PtM Book 14 - Chapter 48: Savagery (2)

Two chapters today ^^

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Cha Ming, Yu Wen, Xiao Bai, and Bloodfur were currently seated cross-legged on a comfortable cloud. They had been there for the past hour, despite the tense war situation down below. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to do anything, but that the aged Daoist sipping tea in front of them wouldn’t allow it.

If it were only that, perhaps Cha Ming would feel a little less agitated. But of all things, the old Daoist was lecturing. Cha Ming hated lectures.

“And that’s why in the rune-gathering realm, even the same runes will have different qualities, and can be mixed in different ways during the law-stitching realm,” Daoist Stormwind said. “That’s why you must take care with your foundations. Any flaws ignored in the rune-gathering stage will be revealed mid-breakthrough, causing one to fail in stitching a law and forever be unable to advance, just like I did many centuries ago.”

It wasn’t that Cha Ming wasn’t learning. Daoist Stormwind was a veritable fount of experience. It was just that going through university and even completing a masters in his past lifetime had completely jaded him to the idea of lectures. Moreover, lecturing was completely inappropriate given the situation down below.

“Sir?” Cha Ming said.

“You have doubts, young man?” Daoist Stormwind asked. He nodded sagely. “Which part confused you? I will go over it in more detail.”

“It’s just that… well… aren’t we supposed to be preparing for a raid?” Cha Ming asked.

“Oh, that,” Daoist Stormwind said. “Yes… I’ve already prepared. Why waste perfectly good time?”

“Well… I was hoping to know exactly what the plan was and how I could contribute to it,” Cha Ming said. He looked to Bloodfur for confirmation. The demon was equally exasperated, but completely outmatched by the old man.

“Impatient youths…” Daoist Stormwind muttered. “Well, I suppose its about time anyway. If you had finished listening to the entire lecture, we would have naturally dovetailed into the topic, but if you insist…” He flicked his sleeve and created a tear in space without use of a weapon. “As I was saying before, the Law-Stitching Realm is where cultivators use their runes to formulate laws, which they can use to control their surroundings even without utilizing things like qi. Such influence cannot be considered a mere domain, because within the area of influence, even planar laws are superseded temporarily. In effect, the Daoist’s laws become the natural laws, and immortality is achieved when the level of these laws surpasses those of the realm, making coexistence impossible.”

Cha Ming tried to open his mouth to interrupt but found that he could not. It was as though his mouth was impossible to open, or at least it was in this region.

“Law control,” Daoist Stormwind said with a smile. “Very important. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, laws. Laws have many uses. For one, they enable us to restrain lesser cultivators without even touching them, making high-level Daoists particularly powerful. Traveling the void therefore becomes quite easy, since it becomes possible to assert the non-existence of spatial particles or at least deflect or move them around.

“A lesser-known ability, however, is the ability to create spatial pockets akin to spatial rings. Control over the natural laws grants the ability to manipulate and fold space to a lesser extent. So, if you’re really skilled, or you’ve had three centuries to play around with spatial pockets, you might be able to do something like this.”

Daoist Stormwind flicked his sleeve again, and the rift expanded to reveal another pocket of reality where people existed. Specifically, an army of a hundred thousand Daoists ready for battle.

Cha Ming’s jaw dropped. So did Bloodfur’s. Even Yu Wen and Xiao Bai seemed impressed. “I didn’t realize that you were so committed to the defense of Verdant Crossroads,” Cha Ming said.

“I wasn’t yesterday, but I think it’s become quite clear that any friend of yours should be a friend of mine,” Daoist Stormwind said. Of the hundred thousand, ten were middle-law-stitching cultivators, twenty were early-law-stitching Daoists, and seventy were initial-law-stitching Daoists. In other words, there were twice as many law-stitching cultivators than originally promised, and a good number of them were much stronger than he’d suggested. That wasn’t even counting the ten thousand rune-gathering Daoists and the ninety thousand rune-carving Daoists.

