Gaius Antonius 97 - The Ultimate Duo, Part 2
Gaius and Shi Jiang retired to their rooms to cultivate, as it would likely be an hour or two before they were called to Wang Yanyu's. It was difficult to reach peak cultivation efficiency in just an hour-long session, as a proper trance took some time to sink into and rise out of. Still, the two of them had only gotten as far as they had because they knew every little bit counted.
The King found himself in a modestly furnished little box, nothing more than a bed, a desk and enough space to walk five steps from one wall to its opposite. This couldn't really be called a hovel; it was clean, the sheets were of decent quality, and the bed was relatively comfortable. These were better conditions than ninety percent of mortals slept in. Still, compared to the Quintia Estate… well. That wasn't a fair comparison to make.
For decades upon decades, Gaius had spent his nights in either the harsh wilderness or amazing luxury, with almost nothing in between. In hindsight, that had probably warped his standards quite a bit as to what normal living was. Maybe he ought to visit Flavius' home sometime to remind himself.
Wait. Flavius had a home, right? His newest protege's hygiene wasn't spectacular, but neither was he some scraggly hermit. Logically, he couldn't be homeless, but at the same time, it was hard to imagine someone so singularly driven just… walking into a normal house, eating a normal dinner, then sleeping in a normal bed.
Hm. Maybe he ought to keep Flavius rooted down someplace useful, actually. House Quintia was always looking to marry those with great potential into the family. Wait, no, the Decanus had some sweetheart out in the sticks, didn't he? That could be troublesome to navigate. Something to figure out in the future, Gaius supposed.
"You catch all that, Scylla?" Gaius asked, yanking the blanket off the bed and setting it out on the floor.
"I did, but should you be talking to me right now? They're probably listening in." Scylla replied from his ring.
"Nothin' much we can do about that." Gaius shrugged. "I'd rather talk this out with you even if they do hear."
"Alright. Then in your opinion, what are the odds of this being a trap?"
Gaius hummed to himself as he mulled that over. In the meantime, he sat down cross-legged and pulled several mid grade spirit stones from his pack. "Pretty low, I'd say." He finally answered, running his thumb over the smooth surface of the crystallized qi in thought.
"Why's that?" Scylla asked skeptically.
"What does Shi Jiang's master get outta that? Baitin' a King from the other side of the region into a trap? And with such an elaborate story?" He replied.
"Perhaps they want to lure you into the middle of nowhere, somewhere with no place to hide?" His companion offered.
"She literally had my life in her hands already, Sister. I think I'm safe." Gaius laughed, remembering the Elder's terrifying physical strength.
"Hmph, you're too cavalier with your life." Scylla sighed, defeated.
"I'm a Golden Devil, sister. We live to die."
——
Wang Yanyu's room was markedly nicer than Gaius', with a larger bed, more windows and a lantern on the desk. There was even a small oil painting of a flower field hanging on the wall opposite the door. Petty as it was, he couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous.
"We'll be using this to bind him." Said Shi Jiang, tossing a folded length of heavy chain onto Wang Yanyu's bed. He made a hand sign, causing the chain to begin faintly humming as its arrays activated. "Chain of Mundanity, rated up to the Great Circle Core Formation level. Suppresses qi, essentially stopping it from doing anything without needing to drain it. Use this on a living creature and it won't be casting or reinforcing at all. Use it on a spirit, and the effect is typically lethal."
"That's quite a find." Gaius whistled, experimentally poking at the chain. Immediately, a disorienting feeling of weakness overcame him and he pulled back. "Fast too!"
"It would have to be fast." Said Wang Yanyu. "This particular Chain of Mundanity can reliably capture anyone below Nascent Soul… provided you can properly wrap it around them, then activate it before they can break it."
"Not only that, you can't activate it while you're touching it or you'll get sucked suppressed too." Shi Jiang explained. "You have to subdue the enemy, then wrap them up, then activate the chain from a distance."
"Usually not worth it." Wang Yanyu continued, seamlessly picking up where her student left off. "In most cases you'd be better off just crippling the enemy's cultivation if you need them alive."
That made sense to Gaius. How often did one need to capture another cultivator while also needing to preserve their abilities to the fullest extent? The only other situation Gaius could imagine needing a tool like this was if a master or parent wished to capture a runaway student or child. That, or capturing a prisoner for use in a gladiator match, though in his experience, prisoners of war were rarely used for those.
…
or, he realized, if you wished to trade a prisoner of war to a blood path ally as cultivation material, in exchange for spirit stones they weren't using anyway. When that clicked into place, it all made perfect sense.
Gaius decided to see if his hunch was right. "Ah, I misunderstood. This isn't somethin' rare for you people at all, is it? These are mass-produced." He asked, smirking.
"You… are actually quite intelligent, aren't you?" Wang Yanyu replied, turning to elbow Shi Jiang in the side. "My ornery student told me that aside from strength, you have no redeeming qualities. A bit harsh, isn't he?"
"That chain's quite expensive, you know!" Shi Jiang snapped, bypassing the topic entirely. "It'll be coming out of your share of the loot, Gaius."
"Charming as ever, buddy." Gaius shot back, mouth split into a grin and both middle fingers raised.
"It degrades over time too." Wang Yanyu cut in, momentarily back into serious mode. "Binding someone in Late Core Formation like Kong Qiao, I'd imagine a Chain of Mundanity of this quality will last three to four weeks."
"That's more than enough. Thank ya kindly." Gaius replied, deactivating the array and picking up the chain. Whatever it was made of, it was several times heavier than spirit-steel.
"Now for the plan of attack." Declared Wang Yanyu, rising to her full, not-so-impressive height. "It took a while, but we managed to narrow down the thief's location. It's an old, ruined fortress, a day's travel west from here." She rummaged under the bed for a moment before pulling out a ceramic tube with a lid, which she then carefully removed. "It was to be reclaimed and refurbished sometime soon, but for now it sits unused. I have the floorplan here."
"I thought you said he was running for the border." Gaius replied.
"We're at war, you know. It's not like any Righteous nation would trust him right away." Said Shi Jiang. "He's waiting for Strength Purity to approve his request to switch sides."
As they spoke, Wang Yanyu tipped the tube over and pulled out several large, rolled-up sheafs of parchment, each one bound in red string, and began to open them up.
"Possibly losin' a valuable ally to their own red tape?" Gaius smirked, crossing his arms. His face fell after he gave it a moment of thought. "Mm, I suppose we're the same down south, though we've got an excuse at least."
"Yes, that poison you inject into all your newcomers." Shi Jiang remarked.
"Oi!" Wang Yanyu grunted, shooting a warning look at her student.
Gaius glared into his rival's eyes. "Poison, you say? It's this world that's poisonous, you folks are just adapted to it. You slip beneath its notice, while we rise to the occasion."
"Are you saying you're better than us?" Shi Jiang snorted, his jaw set and nostrils flaring.
Gaius tilted his head back a bit and smiled arrogantly. "Culturally, yes. Genetically, also yes. Philosophically… mixed bag, but mostly yes. Technologically, well, you Time Shatter folks got us beat, but compared to most of you Third Sea people, yes."
Shi Jiang's fist clenched at his side. He took one long stride closer, followed by another. The lantern light caught one of the piercings in his eyebrow just right, glinting off it. "Well, if you people hate this continent so much, feel free to leave and go jump in the ocean instead."
"That's enough!"
Both men stopped, turning to Wang Yanyu. Though she was the same size as ever, the intimidating presence she exuded made them both feel as if she were fifteen feet tall. She glared coldly, eyes flicking from one to the other. "You." She turned to Shi Jiang. "If I recall, it was your idea to bring this man aboard. Are you going to compromise the mission because you cannot control your temper?"
The Expert's heels came together, as did his hands, and he bowed deeply. His expression was one of both fear and embarrassment. "No, Madame Wang."
"And you." She turned to Gaius. "Do you want to be part of this job or not?"
"Yes."
"Speak up."
"Yes!" Gaius barked, scowling.
"Then would you please take this a little bit seriously?" The Elder asked, jabbing her finger in his face. "This is a matter of national security, and Kong Qiao is a dangerous opponent. "I need you and him at your best."
It was a surprising shift from the woman's usual demeanor, a core of pure iron hidden underneath the carefree exterior. Gaius reminded himself that this was a powerful, important person he was dealing with; she trained the strongest Expert in Time Shatter, after all. Gaius clamped his mouth shut and nodded.
"Yay~!" Wang Yanyu exclaimed in an exaggeratedly bubbly voice, all of the previous tension melting away. She snatched the collars of both Gaius and Shi Jiang in with an unbreakable iron grip and pointed them toward the table. "Since we're all friends again, let's plan for the mission~!"
What lay before them was a series of diagrams showing each level of the fortress, which extended both upwards and downwards. The parchment was stiff and ancient-looking, and considering documents used by cultivators were meant to last a very long time indeed, Gaius couldn't imagine how much digging it must have taken to find them.
Wang Yanyu spread out the first map, the one displaying the ground floor, with both hands. "Anyway, this is the plan, pay attention."
——
"First, we attack from the front."
—-
The Heavenly curse which shrouded Time Shatter's lands was an uncomfortable thing. It was like a cloud of acidic smoke hanging in the air, and there was no place free of it. Gaius oft found himself fidgeting on the ride toward their mission, his body automatically reacting against this feeling of wrongness. It didn't seem to affect the natives of this land at all, which made Gaius wonder if they perhaps had a minor resistance to curses born from their inoculation.
