by Tony Tran
Although Ling could use the water and carry everyone up, it was not a method that she preferred. Simply said controlling one column of water for herself was fairly hard and if she had to make hundreds of them then that would put too much of a strain on herself. Then there was the option of just collecting everyone in in massive body of water and raise it outside, but that would risk possibly causing some people to drown.
So, unless absolutely needed she preferred not to use either method. Also, if push comes to shove, she would obviously save her husband and everyone else was on their own.
The lord of New Moon City was no longer simply watching like before, after he had activated the spiked walls, with a motion of his hand the monsters that resembled giant masses of conjoined bodies made their way through the monster horde and began creeping up the walls.
Despite the spiral moving spikes, these monsters were unharmed during their ascent. Slowly they made their way upward, using the spikes as leverage and gripes to propel themselves up. With hundreds of limbs, scaling the spiked wall could be considered child's play for these monstrosities.
“Ling! Use the water to reflect the light down here!” Zhang yelled to his lovely wife.
Mere moments later after a few thoughts, Ling waves her hand and sent a blast of water upward, smashing the ceiling of the room that was atop of the exit.
“Hey! Next time you do something like that give us a heads up!” Lingqi’s voice came echoing down from above. Along with Lingqi’s voice, a large ray of light shone down from above. With the roof of the room above no longer blocking its path, sunlight was able to make its way downward.
Then with another wave of her hand, Ling made hundreds of specks of water float into the ray of light. With the water acting as a reflector, hundreds of dots of light speckled the stone walls.
“Wait a moment…” Ling said as a thought popped into her head. She remembered reading about a lost art where the user manipulated light instead of water, fire, earth and wind. Light magic was a lost magic that not many even know of, had she not stumbled about a small text about it in the Royal Academy’s vast library then perhaps Ling wouldn’t even know of its existence.
But of course, the world is filled with many strange magics. For instance, Yuying’s black magic that can instantly raise the dead and alter the mind, such arts are completely unimaginable. Although creating undead could be done by people such as New Moon City’s lord, it required vast amounts of sacrifices and time. However, Yuying is able to create lower ranking undead in mere moments, which is unheard of.
Remembering the technique regarding light, Ling tried to imitate it by using the water droplets to redirect the light. The hundreds of water droplets condensed countless rays of light together under Ling’s control.
Soon enough a ray of condensed light, made up of hundreds of redirected rays of light was born. The heat that the ray produced was so intense that part of the stone that it shone on began liquefying. One could imagine how much heat the ray of light contained to turn solid stone into a liquid.
With a glint in her eye and a proud look on her face, Ling began directing the ray of light at the monsters climbed up the walls.
Wherever the ray of light went, death followed as the colossal masses of bodies one by one turned to ashes and made hundreds of black and white pearls turn downward. Not only did the monsters perish, but the ray of light even managed to cut through some of spikes and sent them tumbling down into the abyss.
Chapter 20: Tomb
As the ray of death shot about into the darkness causing dust and countless pearls to scatter about. The thin ray of light continued on a path of destruction and cut through dozens of the stone spikes that protruded from the walls. Dust, pearls and chunks of broken stone began to rain down upon the horde of monsters below.
A scowl crept onto the face of New Moon City’s lord as the raining debris came crashing down from above. Pressing his hand against the wall, a thin membrane see through membrane began growing out from the walls and repelled everything that came to touch it.
While chaos ensued, the strugglers that were fleeing up the ice staircase were but a few steps away from the exit. Having escaped from the darkness filled depths, all of their faces were filled to the brim with glee.
Down below the ray of death was inches away from touching the thin membrane that the city lord had erected, Ling looked downward in anticipation, wishing to know how powerful her new technique would be.
To her disappointment, the moment the ray of light struck the thin membrane, it was deflected and reflected onto the ground causing it to melt. A small hole the size of a needle was left on the ground where the ray of light was reflected.
With a wave of her hand, Ling cancelled out her technique and made the column of water underneath her feet raise up. With her objective complete there was no need to stay any longer. Thus, the column of water rose out of the exit and Ling exited the underground abyss.
Zhang had just exited the dark abyss and the light of the midday’s sun shone into his eyes. The sun’s glare coming down from the hole in the ceiling caused Zhang to squint as he looked around the room. Besides his wives and the few people who had just exited with him there was no one else.
“Let’s go!” Yuying yelled as she ushered everyone toward the door. Following everyone else and exiting the room, Zhang was greeted by the man who he had been hoping to see. Soon a yellow earthen glow radiated from the ground and the ground began to rumble.
Buildings began to rumble; the earth began to fluctuate and the stone tiles laid atop the ground began to upturn. Ran Kaitou stood atop a stone column, chugging down bottle after bottle of essence water as the ground beneath him began to split apart.
