"This is preposterous! I demand the thief to be punished!" A tall man with blue hair stood up from his chair and pointed his finger at a figure veiled in a purple robe that sat at the other side of a large triangular table. The room was fairly spacious and lavishly decorated, three distinctive people sitting in the three corners of the triangle. One of them spoke up, displeased by the ruckus the man was making.
"Water Dragon Lehaim, this is the council chamber, not your bedroom!" The eloquent, yet imposing person with bright green eyes and black hair spoke with a strict tone and the troublemaker quickly sat back down.
"Esteemed Immortal Wu Zayed, I only demand justice! The Purple Lotus Sect deceived us!" Although seated, the man in blue-white robe was still awkwardly pointing his finger in the same direction.
"Justice!" The accused snorted, she was none other than The Purple Flash, a well-known hero of Jinsheng. She sneered in the Water Dragon Sect Elder's direction and responded calmly. "In your greed, you have refused the riverside region, because you thought that your sect will be easily able to conquer it later, or perhaps instigate some trouble using its river?"
She said teasingly, but continued before the Elder could refute her claim.
"I stand behind my previous words. The Water Dragon Sect has already claimed the Orlov region and has no right to claim more land." Yen said with finality and looked away from the man, as if the debate had ended.
"That land is infested with deadly Void monsters!" The Elder exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. He did not know how, but he was sure that the Purple Lotus Sect was heavily involved in the matter.
"We are not at a grocery store, you cannot return what you have claimed. Unless someone is willing to trade their land with you." A woman of petrifying beauty chuckled, folding her fan. Her hair were half-black and half-white, divided like night and day, even her eyes shared the same pattern.
Lehaim's eyes desperately scanned the other cultivators present in the room, but he found no pity in them. Not a single person was willing to help out a fallen sect that had met a disaster due to its greed. Elder Lehaim cursed his earlier decision to refuse the riverside region due to his great ambition that resulted in the current situation of his sect being homeless.
"Immortal Yang Zhi is right. The Water Dragon Sect had already laid claim to a region and will not be in possession of another unless all other sects receive another plot of land as well. This matter is closed." Wu Zayed confirmed to end the Elder's complaints.
Lehaim looked around and saw all the other Elders sagely nodding their heads. He wanted to shout at them, calling them greedy filth, but he knew that he lost this match. All he could do was damage control. He was confident that the Water Dragon Sect had enough forces to conquer the infested fort and its dungeon, but he was afraid of the cost. The number of Void monsters was unknown and the Void Mojo was a difficult attribute to fight. Additionally, the heavy presence of Void usually signified some trouble with space, something he would like to avoid. If the loses were too heavy, it would have a huge impact on the power balance between the sects.
The Water Dragon Sect could remain without land, but it was a choice that would lead to a slow, but sure decline.
The Elder's ears perked up, when he noticed that instead of helping him, The Council had prepared for him a nasty surprise. He did not know if it was on purpose or not, but his hands gripped the chair until it creaked when he listened to it.
"After hearing the news of your progress, I think that the assigned regions should be secure and partially developed until the end of this year. We have agreed to perform an inspection of your fortifications at that time. The sects that fail to build appropriate fortification and ensure the security of their land by then will have their right for the land stripped from them and distributed to more capable hands." Immortal Wu Zayed proclaimed without expecting any discussion, as it had been agreed upon by the three Immortals.
Water Dragon Lehaim's face turned grim. He had obviously no more time playing politics, he had to act immediately.
"Let's move to the next agenda on the program, we need to improve out ability to produce enchantments at scale to support our expanding forces." Immortal Yang Zhi said in her velvet voice and Lehaim suppressed an urge to vomit.
"Bah, they work together too well. I wonder if the two do each other as well in private,in their overly expensive Immortal chambers." Lehaim thought venomously while slowly calculating his sect's casualties, ignoring the further discussions of The Council. The sect leaders and Immortals were happy to ignore him as well, trying to grab onto all the resources they could.
When the meeting finally ended, Lehaim stood up and left the chamber though its huge door that had been opened by four guards exactly when their session ended. Surprisingly, he had not gotten too far, before a silky hand grabbed him by his shoulder with unexpected strength and forced him to shift his attention to a woman in purple robe he did not like one bit.
"What is the meaning of this? Get your hand off me!" He said angrily in a low voice, readying himself for an attack. During their violent times, he would have not been surprised by a cue, or an assassination in a broad daylight.
"Easy old man, we need to talk." She said in a neutral tone, releasing her hold.
