“Brother Han… there has been a new development.” Silas Topsider, Captain in the Jackalope National Guard and Cultivator of the fourth step of the Mutant Realm informed his companion. “I sense some strange new arrivals with the foreigners. Cultivators all, two of them Mutants at fourth step or above, the other two at the first or second step of the Mutant Realm.”
“Cultivators? Where in this bomb-cursed waste did they find cultivators?” Carl Han, his senior brother, asked.
“They are likely to be simply travelling pilgrims, the tone of their essence is quite different from that of the others. The weaker two do not appear to be from the Empire, one at least is from the mad cultists in the West, and the other I do not recognise in the slightest… he lacks power but his mutation must be comprehensive indeed for such a bestial scent. The two of relevant strength however, they are distinctly Imperial in their blood, one seems to have echoes of your kin as well in him Han.” Silas explained as he tuned his senses towards their bloodlines. “Looks like they are heading towards us in fact.”
“Perhaps they can be reasoned with if they are from the Empire.” Han said with a nod. “After all, our need surpasses those of some random nobody refugees.”
“Indeed.” Han mused. “The men may hold back, for now, I am fairly confident we can reach a reasonable arrangement for everyone.”
“I swear this place is a waste of our talents…” Silas swore, rubbing the itching sensory pads next to his nose.
“At least you aren’t at the Front. They say they have identified two more of those Abominations, half man half machine. Not like the Fleshwelded Knights, but something far more sinister, things designed to walk among us.” Han chastised him as he played with his antennae. “Things aren’t much better to the South either. We are lucky that lunatic wannabe Red Star is mainly focused on keeping his current domain intact, but who knows how long it will be until he starts feeling the barbaric blood in his veins boil over with the need for slaughter.”
“But at the very least there is glory there…” He grumbled.
“Fool…” Brother Han sighed, as he grabbed his antennae and started messing with them again. “I’m re-calibrating the psychic signal, prepare to negotiate.”
“And if they aren’t willing?” Silas asked.
“Well, that’s what the main force is here for, isn’t it? All we have to do is make sure there’s no kracking funny business until we can secure the war-rig.”
Silas turned his head towards the group of a hundred or so National Guard soldiers waiting in reserve, most of them hovering around the upper levels of the Wretch or the very early Steps of the Mutant Realm, and nodded. He and Han should be enough to deal with the stronger Cultivators approaching easily, a couple of pilgrims against trained soldiers didn’t stand a chance. And worse comes to worst… they were selected for this task for a reason. He could find the needle in the haystack of indistinguishable foreigners for the problematic ones, and Han could smother any signal from their dead mans switch. Neither of them wanted it to get that far of course, but one way or another they would be leaving with their cargo.
“Glory to the Empire.”
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Psychic communication was very common between Sects, and even within Sects, thus Cobalt knew immediately when the communication channel between the distant Cultivators and themselves was turned from a one-way signal to something more two ways. It was a distinct feeling, the flow of Si in her body through the meridians of her head being tapped into by some unseen Formation likely carved into the architecture of a psychic’s brain. John seemed to feel it too, the way his right arm spasmed and anchored into the ground to stop his momentum more effectively than even she could manage. She had to admit, she didn’t think negotiations would be possible until they got closer. Either they were more reasonable than the Toro Rojo crew believed, or they somehow knew they were from the Empire too and thus likely to listen to whatever cause they espoused.
She hoped it was the former, she still had faith in the overall righteous cause of her homeland after all, but she knew too well it could well be the latter.
“Unidentified Cultivators, we have detected you are of the blood of the Empire. Identify yourselves and let us parley.” A psychically broadcast voice entered her ear via the connection.
“Cobalt Phagos… Sectmaster of the Lead Cave.” She introduced herself, hesitating for a moment before deciding to present what she knew at least to be the honest truth.