"Think he sees us yet?" He asked, turning to Shi Jiang. The man rode ramrod straight, wrathful eyes affixed on the fortress in the distance.
"If he's personally on the lookout, maybe." Shi Jiang replied. "If he's inside, then probably not yet."
"Ideally, we'll want to get closer than this before we're discovered. Less distance to cover under fire." Wang Yanyu chimed in, fiddling with a dial on her prosthetic eye. He wondered how exactly the Elder saw through that thing - he'd seen false eyes which were enchanted to replicate eyesight, but this design was very different from any of those. What was it like, to see through that colorful lens, and what was the benefit of it?
"Since we are about to risk our lives, I think I'll ask now." Said Shi Jiang. "Would you answer my questions this time?"
Gaius smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Let's see; ask 'em."
Shi Jiang fixed Gaius with fierce and focused eyes. "Why did Hong Xuan Fang Tai see visions of you ruining the world?"
Gaius looked back, refusing to shrink away. "How many times are ya gonna ask me that? I don't know. What's it matter what kinda futures a loser like him sees?"
"Why is your timeline impossible to read, even for Elders who specialize in scrying?"
"Because I'm special."
"Why is it that of all the Kings I've studied, only your Dao defies full analysis?"
"Because my Dao is the strongest."
Shi Jiang snarled and released a wordless noise of frustration, guiding his horse away from Gaius' to go sulk next to his master. Gaius chuckled at the sight, turning to look at the fortress once more.
The look of the place was nothing too surprising: towering walls, with three huge pavilions inside them. The roofs menaced with their sharply curved edges, giving the impression of a deeply unfriendly place. Atop the walls were dozens of tubes, all collapsed into themselves and seemingly dormant, but it was clear enough to Gaius what those were: qi cannons.
"Heavily armed, ain't it? Border fortress?" He asked.
"Yes, this was right at the border with Strength Purity once, shortly after our defection." Wang Yanyu answered, pointing to them. "The ones in front are anti-ground; they don't point any higher than ten degrees upwards. The ones behind are anti-air, and have a vertical range of twenty to eighty degrees. Those are the ones you'll be dealing with."
That would certainly be interesting. Gaius went over the plan in his head one last time to make sure he had not forgotten any part of it, and his hand drifted down to the Compression Pouch at his waist. He reached in, feeling the cool surface of a jade slip and reading the stray inscription with the tips of his fingers. He was no great array-smith, but Gaius had a rudimentary understanding of how the patterns fit together, enough that even if he hadn't been told, he could tell that this was a blasting array.
Another minute passed. The fortress loomed larger in their view, seeming to almost challenge any intruders to try and breach it. The air grew thick with tension, and sweat dripped down the back of Gaius' neck.
"Before this starts, I want to thank you now in case one of us dies." Shi Jiang suddenly declared. His tone was clearly forced, that of a man swallowing his pride out of obligation. "Our King is growing very quickly. It's thanks to the data we've gleaned from other Kings that we can optimize her training, and you especially have taught us much."
"You gettin' sentimental on me, Jia-Jia?" Gaius smirked, which drew his rival's glare like a magnet.
Shi Jiang grimaced. "Hell no, you-"
"He's seen us." Wang Yanyu declared. She hurled herself from her horse simply by flexing her calves against the stirrups and landed on both feet, cracking her knuckles. Her armor gleamed in the moonlight, a blue and silver masterwork that protected her torso, shoulders, lower legs and lower arms while leaving the rest free for mobility.
The fortress lit up like a star in Gaius' spiritual sense as its many arrays flared to life.
"From the front? That seems a bit conspicuous, Madame Wang."
Someone was on the wall, though he hadn't seen when he got there. No doubt that was Kong Qiao, though no details could be made out from this range. They still had another three miles of distance to cover, after all. What was clear, however, was the large amounts of qi he was pouring into the fortress' many defenses.
Shi Jiang dismounted in slightly less stylish fashion than his teacher, and the two of them immediately activated their acceleration techniques. Meanwhile, Gaius channeled qi into his summoning ring, and Scylla appeared, wordlessly hoisting the King up onto her back.
Scylla carried Gaius into the air as the master and student swiftly approached on the ground. Moments later, a shield of force flickered into existence around the castle, yet another layer of defense to get through.
Undaunted by the display, they continued to approach. Gaius took aim, charging and firing a golden laser beam from his third eye at Kong Qiao. It lost some energy from the distance, bouncing harmlessly off the fortress' barrier before it could reach their enemy. Still, as a piece of provocation, it was effective. The Elder took a step back, perhaps startled by the fact an Expert had launched an attack so fast that he himself could not react to it.
That moment of hesitation let the three get closer; close enough to make out some of Kong Qiao's appearance. He was aesthetically pleasing in appearance, though not particularly distinctive, with harshly slanted eyes and a hooked nose. His long salt and pepper hair was pinned up in a topknot with a rather large hairpin, and his similarly long beard fell straight down like a waterfall. His robes were well-made but practical, well suited for traveling and fighting alike.
—-
"That is precisely the point. We want his attention and his resources directed there. If the fortress is still broken down, it's as good a place to fight as any. If he's restored it, then we move to the next stage."
—--
Kong Qiao waved his hand, then pointed at Gaius.
The sounds of dozens of qi cannons activating at once was one Gaius had only been privileged to hear a few times, in joint training exercises with Strength Purity forces. Golden Devils did not employ this sort of mass artillery because their formations already ensured more efficient long-range firepower, and because spirit stones were more precious in the desert, where they were the primary resource of cultivation rather than a secondary supplement.
Perhaps that was why this fortress had been abandoned; the Heavenly Time Shatter Sect lived in a desert of sorts too. They could no longer afford to use spirit stones as weapons, and so any qi cannon emplacements would need to be run off a cultivator's own qi, which was usually not practical. That said, it worked just fine for someone in Kong Qiao's circumstances, who only needed to protect himself until he was granted safe passage into Strength Purity.
In these cannons, qi was converted into pure heat, then blasted at the target in the form of pure force. These shockwaves, a sort of shaped charge formed from the air itself, were not themselves visible, but the way the air warped from the intense heat the cannons generated, as well as from speed of the blasts themselves, made them easy to track nonetheless. Scylla swooped and swerved this way and that, reading instructions for how to move from the vibrations in Gaius' Dao Emanations. Beams lanced through the air all around them as they performed a dance with death.
Tabula Rasa was perfect for situations like this, against such simple, rigid lines of attack, allowing for almost 100% accurate predictions. Gaius' Emanations, which already encompassed the entire fortress and the space between him and it, poured the information seamlessly into his mind.
Down below, the situation was similarly dangerous but manageable. By turning their acceleration up and down, Shi Jiang and Wang Yanyu prevented the cannons from accurately leading their shots, dashing around safely. Every missed blast pockmarked the ground with a molten crater, further ruining the already desolate landscape.
This went on for a few more minutes, with no progress on Kong Qiao's end. A fully-staffed and supplied fortress would have no problems maintaining a bombardment of this side for quite a long time, but a single Elder's pockets, while deep, had limits. In response, Kong Qiao adapted, performing a series of complex hand motions.
At his command, a huge circular glyph appeared in the sky. The anti-air cannons all pointed upward and fired at the glyph in unison, charging it up with energy. That energy was immediately released, a series of beams firing out at all sorts of angles and curving through the air. Rather than in straight lines, the three of them were now assailed by projectiles which lunged in unpredictable arcs.
Scylla fell back, retreating as she swerved this way and that. Gaius grimaced and struggled to hold on. It was like standing in the middle of a huge nest of snakes. He couldn't even see what was going on down on the ground; he could only hope those two were alright.
This new development would have made things markedly more difficult to deal with, had Wang Yanyu not chosen that moment to hurl a seal onto the air. It lit up with a vibrant purple pattern, spiraling upwards like a dragon in flight. As it passed, loud staccato pops could be heard, making themselves heard even amidst the din of this bombardment.
With the signal given, the three of them already knew what to do. Gaius dove down, and Wang Yanyu and Shi Jiang regrouped to meet him. With a wave of his hand, Gaius conjured a large Aegis bubble amongst the three of them.
In response to them grouping up, Kong Qiao raised a hand above his head, conjuring up a bright, multicolored fireball which shined with eye-searing light. It grew to twenty feet before he threw it, sailing at the group with great speed.
It never struck them, though.
"We tunnel down and phase right into the lower levels. Kong Qiao will have wasted quite a bit up above."
At Gaius' command, the three of them phased into the ground. Their bubble displaced the earth around them, pushing it around and behind them as they rocketed down several levels.
"Everyone alright?" Wang Yanyu asked, rolling her shoulder.
"For the most part." Answered Shi Jiang, tenderly touching his side, where a near-miss had set fire to his clothes. A few holes were burnt into the Expert's shirt, and the flesh beneath was blistered. "Nothing serious."
"He musta burnt through a good deal of qi doin' that." Gaius remarked. "No way he was carrying enough stones to load up that many cannons; some of them were running on his own reserves. Same for the shield."
"Yes, stage one went decently." Wang Yanyu nodded, her face set in cold focus. "But now the hard part begins. Stay on guard; that man is one of the craftiest people I know."
Nothing more was said - what more
could be said? Shi Jiang took a slow, deep breath, centering himself for the struggle ahead. Then, they pushed out of the earth and into the lower levels of the fortress, where they knew the main hall to be.
