Corrupted Crimson

by Patrick Laplante

  Reporting to the marshal, the symptoms are consistent with possession, the system said. Recommended countermeasures include inspecting and purifying all soldiers in the fortress using the Unfettered Gold Formation. Would you like me to lock down the fortress?

  Only the main gate, Feng Ming said. Keep this information confidential, and only alert those I brought with me from Southhaven Fortress. Instruct them to keep quiet and watch those generals.

  Affirmative, the system replied.

  He rushed out silently to the most key location in the entire fortress: the gate. As he walked, he noticed that the personnel map had shifted. One in ten men were swiftly walking toward the gate.

  Up ahead, he spotted some soldiers who were calmly walking without talking. He swiftly jabbed with the butt of his spear, instantly rendering both men unconscious. As he approached the gates, he was forced to incapacitate more and more men.

  One in ten, one in ten, Feng Ming thought.

  Suddenly, it clicked. One in ten was five hundred men, the same number of men that remained from the Spirit Temple. He paled when he realized that the five hundred men rushing toward the gates weren’t imposters but their own men, possessed by the five hundred men on the outside.

  System, is there a way to stop these men without killing them? Feng Ming asked.

  Reporting to the marshal, the fortress can use eighty-percent of its current energy reserves to activate the Spiritual Lockdown Formation and the Unfettered Gold Defensive Formations for ten seconds,” the system said. This amount of energy will not be sufficient to eliminate the evil spirits. The possessing spirits are unlikely to self-destruct under normal circumstances due to the backlash to the spirit’s controller. However, they may use desperate means to achieve their objectives once the formations are activated.

  Feng Ming rapidly found an energy-transfer point and tossed in a hundred thousand high-grade spirit stones to supplement the fortress before approving the activation of the formations.

  Before he could even sigh in relief, a pulse from his core-formation jade alerted him to a message from Southhaven.

  Marshal Feng, the enemy troops have finished packing up and are headed east toward your position, Deputy Marshal Tang sent. Their advanced forces will arrive in a quarter hour. What are your instructions?

  Have Deputy Marshal Qin keep an eye on Westhaven’s gates, Feng Ming said. Meanwhile, mobilize ten thousand men from Southhaven as soon as possible.

  Feng Ming disconnected and ran down the hall. He incapacitated any soldiers he passed, and as he ran, golden runes activated on the walls and began pouring shimmering light into the hallways. Howls of pain sounded from the gate room up ahead. He breathed deeply and rushed into the room.

  “Quickly, manually open the gates and destroy the locking mechanism,” one of the men said. Ten men turned to a crystal on the wall and began channeling their qi. Despite ordering the system to lock down the gates, Feng Ming had forgotten about the manual mechanism. Given enough energy, they could force the gate to open and close, and the process would only take ten breaths.

  “We don’t have much time,” one of the crimson-eyed men said. The golden light shining from the walls was causing a red mist to evaporate from him and combust. “Let’s combine our efforts to kill this supposed lucky general. Ignore the backlash—the lowest ranked novices go first!”

  Fifty apparitions emerged from their respective hosts while the men they had possessed slumped over, unconscious. The fifty spirits ignored the blinding gold light and jumped toward him. They passed through his body and directly entered his spiritual sea. His resplendent soul suddenly became aware of fifty intruders in his mind. They dove toward the miniature version of himself, and just before reaching it, they self-detonated.

  The jade runes on his resplendent garment glowed and deflected the spiritual explosion. He wasn’t harmed in the least. In fact, his soul had grown stronger during the exchange by accumulating merit from defeating evil spirits.

  Although a few breaths had passed in his spiritual sea, three seconds had passed in the outside world. The hundreds of men looked at him in shock.

  “Send out a hundred more,” the man ordered calmly. The process repeated itself, and Feng Ming opened his eyes three seconds later.

  “Why don’t you just fight me the old-fashioned way?” Feng Ming said as he rushed at them with his spear. He knew full well that the hundreds of men were no match for him in a frontal battle.

  “I refuse to believe that his soul is strong enough to resist indefinitely,” the man said. “The rest of you go at him at once. Some sacrifices are necessary for victory.”

