Chapter 362 - Mobilization
Teng Wuying allowed a small smile to crease his face when he detected the qi burst from the direction of the square. The formation had been activated. The Trials Pagoda would soon be his. That annoying sect leader, Chao Su, would soon be dead.
Sixteen Nascent Soul cultivators had been assembled to ambush him. Sixteen. It had to be the strongest force of cultivators ever assembled on the continent. No matter what power or allies Chao Su possessed, it wouldn't be enough to defeat so many.
Teng Wuying was quite pleased with himself. The logistics and maneuvering to gather that absurd number of Nascent Souls had been difficult. Only he could have pulled off such a feat.
Just the political wrangling to make available his sect's two and the Swift Blizzard Sect's four required him to call in every favor he'd secured over the years. Of course, Chao Su's own actions, including his members' performance in the tournament, helped. The older elders became, the more they were motivated by face. Teng Wuying wouldn't have succeeded without leveraging that factor.
Regardless of how and why, more important was that he had.
After arranging for those six Nascent Souls, he went to work finding more. He'd first argued to his council of elders that supplying the same number as the Swift Blizzard Sect was of crucial importance. Jade Chameleon's star was already falling fast. If they didn't contribute equally, they'd be looked down upon by their ally as a charity case.
That reasoning worked well, getting him funding to pay for two mercenaries. Even better, after he'd manipulated Mao Biya to pay for two more, the elders had been forced to add another two as well.
That brought the total number of Nascent Souls to twelve, a force the likes of which even legendary sects would have to consider formidable, a force that probably would have been enough.
Teng Wuying didn't want to take any chances, however. After Mao Biya's blunder in revealing the square as the ambush site, he'd tried to get Lei Bohai to move his formation, but the price quoted to do so was ruinous, completely beyond any possibility.
So Teng Wuying was left with a terrible choice. He could proceed with the ambush at the planned location even though any astute opponent—and it was never a good idea to assume an opponent was stupid—would surely have noted the odd behavior of the Swift Blizzards, or he could proceed without the formation. Neither option appealed to him.
Gently over many weeks, he'd talked to the Order's Formations Master, learning all his foibles. It turned out that the man wasn't wholly unreasonable. In fact, he was highly motivated to help the ambush succeed in order to punish the charlatan. He simply valued his work quite highly.
Teng Wuying respected that position. When he turned the conversation to the subject of what assistance Lei Bohai could provide, results followed. It turned out that Nascent Souls often needed arrays constructed, and often, members of the Order wouldn't deign to provide their expertise no matter the spirit coins or favors offered.
All it took was a promise that the Order would look favorably upon future proposals—undiscounted, of course—from those who helped with a minor enforcement matter.
Three additional Nascent Souls volunteered their services. No cost. Volunteered. Three.
Extraordinary.
If one counted Lei Bohai, who wasn't likely to be of any assistance in a fight beyond initiating the formation, Chao Su had sixteen Nascent Souls arrayed against him.
To say that Teng Wuying was pleased with himself was an enormous understatement.
Motion across the arena caught his attention. Mao Biya waved to him. Their eyes met. She raised her eyebrows, questioning if the qi she sensed was the start of the ambush. He nodded.
She jumped onto her flying sword and took off toward the square.
If he needed any more proof that she was a hotheaded fool, that was it. Did she have no understanding of the amount of power even one of those advanced cultivators could sling around? Just a single attack could destroy an entire sect. And there were seventeen of them about to fight.
As a Golden Core, the last place he wanted to be was within a mile of that square. In fact, he'd prefer not to be on the same continent.
To flee would show cowardice, however, and such would have a negative impact on his ability to gain the access and spoils he sought. No, he would stay at the arena. That would be safe for the moment while remaining close enough to claim his reward when the fighting was over.
Since returning to Sixth Flawless Flowing City, Kang Lin had been working in her branch sect's intelligence gathering division. It wasn't something she'd ever envisioned doing, but the experience was good for her.
Besides, it helped her grandfather.
She wasn't an agent or anything like that, more a parchment-pusher. When reports came in, someone had to collate the data and summarize it for the manager and eventually her grandfather to read.
If nothing else, the work gave her a real appreciation for Sun Hua and all the clerks who worked for the Poison Claw Sect. Kang Lin was quickly finding out that sects didn't run on cultivator resources like she had always believed; they ran on parchment.
When Master's message to Grandfather arrived, the response was fast. Grandfather immediately messaged four of the sect's six Nascent Souls, leaving out only Yuan Yaozu and the Revered Elder who remained in secluded cultivation. Within a minute or two at most, they'd assemble.
Of course, a minute in a fight between Nascent Souls was basically an eternity, and Kang Lin couldn't help but worry. Just because Master was the most powerful cultivator she'd ever met didn't make him invulnerable or unbeatable.
The plan for the fight was, of course, well known to the members working in the intelligence gathering division. Master had already completed the first step—messaging the Poison Claw Sect to let them know the ambush was about to begin. The second step was also already underway, mobilizing reinforcements.
As much as Kang Lin wanted the Nascent Souls to rush to the scene of the fight as soon as they each received word, arriving one by one could lead to them being picked off by the force assembled against them. It made more tactical sense for them to arrive as a group.
Of course, that left Master to fight by himself until he could get there.
He apparently had every confidence that he could do just that, however. In fact, he insisted that the third step of the plan was for the reinforcements to wait until he signaled for them. If the Nascent Souls arrayed against him numbered eight or less, he wanted to handle them entirely on his own.
Fortunately, the fight was too important to the Poison Claw Sect to leave anything to chance. As soon as the four Nascent Souls were ready, they'd move to the site of the ambush. If Master had things under control, they'd simply observe.
That move wasn't completely in line with his wishes, of course, but Grandfather felt that Master would understand. Kang Lin agreed.
Grandfather was permitted to monitor the fight in whatever manner he felt was safe, though, and he had talismans to retrieve Yuan Yaozu if needed. Other than that, all allied sect members were to stay far away from the fight. Which made sense. There was no distance that was too far away from the power that would be launched.
Master would want her and her fellow disciples safe, which meant staying inside either the Rising Tide Sect's shielded compound or, for her, the Poison Claw Sect's branch location.
The thought of Master fighting while she did nothing was unbearable, though. There had to be something she could do. But what?
Absolutely nothing while stuck within the sect grounds was the answer. Which meant she had to go against Master's wishes if she wanted to be useful.
But did she really? His desire was only that she remain safe. With the stack of talismans he'd given all his disciples, surely it would be fine to take a gander from far away. She even had shield pylons to protect her.
Her mind made up, she left to make her way carefully toward the site of the ambush.
In an instant, Zou Tian went from watching Jin LiJuan win her division of the tournament to observing Sun Hua. The assistant sect leader had just received a message dragon, and after reading it, her face went pale. He immediately knew what happened—the ambush was triggered.
"Everyone!" he yelled. "Eyes on me!"
He wasn't used to taking command, but Sun Hua, for all her virtues, was not the one to be in charge during a stressful situation. Normally, he'd have left matters to Senior Brother or Senior Sister, who were both more than capable of getting everyone moving in the right direction, but they were both still obviously not one hundred percent recovered from whatever had happened to them.
Besides, Zou Tian simply had a better understanding of the situation than anyone else.
"Sun Hua, what are Master's instructions?"
"For us all to go to the compound immediately and stay there or evacuate to the sect if necessary."
Zou Tian nodded. "Everyone, use your talismans to Teleport to the compound. Huang Yimun, make sure that Jin LiJuan does the same. Combatants, get ready and wait for me there."
