Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
A dancer tried to snipe Zhen.I will try my best to contribute.
I would argue that an enemy could try to snipe Zhengui in the chaos of the falling stars. AFAIK not all dancers are dead and the barbarian must be frustrated beyond belief at this point of the fight.
What happens to Precious If zhen get decaptitated?
- Location
- United States of America
Alright, some answers to the questions and statements!
1. Magic
2. Maaaaagic
3. I think sneaky senpai will be busy handling and racking up kills to the south to have the freedom of worrying about our location right now
4. Probably not. The language of stars falling is likely a metaphor about what it looks like. I find it highly unlikely even a white would be able to pluck the stars from the skies and send them upon the earth.
5. You can have the barb bard instrument, I call dibs on the mammoth amount of starstone we have so far successfully prevented from leaving the caldera.
Last time we took barb loot, back in the first thread, it was good stuff.
Of course, we also got yelled at by Jiao, so I suspect barbs regularly trap their travel bag and the like. Might want to be cautious about trying to loot things.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Fan girl was dragged away from the fight coughing blood. She's already earned a lot of points and I don't think she is in any condition to make clutch moves right now.
betting 33.2 internet points that muscles sensei-chan throws mask barb's eagle mount into shishigui's death spirit bomb
Chance!
Chance!
Eagle yeet the arm!
- Location
- Germany
Two minds one body. I assume Zhen will live, but his ability to cultivate will be seriously obstructed.
- Location
- the internet
I gotta disagree here. I don't think each of them using a special tech overshadows each other. ZG isn't busting out a new tech and it doesn't have to be used as an anti-death measure. It can be used as an attempt to prevent the Shishigui from escaping with the Starstone. We've seen a hint of Zhengui's anger before, when LQ was hurt in the Dream and he couldn't do anything about it. I could see that same intense anger being triggered here by feeling helpless. LQ's domain evolved to protect everyone and prevent death. ZG, the designated tank, couldn't do anything to prevent their team from harm. Of course its not actually his fault but I can easily see him feeling helpless and furious about it anyway. I think as long as our allies don't get hurt, Yrsillar can pull off the writing in a way that LQ's domain reveal and ZG's Rebirth Inferno moment don't overshadow each other. Also we've been waiting for Rebirth Inferno to be used for ages. Given ZG's regenerative capabilities, I don't know when we're gonna see him at F rank health next. We've had the ability since early FoD and the narrative incentive for such an epic move has finally been provided. Additionally, ZG and LQ breaking out these techs at this time could be seen as them growing together.
Turn 10: Arc 1-7 Part 1
Energy drew in. Light curdled, air warped and the qi of the world screamed. The forward edge of the blast appeared as a roiling miasma of gaseous sludge, rapidly expanding outward. Ling Qi knew, instinctively that the cursed and impure energies rippling out would devastate everyone nearby. She felt a sharp spike of pain through her dantian as the stillness of the Black Mirror technique first rippled, and then shattered, the force of the explosion barely reduced.
She felt her reveling phantoms wail, even as they threw themselves at the shishigui in fury as their limbs dispersed into mist. She felt Sixiang strain, trying to resist the shredding of her constructs.
Ling Qi saw Cai Renxiang being pushed back, her blade screaming against the edge of the pressure wave. Zhengui pulled his limbs into his shell so quickly that it might have been comical in another situation. But any humor fled at the still deep cracks in his shell, oozing magmatic blood. Flowers bloomed in a circle around Ruan Shen. They withered faster than they bloomed, even as his eyes burned green, the sheer vitality of spring cleaning a shrinking sphere of air around him.
She felt the terror rising from the other disciples, turning away from their battles, knowing that their techniques would not be enough. Her hair started to burn, and she felt her hands, exposed to the air start to blister. She would endure, her friends would endure, but so many of her allies would not.
And, even if they weren't friends, Ling Qi really didn't care for that. Even if her fellow disciples could be obnoxious, they were people. They didn't deserve to die out here, to this monster's desperation move.
Overhead, a curving ebony blade rang with new vigour, and the Mist grew deep.
For a moment, Ling Qi felt her awareness spread far beyond her body in the thickening mist. Zhengui, she wrapped in her arms, and he vanished behind a wall of mist. Cai Renxiang fell beneath her sleeve, tendrils of light mingled with a mantle of shadow. Ruan Shen's bright spring grew cloudy, and petals bloomed under friendly rain. For the others, she had less attention, but the train of her gown shielded them all the same.
Then the impact struck, and Ling Qi found her awareness very much in her own body as she was tossed backward, tumbling end over end, Black Mirror, Cai Renxiang's light, the Mist, it all took the worst even as the techniques she had layered over herself shredded apart.Only the energies of the Wind Thief she held on too, dispersing her tangled limbs into wind and reforming with her feet touching the caldera floor.
