Sending out word for muscle didn’t take much. /tellepathy is good at that. From there, it was just going out and fetching them.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think I could take these people, it was that I couldn’t corral them if they dispersed. The Buddhists had naturally all tried to stay together, because they were much stronger when they did. Daoists, not so much.
At the same time, there were a lot of people eager for this fight. The more powerful Dragon-wielders, Tomb Clansmen happy to take on strong undead, vengeful Chinese, and more than a few Powered who needed to see how strong some of these enemies were.
Oh, and some people who wanted some entertainment, too.
It took me about ten minutes. Those I contacted couldn’t wait to join me in an active final Shroud-clearing, especially against undead Cultivators. If they could get to one of my Lived-Lines quick, that made things even simpler as I zipped around fetching them.
The whole crew of Traveling Knights was here, along with a half-dozen Heavenbound and others who’d been aiding them constantly. Azaia and Legion came in, the former intending to work as support, and I even picked up a trio of Indian Dragon-users who happened to be available and could get to one of my Lived-Line locations, namely a converted Vivic Shrine nearby.
I even brought the Angelos and Windgraf Mochtal, who happily reunited with Commander Haru’Ara, the genie getting a lot of attention for his big blueness, while the deva affected his Halo, but nothing else eye-catching, save for his shining Mace. Mochtal had a zweihander he was finessing about proudly, and a fine suit of genie-sized armor on, too, making him look like an otherworldly knight.
Powerful spirits I had for allies, yes...
I greeted Sir Pellier, Father Bower, and Helix with happy armclasps as we met again, and did the same with the Aruan Shooters, and was introduced to those they’d had me bring along. The Mick came in, Sama had me fetch fully half a dozen Blakhamars for the fun, Shvaughn/Windwise was greeted enthusiastically by all the local Warlocks, and we were ready to go.
Helix was an instant hit among the Chinese, who recognized him instantly from the videos. He accepted their recognition and laughter with knowing grace and humility, promptly making a dozen friends and teasing their own tales of stupidity and learning bitter lessons out of them, groaning along with everyone else. The call-sign of Helix’s biggest fans was “Hold My Beer!”, called out with the gusto of knowing it was a stupid thing to do, and doing it anyways, knowing there was gonna be a price for it.
Still, both Sama and Briggs were there, and things got orderly with great speed.
Briggs was the one to address them all.
“Men and women of China, you’ve fought long and hard, and you’ve got much longer fights ahead of you. You can feel pride at what you’ve done, but I am going to demand that you not let your pride control what you are about to do.
“This is a powerful and dangerous foe ahead of you, and we have brought in help to kill them because you need the help, not because we do not believe in you. These are people who have also fought the undead and ground them down, and done so longer than you have. Some of them have also fought Cultivators and Spirit Beasts, and know what they are getting into.
“You need their help, now and today. In a month, perhaps two, I would say you would not NEED their help... but you would WANT it, because your enemies don’t deserve any mercy from you, and overkill on them is the best kind of killing!
“Also remember that our ultimate enemy is still waiting, still has to die, and in the end, it is going to take everybody to deal with them. This is a small prelude to what we are going to be involved in on that last fight.”
“We are going to be fighting a lot of Seven and higher undead Cultivators.” Quiet murmurs at that confirmation. “In addition, we are going to be fighting Congregants, who, even if they have no power, still hit like bricks and take it like boulders.
“We have the healers to keep you going, if you don’t die. We have the power to take on their toughest, and Lady Traveler is here to see that the big fellow there doesn’t have the chance to unload on us... plus, we are going to give a nasty, nasty surprise to it when it finds its undead minions are actually weaker against us!”
Short, hard laughs greeted his words.
“Alright, get in initial formation, remember your teamwork, and we will get through this.” Endure swept in a flowing arc of vivus, falling mistily to the ground as he pointed at the black star in the distance that was the Outsider brought in for this fight. “And remember when those Clergy go up, I better see some crystal Weapons coming out of that!”
Hoots and calls of acknowledgement arose from everyone. The Clergy were the toughest of the base undead, and so would be left to the strongest of them to deal with... those who weren’t fighting Cultivators directly.
A lot of Dispels and Ward Walls were getting ready to get through the ranged attacks of the undead ahead of us, but we had two very highly developed Forsaken here, who were going to be giving those flying, Qi-wielding spellflingers a bit of a surprise...
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The big guy seemed to be waiting for us. His Shroudzone was down to a measly four miles across, barely covering the inner city, even with the elites that he was stuck with.
I was on the Old Steed, naturally very attention-getting, and the Chained Buffs on the leaders was also going to help them soak up a lot of punishment. Right now my Pool was lower than it had been in a very long time from handing out Buffs, but they were all very appreciated, without a doubt. I could probably have popped away and recharged it in a random Shardzone, but I didn’t want the Outsider to make a move while I wasn’t there, even with Commander Haru’Ara around.
I expected the whole early part of the fight to be me shutting down the big guy, who was probably not going to like it... but there was nothing he could do about. He was going to watch his idiot minions die, and then he was going to bite it. He couldn’t flee past the edge of his Deadzone, which had now retracted mightily, barely five miles, and when the sun rose, he’d just get sent back here despite anything he did.
