The Major Victory

Just 18 minutes before the counter attack of the base's troops to the enemy troops crashing right outside of its battered and cracked barrier.

There was a little forest which Ciemnosc needed to go through to arrive at the shore where the ships had anchored themselves to, bushes the size of a small house, leaves dropping with water and other similar liquids nonstop as if it was raining but it couldn't be any colder and dry instead. The commanding vehicle that had been rushing for over a few minutes already had finally disappeared and no longer took down the more than 10 meters tall trees within the forest, making a little destructive path towards the Little Lake's nearest shore.

Though the path was small considering these ‘little woods’ were larger than any city Ciemnosc had seen before, and even larger than the academy’s territory itself. Wherever the commanding vehicle had its protected wheels moving through, a completely flattened path of green and sometimes blood and small bodies of wildlife could be seen going from the very beginning of such a little forest, the snow having completely melted but still continuing to accumulate minutes after the commanding vehicle passed through.

Pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum, pum pum pum pum pum…

As Ciemnosc was standing close to and sneakily towards the end of the forest, with a very small, short distance of about 20 meters between the last tree and the last bush of the ‘little’ forest to the waters of the Little Lake. He was watching the ships with their cannons firing at all times, each ship didn’t have its cannons fired at the same time, but more or less it was so.

Hearing the other 2 ships being just the same, firing their cannons to a full but not at the same time, only close to. There was only one difference, as these ships and their ships’ company did seem to know the importance of ordered bombardments, and it was 2 of those cannons that were heard 2 or 3 seconds after all of the other ships’ cannons fired; finally firing as well.

This slight delay wasn’t possible to be stopped, it was already known that there was some kind of barrier, thanks to the surveillance array formations of the ships that their array formation grandmaster had built in each of them. And with the fact that they thought that stopping for even a second would complicate things and possibly make them lose all element of surprise, the ships ordered not to stop firing away no matter what.

So in the end, the 2 last cannons which were previously left behind couldn’t get in the same position and fire rate as the rest, and they had already started firing long before the order to not stop firing was given. In the end, neither party could stop or slow down and those 2 cannons were now firing those few seconds after the rest.

“...” Ciemnosc looked at the ships and, with his Spirit Sense, he had already gone through the scanning of every single part, array, item and cultivator of the and within the ships. He would have shaken his head if it wasn’t that he was right in front of the enemy’s biggest firepower he had ever seen, and that the Personal Token in his right hand could only help so much against the surveillance and detection array formations, he also had to play it well with his own body on the field.

Pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum…

The cannons kept firing on and on, Ciemnosc heard them rush through the little forest sometimes, occasioning either the direct explosion of the pure energy shells or their burning down as well as losing of ‘their’ kinetic force, lowering themselves to a point that some pure energy shells didn’t even go out of the little forest before falling down.

But most of them did manage to go way past the little forest to connect with the light green barrier, protecting their immediate nearby sky from any enemy’s projectiles, as it was doing.

Ciemnosc would have to rush those 20 meters towards the front as fast as possible, and with impeccable timing at the very last, or he might be shot by all those cannons despite the orders he heard them saying and transmitting around with their Identification Tokens. Even if there were those orders, by instinct, Ciemnosc was sure to be fired at as soon as those cultivators saw him and felt the dangerous alarms going off in their heads.

So, without the protection of the tall and thick vegetation and from the even taller trees, Ciemnosc had to make sure he could get to a certain position… and not be fired at.

… Pum pum pum pum pum… pum pum pum pum pum… pum pum pum pum pum… p-dash!

The cannons fired once more after they started to get their ammunition dump refilled with a piece of an Inferior Powerful Stone once again, cleaning the ashes of the previous one and being damn careful of it not causing an explosion that may make the cannon need a repair or more time to cool off.

The time for reloading its ammo dump wasn’t just because of not having enough array formations to try and make it quicker, but the cannons were just the ‘host’ of the ‘parasite’ that the Inferior Powerful Stones were, causing anything it touched to become completely corroded and turned into nothingness to a certain degree, the cannons already had a tone of protective layers upon layers of array formations; it was too difficult to place any more.

That and the fact that the cannons were created just in this last generation, too little time had been given to such cannons. Firstly having been mostly tried by Ciemnosc since that time where he shot to death a few acting elders here and there, and then a bit more during the subsequent offensives and up to even being used to directly counter the enemy’s shelling; the cannons were a ‘new thing’ but were already being manipulated however a 10 to 11 year old wanted them to be.

If only the other side was as amazing as Ciemnosc, if only…

The moment the cannons began firing once again after reloading, Ciemnosc’s muscles tensed within the bushes and last couple of trees hiding him, but the sound of his incredible yet not extremely tonified muscles was just silent, nobody could hear his body tensing despite being just tens of meters away from his targets.

His eyes went around the ships altogether one last time, the improvised ‘safeguards’ of the ships holding each other tight and ‘securely’ from the constant firing was somewhat helping, and very useful as only a few parts of each ship was being destroyed every time that they began shooting until coming out clean of having any more ammunition; before reloading for the umpteenth time.

