Chapter Eighty-Two: The Lesser Dragon
The Crimson Calamity Wyvern was proof of something every cultivator learned and far too many eventually forgot.
Realms were not equality.
They were measurements.
A Seventh Stage Foundation cultivator and a Seventh Stage Foundation beast possessed power within roughly the same realm, but that did not mean their bodies were equally strong, their Ki reserves equally deep, their techniques equally destructive, or their natural potential remotely comparable. Species mattered. Bloodlines mattered. A human might compensate through cultivation methods, artifacts, formations, intelligence and generations of accumulated knowledge, but nature had never promised fairness.
And a wyvern, however distantly, was still draconic.
A lesser dragon.
The creature circling above them possessed a body that humans would need years of body cultivation to approach, wings born to carry its enormous weight through storms, natural weapons stronger than forged steel, and an affinity for death essence that required no manual or teacher. Its bloodline placed its potential above ordinary humans before cultivation even began.
Yun Che understood that intellectually.
Seeing it was different.
The Crimson Calamity Wyvern was Seventh Stage Foundation.
So was Elder Ruan.
Yet nobody was foolish enough to pretend that meant Elder Ruan should challenge it.
Even with Baifeng beside him, even with Elder Liang, the Wolf Brigade and every artifact the caravan possessed, the difference was obvious. Perhaps they could hurt it. Perhaps Ruan and Liang together could even make it take them seriously.
That was precisely what nobody wanted.
At present, the wyvern was playing.
If they attacked it, it might start fighting.
There was a very important difference between those two things.
So they ran.
The mountain road narrowed until there was barely enough room for two carriages to travel side by side.
To their right rose a steep wall of dark stone broken by ledges, cracks and stubborn mountain shrubs. To their left, the earth simply disappeared. Hundreds of meters below, the river they had abandoned wound through the forest like a silver thread.
There was nowhere else to go.
And the stampede had entered the pass behind them.
The sound became monstrous.
Thousands of hooves, claws and paws hammered against stone. The wider herds were being crushed inward by the narrowing terrain. Mammoths shoved against armored oxen. Great cats leapt over smaller creatures. Horned beasts slammed into one another. Birds screamed overhead while predators that would ordinarily have killed each other ran shoulder to shoulder.
"KEEP THE CARRIAGES PAIRED!" Elder Liang shouted from the front. "DO NOT FORM A SINGLE LINE!"
Yun Che understood immediately.
A single carriage blocking the road would stop everyone behind it.
Two abreast gave them redundancy.
One could stumble.
One could lose a wheel.
One could be attacked.
The other could continue pulling alongside it long enough for the guards to correct the problem.
It was still horrible terrain.
But it was survivable terrain.
For now.
A shadow crossed the road.
Everyone looked up.
The Crimson Calamity Wyvern folded one wing.
It descended lazily.
Nobody attacked.
Nobody even raised a weapon toward it.
The enormous creature swept across the stampede.
One claw moved.
That was all.
Three thin crimson arcs dropped from the sky.
They struck behind the caravan.
The mountain exploded.
Stone, animals and trees flew in every direction. A mammoth disappeared over the cliff. Several smaller creatures were thrown into the air. An entire section of road collapsed, carrying dozens of beasts with it.
The wyvern climbed again.
Its roar echoed through the mountains.
Yun Che heard something inside that roar that made his stomach twist.
Amusement.
"It likes this," Lin Xia whispered.
Nobody answered her.
There was nothing useful to say.
Then a horned beast jumped onto their carriage.
Jin Wei screamed.
Not very heroically.
He also reacted faster than Yun Che expected.
A talisman appeared between his fingers.
"GET OFF!"
The paper ignited.
The explosion struck the creature directly in the face.
BOOM!
The beast vanished backward.
Jin Wei stared after it.
Then stared at his hand.
"Oh."
Another beast jumped.
"Apparently we're doing this."
He pulled three talismans from inside his robe.
The first became a barrier.
A translucent golden wall appeared beside the carriage just as an enormous cat slammed into it. The barrier bowed inward.
Jin Wei stumbled.
"Why is everything here enormous?!"
The cat struck again.
Cracks appeared.
Jin Wei slapped another talisman against the barrier.
"Explosion."
Yun Che's eyes widened.
"Jin—"
The barrier detonated outward.
The mountain cat flew off the road.
Jin Wei turned toward Yun Che with an expression of enormous satisfaction.
"You see?"
A lightning bird dived toward him.
