Depthless Hunger-Chapters 461-464

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.

Chapter 462: Three Fragments, Three Rivalries

For the first several seconds of the fight, Omilaena saw a chance to end it all: Jackal Thirteen was disoriented and separated from many of his puppets. She put everything she could into her first assault, desperately trying to finish him off before he could regroup.

It wasn't quite enough. She came within a hair of killing him, but her syringe missed his neck and his razor head sliced across her side.

So, as the puppets began to surround her, she found herself injured and outnumbered. The Masterful Crown patriarch floated in the center of the battlefield, golden walls slicing out from him and separating the battlefield into wedges. Omilaena's slice was one of the smaller ones, so she didn't have any other patriarchs to deal with, but Jackal Thirteen alone could be a problem.

"Annoying, aren't they?" The Jackal mercenary was buying time for positioning by speaking, but that might not be a bad idea.

"Just how are they paying you for this?" Omilaena asked.

"I only accept payment in power, and they offered me an impressive sort of immortality."

Without warning, one of the puppets lurched from out of the rubble, nearly catching Omilaena. She ducked underneath its attack and kicked it aside, and this time she was fast enough to use ice qi to freeze the next thread lashing out at her. All of the other puppets were in position, but she'd been tracking them and managed to flip away.

As she sailed through the air, she exhaled a cloud of poison toward Jackal Thirteen, forcing him to retreat. Of course his puppets pushed through, immune to the poison. She discovered that she could partially control the battlefield with clouds of poison, since that would determine whether her opponent attacked personally or used his puppets.

Unfortunately, that was basically just choosing her risks, because both were dangerous. Some of the puppets could use projectiles, and his threads could slice at her from anywhere on the battlefield, so the combination would slowly whittle her own.

"It seems like they already gave you immortality," Omilaena said once she got a second to breathe, then withdrew a jar of immortality elixir from her spatial satchel. "If you want more, I actually have a much larger supply."

Jackal Thirteen hesitated, staring at the jar and feeling its power, then shook his head. "I can just take that off your corpse, which is a better prize. Besides, the real payment they have for me is completing this sort of immortality. It's slightly flawed, as I suspect you're smart enough to see."

"Did they actually show you a method of completing it? Because to me it looks like it's just fundamentally flawed and they're pretending to have an answer."

His eyes narrowed, but this time he didn't hesitate. All of the puppets were in position and they hurled themselves at her at the same time that more deadly threads glimmered across the battlefield.

Maybe she was too untrustworthy, maybe he just didn't care. Omilaena took a deep breath and injected herself with one of her desperation cards. This could get much worse.

.

..

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At first Kai had been focused on defending himself, trying to fight Xir Xan Khan as well as all his supporting cultivators. He'd taken multiple injuries that would have brought down most warriors, only kept moving by Behemoth's Heart. The heir to the Coiling Island sect was strong on his own, and unfortunately good at working together with others.

But Kai had been holding back, letting them get overconfident. When they tried to close in on him, he froze the lesser cultivators with Void Gaze, then exhaled Baleful Breath. The cloud of death roiled out over his section of the battlefield, covering the ground and slamming against the golden walls hard enough that they trembled.

All of the weaker cultivators were consumed, and for a moment Kai thought that he'd caught Xir Xan Khan as well, but then a beam of purple shot up from the cloud and Xir Xan Khan resolved floating over it.

"The patriarch of the Masterful Crown clan refused to listen to reason," Xir Xan Khan said. "If he had followed my plan, this would already be over."

"Then your plan failed, didn't it?" Kai said. The other man's eyes narrowed, but he didn't fall for the bait.

"I can't believe that a perfect woman like Zae Zin Nim, who should have had everything, would waste any time with you. What hold do you have over her? I don't know how you stole her from me, but I'm taking her back."

Kai set his feet within the darkness. "Have you even had a single personal conversation with her?"

"Silence! I don't have to listen to your childish view of the world!"

