Aris stood at the head of the small courtyard, looking over fifteen shining bronze helmets, and couldn't help but think the torment that had cost him near one and a half years of his life had been worth it. He was comfortably in the Ninth Heavenstage now, the Scourge pills he had taken chiseling out meridians like lead-cast irrigation channels. He pulsed his Dantien, and the Essence of Heaven and Earth circulated through his body. The feeling was exhilarating – he still hadn't gotten used to it, even though it was already years ago that he had first fully circulated Qi.
Today – he would join in his first larger operation. The years before he had taken multiple contribution board assignments, hunting spirit beasts, chasing lesser rogue cultivators and bandits, mostly standing guard and escorting soft targets from one point to another. At most, he had been in charge of a few Fifth Heavenstage cultivators, but that was about to change. A particular bit of nastiness in the southernmost part of the Uncast Molds, near the current border with the Blood Cannibals, was the occasion for which they were gathered. One Cannibal Sect researcher had left one of his Spirit Beast creations behind, which had escaped from the underground caverns where it had been held. Apparently it was a gruesome thing of approximately Early Foundation Establishment-strength, capable of turning the corpses of cultivators into Essence Gathering-equivalent thralls, meaning it could snowball out of control quickly. To add insult to injury, the thing could regenerate almost from nothing and had gotten away several times before, popping up elsewhere a few years after its supposed destruction to cause chaos with a small army of turned cultivators.
The operation to root it out was therefore a laborious affair, involving support staff, Array Engineers, a crack team of Foundation Building cultivators with fire techniques, infantry support of half a
centuria, a Formations expert and fifteen of the Vanguard.
He now held the junior non-commissioned officer rank of
Decanus or
Dekarchos – a ten-man – qualifying him for command. When this mission had popped up, he hadn't hesitated a second, even though it came with significant risks. The body of cultivators killed and turned by the beast could not be recovered, and the casualty rate of previous operations to kill the creature did not bode well for anyone venturing out. The wealth of contribution points to be earned however was paltry to what was to be gained in terms of reputation.
He was at the head of twelve Aspirants of the Vanguard, supported by three non-commissioned
Pentarches. Fifteen men and women in bronze lamellar between Seventh and Ninth Heavenstage, who were supposed to bear the brunt of the attack and cut a way to the beast, so the kill-team could preserve their Qi for one fell killing stroke. His immaculate – even for a cultivator – features remained impassive and schooled, but on the inside he was giddy with excitement.
These men and women would be his instrument, the tool he would use to carve out the first step to his glorious ascendancy. Magnificent.
"Squads, at ease. I expect to move out soon, pack your full kit and be ready to march at my signal."
--
The running march to the south of the Uncast Molds from Dawn Fortress took several weeks, even at the rapid pace at which later Qi Condensation cultivators could run and sustain their running over days without rest if need be. Their infantry component would largely be sourced from fortresses closer by, and the other components, supplies and engineers had taken their own supply train there more than a month ago.
They arrived at the city that would be their staging grounds. Tiger Claw City – named after a miniature delta of one small river flowing into a small lake, feeding the hilly shrublands around – was constructed around the core of a derelict mortal city, depopulated by Child Corpse Gulper's desperate actions. Now it was surrounded by a meters-high clay wall with array script circling it and watchtowers looking out over the surrounding hilly green-brown shrublands.
The creature – classified as Corpse-Defiling Blood Familiar, but called Grey Devourer informally – had been sighted close-by a few months back, in the foothills which were still in the process of being repopulated. A cordon had been erected around its supposed position, thirty kilometers from Tiger Claw City. Over the past few weeks, scouts had managed to pinpoint his location with greater accuracy, and detection arrays had been deployed en-masse by their Array Engineers to tighten the noose.
They had arrived in time for the final stage – the direct strike. Gathered outside of the city in a small army camp of tents were the rest of his force. The command tent contained the
centurio or
kentarches of the infantry – a Mid Foundation Establishment expert – the
pentekontarches officer in charge of the Engineers, the
tesserarius for the
expilatores or scouts and the Formation expert of the same rank – all of Low Foundation Establishment – and the three Foundation Establishment experts that were the kill-team, all three in Mid Foundation. Of the three, one of them looked normal enough, a bright copper-haired centurion with two sabers. The two others were clearly fire cultivators, one's hair bright red, sweating profusely but seemingly without discomfort, the other – the nominal commander of this expedition – had a greatbow strapped to his back and a thin line of smoke curled out of his nose, filling the tent with a scorched smell. At seeing the gathered officers, he felt a small pang of regret that Leo could not be here to support him, stationed as he was some ten thousand kilometers from here in the Burnished Crags as a Vanguard non-commissioned officer to lead a rapid response unit.
