TURN 13, OMAKE 3 [
Lipita]
Lipita Delphi 30: Achille Adephos & Lipita Delphi (ft. Chemos Delphi) - Endings and Beginnings
Scritch. Scratch.
The tip of the etching pen worked its way along the edge of a disc of metal, tracing a line of tiny meticulously inscribed script upon the surface. In the brightly lit workroom, the squeal of metal on metal was the only sound as the figure sat hunched over the desk, not even the faintest inhalation of air to compete. The physiology of a Foundation Establishment expert, strengthened by qi and tempered in successful tribulation, could sustain itself for tens of minutes on end without breath. A useful trait when one was working matters where absolute precision was necessary. It was closing on an hour since he'd last breathed, preparing himself by first emptying his lungs as much as possible then filling them with rarefied Pure Four Winds essence.
Spirit Steel, formed from an alloy of crushed White Jade infused with Earth-aspected qi and crucible steel, was a tough hard wearing material, difficult to score its surface. Yet, the tip of the Ergeilio, set alight with channeled qi, carved smoothly across it and completed a loop of markings along the circumference of the metal plate. The moment of connection was invisible to the naked eye but to the senses of a well trained Array-Crafter, it was unmistakable. Power thrummed through the plate, a sensation of cloying loaminess briefly filling the air before the craftsman ceased channeling energy into the plate.
Achille Adephos sat back with a deep breath, lungs luxuriating in the inflow of oxygen. He took off the magnifying lenses set on a headset and placed them on the table, rolling his neck and rubbing at his nape. Cultivator in the second great realm he might be, but his body still shared many of the flaws of mortality, although lessened. Releasing the array plate from the vice grips that had held it steady as he worked, he examined the artifact for any flaw. Nothing was out of place, no deformations to the surface from uncontrolled energy transfer, no disruption to the gathering and dispersal nodes. All was in readiness for a final practical taste which would have to wait till he recovered a bit. The pounding headache that had started up clearly indicated that he'd exhausted himself using his will to bind his intent and comprehension of earth manipulation to the fixed receptacle of the Earthen Tomb array he'd created. Besides he had other duties to attend to which he'd put off long enough.
Rising from his seat, he put his tools back in place and set the array-plate aside for later experimentation. The harsh steady light from the lighting arrays affixed to the ceiling and walls of the converted room was nothing like the golden sunlight of his childhood room, not to speak of the utter absence of external noise maintained by sound isolation arrays. The contents of the room itself however were not so dissimilar. Oh, certainly the quality of tools and materials he had on hand certainly outmatched anything he could have dreamed of in his youth but it was largely the same familiar arrangements. There were workbenches holding various projects at differing stages of completion, tool cabinets lining the walls and most nostalgic, references and plans for new ideas scattered across the room. Sheets of paper – loose and gathered in sheaves, jade slips tingling with impressed will, holographic diagrams of array blueprints being trialed, even scribbling on the bare walls of the room. Every inch of the workshop was a testament to the obsessive focus of a cultivator devoted to the artistry of Array-Crafting.
The array-engineer picked up a small green notebook to record his observations and insights from working on this new project. The dexterous fingers that had so easily worked at metal flashed smoothly over paper, genius churning through inspiration and marking it down for later review.
WHOOP – WHOOP!
The sudden blare of sound in the room broke the trance Achille had fallen into. He would have cursed the source of the disruption but there would be little point in getting frustrated at his own efforts to keep him on task. He reluctantly set aside his notebook and changed clothes to something less reeking of stale sweat.
Walking over to the single entrance to the room, he placed his hand on a marker fastened to the right of the door and sent a burst of qi in a precise pattern to power down the lighting and sound dampening arrays. Immediately a hubbub of noise made itself known. Stepping outside, he found himself in a busy hallway, legionaries of the Golden Devil Clan hurrying to and fro on various duties. He sealed up the workshop behind him, arming the alarm wards and security arrays in place that linked to the array key in his possession and set off.
Achille took his time walking to his destination, moving at a languid pace compared to the stream of humanity flowing around him. His presence in Haoshen Fort was an interesting opportunity to examine the infrastructure of the last remaining great power in opposition to Golden Devil hegemony of the Organ Meat Desert. Jingshen architecture reflected much of the sensibilities of Third Sea, quite distinct from the Clan's favored design. The outer walls of the fortification were sturdy enough, built competently from stone and tile reinforced with intriguing array-work. His current path into the central compound took him away from those sights but there were enough established arrays to build up an impression of a distinct Jingshen style.
Profligate waste was the best description. Eyeing the sigil script of the arrays lighting up the current hallway he was passing through, he deciphered the structure of the circuitry with a glance. This set of patterns produced more power than was standard for Optimatoi schematics with a pronounced lack of in-depth redundancies. The halls would be better illuminated than most in the Dawn Fortress but wasted two to three times as much energy for equivalent performance and risked vulnerabilities to casual defacement. It appeared that the bounty of Spirit Stones available to Jingshen had led their development of arrays in different directions than the practice he'd schooled in. It was truly a blessing that this second line of defense for the Jingshen had been both undermanned and under supplied. He doubted if the two legions sent to take the fort would have made any headway if that was the case.
Arriving at his destination, he knocked on the door perfunctorily and entered. The room within was a converted Jingshen officer suite which seemed more apropos in space to a luxury residence than a military habitation in a defensive position. The residence had been converted into the hub of the Array-Engineer Corps operations for the Scorpion Road offensive. Extraneous furnishing and decorations had been stripped out and replaced with the clutter of campaign equipment but hints of opulence lingered in the expensive curtains draping the walls. Inside was a hive of activity, members of the Corps busy at work at various stations, reporting to senior cultivators, among other labor. He proceeded to the centerpiece of the room, a large table which had a diorama of three structures projected above it. Two were colored green and one in red. Walking over to the desk, he looked over the displayed images idly, waiting for the man standing alongside it to finish talking with a young woman in the colors of a Junior Mechanikos.
"Ah, I see you're admiring my little project. I hope it is up to your exacting standards, Senior Mechanikos Adephos." Coming to stand beside Achilles, the older man turned to him with a smile on his face.
Dipping his head politely in acknowledgment, Achille greeted the other cultivator. "It is certainly an interesting vision, senior Caius, though I wonder if it is needed."
Shrugging in reply, Caius replied, "Call it vanity if you but I find visualizing the substance of a project helpful in my dotage.
Achille turned a wry look on his superior, eyebrow lifted in question. "If you're in your dotage then I fear for my own fate in comparison." Indeed standing so close to Caius, and being familiar with his strength, the potency of a cultivation base brushing the Great Circle of Foundation Establishment was unmistakable.
"Hahaha…," Caius laughed briefly. "It is true that I have made some gains in my advancement since we last met although I could say the same for you."
Scanning Achille top to bottom, he clapped him on the shoulder. "You look in the peak of health and just about ready to break into Mid Foundation with a bit more effort. You know I was getting worried that you'd stalled at a bottleneck because of your injury and experience during the last Trials but it looks like my fears were of no merit."
Wincing in remembered pain, Achille touched his chest where the ghost of past injuries lingered. "Thank you for your concern but the matter has been addressed sufficiently. I do admit that it has been frustrating to be repeatedly injured for several decades. Being injured in that failed hunt for a Jewel Albatross set back several of my plans which were compounded by later wounds. The benefits of a Purified Body from achieving the 10
th Heavenstage might have allowed me to perform my duties without much impairment but they heavily penalized any effort to advance. It took some saving up but I got full restorative treatment from the 602
nd. Hopefully, I won't be needed to visit the medicae anytime soon again."
"That's good to hear." Caius' tone became heavier as he shifted the conversation. "I imagine you didn't answer my summons expecting to catch up with me."
Achille nodded. "Your order to appear today indicated some matter you wished to speak about."
Placing his hands on the table, Caius flexed his will commanding the projection to change. The images of the forts disappeared, replaced by a map in diorama of the Jingshen core lands as the Golden Devil Clan knew them. With a pulse of qi, the image zoomed in to focus on the northern regions of the territory. Looking over the map, Achille spotted several locations of interest to the war; Underworld Spirit Palace dominating the northeast as well as the mine of the Jingshen Bei family to the northwest, a number of cities between them, Cloudy Jade City being the most prominent. Further south, the Scorpion Road snaked from the border with the Clan to the very edges of the massive gaping spirit mine that was the heart of the Jingshen Clan. Minor tributaries broke away from the great river of the road to various minor settlements and dominating the stretch of causeway were three major fortresses, Yangshen, Haoshen and Wangshen. The first two of those were coloured green as opposed to the red that marked most other items on the map.
"As you well know, this war has been remarkably fast-paced beyond all traditional calculus. Yangshen and Haoshen fell within half a year through a combination of innovative Scorpion-based cavalry speeding up the offensive to take the Jingshen by surprise and the Archegetes spanking Jingshen Jiao handily over his lap." At that last comment, Caius' eye flickered upwards briefly. The Grand Elder currently residing in quarters at the pinnacle of the fort likely didn't know or care about unflattering imagery being used to describe his combat victories but still…
Continuing on from the brief pause, Caius highlighted Yangshen and Haoshen on the map. "Standard doctrine has the forward detachments of the Array-Engineer Corps moving with the attacking legions to provide support but now we are in possession of two major fortifications and many more minor settlements and defensive emplacements. I know you've been helping out in the efforts to convert Haoshen to optimum use for the legions but I need you off that assignment. The rapid tempo has moved forward the calendar for the second stage of the offensive, a strike at Underworld Spirit Palace itself."
As the holographic map shifted perspective, Achille silently caught Caius' eye and glanced at the busy room around them. Caius grinned back at him and said, "Don't worry about them. I trust everyone here and work from command is that the Jingshen are already expecting our next move. They may be merchants who can't stand up to a proper shieldwall but they can still read a map and see that there's only a few viable strategies left. Besides, we're not yet at the point of being committed to any action. That's where you come in. Imperator knows you have a gift for interpreting and unraveling the flaws of arrays with just a look. We want you to do that here. You and a number of senior mechanikos are going to be receiving a collation of every array we have on record for Jingshen. The Protostrator is hoping that with the access we have to major defensive constructs, those of you assigned to this task can optimize our assault tactics, allowing us to crack their redoubts all the more faster."
Grinning even wider at the excitement he could sense rising in Achille, Caius pointed at the map where the dark abyss of the greatest spirit mine in the Organ Meat Desert dominated. "If we're good and very lucky, we would be testing our skills against the defenses of the Underworld Spirit Palace itself at the end. That one would be a tough nut to crack but all the more satisfying if we managed it. Let the other legions trust in brawn. We will remind them and the rest of the world why this Clan holds arrays as its lifeblood."
Already, Achille could feel the itch to begin running through him. Without delay, he agreed. "I'm more than ready to begin. I can hand off my remaining tasks regarding the reinforcement of the walls to my juniors. Who else is joining this assignment? Anyone I know?"
Flicking his fingers, the map returned to the previous display of the three forts and Caius turned fully to face Achille. "The Corps is bringing its best from the component legions. The 3
rd are sending a team headed by Fan Zhui and Galan Maximus is leading the detachment from the Inkhands. We of course are sending you to represent the 35
th Legion with a number of others, Jixin, Meloida and Albus included."
All those names were familiar to Achille, peers and seniors alike in the Corps. The Array-Engineer Corps was a peculiar institution in the structure of the Golden Devil Clan. The legions formed the basic structure of the Clan, being more than just armed forces available for deployment. At the macro-scale, every major responsibility was ostensibly handled by a legion, even the activities of the Council of Elders and their subordinate offices technically falling under such. The Corps was a cross-legion structure established and maintained by three historic legions for the purpose of centralizing the vital effort of training, maintaining and developing Array-Crafting throughout the entirety of the Clan. There were other legions who carried on the Clan's tradition of array-work, but the 3
rd, 27
th and 35
th legions were the beating heart. Their legates sat on the council of the Corps and their subordinates formed its ranks, Mechanikos one and all.
Caius reached into his pockets and handed over a jade slip he retrieved from within. "Here's the details of the assignment. You'll find the full list of participants, assigned Contribution Points, resources and everything else you might need. The top brass are assigning a portable terminal node of the Contribution Board to this effort for extra analytical and archival services. I expect you'll be very happy with all the toys you're going to have access to."
Achille opened his mouth to ask to be dismissed but found himself waved off by Caius before the very first syllable left his lips. Retreating hastily back to his quarters, he took stock of what exactly needed to be done to get started. Checking the jade slip, he found out that haste was indeed the order of the day. The details of the assignment had him reporting for duty that very evening in a subterranean facility in Haoshen Fort. Not exactly a lot of time but he could manage.
Pulling out a prepared talisman, he whispered a name and message for delivery before designating a destination beacon with his will upon the charm. The paper of the talisman folded in upon itself into the form of an origami crane and flew off. Messenger Crane missives had very short ranges but the intended target was within the Fort and tagged with a tracking signal. Picking up a few odds and ends, he hurried to a larger workshop where he'd been working with a number of juniors, setting up arrays to be used in reinforcing the repaired breach that had granted original ingress to the Fort. Within he found the trio assigned under him, hard at work carving array foci to be placed within the walls. Melas Aquitaine, Zhen Xi and Po Aristotle were competent enough apprentices he supposed even if not up to his standards although he'd been doing his best to remedy that defect as quickly as he could. They took to instruction well not unlike certain juniors he'd subcontracted work out. Idly, he wondered what that Delphi girl – Lipita he believed the name had been – was doing now. Probably back in Clan territory he supposed given that family's tendencies.
Clapping his hands sharply to draw their attention, he barked out quick instructions. "I've been assigned an important mission that is going to be occupying my attention for the foreseeable future so here's what we're going to do."
Beginning with the young woman whose dark hair and dark eyes indicated strong native blood despite her very foreign name, he said, "Melas, you're going to take lead on the wall repair efforts, you have the best hand at them if slow so that will have to do."
As he shifted the focus of his attention, his newest apprentice perked up, the mousy long haired youth eager to impress. "Zhen Xi will be taking over my work on the Earthen Prison traps. The design has been completed and only needs testing which should prove no issue. After that, you're going to focus on replication which should be easy enough since the whole point of that project was to simplify Mu's Swamp Entrapment."
"Next, I will need Po on Anthive supervision duty. There are a number of projects I have lined up for them that need to be completed while I'm gone. It should be simple enough since you're just supplying qi and having them follow the schematics I'll leave behind." Quiet as ever, the lanky sandy haired Mechanikos simply nodded in acknowledgment of his instructions. He'd taken well to the Spirit Ants and had expressed his interest in obtaining a similar artifact.
"Finally…"
Behind him the door opened and closed rapidly as a large corpulent figure with flushed cheeks hurried through, looking remarkably unaffected by the speed of his entry. Achille focused on the new arrival and concluded his instructions. "Finally, Corpus here will be coordinating all your efforts as my senior apprentice while I'm away. Any changes or issues should be directed to him and I'll communicate any further instructions. Alright get to it. I don't have all day."
Calling over his senior apprentice, Achille began reviewing what else he needed to delegate to allow him to focus on this new assignment. Gluttonous he might be but the man was a competent Array-Engineer if not particularly inspired. He could leave most of the work he'd had in queue for Corpus to manage although he'd have to make sure to earmark the budget appropriately having learned his lesson from the last time. Corpus had certainly demonstrated a novel perspective of how funding his meals figured into necessary expenses.
***
"Sometimes I really wish the Three Monkeys would go bugger themselves. I thought this assignment would be exciting, revolutionary even but it's just a heaping load of drudge work." Fan Zhui complained as she set down the jade slip she'd been reviewing to join a towering stack of recording slates at her desk.
Spinning around in her wheeled chair, she threw her hands up into the air in frustration. "It's been months since we got this task and everything's been the same old routine. Review the reports coming in from the mechanikos in the field, compare it to what's in the archives, test for vulnerabilities, write up a report for the hairless apes in charge, copy it over to the Protostrator's strategists and repeat it all over again and again. UHHH! I am going to kill myself if this continues. I really am!"
"Stop being so melodramatic." Achille chided her as he accessed the portable terminal installed into the room to review certain records. "You have enough excitement when we do the live testing."
Chiming in from across the expansive room hosting several cultivators, Galan Maximus put down the array flag he'd been detailing and peered at Fan Zhui, his gray eyes flat. "In fact, didn't you just recently try out a new adaptation of the Wall Breaching Charge array to make use of the defect we isolated in Jingshen fortress arrays using Deng's Three Pillar arrangement? I hear from the juniors that a certain she-devil chilled the blood of the observers present with her cackling at the collapse of the entire test structure."
"Bah, humbug." Fan Zhui blew away a lock of red hair that had fallen forward over her blue eyes. "That was easy labor taking advantage of shoddy work. Besides, it's not like that is going to win me any accolades in this war. Jingshen weren't cheap enough to cut corners on most defenses with that haphazard array-work. No, I want more, something that'll get Old Gold himself to notice me." She sat forward, eyes gleaming with ambition.
As the light-haired Galan made known his estimation of the likelihood of the event Fan Zhui described ever happening sparking a furious argument between the two, Meloida Shu paused in her meta-review of the last two centuries of analyses by Clan strategists of Jingshen water purification arrays for siege defense, turned to her colleague Lu Jixin and quietly asked, "Who are the Three Monkeys she's referring to?"
Jixin paused in her reproduction of old Shanqu array script and looked askance at Meloida. Petite, green eyed and silver haired Meloida was a new acquaintance she was quickly warming up to. "I know you don't get out much but surely even you know of the Three Monkeys? You know, Monkey No-See, Monkey No-Hear and Monkey No-Speak?"
She continued incredulously when Meloida silently shook her head. "Well allow this senior sister to enlighten you."
Clearing her throat briefly, she lectured, "We in the Array-Engineer Corps are blessed to have the leadership of three legates who jointly uplift us with their enlightened wisdom and expansive knowledge creating a synergistic force for the betterment of the Clan as a whole. Or at least that is what is supposed to happen. In truth, the three heads are squabbling fractious opponents. Legate Chu Yuzi of the 3
rd is notorious for ignoring his administrative duties to go off on long, frequently catastrophic experimental workings so we nicknamed him Monkey No-See. Our very own legate Flavia of the 35
th is notoriously deaf to any suggestion that she's not the sole head of the Corps while running roughshod over the officers of the other legions hence her moniker as Monkey No-Hear. Finally we have legate Manus of the 27
th who… well, quite frankly reeks from his Dao of Revulsion so most communication with him is at a distance, often via written orders, thus the label of Monkey No-Speak. There you have it, the Elder Primates who sit on the Council of the Engineer Corps, the Three Monkeys themselves."
Grinning broadly at the conclusion of her short instruction, she was caught off guard by Meloida erupting into a fit of suppressed giggles. Soon enough the tanned brunette joined her friend's recognition of the hilarious character of the Array Engineering Corps top leadership, the laughter being contagious drawing the eye of everyone present. Jixin was about to apologize for the disruption when Achille snapped his fingers, magnifying the sound with qi.
"I've got something here and I think this needs the attention of everyone available." Achille announced stepping away from the pedestal of the terminal. Now the focus of the room, Achille rummaged through the documents piled up on a nearby unused table and pulled out a sketched out map of Wangshen Fort and its environs. Fan Zhui and Galan stilled as they awaited the findings of the unofficial leader of their grouping. Achille pushed a portable chalkboard to the center of the room and pinned the map to it.
He began speaking, "The forward scouts reporting on the defenses of Wangshen Fort indicate that there's been no significant change in the disposition of the forces in place there which is true enough but only with respect to the actual fortress itself."
Highlighting several areas around Wangshen Fort on the map, he continued, "Here, and elsewhere that is not the case. Outlying redoubts within several li of the Fort have reportedly received several reinforcements, oddly enough not martial forces from the Jinsghen Bei family but scions from the Core Jingshen Family. They appear not to be traveling alone but escorting caravans transporting material that appears to be foci for a grand array. The Jingshen have been increasingly aggressive in challenging our hold of the lands between Haoshen and Wangshen, pushing back several advances with unusual strength."
Tracing out the locations of interest and sketching out a few calculations, he had the skeleton of an array centered on Wangshen whose field of effect encroached on conquered territory around the hub of Haoshen. "There are a number of other details but the sum of it is that I'm seeing the setup of a large scale array based out of Wangshen Fort which is very concerning since we know that Jingshen Junjie is currently based there. If there's anything these past few months of review and analysis has taught us it is that the Jingshen give a fair showing of themselves in array construction and that competence becomes excellence when Old Jingshen himself is involved."
The gathered cultivators were silent as they processed what they had heard. Galan was the first to offer his opinion, steepling long delicate fingers under his chin. "We need more before we can take this anywhere higher up. I read the same reports and noted the activity but there's nothing definite to point to that our superiors much less the office of the Protostrator can do anything with."
Achille nodded in agreement. "I agree. What I'm seeing could be explained by any number of actions but I believe it bears looking into as a moderate priority. Besides, I think we could all use a little relief from historical examination." Turning a side eye to look at Fan Zhui, he said dryly, "I hear certain persons require novelty of action."
Fan Zhu smiled broadly and picked up a dagger she'd stabbed into her desk on the very first day they'd met as a team as a marker of her claim to the seat, casually tossing it up and down in her hand. "My word, finally something to sink my teeth into."
With no warning she caught the dagger by the hilt and hurled it straight at Achille's head. She laughed as he picked it out of the air and returned it, snapping forward to catch the tip between her teeth. "Nice reflexes there. I think I'm growing to like you, frumpy as you are. This idea of yours is more my speed."
With the three leads of the team in agreement, the working group began the laborious work of establishing their hypothesis. Starting with querying the intelligence reports for information about the movements around Wangshen Fort, they expanded to details from Experts detached to raiding the interior Core lands for hints and clues. Other avenues were explored and removed from consideration as weeks passed and threads narrowed.
Galan stuck his tongue out slightly from his mouth as he thought out loud. "That's a whole lot of crystal foci we're seeing. TrueSilver Glass and Sun-wrought steel are also moving around a lot. These are all components you'd expect to see working with light qi. Interesting, indeed."
"Perhaps, they're trying to prepare an area denial array over Wangshen to prevent the Archegetes from supporting an offensive against the Fort. The last engagement against him had failed because they tried a directed cannon blast. Maybe this time they are going for a widespread attack that's not so easily blocked." Fan Zhui suggested looking over the map where they were plotting out movements of material they considered significant.
Achille disagreed. "That can't be it because then they wouldn't need so much energy transfer. Surely if they wanted to simply hold Wangshen, they would consolidate their efforts around the closest sub-forts but they are actively spreading out in spokes towards the contested fronts. This looks like a projected array structure but there's nothing to hit out there. What could they possibly be aiming at?"
Sometimes enlightenment comes unlooked for and very much unappreciated. The alarm signals of Haoshen Fort screamed to life at that very moment. The shriek of the emergency combat alert – not the general muster alarm, Achille noted – had every cultivator rushing out of their basement quarters to their assigned positions. In minutes they had reached the surface joining a crowd of legionaries in the courtyard and along the walls, ready to unleash violence against an attacker. The flare of unrestrained cultivators cycling qi in readiness for immediate attack made the air shimmer with barely constrained spiritual energies. Achille barely had a moment to wonder what the cause for the alert could be before it made itself known.
