-The Arena-
James and Goliath were having a daily training session and exchanging some blows. James was like a blur as he shot forwards, released a few blows then flittered back like a gust of wind.
To Goliath’s great consternation, James had recently been practising his control over two elements simultaneously. After some recent brain scans, they’d figured out that having an unlocked element that wasn’t building with the rest had been limiting him.
After he found and acknowledged his Pride Element, his spirit realm had equalled out rather quickly. Amusingly, his pride energy pervaded everything. Even his lightning had golden streaks through it from his pride energy.
He and Skay both believed the reason he felt so much pressure from having three elements was actually because he had 4 but one was in a constant state of depletion. This also led James to believe that his plasma element had actually been created after his pride element. Which meant that he had pride before he even had the battle with Calso.
Now that his spirit realm had regained equilibrium he felt a great deal more control than before. To the point that he could use two elements without getting any backlash for nearly an hour.
Technically it would be more accurate to call it three elements, because he found he couldn’t actually use his pride individually like the others could with their elements. Instead, his pride was a part of everything, and no matter what element he used, the pride energy would be mixed in with it.
Once James felt the pressure from having an unbalanced spirit realm release, he had no troubles learning more elements. However, he quickly ran into some issues. He unlocked nearly twelve. But they were so weak they got consumed by the other elements.
After some testing and the much-appreciated sacrifice of two interlopers that recently tried using subterfuge to enter the lab, Skay concluded that everyone in the core of the Brotherhood who had an emotional element was limited, or rather helped, in some fashion.
They also found that generally, anyone who tried to unlock too many elements, without an emotional element’s support, would suffer catastrophic backlash. Ordinary people would bottom out after 2 or 3 elements.
In the end, James managed to unlock the 4 elementary elements of earth, fire, water and wind. However, once his spirit realm had 7 different elements, it seemed to obliterate everything else he tried to refine.
Even things he had a better concept of than the four basics, like electromagnetism, got absorbed and refined by his other energies. This phenomenon was already abnormal, because energies in his spirit realm couldn’t usually refine each other. Or they simply chose not to, it was uncertain.
Skay gave it a try and said he could unlock as many elements as he wanted and they all just floated around in his spirit realm getting along great. He quickly discovered a problem once he got to about 16 elements. Once they were all there, he couldn’t get rid of them.
The problem with that being, that they all shared his maximum spirit energy and this meant even his strongest element only had a bit more than one sixteenth of his maximum energy. The only saving grace to this was that the massive number of elements made his alpha waves shoot up through the roof, and his recovery and gathering speed shot up along with it.
When they reached this point, they decided that if an individual emotional element created opportunities and restrictions, then why not get some more?
They even called Fatty down and volunteered him to try and unlock another emotional element. When he tried to unlock something he was rather strong in, namely suspicion, it was immediately gobbled up by his gluttony, not just this, though, any element he tried to unlock was gobbled up. Humorously, similar things happened with everyone else.
Goliath tried to unlock grief only to have it dissolved by wrath. Exsue tried again to unlock love, but of course ... nothing happened, and she claimed her “spirit realm must be broken ... or something”. Jessy tried to unlock something, but she refused to tell the others what. She claimed when it started to generate her lust energy just engulfed it and then it was gone.
Skay’s greed naturally consumed any new emotional element, similar to how Fatty’s had reacted. That only left James. The only other strong emotions he felt he harmonised with were the other sins. As such he tried to unlock all of them. He quickly realised that his pride wouldn’t accept any other elements like itself in his spirit realm and it obliterated them.
The most comical part, was that it didn’t even do it on its own. It ‘encouraged’ all his other elements to take action on its behalf. It was as if it didn’t even feel that the other sins were worthy of it personally taking action to destroy them. James could only give a wry smile as he watched his plasma tornado sucking in his greed element like a puff of smoke into a spinning fan.
They decided that emotional elements truly didn’t like to share. After this day of testing was finished they discovered that apart from James and Skay, everyone else was somewhat more limited.
Fatty couldn’t unlock anything apart from his gluttony. Jessy only managed to unlock wind, which gave a total of three elements including her water.
Goliath unlocked the fire element to join his earth and wrath. Which honestly didn’t surprise anyone.
Skay decided he had plenty enough at 16 but apart from the 4 basics and light he declined to comment on the rest, just saying; “It’ll be a surprise, haha hahaha HAHAHA!” his maniacal laughter spread out through the lab for a full minute after that comment.
