From the center of the city flew in six cultivators, all at level five, stopping above those that were defending the wall and hovering there. Two others flew into the area as well, Swift Wind and Monk Tiangu, along with their assistants, but they landed on the wall. Over the last few minutes many people in the third and forth level had moved here, as well as several thousand in the second level, having either decided to join due to the desperate situation, but they were the only two level fives to volunteer as mercenaries. Others, like Patriarch Ji, would only aid in the battle if the enemy made it into the city and therefore threatened their families and property, though most of them sent members of their family to join the battle.
Soon Physician Ye flew up to the level fives who had gathered in the air from the medical area and bowed to the one in the finest robes, who wore a metal circlet on his head, and who was surrounded in a golden glow. This must be the king. After the physician spoke for a few seconds the man nodded and Physician Ye flew to his side. Several people on the wall looked at the man in wonder, obviously loving their king. I had heard several people talk about him in reverence since entering the city and suspected that he was seen as some sort of legendary figure by many of the locals, though most of those who appeared enamored with him were mortals or low ranked cultivators. Those at the third and fourth level usually just had a large amount of respect for him.
The man used a technique to amplify and direct his voice and it covered the entire northern half of the city, though it mostly traveled the several li to where the enemy was waiting. “I am Vin Tasha, King of this city. You must know that your army stands no chance against us. Leave now and you can continue to live. Or refuse, and while some of your soldiers may continue to live as slaves, I will personally crush you.”
The Ambassador quickly explained who everyone floating above was to me, as the Ji family had shown him pictures of every councilor and the king. The King was the strongest one, at the peak of level five, but just below him was General Nixe, who was at late level five, followed by Minister Tailon in the middle, then Physician Ye and Minister Xiu, in charge of the internal economy, at Early level five, and three other lesser administrators at initial level five. This one city had more combat power than the entire planet of Earth, highlighting our need to get stronger.
The large gorilla at the rear of the enemy forces flew into the air and sent his voice to the city from where he floated. “Pathetic Humans!” he said in a deep barotone, loud enough for those on the wall to physically feel it, “Too long have you enslaved my people. Even when they are no longer slaves, they live as inferior to you. We have come to set them free. Release them immediately, or we will come and get them, and your city may not survive.”
“You dare to threaten me Beast?” the King roared. “I have already given your people freedom, yet you seek to kill us for not giving them the city! Perhaps you should refine your brain some more, if you think you can stand against all of us. With our superior number of level fives we can crush you without effort, and not even require the rest of our army.”
The gorilla laughed. “You think you have superior numbers?” He cried, then let out a deep belly laugh. “Then I will teach you the error of your ways.”
The king was about to respond when suddenly he found that he couldn’t speak. He tried to look down, only for the slight tilt of his head to cause it to fall off. The ministers looked on in surprise as a talisman burned up in Minister Tailon’s hand, having just launched his attack. Physician Ye went to catch the head, so that he could hopefully reattach it or, failing that, transfer his soul into a new host body. Unlike most people the King had chosen to grow his core in his head, as it provided benefits for his mental cultivation path, so when his head was separated from his body the body no longer had qi flowing through it, causing it to fall from the sky. Before the Physician could grab it, however, Minister Xiu flew in front of him, the other three weaker ministers flying over, two grabbing his arms.
As the head floated there, the King using qi to remain conscious, Minister Tialon flicked his bracelet, a variation of the storage ring, and all of his clothes entered it. Before the people could react to the sudden nudity, though, he rapidly expanded into a five meter tall wolf, and flew at what was left of the king. “My Lord, look out!” called both the Physician and the General, but before he could do anything the former minister had already grabbed the head in its mouth and quickly swallowed it.
Tailon howled in celebration. “Pathetic worms!” he yelled, having kept his vocal cords so that he could do so, “Now that I have consumed your king I shall digest him, soul and all, and his power shall become my own.” While it wasn’t necessarily an ability he naturally had, like how most spirit beasts can consume the cores of those they eat and some can even absorb demon cores directly, there were demonic techniques for absorbing the souls of others, so it was highly possible that he could do so.
The General roared in anger and pulled a massive war hammer from his storage ring, then flew at the giant wolf. Minister Xiu looked conflicted, but sighed and floated over to Physician Ye. “I’m sorry old friend, but with the King dead and so many enemies approaching, we don’t stand a chance. Join us, and your family will spared when they enter the city.”
“I am not a traitor.” Ye said, but the Minister shook his head.
