Paulus 5 (Part 1) - Sinking Sensation
Life wasn't all hustling for missions, helping to keep the family afloat, or questionable cultivator board games. Like all full members of the Legions I had duties to complete for the benefit of the clan and the mortals under our protection. Duties like killing bandits, tracking down ornery spirit beasts, or guarding resource stockpiles, and twenty years after I'd first signed up we were finally in a decent spot. Everyone on the squad had advanced one or two heavenstages and picked up a few higher level techniques to fit their roles better.
Everyone except me, that is.
I watched with expertly concealed frustration as Atria wrestled a first heavenstage Ironbone Serpent to the ground, her metallic skin gleaming in the desert sunlight. The beast coiled around her limbs and squeezed with all its might but Atria just laughed and pulled harder on its head. Iron bones struggled against Bronze muscle and lost and with the sickening sound of warping metal and a grunt of effort, Atria pulled the head right off the serpents body. The four meter long spirit beast fell limp and Atria rose to her feet with a languid stretch and a content smile.
"You know I used to be really afraid of these things but now I kind of look forward to fighting them." she said with a happy sigh, "I think that last one worked out a kink in my shoulder that's been bugging me for
hours."
"Congratulations." I grumped
She turned to me with her fists on her hips and an amused smile gracing her lips. "Captain, don't be grumpy. I'm sure you'll overcome your block eventually."
I grunted in reply and she smacked me on the back, almost sending me sprawling onto my face.
"Oops. Sorry Captain, forgot to turn it off again." Atria muttered with a wince. She closed her eyes and breathed out deeply, letting the technique she was holding on to fade away with the act. She opened her eyes and regarded her now normal arm with a smile. "Ah, it's just so easy to forget about. I can't believe some people are born like that. Do you think I could keep it on all the time eventually?"
"I wouldn't recommend it, Atria." We both turned to look at the third member of our little patrol, Titus the staid doctor. Like everyone else he had advanced in cultivation over the past twenty years of operation but almost all of his strength was focused on being better at...doctor things. He could diagnose mundane problems with a glance by now and produce a workable solution, but I was pretty sure I could beat him in a fight even with our difference in cultivation.
"The Reflected Purities Technique requires far too much to use for the average clan cultivator." He continued in a dull monotone, " While it is extremely useful to those just starting out, the qi pattern is too complex to allow other techniques to be used at the same time. This limitation is why it is generally only used by those seeking to hasten the awakening of their bloodline."
"Oh I know, but I'm beginning to think that wouldn't be so bad?" Atria replied thoughtfully. She flexed her muscles and qi in sync, causing a weak bronze tint to shimmer across her exposed arms before fading away. "I can still contribute to the formation and it's not like I'll be swimming in contribution points for anything better any time soon."
"A valid point. Our current posting leaves much to be desired where potential for earnings is concerned."
They both turned to look at me, and I winced. The Legions were famous for their discipline and Nabu had been true to his word about beating it into us before we were allowed to leave training, but even the most disciplined cultivator would be frustrated after a decade at base pay and some bonuses.
"I hear ya. I'll look into getting us moved somewhere more exciting but I doubt the centurion will budge. We're all stuck in this zone until the spirit stones are mined out anyway."
It was a known problem and so instead of arguing the two nodded in acceptance and, after Atria retrieved her unused spear from where she'd dropped it, we continued our patrol. None of us really wanted to be out here but we couldn't just up and leave without the
Centurion's order and the way things were looking we would be here for another decade at least. A mortal city had opened up a new quarry only to discover that it contained not the valuable granite they had been seeking but the far more valuable spirit stone. After reporting it to the Legions we had been moved in to secure the place right out of training and after several months of surveys it was looking to be a real rich find.
So that meant long term Legion activity, which meant camps, supply chains, and patrols. Patrols like the one we were now on. The entire place was well within Golden Devil territory so we didn't expect to see much action, so even though we kept our eyes open it was more for the routine now than anything else.
The problem with patrols though, is that sometimes you found things.
The three of us abruptly stopped walking and tensed as a wave of foul energy washed over us, filling the air with the smell of filth and rot.