Searing light flashed its way up from the depths of Haoshen, branding itself along the floor and the walls. The weight of the power that struck at them overwhelmed Achille's senses. He was in the measure of things an average sensate of spiritual energies but the tsunami of power that subsumed them was beyond anything he could have ever imagined. Serving on the warfront had let him test the slightest dregs of the Grand Elder's power particularly here in Haoshen where a duel between Nascent Souls had taken place. This light that burned him with its inescapable radiance was a magnitude beyond those lingering scraps.
He unleashed the full force of his cultivation, burning qi frantically to keep that light away and leveraging the faint stirrings of the Dao he'd consolidated as his foundation pillars to reject this assault upon his body and spirit. The glare of the attack robbed Achille of his sight but he could hear horrible strained screaming as other less fortunate clansmen suffered. From the rapid discharge of qi he could sense about him, clan members were turning to all manner of life saving treasures, some finding salvation but others finding their means falling short of the respite they needed. He could feel the light trying to pierce its way through him, desiring to penetrate skin and muscle to seize his blood and consume his vitae. Vaguely he got the terrifying sensation that he was not even the target of this attack, merely a means to an end. The intent within the light was trying to reach into him and through him to strike at something else. There was burning pain, then there was numb struggle and finally he fell away into nothing.
***
It took six long weeks before the assault finally abated in full. By the time it was concluded the cost had been counted out. One thousand Golden Devil clansmen were dead and nearly two thousand crippled. Achille ran the casualties through his mind as he stood at attention outside the field office of the Protostrator, waiting to be called in. The northern offensive had suffered a terrible loss, but he could scarcely believe that it hadn't been so much higher.
Spirit Severing light qi employed in a Nascent Soul's stratagem defeated by Foundation Experts' bumbling efforts. The very words seemed impossible to speak out loud. Aliki Floros, Amaranth Castellanos, Wei Feng and Antonius Emmanuel Eleanora; certainly there were other figures involved in this mess who'd played a hand in producing the current outcome but these were the most talked about. Most were peers of Achille himself, one a junior as generations were counted, but they had wrested victory from the jaws of defeat where Core Formation elders and even the Archegetes himself had lain vulnerable to a devastating riposte from the Jingshen.
It burned at his pride to acknowledge that he'd been one among the masses laid low by the All-Blinding Array, merely surviving and having no hand in the resolution of things. It was a bitter pill to swallow, this new revelation of his personal weakness.
Achille's brooding was interrupted by a curt command from within. "Enter, Centurion."
Passing through the doorway, Achille unexpectedly found himself not meeting alone with the Protostrator. There was another clansman, dressed in stained hard-worn clothes seated cross-legged on the floor before the Elder of War's desk. He was unfamiliar with the cultivator, having not met the small and wizened man before but he recognized the blank dark eyes distinctive of the Delphi family. He bowed to both men and announced himself, "Centurion Achille Adephos, reporting as requested, sir."
Sheng Yu was a man much changed since the last time Achille had seen without injury. Bereft of his right forearm and wearing a blank jade mask, he gave no indication of wavering from injury – speaking dispassionately and unhurriedly. "Wangshen Fort has been confirmed abandoned by Jingshen Junjie. Reports from observers on site agree with the evaluations from the Array-Engineer Corps that whatever efforts Antonius Emmanuel Eleanora employed to stymie the full effects of the All-Blinding Array would have produced a backlash at the source. The Fort is still standing but its manned complement has been gutted and Jingshen Junjie has retreated back to the Underworld Spirit Palace."
Excited clapping from the seated man interrupted the Protostrator and continued for a short moment until trailing off. Pouting, the Delphi Expert looked up and complained, "What? Can't a soldier take heart in a favorable repositioning of opposition forces? Do go on, dear Sheng Yu."
Without remarking on the insubordinate behaviour, Sheng Yu resumed speaking. "This has presented an unprecedented latitude of action for our forces. The Archegetes has been able to act unopposed for a short time and secured the Jingshen Bei mines."
That was a surprise to Achille. It was generally hard to conceal the mass movement of troops that constituted a legion and he'd heard no whisper of a deployment in force. If he wasn't entirely out of the loop that meant that one man alone had overcome the single largest concentration of manpower in the entire war front by himself. The events of the last months it would seem were to be pointed reminders of the sheer heights of power others had over him.
"The reason you have been summoned is that the All-Blinding Array has been targeted for capture. Every indication from the Corps and scouts is that the Array is largely intact and still powered. Centurion Achille Adephos, your group's work analyzing the Array have allowed us to identify the essential nodes that need to be taken while Centurion Chemos Delphi's detachment of raiders has laid the groundwork for the assault. After capture, I intend to return to the Jingshen the favor they paid us and turn the Array on the Underworld Spirit Palace itself. The two of you have proven yourself familiar enough with the workings of the Array and are being assigned to necessary refit. Your superiors all have commended you for your efforts in the wake of this assault and so you are being given lead on this matter. A large number of the more experienced Array-Engineers were either killed or disabled in the assault itself and are currently needed to secure our recent conquest of the Bei mines." Sheng Yu revealed.
Ah, that was why they merited the personal attention of the Protostrator. Not enough hands to spare and a decent showing beforehand meant that they were being given a chance to make their mark in a brief moment of opportunity. There was likely politics from their respective families behind the selection of the two of them, there always was at this level.
Achille could hardly refuse this opportunity. "Thank you sir, we will see it done without fail." He replied.
"Oy, sure sure. Glory, honor and all that. When do we start? I'm itching to get the chance to co-opt a 4-Star Array. Those don't come by every day, you know." Rising to his feet, Chemos bent and stretched himself, joints popping as he did so.
The blank mask of Sheng Yu's visage fixed on Achille as he passed over slips containing the assignment details. "Everything you need to know is in there. You are dismissed."
Snatching up the slips, Chemos grabbed Achille in hand and hustled him out of the office. "What do you say we have a nice hot meal as we go over these duties here, eh? My treat, don't you worry about it."
Achille went along with the flow. He'd had enough experience dealing with eccentric experts "If you know a place that serves good Dawn-cry congee I'm game." He answered.
"Huh," Chemos muttered, stroking his chin. "Didn't take you as a breakfast man. Well who's to question the love of a man."
Achille corrected Chemos. "I don't love it. In fact I find the taste of it annoying. However, I do my best thinking over a bowl of the stuff, call it childhood habituation if you will. If we're going to impress the Protostrator, I'd best bring my sharpest skills."
"Hahaha…," Laughing uproariously, Chemos led the way away from the field office. "You know I think this is going to be a very profitable partnership indeed."
***
"Safe, fast or powerful. Pick any two." Chemos Delphi bluntly reported to Sheng Yu. He was back in the Protostrator's office with the young Adephos to give account for their efforts over several weeks. The office was not much unchanged since his last visit; austerely furnished without much hint of personality beyond professionalism, documents neatly filed and organized, everything in its proper place. Sheng Yu himself was transformed, he had a prosthetic replacement for his missing right hand though the Dispassionate Mask was still in use. Interesting artifact that one. He'd come across quite a few trinkets with similar effects clearing out the leavings of the Battle Blood Cannibal sect. Apparently murderous Blood Path practitioners sometime needed a little help with restraint and emotional clarity, who would have thought?
"The All-Blinding Array is a masterpiece of array-engineering. I'll give fair odds that it is the personal handiwork of Jingshen Junjie, no one else I know of has the capacity to produce something of this caliber and it doesn't have the indicators of being repurposed. We'd really have been in trouble if those ponces from the Jingshen had reflected even a fraction of the talent that went into this thing. I'm being serious here. Projecting light qi along a bloodline tracking vector and then including a focusing arrangement all without direct access to area effect is the work of genius. Let's not even go into the problems of containing and channeling the stuff used to power the damn thing. We had difficulty looking at the bound energy, much more manipulating the stuff. Yup, this is one hell of a beast. So that's what we got for you. If you want to use this thing anytime soon and at anything approaching its original strength, you are going to need a lot of people ready to meet the Imperator very soon. If you give us a couple of years to a decade, we could probably manage with a tenth of the losses in manpower. Of course if you just want a fancy flashlight, we could vent the remaining energies easy-peasy." Chemos blithely rattled off.
Beside him Achille kept his face blank from weary practice over the past weeks with his colleague. It was either that or try to murder the old gnat, who was annoying very hardy.
Seated behind his desk, Sheng Yu turned to Achille and asked. "Senior Mechanikos Adephos, do you agree with Centurion Delphi's report?"
Without a pause, Achille immediately replied. "I do, Protostrator. As Centurion Delphi describes, even with access to the core of the Array and the three command nodes the difficulty of repurposing the array is merely extreme rather than impossible. The Array in principle is simple enough even if the execution is fiendishly complex. The basic operations are containment, targeting and release functions that are standard across the region for offensive projection arrays. Altering the design and orientation to target the Underworld Spirit Palace is theoretically within our means, especially since we recovered what appears to be the central targeting construct if battered and broken as spoils taken by one Centurion Magnus Centenius. The chief difficulty we have is accessing the Array itself. The very element that makes the Array potentially so useful and so difficult to work with is the quality of qi we have to work with."
Gesturing at Sheng Yu's own injuries, he described the challenge. "Even if we had multiple Grand Mechanikos on hand the task would still be incredibly difficult. The prestige of the will that suffuses the qi is potent, tenacious and impossible to counter on direct contact. I have the advantage of reaching the 10
th Heavenstage before ascending to Foundation Establishment and that minor edge is what has kept me from having to convalesce lengthily every time we directly manipulate the Array. Several members of those working with us were not so fortunate, my own apprentices included. If this Array is going to be used in this war anytime in the near future, it is going to upon the corpses of many legionaries."
Sheng Yu sat in silence for a moment considering their words, then nodding firmly he rose to his feet. "Prepare a concise list of instructions on how exactly to accomplish the refit that doesn't rely on specialized knowledge. I will speak to the Archegetes about the labor needed."
As they trailed after the exiting Protostrator, Chemos wondered about the men and women who were going to die at his recommendation. He had an idea where the Elder of War planned to source the sacrifices needed and wondered if that was a mercy or a betrayal. It was more blood staining his hands either way. To walk the path of a cultivator was to take death in hand, yours and the lives of many you would meet along your way.
***
A fifth of those wounded by the initial firing of the All-Blinding Array died before ever leaving Haoshen Fort. Many fell to the lingering injuries caused by the lethal scarring light, wounds that refused treatment and defied even the hardiness of the Blood of Bronze. More still Chemos knew had died at their own hands, in stable enough condition to not be at risk of death from physical trauma but so afflicted by a ceaseless agony that they sought the escape of the grave. Yet when all was said and done, almost twelve hundred legionnaires gathered at Wangshen Fort, to embark on an endeavor that would almost certainly kill them.
He'd asked Achille if he could make this initial welcome and the lad had agreed. Good head on that one if in need of a little livening up. He might be a genius with arrays but there were things only old age and cunning could understand. Right now the younger man was dreamily working out something in a small green notebook, his apprentices standing a step behind him.
He looked at them, the walking wounded gathered in the courtyard. Not a single person was without thick covering of bandages, pinned up clothes and patches marking missing bits and pieces of themselves. Some of those gathered hear sought an honorable death, suicide by sacrifice. Others were full of rage, wishing to visit the pain and suffering they felt on those who'd set it upon them first. Many more reasons had brought this motley grouping here: a desire to leave a posthumous legacy, loyalty to fellow legionnaires, etc. Whatever the reason, they were here to work under his instruction in the worst of conditions so he would honor their presence.
"Welcome to Wangshen Fort. My name is Chemos Delphi, centurion of the 63
rd Legion." Uncharacteristically serious in manner, he stood before them in neatly pressed clothes without his habitual stains. There was no levity in his tone as he continued speaking. "I will not thank you for taking up this task or praise you for committing to this endeavor in spite of its expected costs. You will undoubtedly hear much of that from many others, some whose regard carries far more weight than my own. No, I am here to tell you that you have the opportunity to take part in one of the greatest gambles in living memory. What is this wager you might ask? It is nothing less than the daring to break open the heart of a great power with a ruin of their own making."
He lifted his right arm to point dead north towards the great fastness of the Jingshen and the eyes of those present followed, seeing beyond the occluding walls to the end he marked out. "In less than a decade, the Legions of the Golden Devils have done the incredible, bringing down the Three Great Bulwarks of the Jingshen and taking them for our own. There is one last defense to break open, one last retreat left to the Jingshen. It is mighty indeed, the Underworld Spirit Palace, fortified and armed with the wealth of the richest lands of the desert. But I want to bet that our means are mightier than their walls. Dare to dream with me that together we will forge a great and terrible weapon that will crack open their guard and blaze the torch of victory ahead of us. What do you say?"
A ragged hoarse shout came from within the press of the crowd. "Aye, I will bet my life on you. My hands are yours!" Like a dam broken, one by one those who had volunteered cried out their intent loudly until they formed a broken wounded but defiant chorus. Did he see a few backs stand straighter, and pain lie just a hair lighter on ravaged features or was he just imagining what he wanted to see? Truly it did not matter. He had meant those words and they had responded as he had hoped. Perhaps this would play a defining event in the narrative of the resurgence of the Clan if his wildest hopes came true. After all it would be hard to beat crushing a peer power within a couple of decades as a sign of strength, favored by the heavens or not.
***
It was a somber gathering that watched the Array Spire erected in the courtyard of Wangshen Fort come to life with a howl of barely suppressed power. Towering dozens of meters into the air, the tower of metal and stone dominated the area, an aura of light hanging about it that eliminated all shadow within reach. Slowly the new targeting attachment to the All-Blinding Array, the last of the needed refits, calmed its fury; the carved patterns along its sides flashing in wavelike pulses like the heartbeat of a shackled tyrant as the power within cycled through its channels. Gathered to witness this awakening was a much reduced group, the Protostrator himself in attendance with Achille and Chemos with their teams as well as the last living light-stricken.
Sheng Yu had promised his full support to this endeavor and the Elder of War had certainly delivered. With every advance they made into Jingshen territory the legions had ransacked their captures, stripping them down to the bare structure looking for spirit stones and other wealth. A minor portion of this bounty had been made available to Achille and Chemos for their purposes, the excess of wealth providing for all materials and reagents needed to expedite the co-opting of the All-Blinding Array. Thrice-Blessed Obsidian from the Hong Xuan's Watchful Father, Nightfall Yin Waters, Umbral Iron and more, a glut of necessities flowed down the Scorpion Road to its terminus in Wangshen.
Chemos broke the quiet, speaking to Achilles as his side. "I have never particularly aspired to command and still don't no matter how much Calliope or the other silly councilors tried to persuade me. Believe it or not, I always felt it was too much responsibility no matter the power that came with it. In truth, I sought to join the Sojourners in part to get away from the pressure to advance in the family's ranks as much as from a love of the explorer's life."
Barking a bitter laugh, he shook his head. "Yet here I am, the grim taskmaster who led nearly six hundred men and women to their foreseeable deaths. I was at their backs, directing them in the adjustments we needed at the source node of the Array here while you took the remainder to labor on the three secondary nodes. I sent them in to work those damned cracked arrays, encouraging them to carve as instructed even as the light bleeding out ravaged them. I came to their tents as they suffered in mounting agony from the work I told them to do to motivate them to continue to push through the next day and the day after that. I let my clansmen go mad as their spirits failed before the power I challenged them to grasp because we, no I, needed the gains their ruin could purchase. At the end, it wasn't even my hands there with them but Sheng Yu's which set in place the final alterations necessary."
"Behold our loaded dice." He whispered, voice weary now. "From twelve hundred to barely three score, this All-Blinding Array had devoured the scions of the Blood of Bronze but it has been done. The Clan has its weapon, primed and ready to unleash calamity upon its foes, but the cost…"
Achille silently handed the older cultivator a flask, the two sharing a long quiet moment together as they looked away from the unquestionable testament to their array-engineering expertise to witness the evidence of the price that accomplishment had demanded. At this time they'd dismissed their subordinates, satisfied that their work would hold up without failure and wanted the space. They watched as the remains of the last few of the fallen afflicted were prepared by attendants for return to the Clan's home territories.
"You know, I honestly don't know how to feel about the fact that those corpses are going to be rendered down into Gravebronze rather than being given over to their families. I understand the reasoning, I do. It's not everyday you have access to raw materials imbued with light qi with Spirit Severing strength and every last legionnaire certainly gave their assent to the process." Chemos muttered, watching the caskets of sealed Soulsteel being transported away. "There is no end to what we give to the Clan, in life or in death but I wonder what it would feel like to rest."
"We give everything because the Clan is greater than any one person. It is a cruel mother, a demanding father yet a stern protector and ever vigilant shepherd." Achille mused.
Chemos smiled wryly and took a sip of the hot broth Achille had supplied. "Don't mind this old man's ramblings. I hear you have more pressing issues to consider. Something up north to make use of the work done here, I think."
Achille nodded. "Nothing too difficult, just filling up my dance card and helping a few colleagues get away from what promises to be an exciting engagement."
"Imperator be with you then, I have a feeling your dance partners are going to be a little light on their feet after all's said and done." Chemos said quietly. Nothing more was said as the two legionaries watched the conclusion of their assignment.
***
Getting near the encroachment of the Qi-Draining Desert into Jingshen territory was an unpleasant experience. The sapping effect was unpleasant even when one kept well clear of the darkened sands proper, an inexorable pull that seemed to suck out strength and spirit without end. Get too close and it felt like a hook had been driven into one's flesh just below the navel and was gleefully attempting to wholly rip out the dantian with a side helping of entrails. In short it was an area far from developed settlements that saw very little traffic because of its hostility. This feature had made the gorge running the edge of the life stealing desert an exceptional candidate for exfiltration opportunities by the strategists planning the covert operation into the Underworld Spirit Palace. The snaking furrow in the earth had an entry point in captured territory and made its wall well past the emplaced defenses, passing through the very edge of the Qi-Draining Desert to appear within spitting distance of the palace itself. Of course, this wonderful prize had the one unfortunate blemish in that the Jingsshen were not entirely idiots and had covered the terminus area of the gorge with a small redoubt. The small complement of soldiers manning the defense were of little concern by themselves, but the set of Spirit Cannons set up were a bigger problem. They were powerful enough to give any infiltrators trying to escape via the gorge a significant delay, allowing any pursuers to catch up. As such they needed to be eliminated and a team of the best Golden Devils had been assigned to their destruction.
Hidden behind a rise of land across from their target said team was currently doing its best to reduce its numbers by one through asphyxiation as Galan Maximus caught Fan Zhui in a choking hold, lying prone on his back and holding the slighter female atop him.
"Let… me… go… bastard…" Fan Zhui sputtered, struggling on her back in the restraint of Galen's embrace.
Galan tightened his squeeze and made a polite request. "I will if you swear not to do something stupid to jeopardize our mission like say, try a headlong attack without consulting any of us."
Flailing weakly for several more minutes, Fan Zhui finally gave in and communicated in legion hand-sign her submission. Smoothly Galan released Fan Zhui and she scrambled off him, coughing. Galan sat up, rolling his shoulders to work out the ache in his joints. Fan Zhui was feisty and much stronger than her size would suggest. Had she been using qi to actively supplement that strength, he wasn't sure he could have held her even using qi himself.
Rising up from where she'd been bent over hacking, Fan Zhui glared at Galan with a fury behind her blue eyes that promised hell unleashed. She spat to the side on the ground and clenched her fists. "Mark my words, Galan, you are going to rue this day. No one lays hands on me and gets off scott-free."
Galan dusted himself off and sat up, scoffing. "Oh please, even you aren't boneheaded enough to hold a grudge for preventing you from blowing up our mission."
"I wasn't blowing up anything. I was just repositioning for advance reconnaissance, give me some credit here you oaf." Fan Zhui retorted.
"While I do enjoy watching you two argue like an old married couple, I had enough of that pleasure on the way here and being so close to black sands is not helping any." Achille calmly remarked, eyes fixed on the jade plaque in his hands. "If you would like to hear what I've found out, please settle down."
Fan Zhui had one last glare left for Galan before focusing on Achille. Galan stood up and came to stand beside her waiting quietly. A short while later a curious guest came down from the sky, circling wide of their position to descend from the direction of the south. Artfully crafted in the likeness of a hawk, the metal construct painted sky blue to stand out less while aloft landed on the outstretched arm of Achille. He opened the chest of his creation and pulled out a small jade medallion, glimmering with minute precisely carved symbols. Placing the medallion onto a circular recess on the jade plaque, an image of the squad's target as seen from above appeared on the plaque.
"Nice work there." Fan Zhui said admiringly. "Wonder if I could get the designs for purchase?"
"Sure," Achille said idly, "Just be aware the energy requirements to get any kind of altitude or distance are truly obscene. With the Qi-Draining Desert close by, I might as well be burning quality spirit stones for the use I get but it is worth it to get the intelligence we need."
Watching the recording play for several minutes until the end, Galan spoke up worriedly. "I count three Foundation Establishment Experts and at least thrice that number in Qi Condensation. That number is a bit more than the initial mission reports. We were expecting one Expert, but assuming we saw every resident of the fort, we're outnumbered at least four to one. The Experts aren't likely to be stronger than either of us, Early Formation at best, not if they're posted here but they have the advantage of height and artillery. We would be attacking a prepared position with the odds against us."
Fan Zhui shrugged. "Not the best odds but certainly not insurmountable. The three of us are some of the better Senior Mechanikos, I don't doubt that we can figure something out. Besides, we were supplied with enough explosives to make anyone have a very bad day."
"About that," Achille spoke up, "I think we already have a plan of attack. Your direct offense can be made to work with a few adjustments."
"Ohh, tell me more." Fan Zhui leaned forward excitedly as Galan looked even more worried.
***
Jingshen Dafu lazed at his post in the observation tower of fort Hanfu, casually scanning the horizon every few minutes. There was little else to do here. Fort Hanfu proper was a measly four story structure with a tower attached to the roof. The ground floor and first story housed the quarters for the Jingshen scions assigned to this posting, mostly the dregs of the True Jingshen. The third floor was the residence of the Experts in charge, traditionally cultivators who barely made the cutoff for any decent regard from the powers that be of the True Jingshen. The fourth floor housed four batteries of Spirit Cannons covering each cardinal direction, the sole justification for the presence of anyone in this little slice of hell. Finally towering above everything was the small compartment of the observation tower offering a commanding view of sand and yet more sand, ordinary and qi-draining alike.
He was almost through with his shift which should have been done together with that lazy bastard Bula, but the brown-nosed bootlicker had made the proper bending and bowing to Senior Wulai and weaseled out of his service. It pained Dafu to admit that the major source of his frustration with Bula was that it was mind-numbingly boring alone in the tower. Playing pái by yourself was an exercise in slow descent into madness. Rubbing his hands together, he reminded himself that dawn had just broken which meant he had less than an hour to go. Rising to his feet to perform the perfunctory circuit that defined his existence for the next hour, he scanned counter-clockwise around the fort. He grunted in surprise when he reached the end of his rotation, "Huh!?"