Exsue declined to unlock any more elements. She said that having more isn’t better, it just means there’s more to distract you from what you should be focusing on. When she said this, she ended the comment with “like loovvveee.” while making suggestive eyebrow movements towards James.
This whole scene played out over the course of an entire night. Which is why James was now in the arena with Goliath.
Returning from this digression, James had been trying to practice using multiple elements at the same time. His pride element actually seemed to create none of the stress he typically felt using two elements and James assumed it was because of the nature of the energy.
In actuality, it was now far easier than before. He still ended up deciding to fast switch between elements in battle, though. This was for two reasons, it was because this got along better with his breathing technique, which was essentially the action of instant switching between elements like glittering stars.
The other reason was that trying to sustain two elements was still an enormous strain on him over time, and trying to maintain two elements while he was breathing was even harder.
His breathing, by now, was almost entirely subconscious. Although he occasionally altered it, he had gotten to the point he never had to think about it. At first, he found he’d have to remind himself and restart the breathing technique every 5 minutes, then it slowly became 10, then 20 and after 4 weeks had become rarely to never.
He decided after he ascended to True Spirit Realm he’d sit down and re-hash it again. Especially now that he was feeling less backlash with multiple element use.
As James and Goliath started gasping for breath in the arena, a ‘ding’ sounded through the speakers. “Boy, it’s Skay. There’s beast activity in the black forest.”
James reluctantly ended their battle and moved towards the lab. Goliath gave a sigh of relief and made his way to the meditation room. James was getting better much too fast. Now that he was using elements simultaneously Goliath felt a mountain of pressure from their duels.
He hardened his resolve and decided that he would need to double his training. Although James had forbidden them from breaking the barrier yet, that didn’t mean he couldn’t ‘reach’ the barrier.
To his further disgruntlement, that seemed to be taking longer than he thought it would. After he started the star point breathing technique, his energy just seemed to keep building up even after he thought he’d filled his barrier.
-The Lab-
When James arrived, he saw a bird’s eye view of the Black Forest south of Gau City. It was the forest Fatty had been lost in and also bordered on the edge of the Black Forest Mountain, which was a natural habitat for quite a few True Spirit Realm beasts.
The map had a red glow overlayed on it. “What’s going on Old Madman?”
Skay pointed to the live feed from the drone. “The spirit beasts have been congregating in this area for nearly three days. This red glow covering the edge of the forest is the heat map from the drone. All that area is lit up like the 4th of July.”
James cupped his chin for a while. “Harvy, put up a job for some delivery boys. I want every faction in the city to get a copy of this map and an explanation. Tell Hao, it’s time to call a war council. Make sure only the leaders of each faction know about this. No loose lips, or so help me, I’ll start making examples.”
The lifeless form of Harvy gave a nod and began to move towards the elevator. Before he could enter, it gave a ‘ding’ and Anvil walked out. He looked rather excited as he marched past Harvy towards the duo standing at a screen.
“You wouldn’t believe it! We found one of his old caves!” Anvil said excitedly.
Skay and James shared a glance. “His old caves?” James couldn’t stop himself from asking.
Anvil gave them both a sly grin. “You’re going to love this. The Clan Founder! One of the disciples training in the Endless Forest discovered one of the founder’s caves. It couldn’t be worse timing though. Song is supposedly having a 300 years birthday this week. Oh, I was told to invite you by the way. I’ve just been wrapped up the last few days with the cave business.”
James thought for a while and then signalled for Lackey 1, who seemed to be missing an arm now, to go and prepare tea. The armless, scarred faced and tired looking Lackey 1 climbed up from the pattern he’d been painting and moved off to make some tea.
James couldn’t figure out for the life of him why this guy was still coming down here. First was the array accident that left him scarred. Then there was an accident when he was sent to help Norman in the alchemy lab, and the whole fiasco when he was assigned to feed the caged earth lizard they’d acquired from the Gau Clan.
The strangest part was that he had long since accumulated 10,000 points for an Arc Cannon, but still hasn’t spent a single one of them. He just kept coming to the lab day after day and getting injured in bizarre lab accidents.
If James didn’t know better, he’d think the man was a spy. But he could sense his oath was still intact through the Guild Seal that was floating around in his spirit realm, so he knew the fellow wasn’t saying anything he shouldn’t to anyone he shouldn’t.