"What makes you think I will talk to you, Elder Yen? If you'd like to rub some salt into the wounds of others, I have better things to do." Lehaim was in no mood for provocations, but the Elder of the Purple Lotus Sect seemed determined to make the meeting happen.
"I see why your cities were overrun. You fail to see the big picture." She answered coldly and the Water Dragon Lehaim had to take a deep breath to calm down. He wanted to send the women where digested food belonged and walk away, but something was telling him that it was not a good idea.
Even on his way to Jinsheng, he knew that many sects mingling together in the limited space of a single city was tricky. He had to play along if he wanted to survive.
"Get us a private room." He said to a nearby guard and the man immediately began to lead them to a private place in the palace. Naturally, Lehaim had to consider the conversation very much public, because he had no confidence in the owner of the building that belonged to the Immortals.
"Five minutes." He said to The Purple Flash as they followed the guard through the huge halls of the palace. According to the paintings and murals on the walls, Jinsheng had seen better days, still it was better off than his old city that turned to ash some time ago. The paintings of prosperous fields, booming industries and lavish parades might one day turn into reality in Jinsheng, but there would be only thistle and grass at where his old Water Dragon Sect stood.
When the door to a cozy private room finally closed behind them, he turned to his colleague, his expression full of hostility.
"Well, go on. You can start to mock me." Lehaim said, trying to act indifferently.
"Elder Lehaim," Yen walked to a chair and sat down, not touching the prepared glass in front of her. " have you seen the paintings on the way here?"
"Obviously, get to the point." Lehaim remained standing, but nervously poured himself a glass of green liquid with an exotic aroma. He planned to taste some liquor if he had to waste time listening to his competition.
"I lived though them all." Yen leaned into the chair and Lehaim nearly cursed out aloud, sensing that the conversation was not going to be quick as he had expected. "The first picture is decades old, it was painted by a man close to out family. He always told me how proud he was of what I had become."
Yen stopped looking at Lehaim and began to stare out of the window.
"A prodigy of one hundred years, that is what he called me and I believed him. I studied and trained with all my heart until I became one of the best youngsters of the Purple Lotus Sect. I threw myself into even the most dangerous missions for my beloved city and they started to call me The Purple Flash, a nickname for a young heroine who was an example to all the others of our generation. I met my husband on one of our missions, we fell in love and I love him to this day. He was so proud that he had our two boys, he always wanted to have sons to carry on the lineage."
"Hmph." Lehaim raised him eyebrows, not knowing why the Elder of the Purple Lotus Sect was bothering him with her sob story.
"Then one of my boys died in a raid supported by a traitor of the city and I was devastated." She stopped looking out of the window and turned her head to look at Lehaim. "I searched frantically for the traitor high and low, but all was in vein. All traitor scum should die."
Lehaim gulped hastily, nearly chuckling on his green liquor. The menacing look in Elder Yen's eyes when she spoke about the traitor was giving him goosebumps.
"And the other one of my boys was killed shortly as well." Her tone turned even colder and she stood up from the chair.
"My husband turned into a drunkard and my beautiful city remained beautiful only on those paintings, falling apart." She stepped closer to Lehaim, looking directly into his eyes.
"All I have left are the kids of The Purple Lotus Sect that are barely scraping by and the city that has closely avoided its destruction. If you plan to scheme and play politics despite everything around us burning to dust, Jinsheng's very existence at stake, you are a traitor to the city and I will kill you right here, right now." She was just inches from his face, her purple eyes staring into his own with determination he had not seen for a long time.
"What is this about Elder Yen?" Lehaim whispered, alarm in his voice. He had not anticipated that the leading Elder of the native Purple Lotus Sect was a bit crazy.
"Do you plan throwing stones under my feet using the river, or will we cooperate in the name of the city? I have some information about the threat that concerns the Orlov region." She held her gaze, observing the Water Dragon Sect Elder's reaction. "In other words, are you here to parasite on Jinsheng's resources, or can we cooperate to make the paintings the reality again?"
"Huh." Lehaim huffed, studying his colleague's face. "Words are as cheap as leaves in the forests outside, you have to show sincerity first."
He was an experienced Elder and had seen women both grovelling and playing theatrics in front of him. Life has taught him that resolve not backed by actions was just a useless pose.
"Fine, let me join the forces that are going to subdue the Orlov region." She responded without hesitation.
"To let your people in our back? Are you insane?" A pincer attack was a disaster Lehaim needed the least.
"It will be only me and a small unit of people, nothing big." Yen caught up on the misunderstanding without delay.
"You seem too confident in dealing with the Void monsters." Lehaim was still suspicious, as according to his calculation, the Purple Lotus Sect should have no love for his own. They really had plotted to use the river running through their region for a diversion, an easy task for a clan of cultivators with Water and similar Mojos.
