Chương 68: Chapter 17

War had come to the Night Domain. Bands of beastkin descended from the wild mountains of their homeland to brave the shadowed forests beneath the Wu Plateau. Many walked, many came flying atop strange beasts. And there were a lot of them. Wu Zetian felt them, tiny maggots squirming beneath her sky, coming with rusted armor and jagged weapons. Points of angry violence, their thoughts pulsing with greed and malice.

It was difficult to think that there may be a race so devoted to aggressive impulses, but the Beastkin were just that. Crooked, muscled, mixing bestial, human and demonic features at random. Were they the result of conflicting Qi? Likely. But whatever their origin, it didn't change what they were. Monsters, and despoilers. Twenty bands intruded on her perceptions today, none of them below three digits.

The beastkin shambled beneath the trees or wobbled in the sky, hooting and flailing and making noises that no animal ought to, more akin to a parade of grotesqueries than an invasion force. They wielded all kinds of implements, some more at home in a butcher shop, and covered themselves with a mishmash of things that could be called armor only with some generosity. They pulled large beasts behind them, some wearing crude harnesses for war, others being the squealing mother-beasts who gave birth to their litters.

Why, any band likely had the progenitor of all of its members in chains. Massive specimens led them. Towering over their smaller kin, never shy from violence to impress their importance, the brutes wore the best weapons and armor their little tribe could afford, some of which could be something approaching fine. A lone beastkin was stronger than a mortal, both faster and more aggressive. But he fell wildly short of a cultivator. Problem was, there was no such thing as a lone beastkin.

The race reproduced with the speed of a pestilence. A Foundation Establishment could blaze through them and only dent their numbers. Their chieftains could hold their own against the rank-and-file, and even the rust-encrusted weapons of the rabble could wound an unprepared Shadow Warrior. Wu Zetian knew all this from her previous self's memory. The old Zetian was obsessed with the idea of being threatened, and had studied the tools of her rivals extensively.

The current Wu Zetian followed their progress with a mild curiosity and a sharp attention. Back in her world, these beasts would have been looked on with wonder. To her, they were curious things and a problem to solve. She could smite them, clump the Night around their tiny brains until the darkness was all that remained. But these were prodding forces, sent to provoke her to do just that. Sacrificial pawns. To show my new capabilities? Likely, but that's not all. It was too brazen, too obvious.

A distraction, then. But from what? She was still puzzling over it when new signatures attracted her attention. These didn't feel like a bad smell trapped in her room. They were angry, but theirs was different from that of angry animals. These souls chirped like angry crickets that saw their pasture invaded by locusts. The patrol arrived on two war-kites, the large, cloth and wood constructions catching the winds of Night Qi.

Painted in the colors of the Sect and swathed in shadow-spells, they were almost invisible. As they dived to attack, the glyph of the Godless Night blazed on their wings, crimson red on deep black. The beastkin column erupted with shrieks, but it was too late. The war-kites pulled up sharply, and five figures fell from them, diving for the center of the chaos. It would have made for a comical sight, five attacking a column of almost two hundred. Except that they were all cultivators, and one was a Stonemancer.

As they dived straight into the beastkin column, the Stonemancer dropped a piece of obsidian the size of a fist. The rock, veined with blood-red Qi, bulged, then squared, turning into a brick, which then started to multiply. By the time it hit the beastkin, it was the size of a boulder. It smashed into the formation the beastkin were hurrying to form, crushing ten and forcing the others to scatter. The Shadow-Warriors followed suit, hitting the formation while wrapped in solid spheres of Night Qi.

They emerged from them in a whirl of blades, cutting to pieces any beastkin too slow to get out of the way. The Shadow-Warriors fought with the composed fury that only an age of enmity could produce. They cut a swathe through the beastkin, crushing scrap armor and bone alike with their strikes. By then, the monsters were reorganizing. The chieftain, a massive brute with a face that was a mix between goat and man, split one of his soldiers in half with his axe, and bellowed, gesturing wildly.

The beastkin didn't need to be told twice. They swarmed the cultivators in a wave of stinking fur and rusted weapons. One tried to bite a Shadow-Warrior, trying to bring him down so that his comrades could pile up. He only managed to break his teeth on the cultivator's stone armor before his head disappeared under a backhand blow. The Stonemancer hit the boulder hand-first, and lances of obsidian shot out of its side, impaling five beastmen.

She rolled down its side, the rock peeling to wrap around her in long bands. Stamping, she raised both hands. The stone followed, flowing upwards, already hardening as it did. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. By the time it had finished growing, it had formed a wall that was like a wave caught in stone. The Maker's prone figure disappeared inside a small stone bunker. The Shadow-Warriors clashed their weapons together.

The chieftain roared, jabbing his finger towards them, his roar picked up by the horde, then he raised his axe and charged. The fight was brutal. After the first assault, the Shadow-Warriors planted themselves in front of the wall and, using the construct like one would with a castle wall, let the horde come at them. The beastkin swarmed the cultivators, almost trampling each other in their eagerness. There was no subtlety, no technique, only a wave of howling bodies and slavering jaws.

In comparison, the Shadow-Warriors danced. Each wielding a spear, they weaved around each other, parrying and striking, defending and killing. Night Patrols were formed by Hand Soldiers who had grown familiar with each other's style and complemented it. They never got in each other's way, their weapons raising and falling like clockwork, like a well-rehearsed dance. And somehow, they held. The swarm should have drowned them. Instead, blade cut through fur and spear punched through armor.

