Turned into defensive positions or fortifications or… something.
A desperate last stand had been held here.
“The Wraiths leave little behind,” lamented Locke.
Neither the situation nor Locke’s words eased Ash’s mind.
All around the room were a great many people Ash didn’t recognize. There were cultivators he didn’t know who were likely from the other alliance he’d been made aware of, women from his own alliance that he barely knew, and the people who’d come with Trav.
In fact, Mei was standing next to Trav and was currently working through another person as an interpreter.
“Ashley, there’s a problem,” Chunhua came over to him in a hurry. “A large number of what look like Wraiths with wings are heading this way. They’re also carrying more of the Soldier-Wraiths.”
“Great. In other words… we have to go defend the roof or they’ll be forcing their way down,” Ash grumbled, getting straight to the heart of the problem.
“Yes, the roof is an open area with no doors to close. They apparently didn’t expect that something could fly to the top and enter from there,” Chunhua said, looking like she was just a little panicked.
“Any walls? Anything we can defend from? Lead on,” Ash asked, while making a hand gesture for her to move.
Chunhua turned and started heading toward a corner of the room that had a rounded wall.
Tower going upward probably.
“Four walls and a courtyard. It’s a death trap,” Chunhua admitted. “But trying to fight them in the winding downward stairwell would be even more of one. Trying to fight them at the bottom where it empties out would probably be better, but… there’d be nowhere left to go from there.”
“Great. Which… explains the throne room,” Ash muttered.
The previous inhabitants had apparently attempted to do just such a maneuver, he would guess. Everyone had gathered there and tried to hold out.
Only to die in the end.
Moving up the winding stairwell behind Chunhua, he found that he had little to stare at other than her posterior.
“You’re in quite the mood today. Chunhua is a lovely woman, but… we’re kind of in the middle of a battle. Does sex and anxiety hit the same note for you?” Locke asked, his tone sliding between amused and curious. “I could probably help, you know. Say the right thing at the right moment.”
We’re not talking about this.
We’re not.
“Why not? Look at that rear end. Mm-mmm! She’s really actually quite lovely. I do like her eyes. I know you do, too,” Locke murmured. “We both know you’ve fantasized about those eyes looking up at you while her mou—”
NO! Not talking about this.
Stop.
Not helping me.
Help me.
Exiting the stairwell, Ash found himself atop a wide-open area. There were short hip-high walls on each side, but there weren’t really any places to defend from.
Cultivators and Kin were fighting side by side against flying monstrosities.
There were two flying types to deal with. Both humanoid.
The first was the size of a dog with wide wings. They seemed to be focused on trying to kill anyone or open up gaps for the second type of winged horror.
Each of those was the size of a large man with a wingspan that looked ridiculous. They appeared to be twisted-looking humanoids. They lacked arms or even a reasonable approximation of a face.
They did have legs, though, with strange taloned feet. Gripped in those talons was a Soldier-Wraith.
Moving quickly, Ash joined a group of women who were wearing clothes from his sect. They were battling two Soldier-Wraiths, as well as a handful of the smaller flying creatures.
A young woman that Ash swore he’d seen before went down in front of him. A spray of blood splashing out of her chest as a Soldier-Wraith’s clawed hand blasted through her.
“Damn, she’s not going to live through that one. Such a talented one, too. Focus on the Soldier-Wraiths before you—”
Locke’s voice trailed off as Ash grabbed the woman who’d gone down and quickly drew her out of the fight.
Don’t care about the fight. I’m not in peak condition anyway.
I’d rather care for my people.
They’ll fight on regardless of what I do.
Letting go of the woman as soon as he got her clear, Ash got down next to her on one knee. Looking into her face, he could see that she was alive, but she was fading very fast.
Her eyes had the semi-glossy look of someone who was about to pass out.
“C-cold,” whimpered the woman, her lips trembling on the word.
Her chest was splayed open, two of her ribs cracked and shoved to one side. He could see straight into her sternum. Every time she breathed in her lungs inflated. Behind that, he could see blood spraying wildly out of her heart.
Give me that overlay alre—
Two green hands appeared, as well as the list of problems, and what he needed to do.
Except the list of what he needed to do was incredibly small.
“There isn’t much we can do. Her middle Dantian is shattered and her heart is ripped open. We—”
Fine. I’ll carve onto her Dantian directly and hold her heart myself as I put it back together.
You can show me what I need to do or I can fumble around by myself until I figure it out.
“This isn’t—”
Now, Locke!
The hands shifted away from the ribs, and then appeared again directly against the woman’s heart.
“Grab it and we’ll go from there. Just follow the Qi-work I lay down. She’ll never be the same, though,” Locke warned. “Never free.”
She’ll be alive, which is better than the alternative.
“Fine. Get her heart,” Locke commanded.
Ash reached in and grabbed at the woman’s heart. It beat hard in his hand, flexing strongly. Only to pump blood all over his hands.
“Concentrate on her Dantian. You can access it from her heart. Build it back up.”
Focusing on the idea of her Dantian and putting it together, Ash fumbled around almost blindly.