"What the hell was that?" Atria muttered, gripping her spear tightly.
"Dunno. Stay alert."
That I could feel it even with my low cultivation was worrisome to say the least. At the first heavenstage my sense for qi was barely better than a particularly enlightened mortal's and I usually couldn't sense anything unless it was within a few meters or way above my league. This was looking more like the latter and that was a decidedly bad thing.
Before I could decide what to do about it a figure crested a rock formation ahead of us. It was a snake, a regular ordinary desert rattler. Then another joined it, and another, and another. In the blink of an eye there were a dozen rattlers slithering over the sand and stone with more following hot on their tails. They moved with wild abandon, flinging themselves bodily down the stoney cliff in their haste to advance.
"Woah that's a lot of snakes!" Atria yelled as she fell into step beside me.
"Guess they heard about your back problems." I stated
"Hey! Don't put this on me, I didn't summon these things."
"I must comment that the timing of this event is rather suspicious." Titus muttered
"I didn't do it!"
"Hold on, we have to retreat."
The two looked at me with quizzical expressions.
"Retreat, Captain?" Atria asked, "They're just normal mortal snakes. A bit more than I'm comfortable with but we could probably squash them with the shield if it comes to that."
Wordlessly I pointed up where, falling from the sky were specs of darkness growing larger by the second. Hundreds of them. All of them, snakes.
"Ah…"
"A bit much for the shield, huh?"
"Ugh, shut up."
We started jogging away from the snakes on the ground, easily outpacing the grounded and falling snakes alike. A normal snake or two was very little concern to a Legion cultivator, but they weren't something we were suited to tangle with in such large numbers.
"Maybe if we held it above us like an umbrella?" I prodded
"Alright, alright I get it. They're still just mortal snakes. I could kill ten by accident just moving around now! Between the three of us we could probably handle even more than this."
Just then another wave of foulness washed over us and the sky ahead of us darkened ominously. Dark clouds formed overhead, writhing and twisting in anger. No, not clouds. Snakes. It was all snakes.
"Atria."
"Yes Captain?"
"Stop talking."
"Yes Captain."
"Let's pick up the pace. I don't want to be caught in whatever this is." I called, immediately taking my own advice and increasing my speed. My squadmates seemingly agreed as in short order they charged past me, their higher cultivations making each of their steps worth three or four of my own.
Snakes began hitting the ground, first individually and then in groups. Most of them I could see died on impact but some barely survived by landing on another of their brethren and the ground was quickly becoming more snake than stone.
Atria and Titus began attacking the falling snakes while I did my level best to keep up with them. A confused rattler fell on Atria's shoulders and bit fiercely but was stymied by flesh that was suddenly made of gleaming bronze. She reached up and pinched off its head before shaking the twitching body off with a grunt of displeasure.
Titus reached into his robes and pulled out a handful of needles that he flung with pinpoint accuracy into nearby snakes, nailing them to the ground or throwing them out of the path ahead.
"Captain. I sense another pulse incoming." Titus warned.
I braced myself and let the pulse wash over me. It didn't hurt as it passed, but it made the inside of my mouth taste like curdled blood and week-old refuse. I gagged and spat, gasping for breath as I tried to keep pace. The sky darkened further and I could see even more snakes raining down ahead of us.
"We can't outpace this on foot. Form
Kataphrakoti, now! We'll charge right through!"
My squadmates shouted in assent and slowed till we formed a rough triangle, Titus and Atria taking the base while I formed the head. I cursed myself for not asking one of them to take the driving position but it was too late to clarify, already I could feel tendrils of qi reaching out from behind me and I had no choice but to take hold of it and complete the formation or slow us all with feedback.