It was as the maps said: a large room, perhaps 500x100x100 feet, with great columns holding up the ceiling. This was what lay between the upper levels and the command center, and troops would gather here to be given orders. It was also where they would gather for their final stand, should the fortress be breached. Above this room was most of the fortress, and if its structure were to be demolished, most of it would implode.
It was a utilitarian place, built by a utilitarian people, but some marks of beauty could still be glimpsed here. A coat of arms was carved into the floor, perhaps the personal heraldry of some long-dead Nascent Soul. Into the base of each column, etched in small, fine characters, were what appeared to be names; those of the dead, presumably. False Sun Crystals recessed into the walls and the ceiling lit the place dimly.
—-
"And we fight down there?"
"Only if we're winning. If we lose, we blow it up!"
"Demolition arrays: never leave home without them."
—-
Without delay, the three of them began running around, placing the slips at the bases of pillars and arming them. Gaius adhered several to the ceiling as well, to ensure it collapsed when all was said and done. As they worked, the tension of the coming battle rattled the King's bones. He could already taste the iron tang of blood on the dusty air, and if he didn't know any better, he'd think demonic spirits were lurking in every shadow, waiting for the violence to come.
They didn't have much time at all. In half a minute, their adversary was already there, long robes trailing behind him as he dashed into the room in a dizzying blur. Another, equally fast blur smashed into him as Wang Yanyu intercepted her former comrade.
"I was hoping the one who came to capture me would be someone I knew better." said Kong Qiao, his forearm braced against Wang Yanyu's as they both activated their respective techniques. His voice was deep, smooth and a little bit posh, suiting his well-groomed and calculated appearance.
"Why, so you could deceive them too?" Wang Yanyu said back. "Your tricks won't work on me."
The melee that followed was difficult to keep track of, even moreso than Shi Jiang was at top speed. How many they exchanged in those first few seconds, Gaius couldn't say for sure, but Wang Yanyu came out ahead, trapping Kong Qiao's arm in her armpit and hammering a few punches into his face. She then pivoted and threw the man into the wall, cratering it and making the room shake a bit.
Kong Qiao took the hit and didn't skip a beat, performing a hand sign. A red spherical grid took form in front of him, growing to a large size. A strange, unidentifiable sound could faintly be heard coming from the traitor. In a split-second, the technique finished forming.
"Repeater Matrix." He declared, finishing his technique and immediately leaping out of the crater. Wang Yanyu crashed into the wall where her opponent had been, missing him by just a hair before pursuing.
As the two Core Formation Elders zipped around repeatedly clashing with one another, the thunderous sound of hundreds of stone footsteps grew louder and louder. A hoard of moving statues began streaming into the room, bearing well-crafted spirit steel spears and shields. Heavy infantry, designed for defense.
As Gaius and Shi Jiang rushed in to engage with this new threat, Wang Yanyu landed a kick to Kong Qiao's chest which sent him flying back. Flipping mid-air, he began forming another multicolored fireball in his hand.
Kong Qiao glared at his former comrade, eyes refocusing as he took aim. "You've always been a pest!
Funerary Fire!" He shouted, flinging the attack. The bright orb of heat cut a path through the air toward Wang Yanyu, who just barely juked out of the way in time.
But she was not what he'd been aiming for. Kong Qiao's attack connected with the sphere he had conjured up earlier, which contained it. A powerful qi signature began emanating from it immediately, and another, smaller fireball was blasted toward Wang Yanyu. At the same time, Kong Qiao mimed a pair of jaws with his hands, creating an illusionary tiger head which attempted to bite his approaching opponent.
Wang Yanyu was grabbed by the jaws, then immolated by the fireball… or at least,
a Wang Yanyu was. The genuine article was suddenly a few feet to the left, charging faster than before as her clone flickered out of existence. The Elder's fist crashed into Kong Qiao's guard, sending him flying up into the air.
This was the signature ability of Shi Jiang's teacher: time clones. By entering into a state in which her personal timeline was decelerated, she stored up the 'unused' time at a rate proportional to how much she slowed down. If she slowed down by 20%, as she was now, she would accumulate one second of stored time every five seconds. She could then wholly or partially split herself into multiple timelines, which used up that stored time. Though they required a lot of setup and could only be used briefly, a time clone was equal to the original in every respect, as it
was the original. Wang Yanyu could change which one was the 'real her' right up until the clone dissipated.
Meanwhile, Gaius and Shi Jiang smashed their way through the artificial soldiers. Their stony bodies were tough indeed, forcing them both to put as much force into each physical strike as they could in order to reliably break their opponents. And while they didn't move particularly fast, the soldiers hit hard, which meant neither of the two could rush in and ignore defense.
This exhausting slog took all of their attention, and from a distance, they must have looked like two moles ever so slowly digging through a sea of stone. Gaius growled in annoyance, smashing through the torso of a soldier with a large warhammer. He dodged several simultaneous attacks without looking, then spun around, decapitating three more. If Bloodflame worked on these things, it wouldn't be an issue at all, but as the puppets possessed neither souls to burn nor Dao-Hearts to crush, the King's two main methods for wiping out armies were both unusable.
Furthermore, he noted as he batted aside another statue's weapon and put his fist through its chest, large scale attacks had to be used carefully in a place like this, lest they bring the fortress down on their own heads. His group were willing to do that if they had to, but only if they were all in position to escape. Firing blindly would lead to the charges being set off, burying them all.
But that wasn't even the most difficult part. Worse still was that these statues could reconstitute themselves. Upon taking damage, a white light would glow from within, drawing upon the statues' inner qi batteries and sealing the cracks. Armor was mended, limbs were twisted back into place, and fallen soldiers got back into the fight. It was hardly invincibility - severed limbs stayed severed, for instance - but it meant massive damage was needed to incapacitate one of them, further slowing down their progress.
Shi Jiang turned to check on the battle between the two Elders and saw his teacher on the backfoot. The Repeater Matrix autonomously fired blasts of Funerary Fire at Wang Yanyu, whilst Kong Qiao himself cycled through a trade show's worth of different techniques. A flying sword made of purple lightning, a barrage of homing needles, a miniature tornado, all fired off in quick succession with next to no pause. The one-eyed warrior found herself unable to close the distance while also fending off such an unpredictable assault, and minor wounds were quickly piling up on her body.
Such rapid use of so many different complex techniques would seem impossible if one did not know about the crown which sat upon Kong Qiao's brow. This artifact, when activated, threw the user's brain and soul out of sync with their body, accelerating the speed of their thoughts by a massive amount. The more parts of themself they dragged into this accelerated flow, the weaker its effects would be. By accelerating only his brain, jaw, lips, tongue, heart, lungs and meridians, Kong Qiao was able to channel techniques and perform incantations many times faster than his normal speed. This allowed the rest of his body to fire off the prepared techniques with no delay at all.
This was bad. They needed to retake the offensive, to force their opponent to turn off the Eight Trigrams Crown in order to keep his body coordinated and defend himself. Shi Jiang broke away from the brawl, trusting Gaius to handle himself alone for a bit and running toward the nearest pillar. He crouched down beside the base, watching the fight and waiting for the right moment.
The time soon came, when Wang Yanyu corkscrewed over a whirling blade of wind and closed the distance more than she had in some time. Shi Jiang activated the blasting array, then took off at full speed.
—-
"Ain't you two forgettin' my side of this? I need him alive!"
"Then we'll just need to win. If we can't win, then we set off the charges and run."
"That's quite reckless, Madame Wang. If charges get set off from the fighting, we might get caught in an explosion."
"Aren't you the fastest Expert in the world? Have a little faith in yourself."
—-
Shi Jiang sprinted with every bit of strength he could muster, face stretched taut with fear around his piercings. He outran the explosion by just a hair, the shockwave hitting him but not the fireball. It felt like he had been tackled from behind. The pillar began to fall with a colossal groaning sound as Shi Jiang rolled to disperse the momentum before popping back up to his feet. He ran back, jamming the end of his staff on the pillar and magnifying its gravity, urging it to fall much faster, right toward the currently occupied Kong Qiao.
Kong Qiao held one hand toward Wang Yanyu and another toward the falling pillar, summoning a flat plane of force in front of each to stop both sources of incoming force. Shi Jiang struck in that momentary window of opportunity, Graviton Staff coming down hard, but Kong Qiao turned his head and caught the staff in his teeth. This proved to be a miscalculation, as he found his knees buckling under the suddenly increased gravity.
With her opponent off-guard, Wang Yanyu manifested a time clone on the other side of his forcefield, slamming a full-force punch into his side. He went flying into the falling pillar, which collapsed onto him. To his credit, Kong Qiao caught the massive stone structure before it could flatten him, holding what must have been over a hundred tons at bay.
Kong Qiao coughed up a mouthful of blood, then huffed in irritation, immediately shifting gears to another new approach. As he suffused his qi into the pillar, he simultaneously called the Repeater Matrix toward him, bombarding the area around him with more Funerary Fire and forcing Shi Jiang and Wang Yanyu to back off. One blast struck him directly, but slid off him like water.
The pillar was separated, cut into smooth cubes which fell all around the Elder. He dismissed the technique inside his Repeater Matrix, then grabbed the spherical grid in both hands. "From within the white upon white, bring forth an impossible black." he chanted, filling it with his qi. When he was done, the Repeater Matrix contained… seemingly nothing at all.
The sound of the statues' footsteps closed in from behind. Gaius was doing his best to hold them all back by himself, but their toughness and recovery made them nearly implacable. Many had slipped by him, and were closing in to back up their master. Want Yanyu sent a clone charging in to strike Kong Qiao as she turned to deal with the statues and Shi Jiang struck from behind, but the traitor interposed his Repeater Matrix in between himself and the clone as a shield. The moment it struck the sphere, it was immediately destroyed, crumbling away to nothing.
