An array of Zhanghai samurai gliders flew down from the mothership toward the estate. Bullets and fireballs rushed up to meet them, but behind their goggles, the fliers deftly dodged all the incoming attacks. Zou Mei, strapped to a samurai who could glide, used her magnetism to carry a long shard of metal the size of a wall behind her.
“She’s gonna use that like a cannon!” Isaac realized. Reed frowned and grunted, while Dai Hong stepped up. He wore a leather bracer on a hand, nondescript outside of the Zhanghai characters etched into it. Dai Hong took a deep breath, and Isaac recalled the man was Circuit 3. His powerful activation made his straw cape billow and nearly knocked Isaac off his feet. Red energy trailed from him as he eyed the opening in the roof caused by the mortar strike. Up above, Zou Mei glided down towards him. The two locked eyes; her qipao fluttered in the wind.
Dai Hong made majestic motions with his arms. The Arcadian style of cultivation was more modern, more precise, resembling the quick strikes and thinking of boxing. In contrast, the Zhanghai style, the one practiced by those dating from the old sects, resembled art more than science. As his hands swept around, lighting struck the walls as energy built up in the bracer. Several samurai appeared behind him and knelt; energy flowed from their feet to form a circle around Dai Hong. His own energy then flowed, connecting with the circle, forming a crimson Zhanghai character beneath him. The glow of Rddhi illuminated the serene look on his face.
When his palm struck the air, the room thundered with the sound of a cannon shot - not the modern kind, but one dating hundreds of years to when gunpowder was rediscovered. A massive ball of fire and electricity sprung from his bracer and out through his palm, the circle coiling upwards around him before surging into his arm and adding to the blast. The rising pillar of energy circled and coalesced, turning into something resembling a massive rose-colored dragon. Dai Hong had not summoned a dragon; rather, his energy transformed into the shape of one, complete with snarling jaws that consumed the flyers it plucked from the sky. Multiple gliders got caught in the blast and were fried entirely; others merely grazed it with their legs or arms, but that was enough to set them on fire. They crashed into the darkness of the surrounding forest and hills.
When the dragon snarled for Zou Mei, the flier holding her nimbly twisted them out of the way. The dragon shot past them, taking out the fliers behind them. The remaining flyers flew off in temporary retreating, waiting for the blast to die down, but Zou Mei kept her eyes on the prize. She raised a fist and launched her metal shard, first dropping it below her, then reversing the magnetism so it would repulsed away from her. The shard streaked through the air, picking up kinetic energy until it arrived right atop the mansion. The dragon disappeared in a flash of crimson. Dai Hong redirected his remaining energy to form a shield over those in the room alongside him.
The shard cleaved right through the estate, slicing through the floors until planting itself through ground level. Even with the shield, the force knocked Isaac off his feet. He helped Reed to hers, then glanced down the new hole. The loyalist samurai on the first floor stumbled around in dazes; blood dripped down the shard. Isaac and Reed, along with the caped samurai in the room with them, were unharmed, but Dai Hong was a sight for sore eyes. He must’ve received only a glancing hit since he was still alive, but his left arm and leg were crippled. He sat against a wall, ragged breaths escaping his lips. When his cap threatened to fall from his head, Reed helped it back into place.
“There’s no further hope for me,” Dai Hong said with a surprising amount of clarity. “I will die here. Thank you for coming, cultivator marines, for you still may get my men out of here alive.”
The chairman said something in Zhanghai to his lieutenant. The samurai balked at the suggestion and the two had a rapid back-and-forth. Evidentially, the lieutenant wouldn’t leave his commander, but Dai Hong’s firmness finally made him hang his head in defeat.
“You too, cultivator marines,” Dai Hong added. “Go with my men. I’ll use the last of my strength to hold them off.”
“Hold on,” Reed interjected. “You said you could give us a way to Four Eagles from here.”
“You two are young,” he answered. “It’ll be a one way trip. Get out, while you still have time. There’ll be no going back once you embark upon the road there.”
Isaac heard explosions in the distance. “We got business at the end of that road.”
Dai Hong studied him for a moment, then conceded. “Very well.”
“Your men can still escape though,” Reed said. “If they can fight their way to the stone staircase down to the village, they can get out with our Lieutenant Derry. If there’s too many people, there’s trucks down there they can hijack. They can tell Derry we’re okay and going to finish what we started in Four Eagles.”
Dai Hong translated for his lieutenant. Once again he protested, but remained firm with his convictions until the two reached a compromise. “He will order the younger men to stage a breakout to the village so they may live another day. As for him, he will stay until the end.”
The lieutenant helped Dai Hong to his feet. Muffled footsteps drifted through the (what remained of) the roof above them - the gliders had arrived.
“Quickly, we must hurry!” Dai Hong ordered.
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With Isaac and Reed leading the way, the group of four headed down the stairs. Dai Hong used what remained of his strength to keep up a good pace while leaning on his lieutenant. When they arrived on the second floor, gliders entered through the broken windows. Reed slammed a sound wave into one, knocking him back out into open air, while Isaac and loyalist samurai already there engaged the others. Fortunately, the gliders all had their distinctive goggles, giving away their identity as enemies away in the sea of confusion and carnage. Despite it all, Isaac kept calm. Four Eagles had been just as confusing, and he made it out of that with just a wounded arm. He punched samurai into walls, blasted them through doors.