I grasped the tendrils with my will and hurriedly wove them into the second of the Golden Devil Clan's great formations. Shadows deepened around us, pooling and whirling like a living liquid before ballooning outward and upward, raising us off the ground even as it enveloped us. Ethereal flesh formed first a massive horse, three meters from shoulder to hoof that carried us in its body and then an equally massive rider that rested on its back. An instant later the bronze armaments of the
Kataphrakoti manifested. A lance of solid metal that reached even further than the long spear of the
Hoplite appeared in a shower of bronze sparks followed by a helm engraved with the signs and sigils of the
Imperial Optimatoi. Finally a shining cuirass bearing the mark of the 3rd Squad slid into position, the front and back pieces affixing themselves with an impressive clang.
All at once our speed redoubled as qi-formed legs took over from physical ones and the power of the formation pushed us forward at higher speeds than any of us could manage individually. The
Kataphrakoti wasn't the strongest formation and compared to the much more refined
Hoplite it cost a king's ransom of qi to manifest and maintain, the lion's share of which was currently being paid by Atria, but it had one major advantage over the other general formations we learned as aspirants; Pure unassailable speed.
We charged forward, crushing all the snakes in our path under shadowy hooves or sundering them with the mere strength of our passage for hundreds of meters. Snakes were blown off course, blown apart, and straight blown up by the might contained in the Legion's second major array. Nothing could bar our path and our pace only increased.
Another pulse of foulness washed over us but it was weaker, more distant. The subsequent rain of snakes failed to catch up to us as we retreated double time. We'd broken through.
I pushed us another six kilometers before dismissing the formation, setting us down at the peak of the largest sand dune I could find. The shadowy body rippled and deflated as the qi holding everything together was slowly cut off and shadowy flesh set us down softly before the whole construct vanished like a mirage.
"Ugh. I hate using that thing. It's like a bottomless well for qi." Atria groaned.
Titus said something in reply but I tuned them out in favor of checking out whatever had caused that crisis. No matter how we joked it was almost certainly not Atria's fault. Probably. We'd managed to get a decent gap between us and the snakes and with any luck we would be able to outpace the waves on foot from here but I had no idea what would even cause something like that.
Several kilometers away from where we'd even started was a giant creature crossing the desert. It was a man, it was a snake, it was both. The upper body of a man as big as a building attached to the body of a snake a hundred meters long. It twitched and writhed as if in agony as it moved and as I watched the creature opened its mouth in a scream I couldn't hear but could see the effects of by watching sand explode away from it. Snakes poured out of its mouth by the hundreds, most falling to the ground around it but some being flung far away by the sheer force of its wails.
"What the hell is that thing?" The question escaped me before I could even think about it.
"I...don't know, Captain. I've never seen something quite so...grotesque." Titus answered, stepping up beside me.
We stood there for another minute in silence, just observing this miserable wretch contort itself into various painful looking shapes and somehow continue moving forward despite that. Atria joined us at some point and grimaced at the unholy monstrosity before speaking.
"Ummm, Captain, do you think that thing is…"
She trailed off in concern but I could see what she was talking about. The creature was moving in a single direction despite what appeared to be a combination of random agonized contortions flinging it this way and that. The resulting motion was deceptively quick and If it continued on its current heading it would inevitably collide with the spirit stone mines, and more importantly the mortal town that worked it.
"Yes, yes I do. Send up a signal."
Titus dug into one of the many pouches he carried on his person and pulled out a tiny square of jade covered in complicated array script. With a flick of his wrist he snapped it in two and flung it into the air where it turned into a ball of bright yellow light and rocketed into the sky. The garrison needed to be alerted to this, and they needed to know way before we could get back to tell them at the rate this thing was moving.I just hoped this thing was weak.
--------------------------------
"Bad news is it's way stronger than us."
Leto set down a honest to goodness dusty ancient tome on the desk, sending up a puff of sandy grit and book dust into the air of the tent. Three entire Legion Squads and half a dozen array operator attaches were crammed into the command tent to hear what she had to say, the full complement of troops placed in the city.
"I could have told you that from the size." Rosetta Stone, captain of 8th squad grumbled out. She was a short, mousey woman with chocolate brown skin that was lightly dusted with freckles and curly black hair that bounced every time she turned her head. She was soft spoken but had a sharp tongue and I was pretty sure she could snap me in two like dry kindling.
