Tatia couldn’t believe how strong her opponent was.

She was at the peak of the 6th Tier, yet the old man in front of her didn’t seem to be having much difficulty dealing with her attacks, even when she used the Law of Space.

She was starting to get the sinking feeling that this man might have already stepped into the 7th Tier, what they called the Immortal Realm.

“Why don’t you surrender? I’m sure that I could provide a warm place for you to stay if you come willingly.” The perverted old man asked, earning her scorn and disdain.

“Are all cultivators so full of noxious gas?” She asked, narrowly dodging a powerful wave of fire, leaving behind the distinct smell of brimstone in its wake.

“If you tell me where the treasure is, I can make things easier for you,” he replied, obviously ignoring her provocation.

“In your wet dreams,” she spat to the side as she prepared another spell.

He just smiled at her.

She really wanted to wipe his face across a mile’s worth of pumice stone.

* * * * *

Aloralla crouched in the nursery, holding her daughters close as more and more explosions rocked the building. Her daughters were wailing away, hot tears flowing down their cheeks. She couldn’t do anything to comfort them at the moment, but he was skilled enough to be able to use a [Silence] spell on each of them. It wasn’t easy doing so, as she felt that she was doing them a great injustice in not hearing their heartfelt wails of terror.

“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” she repeated as she watched Ailmar guard the door. He wasn’t a fighter, not like what most of the Aneath clan married. No, he was a scholar, a bookworm. Someone who was a perfect example of the scholarly clan she’d married into. Yet there he stood, halberd in hand guarding the door.

They both knew the emergency procedures of the clan through and through, yet they’d been too far away from the Archive when the attack started, nevermind their route there being cut off. The closest teleport platform was also a ways away. No hope there.

Their only hope resided in the clan Protectors. If one or more of them came to their rescue, she was sure that they’d be able to make it safely to the Archive.

Another explosion rocked the building, causing the bookshelf in the corner to fall with a crash. There was yelling in the hallway, slowly getting closer. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, as it could mean that those defending the clan were getting closer to saving them, or falling back in retreat.

Then the wall diagonally across from her, to the right of the door, suddenly exploded inward, a figure flying through the air to smash against the far wall, then slump to the ground.

Her eyes wide, she inspected the form of one of the Protectors. They weren’t in great shape, having lost their right arm and part of their right leg.

She froze. She wasn’t made for this. She had ignored the attention of many young men in favour of Ailmar, the only scholarly suitor she’d had. Why? Because she hated war. She wanted to live a long life with her family, raising her future children, then helping to raise their children in turn.

Now, her dreams were crumbling as she watched the lifeblood drain out of the Protector. Through the hole in the wall a young woman stepped through. She wore an odd outfit, one she belatedly recognized as being typical of those from the Zhizun Zhanshi continent. Then her aura hit her.

Aloralla saw Ailmar blanch, but then gathered his resolve. She wanted to scream at him to stop, to run, but her throat closed on her.

This person was at least at the 5th Tier; they were not her opponent.

Brave, foolish, Ailmar released a spell, [Lion’s Rush], his halberd glowing as he flashed over to the black-haired woman.

She didn’t see how it happened, but suddenly Ailmar’s body was flashing past where the black-haired woman stood, slightly off from where she’d been originally. Only, Ailmar’s head was in her hands.

This time she did shriek. In denial, in despair, in rage. Her daughters continued their silent wailing as the black-haired woman approached them, tossing Ailmar’s head aside like so much trash.

“I don’t know if I’ll be rewarded or punished for bringing back babies, but orders are orders,” she drawled in a weird accent as she sauntered over. “No need for extra baggage though,” the woman said, raising her hand above her head.

Aloralla spit in her face, then everything went black.

* * * * *

Avi was too late. Just as she entered the room, she saw Aloralla’s head hit the floor.

She choked back her scream, once again cursing having a biological body that reacted so viscerally to the scene in front of her.

Before the woman could turn, Avi manifested [Disintegration], hitting the woman square in the back of the head. She couldn’t smile as the woman turned to dust in front of her, but she had at least avenged Xixi’s family.

As she turned to go, she noticed movement behind the murderer’s falling clothing.

“The twins,” she whispered to herself, then rushed over to where they lay, covered in their mother’s blood.

With a thought, [Cleanse] flashed across the room, taking with it all the blood and dust from the fight. The bodies, however, remained as she hadn’t augmented it to remove them as well. She gathered up the silently wailing babies in her arms, then looked down at Joram’s favourite auntie and uncle.

