if you cannot defeat them but philosophy aside, they must still be dragons. This is the most crude and fundamental method of becoming more akin to a dragon and in turn assimilating the strength of dragons. The faster and more glamorous alternative is to actually slay one and devour its power directly, of course. The tangible benefits aside, such an act will irrevocably mark your soul, change you, make your existence fundamentally more like that of a true dragon. As it stands, I am a truer Dragon Descendant than all but a small handful of the strongest Three-eyes on the continent, closer to a true dragon than them, my existence weighs heavier and my will bends the world more readily, even as I am now, yet to recover the vast majority of my cultivation.
368 - The Dragonslayer Flame Method
Kanberich held out his left hand, and within it ignited a flame. From this flame, he sculpted a scene, flicking embers onto the table, illustrating his words as he went. He even went so far as to alter the shade and texture of his flame to give visuals to the idea of someone becoming altered by mere proximity to a dragon descendant.
This fundamental pillar of my cultivation this process of becoming more like a dragon in the metaphysical sense is a side effect of the dragons original purpose as weapons of war. Their power is unlike any other, infinitely close to yet infinitely far from the pure creation that resides in the Foundations of the World in short, the closest man has ever come to replicating the true nature of Law or Creation. In falling short, it also becomes severely unlike the very thing it mimics in particular ways, much like a realistic, not-quite-human puppet feels even less human-like than a childs toy. This property, in turn, causes the essence of dragonkind to stain and subtly warp the world wherever dragons live. Those who battle with them or alongside them are inevitably changed. During the many wars in which dragons and dragon descendants have been employed, those who fought alongside them and the few who managed to slay them have both manifested a vast variety of extraordinary abilities, often in contravention of common cultivation limitations. I, personally, prefer to refer to this as the Dragonslayers Gift, but Draconization or Dragonstaining are also known terms for the phenomenon. I admit that my term is somewhat contradictory, because while those who battle with and slay dragons do receive the Gift, it was most often those who fought alongside dragons who did so, as they were exposed to the creatures far more often. Certainly, slaying a dragon descendant and using its body for cultivation resources is nearly guaranteed to confer some semblance of the Gift, but an Ankhezian Dragonrider of old had a retinue of tens of thousands who all worked around the dragon for their entire lives, soaking up its power even while it laid idle, not to mention the widespread use of whatever it might shed.
What of Arches Order of the Dragon? As far as I am aware, they practiced a False Path method, despite having access to a living dragon, Victor asked.
Kanbu chortled.
Living? Alive, at best. Dying, more likely, only very slowly. Not-quite-dead. There is not a chance Ten Billion Fathoms was, at any point in the last half-millennium, anything close to truly living. But You are not wrong. Ten Billion Fathoms is a True Dragon Descendant, not a lesser species such as a Wildfire Kite. Even severely weakened by its incarnation in a body wrought from the flesh of lesser descendants, animals, and humans, and with three legs in the grave, it would still hold enormous power. From what I have read of the Order prior to the Meat Market Incident, I can safely guess that they managed to evoke a form of the Gift, but through misguided methods, without understanding of the phenomenon or perhaps even its existence. They, if anything, were an example even with an outright moronic method, dragonstaining still takes place and still empowers those subject to it.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
With a wave of his hand he erased the flame-diorama, and finally put forth that scroll. Even still, he only unrolled it partially, just enough that its aura spilled out. Victor reflexively closed Daywolfs faceplate, flinching back as if he were about to be burned. Zel couldnt blame him this didnt even compare to mundane fire. Her own Thundergods hissed and bared their fangs, their grey forms flaring blue and arcs jumping inside their open mouths, revealing the blades that were their tongues. It was truly akin to the tyrannical presence of a dragon descendant, yet also like nothing she had felt before. The Wildfire Kites aura had felt thin and lukewarm by comparison, with a strong physical aspect, almost evoking some properties of typical beastly aura. Meanwhile, Eisengeist had already been subdued by the time she arrived into its presence. The greatest difference between the draconic aura produced by Kanberichs method and that of dragon descendants was something that could not accurately be put into words for lack of a better expression, it was subtly twisted in a manner that openly spoke of its purpose for subduing dragons and usurping their strength.
Having gotten the reaction he wanted, Kanberich continued his lecture: My method is only one of many that permits the practitioner to draw out the strength of dragons. Zelsys, for instance, has harnessed it directly through her body. I wager that her muscles, internal organs, and other tissues have subtly become more akin to those of dragon descendants since she has started consuming Eisengeists flesh on a regular basis. A wizard such as yourself might naturally harness it through external acts of spiritual strength, such as spellcasting. My method is not necessarily superior it is merely a specific way of harnessing the power. I can pass on my technique in full, and even should you not specialize in it, the Dragonslayer Flame will burn your foes all the same. I am Noncommittal in that way. I could never imagine only ever wielding a single weapon in my life. There is, of course, a catch, as there always is..."
Finally, the old dragonslayer unfurled his scroll across the table, and its aura spilled out in full, such that Zelsys had to flare her own to protect herself. Scorched marks instantly appeared across Daywolfs surface, and Victor in turn brought up the Oculus. He chanted a sutra, gesturing with both hands as his third jangled the staff-spear in place, and a numinous pressure descended. Bonefire spilled out of his armors many gaps and fiercely crawled across him, struggling against the Dragonslayer Flame. A moment later, Kanberich rolled up the scroll as quickly as he had opened it, and Victor visibly deflated inside his suit as the scorching, tyrannical pressure lifted.
With a mischievous flame in his eyes and a smirk on his face, the dragonslayer goaded the young wizard: That was but a taste of what you will experience should you chase strength through my method. Quick, Safe, Easy you can only ever choose one. So choose.