But even though reloading was always taking quite some time, with the arch and trajectory of those pure energy shells were being fired at, the projectiles themselves arrived quite near to each other in their own interval of time.

The cannons, the cultivators firing them and the ships roughly moving around, shaking about in the water and bringing some warm water up onto their ships. As they fired away, Ciemnosc was seeing, as if in slow motion, as his feet moved forth at last and despite the great noise from the cannons - his stomp against the ground was also heard with even the trees around him swaying and starting to fall slowly and twistedly… All in the direction of the ships at the left and the right.

“!!!” The cultivators on top of the ships went wide eyed, stunned and left a bit crazy as they saw an unknown cultivator suddenly rushing at them. They didn’t feel safe anymore, despite their so-called ‘captains’ being at the Conflagrate realm, and all of the cannons’ teams aimed at the approaching ‘enemy—?’.

“Hey! What do you thin-...” The ‘captains’ of the ships became aware of the change of their cannons’ aim the moment they began to have their large mouths aiming directly to the ground and just waiting to fire away once again. But it was right after shooting their first rain of pure energy shells, and a second or 2 needed to go by before being able to shoot again.

Every single cannon was just awkwardly aiming at the sudden ‘invader’, with the captains even more awkward as they quickly read the invader’s cultivation base, barely getting their body to fly… all the cannons; except 2 of them.

Whoosh- pum pum, swish swash! Boom boom! Whooooosh~.

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Ciemnosc rushed with all his might to his left, where the ship who had 2 cannons delayed were now aiming at him and jumped as high into the air as he could, the 2 teams behind the cannons changed aim as fast as possible, following Ciemnosc’s body and firing away the only pair of pure energy shells that could hit him right now.

But they were still slower, later, than Ciemnosc’s movements and calculations…

Ciemnosc’s body moved in the middle of the air despite being below the Conflagrate realm, his body twisted as his chest faced the sky, twistedly, with his whole torso at his waist almost making him a crescent shaped human being. But the crescent shaped human being didn’t even last, before his knees shot towards the sky, his body already dodging the first pure energy shell as it passed right in front of his shin and instep.

On the other hand, the second pure energy shell went past him just a moment later after the first one, grazing his modern uniform’s pants as Ciemnosc felt hot and fresh at the same time at his calves, behind his knees and at his heels. The second pure energy shell passed behind his legs like this and way below his thighs in midair as he had a laid back position in the middle of the air.

Ciemnosc’s left hand that had been ‘dragged’ around up until now opened up, letting little thingies with bright, shining even under the sunlight pieces of somethings, and they fell both right at the tail of the first pure energy shell as well as right on the ‘head and face’ of the second pure energy shell while it still rushed upper into the air than the first one.

Those tiny pieces of just now of a broken Supreme Powerful Stone that Ciemnosc got to destroy himself while jumping and dodging these mortal can-explode-pure energy shells, fell quickly onto and into those shells, as if attracted by it and being pulled in like magnate by those shells themselves.

The next moment as those pure energy shells devoured the tiny pieces of Supreme Powerful Energy, they went off.

Exploding, they sent Ciemnosc completely flying away, higher into the skies as strands of those explosions, which were much grander than ever seen before were following him, as if attracted even more and more lustfully by Ciemnosc’s mere and single body. His body could be seen flying up, and forwards as well, right on top of the ships while a light green barrier began appearing as the shockwaves in the air were enough to activate the protective array formation.

Meanwhile those strands of pure energy were being seemingly eaten by Ciemnosc’s back indiscriminately, the pure explosions became so grand they completely clouded the vision towards the west, but the cultivators below suddenly began firing at it for whatever feasible reason they could be thinking of at those moments.

Pah- krrtt krtrrttr… pum pum pum- boom boom boom!

Ciemnosc’s body body slammed the barrier, making the ship that was on his left to sway in the water, but the cultivators below credited their cannons firing at the cloud of that powerful but terrifying explosion of pure energy never seen so big and already making their protective barrier activate; for causing the ship to sway and almost capsize just like this to such.

On the other hand, Ciemnosc whose body had directly slammed against the light green, transparent barrier from above was being ignored by everyone, except, yet again, those 2 cannons’ teams that tried to keep shooting him down - clearly titled by not having a great day.

“Stop shooting, stop shooting, STOP SHOOTING!!” The captains of the ships began to react, no longer flying about and ducking back into their little open spot where they took control of the ships’ movements, and holding the helm with one and while pointing at their ship’s company with the other hand’s index finger, yelling with their damn rage out from both humiliation and fear; both provoked by the huge clouds of exploding pure energy right outside the safely guarding protective barriers.

Everyone knew even peak Conflagrate realm cultivators get exterminated as soon as they are caught in a cannon’s pure energy shell’s explosion, so what would happen to them if they got even just touched by these more sonorous and powerful looking explosions right outside their ships?!

