The Vice Master did indeed try to flee, cut and burning and gasping in fear as his Qi guttered and the end of his stolen life flashed before his eyes.
A claw larger than he was tall lashed out of the phasma, at the end of an arm that either had a lot of joints or no bones, it was hard to tell. It plucked him out of midleap, then whipped back into the phasma as he wailed in terror, out of sight and gone as something deep and satisfied seemed to laugh there.
Cold eyes stared at the yellow fog and the moving shapes within, unmoved. The anticipatory hum in the air that the phasma seemed to be reverberating with didn’t change tone so much as intent, and abruptly the yellow fog went silent.
The makers of fear turned on the products of fear itself, and suddenly not only was there nothing to feed on, but the phobos became aware that once again it was they who were the meals!
The shadows all around the Forsaken stole back and away, into depths of the yellow fog.
Not too far, of course. They were as close as the shadows at the edge of the eye, the creak in the night of something unknown, the niggling worry that would not go away, and seeking more fear, they would come out if confronted.
But they were of fear, and they didn’t want to die for no reason to those beyond who had confronted them so many times, and beaten them.
Void Brothers walked through the burning dead, Helices extending this way and that, and Rings of Telekinesis lifted away valuables and tossed them on trailing Disks. They were all just goldweight to Burn.
Everything else the Daoists had, like their food and wine, was so suffused with Qi that biting into them might make a normal person vomit, and vivus was eating it all, anyways.
A few of the Senior Forsaken were already Burning down some of the loot, riding on Disks with Patterns out, getting some work in. As the Void Brothers finished heaping up the loot under Sama’s eyes, she turned around coolly, and her eight-canine smile gleamed in the coming dusk.
“It’s been a long day, but it’s going to be a short night. Only five miles more, boys, and at the end, well, we’ll see how long they stick around!”
--------
The second Vice Master had stopped his reinforcements outside the phasma.
Not only had the yellow fog thickened with the onset of night, but they had lost all contact with the first group pursuing the intruder. The hasty messages through their Badges that had come later had determined the intruder to be The Golden Hag, a powerful and feared foreign commander among the dirty mortals who were fighting them, and the decision to pursue and remove such a threat when she was all alone had been tantalizing.
Where could she flee, save deeper into the phasma? The things that existed deep in there were treated with wariness even by the Sect Master. The Yellow King was a powerful alien entity that was crossed only with great care.
And yet, they had all gone silent...
“Sir! Sir! The phasma is... it is thinning out!”
The cry snapped his eyes forward. He was so used to using Divine Sense to keep track of his surroundings that he sometimes forgot to verify things with his eyes. The phasma was also a wall to Divine Sense, and he could barely reach within, perhaps just enough to avoid being ambushed by numbers of phobos.
The disciples on alert verified it even as he could see it. The phasma seemed to be churning and gathering, yet breaking apart even as it did so, as if something was forcing it out of the way.
He saw the sparkling of the Helices only a moment before they tore the last of the yellow fog of fear in front of them away, and the owners stepped forth, staring at the Cultivators before them coldly.
Also staring at them was an army of Forsaken behind the Void Brothers, all bearing burning Weapons made to kill Daoists. Hard eyes instantly locked on the Cultivators in their loose ranks at the edge of the plateau.
Behind that army, a cleared path extended back into the phasma, and far, far out of sight.
As the Daoists registered the stunning fact that dirty mortals could cut through the phasma, their eyes were dragged sideways by the churning, almost writhing sight of the phasma to the left of the mortals. There, the yellow fog was rippling and shuddering, as if trying to hold itself together... and it failed.
In awesome, gentle silence, the whole bank of yellow fell away into nothingness, and the Daoists gaped as the entire eastern side of the phasma collapsed, revealing the windblown and light-hungry grasses of vast expanses of the Tibetan Plateau to the yellow-grey sky once more.
The Second Vice Master gaped at the impossibility of the sight, at that panoramic view of ground just, just sliced away from the phasma, from the Domain of the Yellow King, cut away as crisply as a limb from a body.
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Done by dirty mortals...
His eyes snapped back as hundreds of firearms, bows, and crossbows snapped to shoulders, and two Notes so strong and hard that the remaining phasma on the other side pulsed visibly to hear them sounded out.
“TREMBLE!”
His heart actually jolted at the word. The Golden Hag was here! There! Her Sword out, blazing so pure and cruel golden in hue...
“WE COME!”
“RUN!” he screamed, as guns roared, and flaming death filled the sky. The disciples of the Heavenly Sky Sect, so confident and eager for battle, screamed as scores of them exploded instantly under the barrage, and scores more were nailed to the ground by incredibly accurate arrow fire.
With another roar, the mortals were charging for them, led by the men with Helices spinning around them, and they themselves were following the golden blur at the front. That Song began to beat, and the phasma echoed it back in stereo, shadows dancing inside the yellow in the night as the Heavenly Sky disciples fled for their lives.
“Scream for the sky, it cannot save you!
King Gravity is awake, and demands His due!