His opponent streaked forward, shifting to light and back in an impressive mastery of his greater flight technique. Kai anticipated the attack and dodged with Thunderbird's Wings, leaving his opponent to be struck by the shockwave. But Xir Xan Khan was tough enough to endure it and arced after him again, attacking before he could even hit the ground.

The two of them clashed multiple times in the air, battering one another in opposite directions. Kai found that he was faster, but his opponent was more agile, capable of curving at any angle with his greater flight. For a time they seemed to be fighting evenly, which would work in his favor because his stamina and regeneration were superior. Unless the others were losing their fights...

In his moment of distraction, Kai wasn't quite fast enough. Xir Xan Khan managed to grab one of his wings and slammed him into the golden wall. An instant later his palm struck Kai's back, forcing a mouthful of blood as the force slammed into his internal organs.

"This isn't a duel," Xir Xan Khan hissed as he pushed him further into the barrier. "You're a beast, and this is an extermination."

Kai transformed his wing, extending Manticore Quills where Xir Xan Khan was holding it. The young heir fell back, wincing in pain at the quills piercing through his hand, and Kai turned his head to unleash Baleful Breath.

It wasn't quite fast enough, as his opponent evaded with greater flight again, but when he reformed one of his legs was burned. Closer. Kai braced his feet on the golden wall and pushed off.

.

..

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Even though Patriarch Yul had completely transformed the battlefield, Zae Zin Nim wasn't immediately worried. This division relied on their arrogance, assuming that the three of them were only surviving due to their coordination. In fact, she believed in their individual strength and suspected their opponents got more advantage from superior numbers, so splitting them apart was not necessarily in their favor.

Case in point: in her wedge of the battlefield she was facing off against the matriarch who summoned lightning. Her technique was powerful, but it required time to generate. In close quarters, Zae Zin Nim could easily avoid it, or continue pressuring her.

The old woman had 1500 Power, so she would be an overwhelming Sky Soul in most situations... but that was no longer out of reach for Zae Zin Nim. Of course the matriarch had martial arts and many other qi techniques, but when they got in range, Zae Zin Nim's Brightwind martial arts pierced through her attempts at grand techniques.

She managed to land a palm strike and the matriarch flew back, crashing against one of the golden walls before regaining her stability with flight. Zae Zin Nim wished she could finish her off, but in that moment another enemy circled around: it was the patriarch who used the pursuing spheres, and he already had one charged: he released it toward her with Zae Zin Nim caught between golden walls.

As she tried to flee upward, she noticed that Nymidria was struggling to hold her own against the acid-using patriarch. Yet in that moment, the dryad looked up and caught her gaze through the golden walls. They were beginning to crack, with spiritual roots growing into them, so they only needed a little more...

Instead of trying to evade the sphere closing on her, Zae Zin Nim chose a much more dangerous tactic: she took it head on, softly redirecting the attack instead of blocking it. She effectively threw the sphere aside, into the cracked golden wall.

The explosion made the battlefield shudder and Zae Zin Nim would have been blown away if she hadn't used the Coldfire Corona to protect herself. She had planned to use a Coldfire Palm to strike while everyone else was disoriented, but she was too shaken and her mana was in use, so she just floated back through the air as she saw the devastation.

One of the golden walls had been blown apart and others around the battlefield partially dissolved. That surprised her until she saw that Nymidria was sending a storm of razor sharp leaves at Patriarch Yul, cutting through his robes and severely impacting his concentration.

With a moment to breathe, Zae Zin Nim spotted Omilaena in the middle of a desperate battle against the Jackal mercenary. She could definitely use help, but where was Kai? Zae Zin Nim spotted him a while later, chasing after Xir Xan Khan... the heir to the Coiling Island sect was running, but he didn't look afraid.

Instead he escaped the region of golden walls, not far from her, and cast some sort of jade talisman to the ground. Zae Zin Nim wasn't familiar with the artifact, but the spell inlaid in it seemed like communication, not an attack. A moment later, she realized that this was worse.

"Zae Clen Ban!" the heir shouted, "do you see? They can't win this battle without you, and they don't care about your daughter's life!"