Rubbing his eyes and squinting them as he looked again, the figure he'd spotted approaching from the east was still there backlit by the rising sun. For a moment he froze struggling to process this unexpected interruption in the monotony of his life for the last year. Finally the memory of long buried protocol roused itself and he hurried to sound the alarm to those below, wondering all the while if the war had finally come to fort Hanfu. 'It couldn't be the Devils, could it?' he thought as the clattering of the alert rang out below. There was nothing of value here and if the bronze-skinned demons were launching an assault on the Palace, surely there would be more of them than one attacker. Jingshen Dafu began to reconsider just how bad it really was to have a nice dull shift alone.
---
Jingshen Wulai, Third Rank scion of the True Jingshen, accomplished Expert in Mid Foundation Establishment wished to the heavens that the infernal clamor about him would cease and stop encouraging the demented imps currently trying to dig their way free of his skull. He and his colleagues, Tanji and Golan, had commiserated each other again last night with one of the jars of Spirit Liquor he'd brought along on their sheer misfortune to be stuck in this hole in the ground for the next couple of weeks. Deep in their cups of exquisite 1000-Year Golden Peach Baijiu, they'd drunkenly cursed the fate that had seen them insult lady Jiao about her thrashing by that old monster of the Gold Devils. Nothing too uncommon in the Underworld Spirit Palace of late but the three of them had managed to be the only ill-starred family members to do so inadvertently where Jiao could hear them forcing them to run for the farthest most ignoble posting they could find until she forgot about them. Thankfully the current successive setbacks against the invaders from the West meant that that likely wouldn't take long. The family needed all the strength it could muster, so all they had to do was keep their heads down for a short while and they could return to their proper place with the rest of the family.
Stumbling to his feet, he swallowed a purification and a recovery pill feeling the medicinal energies quickly work at beating back the hangover. Sniffing at his ruffled robes he deemed them fit for service and stalked out, though not before giving Tanji and Golan a good kicking to help in their rousing. Barking out a command to the first face he saw after descending the stairs, a Bulo or something of that sort, he demanded an answer as to why the fort's alert was still ringing. "What in the Nine Seas is going on?"
Bowing sloppily, the trash – Bula, that was it – blurted out, "Sir, Dafu spotted someone coming in from the East. They're not from the Jingshen and we were coming to ask for your instruction. Should we fire the cannons or report this back to the Palace, sir?"
Swearing under his breath at the idiocy he had to work with, he denied Bula. "Absolutely not. Raise a false alarm with the Palace over a single individual and you're going to be wishing you were assigned to the front lines. Last fool who did that got a patrol in the Netherchasm. The Ghost-Hounds made sure he didn't live long with his regret."
Bula's face paled drastically at the mention of one of the more notorious perilous areas of the Underworld Spirit Palace and its lethal denizens. Drawing his palm over his face, Wulai shook his head. "No, don't fire the Spirit Cannons either, not yet. The cost of firing those without proper justification is not something I want to have to account for. I'll handle this myself. Tanji and Golan should be awake by now with this racket. Let them meet me at the gate."
The only gate to the fort's compound opened north towards the Palace but the wall was built thick enough for a man to walk astride it and sure enough a gaggle of the fools under his command were on the eastern wall. Making his way out of the fort into the courtyard and up onto the walls brushing aside the rabble, he looked down and immediately spotted the source of the morning's troubles.
Standing a stone's throw from the wall as mortal's counted things was a man clad in what appeared to be a hooded fur cloak holding a simple spear in his hand. Wulai immediately scanned him with his spiritual sense, relaxing when he detected a cultivation of just 2-Pillars. No threat there to him. The features of the man looked like a washed out Golden Devil, light hair and eyes with normal features. "Declare yourself now, or be struck down where you stand." He shouted to him.
The man lifted his spear into the air and struck the sands. "I am Running Shadows from the Magic Oak Sect. I have come here on a matter of honor. I have been sent on a trial of adversity to overcome the Qi-Draining Desert and to prove my mettle in battle with beast and man. I have journeyed far, facing the dangers of the black sands and prevailed over hungry beasts, thirsting sand and harsh heavens alike. I offer a challenge to any Expert willing to cross arms with me."
What madness was this now? Wulai knew that the Jingshen Clan traded with the barbarians of the north, usually beast cores and tamed beasts for spirit stones. There was a group among those unwashed brutes that somewhat resembled the Golden Devils, the Strange-Eyed Tribe he believed it was, but he'd never heard of anything like a trial of adversity. Of course it would just be like those uncivilized madmen to do something like this. His introspection was interrupted by the arrival of his companions on the wall alongside him.
After catching them up on the morning's insane events, Tanji stroked the curls of his moustache and grinned, holding onto his favored spear with one hand. "Oh ho, some fun after all. I'll take this barbarian up on his offer. I've been itching to test my hand in combat these last weeks. Can't let my edge dull with the war going on you know."
Not to be outdone, Golan immediately demanded to be put forward as the barbarian's opponent, fingering the sword belted at his hip. "Surely you jest, Tanji! If there's anyone who would be better placed to display the superiority of the Jingshen martial ability it would be myself, crowned champion of the Junior Sovereign Tournament."
Rolling his eyes at the antics of his friends, Wulai slapped the two on the back of their heads. "Focus you idiots. I don't like that he's here without anyone spotting him beforehand especially considering the fact that the Clan is at war. So no I'm not taking any chances, we are all going to answer his challenge, the three of us at once. After all, he didn't place a limit on the number of opponents. Besides, I quite like the cloak he's wearing. It looks like an interesting artifact that would flatter my figure. Rustic chic you might say."
Eyes lighting up at his suggestion, the two friends looked at each other and immediately agreed. Below, the barbarian had remained silent after his initial challenge, idly drawing patterns in the sand with the butt of his spear. He only glanced up when the trio leapt down from the wall and approached him, splitting up like a hunting pack. Wulai prowled forward moving directly towards Running Shadows, qi channeled to his eyes to protect them from the sun rising behind his target. Tanji and Golan circled about, left and right respectively, weapons in hand. Arms empty and widespread, he flashed a bright smile that did not reach his eyes, coldly assessing Running Shadows like a side of meat. Behind them, the troops gathered on the wall, eager for a break in the dull routine of their watch, particularly one that promised to be a bloody beatdown by their own.
Coming close to Running Shadows, Wulai slipped on gauntlets from his side and placed his right fist in his left palm before bowing mockingly. "Thank you for the opportunity to trade pointers. I hope you don't mind that I invited my juniors along for this demonstration. They were so overcome with eagerness to learn from a master who had overcome our harsh desert that I could not bear to deny them."
By this time Tanji and Golan had positioned themselves at 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock from where Wulai faced Running Shadows at 6 o'clock. Unrestrained grins blossomed on their faces as their grips tightened on their weapons in anticipation. Shouts of encouragement from the wall echoed across the sands, jeering Running Sands and declaring the superiority of the three Jingshen Experts.
Apart from a brief glance up when the trio had descended, Running Shadows had not looked up as they approached. When Wulai rose from his bow, he ceased his scribbling in the dirt and stared straight into Wulai's eyes. "It's no bother at all. It saves me the effort of having to hunt them down later."
A flash of alarm ran through Wulai at that comment and he gathered his legs to launch into immediate attack. Before he could strike, a pulse of qi ran through the ground and Wulai found himself frozen, muscles unresponsive. He glanced down as insight flashed through his mind. The scribbling Running Shadows had made was not a means of whiling away the time as he waited but the setup for a paralysis array that now tried to stun and hold him in place. Weak, he quickly assessed the strength of the array. It would hold against him for at most a couple of seconds, a few more longer for his compatriots. Immediately he surged his qi through meridians and into his muscles, clawing at the hold on them. He was a hairsbreadth from breaking free, moving jerkily when Running Shadows dropped into a crouch placing a metal plate at his own feet and pumped it full of qi in a surge.
"Motherless donkeys!" Wulai swore in his mind, as he broke free and reversed course, leaping backwards. The lingering effect of the paralysis shortened his retreat and he only made it within spitting distance of Hanfu's wall. Behind Running Shadows, if that was his name in truth, Tanji and Golan chose a different tack and struck at the back of their foe. Qi flaring around their weapons, they closed the distance in a flash; Tanji's spear crackling with lightning at the head while Golan's sword burned with a verdant aura.
[Jade Crescent Cut]\[Heavenly Piercing Strike]
In the moment before their blows landed, a towering shadowy figure wielding a bronze spear appeared around their target, interposing a bronze shield against their attacks. Hoplite Formation, Wulai immediately recognized, weak without the strength of other users demonstrated as the shield fractured from blocking the twin blows. Nonetheless it had held long enough for the primed array plate to activate.
{Earthen Prison Array}
Instantly the sand all round the Golden Devil turned into quicksand reaching as far as the walls behind Wulai which began to sag in portions as their foundations were undermined. Wulai struggled to wrest himself free but this was a proper array technique embedded in a well constructed artifact, not a jury-rigged pattern upon the ground. The pull of earth didn't appear strong enough to bury him whole but he wasn't getting out of this quickly. Tanji and Golan caught off balance when their blows were blocked and the ground underfoot turned treacherous had landed poorly and fallen on their sides, burning their qi fiercely as they fought against being swallowed by sand that had come alive. He happily noted that the Golden Devil had not been spared from the activation of his trap, and was himself suank up to his boots in the quicksand. Wulai channeled qi into his gauntlets activating their embedded functions to project a strike of vitriolic qi at the attacker. Letting the opponent keep the tempo would see them defeated utterly. He'd just managed to launch the first in what was planned to be a series of harassing strikes, caustic green qi boiling the air in flight, when the lying bastard thrust his spear point first into the ground, pulling his cloak entirely about him.
The air around the spear burned with a blue flame, vivid crimson characters along its length lighting up and revealing it to in fact be an Array Flag. An illusory banner made qi projected from the butt upright in the air, bearing strange characters he recognized as the language of the Devils, Εξέγερση φούρνου ουρανού.
{Heaven's Furnace Conflagration}
He turned to scream at the men on the wall in panic, to do what his terrified mind didn't quite know. Sound the alarm, attack the enemy; whatever it was he never got the chance. The last sight he had was of an oddly empty wall as everything turned blue with heat and then there was no more.
***
Feeling the paper array mask he'd used to disguise his appearance start heating up at the edges, Achille tore it away and dropped it, letting it burn to cinders. He hissed at the heat radiating from the molten glass that had become the ground. The Fire-Resistant Bear-Cloak he was wearing was pretty much the only reason he was still alive after the particular tactic he'd just pulled. The pelt of a powerful Blazing Bear made for incredible protection against flame but were it not for his Purified Body and Blood of Bronze the radiant heat would likely still have killed him. The boots made from leftover pelt certainly kept him from losing his lower extremities. The single-use array flag he'd made for the Heaven's Furnace Conflagration was built upon the principles of the Heavenly Furnace Entrapment Array, sacrificing the restraining functions to focus solely on killing flame. It was exceptionally good at that as the ashy remains he could see ahead and smell from behind him attested to. If only that power did not come with an exorbitantly expensive price to produce. Useful specimens of Golden Flame Trees to form the flag pole were not easily procured in the desert.
Sighing he reached into his pouch for another expensive array, tossing the jade slip containing a Winter Night Binding to the ground where it activated, cooling the glass to something traversable. Shattering the glass around his feet was simple enough after that and he approached the fort. The walls had not taken the multiple array activations well and had fallen away in several places. Walking into the courtyard, he looked around. Not too dissimilar from the images he'd taken overhead before, absent the broken walls and the bound Jingshen soldiers lying insensate on the ground. He counted eleven soldiers, it seemed that he'd been off on that though thankfully not with regard to the Experts. Handling the three of them had been trouble enough. Any more persons to handle and he might have not been able to pull off the threefold ambush. Heck, if not for the overweening arrogance of the Jingshen letting him approach so close or making them not attack him more forcefully, he would have struggled truly. He'd planned for those flaws but it had been nerve wracking knowing that he was approaching under the barrels of cannons that could reduce him to bloody mist with ease. It was a shame though that all the equipment of the Experts had been reduced to slag. Those gauntlets had been interesting workings, fast and powerful. He would definitely not have liked to take several of those blasts headon.
Fan Zhui was standing beside the bound prisoners admiring a string instrument carved in the shape of a fiddle from stone. "Damn, I'm envious of your goodies. This Stone Fiddle worked like a charm just like you said. Once they were all distracted by your show outside, we came in quietly and let it play. The enchantment kept them in place while we used the soporific gas and we had the place to ourselves. You don't think that you could lend it to me for a while?"
Picking up the artifact he'd looted from a deceased Core Formation cultivator, he tucked it back into his pack beneath the cloak, ignoring her pout. "That is the lot of cultivators. Seek out daring exploits and risk your life, and you just might find treasure."
Making his way out of the fort, Galan carried out an unconscious figure and dropped him with the others. "Got one inside trying to get the cannons operational. You can both thank me for saving you from being blown to bits."
Turning a questioning eye to Galan, Achille asked. "The Spirit Cannons?"
Galan grinned in reply and held up a hefty sack stuffed full to bursting. "Completely wrecked though you can't tell from the outside. Anyone attempts to fire one of those without checking is going to have a very explosive experience. They're also going to need to bring a complete resupply of spirit stones to power the things. Boy have we got loot, not a lot of it pure enough for cultivation but there's enough of both impure and pure to put a nice helping in our Contribution Point balance on top of successful mission payout."
Laughing gleefully, Fan Zhui grabbed at the sack as Galan played keepaway with her. Achille approached the pile of captured prisoners and slapped a stunning talisman on each of them. Juiced up, they should keep the Jingshen soldiers out of action long enough for the infiltration team to make their way out. Without the Spirit Cannons anyway, the route out of Jingshen territory was wide open even if they somehow released themselves. Rules of engagement meant that killing them was out of the question.
"All right you children," He called out to Galan and Fan Zhui, "Our job here's done. Let's secure these guys somewhere in the fort with a sturdy lock and get going. We kept things mostly restrained and the Qi-Draining Desert should have dampened any signals. Our mission here is a success."
Stretching her hands overhead, fingers interlaced, Fai Zhui grunted as they departed. "He sets off a bonfire and calls it mostly restrained. Who are we kidding?"
***
The trio had made good time in their exit from the fort. They were currently halfway to their destination, a small town where the legions had encamped after spreading out from Wangshen Fort.
"I always wondered why you never joined the 3
rd Legion. Heard about the Glass Spear Unbridled Array you created. Hard to believe that was the work of a child who hadn't even made it through induction yet though I figured being a lineal descendant of the Protostrator at the time helped. Man, I wonder how sweet it would have been to be related to Ioannes Vatatzes himself." Fan Zhui chattered on irrepressibly as they traveled.
"The 35
th had a better offer of sponsorship in the Array-Engineer Corps and that was all I wanted. If the 3
rd wanted me they should have put in more effort." Achille said before calling a halt to make camp, finding shelter in the lee of a nearby bluff
Galan walked over to Achille handing him a water bottle, while Fan Zhui snacked on dried jerky and asked, "Why are we stopping early? We should have continued on for another couple of hours before halting. This isn't the most secure Jingshen territory but it's still outside of the legions' coverage."
Achille held up a finger length carving of obsidian, engraved with spiraling runes. "This is a child array to the All-Blinding Array, a very minor one. It allows me to know if the Array is in use."
Pointing to a glow that strobed from the carving, he said, "That means that the Array is readying to fire and very soon. I want to witness the fruit of my handiwork. Care to join me in climbing the bluff?"
Their pride as Mechanikos would not have allowed Galan or Fan Zhui to miss such an opportunity. Together they made their way up the side of the sheltering bluff. By the time they finished their ascent, the obsidian carving was flashing too rapidly to count the intervals.
Achille looked north with his companions feeling the tension of the moment. With a sharp crack, the carving shattered in his hand and far to the north a bright flash lit up the horizon where the Underworld Spirit Palace would be.
"Our die is cast then, old man." Achille whispered, Fan Zhui and Galan glancing at him, but kept silent, restraining their questions. They looked in that direction for long seconds when a force seized their attention, dragging it towards the sky. A figure appeared in the skies, distant yet still improbably recognizable as a person rather than a minuscule dot. The roar of thunder resounded across the dome of the heavens, heavenly lightning descending with awesome fury as radiating personal affront. As though in response to the sickeningly thick bolts of fulmination, crimson mist rose up, occluding the whole of the celestial expanse and casting the entirety of the land into shadow. The solitary figure remained high above, space warping around him to bring him into focus, inexorably fixing the regard of the trio upwards.
Lightning of multiple hues rained down from the sky, the legendary 5-Color lightning of Retribution Tribulation pouring as though it were water, the strikes coming so fast they formed one loud unending blast. This is Heaven wielding only scouring strength, no nurturing essence here to temper the strength and will that overcomes its trials. In this place at this time, the declaration from above was death, extinction to the root. Yet as fury fell, the mists so red, unmistakably of blood, opposed the intent to obliterate the target of Heaven's ire. Laughing, taunting, the Blood with masterful expertise, turning Heaven's strength away from it. Lightning was deflected, corrupted and transformed into blood-red tones, orphaned bolts striking with calamitous impact upon the tortured earth. Uncompromising in their defiance, the mists rose up higher, deepening the gloom, and then Achille was lost.
He felt it, a corruption trying to worm its way into him. Like a scarlet flood it washed over him, pulling him down into its grasp and whispering the enticements of its nature to him. Was this not power, to take, to consume, to add to his strength from those too weak to hold onto theirs? His eyes opened, previously clenched shut as he was overcome and he saw his clansmen who he'd journeyed with and fought beside and laughed alongside. How their flesh called to him, the potential locked within waiting to be his.
Even as he felt saliva pool in his mouth and his stomach rumbled, even as his surrounding grew hazy in the pulse of bloodlust, Achille Adephos stood fast. In his very flesh, in the blood that this defiler sought to pervert a stubborn resistance bloomed. The Bronze neither knelt or bent to this corruption and it offered its strength to those who bore it. The opponent was mighty yet still, doubling its efforts to seize the will of the Expert but his was a dao-heart well-founded and strengthened, the ephemera of a flying lord of fishes manifesting within his mind as he fought to hold on to himself. The corruption threatened him with an eternity of struggle if he did not submit. Achille's heart was unshaken, for had he not battled nightmares for a century and overcome them?. This too he would face and in time it shall pass like all things.
Achille fell to his feet as he finally gained the upper hand and retched, his stomach expelling the water he'd just drank and whatever other contents it held. Painful bile flooded his throat, distracting but not so much that he missed Fan Zhui coming for him. Too weak to do much he considered his options and simply rolled aside, dodging her maddened rush and letting her fall to the sands below. It would be a harsh landing, but she was certainly tough enough to live through it. Galan, he checked, needed no help. The legionnaire had somehow managed to knock himself unconscious, an unorthodox but effective solution.
Above the sky began to lighten as the mists faded in strength before the relentless assault of the heavens. But they persisted with their goal. Fighting with all remaining potency to keep the figure at the heart of all this disaster safe.
Achille took a long moment to gather himself, seating himself on the ground. As he rested he heard a loud familiar voice carrying over the desert, carrying with it the sense of a shadowy grasping will; powerful but as nothing compared to the prior demonstrations. "This war is over. Jingshen Junjie and Jigshen Jiao are dead by my hand. You may surrender and will be treated fairly, whether you are Qi Condensation disciples or Core Formation elders. If you do not surrender, though, no quarter will be given."
Looking to the northern horizon where that proclamation had to have its source, he saw a great spear of darkness rise into the sky over the Underworld Spirit Palace. It was a terrible thing, a mighty standard. Appearing as though it was a hole cut in the world – darkness beyond shadow, it stood there nearly fifty li tall, declaring victory, calling out to the Legions to advance towards their new possession.
Laughing fitfully, Achille struck the rock beside him speaking to the air. "It looks like I owe you a drink, old man. You rolled a winning combination here. Eleven years to conquer the Jingshen, that is certainly one hell of a gamble. Hahah-"
The laughter choked in Achille's mouth as there was one last crescendo of thunder and the sky-borne figure vanished, having overcome the tribulation. In his wake, Heaven reached down below and showered the ravaged land with qi from above for the first time in ten thousand years. Shimmering treasure that enraptured the eye even from afar sped earthbound and the hand of Heaven inscribed its own proclamation for all to see, the intent within so forceful that he doubted that any could miss it no matter what lay between them and the sky.
天下万物
Entirely overwhelmed, Achille fell to his back and closed his eyes. He would deal with the implications of this later. For now he just wanted to rest and, by the Imperator, he let nothing get in the way of that goal.
Part B1
Camp Huanji was bustling with activity like a kicked over termite mound as a trio of weary legionaries straggled in. The captured minor village, now converted into a forward operating base, regularly saw couriers stream in from the north and south as the Legions reorganized its purpose into a node for the deployment of forces to Secure the Underworld Spirit Palace and its environs. Troop complements marched out daily to the north, ferried from the south and encamped briefly at Huanji before moving onward to reinforce the occupation. Moving against the tide, Achille, Galan and Fan Zhui made their way past the sentries at the village entrance and moved towards the command center set up in a field near the village elder's home. In the short time since they'd accepted their assignment and headed out, the influx of Golden Devils had exploded the village's population well beyond what Achille remembered it had been, forcing the bulk of the camp's activity to be moved outside of the village proper. The command posting and quartermaster still remained within, hence their bypassing the camp to head into the village.
Achille wearily eyed the troops moving through the streets, listening with half an ear to his companions as they walked further.
"I don't really know how to describe it. One moment I was looking at the sky and then I was drowning in confused rage. I remember going for Achille but it was as though I were someone else, all inhibitions removed. Adephos might be handsome, sure but the only thought I could have was to disembowel him to see whether his insides matched his outsides. Utter madness. I don't know how you managed to knock yourself out so quickly. That would have required more focus in the moment than I could spare." Fan Zhui ambled along beside Galan Maximus, looking battered. Her right arm was pulled up in a sling and bandages around her chest braced broken ribs. Even her head was not spared, a rough eyepatch was set on her right eye. It was a testament to the formidable sturdiness that the Blood of Bronze endowed the Golden Devil Clan that she was moving as easily as she did.
Galan for his part looked physically untouched but a haunting look in the man's eyes hinted that there were scars buried within. The normally quiet man had become more reserved after their experience with the maddening mists. Eyes turned downwards he replied to Fan Zhui, "I still don't remember anything from that time. It's all blank from when I saw the mists rise into the sky. All I have to go on is what Achille told me and what else I can surmise from what we heard from the other legionaries as we returned here."
Fan Zhui scowled, "I know the reports are that this thing supposedly hit everywhere and lots of people were taken over but they also say that the Clan mostly got the best of it. There were three of us on that bluff and I'm the only one who thought that it would be a good idea to start munching on my clansmen. Whatever you did or didn't do kept you out of it and the big damned genius over here managed to beat the madness off. That is not a good showing of my resilience."
