Elder Cultivator

The Exalted Archipelago had fortified the port of Obuandi, but the area around it had been retaken by the continental forces. Determining exactly what proportion of their forces to send had been difficult, as the borders still needed protecting from potential additional intrusions. The passing of ships was monitored as much as it could be to predict movements, but having people ready in the local area was a necessity to head off such intrusions. Teleportation formations were not common, and it could take days for people to fully recover their energy after going through one- limiting their practicality.

The archipelago’s forces had been able to anticipate the coming siege as the forces approached and retook the nearby area, which led to them gathering many of their naval forces in the area as well. At the moment they had a greater number of ships than the continent could bring to bear in the area, leaving them some options to retreat. Likewise the forces on those ships could reinforce the port on land if necessary.

Siege equipment was set up by the continental forces. The enemies had co-opted some of what had been set to defend the area, but their own numbers were minimal. More importantly, they didn’t necessarily have the ammunition for a sustained barrage.

The continental forces, meanwhile, had learned from previous incidents. The siege of Yedo had been plagued by various issues. An insurmountable one was the second tier ascension cultivator, with an aura that could suppress the whole battlefield. That made a full assault difficult, though if they had been able to bring down the city’s defenses it should have been something they could overcome. Otherwise the invaders from the upper realms wouldn’t have stayed put, but come out to attack.

Larger capacity storage had already been planned before seeing the storage chests from the Ponderous Turtle Clan, but even just hearing about them had been enough inspiration for the formation masters and enchanters to come up with something complete. The final pieces were effectively covered wagons, with both significant physical size to go along with their larger internal area but also for the sake of having sizable openings. A storage bag could only go so far in carrying things before something simply wouldn’t fit.

There were limits on the supply wagons as well, but they could easily fit large boulders or similar. Ammunition specially tailored for trebuchets was shipped in significant quantities, ready to be put to use. The same was true for the ballistae- whether it was individual massive arrow-shaped projectiles or bundles of smaller ones meant for creating their own miniature barrage they had sufficient ammunition. And there were a few special pieces, both the weaponry itself and the ammunition. Those were kept concealed for the moment, until such a time as they intended to use the still experimental devices.

Thus began a proper siege, with bombardments meant to break through the walls of the enemy forces. The occupying enemy also counterattacked with the intention of destroying the siege weapons, but though they were within the attacking range of many individuals, there were sufficient defenders and formations to keep them safe- for the most part.

A week passed quickly. As time went on, the northern oceans would freeze even further south, limiting the passage of Exalted Archipelago ships coming to reinforce them even more. Much of the continental navy was wrapped up in keeping those reinforcements from arriving, and while the forces in Obuandi could have potentially tried to break through that blockade, committing so many of their forces would have left the city itself open for retaking.

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So far, nobody had been able to open negotiations with the city. It was possible to shout across a safe distance, but so far they had either been ignored or met with vague taunts in return.

Anton imagined that the Exalted Archipelago didn’t know how to extricate themselves from the situation they were in. They could simply pack up and leave, but that would be some form of admitting defeat… and they clearly thought themselves superior. Maybe they had been, some decades previous. Now, they were at least not overwhelmingly powerful compared to the continents working together. Their losses had consistently matched that of the continental forces in proportion, with the defenders having some advantages.

Maybe there was some secret plan they still had, some way to get a massive victory that would make everything worth it. Maybe they had a specific goal in mind, a specific sect they wished to conquer, but there weren’t really any signs of that. They’d simply looted and plundered what they could, which was made exceptionally difficult when they had to contend with the forces of cities and not just sects or clans. A few thousands or tens of thousands of lower ranking cultivators was quite troublesome to deal with for an army of any size.

It was possible that they would never admit surrender, though they were cognizant enough of their own lives to avoid confrontations they didn’t think they could win. That made negotiations more difficult, because any agreement of a ceasefire sort of depended on some reparations from them. Simple peace would ultimately be better for both sides, but Anton knew the mindset of the continent wanted revenge. Their counterattacks didn’t count- they fought for those victories and what they had taken, they weren’t reparations for an unprovoked attack.

It was unfortunate, but it might take the war dragging on longer with more losses before people were willing to accept a ceasefire with no additional strings attached. Even Anton, who understood why they would do that wasn’t fully supportive of the idea in his heart.

But if the was were to continue and losses were going to happen, Anton personally wanted the enemy to suffer the majority of them. For that sake, he was part of a small squad of artillery shooting past the city.

Not at it- a couple Life Transformation cultivators bombarding a city-wide defensive formation wouldn’t make that much difference one way or another. Past it, to the most vulnerable part, the harbor. And the ships there.

During their initial assault they’d deal with every ship that didn’t have proper defensive formations covering it from rudder to sail- or barring that a crew willing to block the incoming attacks. The latter was significantly more risky, and had generally been abandoned except for the sake of augmenting existing defensive wards.

The enemy had enough forces to man the ships, so of course they could defend any individual ship from a few people as well… but not all of them could always be on high alert. With Anton and Kseniya working together, they could target pretty much any ship whenever they wanted, and a few kilometers here or there wouldn’t make any difference. Pulling the ships out of the harbor was useless, unless they were willing to go at least fifty kilometers away where there was a noticeable drop off in offensive power from the archers, and even then they could still attack the ships. It was only when they were close to the hundred kilometer mark that the passive replenishment from surrounding natural energy would easily keep up.