She transferred their remains into storage, the stasis section before reaching out with her mind and retrieving the murderer’s storage ring. Maybe it would have something useful in it.

Avi looked down at the babes again, only a couple months older than Joram’s little sister. With another thought, she put them to sleep, allowing them to rest. She didn’t have much time, so she transferred them to the villa, then sent house droids instructions from her omni-tool to make them comfortable.

Now, she had some killing to do.

* * * * *

Selsusa stood as close as she could with Vulen and not be in his way.

She was worried almost sick for Lysanthir, not knowing if he was alive or dead. She and Vulen, along with the baby, were in their apartments. It was supposed to be a relaxing day spent visiting with Sulia and family after lunch. Now, it was hell.

More explosions rattled the windows, a few cracking with the violence of the blast. She had already used [Silence] to prevent others from hearing them in their rooms, but wasn’t very hopeful that they’d be passed by by their attackers.

Protocol dictated that they make their way to the Archive for shelter in the event of an attack, but this one had been so sudden that they’d had no time to get there. Or even leave their rooms.

She was glad that she’d married a warrior, keeping to tradition. She hadn’t been as studious as she could have been in her youth, instead going for many non-combat electives while growing up. That meant that she was excellent at bookkeeping and things related to that. She was great with the upkeep of books and documents of all kinds, the preservation arrays came easy to her.

Now, now she wished that she’d been a bit more… boyish, in her youth. More like Sulia.

She sighed. Never had she thought that the Clan would come under attack, that she might die a violent death. She looked down at her newborn babe. Finally, a girl. Would her daughter live to see her first dawn?

There was another explosion, this time closer. With the [Silence] array keeping her ignorant of the goings-on around her, her baby was resting peacefully. She wondered, briefly, if it would be better if she should be the one to put her child to rest and not some viscous marauder.

She slapped herself, literally. The sting in her cheek brought her back to her senses. She would fight to her last breath.

She looked down at the yellow topaz that the Matriarch had gifted to her, wondering if it would be best used to keep Vulen fighting longer, or if she should give it to her daughter, to potentially save her from…

*KABOOM!*

She nearly fell out of her bed as the far wall got blown in. She hurriedly looked over to where Vulen had stood, but only found the hole in the wall.

That decided her.

She wasn’t as gifted as other people, but she had a few tricks up her sleeve.

She ripped the topaz from the mount it had been in and placed it upon her daughter’s forehead as she prepared her spell.

She stole a glance at the hole in the wall and found an old man standing there, his foot on Vulen’s unmoving form. They locked gazes from across the room for what felt like minutes, but should have been only a few heartbeats.

She quickly turned back to her daughter and released her spell. She watched as the topaz fused to her daughter’s forehead, attaching to the still-soft bone. As the characters for “Nozomi” appeared on the topaz, she felt a sharper pain in her breast.

She looked down and saw the tip of a sword poking out her chest.

Her last thoughts, the last thing she saw was her daughter, still miraculously sleeping.

* * * * *

Avi was having such a bad day that she considered calling in her droid army. But ultimately decided that they weren’t up to the task yet and would instead add unneeded chaos to the mix.

She was worried about Joram though, as she wasn’t able to get a response from him on the Network. Given that Kinkade and M3 were missing from the Network, she was pretty sure that at the very least he’d been knocked unconscious.

The sighed as she looked up at the sky, ashes and cinders floating up in the wind, carried to places unknown.

If Leaving Earth by Clint Mansell were playing in the background, it would have been the perfect score for what she was seeing.

She summoned forth her Mindblade, a massive psionic construct that was very similar to Cloud’s Buster Sword in shape, though it had its differences, like the holes drilled into the body of the blade in a zig-zagging patter, to the slightly sturdier back to the sword and even the chain attached to its hilt whose other end was strapped to her right arm/wrist.

All told, the blade was two metres long with a hilt that was a good seventy centimetres long. A3 reported that she hadn’t found any other survivors, so Avi had her transfer her psicrystal back to storage and had A3 take up residence in her head like she was originally meant to.

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Avi walked around the corner, having already sensed the intruders with [Touchsight]. The three of them look over to her, turning away from the corpses they’d just made.

“Hey, fellas,” Avi called over sweetly. “Wanna play with me?”

That gave them pause, until they sensed her cultivation level, then they laughed.

“Sure, we’ve got time for a beauty like you,” the first dead man walking said, practically drooling as he looked up to her from a few feet away.

