The Third Cut - Chapter 33 preview

The group was up early the next morning, stress and anticipation drawing each member from slumber early. Wu Ying eyed the others, many dressed and ready with their full araments for the first time. Even people like Yang Mu who had storage rings that she used to store her weapons was sporting others this time. He even glimpsed, beneath the robe of her dress, the flash of dark steel against her skin and that had him looking more closely.

Yang Mu cocked her head to the side, the motion drawing his gaze upwards. Then she raised a single, graceful eyebrow, a little mocking smile on her lips. Realising what it might look like, staring at her dress and chest like that, Wu Ying flushed.

“You could just ask…” She murmured, sending the words direct to his ears and making him flush even redder. Her smirk grew even wider, but snapped to the Colonel as the diminutive woman strode up, Sao Choi landing beside her and flapping its wings a few times to draw everyone’s attention.

“Sao Choi says there is no more hiding. When we exit, we will not have much time before we are beset by more demonic beasts. Any fighting is likely going to draw even more opponents to us,” Bich Trang said. “We have two options then. Fight them all, deplete the forces we are facing. Or…”

“Or?” Tou He said, taking the bait. Mich Trac smirked at the ex-monks foolishness, though he said nothing directly.

“Or we hurry. Push right into the battle, hold off our enemies and close the gate.”

“And you’re sure it’s a gate,” Tou He said. When she nodded, he looked over at Yang Mu and Minh Trac. “It’ll be easy enough to close, then, would it not? Just find the formation flags and destroy them?” Grinning, Tou He added. “If I can see it, I could probably burn it all down.”

“Let’s keep that as a backup plan,” Bich Trang said. “My orders are not just to close the gate, but to find the reason for the corruption. Burning it all to ashes will not allow me to do that.”

Tou He shrugged, looking unrepentant even as more than a few people eyed the wannabe arsonist. Yang Mu, having edged over to Wu Ying, leaned in close to whisper. “I’ll make sure to set-up an escape formation in case your friend gets too enthusiastic.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“Of course he is not.”

Somehow, he was not sure he believed her reassurance. He cocked his head to the side, then muttered softly to her. “Remind me to hand you your mother’s formation. The one I bargained for.”

Her eyes widened at his words, then she gave him one quick, short nod.

“We could combine the two options,” Thien Giang said. “Rush in, find out what caused this, gather whatever evidence we need and then retreat.” She shifted a little, looking further south, her gaze resting past the trees that blocked their view. Even so, all of them could sense the powerful spirits that moved through the woods, lurking at the edge of their perception. Creatures in the Core Formation realm, and a few even stronger than that. “If there’s multiple Nascent Soul beast who attack us…”

“Then would it not be better to wait?” Phuong Vy said. The scholar touched her side where she had mostly healed, though the occasional hitch in her stride indicated she was not completely fine. “If we draw them to us, we could prepare our formations beforehand.”

“But can we even win, against all of them?” Dinh Don said. “We already used one of our formations. With the number of Nascent Soul opponents we face…”

“We are not turning back,” Bich Trang said firmly, glaring at the scout. He raised his hands up, in supplication and she continued. “The danger is real. I am willing to listen to any suggestions others might have.”

“I don’t think we should try to fight them all,” Yang Mu said. “Nor should we try to breakthrough directly. It leaves too many monsters behind us, and our best formations have taken hours to break the corruption down.”

“If it’s a gate, it matters not,” Wu Ying said. “We just destroy the formation.”

“Unless the gate is anchored by a splinter,” Mich Tranc said. “If it is anchored and protected by the energy, we might have to breakdown the energy and splinter itself first. That would be the way I would create a self-replicating and lasting formation.”

The wind cultivator grimaced, then shot a look over at Tou He. The ex-monk shrugged his shoulders, for this level of discussion about formations and enchantments was over his head. He had even less knowledge of those things, never having bothered to study such subjects.

“I don’t like splitting up,” Be Long replied. “Our best fighters are the ones who need to be at the opening anyway.”

“And aren’t we quite far from it, a few days away minimum?” Phuong Vy said. “Is there really that many beasts that we will be wading through them for days on end?”

Dinh Don was the one to answer her then, his face grim. “There is no carpet of monsters before us, but each of those that are present are so powerful; their senses so widespread that we cannot help but lure them towards us. The first battle we begin will be enough to alert the rest.”

“Can we not anger them?” Wu Ying said, instead. “Demonic beasts do not normally stay together, so if we can aggravate them against one another…”

“These are staying quiescent, soaking in the corrupted chi. They are happy with the current status. Those beasts who might have chosen to fight are dead or driven way. Though there might be some fighting when they near us,” Dinh Don said. “But I would not count on it.”

Yang Mu pulled her fan out, waving it in front of her face and generating a little wind before him. Wu Ying cocked his head, noting a look in her eyes, the way she was thinking. The others were talking, arguing with one another about the plan, but Wu Ying was waiting.