Pain Immediately assaulted her, and Ling Qi let out a hiss as she saw the burns on her hands and forearms, and felt her qi gutter low, lower than it had been in a very long time.
Before her was a crater. Twenty meters deep, it looked as if a huge scoop of stone had simply vanished. Her eyes alit on Zhengui, struggling to his feet, his shell pockmarked and bleeding from a thousand cracks, but still intact. Ruan Shen knelt in the midst of his flowers, breathing heavily as smoke rose from his raw fingers. He was covered ugly burns, and half of his hair was gone, but flesh and hair alike were regenerating in flashes of green. A half dozen other disciples lay scattered about, burned and broken by the shockwave, but they were still breathing.
Above, a sphere of radiance floated, only to split apart into wings of life, revealing a frowning Cai Renxiang. The sleeves of her gown were gone, baring her arms to the shoulders.
Of the Shishigui and his barbarian allies, there was no sign.
For a moment, there was silence, but then a hurricane of wind ripped through the broken wall of Caldera, and it was everything Linq Qi could do to not be blown away.
She stared out through the gap at the rising cloud of smoke and debris, a tall pillar with an expanding cap. It rose from a blackened crater where a valley had once been. Ling Qi dragged her eyes upward.
The clouds rose in a kilometers wide funnel above the caldera, whirling walls of wind that screamed at speeds fit to tear trees and whole hills from the earth. The circle of visible sky was awash with light, countless burning stars blooming and dying. The Elder stood motionless.
No that wasn't right she realized as a mountain peak caved in, crushed in the shape of a foot. As a second falling sun detonated kilometers away and still ripped at her hair and gown. He appeared to be still because she could not see him moving. She saw a thousand, two thousand detonations of light in the sky, and the air wailed with unending thunder. She could feel the wind around her, feeling it distorting, the world's natural flows bending and buckling under their weight. She could feel the storm deforming, heaven, water and wind qi carving itself into the world in unalterable grooves.
She ripped her eyes away from the battle that she could not hope to comprehend, let alone effect. The ring of lesser nomads overhead was nearly gone, dead or scattered. There were only a handful left up there. They were already fleeing. Ling Qi crossed the battlefield in an eyeblink, wrestling the chaotic winds all the way. She alit at Zhengui's side a moment later. Two sets of eyes blinked dazedly at her.
"I… did good, Big Sister?" He asked in his twinned voice.
"...You did," Ling Qi said. "So take a break now, alright?"
"Yeah," he muttered, eyelids drooping as he dematerialized.
Around her, Ling Qi noted the other disciples, only now climbing out of grasping roots that prevented the wind from hurling them about like matchsticks. Most were struggling to their feet, but Ling Qi could sense the impurity in their auras, burning and sizzling eating away at them. She could even feel it on herself, clinging to her skin like oil. Ling Qi grimaced, if she had saved them just too…
A bell rang, clear and high.
Harsh light washed over the crater, but it's touch was kind. Not soft, never that, but kind all the same. Ling Qi let out a breath as she felt the oily weight of impurity vanish from her channels, and inside her dantian, her spirit's presences pulsed with relief.
"I take back at least half of the bad things I've thought about that one," Sixiang mumbled.
"I'm sorry Big Sis," Hanyi whispered, her mental voice was ragged and rough.
She hushed her, willing her to rest. Renxiang landed at her side, a ribbon of liquid light swimming through the air. Casting it's purifying light despite the frayed edges and spots of black that marked it. "That was good work," the heiress said quietly, and Ling Qi knew only she could hear. "Liming gave me some difficulty in those last moments."
Renxiang's voice was rough. There was raggedness to it, sourced from the ugly burns that marked her throat.
"I'm glad you ladies are well!" Ruan Shen called from the craters lip. A shock of his hair was still bright green, and flower petals still clung to his skin, masking steaming burns. "If you gather everyone up, I can play a little pick me up!"
Right, they weren't done, Ling Qi thought, just because the immediate enemies had fled didn't mean that they weren't still on the battlefield.
The storm raged and a titan with lightning for bones and clouds for flesh grappled with a great golden mountain among the jeering stars. Rays of harsh sunfire and heavenly bolts tore at the mountainside, sending a million tons of stone crumbling down. Within the mountain dawn's light bloomed, a thousand colors spilling from painted caverns. Harsh and soft sunlight clashed, and lit the vault of heaven aflame.
"I will provide vigil, Ling Qi help get the others on their feet," Cai Renxiang said crisply. Ignoring the painful rasp, she turned her eyes to the others. "Recovery Formation on Disciple Ruan!"
Ling QI shook the pressure invading her thoughts out. "Right," she grimaced.
