Chương 232: Story 11 - How to Save a Sect in Six Simple Steps (Part 11)

Down on the rocky, lightly forested area just outside of Noxious' tribulation cloud, I noticed a very recognizable pink head. When I focused on it, I realized that Dread Lotus and the rest of my band were rushing to set up. Oh! That wasn't a bad idea; however, it would come with its own risks—for instance, the possibility of getting hit by a stray Nascent Soul-level attack. Just not from the tribulation.

The prerequisite for a tribulation to consider their actions as interference was that they needed to be powerful enough to actually interfere. Normally, a band as low-powered as ours couldn't affect someone at Noxious' realm at all, but I had taught them battle formations that amplified their energy, and songs that specifically healed higher realmed cultivators. While these guys could subtly help him, it wouldn't be seen as help to the tribulation cloud thanks to their lower stage.

Of course, the fact that his niece was there, cheering him on and doing whatever she could to support him, just might give the poison master an emotional push when he needed it most. I approved. Wait…

"Damn it, why didn't they let me know!? I would have joined them!" At this point, I couldn't get to them in time without interrupting their flow and formation. Fuck. I knew why I wasn't there with them. They hadn't been able to reach me, so they did this on their own. I sent Little Spring a glance, and he returned my look with a sheepish shrug. Yeah, it wasn't like he would have known either. Lightning rolled through the clouds above my in-name disciple. Dread Lotus began tapping on her cymbal.

Formidable Tiger stepped forward. His hands moved on the guitar, shredding an epic solo I was too far away to hear. Oh shit! I recognized that fingering! They were actually doing it! Earlier in the year, Dread Lotus wrote a ballad loosely inspired by the infamous Thunderstruck. Her song had lyrics that were encouraging and heartfelt. It expressed the hope and desire for someone going through a tribulation to come out on the other side, having been hit by lightning, but more powerful from the experience.

She had named it Lightning-Struck. Together, everyone called out their support for their senior by singing, "Ah-aha, aah-aah-ah!" I sang with them in my head, since I couldn't hear it myself from where I was. Noxious briefly glanced down at his niece before turning to focus back on the rumbling clouds above. He appeared exasperated but touched even from this distance. A phalanx of tribulation energy warriors descended from the spiral's center.

Their brightness made the cloud-darkened area below brighten as if it were daytime. Weak earthly laws suffused their form as they readied their attack. At that point, my Foundation Establishment eyes couldn't look directly at them. Arrows of supreme power flew down at the poison master like a galaxy of suns falling on his head. Dealing with these earthly laws, even as weak as they were, could be difficult for Noxious. Hopefully, he had good enough poisons and defensive tools to overcome this.

He should if that asshole studied the jade slip I left for him. But if he didn't, he likely took my advice and prepared a break-in-case-of-death body. Of course, being able to live through an earthly law attack would give him an amazing experience that could help him survive the upcoming war. In fact, overcoming this would help him more than having an easy tribulation!

One of the things about this universe that was better than my original—when people survived dangers, they almost always benefited from having gone through it. While this was stronger than I expected, considering that I explained the history of Immortal Bone Creation, it was for the best. Little Spring grabbed my clenched fist.

"Is Senior Noxious Fangstrike okay?" Briefly, the sky cleared, and I saw a flash of black and gold. He'd used a powerful cauldron shield to block the first volley.

"He's fine for now. But this tribulation is just beginning." I squinted at the seemingly continuous, near-blinding attacks. Little Spring blinked and watched my band instead.

"Doesn't watching that hurt your eyes?"

"Just don't stare at it directly. This is like a solar eclipse. If your eyes don't get damaged by the energy, then the concepts and laws you see will make you pass out from an overload of information your brain and soul can't handle." It was similar to the idea of seeing an eldritch horror. Or the experience of an ant that was transformed into a human before suddenly turning back.

They still had all the vague memories of those concepts and ideas in their ant brain, but didn't have a form that could handle all that knowledge. As a consequence, they became a malfunctioning ant. Hold on… Fuck. That was what happened to me, wasn't it!? I came to this world as an ant-like, but stunningly adorable, young human. Then I struggled and cultivated my way up, before getting shoved back into my child-body. How did I not go insane from that? Obviously, I was mentally perfect right now! Huh.

I must be too amazing! There were a few other Nascent Souls watching from a safe distance away and keeping other cultivators from interfering. A few of them faced Resentful Shadow Snake to make sure his side wasn't about to try anything. The Poison Body cultivators, Puppeteers, and musicians protected Noxious, while the beast tamers, the most numerous faction, defended the other guy. I bit my lip.

"Don't be nervous. Whatever happens, we'll figure something out!"

