Seven thousand cultivators with purified cores of the Yatamo started up at a stately pace to strike at the forces arrayed in siege.

With them in massive arrays of supporting squads armed and drilled with crossbows that would allow them to project their power across half a mile, were another thirty thousand cultivators who had reached the level of the golden core.

A battle such as this was a vanishingly rare occurrence.

Sieges and retreats were the chief way in which cultivators fought.

The different clans went under the leadership of their own clan heads, wearing the traditional colors of their blood, and the great coats of arms which marked their clans.

Each of the five great clans had sent up more than two thousand cultivators, and each of the eleven lesser clans more than a thousand.

Three of the seven rose with Fitzuki, who was disguised as Sesako — the general would believe that the other three remained behind to defend the city by spitting blue power from their ivory towers.

This would force caution on the general, and create a situation where retreat was far more likely to succeed.

In fact, only Dairuke would remain in the city.

Takue and Kisiko would enter the cone of the volcano with Sesako.

They would strike secretly as soon as the forces within the island were sent out to engage the massive flying army of Yatamo.

The sun off the steel armor was blinding. The army floated like glistening glitter in the sky.

The sight of them, hurrying towards the death of many of them in good and disciplined order was like the sound of a great symphony, the cymbals pounding and crashing together, and the hide drums beaten by a man of extraordinary strength, the sound echoing far and wide.

Tears came to Sesako, and he roughly brushed them off. He was filled with great emotion, and a sense of fell and deadly purpose.

All that was left within the great city of Yatamo, the heart of their nation, the house of the clans, was a force of a thousand cultivators with purified cores and three thousand with golden cores whose duty would be to sally forth and break the entangling nets when — not if — it became necessary.

The army of Yatamo could only fly forward at fifty miles per hour, because it needed to remain slow enough for the golden cores to keep pace with the purified cores.

It would take nearly fifteen minutes for them to reach the first of the firing groups.

The individuals became harder to see in the distance as the force progressed closer.

The cultivators within the firing clusters calmly took their time, and some of them fired off a last shot from their hurler, rather than waiting for the weapon to cool off — many of these stones struck the city, wrecking more of the thick built brick buildings, and one knocked down a tower that was now barely defended.

Others packed away their hurlers, tossing them at great speed down towards the island to be caught by others there.

This was why an attack such as the one they had launched was reckless.

The forces in the firing clusters themselves would be rolled over easily by such a number, but they could not achieve anything of any particular importance — a few hurlers, and much of the ammunition that had been prepared for the usage of the next few days.

Once the Yatamo army retreated after destroying the firing clusters, it would take no more than three hours to completely reassemble the firing positions.

The Yatamo army reached the first firing clusters, and they spread out into different groups to destroy each, systematically wrecking all of the stones and hurlers which had not been removed by their teams.

And then the Yatamo moved forward.

The whole time Sesako’s eyes flicked back repeatedly to the island.

He was waiting for the commander of the island to attack, to take the battle that was offered on favorable conditions for him.

But after nearly thirty minutes of waiting, the sweat soaking their armpits, the two profound cultivators, and the celestial, looked at each other and shrugged.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Perhaps no great battle would happen today, and that their enemy had refused to take the bait.

Their forces were already retreating back, and the moment when the Yatamo force was furthest over extended, and in the most danger had already passed.

Takue said, “I am not unhappy that this desperate risk seems likely to end in nothing — it was too dangerous.”

“We must risk anything for the dragon.”

Far away the flickers of red from Fitzuki’s cloak were visible to their trained eyes.

Having dismantled the last of the firing clusters, the army had recollected themselves. They began their slow, orderly return to the city.

Perhaps the general leading the emperor’s forces had been wiser than Sesako had expected. Fitzuki thought that it would be a coin flip as to whether he would attack this display.

Or maybe he had secret lore about the abilities of celestials from the emperor that Sesako himself did not have — the red power would probably, or at least maybe sufficient to hide them from the group guarding the lip of the volcano, if the density of cultivators on the island looking for them was far thinner.

But that apparently was not going to happen.

“Well, well, well.” Kisiko stroked his long beard. “I wonder if it is Marthus or Calimpal who commands. Though Falim’s hot headedness is partly a pretense he gives so he is judged to be more predictable than he is. The general might be any of them.”

