The battle's initial challenge was the lack of gravitational pull. Shen's people were used to fighting on a plane. For whatever reason, most sapient living beings were terrestrial, which was even truer for bipeds. For them, even aerial combat came with the idea of a direction being up or down.
Genuine three-dimensional warfare, where everyone could freely navigate all three spatial dimensions and attack from anywhere, often required specialized training for anyone on D-rank or lower. C-ranks had an edge on the form of their Laws. Feeling Laws slowly changed their perspective to accept the world as more than a plane. Cultivators and mana wielders with mastered Laws had it even easier.
Fortunately, the default defensive flying formation decreased the severity of the issue by dividing the world into inside and outside their sphere. Shen used his aura to constantly let everyone feel a very slight pull coming from the center of their formation so everyone could orient themselves. The E-ranks stood closest to the middle, then came the D-ranks, then the C-ranks.
That made the beginning of the fight as easy as possible. Moreover, recently formed Void Spawn were slow and stupid. Even then, Shen didn't order an attack in an attempt to leave. He needed to ensure his people could fight well as a group before anything else.
The first Void Spawn to attack was a Hatchling. They were basically useless but ridiculously numerous; there were at least a few hundreds of thousands of them. As soon as the first attacked, it opened the damn of potential death coming at the Brigade.
Material Possessions were dangerous, but they came with a silver lining: there was no recorded instance where a Void Spawn was formed with the wrong size during Material Possession. For a while, no one had to worry about whether a Void Spawn would be stronger or weaker than its size suggested. It streamlined the combat.
So, Shen ordered, "Rank-based infiltrator control! Preserve your mana! Cultivators, stay around eighty percent qi unless otherwise needed!"
The Void Spawn approached silently, and the area was still silent except for the people moving their weapons and equipment. Everyone heard him. Nevertheless, Rayna and Luthdel repeated the orders for the three Battalion Commanders to hear. The Battalions' staff also repeated it for the D-rank Commanders, and so on.
Rank-based infiltrator control was a simple tactic. Everyone would kill anything of their rank and merely curb the number of weaker opponents as they passed. You weren't meant to let things get crowded deeper in the defensive sphere. How many creatures you killed to accomplish that was up to your judgment, knowing your superior wouldn't let abuses go unpunished.
Although simple, the tactic left a lot of room for mistakes, as any that depended on individual judgment. Shen wouldn't have ordered it if he didn't trust his Brigade's abilities to a certain extent.
Void Spawn, from small to huge, approached and died as if facing a meat grinder. Physical attacks were almost exclusively used at first, but there was the eventual mana waste here and there. The D-ranks and E-ranks needed to use energy to position themselves, after all.
A few minutes later, Shen decided to test how well everyone could move together. He shouted, "POR-aware constant movement in ten seconds!" His words were repeated.
Ten seconds later, he started moving the pulling force created by his aura deeper into the Subnode at a languid speed. The very middle of the defensive sphere was the POR, or Point of Reference. Everyone was meant to keep the same distance from it as they currently did while it moved at a set speed. They were also supposed to stay sharp and stop if the POR stopped moving.
The C-ranks had no trouble with it. Half the D-ranks did. Almost every E-rank messed up at first.
Shen didn't blame them. Moving without gravity was annoying. As importantly, the Void Spawn were beginning to do more than just throw themselves against the sharp edge of enemy weapons. Furthermore, almost everyone had to use energy to fight in zero gravity, and virtually no one had any practice. The E-ranks' minds were also slower than the D-ranks', so they didn't get the gist as quickly.
Shen held back on commanding the C-ranks to be extra mindful of the weak Guardians' situation to assess how well they did, and he was pleased with the result. Every C-rank noticed the internal hiccup and started killing more Void Spawn than before, slowing the flow into the defensive perimeter and giving the E-ranks a breather.
Shen kept his pull moving at the same speed but had to stop half a minute later. A tenth of the D-ranks and a third of the E-ranks were struggling way too much to adapt and lagging behind.
Stopping caused another issue. Some people kept moving briefly before noticing the POR had halted. It deformed the defensive line, putting some people closer to others while some got further away.
The Void Spawn used the opportunity to infiltrate the sphere in greater numbers.
Shen was about to intervene when Luthdel and Rayna looked at each other and exchanged a sign. Rayna then swiftly used her B- whip to protect the weak troops. The weapon slithered between foes and allies alike, targeting the strongest Void Spawn exploiting the formation's gap. The whip struck like a sharp spear, killing as many as necessary to ensure the situation inside remained under control.