As he entered the tent, Aris noticed a map lying in the middle – red dots pinned on display of their surrounds, the dots clustering at a gorge some forty kilometers from Tiger Claw City.
"Spots where the creature's thralls have been detected." The cultivator with the greatbow answered his unspoken question. As the commanding officer, he continues with an even, but grave voice.
"Now that we are all gathered here, we will review the plan once. The situation dictates caution, this beast has eluded our troops on multiple occasions, and cost us the lives of many promising juniors. This expedition represents a significant investment of resources and personnel, all to bring the slippery beast low. It must succeed."
"We make our way to the gorge tomorrow at dawn. The array engineers have created a hermetic seal around its position – the creature's thralls cannot leave, and if any part of manages to escape, we will know. Our approach is screened by the scouts, and as soon as the creature masses its thralls, the Vanguard takes point, with the kill-team right behind, Legionnaires on their flanks and back. The engineers have so kindly provided us with a solution should the dread thing be hiding, so once it is flushed out or reveals itself, the Vanguard charges its position with all they have, serving as ram and bait. My two partners and I will mask our cultivation until the last moment, hoping the catch the beast unawares. Is this understood?"
A round of nods follows.
"Very well. There is no option but to succeed. We have preparations to attend to.
For the Clan. Dismissed."
--
They rounded a hilly crest dotted with tough shrubs, and looked over a gently sloping depression, small rocky formations and a steeper drop at its lowest point.
Resistance up until now was fairly minor. The creature's thralls were vile, but not particularly impressive on their own. Naked, grey things resembling humans, oozing grey sludge from mouth and pores, leaving trails of fetid slime across the landscape like a disgusting variety of humanoid snails. The creatures that were once their comrades moved with savage speed and fought with claw and teeth, most using an eclectic mix of standard Bronze Arhat Fists or Eight Trigram Fists and more savage, beast-like movements. They were however not stupid, still able to identify weak spots and counter simpler weapon techniques – as two unfortunate legionnaires had found out. The grey sludge spread over corpses like mold, and – so had the Formations expert told him – would turn any unfortunate cultivator into a thrall in a matter of minutes. Incineration was the only way to prevent this from happening.
Aside from the two unfortunate victims, taking care of even small bands of stragglers was easy enough. Their scouts had informed them the creatures had retreated towards the gorge overnight, and were now concentrated there. As they looked over the gentle gorge, they were proven right – the depression of about a square half a kilometer stank of sweat and sickly rotten meat, and was painted grey by the several hundred thralls shambling around.
The expedition formed up in formation, vanguard at the front and center, legionnaires armed with shield and spear on their wings, legionnaires with pilum and bow at their back. On the first line of the archers, the kill-team blended in discreetly with lamellar and bows, their formations specialist and array controllers in the middle of the ranged formation. A smattering of fifteen scouts trailed them at a distance, to act as reserve troops if things got truly dire.
They were close to fifty in the melee, and he would be the fulcrum of it all, dead in the middle of their formation. They moved downwards cautiously, spaced evenly apart, shields raised. The thralls which clustered a few hundred meters below – gravely outnumbering them – stood still, looking blankly at some point or another.
Then, Aris stepped across some imaginary line, and every one of the creatures snapped their heads around to look at them directly, hundreds of eerie, blank grey eyes looking but not seeing. As one, they charged their formation, their speed double what a mortal sprinter could achieve at his peak.
Aris breathed in, and then Breathed in.
"BROTHERS! RAISE THE
SHIELDWALL!"
His voice makes the earth tremble ever so slightly.
The formation seals shut, large round bronze shields sliding over each other, spears poking between the gaps, forming a semicircle of shining bronze and outstretched spears around their softer troops.
As the wave of grey creatures approaches them, he sees a few of the legionnaires on the front line flagging slightly. No wonder, this was a dangerous and large-scale mission, for some of them the very first time they were up against something truly deadly. The outlook of the creatures and thought of fighting dead comrades didn't help matters.
The
centurio at the head of the right wing barks orders to his troops, his non-commissioned officers organizing and steeling their squads. But the formation would move when the Vanguard moved.
"WE SHALL BREAK THESE WRETCHES UPON OUR SHIELDS. VANGUARD. BRACE!"
The first of the thralls were a mere hundred meters away from them now, and would reach them in a few seconds. A first volley of javelins and arrows lashes out, blowing small craters in the ground and tearing through the mass of unliving flesh.
The formations expert, a tall woman with bronze locks shouts on top of her lungs.
"Bronze Bulwark Formation!"
Every legionnaire in the shieldwall channels Qi into their shieldbearing arms in one of the more basic Formations taught by the Clan. The formation controller makes a defensive mudra, and their mundane shieldwall is suddenly a Bulwark, meters high and of thick burnished bronze, even though to anyone's eyes the wall of interlocking bronze shields remains exactly the same.