"You failed to overcome a mental influence supposedly powerful enough to reach across the entire Virtuous Flipper Region. That failing needs to be addressed but do not discount your strength. You were outmatched by a superior opponent and not weak in yourself. Take a look around, you are not alone." Achille commented as they paused to let an optio leading troops cross a narrow intersection.
Prompted by Achille's words, Galan and Fan Zhui focused their recall on the legionaries they'd met, particularly those in the large camp outside Huanji village itself. There was a frantic energy in the air of the camp that they'd overlooked in their distraction. A pronounced distance or closeness one didn't normally see so visibly in centuries out and about. Fan Zhui quietened in introspection as she saw a bit of herself reflected in others they'd passed by. The troops they had met traveling towards camp hadn't lingered on their own experiences with the mists but there and here in camp, she knew there were undoubtedly people who'd succumbed. Some had not been so fortunate as to be on an isolated outcropping and easily subdued without incident. Galan in turn looked up and placed his arm awkwardly around Fan Zhui, to which she flashed him a subdued smile.
It was a silent group that finally made their way to the command tent. Announcing their identity and purpose to the guards on duty, they waited only a brief moment outside before being waved in. The command tent was large but felt cramped with the number of people moving and working within it. Picking out the adjutant they required, the trio made their way to her with only a modicum of stepped upon feet courtesy of Fan Zhui. Centurion-adjutant Mina Hasperides looked as nonplussed as ever, reading with impressive speed through a stack of documents provided by an assistant and then burning her signature at the bottom with a flex of Fire qi.
"Have these delivered to the princeps, immediately." She ordered the assistant. Looking up from her desk at the approach of the trio as the assistant hurried away, she cocked an eyebrow, resembling nothing more than a stern grey-haired matron. "Senior Mechanikos Achille Adephos, Fan Zhui and Galan Maximus, once again. I believe your presence here would indicate a successful mission, if I may presume to guess?"
"Aye," Achille replied for them, the three standing tall before the adjutant. "The mission was completed without incident. The number strength manning the fort was greater than predicted but the difference was easily accounted for. the Spirit Cannons were neutralized and the fort disabled."
Galan spoke up from his position to Achille's left as he placed a sack on the table. "We also recovered a number of flawed and pure spirit stones from the fort. However, the whole thing did feel a bit redundant when the Archegetes took the Underworld Spirit Palace shortly afterwards and declared an advance by the Legions."
Mina picked up an access slate from her desk and pulsed qi into the artifact, tutting at the comment. "That is the nature of war. Strategies and tactics change with the circumstances. You will all be credited with the full balance of Contribution Points for your successful efforts. Submit the stones to the quartermaster and the tally of their value will be provided, split three ways."
Placing the slate back on her desk, she fixed each of them with a stare in turn as she spoke. "Orders from the Grand Elder himself. Rest up and be aware that there will be a sweep for Blood Path corruption through the ranks in successive waves. If you have any issues to declare, best do it now."
In unconscious unanimity the three comrades shook their heads.
"Nothing then? Okay then. Your business here is concluded. Go make yourself someone else's problem." Adjutant Hesperides dismissed them without another look and returned to her duties.
Finding their way out of the command tent, they headed over to the quartermaster's post which conveniently was not too far. Disposing of their looted winnings was quickly done enough and the three were finally free or as free as they could be with their various responsibilities.
"Imperator above, I have to go see the doctors now. I can't do anything with my arm busted up. Thankfully I have the funds to afford proper speedy healing." Fan Zhui informed her colleagues at the quartermaster's counter, pleased with her balance. Turning to Achille and Galan, she asked, "So where are you headed now?"
Galan was the first to reply. "I'm going to meet up with my legion's detachment here and check what the standing instructions are."
Achille said, "I am going to purchase a set of spirit stones. I've been on the brink of advancement for a while now not even taking into account the recent events and I want to consolidate that experience and break into Mid Formation."
"Oh, nice. I'm jealous right now. I'm quite a ways away from forming my next pillar. Good luck there." Fan Zhui said, Galan provided his felicitations as well before both departed together, squabbling in familiar companionship.
***
Achille knelt on the bare ground, eyeing the fit of a wide slab of granite in the center of the grove he was in. Camp Huanji didn't have the privacy he required so he'd moved a bit outside the settlement to a spot where a stand of trees opened up in the middle. Locating a suitably sized boulder around the village had been easy enough and transporting it to his chosen cultivation spot, a light workout for his tempered frame. It had been the work of a few minutes using his spiritual sense to feel out the fracture lines within and employ his ergeilio to break it open along a smooth enough plane. A handful of moments more and the use of a simple earth shaping technique and he had a surface ready to work on with his insectoid assistants.
The Array Scribing Anthive he'd received a century ago for his efforts opposing the Devil Bee incursion had served him well ever since. The portable hive of ants, capable of using miniature tools to follow cultivator instructions in building and repairing arrays, had saved him time and effort countless times over the years, speeding up his work and extending the scope of his reach all at the low cost of maintaining the colony of Spirit Ants with food and qi. He placed his hand on the rough stony surface of the oblong sphere that was the hive's home and gently sent a thread of qi through the artifact, bringing to life the link established between the hive and himself. There was no one individual ant he was connected to but a gestalt of many minds akin to a knitted fabric with certain tangles of brighter spiritual presence he identified as the queens. It was easy enough to channel down the link an imprint of the design and specifications of the array he desired. The hive roused to immediate action in response, worker ants grasping curiously affixed stone implements in their limbs and marching onto the granite slab to work at its surface. His qi bolstered the strength of the innate Formation the ants used, allowing them to carve the stone with ease. The ants worked ceaselessly with machine precision under his supervision and the granite surface was quickly covered in the swirling patterns of the cultivation array he had selected.
When the engraving was complete, he pulsed a command to cease to the ants, halting their activity and causing them to troop back into the Anthive. A dull buzz of accomplishment filter up from the link and he rolled a handful of small Beast Cores into the opening in the Anthive. Cutting the link, he set aside the Anthive, leaving the ants to their well deserved sustenance.
He stepped within the design of the array and placed the spirit stones he'd purchased in the sections needed to power up the array. As the array thrummed to life, he sat cross-legged within and began to cycle qi from his dantian up into his meridians and then back into his dantian. The array he was currently using was a personal modification of a Still Lake Reflection Array. The changes were inspired by recent work with the All-Blinding Array, including his observations of that array's structure and teaching from Chemos Delphi. All arrays naturally drew on the strength of the world around them, that was the main difference between them and pseudo-arrays like talismans which relied wholly on the crafter's qi and comprehensions at least in initiation. The Still Lake Reflection Array was designed to ease the process of setting up a Dao Pillar for an Expert in Foundation Establishment by calming the emotions of the user, soothing the flow of qi through the dantian and meridians, and enhancing sensitivity to the burgeoning personal dao truths every Expert cultivated like the image in a reflection.
The alterations Achille had made to the array expanded on that last aspect. In their examination of the All-Blinding Array, a curious effect was observed. Certainly the power of the Spirit Severing light qi was undeniable, but there seemed to be a minor magnification effect going on. Testing the array at differing times had shown that the All-Blinding Array was leveraging the metaphysical force of Day to empower its effect. A minor epiphany from that understanding was what had led Achille to this place under the full moon. He had named the novel variation of the array he was currently using as the Moonlit Still Lake Reflection Array. Just as the moon above illuminated the night and moved the tides, so too did his array draw on that influence to create a major boost to the revelatory aspects of the array as well as provide a minor boost to all other functions.
Closing his eyes to shut out external distraction, Achille focused on his breathing falling into the meditative pattern of the Spring Gales Descent. He felt the air around him become charged with qi as the array funneled the power from the spirit stones into him, breathing in the spiritual energy to stuff his dantian to bursting. His heartbeat grew louder in his ears, the pulse of blood through his veins seeming to come slower and slower yet closer all the more. As the array fully engaged, Achille felt a profound calm settle upon him and he fell deep within himself into his dantian and the sea within.
Making the transition to his inner realm was a smooth journey, as though stepping through a doorway. The representation of their cultivation base that every cultivator had differed as they progressed but they had the same root. Qi refined from the energies without and then contained within the body tended to manifest as a liquid which had led to the term qi sea gaining widespread popularity. Achille found his inner realm manifested as a body of luminescent fluid. Throughout his progress through the heavenstages of Qi Condensation, it had grown from a pond to a mighty sea. Perhaps if he'd managed to attain the 11
th Heavenstage, his dantian would have manifested as a vast ocean but what he had was enough. Right now his qi sea was a roiling expanse stirred up by fierce currents as his dantian struggled to hold the energies he was forcing into it. The array he was sitting in would slow the onset of negative effects from straining his capacity but he needed to be quick nonetheless.
With his will, he moved his projection and appeared above two solitary masses in the midst of the sea. Towering over everything in sight, two mighty spires shaped the waters around them, shifting the currents in defined patterns to their owin purpose. Each had the form of an Array Spire, their sides laden with the carved representations of the truths of his dao that Achille had founded them upon.
[Insight] lit up the space around it, a towering stepped pyramid made of crystal capped with a floating eye of blue flame. The sides of the pyramid were covered in a tiny fractal script that rose up the levels to a nexus beneath the eternally vigilant gaze.
Across from the pyramid, a great bronze tower pierced heavenwards declaring [Will] above all. The air around the tower was still, bound to stillness by the command of the spire. Along the length of the edifice, spikes of barbed iron were thrust into the walls and the tower bled molten metal but it stood tall, undefeated.
Coming to a stop in the air in a spot directly between the two spires and equidistant from both, Achille grasped the qi within his dantian and forced it to coalesce. His qi sea roared in response, swirling about a spot directly ahead perpendicular to either existing spire. By his will and knowledge, he carved within the foundation of his cultivation a truth that had hazily been with him since surmounting Qi Condensation but had now been brought into focus by his experience atop the bluff in the sands. "I rebel," he whispered to himself and those words resonated with the entirety of his qi sea. That truth though was not the foundation of the Dao-Pillar he sought to raise though it was as much a part of it. The understanding he wished to capture was the nature of Achille Adephos, revealed in opposition to the Blood Wrath and pricked by the declaration of Heaven. Achille had not fallen to the madness of the mists because of the support of his blood and strength of his will, that was true but beyond that he had resisted and struggled because he had his [Pride].
A whirlpool raged at the focus of his efforts, his cultivation base shifting as the bedrock of his qi sea erupted. Qi drained rapidly from Achille to support the formation of this new structure, transforming into the substance of his truth. Rising from the whirlpool, a monument of black stone rose up, a towering obsidian obelisk crowned in a halo of light. From the bottom of the obelisk rising to the crown, letters of blinding light in the script of the Imperial Optimatoi told the story of his life. Every struggle, failure and triumph was recorded on each face of the obelisk.
Even as a projection Achille felt the exhaustion of the advance weigh upon him. He was panting in his inner realm in sympathy with his physical body which was strained from the successful step into Mid Foundation. Achille hovered and watched as the sea current changed with the new presence. He looked down and saw the shape of the magnificent array he'd envisioned from the very first moment he'd entered his qi sea to raise up a Dao-Pillar. Three points was the smallest number to create a bounded shape and with this third Dao-Pillar the successively refined array he was creating could finally begin manifesting. Already he could feel a minor increase in the speed of his qi refinement as the principles of qi refinement arrays he'd ensconced within the Dao-Pillars touched upon his dantian. With more pillars, more functions would be possible. But that was for later. Now he had to clean up and get some rest. The result for a good job done was more work.
Part B2
Time passed as the excitement of the war settled down into the routine of occupation. There were still limited engagements with stubborn holdouts – strongest of which were the True Jingshen who had run for the depths of the Underworld Spirit Palace – but by and large the Golden Devil Clan had seized control over the entire desert. Now was the time to digest those gains, and decide the look of the map for the future to come.
Achille Adephos had found himself well supplied with all manner of labor during this time, there was always a need for skilled array-engineers in the aftermath of conflict, particularly one as complete and expansive as this had been. He was not working alone in his duties, the senior officers of the Corps placing more responsibility on him with his recent advancement. The Junior Mechanikos who'd been apprenticed under him had all stayed on for the time being. It turned out that being involved in the refit of the All-Blinding Array lent a certain cachet to his name. It almost made Achille feel old teaching and leading such young talents around; fixing up defense arrays in captured fortresses, examining the mining arrays used in Jingshen extraction facilities, setting up irrigation arrays around mortal settlements, and much more work. It had been a lot of traveling independently as a team and together with other Mechanikos from the Corps. Galan and Fan Zhui had remained in frequent contact, occasionally meeting up where their assignments permitted. The 3
rd Legion were busy expanding the coverage of the Glass Javelin Array to the new territories while the 27
th Legion were squatting in the Underworld Spirit Palace, rummaging through the secrets of the Jingshen with cheerful glee. Currently, Caius had sent Achille down south to Heavenly Beauty Palace, basing out from there to put in place the border protection infrastructure standard to Golden Devil territories.
It was late into the night as they met in the Palace to review the day's work. Achille felt only pride as he saw how far his team had come. Sitting at the head of a table with the team on either side of him, he congratulated them. "That was excellent work all round. I can confidently say that you have all progressed in leaps and bounds whether in your assessment of issues, technical knowledge or ability to optimize the fit of an array solution to the specifics at hand."
Tired and weary they might have been – Corpus was widely yawning to his left, Melas directly across from Corpus soon following suit - this bit of praise perked the team up.
"Now that we have set up this last node along the southern border with the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms, our assignment to get the Vile Blood Array operational is complete. As I informed you earlier I will be parting ways with you for a while to attend to a personal matter. The exact timing of my return is unknown. You have all expressed the desire to continue working under my official supervision, at least until one of you stops slacking and breaks through." Achille said, poking at his subordinates who had made remarkable gains in their cultivation.
"As always Corpus will be the lead Mechanikos in my absence. I trust that he will do an excellent job as always, as long as he remembers to put down the chopsticks every so often." Achille indicated towards his longest serving junior who had remarkably managed to increase in girth yet again. The posterior injury he had suffered in the attack by the All-Blinding Array had not put him off his gluttonous efforts, prosthetic jaw replacement or not.
Everyone sitting at the table shared a brief laugh at that remark, Xi and Po hiding suppressed smiles. Po had over time learned to relax his guard around the team, particularly Xi. The shorter man had protected his much taller colleague when they'd been ambushed by Jingshen resistance while on a mission in Cloudy Jade City. The initial attack had left Po gravely wounded and only the desperate defense by Xi had preserved his life. The two were much closer now, almost boon friends.
"Corpus, Melas Aquitaine, Zhen Xi and Po Aristotle," He regarded each face in turn as he called their names, "I remember when you came to me and what you were there. Now I look at you , and see the growth you've made, the incredible advances each of you has struggled to claim. The night is far spent so I will not take much more time. My parting words to you are to always remember the progress you've made and let that fuel a hunger for more. As a parting gift, I have asked for a bonus to be credited to the Contribution Point balance of each of you. I hope to see my generosity reflected in your strength upon my return."
The four juniors were very happy about the unexpected largesse, thanking Achille several times. He waved off their gratitude and called the meeting to a close citing the late hour and a need for an early start tomorrow. As they departed for their quarters, Achille couldn't help but see a shadow of potential looming over each of them. The fortunes of a cultivator could shift as easily as the winds but he hoped that the young men and women with him would see their talent realized in full.
***
"You're late." Achille said idly as he whittled a length of wood he'd picked up from the courtyard. He didn't look up from the swift motions of his knife as they revealed the figure of a crane in flight from within the wooden block. "What was it this time, old man?"
In the morning sun, the short white haired man standing in front of Achille cast a shadow over him as dark as his eyes. Stained clothes and all, Chemos Delphi looked much the same as Achille remembered which was unfortunate because it appeared that same consistency also applied to other qualities of Chemos that were less appreciated. Like say, being an aggravating headache by informing your traveling companion to expect you before dawn and then not show up until almost noon.
Smiling cheerfully, Chemos rocked on his heels and answered. "Ah my boy, it truly could not be helped. I intended to be here on time as indicated, but circumstances would not have it. I simply chanced upon the most marvelous Jade Scarab Tiger and couldn't decline the pretty kitty's invitation to play. We had a nice little romp in the sands before I had to leave, the poor thing was all broken up about it. Here, I brought you a souvenir."
Picking up the stone beetle that Chemos handed him, Achille felt a shiver run through him involuntarily from the contact. It was much faded but unmistakable. The presence of a peak Foundation Establishment cultivation lingered within the white jade. Jade Scarab Tigers were powerful sacred beasts as descendants of Imperial White Tigers, one of the Cardinal Beasts of Heaven. This was no diminished scion as far as he could tell and such creatures at the Great Circle of any great realm could be considered equal to a false cultivator of the immediate next great realm. Yet if he understood Chemos properly he had fought and overcome such an opponent and looked none the worse for it, practically untouched in fact. Achille reminded himself that behind the mask of obfuscating casualness, the Expert in front of him was a peak cultivator, whose breakthrough to Core Formation was practically guaranteed. The Delphi family did not consider him the next family head for no good reason.
"I'll accept your gift and the apology with it then. Now, we're much delayed so I hope you brought everything else needed so that we can set off." Achille said, setting down his completed carving to join the flight of dozens of other birds he'd made. He'd had a long time to himself waiting.
"Please, like I could ever forget. I would never deprive the Youth's Heavenly Fishing King of his deserved tribute." Chemos grinned and reached into his massive travel pack, large enough to dwarf him even placed on the ground as it was. From within he pulled out a slim case and handed it over. Catching his breath Achille eagerly received the case and opened it marveling at its contents. Pulling out the disassembled fishing rod ensconced within, he admired the masterpiece of artifice as he put it together.
"Linus sends his greetings and says that the profits of the Heavenly Furnace Entrapment Array are still very healthy. Apparently, the various legions who used them during the war are singing its praises and buying in droves as are their friends. He hopes you find the fishing rod a good enough sign of his appreciation. Apparently I'm supposed to butter you up so that you'll offer licensing for another array, your Heavenly Furnace Conflagration but that's too much bother. Who does he think I am, his secretary?" Chemos recited, breaking into muttering at the end.
Achille paid little mind to Chemos' words, simply lost in admiring the beauty in his hands. Noticing Achille's focus, Chemos described the rod's specifications as detailed to him by Linus Delphi. "The main frame is a composite construct with swappable components for differing needs. The tip is made from bamboo from the Simmering Soup Sect's Spirit Bamboo Forest for the times you need a soft flex. Alternatively, you have a tip made from Spring-glass where more strength is required. The frame of the blank is Spirit Bronze, akin to GraveBronze but purchased from a living supplier Lihua Kokkinos. It should allow you to attune to the rod as a whole better and challe qi much more smoothly. The handle is made from West Mount Cherry wood, strong without being too rigid. The other minor details you can find yourself."
Coughing loudly when Achille continued his inspection while whispering under his breath to the rod, Chemos gave in when there was no response and snapped his fingers with a crack like thunder. The noise finally dragged Achille's attention to the other man. "I believe we were supposed to be heading out." He said pointedly.
Sighing Achille packed up the case. "Elder Linus has my utmost thanks, he has delivered far more than I expected. I am most grateful."
Picking up his pack, Chemos began walking to the courtyard gate, Achille in tow. "He damn well knows that which is why he wrangled your assistance for this shopping list. I like fish as much as anyone but we're going to be doing a lot of walking to catch fish that is only being used as a gift. At least I get to see the sights at the family's expense."
"I know you explained to me when you first asked my help that the materials we are pursuing are intended as cultivation aids for a pseudodragon spirit beast but I never actually asked why the interest from the Delphi council. It seems that the Delphi are invested in this gift for more than just the favor of a pseudodragon who should just be in the second great realm?" Achille asked as they walked.
Chemos rolled his eyes in disgust. "Bah it's just those stuffy coots on the council cozying up to the Quintia family. The fish are intended for the pseudodragon beast companion of Gaius Antonius, fiance to the Quintia heiress. They see an opportunity to grow a tighter relationship with a Single Pillar King as well as one of the wealthiest families in the Clan. Apparently my foolish junior, Lipita – you should know here from some work under you – was mentored by him, going on an expedition into the Yuan Secret Realm together even. So they're trying to make nice with the two, even offering to make an artifact sword for him. I say, if the Delphi family wants a Single Pillar King so badly, we should just raise one up ourselves and be done with it, not try to buy one."
Achilles digested that information as they left the Heavenly Beauty Palace. He hadn't known that Lipita Delphi was a mentee of Gaius Antonius, though the circumstance there would explain why he'd heard she'd replicated a feat the Ninth Prince himself had accomplished in his own generation. Perhaps making the 9
th Heavenstage in under two decades had become more common, even surpassed by other startling rises, but it was still a noticeable feat that brought good regard.
Gaius Antonius, on the other hand, was a figure of infamy within the Clan at present. Rina Callista had blazed a way for others, demonstrating the strength of reaching the peak of unorthodox Qi Condensation cultivation. Aretaphila Myia had likewise demonstrated influence beyond the norm in her defense of Thousand Song city. He personally and all those within Haoshen Fort, the Archegetes included, had to thank Antonius Emmanuel Eleanora for somehow overcoming the All-Blinding Array at great cost to himself, a feat possible only by virtue of him being a King. He hadn't heard much about Amaranth Castellanos but there was surely some great accomplishment there. But Gaius Antonius, newly risen to become a King, had the dubious honor of being regarded as the instigator of the greatest assault on the region in living memory, the Wrath of Blood. Certain witnesses to the tribulation had allegedly recognized him and the word had spread as all such things do throughout the Legions. The even more curious thing was that a sixth King had also ascended recently, one Yan, yet that fact had been almost completely overlooked. If the Delphi were showing their support for the notorious King, it would be best he kept the Adephos family unaware of his participation to avoid more headaches.
Chemos had taken his silence during his thoughtful consideration as an invitation to serenade all around with bawdy tavern songs that would make a sailor blush. Ignoring the irreverence accompanying him, Achille took the lead for a bit to head towards the stables where he'd arranged mounts for their journey to Seven Temples City. It already promised to be a long ride.
***
Seven Temples City was a settlement on the brink of paradigm change. The hand of the Jingshen Clan over the hub of the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms had always been light due to disinterested priorities, but now the old familiar order was no more and there was a new overlord with different leanings. The scent of change was in the air and everyone showed it from mortals to cultivators. Where just twenty years earlier, they had traveled circumspectly through the loose kingdoms of the land, bronze skinned westerners boldly walked the streets of the Isles and the Cities. One such pair of visitors had made their lodging in an inn on Tollens Island and were currently on foot casually taking the lay of the land.