No, not just rune-carving Daoists, Cha Ming realized. Sixty percent of them are actually Painted Daoists.

“I’m not sure if it’s the wisest idea to bring so many Painted Daoists on this excursion,” Bloodfur said, noticing the same thing. “Their abilities are new, so they might be more of a liability than anything else.”

“They are quick learners, and each of them was a trained martial artist in service of our Daoist sects prior to their ascension,” Daoist Stormwind said. “They received our warnings of change to come and prepared themselves accordingly. I have issued each of them a flying sword and a set of protective robes, equipment normally reserved for full rune-carving Daoists. They have received equal treatment to their rune-carving brethren in every aspect, and I guarantee you that they will not disappoint.”

“This isn’t just a raid anymore …” Cha Ming muttered.

“We are attacking on two fronts,” Daoist Stormwind said, seeing his confusion. “My plan is for you to open two gates: one large gate to transfer this army, and a smaller one for your covert forces while we distract the enemy. Do not concern yourself with our retreat. We can take care of ourselves.

“The back lines will naturally be even more undefended, so there will be no problem executing a successful raid. I have been told the enemy strategist values wealth, so hit him where it hurts. Any questions?”

They had none.

Now was not the time to execute the operation, so they continued waiting in their hiding place among the clouds. As predicted in the earlier meeting, half of the enemy army had split off from the main group to advance on the city. They were methodical in their advance, and Cha Ming could see from the way they moved that they were surrounding certain points.

Isn’t that… Before he could send a warning to Clever Dusk, all hell broke lose. Fendal’s army took out hundreds of small spikes, which they stabbed in the air next to the nodes that Cha Ming recognized as nodes in the Starry Road Network.

Hundreds of thousands of demons were suddenly forced out of the void and into the material realm. Not only were they outnumbered, but they were surrounded by the enemy. This group contained about twenty percent of Verdant Crossroads’s army, most of them civilians.

Gold rankers appeared in the skies, forcing Clever Dusk to act. She pulled a string, and a door opened, revealing a thousand bow-wielding demons with loaded God-Slaying Arrows. The gold rankers, seeing this elite squad, pulled back and scattered.

The enemy seemed to expect this. The moment the God-Slaying Battalion appeared, several waves of elemental attacks flew in from the enemy arcane teams. Thousands of fireballs, glacial blasts, and lightning bolts flew in from all sides.

The God-Slaying Battalion naturally had its own protectors. Groups consisting of thousands of investiture-realm demons crawled out of the woodwork and executed dozens of joint demonic defensive techniques. They soaked up the attacks with earth and metal and even their own bodies, freeing up the God-Slaying Battalion to threaten the gold rankers once again.

Hundreds of thousands of demons were trapped. Clever Dusk and Aaron had no choice but to redirect forces from other parts of the Starry Road Network. They poured out from a short distance away but closed the distance abnormally quickly thanks to Aaron’s mobility skills.

These reinforcements leapt onto the enemy and began to attack with unrestrained savagery. Their message was quite clear: You’re going to encircle and kill the entire group? Fine. We’ll take you down with us. If you even dare pay attention to them, we’ll tear you apart limb from limb!

Fusion-realm demons also joined the fray. Dozens of fusion transformations occurred in a manner of seconds, and massive armored animals crashed into the invading human army. Many tactics that had yet to surface now came into play. Poisonous gases were launched into the crowded human army, these poisons much more potent than before. It was clear that the earlier variety had been a distraction.

Members of the Runebound and Badger Clans also chose this moment to make their move. Large trenches of earth collapsed as tunnels that had been excavated so far beneath the earth that geomancers couldn’t find them triggered. This had no effect on silver rankers, who could fly, but the enemy’s bronze rankers were suddenly caught in a death trap.

Over two hundred thousand buried alive in an instant. Large batches of silver rankers lost their support. Unfortunately, even this was not enough to free the trapped demons, and demons did not abandon.