"Ha! Who would be nervous? If my in-name disciple doesn't survive, then that is his fate." It was always better to die while getting stronger than to get killed by a senseless slaughter. And if neither of these two Nascent Souls made it, a slaughter was exactly what would happen here. That might have happened in my past life if the demonic cult didn't wipe this sect out first. Little Spring excitedly tugged on my sleeve. I turned to him.

"What?":: The spirit of the space senses a treasure that can upgrade it! I think this will help expand the time-freezing food storage!:: That was weird. We'd been here for years. If there was something like that nearby, why would that dragon only feel it now?:: Where is it?:: He used the telepathic technique the same way I usually did and sent a map with a location marker. I expanded my divine sense out while keeping it hidden from those who might discover it. When I reached the place he mentioned, I scowled.

Most disciples outside had paused what they were doing to watch the tribulation, but the three in that location were gathering in secret. Actually, if I examined that small outdoor lecture area, I could tell it was a hidden node—the advanced form of a formation flag. The symbols carved into it made it obvious that it was part of the sect's massive defensive formation array! If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

[Image Link] Either these guys were there to turn it on once the tribulations had finished, or… They took out a tool used to carve heaven rank stone. Fuck. They were there to secretly damage the node to make our most powerful defense in this upcoming war unusable! Immediately, I pulled out my flying sword and flew as fast as I could toward their location while sending the kid a telepathic message.:: Contact the elders for me!:::: All of them? They're pretty busy right now!

:::: Just the ones who aren't helping with the tribulations. Tell them that Elder Lin is asking them to protect the sect's defensive formation immediately. It's under attack! If they don't save the nodes, we won't survive.:::: On it!:: Considering that I was up against a powerful Golden Core cultivator, this was the perfect opportunity to perform a test I'd been meaning to! The old-looking man who held the carving tool activated it, sending a beam of energy down into the stone.

Cracks formed around the thin hole he created. Fuck! I couldn't let him do any more damage to it! A half-mile out, I pulled out my guitar and sent a slash of sword Qi toward the wrinkly hand holding the carving tool. He moved his arm, but he wasn't fast enough. My blade of energy sliced off his finger. This made him awkwardly fumble the tool before catching it. Unfortunately, it sliced a deep squiggle into the stone seating area before he turned it off. That was when the team of three turned to glare up at me.

As I neared them, I was able to make out their features. The Golden Core, whose finger I cut, had black and white panda hair. The pretty Foundation Establishment girl, as if she had been picked out by the original author to be the most cliché of tropes, had cat ears. And the weakest of the bunch was an even prettier young man who had snake eyes.

They must have been using a disguise technique of some kind to give themselves those fake beast parts because they definitely were not part of the Irrepressible Beast Blood Sect. They quickly pointed at me. Beasts jumped out from their storage devices. A turtle, an eagle, a viper, two tigers, a panda, and several massive crabs gathered in front of their masters on the stone formation node. Their animal heads slowly turned toward me as if they knew exactly where their mortal enemy hovered.

I could feel the blood lust roll off them as they stared at me with hatred. Fuck. I really couldn't catch a break, could I? On the plus side, after I killed them all, Little Spring would have enough crab meat to make some of those biscuits. Well, it was a good thing I was doing some tests today. I took out a half-dozen of the thirty heaven ranked puppets that I'd dedicated most of my past two years to making. Each one held either a guitar, keyboard, drum set, bass, or sword.

If my estimation was correct, I would only need this many to destroy their small group. I tied each puppet to my fingers, using an energy thread, before sending them flying forward. To control them, I split my mind in six. Unlike the simple beast puppets this sect worked with, mine were more advanced. I mean, how could I not make them amazing when I was the best smith on the continent? I even gave them the ability to fly like a spiritual tool.

The ones with instruments gathered together in a formation to play the same somniferous song I used against that lion boy when I first got to the sect. Meanwhile, the two sword-wielding puppets and I flanked the group. Their numerous beasts charged at me, while the three cultivators attacked the puppets on the other side. Now that I had a full puppet band in a battle of the bands formation, my rock song worked quickly. The invaders and beasts visibly fought their drowsiness.

The old panda-man activated the cutting tool again but aimed it toward Gil, my guitar-playing puppet. I had it spin and flip unnaturally in the air to dodge the line of destructive energy that would have blasted a hole right through it. I sent out an arc of sword Qi from each puppet's instrument. This drained my energy rapidly, though it would have been worse if I hadn't included an energy core that I recently developed. On the other side, the blade-wielding puppets and I threw out several waves of Thousand Cuts.