They’d even posted a drone to follow him around endlessly and track his guild medallion. This turned up nothing and only left them more confused. They never bothered to ask and as long as he kept doing his job they didn’t plan to yet. He was perhaps the most experienced Lackey they had. Certainly the longest lasting one at least.
After this divergence of thought, James turned back to the Elder. “Anvil, I’m afraid we’re going to be upsetting your plans. For both Song’s celebration and your cave diving. As curious as I am to go see it, if we leave the city anytime soon, we’ll be coming back to nothing.”
Anvil made a strange face then it clicked. “You’ve detected something?”
Skay gave a solemn nod then pointed to the red overlay on the screen. “Everywhere that is red has at least one spirit beast to every 10 square meters. So you’ve got an idea, this map is scaled at 10,000 square meters.”
Anvil shot up from the stool he’d just sat down on. “1000 beasts? All in such a small area? It’s ... have ... are they moving yet?”
Skay shook his head then hit a button. It showed a screen that was normal and then the slow build up over three days. “No, they’re just congregating for now. If they don’t move for another day, I expect them to nearly double, that is, if the current trend continues. If they start moving, we will probably only have about 2 days before they reach the city based on their movement patterns while congregating.”
Anvils face was white as a sheet of paper. “Good Heavens, I must return to the mansion. We have to warn the city!”
James reached out and stopped him. “Just wait for a moment. We’ve already sent people to inform the major factions. We can’t let this spread to the commoners just yet. If panic starts to spread the city will definitely fall. The last thing we need is looters and riots and people killing each other to try and run out of the city. Go remind Hao to start the war council. We’ll be there soon.”
After he’d said this, he sent Anvil on his way. As he picked up his fresh tea and turned to Skay. “Do you think we’ll be ready for that many beasts Old Madman.”
Skay just grinned madly. “Why wait to be ready for them to get here? You of all people should know better. Modern warfare is the speciality of our world. We should be sending out some disciples now to start harassing tactics. At the very least we can stir up some trouble, and they’ll move before they congregate too many. It’ll be easier to deal with less with fewer preparations than it would be to deal with more with only a few extra days to get ready.”
James gave a nod. He then opened a draw and started writing up a new Job Card.
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Black Class Mission
-Dangerous-
Open to: All members
Assignment by: Guildmaster James
I’m seeking someone brave, courageous or just someone stupid enough. I need 10 or more people in the main hall by high noon. This job requires you to engage in hit and run tactics on an enemy numbering into the thousands. Prior experience with the Air Board Testing will be valued.
You get to shoot Arc Cannons.
James.
Difficulty: No Stars.
Rewards: If you survive. All implants in the School will be free or the equivalent merits.
Any members with family will receive compensation for death in the line of duty should they not return.
----------------------------------------
When James went to the Main Hall at midday, 50 members were sitting around waiting for him. It was even more than he’d expected. The only members not here were out on other jobs. Most of them had formed little parties and groups, so even though they were only on 8 jobs, it was nearly 40 people.
When he saw the turnout, he gave a smile. He wasn’t sure if these people were here for the opportunity to fire an Arc Cannon or because of the job rewards, but it was a pretty decent crowd.
Of the guild members, a good number of them had joined for the techniques and to be able to train in the arena. After they set up the arrays for the Gau Clan, the only other cultivators that came to borrow the arena were from the Sects.
In total, almost everyone here had completed enough jobs to get the basic guild package. They got the meditation and breathing technique and had done at least one course in the commoner classes at the school. In addition, because they could use the arena for free to train and meditate, almost all of them were in the upper quarter of the barrier realm. They’d even had two or three people that had managed to break through.
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James stood in front of everyone with a bitter smile. “Looks like everyone is here for the job?”
After a few affirmatives, James just grew more bitter. “Well, you should all know in advance that you may not survive this Job. I have 12 Arc Cannons at my disposal for this operation. I should warn you now. These are the 2.1’s and can get about 12 shots out of them. Fatty and Goliath will be running this mission, so I expect you to take their lead.”
After saying this much, Goliath got up on stage and started to walk everyone through the core mission outline. He seemed to have a flare for leading troops, and James was not averse to putting him in charge. Fatty was just there because he needed some experience and out of everyone apart from Skay and Harvy, he was the only one who could operate a Big Berta properly.
When he saw that the briefing had started, James gave another bitter smile and left towards the Gau Clan with Skay and Harvy.
