Despite his mixed feelings about the situation, in the end, Zhen Shi remained within the safety of the Fortress formation.
'After all, having powerful teammates is part of my own strength... Yes! That's right! So there is nothing to be ashamed of! Not at all!'' and he satisfied himself as such.
As Zhen Shi pondered on this irrelevant matter, the many servants and workers in the area, even some customers, had become aware of Lord Turnbull's attempt to arrest some pavilion guests and the battle this had led to.
Following the sound of booming explosions, they had hurried over expecting to witness a hopeless battle; one where three lone disciples desperately tried to fight off the indomitable Lord Turnbull and his army.
The servants and workers who realized that their 'divine musician' was one of these three disciples couldn't help but begin to cry in worry and sorrow.
They had expected a pitiful and one-sided battle that would end within a few moments. But, on the contrary, what they witnessed was the awe-inspiring sight of a majestic sea-fortress defending against the attacks of a crooked rainbow!
Their jaws had hit the floor when they realized that this sea-fortress was a formation set up by the three disciples!
To their further surprise, this formation continued to hold strong against the Market Hall Curator renowned for his immense power in commanding armies!
The fans of the 'divine musician' couldn't help but rejoice at this surprising turn of events!
They had quickly come to find that Lord Turnbull was exercising his power to apprehend these fellow disciples that were expected to compete on the side of the Lyon family, simply based on the unfair claims of having attacked Will O'Dale.
This was undoubtedly rather suspicious...
However, they didn't dare complain or protest either. They remained silent and continued to watch on with great pity. Only the fans of 'the divine musician' held out strands of hope for the survival of their idol.
But deep down, each and every one of the spectators knew that the current stalemate between the two parties would be short-lived. Lord Turnbull had yet to go all out or even begin to use the vast resources available to him as a Hall Curator.
Thus, in their minds, the defeat of these three disciples was simply inevitable.
Unless of course, Lord Leslie was to return earlier than expected.
🐂🐂🐂
Disregarding the presence of the new audience, the rainbow globes of destruction continued to descend upon the fortress walls and explode in clouds of colorful qi. And yet, the timeless silver fortress stood undamaged at the very center.
Boom! Boom!
With each explosion wreaking havoc, the walls of the sea fortress slowly began to glow.
Boom! Boom!
As colorful explosions rained down, the sea fortress glowed brighter and brighter. Within a few moments, the fortress was emanating immense light; enough to momentarily blind anyone who stared for too long.
Zhen Shi who was still calmly standing within the very center of the fortress formation was barely able to discern that the fortress was gathering energy and had now reached a tipping point...
And then, just one more colored globe exploded upon the walls causing the bright glow of the fortress to reach a threshold.
Seeing this, Myne grinned as he pushed forward with two hands. The glowing energy of the fortress was instantly dragged out and gathered into a singular white sphere radiating a dangerous qi.
Myne's grin grew wider as he flicked his outstretched hands. Instantly the shadow of a grey cannon manifested and the white sphere was loaded inside of it like a cannonball.
Kaboom!
An echoing explosion rang out as the cannon fired. The white cannon-ball dashed forwards leaving behind a single white streak wafting in the air. The overpowering speed of the cannonball ripped the crooked rainbow apart as it shot towards Lord Turnbull and his army.
Seeing this sudden and unexpected attack, Lord Turnbull grimaced as he shouted out, "SHIELD!"
Instantly, every soldier brought out their weapons and lifted them into a defensive position.
Their perfect synchronized movements caused small shields of multi-colored qi to appear above them. In the next instant, the qi in each of these smaller shields weaved together, and formed a single giant shield from multiple patched shields of different colors!
However, it looked rather strange with all the different colors patched together, almost as if it was a woven quilt formed from multiple patches of discarded cloth. Nevertheless, the quilt shield was more than sufficient to defend against the incoming attack.
Bang!
The white cannon-ball struck against the multi-colored shield with a loud collision.
For a few moments, nothing happened as the two forces pushed against each other trying to gain the upper hand.
Suddenly a few cracks appeared on the multi-colored quilt shield. But at the same time, the intensity of the cannonball lessened...
And this struggle continued on for a while longer.
Ka-cha!
With the sound of glass splintering, the shield finally cracked apart! Rather unfortunately, the cannonball which has used up all its energy dissipated at the same time.