  The hundreds of men simultaneously fell unconscious. Feng Ming laughed as he ignored the onslaught of evil spirits and charged forward. As the hundreds of evil spirits invaded his soul, his merit skyrocketed until he formed a fourth jade rune. In fact, he accumulated enough to get him halfway to completing the next one.

  The remaining soldier and the ten behind him paled. “The ten of you adepts will sacrifice yourselves to buy me time to open the gate.”

  The ten men stepped up, but unlike before, a dozen souls poured out from each of them. These souls were much larger than the ones before. Feng Ming shuddered as they entered his spiritual sea and surrounded him in a swirling formation of crimson. Their wails caused his soul to shudder, leaving his body to act on instinct. The remaining soldier didn’t dare provoke him in this passive state—instead he inched the gate up until Feng Ming heard a soft click.

  Get out of here! Feng Ming yelled inside his spiritual sea. The crimson formation of souls instantly collapsed and dissipated, causing his cultivation to shoot up to middle core formation. He ignored the influx of heaven and earth energy and swung his spear at the soldier, who had just pierced through the manual gate mechanism and ruined it.

  The man grinned like a maniac, and a large apparition appeared behind him. Feng Ming stopped his spear barely an inch away from the unconscious man’s head.

  “You sealed this ghost in this fortress, forcing me to either give it up or use it one last time,” a voice said inside Feng Ming’s spiritual sea. A black-cloaked man surrounded by a crimson aura appeared before Feng Ming’s resplendent soul. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not one to back down from a challenge. You’ve killed too many of our ghost slaves, and we shamans will always have our revenge.”

  The figure released a malevolent presence, and crimson tendrils of corruption expanded from where he stood and traveled through the golden floor in Feng Ming’s spiritual sea.

  Despite the severity of the situation, Feng Ming felt incomparably relaxed. He didn’t reply to the man’s goading but focused in the current problem: sealing the gates. He diverted nine tenths of his attention to his body, which rapidly inspected the gate mechanism. He quickly concluded that the mechanism was irreparable.

  “What to do, what to do,” Feng Ming muttered as he wracked his brains for a solution. The system had no suggestions but simply sent him a blueprint of the fortress gate. The massive star-steel gate was two feet thick and supported by a large cable, which was protected from tampering via a large enclosure.

  “You think you can divide your attention?” the ghost in his spiritual sea said mockingly. “Fine, have it your way.”

  The growth of the tendrils intensified. Meanwhile, Feng Ming flew up to the cable-guarding mechanism. He struck the cover without a hint of hesitation, but to his dismay, he only created a small dent.

  At this moment, ten thousand soldiers began rushing into the fortress through its reception hall. Five thousand men from Southhaven fortress quickly arranged themselves into groups and activated defensive formations. The generals gave out hasty instructions as the troops readied themselves to welcome the incoming charge of enemy forces.

  As Feng Ming slashed away at the cover, thousands of troops rushed in and clashed with the Song Kingdom’s soldiers. Although they easily repelled this first wave, more and more troops were rushing in with every passing seco
nd.

  “Come on!” Feng Ming said as he struck with Ash Annihilation. A small hole appeared in the protective cover, a hole just large enough to accommodate his spear. Despite the opening, the cover cut off his spiritual force. He only had a single chance to sever the cable.

  “You’ve already lost,” the ghost in his head taunted. “Just give up and surrender. We could always use the help of a strong soul like you. If you pledge your allegiance, I can promise you a position equal to mine in the Spirit Temple!”

  Feng Ming shook his head. “Sorry, not interested.” He held his spear and poured all his remaining fire and earth qi into the lucky spear. He ignored the clashing in the courtyard below as he directed every ounce of his spiritual force into his weapon. White runes lit up on the black spear that clearly exceeded the might of a core treasure.

  “You think I’ll let you do as you like?” the ghost in his spiritual sea said. “Thousand-soul spirit, detonate!”

  The black-robed man suddenly split into a thousand crimson ghosts that shot toward his resplendent soul simultaneously. Feng Ming ignored them as he struck with his spear with all his strength. The ghosts collided with his soul just as the spear left his hand. His consciousness wavered as the powerful ghost in his spiritual sea realized its mistake.

