The second the door was breached, a flurry of attacks came through it. Lita erased every attack in front of her with a wave, Wald struck attacks one by one to stop them in midair so they dissipated or fell without momentum, and the third man next to them summoned a thick shield of earth and simply advanced in front of them like the barrage was nothing. Disciple after disciple followed the three into the building, the sounds of techniques and screams echoing out every moment.
By the time Vath made it into the building, the front line of the ongoing battle had moved across the vast room. The defense was fierce, but the advantage was clearly theirs. Wald and the earth cultivator were particularly effective together; the barriers the man pulled up blocking everything without trouble as Wald took captive after captive, as he could disable without killing in just a handful of strikes. He was a reaper amongst wheat, and no one could touch him through his protector.
Vath took stock for just a moment to determine his area was clear of active threats, and then a series of essence cuffs and healing pills appeared from his storage band. He knelt next to the closest groaning cultivator, cuffed him, and then shoved a pill in the man’s mouth after showing him what it was. They had been met with deadly attacks, so they would respond in kind, but they weren’t trying to kill these people after all. They were meant to be questioned and tried. A moment later, the man sighed in relief from his pain, and Vath maneuvered him off to the side, before moving to the next person. This one was unconscious, so he poured some water in to make the pill go down before sitting him next to the first.
He was working alongside several other groups, and it didn’t take long to secure everyone that wasn’t still actively fighting. The room was theirs minutes later. Lita flashed over to their prisoners and slashed the air, revealing the last of their force at their camp in the woods, not far from where they’d left earlier. “Group Six stay watching the lobby, Group Five escort the prisoners to be watched by Camp Group, then return to help Six. Everyone else, you know your areas, move before they have more time to prepare.” she said in a loud voice before flashing back over to her own group and heading down one of the corridors out of the room with haste.
Vath formed up with his assigned squad, which included five other senior outer disciples with their four, and an inner disciple as Group Leader. The tall and stocky woman named Torkmal was covered in a barrier of nearly clear Force that was only visible from its slight blue tinge. He’d seen her throw out powerful spheres that bowled over those they hit in the lobby, but she also seemed able to shield her allies, judging by the thin blue tinge covering everyone around him.
The hallway was wide and long; doors didn’t appear until dozens of feet down it. They slowed as they reached the first, and their leader peaked around the doorframe, whipping back around as techniques whizzed by her face. “Well,” she said, “they definitely heard us coming. They’re turtled up about halfway in. Corina, blind them on my signal. Dornah, you’re in front with me the second Corina is clear. Vath and Kaser, down them and cuff them, Corina keep them disoriented as much as you can from behind. The rest of you watch the hallway. Anyone steps into view, don’t blast them, but blast their direction. Keep them under pressure till we’re back. Corina. Three, two, one, go.”
The lithe blonde woman in question rushed past the doorway and threw a bright globe of light into the room on her way. Just as she reached cover, there was a large flash accompanied by cries of pain and frustration. Torkmal and Dornah burst into motion, with the brothers right on their heels. There was only one man who had managed to handle the flash and was still throwing techniques; they left him to their front line and rushed the others. Some were throwing attacks in every direction blindly, others were trying to rub the light out of their eyes. A few were even unconscious. The system they formed without speech was for Vath to occupy them from the front, blocking, dodging, or soaking up the small amounts of damage; while Kaser squeezed out all the speed he could to cuff their hands behind their back before they had a chance to respond.
If they had been able to see, this would never have worked, but in their impaired state it took no time at all before all six were on the ground, with the seventh having been taken down by Torkmal in the meantime. Their mostly blinking captives were led into the hall, and a man at the back of their group was directed to escort them back to the lobby and quickly return. Chains made of dark green essence spread from his hands to the wrists of the captured, and formed manacles around them, before he led them off. Torkmal quickly updated the elder in the lobby, “Group Four Leader to Elder Folin; our section has combatants hiding in their rooms. We’ll be clearing them one by one. The captives from the first are cuffed and heading to you now. Understood.” She turned to the group and told them that a member of Group Five was on the way to meet them and would be doing escorts back and forth as they advanced, so that they could stay at full fighting force.