A3: [Iron Body]

Avi: [Blade Rush Frenzy]

Avi continued down the hall as their heads fell from their bodies, blood spraying the destroyed hall they’d been standing in, letting her Mindblade vanish as she stored three more bodies away into the stasis storage space. She also did the same for the victims. They’d need a proper funeral after this.

She looked up at the sky again, lamenting how long it was taking. There just wasn’t enough time to kill everyone who needed killing.

Maybe she’d try the prototype for the Cerberus Harrier she’d been working on next? She’d gotten the cooling issue resolved, so this whole disaster would make a good field test, especially since she’d also made the thing completely silent. She guessed that the game devs has put in the sounds because it just made the game that much more impactful that way.

Meh, this was war, no need to give the enemy any warning. No mercy, no quarter.

They’d come to annihilate the Clan so they should, logically, be prepared in turn to die.

Only made sense.

Cerberus Harrier in hand, she flicked off the safety and made her way to the next set of invaders.

* * * * *

“Report,” the old man demanded through his communication jade as he watched Tatia breathing hard.

She really wanted to wipe that look off his face, but knew that that wasn’t possible. She’d tried everything she could think of to take him down, but had failed at every turn.

“Eleven teams aren’t reporting in. There must be more resistance than we thought there’d be,” a woman’s voice came from the communication jade.

“Has the primary objective been accomplished?”

“Affirmative. They reported only two casualties.”

“Is the target already that powerful?” He asked, surprise evident on his face.

“No,” the voice paused a moment before continuing. “The report states that the initial team was ambushed by an extremely dangerous melee combatant, but was taken out by the Sun’s Ray formation.”

Tatia’s heart nearly stopped. Given the smoke rising from where Tillia’s residence was a few miles away, she guessed who their target had been. Worse, she also guessed who the combatant probably was and her heart ached. She knew that Joram was gifted in the use of Space. She also knew that Tillia was a member of Joram’s Network.

But then she took a moment to check their mental connection and found that she was still a part of the Network.

She heaved a sigh of relief.

“What has you so comfortable that would let you sigh in such a way?” The old man asked her, once again fully paying attention to her.

“Oh, I may not make it out of this alive, but neither will you,” she said with a bloody smile.

“And what makes you believe that you can kill me?” He asked, genuine curiosity plain on his face.

“Because you’ve angered the person who’ll become the strongest in the world. They’ll wipe your precious Sects from the face of the world,” she said, still smiling that bloody smile.

The old man laughed then, right from the belly. “Ah, you must have lost too much blood. We’ve come for what we wanted and attained it. The only thing left to do is to burn everything to the ground. Including your precious ‘Archive’,” he said, his own amusement hardly fading as he finished talking.

“Ah, don’t worry. Doom will stalk you and yours,” Tatia said, getting to her feet again. “I can’t say that it was nice meeting you. But we should say goodbye.”

“Ah, the stubbornness of youth,” he said with a sigh as his hands formed several hand seals.

* * * * *

Marowz couldn’t believe his luck.

He’d managed to get into the Archive with the last group to arrive. The doors had been sealed behind them, cutting off their attackers. He was surprised at how many people had made it. It was a good surprise, as he hadn’t known that those evil cultivators would kill everyone they saw.

Looking around, he noticed only three Protectors. They didn’t look best pleased, though it was hard to tell just by seeing their eyes, the rest of their faces covered in black cloth. They’d always unnerved him whenever they showed up. Now, however, he was reconsidering what he’d done. He knew that the invaders would spare his life because of the ring he wore, the ring of a traitor as he now thought of it.

He shrugged uncomfortably, remembering the bodies, the blood everywhere.

*Boom!*

Marowz jumped and spun when he hit the ground to stare at the great doors, terrified. Cries of dismay and fear echoed out as another bang resounded across the entry, the foyer of the Archive.

“Everyone, follow me!” One of the protectors shouted, then turned and broke into a slow jog.

Why is he going so slow?! He thought to himself as he followed, then realized that there were more than a few children trying to keep up. He briefly felt a moment of shame, but that emotion fled when another boom was followed by cracking sounds less than a minute later.

They arrived at the stairs down to the next level, the same ones he’d spied on for years. His heart beat faster, this time in anticipation.

“Everyone, form a line here,” the Protector pointed to the side. “We’ll get everyone to safety, so please line up!” He finished as the other two Protectors helped get everyone into a semblance of a line.

“What are we doing here?” Marowz asked as he strode to the front of the line, which so happened to be where the mysterious portal was found on the wall. Well, what would become a portal when it was activated. Right now, it looked like nothing more than another section of wall.