"I have some guesses about their nature and I have a solution in mind that should spare a lot of lives." She presented him with a response full of uncertainty, but Lehaim would have not trusted her anyway.
"This does not makes sense, there is no benefit in it for your sect." Lehaim gulped the last drop of the liquor and placed his glass back on the table near him.
"That is untrue, Elder Lehaim, you should have listened to what I have said earlier more closely." Yen shook her head and turned to leave, opening the room's door.
"I will be awaiting your response." She left, Elder Lehaim starting at the closed door for some time, deep in thought.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"I am in no position to play it safe any longer, let's see what will come out of this deal." He left the room as well, not sure what to think about his political enemy turning collaborator in a matter of minutes.
* * * *
After their grave-digging experience and the following intrusion, the mood of the teenagers was naturally, grave.
As well as the mood of the entity entrapped in a black stone that was pondering on how to find out what the city was planning. Karl was sure about one thing concerning the human society, humans did not give up when they smelled resources, unless they burned their fingers badly while getting them.
And with no casualties, Elder Lehaim's fingers had not been burned at all!
"Maybe I have miscalculated and should have killed just a few." Karl felt like pressed in between two stones with higher hardness than he had.
According to the original plan, he should be training his new teenage dungeon leaders while searching for places with historical value. However, the old plan seemed hollow with Tyrn lying cold a few feet underground. Nevertheless, it was still the best course of action he could come up with.
"I refuse to give up on the Void minions and the fort, the hidden dungeon here has to stay." That point was clear to Karl.
"I need to infiltrate the city, but now is not the right time." He thought further about what to do, it was obvious that Jinsheng was expanding into its historic borders and after its expansion, there would be traffic flowing in and out of the city, providing Karl with an opportunity to get in and out without much complications. He planned to hunker down temporarily, before unleashing his highly educated leaders onto the city.
"So, I have to teach them everything about the city and provide them with some money and leverage to get me all the information I need." It sounded logical, until he realized that he knew less than the teenagers about the inner workings of Jinsheng. "Or should they teach me instead?"
He felt really incompetent at this point, it could not be right!
One way or another, he had temporarily housed the teenagers in the private section of his dungeon and chose a volunteer to hunt and cook them some food. Obviously with heavy assistance of his minions that might be able to hunt, but were undoubtedly terrible at cooking. It came as no surprise that the first volunteer for the job was Rovan, the first hunter and cook of Karl's dungeon.
He was beginning to love the guy, it was a pity that Tyrn had not been as diligent as him.
On second thought, it was of no consequence, given Tyrn's current decomposing state.
Humans! They were too fragile!
"What nostalgia, back to the present." Karl thought and noticed something weird about his thought process, but it was probably nothing too serious. "I guess being a stone makes one hard."
"Not in the inappropriate sense of that word of course." He thought and concluded that he really needed some conversation partner, as he might be getting too eccentric. Chatting with the teenagers was difficult, as they were too pent up around him, as the air of an evil demonic cultivator seemed to linger on him.
Karl had unleashed his hunting party on the forest and had nothing to do except of admiring his tunnels and stalking his guests.
He went deeper into his collection of floor tiles and even customized some wall decorations including murals, engravings and even tapestries, but promptly reverted to the generic ones when he saw the proof that he had never been good in painting and his art was terrible. Karl had also created some more tunnels separated from his main network, as his paranoid nature wed to his inclination to build more underground structures was working miracles.
A few days passed in a relative peace and quiet, until a group of men he really did not want to see emerged from the forest near the devastated walls of the fort. The fort was getting better thanks to the effort of his many Warped Flesh minions rebuilding its walls, but a few days was just a fraction of time needed to repair it.
He could use the Earth Elemental for the repairs, but it would have looked weird and unnatural if the fort was not build from bricks as before.
"I knew it! I should have discouraged them the first time they were snooping around." Karl observed through the eyes of his goblins, some of them already dead, what was the composition of the invaders.
He did not get why the intruders kept killing his goblins on sight, they were cute. There was strong wind outside and they should even not smell as much as usual.
There was even more of them than before and Karl had an urge to lower the head of the goblin he was currently using as his eyes.
They were nearing the fort from six different sides in eighteen units, Each such a squad had roughly twelve members and thus, the total number of incoming enemies was something slightly above two hundred, all of them cultivators. All the squads except of three were dressed in blue-white robes Karl was familiar with and it was clear who it was.
"That stupid guy has returned sooner than expected." Karl was displeased by the urgency of the invading sect actions.