He felt like he was doing something, however, he just didn’t know what.
Redoubling his efforts, he pushed with the full force of his will. Calling up his Dao itself to help strengthen his efforts.
The flow and momentum of her Dantian needed to be malleable but cohesive. It needed to be complete.
“That’s… a bit stronger than I think she needs, but her Dantian is now rebuilt. Now, push a drop of your Qi into her Dantian. Make sure you use your Dao at the same time for this. It’ll jumpstart the Dantian,” Locke commanded. “Then push a blue lotus pill into her. Her heart will mend with that alone and she’ll survive. The rest of the damage can be taken care of later.”
Nodding his head, Ash did exactly as instructed. Rapidly pushing a drop of his Dao-infused Qi into her Dantian. Letting go of her heart, he retrieved the indicated pill, shoved it between her lips, and then pushed her up against a wall where she was out of the way.
Standing up, Ash found that more people had joined him up here.
Quite a number more, in fact.
There were also newly wounded here.
People who needed him.
Okay!
Triage mode, go!
“You’re an idiot, my Chosen One.”
No, I’m just prioritizing what I can and can’t do.
***
Losing himself in the back and forth of constant medical work, Ash went from patient to patient. Repairing, healing, correcting, and in some cases, rebuilding Dantians.
Apparently, Wraiths were quite adept at destroying things that weren’t even physical.
They’d never actually lost the roof, but it’d been a near thing several times.
He hadn’t seen Trav during this entire ordeal. Ash wouldn’t be surprised, however, if there was something going on elsewhere that hi
s cousin was tending to.
“Ashley! We need to get off the roo—”
A deep, ugly-sounding thunder crack above him jolted Ash clean out of his own thoughts.
Looking up from the woman he was currently treating, he saw a massive twisting portal hovering above them.
Turning back to his patient, Ash found the woman had grabbed onto his hands and was glaring at him.
“Leave me,” she growled. “Go!”
Snorting, Ash ignored her.
Shaking off her hands, he went back to solidifying her lower Dantian. Her Qi Sea would take a while to refill, but it would do so given time.
Releasing what he was pretty sure was her uterus, Ash peered around inside the wound.
“She’s fine! Leave! Now!” shrieked Locke.
“Everyone off the roof!” Ash shouted at the top of his lungs.
Pulling his hands out of the woman’s abdominal cavity, Ash used a thin filament of Qi to sew her closed. No sooner than he had closed her up, he grabbed her by the shoulders and a hip and flipped her up over his shoulder.
Groaning, the woman hung there unmoving.
“Thank you, Master Sheng. I’m yours,” whimpered the woman. A statue began to form in his Qi Sea at her words. “All yours. Everything.”
“Great, shut up and live,” Ash said, moving toward the stairwell.
Reaching the entrance, he handed her off to the woman who was standing there and staring up at the portal.
At some point, someone had figured out that he was tending to the wounded up here and had set up a system to carry the tended back down.
“Everyone off the roof!” Ash called for a second time.
At his first call, the vast majority of people on the roof had already been rushing toward the stairwell back down.
Now, given a second command, the rest were moving as well.
From the portal above came a roar that nearly made Ash lose control over his bladder.
In the next second, a gargantuan Wraith fell from the portal. It landed atop the roof with a shuddering slam.
Its legs went straight through the roof and into the floor below it.
The look of it was something more akin to the Lord-Wraith. Although, this one was slimmer and more muscular from what Ash could see, and it had six wings on its back.
Before Ash could contemplate the creature any more, it snatched up a woman from the other alliance and stuffed her headfirst into its large maw. Her entire body vanishing from view.
With a shriek from the woman, it began to casually chew her. Rolling her around in its mouth as her bones snapped and popped. Opening its mouth, it used its tongue to reposition the woman around.
Screaming all the while as it happened, the woman was being crushed to death between molars.
“Oh, my god,” Ash whispered, even as the creature continued to chew and torture the woman.
Then there was a sudden, loud crack and the woman’s screams finally, mercifully, cut off. Likely, it was the sound of her skull caving in.
“Get off the roof. It’s a damn Destroyer! An actual Destroyer showed up! We need to leave! Now!” Locke screamed.
In the time it took for the monster to have its meal, the rest of the rooftop combatants had fled down into the keep.
Including Ash.
Taking the steps almost too fast, he felt as though he was likely to slip and fall all the way down to the bottom.
Reaching the ground floor, Ash re-entered the throne room.
People were rushing around in every direction. Some bringing people in, and others going right back out.
“We need to clear out!” Ash yelled at the top of his lungs. At the same time, there was a loud thump from just outside that shook everything. “It’s time to go, right now!”
A number of people turned his way and began to all ask the same questions.
Everyone gave up on that line of questioning when a monstrous fist simply blasted into the room through the outside wall.
Slamming down, it flattened a young man to the ground almost accidentally. Shrieking on the ground, the man clearly had two broken legs now.
Darting to one side, the hand snatched up a Kin and jerked back out of the throne room. The Kin vanished with a scream.
