PtM Book 14 - Chapter 50: Final Push (2)

1/5 this week.

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It began with a clash of auras. Or domains, investitures, and realm fusions, and the like. The names didn’t really matter, only the effect on their surroundings.

The Boneshift Badger Lord was an early-fusion-realm demon. Mr. Mountain was a peak-investiture demon, and Huxian and the others had reached late investiture as well. It was one overlapping aura against seven, and the seven were losing, if barely.

“We can’t… go on like this…” Mr. Mountain groaned.

“We need to start with our full strength and keep going,” Silverwing agreed.

“Fine! Let’s do it!” Huxian yelled. He vanished and reappeared in the middle of the group. The others shifted and teleported according to his instructions. Positioning was important to Huxian—he was Lord Eight Directions, and many of his powers relied on geometry.

Mr. Mountain threw away all pretenses of being Shanarah’s leader and assumed his position opposite Gua. Miyue stood opposite Bifang and Silverwing opposite Lei Jiang.

They began summoning their manifestations one after another. Miyue’s manifestation was a graceful woman of water wearing a black dress made of ink. Bifang took the form of her namesake, the Bifang Crane, with seven-colored plumage and a single leg.

Mr. Mountain manifested as an illusory mountain peak. It was a projection of Mount Sky Piercer, accurate down to the smallest detail. Gua manifested as a toad in a swamp, and this swamp was meant to draw enemies in while the mountain crushed and suppressed them.

Silverwing and Lei Jiang had been with Huxian the longest. They stood at his left and right flanks as a small bird and small mouse that channeled the might of a heavenly storm. Razor winds and devastating lightning struck the land around them, forcing back Lord Boneshift’s fusion-realm influence.

But this was far from enough for victory. Huxian summoned the final manifestation, that of a Bagua fox. And then each of the other six manifestations transformed into masses of raw energy that poured into each of its tails. Power surged into Huxian’s manifestation and also into Huxian. Runes lit up on the six tails, converging onto the manifestation’s body, where runes of yin and yang appeared.

Huxian howled as their seven dominions converged into an incomplete Bagua Dominion. Then, using his increased power over space, he forcefully overlapped the manifestation with his body, artificially fusing it. His demon armor and demon weapon erupted and reformed around the fox’s body, forming plates of crystalline armor and reinforcing its razor-sharp teeth.

The fox had two crystalline wings. Its eyes burned with orange-gold light. Space and time overlapped, as did six of the eight directions. The fused together before permeating the battlefield in an approximation of realm fusion.

This was Huxian’s true trump card. An actual fusion transformation, accomplished before reaching the fusion realm.

“It is impressive that you managed to accomplish this,” Lord Boneshift said. “But you are still not my match.” He executed his own fusion transformation. His body grew until it was several times larger than Huxian’s.

Lord Boneshift’s body had no skin to begin with, and his demon armor was just an extension of his exoskeleton. As he transformed, these bone plates shifted and thickened, turning him from something that looked like a cross between a badger and a monarch beetle into a badger-formed engine of war and destruction with claws the size of grown men.

“It’s true,” Huxian said. “Even with this fusion transformation, even with us combining our powers, it’s not enough,” he admitted. “But there’s more to a fight than raw power. Besides… this is our home!”

Power poured forth from the Shanarah Mountain Range’s dungeon core and entered Huxian’s body directly. If it were him before, he wouldn’t be able to withstand such a massive surge, but as he was now, it was possible.

His aura soared. The crystalline armor on his body thickened, and his claws and teeth lengthened. His body didn’t grow to the same size as Lord Boneshift’s, but it did increase in size by an entire half. Lord Boneshift’s expression turned from mocking to solemn.

They went back to the basics. Lord Boneshift’s fusion-realm aura surged and pushed back the expanding Bagua Dominion. Huxian fought back using Space-Time Devouring. His realm fusion began to consume Lord Boneshift’s to fuel its expansion in all eight directions. He tried to struggle against it but was inevitably met with defeat. This was the power of the Bagua. This was the power of time and the Eight Directions. They could not be evaded or defended against.

“You’ve surprised me once again,” the Boneshift Badger Lord said. “You seven deserve your place as rulers. But alas, I cannot give up. This erosion to my power is substantial, but not enough to make up the difference. Swear fealty, and we can stop this without further need of bloodshed. We need not cross claws this day.”

