With the current balance of cultivators present, they couldn’t equally distribute the load between different elements to gain that sort of efficiency. They were very heavy on fire cultivators, with the Phoenix Forest having secondary ties to earth. The Golden Tomb Guardians were all light element without exception.
In short, while John guided many of his disciples to vaguely efficient methods of dismantling the terrain, to not just have a majority of their army standing around doing nothing they had to focus on their own methods.
It wasn’t beyond the ability of Charlotte to melt stone, and focusing on the base of each crag and spire of stone allowed them to topple things with relative ease. At least, the ones with smaller bases. Some crags were particularly wide and deep, and they took longer and more concerted efforts. Even so, it was a necessary task to continue advancing towards the Black Peaks.
Fighting the locals in their favored terrain was simply a mistake. They’d only done so because their experiences told them it was necessary. But… it wasn’t. From the peak of the Soul Expansion Phase to the peak of the Consolidated Soul Phase in the lifespans of single cultivators, the region had changed rapidly- people simply weren’t used to making use of the limits of their power.
Completely changing the terrain might not have been as effective in other locations. For example, anywhere in the Stone Conglomerate, the only value of destroying stone spires would be to remove them as cover. Useful, perhaps, but it wouldn’t really change the advantage of earth cultivators. They would still have plenty of material to work with, and crumbled stone might even be more advantageous for them.
Here, however, while the area would remain infused with darkness, it was the arrangement of stone itself that was special. If John were to describe the effects of the Muted Crags… it was that they didn’t reflect spiritual energy. That wasn’t quite a correct description, as they also limited sensing around them. But he could vaguely compare it to the sound dampening surfaces in a recording studio.
Once the stone was brought down, the effect diminished greatly. It wasn’t completely gone, but the effect was less uniform- and it allowed visual confirmation of the location of approaching enemies. Not that they’d encountered any enemies so far during this day. Most likely, the enemy was trying to figure out how to respond.
John watched as Deirdre gathered light in one hand, the power increasing but the light staying contained in her fist. Until she thrust her hand forward towards one cliff. The destructive reaction of light and darkness happened easily with natural terrain, and chunks of stone exploded apart in sequence as a beam of light burrowed into a cliff face until it was structurally unstable enough to collapse.
Looking at the path behind them, it was a wasteland of rubble. John thought the terrain had actually been rather nice, but if it was a choice between stone and the lives of people he knew, he would choose to preserve the people every time.
The first attack came around evening. The one place that still had cover was of course the edge of their path, on the sides and front. Here, the attack came upon one of the groups on the side. The setting sun was an excellent cover for the assault, and the timing was nearly optimal to catch people at their utmost fatigue.
The first assault saw a number of their army fall- with a smaller number of the enemy being taken down in retaliation. But instead of engaging, Charlotte gave the orders for them to withdraw. The enemy could shoot at them with bows to some extent, but they had enough space to get out of optimal range. Defending against the attacks was easier than before, since there were fewer things interfering with their senses. Thus, they could coordinate defensive maneuvers more easily.
The Ascending Soul Phase cultivator from the previous night- Rezso- didn’t show himself. He was most likely lurking somewhere, watching. But he was cautious enough to not engage in battle just yet.
That was good. Cautious could be troubling to deal with, but ultimately it meant that they were not getting the use of his strength, which was their main advantage besides the terrain. It didn’t take long for the rain of arrows to slow and then stop, once it was clear that they weren’t causing any relevant damage. Better to not waste the energy of the Black Peaks forces, John supposed. And maybe the arrows as well. They only had a hundred or so archers total, so it was quite possible for them to have vast stores of arrows for each, but there was some question of whether each and every one would have a storage bag- and how easily they could withdraw arrows from said storage.
John resolved himself to watch that process next time. Perhaps later this same night. It was quite likely that the enemy would attack again, taking advantage where they could.
“We should make some fortifications,” John said to Charlotte. “Any earth cultivators you have would be useful. Or anyone, really, since we can pile this rubble to our advantage and people should at least be able to move a little.”
“Indeed,” Charlotte said. “As long as we don’t exhaust them, or ourselves.”
“I was just thinking basic cover,” John said. “Especially in the direction of their best vantage points. Perhaps they might still be able to fire from atop the cliffs, but we can have people watching for them.”
Deirdre grinned. “First one to show his head up there is losing it,” she said as she had light sparkle around her fingers. Even if the Golden Tomb Guardians were more focused on melee combat, they had trained with the Combining Luster Sect and she was capable of ranged attacks. With her late Consolidated Soul Phase cultivation, she really could take out most of the individual opponents they had.
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“Good idea,” John said. “Let them be the ones looking for shelter rather than us. Now then, what do we think about our progress for today?”
“Well, let’s see,” Charlotte frowned. “We only managed to move around a kilometer towards our destination. So I would expect three to five more days until we reach the Black Peaks. And once there…”
“Clearing a perimeter will be our priority, I think,” John said. “Unless we plan to directly assault the city. The more we clear, the easier our siege will be… now or in the future.”
