Qiang You
I stood on the small patch of solid Firmament watching Yuan Zhou prepare to breakthrough. He was an interesting cultivator, but interesting would only carry you so far.
“Your machinations are as multi-faceted as ever,” Leader Han told me through a mental transmission.
“That is the only way to win, when every outcome leads to victory,” I mentally replied. It had been a long-standing policy of mine. That any plots could not have a failure condition. Every outcome would be accounted for to avoid losses.
“If he dies, you will be out a couple of favors,” Leader Han pointed out.
“Which is why I am overseeing this personally, and even invited you,” I countered. We had a long history togeather, founding the TripleX faction from the DoubleX faction several eons ago. While both of us would betray the other if the benefits were high enough, we each knew where that line was.
“There he goes. Time for me to step up,” Leader Han muttered towards me mentally. He altered the flow of time around Yuan Zhou. An incredibly powerful and dangerous technique. That was why he was the faction leader and not I, his combat abilities were stronger than mine.
I had already sealed off this location as best as I could from external observations. That would draw the attention of several powers as a minor blind spot appeared within their vision. They would focus to see what nefarious deed was happening and would be blinded as Yuan Zhou broke through. Cultivator Po would have alerted the Heavenly Alliance in regards to Yuan Zhou’s breakthrough. My previous words would be picked up.
There could be no complaint, since we were not in the Forever City, but close enough to still be considered in its sphere of influence. A small bubble of material reality, floating in the Firmament used for secret meetings close to the city but outside of it. Several of these sites existed.
The Heavenly Alliance would not be able to move against us, but their watchers would be blinded out of concern. The greater the power, the greater the constraints. That was the problem with the cultivation system and the trap. The reason why so many factions had continents that produced cultivators. It was to find some way to break the ties of karma that bound us.
That was why Yuan Zhou was so interesting. Normally the faction that sponsored his trip would have easily taken him in, but he somehow survived on his own. There were no mods inside his body. He had no external backer either. The other factions tended to lack ambition. They would have made him fight, and he would have died. He was weak in a combat sense, but priceless since his cultivation broke all the norms and standards.
There were still remnant ties that would seek to bind him, but he was a free agent. That was his true value. He would draw attention for that alone and not just from the monsters we hoped to snare. With the watchers blinded for a moment, preparations would be made for future plans. These moments in time were rare.
Leader Han shared the same ambition as me and was content to let me plot and scheme. I watched as Yuan Zhou dispersed his mind cores. So much energy wasted, but they were focused on force, not on tying the body and soul togeather.
Then the soul cores detonated. I could tell Leader Han was putting quite a bit of effort into his technique. Stretching out this moment for as long as possible. The hidden pressure from the various watchers instantly broke off and I could imagine them cursing. For this breakthrough was immense enough to be blinding.
If I hadn’t set up a barrier to protect us, we would have been vaporized as waves of energy and cultivation remnants exploded away from Yuan Zhou. The very air burned, the ground around our positions shook and cracked. This small pocket of reality was breaking apart as the soul and the body drew close togeather, breaking the barrier to the astral plane.
Already I could sense several things approaching in that direction. Safe guarding one’s soul was no easy task. I focused my attention onto the astral plane as waves of energy and cultivation remnants were there as well. I did not manifest myself into that maelstrom just yet. Being this close to the Forever City was both a blessing and a curse.
For there were fewer lesser monsters, but there were greater predators that roamed around, seeking to pick off the occasional cultivator as a snack. There were also greater dangers that lurked. While I had divined all that I could, if a greater danger emerged, we would have to flee. Some things could not be fought.
My job was to scan for what fish we hooked with our bait. Killing such a creature would yield valuable resources. Multiple plans all coming togeather at the same time to advance. That was the secret to success. I picked up on a hint of danger approaching and focused my gaze in the astral plane to what was arriving.
It was only a Lesser Astral Behemoth. Yuan Zhou’s body core exploded and he began to draw in the energy into the cultivation organ that had been made for him. The value of such a thing was incredible. Cultivator Po was a recluse and only the favor I had done for him allowed me to reach out to such a talent. It was a shame that is physical adjustments no longer worked as well as they could once someone broke through to immortality.