Huxian only had two words for Lord Boneshift. “Bite me.” And then he realized his mistake. There was a reason they had an expression called poking the badger, and it was a known fact that badger-type demons usually had some sort of berserk ability. It was just that Lord Boneshift had yet to reveal his.

An aura of rage descended upon the battlefield, and Huxian suddenly felt great trepidation. The land in the enclosure erupted with violent strength. Bone spurs erupted from the ground and bit upward at Huxian like an unholy earthen maw.

The attack was as sudden as it was fierce. And if it were aimed at any other demon, the attack would have surely landed. Fortunately, Huxian was capable of teleportation and barely managed to dodge the attack at the price of a single shattered armor plate.

There was no stopping. There was no rest. The bone spike attack continued, forcing Huxian on the defensive. Though Huxian’s Bagua Dominion was omnipresent and constantly eroding at Lord Boneshift’s power, it could only slightly weaken such powerful attacks, just as it constantly weakened the badger lord. But seeing him, Huxian doubted that it was having any effect at all.

Lord Boneshift was truly a cunning opponent. He had seen that while Huxian’s fusion transformation was weaker and short-lived, he would be able to outlast the badger lord through sheer control over the terrain and attrition. Therefore, the badger lord had erupted with even greater strength, greatly cutting down the potential length of his own fusion transformation. If Huxian wanted to stall, he wouldn’t let him.

Neither had demon weapons in their fusion forms. Lord Boneshift’s claws were a worthy threat, however, and Huxian couldn’t help but sweat whenever they neared him or glanced off a piece of armor.

Though Huxian could teleport, it was no use against so quick an opponent. He was no match for the badger lord in his enraged state. Before he even knew what was happening, they were slugging it out with their claws, and the badger lord, having the longer, stronger, and faster claws, was winning.

He thinks we’ll play fair?Huxian thought. The badger lord’s close proximity prevented him from teleporting effectively, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do so at all. He lunged at the badger lord then teleported them both, reorienting them so that Huxian was on top and the badger lord on top. The fox began to dig savagely.

Yet this was another miscalculation on Huxian’s part. The badger lord was more than comfortable in close-quarters combat. He hugged Huxian like a bear and bit down, piercing through spatial plates and cutting deep into Huxian’s space-tempered skin. To escape, Huxian had no choice but to part with a portion of his being. His vital energy dropped by twenty percent as he forced himself away. The badger lord grinned widely, his maw dripping with blood.

“This guy’s ridiculous!” Gua shouted from Huxian’s tail. While outwardly it looked like Huxian had full control over the Bagua Dominion, it was actually split control between the seven of them. It was Gua’s responsibility to use the swamp manifestation to hamper their opponents, which was proving impossible at the moment.

“You’re telling me,” Mr. Mountain said from another tail. “This is my home territory, and I can barely exert any influence on him.”

“We won’t win a battle of attritions, guys,” Huxian said. “We need a plan. Weak spots!”

“I don’t see any obvious weaknesses,” Miyue said, hurling ribbons of water to attack what should have been key locations on any badger’s body, but to no avail. “I’m starting to wonder if he has anything between his legs. It’s all bone, bone, and more bone. See what I did there?”

“I think you need to work on your jokes,” Huxian said. “Because that one was terrible. Also, this is a fusion transformation, not his original body. It won’t share the same anatomy. But every fusion transformation has a weakness—a core.” They had to hope they’d happen upon this weakness.

Having learned his lesson about melee battles, Huxian remained at a distance. But this brought back the badger lord’s intense charges and constant attacks with bone spurs from below. When he tried to take the battle to the skies, the bone spurs followed him there too. It was useless. Wherever he went, he would be supressed.

Fortunately, he had another advantage over the badger lord: His six tails had good range and could attack independently. As he flickered about, dodging claw strikes and bone spikes, his tails constantly stabbed and whipped the badger lord’s body with concentrated spatial energy.

“Silverwing, Lei Jiang, keep blinding him! Bifang, I want you to stop burning him.”

“Stop?” Bifang exclaimed.

“I said stop burning him,” Huxian clarified. “Your flames are the saddest excuse for temperature control in this universe. So stop using them to burn. Curse him, Bifang! Scorch him where it counts!”

“Got it!” Bifang said. Huxian’s flame tail began glowing with seven-colored light, and the flames bathing the badger lord weakened considerably. They no longer tried to harm him but clung to him like burning pitch. If Huxian had to try probing for weaknesses while blind, he might as well get lucky doing it.