Zhang and the others were lifted into the sky by columns of stone just like the one Ran Kaitou was standing atop of as the land where the provincial lord’s mansion stood over was pushed away. Buildings became meshed together as a huge crater was made with the place where the staircase that led down into the underground chambers as it’s center.
One could say the true power of an earth Mage had been unleashed. The power to reshape mountains and bury cities had been on full display thanks to the bottles of essence water that Zhang had given to Ran Kaitou.
At the bottom of the crater stood New Moon City’s lord and beside him were thousands of grotesque beasts that weren't meant to see the light of day. As the warm rays of the sun struck them the beasts began to be enveloped in smoke and moments later they all turned into ashes and blew away with the wind. Thousands of black and white pearls scattered onto the ground and the provincial lord stood with a face full of rage.
The monster horde that he had spent so much time and effort to create was blown away in but an instant due to the sun.
Had undead demonic beasts not have such a major weakness then perhaps their kind would have already taken over vast amounts of territory. It was due to this fatal weakness and the reclusive nature of regular demonic beasts, that mankind was able to dominate so much land.
“Now that we are out in the open, we can use our numbers to take him out.” Zhang thought as he gazed down from the stone column onto his pursuer. Without the cover of darkness, nor the horde of monsters, the enemy's battle potential had possibly decreased by half.
“Ran, upturn the ground. Make is so that any magic circles that have been laid on the ground before was destroyed. We can’t have any more surprises showing up.” Zhang said turning his vision to Ran Kaitou who was a short distance away from him.
Sections of the underground chambers and corridor was still untouched when Ran Kaitou moved the ground, so there was still a possibility of there still being magic circles laid out on the ground.
With a motion of his hand, Ran Kaitou made the ground tremble once more and as if something was burrowing underneath it the ground began to upturn and soon not a single patch of even ground was left. The inside of the crated had turned into jagged rocks and cracked earth, making it so that even if ther
e were some magic circles set up they would have been destroyed.
But oddly the patch of tile underneath the city lord’s feet remained completely intact, a bubble shaped membrane had appeared and prevented Ran Kaitou’s magic from affecting the earth in that certain location.
While Ran Kaitou was reshaping the land, Ling had collected every single drop of water in the area and created a massive wall of water that stretched as far as the eye could see and rose four stories into the sky. Standing atop the wall of water Ling made thousands of drops of water float into the air, in preparation to use her new technique that she had just used moments ago.
With a wave of her hand the wall of water circled around the crater and surrounded it from all sides. With yet another wave of her hand, the wave of water gushed into the crater with unbelievable force. Rocks were smashed to bits and the earth was churned into mesh. The waves swept up the loose upturned earth that Ran Kaitou had created and made a flood of mood and gravel that threatened to not only drown anyone that was caught by it but also bury them whole.
The moment that all of the waves met in the center of the crater they crashed into the thin membrane that encased the city lord.
“Now!” Ling yelled the thousands of water droplets emitted ten rays of condensed light that were as hot as the blazing sun. The crushing waves and the dazzling rays of light met at the center of the crater and a massive explosion of steam and water erupted into the air.
Following Ling’s terrifying display of might a lightning bolt snaked through the air and soon to follow was yet another devastating explosion that sent bits of rubble shooting about. Moments later as the stream cleared and the water settled, to everyone’s disdain and disbelief a semitransparent membrane was still clearly visible at the very center of the crater.
“You think some water and a few techniques at this level can break my shield? Not even a tenth level cultivator can break through this shield! You may have destroyed my army but I simply have to recreate it. If anything, I’ll return to the sect…” The provincial lord said with his last words being in such a low tone that it was inaudible.
“Maybe we can’t break it, maybe we can’t kill you now, but there is one thing we can do.” Zhang said with a stern look on his face.
“Bury him…” He said while looking down into the crater.
Gulping down yet another bottle of essence water, Ran Kaitou focused all of his essence and performed his strongest technique. Countless specks of dust rose into the air and a moment later as if being attracted by the provincial lord’s shield, every speck shot forth. Speck after speck came together and soon a thin layer of dust formed atop of the shield, however things did not stop there.
“Ahaha you're going to bury me in dust?” The provincial lord laughed.
“Condense! Mineral tomb!” Ran Kaitou roared as clapped his hands together.
Although it the specks looked like insignificant specks of dust, in actuality the dust consisted entirely of hard minerals that had been sorted from the earth. Iron, copper, nickel, even bits of diamond was pressed together to create an extremely dense sphere.
Once the dense sphere of minerals was created, a pitch-black flame danced about in Zhang’s hand.