"So disappointing." The voice was barely audible amid the sounds of battle, yet it sent a chill down Zae Zin Nim's spine. She stared as a misty figure began to form above the talisman. "As usual, there's no choice but to handle things myself."

It was too late to stop the teleportation: her father walked out of the mist and onto the battlefield.

Chapter 463: Brightwind Family Reunion

"Oh daughter, you have been so willful."

Even if he hadn't made it explicit, Kai had no doubt that this man must be Zae Zin Nim's father. His hair was the same jet black and he wore the same elegant cloud-patterned robes she had brought to Deadwaste. There was something similar in their sharp chins and even their narrow eyes, though he'd come to love Zae Zin Nim's expressions, whereas her father's eyes looked hateful.

"I have sent many cultivators after you, only for you to reject them time and time again. Cease this foolish resistance, daughter."

She took an uncertain step toward him, eyes widening slightly. Kai wanted to act, but he was blocked by the golden barrier. Xir Xan Khan had left in order to create the teleportation technique, so he was momentarily free, but there were other patriarchs in range now that some of the walls had collapsed. Even if he could get there, the space around the father and daughter was one of the only calm locations on the battlefield.

"Good." Zae Clen Ban's face spread in a benevolent smile. "Come back to me, Zin Nim. Come home and-" freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

Kai was proud of how swiftly Zae Zin Nim struck. In an instant the uncertainty vanished and her expression became merciless as her palm rushed at her father's chest.

It seemed like she had fooled him, because her palm strike very nearly landed. But Zae Clen Ban was a patriarch of a major sect and one of the most powerful cultivators in the world, so his reaction time was fast enough to recover. He just managed to sweep aside her palm and struck out, as if to slap her, like one would discipline a rogue child.

The retaliatory blow impacted his arm hard enough that the patriarch winced in pain, and once again Zae Zin Nim nearly managed to catch his chest with another palm strike. As the two of them struggled, using the same precise martial arts, Kai managed to make out the man's soul.

<

Name: Zae Clen Ban

Total Power: 1856

Cultivation: Sky Soul (1000)

Heavenly Cultivation (325)

Physique: D-0 (200)

Soul Level: 9 (81)

Brightwind Meridian Perfection (250)

>

With over 1800 Power, Zae Clen Ban was unquestionably one of the strongest people on the continent, comparable to the great powers of Rosemount. There was no time to analyze his power further, because at that moment lightning thundered from above and Kai had no choice but to evade.

For a time the battle around them was complete chaos, different forces attacking from all angles before Nymidria unleashed more spiritual roots. They twisted through the foundations, striking some opponents, forming new walls, and disrupting the battlefield. The dryad matriarch might not be the strongest on the field, even after all Omilaena's enhancements, but her abilities made her formidable.

It looked like Xir Xan Khan had been separated by the spirit roots, so Kai caught another moment to look. He saw that the two Brightwind cultivators were locked in an even more intense melee, both whirlwinds of spinning robes that refused to give an inch.

Even though Zae Clen Ban had a strong edge in power, he wasn't so far ahead that he could treat his daughter lightly. In the beginning, she had punished him for that, but as he took the battle seriously, the tide began to turn. It wasn't even his overwhelming qi, just skill born from countless decades of killing other cultivators.

Suddenly it ended with a strike to Zae Zin Nim's shoulder. She skidded backward, slamming into one of the golden walls and coughing up blood.

"So it's true!" Zae Clen Ban stared at the dark blood and shook his head. "I didn't believe it... you don't have much time left, my daughter, before you fall from the true path forever."

The sight of the blood seemed to have saddened him, slowing his attack... but the effect was worse on Zae Zin Nim. She had been fighting at her absolute peak, using all her half-phase training from the Frontier and everything she had learned across years of fighting, and it hadn't been enough. Kai wanted to tell her that she had made incredible progress, going from her father being invincible to being within reach, yet he could see that her failure shook her.

