Shattered Lands: Book 8 of Painting the Mists

by Laplante, Patrick

  A few agonizing seconds passed, and his camera flashed. A gray barrier, invisible to most, appeared all around the monastery. Those outside of it would sense nothing as a battle ensued. The barrier would block out all communication, and for the most part, block those trying to escape. Three seconds passed, and the barrier firmed up. Cha Ming nodded and flew through the bubble, not bothering to hide his presence as he smashed down on the main building with his Clear Sky Staff, now in pillar form. Crushing Chaos split the building in two. It crashed down on the blood reservoir of the monastery, evaporating the stored blood vitality in a cloud of red mist.

  “Who dares?” a man roared. Dozens of red flashes appeared before Cha Ming. One of them bore an inviolable aura, that of true blood-awakening cultivator. He held a large bloody saber in one hand. It seemed heavy, almost too heavy for him to wield. Beside him stood two half-step transcendents and two dozen peak-marrow-refining cultivators. “You?” the man yelled in surprise, noticing the staff in Cha Ming’s hands.

  Cha Ming grinned. The time for disguises was over. He banished his disguise and summoned a thousand and eighty combat sigils, which spread out around him and summoned an inferno to burn the weaker blood masters who were gathering or trying to flee. The power of a half-step-rune-carving cultivator was too much for them to handle.

  Only a second passed, and most of the blood masters, the buildings they occupied, and even their weapons were already gone. Only those at middle marrow refining or above remained, though those struggled to hold on to their lives under the blistering combat formation. Those at late marrow refining held weapons in unsteady hands, preparing to aid those at peak marrow refining or higher, who were only slightly affected by Cha Ming’s flames.

  The stone beneath them cracked under the intense heat, which Cha Ming finally released, replacing it with a frigid, slowing cold. It pierced these cultivators to their bones, reducing their reaction speeds and making their bones and muscles more brittle.

  “I see you have the capital to invade us,” said the head blood master, a transcendent. Lightning crackled around the man and attacked him as his presence mounted and caused space to tremble. “And I see you’ve mounted a barrier. How wonderful.”

  “Wonderful?” Cha Ming asked, grasping the Clear Sky Pillar, reducing it to a more manageable form. It contracted until it became an inch thick, just big enough to expand as he fought, but just small enough to be fast and zipping with his movements.

  “I haven’t gotten to fight to my heart’s content in centuries,” the head blood master said. “Now that the surroundings are adequately shielded, no one can blame me for going all out.” The air around the man shattered, and the lightning intensified, burning at the man’s skin, which began peeling off in scorching layers.

  Cha Ming’s eyes narrowed. “Are you not worried about heavenly retribution?”

  The bald man cackled madly as his robes burned away, revealing charred flesh. “I’ll survive, but you will not. Blood masters—kill!”

  The crowd swarmed around Cha Ming, whose feet became a storm of wind and lightning. He slashed out with multiple iterations of Splitting Heaven and Earth, imbuing different elements for different effects. Some were burning, corporeal blades that seared through skin. Some were heavy blows imbued with vibrations that shattered bones.

  One swipe, one kill. Cha Ming started with the small fries, dancing around them using gravity and flow to this advantage. His nascent domain shone around him like a bright protective barrier that also extended to his staff, making it far more lethal than it had a right to be. He destroyed the weaker blood masters with impunity. Unfortunately, they were the least of his worries.

  A lethal saber strike suddenly came for Cha Ming’s neck. He twisted around, evading it just in time for another one to come at his torso. He banished his Clear Sky Staff, summoning it before him to absorb the shock of the blow. Space shattered at his front, damaging his body, which healed instantly, drawing from his deep vitality stores.

  The exchange took mere moments, but in that time, Cha Ming wasn’t just on the defensive. He’d retracted his combat formation, and now it formed dozens of blades that struck out and attacked the weaker blood masters. Though each blade felled three, those three stood up almost immediately. These weren’t qi cultivators like the imperial tutor, but body cultivators like Cha Ming. They were born for battle.