Two squads were dressed in black leather armor and one had the well known purple robes of the Purple Lotus Sect. The moment Karl saw it, it was obvious that the Water Dragon Sect had not kept its failure hidden and other forces started to meddle in the situation.
"Crap! What to do? This is starting to get too blown out of proportions!" Karl quickly decided on his next course of action, as he had been thinking about it for some it.
Originally, he had thought about assigning a single Void Knight the role of a dungeon king and stage his downfall, but he had thoughtlessly showcased a lineup of ten Void Knights during his standoff with Water Dragon Lehaim and it would be seen through easily.
"I can no longer fake my demise this way, I need something different." Karl quickly invented another plan. "I got it, I have been destroyed by a massive goblin invasion. It would also explain the ever present goblins."
He promptly ordered total retreat of all his forces into the private section of his dungeon, while assigning his Earth Elementals to strengthen the walls between the two parts even more and with sadness in his hart, began the disassembly of all his traps in the exposed parts. He also began pumping his vast amounts of mana into creating a large goblin force that would be massacred by the incoming sect.
"They should have little trouble with them." If his plan succeeded, he would disappear from the surface, but his Void structures would remain standing deep underground.
"Let the fall of a mighty goblin king begin!" Karl entered his system options and began spawning the goblins like crazy.
* * * *
Water Dragon Lehaim along with the best warriors of his sect were steadily marching towards the fortress, his best fighters at the front. Remembering the ten hulking figures seeping with Void, he expected an intense battle in front of them and hoped that the foundation of the sect would not be damaged by the confrontation.
From time to time, his eyes wandered towards the unexpected ally he had gained in the city, a squad of cultivators from the Purple Lotus Sect. A force he did not trust at all. There were also two units of dubious fighters that were not a part of the sect, but had proven valuable based on previous encounters. Dressed in expensive leather armor, they were a mixture of all that left of a destroyed city's guard, people that had nowhere to go after their original city had been destroyed.
"Elder, this is the third one. The woods in these parts are infested with the vermin." A runner came to report the execution of another monster and Lehaim remembered seeing them along with the Void monstrosities.
Had they been enslaved, or was it a completely different force?
It would be no surprise, goblins usually licked the boots of stronger monsters, but they usually tended to serve to those related to them. Well, he had to clear out the vermin whatever the situation was, the deadline set by the Immortals was pressing on him. They needed to conquer the place quickly, if they wanted to see it developed to some degree by the end of the year.
"Move toward the wall! Do not break the formation!" Lehaim shouted.
All the squads spread out alongside the circumference of the contracting circle that had the fort at its center. When they were only fifty meters away from the crumbled wall, a racket from behind the wall stopped their steps and dozens of green little bodies with daggers began pouring in their direction shortly after.
"Stand your ground!" Lehaim shouted to boost the moral and gave a hand sign that meant the same. There was a group of two dozen goblins running directly at him.
"What a joke!" He gestured with his hand and all of them fell to the ground in a matter of seconds, convulsing and screeching until their movements stopped and their bodies stayed lying motionless in the high grass and bushes looking like mummified corpses. It was a technique Lehaim specialized in and it was deadly to all creatures containing a large portion of water.
There were often people fearing cultivators that used blood in a similar way, but the truth was that the percentage of water in a body was much higher, making Lehaim's technique more universal and deadly. He could not help himself but look at the cultivators dressed in purple and see how they compared to him in dealing with the goblins that went their way.
The leading person of the Purple Lotus Sect shot a ray of purple particles from his palm and Lehaim had to suppress laughter when the shot missed the goblins and landed many meters in front of them, the particles spreading harmlessly in all directions.
"Is that everything you have got, Jinsheng's hero?" Lehaim snorted with disdain, but shortly saw all goblins quickly falling to the ground, dead. When he looked more closely, the grass under them had a shade of purple, no longer bright green.
"Cheap tricks, too slow and limited." He clicked his tongue and turned his attention to the overall situation on the battlefield.
Goblins were pouring out of the fort without any sign of their numbers dwindling and the squads kept culling them the best they could. The battle was intense and Lehaim expected the goblins to run out of their numbers soon.
His guess had been wrong and the flow of enemies had not stopped, their green tides pushing on them wave after wave like seawater against a high cliff. Lehaim was not worried about their enemies' strength, but their numbers started to get annoying.
"Die, lowly vermin!" He angrily released a large horizontal water blade at one of the incoming groups and butchered even those that were still far away in the distance and had not paid attention to the battlefield. The debris from one of the walls that was hit flew in all directions and the structural integrity of the fort was visibly worsened by the violent strike.
