Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 172. Killing Left and Right.
“Casimir! Heavens!” Reian yelled, enhancing his voice with a hefty amount of Qi and moreover, using additional wind-element Qi to carry it throughout the battlefield. To his satisfaction, the rightmost portion of the central battlefield separated half a second later as Casimir withdrew his men all at once, leaving their portion of enemies half a step behind. Truth to be told, he hadn’t been all that fond of the idea when Casimir suggested for them to learn some simple keywords in order to cooperate better. So, under his urging and in order to limit the possible confusion, Casimir agreed that only four people would have the authority to issue those commands.
Julien, Reian, Anna, and Casimir himself. That was the original intention, but after a few remarks from Sirius and Arslan, Casimir gave in with surprising ease and extended that list to six, including Laien and Yin. Still, with six people it had become quite a pain in the ass in Reian’s own opinion. The usual thing would be to assign different words to represent various tactics to each of the commanders to prevent enemies from making a mess among the fighting forces. However, they didn’t have enough time to have everyone learn such sets of words by heart, so this wasn’t even taken into consideration, to begin with. Luckily, Casimir was quite a sensible man and he had a different idea.
Each of the six of them would be able to issue only one combat-wide command during the battle. This way, the dozens of words got compressed into a few sets. Then, Casimir suggested for there to be only one command, the one which would be most useful when powerful practitioners fought together. Reian’s ‘Heavens’ was one of the keywords that called for an immediate retreat and then, an immediate attack. In theory, it was a command allowing one to unleash an indiscriminate attack without worrying for the collateral damage, but whether it was going to work out depended on many factors. For example, things like the response time of allies and enemies alike and the overall situation of the battlefield at the given moment all mattered a lot.
Yet, it worked perfectly. Whether it was by luck or if it had happened so due to Casimir’s way of playing out his portion of the battle, Reian couldn’t be quite sure. It did seem awfully weird how fast and how easily Casimir’s subordinates pulled out and how not even one of them ended up entangled with the enemies. However, if he were to think that Casimir had been leading his men in this precise way all in anticipation of him finishing the business on the right side and coming in with the ‘Heavens’ command, then it was a bit scary. While it wasn’t hard to think of such a tactic by the table, to employ it under heavy pressure and with little to no time to think was on a different level.
To actively look for the strengths of his own allies and to make preparations to use it, then to actually pull through with the idea in the actual battle with a cool head… It was just a brief thing that passed through Reian’s mind, but he thought that the Warrior-King’s eldest son wasn’t to be underestimated. And, something was telling him that what they had seen so far was merely the very tip of the iceberg as far as Casimir’s various abilities went.
“Well then,” Reian focused on controlling his Qi. He was both surprised and glad that their tactic was working out, but if he missed this brief opportunity then it would be incredibly wasteful. So, he compressed the wind-element Qi in the lower layer and added the fire-element Qi above it, then swung his sword horizontally. As a result, what was just a small elemental sword in the blink of an eye turned into an avalanche of fire that raged wildly as it swallowed everything in its way.
Being over a hundred meters wide and over thirty meters high, the technique certainly did draw a lot of attention, making even Abdain look in its direction ever so briefly. Its aura of strength wasn’t to be underestimated either as Reian had not only poured all of his insights into it but also used one-third of his wind-element Qi and half of the fire-element Qi. The old him would have found himself weakened if not wounded after employing such a reckless attack, but not anymore. He had overdrawn himself far, far further when he had been trying to accumulate enough power to kill Abdain in one attack, so the present degree and speed of Qi depletion was perfectly within his limits.
Still, this time he wasn’t facing a rag-tag bunch of sell-swords or a group or relatively low-level martial masters. The hundred and a half elites he had targeted with his attack were almost exclusively martial masters of the fifth and fourth ranks, they were the cream of the crop of Abdain’s subordinates. They might have been taken off-guard by the sudden and unnaturally coordinated retreat of Casimir’s men, but there was no way they would simply stand in place and take a wide-area martial technique head-on. Thus, more than thirty of them who were in the outermost part of the formation released their own martial techniques, which were solely of wind and fire elements.