Elder Finleaf chose this time to make her move. She was no ordinary middle-fusion-realm demon and had the greatest compatibility with the Tree of Life after the Verdant Thread Seer.

As such, her fusion transformation was abnormal. Energy from over half the land in what was now being referred to as Verdant Country rushed into her. Her Star-Eye Monkey form was much larger than normal, and her armor and weapons much stronger. Her stone staff became as thick as ten tree trunks, and the runes on it glowed with blinding starlight.

Gold rankers were nothing before her, and any unfortunate enough to run into the staff were crushed like bugs. There was only one thing to do in such a situation: evade!

The enemy army was forced to mobilize their gold rankers to contain her, and for such a powerful demon, it would take the equivalent of ten late-gold rankers to do so. There was only one way to take down a demon of such caliber, and that was to wear her down until her energy ran out.

This naturally made Clever Dusk, who’d also appeared to save the retreating demons, a prime target. Cha Ming ground his teeth and looked to Daoist Stormwind for permission to descend and reinforce her.

“Calm yourself,” the old Daoist said. “This is also part of the plan.” As he said this, a group of two hundred rankers broke off and executed a combination attack. They poured every ounce of energy they could into it, knowing that if they managed to break through Clever Dusk’s defenses and kill her, the battle was as good as won.

They were almost done charging their attack and preparing to unleash it when the unimaginable happened. A blast of starlight descended upon the entire group, stunning them, and freezing them in place.

That was when Aaron Shacklebolt moved in for the kill. He issued quick orders and activated mobilization skills.

For three whole seconds, the gold rankers couldn’t move, which made them perfect targets for a very important battalion. “Loose!” Aaron Shacklebolt shouted. “Amplified Volley! Shield Piercer! Rapid Fire!” A thousand God-Slaying Arrows flew past the hastily erected shields of the few early- and middle-gold rankers that managed to escape the stun effect.

The results were devastating for Fendal. Half the gold rankers were instantly killed, and the remaining half were wounded.

Then the battlefield shifted. The God-Slaying Battalion, having loosed their arrows, became less important. The enemy gold rankers, no longer worried about grouping up, joined together in larger formations. One such formation directly attacked Clever Dusk and converged on her location.

“Do any of you have a way to help her?” Cha Ming asked Bloodfur and Daoist Stormwind.

“No need,” Bloodfur said.

“She clearly has a plan,” Daoist Stormwind said.

That was when Cha Ming noticed that the God-Slaying Battalion had not retreated. No, they were nocking another round of God-Slaying Arrows.

“It looks like they weren’t lying when they said they had at least a thousand arrows,” Cha Ming said. “I just didn’t realize it would be more than a single thousand.”

“From what I’ve been told, the Titan Clan’s production speed picked up after they migrated,” Bloodfur said. “They’d also keep that sort of thing for personal defense. Damn shame, using such expensive arrows like they’re normal arrows, but then again, this is war.”

The God-Slaying Battalion did not get another opportunity, since the enemy commander immediately called a retreat. They wrapped around the surviving gold rankers and began to pull back. Of course, this was easier said than done. Demons might not have walls, but this was their home.

Trap after trap exploded, and the demon army transformed. Not physically, but in temperament. Initiation-realm demons did not lack intelligence compared to humans, but there was something bestial lurking within their blood.

Even the tamest, most civilized demons had it, regardless of whether they were armored investiture-realm champions or the weakest rank-and-file demons that could barely summon a demon weapon.

That thing was savagery, and when the call for battle was issued, they charged in without hesitation. By now, the demons that had been encircled were mostly gone, and only ten thousand remained. Even so, they could save the rest, and more importantly, make the enemy pay a price in blood. Only if they wounded the enemy severely enough would they ever learn the danger of provoking demons.