“Poison’s not working!” Gua shouted.

“He’s made of bone, for heaven’s sake,” Miyue scolded. “It obviously won’t work. Unless you have any poisons that specifically affect bones? Why not just try straight acid?”

“That’s… that’s actually a good suggestion!” Gua said.

“No worries, guys,” Huxian said. “You have all the time in world. I’m just doing my best to avoid certain death. No pressure.”

Lord Boneshift was an experienced demon, so he immediately figured out what they were doing. Since he was on the shortest timer, he could not go on the defensive, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t change his method of offense. His armor shifted and transformed until it became a chaotic pincushion. His limbs shifted and elongated, and his body shrank. Suddenly, he was even faster, and much more difficult to hit.

“He can repurpose his body!” Huxian said. While that might seem like something obvious to point out, there was a deeper meaning, which, thanks to their bond, transferred to his companions. Body shifting was an uncommon ability, but assuming they found his core, what was to stop the badger lord from shifting it away? The moment they found the core, they would have a very short window in which to attack it.

Even so, this was their only viable plan. They worked their way up the badger lord’s body, starting at his hands and feet and working their way up his arms and legs. They moved on to the torso next, not the head, because to Huxian, that was the obvious thing to do, and Lord Boneshift had proven far from stupid.

They finally found the source of his power, his demon core, in his abdomen when one of Huxian’s tails barely nicked it. The tell was a snarl from the badger lord, because up till now, he’d never showed any reaction no matter the pain.

The badger lord took his outburst a step further. He exploded with power, sending a wave of bone spikes from his physical body to impale Huxian. Eight of them pierced into the Bagua fox’s body, thankfully missing his demon core.

“Friends,” Huxian said solemnly. “It’s time.”

“It’s time?” Bifang exclaimed. “Yeah! I’ve been waiting for this!”

The power in Huxian’s tails began to flow toward his main body via the runic lines and matrices on their surface. They combined when they reached Huxian’s torso, mixing the third component of their power, their energy. For the first time in this battle, their bodies, their auras, and their energy were one.

This new energy permeated Huxian’s fusion-transformed body, causing it to immediately double. Its power and speed increased substantially, and Huxian’s control over the eight directions increased by an order of magnitude.

“Impossible!” the badger lord exclaimed. His claws were abnormally sharp for a demon of his level, but now, they only created sparks when they hit Huxian’s diamond-like fur. Even incomplete, the power of the eight directions was the firmest of shields.

And now, Huxian didn’t even need to aim as he bit and slashed, because every attack he made landed precisely where he wanted it to. He didn’t even need to be adjacent to Lord Boneshift, because now he was attacking directly through space.

Lord Boneshift went on the defensive, but defending did nothing. His bony torso was carved away piece by piece. It happened with such speed that Huxian wasn’t sure if he was attacking or digging a fox burrow.

Lord Boneshift couldn’t even fight back. This was because of Huxian’s fused energy. It resonated with his bloodline, bringing it to a whole new level and preventing Lord Boneshift from using half his strength. The powerful Lord Boneshift was facing off against a group of weaker demons and facing bloodline suppression.

Three seconds was all they had. Their energy was far too draining. But it was more than enough, and by the end of the second, they smashed into a hard gem and forced it out of the badger lord’s body.

Huxian caught the gem as their temporary fusion ended, expelling them all into the material world. Lord Boneshift fell to the ground, dead. Huxian casually tossed the valuable treasure to Mr. Mountain, who popped it into his mouth and began absorbing Lord Boneshift’s bloodline.

Mr. Mountain’s demon armor began to shift and transform. His skin toughened and his aura rose until Huxian finally felt a loosening on Mr. Mountain’s person, a breaking of bloodline shackles. His bloodline swiftly and easily broke through from lord grade to prince grade.

“It’s over,” Huxian said. “We won.” The challenge dome broke apart. All that was left of Lord Boneshift was rapidly disappearing.

The demons of the land kneeled. That included Lord Boneshift’s people. With the completion of this ceremony, Huxian immediately reclaimed all their lost land, and even a small piece of the Sacred Kanara Desert.

Huxian looked over what remained of Lord Boneshift, then toward his second-in-command. “I have no idea what your name is, and I don’t care. Muster your troops because we need to get moving. Now.”

“Get moving?” the demon exclaimed.

“Yeah,” Huxian said. “Look, I’ll explain later, but you said you’d be loyal, so trust me for now, and we’ll all settle in. We have another war to fight in, and you’re joining us.”