Swiftly, she scanned those climbing to their feet and blinked to the side of a young man as a broken ankle collapsed under his weight. She caught him halfway to the ground, and then a swift leap carried him to Ruan Shen's side. She vanished on a whisper of wind, repeating the action twice more. Even with the pressure above, Ling Qi could not help but notice a change in her peers.
There was no hint of the jealousy and sullen dislike that had simmered beneath the polite surface. She wasn't sure it would last, but for now the battlefield had stripped it away.
Ling Qi returned to Ruan Shen's side with the last of the disciples in time to hear Ruan Shen's soothing song, and feel the soft spring melody wash over her. She felt aches ease and pain grow dull, though she could tell that it was temporary.
Around her other's straightened up as broken bones slid back into place, and flower petals fell, clinging to and staunching wounds. "We'll all need a visit to the Medicine Hall, but I can keep us on our feet," Ruan Shen chuckled. "Now, what's-"
A hundred thousand arrows roared from the bowstring. Each one a shard of sunfire, fletched with the storm. They flew unerring and one hundred fists the size of hills shattered the air, punching them from the sky, and battered the Cloud Titan, but could not catch the scattering sky. Behind the fists a mountain bled liquid sunlight from a thousand tiny wounds.
Ruan Shen shuddered, his smile transforming into a grimace. "What's the plan," he finished, his voice strained.
"I have received our orders," Cai Renxiang spoke from above, the line of her gaze was visible in light as she scanned the caldera for threats. "We are to retreat and secure the starstone until we rendezvous with our reinforcements. Communication is breaking down due to the intensifying storm. We must assume that the enemy is reinforcing as well."
Just great, Ling Qi thought. She glanced to the other side of the caldera where the stone still rested. The moisture thick air around it glimmered with rainbow light. "I suppose I can move it," Ling Qi said, she had enough qi to use her Grinding Glacial Melody technique quite a few times."
"I will pierce the caldera wall," Cai Renxiang said grimly. " And assist with the movement. Sir Ruan, bolster our efforts. The rest of you, perimeter and watch for foes."
The chorus of agreement was perfunctory. No one wanted to stay here. They moved toward the wall where the stone rested, and Cai Renxiang descended, drawing back her saber. Three swift slashes carved through the already dissolving rock.
When the tip of Renxiang's blade bloomed with light and unleashed a small ray of scouring light over the stone and the wall however, something strange happened. The stone, so inert up until now wobbled violently, and rolled forward. Cai Renxiang let out a choked off grunt of pain. Her free hand flew up to press against her temple.
Behind the starstone, the wall that had been targeted still crumbled away under the blast.
Everyone scattered as the stone rolled toward them, defensive techniques blooming, only for it to rock to a stop when it reached a small upward slope in the broken floor. They all eyed it warily.
"...Maybe I should handle the moving on my own," Ling Qi said.
"Agreed," Cai Renxiang said, glaring suspiciously at the starstone.
"Seconded," Ruan Shen said nervously, continuing to strum out a bolstering tune.
A single icy stanza sent the stone rocking back, tumbling through the hole and down the mountainside. They chased after it, not having the time to give the matter more thought.
Outside, Ling Qi finally caught sight of the other battle. Guan Zhi was being pushed back. It was a subtle thing, but the distance of the battle had changed. But Ling Qi knew it wouldn't matter. She could feel the incoming tide of Sect reinforcements, they weren't hiding any longer. As they dashed down the mountainside, following the bouncing stone. She felt the Twelve stars leader's attention turn.
He wasn't visible as a person any longer, but a screaming funnel of iridescent wind, but Ling Qi could imagine that she saw glowing eyes shift toward them and widen in fury.
Then, Guan Zhi let out a warcry that shook the mountainside, a blackened bronze hands seized the narrow end of the towering wind funnel, even as arrows and lightning scoured her flesh. The funnel spun wildly through the air in two revolutions before slamming into the ground in a plume of dust that was swiftly ripped away by the roaring storm overhead.
The starstone caught on the lip of a cliffside, Ling Qi belted out another grinding stanza. The cliffside crumbled, the stone rolled on. They ran and flew after it.
But they were far from safe. Ling Qi nearly stumbled as something rolled out like a wave of pressure from the battle behind them. For a single moment, it drowned out the sounds of the clash, the sound of the rolling stone, their feet, and even the continuous thunder of the clash overhead. It wasn't a sound, not really it was the antithesis of sound, before it sound rotted and crumbled.
It felt like her Call to Ending, but so much less peaceful.
Out of the corner of her eye. She saw the Twelve Stars leader, once more a man and an eagle, soaring in the sky. His mask was gone, baring a wind weathered face. In his hand was a warhorn, hewn from starstone, gleaming wetly in the rain. The awful not-sound emanated from it.