Tailors and receptionists tore bronze-ranked soldiers limb from limb. Cooks and waiters mowed down battle-hardened veterans, causing those behind them to shiver with fear. Some demons even abandoned a portion of their humanity, adopting more bestial forms to better pierce through armor or bite through throats or gouge out eyes.

Savage. This was what demons were. They weren’t docile like humans, who couldn’t defend themselves unless they learned tricks. Some demons could even fight immediately after birth, and most could fight by the time they were two or three.

Clever Dusk was also a demon, and though she was a commander, she clearly felt every death on the battlefield. And it was equally clear that she took them personally. These were her clansmen. Her friends. This was her city, and these were invaders.

She moved her hands and grabbed at invisible strings and pulled. Thanks to his keen eyes, Cha Ming saw the energy pattern pervading the entire city twist. Something adjacent to Huxian’s spatial kingdom shifted, and Cha Ming realized it was the Starry Road Network. It wriggled free from its restrictions and began wrapping around the retreating army.

The enemy was routed. Should Oster Fireblight do nothing, he would suffer severe casualties. His second army mobilized within seconds and began moving toward their retreating soldiers.

“Now’s the perfect time,” Daoist Stormwind said. “Let’s go.”

Cha Ming opened a tear in space and stabilized it by pouring a small hill of high-grade inkwell jades into a basic formation. The hundred thousand Daoists flew into the rift and into the void.

Physical distance didn’t translate well between the void and the physical realm, and neither did vertical height. A single step in void space might take you a thousand elsewhere, but it could be as little as five hundred or as many as five thousand.

They were greeted by a dozen void specter guards who noted their intrusion, but upon seeing Cha Ming, these guards saluted them, then went their merry way.

“This is surreal,” Elder Stormwind said. It was clear that his impression of Cha Ming was growing by the second.

Traveling through the void was a quick endeavor. It only took about a minute for the sword-mounted Daoists to get into position.

“I can bring you into battle but can’t pull you out,” Cha Ming said. “Are you sure about this?”

“Just focus on your own mission,” Elder Stormwind said. “We’re mobile. We’ll be fine. Daoists?”

“Sir!” they called out.

“Are you ready to bleed out some rankers?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Are you ready to kill?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Are you ready to fight to the end?”

“Yes, sir!” Their enthusiasm was breathtaking.

Cha Ming’s gut clenched as he realized that Daoist Stormwind’s words greatly underplayed the risks he was taking. He would not see many of these brave Daoists again.

But this was war, so he opened a large portal. The hundred law-stitching experts charged out first, clashing with Oster’s second army, who was moving in to reinforce the fleeing one. This opened up a gap in their defenses, and the hundred-thousand-man army poured out behind them.

“See you when you get back,” Daoist Stormwind said, charging in after them. Frost-white plates of armor appeared on his battle robes. He threw out a sword that was three feet wide and twenty feet long that lashed out at a group of enemy powerhouses.

This was Cha Ming’s first time seeing a late-law-stitching expert do battle, and it was every bit as impressive as he had imagined. Where the Daoist and the sword passed, a storm appeared. Lightning and wind crashed down on his enemies from clouds that appeared above, below, and adjacent, ever shifting and ever changing.

It was just like the elder Daoist had been telling him: In the law-stitching realm, one created their own laws, their own heaven. Within his law projection, Daoist Stormwind was unmatched.

The hundred thousand Daoists, buoyed by the display of power, charged in after him, each on their own personal flying swords. The enemy had not been expecting a large-scale assault on their flanks, much less an entire army wielding ranged weaponry, so the attack was as vicious as it was effective.

“For glory!” Daoist Stormwind shouted. Together, they crashed into the enemy army, who buckled and stalled at the interruption.

Yu Wen placed her hand on Cha Ming’s arm. “We need to go.”

“Quickly, before they realize what’s happening,” Bloodfur said.

Cha Ming nodded, then reluctantly looked away from the battlefield. They had a job to do, and they couldn’t let these brave Daoists sacrifice their lives for nothing.