  Cha Ming blocked another saber blow, this one headed toward his chest. At this point, the transcendent didn’t bother targeting any specific body parts. He’d guessed that Cha Ming was like him, someone who could be reborn from a single drop of blood. As such, the best way to fight was collateral damage, destroying as much as he could with every blow.

  Cha Ming resisted, and despite blocking the saber blows, his bones cracked and shattered, his flesh evaporating to nothingness from the spatial cracks they generated. Lightning surged around the blood master like a storm. Despite being covered in a charcoal-like substance, the insane blood master still grinned evilly. It was like he didn’t care that at any moment, his vitality stores could run out, and the storm would end him.

  I can’t keep going on like this, Cha Ming thought. Time to change tactics. He hadn’t expected to be fighting a transcendent, which meant that he was likely a new addition, someone from outside their monastery here to deal with the incoming creature. He dodged a few hammer wielders, but this movement was enough to allow the transcendent’s blade to strike true, cutting Cha Ming in half. It was a surreal sensation, being in two places at once, but his body instantly formed a connection and came back together. Such was the power of divinity and vitality.

  If I can’t kill them with swords, I’ll grind away at them until they’re dead, Cha Ming thought. He recalled his combat formation, which immediately changed shape and became an agonizing ball of fire and blades. It surged toward a late-marrow-refining cultivation and ground into him. As it cut and burned, his body tried to regrow, only to be cut down again. The ball ground away for a second before the blood master finally didn’t grow back. Nodding, Cha Ming sent out the ball of fiery spikes to find another target.

  “Keep attacking,” the now-ebony-skinned man said, still grinning. “If he kills you, you never stood a chance of escaping anyway.”

  The words egged on the clearly insane blood masters. Many began burning their blood essence, boosting their power and movements until finally, their attacks began to connect with Cha Ming, clipping at his skin and chipping his bones. Though he regenerated with every blow, his vitality stores were limited. In fact, he’d already exhausted a quarter of them.

  It finally dawned on Cha Ming that picking off the small fries wouldn’t cut it. He simply didn’t have enough time, not with the transcendent attacking him with that freakishly huge sword. No, he would need to take the initiative and hope that the plane was doing more damage than it appeared to be doing. Decision made, he flew through the blood masters, withdrawing his combat formation once again and forming a new one.

  A giant mountain appeared above Cha Ming and the transcendent blood master, increasing the gravity around them a hundredfold. He then threw out a blue talisman, a half-step-transcendent Flow Talisman. The air around them thickened, slowing down everyone within the immediate area while speeding up Cha Ming’s movements. He sent out a second talisman, a half-step-transcendent Matter Talisman. It landed on the surprised blood master’s charcoal-covered body, causing it to seize up and crumble. His muscles became stiff, and his bones became brittle.

  Then, a third talisman appeared, then a fourth. The third one was golden, and it shone with a sharp light that immediately surrounded the Clear Sky Staff. The half-transcendent Shape Talisman greatly boosted Cha Ming’s offense, to the point that even a casual swipe of his staff caused space to crackle, and the heavens to rumble in displeasure. Fortunately, he wasn’t a transcendent and was only abusing loopholes. He struck the shocked blood master with staff after staff, breaking down his body before he could even react.

  As Cha
Ming attacked, a warm light began to glow around him. The Energy Talisman, the fourth talisman he’d activated, wasn’t a normal one. It was a transcendent talisman. His body grew faster and faster, his every strike filled with even more energy. It poured into his staff, which began to burn brightly. It didn’t just cut into the beleaguered blood master’s body, but seared everything around him, burning at the energy stores within his void network.

  Three seconds, Cha Ming thought. He only had three seconds at this peak level of power. His attacks intensified, and he unleashed Crushing Chaos, Splitting Heaven and Earth, and even Origin Strike in quick succession. Each hit caused the grin on the blood master to falter, and also caused the lightning’s attacks on what barely looked like a man now to intensify.