From the east came a river. Torrential and furious it made its bed in the sky, whitecaps currents howling above the thunder of fists and the rumble of stone. On the river came a great ship, a sleek thing of bronze, with sails of purest silver. Beneath it's deck whirred clockwork of unimaginable complexity. Upon the sides of it's hull panels drew down revealing a thousand weapons of innovative and cruel design.
From the west came an inferno. All consuming and vast. The flame ate the clouds and hissed and crackled with joy among the steam. In the burning depths was a platform of soot and ash. There demons and ogres beat out a warsong upon drums carved from magma and fear. A hundred devils in soot blackened bronze cavorted before the burning throne of skulls at its core. Lo! The Burned Queen had come, and the court of devils marshalled for war! A paneled mask whirred and clicked, transforming a cruel smile into a bloodthirsty shout, and a tremendous gauntleted hand rose and clenched into a fist.
Ling Qi tried not to gag as the stench of burning flesh assaulted her nose, and tried not to stumble as the rain began to pound down with enough force to crack stone. She didn't look up, even as the mountain groaned and grumbled, and the ground beneath her feet began to give way.
All around her, trees tipped crazily as weakened soil began to slip downward, a vast mudslide picking up momentum under her feet. She could barely hear Ruan Shen's song or the voices of her allies over the cacophonous noise. Despite the unsure footing, Ling Qi darted downwards, keeping the rolling starstone moving even as the muck tried to bury it once more.
They ran on, and behind them, the world came apart.
The storm screamed as barbed hooks of silver and wit punctured the clouds and hooked upon lightning wrought bone, and nets of steel and resolve tangled it's currents. The devils swarmed, laughing their cruel laughs even as lightning unmade them, a thousand slain only for a thousand more to emerge, born from the inferno's embers. And the drums did beat, pounding a mocking funeral dirge. The river crashed down with a dragon's roar, scouring away the whirling winds to expose the titan at the core.
Through the river waded the scarred golden mountain, his hundred fists raised not in defense, but with intent to strike.
The wind and pressure nearly crushed her. Trees and stones the size of houses whirled into the air, dragged into the sky. All save the starstone, which seemed to care not for the mighty forces above.
Yet it responded to her melody all the same, even as the song was drowned out.
The barbed lashes forged from hate tore apart the flesh of clouds, and the devils shrieked in delight at the touch of the sky's blood.
Suffer. Crackled the flames.
Vengeance. Roared the river
Die. Spake the mountain.
One hundred fists crashed down, and bones of lightning fractured. The silver sailed ship cut unerring through raging waters of the river, as it coiled 'round the storm, the chains of its' grapnels binding the storm even as a hundred new weapons wrought of a war forged mind wheeled forth onto the decks to speak.
But the storm did rage. The mountain earned new scars as suns bloomed upon his sides and sent a million tons of stone and gold sloughing off. The Burned Queen laughed as lighting struck deep into her court, slaughtering demons and blackening her flesh. The river boiled with sunfire, the rising steam a scream. Only the ship was pristine, darting through ten thousand arrows untouched.
A girl at Ling Qi's side stumbled and fell, and it was only Ling Qi seizing her arm and dragging her up that kept her from being devoured by the mud. They were nearly at the bottom of the mountain, and Ling Qi could sense, faintly the qi of imperial cultivators ahead. They only needed to cover a few more kilometers.
Lighting fell from the sky, a river of electricity.
Cai Renxiang's light flared, and for just a moment there was no rain. Above she blazed with colorless radiance and the lightning sparked and crawled over the smooth aegis of light that had bloomed.
"Shit, the shamans are going active," Ruan Shen hissed. "We have to-"
The storm bled. Swathes of Cloud flesh boiled under the heat of the inferno and the beat of the drums. Bone broke under the mountain's fists and it's winds ever slowed under the machinations of the ship. The river crashed down, and this time the current punched through, a million tons of raging water breaking through the storm and out the other side.
The storm raged against inevitability, and winds fit to scour the very world began to shriek. It…
Dawn came in the south.
Unlight rose over the mountains. The sk#@%^^&@@^%#
Radiant Titan, trailing hair and veil as one. Eyes of crimson fall upon the impure world. S@(*&())&^%%&*())))^%^%$&%^&^%&^ Seven Colored Sword of Ruin ris%&^*(^*%***&(&^&^&
And all the world crumbles.
Ling Qi fell to her knees under the wave of pressure that struck her back, and droplets of red spatter the mud as the air is driven from her lungs in a spray of blood flecked breath. Her eyes burned with the shadow of the light that just bloomed across the sky. Her ears rang in the eerie silence that was the end of the continuous ringing of thunder from above. Around her, allies lay scattered and groaning, only Cai Renxiang had not been bowled over.
Before her lay the starstone, come to rest against piled trees and stones.