***

With the help of various artifacts and techniques to obscure their presence and karma, the silent army appeared well behind the enemy battle lines. Bloodfur’s terrain-manipulation abilities were especially useful, as they dampened the ripples from Cha Ming’s spatial portal when it opened.

“We return in an hour,” Bloodfur said to the dozens of members of their team of saboteurs, assassins, and arsonists. “Split up according to how we discussed. Prioritize stealing and destroying important resources, followed by the assassination of important officers, and then the elimination of key personnel.”

Bloodfur, as an initial-fusion-realm inkborn, was the strongest in their group. He moved alone and unimpeded.

The rest of them were either late- or peak-investiture demons or Daoists. They split into groups, and Cha Ming, Yu Wen, and Xiao Bai moved together.

“So where to?” Cha Ming asked. “I’m a bit of a novice at thieving operations.”

“In order, I’d say the medical tent, the quartermaster, and then the recovery formation,” Yu Wen said.

“I don’t see how we’ll be able to just waltz in and take things,” Cha Ming said. “Wouldn’t they just keep everything in storage rings?”

“You can’t just keep everything in storage rings, because goods have to change hands,” Yu Wen explained. “Different doctors have different needs, and you can’t just go requisitioning things from the quartermaster all the time. Therefore, everything but the most potent of medicines will be kept here. Or at least a significant portion of them will.”

They found the medical tents quite quickly. Thanks to their cloaks, the doctors and medics barely noticed them when they entered. They easily snuck past the meager sentries posted in the supply tent at the back, where they discovered several dozen chests and large drawers.

At this moment, a tent flap moved. They reached for their weapons, only to discover that the newcomer was a young doctor who’d barely reached silver rank. He looked at them in confusion and horror but did not pull out a weapon.

The three of them exchanged glances and came to a silent agreement. Their mission might involve eliminating people like doctors, but that would leave a bad taste in their mouth.

Yu Wen sent out a stream of gray mist that wrapped around the doctor’s mouth and arms and legs. The doctor dropped to the ground, where he wriggled but didn’t make too much sound. “I’m fine with killing a cultivator who attacks me, but a doctor? Do we just tie him up?”

“We need to do something about him, otherwise he’ll just treat our wounded enemies,” Cha Min muttered. He was quite torn about the situation. Fortunately, an idea came to mind. “I’ve got it!” He summoned a portal to the Clear Sky World and tried to push the doctor in. The realm resisted, of course, but with every new cultivator he introduced, the realm seemed to care less about such intrusions, especially since its mysterious transformation.

It took some doing, but he managed to send the doctor into the Clear Sky World without any issues. Yu Wen’s and Xiao Bai’s jaw dropped.

“What?” Cha Ming said. “If they’re offering terms of surrender and indentures and buyouts, I don’t see why we can’t do the same. Doctors are useful. Let’s take them as prisoners of war. We’ll make them treat our people first, and then when the war is over, we’ll sell them back to their country.”

“I like the way you think!” Yu Wen said. “But I’m more concerned about these trunks.” Spatial trunks and drawers were not like spatial rings. They were heavy and could hold many more things. You couldn’t just shove them into spatial rings because that would likely create an explosion that would tear a rift in the void and destroy everything inside both artifacts. Normally, one would need to empty everything out into their own storage treasures and destroy what they couldn’t take.

For Cha Ming, this was far too wasteful. He summoned a portal and directly shoved the medical cabinet inside it. He then proceeded to toss storage chests into it just like he had the doctor.

“In theory, realm treasures are supposed to be able to accommodate storage treasures, but that cabinet was a law-stitching artifact…” Yu Wen said.

Cha Ming shrugged. “It seems its fine as long as the treasure is a lower grade than the brush.”

“That’s so broken,” Xiao Bai said, though she immediately started throwing more things into the open portal. There were medicinal pills, herbs, salves, and odds and ends like acupuncture needles and bandages.