“Sir!” the second-in-command said. He began marshalling his army, and Huxian’s own commanders began issuing orders.

A member of the Star-Eye Clan came running over. “When will you be able to mobilize? The situation in Verdant Crossroads is quite dire.”

“With such a big army? It’ll take a bit of time. But don’t worry, we’ll get there before the day is out. But first…” He took a step and stumbled to the ground, exhausted, and began to snore.

Gua prodded the fox demon with his foot. “You dead?”

“Five… no, ten… ten more minutes…” Huxian mumbled.

The six looked at each other in dismay.

“Is he always like this?” Lord Boneshift’s second-in-command asked.

Silverwing sighed. “Yeah, but you’ll get used to it. Anyway, just gather everyone, and we’ll head out once he’s ready. When he’s like this, there’s no waking him.”

***

War was sacrifice. War was pain. War was death. And Cha Ming, who’d once understood this so intimately, began to remember things he’d rather have forgotten.

Visions of the battles in the mortal realm began to surface, with countless millions dying by the day. Memories of the final battle against the Taotie began to nibble at the edges of his consciousness.

Humans and demons fell from the skies like plentiful droplets of fresh rain. And though blood could not flow in rivers on this land, it pooled where the earth was too saturated to drink it in.

The smell was nauseating. The heat was suffocating. And to Cha Ming, it was too much. He wanted to leave, but he could not, because he had a job to do: defend Clever Dusk.

“They’re coming,” Clever Dusk warned. The ten peak-investiture demons guarding her and Aaron closed ranks.

“Don’t worry about me,” Aaron said. His body faded, and he became invisible. “Standard skill for a strategist. Good luck.”

“Not so many this time,” Cha Ming said. “A hundred and twenty silver rankers against us twelve.”

“Eleven,” Clever Dusk said. “The greater battlefield needs my attention. It would be best if I don’t have to waste time dodging.”

“I’ve been feeling pretty useless during this war, so it’s about time I made a contribution.” He hefted the Clear Sky Staff over his shoulder in pillar form and flew out to greet their attackers. Cha Ming loathed fighting, but he’d seen too many friends die today. These unfortunate souls provided the perfect outlet.

The enemy group was mostly made up of swordsmen, with a few mixed in clerics and support-type wizards. The weakest among them were initial-silver rankers, and the strongest had reached peak silver.

The demons in the honor guard summoned their demon armor and demon weapons. Cha Ming activated his divine abilities, Crown of the Starry Sky, Golden Boots of the Clockwork Dragon, Claddings of Light, and Wrappings of Runic Binding. The four techniques manifested as four pieces of equipment that glowed with his unique signature.

He didn’t wait for them to approach. He hadn’t been trained to protect and only had experience in killing. He immediately used up a charge to execute what he liked to call Clockwork Blitz. His speed doubled, and before they reacted to the abrupt change, he broke through their defenses and entered their ranks.

Cha Ming swung the Clear Sky Staff about with nothing but pure, raw force. He needed to conserve energy as much as he could. Cha Ming was not the strongest demigod in existence, but at his level of strength, and with a weapon on the level of Clear Sky Staff, it was enough to cause space to tremble and shatter when he hit. He carved deep gouges in the enemy’s combat formation, separating them so that they became easy pickings for the honor guard.

“He’s just a human. Take him down!” one of the rankers shouted. Six of the stronger silver rankers in the group came at him with swords augmented by both blessing and spell.

At point-blank range, the Clear Sky Staff was an unwieldy weapon. Cha Ming had practiced for such situations before. He split the staff split in two and transformed it into a pair of wicked daggers. Each was a copy of the Clear Sky Dagger, weaker in this form but perfectly serviceable for this situation. The Runebound Arts also had many forms that could be used with daggers. Over a year of training came pouring out all at once.

Cha Ming didn’t limit himself to slashes and stabs. He punched, kicked, and used his elbows. He attacked using his entire body as a weapon. And while he avoided grappling, he made liberal use of his Wrappings of Runic Binding to trip up his enemies and throw them around as he fought.

Swords, axes, and spears hacked away at his body, but he caught most of them with his daggers, which immediately consumed and shattered these lesser artifacts. Others he blocked with the Wrappings of Runic Binding, and others still with his Golden Boots of the Clockwork Dragon.

Even so, it was impossible to block everything. He relied on Claddings of Light, which he’d infused into his battle robes, to block what they could. The rest cut into his demigod body, which regenerated within seconds.