Through its center was a jagged crack.
AN: Man this looked a lot shorter in my outline. We'll be finishing up on Tuesday
She felt her reveling phantoms wail, even as they threw themselves at the shishigui in fury as their limbs dispersed into mist. She felt Sixiang strain, trying to resist the shredding of her constructs.
Ling Qi saw Cai Renxiang being pushed back, her blade screaming against the edge of the pressure wave. Zhengui pulled his limbs into his shell so quickly that it might have been comical in another situation. But any humor fled at the still deep cracks in his shell, oozing magmatic blood. Flowers bloomed in a circle around Ruan Shen. They withered faster than they bloomed, even as his eyes burned green, the sheer vitality of spring cleaning a shrinking sphere of air around him.
She felt the terror rising from the other disciples, turning away from their battles, knowing that their techniques would not be enough. Her hair started to burn, and she felt her hands, exposed to the air start to blister. She would endure, her friends would endure, but so many of her allies would not.
And, even if they weren't friends, Ling Qi really didn't care for that. Even if her fellow disciples could be obnoxious, they were people. They didn't deserve to die out here, to this monster's desperation move.
Overhead, a curving ebony blade rang with new vigour, and the Mist grew deep.
For a moment, Ling Qi felt her awareness spread far beyond her body in the thickening mist. Zhengui, she wrapped in her arms, and he vanished behind a wall of mist. Cai Renxiang fell beneath her sleeve, tendrils of light mingled with a mantle of shadow. Ruan Shen's bright spring grew cloudy, and petals bloomed under friendly rain. For the others, she had less attention, but the train of her gown shielded them all the same.
Then the impact struck, and Ling Qi found her awareness very much in her own body as she was tossed backward, tumbling end over end, Black Mirror, Cai Renxiang's light, the Mist, it all took the worst even as the techniques she had layered over herself shredded apart.Only the energies of the Wind Thief she held on too, dispersing her tangled limbs into wind and reforming with her feet touching the caldera floor.
Pain Immediately assaulted her, and Ling Qi let out a hiss as she saw the burns on her hands and forearms, and felt her qi gutter low, lower than it had been in a very long time.
Before her was a crater. Twenty meters deep, it looked as if a huge scoop of stone had simply vanished. Her eyes alit on Zhengui, struggling to his feet, his shell pockmarked and bleeding from a thousand cracks, but still intact. Ruan Shen knelt in the midst of his flowers, breathing heavily as smoke rose from his raw fingers. He was covered ugly burns, and half of his hair was gone, but flesh and hair alike were regenerating in flashes of green. A half dozen other disciples lay scattered about, burned and broken by the shockwave, but they were still breathing.
Above, a sphere of radiance floated, only to split apart into wings of life, revealing a frowning Cai Renxiang. The sleeves of her gown were gone, baring her arms to the shoulders.
Of the Shishigui and his barbarian allies, there was no sign.
For a moment, there was silence, but then a hurricane of wind ripped through the broken wall of Caldera, and it was everything Linq Qi could do to not be blown away.
She stared out through the gap at the rising cloud of smoke and debris, a tall pillar with an expanding cap. It rose from a blackened crater where a valley had once been. Ling Qi dragged her eyes upward.
The clouds rose in a kilometers wide funnel above the caldera, whirling walls of wind that screamed at speeds fit to tear trees and whole hills from the earth. The circle of visible sky was awash with light, countless burning stars blooming and dying. The Elder stood motionless.
No that wasn't right she realized as a mountain peak caved in, crushed in the shape of a foot. As a second falling sun detonated kilometers away and still ripped at her hair and gown. He appeared to be still because she could not see him moving. She saw a thousand, two thousand detonations of light in the sky, and the air wailed with unending thunder. She could feel the wind around her, feeling it distorting, the world's natural flows bending and buckling under their weight. She could feel the storm deforming, heaven, water and wind qi carving itself into the world in unalterable grooves.
She ripped her eyes away from the battle that she could not hope to comprehend, let alone effect. The ring of lesser nomads overhead was nearly gone, dead or scattered. There were only a handful left up there. They were already fleeing. Ling Qi crossed the battlefield in an eyeblink, wrestling the chaotic winds all the way. She alit at Zhengui's side a moment later. Two sets of eyes blinked dazedly at her.
"I… did good, Big Sister?" He asked in his twinned voice.
"...You did," Ling Qi said. "So take a break now, alright?"
"Yeah," he muttered, eyelids drooping as he dematerialized.
Around her, Ling Qi noted the other disciples, only now climbing out of grasping roots that prevented the wind from hurling them about like matchsticks. Most were struggling to their feet, but Ling Qi could sense the impurity in their auras, burning and sizzling eating away at them. She could even feel it on herself, clinging to her skin like oil. Ling Qi grimaced, if she had saved them just too…
A bell rang, clear and high.