They captured three curious doctors during that time, who they pacified in the same way and sent into an isolated part of the Clear Sky World. And since there was no sense in not doing it, they proceeded to capture all the doctors in the medical tent and took the wounded while they were at it. And since these new captives were wounded, he created a new medical ward inside the Clear Sky World. It was sterile—much more so than anything else that could be found.

There were naturally limits to this ability. For one, he couldn’t take in anyone too powerful. He definitely couldn’t send in a gold ranker, or anyone past late-silver rank. Unwilling captives were especially difficult to take. Coercion and an offer for future ransom was enough to convince most of them to surrender, but many refused, and the Clear Sky World wouldn’t budge.

This left Cha Ming with a difficult choice. Personally, he wanted to tie them up and leave them, and Yu Wen was going to let him. But Xiao Bai went ahead and mercilessly executed the most vocal and most powerful of these people. The rest immediately fell in line and practically begged Cha Ming to take them prisoners.

Overall, the raid on the medical tent was a great success.

Since they’d raided so quickly and efficiently, they still had time to head deeper into the camp. They found it much emptier than before, indicating that Bloodfur and his team of infiltrators had already been here.

“Who goes there?” an officer shouted as they ran past a tent. The three of them immediately constrained him, threatened him, and soon, he was obediently shoved into the Clear Sky World.

“Profits,” Yu Wen said, rubbing her hands expectantly. “Delicious, delicious profits.” Every captive was a potential ransom.

Time was short, so they did not linger for such small fish. Energy fluctuations indicated that a small-scale battle was taking place near the command tents, so they avoided the area in favor of causing more damage.

They soon arrived at the largest tent in the encampment. Cha Ming’s eyes pierced through the tent’s walls to reveal hundreds of soldiers recovering in a formation. There was a supply tent at the back containing several more storage chests. A group of soldiers ran back and forth between this tent and the center of the formation, replenishing mid- and high-quality inkwell jades.

“It’s a recovery formation,” Cha Ming confirmed.

“It can take cultivator several hours to replenish their energy normally,” Yu Wen said. “Having a large recovery formation makes sense, since it keeps officers in tip-top shape.”

Cha Ming’s eyes narrowed. “You mean that tent is filled with officers?” Not only was it a lucrative target, it was filled with dangerous cultivators.

“I understand your wanting to strike at a juicy target, but that would be unwise,” Yu Wen said. “Our team has been told to prioritize financial damage over assassinations. I can sense a few weak gold rankers in that tent, so if we alert them, it won’t go well.”

“So you’re saying we should just steal their inkwell jade stores?” Cha Ming asked.

“It’s quick and easy,” Xiao Bai said. “Totally safe.”

Cha Ming frowned. “We should be able to do a bit more than that.”

Yu Wen hesitated, but Cha Ming’s next words sealed the deal.

“I’ll destroy the formation, and that will double up as a distraction. We’ll use the confusion to escape and join up with Bloodfur.”

Inkwell jades were much easier to steal than other things. They were kept in six large cabinets at the back. Unfortunately, retrieving them wouldn’t be easy due to the heavy guard and the constant back-and-forth movement of soldiers.

Yu Wen and Xiao Bai positioned themselves to infiltrate and steal these stores, and Cha Ming prepared a nasty surprise in the form of hundreds of alchemical plants growing in the Clear Sky World, which he harvested then and combined in a rough fashion before forming a sphere as wide as he was tall.

Bloodfur, how are you doing?Cha Ming asked.

Fighting, be quick,Bloodfur answered.

I’m going to do something soon,Cha Ming sent. Prepare to pull out. He did not elaborate further before sending an incarnation over the large tent and releasing the glob of alchemical reagents from the Clear Sky World. He then had the incarnation retreat.

An explosion of pink mist filled the tent, and for a few tense seconds, Cha Ming wondered if he’d succeeded. His concerns were allayed when a rage-filled explosion blasted away the tent, revealing the formation and thousands of bent-over officers, all clutching their guts and groins.