They continued in this manner, clearing room by room, dozens sent back with the member of Group Five, before they encountered something new. The end of the hall had two doors directly across from each other as well as one straight ahead. The two to the sides were made of a black metal that was absolutely covered in dense infused inscriptions that glowed with a red light, and they didn’t seem to possess a handle or any other way to open them, while the other door was uninfused wood like all the other rooms in this wing. The only thing that set it apart was that it looked thicker. They approached cautiously, Torkmal strengthening her shield before carefully testing that the black doors weren’t some kind of trap. Nothing attacked her, and they were utterly unable to open them, but if they continued forward, this would be the first time they left potential enemies behind them. After a quick confirmation with Elder Folin, it was communicated that they would continue forward, but Dornah would stay at the back of the formation to warn them if those doors opened, since he was the most likely to survive a sudden assault besides Torkmal herself.
They lined up on either side of the door, and a countdown was called. The door was blasted open by pure Force by a slap from their leader, and Corina nearly got her hand annihilated throwing a blinding sphere in as an overwhelming torrent of attacks poured out at them. Torkmal roared, and advanced, forming a large thick barrier as she went. The shields around the whole group thickened as she rushed forward, somehow managing to block dozens of techniques every second without her barrier even rippling.
They charged after her, Dornah planting himself directly in the doorway with walls of ice to his front and back to prevent any reinforcements, should those dark doors open. They’d wondered where all of the extra personnel were, given that every living area they’d entered so far contained far more beds than people guarding the room. They’d thought they’d been in the lobby, or perhaps not currently in the facility. It turned out that at least a good chunk of them had huddled in this room, as there were no less than thirty individuals in front of them.
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Nine versus thirty sounded like terrible odds, but they’d realized as they cleared to this point that most of the combatants were in Second Tempering at best, and occasionally even lower. Not a single one had displayed the strength of someone in Spirit Reinforcement, let alone the end of Consolidation, where Torkmal currently sat. This meant they were completely incapable of breaking through her barriers on an individual basis no longer they had, and even the current barrage of attacks only put her under some strain. She’d be likely to run out of essence before the shield cracked from the pressure.
Up till now, they’d played it safe and slow, since there was no telling when they’d suddenly run into someone with far greater strength, but Torkmal had apparently decided that with this room, the risk was necessary. It only took Vath and the others seconds after entering the room to figure out why. There was a field of enemies right in front of them, but behind them, a lone man was behind some kind of array and infusing an inscription on the wall. Vath had no idea what that inscription did, but their leader either did, or had no interest in finding out.
They crashed into the disorganized lines the other side had erected, and a ferocious melee broke out immediately. Vath quickly found himself dancing through the crowd, striking with everything in his arsenal to down opponents as fast as possible. His physical blows were plenty effective, but the surprise of his Void Beams coming from nowhere and his lupine head swallowing every technique it could get its jaws around threw those around him into complete disarray as they fell one after the other. As he was surrounded by only enemies, he was even able to release his small domain for the first time on this operation. His domain was in line with his manifestation, eating away at any essence that entered it. So far, it only covered an area a few feet around him and it took a bit to fully gobble up a technique’s essence, but it didn’t discriminate between whose technique it weakened, so he didn’t use it while still close to his allies. Now, though? There was no one it would disrupt but his adversaries.
The combined defense of his Void Form, domain, and Torkmal’s shielding allowed him to simply ignore any incoming strikes he couldn’t eat, and he scythed through them for a moment, until there were suddenly none left standing. Torkmal wasted no time unleashing strikes at the array protecting the final enemy in the room, and it shuddered again and again. The inscription he was infusing flashed in completion, and two strikes later the array crumbled. A blow to his head caused him to cry out as he fell to the ground. He seemed too drained of essence to fight back however, and after a command to restrain them all, he was cuffed quickly.
Less than a minute after the battle was over, they were all secured and against one wall. They remained stubbornly silent when questioned, so Torkmal began to contact the lobby, “Group Four Leader to Elder Folin-”
Dornah cut in with an urgency in his voice, “Group Leader! You’ll want to see this!”