Comparatively speaking, fire and wind element affinities were the most common in the western part of the world, with the earth affinity following behind it and the water affinity in the third place. On the other hand, the light, lightning, and darkness affinities were incredibly rare in the west. Still, while the trio of light, lightning, and darkness affinities was more common in different parts of the world, that was only comparatively speaking and they were by no means seen often.
What was important at the moment, however, was that just about half of the attacks released by Abdain’s men were of the wind element. The surges of wind pressure, singular powerful wind blades or multiple weaker wind blades, those martial techniques varied to a fair degree, but all of them met the same fate, much to the shock of the men who had released them.
By all means, sending about three dozen martial techniques in response to Reian’s attack should have been enough. It could have even been called an overreaction if someone wanted to be nitpicky. Yet, when the multiple wind-element martial techniques approached the avalanche of flames sent out by Reian, they strangely fluctuated and in but an instant dropped in power by over a half. The explosions of wind lost their pressure, the wind blades shrunk and the smaller ones dissipated on the spot.
Those watching this ridiculous course of events were dumbstruck, be it Abdain’s men, Casimir’s men, or to a degree, Reian himself who more or less sensed what was happening through his aura. All of those present were either veteran experts or well-learned and well-trained young talents and often both of these. And despite that, not one of them understood why all those powerful wind-element martial techniques suddenly lost so much of their strength before clashing with Reian’s attack.
Though, it wasn’t all that strange that they didn’t understand as the Supreme Profound Mysteries had disappeared from the world with the fall of the Durash Empire ten thousand years ago. As for how exactly did that happen, those truths had long since been buried in the depths of history. At present, the knowledge of the Supreme Profound Mysteries had been all but lost. Thus, Reian’s emergence as a wielder of one of those forgotten powers was all that more significant and was bound to sooner or later create great waves all throughout the world.
“!”
“Fu-…!”
“Def-…!”
While those men of Abdain’s were all shocked, they didn’t even have enough time to utter anything sensible before Reian’s avalanche of flames collided with the weakened wind-element martial techniques and the unaffected fire-element techniques. The former of the two types of counterattacks, having lost the majority of its potential, couldn’t measure up to what it was facing and was quickly suppressed and scattered without doing much to stop the cascade of flames. The latter, however, did its job and the moment it met Reian’s flames, the two of them contested for an instant before imploding in a successive series of powerful and deafening explosions.
The martial masters on Abdain’s side breathed with relief when they saw these explosions. They had no idea why their wind-element attacks were rendered useless, but the fire-element ones appeared to be effective. They would still be hit by the shockwaves and the remnant energy of Reian’s technique would likely affect them to a degree too, but they were strong enough to withstand this kind of a rebound.
Alas, they were soon to learn that this moment of relaxation was going to cost them dearly. From within the cloud of fire, smoke, and dust, an over twenty-meter long horizontal wind blade emerged at a very high speed. With the threat appearing to their eyes mere thirty or forty meters away, how could they possibly react in time, especially after having just unleashed their own martial techniques? Many of those to the rightmost side of their group, those who were closest to the wind blade, failed to as much as rouse their Qi to form some kind of a protective barrier around their bodies. Only those further away had time to try and defend, but then even, only those who were quick-witted enough to either fall flat to the ground or jump into the air were able to save themselves.
The wind blade swept through their ranks mercilessly, bisecting and tearing apart the bodies of the first two dozen men with ease. Only once it got further and was met with resistance did it start losing more of its strength. A fire barrier, a wind barrier, an earth-enhanced defense… it continued to slaughter everyone in its way, only to be stopped in the middle of the group once a few more fire-element martial arts were thrown at it. However, its kill count did needlessly rise by another few since not all of Abdain’s men committed the fact that wind-element wasn’t effective to their minds.
By the time the wind blade dissipated, it left exactly forty-six corpses on the ground, the number of which included thirteen martial masters of the fifth rank. It was a terrifying result in itself, but those surviving hundred-plus experts felt an even greater fear creep into their hearts when they saw Reian’s figure dash out from within the still lingering explosions of flames. For a split-second, many of them lost sight of Reian and when they once again caught the sight of him, the golden-haired man had just cut down another one of their martial masters of the fifth rank.