Wail at the ground that stays closed and tight,
No rat’s tunnels to flee this fight!
The fires come for your stolen soul!
Karma spins and demands its toll!
Wash your neck and pray to Heaven
As you reap the mercy your soul showed then!
“TREMBLE!”
“TREMBLE!”
“Ohhhh oooo ohhhh TREMBLE!”
“TREMBLE!”
“WE COME!”
----------
-I estimate we killed off between a third and a half of their senior fighting strength, and probably a full quarter of their lower disciples,- Sama /stated in cold satisfaction, watching Qi-imbued stuff Burning on a Pattern in front of her. Her Rings required lots of love to reach full strength, after all.
I /nodded from the distance. Briggs had pointed out that hitting the Sect from the phasma side would probably shock the crap out of them, and cutting a path through the phasma from one area to the next like that should literally sever it from the influence of the Yellow King.
He’d proven right on all counts. Going after Sama was one thing. Fighting an army of Senior Forsaken who outnumbered you ten to one, with Senior Void Brothers leading them and everyone pretty much immune to your Qi Techniques, was a death sentence.
Sama had noted the phobos were kind of riled up, but the Forsaken were just ignoring them. They’d carved out a path a hundred miles long through all the phobos in the way to get to where they needed to be, slaughtering a million phobos along the way. The Tibetan Purge deserved some time off.
Of course, killing Daoists at the end had been a great way to end the day. Totally ignoring the calls and wails and shrieks and cries from the phasma not too far away, many of them were nodding off in Meditation, or actually sleeping right through it if they were particularly deaf of soul.
-So, what’s the final story on that Grand Formation of theirs?- Briggs /asked calmly in our little mental chatroom. All the officers of the Cultivator-involved forces could listen in, even those who had to deal with Daoists. Heck, there were tons of normal military officers listening in, too. They had to know what kind of tactics these bastards would use.
-It’s a Qi-burning Formation. It cycles Qi from the areas of all the Sects, spreading out the load, and ignites it in a place and direction determined by the masters of the Formation. All the Qi in the area is set on fire, basically roasting everything between the earth and sky.-
-So it’s a Qi nuke.- /murmurs around made it plain that Briggs’ totally unsurprised words were shared by most of the observers. -March an army into their territory, lose the army. That keeps us from making a serious push, and buys them time to bring in more help, outwait us.-
-It’s going to burn a LOT of Qi. That’s why multiple Sects are sharing the load. Their territory will shrink every time it’s used, but if spread out over multiple Sects, it hurts less, especially if they have more numbers donating,- I /added. -But that is not the most fun part, of course.-
Hard smiles started to break out all around. Sama’s gleamed especially toothy, even in Markspace. -How’s that?- she /asked in anticipation.
-Those Formation lines transmitting Qi to one another are just like laying a line of virtual gunpowder for vivic fire, you know?-
Illusory Looney Tunes lines of ignited gunpowder headed for barrels of the same ran through the Markchat, and low /chuckles followed them and the resulting BOOM with grim interest.
-Well, they don’t know we know, so getting them to prime the pump shouldn’t be too hard, but I’m not going to sacrifice an army to do it,- Briggs /acknowledged. -Even if it does something as simple as use up all the oxygen in the air, fire and magic-resistant people can die. Solution?-
-Their little sensory system they are so proud of keys off of magic. So give them a highly magical and numerous army invading them swiftly,- I /sniffed.
-Such as?- Briggs /asked thoughtfully.
-Messenger Runners with Buffs on them should do it, I would think.-
The image of the little Constructs materialized in the chat. Waist-high, very simple limbs design and articulation, chest like a flat board for writing stuff on.
They ran around, they carried messages, that was it. But... they were Constructs, magical things. They could actually run fairly quickly, and were pretty much tireless. Slap a couple Buffs on them to really set off the magical sensors, and yeah, they could totally be mistaken for an army.
-Randomize the necessary elements of the basic design, and we can avoid Axiom,- Sama /agreed, seeing this. -Slap a Fire Trap and a Continual Flame on them, should be misread as Buffs, and we’ve got a sacrificial army for the ages.-
-With the Fire Trap, they could even take out some guards on the way,- Briggs /smirked, as the image of the Messenger Runners leaping onto a Frost-Cloaked White Tiger and detonating their Fire Traps together played out for everyone. -Okay, the elements of making one aren’t that hard, but it’s still burning a goldweight to Animate one. How many, Trav?-
-I’m guessing two thousand. We’ll foot the bill.-
There were /murmurs all around at that. Yeah, we really did have that much money.
-Okay, then, we’ll get the logistics of making them out there, and get them powered up. How do we light the match?-
-Sir Pellier.- The Paladin /inclined his head to me. -Could you ask General Mallory if he’s willing to let a cruise missile with an atomic warhead out to play?-
The Paladin smiled hard. -I have never seen a man so anxious to use atomic weapons as him. I’m sure we can finagle a team and a nuke,- he /nodded once. -We’ll have to film it or something, however.-
-Oh, oh, oh!- Helix /waved his mental hand urgently, and everyone laughed with him.