Elder Cultivator

As the formations failed, Anton was glad that the enemy forces had been given a target. Defenders on the walls were still killed, but the invaders only engaged enough to get through and push towards him… and Catarina. But the majority went towards him, as he’d been intentionally annoying. He was also a serious threat, though not alone.

The destruction to the city could have been terrible if the enemies weren’t focusing on key targets, and the other strongest cultivators were all moving to intercept and draw attention, though some paths to Anton were left open to draw the invaders further in. That put some risk on Anton, but if everything went well they would cause serious damage. And if it didn’t… at least they would take down a large enemy force with them. The ferocity of people defending their homes was not something that could be matched.

-----

As he had been instructed, Fuzz charged towards the bad swirly black man. The strongest of the enemies. Was he afraid? Of course. Fuzz knew that the man was stronger than himself and Alva. But he also knew that a pack’s power came from cooperation, and Alva and the others were smarter than him. In fact, he was pretty sure the ants were smarter than him. The thing was, they took being a pack one step further. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t something Fuzz could do.

Arrow fired from his back as Alva shot a quick several volleys, disrupting a portion of the swirling energy. Fuzz was a bit hesitant to stick his head into it, but he widened his jaw and did the best he could with his snapping jaws technique. And… the man pulled away. But Fuzz wasn’t really trying to hit him anyway. He was just getting his snout close for the cylinder of ants that rolled off of his head and down it onto the man. The Queen was not part of the arrangement as her body size was much greater than the ‘normal’ ants, instead pushing it along with great speed and finally leaping forward to give it a final push.

Then Fuzz pushed away, bringing Alva out of reach of the draining blackness.

-----

Shyam had seen the stupid ants before. Once his eyes focused on them he changed from an energy based attack to a wide slap. He could just crush them all against the wall and move on with his day. Yet his slap met with nothing but air as the side of the strangely uniform cylinder where he’d aimed his attack pulled apart some how into a strip. Shyam hadn’t actually thought about the strange arrangement they were in with the ants woven together like a mesh before that point, and then they were on him.

He realized he’d missed something else when his earlobe was bitten off by an exceptionally large ant. By the time he could try to crush it, it was pulled away by the strange wheel of ants, spinning along with them over his head and down his neck. They circled around his torso, biting at him without ever stopping. Their movements were faster than the other ants, and the coordinated ways they avoided him almost made him think they could predict how he was going to attack. Which was nonsense.

But… the big one did seem to be a bit of a problem, with jaws big enough to bite more than just skin deep. Punching at ones self was difficult, but he gathered his power and timed his attack just right to hit the giant ant as it crossed his sternum. He fist crushed the creature flat against him.

No, that wasn’t quite right. His knuckles certainly touched his chest, but it was not because the ant was crushed… but instead because his bones had given way. Elder Shyam coughed as he felt ribs piercing into his lungs, which made the whole thing worse.

Were these really ants?

-----

Elder Mazhar and his squad from the Boundless Skies Sect took positions around the formation expert. She sheepishly hid his arm behind her back as he glared at her. It was almost as if she was taunting him with it. How foolish. “Well then, woman, looks like your formations have failed you. You’ll die slowly for this. It will be such a pain to reattach that arm.” There were a few Essence Collection cultivators around her, but even all combined Elder Mazhar could take out them and the woman. With the others, he wasn’t worried. Any other reinforcements were still quite distant, so he didn’t feel the need to rush. “You people are strangely resistant this time. What made you think you had a chance?”

The woman shuffled around nervously, tightly clutching his arm. He was going to cut off both of her arms before she died, just for fun. “Well, have you ever heard of Everheart?”

“What, that asshole?” Elder Mazhar frowned. “Oh right, he was from the world wasn’t he? So what?”

“Well, he was a formation master,” the woman said.

“And what, you’re his disciple or something?”

The woman made a disgusted face. “Oh, no way. For one thing, I’m not that old. And he’s kind of awful. Everybody hates him for coming up with forbidden techniques.” She waggled Mazhar’s arm as she talked, “I mean, can you believe he came up with killing formations that made use of specific people’s blood?”

The thought processes of an Integration cultivator were even more rapid than other cultivators. Well before she was done with the sentence he had understood what she was saying and was moving… but it was already too late. Because he was trapped. All of them were. What’s more, Elder Mazhar felt a pull. The stump below his shoulder twinged and his energy started to pull away from him in strands.

“Actually, it gets much worse than that,” the woman said. “I can’t say I understand it all, and I wouldn’t wish the consequences on my greatest foe in the world. But… as you’re from another world, I’ve made an exception.”

Mazhar had already tried strangling the woman, but it seemed that he and the others were caught in a sort of ring. His arm was stopped before it could get to her, and there was a sting as he felt a surge of power drawn from him. He tried once more, gathering winds around his fist and punching with the condensed fury of a tornado. He was blown backwards, bouncing off the outer section of the ring.

A moment later his bandages tore off and blood began to flow from his stump. The others with him were launching attacks of their own, and while they didn’t seem to be having the same troubles as himself they simply weren’t strong enough to break through… well, a formation made from his own energy it seemed. But Mazhar sensed a weakness. It was a ring, but it couldn’t continue forever, and didn’t seem to have a top. He launched himself upward, flying into the sky- the others following.