“Wind Steps?!”
Be it Abdain’s men or Casimir’s men, all of them were shocked. Wind Steps were the movement art that put the most strain on the user’s body out of all the known movement arts in return for the high speed and movement flexibility it offered. It was because of that, however, that not even Mustafa had been able to safely employ Wind Steps without damaging his body! For Reian to suddenly be able to do that… had this man been hiding his strength all along or did he experience a miraculous breakthrough? And even if, none of it made sense!
Out of those in the area, the only two calm people were Casimir and Reian. Casimir had naturally inquired about the extent of Reian’s abilities and he knew that Reian was capable of using an incomplete version of Wind Steps, so he wasn’t stunned to see it happen. After all, had it been the true Wind Steps at one hundred percent strength, then forget one martial master of the fifth rank, Reian would have likely killed more than twenty people in one move! Moreover, there would have been no way for anyone present to follow his movement with his eyes in any way, he would be way too fast. Unless one was at the same level as Reian or had a perception at an unnaturally monstrous level, the only way to defend would be through one’s aura and battle instincts!
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“A little bit better,” Reian smiled to himself after cutting down the marital master of the fifth rank with his own sword. He was now able to employ Wind Steps at perhaps one-third of their full potential, so it was good enough. He still had a lot more room for growth be it in his cultivation base or the level of insights. For Aspects, he could now use six, having gained a complete foundation of the Aspect of Wrath after learning of Jasmine’s death and after facing Abdain in battle. Also, he didn’t know when, but perhaps thanks to the influence which the Profound Mystery of Heavenly Tempest had on him, he had achieved a full understanding of the Aspect of Awareness without realizing it for a period of time. Moreover, he had had a complete foundation of the Aspect of Desire for quite some time now, what made the number of complete foundations of the Aspects he possessed at this point in time count up to three.
Finally, there were three incomplete Aspects, Pride, Humility, and Envy. Of course, he had a degree of insights into the Principle of Energy too, but it wasn’t his strongest suit as he hadn’t even formed one of the golden runes of insights, of which Laien and Yin both had five. Regardless of that, it was undeniable that he had not only grown far stronger but also opened many paths for future growth.
Indulging in this pleasant sensation of almost absolute strength, Reian continued the assault on the nearby enemies. He was soon joined by Casimir and the young man’s Royal Guard, so the balance of power at this portion of the battlefield tipped heavily towards their side. Although it would take some time, they were bound to annihilate their enemies if nothing changed in the next minute.
Meanwhile, a few hundred meters to the west.
“…” Abdain had a grim look on his face as he steadily twisted his body and maneuvered his broadsword to defend against Julien’s regular uses of Lightning Steps. This time, however, he didn’t quite make it in time as Julien’s slash cut across his back and his shoulder before he blocked it, leaving a mild wound that barely reached to the muscle. He had been slightly distracted due to the events happening on the eastern flank of their battle so Julien used this opportunity to wound him, but an injury of this degree would, either way, close up on its own within a few seconds.
“It really better be worth it,” Abdain thought while exchanging more and more blows with Julien. Unlike before, now that this annoying man had also leaped up a boundary, he couldn’t dominate him at all. The two of them were pretty much in a stalemate and even if one of them decided to risk his life to kill the other, the most probable result would still be mutual destruction. Thus, no matter how badly his precious subordinates were being slaughtered, he had no room to spare to help them.
One would have expected him to shout out an order or two and call for the struggling group to be reinforced, but Abdain wasn’t a fool and was quite a competent commander. He had obviously taken notice of the slaughter of the two units he had sent out to the flanks and he was aware who was responsible for those events. Reian had finished earlier, so now the eastern flank was hit by him. So, it was unavoidable that the western flank would be attacked by those two little devils soon enough. If he redirected his men from the center and the west to help out the struggling east, then not only would he be trying to resurrect an already dead man but he would also endanger the rest of his formations. In the worst case scenario, his men could even collapse entirely because of that.