Once he'd received acknowledgement, he envisioned the roof of a building far from the square but that had a view of it and ripped a medium range Teleport talisman. An instant later, he stood atop that building.
Master was facing Lei Bohai and fifteen other cultivators. They hadn't started fighting yet, but if all those were Nascent Souls, Master was in trouble.
Zou Tian ripped another talisman, taking him back to the compound. Senior Brother, Senior Sister, Huang Yimun and five of his guards, Zi Delan, Jin LiJuan and her menagerie, Xun Wu, Shi Long, and about two dozen other sect members stood waiting.
"The plan is active!" Zou Tian yelled before ripping another talisman.
The next part of the plan was the most dangerous. He'd chosen a location close enough to the square to join the fight, but that meant he could be attacked. If he would have had time, he would have landed far away and used the protection of his Shadow aspect to make him invisible to their enemies' spiritual sense.
With Nascent Souls, fractions of a second counted, though, meaning he didn't have that much time. Instead, he had to Teleport to the building a floor down from the roof. The wood and stone wouldn't conceal the small qi signature from his arriving Teleport, but it would help. Unless a Nascent Soul was paying close attention to that particular area, they might all miss it.
If they didn't, the plan and his life would likely be forfeit.
Zou Tian didn't have time to play it safe. Wrapped in Shadow, he rushed up the stairs to the roof, expecting to be wiped off the face of the planet as soon as he emerged.
No attack came, though, and he sensed none heading for him. Quickly, he sprinted to the edge of the building and set up four pylons, all facing the square. A moment later, he activated the beacon. A second after that, the first of his sect mates arrived.
Chapter 363 – Decapitation Strike
Qian Liqin had conflicting thoughts about the assemblage she found herself in. On one hand, she'd never seen so many Nascent Souls gathered in one place. Counting Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai and herself, there were sixteen on the roof of a single building.
Overall, though, the quality of her companions was … lacking, and she wasn't just talking about in minor realms, either. That judgment excluded Deng Boqin from the Azure Cliff Hunter Sect and Lai Xiaowen from the Harmonic Yellow Mercantile Pavilion, of course. But everyone else…
Not that the power of the others mattered. Qian Liqin was enough to cow a lone charlatan who dared call himself a Formations Master without the Order's backing. Other than the five Nihility realm cultivators, she was the second most advanced in cultivation on the entire Da Qing continent, and the man ranked higher than her had been bottlenecked for centuries.
She couldn't help but mentally shake her head that she'd traveled nearly a week's flight time away to gang up with fourteen other cultivators— Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai surely wouldn't lower himself to fighting physically!—against a single Nascent Soul.
If a man were judged by the quality of his enemies, Chao Su must rank supreme under the heavens as a Nascent Soul. Too bad he wouldn't be alive much longer to appreciate the honor.
Still, the indignity of the travel time and her forced association with so many lessers was worth it as her participation in the fight, along with a truly ruinous amount of resources, would finally secure the services of an Order Formations Master. The Thousandth Heavenly Li Sect had sought to have an Enlightenment Array constructed for more than a century, and she would have the honor of providing the crucial piece to having it built.
She couldn't wait to use it.
Of course, the array didn't actually cause enlightenment. Only the heavens could do that. But its effects were so beneficial to Nascent Soul realm cultivators that the name might as well have been accurate.
The boost to her sect's Nascent Souls alone would be worth both the cost and her inconvenience. Factor in that they would easily recoup the cost over the next century by charging the occasional allied cultivator for its use, and her participation was absolutely guaranteed.
Thus, she kept her mouth shut as she and the others were forced to wait for the ambush to be triggered. Finally, though, Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai triggered the beacon.
If she had been less experienced, she might have held her breath at that point. Her reward was contingent on the charlatan being punished. Should Chao Su not respond to the beacon, all her effort would have been wasted.
Instead, seconds later, he appeared, and she almost allowed a tiny grin to appear on her face. It grew even more difficult to maintain her dispassionate visage when Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai activated his formation.
Qian Liqin didn't know why any of the Nascent Souls, much less her, were needed. The trap set up in the plaza was a true masterwork, not something even she could easily escape.
A bit of concern arose, however, when she tried to sense Chao Su and couldn't. She'd been informed, of course, that he possessed some artifact or technique that concealed his cultivation, but she'd naturally assumed such a thing wouldn't affect her expertly honed spiritual sense.
Qian Liqin had been wrong. Whatever concealment method he used prevented even her from detecting his realm. She, who could pinpoint even a Nihility realm expert's cultivation to the low, mid, or high minor realm, didn't sense a thing. The man might as well have been mortal.
For a moment, her imagination ran wild. Was it possible that Chao Su was higher even than Nihility? Could he have reached the Ascension realm?
She chuckled quietly. None on the Da Qing continent had even made it that high in millennia. There was no way anyone in such a qi desert of a continent like the one she currently occupied could have done so.
A second bit of disquiet came just an instant later. Chao Su, who shouldn't have even been able to move a muscle under the oppressive force of Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai's formation, calmly pulled out four metal balls from his spatial device and threw them. When they landed, the masterwork … stopped working, and she and her fellow ambushers were revealed.
What?
As soon as the concealment array failed and Benton saw the fifteen Nascent Souls hidden behind it, his mind went into analysis mode. Six of his opponents wore robes from either the Jade Chameleon or Swift Blizard sects. Those cultivators would surely fight to the death given the nature of the conflict. He mentally marked them for first strikes.
The rest of the group all wore various robes that denoted affiliations Benton didn't recognize. Out of the larger group of nine, though, his sense immediately separated six from the remaining three. His instincts told him those half dozen were inferior. They had weak cultivation bases and shallow qi pools. Mercenaries, probably. They were likely affiliated with small factions who hired them out for resources.
They would absolutely not fight to the death. In fact, they'd break at the slightest sign of trouble. They were a lot more valuable to their factions alive than whatever trivial amount of payment had been offered for their services.
The final three were a mystery. Their cultivation felt solid, even better than those representing the big three sects. These were experts. Dangerous. Especially a woman in a yellow robe.
Which led to the question of why they were present. Surely, the JCSB alliance couldn't afford to pay for such high quality mercenaries. And since they were obviously representing different factions, it wasn't like the JCSB had pulled an outside third party into their alliance.
The reason they were present mattered. Without knowing, he didn't know if they would cut out at the first sign of trouble or if they were in it for the long haul.
While three parts of his split mind were analyzing his foes, the final part was answering a larger question—should he run or fight? The immediate answer seemed obvious. He was a lone cultivator facing sixteen enemies of a similar realm. Running was the obvious call, especially since the Teleportation disruption had been destroyed when he'd taken out the formation. In an instant, he could be hundreds of miles away.
Things weren't that simple, however.
If he didn't deal with the ambush today, one of two equally or perhaps worse things could happen. One, they'd come after him at a time when he was less prepared and at a location where he'd less prefer to fight. After all, a battle at that moment when he had reinforcements on the way and in a place where any damage wasn't likely to take out anyone or anything he cared about was much better than the alternative.
Two, they might vent their anger on the main sect grounds or Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town or the Poison Claw Sect or the compound instead. None of those places were prepared to weather a storm from sixteen Nascent Souls.
Fleeing was an option, but it wasn't necessarily the best one. Staying was much better if two conditions were met—he could withstand their attacks until reinforcements arrived and he and his allies had a chance of winning.
There were too many variables involved, unfortunately, to determine the status of either, much less both, of those conditions.
Benton had no doubt that he was the strongest cultivator present by far. His System-given cultivation was top heaven grade; his qi pool was enormous; and he had more and better techniques, Concepts, and Auras than any of his foes. He wouldn't be surprised if not a single one of them even had advanced their Aura past Small Success.
