Chapter 461: Against the Masterful Patriarchs

For the first several seconds, it was absolute chaos: Xir Xan Khan unleashing his presence technique, Jackal Thirteen's puppets charging, and patriarchs raining down attacks from every side. A less well-organized trio might have been overwhelmed, but they easily wheeled together, evading or deflecting as necessary even as they counterattacked.

For his part, Kai unleashed all of the Manticore Quills he had been building up during the conversation. The result was a torrent of lethal spikes toward every opponent in range, each carrying the most dangerous poison he could manage. Even someone like Xir Xan Khan was forced to fully focus on defense, and the patriarch generating huge spheres was forced to use his qi to burn several quills. Kai only took out a few of the Earth Souls playing support, but in a battle like this, buying time was feat enough.

Aside from passive monsters, he had Baleful Breath, Manticore's Quill, Void Gaze, and Banchlain's Aura. Not necessarily what he would have chosen if he'd known what they'd be facing, but there would be no time to change essence mid-battle. Given how many opponents attacked at range, he wished he had Tyrant's Claw prepared, and again wished his soul would grow new monstrous spaces faster.

Once their opponents recovered from the initial onslaught, all the ranged patriarchs began summoning techniques, aiming to turn their combat space into a hellscape. Omilaena's gaze flickered toward the headquarters and Zae Zin Nim nodded, and like that it was decided.

First Omilaena blew out a cloud of smoke in a ring around them, obscuring their location before it flowed out in a column that tried to surround Xir Xan Khan. He dodged aside, of course, eyes darting to find them in the smoke. Was he looking for Zae Zin Nim... or was he actually focused more on Kai?

Either way, it didn't matter: the three of them threw up shrouds and vanished.

Soon enough techniques slammed into the ring of smoke, spheres and lightning and giant dragons of qi. The area was blasted apart and there was no one left to be seen: they had traveled down the column of smoke away from the original ring, getting partway across the battlefield before the others realized.

Jackal Thirteen seemed to understand first, leaping in their path and sending a small army of puppets to arc around from either side in a pincer maneuver. Before they could attack, Zae Zin Nim's Coldfire Palm swept out of the smoke like a meteor. It forced him back and flattened two of the weaker puppets into the bedrock, then they were racing on.

Based on what she had indicated, Omilaena thought they should keep moving toward the Verdant River sect headquarters. Kai wasn't entirely sure what she intended: maybe to try to take young masters hostage, maybe to meet Nymidria, maybe even to attack their remaining vault. In any case, racing between their opponents was a better strategy than standing still to be flanked, or moving toward the Redtree rebels, who would be fodder at best and betrayers at worst.

As they raced through the sky, Kai marveled that they could actually compete on this stage. Their opponents were patriarchs and elites, some of the strongest cultivators on the continent. But they had spent over a year on Cloudspire increasing their strength, preparing for a battle just like this, and it had apparently been enough.

Between Omilaena's needles and his quills, they were a lethal threat to anyone within their range. Their speed could evade most attacks, especially with half-phase mastery, and Zae Zin Nim deflected those they couldn't. When necessary, he could use Baleful Breath to raze entire swaths of ground, preventing any weaker cultivators from gathering into formations.

Even at these speeds, they couldn't reach the sect headquarters immediately, and their opponents were beginning to adapt to the high speed combat. Eventually one of the patriarchs leapt ahead of them with some sort of teleportation technique and began to manifest an amorphous technique that seemed to be truly dangerous.

Kai fixed him in place with Void Gaze, but it only slowed him down. The old man spat out a mouthful of blood and began spinning his qi rapidly, attaining the half-phase that made cultivators so dangerous. With a sneer, he unleashed a house-sized mass of green qi into their path.

Since they had no time to evade, Zae Zin Nim met it with her usual palm technique. But as she struck, the blob exploded intentionally, scattering lethal globes of acid in all directions. She fell back, barely protected by the Coldfire Corona, and the others were swept up in the storm.

On instinct Kai grabbed Omilaena and spun so that the acid struck his back instead of her. It hurt more than he expected, burning deep into muscle and rendering him frozen for several seconds, which was an eternity in combat like this. Only Omilaena kept them flying, hurling needles from around his body as he pulled himself together.

Behemoth's Heart was pounding wildly, regenerating his body from the deep acid burns. He could take it and keep fighting, but couldn't afford to endure attacks like that repeatedly. Worse, the hesitation had allowed their opponents time to catch up and form together.

Just how many cultivators had they brought? A patriarch forming another acid blob, the old man who created the tracking spheres, a matriarch summoning more lightning... not to mention Xir Xan Khan and Jackal Thirteen catching up to them, still focused on their chosen targets.

"Wait," Kai said, just loud enough for the others to hear. They obeyed, even though Omilaena shot him an uncertain glance. With opponents closing in from all sides, staying in place could be a fatal mistake.

Since their opponents had formed up in front of them, Kai unleashed Banchlain's Aura, then tried to fix them in place with Void Gaze. The combination of the two clearly shocked even the patriarchs and matriarchs... but it wasn't enough to stop them.

Instead, sneers growing on their faces, the group generated their greatest techniques again. While Zae Zae Zin Nim grappled with Xir Xan Khan and Omilaena desperately tried to keep Jackal Thirteen's puppets at bay, Kai watched the enemy, only slowing them down as they formed another sphere, an even larger blob of acid, and lightning spells.

Of course, he hadn't believed he could stop them all. Kai focused all of Void Gaze's power solely on the acid and hurled a Manticore Quill.

Too late, the patriarch realized that his acid technique refused to move, then the quill struck and it exploded. The deadly acid tore through the battlefield in a horrendous sphere of destruction, battering or injuring all the cultivators in range. Only a thin line of fighters failed to move, bound in place by Void Gaze.

