Lu hadn’t quite gotten his new Comprehension-based senses entirely in hand – it was hard to make novel discoveries when running in a straight line for nine-tenths of the day, after all.
And it was right out when strapped to a bomb-propelled kite.
But he was fairly certain that he would at least be able to tell which direction the eyeball-broccoli warrior was, separate from the mess of limbs that had once been… a mess of limbs, but the tree kind.
“[You sure you’ve got this? With how fast this crap’s growing back, it’s gotta be a pair of Warbosses at least.]” Bo’s words had a touch of worry under the frothing battle-lust – the first time Lu had seen it on anyone other than Junk Dog soldiers. It was mildly terrifying; though Bo was his friend, the look on his face made it very easy to remember he was also a four-metre-tall giant that might just outweigh a small house.
“[The armour is very good, Bo. Don’t worry.]” He put as much reassurance into his voice as possible, though it didn’t quite echo his thoughts. The other one might be telekinetic as well. If so, the armour won’t really mean anything.
A forceful nudge to his back made him stumble slightly, and he turned to see Bone Softener shooting him a wan smile. “[Good luck, small man. We will hold this position – you do not need to worry about us, either.]”
Lu gave him a nod, then turned back and extended his spiritual sense as far as he could while remaining functional. His Comprehension was new and unfamiliar, and manipulating it was much easier if he used his sense as a kind of scaffold. Like climbing up with handholds rather than bare cliff-face.
“[About… twenty metres, give or take. He’s under the ground somewhere.]”
----------------------------------------
The attack squad consisted of Ging, Jiang, Scarlet, and himself. To his mild embarrassment, Lu was being carried on Ging’s back; it was difficult for him to fight and sense the controller’s shifting location simultaneously, so that had been solved in the most practical manner available, by attaching him directly to the strongest disciple’s body.
“Eighth turn, left, ten metres.” The group shifted smoothly, and in moments they had advanced close enough to- “He’s moving! Right, quarter turn! About four metres down!”
Sand and pulpy wood-meat sprayed as Jiang sent a spell drilling into the earth directly to their right, nearby abominations screeching in anger – or possibly pain; Lu wasn’t sure if these things were actually alive, or if they were just twisted to look that way as a kind of psychological attack.
Either way, they weren’t going to stop. Jiang snarled. “Miss.” Damn, he’s reacting faster. Sir Broccoli was a relatively small, quick, and most importantly intelligent target. They had hit him cleanly only once, Scarlet sending a tightly compacted sphere of white flames down through a tunnel Ging had carved out with a fist art, and after that the man hadn’t stopped moving for even a moment.
Lu continued to relay directions almost entirely on instinct, the bulk of his attention focused razor-thin on the not-taste he could feel flowing all around him.
The aggressive forest might be Broccoli’s technique – or both his and the Grandmaster’s technique together – but the ki flowing through the twisted plant life had a different feel from the man entwined in the root system. It was simpler, smoother, unlike the man who was more complicated, who had texture. I think I understand the distinction; the technique is all one sort of ki, but the controller’s consumption is multiple separate energies, all folded together. It was a contrast to all the other warriors he had observed up to this point, including himself and the Grandmaster.
Speaking of the Grandmaster… “He’s moving for the dome, cut him off!”
Lu’s body was jostled in his armour as Ging moved at his top speed, slamming a heel down and carving a large trench between where their quarry was and where it wanted to be. There was the barest stirring of movement on the wall of the trench, and both Jiang and Scarlet sent blinding attacks down, tines of lightning intermingling with flames to leave bright streaks on Lu’s vision – he barely noticed, all his attention on his spiritual senses.
“That one felt like a hit.” Lu felt more than saw Jiang pull a pill out from the inside of his helmet, swallowing it down in the blink of an eye.
“Good, good.” The wall of ki fluctuations caused by the high-realm attacks passed through Lu’s body, addling his senses, but he could still feel the bundle of less-homogenous energy moving. “Three eighths left, six metres down!”
----------------------------------------
The gestalt was not certain if it would win or lose. Each side had the capacity to destroy the other in a single moment; it by catching the enemy with its limbs and forcing them into its zone of control, or them by destroying its vulnerable flesh with a precise strike. Already the enemy had demonstrated it had the sheer power necessary to succeed; its body had been seared to ashes by a burst of pure heat, everything below the ribs simply gone as if it had never been. And it continued to take damage, smaller hits that shattered bones and tore away fistfuls of meat.
But it was not dying, far from it. It was full of life, bursting with digested vitality – the wounds sealed over as quickly as they were made, and even the flesh of its lower body was slowly growing back. It could win; one careless moment, enough for a wooden faux-arm to clamp down, and…
So it continued, slowly grinding its zone of control forward, boxing the enemy in. Its greater component could only move by aligning the land to itself one grain at a time, a hideously slow process that meant that its flesh was a far more active participant in the fight.
