That being said, I have yet to meet a proper warbeast. After all, what kind of idiot creates a potentially sentient, recently super-powered monster within their army ranks, then wastes the creature by throwing it into battle where any amount of rage or blood could turn it into a Yokai that’s more a menace than any foe? – General Ta’aika of the Wandering Flames Sect
* * *
“That’s a lot of enemies,” Tenri murmured, peering over the wall and gripping his sword in concern. “There are 4 of us.”
“The bulls are approximately Iron, but they’re merely beasts,” I reported, “Most of the cultivators are Bronze or less. I counted only a handful of Irons in their number.”
“And you know this, how exactly?”
“It would take too long to explain it at this time,” I answered. “Ask me after we survive this.” There wasn’t any point. If things went poorly and I was forced to shatter reality again, I would have to explain the whole thing all over again. Better to wait until the danger was past. “Just trust that I am confident in the numbers.” And, if I was wrong and they all died, then Flash Back would ensure that they would never know my mistake.
“How are they controlling the oxen?” Pharyx asked. “If we can use them to take out the lesser cultivators, we might be able to turn their numbers against them.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea, but I know there’s one ox who’s meaner than the rest.” I pointed to the fanged ox with blood encrusted around its muzzle.
“That looks one tragedy shy of a yokai,” the hornet muttered. “What are they feeding these things?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Pollen interrupted. “Pharyx, are you familiar with the story of the Bee and the Bull?”
I almost choked with laughter. Xinya had no doubt told that one to Pollen at some point. Normally, it was a cautionary tale about keeping your workspace clean. A farmer failed to do so, letting a swarm of wild bees build up a nest in the fields they used to graze their herd. While grazing, one of the bulls stepped on the nest and was stung. In its surprise, it led a stampede over the farmer’s home. The end.
“You want to sting that thing?” Pharyx asked incredulously. “You? The most well-mannered bee I’ve ever seen?”
“No, of course not.” Pollen swished her whisk overhead, “but everyone knows hornet stings hurt more, anyway.”
“Right.” Pharyx shrugged. “Alright, leave the spirit beasts to us. You two should take out any cultivators who stand a chance of stopping the herd.”
“Try not to get trampled under hoof,” I warned. “And, if you find yourself trapped, their weak spot is in their flank. The skin is stone, but with enough force, it cracks like it, too.”
“Got it!” Pharyx brandished his lance. Light glowed bright from his back as wings formed. He launched himself from the wall and hurdled toward the ground.
“Hey! Don’t-” Pollen sighed. “He could at least show some measure of caution. Honestly, that hornet is going to be the death of me.”
I flinched, trying to shake the image of the honeybee queen clinging to the hornet’s crushed corpse from my mind. Flash Back had many drawbacks, not least among which was the memories themselves…
Pollen shifted into her honeybee form to fly down the wall, zipping back and forth to dodge techniques before landing in an explosion of razor-sharp petals. Before the petals had even settled, she was on the attack, sending her petals flying into the rumps of the oxen while Pharyx tried to drive his lance into several others.
Tenri and I waited several long moments for them to clear a path before we leapt down as well. Unlike the others, we had no techniques to slow the fall, but we were Iron. A fall as small as this couldn’t hurt us.
Wind roared in my ears as I drew my string back. The arrows flew ahead, slamming into three cultivators who suddenly found themselves amidst a cloud of dark void mist. They screamed and dropped as I landed between their corpses. Nearby, I watched Tenri drop two more with a small frenzy of glowing clover.
We took off, trying to draw the army of cultivators away from the herd. A metal bead shot past my head, barely missing thanks to Flash Forward. Tenri dodged an icicle before returning with a spray of seeds which ate through his attacker. I slammed my bow into the head of another cultivator and moved on before even looking to see the body fall.
“On your left!” I shouted. Tenri immediately ducked down in time for a crescent blade of void to streak over his head and hit a cultivator with an Iron badge behind him. The artist fell, and I drew my arrow back on my string, pinning Shen Yaoxan in my sights. He chose to join the battle himself, and I’d show him just how much of mistake that was.
The arrow flew forward, and Shen twisted to the side to narrowly avoid the strike. His blade swished before him, weaving a net of void energy. In the same moment, the water artist who’d burst through the wall in my Flash Back vision lashed out with a whip made of water. I ducked out of the way of the bolt, only to stumble right into the net.
“Well, it seems the tables have turned since our last encounter, Tsuyuki,” Shen Yaoxan sneered. “Or should I call you the Chain-Bound Fury? Your disguise didn’t fool anyone.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
It was enough to fool you, I thought as I struggled against the net of void. It burned against my skin, leaving pale marks wherever it touched my skin. Tenri raced to my side, skidding to his knees to help me get free of the net. Shen Yaoxan lunged at us, trying to drive his blade through my head before we had a chance to recover. I glared at him before shoving Tenri out of the way.
Once free of the net, I bent backward, letting the blade stab only at the air above my nose before springing back. My foot slammed into Shen’s jaw, as I flipped and rolled back to my feet.
“Tenri! That one isn’t martially inclined!” I shouted, pointing at the water artist. She paled.
“But, how could you know that?!”
“Lucky guess!” And having seen it in an alternate fight with the woman. She set her gaze with a look of determined fury, but I spied uncertainty behind the sure façade. Every action she took would be second-guessed and analyzed.
Tenri and I stood back-to-back against the army, two men against a hundred. The water artist spun around, gaining momentum for her whip to form. As predicted, there was a hesitancy in her steps, and my lips twitched upward into a slight smile.
