Chapter 574: A Fell Omen Near Cloudspire

Most of the men were giddy with their new power, speculating about their new good fortune and what they might find next. They had run into several other groups of monsters on their ocean voyage, and if anything, the later groups were even weaker. To celebrate their new power, they broke out their limited stores of booze and had a night to remember.

Kojajix drank along with everyone, but he wasn't happy.

For one, as the men fought with one another, he became more and more certain that they hadn't actually changed. They were all just as clumsy or tough as they were before, it was just that the world around them had gotten weaker. Soon enough they figured out that they could injure one another and they stopped their sparring.

That applied even to Jonijix or Yangix, who were showing off their new powers. At least that was Kojajix's theory. They could make big water spouts or big qi explosions, but those were just magnified versions of the little tricks they could do before. Even when they began experimenting and came up with supposedly new powers, he wasn't sure whether those were just gifts of the gray man who had cursed them all to sail into the Deadlake.

Which led to the other reason for his depression: they were still in the grip of completely unknown forces. Whatever gray magic propelled their ship and restored the tasteless food and water in the stores was utterly beyond them, making their new power look like nothing.

He had no idea why any of this was happening, he just knew he wanted it to stop.

Worse, just when the celebrations began to wear off, the ship began to creak under a new sort of pressure. Jonijix argued with the sailors about what could possibly be causing it, and they never came to a real answer, but all agreed that it felt like they were pushing up against something, like a gale wind was blowing them backwards.

Yet the gray power still pushed them forward... Kojajix wondered if they would be squashed between the two forces and they would simply die without understanding why. A stupid, pointless ending, as inexplicable as all the rest of this.

"Land!" It was one of the new men, shouting wildly from starboard. Kojajix figured he had gone mad until the others began crowding as well.

There was indeed land in the distance, a dark coast that felt like a wasteland, but still was the most inviting thing Kojajix had ever seen. The others shouted out all his thoughts: had they reached the other side of the Deadlake? Gotten turned around? Found some island in the middle of the water? Anything was a miracle and they all looked forward to being on solid ground again.

That was when they noticed that they were being drawn away.

No one knew what exactly was happening, and Kojajix didn't even pretend, but they were getting further away from the shore. Jonijix drew on his full power, summoning a typhoon that drenched all the men... and he didn't budge their course even slightly. When he failed, some of the men leapt into the sea, aiming to swim all the way, and gray light swept them back to the boat.

Was this all the gray man's doing, then? Kojajix thought that the power fueling their ship was different than the barrier they pressed against, but he had no fucking clue. All that seemed certain was that they would not be allowed to land, so he gave up long before the others did.

"Something's coming." It was Fodajix this time, peering out after the others had given up.

Kojajix was one of the first to the railing this time, straining his gaze to see. Maybe his sight had gotten better, or the air just felt thinner, but he saw for leagues. There was a something approaching them, a gray stone in the shape of... a qi wheel? He didn't even know the proper term, maybe Yangix would, but it was something that cultivators used to fly.

Soon enough the vessel was approaching and they were all watching it now. The stone carried several dozen men and women in cultivator robes, all in matching blue colors. Clearly this was a sect, and that meant bad news. All Kojajix knew about cultivators was that they might kill you if you didn't bow and scrape enough, so he tried to stay far away.

With their ship still locked in place, that didn't seem like an option.

"Stop there!" the lead cultivator shouted. "You are entering the territorial waters of the Jadeblood Sect!"

The words twisted in Kojajix's mind and he clutched his head, wondering if he was still drunk. It all sounded like nonsense, yet he understood it. What devilry was this? While he staggered, plenty of the others seemed to assume it was another part of the inexplicable power and they just focused on the cultivator who were catching up to them.

"We can't stop!" one of the men yelled back. "Something's got us!"

"Are you a fool?" The cultivator sneered at them. "Obviously some... magic technique is moving your ship. Whoever is doing it, cease at once, or you will perish for your insolence."

Some of them tried to babble excuses, hoping for their lives, while others shouted back, drunk on their new power. Kojajix stood completely still, with no idea what to think. He had no idea about that spiritual sight stuff, so all he could see was that the cultivators were flying and dressed very nicely. Those things meant a hell of a lot of power, more than a bunch of random sailors.

"You dare?" One of the cultivators was so angry that his face was turning red. "For defying the Jadeblood Sect, you will pay with your lives!"

The man stepped forward, to throw out some magic that would kill them all... yet he seemed so very slow. Was this what people said about your life flashing before your eyes? Kojajix couldn't help but stare as the qi arced toward them gracefully, too beautiful to end a life...

It splattered against his skin like rain. He stared in shock as all of the others were untouched as well, even the ship wasn't blown apart like it should have been. Everyone was too surprised to do anything, on both sides, and for a time they all stared.

"Your tricks won't save you!" An older woman, this one with even fancier robes, began a new technique.