The idiots who had brought him here, and who he had elected to respond to in the hopes of gaining more power via massive amounts of Death, had suckered him into a trap from which there was no escape.
If we didn’t kill him today, somehow, we could always kill him tomorrow. The main thing was stopping him from Reanimating anyone else who was killed.
Technically we were outnumbered, but there was nothing to say that I couldn’t soften things up quite a bit, or Shardray them down if they were close together.
The flying undead Daoists thinking to rain death and more death down from above weren’t going to like it when Sama and Briggs and all these Forsaken put their foot down, either.
Given everyone was in Allegiance, putting a Heavens-Up Display in effect for everyone wasn’t much of an issue, and they ooh’d and aah’d over the mental display in the sky, X’s and O’s revealing enemies and friendlies, instantly conveying range, while colors conveyed Levels and thus how threatening they were.
The thing was, we definitely didn’t have to go out there and engage in a slugfest. Save for the Outsider himself, I had the range advantage, and with my recharging, could effectively wipe the entire force myself. Guns traded very effectively with spells as far as range went, and all the shooters down below were more than prepared to display it.
We progressed ahead in good formation, shooters and ranged assets on Disks, Melee types trotting along on the ground. Everyone who could fly without cost was in the sky, dwarfed by the number of dots doing the same in the distance ahead of us, not wanting to give them any warning of what was going to happen.
Had he gotten information about them from his minions? Probably. He probably thought it was some strange spell effect, and he could just overcome it.
Nope. King Gravity and the Veil getting reinforced by the Forsaken wasn’t a dispellable spell effect, it was a fundamental strengthening of the default laws of nature.
I was plenty happy to start opening up with Shard volleys at range. I wasn’t looking for kills, just crits, and -1/+4-5 ki per spell was a good tradeoff for me.
The depowered Dark Clergy had been sent ahead of them as useless chaff. I laughed to myself at the arrogance in that attitude, spreading Shards around, getting my ki back, and noting the typical 150+ Health on all these Congregants. The Clergy could easily spike to triple that with Health Qi, even with their minions gone.
The Purgers didn’t much care. Since these undead were merely melee types, that meant they were extremely vulnerable to ranged attacks on the approach, as long as we didn’t take a route that gave them lots of cover doing so.
Knowing right where they were sure helped the snipers, too.
Burning shots replete with vivus, Reserves, Chi, and Warlock Wrath launched streaks of unwhite out over hundreds of paces; mostly bullets, some arrows in the mix. Sama and Briggs were idly taking potshots with everyone else, just looking to soften them up so a kill-team working together could slice them down quickly.
They were coming in a ragged and uneven loose formation, every undead just told to kill us and doing whatever it thought on its own. Truly not valued at all...
There were dozens of them blown apart and burning before they got within a hundred yards of us. Progress slowed at the edge of a wide city intersection, the men fanning out as the more numerous undead tried to do something like flank us. That was rather hard to do when I was perfectly aware of them the whole way, and conveying that to everyone else.
They started hitting open ground and charging us. The line stopped, and the Warlords got to work.
I could certainly have been Chaining them and picking at least some of them off, but all that was needed from me was softening them up, and Toppling them over, smashing them off their feet and breaking up areas and charges, the ones still standing quick to inherit some fire coordinated by two maestros, while I filled my Pool and looked ahead at the things waiting for us there, shaking my head to myself, and staying ready for any massive distance AoE attack.
I was tossing only a single Shards spell out, rarely killing anything unless it was already wounded severely, but knocking down knots and clusters of undead, messing up their advance, and generally just softening them up as I stayed on overwatch.
The first of the depowered Congregants hit the melee line, and basically exploded as teams moving in combination tore through them almost instantly, especially given how peppered they were by the time they reached our lines.
Their surprise flanking was more like a surprise walking into shooters facing behind us, and the ones in the front ran into a wall of burning Shots that even their enhanced undead endurance couldn’t totally deal with. Optimized base +4d6 opposing ranged fire is nasty strong.
Here and there the strongest of the Congregants managed to reach the Melees, and were brought down by focused hacking as quickly as focused Shots dealt with the rest. Many of the undead were inhumanly strong... but then, so were a good number of the Purgers, and watching the faces of rampaging undead swollen in size, their muscles gleaming on skinless bodies, getting slammed back by brutally powerful blows from their living not-a-victim-thanx-bye was entertaining to see. Ogre-sized walking corpses went flying in shock, and not from me.
Snapshots by the Archers and Gunners generally took care of them before they became a problem again.
Sama and Briggs were not showing their power, and the Windgraf was right with them, pumping an Autobow non-stop and sending out swirly-flaming shots. The two angels had procured glowing long bows from somewhere and were sending out arrows like shafts of sunlight, which the undead didn’t seem to like much.
The Purgers below did their jobs, while we coolly waited on overwatch, making sure no surprises were coming in.
Which naturally there were, as the number of Congregants ran thin, and the ruined streets about us were filled with things burning vivus.
“Incoming!” I Announced to everyone.