Chương 116: The Journey

Leo and his teammates started the trip to the Grand Formations Summit in high spirits. Although the Hornet's interior was cramped and dated, its retro aesthetic only added to the excitement. Everything about the vessel screamed 1980s military surplus, from the instrument panels to the toggle switches to the fluorescent strips that flickered with each bout of turbulence. The team gathered in the narrow central cabin, talking over each other as they told Mateo about their five long months of formation training.

After being locked into the institute under a gag order, everyone had so much they wanted to share. They talked about Cranesong, intermediate formations, derivations, and most of all, about that time Mr. Morimoto got his cuff off and disappeared for two days. Their first destination was New York, and they weren't the only ones making the journey from Pittsburgh. A swarm of media flying boats trailed behind them.

The team watched the coverage on their phones, flipping between aerial shots of their Hornet cutting through morning clouds, commentators speculating about America's chances, and their own headshots and bios splashed across every channel. After arriving at the New York entrance to the Catacombs, they found that the government had arranged one last sendoff. The whole team exited the vessel for the ceremony. Thousands of fans had gathered on temporary viewing structures erected around the tunnel's perimeter.

American flags rippled in the spring breeze alongside homemade banners bearing their names. The crowd noise reached them even through the Hornet's hull. The team stood on a raised platform while officials delivered motivational speeches about national pride and historic opportunity. Leo shook hands with the Mayor of New York. Then two congressmen. Then someone from the State Department who looked suspiciously like a CIA agent. Everyone was excited to go on this trip. Publicly, expectations remained modest.

America had barely met the minimum threshold to participate in the Grand Formation Summit. The commentators predicted a third place at best. Privately, every member of the team knew they had a real chance to win. It felt like a no-lose situation. Win the competition and become the underdog heroes. Fall short and still exceed expectations. Either way, they would return to fanfare simply for competing. The media talked a lot about the history of their flying cultivation ship.

The Hornet was the signature cultivation ship of the 1980s, the ship that had helped force the Catacombs to sign the Treaty of Great Restraint. Millions had trained and fought in Hornets throughout the world. Now America's formation team would ride the same iconic vessel to claim victory once more. But after they left the cheering crowds and the media, and passed through the dimensional tunnel connecting Earth to the Catacombs, the eager anticipation began to turn into nervous fear.

On the other side of New York's dimensional tunnel was the largest military base America operated: Garrison New York. It was a fortress built to withstand the combined offensive of three cults. And its walls bore the scars of attacks that proved its defenses were no empty boast. The fortress shared the same design philosophy as Garrison Boston. Concentric rings of white stone walls bristled with rail guns and spiritual cannons, all wrapped in a shimmering spiritual shield that extended deep underground.

Leo and his teammates began to realize that they were leaving the safe confines of Pittsburgh and going into an active war zone. Suddenly the classrooms and practice halls of the International Formation Institute felt very far away. Their escort met them outside the garrison, sent a brief message of acknowledgment, and began to lead them on their way to the Grey Cult. In some sense, this vessel was also a T4 flying boat, just like their very own Hornet. On the other hand, it was in a different class of its own.

It was a Mercedes-Benz V-Class. Not a military vehicle, but a luxury cruiser. Black and elegant, its frame conveyed wealth and power rather than military function. It looked like something a CEO would take to a board meeting, not a war zone. It didn't even have a single weapon because the most powerful weapon was the Nascent Souls sitting inside. Leo's stomach hollowed out. His decommissioned Hornet began to feel cramped and fragile.

The retro aesthetic that had seemed charming an hour ago now looked outdated and flimsy. Suddenly he began to wish that he had weapon mounts rather than observation domes. He felt like he was traveling in an aluminum can rather than a military vessel. The cabin grew quiet. No one talked about how historic and iconic the Hornet cultivation flying boat was anymore. Leo understood why. The Hornet was a symbol of Earth's tenacity and determination not because of its superior abilities.

It was because the McDonnell and Douglas families had perfected mass manufacturing with this design. They had learned how to optimize and shave production costs to mass produce out hundreds of thousands of new ships every year. Just like how Leo had watched Obsidian barges get shot out of the sky by the hundreds during the Battle for Fort Cambridge, the Hornets had died en masse to hold off Catacombs Nascent Soul Lords in the 1980s.

It was a sobering thought to be reminded that they were traveling deep into enemy territory on a ship built by the lowest bidder. The hours stretched on. Leo had expected company on the irradiated surface. He imagined convoys of transports crossing their path, outposts dotting the horizon, and expedition teams scouting the frontier. Maybe someone he recognized that he could greet and catch up with. Instead, there was nothing.

