Nodding toward her, Nolan turned in the direction of the clearing with his longsword in one hand and his second arrayment diagram resting at the tip of his free hand’s index finger. Floating about a hundred metres above the thrashing upper canopy of the forest—which was rapidly losing its leaves to the relentless winds—Nolan expanded his spiritual sense farther and locked onto the location where the CMA’s forces had retreated to.
“May, Delia, Ian. Ready to do something dangerous?”
Ian put on his sect uniform to match the others. “What about this hasn’t been dangerous? Not that it matters, I’m just saying.”
“Do I have a choice?” muttered Delia, who eyed the aura-concealing necklace that he’d forced her to hand over on the day of her enslavement. In a lower, frustrated voice, she said, “I miss travelling alone.”
He tossed her the necklace. “Yeah, it was probably a lot more convenient slipping away with this thing. Hate to say it, but you won’t be doing any running today.”
Silver eyes narrowing above an icy frown, it looked as if she were contemplating whether or not she should ask him a question.
“Keep the Nightshadow Sect busy for a bit. If you can, kill their leader.”
She gave a light harrumph, but said nothing more. Now that she had reached the ninth level of Genesis, with her ability to fight above her cultivation level he figured that she wouldn’t have too much trouble staying alive in such a dangerous situation. That bald elder wasn’t a simple person either, so Nolan was uncertain as to whether or not she could truly overpower him, but as long as she had that necklace she would be able to find an opportunity to deal the man a surprise blow.
“What about me?” said Lyra, who rested the length of her golden blade on one of her slender, green-clad shoulders. “I only know a couple of arrayments and they won’t be useful here. I’ll just come with you lot.”
“I doubt they’re just going to sit there for much longer. I’ll bet my left nut that they try the same thing as us.”
“What are we trying, exactly?” asked Aine, who still hovered at Esteban’s side while holding the boy’s leg down within the barrel of Divine Spirit Fountain water. “We’ll be attacking from a distance, but you four? You…you don’t plan on fighting all of them by yourselves, do you?” Her azure eyes were wide with worry, overshadowed by soft strands of shoulder-length honey-brown hair.
“To beat an army, you just need to kill their general. In this case, we’ll be aiming for Merchant Lord Kalvin, Tems and that bald elder of the Nightshadow Sect.” Giving his friends an assuring look as another wave of earth-rending collisions shook the land and sky, Nolan put on a confident smile. “They’ve got the advantage of numbers, but so what? With the arrayments Uncle Grey taught us and the weapons he and Jun made for us, not to mention all the martial skills we know, we should be fine.”
Sensing several hundred auras beginning to circumnavigate around the end-of-times scene that characterized everything within a few kilometres of the clearing, Nolan knew that it was time to act.
“Listen to Nyla while we’re gone,” he said firmly, a bit more sect-master than friend in this crucial moment. “In fights like this, we can’t just go at things blindly. We need some sort of structure.”
Delia put on her treasured necklace, her arms soon glowing with bright light that signified the buildup of inner essence. May, on the other hand, produced a long, silver sword and began to activate a martial skill of her own, but was interrupted by Lyra.
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“You might as well use this,” said the golden-eyed girl with a slight pout. “Since I won’t be doing anything.” Her halmite great sword floated over to the other woman with a light exertion of projected inner essence. Hefting up her second blade, she said, “This weapon’s better anyway.”
“Thank you,” said May, her light smile and serious gaze lending her a charming look. “I’ll be careful not to break it.”
Lyra snickered.
“Alright, let’s do this.” Nolan poured energy into his flying sword and then cast one last glance at his friends. “Good luck, guys.”
Taking the lead, he steered their little task force toward the left side of the clearing, May’s energies still shielding them from the oncoming winds. Tems and the members of the Nightshadow Sect were approaching from the opposite end of the clearing’s radius of effect, where countless explosions of energy and pure force continued to shred the landscape in a way that assured that the immediate area would soon look like the rest of the Northern Wilderness. Despite this, the defensive arrayment that he and Nyla had spent hours creating was still holding strong. Uncle Grey had gloated that this technique was a cut above the so-called ‘trash’ that he’d been teaching them up until their last visit—which included the Swift Steps Technique that Nyla, Alicia and Aine took so much pride in—and that it could even withstand the attacks of Soul Strengthening cultivators so long as they were amongst the lower levels of the realm. On top of that, as Nolan and his friends grew more adept at the practice, the effects of this arrayment would only increase.
I’ll have to get the old guy to teach me a few more techniques the next time I see him. Thinking of his master as he locked sight on the oncoming army of CMA mercenaries—all of which wore expensive sets of armour and boasted weapons of the highest quality—he wondered what was keeping Uncle Grey occupied in recent weeks. After all, many years had passed on Nia since he and his friends had left. Did it really take that long for him to absorb the energy that he’d stolen from the spirit of the lake’s pond of heavenly dew?
He was shaken from his thoughts by hundreds of calamitous sounds of impact as the uniform volleys of those battling within the clearing changed to an all-out brawl that was slowly spilling into the surrounding area. If he paid close attention, he could see people fleeing Tallgate in the distance while hundreds of others watched from well over a dozen kilometres east of the clearing. Whatever the day’s outcome, news of the conflict would likely spread across the continent like wildfire considering the heavyweights that were involved.
“Delia,” he called as they were about to make contact. “Go, now!”
With no choice but to heed his command, the curvaceous, cold-eyed woman abruptly vanished from view at the behest of the concealment arrayment that she usually used, disappearing from his perceptions entirely in the moments that followed. The second that she left, several massive volleys of golden arrows peppered into the ranks of the oncoming Nightshadow Sect members by the tens of thousands, forcing most of them to slow to a stop as the greater body of ashen-robed cultivators threw up strange, mist-like barriers of grey energy with which to protect themselves. Only a few of their members were incapacitated by the combined attacks of the friends that Nolan had left behind, such was the strength of their protective barrier that seemed to eat away at the projectiles like a heavily acidic shroud of precipitation. Despite the low casualty count, the barrage pinned them in place for the most part and bought Nolan and the others some precious time with which to carry out their current task.
Up ahead, tens of thousands of golden swords suddenly materialized above the merchant lord’s army, the man himself participating alongside his three most powerful subordinates from where they approached at the head of the host.
“I’ll do it,” called Nolan over his shoulder, raising his sword and pointing it up ahead at the oncoming group.
There were about two kilometres between the two parties, a distance that was quickly covered by the enemy volley after they fired their techniques in his direction. Nolan didn’t waste any time and activated his own arrayment, specifically the one that he’d placed at the tip of his sword. Upon activation, he invested a third of his inner energies to power the technique and thus managed to create about fifteen thousand of his own projectiles. Shining brighter and moving faster, his arrows outclassed the summoned blades of his opponents by a great degree. This became evident when the two volleys passed through one another with hundreds of points of contact that, in every single case, resulted in the destruction of the enemy projectiles and the plowing through of his own. Still, with so many parts at play, the majority of the deadly energy manifestations continued sailing towards their targets unabated.