  Two seconds. Frightened by what was occurring, the blood master shouted an order. The dozens of remaining blood masters rushed into the constricted area without concern for their safety. Their movements were slow and sluggish, but Cha Ming had no time to spare for them. They hacked into his skin, their blows glancing off his bones but piercing his flesh, regenerating almost instantly as he redoubled his efforts. One second remained, but his vitality stores were at less than half, their depletion increasing drastically.

  The talisman’s effects would soon run out, so Cha Ming gathered half of his qi. He gathered his nascent domain, withdrawing it from his body and urging it into the only thing that mattered—his staff. He held on with two hands and unleashed the most powerful Origin Strike he’d ever executed. By now, the Energy Talisman had filled him with an unbelievable burning power that coursed through every inch of his body.

  Space all around the transcendent blood master shattered. A swirling vortex appeared around the screaming man, completely enveloping his struggling body. He gritted his teeth and hefted his sword anyway. His aura mounted again as he burned his blood essence, preparing to deliver one last strike at the defenseless Cha Ming. He lifted his arm and swung, but just as the sword was about to connect with Cha Ming, dealing a massive blow to his life force, the sword lost its momentum.

  Something seemed to halt, and the man’s half-recovered body began to disintegrate into ash. The plane’s will, which had been attacking the transcendent constantly, had done its job. The lightning let up, and Cha Ming looked up at the men around him. He activated his combat formation, unleashing a storm of blades as he slashed out with one last staff strike. They couldn’t avoid it. Dozens of peak blood masters were instantly reduced to ashes.

  Cha Ming collapsed to one knee. He took out a vial from the Clear Sky World and popped three pills into his mouth. The one meant to replenish his vitality stores rushed into the voids in his bones, refilling the void network that had been purged of excess energy. His damaged body healed, while the second and third pills worked to replenish his qi stores. He filled his qi stores up to two-thirds capacity, after which the effects of the pills ended. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t possible to instantly restore everything he’d expended. He would need to cultivate to recover any further.

  That was too close, Cha Ming thought. His vitality stores had dipped down to ten percent, a razor-thin margin between life and death. The half-transcendent vitality-replenishing pill he’d crafted on his spare time only managed to refill that margin to a third of his full capacity.

  Ignoring the pain that came with healing, Cha Ming made his way to an unscorched section on the monastery training grounds. He took out his Clear Sky Brush, willing it to transform into a carving knife, then cut a message into the stone. Satisfied with a job well done, he walked off the platform toward the exit, leaving only blood and ruin behind him. When he left the shield of gray, a loud explosion greeted him, a familiar roar he’d heard months ago.

  Feng Ming coughed and gagged as acrid smoke filled the air. He shivered as he pondered what might have happened if he hadn’t decided to run just prior to the device’s activation. Wasn’t it meant to shoot toward Bastion Wall? Fortunately, his instincts had warned him just in time. The device hadn’t operated as expected; in fact, he suspected it had been sabotaged. The resulting explosion of fire and magical shrapnel had laid waste to his surroundings.

  The entire east wing of the palace he’d taken refuge in was completely demolished. Only a small stub remained of the grand building. The servants and guests that hadn’t been disintegrated by the explosion lay dead or dying, most of their corpses missing limbs. The destruction was unlike anything Feng Ming had ever seen in his life. His karma, he’d noticed, had taken a substantial hit from triggering the explosion. Even though they were on the other side, the evil side, killing innocents was not acceptable.

  His heart hurt as he realized just how many non-cultivators had worked in the palace. They weren’t servants—no, cultivators were better suited for such roles in the palace. But those in the palace had families, and not every family member was a cultivator. Wives, children, and even husbands of powerful women had all been obliterated in a fraction of a second.

  The place where the weapon had exploded was now an empty crater. It wasn’t a perfect circle, but an ellipse that traveled north toward the wall. There, a deep gouge had been torn in the seemingly impenetrable bastion against the Shattered Lands. With the tear came a draining sensation, a miasma that tugged at Feng Ming’s vitality. He was no slouch; he’d dabbled in body cultivation when convenient, but lesser mortals wouldn’t last very long under the strain. Maybe a day at most, and this was only the beginning. It was no wonder the South had built a massive wall to contain it.

  “Who dares trespass in this royal palace!” a voice reverberated all around him.