Kai and the others tore down that line while their opponents staggered, leaving behind the enemies charging after them. Against opponents like these, that wasn't enough to end the battle, but the patriarchs were clearly taken aback. Many snarled in rage or yelled out comments he didn't hear in the wind... and they hesitated just a little, giving him time to move onward.

When the sect headquarters appeared on the horizon, the race was almost over. They shot toward it at a flying sprint, driving themselves at unsustainable speeds and leaving attacks in their wake. As he arrived over the great walls, Kai wondered if they had made a mistake.

Most of the sect was heavily damaged and they didn't have many forces remaining, but it also didn't offer many advantages. Nymidria's boughs seemed to be pinned down by some sort of golden web... and the source of that web was rising toward them in a column of light.

"These are the ones that caused my son so much trouble?" The man who spoke had the unlined but aged face of an immortal and wore the golden robes of the Masterful Crown clan... but unlike his son Yul Wei Ren, he didn't need a physical crown, because a golden circle of light glowed over his head. "Incompetents, one and all."

This could only be Patriarch Yul, the head of the Yul family and the entire Masterful Crown clan. While he spoke, Kai examined the immortal's soul...

<

Name: Patriarch Yul

Total Power: 1811

Cultivation: Sky Soul (1000)

Heavenly Cultivation (250)

Physique: E-0 (80)

Soul Level: 9 (81)

Master's Crown (400)

>

And he didn't like what he saw. The patriarch of the Masterful Crown clan was an extraordinary Sky Soul with over 1800 Power. Worse, much of it was concentrated in an ability called "Master's Crown" and Kai strongly suspected that all the other crown-like presence techniques they'd seen were just reflections of this original.

The crown gleamed brighter and the presence hit them like a wall. Its power was so overwhelming that some of their pursuers staggered back and the three of them were trapped in place. Kai could see that Zae Zin Nim was trembling in a combat stance, focused on her qi, while Omilaena had just barely injected herself with a defense in time.

Then there was no more time to think about anyone else, because he needed his full attention for the struggle. Banchlain's Aura in its present form was just barely enough to resist the technique, and when he tried to used Void Gaze in retaliation, his power seemed to hit an unmovable wall.

"What is this?" The patriarch looked astonished that he was being resisted and applied more power, making Kai wince and slide backward in the air. He could still hold his own, but for the first time he was being truly pushed back in a duel of presences. Worse, they had opponents recovering and approaching from behind, so they'd be annihilated if they couldn't get out of this bind...

Something shattered underneath them and the battlefield shook. A silvery light swept from below, breaking apart the standoff, and Kai risked a look down. Then stared.

Nymidria had destroyed the golden net binding her and now tore from the ground, taking a massive portion of the sect's bedrock with her. The dryad matriarch rose into the air on a platform of stone so vast it could have been used as a battlefield. He realized that he'd underestimated just how much stronger she'd grown during her work with Omilaena.

<

Name: Nymidria

Total Power: 1651

Physique Level: E-0 (80)

Dryad Essence: 149 (653)

Iron Bark (+200)

Cultivation: Earth Soul 60% (507)

Arboreal Meridians (+75)

Soul Level: 6 (36)

Sapphire Core (+100)

>

"I didn't expect you," Nymidria said, "but I'm not complaining."

"This is only delaying the inevitable!" the Masterful Crown patriarch shouted.

He tried to use his golden crown again, but Nymidria was faster, tendrils of silvery power lashing out like roots. They couldn't touch the man himself, but they wrapped around his golden column, disrupting his attempt to use his presence technique.

If it had been just them, they could have won then, but their opponents weren't arrogant enough to fight alone. All of the others caught up in that moment, and though they unleashed multiple different attacks, it was the matriarch who redefined the battlefield. She had been gathering qi during the entire race and now unleashed it from above in an apocalyptic storm of lightning.

There was no blocking that: Kai and the others split in opposite directions to escape. For a terrifying second he was streaking through crackling air, then he reoriented just outside the headquarters to catch his bearings.

Before he could locate everyone, a net of golden lines descended over the battlefield. They tried to bind him, but melted off Banchlain's Aura... and receded into stronger lines. He realized too late that the Masterful Crown patriarch wasn't intending to bind them all, he was dividing the battlefield. There were burning walls all across the sect and surrounding territory now, dividing it into clear wedges that centered on the patriarch himself.

The lines were strong enough that they sheared sections off of Nymidria's flying island, though she herself had avoided any damage. It looked like there was someone else in her wedge of the battlefield, perhaps the patriarch who used the acid blobs - an intentional tactic, if that would be more useful against such a large target?

Then Kai had no time to think about anyone but himself, because there were multiple cultivators hurling attacks at him. Without even looking at them, Kai leapt away to the nearest barrier. He slammed his claw against it and was surprised when he was knocked back. A Manticore Quill also failed to penetrate the shimmering golden wall... this was a strong defensive technique.

And it split them apart, taking away their ability to collaborate.

"Let's see how well you can fight without your women to protect you."

Kai recognized the voice before he turned: Xir Xan Khan was walking toward him at the head of a group of cultivators, pinning him within one wedge of the battlefield.

(Cognosticon here, brief update. I'm currently negotiating a large deal for Depthless Hunger, but it's taking a lot of time and energy. The biggest change is that I'll be switching chapters on RR to post in a single bundle weekly on Fridays.

People here mostly wanted daily chapters, so I'll keep them that way at least for March. However, I think I need to drop to four a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. The schedule for this deal has stretched the timeline in an unusual way and I'm concerned about maintaining the current pace. More information as I can reveal it.)