Having reaffirmed before himself that his choice was right, Abdain committed the majority of his attention to Julien. While it pained him to lose the men he had poured so much resourced into, he was confident that the course of action he had taken was the most optimal one.
The lack of response from Abdain and his men became apparent once a few more seconds passed. On the eastern side, both Reian and Casimir were a bit annoyed that they hadn’t managed to get Abdain to shuffle his men, but that worked too. While Casimir was weaker than Reian, the two of them were both supreme dual-element martial masters of the fourth rank regardless. In this regional clash where their side held the absolute advantage, the two of them went on an absolute rampage.
There wasn’t anyone amongst Abdain’s men who could keep up with Reian’s speed nor was there anyone who could counter his flexible wind-element techniques. In particular, once Reian had realized that the aura of the Heavenly Tempest could heavily suppress any other wind-element energy, he began targeting wind-element martial masters and killing them off in batches. Admittedly, he did at one point get overly excited and spread the aura of the Supreme Profound Mystery too far. Because of it, he had almost killed quite a few of Casimir’s men by weakening them out of the blue, but he had withdrawn his aura quickly enough to avoid a disaster.
At the same time, Casimir didn’t waste any time either. Just like Reian, he hadn’t been able to display the full extent of his abilities in the previous battle since he had been facing Abdain. True, he had held his own and wounded the man while being three realms below him, but it was hard for his strength to truly be displayed in this manner. On the other hand, the combination of the great physical strength and impregnable defense stemming from his earth element in addition to the sharpness of the blows and speed of the movements coming from his wind element was even more threatening in close-range combat that Reian’s wind and fire dual elements.
“So far so good,” Casimir mused while slashing straight downward with his sword. The man in front of him tried to defend, but as a fire-element martial master of the fifth rank, how could he hope to live once he had gotten forced into a brief one-on-one fight against Casimir? Under the immense weight of the blow, his sword was pushed away and Casimir’s blade slashed through his head and his torso, sinking halfway into his body as it did so. Had the blade reached a little further, it would have split him in half vertically, but even without that the blow killed him on the spot.
Unbothered by the gory scene he had caused, Casimir twisted his body slightly and calmly reached out with his left forearm. He blocked the slash of a nearby martial master of the fourth rank with his bare, albeit greatly strengthened by the earth-element Qi, skin. Then, he slashed sideways with the sword in his right hand and added more wind-element Qi to the blade. The slash hit the momentarily defenseless man right in the side of the stomach, the steel cutting through his flesh and the wind quite literally bursting the middle of his body into a thousand bloody pieces.
The one hundred Royal Guards of Casimir’s were similarly hard at work. They were steadily pressuring the less than a hundred enemies of theirs and whereas they weren’t able to kill those elites nearly as easily as Reian and Casimir, they were doing a great job suppressing them. Because of that and thanks to all the momentum they had, they were enabling Reian and Casimir to roam around freely and slaughter anyone they wanted, making use of the opportunities as they appeared.
The efficiency of this massacre was, to Casimir’s surprise, higher than he had expected. What should have taken around a minute, as long they snowballed their advantage, would require only fifty seconds. It was a mere ten seconds of a difference, but Casimir saw it as a huge thing. The sooner they broke this batch of Abdain’s men and moved on to kill the rest of them, the less manpower would they lose in the process and the earlier would they be able to start running from Yimar Maar.
“Reian sure is going wild,” Laien exchanged an amused smile with Yin. That huge martial technique and the subsequent slaughter of their enemies, they had somewhat expected Abdain to attempt to salvage the situation, but the man had done nothing. It would give them less of an opportunity to make a great impact at the western flank, but it was a good trade-off anyway.
“You want to take it slow?” Yin asked back in his thoughts just a split-second after the two of them returned their gazes to the battlefield. It was true that they didn’t possess the means to quickly kill dozens of martial masters of fourth and fifth ranks with one great attack like Reian, but Laien wanted them to take it slow? “Hm? Conserve energy but not take it slow?” Yin raised his eyebrows once he understood Laien’s intentions a little better. He smiled at the idea and agreed easily.
