"Junior Brother Yan you are in charge of completing the stabilization arrays," the core disciple said distractedly. "I have been called to assist the front line."
"Yes Senior Brother," Yan Renshu grunted, keeping his eyes fixed on the smoothed stone in front of him, where already tens of thousands of characters had been carved, inked and etched. The formation arrays being established here were of staggering complexity. Even his own intellect could only begin to truly decipher them.
Resentment stewed in his gut. He would have understood them better, been able to complete this working already, if he had received the instruction he deserved.
"Very good Junior Brother, I will trust in your abilities," the core disciple said, wearing an infuriatingly patronizing smile as he clapped Yan Renshu on his good shoulder, and vanished in a rainbow streak through the floor. How hasty.
Not that Yan Renshu did not understand, the clash was escalating.
Tens of Kilometers of flesh rose through the tunnels, marching feet and scrabbling claws beyond counting. The World-Corpse spasmed and vomited forth power from her wound womb into the waiting hands of the Weavers. Those Who Crawled rallied to the call of the Incarnate Assembly, and their Corpse Champion, the Prince of Millions, crawled forth to make war upon the intruding sky.
Cruel Virtue met his advance, and ten thousand eyes of judgement slashed away one hundred thousand hands with their gaze, even as the breath of the World-Corpse ate his flesh. Yet from each hand rose a warrior, bearers of the word Pain, and the prince spoke from countless mouths…
Yan Renshu grimaced as he took a tighter hold of his senses, feeling the trickle of wetness on his upper lip. Yes, escalating indeed.
"Sect Brother Yan?" a voice spoke up to his side.
He glanced to the three others in the chamber, one of five like it laid out exactly around the central array of this sector. Each sector was than a point on the larger pentagon surrounding the central camp. Shaped from the surrounding stone, each chamber was an exact cylinder, three meters in height, connected to the others by narrow passages, intersecting and punching through the many natural caverns and tunnels.
"Continue your task," he replied, barely looking at the speaker. The three others were disciples in the nine hundreds, and he felt little but contempt for them, each was many times his age but a fraction of his cultivation. Ambitionless creatures, broken to the boot, happy to wag their tails for their masters.
Yan Renshu held in the sneer that wanted to form as he carved a new stroke with each movement of his chisel, rapidly forming the next character in the chain that would stabilize the arrays in this sector.
This situation was a microcosm of everything wrong with the Sect and the Empire it was a part of. He, an unparalleled genius, reduced to scutwork on the front lines of a petty battle, his education and cultivation stunted, all because those above him had decided that he offended them.
His chisel struck the stone fiercely. That was not entirely true. His final ruin had come at that girl's hands. A genius as well, he might have considered her a peer. Sadly his effort to separate her from the fat noble leeches had ended in failure. She certainly would not have understood it as a favor. He would give the Cai and the Bai that, they were quite good at taming their pets.
Even the elders, whose approval he had assumed when his operations had been allowed to run for a full year unchecked had turned against him in the end. He had been used. Left alone to serve as an obstacle, and when it all came down around his ears, he had been the one admonished, chided like a child. Only his value as a craftsmen had given him this 'second chance'.
A new character carved, Yan Renshu took to the left to begin the next. It carried him within arms reach of the central array, already glowing fiercely with the energies of the vast formation flowing through it.
Yes, the Sect had only been another oppressor, a pet of the Duchess and her nobles, Yan Renshu thought scornfully, all their vaunted independence from petty local politics a lie. His sleeve slid down as he reached high to begin chiseling the next character, revealing a bangle of bone on his wrist. A talisman like any other to any senses.
A welcome gift, from the being he had met in the deep caverns, where he had been forced to go harvesting with his own hands, he knew in his shielded thoughts hidden from prying elders and Senior Disciples alike by the talisman. The Empire was not the only polity in this region, whatever it claimed.
How arrogant the empire was, never considering those who dwelled below, those who had watched their squabbles and their infighting for millenia. Those whose lands the Sect callously poisoned with their vents.
Yes, Yan Renshu could understand how that would feel. His contact too, understood his situation. Understood how he had been wronged. Gutou as the being called himself for ease of communication, had been watching the Sect for a very long time, and he inhuman as he was had been the one to notice Yan Renshu's talent.
Yan Renshu eyed the central array as he shuffled further to the left, and felt in his bones the spiritual rumble of a battle far beyond his ability below. He could feel the Elder and the Core disciples, their power burning in his mind's eye. All of it focused on the Spirit wrought by the Deep Dwellers.
Yes, this array was beyond his ability to construct, but as that insolent girl had shown last year, one did not need to fully understand something to break it. Especially when it was only half finished, the stabilization array unfinished.
When his chisel came down, severing the seventh stroke of the eighth power storing character, the stone began to crumble, spewing toxic underground air.
When portions of the array throughout the room began to erupt, unable to contain unrouted power. He relished the screams.
He would get the recognition he deserved one way or another.