He was also at the very peak of Nascent Soul, closer to Nihility than any of those arrayed against him. Of the sixteen, only three were at the top end of the realm. The majority of the rest, eight, placed firmly in the middle, and the remaining five were at the low end, two of the mercenaries having only recently ascended from Golden Core.
The problem was numbers. Even a cherry Nascent Soul possessed a qi pool that wouldn't run dry after a couple of attacks, an Aura, and techniques powered by a Concept. And, as the saying went, quantity had a quality of its own.
Basically, Benton didn't know how long he could survive against their combined onslaught or if even adding four or five allies would allow his side to emerge victorious.
There was only one way to find out—a decapitation strike.
One thing was sure—his reactions and thinking, enhanced by his Mind Cultivation, were faster than any of his opponents. They'd clearly been waiting for some signal followed by a big reveal of taking down the concealment array before they acted. The premature destruction of the formation had surprised them.
He immediately charged six spheres with forty-five million qi each and threw them, targeting the necks of the six JCSB members. Enhanced by his Projectile Enhancement technique, they flew faster than unenhanced eyes could detect. Which didn't mean much given the realm of his opponents.
Still, he gave them little time to react.
Only one hit before its quarry erected his shield, and that guy lost his head. Literally. The Void consumed everything above the neck and a lot of the torso below it.
The other five strikes were less successful. Two of the cultivators were clearly injured. The other three mitigated the attack via various methods. All were still in the fight, and the nine he hadn't targeted were powering up attacks.
Only one dead and none incapacitated? Almost no qi remaining? Nope. Time to Teleport out and figure out plan B later.
That was when another thread of his Split Focus spoke up.
"Uh," it said, "A Teleport signature from one of your talismans appeared while you were evaluating your opponents. Since no qi signature followed, it had to have been Zou Tian. Which would have been fine since none of those enemy Nascent Souls likely would have detected him. Except instead of hiding, he ran to the roof and erected shield pylons. While you attacked, about thirty of your sect members Teleported in."
If Benton fled, his sect members would pay the price.
Crap
Chapter 364 – A Vow Honored
With fleeing no longer an option, Benton had to figure out the best way to fight a battle against the fifteen Nascent Souls preparing to attack him—well, fourteen, anyway. The idiot who made the inferior formation didn't appear to be an active participant.
His first step was to activate all his defenses. Even as a Nascent Soul, his Aura Defense technique wasn't useless. It still worked to diminish Auras being used against him. Next, he activated Clone and Invisibility. Finally, he fired a massive Earth Shot coated in an inferno of flames high into the air. If that didn't signal "help" to the Poison Claw Sect, he didn't know what would.
Typically, he would have been pretty confident in his countermeasures. Since no one could detect him with their spiritual sense, the combination of his invisibility and clone made him almost impossible to fight. They couldn't hit or defend against him if they couldn't even see him.
The strategy worked the first time he fought Nascent Souls, after all, and he'd only been a Golden Core. There were two problems he currently had that his previous self didn't, though.
One, his sect members were in a much more vulnerable position. They only had his pylons to defend them—admittedly a lot of pylons stacked—and those were only meant to hold up as a temporary measure that would hopefully last long enough for him to figure something out. And, two, he was almost out of qi.
Not that he hadn't experienced that last issue in the other fight, but back then, he'd been able to disappear into a prepared position to replenish his pool while relying on his defenses to protect his sect members. If he stayed out of sight for too long in the current fight, he had to believe that his enemies were competent enough to take hostages.
Which he absolutely couldn't allow.
On the plus side, he'd have at least four allies joining him soon. Probably in less than a minute. Which was approximately an eternity considering the realm of his opponents.
Benton did the only thing he could do—activated Time Manipulation to the greatest extent that he could, pushing it so that his bubble ran twenty times faster than objective time, and stuffed greater spirit coins in his mouth.
Zou Tian suspected he might have made an enormous mistake. Time had been of the essence, and as Master always said, it was almost always better to make a suboptimal choice fast than to make the best choice too late.
The problem was that he expected Master's initial strike to be much more effective, killing multiple Nascent Souls and sowing chaos in the ranks of his enemies. But only one had died. And the rest prepared to fight back.
The hope had been that Master would keep the enemy force engaged until reinforcements arrived, and Zou Tian and his sect mates would only engage at a crucial point if they were needed.
They were not, obviously, strong enough for a battle between cultivators so much higher realmed than them. Their reaction times were too slow, their bodies too weak, and their techniques incapable of holding enough qi. If they only had their own power to rely upon, they'd be worthless.
That was why they were solely using borrowed power—their Master's. The pylons could withstand a tremendous amount of punishment before they failed, and even Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu believed their talismans could damage, and perhaps even kill, a Nascent Soul. And they all kept a Teleport talisman at the ready to retreat before the pylons gave out.
Zou Tian put himself in the mind of his opponents. He and his sect mates all wore the robes of the Rising Tide Sect and were clearly juniors. Since they'd willingly entered the combat zone, they were valid targets.
An aggressive, arrogant cultivator would see them as tempting prey. Anyone with sense would see them as obvious bait for a trap. He needed them, as a group, to exercise caution due to the second but ultimately devote some resources to draw them away from Master.
The talismans would only work once. After the first attack, the enemy would expect it and determine counter measures. Zou Tian just had to be smart enough somehow to goad them into acting exactly as he needed them to.
He looked out over the square. Hundreds of images of Master had appeared in the sky and on the ground. They were everywhere.
Intense pride welled up in Zou Tian's chest. Master would show them that the Rising Tide Sect couldn't be messed with.
Fifteen against one was a tough fight for anyone, though. Luckily, Master didn't have to fight alone. Several seconds had passed since Zou Tian had announced that the plan was active. That was long enough for—
A figure Teleported onto the roof. Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu! Right on time.
Yuan Yaozu wouldn't normally go along with a plan developed by a junior cultivator absent orders from sect elders, especially since the plan involved a reaction to a sect war, but the sect leader—His master, oddly enough. How strange life had become.—trusted those juniors. And the plan made sense.
When Yuan Yaozu got his first look at the square, though, he almost wished he'd insisted on staying behind to guard the sect.
Hundreds of Illusionary clones of the sect leader faced off against a force greater than had ever been assembled in the recorded history of the continent. Making the matchup fifteen against two didn't do much to even the odds.
The vow Yuan Yaozu had given had gotten him to a realm that he had almost given up hope of reaching, but it looked like he wouldn't live long enough to enjoy it.
Still, he wasn't quite ready to give up yet. The rest of the Poison Claw Sect Nascent Souls would join them soon. Fifteen against six when one of those half dozen was clearly the most powerful cultivator the continent had seen, maybe ever, wasn't completely hopeless.
Though he'd just arrived a fraction of a second earlier, Yuan Yaozu knew he had to get moving. Standing amidst the juniors made them a more tempting target. He needed to determine who to attack and get moving.
He studied the scene. A headless corpse wearing the robes of the Jade Chameleon Sect lay bleeding out. Two Swift Blizzard Sect members were rapidly regenerating what looked like serious injuries.
Smart. The sect leader had gone after the most serious combatants first. Destroy them, and morale might collapse. Besides that, eliminating the top combatants from those two sects would be good for the Rising Tide and Poison Claw sects both regardless of how the current battle turned out.
Killing off the most injured of the two Swift Blizzards was Yuan Yaozu's most effective tactic. He just had to get past fifteen other Nascent Souls to do so.