Sesako wanted to curse the older man.

Kisiko had agreed to engage in this desperate raid with them. He knew much of the emperor’s hidden lore, and that might give them some vital hint or clue when they penetrated deep into the bowels of the volcano.

Fitzuki was the best fighter amongst them, but he could not be one of the two who would accompany Sesako, since he needed to be the one to pretend to be a celestial, and to lead the army high in the sky.

It had surprised Sesako, that even though Kisiko was such a coward, he was willing to go with him and Takue on a raid that had a real chance — maybe even a likelihood, that one of them would die during it.

“Well damn him.” Sesako grunted.

Takue smiled cheerlessly. “Dear, we made our try.”

“It is a sad fact.” Kisiko mused. “There shall be no second opportunity — the risk if we make another attempt to offer battle in a like manner shall be too great. They are not fools, they’ll have an idea how to pin our forces with no hope of their escape, and —”

They felt it first in the weave of chi that covered all the lands.

This was a powerful launching with no attempt to hide it.

Hundreds of imperial cultivators were hurled high into the sky, their bodies moved so fast that even Sesako’s eyes could barely track the motion.

Then coming after a period of seconds was the sharp boom that came from objects moving at a sufficient speed.

Ten cultivators with profound souls hurled themselves against the forces that protected Fitzuki’s line of retreat. They struck at the line with blasts of raw power, empowered crossbows shooting bolts at thousands of miles an hour, and bolts of lightning flashed from their hands.

The line defending responded quickly, as they had been on the alert for such an attack.

Despite the massive speed with which they passed, one of the profound souled cultivators was struck by a suicide strike from a purified core.

He seemed to survive, but with terrible wounds, while the light of the Yatamo cultivator blinked out forever.

The emperor’s general was generous with his men.

But the rest had killed several cultivators and shattered the stability of the defensive forces as they hurled themselves past.

They caught themselves, with a violent jerking stop, and from above continued to hurl attacks at a range of less than a hundred yards, also defending themselves from a hail of crossbow bolts rapidly fired by the golden cores in the Yatamo force.

Dozens of the emperor’s purified cores struck the Yatamo formations from below fifteen seconds later.

The line still held, as Akine displayed her brilliant defensive spell work at the center of the formation, but the Yatamo were badly outmatched, and it was clear that the line defending Fitzuki’s retreat would be broken in another minute, and the emperor’s cultivators would be able to spread out their nets under the armies, to keep them trapped.

Layer after layer of net pulsing with blue power was already being spread to cut off all of the other pathways for escape.

Fitzuki had responded quickly, and more than half of his purified cores charged down towards the battle over the line of retreat. They were led by Fitzuki himself, wearing the red flickering cloak that had fooled the emperor’s defenders into believing that the celestial was there.

And from the island, a giant horde of imperial cultivators, tens of thousands of men in strong formations, those with purified cores and golden cores moved in a ponderous supporting mass at fifty miles per hour to join the battles.

It must be a matter of incredible terror to be one of the golden cores entrapped in that line at this moment — each a person who had decades of practice at magic, but they were all in a battle in which they knew they were outmatched by the great forces surrounding them.

The giant array of nets covered twenty square miles, and they were meant to force the Yatamo army high up into the top of the atmosphere, where the air would be too thin for the golden cores to breathe.

And from below the imperial army with its own thirty thousand golden cores would keep them from breaking out in any direction. And fifteen thousand cultivators with purified cores.

From within Kyit, hundreds of purified cores were being hurled into the battle to strike at the force that sought to cut off the retreat of the army.

Despite his experience, Sesako could not tell if Fitzuki would be able to break out with most of the men still safe in formation.

A phrase that he knew was from the memories the other had of his own world’s history came to Sesako’s mind, “It had been a damned nice thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.”

Sesako felt a sickness in his heart. The plan had been half his, and half Fitzuki’s — the old veteran had been happy enough to roll the dice when the stakes were sufficiently high, and he had a hope of success.

“Dear.” Takue punched him in the arm. “Move. We have to move.”

Sesako nodded, he gave the signal to the team of cultivators managing the hurlers, and he focused on the spell of invisibility they would depend upon.

With a soft thwap the three of them were hurled towards the island at an angle almost parallel to the ocean water.