Cha Ming blocked larger attacks like the fireball heading his way with crossed forearms. He activated Runebound Defense just as the fireball exploded. Aside from feeling a bit drained, he didn’t suffer much damage.

“He’s a demon! He has to be!” a cleric shouted. Then an actual demon from the honor guard appeared behind him wielding a vicious curved dagger and slit his throat. His death caused the rest of the silver-ranked group to collapse.

Cha Ming returned to his position as Clever Dusk’s guardian. He hadn’t expended much energy, but the group was slightly weaker, since they had lost three combatants during the exchange. Since he knew firsthand how draining combat during war could be, he immediately began to recover his energy as he scanned the battlefield, attempting to make sense of it.

So much sacrifice. So much pain. So much death.

Having now participated in the battle, he finally got a feel for the flow of it. His intuition kicked in, and finally, after trying for several days, he was able to make out a piece of the pattern despite the chaos of the battlefield.

They’re formations, Cha Ming reminded himself. They were formations before the battle started, and they still are. Our side is a formation, and so is theirs. They’re overlapping, and therefore, conflicting, fighting it out.

The warriors risking their lives were nothing but marionettes. Puppets with a central brain. Verdant Crossroads’s puppet was small but was made of premium materials, while Fendal’s army was large, multifarious, and devious.

Oster, their general, exerted his control through twenty or so generals and wielded gold rankers like a sword and silver rankers like a shield. On both sides, bronze rankers and initiation-realm demons were the body, because without them, the silver rankers lacked a foundation to act upon.

The war was simply both puppets fighting, trying to shave off pieces of the enemy’s body. Whether it was an arm or just a piece of armor, the damage would accumulate. The ultimate goal was to break their weapons or cut off their heads.

It was an impressive sight to behold. Impressive and humbling. Oster Fireblight and his generals and Aaron Shacklebolt, Clever Dusk, and Merenthal were fighting on a completely different level. They weren’t individually powerful, but they did so much because their every action affected so many people. A five percent increase to an army of a hundred thousand was just as effective, or even more effective, than directly contributing five thousand troops.

Leverage was also something Cha Ming understood as a craftsman. He might not be the strongest person here, but he had the ability to create equipment and empower other cultivators. So while he wasn’t a one-man army, he didn’t have to be. He could always build one.

Even so, the difference in scale was substantial. Cha Ming could only increase the power of a few thousand people, after all, and it took time and effort. This was amplifying the strength of over a million soldiers. This was instant implication. They took what Cha Ming could do and took it to a whole new level.

“Once again, I’m just not strong enough,” Cha Ming muttered to himself. “Only by getting stronger will I have a say.”

“No one is ever strong enough, Teacher,” Clever Dusk said, diverting some of her precious attention from the battlefield to console him. “Look at Elder Finleaf. She is mighty, but even she doesn’t fight alone.”

They hadn’t sent her out to crush the enemy army. They’d held her back until there were bronze and silver rankers and even gold rankers on the battlefield, because only then would she have the best impact. Only then would she have adequate protection.

Sending her against an entire army was suicide.

Clever Dusk’s words were thought provoking. They made Cha Ming wonder about what power he could be utilizing but wasn’t. If even someone like Elder Finleaf leveraged the power of weaker fighters, shouldn’t he? While was technically fighting in this location, he wasn’t really participating.

Likewise, he wasn’t utilizing all his strength. Recently, his qi cultivation had fallen behind his body cultivation, so he’d ignored it outside his domains. But was this a mistake? Did these powers have other uses? Could he graduate from being a meat shield or brute and contribute to the actual battle for once instead of diving in and hitting things?

Maybe, just maybe, he could try using his Daoist talents to help others.

He had no illusions. He was no Clever Dusk or Aaron Shacklebolt. But that didn’t mean he was useless. He had a wide domain and a bag full of tricks. Perhaps it was possible to alleviate some pressure here and there. And since he could now feel the flow of battle to a lesser extent, perhaps he could find those places where opportunities lay. Places that required very little effort to achieve a much greater result for the entire army.

Cha Ming had keen eyes and powerful spiritual senses. His domain was also ten kilometers wide, so even in this chaotic environment, he could still expand a few kilometers. Drawing in energy was just one function of a domain, after all.