Wait. The one who'd been standing in front of all the others was flying off in the opposite direction, clearly fleeing the field.
Yuan Yaozu just had to get past fourteen other Nascent Souls to attack his target.
Luckily, he'd spent quite a lot of time sparring with the sect leader since ascending. Which often felt pointless considering the vast difference in their combat abilities. If he wanted to disappear, there was no way to detect him. His shield was impenetrable, and his Aura could actively suppress Yuan Yaozu's at will.
If he had to pick the sect leader's most annoying ability, though, it was the short range Teleport. He could literally be anywhere on the battlefield quicker than an eye could blink.
Coincidentally, the sect leader produced talismans that gave anyone just that ability. Extremely precious, valuable talismans. If even one were to be sold at auction, Yuan Yaozu wouldn't be able to afford to buy it.
Normally, he would have felt too embarrassed to request such a valuable resource, especially in the quantities needed to make it truly useful in combat. But the sect leader gave those same talismans out to Qi Gathering brats like he was distributing candy to toddlers.
In those circumstances and with a sect war upcoming, it would have been the height of idiocy not to request the talismans, and as he'd suspected, the sect leader hadn't held back. At all.
Yuan Yaozu quickly gathered three talismans in his hand. At the same time, he began charging his signature technique, Venomous Strike, pouring ten million qi into the attack.
As soon as it was ready, he tore a short range Teleport and appeared behind the Swift Blizzard Sect cultivator. The man's injury was almost restored, his natural regeneration and the obvious effects of a Major Healing Pill having worked quickly. He was, however, so focused on the lingering effects of having a chunk of his chest removed by Void qi that he wasn't paying enough attention to his surroundings.
Yuan Yaozu could almost empathize. He had, after all, been on the receiving end of Void attacks often enough, though of much lesser intensity. That element removed even enhanced Nascent Soul flesh like nothing else under the heavens.
Such was the life of a cultivator, though. One day, you were all powerful. The next, you were desperately trying to regrow a massive chunk of your flesh only to have an enemy cultivator pop into existence right behind you.
Yuan Yaozu tore another talisman, launching one of the sect leader's Earth Shots into the man's back. That took care of any qi shield that the Swift Blizzard had left, opening the way for Venomous Strike to land unopposed.
The next Teleport took Yuan Yaozu away from the square, just barely within the range of his spiritual sense. Thirteen Nascent Souls remained.
He sighed. That number still seemed ridiculously high, but what could he do? A vow was a vow.
Chapter 365 – An Iffy Proposition
When Kang Lin had been absolutely positive that she'd be losing her discipleship at the end of the tournament, she'd felt more than a little guilty—okay, a lot guilty—about keeping the ridiculously powerful and expensive talismans that Master had given her. Now that the ambush had finally been sprung, she was quite glad she had them. The Teleports were about to come in really handy.
While Kang Lin knew about the square in question and could picture the buildings surrounding it, she'd never been to the roofs of any of them, meaning that she couldn't Teleport to any of them directly. And she definitely wasn't planning on appearing on the ground anywhere nearby when Nascent Souls were fighting. She was neither an idiot nor suicidal!
Even though the Poison Claw Sect had a branch in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, they maintained a small compound near the tournament grounds for a myriad of reasons. The main one simply being that it would mean a loss of face not to, but it also was an convenient nearby place to muster contestants and to conduct business.
Even its tallest pavilion didn't give a view of the square, but it did overlook the roof of a building that was a lot nearer where she wanted to be. Of course, that meant she'd burn, at a minimum, two of the priceless talismans getting there.
For a moment, Kang Lin hesitated. It would not be an exaggeration to say that even one of those priceless gifts was more valuable than every pill, device, piece of equipment, and other cultivation resource combined that she'd normally would have owned or consumed until she reached Golden Core. Using two of them seemed like an unnecessary extravagance.
Before she'd reached the top four of her division in the tournament, she was positive she would have talked herself out of proceeding by telling herself she wasn't worthy of Master or his gifts. New Kang Lin clearly saw that Master, at the very least, thought she was absolutely worth any number of miraculous talismans.
And she was starting to believe that he might just be right.
She tore the talisman and appeared on the top of the tallest pavilion in her sect's compound. After focusing her eyes on her target, she tore a second one, appearing there a moment later.
Kang Lin rushed to the other side of the roof and looked out over the square. The first thing she noticed were hundreds of her Master spread everywhere. Which was to be expected. In fact, she almost grinned. That technique had to be giving his enemies fits.
The second thing she noticed wiped any potential evidence of mirth from her face—more than two dozen of the Rising Tide Sect juniors had gathered on the roof of a building at the edge of the square.
If they were there, how could Master retreat if he needed to? The answer terrified her.
He couldn't.
***
Qian Liqin was not entirely pleased with the start of the battle. If her sect mates had been with her, they would have been organized and worked as a unit. Instead, the large group of Nascent Souls faced their foe as a bunch of individuals.
And the results showed the folly of their lack of coordination. Two cultivators on their side were dead, another was injured though quickly recovering, and not even a single blow had been struck by their side.
Of course, a group of fifteen—now thirteen and she was quite pleased that Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai had escaped unharmed—should have had no problem against one no matter how disorganized they were. Chao Su was proving to be just as troublesome as they'd been led to believe, unfortunately.
The fact that he could completely conceal himself from all their senses was problematic, and when combined with his Illusory clones, it turned into a nightmare. That he had access to such powerful, unusual, and varied qi elements, including Void and Space, was also concerning.
Still, he was only one man, even if a group of his juniors and a single ally had joined him.
Some in the group, the mercenaries, turned their attention to either those juniors or the ally. She understood the reasoning. All else being equal, it was better to target the ones in front of you than those you couldn't find.
But that thinking was a mistake. Chao Su was both their sole reason for being there and the biggest threat. Ending him would win the fight.
"Use your Auras!" she yelled. "Suppress him!"
Qian Liqin picked the area of the square furthest to the right and extended her Aura to cover the entire length and as much of the width as she could without weakening the repressive strength of the field she emitted. As she suspected given her status, Deng Boqin and Lai Xiaowen followed her lead, extending theirs next to hers. Between the three of them, they covered more than half of the square. Three members of the local allied sects, all except the recovering one, saw wisdom in the act and joined in, covering the rest of the area.
Unfortunately, the clones didn't even flicker, a sign that Chao Su either wasn't in the square or they weren't suppressing him enough. She couldn't do anything about the former possibility, but the latter might still lie within her grasp.
"What are you waiting for?" she yelled at the trash mercenaries. "Use your Auras. Overlap ours!"
None of the six were overly powerful or even great thinkers, but they at least took orders. Soon, the entire visible area was doubly repressed. The clones still didn't weaken, however.
"You in the blue robe," she yelled at the injured man. "Sweep slowly over the square!"
It was always tricky dealing with other Nascent Souls, especially those who didn't even know her by reputation. That unfamiliarity was mitigated, however, by the fact that all of them could sense that she was clearly the most powerful one there, and unless a different hierarchy was established, cultivators trained since first joining a sect to obey their seniors.
The man instantly complied, but there still was not even a flicker in the technique that created the clones.
Possibilities spun through her mind. If any two of those assembled tried to suppress her, it would be difficult to fully maintain a technique, even one that was mastered and that drew little qi. Facing three would have made such an action almost impossible but only almost.
Either Chao Su had fled the field, could resist suppression by three Auras, or he'd used his Teleportation to avoid the sweep. Frankly, any of the three options were equally likely.
Well, if they couldn't find him, they had no choice but to go with plan B, attacking the target they did see—the juniors.