  “Good Fortune Scripture? Wasn’t it lost? Why is it here of all places?”

  Jade runes struck the ghost one after another and caused it to explode into a thousand nourishing motes of merit.

  Simultaneously, the lucky spear pierced through the cable holding up the massive gate, which crashed down onto the few unlucky Southern Alliance troops beneath. The spear then continued and struck the other side of the protective covering, piercing through to the other side of the wall, where it flew across half of the fifty-thousand-man army crushing against the Easthaven Fortress.

  The spear passed over hundreds of generals and thousands of normal troops before finally shooting downward.

  It cleverly bypassed dozens of hastily summoned shields and plunged straight into the enemy marshal’s chest.

  Chapter 34: Corrupted Crimson

  “Gong Lan!” Cha Ming yelled as his group approached the two women. “It looks like you didn’t even need our help to get through the labyrinth. We’re starting to feel a little useless.”

  Gong Lan raised her eyebrow. “If summoning four variant tribulations in the middle of the labyrinth and destroying it counts as useless, I’m not sure what to say.”

  Dongfang Hao and the remaining Alabaster Group members caught up. The three remaining monks were slightly slower, their orange kasayas torn, their bodies bleeding from several places. Seeing their bedraggled appearance, Gong Lan sent out a wisp of green energy to the protectors, whose pale complexions immediately flushed with a healthy glow.

  Cha Ming and the three demon beasts led their group through the maze’s exit. The walls were black and covered in golden runes that suppressed an intense crimson glow in the distance. They passed by several dozen broken jade slabs. The corpses that used to lay on them had disappeared without a trace.

  Finally, they entered a black room covered in crimson lines. The golden runes that had once adorned the walls were shattered, and only small pieces remained of them.

  “Why weren’t these corrupted like the rest?” he said while motioning to twelve sarcophaguses surrounding a broken dais holding up a small jade seal. He noticed a golden formation was built into these coffins and joined together with them to suppress the corruption. He frowned when he noticed a crimson formation containing runes he couldn’t identify that overlaid the original gold one. The corruption found in the labyrinth clearly originated from it.

  “I don’t know,” Gong Lan said. “Regardless, we must activate the Spirit-Banishing Pagoda and neutralize the corruption as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, six of our monks have perished, and the pagoda won’t be nearly as effective.”

  “Can we help in any way?” Cha Ming asked.

  Gong Lan shook her head. “You can only act as protectors for us. Only Buddhist soul energy can be used to activate this holy treasure.”

  She led the three other monks to the seal and immediately began chanting. Golden characters imbued themselves into the small glowing pagoda in Gong Lan’s hands, one after the other. Before long, a beautiful golden sphere covered in holy Buddhist scriptures appeared and locked them off from the outside world.

  “Let us begin,” Gong Lan said.

  The pagoda’s glow intensified and resonated with the three monks who began chanting incessantly. As they chanted, Cha Ming activated his Eyes of Pure Jade and inspected ochre formations that overlaid the crimson ones. He only stopped once his vision blurred and his eyes began to bleed.

  A light formation thrummed to life, greedily absorbing a hundred thousand spirit stones in the process. A golden mist filled the room as the spirit stones evaporated. The formation was a peak formation called Evil-Sealing Circle, one of the five formations gifted to him by the Church of Justice. He had used the gray flags gifted by Wang Bing to erect the formation and spirit stones he’d borrowed from Luo Xuehua and the Alabaster Group.

  “The voices are finally gone,” the blind Luo Xuehua said as she walked up beside him.

  “The voices?” Cha Ming asked.

  “The humming of the souls of the dead,” Luo Xuehua said. “They were calling out to us, warning us. They said we were too late and that we should run away.”

  “What else did they say?” Cha Ming said. He hadn’t known that Luo Xuehua possessed such a strange ability. If so, it explained her quiet and reserved demeanor.

  “Their voices changed an hour ago,” she said softly. “At first, they were warning us. Then they began saying murderous words. They told us to kill and fight. They told us to slaughter our friends and slay our family members. We’re strong, so it didn’t affect us. But what would it do to weaker souls?”