By then their foundation was solidified too much to make any changes. For many that was a moment of happiness. For others like myself, it was a moment of despair once the path ahead was revealed. The Lesser Astral Behemoth was getting closer.
“TEN THOUSAND RIPPLES.” I unleashed my technique. The energy vibrated slightly at multiple points around the Behemoth. It was instantly crushed. For more physical threats I used sound instead. It was amusing when people entered my garden and did not realize how much danger they were in. Dispersing the origin of the attack gave almost no warning until it was unleashed.
Any combat cultivator would realize everyone and everything with any hint of self-preservation had danger sense. The ones that reached my level all had techniques that bypassed such a danger sense. Throwing super powerful beams of destruction around was impressive, but they were easily dodged or countered. Only when there was an extreme power difference or a target focused on defense, did such a skill make sense, which was rare.
Normally I would not have used such a strong technique, but Behemoths were resilient, and this was a fight that could not be drawn out. There would be more things approaching and we would need to deal with them quickly.
While there was boundless energy from Astral Plane, it was unformed, chaotic, and completely unusable except to the most depraved of monsters. But it could be altered, shaped, and made useful. The things that lurked out there desired such energy, always seeking to pray on others to get it.
I had read Yuan Zhou’s report of his first foray into the Astral Plane and meeting an ancient. Some physical beings preferred to hunt closer to the source of their food and power. The risks were greater, but the Firmament was infinite. Killing one of these creatures was the hope of my little fishing plan.
Scanning the area of the astral plane around where Yuan Zhou was breaking through, I noted two more lesser beasts approaching. I quickly killed them and pocketed their remains to be processed later. That was when I felt a sense of dread.
“TEMPORAL LOCK!” Leader Han used his signature skill to save our lives as his bubble of slowed time faded away. “I can hold.” I let out a sigh of relief at his mentally transmitted words. Anything that could attack through time was not simple and some of the most dangerous monsters that were out there.
For they broke the rules that governed causality. Thanks to Leader Han, this had become a fixed point of time, a bubble of stability, even as the material world broke away around us and we were all pulled into the astral plane. The physical platform we had been on, had been shredded by Yuan Zhou’s breakthrough. It just took a moment to crumble away.
I quickly reached out and flicked my finger, dragging Yuan Zhou’s physical and spiritual body next to mine. He was alive and his cultivation was stable, but heavily stressed. The same was true of his physical body.
“DISTORTION RIPPLE.” I unleashed a technique to disturb the surrounding area around us. The kaleidoscope of colors that was the astral plane was quickly blocked out as a bubble of darkness began to form around all of us. This would prevent anything from sneaking up on us while we were here.
“Still holding?” I asked Leader Han. If he fell, we would be vulnerable to more oblique attacks.
“I am. But the monster got hold of pieces of Yuan Zhou’s cultivation that were lost. It is attempting to attack him,” Leader Han said, and I frowned at that. “I can’t drag it out.”
We had hooked a large and powerful fish, but it was too powerful to deal with easily. That was when I noted a Dragon approaching. It must have been circling around our position in the Astral Plane, which was why there hadn’t been more lesser beasts. It was using their distraction to pluck them off for its own benefits.
A Dragon was one of the rare living things that could naturally draw upon energy. Their body was the perfect combination of flesh and energy. Their power was immense. In a straight fight, with no other distractions, both Leader Han and I would struggle to match such an opponent. Winning was near impossible with our respective strengths based on what I could tell.
If we weren’t being assaulted through time, it would have made the perfect fish. But now we had two fish, one fish too many caught on our hook. If it was anything other than a Dragon, I could have used Yuan Zhou’s body as a true bait. Tossing him out and attacking in that moment of weakness. But a Dragon was as smart or smarter than any cultivator. They would not fall to base instincts, if they had any.
“I need fifteen seconds,” I told Leader Han who nodded. I flung out my hand, sending tiny bits of energy out of our protective sphere. Their strength was incredibly weak, and they would blend in with the background energy. That was the first second.