Harsh light washed over the crater, but it's touch was kind. Not soft, never that, but kind all the same. Ling Qi let out a breath as she felt the oily weight of impurity vanish from her channels, and inside her dantian, her spirit's presences pulsed with relief.
"I take back at least half of the bad things I've thought about that one," Sixiang mumbled.
"I'm sorry Big Sis," Hanyi whispered, her mental voice was ragged and rough.
She hushed her, willing her to rest. Renxiang landed at her side, a ribbon of liquid light swimming through the air. Casting it's purifying light despite the frayed edges and spots of black that marked it. "That was good work," the heiress said quietly, and Ling Qi knew only she could hear. "Liming gave me some difficulty in those last moments."
Renxiang's voice was rough. There was raggedness to it, sourced from the ugly burns that marked her throat.
"I'm glad you ladies are well!" Ruan Shen called from the craters lip. A shock of his hair was still bright green, and flower petals still clung to his skin, masking steaming burns. "If you gather everyone up, I can play a little pick me up!"
Right, they weren't done, Ling Qi thought, just because the immediate enemies had fled didn't mean that they weren't still on the battlefield.
The storm raged and a titan with lightning for bones and clouds for flesh grappled with a great golden mountain among the jeering stars. Rays of harsh sunfire and heavenly bolts tore at the mountainside, sending a million tons of stone crumbling down. Within the mountain dawn's light bloomed, a thousand colors spilling from painted caverns. Harsh and soft sunlight clashed, and lit the vault of heaven aflame.
"I will provide vigil, Ling Qi help get the others on their feet," Cai Renxiang said crisply. Ignoring the painful rasp, she turned her eyes to the others. "Recovery Formation on Disciple Ruan!"
Ling QI shook the pressure invading her thoughts out. "Right," she grimaced.
Swiftly, she scanned those climbing to their feet and blinked to the side of a young man as a broken ankle collapsed under his weight. She caught him halfway to the ground, and then a swift leap carried him to Ruan Shen's side. She vanished on a whisper of wind, repeating the action twice more. Even with the pressure above, Ling Qi could not help but notice a change in her peers.
There was no hint of the jealousy and sullen dislike that had simmered beneath the polite surface. She wasn't sure it would last, but for now the battlefield had stripped it away.
Ling Qi returned to Ruan Shen's side with the last of the disciples in time to hear Ruan Shen's soothing song, and feel the soft spring melody wash over her. She felt aches ease and pain grow dull, though she could tell that it was temporary.
Around her other's straightened up as broken bones slid back into place, and flower petals fell, clinging to and staunching wounds. "We'll all need a visit to the Medicine Hall, but I can keep us on our feet," Ruan Shen chuckled. "Now, what's-"
A hundred thousand arrows roared from the bowstring. Each one a shard of sunfire, fletched with the storm. They flew unerring and one hundred fists the size of hills shattered the air, punching them from the sky, and battered the Cloud Titan, but could not catch the scattering sky. Behind the fists a mountain bled liquid sunlight from a thousand tiny wounds.
Ruan Shen shuddered, his smile transforming into a grimace. "What's the plan," he finished, his voice strained.
"I have received our orders," Cai Renxiang spoke from above, the line of her gaze was visible in light as she scanned the caldera for threats. "We are to retreat and secure the starstone until we rendezvous with our reinforcements. Communication is breaking down due to the intensifying storm. We must assume that the enemy is reinforcing as well."
Just great, Ling Qi thought. She glanced to the other side of the caldera where the stone still rested. The moisture thick air around it glimmered with rainbow light. "I suppose I can move it," Ling Qi said, she had enough qi to use her Grinding Glacial Melody technique quite a few times."
"I will pierce the caldera wall," Cai Renxiang said grimly. " And assist with the movement. Sir Ruan, bolster our efforts. The rest of you, perimeter and watch for foes."
The chorus of agreement was perfunctory. No one wanted to stay here. They moved toward the wall where the stone rested, and Cai Renxiang descended, drawing back her saber. Three swift slashes carved through the already dissolving rock.
When the tip of Renxiang's blade bloomed with light and unleashed a small ray of scouring light over the stone and the wall however, something strange happened. The stone, so inert up until now wobbled violently, and rolled forward. Cai Renxiang let out a choked off grunt of pain. Her free hand flew up to press against her temple.
Behind the starstone, the wall that had been targeted still crumbled away under the blast.
Everyone scattered as the stone rolled toward them, defensive techniques blooming, only for it to rock to a stop when it reached a small upward slope in the broken floor. They all eyed it warily.
"...Maybe I should handle the moving on my own," Ling Qi said.
"Agreed," Cai Renxiang said, glaring suspiciously at the starstone.