“Standby, Elder.” she finished before hurrying over. Dornah dissolved the ice blocking the hallway from view, and it was immediately obvious what he was referring to. The infusions on the black doors were brighter than ever and were flashing brighter before dimming over and over. A moment later they both moved inward with a loud thunk, before moving to the side, disappearing directly into the thick wall, which was made out of the same black material as the doors.
Torkmal spoke, “Form up. Delki, chain the prisoners to each then to the wall before joining us. Dornah, you will guard one door while we investigate the other room unless we are immediately attacked. Go.” The instructions were followed instantly, and then they could see into the rooms. They were… bizarre.
The rooms were empty apart from a set of odd things embedded in the walls. They appeared to be boxes of some white material, halfway inside the wall, with more red inscriptions on the front.
There was an outer ring of inscriptions shining bright crimson surrounding a singular larger symbol that was only partially lit on each box. The larger symbols were only shining on the bottom half, but as they watched, the light climbed a little bit higher, as if the infusions were filling up with power.
"I don't want to see what happens when they finish filling, so gather up near the door. I'm going to put a barrier in front. Vath, you're gonna reach through and see if you can't eat or deactivate that essence." came the order. Vath walked forward to just behind her shield, and once the signal was given, reached his blue snout out to try and inhale what he could. There was resistance, at first. He's never used this ability on an infusion before, and apparently the essence didn't want to leave. It didn't hold out for long, though, and a bit streamed into his mouth. The response was immediate and overwhelming.
A figure burst from the box at great speed, knocking Torkmal away and lifting Vath into the air by his throat before he could register an attack. The being was monstrous. It might have once been a man, but now its form was twisted. The limbs were an uneven length and too long, as was the neck. The mouth was filled with jagged teeth, and its skin was so dry it looked like it was made of cracked stone. There was no hair on it, but there were inscriptions. Lots of them. Every inch of its crumbling skin shined with light, some the same color red as the rest in the room, and some the orange of a fire. And worst of all, the thing's eyes were bright lights with a rolling mixture of the two colors. No pupils or sclera, it was like they had been replaced with pure essence.
Vath shouted in alarm, though it was garbled by the hand around his neck, and punched its wrist as hard as he could manage from his current angle. It barely seemed to notice the pain as his spiked gauntlets dug in, but it did release him.
And then the red light nearest to the wound grew brighter, and the holes closed with a speed visible to the naked eye. Vath blinked in surprise, and didn't even have a chance to move before the monstrosity struck at him. His defenses held, but he was still launched a few feet back from the momentum alone.
A blue tinged fist flew in from the side, and impacted the side of its head, throwing it to the ground with a visibly broken neck.
The light surged again, and crackling bone was heard before the thing stood again. It immediately raised its hand, and released a torrent of fire at Torkmal, who huddled behind her barrier to withstand the onslaught. When it petered out, they noticed something. Both colors of infusion were quite a bit dimmer now. Regardless of how it was doing this, It had a much lower limit to its essence reserves. "Grind it down! We need to wear it out quickly!" Torkmal shouted frantically.
The others in the doorway had been frozen for the few seconds these exchanges had taken, but the command shook them out of it, and techniques rained on the constantly reforming entity. It could barely stand under the assault, but it just wouldn't die for several minutes. And then suddenly, all at once, it collapsed, utterly spent.
The group huffed their breath, through to calm down from the exertion, and then their leader looked around the room.
She looked at the corpse on the floor, at the twenty-four other boxes in the room whose larger symbols were now almost full, and then her head whipped to look out into the hall, in the direction of the second room that contained these things.
"Ancestors…" she whispered before exploding into motion while yelling, "Back! To the lobby. Now!"
They hurried out of the room as she called out to the elder in a harried voice, "Group Four Leader to Elder Folin! Incoming hostiles! At least fifty, limited power reserves, but strong with unmatched regeneration and other techniques as long as they have essence. We are retreating to your position, and recommend you call back other Groups until we have a handle on the situation. I-"
She was cut off by the sound of forty-nine containers opening at the same time, and she froze for a second before roaring, "RUN!"