Chapter 11 #3
The final door before his ultimate target burst open as a wild-eyed man wielding a pair of obsidian axes glowing with dark enchantments and pristine sharpness burst into the hallway, covered in thick armor reinforced by infernal wards and runes.
The Silver-tier monster chuckled coldly as Alex stopped and took his measure.
“Your slaughter stops here, Ruidian scum!” the man roared. “Su Lin, Gonzi! Unleash the trap, now!”
The man’s smile widened when filaments of twisted Qi smelling of rot and despair spun about Alex like a spider web, earning cold, dark laughter from the pale-faced pair of wujen who slipped out just behind the powerfully built Silver radiating such fearsome killing intent.
“Well done, Lion,” whispered the older wujen in a raspy voice, smiling so coldly as Alex stood perfectly still, hair still whipping about with the fury of his own breakthrough.
“This Ruidian beast has earned the unenviable displeasure of our master. And as it is us who have caught him, it is us who shall profit when he is finally in our master’s—”
Artificer Skill check successful!
You understand the nature of this trap!
“Dongfang Hong is your master, right?” Alex let the words slip out with a furious hiss, earning a flinch and snarl from the pair of pale-faced, almost sickly-looking wujen, and a sneer from the powerful Silver.
“That foolish mongrel would dare to ask such a question aloud? For that offense alone, he should be put to the stake!” the Silver body cultivator roared.
The older wujen smirked, rubbing his long spindly fingers together, a sickly contrast to his fine silk robes radiating protective wards. “All in good time, Lion. For now, we but need to—”
His words cut off in an explosion of lightning.
Storm Strike–enhanced Spell Cleave combined modifier of +22 effective ranks UTTERLY obliterates Silver-tier wards!
Your foe has been temporarily stunned by backlash!
The older wujen groaned and stumbled back.
“Master!” cried the younger wujen as the roaring Silver-tier cultivator charged, obsidian axes positioned low and high with the deadly grace of a man well versed in his killing tool.
A sight that brought a fierce grin to Alex’s lips.
“The dirge of your existence ends here and now, Ruidian scum!” Lion roared.
Alex answered with steel and storm, his fangtian ji weaving low, winding under the man’s warding axe and lunging for his foe’s sternum, an instant before his snarling foe hooked the haft of the polearm with his second axe in a clearly well-rehearsed technique.
Alex’s blow earned a sneer of contempt. “Fool! You think you can overpower a Strength—”
Lion’s eyes bulged in horrified surprise when his obsidian axes failed to redirect Alex’s weapon shaft, the axes effortlessly pushed aside by currents of wind and water far beyond Lion’s ability to counter, no matter his Strength and the Metal Qi radiating from what Alex instantly understood to be deadly artifacts able to cut through stone and steel like butter.
Yet Lion’s affinity was balanced and countered by the metallic salts that now infused Alex’s art, ancient lessons brought to the fore once more, thanks to the bitter tears of horror and conflict he had just endured.
Lion’s desperate snarl of denial became eyes bulging with horrified surprise as blood shot out from between his lips when the sharp spear head of Alex’s fangtian ji blasted right through the man’s reinforced steel plates like hail through a spider’s web.
The air shook with Lion’s furious roar, the snarling Silver lashing out with metal-reinforced axe afterimages that tore right through the stone where Alex had been standing, the air ringing with the crack of shattered rubble, the air thick with dust and splintered stone.
But Alex had already darted back, fangtian ji held in mid guard as he flashed his foe a vicious grin, eyes wild with the crackling fury of the storm.
Lion spat blood and laughed coldly a heartbeat before he slashed through the air with his eerily glowing axes, ghostly afterimages that could shatter stone now whirling through the air for Alex’s head.
Spell Cleave successfully counters Ghost Axe!
You have successfully ruptured your foe’s Mid-Range Qi Manifestation!
“No, impossible! My ghost axes should have severed your arms!” The furious cultivator’s snarl turned into a look of confusion as he spat frothy pink blood, as if only in that moment sensing the spurting hole in his chest.