The poison was inspired by Gua, who’d made Cha Ming realize that acute poisons were difficult to pull off, but mundane poisons were extremely insidious.

In this case, he’d bombed them with a cloud of alchemical reagents that functioned as aphrodisiacs and diuretics. Thousands of officers had simultaneously soiled themselves and were currently extremely preoccupied supressing their desires.

This provided the perfect opening for Cha Ming. Attacking these people would help them dispel the aphrodisiacs effects, so he did not do so. He’d already eaten an antidote, so the pink mist did not affect him. He charged into the formation, passing by hundreds of incapacitated officers, including three gold-ranked generals, and struck out with the Clear Sky Staff, piercing the central element where inkwell jades were absorbed. It began to greedily devour the formation’s focus, and within seconds, it crumbled to dust, shocking everyone present.

One of the officers was especially resistant to poison. He drew an oppressive sword, and Cha Ming was once again reminded that he wasn’t a match for a well-trained gold ranker. He attempted to mobilize his domain but discovered that his opponent had used a skill to cancel out his techniques. He then tried to teleport away but found space locked down. In fact, he felt the urge to attack this opponent with brute force and no skills, no matter what. He’d been caught by a taunting skill.

If I can’t use techniques, then I’ll just use objects, Cha Ming thought, all the while charging at the officer with the Clear Sky Staff in hand. He threw out three God-Slaying Talismans at the officer, and two of them were immediately sliced to ribbons and forcefully detonated, but the third one found its mark.

The gold ranker’s armor was powerful, and his body strong. The God-Slaying Talisman, though powerful, only managed to inflict moderate injuries. The explosion of two God-Slaying Talismans forced them apart and broke the taunting technique, allowing Cha Ming to retreat.

“You think you can escape?” a voice called out. Cha Ming felt a chill. Relying on his intuition, he dodged to the side, barely avoiding a jade-green arrow. Alas, archers were quick, and another arrow was already coming his way.

This was a legitimate gold-ranked archer, and Cha Ming was sure that if an arrow struck him, he’d be gravely wounded if he didn’t die outright. So he banished the Clear Sky Staff and summoned the Clear Sky Cauldron to block it.

“Don’t even try!” a third voice said. He had to give these gold rankers credit—even caught with their pants down, they were well-coordinated. This new arrival was a wizard. He sent a lightning bolt flying toward the Clear Sky Cauldron, shattering it before it could block the arrow.

Cha Ming tried to activate his Golden Boots of the Clockwork Dragon but found his abilities were locked out by another skill. He braced himself for impact, but then noticed time slowing all around him, and mists appearing and diverting the arrow just enough for him to dodge.

Yu Wen appeared and dragged Cha Ming away by the collar, just as a spell was closing in on his position. She blocked it with another screen of mist. “Did you miss me?” she asked.

“Of course,” Cha Ming said. Then he stiffened as he felt a high-level skill activate and saw an arrow flying out at Yu Wen. The arrow was inconceivably fast, and it pierced her shoulder. “Yu Wen!” Cha Ming shouted.

Yu Wen coughed up blood as the arrow pierced her chest then detonated. Her arm and side became a mangled mess. Cha Ming and Xiao Bai caught her and pulled her away.

“She’ll be fine with time, but it’s a bad injury,” Xiao Bai said with a frown. “Can you get us out of here?”

“I can’t open a rift with so much spatial turbulence,” Cha Ming said. “Maybe I could send her to the Clear Sky World for now? I’m not sure what’ll happen if they attack while I’m doing that, though.”

“Damn,” Xiao Bai said. “I guess we run for now.”

The two of them ran like fugitives, Xiao Bai holding up rear guard thanks to her time-accelerating abilities, and Cha Ming cradling the wounded Yu Wen. He used his powers of mending to superficially heal the wound as he ran and began to pull out many of the medicines they’d pilfered, placing some on her wounds and feeding her others.