The intelligence on Chao Su was that he greatly valued his juniors, though she possessed a bit of doubt about the accuracy of that information. If he wished to protect them, why were they anywhere near the current battle?
Still, with any luck, attacking the youngsters would draw Chao Su out of hiding.
***
Benton's qi pool was completely filled, thanks to a combination of his extreme use of Time Manipulation, Yuan Yaozu's arrival and quick attack, and his enemies slowness in organizing.
Just in time, too. The woman who'd assumed command was eyeing the kids. The pylons they used for protection were pretty darn good, but they wouldn't withstand combined attacks from multiple Nascent Souls for long. Benton couldn't allow his enemies free rein to unleash their energies on the kids.
He needed to make a strong move to get the attention back on himself.
Huh. Pulling aggro in a real world application. His grandson, Greg, would have been so pleased if he were there.
Judging from the results of Benton's first attack, he was almost positive that he would have killed all four of his targets if he'd used his mastered Aura techniques to suppress them first. He'd withheld it because, as his first fight had taught him, it was never a good idea to reveal your trump cards too early against strong opponents.
Honestly, he'd have preferred to hold it back even longer, but thirteen to two was way too dangerous. He needed to even the odds further.
Besides, a massive strike might just demoralize the mercenaries so much that they'd run.
Benton charged four spheres with sixty million qi each, layering Void under the appropriate element along with his Projectile Enhancement technique. There was no way that he could hide such a massive build up, though, and the woman's eyes turned to him immediately.
Before she or the other competent members of their group could focus their Auras on him, he Teleported behind the assembly and unleashed all four of his Auras and his attacks, each targeting one of the surviving JCSB members.
"Behind!" the woman yelled.
The spheres flew true. Between Teleporting so close to his enemies' backs and the speed of the already charged attack, the targets barely had time to get their shields up, much less take evasive action or figure out how to counter the projectiles.
Of course, as had been proven just moments earlier, those shields would have likely been enough on their own to keep any of the four from dying. That was where his suppression came in, weakening the shield from the metaphorical equivalent of steel plating on a tank to the weak paper that high school football players ran through to enter the field.
That critical suppressive force, unfortunately, came with a huge drawback. Benton couldn't Teleport while keeping it up.
The spheres hit. Elemental and Void qi exploded. Four heads and torsos disappeared.
Only nine enemy Nascent Souls remained alive to fight. Which was good. Nine to two was winnable. Nine against six when the rest of the Poison Claw Sect force arrived was very winnable.
The bad thing was that all nine of the remaining enemy Nascent Souls directed their Auras at one target—Benton.
Whether or not he could survive long enough for reinforcements to save him had just become a very iffy proposition indeed.
Chapter 366 – Uncertain Death
Benton wasn't all that worried about dying, and that lack of concern wasn't because he'd been there, done that, either. No, it was simply due to the fact that Nascent Souls were very difficult to kill, and him more than most.
As far as he could tell, the whole process of death was different than it had been back on Earth. There, one was declared dead when the body stopped working. On his new planet, death wasn't final until the soul had actually departed.
Actually, despite having died back on Earth, his knowledge of the metaphysics was quite lacking. For all he knew, the soul leaving the body was the trigger there as well. It was just that Earth had no technology to detect souls. The combination of his high Soul Cultivation and enhanced spiritual sense absolutely could do that, though. In fact, he sensed six of them hanging around outside the bodies of the enemies who had ceased functioning.
Even a normal person took a while to finish dying, including a good five minutes or more for all their systems to stop working even after the brain or heart stopped. After that, the soul would be ejected and would slowly drift away. Only once it was too far away to be called back was death final.
Nascent Souls were even sturdier for two reasons. One, the souls persisted a lot longer, hanging around for hours before giving up and proceeding to whatever awaited them next. And, two, their bodies would continue to heal even after the souls left. If the body became habitable again soon enough, the soul would simply slip back in and, in the process, restart the body.
The normal cultivator at that realm had two big weaknesses—they really couldn't do anything in soul form to effect the world, and they were reliant on their bodies reconstituting in order to survive. Destroy the body, and the soul would have no place to go.
The five enemies that Benton killed were very unlikely to heal enough before that departure time because Void erased a lot of flesh and bone and muscle and blood. Their healing thus had to completely regrow all that material, a much more qi and time intensive task than simply fixing damage.
As for the one Yuan Yaozu attacked… Well, if Benton's side won, someone would need to do a bit more damage to keep that one from reviving. He'd not be back until well after the battle was over, but he hadn't yet been permanently removed from the land of the living.
He was sturdy.
Benton was even sturdier still. Not only could his soul persist for literal days instead of only a couple of hours, but if his body were destroyed, he could use his Soul Material Manipulation and Soul Transference techniques to create a brand new body for him and slip his soul inside it, bringing him back to life.
Unless someone had a way to destroy his soul—which was unlikely considering that he couldn't even do that at his maxed Soul Cultivation level—death would not be permanent for him.
His biggest concern, therefore, was that restoring himself would take time. Hours at least. Maybe even a full day. And during that time, he'd have no way to interact with the world. There would be no one to protect the kids from the overwhelming force of remaining Nascent Souls.
Thus, he'd much, much prefer not to die.
Currently, though, nine Nascent Souls all focused their Auras on Benton, and frankly, he couldn't do anything with his qi. He was completely suppressed. Not even his automatic shield would protect him.
His best hope was that his Body Cultivation would make him hard enough to finish off that reinforcements would arrive in time to protect the kids. Even with them arriving, they'd be fighting five against nine.
It didn't look good for the home team, and he had reason to fear that there would be no joy in Mudville that evening.
***
Qian Liqin had been slightly worried for a moment. For one thing, Chao Su had shown himself capable of launching devastating Void attacks from an ambush created by his short range Teleports, Invisibility, and being completely opaque to spiritual sense.
He turned out to be a formidable foe, one even she wouldn't be comfortable facing alone. And that was a significant admission. She'd never met her equal in anyone even close to her in realm.
That realization had occurred to her before he sprang two impossible surprises. The first was that, somehow, he could completely suppress an opposing Nascent Soul with his Aura. From the strength she detected, she suspected that he could even do so to her in a one-on-one match.
If someone had told her about a cultivator below the Nihility realm with that ability, she wouldn't have believed it. Even one of the trash mercenaries fighting alongside her would require two or three Auras to completely suppress.
The second impossibility was that he possessed four Auras and could use each of them simultaneously.
What nonsense was that!
Qian Liqin couldn't fathom the advantage being able to wield four Auras and have each of them suppress an opponent on its own. Chao Su outnumbered four Nascent Souls by himself.
Nonsense!
And actually, those two impossibilities weren't the first he'd demonstrated. No, the very first was in destroying Esteemed Formation Master Lei Bohai's masterwork so easily. That should have kept Chao Su immobilized even to the point of restricting him and anyone else from Teleporting.
Instead, he'd nonchalantly tossed some metal spheres and caused a cascading failure.
Complete nonsense!
It was honestly a shame that she had to kill him. Imagine if she could convince him to aid her sect the next time true power was needed…
Such wasn't possible, however. As nice as it would be to have him on her side, having the Order construct an Enlightenment Array for her sect was even more valuable. Priceless.
Which meant she still needed to kill him.
Luckily, he didn't seem to have access to a fourth impossibility. He couldn't hide the build up of qi as he prepared his attack, and he'd had to hold his Auras on his targets in order to pull off his ambush.
His minor victory—if one could term killing four Nascent Souls in the span of a heartbeat minor—would cost him. At her yell, she and her two colleagues from the Da Qing continent turned their Auras on him.