Achille followed along behind Chemos, feeling like a harried owner dragged along by an excitable pet on a leash. They had spent a week in the city since their arrival and Chemos was unabated in his enthusiasm about everything. Truly everything. The man had made the obvious tour of the namesake seven temples but had also delved into the most mundane areas, scouring petty markets on Tollens Island, taking a trip to the Chung Island Farms to eat fruit fresh off the plant, racing across the pontoon bridges of the Triplet Isles to see how fast he could make the circuit and more. For the Imperator's sake, the centuries-old cultivator had spent hours playing with mortal children in a local park.
Mind you, the eccentric behavior was tolerable because he'd been previously inoculated to it from prior exposure and the observation that there was a purpose to all the gallivanting about. On arrival, they had immediately made contact with the Golden Devil's formal embassy to the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms which was based in the New City to get as much information as possible. Their frequent travels had seen them meet with various powers within the city as well as the representatives of interests from outside who came to the metropolis to trade, worship and make deals in a neutral territory.
Besides, some of the locations he'd been dragged into had been interesting in their own right. The Sacred Library had stood out among the influences in the city as one of the few which offered a genuine path to advancement without the pitfalls that plagued most of the disparate inheritors of the Daylight Monk's legacy. As a casual visitor he had of course not been allowed access to any great lore but even the minor scripts they kept open to the public had offered intriguing insights into his own nascent Dao of Rebellion. The nature of revolution and struggle was a multifaceted thing, for not all violence was by or against the physical and not all opposition required destruction. Likewise the aqueduct walls of the New City were an interesting display of defensive fortification by mechanical engineering and array-work as supplemented by the power of a spirit. He was reminded of the Hong Xuan Clan's arrangement with the volcanic spirit of Watchful Father and their Towers of Ruin. There was much inspiration here, and he was already glad he'd accepted his friend's request to journey with him.
He let himself relax, taking his time as this morning Chemos led them northwest past Huai Shrine to the tip of Tollens Island. There they found a boat awaiting them, a simple common cultivator in the 3
rd Heavenstage sitting on the shore with it. The man dressed in simple garb, plain robes and tunic suitable for an ordinary fisherman. Seeing them approach, he rose and gruffly asked, "You the Golden Devils wanting to see the boss?"
"Yes, indeed! We are so glad that Sect Master Fuxian accepted our request to visit. Much appreciated that." Chemos bounced forward and seized the man's hand, shaking it vigorously.
The man cast a confused look down at the smaller figure manhandling him with inescapable strength despite his strained attempts at escape and then up at Achille. Huffing exasperatedly, he placed his hand on Chemos' shoulder and said to him, "I think that you've expressed your thanks enough. Perhaps we could release our guide and get on our way?"
"Ahh, sorry about that. I can't help but express my joy at the beauty of this fine morning." Chemos said, letting their guide's hand slip free.
The man nodded in thanks to Achille and pushed his boat off the shore. The three of them clambered into the boat and he pulled out a pair of oars to start moving them up the Heavenly Spirit River.
Achille eyed the large ruins of a bridge on Tollens Island and then turned to look across the river at the corresponding wreckage. The Betrayal of Bridges was two centuries past according to what he'd learned of the city, but the scars had been left unchanged. Turning to their porter, he asked him, "I am Achille Adephos, and the idiot over there is Chemos Delphi. What's your name and what affiliation do you have with the Riverlord Sect?"
"Me name's Chuan Gong. The boss found me working the banks of a river town up north. Said I had talent for cultivation and offered to take me in. Didn't have much holding me there and I thought it would be interesting to see if I could make like the stories and stuff. Joined the sect and it's not much different than back home. Sure there's a lot of sitting around, and breathing stiffly but I still fish and hunt like I used." The reply was as blunt and gruff as its deliverer.
Achille adjusted his seat in the boat and continued the conversation. "I'm a bit of a fisherman myself. I had the chance quite recently to tour the lakes and rivers of the land about here, doing a little fishing myself. I believe you might have heard of the Golden Devil who almost caught a Waterfall Defying Carp."
Chuan Gong's eyes bugged out and he almost dropped the oars. "Heard there was a Fishing King from the west a while back but I didn't know that I was picking him up." He said in surprise. Excited now, he questioned Achille as he continued to row. "What was it like hooking that treasure? Know you lost it but it must have been something else to have it on the line."
Glad to reminisce with a fellow fisherman and fan, Achille and Chuan Gong spent the rest of the trip talking about Achille's exploits fishing and Chuan Gong's own experiences. Chemos for once kept out of the conversation only enjoying the vista of the riverside passing by.
Soon enough they arrived at the docks of the Riverlord Sect. Several men and women similarly dressed like Chuan Gong were busy at work, porting the day's catch off tied up boats and processing the harvested fish along the docks. They were a mixture of mortals and cultivators, none present over the 6
th Heavenstage, very few even close to that. Pulling up alongside a floating dock, Chuan Gong tied up his boat and led them up past the docks to the sect itself.
The Riverlord Sect had a small compound. There was a multistory main sect hall with several attached buildings and the docks and that was pretty much it. That fit in with what Achille had gathered about it during his stay in Seven Temples City. They were a small influence in the city, recently founded and unbeholden to the Riverpact which lost them favor among the greater powers of the city.
Chuan Gong led them to the sect hall where within there were several disciples engaged in meditation using spirit stones. The group was supervised by the first Foundation Establishment Expert Achille had seen in this place, a weathered old man wearing a conical bamboo hat. Chuan Gong bowed once to the Expert who merely pointed them up the stairs without further addressing them. Taking the stairway up two stories led them into a short hallway that terminated at a wooden door. Knocking once, Chuang Gong anounced himself. "Boss, it's me. Brought the guests as you requested."
From within, a woman's voice called out. "You lot should come in then, no use standing outside, is there?"
Chuang Dong opened the door but remained outside as Achille and Chemos entered. "Did what I was asked and got work to do. Perhaps we'll talk after you're done with the boss." He explained before closing the door behind them.
Sect Master Fuxian was a solidly built woman who looked like a mortal woman in her thirties. Not a great beauty with the hands of a working woman and scars down the right side of her face, she nonetheless had a rough attraction to her. She had a bamboo hat on her back, strap around her throat. Her aura was hazily veiled, her cultivation was definitely further advanced than Achille's but the exact realm concealed. Her quarters were simply furnished, a low wooden table along the floor in front of her and fishing trophies along the wall. A short fishing spear lay at her side as she sat at the table.
"Well," She said questioningly, "Aren't you going to sit down and tell me why I have Golden Devils sending me letters?"
Achille and Chemos took up the invitation and sat on the floor. Chemos spoke directly once he was seated, "I'm not going to beat about the bush. With the defeat of the Jingshen, the Golden Devils own the desert now. The Delphi family is looking to set up a presence in the Clan's new vassal territories, and whatever else the Council of Elders might do about the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms, Seven Temples City will remain a hub for activity in this land. To that end, the councilors of the family thought it best to partner with a local influence rather than coming in on our own. We've decided to try to work with your Riverlord Sect in trade and perhaps other support."
Fuxian crossed her arms and leaned back. "I read your letter and your explanation still doesn't answer the questions I had. I understand you coming to Seven Temples, sure. The river makes transport up and down easier. But if you're looking for partners in the city, why come to us. Why not go to any of the shrines or the other sects. They have more power and reach here than we do. I'm not going to sit back and let in foreigners to swallow up my sect wholesale. Why should I want to be partners with your family?"
Chemos smiled, not his usual dissembling smiles, but a harsh grin. "You should want to partner with us because you are going to need backing. The Riverlord Sect isn't part of the Riverpact, which is one of the reasons we like you as a partner, no prior entanglements. That however puts you at odds with the other powers of the city. New City and the Isles can jointly put forward two Core Formation elders, not even counting the thousands of experts and juniors they can muster alongside them. You are not yet at the peak of Foundation Establishment even though you're close. The only reason they've ignored you so far is that Old City in its entirety has been considered unsafe with the threat from the Battle Blood Cannibal sect. Only now there is no longer that threat and the old power to the north is no more. This is a time of great change and your sect is on the precipice of being washed away with the coming era."
Fuxian relaxed the veil around her cultivation base exerting the strength of her cultivation base. Strong, Achille noted, but he'd faced much better and it didn't bear saying that Chemos bore the pressure with casual ease. Fuxian noted the lack of response and relented, her hands wrapping around the shaft of the nearby spear in what Achille judged was unconscious reflex and not a prelude to attack. Still he kept the array plates fastened to his forearms beneath his clothes primed, ready to stun her at a moment's notice.
Chemos dropped his smile and quirked his lips disarmingly. "Look, I'll be frank with you. The Delphi Family would much rather grow a competing influence to the Riverpact, than do it ourselves and having locals with us would help. We want the Old City, as much of it as we can get. It's ruined now but easily fixable as you've proved with the right resources. Working with you gets us a jump on a prime location with lessened opposition. You, on the other hand, get the backing of one of the oldest families in the Golden Devil Clan. That means spirit stones, pills, and more. If our real estate ambitions are achieved you'll be joint owners of very valuable land."
Fuxian got up from her seat and said curtly, "Wait here." She walked out, leaving the two in her office in an oddly trusting gesture.
Achille took the opportunity to focus on the fishing trophies at hand while asking Chemos a question. "Is there anything in this that actually requires my involvement? I'm not much interested in real estate or commerce."
Chemos only smiled at him as he moved over to Fuxian's side of the table and began checking everything within reach. Fifteen minutes passed before Chemos hurriedly returned to his former seating position and Fuxian returned, pausing momentarily just before sitting down.
"Alright you have a deal," she announced, "No sense waiting and denying what right in front of us. Now what exactly are the details of this partnership?"
More than happy to cooperate with such speedy decision-making, Chemos suddenly had a scroll in his hand. He handed it over to Fuxian for her perusal and that began a series of back and forth negotiations that was surprisingly succinct, finalized in under an hour. When Fuxian affixed her seal by jade stamp to the bottom of a not much altered agreement, Chemos pronounced their deliberations at an end and pulled out a small jug of wine to celebrate.
Fuxian stared at the jug in Chemos' hand. "That's my wine. Why are you offering it to me?"
"Well," he said, "I figure the occasion demands a bit of celebration and I was not properly provisioned. Drink?"
Shaking her head, Fuxian provided saucers and they toasted the deal with the surprisingly smooth rice wine.
Once they'd finished the jug, Chemos pointed to the fishing trophies adorning the wall of the office. "I see you're an accomplished fisher. Some very rare specimens are represented here."
Fuxian shrugged in reply. "It's a living and an interest. What can I say? I am the bastard by-blow of some Jingshen scion and a shrine maiden of Songhua Shrine. Chalk it up to the blood if you will."
"I had heard that the Riverlord Sect were noticeably competent fishermen and that they had something of a secret recipe; a lure that drew in some of the greatest examples of piscine spiritual beasts." Pointing to Achille beside him, he said, "My friend here had an encounter with a prince of fish-kind, a Waterfall Defying Carp. We were wondering if we could be provided with this bait to set up an encore of that meeting."
Turning to look at Achille, Fuxian bluntly scanned him. "Huh, Chuang Gong said you were that Golden Devil fisherman making a lot of people talk a while back. Going after the Carp again eh? I like the passion. Alright, we'll let you have some of the lure."
Achille finally felt engaged in the meeting with the Riverlord Sect. He'd had regrets about losing his catch the last time and here was a chance to correct that. Knowing the purpose of his visit, he likely would not get to keep the Carp if successful but he'd bargained for fair value of the bounties the Delphi wanted secured. The haul was going to be significant either way.
He poured out another toast from a replacement jug Fuxian had brought out and offered it to Chemos and the sect master. "To the prosperity of the Riverlord Sect and the Delphi family."
Fuxian and Chemos gladly joined in with him and the three settled in to demolish more jugs of wine.
***
The shores of Heavenly Spirit Lake were familiar scenery to Achille. He'd spent years trailing the banks of the varied water bodies in the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms, fishing freely and offering his catch and his strength to those who needed it. Upon this very shoreline he had been outmatched by a most powerful foe but now he was returned much stronger and well equipped. As the sun rose to its zenith at noon, Achille prepared himself. He had his rod in hand fully assembled, choosing the bamboo tip this time from past experience. He had strung his line of woven Soulsteel and had his fishing reel ready for action. For the final and most essential preparations, he turned to his companions that early afternoon. Chemos and Fuxian had accompanied Achille on this outing expressing a wish to see the legendary duel reenacted.
"Sect master Fuxian, please, the lure?" He requested.
Fuxian took out a closed white jade box and then broke the seal. Immediately a powerful fragrance wafted out, in turn sweet and rotting. Handing it over to Achille, she explained the lure. "Here you go. For a Waterfall Defying Carp, we have to break out the advanced recipes. The lure here is actually two things, a special lure for your rod and a bait pill. The pill draws in all of the fish within reach while the lure specifically targets the Carp and is ignored by other fish. Carp follows the frenzy and then gets hooked on the lure. Simple enough."
"Thank you for your assistance." Achille said as he hung the lure at the end of his line and moved towards his prepared fishing spot. His chosen location was a high stony outcropping that jutted out into the lake surrounded by water on three sides. Rod in hand he cast the pill into the water and waited. For several moments afterwards nothing seemed to happen, then an eel came darting towards the area the pill had landed. It was followed by a school of trout, then salmon, and then a frenzy began to break out as fish from all over rushed towards the potent draw that captured them. The water in front of Achille frothed as the pill fragments spread across the water and pulled in more and more fish. Predatory fish drawn in along with prey seized upon the opportunity and began a maddened feeding rush. Blood visibly stained the surface of the lake and Achille was startled to notice that the blood seemed to propagate the bait pill's effects faster and further. Spirit beasts transformed the lake into a deadly battle zone. Heavenly Crashing Eels let loose shocking death around them, as Rainbow Salmon dazzled and blinded. More and more fish arrived but Achille waited, seeking a dragon among fish not mere dross.
Drinking tea from a tea set that he'd brought along, Chemos offered a cup to Fuxian who accepted. Idly he asked, "How long is it going to be, you think?"
Taking a sip from the cup and finding the flavor refreshing and relaxing, Fuxian replied, "Shouldn't be too long before we know if it worked. Waterfall Defying Carp are fairly cunning and if it doesn't come for the bait soon, it won't come at all."
Something in the water caught her eye and she leaned forward, excitement visible in her bearing. "I spoke too soon. Here it is."
Finally a familiar domineering qi signature approached, rushing boldly into the fray. Where it traveled the very waters fell under its command subduing all others. Finally, here was his chance. Achille cast his line into the water in the path of the Carp that had been circling the water. There was no immediate response. Achille threaded qi through the rod down the line, making the lure bob about, moving like a live fish. Long slow minutes played out as the Carp pulled near and then drew back until finally striking like a torpedo to seize the lure in its jaw. The trap was sprung and the hooks of the lure grew in length struggling to force their way into resilient flesh.
From the shore, Fuxian and Chemos shouted encouragement. "You've got it, now hold fast and don't let go!" Fuxian roared at Achille.
The Carp immediately realized that it had been tricked and its rage made the waters surge. It raced wildly through the water trying to throw off the hook or snap the tether that bound it to shore. Achille knew his foe well and had prepared for this very effort. The array he'd inscribed on his fishing perch blazed to life, glowing energy visible even in the afternoon light. He was securely planted, rooted by the Anchor Binding Array at his feet. If the Carp wanted to upset his footing, it would have to move the whole rock formation first.
A mighty struggle ensued as the Carp tried its best to shake off the hook. It propelled itself through the water like a jet with its innate arts but the ambusher could not be moved. Frustrated and maddened, it surfaced and spotted the source of its torment. Jets of water shot out from its mouth powerful enough to shatter rock and pierce steel. Alas for the Carp, this too had been anticipated.
"Oh," Chemos admired the hexagonal lattice of qi that now surrounded Achille, "That's a nice execution of the Turtle Shieldwall configuration. That's going to be a tough nut to crack."
Try as it might, the Carp proved unable to overcome the shields. Whips of cutting water, lances of pressurized jets, spat out blasts of high velocity projectiles; all proved futile against the testament to knowledge and wealth. Powering the twin arrays as he was doing required Achille to burn through spirit stones as though he was offering cash money to the damned of the Hells. Expensive but undeniably effective.
Through the flex of his rod and line Achille could feel the Carp tiring but he did not loosen his grip. The beast was cunning and devious. Indeed the Carp spent a few minutes lazily bobbing about recovering its expended energy. Achille carefully drew in the slack on his reel forcing the Carp closer to the shore. The two opponents were sounding one another out for the final clash. When the Carp had reached half of the previous extension of the fishing line, it burst into action, targeting not Achille or his perch but the line itself.
"Old Gold's balls." Achille swore as the Carp unleashed its strength on the link binding it to its foe. He desperately shoved qi down the Soulsteel strands, reinforcing them against cutting buzz-saws of water worrying at the metal, a frantic battle he would lose eventually. He considered the Carp's condition and decided that it was time to play his final card unless he wanted to risk letting the Carp escape him again. One handed he held onto his rod, while reaching down to his side. Achille had commissioned a new fishing rod from the artificers of the Delphi because he wanted the best and in raw material expertise and construction they could do better with the resources they had. He had his pride though and worked at his own improvement to his fishing gear. He had fished in the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms with his rod and spear. If the Delphi artisans were to improve his rod, he could certainly manage the same for his spear.
His fishing rod had been wholly transformed. Its head was now made of Bloodforged Iron and augmented with arrays that allowed it a limited tracking function as well as made its edge keener. The shaft was formed from the heartwood of a Misty Sage Mangrove, letting the spear slip through water with only the slightest of resistance. The length of the shaft was lovingly carved with the patterns of a force amplification and guided movement array.
Dropping the shield array and taking careful aim, he let fly his spear. As it left his hand the spear transformed itself into a screaming missile so swift was its flight. The water erupted into steam as it punched through the lake into the side of a beast too weakened to dodge or defend. The mighty beast was not dead but the wound was mortal. Soon the struggles against the fishing line weakened and ceased all together. It had been a hard fought battle but the Youth's Heavenly Fishing King had claimed his prize. Free from injury and well provisioned ahead of time, he had come out ahead of all the advantages of this dragon among fishes.
From the shore Fuxian and Chemos cheered Achille's victory. They rushed to his side and Fuxian said to Achille, "What say you we see how fine a catch you made?"
"Absolutely." Achille replied as he reeled in the defeated Carp. Exposed to the air, the Waterfall Defying Carp was a massive beast, fifteen feet long and as wide across as Achille's wingspan.
"That's a beauty." Fuxian remarked, whistling in admiration.
Dropping it onto the ground, Achille tiredly indicated his catch. "Here's your prize, old man. It's all yours."
"Why thank you very much." Chemos replied as he got to work rendering the Carp down to its valuable parts.
Achille blinked wearily and looked down as Fuxian shoved a teacup under his nose. "I think you need this more than me," she said.
Nodding at her in thanks, he gulped down the tea relishing its rejuvenating properties. Tilting his head back, he felt the warmth of the sun on his face. Today had been a good day indeed. He wondered what next beast Chemos had in mind. He was sure he'd find out once they wrapped up in Seven Temples City and were on their way to the Spirit Oasis.
Part B3
Achille yawned as his mount plodded along beneath him. In his life he'd ridden upon all manner of beasts, mortal and awakened alike. His rump had become acquainted with making a seat upon horses and oxen, sandworms and scorpions, and much more. His current mount could be counted among the smoothest he ever had, the Oasis Guzzling Humpbacked Camel making its way across sand, hard baked earth and loamy soil with equanimity in a smooth rolling gait. Ahead of him on his own Spirit Camel, Chemos whistled cheerfully in the morning light, the two mounts attached to one another by a guide rope and an additional pair trailing behind carrying their belongings.
Turning around and seeing the younger man rubbing at his eyes, Chemos called out towards his rear, "Good morning, my friend. I see you had a pleasant slumber upon your bed of camel hair."
"I've slept in a lot of places but I never imagined I'd be doing it on camel back for weeks at an end." Achille responded. "These beasts have ridiculously tough endurance. We've been on the move for the past three weeks and I can count the number of stops we made on one hand."
"I told you that we could make good time with these beauties. They are truly a wonder of the desert." Chemos said, patting his mount on the head. "Feed them and water them appropriately, and they will carry across the entirety of the Organ Meat Desert without flagging. It's a shame though that they are not particularly fast beasts. Breeding efforts to try and make them quicker, either don't take or weaken their stamina grievously. There's a prize waiting for the person who solves that puzzle."
Achille looked ahead towards the horizon, calculating their path ahead in his head and reviewing the distance they'd covered so far. They'd quickly departed Seven Temples City after he'd caught the Waterfall Defying Carp though not before Chemos had left a junior of his family to liaise with the Riverlord Sect on their new partnership. They had chartered a boat to bring them up the Heavenly Spirit River, taking one of the southern tributaries that terminated in the territory of the Gaohao Bandits. One of the many Experts sent into the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms to subvert allegiances to Jingshen prior to the war, Minervina Barda had accomplished a great diplomatic coup among the twin clans of that land, winning them over to the side of the Golden Devil Clan's loyal ally, the Flood Dragon Gang and the Clan by extension. In the wake of a crushing defeat of the Jingshen Clan, two Golden Devil clansmen had found favorable reception among the bandits, and were able to secure their current mounts with only a moderate amount of extortion. They had then traveled southwest constantly moving on Chemos' insistence, and skirted the border of the Sixty Kingdoms Alliance to finally make entry into the area considered part of the Spirit Oasis albeit that controlled by the various independent sects. Given their current pace and the time since entry, they would soon be crossing through the territory of the Tomb-Defiling Justice Sect.
Achille and Chemos spent the rest of the day in companionable silence, having exhausted the bulk of conversation in their ceaseless travel by camel. The miles went by as they rode and it was nearing early evening when Chemos called out, "Look sharp. I think we might be seeing some new faces soon."
Looking ahead to where Chemos was pointing, Achille spotted what had caught his attention. It was at first a hazy dot on the horizon but as they drew closer it soon resolved into a towering marble sculpture of a skeleton holding two scimitars across its chest.
"Hmm…" Achille said as he analyzed the statue as they walked near then past the statue. "That statue isn't just a decoration. There's an alert array embedded in it. It's not bad but there are quite a few ways of defeating it."
"I see our journey hasn't dulled your eyes." Chemos said without looking back. "We should be at an outpost of the Justice Sect soon."
Soon in this case meant several hours late into the evening when they approached a small walled compound. A brief interaction with the guards outside and a payment of spirit stones saw them within the compound. Achille gladly descended from his mount, eager to eat something that wasn't travel rations for once. Chemos dismounted and disappeared somewhere within the compound. Achille found his way to a seller serving cold soup and bread to weary travelers and he happily purchased several bowls. He'd just finished scarfing down his last bowl, guiltily thinking of how much he'd resembled Corpus in his vigorous dining when Chemos reappeared.
"What did you find out that has your face so pinched?" Achille asked upon seeing the furrowed brow on Chemos.