John seemed to struggle to manipulate his Si to form words, evidently far different from the psychic talent he had recently unlocked, but she could eventually hear him responding with. “John Zhou, clan Aurelium! From the Lead Cave too!”
“The Lead Cave? That little border Sect that was destroyed by that Red Star wannabe?” One of the voices across the psychic connection asked. “How did you end up all the way up here?”
Cobalt briefly felt her blood pressure flare with a pulse of Si from her core, creating a wave of heat that trembled in the air, before forcing her heart to settle. It would be no good to let emotions get ahead of her now. “We stumbled across a strange array beneath the Sect during evacuation efforts in the siege and were transported into the Forest. We made our way south looking for civilisation, planning to reach the Spiked Shore Sect to possibly find answers on what sent us here. Along the way, we found the Toro Rojo crew, who we had previously met on a Spirit Beast culling mission two months prior.”
“We heard you were trying to threaten them to give up their mechanical caravan, is that true?” John asked, far less diplomatically. She bit her cheeks hard enough to draw blood, really she should have expected this, John was about as blunt as a large boulder at the best of times, and those times are certainly not now.
“Their war-rig poses a potential threat to the good people of the Empire!” One of the cultivators on the other side of the line argued. “It is best for everyone if we take it under our jurisdiction! We are in the midst of war on multiple fronts, we cannot spare resources babysitting a group of potentially volatile foreigners when we could possibly put them to better use!”
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“And where would they live then? They barely have a few camps set up right now, none of them have any permanent homes!” John argued.
“Naive fool! They can figure it out, it is not our responsibility to make sure they survive! Our responsibility is for the good citizens of the Empire, not barbarians clamouring at the gates!” One of the other cultivators scoffed. “Though you two come from so close to the border your blood is not that far removed from them, surely you understand at least that much? We can help take you where you need to be, your cause seems righteous enough, but first, if you truly care about these barbarians either stand aside or help us communicate that this last offer of mercy is to be the last. No more tricks, no more delays, no more negotiation. ”
She was no stranger to this line of thinking, in fact, it was quite similar to the lines her own father would use so often. But that alone told her everything she needed to know, after all, she knew her own father. At first, she was hopeful they would be amenable to negotiation and reason, perhaps work out a solution that would benefit all parties… but this was too far gone. The people of the Toro Rojo needed to be warned now that the situation was shaping up to be exactly as their worst fears entailed… and that whatever bluff or ‘trick’ the Captainina pulled to protect them thus far did not appear like it was going to hold.
She did not have any real psychic skill, her mutations had all favoured her physical form, but she was still trained by a psychic in the Aberrant Realm. Innate Formations could be tricky, but communication channels were simple enough, and as with many things in life a certain degree of brute force could solve most problems. Not wasting a single moment she peeled back her sleeve and started to cut at her flesh with her claws, drawing deep grooves of intricate patterns of lines and curves following the flow of her meridians. She sent a pulse of energy from her Diantian to the arm, and felt her crude and simple node formation resonate with the psychic energy in the air. Then came the real challenge.
Through various exercises drilled into her brain since a young age, she visualised the internal fortress of her mind, the memory of the Lead Cave in its glory back when she believed it still impenetrable. This shape however was more suited towards defence against mental attacks, not at all built to actually channel power her body did not have the innate means to wield. She wanted to communicate a message, and that needed a courier… a vehicle.
The trusty image of the Rust Wagon returned to the forefront of her mind, no weapon of war, not even particularly fast compared to the speed of Cultivators at her own level, but ever reliable over centuries. She haphazardly took hold of the borrowed psychic link and forced it into the appropriate shape with an obscene amount of Si and will just to send it in the rough direction she needed. It was no psychic masterwork, but she didn’t need that to carry a single word…
“Prepare.”
A trail of blood erupted from her nose, the Curse briefly burning through her disrupted Meridians burning inside her before her body contained the destructive energy once again safely in her core. Her clumsy hijacking of the psychic channel seemed to have disrupted the connection entirely, given she could no longer feel its touch at the edge of her mind, but the answer they would have given was already a foregone conclusion.