-Gau Mansion-
The ‘War Council’ consisted of the heads of all the same factions that had been sitting here when James first came for a town meeting after the monolith incident. There were only three exceptions.
Firstly, the head of the Imperial Branch had changed to the vice head. Secondly, it seemed the Guild Master of the Tailor’s Guild had mysteriously disappeared along with the vice-master, and there was now a young lady sitting in their place.
The final difference was that two new members were sitting at the table. One of them was Emily, and the other was Lucas. James assumed they must have used an Air Board to get here this quickly. How they managed to get the news so fast was something he could only guess at. More questionable was why they were even here, James was sure they probably didn’t care too much about Gau City.
Also similar to the last meeting was Afro-face in his teal robes and Hao in his purple robes standing at the head of the table arguing loudly.
“I don’t care if your little pet guild fucking walked out there and used a recording stone. I don’t trust them, and I haven’t heard anything from anyone else about beast activity increasing in the south.” Afro face was yelling loudly right at Hao while pointing towards the trio that just entered.
Hao’s face grew even more displeased. “It’s precisely because there’s been no reports of activity that I’m inclined to believe. That there hasn’t been a single sighting reported in the South while every other direction has doubled, is the whole reason I’m so fucking worried.”
“Nonsense! There hasn’t been a spirit beast sighted leaving the black forest for years! They’re not about to come out for no reason and furthermore they’re not about to start any fucking Beast Hordes!”
James and Skay sat down while Harvy stood behind them. Everyone in the guilds could already tell he was carrying an Arc Cannon, because the last time he had one, he was covered with a thick black robe similar to the one he wore now.
The Clans weren’t as clued in and didn’t pay too much attention to Harvy. When he was all wrapped up in bandages and smelling of fruit, he looked rather harmless.
As the duo who sat down had some tea served, Lucas gave them a quick glance. He gave a disappointed look then leant forward and looked like he went to sleep on his hands.
Emily gave them a quick cursory glance as well but seemed to only acknowledge their existence and returned to watching the steam rise from her tea. After a short moment of listening to the pair at the head of the table argue James interrupted.
“Hao, don’t worry about him. If there is a beast attack and he makes no effort to help defend the city, we will just annihilate his clan.”
The moment this was said the hall fell quiet. Afro face was visibly enraged ... at least probably, his afro started shivering which was really the only tell. “Just who do you think you are boy?! I’m the fucking head of the Housue Clan, and you’ll fucking show me some respect! You think you’re so strong because you have some fucking toys! What would you be without those weapons? You’d be fucking nothing! You’d be a fucking stain on the bottom of my shoe!”
James just ignored him and drank some tea. Then as if he’d not heard a single word he glanced around at everyone else who seemed rather busy looking at anyone but James. The only exception was the Builder’s Guild. Toller and his wife both just giving wry smiles. Out of everyone here, they probably knew James’ personality best.
James then continued to talk after the Housue Head ran out of steam. “Well then, moving on, when we heard about the monolith potentially being damaged our guild got together with the Gau Clan to start putting some defences in place. I suspect none of you have really noticed though, because you’ve all remained too busy backstabbing each other by using my guilds job board or trying to fill the gap left by the sudden missing personnel from the Gau Clan that have been out there protecting this city for you.
“Before you all jump up and down to defend yourselves, I’m going to tell you that I don’t give a shit what your opinion is. Whether you like it or not, this city is about to face a storm, and every single one of you are going to be responsible for it if you can’t find a way to divert the flood water ... so to speak. Basically what I mean is, it’s time for you all to get off your fat asses.”
Finished his little speech he freshened his tea and took another drink while the hall exploded with outrage.
“Just who the fuck are you to tell me how to run my guild?!”
“Our Sword Maidens live out there hunting spirit beasts! We’ve been keeping the peace in the outer areas of the city’s reach!”
“My guild isn’t built to handle battle, how can you expect us to send people out to fight beats!”
“Our clan has been settled in this city for hundreds of years! We don’t need some young punk still sucking his Mumma’s teat telling us how to protect it!”
The comments varied, but all fundamentally shifted blame or claimed they’d been protecting this city from the start. James just let them hurl abuse at him for a while with a mellow smile. Once they were done, he eyes squinted into slits, and his smile brightened further.
“Good, then that means you’ve all got this whole thing under control and are more than prepared for the incoming beast horde. My guild will be packing up and leaving the city tomorrow, in addition, we won’t be closing your accounts. Anyone who dies in the coming days, well, whatever is still in your account will be forfeit by right of seizure. Emily, I was wondering if your adventures guild would be happy to assist our clan rebuilding our operations in another city?”