So people were defending the ships in shifts, with Anton and Kseniya searching for weaknesses. They didn’t have to sink ships all at once, as a little bit of damage to the structure or a punctured sail or two was sufficient if they could slip something past the defenses. There were some cultivators who could counter their attacks as well, but with Anton firing a large number of shots at once and Kseniya focusing on individual powerful attacks it was quite difficult to counter. And they didn’t just have to attack the ship. If they could take out one of the defenders, that was a reasonable target as well.

Even with incremental successes on their part, the siege wasn’t progressing quickly. There was currently no intention to rush, but keeping the whole continent on alert for so long was tiring everyone out. Waiting for whatever the Exalted Archipelago tried was also not something they wanted.

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A huge tube of metal sat in front of Grant. He certainly couldn’t call himself the sole inventor of the device, but he had been one of the first to work on mechanical solutions to cultivator problems. Enchantments and formations were all well and good, but they could only augment things so far. A sloppy wall with formations holding it together was a house of cards waiting to be toppled.

But walls were actually fairly set in their construction, as technique had improved slowly over time. The same was true with weapons and armor, and honestly Grant could hardly fathom ways to improve them. Not for use by individual cultivators.

The first step had been making siege weaponry that was immediately augmentable by the energy of multiple cultivators. No matter how heavy a rock was, against a barrier of natural energy it ultimately was wasted effort without some sort of change in how it worked. Twenty years before he’d already had designs in place, and over those decades others had helped him improve them.

This metal tube was another step along the way. It had some confounding factors that made it difficult to use.

As a base, the cannon took explosive powder to propel a heavy ball of metal. The greater velocity this achieved meant the individual shots didn’t have to be so heavy like in a trebuchet. Yet at the speeds that could be achieved through mechanical power alone, it could only cause damage to unaugmented walls, devoid of defensive formations.

Denser metal for the casing and higher power explosive powder might eventually overcome that, but such things became prohibitively expensive. Taking advantage of the mechanical strengths and adding a cultivator’s natural energy was better, but the cannon itself had some peculiarities that were difficult.

The explosion, for example, basically meant that augmenting the cannon ball with energy would be extremely inefficient. An explosion at the rear of the ball would damage the coating of energy, and augmenting just the front was basically impossible even if it the ball didn’t turn over in the process of being shot.

Using energy to augment the explosion saved on materials, but at some point it was too much for the projectile… or in a few unfortunate cases for the structure of the cannon itself. The cultivators on those projects had been lucky that they always had their defensive energy in place, so the explosions had mostly knocked them back a few hundred meters from the test firing point.

Ultimately they had developed a system where individual cultivators were responsible for separate parts. Some fortified the barrel, some augmented the explosion, and some provided augmentation directly on the cannon ball. There was lost energy still, but with crews rotating out it was spread throughout more people. And they only had a few cannons to begin with.

Grant was taking special care to make sure the one next to him was properly set up- the area around it was just as important given the recoil of the firing. Stopping the recoil was energy intensive, so having it in a proper area where it could roll back and absorb the recoil on its own was their next best option. And though he wasn’t an expert in formations, he also had to consult with those involved in that field to make sure their shots wouldn’t have to bust through their own defensive formations. It would be a serious mistake if they left all of their other siege weaponry vulnerable on accident, and costly.

Deciding that other factors were as good as they were going to be, Grant carefully measured the angle of firing. He had to get some input from a cultivator with long range senses, because that was much better than guessing the distance and the slope. The first shot needed to be impactful, before anyone was ready for it. Taking a few shots to properly range the cannon would be unfortunate.

He took the position of manning the cannon ball itself for the first shot. He had enough experience with the position that he could avoid using too much energy and causing drag on the barrel while still making it optimal for penetrating at the other end. Several others gathered around, all in Essence Collection. They put their power together, holding the cannon firm and triggering the explosion.

Grant knew he would have been deaf without proper energy defenses in place, and even then he had trouble hearing for a moment. But he didn’t need to hear to see and sense the impact. The combined energy of the cultivators plus the power of the actual explosion itself provided a deceptive amount of force. The natural energy involved was little more than a late Life Transformation expert could gather alone, drawing some small amount of attention but not ushering any response from the defenders.

That power combined with the explosive force, and the way it combined to shoot the heavy ball of metal forward meant that when it impacted the defensive formation, it only encountered the standard always active defensive level. It punctured through that without stopping, punching a hole in the wall behind it as well. It was unclear if it broke through any formation runes, but it kept its momentum for quite some time.

So it was a success, though Grant wondered if it would have been better if it could explode where they wanted it. The difficulty with that was getting through the defensive formation first before exploding. That was a feature he was completely uncertain of how he might reproduce it, and honestly he hoped he never had to.

The enemy would likely be ready for future shots from this cannon- or another one- but even if they reacted and took it head on, the expenditure on their part to defend against it should hopefully be higher. At the very least, they’d have to focus on a couple more groups not made of Life Transformation people which would free up some of their stronger cultivators to do more.