"The itinerary we discussed had us crossing the Stork road to make a short excursion into the Cha Xi Ruins before returning to the road and making our way up to Gemfort and the Oasis. I just learned from the cultivators of the Justice Sect that the Ruins are going to be a bit more of a headache than I had estimated. The reports I had before we left were that the Blood Mists had stirred up the natural alignments of the city, nothing too difficult with proper preparation but now I'm hearing that several teams of Foundation Establishment Experts have disappeared not within the city proper but on its outskirts. I still wish to go but the danger has increased so I must ask if you still wish to maintain the same schedule." Chemos answered him.
Achille weighed the choice for a few moments before nodding decisively. "We press on to the Ruins with as much caution as possible. I believe that we are at the very least capable of outrunning any hazards. Besides, I would hardly give up a chance to see an explorer extraordinaire of the Sojourners at work in his natural environment."
Chemos dipped his head slightly in thanks. He left Achille to make resupply of their provisions at the rest stop while he gathered as much recent information from the locals about their next destination. The du decided to take the opportunity to rest in rented quarters available to travelers in the compound. While they could very well push on with their enhanced stamina and recovery as Experts, it was best to use this opportunity to be in the best condition before heading into a known danger.
***
Several days of travel later saw the duo standing on the outskirts of the fallen city of Cha Xi looking from afar upon the corpse of what had been the largest mortal habitation in the Spirit Oasis. Time had not been kind to the devastated city. What Child Corpse Gulper had not ruined in his rampage had been toppled by the elements. Here and there signs of the wilderness taking back the abandoned settlement proliferated. Buildings were overgrown in greenery and trees sprouted haphazardly where seed by some fortune had landed and sprouted.
"It's hard to imagine that this was once a city of three million souls. All that is left is an empty shell bereft of their hopes and dreams." Achille said quietly.
"Such is the fate of mortals when demigods come down to feast. In the face of overwhelming power, there is nothing to do except scream empty defiance." Chemos shared with Achille, an inscrutable look in his eyes. Shaking his head as though brushing off invisible cobwebs, he said to Achille, "It's noon now and we don't have all day. I absolutely do not want to be within that carcass of a city when the sun goes down. The camels and our belongings should be secure enough behind the Obfuscating Mirage array we set up. Let's get this done quickly. Extracting imprints of the dao-echoes should be well within our means unless of course the Fates decide to crap on us. Remember that the city will try to usurp your thoughts and feelings, reflecting the basest nature of the Blood Path beast who consumed its populace. Watch your thoughts and guard against its influence."
Walking the streets of Cha Xi for some time proved how apt Chemos' comparison of it to a decaying body was. As they'd moved deeper seemingly wandering randomly while Chemos took readings with a dowsing apparatus, the atmosphere of their surroundings changed. If Achille had to describe it, he would liken it to a spiritual stench that scraped of the soul. He felt as though his spirit was being coated in filth, prompting his stomach to roil in sympathy. He eyed his companion wondering how the famed Delphi sensitivity was bearing up under the noxious environment. Chemos looked unperturbed as he moved surely across cracked pavement according to the leading of his dowsing. Unfortunately it appeared that the strength of the putrid ambiance correlated with the strength of the dao-echoes they had come to harvest. Further along they went and Achille couldn't tell when exactly the spiritual fragrance about him inverted from repugnance to seeming attractive. The sensation hadn't changed but his response to it seemed to be shifting against his will. It didn't help that he'd begun seeing vague shadows out of the corner of his eye that vanished when he tried to look at them directly.
"Chemos, I think we should be careful now." He said slowly. During their walk he had woven a shield of qi around himself to try and reduce his exposure to the emanations in the air. Now he began to supplement that shield with the strength of his Dao-Pillars, flexing his [Will] against the insidious contamination trying to subvert his mind.
Seemingly heedless of his words, Chemos halted and crouched on the ground, placing a compass on the earth. Achille wondered if Chemos was unwilling or unable to hear him, perhaps because of the soft laughter that had begun drifting into his hearing. Standing over his distracted companion, Achille wondered how much force it would take to snap his neck. It would certainly free him from having to deal with the pain in his side. He'd taken a single step forward when he grasped the fullness of the thought and smothered it in his mind.
"Not to hurry you up or anything but if we could speed this up a bit it would be very helpful. I don't want to be in here much longer. I'm already having visual and audible hallucinations." He hissed to Chemos.
"I don' t think that's going to be possible, my friend." Chemos replied from his bent over position. "Look at the shadows."
Confused Achille looked around seeing nothing but the elongated shadows of the two of them and that of the objects close by. He was about to ask Chemos to clarify when a hazy thought fought free to clarity. The shadows were too long. Immediately he looked up and saw that the sun was dyed the orange and purple of sunset.
"How is this possible?" He whispered. "I'm certain we've only been here for a couple of hours at most."
Chemos stood up and looked at him. "Whatever shift in the alignments has occurred here, the lingering echo from Child Corpse Gulper has changed. I checked with my own senses and the compass when I noticed that something was off with the path the dowsing rod was indicating. The dao-echoes seem to have formed a crude natural formation, an array formed from the energies of the whole city that seems to work sideways to what was previously reported. While people within the city are focused on fighting off the familiar corrupting insanity and bloodlust, a subtler influence is sneaking under their guard and warping the perception of time and direction. I'm afraid we were caught in the web for quite some time before I noticed."
Achille felt a definite urge to swear and beat in the face of the fool who'd led him here. Recognizing the signs of an unnatural mental influence seizing upon what he naturally felt and then warping it to amplified heights, he breathed in and out slowly in the pattern of a calming technique he used in fishing.
"Alright we know what the problem is so what's the solution? The best I have for escaping Feng Shui array formations is to disrupt the flow of energies which seems like a tall order for just the two of us given that you seem to be talking about something spanning the whole city." Achille said.
"Actually, the solution is to go through with our original intent in coming here." Chemos provided. "The best place to try and extract some of the lingering energies would be at a nexus of this Feng Shui arrangement, an act which should weaken the labyrinthine effect for us to make our exit."
Achille had no better idea so he acquiesced to the idea. Moving through the detritus of Cha Xi at night was a torturous experience. The uncanny atmosphere of the day had transformed into an oppressive haunting that had the hair all over Achille's body on end. The soft laughter he'd heard earlier had been joined by the weeping and wails of souls in agony, a faint susurration of barely-heard pleas and shouts Achille forced himself to ignore. The half-seen figures had transformed into full blown shadows without source sliding across walls and street apace with their travel. Achille was cycling qi through his body at full strength, his Dao-Pillars shivering as he pushed them to the utmost to reject the attack on his mind and spirit.
Chemos had a still focused look to his face as he raced through the streets. Gone were the smiles and joking, leaving behind the hard edge of a veteran Expert. Achille could hardly decipher which direction they were headed but Chemos moved with swift certainty, barely glancing down at the compass and dowsing rod he held in his hands. Their frantic movement lasted several minutes before Chemos halted and hurriedly drew Achille into the shadow of a nearby storefront.
"Stop cycling and veil yourself." Chemos whispered urgently to Achille. "Look there!"
Achille struggled to quickly obey and shuddered as he felt the sensation of a cold hand stroke down his spine, his defenses weakened without the full strength of his cultivation at work. Focusing his mind on Chemos' instruction as a distraction, he carefully ran a thread of qi to enhance his eyesight and peered forward. The street they'd been traveling opened up into a wide space, likely a market plaza from the numerous storefronts and stalls he could make out. In the center of the space was the wreck of a pavilion. With only the light from the stars and moon to go from, it was not the best of views but Achille could make out a humanoid figure standing still within the center of the pavilion. In fact the space under the pavilion was unnaturally dark, his sight barely able to see within.
"Who's that?" Achille whispered back. "I didn't think there was anyone in here with us."
Chemos whispered grimly, "If I'm right, that's not a who but a what. Keep as concealed as you can while I try and confirm my suspicion."
The devastated storefront they'd concealed themselves in was not exactly the best furnished but Achille found a broken wall serviceable enough for a seat. He decided to take advantage of the pause Chemos had arranged, trusting in the other man to inform him of any issue and tried to stabilize his mindset. The constant aura of Cha Xi city had weighed down his spirit like tar, clinging to his mental defenses and slowly accumulating weight and pressure against them the longer he stayed within its reach. Keeping as close a veil over his internal energies as he could flushed qi slowly through his body trying to flush out the lingering traces of the infiltrating energies. After several minutes of this practice he felt clearer headed if not fully liberated yet he felt the lurking threat of Cha Xi ceaselessly seeking any fault in his protection to twist and bend him to its end. He could understand why the cultivators back at the Tomb-Defiling Justice Sect considered this place a pit that devoured all who entered whole. It was his suspicion that even Core Formation seniors would have some difficulty managing the place, particularly if they lingered overly long and allowed the corruption to build up. The lingering handiwork of a Mid Nascent Soul was not to be discounted, such was the gulf between the fourth great realm and its predecessors.
He'd continued his cleansing exercise for several minutes when a sudden change in the atmosphere jolted him into full alert. The figure he'd glimpsed earlier had moved bending down in a crouch facing them. The interior of the pavilion was no longer cloaked in shadow, but lit up with a bluish purple glow cast by what appeared to be colored fire burning from within the figure, escaping from its eyes. In the light of that flame, Achille could see the heap of gathered items cast about the floor. It took a moment for his mind to process the items' proper nature, helped along by the figure picking one up and biting into it. The light from within burned also from its mouth illuminating the human hand the creature was consuming. The scattered mounds resolved into the rent limbs and torsos of several humans. Considering the condition of the bodies Achille had an inkling that they'd solved the mystery of the fate of the vanished cultivators they'd heard about earlier. Now they just had to figure out how to escape that unseemly fate. Seemed easy enough given how this day was going, he thought sardonically to himself.
"Corpse Immortal, of course, it would be." Chemos groaned from beside. "Why couldn't I be wrong and have it turn out to be a ghoul or ghast? Have I insulted the Fates or what?"
Shuffling closer to his companion, Achille in a low voice sought for clarification. "What's a Corpse Immortal? The name sounds vaguely familiar but I can't place it."
Chemos settled down on his heels to enlighten Achille about the depths of the pit they'd found themselves in. "You know how it's possible to refine a willing cultivator, usually at the end of their life but not necessarily so, into a Puppet Soldier so that you have a vessel without a soul but still retaining their physical tempering and the basics of the cultivation base? Now imagine that you have some lunatic on the brink of death wholly invested in accomplishing some task, the kind of focused emotions that usually ends up manifesting a Will transformed into what we call a ghost and they have some knowledge of the process of making a Puppet Soldier or just work on instinct so they try to turn their bodies into something that can serve as a vessel for their own Will after death. It never works as far as I know because you're not exactly at your sharpest when you're obsessively working against your own imminent death. Oh and the heavens really don't like the attempt so they stick their hands in the working as well. Most fail outright and the successes are rare in the Third Sea because of the amount of qi needed to even start and maintain such a mangled union."
"Best guess I have is that some poor bastard got caught up in the Blood Mists while in the city and the perfect storm of the mists strengthening the dao-echoes plus the increased qi from the Great Era led to that monstrosity over there." Chemos sighed as he finished talking.
"So, I assume we headed here because the nexus we wanted to find is in the plaza. Do we find another or wait for it to move away?" Achille suggested.
Chemos smiled painfully. "No such luck, my boy. The nexus isn't in the plaza, it's the damned Corpse Immortal itself. Everything I'm sensing from the qi flows around the plaza shows them feeding into that thing. I didn't even know it was possible to have a mobile node in such an array but I don't think we'll be able to disrupt another nexus – if there is one – without dealing with this first, if we can."
Achille had a sinking feeling at the way Chemos was apparently considering the prospect of going up against the Corpse Immortal. "Just how strong is this thing?" he asked.
"Bad news and good news there." Chemos grimaced. "Bad news is that you can tell the strength of the things by the light within, and blue-purple means Core Formation. The good news though is that Corpse Immortals are a cobbled together mess that barely functions at the lowest stage of their great realm. That light they all have is the sign that the Will is consuming itself to puppet the body. The more they exert themselves the faster they fall apart."
"Let me get this straight. The two of us have to go up against a Core Formation threat with a good deal of its physical and qi cultivation preserved, hoping to get it to kill itself by exhaustion or slowly be driven mad by the curse of a Nascent Soul as we are trapped in a city we can't escape. Did I get that right?" Achille slowly said.
"That's pretty much it except that I forgot to add that the Corpse Immortal should not be that bright; cunning perhaps but not very intelligent. You might call it a bendan, fitting really." Chemos added.
"Oh that's a relief." Achille said sarcastically. "I will keep in mind the next time you ask me to join you on an excursion like this that I might get to insult undead abominations that could rip me limb from limb."
"Oh stop your moaning. We've got a good chance of pulling this off so what do you say we start getting to it?" Chemos asked Achilles.
The two began a whispered discussion of their intended strategy while keeping an eye on the threat close by. Thankfully, the Corpse Immortal seemed disinclined to challenge it's new nickname and kept eating.
Fifteen minutes later they'd scrambled together a plan of attack. They'd considered trying to wait till sunrise, guessing at a connection between its strength and the relatively weakened potency of the spiritual miasma filling the city during the day. That option had been dismissed because it meant waiting out that time under an antagonistic influence that only promised to get stronger with the deepening night. Their best options as they saw it was to attack.
***
As Chemos stepped forward, he felt deja vu at his current match up. He was once again going up against an Early Core Formation opponent, only this wouldn't be pulling any punches. He actually managed to make it halfway to the pavilion and stopped there before the Corpse Immortal paused its meal. It cocked its head at angle that would have meant a broken neck for a mortal and sniffed the air. It must have liked what it scented because it dropped the calf it had been gnawing on and stalked forward hissing, "Fresssh meeaat…"
Circling away from the direction where Achille remained concealed, Chemos taunted his opponent, "Yeesh, you reek good sir. I believe I have known Toxic Suffocating Skunks with better perfume than you. Truly, you have let yourself go."
The Corpse Immortal had no eyelids left to blink but it gave a good enough impression of confused pause. Apparently, man-eating undead weren't used to witty banter from their prey. Hunger quickly won out over confusion. The Corpse Immortal – Bendan, Chemos tagged it in his mind - launched itself at him with a crack of pavement and a scream of, "Eat!!"
Chemos emptied his mind and let the dance begin.
***
Achille watched in awe as Chemos moved with incredible grace and speed. His opponent fully demonstrated the inhuman ability of a Core Formation creature, clawing and striking with savage fury at speeds he could barely appreciate. Yet Chemos wove his way around the attacks, avoiding contact with the blows by a hairsbreadth. Seeing him move, Achille could only describe it as though he knew every move the man-eater was going to make beforehand and used only the effort necessary to dodge. It was remarkable but dangerous. He had to pull it off perfectly every time while the Corpse Immortal only had to get one good hit in. This was a battle of stamina and they were betting on Chemos' ability to come out ahead of his opponent's.
One minute, two minutes… ten minutes unbelievably passed as Chemos managed the impossible and held off the Corpse Immortal. The ambulatory corpse must have had some lingering awareness to understand frustration at not being able to bring down these much weaker opponent. Its cry of 'Eat' had risen into a guttural chanted roar: "Eateateateateatat…!" The glow of the animating Will had risen to bonfire brightness, lickings of flame covering its whole form.
Achille had known that in addition to expansive spiritual sensitivity, the Delphi bloodline also conferred deep qi reserves but this was the first time the scope of that advantage was driven home. In fact from what Achille knew such sustained combat should have been impossible for the average Delphi cultivator. Their family's curse did not work well with high output precision combat. Chemos' meridians should have been screaming in agony, yet his face was as calm as the moment the duel had began.
Throughout the battle, Chemos had kept moving around the plaza, forcing the undead to go through debris and other obstructions to buy him the moments of advantage he required. Now the combat was circling back to where Achille waited and the preparations he'd made in the brief window of opportunity were set. As soon as the blur of clashing figures were in range, Achille triggered the trap.
***
First, distraction. Light and sound burst from array plates thrown out into the plaza. Chemos was forewarned, deadening his physical senses and relying on his spiritual sense. The Corpse Immortal had no such preparation and almost looked comical in its frantic spinning as it struck out mindlessly at the bright orbs of light and shrieking cacophony that assailed it.
Second, harassment. Once they'd gotten the undead relatively stationary in a defined space the next step was to hit it as hard as possible. Elemental talismans and jade slips provided by Chemos, array plates and orbs from Achille; they unleashed the full fury of their arsenal on the Corpse Immortal in a matter of seconds. The discharge from so many bound techniques activated shook the plaza and turned the space briefly as bright at day. The duo had held a faint hope that this would perhaps be sufficient against such a decrepit opponent but the Corpse Immortal had the foundation of a successful tempering in the third great realm. They had staggered it, and wounded it but they had not put it down. It weathered the onslaught, drunkenly taking on damage until the animal instinct left to it found a solution to its current troubles. It screamed fury into the night, the shockwave of the sound pushing back what they'd sent against it and leapt for safety. That long shot had failed but it wasn't the end of their stratagem.
Third, counterattack. While the bound artifacts were being unleashed, Chemos had been preparing waiting for the opening. From within his cupped hands a pale glow leaked out overpowered by the glare of the harassing techniques. As the Corpse Immortal leapt carelessly trying to get away from the troubling damage Chemos struck. He sprang forwards towards his airborne foe, constrained in movement by the lack of footing.
[Hungering Spirit of Greed]
From his hands flew six jade scarabs, prizes taken from a defeated foe and used now to augment his most lethal attack. Six beetles sped towards the Corpse Immortal and four were crushed but two successfully found their target in the open sockets filled with corpse fire.
The Corpse Immortal crashed to the ground flailing and clawing at its face. Chemos knew the Hungering Spirits would right now be draining qi from within, bloating themselves and digging their way in deeper. Ordinarily his qi constructs could not have made any headway against the strength of his foe but the prestige of a Heavenly Cardinal Beast lingered even in its remains and he'd used that edge to get through its defense. Now all they had to do was wait for the creature to wear itself out…
The thought had barely crossed his mind when the Corpse Immortal froze. The air around the plaza became leaden as for the very first time since Bendan had attacked, it used the dao. To Chemos' wide-reaching spiritual sense it was as though a great heartbeat resounded once, a flood of the miasma that saturated the entire city rushing into the Corpse Immortal. The living corpse rose to its feet and tore its head off, dropping the skull to the ground and crushing it with a stomp that left a wide crater in the earth. Beneath its heel, Chemos saw the tattered weave of his technique obliterated utterly. Where Bendan had once had a head, a bright torch of flame burned, brilliant blue-purple. Within its torso, he could feel the bright pulse of its core impossible to miss now.
Chemos laughed as understanding came upon him. How insidious the dao-echoes of this city were, narrowing their thinking and leading them on to headlong battle and making them discount all other possibilities. In seeking the nexus of the Feng Shui of Cha Xi he had known that there was a link between the Corpse Immortal and the malicious energies of the city but he had not thought that it could so deeply draw on those energies to overturn their gambit. Behind the still figure of their foe, he saw Achille frantically preparing for a desperate defense. The young man need not have bothered. He had been enlightened to the doom sweeping down upon them and in it the salvation that could be grasped if he was daring enough.
"Hmmph!" He snorted and flared his aura in full. The Corpse Immortal turned to face him, headless but still aware of its surroundings perhaps even more keenly so now that it had abandoned the last vestiges of mortal perception. No more distractions from bright light and noise.
Within him he gathered all the qi he had remaining directing it to his right arm. Already the long battle had seen his bloodline nearly revolt against him, the Harrowing making every manipulation of qi a walk on razor edged tightrope over an abyss. He had no fear there, this curse would not be his undoing not tonight. Within him, the giant seated statue that was the representation of his cultivation shone with the colors of the rainbow as the seven chakras representative of his Dao-Pillars channeled his truth into his spirit and his flesh.
He ran forward, arm pulled back to strike. Bendan's reaction was absent the bestial response he had encountered all evening. It gathered its own qi about it, a terrible cloak of miasma screaming of madness and violence. Pushing through the field of dao emanations about it was like wading through molasses but he managed it flaring his own presence and principle. As he got within striking distance it swung for his chest, the action casual but with all the speed and power of a Core behind it. He could not evade if he wanted to make his singular opportunity count but that didn't mean he couldn't mitigate. Like a skater on ice he slid sideways turning a strike to his chest into one that punched through his ribs and lungs with the ease of poking a paper screen. As he took the hit, he landed his own, open palm softly making contact just above the navel. All the qi in his dantian flooded out, the great surge needed to form the slenderest of needles to pierce the innate hardness of his target's aura. For a single frozen moment, they remained touching; arm through chest and palm to navel. Then the moment broke. The bright core he'd aimed at shattered and with it the flame of the animating Will was snuffed out. Without the unlife keeping it upright the corpse fell onto him, sending them both to the ground.
He heard Achille rush over to him and felt the burning agony of having a whole arm pulled out of his chest. With a snap in his spirit, he felt the Blood Ouroboros Totem he'd looted all those years activate and seal up his flesh with a crystalline scab of blood. Damn, he thought, with the Sable Solace Amulet he'd given Lipita and this totem expended he was going to need to find a new set of life saving treasures.
"The Dao can be shown, the Dao can be found and the Dao can be learned but the Dao imposed is never complete." He coughed out. That was the key he'd discovered in those last moments. Whoever the Corpse Immortal had originally been they had been hollowed out by the nascent dao-echoes that suffocated Cha Xi. It was not their own Dao that had empowered them, likely the original had to do with darkness or shadow, only resurfacing when it was slumbering. Whatever strange quirk had led to their reanimation, another Dao had seen it through. That was a huge vulnerability to an existence in Core Formation. As cultivators advanced, they shed more and more of their mortal nature, and took on new qualities. The root of any Core Formation existence was its core centered on a crystallized personal dao. If that failed, everything else crumbled. The dao at the heart of the Core Puppet's core was not truly its own and so exceptionally vulnerable to challenge by another dao. He was no Single-Pillar King to cast his truth across a battlefield but he was a man who had thought on the path he had forged in his advancement and was fully convicted of it.
His spiritual sense wasn't at its best at present but he could clearly feel the leylines of Cha Xi shift, no longer bound to its fallen champion. Achille should be able to make his way out now even carrying him. Now was looking like a good time for a long nap.
***
Chemos woke up with a groan. Trying to make any movement, even tilting his head, was torment so he cast his spiritual sense out to get the lay of the land. He was relieved to discover that he was back at the abandoned campsite where he and Achille had left the camels before their disastrous foray into Cha Xi. Achille was tending to a fire close by and the mounts were relaxed lying on their bellies. Judging himself safe enough, Chemos sluggishly formed the weaving of a healing technique, his dantian and meridians badly sensitive from overexertion. The execution of the Soothing Waters Technique was far from perfect but it did the trick and he began to feel the pain recede somewhat.
His chest still burned, a pernicious ache assaulting his side. Having a hole the width of a man's fist through your chest hurt, no matter how effective the staunching was. Looking up at the night sky he felt his chest for the site of the injury. Through the whole in his clothing, his fingers touched hard crusty material akin to a scab made of crystal. The Blood Ouroboros Totem had kept him from bleeding out and would over time regrow the missing organs. For the foreseeable future he was down a lung and a significant chunk of his qi was going to be needed to fuel the healing. Not a bad exchange for going head on against a superior opponent.