“Getting everyone to safety,” the man replied coldly. “Now get back in line, you’ll get your turn.”

“Now see here, I’m Healer Reursa, a guest elder of the Clan. I will go in first to make sure things are safe for everyone else,” he blustered, trying very hard to sound like he wasn’t desperate to finally see the other side of the portal.

“Get. Back. In. Line.” The Protector said, enunciating each word very clearly, and very crisply.

He was about to protest further when he felt his arm being taken in a vice-like grip. He looked over and saw the cold eyes of another Protector, this one distinctly less warm than the one he’d been talking to.

As he was dragged away, the first Protector removed something from an inner pocket and placed it on the wall. A portal opened up to gasps of surprise from all those present, followed by another unwelcome noise.

*KABOOM!*

They felt the entire Archive shudder, the sounds of crashing stone and metal accompanying the tremors.

“Move!” Protector One yelled, waving people forward.

Just as the line was starting to move, there were cries of dismay and pain from the back of the line, just up and around the corner from where they were.

Then the people really started to run.

Marowz didn’t wait and began to run with the rest of the crowd, then tripped as he felt a blow to his back, the sound of an explosion coming almost at the same time.

The explosion was loud enough to burst his eardrums, making everything surreal. He could see people wailing, clutching a person to their chests, others holding broken limbs. He saw rubble falling, bouncing on the once immaculately polished stone floor. It was all silent.

Then he looked up and saw the invaders making their way down the stairs, killing any adult they came across. It was odd, they also picked up any children they found… living anyway.

He looked back to where the portal was and saw Protector One standing beside where the portal had been, a purple jade token in his hand.

He turned back to the invaders and saw their lips moving just as he began to smell smoke. He looked back at Protector One and saw that the purple jade token was raised in front of him, almost like he’d use it as a shield.

That almost made Marowz laugh out loud. What did that fool think he was doing?

Marowz watched as the last of the adults were killed, the children dragged away. One of the cultivators turned to him, an evil look in his eye as he spoke. He couldn’t understand what was being said, but he knew that they were going to kill him. So, he raised the hand with the ring he’d been given and pointed at said right with his other hand.

The cultivator stopped and looked towards the one who seemed to be in charge. The man shook his head, turning back to Protector One, leaving the cultivator who’d been approaching Marowz with a disappointed look.

Marowz quickly turned back to Protector One and noticed the death glare directed at him.

“I must get that jade!” He exclaimed, or thought he had. He couldn’t hear himself, but he could still feel his vocal cords working.

He must have been understood, because the next moment Protector One bit his cheek and spit blood onto the jade token, causing it to glow brightly, and increase in brightness until Marowz had to look away.

Which allowed him to see the look of panic that sprung up on the leader’s face. He shouted something and began to run.

Marowz also thought that that might be a good idea, but before he could make his body move, everything went white.

* * * * *

Tatia could hardly breath. It wasn’t that she was lacking air, or was out of energy from fighting so hard. Well, that was part of it. No, it was due to her lungs filling with blood.

She stared hatred at the old man with every fiber of her being. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, probably some asinine monologue.

She wanted to wipe the blood from her face that was itching her so, but couldn’t; she didn’t have any arms left.

His last attack had been devastating. It seemed as though he was proficient in the Law of Metal, as he’d summoned forth a score of blades that rained down on her, severing her arms and piercing her chest.

She was getting cold, too cold. She knew what that meant and cursed her weakness. She should have paid more attention to improving her Tiers instead of pandering to petty elders and short-sighted people.

Now, because she’d been too weak, her clan was burning to the ground, her people dying. At this point, she wasn’t even sure if Joram was still alive as she could no longer feel their connection.

And for some reason, that saddened her more than anything else. She had been sure that Joram would be the shining star of their clan, someone to shine more brightly than any who had come before, or who would come after.

She tried to activate the topaz Joram had given her, but then realized that she’d already done that ages ago. She even tried to contact that wretched Avi through the Network, but still couldn’t feel the connection. She tried to pull on the might of her core, but only found a shattered mess. Her cultivation, her core was destroyed.

Tatia noticed the quiet then. She slowly blinked and looked over at the old man. He’d finished his monologue and was now staring at her. Expectantly?

She tried to spit at him, but found that her mouth wasn’t working as it should.

It was so cold. At least she could go to sleep to avoid looking at that bastard.

She closed her eyes.

* * * * *

Avi let a stream of tungsten carbide projectiles cut the cultivators in half.