The benefit coming from the two of them using up all their strength in this situation would be limited, so instead, they could focus on fighting in a more efficient way. True, they were pressed for time, but it didn’t mean they ought to fight in a thoughtless manner. Getting overzealous and then falling to Yimar Maar’s chase due to exhaustion wouldn’t be the brightest of ideas to carry out.
Content with their short-term plan, Laien and Yin once again left their horses behind once they approached closer to the enemies. This time, however, they dismounted half a kilometer away and proceeded to run as silently as possible while hiding their auras. Out of all those present, they were most likely the most skilled in manipulating and hiding their aura, so once they suppressed their presence, they became unnoticeable. Naturally, they could still be seen normally and if someone used for example a wind-element probing technique, they would be easily spotted. Yet, as they circled further to the side of the enemy formation and came closer and closer, weirdly enough, no one paid any attention to them, almost as if they weren’t there.
The two youths smiled wryly. It was just a random idea of theirs to try, but it looked like experts truly relied too heavily on their instinct and aura in an intense battle like this one. To be fair, they couldn’t be blamed as if they kept getting distracted by everything around them, they would become easy pickings for their opponents. This new realization made Laien and Yin understand just how precious their insights into the Aspect of Awareness were. Without them, they would have been far more vulnerable to ambushes and surprise attacks even in situations where they shouldn’t have been possible to pull off. All it took would be one expert proficient at hiding his aura to become a lethal threat, just like the two of them had become at this point in time.
“I’ll play the support,” Laien sent the thought Yin’s way as the two of them sprinted toward Abdain’s men. “Let’s do it just like that time,” he added, his lips curving into a scary smile. They had been desperate and fighting against all odds back then, against Yimar Furi’s elites. This time their enemies were stronger, but they weren’t alone and at least for the moment, they didn’t need to protect anyone. They had all the freedom they could ask for along the element of surprise! If they didn’t make use of this chance to its fullest, then they would be too ashamed to look in the mirror the next day.
A little more than two seconds later, the two of them cut straight into the ongoing battle. They luckily realized before jumping in that it wasn’t only their enemies who weren’t yet aware of them, but also their allies, so they were mindful of friendly fire. That being said, Yin attacked first as usual. He had targeted a group of three cooperating martial masters of the fifth rank and with his first slash, he splattered half of the stomach of the closest of them into a mass of blood and flesh.
He didn’t give the men time to think and used Lightning Steps in the same order of attacks and movements he was getting more and more used to. He went in between the two men and before they had enough time to turn around, he beheaded another one of them. Right afterward, he took one small step and twisted his body, at the same time gently catching and deflecting the downward slash of the third man’s sword. Once the blade passed dangerously close to his body, he attacked with the second of his twin swords, aiming to take the man’s life in one blow.
However, now that the element of surprise wasn’t a factor anymore, things didn’t go so smoothly. The man moved his body back in haste and ended up with a shallow cut on his stomach instead of a lethal wound. Yet, his eyes went wide when an ice spike appeared seemingly out of nowhere, flying straight at the center of his head. In any other situation, he would have been able to move out of the way of such an attack effortlessly, but before that, he had not only attacked recklessly but forced himself to dodge with all of his strength, too. Additionally, the sense of danger coming from this ice spike was telling him that he couldn’t afford to ignore the attack and hope that his body of a martial master of the fifth rank would be able to shrug it off. So, his right hand moved almost involuntarily and he shattered the spike with his sword.
“No…!” He understood that he had made a fatal mistake only after his body moved. It all happened too fast, too suddenly, so he hadn’t had time to think. He should have had used his free hand to defend even if it meant damaging it! He knew it now, but behind the shards of ice flying in front of his face, he could already see that green-haired youth swinging a sword covered in lightning at his stomach. The next instant, his torso was cut in half and the rampaging lightning destroyed his Qi Origin. He perhaps didn’t die instantly, but he was as good as dead for all intents and purposes.