This one was no joke, a thousand times bigger and more complicated than anything Yangix had ever done. Qi began to build, forming nine elaborate seals in the air, each of which sprouted nine more seals, endless spirals linking them, building to a technique of unimaginable power...

"Stop it!" Jonijix thrust out a hand and propelled a simple spout of water.

That water tore through all of the elaborate seals, all the qi that Kojajix had been so impressed with. Not only that, it pierced through the cultivator herself, blasting a hole through her body and making the entire stone vessel rock. Some of the others staggered and some even coughed up blood... was that a thing that should happen? Had Jonijix gotten some new power?

"Earth Soul Formation!" one of the cultivators shouted. Some of the others retreated on flying swords, while others stepped to the front of their floating wheel, hurling new techniques.

Despite what had happened earlier, Kojajix flinched instinctively, and that helped him. Some of the others who had stood confidently began yelping and flailing as the qi actually burned them, though not too badly. They almost fell into disarray, but the enemy cultivators seemed even more astonished by the fact that they were still alive.

From his position hiding behind a barrel, Kojajix realized that what he'd done was technically stupid. If an attack could kill him, why would it be stopped by a little wood? Yet it worked... and as he saw more fire rain across the deck, he realized that nothing was catching ablaze. When one of the cultivators created a sword technique, it didn't cut so much as a rope.

Kojajix knew he wasn't a smart man, but he was handy enough in a fight. He grabbed a dinner plate from its place beside the barrel and ran forward. One of the cultivators targeted him, but again, it was so slow that he easily raised the plate. And, miraculously, the plate blocked the qi.

As soon as he got close enough, Kojajix hurled the plate like a disc. He'd hoped it might work and it defied all his expectations: the plate punched directly through the flying wheel and killed one of the cultivators beyond before hurtling into the sky.

"Formation, hold!" The lead cultivators was shouting at the others, trying to maintain order. "We just need to unite in a single tech-"

Then a blade erupted from his chest. Fodajix was up there somehow, standing on the stone platform to kill one of them from behind. All the other cultivators reacted, trying to hurl some sort of magic, but they were far too slow.

Fodajix might have killed them, but he didn't get a chance. Budajix had woken up from down below and, after winding up his arm, delivered a punch to the air. When it collided with the stone vessel, it didn't just punch through, it made the thing explode into pebbles. Half of the cultivators exploded as well, and those who fled to the ship were immediately overwhelmed by sailors.

"Enough!" There was a man flying out from the distant continent... his long white hair moved wildly, as if he was flying quickly, but he didn't look so fast at all. "I am the Patriarch of the Jadeblood Sect, and whatever trick you are using, it will not avail you!"

"No fucking way." Yangix hadn't fought yet, but he got up now, staring at the old man. "You can't be a patriarch, you're still first realm."

"I am the greatest Sky Soul in the history of-"

"What the fuck is a Sky Soul?" Yangix raised his hand, not yet pointing his Finger of Death. "None of these fools would be fit to scrub a junior's shoes... what kind of backwater is this?"

"I said enough!" The old man began forming another technique, blue puppets that appeared to be formed from blood. First one, then six, then a dozen, starting smaller than a person, each appearing a bit bigger, then something truly massive began to form...

Yangix thrust out with his usual technique and puppets began to explode. This time he didn't tear directly through the whole thing, but he was definitely annihilating his opponent's technique. The finger technique seemed weaker than Jonijix's water... no, Jonijix hurled another water spout and it only managed to make a larger puppet explode instead of piercing through. The old man must be stronger than the others.

If the sailors were upset to finally encounter some resistance, the old "patriarch" was shattered. He was coughing up blood, drawing it into techniques, swallowing some sort of medicine repeatedly. Whatever he was trying to do, it wasn't working.

"Impossible..." he muttered. "That isn't even cultivation... how?"

They had been winning with brute force, but abruptly Kojajix realized that the old man had been setting up some sort of scheme. Lines of light connected the corpses throughout the water, drawing them all together into something bigger. A blue puppet erupted from the man's wounds, ten times the height of a man, a vast hand pushing down...

Some of the sailors quailed at that instinctively, but Yangix leapt up. His power smashed against the hand, they briefly contended... then he started to push back.

Yangix laughed, the old man stared in shock, then suddenly his head fell from his neck.

Quorthix flipped behind him, his blades finishing their arc. The so-called patriarch sank into the waves and all the surviving cultivators on the ship cried out in despair. Most of the sailors cheered, but they were so surprised that many didn't seem to know what to think.

"These sects are worthless!" Yangix leapt up to the side of the ship to call to all the others. "We're like gods here! No one can stop us from doing whatever we want!"

The men began to laugh and they descended on the cultivators. Some began to beat them, taking out old hatreds, while others sought to indulge baser desires. A female cultivator, realizing their intentions, killed herself in a bloody shower rather than let them touch her. That should have turned their stomachs, but many of the men just laughed.

Kojajix stared at the blood in the water, leading toward the far-off shore. The power around them continued propelling them onward, to some unknown destination.