In the same moment, Wang Yanyu defended herself from the chaff. She grew two additional arms on either side, partial clones which used up far less stored time than the full article. A storm of punches flew in every direction, obliterating anything foolish enough to come close. It was over in a few seconds, but that was all the time Kong Qiao had needed.
"Strong but straightforward, the easiest type to trick." Kong Qiao sneered, aiming both palms at Shi Jiang.
"Thousand Fangs!"
A swarm of tiny metal shards flew out of Kong Qiao's sleeves, attacking the Expert from all directions. He defended with his Graviton Staff, pushing artificially weighted qi out of the tip to form a physical barrier, which stopped most of the technique. That which slipped through pierced into his flesh with agonizing sharpness, spraying blood from dozens of tiny wounds and causing Shi Jiang to convulse in pain. He dropped the staff, and Kong Qiao seized that chance, driving a kick into his chest which flung him far away.
Seizing this shift in the momentum, Kong Qiao dashed toward the other end of the chamber, more soldiers leaping in between him and the pursuing Wang Yanyu to buy time. Gaius whirled around, seeing the Elder charging right for him and his Repeater Matrix coming in low from the side.
Gaius leapt over the sphere as it carved a smooth, circular groove into the ground. Before he could do anything further, Kong Qiao was already there, swinging hard. Gaius conjured up an Aegis barrier, which was promptly shattered by the Elder's fist. The blow hammered into the King's chest, flinging him away and slamming him into the wall beside Shi Jiang.
The Elder did not yet turn back to his primary opponent; he was a thorough man. He amassed qi into his palm, then thrust it up at the ceiling above the two. A ten foot wide imprint of his hand was impressed into the stone with a loud crunch. He looked down at them, taking a moment to feel satisfaction at the turning of the tide. "You boys are good, but you don't belong in a fight like this.
Palm Of Judgement."
Kong Qiao swung his hand down, and pulled part of the ceiling down with it. Tons upon tons of rock down were wrenched free, falling on the pair and shaking the air and ground alike with the sheer noise. Dust spewed everywhere as Gaius and Shi Jiang were entombed beneath the rubble. The Elder let out some tension with a deep breath, happy to have brought it back to a one-on-one fight.
"I think I see what you're doing here." Wang Yanyu remarked, brushing a substantial amount of dust from the destroyed statues off her shoulders. She pressed a couple of buttons on her eyepiece as her and Kong Qiao coldly regarded one another, making minute adjustments to her vision to better suit this particular fight. "You specialize in curses and qi sorcery, and yet both you and these statues are autonomously regenerating. It's an inversion of a curse; a beneficial technique the target's body is made to automatically cast."
"Inversion, you say?" Kong Qiao asked, before going through a series of hand signs and sub-vocal incantations, another Repeater Matrix forming above his head. He declined to mention the fact that Wang Yanyu had realized he too was regenerating. How frustrating; he thought he'd been doing a fairly good job feigning injury.
"Don't play dumb, it doesn't suit you." Said Wang Yanyu, swapping out her current reinforcement technique for one that focused more heavily on speed. She consequently increased the slowdown on herself from 20% to 30%, so as to build up a stock more quickly. "That Repeater Matrix only holds raw qi, yet it annihilates matter on contact. You're somehow Inverting the nature of your qi, then pushing it through a technique you already know to invert that technique in turn. That's how you have enough comprehension to cast it on a whole army."
It had been a good decision to select her for this mission, Wang Yanyu thought. Kong Qiao had indeed been hiding quite a large part of his skillset from his comrades. She, who was particularly adept at analyzing the techniques of others, was probably one of the few Time Shatter disciples capable of reacting to him on the fly.
"Figuring it out like that…" Kong Qiao sighed, finishing his technique and immediately beginning another, claws of flickering green energy beginning to extrude from his fingers. "You really are quite capable, Wang Yanyu. If only you had a little more self-respect."
Wang Yanyu did the same thing, kneeling down and infusing her qi into the area around her as she prepped a technique of her own. Pulling this one on an opponent was always fun. In the meantime, the Elder decided to play along with her opponent's verbal game. "In what way do
I lack self-respect, you traitor?"
"Throwing boys at me? Cannon fodder, only here to die against me so that you could read the shape of my techniques and fight me knowing what to expect?" Kong Qiao shook his head, body language working overtime to give off the feeling of secondhand shame. In the meantime, his claws finished forming, four inches long and radiating killing intent. "I'm a bit disappointed."
With her zone now prepared, Wang Yanyu stood up and laughed. "Cannon fodder, you say? You clearly don't know either of them." She declared, crossing her arms and staring down her enemy defiantly.
The ground rumbled, rays of red and gold shining through the gaps in the rubble as the two warriors' power surged.
"Eye contact is burning, eye consciousness is burning."
"Code Red. Emergency Protocol 777 Engaged."
Snorting coldly, Kong Qiao raised a hand above his head, conjuring a ball of fire ten feet across, blazing with many shifting colors.
"Funerary-
He made to throw it, but before he could, Wang Yanyu pressed two fingers to the side of her eyepiece, firing a bright pink ray which struck the fireball. Immediately, it turned the same color as the ray and dissipated, the spent qi unraveling into the air around them.
"I'm afraid I've already analyzed that one, Qiao." She said with a smirk.
"Spring Forth, Dao Vestment!"
"Wake Up, Eternal Raiment!"
The rubble exploded in every direction from the resulting force, revealing the two young warriors, now transformed and blazing with newfound strength. Gaius rolled his neck and stretched out his new wings, grinning ear to ear from the rush of this temporary power. Shi Jiang stretched out his hand, calling his staff back into it and letting out a long, slow exhale.
Kong Qiao's face took on a grim mien as he re-evaluated his circumstances. "So that's why your student is so highly regarded. I doubt more than five people in the Sect know he has
that. I don't like being kept in the dark, you know."
Waving his hand, he activated the control device for the fortress' defenses once more. The army of statues turned their focus toward the pair and charged full-force. The sound of their heavy footsteps crashing against the stony ground resembled an earthquake, so great were their numbers.
As the two Elders continued their battle elsewhere, Gaius and Shi Jiang stood together and regarded the forces coming at them. "That blessing is quite troublesome." The armored warrior remarked, sinking low as he prepared to resume his usual high-mobility combat.
"It ain't all that! Just gotta smash 'em in one shot!" Gaius declared, motes of light swirling above his head. They formed a conical shape vaguely resembling a drill, a three-dimensional hardlight matrix bristling with blades, different sections spinning in multiple directions. At the same time, he began his incantation. "The eighth crown brings the light of obliteration!"
Shi Jiang braced his staff on his shoulder, the ground cracking beneath him as its weight increased. He sunk even lower, pushing his acceleration to the limit as he prepared to charge. Space began to distort around either end of the weapon. "Finishing move: Giga Graviton!"
Though most of the statues were still charging in, two dozen of them had stopped, taking poses as they prepared a simple but powerful formation technique. The ground shook and swelled like liquid for a moment, and then a huge rocky spike burst out, aiming right at Gaius.
The Seeker poured qi into his attack, causing it to swell in size until it was over sixty feet long. "Fist of the King!
RADIANT BUSTER!"
Gaius threw his hand out, and the drill flew with intense speed that belied its size, crashing into the statues' formation technique. For a few seconds, they clashed against each other. Then, the King outstretched his other hand and put even more force into his attack. It shattered the spike,, tearing it to bits and blasting into the oncoming forces.
It tore through the targets and the ground alike, with a terrible grinding sound, leaving a deep gouge in the earth. Those that were hit head-on were obliterated, and those nearby were flung to either side, collapsing their cohesion and stopping their charge. Stone body parts were scattered all throughout the room; a head here, a leg there, violently thrown about by the force of the King's attack. Before the rubble even had a chance to finish falling, Shi Jiang was already moving. He dashed forward with even greater speed than before, cutting through the cust like a knife with the gale force wind his passage created.
What the staff hit, it blew apart. The striking force was incomparable to how it was before. Rather than the efficient strikes he usually went for, the Time Shatter warrior was swinging the staff with both hands like a club in order to effectively utilize its massive weight. Only with a large speed advantage would a tactic like this be viable, but Shi Jiang had that in spades. It wasn't just the mass of the weapon, though. The intense gravitational pull around each end of the staff pulled in and tore apart the enemy at the same time as Shi Jiang smashed the weapon into them, magnifying the strike's already amazing force. The statues were destroyed in one hit every time, a silver blur tearing through their ranks in the wake of the chaos Gaius had caused.
Another demolition array was set off by the aftershocks of the Radiant Buster, making the huge room quake once more as another pillar toppled, crushing many of the stone soldiers and kicking up towering plumes of dust. Amidst this chaos, the two Elders continued their battle. Any statues unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire were blown apart, as if they had wandered into the path of a natural disaster.
Kong Qiao slashed at Wang Yanyu again and again, backed up by his spectral tiger head, which lunged in to bite at any opening. Between the two of them, they were slowly pushing her back and boxing her in. In the meantime, the Repeater Matrix continuously spewed out purple gas, gradually filling the room with poison and making less and less of it safe to dwell in. The strategy was simple but very effective; smoothly and efficiently back the enemy into a corner. Every so often he would switch things up, throwing in a wind blade or a lightning sword just to keep her on her toes, slowly beating Wang Yanyu down with glancing blows as she tried to avoid being destroyed by this diverse onslaught.