The tsunami of oozing flesh hits their formation on top of the hillock with a wave of force, but the Bulwark holds, no legionnaire retreating even an inch. Their spears lash out repeatedly like hidden vipers, while the creatures claw at openings in the wall, or try to find purchase on one of the shields – to no avail.
For a few seconds they remain like this, their ranged troops raining down arrows and javelins onto the amorphous mass of grey flesh, while the Bulwark holds fast, spears reaping a brutal toll among the turned cultivators.
Then a claw finds a legionnaire's face, and he is dragged screaming out of the shield wall, into the sea of grey. Then a second loses his shield, and a third is flung back meters by the force of a blow, and the Bulwark ceases to be, the shield wall returning to its mundanity.
Aris could smell the sickly disgusting smell from behind his shield, as he uses it to push away as he strikes with his spear. The creature puppeting the thralls would try to book an escape while they were occupied with its thralls. Once the engineers flushed him out, they needed to be as close as possible, to hem it in and to convince it to take the bait of fifteen soldiers of the Vanguard.
He braced his shield.
"VANGUARD. DRIVE THESE WRETCHES BEFORE US. ADVANCE! FOR THE CLAN!"
They pushed forwards with their shields as the infantry officers echoed his command. Aris dropped his spear for his saber – a brutal, short
yanchidao, a weapon made for chopping and hewing, flaring out towards a thicker tip.
They pushed back against the horde of creatures, chopping and cleaving, his Vanguard advancing step by step in a steady march.
The creatures showed an uncanny ability to coordinate in a group this size, one would pull a shield away while another lunged forward with its slobbering maw, sacrificing itself to get off a hit. Aris begun to understand why they had made as many victims as they had. They were no mere soldiers however, and responded brutally to attempted feints or combinations, reaping a bloody toll among the turned humans.
The semicircle had turned into an arrowpoint, Aris and his vanguard pushing through the mass of flesh at the very tip of the spear, the infantry trailing and flaring out behind them. They murdered the thralls one after another, but the tide seemed unceasing. Occasionally, a legionnaire fell, and a sudden surge of bodies had even pulled one of his Vanguard out of the formation and into their midst – but they couldn't break formation to try and mount a rescue.
They had pushed about a hundred metres ahead, but the horde of creatures had started to surround the small army of Golden Devils entirely, necessitating a more defensive formation – the legionnaires now encircling their ranged cultivators and support personnel in an O-formation with a point faced forwards.
The expedition leader shouts an order over the din of combat.
"DEVILS. HOLD."
He heard the commander yell additional orders to the array controllers, and three high whistles suddenly sounded. A reedy sound like the wind, and a sudden gust washed over them, picking up strength rapidly. In the distance, a teal glow traces a circle around the gorge.
While they are in the midst of combat, the ground under their feet suddenly
sinks, or no – it is blown away, but without the massive airborne quantities of sand one would expect. Rocks sticking out of the shrubby sands are similarly eroded, but the overall terrain features remain the same. They sink a meter, then two, then three, not losing their footing, but feeling disoriented all the same. On the lowest point of the gorge, the eroding rock reveals large grey stains, that progressively start to cover more of the ground as more earth disappears into thin air.
When about five meters have been blown away – the edge of the array now looming like a wall of sand in the distance – they see a small, writhing lump of grey flesh on the other side of the gorge, exposed after a large then-underground rock formation with small, cramped tunnels is eroded in seconds. The grey flesh attempts to crawl deeper into the subterranean – now quickly becoming supraterranean – network, but erosion keeps pace with its attempts.
The commander's voice resounds clearly but not loudly.
"Vanguard, brace."
Aris' voice follows up, echoing off of the faraway wall of sand and rock like a large bronze gong being struck.
"FEAR NOT VANGUARD, AT THE SIGNAL, WE SHALL SALLY FORTH AND CRUSH ALL BEFORE US. FEAR NOT, FOR GLORY AWAITS US!"
The crack team was to their back, inconspicuous with mundane (for a cultivator) weapons and armor, the commander's greatbow stored in a loaned storage ring. It wasn't known whether the creature even had conventional senses or would understand the difference between the panoply of an Essence Gathering cultivator and one of a stage above – but with such a tricky foe, no risks were taken. They had been covered in a lesser variant of Qi-Cloaking Oil to suppress their cultivation to Essence Gathering levels.
"Go."
With a carrying roar, the Vanguard breaks away from the formation, the circle-shaped cordon sealing itself behind them, and in a narrow arrow formation with Aris at its head, dashes into the mass of flesh. The goal was not to kill, the goal was to prevent being bogged down, and deliver an appealing target with a cloaked thorn to the creature's doorstep.
