Fates Parallel Chapter 379 - Battle

An enormous ball of flaming rock arced lazily through the air, its trajectory set to land well within the walls of the village. The faceless army had been using their war machines to hurl such projectiles non-stop for days, and they had quickly become routine.

Yoshika ignored this one—it was better left to those who could deal with it more efficiently. Instead, she circled around the wall to support Ja Yun and Iseul as they prepared their own countermeasures. Ja Yun snapped her a salute as she approached.

“Ma’am!”

It felt odd to have a friend addressing her like that, but Ja Yun had fallen back on her military training to manage the stress.

“Need any help?”

Ja Yun shook her head.

“Iseul’s got this one, and the enemy is thin on this side. We should be able to manage on our own.”

Iseul had surprised everyone when she emerged from Ja Yun’s armor and composed herself into a humanoid form as tall as Jia—which wasn’t saying much. The mana-rich environment of Chou’s Tomb agreed with the juvenile elemental, and with support from her bond with Ja Yun, she’d gone from a helpless blob to a formidable spellcaster in her own right.

Despite Iseul and Ja Yun only being second stage cultivators, their quadrant had consistently been one of the best defended, in large part because of Iseul’s incredible talent with magic.

The Mud elemental stood within a complicated array of formations, constantly changing the links between them by using her body of translucent slime to bridge the gaps and channel mana through the spells. To Yoshika’s mana sense, it was hard to see where the elemental stopped and the spell began.

It was undeniably effective, however. Even as they spoke, Iseul launched a blast of sticky mud that enveloped the incoming projectile and altered its trajectory just enough to knock it askew of the walls. It struck at an angle and glanced off harmlessly, leaving behind a trail of sticky goo that hardened as it dried, actually reinforcing the wall where the ball had struck it.

“I see. Good work! Let us know if you need anything.”

“Yes ma’am! I suggest assisting Miss Yan.”

Yoshika nodded, pushing her domain out as far as she could. She’d never stopped practicing, and after days fighting against the oppressive atmosphere of Chou’s realm, she was starting to make progress.

She couldn’t sense the entire village, but if she exerted herself, she was able to expand her senses from one quadrant of the wall to an adjacent one.

Ruiling was in the direction she’d just come from, and she knew that her side was currently handled, so Yoshika pushed herself to observe Yan Yue. Sure enough, her best friend was struggling to hold her position. While Yue could hold her own in a fight, she wasn’t built for extended combat, and the siege had been wearing on her endurance.

It had been wearing on all of them.

Yoshika rushed over to Yue’s side, where the horde of faceless soldiers was slowly encroaching on her side of the wall. Yue was joined by Yu Xiang and the other Awakening Dragon disciple Fang Guang. All three of them were channeling their power into artillery formations left by Ja Yun, but all three of them were visibly exhausted.

Yue gave a sigh of relief as Yoshika approached.

“Yoshika! Thank the emperor you’re here. We need ground support from Xiao Chong and another top up from Han Yu if we’re going to hold this another hour, much less until the end of the week.”

Yoshika grimaced. She didn’t doubt Yan Yue spoke the truth, but she wasn’t sure that she had the resources to spare.

“I’ll see about sending Xiao Chong and the others your way, but Han Yu can only make so many pills and we’re all exhausted.”

“We’ll do what we can with what we have, but cultivators like us aren’t meant for this kind of test of endurance. It would be one thing if we had time to rest and meditate, but the enemy is relentless.”

It was true. The faceless creatures in the army weren’t nearly as powerful as the farmers in the first trial had been, but they were suicidally aggressive and seemingly endless in number. No matter how many fell, they never broke, and since the assault had begun, there hadn’t been so much a second of reprieve.

Yoshika sighed.

“For now, let me help thin things out...”

She withdrew a pair of talismans from her ring—one was her own, and another was from Misun. Yoshika only had a limited supply of Seong Misun’s talismans, but it was better to live poor than to die on a hoard of unused wealth.

Channeling through each of her bodies, Yoshika combined the effects of the talismans together into a single grand spell—something she’d been inspired to try by Do Hye’s demonstration at the entrance to the tomb.