Jin Wei's satisfaction disappeared.
"Oh, come on."
Lightning Bolt.
The talisman vanished.
A bolt of blue-white energy shot upward.
It caught the bird across one wing.
The creature spun away.
Three more descended behind it.
Jin Wei looked at the remaining papers in his hand.
His expression changed.
For once, the joking merchant's son disappeared.
He stepped onto the side of the carriage.
Wind tore at his robes.
The cliff raced beside him.
The stampede thundered behind.
Jin Wei raised one talisman.
"Blade Storm."
The paper dissolved.
Nothing happened.
For half a heartbeat.
Then the air screamed.
Dozens of translucent blades appeared around the carriage.
Jin Wei swept his arm sideways.
The blades followed.
They did not scatter randomly.
They formed a moving wall.
The first diving bird was struck across the chest.
The second lost several feathers and pulled away.
A mountain cat trying to jump between carriages was caught by three blades and knocked sideways.
Another beast attempted to climb onto the rear platform.
Jin Wei turned his wrist.
Five blades converged.
The creature disappeared beneath the wheels of the stampede.
Jin Wei stood there with his robes whipping around him, one hand raised, controlling the remaining blades while lightning flashed behind him.
For several glorious seconds, he looked exactly like the sort of young master storytellers wrote poems about.
Then the carriage hit a rock.
Jin Wei fell backward.
Yun Che caught him with telekinesis.
Jin Wei dangled horizontally over the road.
There was a short silence.
"Put me down."
Yun Che lowered him.
"Still impressive."
"I know."
Lin Xia had no time to laugh.
Something slammed into her side of the carriage.
The wooden wall cracked.
Her face went pale.
Fear came naturally to Lin Xia.
That had always been the problem.
Yun Che could become frightened and continue thinking. Lei Zhenyu became quieter under pressure. Shen Rui seemed to become happier the more dangerous things became.
Lin Xia froze.
Her heart hammered.
Her fingers became cold.
Every instinct told her to curl up somewhere safe and wait for someone stronger to solve everything.
Another beast appeared beside the carriage.
She saw its claws.
Saw its teeth.
Saw how easily it could tear through wood.
Her hands shook.
Then she remembered the village.
If nobody is there to protect me, I die.
That thought had frightened her before.
Now it made her angry.
Her sleeves snapped outward.
Six metallic spheres shot from beneath her coat.
Yun Che had built the basic mechanisms.
Lin Xia had changed almost everything else.
Weight runes activated.
The spheres became nearly weightless.
A sweep of her sleeve sent them orbiting around the carriage.
Lightning runes activated next.
CRACK.
Electricity connected one sphere to another.
Six points.
Six lines.
Then twelve.
A moving electrical cage surrounded the carriage.
The attacking beast jumped.
It struck the barrier.
Lightning erupted across its body.
The creature screamed and fell away.
Lin Xia stared.
It worked.
A second beast approached.
Her fear remained.
That surprised her.
She had somehow imagined courage would mean fear disappearing.
It didn't.
Her hands were still shaking.
So she used them anyway.
One hand controlled the spheres through movements of her sleeves.
The other rose.
Her finger began writing.
Ki remained behind it.
One stroke.
Two.
Turn.
Hook.
Connect.
Rune.
A horned beast charged alongside the carriage.
Lin Xia finished the symbol.
"Bind."
Lines of Ki erupted from the rune.
They wrapped around the creature's front legs.
The beast stumbled.
Lin Xia immediately wrote another.
Wind.
She completed the final stroke.
Three wind blades appeared.
She sent them low.
Not at the creature's neck.
At the ground before it.
Stone exploded.
The beast changed direction instinctively and disappeared behind them.
Lin Xia barely had time to breathe.
A massive bird dropped toward the carriage roof.
Her metallic spheres were on the wrong side.
Too slow.
Too close.
Her mind screamed at her to duck.
Lin Xia wrote.
Her finger moved faster than it ever had in practice.
Barrier.
The rune appeared above her.
The bird struck.
BOOM!
Lin Xia dropped to one knee.
The barrier bent almost to her face.
Her teeth clenched.
"Go away!"
Her sleeve snapped upward.
All six spheres changed orbit.
Lightning converged.
The bird was hit from below by six connected currents.
It shrieked and flew away.
Lin Xia remained kneeling.
Breathing hard.
Hands trembling.
Alive.
She looked at the fading barrier above her.
Then at her own fingers.
A small smile appeared despite everything.
"I did it."