“My armor is warded!” Lion cursed, before sparing a single moment to glance down at the steel tiles of his lamellar armor, all of them turned rusted and brittle.
Whatever enchantments that had been on it had been shattered, leaving only the corruption that all such avenues to power eventually gifted desperate students who dared such tragic paths.
“Not anymore,” Alex said with a pitiless stare. “And you should thank me. The infernal cords damning you to the blackest pits of Tartarus for the weapons and armor you value so highly have been severed as well.”
“No… no, no, no! You don’t have that power!
No one has that power!” Lion howled in protest, ignoring the still-spurting wound and charging Alex with fury that bordered on desperation, as if, in that instant, his wild eyes were all too aware of the price he would pay for his corruption.
Now he was desperate to do all he could to escape his fate, including abruptly stopping his charge, scooping up the panicked younger wujen by his head, and tossing him right for Alex before fleeing into the east wing and slamming the door shut behind him.
Alex blinked at the act of impressively brazen cowardice as the younger wujen, who was a half-step Bronze with physical stats that were all too mortal, howled in surprise as he tumbled awkwardly through the air toward Alex.
Yet the words he screamed in his panicked desperation revealed the undeniably ruthless practicality of Lion’s cowardly act.
“Don’t kill me! I’m warded! We’ll both—”
Artificer skill check: critical success!
SPELL CLEAVE!
You have ruptured all infernal wards!
The howling storm tore through all resistance as pounding rains of crimson hue met lightning’s rebuttal as ancient talismans that hadn’t changed an iota between Alex’s most recent lives were effortlessly cleaved in twain.
As was the neck that the warding collar had been forcefully bound to.
Alex smiled coldly down at the stunned elder wujen who was just now shaking off the backlash of his ruptured art, for only a handful of seconds had actually passed.
Yet in a world of blindingly fast cultivators who had achieved at least one rank in Silver Quickness, entire battles might have played themselves out in that time.
The ancient wujen’s eyes were wide with desperation as he gazed upon Alex. “You shouldn’t have been able to break through my trap. You shouldn’t be here! You’re an abomination. The elder gods are dead!”
Alex choked back his killing fury. As much as he wished to embrace the absolute depths of his epiphany, there were other causes beyond his own crimson ascension. So he stayed his killing blow for one fateful second too long.
“I’m guessing a man like you has plenty of reason to fear what comes next,” Alex said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his pitiless gaze.
“If you ever wish to feel the warmth of the sun caressing your skin for a few more precious days before being strangled in infernal vines that will tear free every last shred of power your soul had ever claimed as you drown in the river for countless centuries, then I suggest you tell me everything you know about Dongfang Hong’s operation here in Wanshi. ”
The wujen blanched. “No. No! There’s no way you could know.
No way! But you do.” The man flashed a twisted smile.
“Good. That information, the knowledge that you’re actually here…
my master will be most eager to find this out.
” The shriveled old man began to cackle, eyes glittering cruelly.
“Farewell, fool! When next we meet it is you who will be squealing at the end of my dark magics!”
Alex felt a cold chill when he sensed something change. He wasn’t sure what or how, he just knew that all wasn’t as it seemed.
And his foe was delaying him. He could taste the odd desperation and excitement in the wujen’s twisted mind. Somehow, Alex just standing there would lead to his death. His enemy was certain of that fact.
So Alex lashed with his blade once more.
You have FAILED to strike your prey!
Alex glared at the afterimage of the wujen as the smirking old man laughed mockingly Alex’s way, somehow growing ever more distant even as he lay prone right before him, yet Alex’s fangtian ji couldn’t hit the man, even while embracing the fury of the storm.
Alex’s eyes widened with dismay. For even saturating the fury of the storm with Dark Qi, such that the Metal salts would cut through almost everything, wasn’t enough.
“Fool! You’re too late! Nothing you can do will touch me, worm! When my master hears of this, he will demand retribution immediately!”