The lieutenant shouted orders at his men. They, too, protested, but the lieutenant took the place of Dai Hong in their earlier arguments. The loyalists relented and now engaged in a fighting retreat, holding off the gliders while the party made it down to the first floor. The scene was even more chaotic there. The Restorationists had reached the edge of the estate and tried to clamber over the broken windows inside. Sword slashes and fireballs kept most of them bay, but their numbers were overwhelming. Combined with the attack from above, the estate had now been breached.
The lieutenant dashed over to the mounted bear head above the fireplace and reached inside. He pulled out a hidden artillery shell covered in charms. He screamed the orders for a breakout to his men, and then, before they could have a chance to argue, he lit the side of it with a Rddhi-covered finger and hurled the shell through the window toward the cul-de-sac. Isaac felt a sharp tug on his collar; Dai Hong brought both of them to the ground. Isaac expected an explosion like no other, but instead, light erupted from the shell, followed by a shockwave.
Isaac felt his blood tense up - literally. His movements became restricted, and were it not for Dai Hong pushing energy into him via the palm on his way back, he would’ve become stuck in place. The loyalists could still move freely, but the gliders and Restorationists slowed down to nearly a standstill.
“A Zhanghai blood spell of my own creation,” Dai Hong explained. “Every one of my samurai here marked a charm with their blood and placed it on the shell. When it went off, those without blood on the shell will have their blood flow slowed, nearly freezing them.”
A younger loyalist gazed at Dai Hong with sorrowful eyes, then at Isaac and Reed.
"Be with the Chairman in his final moments," he requested in accented Common. He then nodded at the other loyalists. Most - but not all - used the opportunity to escape, dashing out through the windows, even the front door. Hills and forest surrounded the estate; the only way out was through the front, down towards the village. Isaac hoped Derry and his men were still in one piece.
“The spell will not last long,” Dai Hong said. “Let’s keep moving.”
The chairman sent a surge of energy into Isaac and Reed, freeing up their blood flow. The lieutenant helped Dai Hong along, and the four went down a back staircase into the basement. Up above them, the loyalists who refused to leave their commander cleared out the enemies inside the estate and prepared for one last stand. Already, Isaac could hear the fighting resume. The four arrived in a stone storage room filled with caskets of wine and meat. Reed eyed them for a moment, but to her credit, she resisted the urge and followed along. When they got to the back, they arrived at a metal door with no handle. Dai Hong placed his palm on where the doorknob would go, and then Rddhi raced along the outlines of the door until it clicked open.
Footsteps walked confidently down into the basement. Zou Mei’s qipao was now stained with red blood; the familiar iron spikes were magnetized to her hands.
“Father,” she greeted, anger dripping from her voice. “I thought we were closer now. You helped me conquer Four Eagles, but now that we meet again, you wish to flee?”
Dai Hong stalled for time by giving her a sheepish look. “Well…you did just destroy my villa and all-”
“You left me!” Zou Mei pointed an iron-spiked finger at him. “You promised we’d be a family!”
“Bringing you back would destroy my position!” Dai Hong answered. “I was adopted in our clan, I couldn’t cause them to lose face by bringing back an Arcadian family!”
“It’s because we were just gutter trash,” she corrected. “That’s how Zhanghai sees this country. Just one big pile of resources and people to exploit. And that’s how you saw Mother and I. Just a way to make your days a little brighter until you wrung us dry.”
“I was recalled home!” Dai Hong’s face softened. “I thought my goals justified abandoning you and your mother. I see now that it didn’t. Not one bit.”
The estate rocked from the battle above them. Dust floated down the wooden ceiling of the cellar. Zou Mei looked at her own reflection in her iron claw. “Make your peace with the afterlife, old man. It all ends today. Polyphemus will be ready by sunset, and we will have Kallipolis by dawn.”
The lieutenant lunged at her. Considering at the way everything had gone so far, Isaac expected him to be cut down in seconds, but energy flared up his sword and he held his own in the clash of metal. He wildly gestured for the trio to keep going; Dai Hong gave him a grateful nod as Isaac helped him through the door.
Reed remained behind. When she tried to close the door, Isaac stuck a foot in the way.
“The hell you doing?”
“I assume there’s a passageway to Four Eagles down here, and I assume the chairman has to do some funky cultivation to open it,” she surmised. “And that takes time. I’ll help the lieutenant buy some more for us.”
Isaac went to protest, but the look on Dai Hong’s eyes indicated she was right.
Reed gave him a grin. “This isn’t a sacrifice-my-life kind of scenario, Isaac. I fully intend on winning. And I told you long ago on the Melusine - I don’t feel a whole lot when enemies die, but when people I’ve fought beside do, I get a feeling I don’t particularly like.”
Zou Mei found an opening and swiped the lieutenant across the shoulder. He grimaced but kept fighting, his straw cape bouncing alone with each sword slash.
“Lock up after me,” Reed instructed the chairman. “But don’t you dare die until you’ve unlocked the door for me after my victory.”
Explosions boomed above them, while a storm of steel raged nearby. Isaac saw the look in her eyes and relented.
“I’ll see you in a few, Hibiscus Reed.”
She tilted her head with a cocksure grin.
“See you, Isaac Spallacio.”