Her move was necessary but unfortunate. The Battalion-level C-ranks were meant to do that, not her. Evidently, while powerful, his Lieutenants weren't perfect. At least it wasn't as worrisome as if Shen were forced to act himself.
Shen bellowed, "Battalion Commanders, control and protect your subordinates better!"
He resumed moving a little later and was eventually forced to stop again. At least it took a few minutes this time. Unfortunately, the Void Spawn were getting to the point where they could deflect a few moves, countering the Guardians' improvements on zero gravity movement.
The Brigade kept moving like that, constantly stopping, for almost twenty minutes. It was slow but better than staying still.
Alas, after three miles, Shen had to admit even the D-ranks weren't likely to adapt to that battle style faster than the Void Spawn grew. To make matters worse, most E-ranks had already wasted over half their mana. They couldn't continue like that.
"Rayna, deliver a distress signal!" he commanded.
The drow girl had donned her helmet. Her armor still blocked his Law Vision from seeing anything inside and his senses from feeling anything. Still, the almost imperceptible pause in her movement as she cut a Void Scout down revealed she wasn't happy about the order. She wanted to stay and earn more AP.
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Shen also didn't want his second strongest Guardian to leave, but she was the best pick. He had to choose between her or Luthdel, and her fighting ability was at low tier 7, as opposed to Luthdel's peak tier 6. Her fighting style was also fluid, supported by the Axioms of Air, while Luthdel was a slow-ass combatant. She had a better chance of getting to a point where the system worked, sending a message, and surviving.
At least Shen had Xia Liling. She was at a solid mid tier 7, maybe peak tier 7. She more than made up for Vinamour's demise, who had barely reached mid tier 7. Shen slowly shifted himself during the battle to defend the opposite side of the sphere from where Xia Liling was.
If anything, her addition proved Imperia's goodwill, and Shen allowed his opinion of them to mellow a little.
"I'll help you leave," Shen told Rayna. "Wait for it."
Shen kept overwatching everything within ten miles with his aura, seeking the perfect opportunity to create an opening for Rayna. There were Void Spawn everywhere, as far as he could feel. That was surprising, as Material Possessions seldom affected more than a dozen miles.
Luckily, not every creature was trying to reach the Brigade; the seemingly unsurmountable mass of pressed dark liquid bodies became less crowded after five miles. Even so, Shen sought the right moment when the creatures beyond five miles would be scarcest toward the Subnode's center, where the Alliance's Center of Operations was located, and Rayna had to run to.
It took him a few minutes to find the best moment, and then, he attacked.
Shen pushed almost half his qi into his body and spear to form the most potent long-range attack he knew. The technique was unnamed because it was nothing more than the union of everything he knew to accomplish the best thrust possible. His muscles were pumped, his movement was precise, and his spear was solid.
Shen thrust.
The Axioms of Reality gave way as his Path cut all Laws before his spear. An invisible line only as wide as his spearhead shot ahead. It behaved just like he used to do with his swings, splitting everything at a subatomic level. Mini-nuclear fissions happened as the air was cut, forming a trail of light and heat. Space distorted. During the split second that the cut-off Laws took to reassemble, any onlooker got glimpses into possible alternative Realities that could come to be if the Axioms interacted differently.
A few E-ranks looking that way fainted as they looked straight into high-level fantasy or even "mere" raw Laws mixing with each other. Their frail minds were overloaded with what they witnessed.
Unlike those weaklings, no Void Spawn was affected by the cut, as the attack lacked Energy. But they also didn't stop it. The pure Law strike harmlessly went through them, but it wasn't meant for them. It was merely paving the way for Shen's actual attack, removing all resistance as a spear of pure qi, fueled by his Path, traveled ahead faster than he could move.
The Void Spawn couldn't resist that.
The five-man-wide qi spear thrust ahead. Lightning burst in an explosion of light that blinded most D-ranks for a moment. The resulting blast shook the nearby Guardians, and Shen had to use his aura to protect them. Almost no one saw the spear, which was born and ceased to be in an instant. They only saw the resulting perfect tube of nothingness it left in its wake after they recovered from the bright flash. Most creatures on the way were obliterated, barely leaving any black smoke behind, while humongous holes appeared on the ones on the edges of Shen's attack.
A clear pathway appeared, and Rayna immediately took advantage of it, rushing full speed ahead.
The Void Spawn's reaction was the opposite of hers: they all halted their movements. Big shows of force affected the Void differently from how individual fights, even as a group, did. Over a second later, they reacted the way Shen knew they would, which was why he didn't use such attacks to pave a clear way for his Brigade to leave.