Kai had several patriarchs between him and Zae Zin Nim, it looked like Omilaena was locked in deadly combat with Jackal Thirteen, and the battlefield was still sundered by spiritual walls and roots... he didn't see a good way to prevent this from continuing.

In the end, it wasn't any action of his.

The battle overhead between Nymidria and the Masterful Crown patriarch ended in a golden explosion. Nymidria had fought admirably, but she couldn't overcome the gap in power and now her island fell back, scraping violently against one of the golden walls. Before she could recover, a devastating column of lightning tore through her island.

Somehow Nymidria managed to avoid being struck directly, but the lightning blew apart the rock she was levitating. It shattered, sending boulders in all directions cascading down between golden walls. Those shuddered, but the greater effect was that spiritual roots came down all across the battlefield, opening it up more than it had been in some time.

Kai was one of the first to act, shooting between gaps in the barriers to try to help Zae Zin Nim. He released a Manticore Quill toward Zae Clen Ban's back, but a sphere of wind lit up around the patriarch - similar to what he'd seen from some lesser Brightwind cultivators, just far stronger. Then the immortal waved a hand in his direction and the rush of wind was so powerful that it sent Kai skidding against one of the golden walls.

Instead of wasting time reversing direction, Kai flew toward Omilaena instead. She was desperately blowing a cloud of poison to try to hold off her opponent, but it would only be seconds before the puppets broke through the smoke to come after her.

So Kai breathed a wall of Baleful Breath just after the poison. The puppets that plunged through first died in disturbing silence, but Jackal Thirteen must have noticed, because he jerked the others back to safety. In that time, Kai grabbed Omilaena around the waist, then burst backward with another shockwave of Thunderbird's Wings.

"We can't let Zin Nim fight her father like this," he hissed. Omilaena glanced back once, then nodded.

"Qi first, then chakra."

He followed the plan before being completely sure what she even meant by it. They flashed between Zae Zin Nim and her father, both unleashing attacks. First Kai launched Manticore Quills made from pure qi, and he saw that Omilaena hurled a knife of icy qi. Both were destroyed by another sphere of wind, and Zae Clen Ban let out a snort as he began to retaliate.

But the attacks that followed were both formed from pure chakra. The wind sphere technique, optimized for an environment of pure qi, didn't destroy them nearly as quickly. Needle and quill nearly struck him before Zae Clen Ban retreated back a step, scowling, and in that moment they grabbed Zae Zin Nim and retreated further.

Kai had needed to grab her under one arm, but she struggled to stand for herself. She had been shaken, but hardly broken. When they came to a stop with several walls between them and the patriarchs, Zae Zin Nim appeared to have gathered herself again.

"I can't fight him as I am now," she said.

"None of us can," Kai said. "Do we retreat?"

"I don't think Nymidria can," Omilaena pointed out. "The only way she's keeping up is that she's drawing off other sources of power like her garden, and those will fail if she moves too far. Plus our opponents practically all have mobility techniques. We need to cripple them more if we want to get away."

"Give me time." Zae Zin Nim closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm so close with the Blackblood Physique... I just need a little more time."

"Are you sure this is the place for that?"

Before Kai could think of a solution or compromise, a different voice wafted in their minds. "I can shield you for a while," Nymidria whispered. "I have been planting strength for decades, and if I don't use it now, I will be destroyed. Use this opportunity or we have no chance."

Vines began to tear from the battlefield - not silvery spirits, but real vines that lashed out with unnatural strength. They ripped apart the walls of the sect just with their growth, some gripped cultivators and smashed them to the ground, others threatened the patriarchs. When they were struck with lightning or acid, the vines resisted with a gleaming layer of mana.

And, aside from all that chaos, a half-dome of vines and rubble grew up near their position. Not wasting any more time, Zae Zin Nim rushed inside and sat down, beginning to pull out the resources she'd collected. Attacks and more rubble rained down, but she ignored them as they only piled up around the shield, effectively burying her.

Kai groaned and began drawing on the Savage Heart for sustained combat. "Think we can hold them off long enough?"