Jia’s Chain Lightning Nova and Seong Misun’s Heavenly Tempest swirled together in a ball of volatile Lightning essence, then ascended into the sky, forming a dark cloud. When Yoshika finally released the spell, a raging storm of lightning bolts rained down on the army before them, each bolt arcing through dozens or hundreds of soldiers before spending itself in a brilliant flash.

The Qin cultivators bowed in thanks, and Yoshika tried not to let her own exhaustion show as she returned the gesture.

She’d been running herself ragged. Strategically, her role was similar to the one Eui had occupied when she’d fought as a unit with her friends back in the academy. She was a trump card—too powerful to commit to any one position, and too valuable to risk on the front lines.

In a smaller group, that had meant building the formation around Eui, so that she could respond where she was needed most, but in a larger strategic setting, it meant that Yoshika was constantly running around to coordinate between distinct groups of people who were not particularly pleased to be cooperating with her, much less each other.

It was physically and mentally draining beyond anything she’d ever experienced before.

On her way to meet up with Zheng Long, Yoshika stopped by the hut that Han Yu had turned into his own personal laboratory.

“Han Yu, Yue and the others are running low again.”

The alchemist scowled as he looked up from his formation. In just the last few days, he’d visibly lost weight—no longer the same mirror of his rotund master.

“Of fucking course they are! Miss Lee, I’m only one man and you haven’t even seen fit to grant me an assistant! I cannot keep an entire unit fighting forever, that’s just not how this works. The qi has to come from somewhere, and I’m not your fucking battery!”

“Is there anything we can do to help? Iseul and Ja Yun have been faring quite well, and the fiends have barely broken a sweat. Maybe we can find a way to balance things out?”

Han Yu wiped the sweat from his brow and groaned.

“You make it sound so easy. The fiends are presumably much like Yamato barbarians—their bodies take in qi from their surroundings naturally, and they also have the benefit of beast cores. Unless you’re suggesting that we harvest a core from one of them or your pet elemental, I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Is there anything we can do specifically to support you?”

“You can stop distracting me! I’ll send this next batch to Yan Yue, now piss off!”

Yoshika bowed and turned to leave, but Han Yu groaned irritably just before she could depart.

“Wait! There is one thing. I’m told the enemy soldiers don’t have souls—I hesitate to ask how we discovered that, but it means that they are likely qi constructs of some kind. If you can bring me some of their corpses, I may be able to do some experimentation and figure out how to extract that essence. It will take time away from what I’m doing now, though, and might be a dead end. Up to you.”

Yoshika nodded.

“I’ll see it done.”

“Great, thanks. Now please let me get back to work.”

She did just that, leaving the hut and rushing over to Zheng Long’s quadrant. The Awakening Dragon’s prodigy wasn’t hard to spot. He was a blazing beacon of flame, his Awakening of the Dragon’s Heart technique in full display.

Great wings of fire, a long whip-like tail, and even a ‘helmet’ shaped like the muzzle of a dragon. He tirelessly hurled balls of flame into the enemy, unleashing enormous conflagrations within their ranks. Any that got too close met the white-hot flames of his breath. Yoshika could feel her skin sizzling just from standing too close to him.

Zheng Long had clearly grown significantly since she last fought him.

“How are you holding up?”

The cultivator didn’t bother meeting her eyes as he kept up his assault, speaking between labored breaths.

“I’m...fine! Never...better! Er, how’s Han Yu’s next batch coming along?”

Yoshika winced—she knew it was coming. Zheng Long kept a brave face up, but he suffered from the same fatigue issues as the rest of the Qin cultivators.

“I asked him to send the next one to Yue. Her side is flagging.”

He nodded.

“Fair enough. I saw the display earlier—good work! I’ll be fine here a while longer as long as that demon keeps it up.”

Outside the walls, the mobile shock force was hard at work thinning the enemy ranks. Melati dodged arrows with ease, flying above the enemy forces and picking them off in dive-bomb attacks. Sukarto zipped in and out of enemy lines like an untouchable phantom, impaling soldiers on his spear and retreating faster than a blink.