The next second, I moved, tossing Yuan Zhou to one side. The Dragon instantly turned. With his cultivation still in flux, he was at his most delicious at this point in time. Leader Han would hold back the temporal monster attacking us while I countered the Dragon. I exited the sphere of darkness, as the great lizard eyed me from a distance and Yuan Zhou’s body that was flying away. Its black scales shimmered in the chromatic light given off by the background energy.
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In the third second, I moved at the Dragon and used a lesser technique. “Separation!” The dragon easily countered by raising up a single claw and deflecting the attack. It then unleashed a wave of disintegration fog from its maw trying to obscure my vision.
In the fourth second, I sent out several more attacks, carefully working out the positioning to block the dragon from approaching Yuan Zhou. It deflected my attacks and advanced forward towards its prey. While it was not a beast, it was proud. It thought me weak and moved into the first layer of my trap.
In the fifth second, I activated my technique at a distance and rushed forward. “TEN THOUSAND RIPPLES.” The small portions of energy I had released seconds before, activated, and overlapped. A single one meant nothing. Even ten was put a pinprick. But ten thousand attacks hit the Dragon and it faltered momentarily.
In the sixth second of the battle, I reached the Dragon and struck out against its massive scaled chest with my palm. “RIPPED FATE!” The blow was one that had seen me threw countless battles. Many beings would shrug off physical attacks, but the more esoteric ones were far more dangerous. For nothing was completely invulnerable.
The instant the blow struck, the Dragon froze. Its future dimmed. Its power contained. Its techniques severed. I could feel its soul tremble from the weight of my blow. I ripped off one of its scales and stored it within my spatial ring.
In the seventh second, I activated my life saving talisman and a hundred cycles of accumulated energy was spent in a single moment as a shield formed around me. A massive clawed hand struck my barrier, cracking it and dispersing the energy invested into it. A Dragon’s claws were not kind to other forms of energy.
Using that moment I had bought, I moved to Yuan Zhou in the eighth second of the fight while tossing out an array of explosive talismans. Blasts of energy struck the dragon and it began to gather energy for a beam attack.
In the ninth second I grabbed Yuan Zhou and retreated backwards while spending a tenth of my total energy to create decoys. I also unleashed smaller bits of energy as preparation for a third attack. The beam attack missed, as it sliced through three of the decoys I had created.
In the eleventh second, I reached Leader Han and the Dragon had chosen to retreat. They were intelligent predators and I had let it know I had the strength to make the fight not worth the meal. It helped that Leader Han was with me as well. If he wasn’t the Dragon might have decided to continue to fight.
“One scale,” I told Leader Han. He gave me a mental grunt. It would have been nice to kill the entire Dragon and harvest its corpse, but that was out of our reach at the moment. That was one thing those beasts didn’t have, was preparation. While they might be stronger, they rarely used equipment which had given me an edge in the fight. Even if the cost was horrendous.
“I have an opening,” Leader Han mentally gave me the coordinates and I quickly struck out with my technique. I was beginning to feel tired from all my expenditures. My attack with the help of Leader Han, traveled through time and stuck whatever thing was trying to attack us.
“It is retreating. And heavily injured,” Leader Han communicated towards me. I didn’t let my guard down as I checked the surroundings once more. The Dragon was long gone. It was unfortunate, but it would have attacked while Leader Han and I had been dealing with the other monster.
I was about to suggest when we return to the Forever City when I felt an acute sense of danger. The fight wasn’t over yet. “What is it?” I asked Leader Han. He was using multiple techniques trying to determine the source while I checked the surroundings. There was nothing that I spotted, so probably something more dangerous and esoteric.
Without hesitation, Leader Han reached up and ripped out one of his eyes and tossed it away. That was not good. Whatever it was had used a visual attack to target him. Since he couldn’t block it, he had to get rid of the vector of attack. “A greater danger,” he mentally told me while unleashing an attack that burned away all traces of his eye he had ripped out.