Seeing that the fort's artificial defenders were being quickly wiped out, Kong Qiao stopped his assault for a moment and snapped his fingers, activating another mechanism. A dozen more statues spilled forth into the hall from below, these ones over ten feet tall and bearing thicker armor. Rather than articulated and humanlike, their arms were thick cylinders, durable and ungainly limbs made to smash and crush. They thundered forth, heading toward Gaius and Shi Jiang.
The armored warrior shattered the opponent before him, then turned to see these new threats, huffing in annoyance. "It seems the honor guard is here."
"Feh! That's no trouble at all!" Gaius laughed, throwing himself in their direction and hefting a warhammer. He dodged the weighty punch of the one in the front, then swung as hard as he could. His attack collided with a booming sound, but the soldier barely budged, attacking again with a backswing of its arm.
Gaius fell back, attacking with lasers, strikes, weapons of all kinds, but dealing hardly any damage at all. Furthermore, the honor guard were fast; nearly as fast as him, despite their bulky frames and his enhanced form. Every blow narrowly avoided spelt injury or even death, should they strike true. The statues had no hands, just stumps topped with wickedly sharp blades or sharp, deadly spikes.
They advanced, he retreated, until finally one hit landed, a kick that blew through his guard and bowled him over. He flared out his wings to catch himself in the air, more outraged than truly hurt.
"Honor Guard? Gimme a break, they're just a little bit tougher…" Gaius snarled, curling into a ball and surrounding himself with an Aegis bubble. He folded his wings around himself, disappearing from view as his scattered Emanations pulled back in around himself, compressed into the bubble with him until it shone too brightly to see what lay within.
Seeing his chance, their enemy reached out his hand, taking control over the poison cloud and twisting it into the shape of an enormous dragon. He swung his arm, sending it flying in a winding pattern at Wang Yanyu, who dodged back and forth to avoid being engulfed. Now free for a moment, the Elder turned to Gaius, who was vulnerable mid-transformation.
"Never stop moving in a high level fight!" Kong Qiao shouted, jumping into the air with an exhilarated grin on his face. Gone was the composed tactician from before, and in his place was a man enraptured with the challenge before him. Unfamiliar with what Gaius was doing, he defaulted to the most universally reliable ability he had, the Destructive Bolt.
The simplest application of inverted qi, it was simply a clump of the stuff launched as a projectile. This simplicity, however, was its greatest strength, as it annihilated whatever it hit in direct proportion to the amount of qi expended. This meant all he needed to do was put in more qi than the target, be it a technique or a living being, possessed, and it would without fail be destroyed. He formed it with both hands, pouring in a very high qi output, more than any Expert could hope to contest. Then, just to make sure, he put in even more to boost its speed.
Shi Jiang interposed himself between Kong Qiao and Gaius at the moment of launch, taking aim with a huge, strange-looking contraption. It took the Elder a moment to realize it was a small qi cannon. The Destructive Bolt fired off, a sickly green orb of brightly glowing qi surging forward at nearly the speed of sound, and the Eternal Raiment's bearer pulled the trigger in response.
The clash was immediate and extremely loud, and the resulting shockwave set off a nearby demolition array, shaking the room even more and sending ominous cracks snaking up the walls and into the ceiling. The bolt of inverted qi met an immensely dense blast of concentrated force, and was overwhelmed. Shi Jiang's shot blew right through and struck Kong Qiao in the chest, sending him flying back harder than any other hit he had received today. Shi Jiang too flew back, just missing Gaius' bubble as he skidded backwards on his feet.
The bubble shrank to an impossibly small size, one which logically should have crushed Gaius into paste. And yet, his voice reverberated as the emanations vibrated with his words. "Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am The Seeker.
Fall upon me, Maou Vestment!"
The bubble returned back to normal size, revealing the twice-transformed King. He towered at a greater size, with skin of white-gold armor and big, proud horns curving out from his head. Tail swishing behind him, Gaius touched down on the ground and turned toward the heavily armored statues.
His brain buzzed painfully with overflowing information, overflowing
inspiration. There was so much he wanted to do. The first thing to turn his mind towards, of course, was how to break through that armor.
When it came to armor-piercing structures, the Radiant Buster was the best thing Gaius had, but it would not do any good at this distance. A small one, maybe? No, many small ones.
The Radiant Buster was fairly easy to downsize, ditto with making many of them. The problem was propulsion: how to imbue great velocity into each of them. Simply sending them out might not generate enough force; an additional element was needed. How did firearms work again?
Gaius' arm dissolved from the elbow down, beginning to reform in a new shape. The propellant explodes, launching the projectile, and at the same time the force of that explosion makes other mechanisms move. Those mechanisms deposit a new projectile into the chamber. Slide, check, firing pin, check, barrel, check, no need for an ejection valve.
Now for the propellant. He could form more of it with each firing, actually, and he could summon it in the process of explosion, so the firing pin was not needed. Good, that simplified the form. Gunpowder wasn't strong enough, so instead he would use nitroglycerin. Gaius was still learning how to create that normally, but the gap in knowledge felt effortless to bridge right now.
Hmm. Closable vents on either side, to open and release the built-up heat once the firing was over. Perfect.
All this took just five seconds. Gaius pointed his hand, now a twisted, half-flesh, half-metal firearm, braced himself, and let loose.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM went the contraption, sounding every bit as violent and ugly as it looked. It was less like a series of bursting sounds and more like one continuous explosion that peaked over and over. The recoil vibrated his entire arm, and pain quickly began to radiate higher and higher up the limb as the backlash of these violent, deafening explosions punched into his body.
Five inch long Radiant Busters, spinning and whirring, were shot out in a hail, smashing through the armor of the statues and pushing them back. He held firm, pulverizing the shields and limbs they tried to block with, then tearing into the center. One by one they quickly fell, torn-open ruins all.
When the last enemy fell, the torrent of fire subsided. Gaius' arm was glowing red-hot, beginning to twist and warp as it melted from the heat of his attack. The vents opened up, fleshy like the gills of some great fish, and superheated air rushed out on either side of that twisted limb. Gaius threw his head back, elated by the sheer at his disposal.
Gaius turned, arm reshaping back into something humanlike as his three eyes regarded his remaining enemy. A large circle was burned into the center of Kong Qiao's chest, his clothes and chest hair vaporized and his skin charred a deep red. Considering the ridiculous power Shi Jiang's cannon could put out, either the old man was sturdier than he looked or he'd used some kind of protective treasure. Either way, one of the best chances they'd had to bring this enemy down was now off the table, and the damage was already beginning to visibly heal.
The Elder backed away, eyes darting from one opponent to the next as they warily followed after him. Everything was quiet for now, save for the occasional groaning sound above as the structure of this chamber ever so slowly gave way. Ever so slowly, the cracks in the walls and the ceiling spread, an ongoing collapse that placed a definitive deadline on this fight. And, of course, there were several more charges that had not yet gone off; a couple more of those, and there would be an immediate implosion.
Kong Qiao brushed a lock of sweat-stained hair out of his face, his breath thick with both fatigue and anxiety. "What say you take my things and let me go, hm?" He asked, affixing an easy going smile on his face, even as his eyes blazed with devious intelligence. "Why risk your life further? Take my things, collapse the room and tell the Grand Elder you killed me."
"Turn yourself over to me and you've got a deal." Gaius replied, watching him carefully.
Kong Qiao's brows furrowed for a moment as he seemed to consider the offer, but then he shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't trust you enough to take that deal. How about-"
"Golgotha."
Gaius had heard enough already, firing off a crimson blood-laser at the traitor, only for it to warp around the man and strike the wall behind him. Kong Qiao's smile grew a little bit bigger and a little less friendly. The King cursed; had this fucker seriously set up a barrier against light qi without making a single suspicious motion?
"Alright, I suppose that answers that."
Space warped around the Elder as things moved out of sync, progressing outward in a bubble in a manner that Gaius knew indicated a slow-field. This was a devious tactic to use against a fellow Time Shatter practitioner, as for them to maintain their own contrary arts within such a field would mean they risked a qi knot. The three of them closed in, but Kong Qiao continued to retreat, summoning a cloud of vicious insects from his sleeves.
Assuming them to be poisonous, Gaius countered with a burst of bloodflame, immolating the swarm in moments, but in that time, Kong Qiao had already performed a long and complex chant. He opened his mouth and let loose a word so laced with foulness that Gaius felt his brain reject its meaning. Immediately, a feeling of deep sickness overcame him and he stumbled in place.
A curse, cast with no ritual, just chanting alone. Just how insane was this man's qi comprehension?
Before he could think on this further, Kong Qiao's ethereal claws slashed open the King's throat and chest, carving him up and spraying his blood every quick way. Shi Jiang forced his body to move despite the debilitating curse taking hold of him, swinging with everything he had, but the slow-field was still active, and his blow was dodged with ease. Kong Qiao's claws skittered across the armor, only scratching it, which took the Elder aback for a second. Huffing, he summoned his tiger head, which snatched up the Expert and began slamming him into the ground over and over.
That was what happened in the amount of time it took Wang Yanyu to unravel the curse and free herself from its grip. A clone attacked as she pressed her fingers to her eyepiece, destroying Kong Qiao's claws. Clicking his tongue in annoyance, he let out a burst of destructive qi, shattering the clone, only to be knocked off balance by a laser beam. It struck him in the side of his face, burning off a patch of his beard and singing the skin underneath.