He continued to use the formation analogy. If the battlefield was a conflict between two overlapping formations, individual battles were places where energy conflicted and formation lines and nodes tried to push and establish themselves and eliminate opposing lines and nodes. The source of everything, in the end, was energy. There would be places where energy had accumulated and wanted to erupt, and there would be places where energy was spent and needed help accumulating.

There. He found a small-scale skirmish between silver-ranked equivalents half a kilometer away. A group of ten investiture-realm demons were trying to break through the defenses of fifty silver rankers, but every time, the silver rankers managed to defend, albeit barely.

Let’s go with a Gale Speed Talisman,Cha Ming thought. And maybe a fireball-type talisman. Three runes appeared above Cha Ming’s head to aid him in shaping creation and elemental qi in the area. He used his energy reserves to supplement.

The two talismans took shape in seconds. The group of demons suddenly experienced a ten percent increase in speed, and the silver rankers were struck behind by a fireball.

The ten tore into the fifty, and all that potential that hadn’t been able to break through was finally released. It had only taken a bit of Cha Ming’s energy reserves, and only a few seconds. But already, Cha Ming had done much better than he had trying to take down a hundred and twenty silver rankers on his own.

He continued to look for opportunities. Two kilometers away, he found a group of inexperienced Painted Daoists in full retreat. They weren’t quite fast enough to evade their pursuers, so they’d decided to dig in their heels. They needed time for reinforcements to arrive.

Arrows rained down on their group, and they used their domains and flying swords and the single Daoist technique they’d learned to fend them off. But it wasn’t enough. This single wave would take them down. Yet when the arrows landed, they realized that an earthen shell had appeared between them and their opponents, intercepting a good half of the arrows. While this wasn’t enough to save their entire team, it gave them the extra few seconds they needed for reinforcements to arrive. A wave of initiation-realm demons swept in, and together, they overcame their joint enemy.

Twice, he’d interfered, and twice, he’d managed to evoke small changes on the battlefield with devastating effect. Once was luck. Twice a coincidence. Perhaps a third time was possible?

Excited by his newfound powers, Cha Ming began to chase after possibilities. And little by little, the battlefield began to change.

***

Two hours later, Cha Ming was completely drained. Interfering with other battles, though very efficiently in terms of qi, added up when you interfered with enough of them.

He popped what might have been his twentieth recovery pill and loaded his core with yet another wave of impure qi, then looked for his next opportunity.

He didn’t find one. There were fewer and fewer openings. The enemy generals had discovered his tampering and adapted by using tighter formations and safer tactics.

But that didn’t discourage him. The fact that he alone could force them to change their tactics and limit their freedom was quite the compliment, and his participation, though ineffective on paper, bought Verdant Crossroads better opportunities elsewhere.

This naturally left Cha Ming with little to do. Aside from the occasional interference to reassert his presence, he had a lot of free time. Since he was low on qi, he recovered, but he never ceased to analyze the battlefield.

Both Clever Dusk and Aaron probably had skills that they could use in such situations. Clever Dusk could use sonic attacks, pull strings to influence trajectories, manipulate the terrain, and trigger traps, for example. Cha Ming was far less flexible in comparison.

Still, he never gave up. He continued watching.

He especially watched Aaron and how he interacted with the battlefield. There were similarities to how they both acted. While Clever Dusk was big on setting up larger plays, Aaron was efficient and shored up small weaknesses that accumulated and provided small boosts where required.

Cha Ming had talismans, and Aaron had skills. The strategist had a few powerful skills but mostly used his analytical skills and lower-level skills to intervene. But he was better, faster, and stronger that Cha Ming. He also had many more useful abilities.

Cha Ming wondered if it was his ability to read the battlefield that was lacking or if it was his mastery over his abilities that were lacking. He had very little experience supporting a battlefield.

He wondered how he could do more, until finally, he received another hint of inspiration.

I can see their techniques as they form, Cha Ming realized. Most people aren’t formation artists. Most people don’t have eyes like mine. Since they’re formation abilities, they’re straightforward. They’re also slow.

If this were a classroom, he would walk around, pointing out the many mistakes in their formations and give them instructions on how to improve. Likewise, if this were a formation battle, he would go around poking holes in the enemy’s shoddy formations. One person executing a formation was very different than a hundred or a thousand doing so. The more people that were involved, the slower the process, and the more severe the weakness.

Then he realized that while this wasn’t a classroom, he could still guide and help them. If he used multiple clones to craft an assembly line, couldn’t he participate in their individual formations?