But it would be the zone that would provide the killing blows; beneath armour, beneath skin and muscle and bone, the invaders were reliant on the same thing that most living beings were. A mass of jelly that, no matter how durable it became, remained a mass of jelly, an inescapable weak point unless one abandoned the prison that was flesh.
The connection deepened, power flowing in thick streams between its components as kinetic shoves and psychic barbs joined its chaotic growth. Crude, but hopefully effective. Its flesh danced through the root network, invaders pursuing it from above like fishermen tossing spears down at a blind cave fish. Neither side seemed to tire, each missed attack and deflected blow only increasing the intensity of the next attempt.
And in the distance, a slight rumble shook the ground.
----------------------------------------
Wind Cutter. The area that the forest occupied was slowly shrinking, which was both good and bad. Good, because it left less space for the enemy to hide in. Bad, because the actual volume of the wood was very much staying the same; the trees were taller, thicker, stronger and more durable.
It was getting to the point where Jiang and Scarlet were having trouble moving around; a single fifth realm art was no longer always sufficient to blast past a tree’s questing limbs, though their physical strength was still enough to keep them from being pinned. Wind Cutter. Wind Cutter.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
And of course, Ging was fine. They were cooperating much more smoothly now; rather than speaking verbally, Lu fired spells directly at the enemy’s location. It was much faster, and they were landing more hits despite the increasingly bothersome trees.
A limb with gnashing mouths along its length cut through the air where they had been standing a moment ago. Wind Cutter. Ah, I wouldn’t have been able to react to that in time. They’re getting faster as well.
Even worse than the strengthened forest were the strange sensations and hallucinations which had started plaguing them. For him, navigating by Comprehension more than anything, it was merely annoying – but the other three had to actually move around by their own power, and for them not perceiving reality as it was could be deadly.
We just have to keep going. If we keep up the pressure, keep attacking relentlessly, then we’ll win! His Comprehension suddenly split, showing Sir Broccoli in two different places – but a swipe with his spiritual sense revealed one to be a lie. Wind Cutter!
He was confident that they would be able to end it within the next minute. [Tai Sho, you’re still in position?]
[As I have been, yes.]
Good. The blob of ki underground turned around, avoiding a deep pit that the fight had opened, and Lu smiled. “Got you.” Wind Cutter!
Ging stomped, a tremendous shockwave passing through Lu’s body as a section of sand turned to bundles of compressed quartz, all the way down to the bedrock. The tangle of sharp-edged crystals heaved, displaced by roots, and Lu could see blood staining the glassy surfaces deeper in.
The ki signature trembled, trembled, and dissolved- [Now! We got him!]
Before some of it coalesced again, smaller but still coherent. It shot directly up, and a mangled head and torso sprouting from a tree, a bouquet of eyes rolling in pain before swivelling to land on Lu- no, on Ging. I’m still invisible. All around them the forest suddenly withered, except for the one tree containing the native – that one grew, until it had quadruped in size between one breath and the next.
[Wait-]
And then Lu’s mind lit up like a firework, something between a scream and a memory and an emotion echoing around the inside of his skull.
----------------------------------------
The gestalt died as its components were pulled away from each other, connective tissues straining and failing, tearing to pieces. Tanglebud was himself again, and everything hurt.
Don’t let it distract you. You still have all the tools you need to win. He moved a limb the size of a truck, the gnarled wood moving as if it were his own flesh, and struck out at the trio of enemies with a low sweep.
One of them jumped, one of them teleported away, and the third simply braced himself and took the hit on a raised arm. His gauntlet chipped, but beyond that he didn’t visibly react. The eight-headed leviathan behind him reared up and sprayed multicoloured beams at his face.
Wood grew to cover his head, and he raised his own arm, mirroring the foreigner's block as he stepped forward through the technique. Wood burned and froze and sublimated, but that was fine, that wasn’t him, and even now he was capturing some of the force to replenish himself.
He struck the armoured warrior again, and again he blocked as if the mass of wood weighed no more than a small twig. So Tanglebud used kinetics, pressing the man back with psychic force.
This time he moved, eyes widening a fraction as he was pressed towards the grandmaster’s shredding field, which had flagged slightly but not stopped.
[Grandmaster? What happened?] The attack he had taken was devastating, yes – he was a head, upper arm, and maybe a fifth of a torso, now – but it shouldn’t have been enough to destabilise the gestalt. [Hello?]
And then Tanglebud realised that some of the pain he was feeling wasn’t his own; it was a projection from Two Worlds, a telepathic emanation of pure suffering. [Grandmaster!] What did they do? How did they..?
He gnashed his teeth, but then swallowed his emotions down. The grandmaster will have to take care of himself for now. I cannot afford to focus on anything but the fight in front of me. Instead of flying into a rage, he projected his voice at the warrior in front of him. [Human.]
The alien’s only response was to fire a scythe of wind at him, cutting a wound an arm’s length deep across the whole construct.