“The problem is if we can sustain this pace,” Deirdre said. “My people might not be able to.”
John nodded. “I wish I could say we had the expertise to efficiently convert darkness element to light, but even the Six Elements Crossroads is limited there. There are some traces of light aligned elements, however,” John said. “I would suggest you coordinate with my disciples. They can help.” John, of course, was feeling just fine. Converting darkness into his other elements wasn’t terribly difficult for him, and the Muted Crags had plenty of spiritual energy to go around. “I suppose we have to choose between continuing with this pace and risking the fatigue, or facing the threat of potential reinforcements.”
“Any reinforcements that will be coming will arrive within our most optimal time frame, I think,” Charlotte said. “We hadn’t anticipated it taking this long to reach the city, but perhaps we should have.”
“Having never fought in the Muted Crags before, and having only old information to go off of,” Deirdre said, “I think we’re doing just fine.”
“We might need to risk sending out scouts tomorrow,” John said. “Which will probably mean myself or my disciples, as they’re the ones who stand the best chance of going unnoticed. If we can anticipate attacks, we can cut our losses. Or perhaps even perform counterattacks.”
“Oh? What would make that viable?” Charlotte asked.
“Their archers like standing on the peaks,” John said. “And while they’re usually quite sturdy… if some of them happen to be half destroyed when the enemy shows up in a way that’s not visible from their angle of approach…”
“We can bring them down,” Charlotte nodded. “I wouldn’t expect many to die in a fall, but that might throw them off enough for us to rush in and take some out.”
“Exactly,” John said. “And we have to bring down most of this stone anyway, so it’s not too much more effort.”
“We’ll look for opportunities,” Charlotte agreed. “It might even be beneficial for us to slow our pace for that exact thing. And to keep people sufficiently rested.”
-----
The next attack came in the night. John was ready for it, waking easily at the first signs. Or perhaps he’d never quite gotten to sleep. It was difficult, in a place such as this. He didn’t feel secure even with their changes to the terrain.
John wanted to immediately join the battle, but he restrained himself. Just as the Black Peaks cultivators could conceal themselves, so could he. And the element of surprise would be valuable for him. Besides, he couldn’t afford to get into a head-on conflict with Rezso. John was no longer weak after his semi-failed advancement, but he wasn’t quite as strong as he had been. Facing an Ascending Soul Phase cultivator without Matayal by his side or a boost from Ciaritzal was foolish.
He slipped out under the back of his tent, just in case someone had determined which tent was his. The commanders were in conservatively sized tents to not stand out too much, but they were mostly centrally located and their own army had to know where they were so it couldn’t be entirely secret.
John took out a cultivator creeping around the corner, a quick slash of his sword along the woman’s neck. His stealth skills were just as good as normal, since he didn’t rely on the local terrain- meanwhile, he could at least feel the majority of the pockets of conflict around them, which was a significant improvement from the former night.
Moving stealthily towards the second most intense battle, John crouched in between some of the stony rubble. He very carefully circulated his spiritual energy, awakening it with the intent to use it in a sudden burst. Keeping the energy inside of him, he would be slightly delayed compared to wearing the spiritual energy openly- but of course the other way he would lose his concealment.
It hurt to just watch the battle, especially as he saw Golden Tomb Guardians being taken down. All of their training against darkness might have given them an advantage, but they weren’t flawless- any mistakes would lead to their own deaths just as much as the enemy.
Then John saw him. Rezso, the Ascending Soul Phase cultivator, creeping up behind Deirdre. His instincts told him to leap out, or to warn her. But his bonds of trust told him to watch and wait.
Deirdre still had her back to the man when he got within range, lunging forward with his dagger enshrouded in darkness. Deirdre had just thrust her weapon forward, the blade of her glaive stabbing into the chest of a Black Peaks cultivator. She gave no indication of having noticed Rezso, and John wondered if he had made a mistake.
The dagger went directly for her spine. Then Deirdre yanked her weapon back, the blade of light disappearing from the front end of her short staff, the spiritual energy immediately transferring along the shaft to create the blade behind her. Even from the awkward angle she had a slightly greater reach, and her confident attack forced Rezso to make a choice. Could he slip past her attack? Blocking it with his defensive energy was out of the question. Even with special training, it would be a disaster for him. John was well aware of that.
Rezso made the safe decision, which was to reverse his motion, skittering back and to the side. It was logical, of course, and while John knew a few people who would have taken the chance to immediately remove Deirdre from the war… it took quite a bit of skill to survive such tactics frequently.
After her attack, Deirdre turned to face the cultivator. She was lower in cultivation, by a small but important step across the threshold into the Ascending Soul Phase. But she should still be able to put up a good fight for a period of time.
John… simply waited, and watched. Only time would tell if he was making the correct decision.