Emily gave a bright smile and smacked the sooty shield on her back. “No problem, for a price our guild would be happy to assign an escort mission and help you to relocate to any city you want.”
Lucas lifted his head up from the table and wiped his sleepy eyes. “If you choose to leave, we would be happy to assist you in making some connections in the Capital. I’m sure your business practices will be very much encouraged there.”
Jeng shot to his feet when he heard this. “This is unacceptable! You can’t just leave whenever you want! You have a responsibility to this city and my Clan! If you leave, you will be breaking your oath of mutual defence.”
James gave a sly smile. “Oh? You’re worried about that now? I’ve fulfilled my reasonable duty of care by providing intelligence to you and the rest of the city. We had even helped your clan start preparing counter measures. My guild has fulfilled its end of the oath by assisting in the protection of the Clan in times of need where it is capable of doing so. That doesn’t mean we have an obligation to stay here and sacrifice ourselves for you.”
Jeng grit his teeth in anger. Although it was somewhat a twisting of the words, it was the truth. That was one problem with the oath. As long as the guild fulfilled the oath to a level that both they and the heavens thought were acceptable, then it was in essence a grey zone, even if one of the parties felt they got stiffed.
“Well, then what about your weapons?! If you can’t even provide us with those, then you are definitely breaking the oath!”
“I’m afraid I’m unable to do that Jeng you stubborn old bastard. You see, I’m afraid I swore an oath that I would never sell weapons unless I were reasonably confident I could defend against them. If I could sell them to the Clan and be sure they would never be used against me, then I would.
“Unfortunately, because your clan is full of questionable characters, my hands are tied. Actually, I tell you what, if you go kill that Xanzu bloke right now, then I wouldn’t have any problem with selling weapons to your clan.”
This time Hao was the one to jump to his feet. “What?! Little James you don’t mean that do you? Xanzu may have been a little rash, but he’s still young.”
James let out a long sigh. “Hao I’m sorry, but like minds think alike, and it takes a deceitful backstabbing bastard to know one. I can tell you right now that your son is untrustworthy. To be entirely honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed you soon for your position. That’s just my opinion, and you can take it or leave it. Regardless, unless the rest of this council can pull their heads out of their asses, my guild will be leaving this city.”
Jeng’s face turned white. ‘Did he hear something? How can he know?’ “You little bastard! How dare you come in here and disrespect my clan! This is a blatant disregard of our defence pact, and I’m going to partition the monolith to force this issue! Guards, seize him!”
The moment this order was uttered Harvy dropped his robe and lined Jeng up in the firing line of his Cannon. Before he could get the chance to fire, a shadow fell out of the ceiling and stabbed a dagger into Harvy’s arm.
The Cannon fired and grazed past Jeng’s face, blowing the far end of the dining hall away in a jet stream of devastation. Everyone was stunned. By the time quiet returned, Harvy was splayed on the ground with blood drooling onto the floor from his chest and arm.
Standing over him was Xanzu holding a bloody dagger with a sick grin on his face. Before everyone could register what was happening, he reached down and picked up the Arc Cannon then swung it around to focus onto Hao.
Apart from James, Skay, Lucas and Emily who seemed to not have noticed anything and were just drinking their tea, everyone else froze with similar thoughts. ‘Just what the fuck is going on?’
Xanzu’s sick grin widened as he eyed his father. “At last the day has come. Father, you should know that I’ve always hated you. You sicken me beyond measure. I don’t even know how you got mother pregnant. With your disgusting habit, you’ve ruined the good name of our clan! You surely wondered how all your little boy toys died! Well, I killed them HAHA! I fucking tortured them to death!”
Hao just let out a long disappointed sigh. He had suspected, and James’ earlier goading only reaffirmed what he’d been thinking for a long time. Xanzu was an unfilial son. “So it was you ... I always thought it was the other Elders, but I never thought it would be my own son.”
“You sick old pervert! It was me! HAHAHA! You should have heard your little Baker’s boy crying out for you. The little faggot actually loved you. It was disgusting! But it doesn’t matter now! Because I’m going to kill you, and then I will be the Head of the Clan.” Xanzu was getting rather excited. His grip on the little lever of the Arc Cannon slowly tightened as he talked.