"Seconded," Ruan Shen said nervously, continuing to strum out a bolstering tune.
A single icy stanza sent the stone rocking back, tumbling through the hole and down the mountainside. They chased after it, not having the time to give the matter more thought.
Outside, Ling Qi finally caught sight of the other battle. Guan Zhi was being pushed back. It was a subtle thing, but the distance of the battle had changed. But Ling Qi knew it wouldn't matter. She could feel the incoming tide of Sect reinforcements, they weren't hiding any longer. As they dashed down the mountainside, following the bouncing stone. She felt the Twelve stars leader's attention turn.
He wasn't visible as a person any longer, but a screaming funnel of iridescent wind, but Ling Qi could imagine that she saw glowing eyes shift toward them and widen in fury.
Then, Guan Zhi let out a warcry that shook the mountainside, a blackened bronze hands seized the narrow end of the towering wind funnel, even as arrows and lightning scoured her flesh. The funnel spun wildly through the air in two revolutions before slamming into the ground in a plume of dust that was swiftly ripped away by the roaring storm overhead.
The starstone caught on the lip of a cliffside, Ling Qi belted out another grinding stanza. The cliffside crumbled, the stone rolled on. They ran and flew after it.
But they were far from safe. Ling Qi nearly stumbled as something rolled out like a wave of pressure from the battle behind them. For a single moment, it drowned out the sounds of the clash, the sound of the rolling stone, their feet, and even the continuous thunder of the clash overhead. It wasn't a sound, not really it was the antithesis of sound, before it sound rotted and crumbled.
It felt like her Call to Ending, but so much less peaceful.
Out of the corner of her eye. She saw the Twelve Stars leader, once more a man and an eagle, soaring in the sky. His mask was gone, baring a wind weathered face. In his hand was a warhorn, hewn from starstone, gleaming wetly in the rain. The awful not-sound emanated from it.
From the east came a river. Torrential and furious it made its bed in the sky, whitecaps currents howling above the thunder of fists and the rumble of stone. On the river came a great ship, a sleek thing of bronze, with sails of purest silver. Beneath it's deck whirred clockwork of unimaginable complexity. Upon the sides of it's hull panels drew down revealing a thousand weapons of innovative and cruel design.
From the west came an inferno. All consuming and vast. The flame ate the clouds and hissed and crackled with joy among the steam. In the burning depths was a platform of soot and ash. There demons and ogres beat out a warsong upon drums carved from magma and fear. A hundred devils in soot blackened bronze cavorted before the burning throne of skulls at its core. Lo! The Burned Queen had come, and the court of devils marshalled for war! A paneled mask whirred and clicked, transforming a cruel smile into a bloodthirsty shout, and a tremendous gauntleted hand rose and clenched into a fist.
Ling Qi tried not to gag as the stench of burning flesh assaulted her nose, and tried not to stumble as the rain began to pound down with enough force to crack stone. She didn't look up, even as the mountain groaned and grumbled, and the ground beneath her feet began to give way.
All around her, trees tipped crazily as weakened soil began to slip downward, a vast mudslide picking up momentum under her feet. She could barely hear Ruan Shen's song or the voices of her allies over the cacophonous noise. Despite the unsure footing, Ling Qi darted downwards, keeping the rolling starstone moving even as the muck tried to bury it once more.
They ran on, and behind them, the world came apart.
The storm screamed as barbed hooks of silver and wit punctured the clouds and hooked upon lightning wrought bone, and nets of steel and resolve tangled it's currents. The devils swarmed, laughing their cruel laughs even as lightning unmade them, a thousand slain only for a thousand more to emerge, born from the inferno's embers. And the drums did beat, pounding a mocking funeral dirge. The river crashed down with a dragon's roar, scouring away the whirling winds to expose the titan at the core.
Through the river waded the scarred golden mountain, his hundred fists raised not in defense, but with intent to strike.
The wind and pressure nearly crushed her. Trees and stones the size of houses whirled into the air, dragged into the sky. All save the starstone, which seemed to care not for the mighty forces above.
Yet it responded to her melody all the same, even as the song was drowned out.
The barbed lashes forged from hate tore apart the flesh of clouds, and the devils shrieked in delight at the touch of the sky's blood.
Suffer. Crackled the flames.
Vengeance. Roared the river
Die. Spake the mountain.
One hundred fists crashed down, and bones of lightning fractured. The silver sailed ship cut unerring through raging waters of the river, as it coiled 'round the storm, the chains of its' grapnels binding the storm even as a hundred new weapons wrought of a war forged mind wheeled forth onto the decks to speak.