The Elder turned to Gaius, whose body was almost freed of the curse and already mostly repaired, and launched a tornado which flung him away. He turned back to Wang Yanyu, blocking a blow from her, only for a cloned arm to smash into his ribs, cracking them. He stumbled back, trying to form a Repeater Matrix, but found himself canceling the technique to guard against a staff strike from a now-freed Shi Jiang.
He punched Shi Jiang away, but then a barrage of laser beams struck Kong Qiao. He quickly formed an anti-light qi barrier to distort the beams away, but then two time clones jumped him from either side. He frantically backpedaled to avoid their hits, only to be grabbed by a tentacle and slammed into the wall.
Ah, what a pain. Fighting three on one like this really was troublesome. Ah, if only he'd been born with more substantial talent. Then, he wouldn't be down here, scurrying in the dark like a rat, getting subjected to a gang beating. Still, Kong Qiao liked to think he'd acquired some know-how in his years.
Physical strikes came from the King in unpredictable shapes and forms, alongside ever-present laser beams. Shi Jiang's attacks were less confounding, but came faster and harder, each one needing to be responded to with care despite the Great Realm gap. Most troublesome of all were those of Wang Yanyu, who outclassed her fellow Elder in close range combat. Kong Qiao summoned a slow-field and set about defending himself from all of it, bracing his will against the incoming pain.
Blows slipped through like water leaking through cracks in a dam, and his already poor condition worsened rapidly. But this was nothing he could not endure. Kong Qiao continued diligently and quietly chanting, waiting for his opportunity.
Soon enough, it came, a tiny gap in the staggered rhythm of attacks Gaius was flying in from one side, his fist transformed into a spiked mace, and Shi Jiang was firing off a large bolt of heavy qi from his staff, which was already being intercepted and canceled out by a tiny destructive bolt from Kong Qiao. Wang Yanyu was lunging forward, preparing to kick off the ground and pivot into a jumping roundhouse kick. With the Eight Trigrams Crown, Kong Qiao saw all of this play out clearly and slowly enough to analyze carefully. An auto-hitting curse, far stronger and more difficult to undo than the previous one, was cast.
Gaius was less than a tenth of a second too slow to stop this newest curse from being fired off. His transformed fist crashed into Kong Qiao's face, rattling him and pushing him back a step, but his following blows were all deflected as the Elder quickly retook the advantage. As the two brawled back and forth, Wang Yanyu stumbled in place, her composure broken as something unseen but no doubt terrible happened to her. Suddenly, Shi Jiang's master pitched forward, vomiting out blood. In the red stain she left on the ground, writhing maggots could be seen.
"Madame Wang!" Shi Jiang cried out, turning towards her. This moment of concern caused him to be caught off-guard by Kong Qiao's tiger head, forcing him to grab a fang in each hand and push apart the jaws that threatened to crush him.
Kong Qiao slashed off one of Gaius' arms and nailed him in the chest with a powerful kick, propelling him across the room, then turned to the trapped Expert and formed a ball of chilling wind in his hand. The cold infused the air around him, causing frost to form beneath his feet as heat was annihilated. He fired off this blast of air at Shi Jiang, aiming to simply freeze him to death inside of his armor.
"Technique Reversal: Funerary Ice!"
Seeing her student caught between the two attacks, Wang Yanyu vomited out more blood and forced her head up, pressing her finger to her eyepiece and shooting out another pink beam. It struck the tiger head, unraveling the technique and freeing Shi Jiang. "Get him!" She shouted, and her student obeyed.
Shi Jiang moved fast, perhaps faster than he had in his life, blurring out of the way of Kong Qiao's technique and bounding across the rubble. He narrowly dodged one destructive bolt, then another, speeding up even more as a massive amount of qi was poured into his time field. He approached with all the certainty and quickness of a bolt of lightning.
Changing tactics, Kong Qiao stood in place and began to chant. The slower he moved, the more the Eight Trigrams crown could speed him up. If the only movement he made was to chant, he could achieve a multiplication of nearly ten. His slow-field provided further acceleration in comparison to his surroundings, allowing for a chant of any length to be done almost instantly. A six-line incantation was completed in almost an instant, a cruel litany of ruination infusing his qi with an overwhelming amount of violent intent.
This curse would hit automatically, bypassing the medium of distance to simply affect what Kong Qiao looked at upon the moment of activation. The Expert would not be able to dodge this by altering his speed. Unfortunately, Kong Qiao had been slightly too late in beginning the chant, and would be reached before the final line completed.
Oh well; Shi Jiang was not the only one who could vary his timing. The curse would be mildly less lethal, but it would be more than enough. The chant stopped there, one line early, and the curse was launched before the armored warrior could reach him. Once more, an unfathomable word was spoken, spewed forth from his mouth like vomit.
The master and student would both die from Kong Qiao's curses, leaving him free to tear apart that Golden Devil until his unstable transformation collapsed. He would be free, and killing another Time Shatter Elder would further endear him to Strength Purity.
Suddenly, a streak of gold interposed itself between him and Kong Qiao, shoving him out of the way and taking the instantly-hitting effect in his place. Gaius froze in place as his qi was turned against him by the masterful technique of an experienced curse artist.
This was an unfamiliar sort of pain for the King, not in the degree of agony itself but in the feeling of being turned against himself. He was being… crushed? No, twisted. His body was being twisted with immense force, originating somewhere in his guts.
Gaius fell to his knees, vomiting out a torrent of blood as he continued to implode. Meanwhile, Shi Jiang went on the offensive once more. Surging power into his lower body, Gaius stoked his blood to its highest possible tension, then stoked it even higher than that. His lower body detonated, taking the source of the curse with it, and he quickly began rebuilding it.
That moment of bought time allowed Shi Jiang to close in, but Kong Qiao was already falling back and sending out a slow-field at the same time. Eager to finally end this string of interruptions, the traitor planned to just barely dodge, then blast Shi Jiang with his maximum output, in order to finally break through the Eternal Raiment.
This time, Shi Jiang's speed did not change.
Kong Qiao, who did not know Shi Jiang could nullify temporal techniques, and had in fact had seen the Expert affected already, dodged too late, only just beginning to sway back when he realized his foe was much closer than he should have been.
The Graviton Staff was swung with all of the force Shi Jiang could muster, which was further magnified by the gravitational force created by the staff itself. He was pulled into the blow at the same time that it landed, and the qi infused into the staff struck true at the same time. The sound was less like a blow from a staff and more like an explosion. Kong Qiao was sent flying back, spinning end over end and spewing blood from his destroyed nose the whole way.
He was not launched randomly; the entire time, Shi Jiang had been keeping in mind the location of his master's Holy Ground technique, the zone which she had previously infused with her technique. Though she was unable to move from her spot, Wang Yanyu did not miss this chance either, activating it.
Holy Ground: a technique which manipulated both space and time, and the third of Wang Yanyu's signature abilities. A zone was designated and a technique was placed there, freezing it in time temporarily. When the time freeze was deactivated, the technique activated in that spot. Because it was already activated at the time it was frozen, even a close-range technique could be used with Holy Ground, regardless of distance, and regardless of the condition of the user.
Before the Elder could do anything to arrest his movement, Wang Yanyu - or rather, a time clone of Wang Yanyu from earlier in the battle - was already behind him, swinging ten fists at once. Most of her remaining stored time was used up in a fraction of a second.
Kong Qiao was practically folded backwards over her hand, and just from the angle he was bent, Gaius could tell his back was broken. The man's eyes rolled back into his head as he passed out from a combination of head trauma and pain shock. Still, his soul remained in place and his heart was beating. It would take much worse injuries than this to truly kill a Core Formation Elder.
Their opponent's limp body crumbled onto the ground as the time clone dissipated. The three of them waited for one moment, then two, then three, and finally sighed in relief; they had won. Shi Jiang, who had been poised and ready to continue fighting, took off. He began sprinting from one charge to the next, frantically deactivating them before any more could go off.
Gaius, having rebuilt his body, quickly canceled his transformation. The armored skin shattered into dust, revealing his body beneath in the same shape it had been before. He doubled over, clutching at his guts and groaning in pain. Several meridians had ruptured from the backlash, and his flesh trembled as it fought to shut down a potential qi deviation.
And the
headache. It hadn't hurt this bad when he did it in that super-space during the Trial. Perhaps that was only natural; the heightened reality of that place was what made the creation of Maou Vestment possible. Out in the real world, the backlash against something so obviously wrong was more intense.
"A qi knot caused by time art backlash." Wang Yanyu noted, getting back to her feet as she finished unraveling the curse. She paused for a moment, bending over to vomit out another mouthful of demonic maggots. "Ugh. So my dear student was right. How are you mucking with your own timeline so intensely?"
"That's classified…" Gaius chuckled through gritted and blood-stained teeth. He coughed up a small mouthful of blood with such force that it splattered on the round before him. "Can't give away all my secrets for free, old lady."
For a long, quiet moment, Gaius was worried. Wang Yanyu was quiet, her false eye glinting in the dim light of the half-collapsed chamber as she staggered towards him. She regarded this man as more than just muscle in that moment, more than an object of curiosity that had taken in her student. Suspicion fell upon the King like a shroud, suffocating him.
"I suppose we all have our secrets." Wang Yanyu said coldly, stepping back and waiting for Gaius to recover.
Shi Jiang walked over to them both, armor now dismissed and staff slung over his shoulder once more. His affect was even more prickly than before, even warier of his rival. "Alright. Target neutralized, stage one of the mission is complete."
"What's stage two?" Gaius asked.