She was well pleased with the Harrier. She’d cut down those bastards in record time with it, none expecting that her weird “toy” was capable of such a thing.

She was distracting herself again. This time because she was at Joram’s home. Their door had been broken down already, and these last few cultivators had been on their way in. It was too quiet in there.

Slowly, much slower than she expected to be moving, she crept up to the door.

Her heart was pounding, sweat soaking her robes.

She peeked in, then jumped back as a lightning bolt flew by her head.

“Damn it, can’t believe I missed.”

Avi’s ears perked up at the sound of that voice.

“Sulia? It’s me, Avi,” she said, waving a hand in front of the open door.

“Who?” The tired sounding voice asked.

“I’m Joram’s friend,” she said, peeking past the doorframe again, ready to jump back in case Sulia was trying to bait her.

“Oh, you. Grandmother didn’t like you much,” Sulia said, sounding a bit punch drunk.

Avi’s eyes widened as she took in the room. There had to be a good dozen cultivators laying dead on the ground. It was hard to count given that many were missing limbs and other, larger, parts of their bodies. Then her beath caught.

Ivaryn lay across Sulia’s lap, missing his right arm with a good dozen arrows protruding from his chest and legs. He wasn’t breathing.

Sulia was stroking his hair with her right hand as she stared blankly at Avi, an arrow through her upper left chest, not far from her heart.

“How’s Joram doing?” She asked, looking past Avi through the broken doorway.

“We need to get your wounds treated,” Avi said, storing the Harrier away as she quickly made her way through the carnage to where Sulia sat with her back to the wall.

“No, you need to make sure that Zaleria is OK. I’ll be fine,” Sulia said, still stroking Ivaryn’s hair. “You know? It’s considered bad luck to name your child before they turn two. But you know what? I think it’ll be OK, just this one time,” she said, laughing weakly, then coughed up some blood.

Avi didn’t hesitate to reach out and, figuratively, slap Sulia with a [Regeneration] as she pulled the arrow from her bosom, causing a nasty spurt of blood to follow the arrow out.

Sulia blinked at her, then said “Ouch,” before falling over, unconscious.

After a quick scan with her omni-tool, she got up and made her way to Sulia’s room. She opened the door and looked inside, unconsciously holding her breath.

* * * * *

Tillia woke slowly, her head throbbing. The first thing she registered was the headache, but the next thing she noticed was the wind. It was colder than it should be, which then woke her up further.

She opened her eyes, then slammed them shut again as a most nauseating and dizzying view was registered.

She lay there for a few minutes, trying to process what was going on.

She’d been attacked, but Joram had shown up to rescue her, then…

She racked her brain trying to pull up the details.

Joram had killed one of her attackers with a single punch, then dropped the other one with a gesture.

Then their backup came.

Her hands tried to come up to cover her face, but didn’t move. She wrenched back and forth for a bit in fury, but eventually stopped, her wrists bleeding, her face pushed up against the thick net she was in.

She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands and saw that they were shackled. The metal of the shackles was darker than night, weird symbols engraved into them. She looked at her hands and saw that her spatial ring was missing, but oddly the ring Joram had given her was still there.

That thought brought her mind back to Joram, and what had happened after the reinforcements showed up.

They used some sort of cooperative technique that had blasted Joram away, only leaving a smoking crater behind.

Her stomach clenched, wanting to revolt. With a supreme effort of will, she calmed her stomach. To distract from her memories, she looked around.

She was in some sort of camp, hanging in a net that dangled from a large pole. There were lines of tents, all neatly organized. A few campfires were already lit even though it wasn’t yet night, nor was it particularly cold. Then she noticed the cages.

They were crude things made of rough lumber. They were also filled with people, people she recognized. Though they were all children under the age of about fourteen all the way to toddlers, from what she could see.

What is going on here? She thought as she looked around again, this time taking in any details that she could.

There were crates of supplies stacked around, almost carelessly. People walked around, showing off this or that to whoever they ran across.

Her blood nearly boiled as she recognized the very same painting that had been the focus of Joram’s first birthday party being shown to a small group of cultivators, a prize brought out by the conquerors.

These were the people who’d attacked the Clan and then, evidently, had sacked it.

She looked back to the people in the cages, taking in the details. Soot here, some blood there. Torn clothing, disheveled attire. The faraway, blank looks of those in shock.

Then a sudden, terrible, realization slowly crept up on her.

She was looking at the survivors of the Clear Knowledge Clan.

End of Book 1