The dynamic of the battle around the formation core shifted with the addition of Velvet. Two Integration cultivators and the interference of the formation augmenting their energy were a more worthy match for the Augmentation dagger saint. Instead of a battle where Timothy was barely holding on, the balance had shifted to one where Kristel wanted to finish the battle as quickly as possible. It wouldn’t be long before additional reinforcements arrived, and at that point getting out alive would barely be possible, let alone achieving her goals.

Timothy’s wounds were worse than hers, with one lung and his heart damaged… but she had also taken severe damage to her kidney. Her tactics shifted as she moved about the room. Velvet attacked her every time there was an opening, and it took all of her focus to keep the other woman in her perception while fending off Timothy’s attacks.

The battle rapidly shifted around the room, but instead of moving towards Catarina it pulled away from her. Timothy didn’t mind that, until her intentions became clear. Her daggers flashed out towards nothing- or at least none of the targets Timothy had been concerned about. Neither himself, Velvet, nor Catarina. But delicate components at the core of the formations were in the room.

Her daggers stabbed into undefended components, though the motion left her open to attacks from Velvet and Timothy. Velvet aimed for her upper arm, clearly intending to cripple her offensive ability. Kristel twisted her body to avoid that while still completing her attacks. Timothy slashed at her leg, his attack finding purchase but not as deep as he wished.

An explosion of energy rocked the room, sending the three of them flying. In the moment it took Timothy to regain his bearings, he lost track of her. He rushed towards the open vent, hoping to block her egress… but encountered nothing. “Anything, Velvet?”

Velvet shook her head. “She’s gone.”

“Sorry, Catarina,” Timothy said, approaching her as she strained with control of the formation. “I couldn’t do it. I’ll at least catch her.” Soldiers were bursting into the room at this point, but there was no one for them to take out.

“Do not worry yourself,” Catarina grimaced. “In fact, focus on your own wounds before pursuit. And do not think you failed. For what you had to deal with… this is a good result.” She took a deep breath, the flow of energy changing, “And we are not without redundancies. If a planetary barrier could fall to a simple scratch, it would hardly be of use.”

She had a good point. Several good points, really. He had his own wounds to take care of. The bleeding was one problem, but there was a poison as well. He already felt his muscles locking up.

“In addition to all of that,” Catarina said. “The formation has now fully locked onto her energy so we can track her wherever she goes in her attempt to escape.”

That was something Timothy wished he had heard first. Or maybe immediately after the taking care of his own wounds bit.

-----

Uzun grumbled as Eterna continued to block the beam meant for Abhilash or that morningstar fellow. Obviously he didn’t expect to perfect an Ascension class weapon immediately, but it was frustrating for it to be completely ignored. And in truth, Ascension class was insufficient. The lower realms didn’t seem to have Augmentation cultivators, but there were more than a few here. And while they might have merely been one individual out of many billions, across all of the planets in a myriad of systems, their existence was clearly not unique.

With the stupid laser almost out of power, Uzun had one more thing to try. The whole thing was supposed to be on an orbital defense platform to avoid atmospheric interference and especially barrier conflicts, but it took more than a handful of decades to put together the infrastructure to construct such things. He briefly stopped the flow of power as he finely tuned the beam, overriding several safeties in place. He was almost certainly going to melt the weapon, but if he caused any damage he would be satisfied.

He flipped the final switch to return the beam to full power, guiding the flow of energy with his own. To most outside observers, it wouldn’t look like much had changed. In fact, it would even appear that the beam grew smaller. Which was technically true. It was more narrowed and focused. Less of it would scatter in the atmosphere.

He aimed the beam right for the eye of the axe cultivator Abhilash. He got a momentary squint before Eterna was in the path of his beam once more, the center of her shield directly blocking the beam. That reminded Uzun of another missing factor, rapid and automatic redirection. It shouldn’t be too difficult to redirect the beam with mirrors to instantly change targets, and at such a distance it would force any would-be defender to try to keep up with the speed of light. Only a fraction of it as they were at a distance, but rapidly switching directions would be impossible. Or use a vast quantity of energy.

But instead of that, Uzun was going with a less technically impressive and much more boring straightforward approach. The beam strained against Eterna’s defensive energy for a moment before melting a pinpoint hole through it… and if he was lucky, into her hand or arm behind it. Either way, her reaction was quite indignant before the laser sputtered to a halt as part of it melted.

-----

The two waiting Augmentation cultivators wouldn’t miss such a golden opportunity. Even a minor distraction for the bulwark Eterna was critical, and the saint of light was occupied by Everheart. Thus, in the moment Eterna was blocking for Abhilash, Zazil locked down the backup morningstar saint’s movements, dozens of rings zipping around and blocking his motion. While he smashed several apart in the next instant, Tauno sprang on him. His spear pierced into the man’s shoulder, stopped by bone and muscle before it could reach his heart.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Eterna was only occupied for a moment when the attack on her faded away. She and Abhilash sprang into motion immediately, but Tauno danced around the third Augmentation cultivator as the axe swung towards him. “You sure you can deal with us right now?” he laughed. “Your fancy saint of light is going to die.”

