“Impressive as always,” said Angelica, running a finger through her short, bob-cut hair as she inched closer with a sweet smile. She spoke with a coy voice, her dark eyes wide with appreciation as she looked up at the floating mass of disciples that was greatly intimidating the new recruits. “At the rate you’re going, you might even be able to take the sect for yourself.”
“I’d sooner destroy it.”
“Whatever you decide to do, you can count on me to assist you in any way that I can.”
Jason kept quiet, unsure of how to respond.
“Stop sucking up, it’s unpleasant to see.”
Crossing her arms to purposely prop up her large, supple breasts, Angelica turned to Sersa and gave a dismissive glance at the other girl’s more modest endowment. “Who says I’m sucking up? My words were sincere.”
“If there comes a day when it’s possible to whore our way to victory, then you can help.” Acting as if Angelica had just disappeared, Sersa turned to Jason with a coaxing stare and then motioned to the captives with a movement of her head, “How many are mine?”
He produced an ordinary sack no larger than one meant for containing marbles and tossed it in her direction. “Two hundred. But if you plan on cultivating any more today, you’ll need these.” He’d just given her fifty more of the medicinal pellets that he relied on to suppress the fallout effects of the Blood Burning Heart Technique, for it was clear that she’d already done away with the disciples that she had snatched from Calmer. “Split those with the others after I leave.”
With a motion of his hand, he separated that exact amount from the greater body of floating youths. Releasing his hold on them, Sersa immediately caught the lot with her own energy as if on instinct.
“I’ll be busy for a few more hours, then.” Satisfaction in her sharp, hazel eyes, she flew off with a greedy smile, leaving behind only a great gust of wind that set Jason’s and the others’ robes aflutter.
Several hundred captives remained suspended in animation amidst the slowly-brightening landscape, their complexions draining of all colour and their clothes dampening from profuse amounts of cold sweat
It’s no big deal, he said to her via sound transmission as he watched her slender frame flying off into the distance. No need to say thanks.
Her response rang throughout his mind, a simple smirk that he had grown accustomed to in recent weeks. Seeing her disappear beneath the forest’s upper canopy some three kilometres away from the fringes of camp, he had to wonder if the girl had ever thanked anyone in her life.
Several disciples that had been designated to the same group suddenly made a run for it at their fastest speeds, though they were surprisingly killed by the closest of their former comrades in a frantic display of newfound loyalties. Observing this from above, Jason corrected his thinking and concluded that it was a wonder how Sersa had ever developed a moral compass at all, regardless of its frequent inaccuracies.
“Alright,” he said, looking down at those below with a stony expression. “Everyone, open up a small cut on one of your thumbs. This won’t last long.”
Although many showcased various levels of unease, not a single person amongst the thousands of surrendered youths hesitated to follow his instructions. Once they had done so, Jason converted one of the surrounding trees into thousands of slips of parchment with a basic construction arrayment. These were quickly made into the talismans that most knew as master-slave contracts; all 3,942 of which rose up to occupy the space between him and his hovering captives.
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Feeling a sudden surge of excitement, Jason became thankful of the great elder’s failed plan to pretend to target the excess of five thousand disciples that hadn’t taken part in the siege of Calmer. Although some had refused to join and over a thousand had died in the recent confrontation with Jason’s people, he would soon command a decent-sized army of over four thousand people. How many cultivators on the continent could say that they were in charge of such a force? Once he sought out the great elder and the war band that had attacked Calmer, he would have a personal army with over ten thousand people at the Integration stage or stronger.
This is actually pretty cool, huh?
Mood lifted by the interesting thought, he sharpened his mind and focused on the slips of parchment above him with heightened awareness. Pulling up his left sleeve, he opened up a long cut along his forearm with a fingernail. Enough blood leaked from his arm to disturb a weak-hearted person, all of which he caught with spiritual energy. Once he’d gathered enough to fill about half of a standard water bottle, he sealed the wound with spiritual energy to stop the bleeding and then swallowed a few blood breeding pellets.
Limiting his spiritual sense to a radius of less than one kilometre, he split up his blood into several thousand droplets that he then sent up to the contracts above, all of which soaked up the blood without any issue. He then retrieved drops of blood from the thumbs of those below with a wide net of spiritual energy that he expelled without warning, imprinting them upon the swarm of parchment slips above with perfect accuracy. Due to the simultaneous activation such a large number of master-slave contracts, a brilliant lightshow came to life as thousands of people screamed, grunted or cried out in pain.
Observing the black rings that circled their necks, Jason expanded his spiritual sense back to its ordinary range amidst a rush of satisfaction. Glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the red-eyed elder, he set about converting a second, larger tree into a large stockpile of master-slave contracts, relying on Origin Energy from the surroundings to power the process.
Might as well not waste any time.
He contacted Havel, Brud, Angelica, and Renay—the former assistant to Sersa during her days as deacon in Great Elder Marcus’s former domain—and gave them each two hundred of the doomed disciples that he’d brought along with him from Calmer. Each of them accepted the gift with greedy eyes and words of thanks, Angelica pulling him into a tight hug out of apparent happiness as she praised him for being a far better master than the high-ranking elder that she had been subordinate to in the sect.
The feeling of her breasts against his chest was extremely pleasant, a large part of his arm completely engulfed by her embrace. He only allowed himself a few moments on enjoyment, however, before he shrugged her off and backed away by about a metre.
“Alright, settle down.” He gave the four of them a sweeping look. “Have some grunts clear out enough space for another six thousand people. We’ll be taking a break from fighting for a few days, so take your time refining those guys and be sure to take those pellets I gave you.”
“Are you going to give the newcomers any commands?” asked Renay, speaking carefully and only looking him in the eye for measured amounts of time.”
He answered by looking down at the organized groups of wary and distraught disciples and speaking in a level voice that echoed throughout the area due to the inner essence infused into it.
“I’m going to give you guys some orders, and unfortunately you’ll have no choice but to carry them out.” Taking a steady breath, he said, “Firstly, if you don’t obey one of my commands then commit suicide immediately after. Second, obey any commands that these two—“he pointed at Havel and Renay, the most tactful and reliable of his subordinates—“and commit suicide immediately if you refuse. That is, as long as it’s not sex stuff.”
Havel and Renay both showed momentary flashes of annoyance with Jason’s implication, but he didn’t care. If they weren’t subject to the influence of his master-slave contract then he wouldn’t trust a single person in this camp aside from Sersa, his trust for whom wasn’t particularly high.
“That’s not fair,” said Brud, who crossed his short arms and kept his beady black eyes downward in a meek manner. “I’ve been on your side the longest. I should get to be in charge when you’re gone.”
“Know your place, Brud,” said Angelica with a disapproving harrumph. “Back in the outer court, you couldn’t even lead your own group and had to follow that loser Zern around to pick up his scraps.”
“So you know, I ended up killing him before this Acquisition even started. That’s why I left the sect in the first place.” Picking a bit of dust off of the neckline of his robe, he spoke in a confident tone. “After that, I travelled the entire length of Verdure and all the way up to Hauss’s northern borders on my own, but then I was ambushed by Jason in my sleep and—”