"I see that you're awake, old man." Achille said as he walked over and helped Chemos sit up.
"Thank you," Chemos proffered feeling new pains break out from the change in position. He sighed deeply, looking morose. "You have my sincere apologies for this mess I dragged you into. There was every warning beforehand to change my course but I charged right on heedless of them. You agreed to join me for a companionable journey not perilous delves into cursed ruins. Please forgive, this old fool."
Achille would not have it. "Don't be obtuse, old man. You gave me a chance to turn away and I chose to persist alongside you. Besides, this was a useful tempering in that I didn't die and made good gains in firming up my will. Where else would I have gotten to witness a Feng Shui array of such strength or encountered one of the rarer sights of cultivation? Have no worries, old fool, I hold no ill will from this."
Chemos nodded in gratitude. Achille stood up and walked back to the campfire. "Let's get some food in you and get you up on your feet. I don't know about you but I didn't cart you and that corpse both to leave it to rot. We might not have gotten the chance to extract the dao-echoes in Cha Xi but I figure a node in that natural array should have something worth harvesting, neh?"
Chemos painfully laughed and stood up to join Achille. The younger man was proving himself a cultivator after his own heart.
***
The Stork Path should more fittingly be renamed the Stork Road like the other two major travel routes to the Oasis Plateau. The simple track leading up from the vassal territories of the Stork Clans had seen increased use, becoming a regular highway. It had certainly been upgraded if not too largely, the surfacing was solid if not fancy and without enchantment. Achille and Chemos had enjoyed the convenience of the highway, making good time heading north. The Gemfort was in sight now and they'd make its gates before dark. As they drew close to the fortress, Achille wondered if there would be a new road to join the existing three. The desert belonged to the Clan now and the western territories were no longer prevented from creating direct travel to the plateau. Healing was a prize that everyone desired after all.
Entering Gemfort was an interesting experience in recent times. The Oasis Plateau had been deeded to the Strength Purity Sect and the whole Righteous Path by the Jingshen after the Battle Blood Cannibal Sect lost it to the merchant-lords. The intent had been to secure the commitment of the Righteous Path to come to the defense of the Jingshen in the event of an attack by the Golden Devil Clan by gifting them an important strategic asset in the healing waters of the Oasis. Unfortunately for the Jingshen, the balance of power in the region had shifted drastically many times within a few decades and when the Clan did show up in hostility, the Righteous Path had too many other fires to put out to send aid. Now the Oasis Plateau was an enclave of the Righteous Path swallowed up in territory they considered Demonic. That explained the wary looks the guards at the gate gave the two as they processed their entry. Undoubtedly, there were worried minds here on the Plateau and in the independent sects of the desert around it plagued with the possibility that the Clan would decide to make their claim over the desert absolute and take over the Spirit Oasis for its use. Achille had no idea of the strategic calculus the leadership of the Clan considered as regards the Oasis but he doubted that it would come in the form of two wandering cultivators. Someone should probably have told that to the idiot currently poking him in the back with his spear, though.
Turning his head fractionally towards the lout, he spoke firmly, "If that stick in your hands touches me again, I'll feed it to you, blunt end first."
The quiet threat had the guard stumbling back, and leveling his spear at Achille. Before he could embarrass himself any further the senior guard who had been receiving their entry toll and reviewing their traveling papers barked out, "Jun Chi, stop making an ass of yourself and embarrassing me. Put your spear down and do nothing else or I'll stick that sear up your ass myself."
Jun Chi hurriedly complied as his senior bowed in apology to Chemos and Achille. "Please forgive the foolishness of my junior, honored Experts. I'll see to it that he is well chastened for his impertinence."
Chemos laughed and waved his papers in front of his face like a fan. "No need, no need, Guard Leader Fengshang. I am well acquainted with the folly of youth. No harm was done."
Fengshang bowed once more. "Thank you for your consideration. If you would kindly follow me, I will see you through."
Gemfort proper was a town newly colonized by refugees. The colors and banners of Gemstone Justice Sect filled the streets; cultivators in the sect's robes with sashes of mourning around their arms and waists crowded all about. There was a haunting sense of loss hovering over the settlement as far as they traveled, hanging over mortals and cultivators alike. These were the few who had survived the betrayal of the Ma Elder and the flight from their lands, choosing to come south to the desert, unable or unwilling to remain on the Great Battlefield. Achille did not envy Shunyang Xi and the remaining Elders of his sect with him. His sect had been destroyed and whatever dreams of returning home he'd had were now ashes upon the wind. He wished them the best of luck in finding a path forward for the remnants of the sect; the Golden Devils remembered being in the same straits once and he had sympathy even on the descendants of those who'd once uprooted his Clan.
Chemos as ever led the way through the fortress stopping at a courier's station to send of a message and then on to a modest inn, the Dancing Pig, near the exit to the inner regions of the plateau. They stabled their mounts and reserved rooms for the night. Sitting in the dining area of the inn and drinking a mug of ale, Achille asked Chemos about their next steps. "Who exactly is your contact? I thought we were going to make for the Oasis on our own."
Chemos took a large swallow from his own mug before replying, "Matera Outi is an old friend from back in the day, an Expert I fought together with against the Cannibals. He got injured a while back and came here to try and get healed up. The Oasis allowed him to retain his cultivation but his path to advancement was cut off. He decided to retire out here and has managed to become somewhat of an informal leader for clansmen and some others around here. We need his help to get us through Fuyuan Town and into the Outer Oasis much faster than if we tried it on our own. Our little excursion to Cha Xi, and my injuries from there cut down the margin for delay we had. Our quarry needs to be caught when the True Oasis replenishes its full strength."
"Heart Cleansing Ningyo, a spirit beast whose flesh possesses remarkable longevity extending and rejuvenation properties. They are not exactly a common sight in the region beyond the coastline and are even more rarely hunted, probably because killing a spirit beast with an innate affinity for death curses doesn't tend to end well." Achille described the target of their interest in the Spirit Oasis. "The Riverlord Sect had some interesting records on aquatic quarry that I managed to peruse during our stay. I was almost certain you were wrong about there being any in the middle of the Organ Meat Desert but their records confirmed that there had been sightings here."
"Glad to see you are as eager and invested as ever." Chemos said, "The plan is still the same even if the timing is tighter. We lurk around the outskirts of the Outer Oasis and wait for ningyo to show. They are normally very reclusive in the Oasis but all indications are that the renewal of the True Oasis Fountain brings them out. We capture the beast and then transfer it to the arranged transportation back to the Delphi family."
It was a simple enough plan, Achille supposed but there was a question that had been nagging him. He drained his mug and ordered another from the serving maid and asked it, "Why exactly are you the one doing all this work? I don't mind the opportunity to step away from my normal routines and seek out different experiences and locales. It does seem odd though to have one person running across the desert on three successive tasks when they could have been split up and given to separate persons who could do it faster. The Delphi Family certainly has the numbers and reach from the contacts and assistance we are receiving."
"Call it a compromise between me and the family council," Chemos replied, "They want me to go back to the family estates and contribute more at the top-level, preferably by joining the council and making it to Core Formation. I told them no thanks, and reminded them that I had my own path to breaking through. So we settled on this where I get my name attached to larger dealings of the family and get to enjoy myself on the road as well. None of us are too happy but everybody gets something."
That was a fair enough explanation, Achille supposed. He didn't personally have much in-depth involvement with the larger Adephos family dealings beyond being someone they could point to as a genius talent from their ranks. He got most of the benefits without much responsibility.
Achille and Chemos idled in the Dancing Pig's dining area for half an hour, nursing mugs of ale, before their contact arrived. Matera Outi was a stereotypical Golden Devil clansman; blue-eyed, blonde and deeply bronzed skin. He wore a sturdy jerkin and pants, the right sleeve of his shirt hanging empty.
"Well, well, if it isn't the old bastard himself." he said, striding over with a rakish grin on his lips. Chemos rose up from his seat and caught his friend in a fierce hug.
"You're looking good, for a run down fool." Chemos joked.
"Hah! Who's a fool here? Remind me again which idiot got himself stuck up to his neck in Qi-Draining sand on a dare?" Matera retorted.
The two old friends ribbed one another for a while before Matera turned to Achille's seat and stretch out his hand in greeting. "Matera Outi. A pleasure to meet you."
Achille returned the gesture introducing himself. "Achille Adephos. It's my honor to meet a friend of the old goat."
"Hah!" Matera barked, "Old goat. I like that."
He pulled out two jade seals with his arm and handed them over to Chemos. "I got you all settled up with the Fuyuan Dock outpost from Strength Purity Sect. Had to burn a few favors to get you in as fast as you said you wanted with all the stuff you requested but nothing too bad. The Oasis has changed up this couple of years and I'm a very popular man nowadays. The Righteous Path are all in a tizzy about events on the Great Battlefield. I'm hearing all kinds of rumors."
Curious about the local scene, Achille asked Matera, "What kind of rumors?"
"All kinds from the likely to the outlandish." Matera replied. "Elder Single Blow up at Purefort has always been a bit put out about his crippling and being unable to return to the plains but now with the aftermath of the Blood Mist, people are saying that he's making a deal with Ba Lu from the Forge Madmen to get him prosthetics in exchange for his hand in marriage. Like I said, it's a mixed bag."
Chemos invited Matera to dine with them and the three men spent the night refining their plan's for their next step in the Oasis.
***
Night bathed in the light of the full moon was a sight to move hearts. Silver moonbeams landing upon the waters made for the perfect setting for romantic idylls or poetic epiphanies. As it turned out, it also made for excellent circumstances to bash in the brains of overly aggressive reptiles making a nuisance of themselves.
"Chemos, tell me you have the blasted beast!" Achille roared as he held open the toothy maw of a Savage Oasis Crocodile looking to make a meal out of him. The broken forms of five other crocodiles floated in the water around him but that was of little comfort. Behind the straining jaws his arms were currently fending off, he could see a massive float of crocodiles speeding towards him, a dozen at least. At his rear he could here the sounds of a tussle that he hoped was going much better than his present engagement.
"A few minutes more I promise. This one's a slippery bastard." Chemos replied distractedly. "Keep up the good work over there and we'll have this wrapped up soon."
Achille swore and twisted fiercely, stunning the scaled predator in his grasp. In that moment of calm, he tossed a talisman down the gullet of the beast and backed away quickly. The unlucky creature blinked in surprise at the unexpected meal shortly before its head turned into chunks of meat and bone traveling at high velocity. Unperturbed by the demise of their fellows the approaching float merely sped up thick tails propelling them infuriatingly fast. Achille frantically took stock of just how long he could hold off a horde of the beasts before he was going to personally need the services of the Oasis and cursed Chemos, for the umpteenth time that night.
Matera had been true to his word and had gotten them into Fuyuan Town and easily past the Strength Purity Sect guards at the docks. They'd made a dangerous trek from the docks to the border of the Outer Oasis avoiding all manner of watery hazards and settled in to wait. Night had fallen and the full moon was pregnant in the sky. Several hours after sunset with no sightings, they'd decided to split up and cover a bit more ground. Another couple of hours had passed with no luck for Achilles when Chemos had lit off the signal flare they'd agreed on. Achille had raced to the location of the flare, finding Chemos in a narrow inlet tussling with a group of curiously shaped fish whose head looked humanoid, ningyo just as described in the literature. They'd tracked down their quarry and now just had to capture one. Easy right?
As it turned out, it was not so easy at all. The ningyo were fast and tough in equal measure, evading most of the paralysis traps and nets they'd employed and shrugging off the few that got anywhere close. They were also skilled water manipulators, working in a group to develop one another. It would have been much easier if they sought to kill the creatures but their need to bring one in alive limited their options. All the same the situation would have been manageable with Chemos attempting the capture while Achille stood guard at the inlet to prevent any escapees but then an unpleasant surprise showed up. Apparently, ningyo had an affinity with other aquatic spirit beasts and their fight with the fish had drawn the interest of the resident terrors of the parts hereabouts, the Savage Oasis Crocodiles. The beasts had unflinchingly sought to attack the interlopers to their domain, arriving in their numbers. Thus we have arrived back at Achille's current predicament.
Achille panted, exhausted after having dealt back to back with two waves of crocodile floats. The relentless assault of the beasts had almost pushed him out of his blockade of the inlet's mouth. The corpses of the defeated crocodiles were a welcome barricade their fellows had to maneuver past but the members of the last wave had proved adept at moving on land, a bask of six members nearly taking out his leg. He was so focused on spotting the next attack that he almost missed Chemos' cry of triumph.
"Hahaha, got you now!" Chemos shouted in delight. Immediately he abandoned his position and joined his companion on the shoreline where he held a struggling man sized fish. The ningyo seized for a moment and then fell limp. In the water, the group of ningyo swarmed briefly but quickly moved off, finding the sacrifice of one member acceptable.
"How long do we have to get it into a tank?" Achille asked.
"Long enough. These beasts are not fully amphibious but they can last a surprisingly long time out of the water." Chemos replied.
"In that case, let's get going. I've had enough of fish and water for one night." Achille said.
The duo returned to where they'd set up initially, placing the ningyo in the tank they'd assembled on site. Carrying their cargo between the two of them, they made their way back to the docks where they found a greeting party of very unamused Strength Purity cultivators. It turned out that the access they'd been granted didn't cover setting off a racket with the flare and a minor beast surge of crocodiles. Eyeing the angry guards, Achille asked Chemos, "So how much do you want to bet that Matera is not going to be happy with us?"
Matera, it turned out, was actually not too bothered. He apparently chalked it up to Chemos doing as he always did. He did however make them, or really the Delphi Family as their backers, pay a premium in spirit stones to settle the Righteous cultivators. Chemos decided not to wait on his family's arranged transport and so hired a set of sturdy aurochs and attendant cart, justifying it as a relaxing interlude in their travels. Camels in tow, they formed an odd caravan making for Clan territory in the Uncast Molds where they commissioned a mission via Legion Contribution Board for the ningyo and their camels to be delivered to the Delphi family estates in the heartland. Unburdened, the two traveling companions headed north towards the conclusion of their journey in the Simmering Soup Sect.
***
B4
Whatever else one could say about the Golden Devil Clan, one could always say that they knew how to make good roads. In the same time that it had taken Achille and Chemos to traverse the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms and Spirit Oasis – excluding stopovers – they covered nearly the length of the settled territories of the Clan, moving up through the Uncast Molds into the core lands to make their entry into the Simmering Soup Sect at Mogui City.
Greatest trade city of the Simmering Soup Sect and gateway to the land of their overlords, Mogui City was an expansive metropolis boasting a population of about one million persons, well-fortified and abundantly supplied with a cornucopia of the handiwork of the culinary masters who ruled it. For once it was Achille who was pulling Chemos along, eagerly sampling the meals on offer from street vendors and eating establishments.
Chemos poked Achille's abdomen as they exited the third restaurant they'd visited that night. "I swear I wonder how all that food you've been guzzling fits in there. Going by the number of bowls you've piled up just today, you should be double your weight at least. Perhaps you didn't take up fishing as a hobby but as a necessity to supply the endless pit in your belly."
Achille bit into the dumpling in his hand and swallowed before answering. "What can I say? The food here is truly excellent. I've never had anything like its like before. In fact, it says a lot more about you who's been here before that you were keeping pace with me. Besides tonight's our last night in Mogui before we leave separately. Can't I have a last meal with a good friend on the eve of his departure?"
"Oh, please, the way you've been downing those xiao long bao meat buns has nothing to do with tomorrow's journey." Chemos scoffed. "Besides, we're meeting up at the Hundred-Li Soup Pot soon enough. I'm just taking a quick trip to see an old friend in the Qi-Draining Scarab Mesas while you have a little jaunt over at the Spider Gate. I don't remember you saying anything about a feast when we left your apprentices back at Heavenly Beauty Palace."
"The sage who handed down to us 'Records of the Grand Historian' writes that 'Subjects think food is heaven'. This time in Mogui City has shown me the wisdom of his words. Is food not the first priority of the people? I will kowtow three time before my apprentice Corpus when I see him next, for I was foolish in my understanding of his wisdom." Achille said straight-faced in between several more dumplings.
Chemos shook his head as they walked further down the street. After a few moments of quiet interspersed with the sounds of Achille's chewing, he spoke up without looking at his companion. "There's a soup stand three streets over that serves the best Buddha's Temptation broth I've eaten. Better than anything they served in Wangchen Fort or anywhere else. Care to join me?"
Achille dusted off his hands and smiled. "How could I in good conscience decline an invitation to partake in my good friend's favorite meal? Lead on."
***
Chemos slowly approached the small home at the end of the dusty path. He walked carefully, half his mind on his surroundings keeping a wary surveillance for the local threats he knew to be about - delightfully troublesome things those scarabs - while the other half of his mind focused tightly on his dantian fighting off the pull on his qi. The mesas that formed the borders of the Simmering Soup Sect were just as he remembered, thirsting terrain that would drain dry anyone who passed through. Here on the border of the escarpments it was manageable with a lot of practice. Reaching the door of his destination, he banged on the door and shouted. "Oy, you old fart, are you still alive in there? Come on out, you have a guest."
He had lifted his hand back to bang again on the door when it opened swiftly before him. Standing in the doorway holding the door open, a slim bald man wearing the robes of a monk scowled at Chemos. "Guests don't show up at people's doors making ruckus. Generally, those are considered trespassers."
"Good to see you, Er Gou. How have you been? Still having trouble up top I see." Chemos said without missing a beat.
Er Gou groaned and retreated back into his home. "Come on in Chemos, you miserable mutt and close the door behind you. I don't want any other uninvited visitors."
"I'll have you know that I can trace both sides of my parentage as far back as two millennia, but thanks for the invitation." Chemos walked in, closing the door behind him. He followed after Er Gou, joining him in a simple sitting room with a prayer mat on the floor and scroll paintings on the walls.
"Take a seat, why don't you eh?" Er Gou complained as Chemos made himself comfortable on a chair. "It's not like you're in someone's home who you should ask first."
Chemos lifted his eyebrows confusedly. "Why would I? I'm in my teacher's home. A disciple always finds a welcome at their master's feet."
Er Gou lifted up two fingers, forming them into a fist with each sentence. "One, you're not my disciple. Two, you're in my chair, not at my feet."
"For a monk, you're not very generous." Chemos complained.
"I never claimed to be a very good monk, did I?" Er Gou said dryly. His reputation certainly made that difficult to determine. On one hand he was Er Gou, the wandering cultivator who'd settled at the borders of the Simmering Soup Sect, paying his respects to the Souplords. The Elders of the Soup Sect in turn were more than happy to leave well alone a Core Formation senior who kept to himself and occasionally rescued ignorant groups who got caught up in the mesas as well as helping against Blood Path depredation. On the other hand, no matter how long ago it had been he was also Er Gou, the Monk of the Hungry Ghost Sutra, who had cut a swathe across the Great Battlefield and the mountains as a mercenary, leaving behind the withered corpses of his foes. Chemos had been rescued by the senior cultivator when he'd inadvisably thought to challenge the lethal reputation of the Qi-Draining Scarab Mesas during his wanderings as a solitary Expert. Chemos had been curious about the monk's ability to so easily survive the mesas and had wrangled his way into tutelage as an unofficial student.
Taking a seat across from Chemos, Er Gou asked him, "So what brings the prodigal student back?"
"Hah, so you do consider me your student." Chemos chortled before continuing in a more serious tone. "I had a run in with a Corpse Immortal and had a bit of an epiphany so when I came around the neighborhood I thought I should pop in and share with my old teacher. Well that and to say thank you for teaching me what you did, it's saved my life multiple times over."
"I was feeling bored and you were around. Don't talk it up more thanthat it truly was." Er Gou dismissed Chemos' thanks. "So you used the [Hungering Spirits of Greed] against a Corpse Immortal – wherever you found one of those hen's teeth – and were enlightened? Tell me more."
Chemos happily dove into recounting the challenge of going up against the Corpse Immortal, digressing in his retelling to narrate his encounter with the Jade Scarab Tiger which then turned into a lengthy recap of the highlights of his cultivation path since they'd last spoken. As he talked, Chemos smiled inwardly at seeing his old teacher relax and engage with his tales. Sometimes a man just wanted to visit old friends to dust off past memories and share new ones. Not everything needed to be an adventure or mission.
***
Spiders. Interesting beasts without much prominence in the desert of the Virtuous Flipper Region. When the cultivators of the sands thought of terrifying carapace and scuttling legs, scorpions and centipedes were what came first to mind; spiders showed up sure but not high on the list. Perhaps on the plains things were different. Achille imagined that with the presence of the Mother of Spiders and the Ten-Ten-Thousand, both Nascent Soul beasts, spiders featured a bit more prominently in the imagination of the inhabitants of the Great Battlefield. His travel to the Spider Gate in the northwestern corner of Simmering Soup Sect lands had been prompted by an idle perusal of a trading station in Mogui City manned by junior cultivators of the vassal sect. The young woman, plainly new to the task from her earnestness, had been trying to sell him on joining an auction for Longevity Soup and in the process, let slip that the spirit beasts that produced the spiderwebs used in the production of the soup, were also the source of excellent spider silk where the webs did not match the quality needed for the soup. That had led him to making inquiries about perhaps getting spools of spider silk to serve as fishing lines which had led to uncovering the fact that the Spider Gate was known to host Array-Weaving Spiders. His purchase of spider silk transformed into a side note quickly completed as he sought out the lore on these spirit beasts.
Array-Weaving Spider was both the description of a number of spider breeds and a categorization that cut across species to identify individual beasts that had managed the feat of transforming their webs into arrays. Array-engineering was Achille's first love. His experience in Cha Xi had opened a door to consider more obscure applications of the principles of array-crafting. Given the opportunity to learn more about his passion it had been simple enough for him to split up with Chemos and travel on his own for a while. He didn't have all that long but he intended to make every moment count.
That would explain why he'd just spent the better part of three hours sitting stock still and staring at the creation of a torso sized spider. The web in question was not on the Spider Gate but built onto one of the many ruins that surrounded the massive half-broken archway of the eponymous landmark. He had spent quite a bit of time trawling the Spider Gate ruins looking for array-webs between the difficulty in actually recognizing one and the preservation of his safety; the arachnoid denizens of the abandoned structures of Spider Gate were notoriously unwelcoming to trespassers and adept hunters of man and beast alike as the many skeletal remains he'd found attested. He would much rather take his time than test his hardiness against venom that had slain Core Formation seniors. After several false starts that had seen him forced to retreat and start over from a different area, he'd found one.
The web in question was one of several created by similar spiders, Green Jade Jumpers, but it was the product of the largest and presumably oldest Jumper nearby. The web shimmered in his spiritual sense, qi bound into its construction. Frustratingly, unlike the workings of mortal cultivators he had no prior foundation to understand the mechanism of the array-web. The effect though had been clear, gravity around the web in question was distorted which was not an innate ability of the web's creator as far as he knew.