No one looked like they wanted to argue the point anymore.
Like a flock of frightened sheep, everyone started rushing toward the back of the keep and the only other exit.
Unsurprisingly, the cultivators from the other alliance were the majority offenders causing the panic.
People from his own circle began gathering up the wounded and put together an ordered exit. Trav’s Kin and other people also looked to be getting out in an organized fashion.
Moving outside, Ash found his people had established an exit for everyone. The ground outside had been cleared of Wraiths.
In fact, when Ash looked around, he saw none at all, other than the bodies of a couple Soldier-Wraiths laid out on the ground not far away.
They looked to be wounded, but weren’t quite dead yet.
“Ashley, what do we—”
The Destroyer, as Locke had called it, came around the corner at that moment. In its left hand was the Cultivator that’d had both his legs broken.
Lifting the man up to its mouth, the Destroyer casually bit the screaming man off at the waist.
Dark malevolent eyes began to look over the mass of people arrayed out in front of it.
Walking toward them, it casually scooped up the two Soldier-Wraiths and transferred both to the hand that still held a half-eaten man.
“It eats anything. Wraiths or otherwise,” Locke murmured, his words tinged with despair. “And we’re all next. We can’t win against this.”
Trav darted forward, a spear in his hands.
A bright flash of light surrounded him as he lashed out with his weapon.
Striking true, the spear tip slammed into the chest of the creature.
And did nothing at all.
Ignoring Trav, the monster lifted its left hand and stuffed part of a Wraith into its mouth and took a big bite.
“Puny life-thing,” the Destroyer said in a dark, hideous voice. Then it chuckled grotesquely, blood and bits of flesh spraying out across Trav.
Trav had dashed backward as soon as it was apparent that the spear wasn’t going to do much.
Is there really nothing we can do?
“There really is nothing any of you can do. This is the problem. This… this is what happens to veils after a while. All veils. Makes way for new veils,” Locke lamented. “We had a short run. A good one, but a short run, my Chosen One.”
Stomping forward, the monster casually snatched up another Cultivator and Kin in the same grab.
The Cultivator was one of his own.
Charging forward at the Destroyer, Ash spun up his Dao and yanked on whatever Qi he had left available to him.
Instantly the world as it might be was laid out before him.
He could see that in the vast majority of his interactions with this creature, either his comrade would be devoured or Ash would be killed.
It wasn’t until he got within fifteen feet of the thing that newer futures began to appear. Ones where things changed and allowed him more leeway.
Because Trav had engaged the creature as well.
Sorting through all the attacks he could possibly do directly against the Destroyer, Ash found that most of them still ended in his death.
Or maiming.
Both of which were outcomes he didn’t wish for.
Changing his tactic, Ash focused on the idea of what he could do with Trav—utilizing him as a platform, attacking in concert with him, or even working to redirect Trav’s attack and empower it.
Once more the vast majority of the possibilities ended up with Ash dying or being horribly injured. Except quite a few of them included Trav being injured as well.
Of course, all of those futures involved the Cultivator and Kin both becoming little more than
a meal as soon as Trav and Ash were down. Sometimes even while the cousins were being dispatched.
There were a few possibilities, though.
One or two futures existed where Ash could use Trav as a springboard. Where Trav did, activated, or used some type of ability that sent Ash flying at high speed.
Combining that with Spring Step would turn him into a literal rocket.
But that course only upped the amount of damage Ash would ultimately cause himself.
Slamming into the Destroyer at that kind of speed seemed to break Ash’s leg or hip and not much else.
Trying out every single iteration even as he turned toward Trav to get launched, Ash was beginning to worry. Nothing seemed to work no matter which way he went.
Lifting his foot up, Ash half-hopped half-stepped towards Trav.
Who apparently interpreted that as wanting to be propelled toward the enemy. Exactly as Ash saw he would do.
By the time that Ash was coiling up in mid-jump while preparing Spring Step, he finally found something that’d work.
Or at least, partially.
Trav flung Ash almost like he was a bowling ball. Hurling the younger man forward in a strange under-handed pitch.
Using Spring Step just as Trav threw him, Ash went forward at an incredible speed.
He’d only had a second to decide his point of impact and aim.
Tearing his butterfly swords free from their sheath, Ash flipped them end over end, having the cutting edge face himself. Then he swapped the position of his head and his legs, putting his feet facing towards the monster.
Passing by the monster, Ash flew right over its shoulder.
Moving his hands forward by inches, Ash managed to do what he’d intended. He buried his blades into the thing’s shoulder.
Right at the joint.
The force of the toss was so great that Ash nearly lost his grip on his blades. Even as they sawed through the muscle and flesh of the arm and partially severed it.
Both the cultivator and Kin came free of its grasp as its fingers went limp. Each went bounding away even before Ash had come to a stop.
Dangling off the back of the Destroyer like a cape, Ash wasn’t sure if he’d be able to dislodge his weapons. The future he’d been able to see up to this point ended shortly after Trav attacked the monster’s wrist.
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