Those, however, would not have been enough to fully stop him. Surprisingly, half the mercenaries were quick enough on the uptake to add theirs, locking him down until everyone could join.
They just had to finish him off.
"Everyone," she yelled. "Release your strongest attacks. Everything you have. Don't hold back!"
***
Before leaving the Rising Tide Sect main grounds on a mission, Zou Tian had asked Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu a lot of questions about how Nascent Souls fought, learning a lot in the process. And unfortunately, the battle between Master and the enemy alliance had played out about as well as Zou Tian had expected. That was to say, poorly.
The moment that Zou Tian had feared finally arrived.
When he'd Teleported to the square the first time and had seen the forces arrayed, two thoughts had impressed themselves on him. The first was that Master wasn't likely to flee unless it became absolutely necessary. He wanted to finish the sect war before it started, before any of the juniors could get hurt.
The second thought was that even Master couldn't battle sixteen Nascent Souls, and there were only five reinforcements available. There would likely arise a critical moment in the fight when a distraction was required, and there was no one else but Zou Tian and his fellow juniors who could provide that interference.
Master had killed four more of the enemy, bringing their numbers down to nine, but he was being suppressed by all of those remaining. According to Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu, no Nascent Soul could stand alone against so many.
It was time.
"On three," he yelled.
Everyone not already holding a talisman grabbed one.
"Three. Two. One. Go!"
Thirty-four cultivators tore thirty-four talismans, talismans created by a peak Nascent Soul realm crafter whose mastered technique allowed him to imbue his powerful attacks onto paper with little, if any, loss of effectiveness. Thus, thirty-four powerful attacks launched from the roof and proceeded toward the enemy Nascent Souls.
"Again!" Zou Tian yelled.
***
Just as Qian Liqin was about to unleash her most powerful attack on Chao Su, she sensed something behind her. An attack. No. Multiple attacks.
In fact, she'd never felt anything like the sheer scale of what was headed toward her and her group. For a moment, she feared that an army of Nascent Souls had landed behind her, all somehow concealed as well as Chao Su could.
For the first time in centuries, she feared her death was imminent.
Something was off, though. The power was there but not the intent. And no Aura accompanied it.
Talismans.
She glanced behind her. The attacks were coming from the Rising Tide Sect brats. Chao Su must have supplied them for that particular eventuality.
He was even craftier than she had imagined.
She had a choice to make—drop their suppression of Chao Su to defend against the attacks, ignore the attacks and maintain the suppression, or try to do both at once. Those attacks were powerful. Ignoring them completely would be a mistake. But so too would letting up the pressure on Chao Su.
Six Nascent Souls should be more than enough to keep him under control. They would, though, have to delay their own offensive against him in order to concentrate on their defense. That would be no issue, though. It wouldn't take long before the talismans were no longer an issue.
"You three," she said, indicating half the mercenaries with her hands, "defend us. Then, take care of the juniors."
Three of them couldn't stop thirty-four attacks, of course, not even ones originating from talismans. But they didn't need to. They just had to deflect enough of them so that the six keeping Chao Su contained weren't hit so hard as to have their Auras disrupted.
Even three trash mercenaries could manage that much.
An Earth Shot and a Water attack hit Qian Liqin's shield from the back, but that wasn't enough to disrupt her. Barely before the blows had faded, however, she sensed thirty-four more attacks heading their way.
"Intercept them on the way!" she yelled. "Kill the brats!"
She needed that array, and if that meant killing Chao Su and everyone allied with him, she'd do so, whatever it took.
***
Yuan Yaozu had been incredibly skeptical when Zou Tian had presented his grand plan. Having juniors anywhere near a battle between Nascent Souls sounded like a disaster in the making. Not to mention the fact that the sect leader would have absolutely refused to allow such a proposal.
The kid had been well prepared, however. He'd first stated that the plan would only be enacted after Zou Tian scouted the battle and determined that it was needed. Second, the juniors would retreat via Teleportation at the first sign of being attacked. Third, they would all possess the special countermeasures that the sect leader prepared to break through any possible Teleportation jamming.
In Yaun Yaozu's opinion, the plan seemed reasonable. Besides, it was not the job of sect seniors to keep their juniors completely safe. It was to guide those juniors and mitigate risk where possible.
Cultivation was the act of defying the heavens, after all. Anyone unwilling to accept risk might as well give up. He was living proof of that. Without the Trials Pagoda, he would never have advanced.
So, with some reluctance, he agreed to support Zou Tian.
When the sect leader killed the four enemy Nascent Souls and was in turn suppressed, Yuan Yaozu was immediately thankful that he'd agreed to provide his support because there was absolutely nothing he could do to rescue the sect leader from nine Nascent Souls.
Once the juniors started using the talismans, however, and three of the of the suppressing force peeled off, the calculations changed.
Yuan Yaozu knew more than anyone how strong the sect leader was. He could still perform at half power while be restricted by four. Surely, he could still function enough to strike back if there were only five, right?
Was that theory likely enough for Yuan Yaozu to risk his life, though?
Honestly, he didn't have a choice. Due to his vow, not risking his life risked his cultivation, which was essentially the same thing.
His last attack had worked well, and he seriously doubted anyone was preparing countermeasures for him. Besides, other than using a different talisman, he didn't have a better idea.
Knowing he could be committing a suicide if it didn't work, he separated out the two talismans he needed and one for contingency. The next step was charging Venomous Strike, which would signal his intent to attack.
Thankfully, with so many qi techniques flying, no one was paying any attention to him. It was nice to be underestimated as a lowly newly ascended Nascent Soul.
He tore a talisman, Teleporting onto the roof right next to the furthest of the mercenaries suppressing the sect leader.
Yuan Yaozu tore another one immediately, letting loose one of the sect leaders Wind Slashes. The target had already been hit a couple of times by the juniors, weakening his shield, and the new attack finished it off.
Venomous Strike finished him off.
Only five Nascent Souls were left to continue their Aura attacks. Yuan Yaozu's very life depended on whether the sect leader could defeat suppression by that many.
Chapter 367 – Hall of Heroes Candidate
Yang Ru quite approved of Zou Tian's actions, both in the original plan and the way he'd commanded everyone. His training and being away from the sect had done the young man good.
The first round of attacks had done their job, forcing three of the nine Nascent Souls to focus on his group instead of on Master. Even better, after Zou Tian ordered the second round of attacks, the three enemies flew forward, removing them even further from Master.
Of course, that meant the three were headed for Zou Tian's group, and after they dealt with the current volley, they'd surely attack.
"Retreat!" Zou Tian yelled. "Retreat, now."
Good. He hadn't got caught up in the excitement of the fight, instead keeping calm and making the correct call.
All was going according to plan, and the group reacted immediately. Jin LiJuan, her menagerie, and Yang Xiu were the first to tear Teleport talismans, returning to the agreed upon fallback location—the compound.
Compared to Foundation Establishment realm cultivators, those still at Qi Gathering reacted slower, moved slower, and even thought slower. They were still all reaching for their talismans.
One issue the plan hadn't covered was who should stay back to make sure that all the juniors got away safely. Zou Tian probably assumed that he'd be the obvious choice for that job. Yang Ru disagreed.
The two looked at each other, a glance that spoke volumes. Each staked their claim to be the one to stay behind, and neither gave an inch.
"You've done well leading," Yang Ru said, "and you're still needed in that role. You have to make sure that everyone evacuates to the main sect if any of the Nascent Souls pursue."
"You can do that just as easily."
"I can, but you're commanding this mission. It's your job."