Bloodfur, where the hell are you?Cha Ming called out.

“Over here,” a shadow answered. It writhed and enveloped the three of them, pulling them into a place between realms, much like the void, but filled with ink. “We’re not out of the woods yet,” Bloodfur said. Out of the three dozen scouts who’d followed him, only twenty remained. “Up ahead, we need to break through. No matter what, keep running.”

Then he transformed, growing into an eighty-meter-tall giant that straddled the material realm and the void. As the enemy closed in around them, Bloodfur hopped out, appeared in the material realm, and smashed down with his staff. The staff tore a rift in the realm, and inky blood began to pour out from the gash, submerging and drowning his opponents.

Bloodfur was skilled in stealth, so many forgot he was a brawler. But Cha Ming had not, and he saw that Bloodfur was even more vicious and powerful than he’d been since their return. His staff didn’t carve through bodies—it smashed them apart, transforming them into bloody black puddles that joined his inky-black blood sea, which he used to paint the landscape with horrifying creatures.

The enemy officers screamed as the wizard in their ranks was torn apart. His red blood joined with the growing ocean, and an eerie shadow bearing a striking resemblance to the wizard who had just perished appeared and began slinging inky spells.

“Retreat!” shouted one of the generals who’d just caught up. They pulled back, and Bloodfur, satisfied that his group was safe, plunged into the inky realm. Cha Ming and the others followed. From their vantage point, it was difficult for the enemy to spot them, but from this inky realm, they could see the outside world quite clearly.

The battle for the city was mostly over. Clever Dusk’s trap had killed many, but the enemy managed to retreat. Their Daoists were nowhere in sight, and Cha Ming had no idea how many of them remained.

Yet Clever Dusk kept chasing, and Oster Fireblight, who was flying above the others, was pulsing with power. He’d personally taken to the field and was flinging balls of green fire. A pair of ochre wings were burning at his back, greatly bolstering his power.

“He’s up to something,” Cha Ming muttered. If Oster wasn’t there, Clever Dusk might have already pulled back. He was clearly offering himself up as bait. Normally, Clever Dusk wouldn’t fall for something like that, but she was in a frenzied state.

Perhaps a sliver of her rationality remained, or perhaps it was by sheer instinct that she realized what was happening. She awakened with a horrified expression. “Retreat!” she called out, and the demon army turned on a dime and began pulling back.

Oster’s army did something equally unimaginable—they began attacking again. Cha Ming initially wondered why, but he noticed that this wasn’t just a counterattack, and Oster was shifting troops around. He was reinforcing himself!

That was when Oster Fireblight took out a crimson scroll and began chanting. The entire battlefield felt a wave of dread as power oozed out of the human ranker.

Dominions began to falter. Investitures began to fail. Fusion transformations were forcefully halted.

The land shivered in protest as the scroll activated and covered the nearest hundred kilometers in a bubble of demon-subduing powers. Cha Ming and the rest of Bloodfur’s group found themselves forced out of the inky realm.

“Ancestors, what has he done?” Bloodfur said.

“It appears they had a scroll to cancel out territory manipulation in a large area,” Cha Ming said.

“How is that even possible?” Bloodfur said in disbelief.

“Country bumpkins,” Xiao Bai said. “Did you think all those demon settlements from before disappeared because your tribes decided to move? That they weren’t happy with where they lived? These rankers obviously have been fighting demons for thousands of years. If they didn’t have heavy-handed ways to handle demons, wouldn’t this place be called the Demon Lands instead of Mendin?”

“We need to pull back,” Cha Ming said. He looked down at Yu Wen, who was still unconscious in his arms. Her wound had healed over somewhat, but poison had found its way into her body. “Let’s go, Bloodfur. We can’t do anything until we find out more.” He opened a rift into Huxian’s void kingdom, and together, they left the battlefield and emerged at the center of Verdant Crossroads.