"Break into the Grand Elder's vault," Wang Yanyu explained, twirling a bloodstained Eight Trigrams Crown on her finger. "And put
this back without being seen."
"Mm, well, good luck with that." Gaius muttered, still holding his head as he approached the unconscious Kong Qiao.
Worried about aggravating the man's broken back even further, he simply bound his wrists together(since he wouldn't be able to use his legs anyways). The job was simple enough; the chain seemed to almost
want to restrict something. When he finished, he pressed the two end links together, and they fused into one as he was told they would.
He activated the chain from a distance, and a small shudder passed through Kong Qiao's body. It was as if his spiritual self was being crushed inward, even as his physical body remained the same. He looked frailer to Gaius than he had before, like this. No longer was he a terrifying sorcerer; this was just an aging man, long past his prime, hair half-grey and face weathered.
"You two make a good team, you know that?" Said Wang Yanyu, giving an enthusiastic pat to Gaius' back, one which she then repeated with Shi Jiang. Gaius restrained himself from commenting on how she had to reach above her head for his.
Shi Jiang cringed, looking like he'd been slapped. "W-what!? Me and
him!?" He sputtered. "Hardly. He is, at best, research material. His personality is awful."
"Aww, don't be a stranger, Jia-Jia!" Gaius cooed, trying to throw an arm around Shi Jiang's shoulders. The King's Attendant soundly rebuffed him, dodging out of the way with effortless grace and speed.
"Fucking sex pest…" Shi Jiang muttered, stomping away.
Though seeing his rival fuming like this was entertaining, Gaius couldn't really enjoy if; he had much more pressing concerns at the moment. Glancing at the broken body of Kong Qiao, he let out an annoyed sigh, then turned to Wang Yanyu. "Er, not that I ain't grateful - I really am - but you hurt him real bad. That… could be a problem."
"Kong Qiao never did anything without careful preparation." The Elder declared, shrugging. "You wanted him alive, and he's alive. You get a quarter of his stuff. Do the math."
In other words, he was being told to have the man healed on his own dime. Kong Qiao no doubt had plenty of healing regents and treasures stashed among the fortune he'd brought with him, but calling dibs on enough of those to fix the guy would wipe out most of Gaius' share. Damn.
"I guess that's what I get for being such a nice guy…" Gaius remarked with a smirk. "Let's see that loot!"
——
There were indeed quite a few healing treasures on Kong Qiao's person. When the bidding and haggling was over, Gaius came away with a huge amount. The King's heart and wallet ached at the thought of how much he was giving up, but he swallowed his greed for the time being. This was for the good of the Clan.
Shi Jiang and his teacher departed, leaving Gaius alone in the mountains with his impromptu 'patient'. The sole source of security he had was the Chain of Mundanity, which did its job and kept the old man docile. Well, that and the fact that even if he
did something break out, Kong Qiao probably couldn't beat him while paralyzed below the waist and suffering multiple concussions, something the Elder himself seemed to realize.
For one week, Gaius administered needles, potions, creams and talismans one after another, with verbal instruction from the old man whenever he was awake. For all that it was monotonous, the actual recovery was incredibly fast. Serious spinal injuries were often impossible to fully fix, and medical procedures only got more expensive and complex as one's cultivation advanced and their spiritual biology grew more advanced. Healing treasures and alchemical brews like this were meant to simplify the process, and by simply using them in a huge number, Kong Qiao's body was quickly restored.
During that time, when not following the man's instruction, Gaius chatted with him about mundane topics; philosophy, economics, board games, calligraphy, alcohol. He learned much of the man's personality, as well as some parts of his personal history(though others remained carefully guarded).
Kong Qiao was born to commoners, poor and unremarkable. He was not stronger or faster than his peers, nor were his qi reserves of spiritual biology especially impressive. His cultivation didn't progress particularly quickly either; not by the standards of the current day at least. The only things the young Kong Qiao had going for him was his keen mind, talent at the manipulation of qi and high intelligence, and it was with that that he climbed the ranks. Steadily, and with hard work, Kong Qiao kept on moving up, using his exceptional qi comprehension to win battles and accumulate resources. Despite his growing ambition and hunger for power, the man continued to play the long game, thinking centuries ahead to decide his actions.
Hence his defection. Kong Qiao had seen the writing on the wall, and knew that the unexpected successes of the Noble Devil Alliance had triggered a violent counter-reaction. In this weak region, they could not hope to accumulate enough strength to stand against the growing might of the Favored. Better to change sides now; if he did it once the going got tough, he would be seen as a rat jumping off a sinking ship, but as the Righteous Powers were desperate right now, Strength Purity would take any help they could get, and would pardon Kong Qiao in exchange for his assistance. If not them, then another, smaller Righteous nation might take him.
Gaius, in turn, told the Elder much about himself, but was careful to not let any national secrets slip, nor did he ever explain what a Devil was doing in this part of the region in the first place.
Once Kong Qiao could walk without too much pain, they were off. The old man remained relatively dignified, all things considered, throughout the two weeks of travel Gaius put him through. Still bound, Kong Qiao was carried by Scylla along with Gaius in a northwestern direction, toward the border with the Demonic Altar Sect. He did not speak much, nor did he rage against his situation.
Of course, that wasn't to say the Elder was placid either. No, those eyes were full of cunning, observing everything around him at all times, looking for an opportunity. Even in his position of power over Kong Qiao, Gaius could not help but feel uneasy the whole time.
"I still find myself wondering," he said at one point. "What business a Devil has in any of this. You are not friendly to either side in this conflict."
"Can't have the demons getting any weaker." Gaius had replied simply, and left it at that.
It was not until the terrain began to grow more lush, the stubborn soil finally yielding to the advance of plantlife, that Gaius knew they were approaching the border of the Demonic Altar Sect and stopped. Scylla let them off in a meadow before flying off in search of a pond or river to submerge herself in.
"I take it your plan goes beyond just turning me in to the Demonic Altar Sect." Kong Qiao remarked, sitting down on a patch of grass as comfortably as his chains would allow. "They could corrupt me with the Blood Path, but that would hardly ensure my loyalty. Am I going to be made a meal?"
"I ain't takin' you there, bub. I just need people to
think I took you there." Gaius explained, conjuring a cigarette into his hand and lighting it. "Got somethin' else in mind."
"Ohoho, now things are getting interesting. I fail to see your designs, Empty King." Kong Qiao chuckled, before opening his mouth slightly. Cheeky bastard.
Gaius obliged his silent request, conjuring a second cigarette and placing it between his prisoner's lips. The two sat in silence for a moment, smoking together and enjoying the serenity of their surroundings.
"I need you to be my weapon, Kong Qiao. You gotta keep fightin' the Righteous Alliance so that they can't do anything to the Golden Devils." Gaius explained, patting the man on his shoulder. "Someone as amazing as you can't switch sides, not at a time like this."
"Amazing?" The prisoner scoffed, puffing out a small cloud of smoke. "I will not mince words: I am strong. But in the Time Shatter Sect I'm not even in the top ten amongst the Elders."
"You expect me to buy that bullshit, geezer? After you showed me what you can really do?" Gaius laughed. "You're special."
Being called special seemed to stir a cocktail of complicated emotions in Kong Qiao. Pride warred with indignation and nerves. This was a man who thrived on being underestimated. "Come now, I'm not even in the Great Circle; you're placing far too much on me."
"Cut the shit. I saw what you were doin' back there. Qi that destroys instead of creating… I can't even fathom it! And you cast those… opposite techniques!" Gaius exclaimed, a smiling bright and wide. "It's amazing! Even if you've gotta chant to do it, that's a whole 'nother dimension from normal qi comprehension."
"I must say, I am not entirely immune to flattery." Kong Qiao chuckled. "But you must be a bit more subtle than this if you wish to manipulate me."
"I'm gonna make you much stronger, and in exchange you're gonna keep fighting for the NDA." Gaius said with a shrug. "You'll be recievin' a special gift; very few people can handle it."
"A gift…" Kong Qiao looked Gaius up and down, no doubt trying to figure out just what meaningful things a King would have to offer a powerful Elder like him.
"That's right, I'm lettin' you go and givin' you a gift!" Gaius declared. "All's I need in exchange is to convert you to the Blood Path and make sure you won't attack me."
"It stings my pride immensely, to accept help from a man who sacked my home, brutalized and robbed me." The Elder sighed, rubbing his temples with the thumb and forefinger of his intact hand. "But I have not gotten where I am today by spurning gifts."
"You're an insightful man." Gaius replied, nodding his approval. "I'm glad we came to an understanding, because that crown? That ancient treasure?" Gaius pointed over his shoulder, in the general direction of the Tim Shatter Sect. "You won't even miss it."
"…really." Kong Qiao said, his face the embodiment of skepticism. "You have something like that, and you intend to give it to me."
Gaius nodded.
"So that I will just… go out and wage war?"
Gaius nodded again. "It's not even something you're doin' in exchange. It'll make you
want to wage war."
Kong Qiao smirked, intrigued but not yet convinced. "A gift greater than the Eight Trigrams Crown, but a gift which gives me a strong incentive to make war. Fascinating." He mused, tilting his chin out and stroking his beard.
A silent command to continue speaking. That body language made Gaius feel uneasy. Since when was Kong Qiao, his prisoner, the one in control of this conversation? He cleared his throat, then obliged him.
"You're takin' this rather well, Kong Qiao." Said Gaius, continuing to carefully observe his prisoner.
