I reached for what dregs of ether I had in my spirit, and felt pain flaring through me. It was as if I’d shattered my ribs, but in an entirely spiritual sense. I wish I could say that after using some of Jackson’s techniques, and after training so long and so hard, that it did nothing to me. Hells, I wish I could say that it hurt, but I pushed through it without fear. I did push through, but truthfully, if not for the fact that cultivators were rapidly appearing, and liable to kill me, I wouldn’t have been able to finish. Even with the threat of my imminent demise, I barely managed to mumble out a few words of power, lift my wand, and shape the ether.
My spell was only half completed when a hand, moving so fast that I could hardly track it, slashed down through the air, reaching for my throat. In that instant, if I had been alone, I’d have died for sure. The cultivator’s hand froze, and his entire body began to twitch. I turned and saw Salem, his wand raised, eyes practically glowing with power. Threads of ether and psychic power flowed from the stone set into the wand like strands of silk, where they drove into the back of the cultivator’s head, filling his mind with some sort of illusion. The cultivator broke out an instant later, but Jackson was there, sweeping his arm out and catching the blow. Shimmering golden armor, of the same sort that he’d worn whilst fighting the corrupted alpha dog on the other plane, appeared around him, and though he was driven to the side from the sheer force of the cultivator’s strike, the armor was left without so much as a scratch. The cultivator blurred again, this time crossing the distance to try and strike Salem, I had finally finished my spell.
Papers within my Etherius locker started to rustle, and then they exploded out from nowhere, sheets of arcane force encasing them. They swept out, and a baker’s dozen blank sheets plastered around the cultivator’s hand. A flare of purple chi erupted from him an instant later, shredding the sheets – the arcane reinforcement only did so much, after all, and the spell sacrificed power for control. But as fast as the cultivator had reacted, my papers had still knocked his hand off course, which bought Salem a moment that he needed. Wind formed into blades and slashed, the spells shattering against the cultivator’s skin without drawing blood, though they left red welts. The cultivator blazed purple, but a gold armored form wielding a sword that was on fire slammed a blade into his back. He let out a cry and unleashed a spray of thin needles of toxic chi right into Jackson’s face. This time, the armor did crack, but it didn’t break, and Jackson was able to drive the sword in again. Thick, hot, stinking drops of blood splattered from the wound, but cultivator toughness was nothing to be discounted.
At the same time the man unleashed the spray in Jackson’s face, a handful of additional needles flew for Salem and for me. Salem flexed his hands, and the strings of light attached to the back of the cultivator’s head jerked, then the needles veered off course and splashed harmlessly against the pavement. I eyed him, remembering the Erudite’s comment about him needing to learn where his personal limits lay when it came to enthralling people’s minds. He was getting more comfortable with doing it, which was good, but it could also be the start of a dangerous path. The middle of a fight was no place for such a conversation though, so I instead unleashed a wave of paper from my locker. The cultivator must have thought that these papers would also be relatively harmless, like the ones that had helped knock his attack off course earlier, because he allowed them to land.
His mistake.
Spellglyphs erupted across the sheets, and spells stored within set to work. I’d used some of my spellglyphs in the fight against the massive dog alpha, and more earlier in the year while delving the library. Most of what I had left was designed specifically to counter the elders of Yushin’s clan. Luckily, among my preparations to counter Yushin’s elders, there were some more general anti-cultivator glyphs. After all, I didn’t know if they might bring along some additional reinforcements. More than that, there were a few things I’d prepared for the dark sect, though not many, since I’d assumed that I was going to have my full power for that fight.
Suffering curses designed to speed the draining of chi wrapped around the cultivator’s core, a cursed desiccate spell went off on his left bicep, a layer of sticky webbing wrapped around his body, and sheets of dry webbing around that. Another pair of spellglyphs wrapped around my arms like bracelets and activated, forming a set of greater arcane armor and an energy barrier that protected against shadow chi, as well as a second barrier that blocked poison chi.
“Burn!” I shouted. Seren leapt from my shoulder, his flames rapidly flaring through the dry webbing. Jackson slammed his hand down, and a pillar of flame descended from the sky, while Salem cast a spell that seemed to cause the winds to swirl and spin, feeding the fire. For an instant, I was worried about the clashing powers within the flames harming Seren, but I shouldn’t have been. The flames flowed through him, causing him to burn brighter and brighter as he directed the fire into more effective patterns. The cultivator slashed out with whips of chi, and Seren countered with streaks of flame that cut them off.
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He wasn’t able to get everything, and needles erupted from the flames within, flying at the faces of each of us, but Salem jerked upon the threads connecting their minds again, and the chi dissolved. Jackson stepped forward, plunging his blade into the flames and shouting.