But the storm did rage. The mountain earned new scars as suns bloomed upon his sides and sent a million tons of stone and gold sloughing off. The Burned Queen laughed as lighting struck deep into her court, slaughtering demons and blackening her flesh. The river boiled with sunfire, the rising steam a scream. Only the ship was pristine, darting through ten thousand arrows untouched.
A girl at Ling Qi's side stumbled and fell, and it was only Ling Qi seizing her arm and dragging her up that kept her from being devoured by the mud. They were nearly at the bottom of the mountain, and Ling Qi could sense, faintly the qi of imperial cultivators ahead. They only needed to cover a few more kilometers.
Lighting fell from the sky, a river of electricity.
Cai Renxiang's light flared, and for just a moment there was no rain. Above she blazed with colorless radiance and the lightning sparked and crawled over the smooth aegis of light that had bloomed.
"Shit, the shamans are going active," Ruan Shen hissed. "We have to-"
The storm bled. Swathes of Cloud flesh boiled under the heat of the inferno and the beat of the drums. Bone broke under the mountain's fists and it's winds ever slowed under the machinations of the ship. The river crashed down, and this time the current punched through, a million tons of raging water breaking through the storm and out the other side.
The storm raged against inevitability, and winds fit to scour the very world began to shriek. It…
Dawn came in the south.
Unlight rose over the mountains. The sk#@%^^&@@^%#
Radiant Titan, trailing hair and veil as one. Eyes of crimson fall upon the impure world. S@(*&())&^%%&*())))^%^%$&%^&^%&^ Seven Colored Sword of Ruin ris%&^*(^*%***&(&^&^&
And all the world crumbles.
Ling Qi fell to her knees under the wave of pressure that struck her back, and droplets of red spatter the mud as the air is driven from her lungs in a spray of blood flecked breath. Her eyes burned with the shadow of the light that just bloomed across the sky. Her ears rang in the eerie silence that was the end of the continuous ringing of thunder from above. Around her, allies lay scattered and groaning, only Cai Renxiang had not been bowled over.
Before her lay the starstone, come to rest against piled trees and stones.
Through its center was a jagged crack.
AN: Man this looked a lot shorter in my outline. We'll be finishing up on Tuesday
Last edited:
- Location
- Charlton, NY
And this, boys and girls, is what happens when high-level cultivators (including what seems like Cai Mom) fight and AREN'T contained. Boom boom CLAP!!!
This quest fucken *R U L E S*
- Location
- United States of America
You know things have gone really bad when the friendly and cheerful Ruan Shen starts engaging in vulgarity.
Things have gone well beyond what was expected at that point.
Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
well, I mean, if our reputation with the sect does not go up after this battle I'll eat a mountain of snow and ice.
Speaker4thesilen
Superpower: Common Sense
- Location
- Noneya Business
Do I detect an annoyed Dutchess? I think a barbarian elder just ate a laser.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That was amazing. We saved everyone.
Ooooooh. A look at the sensation of being not within a single body, but spread out through the area of your domain's influence.
They felt her protection, and that carved away a whole lot of their antipathy.
At least we don't have to continue fighting.
That's quite concerning. The starstone reacted quite violently to Ren's Light.
The mental imagery of blasting the rock with concussive musical force and then chasing after it is hilarious.
I wouldn't ordinarily be concerned that a rock has a crack in it. But why the ominous cliffhanger? My immediate paranoid thought was "is this thing an egg/container for something"? Is the problem that it's way harder for us to move around if it cracks in two and can no longer roll?
Ooooooh. A look at the sensation of being not within a single body, but spread out through the area of your domain's influence.
They felt her protection, and that carved away a whole lot of their antipathy.
At least we don't have to continue fighting.
That's quite concerning. The starstone reacted quite violently to Ren's Light.
The mental imagery of blasting the rock with concussive musical force and then chasing after it is hilarious.
I wouldn't ordinarily be concerned that a rock has a crack in it. But why the ominous cliffhanger? My immediate paranoid thought was "is this thing an egg/container for something"? Is the problem that it's way harder for us to move around if it cracks in two and can no longer roll?
I wonder just how much damage Sect forces just took.
I've no doubt we've just gained quite a bit in reputation, but depending on how that blast plays out, the Sect's opinion might not be the important part.
I don't think the radiant titan is Cai mom. I don't remember veils or blazing red eyes being part of her thematics, whatever this is is coming from the south (not impossible for her circle around, true), the seven coloroured sword (her saber is brilliant white), it just doesn't seem to fit.
Last edited:
- Location
- out of this world
I am honestly having a bit of trouble parsing the fight in italics. I thought it was a 3v1 gang up on the barbarian storm lead yeah? Also sunrise to the south doesn't sound good considering southward is barbarian territory.
- Location
- Dreamland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Honestly, Ling Qi probably doesn't have the capability to quite comprehend the stuff happening in italics. Like, it's confusing to us because it's confusing to her.