Yun Che heard her from the neighboring carriage.
"Yes, you did!"
That smile lasted until something roared behind them.
Lin Xia immediately resumed writing.
There would be time to appreciate personal growth after they stopped being chased by several thousand monsters.
Lei Zhenyu did not stay on a carriage.
That would have been too restrictive.
He jumped.
Yun Che watched him disappear over the edge.
"LEI!"
Then lightning flashed beneath the road.
Lei Zhenyu was running along the mountainside.
Not on a path.
On the cliff.
Lightning Step carried him from one projection of stone to another. His body remained almost horizontal as he raced along the rock face below the caravan, sword held behind him.
A beast tried to climb around the carriage from below.
Lei passed it.
His sword flashed once.
The creature's claws separated from the rock.
It fell.
Lei jumped upward.
His foot touched the cliff.
Lightning erupted.
He shot over the edge and landed on the back of a horned beast running beside the second carriage.
The animal bucked.
Lei did not even look down.
Thunder Roc Eyes.
The world sharpened.
He saw everything.
Muscle movements.
Foot placement.
Angles.
Distances.
The movements of the stampede became patterns.
He stepped from the beast's back onto another.
Then another.
He was running on the stampede itself.
A wolf snapped toward his leg.
Lei drew.
Lightning flashed.
The wolf fell.
He sheathed.
Three steps.
Draw.
A horn shattered.
Sheathe.
Jump.
Draw.
A predator's armored shoulder opened.
Sheathe.
Lightning Step.
He disappeared.
For an instant Yun Che lost him.
Then blue light erupted thirty meters behind them.
Lei appeared atop a mammoth.
Five predators were forcing their way through the stampede toward the rear carriage.
His hand settled on his sword.
His body lowered.
Azure Thunder Roc Sword Style.
The blade left its sheath.
Thunder answered.
One line of lightning crossed the road.
Then another.
Then another.
Lei did not teleport.
Yun Che could finally see that after watching him enough.
He accelerated.
Stopped.
Changed footing.
Accelerated again.
Every burst was controlled.
Every sword stroke was small.
Precise.
No wasted movement.
One beast lost a leg.
Another had its jaw split.
Lei stepped beneath the claws of the third, rotated his sword and cut upward through its chest.
The fourth lunged.
Lei stepped onto its face.
Used it as a platform.
Jumped.
Turned in the air.
Lightning gathered along his blade.
He descended.
The creature crashed into the road.
Lei landed on its back.
The fifth stopped chasing the caravan.
That was apparently enough.
It fled sideways.
Lei looked ahead.
The caravan had gained distance.
He sheathed his sword.
Then started running over the stampede again.
Jin Wei stared from the carriage.
"He really does have problems."
Yun Che almost laughed.
Then the mountain shook.
The wyvern had attacked again.
This time it released a thin crimson beam.
Not toward them.
Into the mountainside above the stampede.
The beam passed through stone.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then half the cliff came down.
"LANDSLIDE!"
Boulders crashed onto the road.
Beasts screamed.
Dust exploded upward.
The Crimson Calamity Wyvern swept through the cloud it had created, crimson wings spreading as animals scattered beneath it.
It roared again.
Happy.
Yun Che hated it.
His puppet moved beside the rear carriage.
The humanoid construct was battered from previous battles, but its Iceback Glacier Drake frame remained strong. Yun Che controlled it through Puppet Fighting while simultaneously spreading telekinesis around the carriages.
A boulder fell.
Telekinesis caught it.
Yun Che grunted.
Too heavy.
The boulder slowed.
That was enough.
His puppet jumped.
Both metal hands struck.
The boulder changed direction and crashed over the cliff.
Another beast approached.
The puppet intercepted.
Shoulder strike.
The creature stumbled.
Telekinesis pushed against its front foot at exactly the wrong moment.
It lost balance.
The puppet kicked.
Gone.
Yun Che did not try overpowering anything.
Kaelor had taught him that lesson brutally.
His telekinesis was weak against opponents of his own level.
So he stopped trying to overpower them.
A running beast placed a foot down.
Yun Che moved it three centimeters sideways.
The beast stumbled.
Another jumped.
Yun Che pushed its head slightly.
It missed the carriage.
A bird descended.
He pulled one wing.
Its dive changed.
The puppet punched it from the air.
Small forces.
Correct moments.
That was enough.
Then the road ahead cracked.
"LIANG!"
"I SEE IT!"
A section of the mountain road had begun collapsing.