Omilaena spun a syringe and a needle into her hands. "No fucking clue."

There was no sign of Zae Clen Ban, which was ominous, but Kai could see Xir Xan Khan and Jackal Thirteen approaching from opposite directions.

Chapter 464: A Matriarch's Last Stand

This would work. It had to, or she would fail everyone.

Zae Zin Nim judged that their success this far was only partially due to their own strength. A significant portion was Nymidria, who had planted and nurtured sources of power for decades as she worked with the Verdant River sect. Now she was burning through all of those in minutes, producing a truly heroic effort that could keep so many enemies at bay... and couldn't possibly be enough.

The other main limitation of their enemy was that they failed to coordinate properly. Too many of them were patriarchs, unused to working together with others. Those who served under the Masterful Crown clan were at least taking orders from the same place, but her father, Xir Xan Khan, the mercenary, and others didn't even share the same objectives.

So she had a limited amount of time to find a solution for her Physique, before their opponents either banded together or got lucky and destroyed the shell protecting her. Zae Zin Nim took a deep breath and began drinking the familiar resources, willing herself not to back away this time, to finally take that final step that was keeping her from finding a real solution.

How long did she have? It all depended on her father, and whether he would be willing to work with the others... her father...

No, she couldn't think about that. Couldn't think at all. The only thing that remained was for her to do.

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..

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Even though the duel was technically two against many, Kai was surprised how well he and Omilaena fought together. Xir Xan Khan might have hired Jackal Thirteen, but the two of them had no combat experience together, and in fact didn't even trust one another. By contrast, he and Omilaena worked together like a well-oiled machine, sliding around one another as they fought.

Going toe-to-toe with Xir Xan Khan never produced a strong result, since the cultivator was too polished to be simply overpowered, while he couldn't cause a deep enough injury to truly inhibit Kai. Meanwhile Omilaena and Jackal Thirteen endlessly circled one another's weaknesses: her ice qi could freeze his threads, but her poison did little against his puppets.

Continuing like this wasn't an option: they might be able to win this match-up, but all the patriarchs and other opponents would eventually destroy Nymidria, then they wouldn't have a chance. Kai decided that he had to take a gamble and leapt in between the two enemies, ready to take the inevitable hits.

Instead, a shockwave swept over the battlefield, sending them all tumbling wildly. Kai was completely off balance as he bounced over the rubble and Omilaena leapt on his back, practically riding him and urging him to move onward.

Since the impacts against the ground barely hurt him, Kai let the shockwave carry them further, some distance away from the sect headquarters. That meant being further away from Zae Zin Nim, but maybe they could draw fire away from her. It also gave them space to figure out what had happened to cause such a shockwave, and when he looked up, at first he wasn't sure what he was seeing.

Zae Clen Ban hovered in the air opposite the Masterful Crown patriarch, his palm pressing against a wall of gold qi. The two were shouting at one another as their power clashed and lesser shockwaves rolled over the battlefield.

For a moment Kai hoped they had turned on one another and the enemy coalition would fall apart, but that would have been too lucky. For anyone, much less him. Instead he checked on Xir Xan Khan and Jackal Thirteen, who had been knocked in different directions, and then glanced to Omilaena.

"Did you see what happened?"

"Zae Clen Ban was going to strike Nymidria," she explained tersely, "and Patriarch Yul accidentally hit him with his presence technique."

"Too much to hope they'll fight?"

"Definitely. We only have a little longer to prepare."

What could he even do, given so little time? Omilaena appeared to be preparing another injection for herself, but Kai was running out of new tricks and didn't dare switch essence in a battle like this. Instead he took stock of the other patriarchs scattered around the battlefield, who were also looking nervously at the two powers clashing. It seemed like they had realized they were far from invincible in a battle like this, which made them more cautious than they would otherwise be.

Finally the two split: the Masterful Crown patriarch released his aura and Zae Clen Ban withdrew his hand. It seemed that they had dealt with their egos, because they turned away from one another to the rest of the battlefield to end things.

