Despite how large the meeting hall was, there were only three people there. The high ceilings and broad walls weren't exactly being used efficiently, but that was how Jia Xu liked it. In rooms like these, her presence would be more intimidating.
She glanced at Taeyun, who seemed to be thinking something similar. The man evoked a Kirin but felt more like a wolf than anything else. He smiled, but the warmer his expression looked the more dangerous it was to be in his presence.
Between the two of them, it felt like a competition to see whose presence was more intense. Especially now that they could finally unleash their ambition, the niceties they'd been forced to maintain in Canton seemed like fragments of a mostly forgotten dream.
On the other hand, Joyce was…
Joyce was sitting as though she was in her house. She had one leg carelessly slung over the other and was leaning back in her seat with an unaffected air. The girl was holding a cup of bubble tea in one hand.
Jia Xu blinked. When the hell had Joyce got time to buy that? Thinking back, she vaguely remembered seeing a few other soldiers in black robes holding similar cups.
She had a feeling it wouldn't be easy to pressure Joyce.
"It looks like taking Changsha will be easy enough," Taeyun said. Joyce grinned.
"Dope," she said, taking a sip of her bubble tea. A bubble jammed the end of the straw and made a horrible slurping noise.
"Sorry," Joyce said, not looking sorry at all.
"That's alright. Shall we get down to business then?" Taeyun asked. He waited for Joyce to nod before continuing. "The Jade Marshal Wu Peifu's amassing troops at the border between Hunan and Hubei. He's gathered his best weapons and a good chunk of his soldiers, and all of the shamans in his territory. In total, there are about 30,000 soldiers and 400 shamans."
Jia Xu didn't think 30,000 enemies were too many. The Triple Alliance had over 40,000 troops, after all. The problem was that Wu Peifu was a great strategist and great at defense. Jia Xu didn't doubt that it would take time and effort to break through the defense line.
The real problem was that the Triple Alliance couldn't just kill everyone. They were fighting in the name of justice and restoring peace. If they plowed through 30,000 people like grass, people would be scared that after the tyranny of the warlords they'd be facing the tyranny of the shamans. In the end, numbers did matter, and if people resisted en masse it'd be a problem.
Not to mention that Wu Peifu could easily gather at least 10,000 more unconscripted minors before they'd plowed through. After that, he could probably assemble another 10,000 elderly, and then 10,000 more of whoever he got his hands on.
To avoid that, it would have to become a prolonged battle. When this possibility had come up in the original plan, the consensus had been to swerve east into Jiangxi to take on Sun's faction, but then immediately swerve left again to eradicate Wu Peifu with the majority of their forces while a small percentage kept Sun at bay.
But that plan was only necessary if you didn't have a spirit-sent.
"We definitely want to avoid a drawn-out battle, but I also want to keep casualties low as much as possible," Taeyun continued. Joyce nodded.
"But that would be very difficult," Jia Xu added on. "And morale is very high right now. We want to avoid bringing it down this early in the campaign."
Joyce nodded again. "So what are your thoughts?" she asked, looking at them innocently over her bubble tea.
"We need your strength," Jia Xu said gently, a slew of persuasions at the tip of her tongue.
"Yes, this is really a time when we need great figures to emerge," Taeyun added smoothly.The two of them had a tacit agreement to team up against Joyce until she agreed, and Jia Xu could do this all night.
"Okay," Joyce said. The teenager gave them a thumbs up and took another sip of her drink, pausing to shake loose a boba pearl that had lodged itself into the straw.
She looked up at their expressions of forced calm. "I'll do it," she said simply. "Please leave the methods to me though."
Jia Xu and Taeyun quickly gave their agreement.
"Alright, I'mma go prepare a bit then, we got anything else to talk about?" Joyce asked.
"No, let's end this meeting now. We need to leave Chairman Lee some time to prepare," Jia Xu said, gently patting Joyce's shoulder. The girl must have nerves of steel, Jia Xu didn't think that even Feng Xia could compare.
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She followed Joyce out the door, looking at the girl's back intently. The only thing that she could see was the ponytail that swung back and forth across Joyce's shoulder blades.
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"Chairman, I think I hate you," Kiyoko said calmly.
"Why? I like you a lot," Joyce said. Kiyoko tried not to slam her head into the car window. Joyce actually seemed amused at the reaction, as if the shaman wasn't the one dragging Kiyoko straight to the front lines with a paltry 100 shamans.
"This is a terrible idea," Kiyoko grit out. "Chairman, you know I can't protect you against bombs and tanks, right?"
"Don't worry, the tanks are the ones who need to be protected from me," Joyce said confidently. "I'll keep you guys safe so just do your job and punch anyone who gets close enough to stab me."
Kiyoko groaned in despair. Even if they had way fewer soldiers than the other factions, why the hell did Joyce cave in after less than twenty minutes? And even if Joyce agreed, why the hell did she have to set out the very next day with such a small number of people? Kiyoko would've been less worried if Joyce had at least brought Spade along, but she had sent Spade elsewhere.