-----

There were many things to keep track of in a large battle, and Anton would have felt selfish if he focused only on individuals he particularly cared about like his granddaughters. That was why he was glad that they were also the same places with the Ascension cultivators. He could target the biggest foes and protect his family all at the same time.

To the north the one who had identified himself as Elder Shyam was learning that insects were something he should take seriously, but Anton didn’t mind reminding him that people he called insects were also dangerous. He knew there were approaching enemies that he could be dealing with, but the citizens of Stregate were swarming anyone who got close. He took a few shots at key areas but focus mostly to the north and south.

One shot towards Shyam, and a wide shot from his sword-bow to the south towards the flying group that seemed to think he hadn’t been paying attention to them. He swiped several of them out of the air at the same time, their flying technique requiring a careful balance of energy that they couldn’t maintain when struck by anti-ascension techniques. The fall would barely harm them, but every time they expended energy to get away from a situation and to protect themselves as they dropped back into whatever it was Catarina had set up and were trying to flee… well, it wasn’t going to go well for them.

Two arrows north, one south. West and east got one, then it was two south again where someone lost an arm. Sadly not the Ascension cultivator’s other arm, but he was having a very difficult time getting above the rooftops regardless. Would Anton kick such a person when they were down? Absolutely. But he didn’t mind letting someone else do it.

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A squad of soldiers sprinted down the street as a wheel of blackness followed them. None of their attacks worked. Either they were completely ignored or the thing opened up and avoided getting hit. Even when they thought they caused damage, the building-height wheel seemed to be made of endless ants. Those who got run over by it… well, they only screamed for a few moments.

Their only option was to run through people defending the city. That was still a proposition that risked death, but at least they could predict their enemies strengths… and feel them. The worst part about the rolling arrangement of ants was that they didn’t feel like anything. They weren’t any sort of proper cultivating beast, and neither lower nor upper energy seemed to do anything except disappear when it impacted them. Except maybe get eaten, which was horrifying to think about.

The squad pushed past some defenders, happy to know that at least they would survive for a moment and those they shoved past would die as they were run over. Except it didn’t work that way at all. The massive wheel of ants didn’t even slow as it rolled over the people. The captain of the squad was lucky enough to at least see horrified faces on the civilians, but the fact that they still had faces meant that the ants could discern between people somehow. And then they got to him.

-----

When the enemies began to retreat, nobody let them go. Perhaps one or two were allowed to trickle out of the walls, but they would be hunted down sooner or later. Sooner, if Anton decided they were a target. He wasn’t up to following after them, but the others would… and when one of the retreating groups got to the seventy kilometer mark half an hour later, he didn’t stop shooting. Enemy forces that had been thousands were now hundreds… and soon they might not even be that.

The Ascension cultivators were dead, along with all of those at Life Transformation. There was no chance that those who remained would be a threat to the city. But the costs… in a city of tens of thousands, there were more than a thousand dead just among the civilians. The buildings were mostly intact except along a few key fighting corridors where there was near total devastation. Soldiers from both Stregate and Edelhull had suffered further losses. But… they had won. The sacrifices were heavy, but they had been willing to give up everything.

Leadership was gathered together to discuss the battle. “Would it be possible to repeat that formation you made in the center of the city?” Elder Shyam asked Catarina.

“... if you get a living Ascension cultivator’s arm, sure,” she shrugged. “And give me a few days. And some luck. I have to personalize it to their cultivation style and honestly… I wasn’t sure it would work.”

“Fair enough,” he took stock of her wounds, evidence that the formation had not held to the very end- though it had done enough. “What else could we learn or reuse from the battles?”

The Queen prodded Anton, and he interpreted for her. “She says the large killing wheel took too many soldiers and could only really threaten slower and weaker enemies. They’ll be looking into other methods in the future.”

“Ah yes,” Alfons replied. “The citizens… complained about that. Though not terribly loudly, given the situation.”

Hoyt looked around. “Before we do whatever we plan next, we need to rest. All of us. Our growing proficiency in battling these people won’t do us much good if we all are run ragged, and though we could lean on the militia soldiers for support… the less they have to face themselves the more they will grow with us. And we have been growing. There’s hardly a person among us who hasn’t undergone a breakthrough, mostly minor but a few major.”

Left unspoken was that he was only referring to those who survived. But the actual strength of their forces was, if not increasing, at least maintaining as they were able to coordinate with larger swaths of territory throughout Graotan.

Grand Elder Fodor hadn’t spoken much yet, but he laid forth the various options. “Well then. We have several possibilities from here. After we take some time to recover, we will leave Command Alfons and Stregate with what they can manage. The next targets… securing the teleport formations, or moving into eastern Graotan to coordinate with more larger cities.” He looked at the Queen’s limb movements, “And further colonies, yes.”

The teleportation formations were only in a semi-active state, but they had been left with the possibility to be used because of the way they functioned. There had been some foreknowledge that the enemies would be slow to recover their energy, and so going through the teleportation that required them to drain themselves of energy would be advantageous to those on the other end… and eventually allow for the continents to send backup between each other. The closer formations to places like the Glorious Flame Palace were temporarily disassembled since they might not drain enough.

Both options involved pushing into territory where the enemy forces were unknown, but where the initial consequences of the invasion should have been fully resolved. Especially if they waited for people to recover mentally and physically before they continued.