“This flame isn’t large enough to burn away a person’s soul, but for it to burn away the essence around and inside the sphere shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll make sure to come back once a while to visit.” Said Zhang as the black flame shot out of his hand and whizz through the sky. He was certain that if he did not extinguish the supply of essence in the area around and inside the sphere then New Moon City’s lord would more than likely be able to break free in no time. But if essence which is basically life force is taken out of an environment, a person’s body would be weakened.
The amount of essence the body generates wouldn’t be sufficient to break out of the sphere that Ran Kaitou had. If the city lord used too much essence in a place that had been burned dry of essence, then rather of thinking about escaping he wouldn’t be able to maintain his own life.
If it was an open area then the essence would quickly return but in a closed off area, especially one such as the mineral sphere, essence most likely would not be able to return.
Dozens of talismans shot out of Yuying’s hand and stuck onto the black sphere while Ran Kaitou then made hundreds of rocks and stones shift about in the ground and shoot at the sphere of condensed minerals. Using his essence, he turned this hard stones into liquid and made them wrap around the mineral tomb. Layer of after layer of stone followed by a huge amount of dirt and gravel, the massive crater was filled in and not a single trace of it was left.
“That should do it.” Ran Kaitou said as he lowered the stone columns and patted his hands.
“To think his shield could block attack from tenth level cultivators… Well that should be the last of him for now. Once we get strong enough I’ll come back and finish him” Zhang mumbled.
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After the battle was done, Zhang and the rest of those who escaped out of the abyss left the city and moved into the fort erected not too far from it. The Wraith Spiders returned to their home inside the Ruler’s Domain after a hearty dinner of cattle and livestock, purchased by their masters.
The provincial treasury was also raided on the way out of the city. Ran Kaitou’s earth magic had smashed the treasury into a bunch of other buildings, but after some searching it was found.
Zhang took roughly twenty five percent of the treasure and left the rest to Ran Kaitou whom he had appointed as lord of the province. Of course, this wasn't official until the rest of the province is subdued.
Having wrecked half the city, Zhang proposed that a new, New Moon City be built elsewhere. The city had sustained too much damage and too much blood and evil had been done underneath it, so a change of location would be for the best. On top of all of this a certain someone was sealed underneath the city and although they were fairly sure he wouldn't be able to break out, there are no guarantees in the world.
Since they had an earth Mage and Zhang's supply of essence replenishing be water, building a new city would let require too much effort.
But the relocation would have to wait because what everyone needed was a good night’s rest. Zhang's new additions to his army also needed to be accounted and put into ranks.
The men and women were separated into groups and put under different leadership. Zhang acquired a team of men with high cultivation bases under his direct command, while the beauties divided up the women. They would each personally train and sort of come teachers to these men and women.
Thus, three camps were set up for the night. One larger camp for the civilians of New Moon City, and two small camps for the new additions to Zhang’s army, one for men and one for women, with Zhang and his wives tenth in the between them.
As the moon rose into the sky and everyone was asleep, in the now empty capital of the New Moon Province something unexpected was occurring. In a plot of land where the provincial lord’s mansion used to stand a small figure was hunched over and scraping away at the ground.
“Master, does this mean we can finally return to the sect? Does it mean you don’t have to pretend to be that lowly lord any longer? We can finally leave this wretched place?” The small figure muttered as his hands clawed away at the ground.
As the night went on, moonlight shone on the small figure, revealing what looked more like a beast then a person. With a fur covered body, a hunched back, bulky arms that were totally proportion with its body, and a long tail that resembled that of a lion, the beast looked like a mixture of different animals.
“We’ve been in this wretched place for years, can we finally go back now?” The beast continued muttering through the night as it clawed away the dirt and stone that Ran Kaitou had encased the mineral sphere in.
Soon, an extremely deep hole was dug in the ground. Only a few hours had passed so one could say that whoever or whateve
r had dug the ground had done so at an unbelievable pace. Amazingly enough even the thick layer of stone that Ran Kaitou had laid out was clawed through and soon enough the pitch-black sphere that was never meant to be seen again was unearthed.
However, when the creature that was digging through the ground tried to claw open the black sphere, all was heard was a loud clang. Yuying’s talismans had fused with the sphere and enforced its toughness to the extreme, allowing the black sphere to deflect the claws that were able to easily break through stone.
Not being able to break through however did not deter the beast, for it hoisted the black sphere up out of the ground and after covering the hole, walked off into the darkness.
Chapter 21: Doctor
The sun was peeking out from the horizon, the clouds were nowhere in sight, and the roosters crowed as a new day began. A hectic day full of things to do awaited, all of the civilians of New Moon City basically had to relocated, and a brand-new city had to be planed and built. The city had sustained too much damage and too much blood and evil had been done underneath it, so a change of location would be for the best.