Joyce squinted at the mountains further in the distance and picked up the communication radio.
"Alright everyone, get ready to cast your portions of the ward, and defense, do your thing too," Joyce shouted into the speaker. "Don't bother powering it up, everyone just do your part! On the count of three,"
"Wait, literally right now?!" Kiyoko squeaked.
"Three, two, one! Start casting, guys!" Joyce shouted. Kiyoko stared in confusion at the sky where Joyce was looking, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.
"Selva's right," Joyce said, tossing the communication radio to Kiyoko. "Our shamans are subpar compared to the others. But who cares? They're trained in the basics. So long as any of them only have to do simple tasks, we'll do just fine."
Kiyoko shuddered a little at the Cheshire grin on Joyce's face. It was about as creepy as hearing a kid's voice in an abandoned factory filled with vats of pig blood.
"Alright, everyone prepare to replenish your part of the ward whenever it starts weakening! I'm going to dump a truckload of energy through so please be careful or this will take forever," Joyce said into the radio, leaning across Kiyoko to speak into it.
A strange feeling filled the car. It was as though the air pressure had increased until Kiyoko felt like her ears would pop, or almost like some kind of shockwave. Both Kiyoko and the driver winced, frozen in place by the oppressive feeling.
Kiyoko looked at Joyce's face, a surge of fear rising at the calm smile on the spirit-sent's face.
'Shit. So this is the Sixth Apostle I'm looking at right now,' Kiyoko thought fearfully.
The person next to her was no longer the headache-inducing Chairman with a tendency to say and do the most ridiculous things possible.
The person next to her was the Sixth Apostle.
'Well shit," Kiyoko let out a slow, shaky breath as she slowly adjusted to the pressure and was able to breathe again.
She couldn't see what Joyce and the shamans were doing, but through the car windows, she could see the shamans in the next car looking into the sky with a mix of awe and horror. Kiyoko glanced at her phone, where messages were pouring into the group chat. Kiyoko briefly scrolled through before setting her phone aside again.
It seemed that after today, the country would really acknowledge Joyce as the Sixth Apostle.
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Taeyun chuckled as he looked at the giant ward in wonder. Who the hell would have thought? Other than Helang, the guy had great instincts.
"Did I make a big mistake here?" Taeyun said mildly so that only Helang could hear. Helang sighed and only patted Taeyun on the shoulder.
"Do you really want to hear me say 'I told you so'?" Helang grumbled.
"At least we know what she has up her sleeve now," Taeyun replied. He shot Helang a grin. "No wonder she was so confident even with such a weak base, this is probably what most of her attacks look like."
"You won't be so happy when you face that on a battlefield and she's got a few thousand shamans casting at you. It'll be hell to defend against that," Helang said. Taeyun laughed and shook his head.
"I won't fight a monster like that! If I do then I'll run, so cover my retreat then," Taeyun said.
Helang sighed again. "Looks like I'll be getting a lot of hazard pay then…look at that goddamn ward, that kid hasn't forgotten what we did in the slightest. I'll bet she would bite us the second she can," he said.
Taeyun looked quietly at the giant ward above the enemy line. He probably should've seen it coming when he decided to use obscure curses that affected the spiritual circuits – there have only ever been rules for curses relating to that. But Joyce seemed to have adapted the very curses used on her to her own purposes, different enough that it didn't violate any of the codes or laws.
The curse had been adapted into a ward that would cripple normal energy circuits as opposed to spiritual circuits – from extreme fatigue to organ failure, it was certain to devastate the enemy without causing a high death rate. It would have been a pipe dream for anyone else, but Joyce wasn't just anyone. She was a brat with enough power to actually make it work.
The ward had enough energy pouring through that its pieces were being constantly re-cast in order to maintain it. With the strength of the energy pouring through, it would be a miracle if the ward didn't immediately take effect.
"What does this even count as? A biological weapon?" Helang muttered uneasily. The man slowly lit a cigarette, lighting another one for Taeyun.
Taeyun took it without looking away from the ward. "Kids really grow so fast. She sure chose something good, huh?"
There were no international laws that prohibited the use of something like this because something like this didn't exist. Shamans could dispel the effects of normal biological weapons, but usually also didn't have enough power to make a curse work on a large number of people. As such, no one even bothered researching a useless weapon like that.
"Damn it, this kid's really more sly than I thought," Taeyun continued. "After this, she will definitely be feared throughout the country."
"So we ended up giving her inspiration," Heland sounded distinctly annoyed. Taeyun chuckled mirthlessly.
"I was trying to get rid of an annoyance, but it seems like I only made it worse," Taeyun said flatly. "She was only nominally acknowledged as spirit-sent before, but now…"
"Now, she has truly become the Sixth Apostle."