They released a soul-scratching screech, and every Void Spawn within fifty miles would rush straight at Shen; there would be no escaping by themselves now.
The Void itself also affected every Guardian more than before. The pressure increased in his mind. A dozen E-ranks almost immediately made themselves faint when they felt they couldn't resist the voices in their heads. They chose to depend on the protection of their peers rather than risk turning into Void Spawn.
The Void usually didn't seem to care about being slow in consuming Reality, but it always took offense to highly effective counter-attacks. Shen had even learned of the fabled Void Emissary that might come if the Alliance counter-attacked in some specific ways. He wasn't sure he could survive such a creature—
Shen froze.
He wasn't superstitious, but as soon as he thought of the Emissary, a black lightning bolt crossed the skies, going straight at Shen. He deflected it with his spear in the nick of time, but even his shock-dampening techniques didn't stop him from getting a shaky arm from the force of the impact.
The lightning bolt traveled straight after that and soon struck a Void Scout. The creature exploded, and so did hundreds after it as the bolt continued. It eventually stopped at a fish-shaped Warrior.
The Warrior froze for a moment, then exploded into black smoke and lightning. A biped Void Spawn, half again as tall as Shen, uncurled in its place, surrounded by dark lightning.
A Void Emissary had arrived.
"Absolute defense!" Shen yelled urgently. "Now! Use whatever treasures you have to survive! Leave if you have the means!"
Every Void Spawn in sight turned into smoke, which rushed toward the recent arrival. There was so much smoke that Shen estimated the Material Possession to be around thirty miles wide. The Emissary absorbed everything.
Then, it instantly threw up precisely 9,999,999 black lightning bolts around the Brigade. Whenever the bolts stopped, a C-rank, goblin-sized Void Spawn was born.
The Emissary's Cohort was deployed and ready for battle.
Shen yelled, "C-ranks, protect the weak! Retreat as well as you can! They're here for me!" Then, he shot in a random direction, hoping his information on Emissaries was correct.
It had already been wrong in that the Emissary was not supposed to be there.
Supposedly, Emissaries only appeared if you broke some critical rules of engagement between Reality and Void. Shen hadn't done it, not in Samir. His little attack was nowhere provocative enough for the Void to send an Emissary.
The explanation for his confusion came immediately in the form of a few red notifications.
| S-RANK WARNING: THE VOID TIDE HAS FLOODED SAMIR
| THE VOID WILL BEHAVE EXTRA ERRATICALLY UNTIL THE TIDE EBBS AWAY
| CEASE ALL OPERATIONS IN ALL SUBNODES
| PROTECT THE CLOSEST CENTER OF OPERATIONS UNLESS ORDERED OTHERWISE
Shen felt the Guardian System's connection force itself through the Subnode and into him, push the message into him, and then leave. He had no time to reply or beg for help. He didn't blame the system; S-rank notifications had to cost mana in levels he couldn't imagine. The Alliance's spending it like that only served to show how seriously they took the Void Tide and how threatening it was.
So, obviously, he had miscalculated badly.
By how no one seemed to do much about the Tide, he had thought it would take a while for anything relevant to happen. The higher-ups had even wasted time sending the high elves away from Samir and accepting Imperia! How could the Tide be here already?
Alas, he had been wrong, and no one had cared to say otherwise. Even the damn system had teleported him there without any warning. Why in the seven hells hadn't the Acting General forbidden operations in the Subnodes before the Tide actually arrived?!
Wait, teleportation! That's why the system had taken so long to bring the weak Guardians! The Void Tide had likely already arrived elsewhere, and the system was overloaded!
"Dammit," he swore.
A second later, his words to his Brigade were proven a lie. The recently arrived C-rank Void Spawn didn't come only for him, as he had been told they would. They were supposed to only attack third parties if the latter purposefully got in the way or their primary target got too far.
Instead, at least half started flying toward Shen's Brigade because of the Void Tide.
Shen had meant to lead the creatures away but changed directions. A Cohort was linked to its Emissary. Killing the Emissary would make another creature become an Emissary, and its Cohort would supposedly target him exclusively. Not even attacking a Cohort's Void Spawn should make it change targets if the former Emissary's killer was nearby. They would even break through Subnodes and invade regular Reality if the killer escaped, which was one of the things that made Emissaries a huge hazard.
Shen didn't know if they would do what they should but hoped so. Certainly, the Void Tide wouldn't change the creatures into less dangerous ones, right?
Heavens, he really hoped he hadn't just killed his Brigade in one of the most stupid ways possible.