"I remembered seeing the description in one of the old books in the Library. It's a Blasphemer Beast, a Blasphemer Serpent to be precise." Leto continued, ignoring the interruption.
"Wait, are you talking about the Library by the Dawn Fortress? The Core Formation Library?" I pressed
"Well, yes but-"
She was cut off by sharp intakes of breath and sudden curses from around the tent. A Core Formation Beast, even a wounded one, would destroy this place without breaking a sweat.
"A Core Formation Beast here? In the back end of nowhere?" Oman Jeru, 5th squad captain hissed. He was one of those classical heroes in body shape and had the strength to match. Tall, imposing, jaw that could break a boulder in two. His pale skin refused to be bronzed by the desert sun but it was covered in scars from a storied life before he joined the Legions.
"We'll have to evacuate immediately." Rosetta mumbled, shaking her head from side to side with a pensive look on her face. "Our mounts can carry a few each, but more than that would be unwieldy."
"Perhaps some manner of sled could be put together?" Oman suggested, "No, even with that one squad of horses isn't enough to evacuate a city, no matter how mighty they may be. If we are forced to move at mortal speeds we would be caught by this Beast in no time."
"Alert the Legate?" I hazarded.
"He's days away from here even at his speed." Rosetta shot me down, "Days we do not have if that thing pursues us."
"Hey wait I wasn't finished!"
We all turned to look at Leto who was regarding us with irritation. "Blasphemer Beasts
could become Core Formation if they get enough energy, but they're actually the result of a type of
failed breakthrough due to a known flaw in an uncommon cultivation school that resurges every few hundred years. They vary in strength but based on what you said this one should only be Great Circle of Foundation Establishment"
Sighs of relief filled the room and one of the array attaches actually fainted.
"Oh good, so it's only fifty times stronger than us instead of a hundred times." Rosetta mocked, "The boulder that crushes us will be smaller than we expected."
"It's a damn sight better than we were before. That thing will still crush the walls like dried leaves so we will still have to evacuate the city, but now we might stand a chance of getting away." Oman mused
"We still have to worry about the snakes. If we leave the city we lose the Beast Pillars." I reminded
"Can they be moved?"
We all turned to look at Leto who blinked at the sudden focused attention.
"Uhh, the arrays in cities aren't really designed to be moved. They're really, really heavy and if you move them you'd have to do a bunch of math so they can get power again wherever you stop."
"If it's power you need we have many spirit stones stored up for the next delivery." Rosetta said.
"They're expecting that delivery back at the fortress." Oman said sternly.
"Given the circumstances I think we'll be forgiven." Rosetta continued with a huff.
"I'm with her. We're losing the whole mine if we evacuate anyway. Can you make it work L- Attache Leto?"
She looked at her fellow technicians pensively and they shrugged as one. I wondered when they had time to practice that.
"Mmmmmaybee. Even if we forcibly activate the array it should be weaker than the fixed version and it's still going to be heavy. If we burn seven septuagenaries per hour we can-"
"The summary, please. We are in a crisis." Rosetta said.
Leto frowned. "If they're just normal snakes we should be able to do enough to keep them away. We can't do anything about the big one. Not even if we didn't have to move the arrays."
"Then the matter is clear. We can evacuate the mortals and carry enough stones to power the array until we escape." Rosetta continued
Oman crossed his arms before his chest but remained silent. This was no time for disagreement and we had him two to one. I nodded to Rosetta and turned back to Leto.
"Get it done. We need to leave before that thing gets into range."
-------------------------
By the time we got the mortals to the city gates snakes were already raining all around us. A modification to the Beast Pillars by our harried Array Engineer Team (though really they were all still Technicians) kept the worst of it out by adding a visible qi barrier above us. The modification ate through our store of stones at a visible pace but it turned the impossible task of keeping a towns worth of people safe from the snake rain to a much more manageable policing of the perimeter for any snakes that fell too close and weren't immediately driven away by the array's primary function of beast repelling.