  A cold shiver ran through Cha Ming’s spine as he glanced to the formation on the floor. He activated his Eyes of Pure Jade once more and inspected the hidden characters under the light of the Evil-Sealing Circle. The golden light of the formation revealed several hidden characters that Cha Ming hadn’t seen before. “Kill,” “betray,” and “slay” formed twisted lines that weaved in with the formation. Furthermore, he detected twelve more hidden formations he hadn’t seen before. They were written in sinister runes that he couldn’t understand, but they resembled several formations that Cha Ming was very familiar with: energy-gathering formations.

  Suddenly, Cha Ming saw a flash of gray spatial light, and a pile of ochre crystals appeared out of nowhere and fell onto the formations. They roared to life as soon as the crystals landed and instantly began feeding the crimson formation on the floor. Its runes shifted and weaved chaotically as it drank in the negativity. The twelve sarcophaguses vibrated. As a last-ditch effort, Cha Ming summoned the Clear Sky Pillar and smashed down with every once of strength he could muster. He aimed for the weakest point in the newly revealed formation.

  The floor crumbled beneath it, but the formation continued as though nothing had happened. A crimson glow left the twelve golden sarcophaguses, taking the form of twelve howling ghosts that shot into the previously inactive formation. Cha Ming rapidly summoned a peak lightning-based combat formation. The crimson lines distorted under the iridescent lightning but were ultimately unaffected.

  “It won’t work,” a voice said from the hallway.

  It was a familiar voice that Cha Ming loathed. Zhou Li walked out from the labyrinth; Protector Song and a dozen core-formation devils marched in behind him while an army of hundreds of foundation-establishment devils followed.

  “The formation uses the corruption in the imperial seal to bewitch those in the kingdom and turn them against one another. The fighting causes the corruption to deepen and increase the bewitchment. It’s an ingenious plan if I do say so myself. Before long, the kingdom will be in shambles and ripe for the taking.

  “But do you kn
ow what the best part about all this is? The World Tree Master is here, and you delivered her right to us.”

  He flicked out a small needle, which shattered Cha Ming’s Evil-Sealing Circle and struck the Spirit-Sealing Pagoda’s barrier. The bright-red needle slipped through the shield without breaking it, and a crimson gas transformed into a red-clothed monk.

  “Sibi!” Gong Lan shouted.

  “Do you think you brought enough men?” Cha Ming asked as he summoned the massive Clear Sky Pillar and a peak Icy Hell Grand Formation. His Stormchaser Boots dissipated into storm clouds beneath his feet, and an armor of light and darkness covered him. The tomb’s rocky floor crumbled under his bare feet as he increased his weight to ten times his fist strength.

  Huxian’s, Lei Jiang’s, and Silverwing’s forms increased in size. Huxian grew to 160 feet long while Silverwing expanded to 160 feet wide. Only Lei Jiang remained small, his height only reaching Cha Ming’s. They too summoned their black-and-white battle armor. Meanwhile, the Alabaster Group duo each summoned an array of flying swords—one earth aligned and one wind aligned. Luo Xuehua summoned hundreds of talismans, and Dongfang Hao brandished a heavy blade while nine metal pillars floated around him.

  “I brought everyone I could spare,” Zhou Li said. “How’s your foundation doing, by the way? Is this second life all that you imagined it would be? Will it be filled with choices like you imagined? Even if we don’t gain anything out of this exchange, I’ve already crippled a game-changing piece like you.”

  He then looked to Huxian. “Little fox, did you know that your brother’s core is crippled and can’t reach rune carving? How do you feel, knowing that you’ll die young and never reach the peak like your father?”

  As he spoke, the core-formation and foundation-establishment devils drew their weapons and unleashed their devilish forms. Even Protector Song transformed. They let out a communal roar; their ochre auras combined into a cloud of malevolence that rushed out toward their tight-knit group. Their emotions became chaotic as their bodies lost strength, their souls felt drained, their weapons dulled, and their movements faltered. Even their defenses didn’t feel as strong as before. Although Cha Ming had fought against a few scattered devils before, he had never faced so many at once; their combined auras were a truly frightening phenomenon.