The wasteland below them stretched endlessly in every direction, a brown expanse of scorched earth and skeletal rocks that might once have been mountains. No movement. No life. Just mile after mile of atomic devastation, the scars of bombing campaigns that had ended decades ago. The scale was incomprehensible. Two vessels, their Hornet and the Mercedes-Benz, were the only signs of human existence in a landscape that could swallow entire countries.

Leo felt like an ant crawling across a parking lot, small and exposed and utterly alone. He just tried to not to think about how far away he was from home.

The journey to the Grey Cult would take a full week, and soon the team settled into a rhythm. During the day, they practiced together as a group, going over derivations from previous Grand Formation Summits. The institute had packed them problem sets, formation brushes, and spiritual ink. Professor Vogt had thought of everything. During the nights, they retreated to their bunks. The institute had provided sleeping pills for those who needed them, and everyone eventually used them.

Ella and Thad viewed the medication with extreme suspicion and refused to take them for the first few days. But after being jolted awake multiple times each night by turbulence and unfamiliar sounds, exhaustion won out. They said quick prayers to their Eternal and begrudgingly swallowed the pills like everyone else. For the first couple of days, American military resupply boats met them along their route to keep them fueled and stocked.

By day three, they crossed into what their maps labeled Grey Cult controlled territory, and their hosts took over. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. The label was generous. No cultists actually lived on the surface long term. The area only earned its designation because enough subterranean entrances existed nearby that New York Command decided it was not worth the risk to settle.

The surface of the Catacombs had always been considered desolate, even before the bombing campaigns of the 1990s reduced every square mile to irradiated wasteland. It consisted mostly of low tier spirit veins, with the highest being a few Tier Fours that, as of 2029, still had not recondensed from the atomic qi bombardment. The Grey Cult left these surface holdings completely undefended. Far more valuable high tier spirit veins lay underground, deep within the catacombs themselves.

Leo and his team's destination was one such vein. The Tier Five Deity Transformation immortal city of Ashviel. That was why they had to travel so far. They could not simply take the closest subterranean entrance. They had to travel far away to an entrance that connected directly to the inner cities of the Grey Cult. On the fourth day, the Grey Cult sent an escort to meet them for the final leg of the journey The vessels that approached reminded Leo of ghost ships from old naval paintings.

Pale grey hulls towered beside them, their masts wrapped in tattered banners that moved without wind. Spectral lanterns hung from rigging that seemed to fade in and out of visibility. On the deck of the nearest ship, crews of cultists went about their duties. Their uniforms consisted of grey inquisitor robes, high collared and austere, with silver clasps at the throat. Hoods shadowed their faces. They moved with quiet efficiency, speaking little.

Every now and then, a cultist would stare at their ship, as if searching for where Mateo was, and bow briefly before returning to their duties. After the cultists refueled their Hornet with spiritual qi for the journey ahead, the three ships set off together. This time the grey vessel took the lead. The whole prospect of America's enemies assisting and escorting them was difficult for Leo to wrap his mind around.

But then again, he had just spent the past year working, joking, and living together with Thad and Ella. In the end, they were all human.

By the sixth day, they finally arrived at their destination: the subterranean entrance to Ashviel. From the outside, the entrance was massive. It looked like a giant pit, a wound in the earth's surface that descended into absolute darkness. The lip of the hole stretched nearly half a mile across. Beyond that edge, a tunnel plunged downward at a steep angle, vanishing into the depths below. Here was where the Mercedes-Benz flying cultivation car left them. They were now to be guided by their hosts alone.

Although they had gone the entire trip without a single message from the luxury cruiser, its presence had been a constant reassurance. The Nascent Soul Lords inside represented their last safety net. Leo watched the black vessel peel away and disappear into the sky. His hands went cold. Professor Vogt's warnings echoed in his mind. Their lives were guaranteed by the Great Ascension Immortals of the Catacombs. But that protection had limits. He would no longer be in the land of Free Speech and the Bill of Rights.

Now he would need to watch his every word and action. The hole gaped before them like an open mouth. The Hornet's pilot guided them over the edge, and they began their descent. The tunnel was massive and deep. It was pitch black, lit only by the grey qi emanating from their lead ship. The walls were smooth stone, worked by ancient cultivators whose names had probably been forgotten for millennia.

Occasionally, they passed alcoves carved into the tunnel walls, empty guard posts or storage chambers, their purpose unclear. Every now and then, teams of ships passed through in the opposite direction. Cultivation vessels of every size and configuration, from small scout craft to massive troop transports, all heading up toward the surface. Toward the war. Leo kept his divine sense contained, but even without actively scanning, he could perceive unshielded spiritual signatures on the passing vessels.

Teams of Foundation Establishment cultivators. Squads of Gold Core Superiors. And occasionally, the vast, deep pressure of a Nascent Soul Lord. All of them were heading to fight America. For a moment Leo thought of the American soldiers stationed at the various outposts throughout the New York Catacombs. The ones who would be on the receiving end of this procession. How many of them would still be alive by the time his team finished their competition and made the return trip. It felt like a great contradiction.