One carriage had already reached it.
The left wheel dropped.
People screamed.
The carriage tilted toward the cliff.
Yun Che reacted.
Telekinesis seized it.
His head exploded with pain.
Too heavy.
The carriage continued tipping.
Lin Xia's spheres flew from the neighboring vehicle.
Weight runes activated.
The falling carriage became lighter.
Yun Che felt the difference instantly.
"Again!"
Lin Xia understood.
She changed another rune.
Lighter.
Yun Che pulled.
The carriage stopped.
Half its body hung over the cliff.
Below it waited hundreds of meters of empty air.
A Mountain Charger screamed as its harness dragged it sideways.
Elder Liang's telekinesis arrived.
Two minds seized the carriage.
"NOW!"
Yun Che pulled.
Liang pushed.
The guards dragged.
The Mountain Chargers surged.
The carriage slammed back onto the road.
Its passengers screamed.
Then cheered.
Yun Che nearly collapsed.
Jin Wei grabbed him.
"Stay awake!"
"I am awake."
"You look dead."
"Helpful."
"I try."
Above them, the Crimson Calamity Wyvern circled.
Elder Ruan looked upward.
For one moment, his hand tightened around his blade.
Baifeng growled.
They could attack.
Ruan knew they could.
Liang could probably force the wyvern into a bad angle.
The Wolf Brigade could form an array.
Lei Zhenyu possessed lightning techniques.
Yun Che had his strange weapons.
Twenty Foundation warriors working together could hurt almost anything within their realm.
But Ruan had survived too many wars to confuse could hurt with could defeat.
The wyvern was barely using Ki.
It had not activated a domain.
It had not landed.
It had not seriously attacked a single cultivator.
It was amusing itself.
And that was their greatest advantage.
Ruan lowered his blade.
"NO ONE ATTACKS THE WYVERN!"
Nobody argued.
Even Lei Zhenyu, racing across the stampede, did not look toward it with challenge in his eyes.
This was not a duel.
There was no honor to gain.
No skill to test.
No victory waiting if they simply believed hard enough.
There was a draconic predator above them that could turn their desperate escape into a battle whenever it wished.
And if that happened, people would die.
So when another crimson blast struck the mountain and tore away part of the road, they endured it.
When the wyvern dived low enough for the pressure of its wings to crack carriage windows, nobody attacked.
When it passed over Elder Ruan close enough that Baifeng could have launched a Frost Lance into its belly, the wolf restrained himself.
When it destroyed a section of cliff and sent twenty monsters tumbling into the river below, they kept running.
The Crimson Calamity Wyvern wanted panic.
It wanted pursuit.
It wanted desperate little creatures scrambling through the mountains while it decided where they were allowed to go.
So they gave it the game.
Because games had rules.
Games allowed the other side to keep playing.
The moment they attacked the wyvern, the game would end.
And then the hunt would begin.
Yun Che understood that every time the enormous shadow passed over them.
He looked around.
Jin Wei stood surrounded by burning talismans, throwing barriers and lightning wherever they were needed.
Lin Xia controlled her metallic spheres with trembling sleeves while writing runes with fingers that refused to stop despite her fear.
Lei Zhenyu raced across beasts and cliff walls in flashes of blue lightning.
Bao Kun's shield squad held the rear.
Shen Rui jumped from beast to beast.
Liang guided the entire caravan through impossible terrain.
Ruan and Baifeng held back the worst of the stampede.
They were strong.
All of them.
For the first time, Yun Che truly appreciated how strong this caravan was.
And above them flew something stronger.
A lesser dragon.
Not even a true dragon.
Yun Che looked at Amon.
The Iceback Glacier Drake was staring upward too.
Not frightened.
Furious.
The desire Yun Che had heard the previous night was there again.
Help me become a dragon.
Now Yun Che understood that desire differently.
The bloodline hierarchy was not some academic classification written in a beast encyclopedia.
It was here.
Above them.
One creature dictating the movement of thousands because almost nothing present could tell it no.
Amon growled.
Yun Che rested one hand against his scales.
"Not today."
Amon's claws tightened against the carriage floor.
One day.
Yun Che looked upward.
The Crimson Calamity Wyvern spread its black-and-crimson wings.
Another sphere of death essence began gathering between them.
The mountain road ahead twisted sharply around the cliff.
The stampede thundered closer.
Everyone braced.
Yun Che drew his sword.
"Yeah," he whispered.
"One day."
But today was not that day.
Today, they ran.