“Down!” Tenri called. I ducked immediately and felt the breeze as a crescent void blade sliced overhead.
The water whip came down towards my left shoulder, and I threw myself forward, somersaulting across the distance between us as the unsure artist fell into a dance common to many water artists. As practitioners of water, their techniques tended to flow from one action to another, but the key was to keep up that flow. Therein was their weakness. I drew an arrow from my quiver, but rather than string it to my bowstring, I stabbed it directly at the artist. Her actions were sluggish with overthinking, and the bladed broadhead cut deep into her ankle.
I rolled away as she screamed and collapsed. An instant later, I leapt to my feet, three arrows already on my string. “Tenri! Down!” I yelled. Several of the cultivators had the good sense to do the same as my void arrows were launched in their direction. However, several marks were still caught unawares, and that was enough for me.
Silvery blue light flashed across my vision. That thread from before…the same silver thread that had made Shen Yaoxan fall into a pit and made a rock nearly fall on the Spider Matriarch darted across the battle.
But, that wasn’t in the Flash Back… I thought to myself, replaying the events quickly in my head. Then I remembered. It had been there. Before the attack had begun, Tenri had tripped over a rock, but in this version, we never approached that rock at all.
“Tenri! Watch out!” I shouted, unsure of what exactly he was supposed to watch for. He broke off a duel with Shen Yaoxan to dart several paces back. The silver thread wrapped around his body, and a sinking feeling nestled in the pit of my stomach.
“Incoming!” cried Pharyx. Cultivators screamed and scattered, some willingly and others less so, as the fanged bull plowed through the army with as much ease as if it were tilling fresh soil. Weapons, armor, and bodies flew in every direction as spears of metallic qi launched themselves into the crowd.
Flash Forward warned me of several attacks that would hit in succession, but there wasn’t any time to react to them all. Shen Yaoxan drew back his blade to strike Tenri from behind while the bull barred its fangs from the front.
What’s the best path?! I frantically wondered. If Tenri falls…there might not be time to Flash Back before I’m a goner, too!
In the end, I drew back my arrow and fired. The arrow clanged against Shen Yaoxan’s blade, sending the blade off course, but there wasn’t any way to get Tenri out of danger. The silver thread darted from Tenri to the bull, and the monster bellowed at the wood artist.
“Tenri!” I shouted, but there was nothing to do but watch as hungry fangs clamped down on my friend’s arm. I heard bones crack as stone crunched. The beast ran off, dragging Tenri with him, but leaving Shen Yaoxan’s sword firmly planted in the creature’s chest. The void artist stared at me in terror, as was only right.
“You wouldn’t go against an unarmed opponent?” he sneered.
I laughed. “When have you ever known me to play fair? When it comes to child-murderers, I don’t give a damn about honor.”
“Wretched moon artist,” Shen growled. “My father will purge the Shore of every last ounce of your filth!”
“Greater men than him have tried and failed,” I hissed back. “You’re nothing special.” I lunged at him, brandishing my bow like a sword poised to stab him through. The point dug into his stomach, sending him stumbling backward.
“Men! Kill him now!”
Shen’s order was only heeded by a handful of artists. The rest were laying on the ground, groaning in pain. Though they’d lost the most troublesome ox, Pharyx and Pollen had successfully herded the rest before descending on the rest like martial gods straight from the heavens. With Shen Yaoxan and his Irons focused on taking Tenri and I down, the oxen had been swiftly dealt with by the spirit insects. Shen stared at them, speechless.
“You brought an army designed to fight mortals. Why are you surprised that they fell to four Irons with a clever plan?” I called as I dodged an iron ball launched by a metal artist. An icicle clipped my arm as I buried an arrow into the heart of a young void artist.
The rest were not so keen on sharing in his fate. They hesitated, shooting glances at Shen Yaoxan. The look in their eyes made it clear that they were begging him to call a retreat before they were decimated. Shen gritted his teeth before yanking a blade from the hand of one of his subordinates.
“Fine. I’ll end you here and now.”
“Are you sure about this? We may both be Iron, but my cultivation far surpasses yours.”
“You’re nothing!” he shouted.
“Then you should be perfectly fine facing me alone,” I challenged. “No more of your little friends to use as cannon fodder. Just you and me.”
Shen’s grip on his sword tightened, but pride and fury forced him to nod. The few remaining cultivators stepped back, forming a small circle around the two of us. I relaxed the grip on my bow, ready to react to Shen’s first strike.
His sword shimmered with void qi before he cleaved the blade upward, forming a vertical crescent. I twisted to the side to avoid the strike as it tore up the ground between us. Immediately after the first came a second, this one horizontal. I rushed forward just enough to gain momentum and slide beneath it, pulling an arrow from my quiver in the same motion.
Shen was ready for me as I sprang back upright. He lunged with his sword, driving it clean through my left arm, but I didn’t even grimace as the blow landed. The battle was decided.
The Void artist tensed and stared at me in shock. I released the shaft of the void-tipped arrow that I’d plunged up through his ribs. Though his void qi was eating a small hole in my arm, mine was eating a small hole in his heart.
Shen coughed, blood dripping from his chin. He looked around at the scene of his defeat. The battle was over. Those remaining in his army stared at him in shock as the light began to fade from his eyes.
Then, without another word, his legs gave out beneath him. He fell to the ground, eyes staring lifelessly up at the sky.