I could do like the Titan Clan does and outsource smaller parts and aid in completing the finished product, Cha Ming thought. Or like Drezil and the other inkborn, pooling their talents. Individually, their talents are mediocre, but together, they can build entire armies.

Cha Ming was quite new at this, and he knew that interfering without knowledge or practice could cost lives. So he focused on lower-level and smaller-scale battles and picked out easier formations to manipulate, those based on the five elements.

Painted Daoists were the best place to start. Not only were their powers easy to understand, but they were inexperienced and made the most mistakes. Frankly, it was amazing they could do anything at all. But he supposed they were able to manage since they’d once been martial artists or rankers. They also had the leadership and guidance of more experienced rune-carving cultivators.

This formation is mostly complete, but they’re having trouble bringing it together. I wonder what would happen if I channeled the Concepts of Assembly, Mending, and Accumulation and used a small amount of creation qi to bring things together? If he could fix broken things or create complete items with words, couldn’t he do the same here as well?

The battle was relatively far away—three full kilometers—but such a small action wouldn’t require much energy to begin with. He reached out and forced a Flame Serpent Formation attack, which would take just three more seconds to activate, given the current situation, and to fuse together more quickly. Lines that were struggling to snap together suddenly locked in place, and the technique instantly sucked the required energy from the individuals in the group. Their opponents, a small team of wizards, did not expect them to complete their attack so quickly, and as such weren’t able to block the technique in time.

It was a smashing success. More importantly, this wasn’t something that could be stopped by tightening the battlefield. Cha Ming began to pick up one opportunity after another, and Clever Dusk and Aaron Shacklebolt, seeing his efforts, began to adjust their strategy accordingly.

Their opponent naturally noticed this as well, but Verdant Crossroads had the advantage of being on the defensive. The battlefield was therefore forced into a new status quo, one less favorable to Fendal’s army.

“You’re doing great, Clear Sky!” Aaron said. “Keep it up. Don’t worry about physical confrontations, you’re far much more useful here.”

Cha Ming agreed, so he continued to hunt for opportunities. Having experienced counters to his abilities in the past, however, he kept looking for other ways in which he could contribute.

An hour later, he found it.

***

Casius was a pious believer. He’d gone to church regularly all his life and had even worked for the church as a guardsman for thirty years.

He’d always believed the Church of Jezeriah to be an everlasting bastion against forces of evil. As long as the church was there, their community would never have to worry, which was why he was especially incensed when they received the order to evacuate.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. This was their home. Why would they need to retreat? He and a few others though the same way, so they stayed, keeping faith in Jezeriah. Even so, they felt abandoned by her church.

These rankers did not change to the Path of the Painted Daoist. Abandoning their home and defying the church was one thing, but abandoning their faith was another. He and his squad were part of the few human rankers who fought with the demons of Verdant Crossroads, and for that, they had no regrets.

Casius was a silver ranker. What remained of the guards was enough to form a single fifty-man unit. The technique they utilized was Sword of Indignation, which was unique to rankers of Jezeriah that allowed them to materialize a golden blade that would attack the enemy with Jezeriah’s wrath.

“They’re just too tough a nut to crack!” Jordan, his second-in-command, said. “We keep hitting the evil bastards, but they shrug it off! We should find another target.”

“No,” Cassius said. “If we pull back now, this position will be compromised, and other groups will be in danger. While I understand that you wish to defeat them, locking them down is good enough. We aren’t here to be heroes. We’re here to hold the line.”

“I just want to put a bunch of them in the dirt,” Jordan growled. “Fendal bastards. Daring to attack our home.”

“I understand the sentiment,” Casius said. “And if you’re unsatisfied, then see if you can pour a bit more into the formation. Maybe we’ll punch through.”

Yet they both knew that without a priest present, it was useless. This was a formation of the Church, and it was best used with its support.

Even so, they continued pouring their grief into the formation, weeping at the unfairness of it all. They were just guardsmen, people who kept thieves and terrorists out of the church and sometimes did rounds in the Mendin quarters of the city to keep order. Why did Fendal have to invade? And why did their church abandon them? Why, why, why? This thought and others ran through their heads, and with each passing second, their rage built.

Even so, it made no difference. All the grief and indignation they poured in had no channel without a priest to complete that last step. But they continued, pleading to Jezeriah, hoping that their prayers would be heard. And suddenly, something changed.