Pum pum pum, pum pum, pum… pum… pum…

The cannons slowly stopped shooting to the outside of the protective barriers, to the cloud of pure energy that was only growing and growing, also beginning to make thunderous sounds as if the sky or space itself could start collapsing anytime soon.

‘I guess I don’t dislike them anymore.’ Ciemnosc thought while looking back at the pure cloud of energy, not having another choice but to go Claws Out with only his index fingers while he hid such from the eyes of those below. All they could see was, away from the cloud of pure energy still in explosion and not only not disappearing right away, but even seemingly staying for a bit of a long time, the invader’s body no longer slid down and became stagnant still so high up above their heads and just a few meters above the mast.

The captains had barely managed to get the cannons to stop firing, when they suddenly saw Ciemnosc’s body move in a way that indicated he was going to punch the barrier with his left hand. From below, the captain of the ship that was on Ciemnosc’s left shouted to the 2 teams still trying to aim the cannons up, finding out they couldn’t and were trying to detach the cannon itself from where it was installed.

“Stop that right now! You’ll tear a hole to the bottom of this lake if you continue, you neanderthals!”

“!!” The captain saw the 2 teams no longer trying to doom the whole ship and felt better with himself, but noticed that it was not because of his shout. Rather, they were all showing him his neck and… looking up with… despair… ?

Ciemnosc’s left hand was indeed raised, but neither his right hand nor his left hand had the index finger with a little nail that was much bigger than before. His feet, however, were as if stuck to the barrier, but he had stuck back in his feet after making a couple of hole in the barrier with his Claws Out projecting from his toes, hiding it with the rest of front of his shoes while his left hand descended onto the barrier with the soft side of his fist-like but also of his grabbing-like hand.

Crsssshh-pshaaaft~~~.

Just as his left hand began falling onto the light green barrier, a thin glow went off an it made his whole body shine, but for only a moment before disappearing and revealing in his hand now a thin sword with a metallic, steel-silvery luster that commanded attention even from the Conflagrate realm cultivators below.

“That is… a Mortal weapon!!” A shout came about and made the eyes of those near the ship to their right to turn desperate, what else could easily deal with a protective barrier’s array formation other than a Mortal graded weapon, and an edged weapon at that?!

The tip of the Mortal sword struggled at the beginning, seemingly having a hard time pushing through the light green barrier, but Ciemnosc didn’t even put his dark Power Energy into game when the protective barrier began to desist on its own after just a couple of seconds with cracks appearing only below the Mortal sword’s tip.

The moment the Mortal sword pierced the protective barrier, the sound of air as if it the outside had been alienated from the inside awoke the desperation and fear in the eyes of everyone. Until another shout came to be and even the Conflagrate realm cultivators nearby began to also finally fear for their lives more than when they were close to being touched by the still ongoing pure energy grand explosion outside.

“It’s… IT’S CIEMNOSC!!!” Immediately, the other 2 ships began to get ready for moving out, the ship's company went about on the ships, suddenly and somehow not needing their captains’ reminder as they each went to do the thing that they were in charge of, the anchor that needed one to constantly pull from a very heavy mechanism by at least 4 other Spirit Gathering realm cultivators that could use a lot of Power Energy unlike anyone under that realm was being pulled by a single cultivator who was already bleeding from his hands, where his arms connected and from his nose and ears.

Tap, tap.

Meanwhile, on the ship that was on Ciemnosc’s left, his body came flying down after making a gap large enough for his slender body to fit through, keeping his Mortal sword out to make the protective barrier not use any more Power Energy to restore fill in the gap made by it.

It was as if the Mortal sword was the bane of all of Power Energy, and wherever it touched in a non-friendly way, the pure energy from Inferior or even Supreme Powerful Stones was like a mild little brother getting beaten up by the big brother.

“Thanks for the cannons.” Ciemnosc said flatly, his tone calm, soft, quiet and childish still; he didn’t have the maturity that someone of his looks should have. With another Mortal sword appearing in his right hand, Ciemnosc watched as the ship’s company on the ship he set his feet on was running amok, the captain even paralyzed behind his helm.

‘Just a little Conflagrate realm 4th stage, poor you.’ Ciemnosc suddenly looked back at the captain with his back still facing the latter, his neck bent forwards for a bit and only his head turning. The captain felt as if the world had left him, only obscurity filled his everything, and he slowly began to have a deviation within his body, Power Energy running amok and destroying whatever they were supposed to be protecting.

‘I like this new move.’ Ciemnosc turned his head back to normal to the front, his neck still a bit bent forwards though, and his eyes full of ‘I’m having fun’, as he looked at the trapped few cultivators.

‘Now let me start.’ Ciemnosc raised his shoulders, his arms following up and holding to their respective Mortal swords, he was rather close to the barrier at the side where the grand explosion of pure energy was still growing but to barely noticeable degree on its own.

Cuh cuh~...

With a swift motion, his swords moved, parallel to each other, as they were swung from the left to the right at the same time as twins and were sent directly to make a pair of thin gnashes on the barrier siding the grand explosion of pure energy.

…