Jeng was standing up with a victorious smile. “Xanzu my boy, your timing is perfect! Now, kill your father. We can take care of the boy later.”
Xanzu’s smile brightened further. “Yes Master.” Then a ‘click’ resounded out through the hall. Followed by a short silence. After nothing happened everyone who’d just looked towards Hao expecting him to be blown into pieces swivelled their heads back to his betraying son.
‘click click click’ After a few more attempts his hate filled eyes turned to Harvy who was lying under his feet. “How does this thing, huek!
Before he could finish, the air left his lungs as Elder Anvil appeared beside him and punched him in the chest. In that same instant, Grace and Song had started engaging Jeng on the stage. It became apparent after only a few blindingly fast exchanges that Jeng was far beyond them in strength.
“Hahaha! You fools, you think I’ve been stuck at the bottom of the palace realm along with you for the last 50 years! I’m so close to my breakthrough now that I’ll be in the Tower Realm in a matter of months! HAHAHA!”
Jeng laughed as he fended off blows empowered with spirit energy flying at him from both directions. After another short exchange, Hao joined them with a powerful wind technique that looked like he’d grown a long opaque blade out from his hand. Song danced backwards avoiding a punch then pulled a mace out of his robe that was clearly an artefact weapon.
On the other side of the hall, Anvil was fending off punches being thrown by Xanzu. He gasped out as he deflected punches and kicks infused with wind element. “You’ve ... reached the ... Palace Realm?”
Xanzu was smiling broadly and breathing hard as well as he threw out everything he could to pin Anvil down and stop him from assisting the others. He wasn’t sure if Jeng could hold them off in the first place. If he could stop Anvil, at least that could take some pressure off his Master.
As they fought with each other James had beckoned Emily over to him. “Hey Emily, have you ever wondered what it’s like?”
Emily misconstrued his question, and an odd grin split her face. “Guildmaster James, if you’re asking for a root, you’d better reconsider. If I get too excited, I might accidentally rip an arm off, or well ... something else. I’m sure that would be a pity. After all, I’m expecting ‘big’ things from you one day.”
James was stunned for a second, then gave a defeated chuckle. “Well, no, but perhaps let’s put that one on the backburner for now. What I meant was, have you ever wondered what it would be like, to shoot an Arc Cannon?”
The moment he said this Emily’s eyes lit up like shooting lasers. “You fuckin with me kid? You gonna let me... ‘play with your weapon’?”
Although this last bit was said with obvious sexual innuendo, James just chuckled again. “Sure, Sure, I’ll teach you a special trick.”
As he said that he leant down and picked up the discarded Arc Cannon. “Now it’s pretty simple. All you have to do is push this trigger while you’re snuggled up in my embrace.”
Emily gave a pout. “No way, you have to show me how to fire it myself.”
James just smiled brighter. “Oh Emily, you think me a fool? I know the Adventure’s Guild and Yansho Merchant’s Guild have been trying to infiltrate my lab. I also know that you managed to find out that you can’t fire these Cannons without a special little trick. I don’t know how you found out, but your total lack of reaction when Xanzu picked it up gave you both away.”
Emily just pouted further. “Men shouldn’t be too clever James. It makes you less attractive.”
James gave another smile and moved around behind Emily. He pulled her back until she was pressed against him and her bum was hard against his cock. “Well, once you’ve ‘played with my gun’ I’m sure you’ll overlook that discredit to my name. Now just aim it over here...”
He twisted her around till the cannon was aimed at the group of elders fighting it out on the stage. Now that James’ focus had returned here, he saw the Afro-face and the Elders from the teal Clan engaging Hao and Song leaving Grace to try and fend off Jeng alone.
Although those Elders were seemingly weaker than the elites of the Gau Clan they were enough to hold them back when they worked together. James just gave a bright smile seeing this. ‘Better to take care of two problems at once.’ He thought.
As he lined up Jeng he employed his lightning energy and time seemed to slow down. Despite that, he still had a little trouble tracking Jeng properly. ‘Fuckin hell, that old fucker is fast as fuck.’
As he had this thought, he took a breath and pumped as much of his lightning element into his mind as possible. Once everything slowed down more, and as blood started to flow from his nose, he moved his hands down along Emily in a slow seductive manner. Once he was certain he had a shot. His hand touched onto the Cannon, and he whispered ‘now’ into Emily’s ear.
