Chapter 26 #4
Guttural words that Alex alone could understand with ease.
He caught sight of the man who had been addressed, who now strode purposely toward the sacred ritual site.
He was a hot-eyed scarecrow-like figure wearing worn silk robes that had clearly seen better days.
Yet the man himself radiated a chilling amount of potency, now glaring at the profusion of rich desert life all around him, life that continued to grow as Alex gently hid Rachel in the sheltering depression that was almost a fissure in the stone.
Alex then exchanged looks with Ya Ling while whispering final words into a trembling Lini’s quivering ears before letting her go.
“Anomalies are unacceptable!” the spite-filled wujen hissed. “Guard the ritual site with your lives. We must let nothing interfere with Xien Tang’s mission and the conquest of this city!”
“Alex! They’re going to spot Lini!”
Alex nodded, heart pounding in his ears as he picked his prey.
A full score of elite soldiers determined to do whatever it took to guard the ritual site.
“Wait here and keep sharp,” Alex cautioned as Ya Ling paled, only in that moment understanding the true scope of the threat.
“Alex, wait! There are more than just a handful, and they all radiate killing intent! There are too many of them for us to handle!”
But Alex would do no such thing.
He could sense it like a pressure wave, the sudden peril before them, even as a dozen doubts flickered across his mind.
Was he really stupid enough to take on a score of trained killers, far stronger than they had any right to be in these sparsely populated desert sands where only a handful of guards, with a single Silver champion at most, should be stationed out here, in the middle of nowhere?
Because really, what were the odds that there would actually be trouble here, especially when there was an entire city for them to subjugate?
It seemed like an absurd mismanagement of resources to him.
Yet here they were. Cloaked assassins in the night.
Tools of Dongfang Hong. Cultivators radiating fearsome killing intent that, if given the element of surprise, would make short work of any opponent.
To fight them was to invite his own long, overdue death within frigid waters that would drown him in perpetuity.
Alex knew damn well that his only chance of surviving the madness he was considering was to stack the odds as sharply in his favor as he could.
Which meant unorthodox tactics he had only played with in the back of his mind before now.
That, and seizing the Vor and catching his opponents flatfooted.
So initiative was the first thing Alex would steal from his foes as he soared high into the heavens, waiting only long enough for a suddenly panicked Lini to get off the desert sands and hop back onto the caldera escarpment before flooding the air with the ocean’s tears.
“Captain, it’s raining! Is this because their Water core ultimately failed them? Is this the signal we were waiting for?”
The wujen nodded thoughtfully, before red-rimmed eyes lit up with sudden alarm. “Salt.”
“Sorry?”
“The water tastes of—”
The wujen’s words cut off with a startled cry when a roaring Alex crashed down with all his killing intent.
The results were everything he could have hoped for, even as he courted absolute peril, blinded by his own eruption as blistering currents of power nearly fried off his skin and set his hair momentarily ablaze.
Yet it was nothing compared to the horde of surprised screams and panicked shouts flooding the air as Alex got a true sense of just how fearsome this band of cultivators he had ambushed truly was.
Ogres of deepest Bronze or half-step Silver Giants? No.
Each and every one of these bastards was Rank 1 Silver at least, the strongest perhaps being the Deep Silver wujen who had time only to gaze up at Alex in stupefied disbelief before he acted.
Resolution turning into panicked desperation, he struck with everything he had, holding nothing back.
Congratulations! You have uncovered an Elemental Synergism! Let the tides of your fury wash away the unworthy.
You have successfully struck the eye of Wanshi’s doom!
Enhance Storm Strike obliterates Deep Silver Wujen!
Lightning Blast has successfully struck 18 Silver-tier Assassins!
You sense your imminent peril.
YOU HOLD NOTHING BACK!
Doom Blade unleashed at maximum extension!
You have successfully decapitated multiple foes!
For a single instant that stretched for an eternity, Alex caught sight of over half a dozen would-be killers locking gazes with him with what had to be at least Rank 1 Silver Quickness, making it damned clear just how deadly they were.
Speed cultivators and assassins, those who were perfectly suited for getting into position and unleashing holy hell before slipping free with their foes still reeling with the death of their elites.
Then a massive bolt of lightning flashed, and those half-dozen speed specialists collapsed into shuddering heaps. Two going still as death, the others wheezing for breath.