They charge, ramming and shoving with their shields, lashing out with sword and spear to debilitate and disengage – chopping off limbs and pushing back with spears – only seldom actually killing. They get about halfway through the writhing mass of slimy bodies before the thralls pick up on the strategy, and no longer seriously attempt to wound them, instead just trying to bog them down with the weight of bodies, clinging to shields, spear-arms, jumping on top of them without any real intent to follow up with attacks.
The occasional glance Aris casts over the heads of the thralls towards the creature's last position reveals more rock formations, but no sign of the pulsating grey flesh. They needed to be quick.
The acupoints in his lungs quivered with Essence, and when he shouts it is more reminiscent of a blast of pressurized air than sound generated by human lungs.
"IS THIS TRULY YOUR WORTH, VANGUARD? ARE THESE THE PARAGONS OF BRONZE? YOU WILL FOLLOW ME, AND YOU WILL DIE IF YOU MUST, BUT YOU WILL NOT SHAME THE CLAN!"
An exhilarating roar of the fourteen men and women behind him is his answer.
"BRASS AND THUNDER!"
He does not look back. He flexes his leg acupoints, his meridians pumping vital essence into his muscles and tendons, and shoots forward like an arrow. He uses his shield as a bludgeon, unconcerned about conserving his strength, breaking bones and throwing thralls meters away. His wicked saber shears through flesh, tearing through multiple thralls, then springing forward with his shield like a cannonball. In his wake, the Vanguard fight like demons to keep pace with him, burning their Qi like dry tinder to flow into the breaches he makes in the mass of grey flesh. They lose one, two, three of the Vanguard as they are torn away from the formation or fall behind and go down in heroic last stands. The crack team release the occasional supersonic arrow or decapitate multiple thralls with one fell blow, but mostly hang around the back of the formation while easily keeping pace, keeping their eyes trained on the Devourer's last position. They were expendable – getting the beast was worth almost any number of Qi Gathering sacrifices.
He dashes forwards time and time again, bashing, breaking and tearing. The now thinned out horde of thralls is split between one smaller group trying to hold the infantry back and suffering grievous losses for it, and the larger group trying to swarm the Vanguard, a few hundred meters further. With only a mass of five men thick standing between him and the grey-painted bottom of the gorge, Aris brings his full strength to bear, and bursts forwards
, pushing through the writhing mass, breaking out of the stinking swarm with the rest of the Vanguard on his heels. He does not break pace, and spurts the last hundred meters downward, trailed by the rest of the Vanguard. Some of the thralls make chase, most others rejoin their companions in holding back the infantry.
The sand around them is still being eroded – he guessed that they'd be about fifteen meters down from where they stood before, looking at the immense wall of sand in the distance. A small flash of oily, grey skin, about fifty meters from where the thing had appeared before, underneath a grey outcropping that was steadily disappearing into nothingness.
"THERE!"
Aris crosses the remaining distance in a matter of seconds, his subordinates fanning out around the position. The kill-team hangs back.
By the time he arrives, the thing has disappeared further underground again. They peer intently around them, as then suddenly the ground bursts open, and an enormous gaping maw snaps up the leg of one of his squad-leaders like a dry branch from a tree. It had taken the bait.
The creature that emerges looks like a combination of a mound of months-rotten flesh, fetid oil and grey mud, gaping holes opening and closing across its surface, without much in the way of a face or any other distinctive properties. It oozed liters of the murky, grey substance, soaking into the already tainted underground. The hole on its body that had swallowed the leg had already closed, and the oily, amorphous creature moved towards the wounded officer to gobble her up whole. Aris threw his shield towards the creature – which it gobbled up in a blink – and leaps to the officers aid.
The beast was quicker than he ever suspected though. Two gaping maws opened up across its body, and it tore his subordinate in two before he could even blink. Blood splattered across his face and armor, and even he had the slightest pang of fear at the casual ease with which the beast had torn an Eigth Heavenstage apart.
"VICTORY!!!"
With a ferocious roar, he charges the creature. It remained still for a bare moment, and then
flows around his saberstrike. A smaller maw opens to gobble up his head, and it takes everything he has to react quick enough, and lift his arm in defense.
A maw that could crush boulders like rice paper closes around his arm. It seals just beneath his shoulder, splintering the reinforced Spiritual Bronze lamellar like so many twigs. Within the maw, four large rock-like teeth close around his bronze flesh and bite down.
A dull crunch sounds, and a fragment of one of the creature's teeth breaks off and shoots through its flesh with the force of the impact. A grin appears across Aris' features.
"Golden Deva's Immortal Body Art"