“Escape possible?” I asked. He didn’t respond right away, which was a bad sign. He slowly shook his head.
“Can only wait. We might be in a loop,” he said and I mentally cursed at that. The monster only attacked because we were looking for an attack. We really did drag up even more trouble if it was something that ignored causality. Leader Han was the expert in esoteric attacks, which was why I was counting on him.
“Just a visual attack medium, I can be bait?” I asked. It was something we had done in the past.
“No. The strength of the thing is immense. It got through my defenses instantly.” I winced at that. It meant the monster could break the flow of events. It didn’t need countless cycles to probe Leader Han’s defenses. It automatically succeeded. I was already beginning to feel a headache forming. These types of fights were incredibly aggravating and dangerous.
One mistake and it would mean an instant loss. For a monster of this caliber, even a glancing wound could lead to exile from the Forever City to prevent the issue from cascading. “Nothing else approaching,” I let Leader Han know.
“It has probably already killed whatever else is out there. But it isn’t attacking through time. It is using another vector,” he said.
“It can’t be resonance, we have safe guards and Yuan Zhou is unconscious,” I said.
“Sleep.” Leader Han instantly realized the vector of attack. He reached out and put his hand on Yuan Zhou’s head. I waited patiently as we floated there in the astral plane. After a minute, he removed his hand. The sense of danger went away.
“Countered?” I asked.
“Yes. I had to decoy the monster away, it shouldn’t be back,” Leader Han said. I relaxed slightly at that. The sense of danger returned, and I tensed up again. “Hold his head.” I grabbed Yuan Zhou’s head with both of my hands while Leader Han pressed his palm over his closed eyes. I could barely sense the minute pulses of energy.
This was a battle of finesse, not power. Time continued to stretch as I kept an eye on our surroundings. “You, help me contain it, full barrier,” Leader Han said. I quickly pulled out the a metal box frame etched with multiple arrays.
I placed the box around Yuan Zhou’s head and Leader Han’s hands. I focused on creating a powerful barrier around his wrists and the other portions of the frame. Leader Han pulled his hands back a bit and the barriers began to pulse violently. It took all my remaining strength to keep them in place.
“Up slowly,” Leader Han said, and I raised the metal box frame up, adjusting the barrier around Yuan Zhou’s head until the box had completely cleared him. Once that was done I activated the arrays, to seal five of the six sides completely. Then Leader Han began to pull his hands out of the sixth side. Once he was clear, I sealed the last side.
The arrays were pushed to their limits, but the box held, and we both relaxed slightly. “Any lingering problems?” I asked.
“No. We should be clear. Same with Yuan Zhou here. A Thought Eater, we really did catch a big fish,” Leader Han said. The fact he used the name of the monster meant he fully believed that it was safely contained.
“At least we didn’t trigger a shark,” I said with a smile. That was one reason we were close to the Forever City. “How much?”
“At least two favors from anyone specializing in mental techniques. I would say four. Not easy to catch these things. If Yuan Zhou was awake, he would have instantly died instead of being used as a vector of attack. Luring and catching one, without looking at it, not simple,” Leader Han said. That was indeed a mighty catch.
It was a shame we hadn’t been able to catch that temporal monster. Leader Han could have used such a being. But it was better not to get greedy and take only what we could manage. A Thought Eater and a Dragon’s scale had more than paid for this expedition and then some. That was not counting everything else this trip had achieved as well.
“I do have concerns. That first monster, it could use him as a vector,” Leader Han said.
“The connection isn’t cut?” I asked worriedly.
“With cultivation remnants it will hunt him down. I got a sense of the thing. A Temporal Hunter, quite relentless,” Leader Han explained. Using the name of such a monster meant that it was no longer a threat to either of us at the moment.
“How long?” I asked.
“Impossible to say. Could be a cycle, could be a couple million. You were planning to send him on a trip. I suggest he goes up. If he ever comes back to the astral plane, then he would be attacked. Even other places in the Firmament would be risky,” Leader Han said. I frowned at this.