With the initial conflict over, silence reigned over the battlefield with only the shadows of the dissipating rainbow and the remnant white streak as evidence for the struggle that had taken place.
Lord Turnbull was just about to shout out something when Zhen Shi, who was still feeling slightly unhappy about being carried by his powerful teammates, beat him to it and shouted out with a mischievous grin, "Turnbull, when will you stop hiding behind your pretty little quilt and fight like a real man!?"
The veins on Lord Turnbull's face throbbed in rage as he scowled at the Sea-Fortress.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He could not see through the walls of the impenetrable Sea Fortress and thus could not figure out who it was that had spoken. As such, he stayed silent for a moment...
On the other hand, the crowd viewing the battle nodded their heads in agreement. Despite Lord Turnbull's ability and power, they couldn't help but agree with this logic.
After all, it made perfect sense for the formation master of the Sea Fortress to say this to Lord Turnbull who was leading an entire army!
But of course, they would've vomited blood had they known that the shout had come from Zhen Shi who was hiding within the formation himself.
Myne stared at Zhen Shi in disbelief and sent mentally, "How the hell can you be so shameless? You're doing the same thing!"
Zhen Shi had only realized the flaw in his logic the moment he shouted out. Even so, he wasn't embarrassed and simply shrugged while reassuring Myne with the following words, "If it's such a big problem to you, just think that I said it in your place!"
Vivienne who still had her hands on Myne's back couldn't help but laugh, while Myne continued to stare on in disbelief at this shameless brother of his.
But this happy moment was short-lived. Lord Turnbull, who had been unable to handle his anger when he had seen the agreeing faces of the spectators, finally roared out, "Edict: Charge of the Bull!"
Lord Turnbull had been directly applying the energy of his army in all of the previous attacks. Since that had been insufficient to destroy the fortress formation, he now channeled the energy through himself and into the apparition of the metallic bull behind him.
Instantly, torrents of qi were pulled out of the soldiers of the army causing their faces to visibly pale. These qi torrents combined with the shadow of the bull that had been behind Lord Turnbull this entire time, causing that shadow to grow stronger and more life-like.
Within a few moments, a terrifying metallic black bull with pearl white horns and bloody eyes filled with rage was floating above Lord Turnbull and his army.
It pawed the air with its hooves in a manner that would have kicked up dust had it been on the ground.
The bull lowered its head allowing the white horns to glint dangerously in the morning sunlight and snorted out clouds of grey smoke from its nose in a menacing manner.
Without a moment's notice, it dashed forwards causing a wave of qi and wind to blast out.
Meanwhile, Myne hurriedly communicated, "It appears that I overestimated this Lord Turnbull. He can only call upon the true würd to a limited extent. Just now he used some sort of external blessing or pact to summon the bull and send forth this attack. Even so, I don't think our formation can survive more than a few direct blows from this bull. So unless you have any ideas, I'll have to go all out to end this..." with a hint of hesitation.
Vivienne furrowed her brow in worry, but couldn't come up with any ideas of her own.
On the other hand, Zhen Shi frowned in thought and sent out, "This bull... It acted very realistically despite being formed out of qi and aether. Why?"
Myne answered hurriedly, "That... should be due to the influence of the mind. All the practices of magic are closely tied with the thoughts of the caster and his beliefs. Especially the way of the würd! A word will only hold power as long as the meaning is known. Just now, the manifestation of the bull was influenced by the thoughts and beliefs of Turnbull and his army that supplied the energy, causing the Bull to act as it did. Be it truth, lies, preconceptions, or prejudices, everything in their minds will affect a manifestation..."
Zhen Shi's eyes glowed brightly as he interrupted Myne and asked, "Last question. Do these Würd Wielders have complete control over their qi manifestations?"
Myne frowned for a moment, eyeing the bull that had already begun to charge towards them.
Finally, he resolutely shook his head, "No! Usually, the answer is yes, but unlike the previous attacks, this bull is an attack that has been greatly empowered with some form of external support. Thus Turnbull should have lost control the moment he launched the attack. In fact, I think he should've used a more direct attack instead of using an animated figure to show off his ability and power for no reason..."
Zhen Shi grinned confidently as he interrupted Myne once more, "Perfect! Now, all you need to do is to give me a device that grants me control of your formations!"