“Nor am I, but if I have to choose between my family and a king that will soon be digested, I choose my family. As a physician you must know the effects of having your soul consumed. By the time the General manages to win the battle and cut Tailon open, the King will be only a fraction of his former self. Do you wish to serve a king that is mentally handicapped and insane? That can’t be good for the people of the city. You must know that your family will suffer under such a ruler. If we join the winning side, though, Tailon will become the new king, and this city will be safe, and even flourish. Tailon has made a deal with the attackers. Under Tailon’s leadership Lord Supreme Silver will allow us to travel throughout his territory and gather all that we wish, only giving a fraction of it to his people as a tax. Without the need to fight and kill the spirit beasts, the city will be far safer, and even the teams that leave the city will be safer.”
“You wish to side with the enemy, to turn over the city to them?” spat the Physician in disbelief. “You don’t just betray your king, but your ancestors and the people of this city as well. I cannot allow such treachery to continue.” He pushed qi into his limbs and tried to pull away, but the others had already anticipated this and, combined, were able to overpower him.
“This war has gone on for too long, and it doesn’t need to.” said Minister Xiu. “I am not betraying the people of this city or my ancestors, I am honoring their memory. They fought to make the city safe for their descendants in a time when the beasts couldn’t be reasoned with. Now, however, we have a better option. Thanks to Lord Supreme Silver creating a large kingdom near here, we have an opportunity at a lasting peace, to form an alliance with our neighbors and greatly improve the economy at the same time. Are you saying that isn’t something you would want for yourself and your family?”
Physician Ye shook his head. “I do want a lasting peace, but any peace built on a coup and an invasion cannot last. Those who know only violence won’t suddenly change their ways once they are given power.” The army outside the city called out and began running at the walls, not bothering waiting to see how the battle above the city would go. The Physician was about to use the distraction to try to pull away from his captors, when suddenly two silver blades of energy flew on either side of him, and the two men were cut in half, their back halves falling away just before their grip relaxed enough for Physician Ye to pull free. With only the front part of their brains intact they were finding it difficult to control their bodies, partly because they hadn’t properly learned to use the complete bodily control of a level five. They were unable to do anything before Swift Wind appeared in front of them, slicing them into dozens of pieces with what appeared to be a single sword swing.
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Monk Tiangu flew in front of a shocked Minister Xiu. “This humble one apologizes, but he cannot stand by and watch while one delivers more than a million souls into the waiting hands of an invading army. While I will not take a life, my friend with the sword will, and should you choose to fight me I will have no choice but to render you unconscious while you await judgment by another.”
Xiu floated there for a few more seconds before coming to his senses. “One lucky strike by a swordsman doesn’t mean you have won the battle. You three may have us outnumbered, but we only need to hold you here until Lord Supreme Silver arrives, as you are no match for his power.” Saying that, he pulled a talisman from his robe and stuck it to his chest. Upon activation, a late level five barrier surrounded him. The other councilor did the same. “Lord Supreme Silver has blessed us with talisman papers made of his own skin, protecting us with his power. You cannot hope to defeat such a barrier before he arrives. Give up and we will allow you to escape.”
Two blades of silver light struck the barrier, but the barrier simply absorbed the attacks without reacting. Swift Wind seemed surprised that his attack had done nothing, but didn’t speak. As Ye and Swift Wind floated over beside the monk, the other minister flying over to join his ally, the monk sighed and brought out a mirror with intricate writing around the border. “Amitabha.” he said, and a beam of bright golden energy flew from the mirror, hitting Xiu’s barrier.
Minister Xiu was pushed back by over twenty meters before he managed to stop. He focused on sending more qi into the barrier only to notice that the continuous beam was starting to crack the barrier. “How can this be?” he asked, sensing the qi within the beam. “That attack is only in the middle of the fourth level.”
“The power of Faith cannot be measured by the standard of an attack of qi.” said the monk.
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I had stopped paying attention to the battle above us when the army started approaching. That was something that I couldn’t affect, as they were so much more powerful. The approaching army, however, I could do something about. Even the level four enemies could be affected by my tribulation lightning attacks, and my barrier could block a few of their attacks, allowing me to have a chance in a one-on-one battle.
When they got close the barrier was activated, but we knew it wouldn’t last long. I ignored the headless corpse that had landed ten meters from me at the beginning of the level five drama and started launching attacks at the enemy. When the monk flew over the battlefield while using some sort of relic to shoot at another man, the Ambassador looked up at them with a longing look in his eyes. “You aren’t strong enough to join that battle, sir. Without special equipment they’d kill you with a single stray attack. You’ll need to reach at least the peak of level four before you would even be able to take a basic attack from one of them.”