“How dare you!” A wujen’s furious roar cut off as currents disrupted his spell and sent him reeling back, the other choking off his chants with a curse.
So many thoughts raced through Alex’s mind, sensing both strength and weakness, embracing the most ruthless of stratagems, for a city’s fate demanded no less as he did his best to divide and conquer.
Speed he would cripple, strength he would counter, and twisted Qi he would rupture.
And much to his fierce satisfaction, not a single desert cactus had perished from the currents that had stunned nearly a score of Silvers, a handful never to rise again.
“Get the Ruidian! His head is worth its weight in—”
Spell Cleave!
You have ruptured all wujen wards!
Retributive Collar of Warding has been destroyed!
The closest wujen blinked at an instantly appearing Alex in stunned disbelief as his wards were popped like a balloon and the dark silver collar Alex recognized all too well was disrupted when Alex’s fangtian ji cleaved through the enchantments—an eyeblink before cleaving right through the wujen’s neck.
Black Swan!
You have decapitated your foe!
“Enemies among us!” roared the largest of the soldiers. Alex could feel the killing pressure of a mid-tier Silver glaring into the darkness, eyes alight with Earth’s might, so much more than just a typical body cultivator.
And he paid his foe no mind at all as he leaped from lichen patch to budding cacti to succulent bloom.
Gazing into the eyes of snarling speed cultivators lurching to their feet after Alex’s shocking Lightning Blast, channeled through rain, had sent every Silver speedster without a matching Silver physique crashing to the ground.
And in a single tick of Fate’s clock, Alex showed them what it meant to truly embrace Quickness when a monster faster than any Rank 2 Silver specialist showed them just how powerful Strength and Quickness unleashed in perfect tandem could be… when enhanced by the fury of the storm.
Storm Strike!
You have cleaved your target in half!
You have stunned three additional targets!
Lightning flashed as the survivors not stunned and collapsing to the ground sought to organize themselves, their captain shrieking orders.
“It’s a single abomination that dares think itself our better! Surround me with your might, soldiers, and I will turn this desert into living flame!”
And in the time it took Alex to make sure every damned speed cultivator was out of the picture, the others arranged themselves around their captain like the metaphoric tanks they truly were as Alex stopped and faced them, lips curling in a furious smile as he met over a dozen glares, the air alive with their killing fury.
And each and every one of them were staring Alex’s way, toward the sunset, and not a one of them were gazing back at the ritual site even now being hidden in shadow and gloom.
“There he is! The abomination! Ha!”
The surviving wujen sneered at a visibly panting Alex. “The fool weakens. He tires! And soon he shall pay for his crimes against our righteous lord! For I shall summon a cleansing flame that will free these deserts from his taint for all time!”
The strength cultivators, some radiating body-enhancing arts boosting their resiliency and savagery even now, glared their killing hate Alex’s way.
Elite soldiers that they were, worthy of a hundred thousand mortals, ten thousand basic cultivators, or a hundred Rank 1 Bronze, they knew better than to allow themselves to be goaded, or to do anything but stand at the ready, coldly prepared to hold off Alex at all costs, for so long as it took their wujen to enact the ritual of fiery destruction that Alex could even now feel causing his hair to stand up on end.
A cold sweat broke across his back and brow.
Their smiles made it clear that they weren’t going to take him lightly. He might take out one or two if he charged into them, but then it would be multiple very angry, very lethal assassins who could so easily make short work of him.
Or so they no doubt thought, until Alex’s fangtian ji turned dark as night, projecting as a ten-foot blade of air, steel, and bitter sharp Dark Qi Alex immediately whipped through the air as he went from panting at a thirty-foot distance to right in front of them before unleashing a whirlwind of double zwerches and high-low cleaving blows.
The air rang out with startled cries, roars, and screams inflicted upon multiple tightly packed men, and Alex, swinging his fangtian ji with an extra ten-foot reach, was well out of his opponent’s range as they experienced firsthand the Shattering Blow perk, capable of rupturing even the strongest desert wyrm’s scales.
The closest handful of elite soldiers collapsed with looks of surprise when their chests were sheared open, spraying bright-red frothy blood upon the desert sands.
The wujen screamed his fury, and the air filled with hellfire.