  Not wanting to be caught, Feng Ming ducked behind some rubble and suppressed his strength, shielding himself with powerful resplendent force.

  A man flew up from the central palace. Dressed in regal yellow robes and wearing a golden crown that matched them, it was easy to deduce who this man was: the king of the Ji Kingdom, Ji Lingtian. He wore a dreadful gold-and-red sword at his waist, and every garment he wore bore a thick treasure aura. Feng Ming itched to grab just one of them and run off, but his brain wrested control away from his heart before he could act on the impulse.

  “You must be out there, little rat,” the king said, looking around. He flicked his sleeve, and the sword at his waist disappeared, reappearing just in time to crash into a segment of unbroken wall. “You’re close. I can feel it.” Another flick, another segment broken.

  It’s only a matter of time before he finds me, Feng Ming thought. He had to escape, but rushing out of the palace through the entrance was far too obvious. So was escaping into the city, where he’d just learned many powerful individuals were staying. To the north, then? Another wall segment shattered, and he took a gamble. Masking his presence, he flew through the crack, leaving an enraged king to pick through the rest of the rubble.

  The wall, it turned out, was surprisingly thick. A full hundred feet thick, it should have been impossible to destroy in a single strike. Even a peak demon monarch would have trouble piercing it. Yet the explosion Feng Ming had unwittingly triggered had unleashed devastation on the structure. It seemed, upon initial observation, that the device had been designed specifically to destroy walls. Many tiny holes peppered the structure, which seemed more brittle than intended. Runic patterns were etched deep into the stone.

  I should be safe here for now, Feng Ming thought, resting against the wall at the entrance of the mountain canyon. He only had a moment to relax before a chill ran down his spine. He summoned his Magma God’s Spear just in time to catch a blow from an unusual weapon, a cane. Cold winds blew past him, filling the air with fog. He could barely make out a short, aged lady with spectacles behind the cane.

  “You,” the woman said in a nasal voice, “are trespassing on private property. And I suspect that you are the one responsible for this destruction. Prepare to be eliminated.” The woman moved fast, so fast that she left behind an afterimage. Feng Ming staggered, swinging out randomly with his spear, hoping to defl
ect whatever strikes came his way, since he couldn’t predict them.

  Clank. Clank. Clank. He deflected the first three blows with ease, causing the older woman to frown. Seeing her hesitate, he pressed the attack. The air around him became a blistering sandstorm, the earth beneath him a pool of magma. The woman disappeared, but this time, her afterimage was disrupted by the sand. He felt her through the sand, sensing her movements, not toward his side but above him. She struck down with cutting azure runes of wind that blew away the sand, exposing him to the her cane.

  Feng Ming did what he did best. He threw his spear up at her, hoping to the heavens above that it struck true. It did just that, crashing against the woman’s chest. A shattering sound filled the air as a brooch, which had been fastened to a fashionable overcoat she’d been wearing, fell to the ground.

  He held out his hand and caught his spear. He moved to rush in but paused, suddenly looking toward the north. She did the same. The smoke from the explosion, which had filled the mountain valley, was now just clearing.

  “Drat,” the woman said in a deadpan voice.

  A large figured appeared, complete with eight monstrous metallic legs and thousands of eyes. It roared, its mouth opening into row upon row of jagged golden teeth.

  The sound hit Feng Ming like a sledgehammer, beating him down, eating into his qi and his vitality. He coughed up blood as he flew into the wall, several ribs breaking in the process. The monstrosity struck out with one of its massive legs, aiming not for Feng Ming but for the wall itself. It pierced into it, taking a large piece out from where the gouge had been. The large piece of rubble fell, and as it did, Feng Ming noticed something else.

  Spiders. Spiders everywhere. They crawled upon the ground, the cliffs, and the beast itself. They crawled upon the Shattered Lands and the rock-covered corpses in the canyon. The woman cursed and swept out with her cane, sending blades and gusts of wind at the spiders that blew apart in sprays of silver metal, cutting down their allies, cutting down their endless allies, which were so crowded they barely had room to move.