He nodded, but looked disappointed. “I know. I’ll get there soon, though.” I doubted his rapid growth could be sustained all the way to peak level four, though, even if he happened to find a level five woman that was willing to train him. He had likely used some secret technique on Earth to drastically improve his foundation to the point where he only needed to improve his pressure for some sort of diplomatic reason, much like what I had done before the hidden realm, stacking up all of the cultivation seeds I could and only needed to draw in lightning to level up. That had allowed him to almost bypass an entire level of cultivation. But even with his new level rapidly upgrading any part of his body that fell too far behind, it was unlikely that he could go much further. His foundation would just have far too many flaws in it to keep advancing.
With too many flaws in the body you would start leaking qi as soon as it reached a certain point, like a rubber can with a pinhole. At a low pressure, the hole was small, so little air leaked, but as you increased the pressure the hole would get larger, and the larger pressure would also make air leak faster. With a few days of downtime he might be able to manually iron out enough flaws to push his pressure up to late or peak level four, but he would need months of work to fix enough flaws that he would even have a one percent chance of advancing another level. I would guess it would take at least a year to fix his foundation, if it was comparable to the difficulty spike between other levels. The fact that you needed to awaken the soul, though, might make it take far longer, as his special foundation improvement technique likely wouldn’t help with that.
After a few minutes level four enemies started arriving at the already cracked barrier. I knew that it wouldn’t hold up any longer and pulled out all of the Targeted Tribulation talismans I had, placing them inside my robe where they would be easy to reach. Just as I activated my seal plate a large granite goat headbutted the barrier and a hole was shattered in it. The goat ran through the hole it had created and straight at the wall. As most of the wall was also made of granite I was a bit worried that it might have an even easier time at breaking it down, then realized that it didn’t matter. A group of level three canines were able to take down a section of the wall by concentrating their attacks, and this goat could hit with as much force as a hundred of them working together with the help of qi, so if it hit the wall, the wall might go down in a single attack.
Luckily one of the level four defenders managed to hit it with an attack, killing it, but many more level four beasts were mixed in with the thousands of level threes that had already made it through the hole in the barrier. I sent dozens of area effect techniques down at the rapidly approaching enemies, killing hundreds, but the level fours and stronger level threes were able to ignore the attacks and continue their charge.
Eventually the army reached the walls and several of the beasts started to climb it. Surprisingly, the small creatures like squirrels and raccoons had almost managed to cross the area between the barrier and the wall without losing anyone, as their small size and agile nature allowed them to dodge most of the attacks. They were also able to climb the walls much better than the cats had in the previous battle. However, I didn’t realized this until the man beside me suddenly started screaming when one of them jumped on his face and clawed his eye out. He was able to quickly grab the creature and throw it off of him, over the top of the wall, but I knew that the fall likely wouldn’t hurt it. The man’s face was pouring blood and, while I couldn’t see the eye because he had closed it, he had likely lost it.
A raccoon jumped at me and tried to do the same, but impacted my barrier and bounced off. It fell to the ground surprised, and I responded by throwing a fire bolt at it, lighting it on fire. It ran around and screamed in pain, and I ignored it, attacking the next small creature that made it to the top of the wall. Xiao flew around and attacked several of them too, but as he was weaker than all of them he wasn’t able to do much. Occasionally he would hit one of the climbers with a strong enough stun attack to make them lose their grip on the wall and fall down, but most of the time he was just annoying them.
Soon larger animals like foxes and snakes started making it to the top of the wall. I saw a fox with three tails run at me and readied a stun bolt, but just as I was about to launch it I heard something behind me and instinctively ducked. A bone spear went through where my head was just at. I turned around to see a stone chimpanzee standing there, stabbing at me again. The spear seemed to be made of a long level three bone of some sort, likely the femur of something large, and had a fang tied to the end of it. While it looked crude, it would be able to easily injure me if I didn’t have the barrier.
I drew my sword and parried his next attack, only to have some sort of beast jump on the back of my head. I reached up and electrified my hand before grabbing it, then sent the stunned creature into my beast bag. This seemed to anger the chimpanzee, who increased the ferocity of his attacks. “Slaver!” he yelled as he unleashed a flurry of thrusts.
“They attacked me first. Would you prefer if I killed them?” I responded, but that didn’t seem to make him slow down his attacks.