The five were a whirlwind, a reef against which the horde smashed itself uselessly. But the beastkin just kept coming. A Disciple drove his spear into a wolf-headed beastkin's chest, the weapon sliding through iron and flesh like a knife through butter. The monster howled, and grabbed it with both hands. Just as three more pounced on his killer. The Disciple didn't try to pull his weapon free. He let it go, extracted his sword and cut them all down with a flourish. Three firepots flew.

They smashed against a hastily summoned shield of darkness, dumping burning liquid all over it, forcing the Disciple to dismiss his barrier and jump back. It left him open to a beastkin who grabbed his sleeve and pulled hard, almost making him stumble. Another pounced on his back, only to be cut down by a second Disciple, who took a glancing cut at the cheek for his efforts. The chieftain whirled his massive axe like it was a stick.

He hammered it against a Disciple, again and again, the young man deftly fending off the assault with his sword. Each blow cratered the ground under their feet, forcing him back. He was so busy he didn't notice the rat-like beastkin until it stabbed his thigh. The rusty weapon was too weak to go deep, but it was enough to distract him. The Disciple stumbled, cursing, then raised his shield. The axe smashed into it, lifting him off the ground and smashing him against the wall.

Another Disciple was there, driving his spear into the chieftain's side. With a howl, the beastkin kicked, forcing her to jump back. Grabbing the spear, he ripped it off and threw it at her, impaling her. The first Disciple was on his feet, cutting at the chieftain's back. The monster howled. He turned and charged, foaming at the mouth. Sword and axe came together in crashes of sparks, while the other Disciples held the horde at bay. The Disciples swung with both hands, jumping and ducking.

The chieftain parried with the haft of his massive weapon, clawed and cursed. In the end, speed and skill won the day. The Disciple ducked under a swing that would have cut him in half, and darted forward. He didn't stab his opponent; he climbed him like one would with a mountain, feet scrambling over his scrap armor. Grabbing the fur behind his head, he pulled and stabbed him in the neck. The sword slid in with a wet thunk, straight to the hilt, and stopped. The chieftain shivered, gurgling.

He raised his axe, but then he collapsed. The beastkin barely noticed. They kept coming, swarming over their leader's body, even as the Disciple jumped clear. He whistled, and the Disciples suddenly broke contact and dashed for the wall. The bunker wobbled, as though its material was losing cohesion. But it was the wall that moved. It turned liquid again, swirled around the Disciples and formed a dome around them, before hardening again.

Too eager for the chase, many of the beastkin couldn't stop in time, slamming against it. Before they could draw back, spikes erupted from the dome, impaling all the monsters around it. That was too much. Whatever blood frenzy battle called on them, it suddenly dissipated. The beastkin, starting from the smaller, stopped, then looked around, as though they saw the battlefield for the first time. Aside from their chieftain, more than two-thirds of their company of more than one hundred lay on the ground.

As the Disciples emerged from the dome, ready for fighting, reality seemed to click. The beastkin threw away their weapons and ran away shrieking, trampling and pushing each other in their hurry to escape. One tried to unshackle the mother-beast, but the creature ate his head and remained there, munching, too stupid to understand what was going on. The battlefield emptied in a flash. More than ninety beastkin bodies remained, soaking the ground with their blood.

The Disciples threw some Qi blasts after them, but didn't pursue. They had wounds to attend to. Wu Zetian let them at that moment, pulling her attention back. Chen Liwei's new aggressive strategies… drop in, build a wall, force them to engage you and slaughter them. It was fast, she would hand the General as much. The battle had barely lasted minutes, and a whole band was essentially slaughtered. The few survivors would fall prey to the Domain's wildlife. But it was also dangerous.

Leave it to someone as bold as the Night General to come up with that. Yet again, she knew her soldiers. Across the forests, similar battles were ongoing, the Night Disciples engaging the beastkin columns in quick skirmishes. The other fights were rarely as violent. True to their doctrine, the Hand soldiers kept their distance, peppering the beastkin with arrows, stones and Qi blasts.

Slower, less effective and it required time until the beastkin fell to their blood-frenzy and then broke, but much more conservative. Wu Zetian would have liked to nod in approval. Fighting Immortals started with information. By being conservative, they were giving out a clue about their weakness. She didn't doubt that the two Barbarians were including everything in their projections. Yet again, the opposite was too dangerous for this early in the game. Chi You and Yellow-Brow.

Her previous self had looked down on them, but always, always made sure to keep at a distance. The so-called Barbarian Immortals held their domains and resented outer intrusions. They were consumed by their rivalry to an obsessive degree, something her previous self had used to its fullest to keep them separated. As much as that was possible: the two hated her for intruding on their lands and their strange, love-hatred romance. Wu Zetian narrowed her eyes.

There could have been a joke there somewhere, if it wasn't two immortal monsters she was talking about here. They had to be kept away. That meant unveiling whatever scheme was being concocted. Frowning, Wu Zetian sank her consciousness into the Domain again. As she did, her mind lit with hundreds of signatures, barely sentient and fiercely proud. Whatever the two Immortals began, secrecy about the extent of her power would serve her well.

Ridiculous as it may have sounded in her old world, this war, if it was that, hung on only one person: her. Putting lives into danger was worthy if it meant concealing any shred of information about herself. She wasn't happy about it, but that was reality. So, she wouldn't help her soldiers. Not yet. She would wait and watch and see, and would unravel their plots and be ready to move when they moved. That was the duty of an Immortal.

Even as she thought that, she directed an updraft to correct a war-kite that had been knocked out of balance by a flying beast. Just a little present, nothing to lose one's sleep over.