Zhen Shi knew that this was a rather sudden request that might be difficult to be satisfied under normal circumstances. However, he had noticed how Myne had used those bronze globes to bring out formation talismans as if they had been stored for later use, rather than creating them on the spot...
He could only conclude that it was a special device that allowed one to control more formation talismans than one could under normal circumstances. Thus, he held hope that Myne might have a similar device for controlling the formations as well.
Myne was confused by this request for a moment before he nodded his head deciding to believe in Zhen Shi.
With only a few seconds before the Bull reached them, Myne manifested a golden disc with inscribed formation talismans on it.
This golden disc was a tool that was commonly used by formation masters to grant control of large scale formations to others when they were not present to control them.
Myne threw the disc at Zhen Shi and mentally explained, "This is a modified formation controlling disc and will give you control over all of my formations within a 1 km range. Just visualize what you need to happen."
Zhen Shi nodded as he gripped the golden disc and quickly began to command the formations as he deemed fit.
Myne and Vivienne stared rather blankly expecting some miraculous change to take place in the sea fortress.
Perhaps an extremely strategic movement, an unorthodox means of attack, or even some form of divine intervention that enhanced the power of the formation, but nothing happened to the Fortress formation.
Instead, a sudden and powerful roar came out from just below the Sea Fortress.
Zhen Shi hadn't used the golden disc to control the sea fortress. Instead, he had used it to free Will O'Dale who had been trapped just below the pavilion!
Instantly, the formation restraining Will retreated and formed a single formation talisman attached to the back of his neck.
Will O'Dale who was still under the influence of that Divine Curse was seething in scarlet rage and a deep desire for battle. The moment he had been freed he had roared out in rage and murderous intent while searching for a suitable outlet to release his battle rage.
On one side Will could see was a golden pavilion and a calm sea fortress within a floating sea of qi. On the other, he could see a powerful army and an enraged bull charging towards the aforementioned boring and stationary sea fortress.
So as on which side to attack and release his pent up rage, Will made the obvious choice.
Immediately letting out another roar causing that strange scarlet energy to manifest around him, he dashed towards the raging bull while brandishing his unarmed fists.
Previously, the restrained Will O'Dale had been ignored by everyone. But now, his sudden appearance and double roar had made him the central focus.
All the spectators including Laura and Hao Lei gawked at this sudden attacker that had popped out from nowhere.
Lord Turnbull's face frowned in disbelief, while even the thoughtless army behind him paused in surprise.
Myne and Vivienne were confused as to why Zhen Shi had released Will O'Dale, sending him to an obvious and purposeless death...
On the other hand, the manifestation of the Black Bull had been innocently and happily charging forward to destroy the fortress just like it had been commanded.
But suddenly, the Bull's vision had fallen upon some puny human who had the guts to roar at it in an obvious challenge.
To make matters worse, this puny human was completely covered in the cursed color of, RED!
Now the innocent bull could choose between attacking a silent fortress that was minding its own business or... this arrogant human that was covered in red and was actually dared to insult its grand bull pride!
So, just like Will had done before, the Bull who was enraged by the sight of the color red made the obvious choice. With a snort of hissing smoke, the Bull promptly changed course and charged towards the arrogant red fellow, innocently and happily of course.
Zhen Shi watched on with eyes filled with pride towards his own genius intellect. Sure, he had to take a peek into the {Scholarly Library} to make sure his plan would work... but still!
However, while Zhen Shi was patting his own back, everyone else was rather confused...
Myne and Vivienne stared with widened eyes at this strange event.
Lord Turnbull felt his head exploding in rage as his own attack was now charging towards 'the victim' he had come to save. This turn of events was a slap to his own face!
The silent spectators were even more confused, 'What the heck is that? Why is the Lord Curator attacking his own subordinate? Didn't he come to save that poor kid? Or has the Lord lost control of his own bull?'
However, the most confused and pitiful was Will O'Dale.
The sight of the raging bull charging towards him with power enough to shatter Myne's fortress formation had jarred his sub-conscious slightly awake from the effects of the divine curse.
Poor Will had immediately realized that colliding with this monstrous beast would spell certain death for him. But with only his sub-conscious awake he was unable to make his body run away or even dodge. Helpless to change the situation he could only watch on in despair while cursing his own misfortune.
An innocent and happy bull facing a red target that continued to curse mentally... head towards a collision.