“I had other plans. Was going to use him to force a couple other factions into conflict and have him act as a third party,” I complained but didn’t object. “Anything higher has limited value. We could use him as bait?” I asked.
“No. The Temporal Hunter knows of me and was wounded. It won’t attack with me nearby, but I am not looking after your pet,” Leader Han said.
“Fine. I am sure I can come up with something that needs to be done. He will stagnate in the Mechanical Divide,” I muttered. That would upset some of my long term plans.
“Better some use than none. You already got value out of him. Everything else is profit. Unless you plan to keep him in the Forever City?” Leader Han asked me. I shook my head at this.
“No. That will draw too much attention. Sending him to the Mechanical Divide will be useful. Even if it slows down some long-term plans, he can make himself useful by finding some trinkets. If he survives,” I muttered.
“That is why I leave the complicated scheming to you,” Leader Han joked. That was our strength working togeather. He didn’t like schemes but enjoyed working out the esoteric skills and properties of our opponents. I was the reverse. I enjoyed my fights to be straight forward, while preferring to scheme in other areas. That dichotomy was what led to our successes both now and in the past.
That didn’t mean neither of us were capable in other areas, but we had our preferred methods that complimented each other. That was our strength both in combat and outside of it and the basis of our friendship. Still, if the benefits were big enough, we both knew there would be betrayal. Even an entire Dragon corpse wouldn’t be enough to split our resolve.
“I will arrange the sale of this thing. You want to sell or keep the scale?” Leader Han asked me. I considered the question. The favors would be split between us along with whatever credits were paid.
“A directional shield that I will keep. One can never have too many,” I replied. I was annoyed that I had lost a protection talisman but it was better to spend such an item than take a crippling injury. If those claws had struck me, death would have been the best outcome. Having more protection items was never a bad thing. I had several more saved up. The only problem was that they were only good in straight forward fights.
As Leader Han and I increased our strength, the threats had become more and more esoteric. Still, a Dragon was the perfect example of power triumphing over all else. It was tempting to consider a different combat style, but it would take too long to change and set me behind in my accumulation of strength and power.
“Now to get back,” Leader Han muttered, and I sent him a mental chuckle. “You know the barriers in place around the Forever City. We are going to have to find a continent and take public transport back.”
Leader Han hated traveling by cylinder ship, especially ones that were used to transport lesser cultivators. I just found it amusing. “You are too prideful. And you didn’t want to pay for a ship of our own,” I countered as we set off through the astral plane.
“The Heavenly Alliance should be called the Hellish Thieves with what they demand as payment to run cylinder ships. And we decided long ago that having a continent is just an extra headache neither of us want to manage in any way,” Leader Han said.
“That means hitching a ride on someone else’s cylinder ship,” I teased.
“And we will have to sit with the riff raff. We are faction leaders and our standing is considerable,” Leader Han complained. That was why he didn’t mind my schemes against the Heavenly Alliance and that den of thieves. Once a cultivator realized how truly shameless the leaders of the Forever City were, it would enrage anyone and would be too late to do anything.
I couldn’t help but look at Yuan Zhou, who I was dragging along. He thought that we were unbeatable powers, but there was always someone stronger. Even those at the peak of their super organizations had to contend with other super organizations and threats. The more powerful one became, the more everyone else tried to drag you down and the harder it became to advance.
It was survival of the fittest, both in terms of scheming and in terms of combat ability. If one did not have both, then they were not qualified to become stronger. And as frustrating as things could be, it did root out weakness. For the weak could only survive under the aegis of someone stronger than them. Yuan Zhou was lucky he was such a useful pawn on the gameboard. Perhaps he might even reach the rank of knight.
Like all other weak cultivators I could tell that he wondered how strong I truly was as his superior. Even I didn’t know. For only in combat would the truth be revealed, but that was a risky gamble unless, one was sure. I did know that Leader Han and I stood above other factions for a reason. People often mistook us as having protection deals from other factions, when they wanted us as protection for them.
But numbers and the pursuit of them was one of the many traps of the powers out there in the Firmament. It created a poor mentality to fight the esoteric threats that existed.