“All people’s work shall be made manifest: and it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try the quality, character, worth of each one’s deeds!”
At his proclamation, his sword dissolved and the flames all turned silver, including the normally orange-ish color of Seren. I could see the cultivator standing within the circle of fire. His left arm, which had been severely damaged from my cursed dehydrating magics, burnt to ash. The fire around the burn turned a blackish color, like the silver of the fire had begun to tarnish. More and more of the flames began to blacken, and Jackson’s eyes widened.
“Show regret for the harm you’ve brought onto others,” he said, his voice hoarse. “The flames will spare you!”
“Never,” the cultivator croaked, lunging for Jackson, hand extended like a claw. The silver and black flames washed over Jackson, where the blackening fire turned back to silver immediately. Jackson punched the cultivator as the claws raked against his armor, the silver seemingly entirely harmless, even as Seren sent the black flames into the cultivator's face, and Salem jerked the threads, forcing the cultivator to dance like a puppet and take the punches.
It was slow, bloody, gruesome work. The silver flames seemed to heal Jackson, while the black flames turned silver at his touch. The black flames burnt the cultivator, and any silver fire that touched him turned black. They were locked in the fight, flames constantly shifting between the two states. Finally, all at once, the chi that must have been fighting the flame gave out, and the man was consumed in a burst of ash.
I turned and looked through the street. There were lots of other fights going on, and I had a handful of generic spells left. For a moment, I debated using them to attack the dual cultivators. If they died, after all, then the ritual couldn’t move forwards with Yushin. Not for months, maybe years, or even decades. Time enough for Yushin to move on. But I knew that would upset Yushin, who was standing, holding a bangle made of carved white jade inlaid with protective formations, watching the battle.
I struck my staff against the ground and slashed my wand, shooting the remaining spellglyphs with offensive spells or curses up through the air at the cultivators fighting Shé Rui and Martha, since I was at least happy to help them. I wished the spell had the dexterity to let me fold and unfold the papers into paper birds to make them more aerodynamic, but at the end of the day, while the spell was flexible, it still wasn’t an affinity spell. Jackson and Salem stepped up next to me, flame and thread spinning through the battlefield. Darts of fire burnt through shadow, while mental attacks distracted opponents. None of us brought down another cultivator, but with our help, the Shé clan had a small but distinct advantage over the dark sect.
In the end, there was only the matriarch leaders of the clan and sect clashing against one another. They were almost evenly matched, despite the supposed confidence of the older woman. I thought the Shé cultivator might be slightly better, but the gap wasn’t large. When the other cultivators of the clan appeared, the glowing sect woman froze, looking between them. She spat a word in Hua Long that roughly translated to rotten eggs, and light began to swirl around her.
“Detonating core!” Shé Rui warned, and he thrust his hand forward. A wall of wind formed. Yushin’s mother joined, bending space around the detonation, and the thick brown-gray chi of the matriarch came next, followed by the dual cultivators.
Except he wasn’t right. Even as the explosion rocked the street, and nearly tore through the combined wall of cultivator might, I saw the woman transform into a small orb of light, no larger than a clenched fist. She froze like that for a tenth of a second, before the orb vanished. I smelled divine power flood the area as she transformed, and then she vanished. That was a new one for me. There was a distinctly different scent to Jackson compared to most humans, as a result of his divine powers, but I’d never actually smelled divine magic directly before. Was this something to do with the kindling in my bloodline, and the transformation that it had undergone?
As the explosion ended and the cultivators took down their walls, I noticed that the sounds of chaos in the city were dimming and looked up. The aberrants that had been summoning demons were gone, and I could see Henry, professors, and other powerful people like the woman in gemstones, teleporting from spot to spot to strike down demons. Less powerful people were doing their part as well, killing imps and other lesser demons. The fight wasn’t entirely over, but with the aberrants all dead, and the dark sect members dead, the city was out of the worst of it.
As if following my very thought patterns, Henry’s voice echoed through the city as he cast some spell. He sounded calm and controlled, just what was needed in an emergency.
“The primary threats have been neutralized. Combat mages are coming in from the Wall to kill the remaining demons, and we will be sending out teams of restoration mages and priests with healing miracles. Please shelter in place until the all clear is sounded,” he announced. Then, in a slightly more annoyed tone, he added. “Rest assured that Cendel will be demanding hefty compensation from Shen Long for allowing defectors to damage the citizen so thoroughly and kill our citizens. I know this is little solace to those of you who lost loved ones, but for anyone affected, in the coming days, please report to the Citadel to file for a piece of the compensation.”
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