Zou Tian hesitated for an instant, but only for an instant, before cupping his hands. An instant later, he disappeared.
While the two of them resolved the matter, the group's volley had landed, unfortunately not doing enough to disrupt Master's suppression. That was mainly due to the interference of the three Nascent Souls, who had deflected a good number of the attacks and were now targeting the shield produced by the pylon.
For a moment, Yang Ru believed that their distraction would end up being pointless, but on the roof holding Master and the Nascent Souls, Yuan Yaozu ambushed one of the enemies. The man fell.
Good. Maybe two against five would give Master a chance.
In the meantime, though, the pylon's shield was getting blasted by strike after strike. The entire building shook. Any formation not crafted by Master probably would have already failed.
One by one, the juniors tore their cards, as Master called them, and disappeared. They were slow, however, and the incoming Nascent Souls were fast. Whether the shield lasted until the last of them evacuated would be a near thing.
All the guards except their captain were gone, and other than him, only a few stragglers were left. Yang Ru waved Huang Yimun away, and he cupped his hands before tearing his card.
All the while, attacks boomed into the shield. It would fail. Soon.
Only Yang Ru and Ren Ning were left, though, and the former villager finally had his talisman in hand, having had some issue finding the correct one. As he tried to tear it, however, it slipped from his hand and fell to the surface of the roof. He immediately dove after it.
Boom! Crack!
Two pylons split in half. The shield failed. The Nascent Souls' next attack would be deadly.
Yang Ru had a decision to make—save himself or protect Ren Ning.
For someone who considered himself the sect's protector, that wasn't a choice at all.
***
Horrified, Kang Lin watched the fight unfold. First, Master got captured by the enemy force, and she knew, just knew, that he was about to die. Instead, in what was either the stupidest move she'd ever seen or the bravest—probably both—Zou Tian ordered the juniors to attack the enemy.
A group of less than three dozen low level cultivators, most still in the Qi Gathering realm, launched a volley against nine Nascent Souls. Were they crazy?
Seriously, only an insane or suicidal person would do something like that. The only thing that stood between them and complete annihilation was a static shield that was meant to provide just enough protection to give them a chance to flee.
Somehow, though, the attack worked. The Nascent Souls were distracted from killing Master, and the leader dispatched three of them to take care of the cause of that distraction. Which was both good and bad.
On the plus side, Master was left with only six Auras suppressing him. Though Kang Lin didn't know what good the reduction would do. Grandfather had explained to her that six was enough to completely quell even Master.
Then there was the bad. One Nascent Soul was way too powerful for several Foundation Establishment realm cultivators to handle, and it didn't even matter how many lower realmed allies they had supplementing them. With three, they'd be killed soon.
Suddenly, though, the situation changed radically. Yuan Yaozu appeared and killed one of the six Nascent Souls. Master could fight against only four, and Grandfather was sure that six were enough to suppress him. What Master could do against five, though, was anyone's guess.
While that situation was playing out, the three Nascent Souls neared their target, blasting away at the shield as they did. Luckily, Zou Tian wasn't foolish. As soon as his group had launched their second attack, he called for a retreat.
By the time the Nascent Souls breached the shield, all the Rising Tide Sect members would hopefully be long gone.
Over the course of about a second, most of them disappeared. Most. Not all.
One of the Qi Gathering realm cultivators dropped his talisman and fumbled on the ground for it. It was unlikely he'd escape before being attacked, and there was equally no way he'd survive. No one below the Nascent Soul realm could.
And, of course, Yang Ru, the big idiot, was the one who took it upon himself to stay until the last of his sect members had left.
For a moment, Kang Lin had some hope that he would see reason. As the heir to the sect and an A ranked talent, he was so, so much more important than some random junior with trash tier ranked spiritual roots.
Yang Ru would one day likely rule the entire continent, if not more than that. The junior would … Kang Lin didn't even know. Not much of anything important, that was for sure.
But Yang Ru was Yang Ru. The chances of him abandoning his sect mate was exactly zero. His entire reason for being was to protect just such people. It was crazy and stupid and completely against everything that cultivators stood for, but it was part of what made him so special, what made him worthy of praise.
He made his move, stepping protectively in front of the junior.
No help would arrive in time. Her sect mates were en route, but they were still seconds away. The junior had found the talisman and was about to tear it, but it was too late. Even if he did Teleport away, Yang Ru wouldn't have time to react and get away.
Neither could Master or Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu do anything. Master was still kneeling under the weight of five Auras, being guarded by the Poison Claw Sect member.
They likely didn't even know what was happening, didn't realize the danger.
Yang Ru had only tenths of a second, maybe less, to live, and no one could do anything about it.
No, that wasn't actually true. She held another talisman in her hand. She could intercede. Her.
Kang Lin didn't even stop to consider what she was about to do. She powered up her shield with as much qi as she could cram into it and tore the talisman.
She arrived in front of Yang Ru just before the Nascent Soul's attack. There was a blast and pain, so much pain, and then—
***
Yang Ru knew he was about to die, and he was at peace with his decision. He called himself the sect's protector, but deep down, he'd always wondered, if the time ever came where he had to choose between saving himself and defending a sect mate, if he'd actually be brave enough to do what was right.
Master had said that sacrificing oneself for a sect mate was the only valid reason to willingly face death. It was not a fate to be sought, which Yang Ru hadn't, but it was an act that would be remembered. The Hall of Heroes would gain a second member that day.
Behind him, Ren Ning finally activated the talisman, Teleporting to the compound.
Good.
Yang Ru smiled. At least his sacrifice wouldn't be for nothing. For a sacrifice it was. The Nascent Soul had released his attack. Even though Yang Ru held the card ready to tear, there was simply no time.
All he could do was charge his shield and brace himself for impact.
Just as the strike was about to land, though, someone appeared in front of him. His eyes widened. Kang Lin.
The attack hit, launching her into him and knocking both of them all the way to the other side of the roof and off. Disoriented from the impact, he fell uncontrolled, landing several stories down with an oof.
That had hurt.
Frankly, it was likely only because of his Body Cultivation that he was still alive.
A horrible thought struck him. Kang Lin had taken the full force of the Nascent Soul's assault, and she didn't even have the advantage of any Body Cultivation.
Yang Ru looked frantically around until spotting her several yards away. There was blood. So much blood. She was on her side, though, facing away from him, so he couldn't tell if her chest moved.
If there was even a sliver of life left, all he had to do was get to her. He stood, shaking off his many aches, and limped toward her as fast as he could while pulling a Major Healing Pill from his ring.
His enhanced senses didn't detect any breathing. No heartbeat. But he ignored those the lack.
She had to still be alive. She couldn't be…
He couldn't even bring himself to think about it.
Yang Ru crouched down next to her and still couldn't hear any sign of life from her. He tried sticking the pill in her mouth, but nothing happened. Her … body started to cool. Her corpse.
Kang Lin was … dead.
Chapter 368 – A Threat that Became a Vow
Yang Ru couldn't believe it. Kang Lin was dead.
How? She'd been alive just minutes earlier. She couldn't be gone.
He didn't want her to be gone.
There was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do. Bringing someone back from the dead was impossible.
His eyes went wide at the thought. He did know of one person who made the impossible seem routine. Death was death, though, so he didn't want to get his hopes up. But he had to try.
Yang Ru popped his contingency ring.
***
Benton literally couldn't do anything. With nine Nascent Souls suppressing him, he couldn't even access his qi. His Auras were also of no help. When used to actively contest an enemy, they were quite useful. Once the other side won… Not so much.
He could have attacked one of them physically, but that move would have been less than useless.