Their formation came together a bit more smoothly than usual and pulled out their energy just a little bit quicker. But that wasn’t all that happened. A familiar feeling bubbled up inside them, and they soon realized what it was. “A blessing! A blessing of Jezeriah!”

The formation, which normally required a priest to activate to its utmost potential, triggered anyway. It drew on their rage and their pain. An iridescent sheen appeared on the Sword of Indignation, granting it a slightly sharper edge.

“Let’s destroy those Fendal bastards!” Casius shouted, aiming the sword. His voice was joined by those of his squad. The sword cut into the group of pikemen that had been pressuring them, bypassing their defenses, and when the dust cleared, only a scattered pike formation remained.

“We did it!” Jordan said. “Charge!”

“No! Consolidate!” Casius said. “Those are Strategist Shacklebolt’s new orders.” He did not question why the formation’s blessing felt a little bit off, or why its coloring was strange. They’d asked for Jezeriah’s blessing, and she was known to work in mysterious ways.

***

“They’ve somehow gained another tactician,” Oster Fireblight muttered darkly. “But where did he come from? Where is he?”

“The amplitude of the battlefield changes indicates that the source is not far away from Aaron Shacklebolt and Clever Dusk,” Montague answered.

“The addition of an extra tactician is most unwelcome at this crucial juncture,” Aldrich said. “The losses we’ve suffered so far are already bad enough. We can’t let this new arrival have their way.”

Oster looked over the battlefield with cold eyes before finally coming to a decision. “Let’s move our command center closer so we can better adapt,” he finally said. “Also, prepare for a decapitation maneuver at the earliest convenience.”

“That’s extremely risky,” Montague said. “We tried it once and lost many of our gold rankers.”

“I am aware,” Oster replied. “But sometimes, you need to gamble to achieve the best results. Make your preparations. We move within the hour.”

“Sir!” his generals replied. They began to plot and prepare, and as they did so, Oster’s eyes roamed the battlefield. Eventually, they found the source of his irritation in the form of a cross-legged Daoist.

“Karmic anomalies,” Oster spat. “If I don’t nip you in the bud, I’ll never rest easy. Otherwise, you’ll become another Petros, stabbing me in the rear whenever I least expect it.”

***

Petros Sullivan was not a fan of war. He never sought it out specifically, but it always seemed to drag him in. That was why he’d relocated to the Shanarah Mountain Range, which, in the theory, should have been a peaceful place.

Alas, fate had toyed with him, and he’d quickly found himself surrounded by a group of gold rankers led by Augustus March, a rather famous adventurer of late.

He wasn’t sure how it ended up that way, but now he was participating in a demon-on-demon war. And boy, was it violent.

“That Lord Eight Directions is pretty interesting,” Petros said to Augustus.

“Isn’t he?” Augustus said. “We’ve been following him around for the past year and a half or so and haven’t regretted it.

“I can’t remember us ever being so flush with cash,” the archer called Hectval said. “It definitely beats scrounging around for adventures or managing stupid outposts like we did for three years.”

“But it paid off,” Augustus said.

“What?” Hectval said. “How did that pay off?”

“If we hadn’t taken the management job, we’d never have found the fox,” Augustus said.

“Whatever,” Petros said. “Now that we’re done, do I finally get to rest?”

“Yes and no,” Augustus said. “I’ve heard that Lord Eight Directions has a human companion, and we’ll be rushing out to assist him.”

It was only then that everything clicked. “Wait a minute. Isn’t his human companion Daoist Clear Sky?”

“You know him?” Augustus said.

Petros shook his head at the coincidence. He wasn’t surprised, though. He’d grown used to it. As a karmic anomaly, it was easy to find yourself running into one or two of them.

“Verdant Crossroads,” Petros muttered. “I wanted to avoid it, yet here we are.” It was hard to refuse Augustus, especially after that run-in with him ten years ago, where he’d tried kill-stealing from their group and been taught a painful lesson. “Wait a minute, isn’t that where Oster is?” He groaned. “No. Not again.”

“History?” Augustus asked.

“Like you wouldn’t imagine,” Petros said. At this point, it was more than history. It was a vendetta. Every time he ran into Oster, it ended badly for both of them. He would end up thwarting Oster by making it impossible for him to constantly carry out orders, but doing so cost would him a fortune in consumables.

Of course, it was wishful thinking on his part that things would remain this simple. One of his abilities triggered for the first time in about a week or so, and he reached for the karmic thread it supplied and frowned. “So, she wasn’t done after all. I wonder what she’ll be stealing next.”