"Two things can be true at once, can they not?" King Qiao asked, stroking his beard to smooth it back into place. "You are using me for your own ends, and yet you have helped me. Allowing myself to be used is in my own best interests."
"Cunning
and wise. I don't know if I could swallow my pride like you can, old man!" Gaius laughed jovially.
They went silent for a moment, both men enjoying the peaceful vista before them. But it was only a moment, and then business once more became a priority.
"You still have yet to answer why you would care what an Elder on the other side of the region is doing." Kong Qiao noted, his voice filled with caution.
Gaius took another drag from his cigarette, considering his words. "I'll cut to the chase then: you're very strong. I want you to become a Nascent Soul."
Finally, the old man was caught off guard. He let out a loud, sputtering laugh, which then became a loud guffaw. The cig fell out of his mouth as he pitched forward, then threw his head back. "Become a Nascent Soul, you say. Why, I would love to oblige you!" He managed to get out, before laughter overtook him again.
"Don't be so dismissive. You've got the potential." Said Gaius, though he too was beginning to chuckle in response to Kong Qiao's mirth.
"Potential is one thing, and time is entirely another!" The Elder scoffed, shaking his head. "Why do you think I was so determined to switch sides? The nation itself would have fallen to pieces around me before I had time to blossom."
Gaius grinned, looking deep into the old man's sharp yellow eyes. "What if I told you I could give you some help? Somethin' that would cut the time down by… I dunno, 80%? Or even 90%, if you're aggressive enough."
Kong Qiao's entire body went still, and any semblance of friendliness drained out instantly. He turned and looked at Gaius with a cold mien that reminded him more than anything else of a shark. "What are you saying?"
"Before I say more, you and I are going to make a deal." Gaius commanded. "A Geass, with instant soul-death as the penalty for breaking it."
"Cut it down by eighty percent, you said?" Kong Qiao asked, eyes glittering with desire. "Eighty percent
at least? I'll weave the curse myself, boy!"
The terms were hashed out quickly. Gaius would tell the truth to Kong Qiao in this negotiation, and would provide the gift he had promised. In exchange, the rogue Elder would never tell anyone what had transpired this day, nor would he reveal anything Gaius had told him. Furthermore, neither of the two would ever attack one another.
"So…" the King began, lighting up a second cigarette for Kong Qiao and a fourth for himself. "Have you heard of the Wise Man?"
"Wise Man? That's familiar…" Kong Qiao muttered, cigarette wobbling slightly with each word. He'd grown quite used to emoting and moving without the use of his hands in the time of his imprisonment. "I have heard that disciples of the Blood Path speak of him. Some god or spirit, watching them battle and choosing the worthy."
"Is that what they're sayin' now?" Gaius chuckled, shaking his head. "No, it ain't nothin' like that. I'm the Wise Man. Or rather, the Wise Man's my cover."
"And you are to give me the Wise Man's blessing, which will… do what, precisely?"
Thin tendrils of smoke seeped out from between Gaius' teeth when he spoke. "When you eat somebody, you'll take quite a lot. All of their qi will be yours, and some of their memories too. You can even take some of their traits or skills, should it interest ya."
"Hence the incentive to make war…"
Kong Qiao took a deep drag from his cigarette. For all he played it cool, the Elder had to be reckoning with the fact that his life would irrevocably change on this day. It would be vastly different from the life he had hoped to live, as well.
"You are sending me to die, young Devil."
Gaius blinked. "Pardon?"
"It is clear to me what I and your other chosen vessels are meant for. Weaken the Righteous Powers so they cannot act against the Golden Devils, am I right?" The Elder asked with a gleam in his eye. "But not to win. We are small in number because we are meant to eventually die in battle with the Favored, ensuring we cannot turn our strength against your people. We're a ploy to buy time."
Gaius' grin grew at once more respectful and more aggressive. "My, you've got the whole thing figured out, dontcha?
Kong Qiao thought in silence for a moment, his head bowed in contemplation, only to suddenly rear up and look the King in the eye. "Why not make that official, then? I wish to strengthen the trust and friendship between us."
"Make it official?" Asked Gaius.
"Rather than be your unwitting patsy, I would rather make peace. To remain in your favor, I shall add this to the terms of our agreement:" The soon-to-be Blood Favored bent forward as much as the chains binding him would allow and cleared his throat, before once more straightening up to look Gaius in the eye. "I, Kong Qiao, formerly of Time Shatter, now a free man, shall do battle with the Righteous Powers of the Virtuous Flipper Region, consume them, and make their strength my own. Furthermore, I shall never make war with the Golden Devils or their vassal states; I shall only fight them in self-defense. In exchange, you must provide me safe passage to another region, should your people conquer this one."
The momentum within Gaius screeched to a halt as he pondered that offer. Another region? Kong Qiao would surely be a powerful Late Nascent Soul by that point, should he survive all that time. Going to war with him would be quite problematic; that was the careful balancing act of the Blood Favored. Most or all were meant to die against the Righteous Alliance. To eliminate such a possibility against one of those monsters was a great boon.
And yet, to unleash him upon another region? One unfamiliar with the Blood Favored? Things could get badly,
badly out of hand. How many people would die as a result of that? People that had nothing to do with this war?
Gaius' brows furrowed in indecision, and a sharp, pain pierced through his head. One hand came up to clutch at it, and he tried to not let the discomfort show on his face. "Hmm… that's quite a proposition…" he muttered through a strained voice.
But was it really any different? People were already dying because of Gaius' schemes - the
point was for people to die, so that those very people could not turn their swords against his Clansmen! The people of the next region to the east, and the region after that, and so on, none would ever make a true peace with the Golden Devils anyway. The only way to be safe was to take the whole world!
Which was a rather convenient excuse, wasn't it? Kong Qiao would eat those people and they wouldn't even know who'd sent him to their doorstep. This region, the next, it made no difference; millions would be eaten, sacrifices to one man's power. He'd flee from the growing borders of the Clan, sampling the many un-gilded peoples of the Third Sea. How many people would be strong enough to stop the feeding frenzy? Not many.
All because of Gaius.
The pain grew more intense, now accompanied by a feeling of doom. Like a bone about to snap, or stones stacked too high, it felt as if some kind of catastrophic collapse was looming over him. "J-just… let me consider that for a moment…" he forced out, feeling suddenly short of breath.
"I am giving you an offer of friendship, Gaius Antonius. Why do you hesitate?" Kong Qiao asked, his voice already growing firmer and colder at what seemed to be a moment of weakness.
Devils died and killed for the sake of the Clan; that was their purpose, and Gaius was no exception. If he could find the path to his people's prosperous future, then any sacrifice was acceptable. As The Seeker, he would bear that sin, no matter how much it hurt his heart. And as for that deal…
He'd put this guy away indirectly, Gaius decided. He would simply escort Kong Qiao to the next region over, then alert the people of that region as to who and what Kong Qiao was, so that they could hunt him down and kill him themselves. That would not violate the agreement. The man came from a time where the orthodox method was rarely deviated from; his foundation was weak and his potential was limited. There would surely be someone there who lay beyond this old man's limits.
Besides, Gaius suddenly realized - the other side of the offer was clear. If he
didn't accept, Kong Qiao
would make war with the Golden Devils, and would likely do so sooner rather than later. Better to keep the guy friendly, or to kill him right now.
Fuck it.
"I accept." Gaius said, reality snapping back into focus. That growing pain began to quickly fade, as did his doubts. He put on a friendly smile and stuck out his hand to the older man. "This is how we seal a deal where I'm from."
"Ohoho! Telling a man four hundred years your senior to do things your way?" Kong Qiao threw back his head and laughed, greatly amused by the audacity on display. "It seems rumors I heard about the arrogance of Kings are all true!"
The Elder clasped Gaius' hand tightly, brimming with joyful aggression. "Go on and add it to the geas then, Antonius."
Gaius met the predatory look with one of his own. "Will do, friend."
He felt sick.
——
This ended up quite long, but in the end it needed to be. I haven't done as good a job setting up Shi Jiang as I needed to be, considering all the things that have happened in the storyline. I figured I'd use a Blood Favored chapter to do that, and kill two birds with one stone.
I try to do something different with each Blood Favored, and this one is different in several ways. First off, he's in Late Core Formation. With the Will of the Hunter, Kong Qiao will reach Nascent Soul quite soon, likely on turn 17. I figured with how the Righteous Powers will probably begin rebounding on that turn, the Noble Demonic Alliance could use an extra Nascent on the board soon. He'll rise into Mid in fairly short order too.
The other way in which this one is unique is that he was not turned in a confrontational fashion. Well, aside from initially capturing him, that is. The power was offered to him without any deception, making him the only Blood Favored who knows most of the full story. As such, Gaius cuts a deal with Kong Qiao to make sure he plays his role. Will this Old Monster in the making pull something? Who's to say?
Kong Qiao in general is kinda Manuel-pilled, in the sense that he's bad at cultivating but has quite a broad range of skills. It'll make for a pretty potent force now that his main issue is solved(not to mention all the other benefits). The downside of that is that this fight ended up being extremely complicated. Four combatants with different power sets, plus an army of mooks, with nobody knowing the entire moveset of anybody else(aside from Shi Jiang and Wang Yanyu, who know each other's abilities). That took a long time to wrangle.
Finally, we have Gaius stopping for a moment to question his actions. Unfortunately, it was too late to change the course. The guy's not a sociopath, he does care about other people; those in his in-group, at least. Unfortunately, doubting himself too much and letting himself get caught up in guilt is very bad for his spiritual health. Kings: what can ya do?