Somehow they were expected to work together to put on a prestigious competition, to demonstrate the heights of formation mastery, to celebrate their shared heritage as cultivators. But at the same time, they were actively fighting and killing each other on the surface above. Leo wanted to look to Thad and Ella for some perspective, some advice on how to reconcile these opposing truths.

But during this final leg of the journey, the Nyxalis siblings had fallen into quiet contemplation, just like the rest of their team. Even Thad's usual energy had dimmed. He sat near a viewport, watching the tunnel walls slide past, his expression unreadable. Every few hours, the tunnel expanded into a massive chamber, and a Gate of Contrition would loom before them, barring further passage. Every cult built at least one Gate at the entrances to their underground cities.

Massive fortifications designed to hold the tunnel against invading armies. The structure filled the entire tunnel, a wall of grey stone and metal that stretched from floor to ceiling. At its center, a great portal shimmered with a cloud of Grey Qi, large enough to admit a dozen ships flying abreast. But surrounding that entrance were defenses that made Leo's stomach drop. Massive cannons jutted from the walls, their barrels wide enough to swallow their Hornet whole.

Formation arrays covered every surface, layered so densely that the stone itself seemed to pulse with spiritual energy. Gothic spires rose from the gate's crown, topped with observation platforms where grey-robed figures watched their approach. The architecture was a cross between a fortress and a cathedral. The defenses were practical, but everything had been designed to make the viewer feel small before something greater. Carved reliefs depicted the Grey Eternal in various poses of benediction.

Even the gun emplacements were shaped like praying hands. Leo found himself comparing the Gate of Contrition to Garrison New York. Every American base and installation followed the same philosophy: efficiency first, cost second, everything else a distant third. Walls were walls. Guns were guns. If a defensive position worked, you built ten thousand more just like it. In the past, Leo would have thought that America had made the superior choice.

America understood how to fight a real war while the cult wasted resources on pointless decoration. But after his discussion with Shen Tianyi about the great problem of the Deity Transformations, about how the Monarchs and Eternals of the cults needed faith power to replenish their leaking divinity, Leo began to understand why the Gate looked the way it did. This was not just a gate that guarded the spirit veins below. This was a faith power farm for the deities above.

But it was easy to imagine that the Grey Cult believers, upon leaving this checkpoint to gamble their lives in battle against America, would pause at the great portal. They would look up at the Gothic spires, the statues of their deities, the overwhelming majesty of the structure that guarded their home below. And they would say a quick prayer to their Eternal before ascending to war. Every prayer was a trickle of faith power flowing upward.

Every moment of awe was a drop that became a vast river that sustained their deities. Wars were won by logistics. America understood that. But the cults had their own kind of supply chain, and it ran on reverence instead of steel. As Leo stared at the massive fortification, he realized that if America wanted to win the war, they would eventually need to breach these checkpoints. Leo could not imagine how they would do it. The Gate looked impenetrable.

It looked like they had been designed to hold against enemy Void Refining Eternals themselves. He sat with that thought as the Hornet drifted closer. He watched the gun emplacements track their approach, watched the grey-robed observers on their spires lock onto their ship with their divine sense. The two vessels slowed. Their escorts pulled ahead near the portal, and Leo saw it communicate with the Gate. The great portal flickered and opened. They passed through and what awaited them was another stretch of tunnel.

Behind them, the portal slammed shut with a sound. This was the point of no return. Leo found himself thinking about his first tour in the Catacombs. He had signed up expecting a straightforward deployment. Just drive a semitrailer in a massive convoy. Earn merits with his friends and classmates. Just the boring work that someone had to do to keep the war machine running. Instead, one thing had led to another, and the next thing he knew he was staring down Nascent Souls with his Qi Refining cultivation.

Certainly Zhao and Major Santiago had done their best to keep him safe. But looking back, Leo wondered how much of his survival had been skill and how much had been luck he mistook for competence. Back then he was just a fresh transmigrator with a sense of destiny and no real understanding of what Nascent Soul actually meant. He had thought cultivation realms were like video game levels. Something his Moonrider could bridge if he played it smart.

The weeks of fighting Crane Nascent Souls had cured him of that delusion. It had taught him to respect the Lords. Each one had centuries of cultivation and combat experience. One did not become a Nascent Soul Lord by collecting bottlecaps. He wondered if this trip to the Grand Formation Summit would follow the same pattern. Another case of signing up for one thing and getting something else entirely.

The quiet hum of the Hornet's engines filled the dark tunnel, and Leo let himself sit with the thought longer than was comfortable. At least this time he was just here to draw formations. How dangerous could that possibly be? He decided not to answer his own question.