[You are strong. I am Tanglebud, grandmaster of the Clan of Junk Dog. Tell me your name, so that I might recall your death in the future.]
The other two came at him from the sides, but they didn’t matter; gathered together, his wood armour was simply too thick for them to penetrate. Only the third one, the strongest of them, was an actual threat. I should have done this from the start. I’ll tire quickly, but that doesn’t matter so long as the enemy dies.
Another swipe, and this time the man actually dodged. He sent out a second kinetic attack, and his opponent blurred away in a teleport – but not far enough. Another limb thrust out, smashing into his chest and sending him into the maelstrom.
Then a lance of rot struck him where a spine would be on an animal, and he turned to see the Horrible Swamp clansmen had rallied.
----------------------------------------
I am inside the Grandmaster. I need to remember that.
It was difficult. Like a warm bath, his mind was floating free and loose on a tide of undirected energy. It was nearly impossible to string one moment into the next, memory and thought too loose and squishy to provide anything useful. His body was somewhere far away, writhing in agony without his input.
[Lu? He’s not dead, but I think he’ll be out of sorts for- are you there? Your end of the link is strange.]
There were sounds in his head. None of them were good, none of them were anything he wanted to hear, so he pushed them away – but they pushed back, screaming and hate and unsettlingly gentle words pushing him down under the water.
[Lu?]
[lu]
[Are you inside the whirlwind? Shit, that’s bad. Hang on-]
[you did this]
[didn’t you]
[-I’ll try to find you. Do you know any mental defense arts? If you do, try to cast them.]
The bath went from warm to ice-cold in an instant, and some small awareness of his body filtered in. I’m… lying down, I think. Can’t move. The pain, it’s…
[die]
Something smashed into him, cratering his body into the loose sand. It’s… not real pain. I’m not injured. Even now, he wasn’t so much as bruised; the armour was protecting him. Not enough focus to tell where I am. He doesn’t have any real senses; if I don’t know where I am, he doesn’t either.
[enough]
He was pushed even further down, his arms and legs twisting under an incredible pressure. Space Rip-
[no]
Chaotic whorls in space filled the whole area, before freezing into place and becoming immovable. Anchoring Distortion..? His stomach did a flip, and he tasted bile in the back of his throat. Another hammer blow came down, and another, and-
And then he was being dragged up, his arm around a man’s shoulder. [Lu, can you hear me? I can see you’re awake, at least.]
"I’m… awake…"
[Come on, let’s get you out.]
Tai Sho started dragging him, but it was in the wrong direction. He struggled.
"No, not that way. The splinter is… There!" He waved drunkenly.
His senior looked at him critically. […Very well. Direct me; I can’t see what it is you’re pointing at.]
But before they had taken three steps, Lu was again struck- not by a physical blow, but by a mental one. Pain filled every millimetre of his body, an insane intensity, a thousand times worse than all the pain he had ever experienced in his entire life added together.
[die]
[just]
[die]
His muscles turned to jelly and he hit the ground again, but somehow he didn’t black out. Tai Sho had a pained look on his face for a moment, the expression exaggerated like a classical painting, before he exhaled a bloody mist all over the faceplate of his helmet and collapsed as well.
He didn’t even have enough control over his lungs to scream; it was like- no, there was nothing to compare it to. Bathing his sense in ki or getting a sword through the gut instantly became pleasant memories to reminisce on. It was horrible – impossibly horrible, beyond his capacity to understand. Mental attack. I can’t- I can’t-
[no tricks]
[no escape]
I just need to- if I can-! Haltingly, one form at a time, Lu started building a spell.
[you think]
[you think]
[you think]
[you think I’ll]
[let you]
The pain somehow became even more intense. “Ah-!” The spell collapsed, only twenty forms in.
N-no. Don’t give up. This is- this is all he has! It’s not real!
[real]
[i]
[i am]
Ten forms. It collapsed. Fifteen forms. It collapsed. Tai Sho must have at least wounded him - this is his last effort! Persevere!
Something touched his shoulder, and the pain lessened in a way he didn't have the spare brainpower to explain.
[just die]
[lie there and die]
[or better]
[go away and die]
Twenty forms. Forty. Eighty. Telekinetic blasts smashed all around him, some of them intersecting his body – how much damage they did, he couldn’t tell.
One-hundred forms. One-twenty, forty, sixty…
The one-hundred-eighty forms of Lu's Numbing Illusion shone brightly in his mind, full of qi. Lu stood up, flexing his fingers. Golden Benevolence. The damage the flailing Grandmaster had managed to inflict reversed itself, and he neatly sidestepped the next attack. His spiritual sense extended fully, as did his Comprehension.
Dreamfever is here. Not relevant. Tai Sho is unconscious. Not relevant.
With purposeful strides Lu advanced further into the Grandmaster’s area. Dreamfever spoke, but Lu had lost hold of all his sustained spells when the pain hit, Interpreter included.
[how]
[what is this]
He didn’t answer either of them, only continuing forward.