‘Boom’ The sound wave created from a sound barrier breaking projectile rang through the hall. Even with his increased perception, James couldn’t make out the slug.
He let time speed up again after he couldn’t handle the strain on his mind anymore and watched ... most, of Jeng disappear out the hole that Harvy had created earlier.
Emily was pushed back into James as they both applied Earth spirit energy to stabilise themselves properly.
“Holy crap!” Emily breathed out then after dropping the Cannon spun around and kissed James. “If you don’t give me a cannon now. I’ll kill you even if it means everyone can get one.”
James just gave a self-depreciating smile. ‘Damn, why do I always attract the fucking crazies.’
The moment Jeng became a cloud of blood and flesh everything quickly changed. The Guilds and two other clans had backed away towards the wall, and the Housue Clan was getting absolutely wrecked by the two elders and Hao.
Anvil was still getting pushed back by Xanzu but after seeing his master turn to paste he lost a bit of his steam and Anvil had started taking space in their confrontation.
After another 10 minutes of this Xanzu received a fatal blow to the throat and two of the Housue Clans elders had been killed with the rest incapacitated and tied with odd golden ropes.
The Gau Clan’s Elders had taken quite a bit of punishment in this short battle, and they all had bruises or were bleeding from cuts.
James had managed to push Emily back to her seat after promising he’d consider giving her a Cannon and Harvy had somehow managed to stand up despite the wound on his chest.
He just pulled out some odd liquid Skay had made recently conjured up in the lab and started pouring it on. After a moment, the wounds closed up like magic. Also like magic was all the flowers that started growing out of Harvy like he was a fucking garden. Skay was busy taking notes of this phenomenon while plucking flowers out now and then.
None of the guilds or clans decided this would be a good time to intervene in the Gau Clans matters. Mostly because James only had an oath with the Clan and could just blow them away whenever he liked, which is why he needed someone else to pull the trigger on the Cannon.
Once again ... sort of a grey area. He probably could have killed Jeng himself, seeing as he was betraying the clan and it would have been within the parameters of the mutual defence pact, but he wasn’t about to take that big of a risk. Just holding the finger scanner on the Arc Cannon and aiming it for Emily was quite a risk for him.
After a moment of letting everything settle down, and before anyone could make excuses to leave, Hao called the meeting to order. “I apologise to everyone who has had to witness this violent scene. Now that things have been settled down somewhat, we must focus back to the task at hand. The city is in danger, and we need to decide what to do.”
After the display from the cannon to freshen everyone’s memory and James’ threat that he’d leave the city everyone decided to take it a little more seriously. Although the Arc Cannon was a good reason, everyone had to accept that the Dark Brotherhood was a boon for this city.
Since their rise, the Brotherhood had done a number of things that increased the city’s prosperity. Namely, the School, although they were paying a pound of flesh, the school would undoubtedly be a huge loss to the city if they left. On top of that, almost everyone in the city was now a cultivator in some form. Even if they were only the first step into the barrier realm.
If the Brotherhood left this wouldn’t change, but later on it would mean everyone would have to be raised with conventional meditation techniques again. Which no one wanted to share with commoners. This would then limit the number of strong backs to do the city’s labour, and reduce the strength of the workforce again.
The last thing was, the guild was completely impartial when it came to jobs. They didn’t care who the job was from or what it wanted them to do. They’d even done jobs that damaged the Builder’s Guild, the Master of which, James was on friendly terms with.
The only job they couldn’t take was one against the Gau Clan, but everyone accepted that because their oath was public knowledge.
Now that everyone had started taking this seriously, they began the discussion. The most common opinion was that they would need to start an evacuation. If there were truly that many beasts in the dark forest and they were about to start moving towards the city, then they either needed to move everyone together close enough that the monolith could protect them or evacuate to Katsu.
The problem with that lay in the fact Katsu was to the south and they would be passing by the horde which would be coming from the Mountain in the south-east. This meant it would be a safer bet to try and hide within the monoliths range.
Although everyone hoped the monolith was okay. The fact that spirit beasts were hoarding together at all suggested it wasn’t.
They couldn’t pin their hopes on the monolith preventing an incursion. They didn’t even know if it could still protect them at all. The ruins still glowed, but it was so dim now that even the moonlight made it difficult to see.
After James let everyone discuss for a while, he gave Skay a nudge. Skay then flicked up his pad and hit some buttons. After a moment, the hall fell silent as a projection from QC67 was projected onto a wall in the hall.