And in that moment, Nymidria struck.

More roots tore from the ground, making the sky tremble with their power. Kai could see that the dryad matriarch's leaves were dissolving into qi as she burned her life essence, but she unlocked an almost horrifying level of growth. As the roots flickered blue many of them punched directly through the golden shields, while others assaulted the enemies around her.

One even managed to wrap around the man who had unleashed the globes of acid, and he let out a scream as the roots penetrated his body. An enormous amount of qi began draining from him, flooding down the roots into the earth, and in the same moment Nymidria glowed with new strength. One of her roots rose like a serpent and then split open, blasting the two central patriarchs with an onslaught of chakra, qi, and mana.

Against such a flood of power, even the two of them were halted... but not injured. Zae Clen Ban protected himself with another sphere of wind, while the Masterful Crown patriarch relied on his presence technique to shield him.

It was only a matter of time. They needed to make that time count.

"Now?" Kai asked. Omilaena just nodded and leapt away from him.

They flew across the top of the battlefield, ignoring their old opponents in favor of the patriarchs who still hovered overhead. Omilaena leapt off Kai's back, so light he barely noticed, and flew toward the matriarch. She unleashed bolt after bolt of lightning, but Omilaena wove in between them agilely as she closed the distance.

Meanwhile, Kai reversed direction with Thunderbird's Wings and exploded toward the patriarch summoning another blue sphere. This time Kai focused his full power on a half-phase, and when he arrived he didn't try to dodge or run: he struck the sphere with his bare hand.

His hand, transforming into a claw and reinforced by the half-phase, barely managed to survive the impact and sent the sphere flying toward the two lead patriarchs. The old man stared in shock as his technique smashed into them, as if he feared their retaliation.

He should have feared Kai instead.

Now that Kai had closed the distance, he tore into the cultivator with raw strength. The old man tried to throw up qi barriers, but Kai clawed those apart until he began cutting through flesh. With so little Physique, once he was struck, the old patriarch crumpled and fell from the sky trailing blood.

The sphere impact left Kai covered in minor qi burns he hadn't even noticed in the heat of the moment, so he took a moment hanging in the sky to catch his breath and heal. Across the battlefield, he saw that Omilaena was retreating to the ground, apparently injured... but the matriarch above her wasn't summoning any more lightning, she was clutching the syringe embedded in her neck.

As the sphere-user fell and the matriarch retreated, the battlefield swung wildly again... but Kai knew that it was far from over. Zae Clen Ban and the Masterful Crown patriarch were still almost untouched, despite the explosions and the constant flood of attacks from Nymidria.

Kai regenerated his wings and started to move, but he was too late. Zae Clen Ban slipped out of the onslaught, spun through a swarm of razor leaves untouched, and reached Nymidria.

When his palm struck her trunk, the crack sounded throughout the battlefield. Nymidria let out a scream and her roots began to wither.

She retaliated with a burst of enraged strength, but the Masterful Crown patriarch began creating more golden barriers, deflecting her attacks and boxing her in. Zae Clen Ban calmly evaded her thrashing attempts while he summoned a spear of green qi, then he drove it through her heart, impaling both human body and trunk.

The last of the dryad matriarch's leaves began to fall away as her life force ebbed. Kai slowed down as he realized that he was too late, and getting close would only put him in range of all the remaining enemies on the field.

"You should never have betrayed me," the Masterful Crown patriarch said scornfully. "We took you in when you were nothing, gave you qi and a place to stay, and you undermine us? This is what the Verdant River sect gets for trusting non-humans."

"And this is... what I get... for trusting you..." Nymidria's mouth was filling with blood now, but she only sounded sorrowful.

"You think it was worth it? Even as we speak, my son is making you pay for your crimes."

A new fear awoke in Nymidria's eyes. "Wait... no..."

"Yes... in fact, let's bring him here now!" The patriarch hurled down a talisman and a swirl of teleportation energy began to form.

Even before Kai made out the bodies within it, he knew that they wouldn't be allies.