To his surprise, the people belonging to the Purple Lotus Sect were close to taking a nap at their position, their careless attitude annoying him to no end. They had created a plot of toxic vegetation that the goblins were unable to cross and their bodies were simply piling up into the poisoned grass. A clever tactic that spared them a lot of effort, the creators of the toxic land just observed the results of their move from afar.
"Hmph, enough of this farce!" Lehaim was annoyed even more and decide to stop playing with the enemy. "See the true face of death and despair!"
Lehaim spread his hands wide and a pressure descended all around him, the vegetation in front of him began to dry up and ground cracked as Lehaim was quickly turning the fort into desolated land along everything that lived within it. It was the same technique he used before, but on a much greater scale, it was called Desertification and it was quickly able to extract all water from the large area of the fort and its surroundings.
A move with good killing power and long term environmental impact.
All incoming goblins began slowly dying, not even able to reach their ranks and the grass slowly turned to dust, blown away by the wind. It was a sight to behold, a power that turned a part of a lush forest into dead wasteland, a desert where nothing lived. A marvel of power over nature that caused many people to call Lehaim jokingly a Desert Dragon behind his back.
"What an idiot." The hero of Jinsheng, Yen Gon, whispered under her breath as she watched the whole fort creak and third of the fort slowly crumbled to the ground, turning the whole fort into the state where it was close to irreparable and would have to be taken down and rebuilt anew. Stone was more or less invulnerable to Lehaim's technique, but many structural elements of the fort had been built using wood that had been nearly reduced to ash under the power of Desertification, its extremely dried state having no structural integrity.
Yen was sure that the people of the Water Dragon Sect would curse Lehaim's posturing later, while repairing for weeks what he had destroyed in mere minutes.
"Charge!" Lehaim shouted and led by example, advancing towards the fort above ground. He was on a similar power level as Yen Gon von Kotzchen and had also a way to fly. Most of the cultivators that had reached the level of Soul Transformation could, and some happened to posses the ability even sooner, although limited by the strength of their souls.
"That, is quite hilarious." Yen watched Water Dragon Lehaim fly and her brain could not help but slip to some amusing associations. Lehaim was using mostly steam to propel himself forward and to propel himself forth, the steam had to logically come from his back.
After tearing her eyes away from the butt of the elder, Yen looked around to search for the Void monsters, but saw none. She shrugged her shoulders and reabsorbed the poison from the dried vegetation in front of her, following in Lehaim's track.
After a few hours of thorough searching, Lehaim stood with a thoughtful expression at the crumbled fort's courtyard. Actually, there was no fort to speak of anymore. It had already been in a sorry state before the attack, but now it was just a ruin.
"Water Dragon, we have not found any signs of Void creatures!" Lehaim listened to the report, enjoying a sound of his title for a second. Of course he was no dragon or had anything to do with them, but the title still sounded good, as well as his sect's name.
"What is going on here? Why there was an army of goblins?" Lehaim could not figure out what had happened at the fort and turned his gaze to Elder Yen who stood next to him.
"No idea, we should explore the tunnels that seem to be the origin of the Void's presence." Yen shrugged her shoulders, knowing who the likely perpetrator of the incident was. She had seen the signs of Void when she explored the underground. She met the unfortunate street thief that was connected to the demonic cultivator that ridiculed her. It had probably been his lair and thus, it was false to think that the source of disturbance was some sort of a Void rift, the threat was mobile, not stationary.
"The fort has buried the tunnels when it collapsed, it will take time to excavate." The reporting cultivator said with tense expression on his face.
"No need, this plot of land is ruined anyway. We will build a new fort elsewhere." His Elder waved his hand with a smirk. Lehaim decided to solve the two problems at the same time.
"I see that you have no need for our further assistance, Elder Lehaim. The issue has been solved and we will take our leave." Yen cupped her hands and said her goodbyes to the Elder. She needed to think further about the threat they had just faced.
"If only that fool had not collapsed the fort, now he will be long gone before they dig out anything." She thought and began to suspect that the appearance of extensive networks of tunnels had something to do with the rude demonic cultivator that was trapped in the black stone. In addition, it did not even look like Lehain intended to investigate anything in the future and planned to call his trouble solved by the ruin of the fort that buried the tunnels under the weight of uncountable stone blocks.
However, as long as the rogue element did not threaten the security of her sect or the city as the whole, she had better things to do than to chase after ghosts in the sky and under the ground.
In the distance, a goblin blinked his big eyes and Karl was relieved that at least once in a century, the events had passed just as he planned and hoped he had not jinxed himself just by thinking about it.