Hundreds of people huddled inside our encirclement, looking at the unnatural weather with fear and bewilderment as we ushered them out from the walls in the direction of the closest city. It was slow but orderly work thanks to the blanket deference mortals in their territory had towards the Golden Devil clan and it was going way better than I thought it would all things considered.
Still the only thing I could think about right now was why the array couldn't stop the inside of my mouth from tasting like ass.
"The Beast, it fouls the very energy of heaven and earth around it with its words." Marcus explained. Once he'd found out what it was the middle aged soldier remembered all kinds of stories about the nasty Blasphemer Beasts. The man had turned out to be a wellspring of lore and tidbits about all kinds of things over our years together. Stories about cultivators were something of a pastime of his before he suddenly awakened the Blood and rushed over to join.
"I suppose that's where the 'Blasphemer' part of the name came from?" I asked, wishing I could turn off my tastebuds.
"Just so, Captain! Or well, it's a part of it. Whatever miraculous method these...creatures use to gain power stands against the logic of the world more firmly than even we do, at times. The stench and ah, other transformations are simply manifestations of this rejection."
"受苦!"
We winced together as another wave of foulness washed over the procession accompanied by the echoes of a distant shout and a refreshed rain of snakes. The Beast was barely in sight but the range of its howls was insane.
"Mmmm. Cluster of snakes to the east, let's break it up before they get caught inside." We jogged over to a panicking tangle of snakes and made quick work of them as soon as the edge of the repulsion effect passed over them. While the array was perfect for keeping snakes from approaching it was a different matter if they were already inside. The array wasn't' meant to be moved, and we were already running into problems that wouldn't have existed if it had remained in one place.
We walked alongside the procession as it exited the city, watching for snakes that couldn't get out of the way in time for one reason or another. Oman's squad took the front, and mine the flanks, while Rosetta's handled the moving of the Beast Pillars at the back of the procession, but even with all of our squads mobilized it was still eighteen Legionnaires watching hundreds of people, and six of us were occupied with moving the heavy pillars. It was only a matter of time before something slipped through.
"前进!"
Sand fountained up in the procession of mortals up revealing a ball made up of dozens of snakes that had somehow found themselves underground. They twisted and writhed, trying to escape one another but accomplishing nothing but hurting themselves and becoming more desperate.
Three people went down under a storm of sudden bites from the snakes in a matter of seconds and the orderly procession broke apart in a chaotic sprawl around the knot of confused snakes.
"Marcus! Someone get Titus over here!"
Before we could step closer a trio of bronze arrows sliced through the ball of snakes, cutting heads from bodies and tearing bodies asunder. Cassius knocked another arrow angrily as he stared at the mess of dead snakes, daring them to move.
Titus raced over with all the power of a fourth heavenstage cultivator, easily twice as fast as the fittest mortal. He skidded to a halt by the fallen people, already pulling tools from the bags around his waist. There was already nothing for me to do, my much stronger squad members reacting much faster than I could.
I seethed and clenched my jaw in anger. What the hell was Oman's squad doing? How do you miss a ball of snakes going underground? I raged in my mind to distract myself from my own weakness just as another wave of foulness washed over the host.
"屠杀!"
Six more spots in the procession exploded into sand and snakes just as the rain of bodies around us intensified. The plop plop of falling bodies almost drowned out the sudden increase in screaming up and down the line as more snake balls began scything their way above ground.
A form blurred past me and I glanced down the line to see Marcus already charging towards one of the snake balls. I could see Atria and Julia charging towards another pair even as Cassius aimed at another. Titus looked between the bitten mortals he was working on and the new eruption with a grimace before leaping up and rushing off to the closest one. I swallowed a curse and dashed towards the last, hefting my spear and shield in my hands.
With an effort of will the
Hoplite manifested around me, shadowy flesh enveloping my own and the bronze armaments sinking into my own spear and shield seamlessly and enhancing them. Qi like mist glided over the surface of my skin and sank into my muscles in the most basic enhancement I could muster, pushing a whole half of my stores into the technique.
And then I
ran.
Sand and pebbles fountained up behind me as I approached the steadily destabilizing procession, a sign of my wastefulness in using a technique far above my station. I crouched for a bare moment before launching myself above the heads of the crowd directly at the ball of snakes.