Three hours in and he could feel his understanding coming together. He had built within himself a shrine to [Insight] and revelation was extracted from his observations. Where he would have used spirit metal and infused gems, the spider had infused its will into its working drawing a bounded field where it projected it's intent. The web was not so much a gravity affecting pattern but one to amplify the reach of an aura. The position of the whole web, the placement of the web strands against each other, even the composition of the webbing itself shaped the effect much like it would were he carving an array-plate. How the spider had come to this configuration was impossible to tell from such brief observation. Records showed that some species of spirit spiders were innately familiar with a certain pattern. In the Turtlebone Mountains, there were massive beasts who built vast webs to harness lightning and tilt the weather in their favor. Some older specimens of more commonly known breeds seemingly developed the technique with time and tempering.
Rising from his hiding position, Achille carefully backed away and moved on to another promising subject. He had enough provisions to last him a good while. He intended to use that time to examine as many webs as he could, learning from animal instinct and inspiration.
***
"Hmmm… hmmm…" Chemos cheerfully hummed as he stirred the contents of his cook pot. Not for him something so mundane as cooking over an open flame. Returning from his reminiscence in the mesas he had picked up an array heated cauldron that was powered by a user's qi or spirit stones. It was an expensive cooking item in resources consumed but allowed masterful control of heat in making all manner of food.
Achille for his part had settled for using the standard traveler's cooking set that had served them so well across their journey rather than the pot the Soup Sect had offered. He gave perfunctory attention to the batch of Egg Drop Soup he had set out to boil focusing instead on looking around the spacious hall in the gatehouse that non-sect cultivators used to gain access to the Hundred-Li Soup Pot. Even sunk deep into the desert sands, the lip of the immense artifact towered meters into the air. Entrants had to climb wooden towers to reach that edge and then make their way across the brim to then descend into the Pot proper.
Many cultivator sects had strange and unique ways of determining who they granted access to their most treasured regions but Achille judged the Simmering Soup Sect's test of the preparation of soup as both inventive and true to the sect's ethos. Sect cultivators only had to make a passable selection from a list of approved soups depending on their grade but they all had to perform the ritual every time they made an entry, whether Souplord or Kitchenhand. Non-sect cultivators had a higher standard to reach, presenting a novel creation or variant of a pre-existing recipe. As visiting Experts of the Golden Devil Clan, the Soup Sect showed face to their overlords and allowed Achille and Chemos to merely make do with a passable soup from the options available to Kitchenhands which Achille had accepted while Chemos declined and wished to offer a unique meal of his own. Judging his offering ready, Achille waved down the attendant examiner.
"Please sample my Egg Drop Soup," he said to the examiner who obliged and took a sip. The young man, likely a senior Kitchenhand, judged it adequate with a simple nod, and granted him his entry credentials, a simple ceramic token. Beside him, Chemos also declared his soup ready.
"Hohoho! Chemos' secret special is ready. Taste and be blown away." Chemos said cheerily.
Eyeing the look of excitement on Chemos' face, Achille felt a faint premonition of Chemos-touched excitement looming and stepped back from packing up his equipment. Unlike his own soup, a rich fragrant aroma had blossomed from Chemos' cauldron and the examiner had actually looked interested in making his assessment. Fetching a ladle's helping of the ruddy concoction, the examiner swallowed it down smoothly. Achille's position gave him an excellent vantage point to observe the young man's face switch from an introspective look to a grimace of utter disgust as apparently the taste of the soup was processed then to a look of frightened concern as his stomach rumbled audibly at becoming acquainted with Chemos' offering. The Kitchenhand dropped the ladle in his hand and bent his head back to belch fiercely, expelling a dark black cloud of smoke that disturbingly smelt just as good coming out as it did before being swallowed.
"So how'd I do?" Chemos guilelessly asked. The Kitchenhand failed to reply and staggered off, burping small clouds of smoke each time. Around them all activity stopped as other cultivators making their soup offerings stared at the ebon-eyed Expert.
"What?" Chemos said, meeting every gaze with a bright grin. Tapping his ladle against this cauldron, he asked as the ringing faded, "Anyone else want a helping?"
***
In the end, Chemos' soup received an assessment as satisfactory after a Soup Master was called in to taste it. Its spectacular effects and atrocious flavor aside, the thick soup, more a stew, had a mild detoxifying quality, not up to the standards of the Soup Sect's staples but good enough to earn a passing grade.
A hundred li wide and a hundred li wide, the scale of the Soup Pot in which the Soup Sect made its home truly impacted when Achille and Chemos stood on the inner circumference and saw the distant edge far off made tiny against the horizon. Looking down into the Pot's interior, the lighting arrays that banished the darkness within were like small stars spiraling downwards. Achille judged that if he slipped and fell, he'd have an uncomfortably long time to regret his choices before his broken corpse came to rest at the bottom.
"Come along, we don't have all day." Chemos called out as he followed their guide across the walkway to the towering elevator of rope and wood that was to be their means of descent. As Achille followed in Chemos' wake he considered if perhaps taking the switchback stairs the hundred li downwards might perhaps not be the better choice. If these culinary aficionados didn't trust themselves to build with solid dependable stone and metal, how could their construction really be.
Thankfully Achille's vague concerns found no purchase in reality as the giant wooden platform bearing them sailed down smoothly as the counterweight alongside rose in complementary fashion. Achille was about to ask Chemos a question about his soup choice for entry when he noticed the senior Expert's hand balled up and shaking. Immediately concerned, he came to his side, "You don't look okay, what's going on?"
Chemos breathed in deeply several times and replied, "I'll be fine. It's just that it's so strong. It wasn't this powerful the last time I visited. Feel that in the air?"
Achille had kept his spiritual sense tightly leashed on Chemos' advice but now he unfurled it and immediately recognized what Chemos was talking about. The air within the Soup Pot sang with power growing stronger the farther they descended. He felt a connection with the Soup Pot, a change to his awareness that highlighted the potential of the ingredients about him. Everything was an ingredient, he faintly realized, his own mortal form and that of Chemos, their current conveyance, the very air and light about them. All things could be refined and made fit for consumption as soup. The brief moment of enlightenment faded, the epiphany too far off from his own path but the understanding remained as did the awareness of the principle inherent to this place. A Dao had been imbued into the very essence of the artifact he was in. The Hundred-Li Soup Pot was an artifact made to embody the perfect cooking cauldron, drawing out the fullness of the soups made within. No wonder the Simmering Soup Sect had made this their home even at the cost of being categorized as a Demonic sect. The Soup Pot enhanced soup-making arts and the learning of the Dao of Soup, transforming the Soup Sect into a power to be reckoned with from their ability to transform herbs, beast cores, ghost fibres, and even poisons into powerful and useful soups for cultivation and healing.
By the time their lift reached the floor of the Soup Pot, Chemos had himself under control and they quickly made their way into the city below. Ten thousand aromas fill the air, some rapturous others noxious, success and failure in the exploration of the Dao of Soup evident all around. Achille would have loved to partake of the culinary masterpieces he can sense nearby but Chemos was uncharacteristically direct, taking streets and alleys like a native in a winding path that Achille quickly realized was heading straight for a towering structure close to the city center. That must be the headquarters of the Recipe Book 'Seeking Naihe'.
Arriving at their destination, Chemos entered with Achille in tow and made a beeline for the Kitchenhand manning the front desk. "Good day, junior. Please have word sent to Granny Po that Chemos Delphi is seeking an audience with her. She will be expecting me."
The Kitchenhand checked the records at her station and confirming Chemos' words, flagged down another passing Kitchenhand to pass on the message. The Kitchenhand they'd spoken to invited them to wait for their response in a nearby sitting area which they accepted.
Achille studied Chemos who was fidgety, unable to stay seated. "You look unusually antsy. Are the Soup Pot's Dao emanations too much for your senses?"
Chemos visibly forced himself to stand still and exhaled harshly. "It's not so much the strength of the Dao I'm feeling that is the problem though it is part of it, but whose Dao it is. Ten thousand years ago Demonic Soup Chef killed the Third Turtle-Child and that act left a curse upon my bloodline, the Harrowing as I've shared with you. Dying divinities don't go quietly into the dark and when this one lashed out, my bloodline's sensitivity and the Clan's disfavor from the heavens meant that its fading Will was drawn like a storm's fury to a lightning rod. The corpse of the Turtle-Child hates us and makes sure we know it. Even as we are born on it and take its essence into us, it attacks our minds and spirits, rebelling against our control and stinging within our bodies. That is a familiar burden the Delphi have carried and adjusted to over the years. This Soup Pot is the handiwork of the Demonic Soup Chef and the curse within me knows whose hand slew its maker. Right now I feel like I'm tap-dancing on the brink of a backlash, every meridian filled with qi threatening to go haywire."
Achille's concern heightened. Qi deviations were dangerous at any realm, for they were a cultivator's strength turned against them. Wary that an intervention might be needed, he asked, "What brought this on? Earlier you told me you'd been here before, several times in fact but you made no mention of such a reaction."
Chemos scowled, "If I had to guess, I'd bet on the Bloody Mists. I felt similarly when the mists appeared. Rumor has it that they were an effect created by the Demonic Altar. If that most likely scenario bears out, it would explain the strengthening of the Soup Pot and the reports of disturbances from within the Soup Sect."
"I wouldn't call nearly a fifth of the disciples in my sect deciding to render their fellow cultivators down into meat broth a disturbance." A gravelly voice said from the entrance to the sitting area, a cultivator with the presentation of an elderly matriarch walking in, weathered but proud. "I would term it a catastrophe no matter what the other idiots with noodles for brains who call themselves Elders think. Zhang Long of the Poison-Swallowing Malice-Devouring Cookpot may crow about his recent enlightenment allowing him to adjust the array wards in Mogui City to harvest the resentment of poured out soup leftovers but that same enlightenment drove half the juniors of his Recipe Book insane."
"Greetings, Souplord Laode Po. I am heartened that you weathered the unfortunate calamity without injury. My sympathies on the losses of your sect." Chemos bowed deeply to the Core Formation senior with Achille following suit. "Allow me to introduce Achille Adephos, who has been a faithful companion of mine recently."
"Save the bowing and scraping for someone else with more time on their hands." Souplord Po said as she came closer, examining Achille with gimlet eye. "You're following this old rascal around, eh? I can still feel the headache from when he was trailing Er Gou's robes like a monkey in heat. Hope you have a strong spirit to survive his antics."
Achille rose and replied to her confidently, "I've proved equal to the challenge so far, that's all that can be said."
The Souplord simply harrumphed and focused her gaze on Chemos, "I hope you're here to tell me that my shipment is coming through."
"The Yuan Clan is entirely in a tumult suppressing their Blood Path uprising, the plains are apparently going bad for those Righteous dunderheads and the Colossus Footsteps are under threat from that upstart Sorrowful Blacksmith rebel." She complained bitterly, "The Soup Sect produces a lot of our own ingredients but a number of vital recipes require items from the plains and the mountains. My Recipe Book makes the bulk of soul affecting soul in the sect and the Demon Ghost Graveyards can't provide everything we need. All those troubles are disrupting my supplies which is why I made the deal with your family at a premium for those items so I will be very aggrieved at any unjustified delay."
Chemos responded smoothly. "You can rest assured that your order is ready. I received word while traveling to Hundred-Li Soup Pot that you may dispatch your airships to the agreed upon pick up points to receive the more delicate consumables while the longer keeping materials are in transit by caravan for Mogui City. You have my word on my honor as a representative of the Delphi family that all is in order."
"I'm going to hold you to it. I'll send out the airship today and alert the Recipe Book's disciples in Mogui to be ready." Souplord Po wrinkled her lips. "I presume that you're here to collect on your side of the bargain then?"
"In part, that is." Chemos replied. "The soups and raw materials agreed upon in exchange will go back with the land caravan. We're here for the other items."
Laode Po shook her head in exasperation. "I don't know what you want to do with the Poison Waterfall Fields but it's your funeral though if this is an elaborate attempt at suicide to get out of honoring your commitment, I will find your corpse and use it in a Demon Pot Scouring preparation."
"Have no fear, Granny Po, I'm just looking to pick up some interesting components and explore one of the most unique biomes in the region." Chemos said in return.
"How did he persuade you to join him on this foolishness?" the Souplord asked Achille.
Achille shrugged, "Actually he didn't have to. I'm the one who wanted to see the Poison Waterfall and try my hand at fishing its waters. The original plan was to purchase what we wanted."
Granny Po shook her head and turned away muttering something about a pair of fools fit for each other. Achille wanted to resent the implication but it did strike true a bit. He glanced over at Chemos and saw the other Expert wiggling his eyebrows at the departing Elder's back. Feeling his stomach rumble, he wondered if Chemos was up to a tour of the Soup Pot. Surely he had to know the best places and he wanted to see what the resident masters of the culinary craft had on offer to beat out the offerings of Mogui City.
***
Achille carefully held on his fishing rod as he cast the line into the waters of the lake. Fishing while wearing the full cover protective gear Souplord Po had provided them was still something he was getting used to. The entire provision of equipment included a pair of connected tents for cleaning off and isolation during their travel, multiple sets of full length clothing and several air purifying arrays that were quite frankly inferior to what Achille could and had replaced them with. They were currently sheltering by a lake which had part of its waters falling within the hundred li radius of zone of deadly mist spray from the Poison Waterfall. Their camp was on the southern end of the lake, out of the generally agreed boundary of the mist but it was good practice before they made entry.
Chemos was stomping around behind Achille's seat, grumbling and muttering. He was finding the restriction of the protective gear a touch more annoying than Achille. Achille paid him no mind as he let the hook drift in the water. After several minutes with no action he decided to switch tack. He reached beside him to the chum pots he'd prepared by his chair and scattered a healthy helping of ground bait onto the water. This time after a couple of minutes there was a light tug on his line. Pulling up the line revealed that rather than hooking a catch he'd had his bait stolen.
"Challenge accepted." He said to his quarry. This time he set the hook lightly, adjusting the bait on the hook better to make the fish completely swallow the baited hook. Another helping of chum was tossed in and he stood on his feet, qi thrumming in his meridians to overcome the impediment of the gloves he wore. When the bite came this time he was ready, snaring his bounty and reeling it in. His unfortunate prey was no Waterfall Defying Carp and quickly surfaced, to be dragged ashore. Achille warily eyed the spherical fish bouncing on the ground, hook still caught in its mouth past a beak that kept well clear off. The spirit beast, equal in realm to him from his spiritual sense, was apparently disinclined to give up so easily. It pushed off the ground charging towards him, gulping down more air to swell ever larger making bony spines protrude from its form. This feeble attack was nothing to Achille who wielded the rod in his hands like flail, smacking the fish onto the ground and nearby rocks until it gave up its ghost.
When at last it lay deflated on the ground, Chemos wandered over and examined it. "Excellent," he muttered as he poked at it, "A fine specimen of Stretchy Pufferfish."
Looking up from his examination he waved Achille back to his fishing, "The local maps are indeed accurate. If we're seeing these, then the Impurity-Devouring Porcupinefish shouldn't be far off. Well get to it, we have quite a consignment to catch before we head deeper."
Achille ignored Chemos' manner and returned to his fishing. The land around was verdant, benefiting somewhat from the greening of the Poison Waterfall's mist and the fishing was excellent. This was an excellent spot to enjoy the Dao of Fishing.
Two hours later Achille was cursing his choice of perch as he evaded projectiles lancing forth from the water. First had come the flight of beetles to harass him that he'd scared off with a flare of his aura now he was under assault by what seemed a whole school of Toxin-Spitting Sharpshooting Archerfish. The bastards had nearly taken him out in ambush as he'd been reeling in a new catch. The minor surge of qi that had preceded their fusillade of poison jets had almost gone undetected, only hair trigger instinct preserving him from harm.
"Perhaps, you could help me over here?" he called out to Chemos while continuing to bob and weave to avoid attack.
Sitting well clear of the water, Chemos contentedly continued gutting the fish Achille had caught, extracting beast cores and other valuable parts they wanted to be stored in preservation containers. "I think you're doing just fine," he called out snickering, "You can always retreat if you feel that a few fish are too much for you."
Achille refused to flee from any fish especially pests like these, his [Pride] protesting against the idea. He was the Fishing King, the one who made the prey run from him not the other way around. Swearing as the jets of poison began to arc and chase after him, he decided that enough was enough. He palmed a smooth spherical metal container made of spirit bronze emblazoned with jagged runes, shoved qi down into its core and tossed it into the center of the area the Archerfish were assailing him from. Three seconds later, that area boiled as the Fulminating Grenade detonated, arcing bolts of lightning spreading across the water. Soon after, the charred corpses of several Archerfish floated to the surface, on their sides.
"That will teach you to respect I, your father, the Youth's Heavenly Fishing King." He declared, steadfastly ignoring Chemos' snickering behind him rising into outright laughter.
***
"Primordial Poison." Achille pronounced as he admired the beautiful and lethal cascade of fluid from the mountainside up above.
"Hmm…" Chemos idly replied as he hustled about harvesting varied Spirit Herbs. "What did you say?" he asked a moment later.
Achille explained his theory, "Primordial Poison or at least, a diluted source of such. That's my guess as to where the headwaters of the Poison Waterfall source from. I believe there's a leak in the dimensional boundaries somewhere up in the Yuan mountains and a river is getting tainted on its way down by that breach. There are records in the Clan's deep archives of such planes, alternate dimensions where qi takes a purified focused aspect. The waters of the Poison Waterfall kill anyone, beast or human, however that only occurs within roughly a hundred li from the falls themselves. Carry the contents of the falls beyond that distance and they mysteriously weaken. There's a reason the Simmering Soup Sect isn't carting the stuff around to defend their borders. Physical poisons operate on material mechanics and don't have such an absolute effect across three great realms or such a steep dropoff in efficacy over a short distance. I would like to know if the poison has been tested against a Nascent Soul. The results could confirm or refute my hypothesis."
Chemos paused in his herb gathering to consider the idea. "Not a bad hypothesis considering what is known but it's just one among many. Some believe the Poison Waterfall comes from an ancient Sacred beast's grave, perhaps a Flood Dragon or an Imperial Scorpion; a popular school of thought which is very similar to yours. Others believe it's the result of some ancient poison cultivator's legacy. Personally I hold that the whole thing is just castoff impurities from Yuan Man-as-Mountain Array because while the poison kills all fauna it provides remarkable benefits to flora, like enhanced fertilizer which fits the general effect of that ancient array."
Achille stared at Chemos through the helmet he was wearing. "So in essence, you think that the Poison Waterfall is basically a semi-toxic sewage outflow?"
"Huh, you could say that." Chemos mused, then waved his hands at the field they were standing in. "If it's sewage, it's mighty powerful stuff. I've gotten some herbs with incredible strength; Longevity Lingzhi, Sage Ginger, Hellshriek Mandrake and more. I could happily spend a lifetime here just for the opportunity to examine these Spirit Herbs. Even with the cut we're paying the Soup Sect, the bounty here is incredible."
Bending back down, Chemos said, "Give me a moment here and I'll join you by the waterfall basin."
Achille gave Chemos a thumb's up, and wandered close to the basin that captured the outpouring of the Poison Waterfall. The turquoise color of the waters were deceptively pretty, belying the death they promised to any who made contact, not that they'd get that far. The misty spray from the waterfall's landing would kill any such fool who made available their bare skin before they did anything else.
Achille spent several minutes assembling his fishing rod and casting the line out. Despite changing locations several times and trying out different lures and bait, he had no luck. It appeared that the Soup Sect's intelligence was right, nothing lived in the waters of the Poison Waterfall Field. During this time Chemos had joined him merely watching as he struck out. When Achille stood back and made to disassemble the rod.
"No bites?" Chemos asked Achille.
"Not a single one. It was perhaps too much to hope that the Soup Sect had missed something in their exploration of this place." Achille replied.
"Give me one moment." Chemos said as he went back to Achille had put down their packs. He quickly returned holding a familiar bronze sphere.
"What's that supposed to do?" Achille asked.
"I might not be a fisherman myself but I tried to pick up a bit here and there because of you. A tip I learned from your example is that sometimes in fishing you have to shake up the environment and set what pops up." Chemos replied, winding up his arm for a throw.
The duo watched the orb fly into the poisonous waters and erupt in a blast. They peered into the water for any sign that their cast had had an effect. They didn't have to wait long.
The water of the basin erupted as a massive figure emerged crawling towards the shore where they stood.
"That's not a fish." Achille pointed out backing away.
"I can very well see that." Chemos said joining him.
The roar of the nearby waterfall was drowned out by a piercing chorus of screams. Crawling on roots like an octopus, a strange fusion of tree and human waddled onto the land. It had the structure of a mangrove tree pulled up out of the ground, roots writhing with very untreelike activity, and dozens of sodden enraged human heads hanging like fruits from its branches.
"Jinmenju, a mangrove variant." Chemos identified it. "It must have been taking advantage of the Poison Waterfall to strengthen itself."
Chemos turned to Achille and the smile on his face carried in his voice as he halted his retreat. "So it might not exactly be a fish but why don't we see about expanding the conquests of the Youth's Heavenly Fishing King to include Spirit Herbs? Surely, tt can only enhance the title to lay claim to all creatures of the waters."
"You read my mind." Achille grinned himself hefting the fishing spear he'd picked up. "Care to do the honors?" He asked Chemos.
"I would be very pleased." Chemos replied to him, letting loose the full force of his spiritual presence.
The Jinmenju, furious at being awakened by an unfamiliar painful sting, wondered in its dim consciousness why the two presences it had detected near it and subsequently played for its trouble had stopped. The slight flowering of spiritual wisdom it had attained in reaching the equivalent of the realm of an Expert didn't give it much to work with so instinct propelled it forward crying its fury from its heads. That same instinct impelled a sudden terrified silence as the twin quarries it was pursuing transformed into beacons of killing intent, drowning what spiritual sense it had in a declaration of death pointed straight at it. Fear sped it backwards but too slowly as death leapt for it laughing all the while.
***
Achille and Chemos contentedly relaxed in their new camp further south from their earlier lakeside stopover. They bit into the tender and hot flesh of fugu fresh off the spit, sighing in pleasure. Chemos gave a distracted kick to a pile of still moving roots and lumber stacked up nearby.
Achille paused in his meal to look at Chemos and said, "You know, if I could do this all over again I would. I can see why you like the wanderer's path. It's a thrill to cross borders and seek out new experiences. Thanks once again for the invitation to journey with you."
Chemos looked back at him and reached for the fish in Achille's hands. "If you have enough energy to spare talking so much, you obviously don't need the meal so give it here. Some of us need the sustenance in our old age."
Smacking away the grasping limb with a laugh, Achille replied. "Never change, you old bastard, never change."
Under the light of the starry constellations, the two companions dined in fellowship born of tested companionship. The beginning of the end of their journey was upon them but there were other beginnings to look forward to.
AN: (41030/2 = 20515 words) Please threadmark
@Alectai @ReaderOfFate @no. This is the big one one, the usurper of all crowns. Thanks to
@ninjastar