When the kids sent a volley against his captors, he thought it was a sweet thought but an ultimately pointless one. In practice, six cultivators suppressing him were no different than nine.
But Yuan Yaozu, heavens bless him, showed up right on the heels of the attack launching. Five cultivators was a world of difference away from six.
Sure, Benton was still eighty percent suppressed, but twenty percent of his power was still better than most cultivators. He also hadn't been completely idle while under the influence of all those restrictive Auras. It turned out that his qi still regenerated and that he could use Meditation to increase that amount.
Even with all the qi he'd spent to kill the four JCSB cultivators, he still had more than sixty thousand left, and with Meditation active, he regenerated close the thirty thousand per second.
"System," he said internally, "how much qi do I have at the moment?"
164,116
The quantity wasn't much compared to having his pool be completely full, but it was enough.
Yuan Yaozu looked at him, his expression asking, "Was killing that guy enough? Can you fight?"
Benton grinned in response and began building up Void qi. With his oppressors attention on Yuan Yaozu and worried about the second attack from the talismans that was incoming, none of them even noticed.
Too easy.
He just needed to pick a target. The three better dressed and better trained Nascent Souls probably represented organizations that could give him trouble down the road. Sure, those three had come after him, so he was completely justified in killing them. Cultivators were a prickly bunch, though. Killing one of them might just result in another blood feud that meant he'd have to end up destroying yet another sect.
His main goal in wiping out everyone who came after him was deterrence. If killing resulted in more hassle, it wasn't worth it. Not that he'd let them off scot-free or that they'd necessarily survive to the end of the battle—that outcome depended entirely on their actions going forward. But, for the moment, he decided that the noticeably less affluent targets were probably a better bet.
The one farthest from him used a shield that was primarily Wood aspected, so Benton finished his preparation by adding in Fire qi. He waved cheerfully at the guy before unleashing the strike.
The guy's eyes went wide, but there was really nothing he could do considering that mere feet separated the two of them. His shield was already at maximum as he prepared for the kids' volley.
Benton's sphere struck, and the Fire burned through the shield in an instant, leaving Void to do what it did best, destroy stuff utterly and completely. Which it did.
He hummed, "Another one down, another one down…"
The battle had started out sixteen against one. Benton had since killed six, Yuan Yaozu two, and one had fled. Only seven remained. More importantly, with that few against him and having an ally, it would be very difficult for them to have six of them attack him with Auras at once, especially since the rest of the Poison Claw Sect allies were on the way.
Benton's side had already won. He just wasn't sure if the enemy realized it yet. To drive the point home, he went ahead of attacked the other mercenary, killing him, too.
The woman who'd commanded the others glanced at her cohorts.
Perhaps being around the twins and their nonverbal communication had done Benton good because he knew exactly what she was telling them.
"Don't even try to run," he said. "If you do, I will hunt each of you down."
The woman gathered qi.
He didn't know if she intended an attack or to use a technique to flee, but he said, "I swear I will kill you beyond any hope of reconstitution if I have to come after you."
Purple lightning flashed. The three cultivators looked at each other again, clearly defeated, and the woman let the qi dissipate.
"We surrender," she said.
As Benton was just about to accept their defeat graciously, a beacon went off. Nearby. He scanned the area.
The three remaining mercenary Nascent Souls were scattering, so they were no longer a threat, just something he'd have to deal with later. A Golden Core, the angry, annoying woman from the Swift Blizzard Sect raced toward him on her flying sword. No worry there.
The Poison Claw Sect reinforcement were almost to the square. Great timing. Not.
That left Yang Ru all alone on the far side of the building he'd been on. He appeared to be moving, so it wasn't immediately clear what the issue was.
Still, Rising Tide Sect members were trained to use their contingency rings only when necessary, so there was no question that Benton would go to the boy.
"I have to take care of something right quick," he told the captured Nascent Souls. "Don't make me hunt you."
He Teleported to Yang Ru. The boy was crouched over a corpse, crying. Kang Lin's corpse.
"Can you save her, Master? Please tell me you can save her."
The Benton back on Earth would have been able to do nothing. Neither would Golden Core Benton. Nascent Soul Benton was a completely different story, though.
"Of course. Give me a moment."
Her body showed massive damage from Water qi, probably struck by one of the mercenary Nascent Souls, and Benton made a mental note to take extra time making that one suffer once he'd hunted the guy down.
Considering how tore up she was, it was quite probable that the attack had killed her. If not, then she absolutely had no chance after the fall. When she landed, her brain had impacted the ground. Hard. Her skull was cracked and part of her brain smushed.
That would do it. Instant death.
Running his sense through her body, he detected numerous other issues, some minor and a lot that would have eventually been fatal all on their own. Neither a fall from a five story building nor taking the brunt of a Nascent Soul's attack was good for one's health.
There was nothing that couldn't be fixed, though, and at least there wasn't anything missing because the first step in reviving her was to repair the damage.
He activated Soul Material Manipulation and began slowly and meticulously reforming her body.
***
Kang Lin looked down on her body from above. Or, more accurately, she watched Yang Ru crouched over her body, mourning.
She felt bad for him and a little bit for herself. If she hadn't wasted so much time being an idiot, their relationship could have been in such a different place by that point.
If she would have possessed lungs or any of the other necessary biological equipment, she would have sighed. Things seemed so much clearer to her now that she was dead.
Yang Ru was a good, good man. He wasn't perfect, of course, but he was strong and hardworking and dedicated, worthy of not just being a husband but of being loved. Any girl would be lucky to have him, and she fervently hoped that he found one who would truly appreciate him.
He was lacking, however, in some crucial aspects that would be needed for someone who was destined to become a force in cultivator society. She wouldn't call him simple, per se, as the connotation of that description made him sound stupid. And he wasn't. At all.
Still, he viewed the world through the lens of a man from a small town. Maybe unsophisticated was a good way to portray him. He definitely didn't have much in the way of the kind of political and social instincts that he'd need.
She could have really helped him in those areas. In fact, the value she brought in those ways would have compensated a lot for the difference in talent.
Why didn't she realize that a long time ago? It would have saved so, so much trouble and pain.
Again, she wished she could sigh.
Yang Ru did something strange that took her mind off her regrets. He popped his contingency ring.
What? Why? There were no other cultivators around. In fact, Master had already accepted the surrender of the remaining enemies who hadn't fled.
Time was starting to lose meaning for Kang Lin as her soul continued to drift away from her body, but at some point thereafter, Master appeared. The two spoke, though Kang Lin didn't know what they said as she had no ears to hear them.
Then again, she didn't have eyes, either, but she saw them. Being a disembodied soul was weird.
Then, Master started repairing her body.
That was nice of him. Master was such a kind person. She hoped he wouldn't be too sad at losing her. Grandfather, too.
Having her body be made more presentable would help, hopefully, to make the funeral more palatable. She hated the thought of Grandfather seeing her destroyed like that. Better that he see her posed peacefully like she'd just gone to sleep.
A thought struck her. How was Master doing that? Healing didn't work on dead people. Like when Yang Ru tried to stick a healing pill in her mouth and nothing happened. That qi element simply didn't effect corpses.
Impossible or not, Master did it anyway. Which shouldn't have surprised her. He never had seemed limited by what anyone else thought was doable.
Soon—or maybe a long time later; time was starting to really get weird—her body was fixed completely. Not even a bruise. The blood would need to be scrubbed off her, but otherwise, the servants tasked with preparing her for burial should have an easy job.
Kang Lin was glad. She hated to be a burden to anyone.
Then, the weirdest, most improbable, impossible thing yet happened. Master reached out with his qi, and it grabbed her soul.