Especially as she saw John warp his right arm into a hammer-like implement and flash forward, so fast even to her own honed senses the moment she blinked her eyes he was gone. Wiping the blood from her nose and blending herself into the background, she moved as well.
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Jackson stared down at the teleportation array, a sight growing now painfully familiar. His dreams had been leading him all over as of late, every single one of them pointing towards another factor linked to what felt like too many calamities closing in all at once. It had come to the point where he dreaded having to sleep, but the dread of not knowing what could be next was almost worse. He had a duty to his Empire, and his people, to discern the future from his prophecies and make the choices that would lead them to glory rather than doom. It was the right and burden of those with power to wield it, and how they wield it is what makes the measure of a man.
To that end, he could and would endure anything.
“My Prince… are you certain about moving on already? I am not doubting your power or mastery over the Si but, this jump will take you across the Empire, and you intend to return here too. Though you are doubtless a prodigy, this far into the Aberrant Realm this young of age, teleportation arrays are draining for even masters. For the stability of your cultivation, I must advise you to wait.” Boreas, the formation specialist he brought along to improve the efficiency of his teleportation arrays, implored. Centipede legs scurrying anxiously against the floor along with the clocking of mandibles as he spoke making for a sound akin to the rustling of a dead tree’s branches.
He understood full well of course the wisdom in his words, they had only just arrived in the West to investigate the premonitions he received while providing essential aid to a battle against the machines in the East, and already he was planning to make a jump to the North and back. It was the pinnacle of foolishness indeed, however, he simply could not afford any other choice.
“The prophecies I receive are probabilities, not certainties. However, there are some things that tend to be set in stone. One of which, being the timeframe in which things occur. Rarely do I ever get a dream where I can determine with real confidence when something will happen of course… but I normally get a range. Years, months, weeks, days… hours…” He trailed off, leaving Boreas to pick up the obvious implications.
“Godspeed my prince… Glory to the Empire.”
With a deep bow, he retreated out of the tent. This formation should allow for two-way travel, but it was small, and everyone he could spare to help fuel it on such short notice was also too weak to make a meaningful difference. Transporting matter wasn’t that complex really, it was transporting minds intact that was the true feat, requiring far more power to simply keep it intact. The rumours said that the Dragon Khan was capable of teleporting himself and his dragon at will without the need for a formation, he was uncertain of the veracity of those statements of course, but in any case, it spoke of power not seen since the time of legends. The sunset of the Age of Ash and the Dawn of Cultivation. He was nowhere near that level, not yet, so on such short notice the best he could do without risking unnecessary lives was to go himself.
He closed his eyes and felt the flow of Si in the air, bolstered by the positioning of refined ingots of Spirit Metals placed at mathematically perfect locations along the Formation, and grabbed it with his iron will. Wings spreading out as his Demon Heart directed and shaped the Si coursing through the lines of the Formation, through the conduit of his body, and out once more as amplified psychic power. Even a Mutant without any psychic gift could fuel a Formation with their Si, but it took an Abberent’s understanding to perfect it. Radiation comes in many forms from the poisoned spit of the Atomos that had once burned the world to cinder to the light and power of the sun and stars above. It was a power mortals were never meant to wield, and yet they did anyways, and filtered through the lens of a living body even this volatile primal energy can be tamed into the power of the soul itself.
He focused on the contents of his dream, five travellers in four bodies, who stood on the point of a needle. On one end, the best of intentions fuelling a fire beyond reason, soon leading to a path where they burn into obscurity. On the other, they continue and somehow find themselves at the heart of the great puzzle that had been tormenting his dreams for months. He folded his crystal wings back against his body as the energy around him flared to its peak, and hoped whatever he would find waiting for him he could give the nudge they needed.