His patience was rewarded soon enough. “We don’t split ourselves. We split the enemy.”

“What rubbish do you speak of?” Minh Trac said.

“We have lures, ways to bring the enemy to us. We have illusion and confoundment formations, and we can, with the right kind of adjustment, anger the demon beasts when they near one another. If they are fighting one another here, we can thin their ranks. And put distance between us and them,” Yang Mu said, snapping her fan closed and waving it around with her words. “We don’t fight them all, we let them fight each other. And if we move fast enough, we never have to worry about them catching up.”

“That’s… not a bad idea,” Minh Trac reluctantly agreed.

Yang Mu snorted but her gaze was locked on the older Colonel. She was silent, obviously considering the outlined strategy. In the end, she nodded. “It’s a start. But there’s details to be sorted out.”

“We’ll need to work fast,” Dinh Don said. “The Night Shadow formation is beginning to fail.”

“Then, let us begin.”

***

Saying and doing it was, of course, two different things. The special unit was, if nothing else, thorough in their planning. With an overall strategy in mind and agreed upon, Bich Trang was swift to deploy orders with the specialist in the unit offering minor suggestions and improvements to the specifics.

Dinh Don would lure the creatures towards them, targeting – if possible – the swifter and more proximate demonic creatures. Destroying them beforehand would mean the group reduced the risk they ran. At the same time, the swift beasts would likely be the first to disengage in battle and chase after them, so killing them was paramount.

Minh Trac was busy building formations with the aid of Yang Mu. The pair were working formation plates – metallic plates the size of a large serving plate – with adjusted runic formations, working calculations into the plates themselves for their use in the surroundings whilst dug deep into the earth. It would reduce their effectiveness overall, but it would also ensure that accidental attacks would not see the flags destroyed.

The pair were arguing viciously, throwing occasional barbed insult at one another while their hands flew across the metal, etching directly into the prescribed enchantments, dribbling gold dust or jade or other enchanted mixtures to seal the newly reformed works. At the same time, for all their bickering, the pair were working well together. Which was good.

Theirs was the most important aspect of this entire procedure after all, for they were forming the entrapment and illusion formations that would contain the monsters. Preferably without the demonic beasts knowing they were otherwise trapped.

At the same time, the pair had to add an escape formation that would allow the group to exit the clearing when it was time to run, or they too would be interred within. A prospect that none of them anticipated.

“Focus. You have to grind those pills down to a fine dust, but not release too much of it into the wind,” Phuong Vy snapped, drawing Wu Ying’s own attention back to his own task. With only one functioning hand, the wind cultivator was relegated to helping the other pillar of their plan, the alchemist and scholar.

Looking down at the pestle he held in his hand, he eyed the pills he was slowly grinding apart, his motions carefully measured. Using the Three Star, Six Pulses method of grinding as had been taught to him by Liu Tsong ages ago, he was crushing the alchemist’s pills and dried herbs to create an enraging concoction. The dust was to be used to lower the inhibitions of the demonic beasts and increase their anger while adding a small level of irritant – the equivalent of itching powder – to the air. In this way, they would keep the monsters within fighting one another.

That was his job, since he still had some minor control over his winds and could guide the air to send any particles high into the air to be dispersed away from them, from his or the alchemist’s own working.

Phuong Vy herself was standing beside her alchemical cauldron, chi flowing from her hand as she brewed up a series of enticements for the demonic beasts. While the alchemist had a wide range of stores for numerous scenarios, she had never envisioned that required her to lure such a vast quantity of creatures to them and keep them close. As such, rather than make do – as she was having Wu Ying process them – she had elected to make the pills direct.

Thankfully for Wu Ying’s ego, he had been able to help a little there with the addition of various herbs that she had been missing, offering substitutes when neither party had the required optimal item. The resulting concoction would likely be significantly reduced in effectiveness, but the group was betting on the innate aggressiveness of these creatures to do the majority work anyway.

In the meantime, the rest of the team were preparing the surroundings for the battle. Traps and simple blood and death talismans were being laid, pits dug and trees cut and branches sharpened so that they could utilize the surroundings to their best effects.

Time passed quickly, the sun rising and the last of the Night Shadow formation breaking apart as the lingering traces of Yin energy and moonlit infused chi disappeared. The formation flags were left where they were, their energies drained and the material already half-consumed by the energies coursing through them over the night. Forced to combat the early morning Yang energies, they had come apart even faster.

Still, their use in this way had offered the team a few extra precious hours, sufficient for the team to have completed the majority of their tasks.

Pouring the powder into clay urns via a funnel, a silk covering over his face, Wu Ying cocked his head to the side. His hand, his damaged hand, holding the funnel wavered for a moment before he clamped iron will onto it and forced it to still. The reason for his distraction made itself known to the rest of the team soon enough, as Dinh Don released another shout of surprise and fear, the thunder of skittering feet preceding his desperate dash.

Time was up.