The human invaders took out defensive tools to tank the damage for them. These beast tamers only protected themselves. I ended up slicing off the heads of the weaker beasts, and the legs of the stronger ones, leaving them to bleed out. From behind my back, I stealthily pulled out a seventh puppet. This one was half the size of a child and held the small heaven ranked knife I barely managed to forge with my limited energy pool. I moved the small puppet behind the panda-haired old man.

When he became distracted by my band's continued sleep-inducing song, I had it slice his hand off with the superior weapon. I had the puppet grab the carving tool, then throw both the blade and device over to me. The elderly man rammed his remaining fist through the small puppet, turning it into a chunk of metal, wood, and cloth. At least I had the device and my new knife! While he was destroying my puppet, I sent a large slash of sword Qi at the weak snake-eyed man.

His head fell to the floor, and his body collapsed.

"Hiss!" the viper called out with all the pain it felt from its lost connection.

"You bitch! You killed him!" The girl yelled. I grinned down at the remaining enemies and had every single puppet rain a Thousand Cuts down on the group. When the dust cleared, the girl and all the beasts were dead. Of course, I was practically drained of energy at this point. The Golden Core cultivator coughed up several mouthfuls of blood. Yeah, having his contracted pet die must have injured him a lot. That was the heaviest weakness beast tamers had. The old man smiled wanly up at me.

"It's too late! All we need to do is take out this node." I grinned.

"You failed. This node looks salvageable to me." I was a formation master who had fixed and improved the Indomitable Will Sect's grand defensive formation in my past life. If anyone could fix this comparatively mediocre one, it would be me. He shook his head.

"You don't get it. This was always a one-way trip." The ambient energy in the area vibrated and contracted. Fuck! He was detonating his dantian! At his level, it would take out me and a good chunk of this mountain. It might even interrupt my in-name disciple's concentration! I rushed forward on my sword and used a concentrated Thousand Cuts to send his head flying while wrapping his body in divine sense. His flesh grew brighter. There was no time. I sent his body into the time-frozen zone of the space.

The Golden Core must have had the upgrade treasure on him because I immediately lost access to the space. That motherfucking gold dragon! He should have at least let me put the meat away! I stared down at the mess I'd created and waved my hand. All the beast parts entered my spatial ring. It would be fine there. Probably. That had been one hell of a successful fight. My new combat style worked out just the way I'd planned it to.

After almost dying during that fight with the demonic sect, I decided that I didn't like feeling that fucking helpless. For several weeks after the incident, I couldn't think about anything except what I could have done differently to make it through that situation all by myself. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that without my band, I would have died. I had gotten very lucky. Frankly, I would have rather been skilled.

From that point on, I worked toward making myself as strong as I possibly could at the Foundation Establishment realm. To just rely on what I did in my past life wasn't cutting it. But figuring out how to make myself stronger was difficult since I was already so badass. One day, while working with Shadow Panther on her puppets, I became inspired.

Since I never wanted to be put in a situation where I couldn't fight off hundreds of beasts by myself again, I came up with a certain special method that only someone with an advanced split mind technique like mine could use. But the only way I could pull it off was by using puppets. Many, many puppets. So far, I had only created thirty. My goal was to have at least one hundred. I'd get there, eventually. I dug through the Foundation Establishment cultivator's storage bags.

Unfortunately, they really had planned on this being a one-way infiltration. They only had a few pills and spirit stones on them. There was something I was forgetting, right? I glanced around the area to see how horrible it looked. The trees had been devastated by stray blasts. And the important ground was torn up and covered with blood. Oh! Right. These fuckers damaged the sect's defensive formation node a little! This had been a truly brilliant move on their part.

But sacrificing a Golden Core cultivator wasn't something a righteous sect would do. These were demonic cult tactics. The Leashed Claws Sect had to have been through some serious shit for them to start using their enemy's strategies. Sure, they were effective, and if this had worked, it would have saved them more lives than they lost, but getting a selfish Golden Core disciple — even one at the end of his life like that fake Mr. Panda — to go on a suicide mission? No.

That wasn't something an orthodox cultivator would do. Not without a backup plan. I examined the guy's head with my divine sense. There was no demonic energy. Maybe this was a clone, and the actual body of this guy was Nascent Soul?:: Did the elders take care of the other nodes?:: I asked Little Spring.:: They're all safe! There was one other team of infiltrators but an elder of the sect stopped them in time thanks to your warning.

:: I stored the bodies inside my spatial ring and used a cleaning technique on the node. Once the blood and dust cleared, I could tell that the damage they'd done was worse than I thought. The asshole cut a line through half the node! If I hadn't prevented him from exploding his dantian, he really would have destroyed it to the point where even I couldn't fix it! Of course, now I had to check it to see how badly we were fucked.

Just because I could fix something didn't mean this backwater sect had the supplies to do it.