"Out of the way!"
A taller man barely ducked out of the way before I slammed into the ball of snakes shield first, eliciting hisses of pain and confusion. A sound like rain on a metal roof resounded as my
Hoplite reinforced shield weathered a handful of reflexive bites and then I was on them. My twice enhanced spear cut through the mortal snakes like they were made of particularly cheap fabric and I whispered mental thanks to Filia once again for forcing me to buy it. The weapon opened wounds that would bleed profusely and resist healing, and the mortal snakes had no defense against it.
The ball of snakes proved to be an easy target and after a few thrusts the rain of blows against my shield slowed enough that I could push them back safely. A few more strikes into the confusingly knotted mass of flesh silenced the snakes altogether.
I gave them a few more stabs for good measure.
I released the
Hoplite as soon as I was done and with it the nameless enhancement technique and the greater portion of my qi stores. I would pay for that later I was sure, but it was one thing to lag behind in cultivation and another thing entirely to lag behind in effectiveness. I won't be left behind.
I backed away from the corpse ball of mortal snakes, thankful that they hadn't gotten to separate or cause more damage. I scanned the crowd around but gave it up as a bad job after a few seconds. I had little to no medical training and I couldn't tell who had been bitten or just been hit by gravel spray. I needed Titus. We needed to regroup.
"And I need to know what the hell is going on with these snakes." I growled.
One snake ball was bad enough. With all the weirdness in the current situation I could stomach the idea that a bunch of snakes had somehow tangled up together and ended up under the sands before they could escape. I could even believe that they had somehow gotten past Oman's squad without being detected. But seven of them? All in similar sized groups that happened to burst out of the ground at close to the same time?
No. That was a meal I couldn't swallow at all. The more likely option was obvious in hindsight. They were being controlled, and there was one guess as to by what.
"前进!"
The crowd was scattered enough for me to see straight to the edge of the Beast Repelling Array from where I stood, so I could easily see the waves of flesh slithering about outside. Layers upon layers of snakes slithered around the barrier, probing the edge for weakness with their bodies. Sand and grit fountained up outside the array as more hidden snakes tore themselves out from underground and joined the questing tide. It was as if all the snakes that had been falling in the surrounding lands had rushed over in the last few seconds to try and break through, doing the exact opposite of what the array would have them do. That they hadn't broken in completely was the only reason I knew it had any effect at all.
"Captain!"
Marcus dodged around a group of mortals before coming to a stop beside me, his armour covered in scratches from questing fangs.
"Fifth squad is encircled outside the array with a small band of mortals."
"Encircled, not dead?"
"No captain."
There was no way six people in this power range could survive what was happening out there. The only reason why they were alive is because they were supposed to be. We had made a mistake.
The truth came rushing to me as I watched the writhing snakes slithering over one another in an attempt to get inside, only to be stymied at the very end by their own instinctive rejection. There was no way a Beast like that could hide from us, so it let us see it far in advance. We saw the snakes ourselves and decided that we could get away.
"Captain. What are your orders?"
But why would it go through all that trouble? Even from here I could tell the power in the Blasphemer Beast was the real deal. The city couldn't stand up to it even if it had just brazenly advanced the whole way.
"Captain?"
But if it did that some people would undoubtedly be crushed in the assault or even hide themselves away. Even now with Oman's squad caught outside the range of the array they weren't being killed. Whatever it's intentions it wanted people alive for it, and that little punk wouldn't even give up a mouthful.
"Captain, what should we do?"
I looked at Marcus, and came up blank. I had no idea what to do.
"受苦!"
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Count: 5237 Words
This one kind of got away from me. This actually takes place during Turn 7, but a bunch of stuff came up and the story changed and lengthened a few times so I ended up posting it only now.
Part 2 of this should be coming soon and then I can catch up and post stuff for the current mission and war.
Since this is actually my first omake post for Turn 8, I'll take a Cultivation boost.
Requesting threadmark and spreadsheet addition from a collaborator. Pinging
@BungieONI .