-----

The saint of light foolishly destroyed the next two closest projections of Everheart. As for the reason it was foolish to take out enemy combat power, it was because he had fallen into one of the many traps available for him. He was now surrounded, with Everheart in all directions. No matter what orientation was considered, the projections and whichever was the real one were spread out around him in all directions.

Each of them held a bow. As they drew their bow back, arrows appeared on the strings formed of pure energy. Upper energy was of course the everyday standard of the upper realms, but the combined amount wasn’t something the saint of light could ignore. Ten bows fired simultaneously, and the saint of light instantly flickered away. He couldn’t move at actual lightspeed, especially not close to a gravity well, but his speed was exceptional.

Which was why when he ran into an invisible barrier that the impact was that much stronger. Each projection acted as a formation flag. Every arrow was released, firing towards the center of Everheart’s personal formation and curving around to strike at the saint of light.

“Tricks won’t save you!” the saint of light growled as he clawed at the incoming attacks, blasting them to pieces.

“You think this is a trick?” the words echoed from all directions. “You’re trapped here now. You can only die.”

“As if I would be without options. All I have to do is…”

The saint of light flickered, his body disappearing before reappearing in front of one of the Everhearts. His leg stabbed out like a spear, intending to impale the projection. Instead, light sprayed out in all directions as he encountered a force he couldn't break through.

“Do you think I’m so stupid as to not make the barrier cover me?” Everheart grinned. “I told you, you’re trapped.”

“You can’t block both outside and inside.”

“Can’t I?” Everheart raised an eyebrow. “I am the foremost expert on formations, and yes I have seen the Exalted Quadrant’s ‘grand formations’. Unimaginative and dull. Stymied by worthless rules and lacking creativity. Even worse… budgets,” Everheart grimaced. “Besides, your allies can’t come save your ass right now. They’re busy.”

“Then I’ll simply break out with force!” Hans roared. He launched himself across the space of the formation- somewhere around ten kilometers across- targeting the opposite Everheart. There was another great explosion but…

“I told you,” Everheart said. “My formation is invincible.” He held his head high.

The various projections began to slowly drift towards each other, limiting the area Hans could move. He attacked wildly, targeting every projection or random points in between. One of them caused Everheart to flinch. The saint of light had nearly accidentally stumbled upon the actual trick behind his ‘unbreakable’ formation.

But it was too late now. He’d already expended too much energy attacking Xankeshan, and Everheart had come in fresh. Each projection pulled out the best weapons Everheart had. The best he’d ever collected of every type, except for the bow… and the sword. Every projection narrowed in on the saint of light at once, attacking with diverse techniques yet with perfect coordination. Because while Everheart couldn’t stand teamwork, he could at least deal with himself for a short time.

A flash of light… and two figures remained. The saint of light with half a dozen weapons sticking out of him, and Everheart himself. It was unfortunate to lose the rest of his projections, but he didn’t mind too much. He chopped off the saint of light’s head and tossed it into a convenient orbit, then began retrieving his weapons. And the saint of light’s storage bag, of course. Hopefully he had a functional key to the deeper vaults.

-----

Chidi was far too busy fighting to notice other battles happening in the skies above. The sword cultivators of the Exalted Quadrant were far too diverse to handle carelessly. Unlike the Harmonious Citadel, he did not know all of their moves ahead of time. Thus, he had to survive and adapt. It was fortunate that most of them were focused on the grandmaster. If they wanted to stand even a shadow of a chance against her, that was the way things had to be. But Chidi was still greatly outnumbered, including by some who should be his technical match based on their cultivations.

He should lose this battle, by the numbers. He knew it. There was only so much his blade could do to elevate him. But the very confidence that they were going to win was what allowed him to cut down cultivator after cultivator. None of them individually thought they would be the one to bring him down. Or even if they did, it was merely passing fancy. They simply didn’t believe it.

But was that enough to win? No, it was not. Chidi had to pull out every trick he had. Even as he cut down cultivators, he moved in such a way to use the energy of the group against them. It was a great many things to keep track of, but such it was with all formations. The changing nature of it was only normal. And in a way, the very skill of the enemy worked against them in the form of consistency, if not predictability. They would vary their attacks so he couldn’t exactly predict them, but he could at least count on them to try to attack from a certain area and shift the flow of energy there. He couldn’t force them to create the remains of a formation solely on their own, instead fulfilling that role with each slash of his sword as he took down enemies.

He constantly searched for dangers, allowing minor injuries to avoid greater. And that sometimes meant lesser organs being impaled when he couldn’t let a blade slip between them. He had several swords still in him, causing him to wince every time he tensed his muscles. But as much as it hurt him, their owners were worse off. Chidi could see why Chikere would wish to use more swords. It was inconvenient to have them sticking into him. And he could pull them out with a bit of energy… but that would alter the flow too much all at once. Especially since some of them were now part of his cultivations.

But he had to fight. It wasn’t just for his former comrades who had risked their lives to gain ground on the Harmonious Citadel. This was Xankeshan. His home where he was born. Where he’d been raised by his parents. Where he had met his dearest friend Aconite. And he would defend it to his last breath. Or preferably the last breaths of his enemies.