The real star, however, was Xiao Chong. She lacked Sukarto’s speed or Melati’s elegance, but she made up for it in raw, unbridled power. There was no strategy, no clever application of her strengths against the enemy’s weakness. She just waded into the enemy forces and killed everything near her.

For all that she’d failed in her individual duels against Yoshika and Yue, Xiao Chong was practically made for the sort of chaotic brawl she embroiled herself in. Her wild blows struck out in every direction, and with each one another faceless soldier met its end. Not only that, but the damage spread.

Each enemy she struck with her claws or tentacles would writhe in pain—the only thing Yoshika had seen elicit any kind of reaction from the creatures—and when those infected by her Miasma thrashed, they struck their nearby fellows, spreading the toxin.

Where Xiao Chong went, entire throngs of soldiers fell, and she left a trail of devastation in her wake. Even her most ardent opposition had gone quiet after they’d seen how effective she was against the enemy.

Which made Yoshika’s next words painful to say.

“Actually, I was going to send her to support Yue’s side. They’re really struggling.”

Zheng Long hesitated for just a moment, then shrugged.

“So be it. She never was one for such prolonged engagements.”

Now that she knew what to look for, it was painfully obvious that Zheng Long still cared for Yan Yue. Despite his sour mood after Xiao Chong had killed one of his subordinates under Yan Yue’s supervision, he’d still sent those he had left to support her, and now he wasn’t offering any complaint about his own support being redirected to her.

It was up to Yoshika to make sure he didn’t let himself get killed over his infatuation.

“I’m relieving you for now. That flashy technique has to be taking a lot out of you, go rest.”

“I’ll be fine, Miss Yoshika—I learned my lesson about conserving qi after my fight with you. This aura might look wasteful, but it's necessary to empower my longer range attacks. If you’re going to relieve anybody, let it be Yan Yue.”

“No. I’m relieving you—that’s an order. Go help Han Yu with his alchemy or something, I’ll handle things here until you’ve recovered.”

Zheng Long pursed his lips and nodded curtly.

“Very well. Good luck.”

As he retreated, Yoshika pushed her domain again, checking on Yue and Ruiling. Long Ruiling’s magic was particularly potent against the soldiers, and she was still holding on just fine. Yue, on the other hand, was still struggling even after the support Yoshika had just given her.

Beads of sweat formed on Yoshika’s faces as she tried to force her will through the power of Chou’s realm and manifest an illusory double near Xiao Chong. The mana fought against her power, but Yoshika’s practice paid off, and the illusion technique worked.

“Xiao Chong, start moving that way to support Yan Yue’s side.”

The demon grunted in acknowledgement and shifted her trajectory, wading her way through the enemy towards Yue’s side of the wall. Yoshika looked around at the fallen soldiers, some of which still twitched and writhed as glowing green veins of miasma spread throughout their bodies.

No sense trying to make pills out of those. Instead, she flew her illusion up to one of Melati’s bodies.

“New orders, follow Xiao Chong to support the other quadrant while I handle things here. I’ve also got a mission for you specifically, Mel, if you’re up for it.”

Melati buzzed excitedly, her voice sounding deeper than usual coming from only one body. Her more feminine body was still engaging the enemy.

“We’re ready! What do you need?”

“Han Yu needs an intact corpse from one of these soldiers to see if he can use it for alchemy. Then, if he can work with them, he might need a steady supply. Can you handle that? Make sure not to use any that Xiao Chong has touched.”

“Easy! Melati will deliver as much food to the fat man as he needs! He’ll never be skinny as long as we are in charge!”

The drone zipped off before Yoshika could clarify, but it sounded like she had the gist of it, even if her understanding of the reason was a bit skewed.

That just left Yoshika to her own quadrant, holding off an entire army by herself while her friends got the support they needed.

As she rained destruction down on the enemy, she worried about the ‘test.’ Despite Chou’s warnings, this test had been far less dangerous than the first. Exhausting, to be sure, but it felt more like a test of endurance than a test of spirit.

Had she been overthinking it after all? They’d already made it halfway to the allotted time, but nothing had changed. Was the scroll a red herring? Or was there something else she was missing?

One thought in particular haunted her as night began to fall on the fifth day of the siege.

It was too easy.