Chapter 191 (Patreon)

Slight edited to 188 to account for Matt's toes. I forgot and one of the t15s reminded me so thanks guys.

There was even a Sect woman who had said she was skilled in forging, who they promised to send his way once she returned from her own patrol.

But first he went to the healers area and found someone who could regrow his missing toes.

Once he did that Matt started doing what he always did when he had a new problem to solve through crafting.

Chapter 191

Matt stood at the front of the Fae army and watched as the Spring city walls were flooded with defenders.

Tens of thousands of Fae rushed to the city’s defense, but most were privates and sergeants, which meant they might as well not even be there. What did catch Matt’s attention was the several well equipped Fae that could only be the lieutenants of Spring. Those would be much more stalwart opponents,, but ultimately, not a problem.

Thankfully he didn't see, or rather feel, anyone with the nascent Intent which would signify a general in their midst.

With their increased production, they had a massive advantage, and their attack came as a surprise to the Spring court.

Even with a week to prepare, they were caught flatfooted.

Oh, they had built defensive structures, and he could see what looked like ballistae, catapults, and even a few mana cannons lining the wall, but they were clearly rush jobs.

He assumed that the mana cannons were made by the delvers that were interspersed with the Fae on the walls.

They would be the true defenders of the city.

Each and every one of them would be strong and well-trained if they had reached Minkalla’s fourth floor this early in the cycle. Yes, this floor was a dam, but still, they were barely at the thirteenth-week mark for the current cycle.

A lot of teams would still be on the first or second floors, judging by historical data. Anyone already on the fourth floor so early on was guaranteed to be both strong and incredibly determined to delve as deep into Minkalla as possible.

Matt noticed the older faces and changed his opinion slightly.

He forgot to consider the old and desperate Tier 14s who had rushed to the fourth floor before anyone else, just to ensure that they would have enough Genesis Energy to create their Concept. They wouldn’t have slowed down to try and collect anything in the previous floors, which meant they could progress much faster by comparison.

But he didn’t make the mistake of considering any of his opponents as weak. Even if they were run of the mill Tier 14s, each of them would still have combat prowess to put them roughly on par with his team. They simply had the cultivation advantage to make up for their generally weaker combat abilities.

Even still, some of the old delvers amongst spring’s ranks could be monsters in their own right. With a thousand years of practice and training, even a coward could become quite the formidable opponent.

Things were moving along, but the advance was generally slow as the Winter Fae crept forward to surround the city, which left the delvers standing around.

Matt was amused that the self appointed leadership had gathered around him, where he was constantly casting [Hail] to create more ice elementals, which then immediately rushed the city walls.

Others might consider it a waste, but it wasn’t like he was going to run out of mana anytime soon.

They mostly stood there in silence until the Fae general came up, and Bethany asked, “So what do we call you? We can’t just call you ‘Fae General’.”

The Fae general gave her a blank look. “I am the first of Winter’s generals, yet have done nothing. I have not yet earned a name.”

Bethany looked to the others before offering, “May we call you Primus then?”

The general, or rather Primus, nodded silently.

Young Mistress Diamond Lotus hardly hesitated for the man to respond before she asked, “What is your plan then, General Primus?”

Primus looked at Matt and nodded. “It is up to the Titled One. That is their purpose, and the Princess has already declined to give her input.”

Matt smiled under his mask as all eight representatives looked at him with gazes that ranged from happy to angry.

Bradley and Tiffany, as representatives of his own Power and an ally respectively, looked pleased. But the Sects' representative, Young Mistress Diamond Lotus, looked like she just swallowed a bug, and her expression was actually more muted than the Federation representative Dexter, who spat on the ground before speaking.

“I will not be following any plan he comes up with, and neither will my people.” He had a self-righteous expression on his face as the Sects, and Republican representatives backed him up.

Matt shrugged one shoulder, acting nonchalant, but prepared to cast [Cracked Phantom Armor] at the slightest provocation.

“If you don’t want any of the Genesis Energy we're going to earn, that's more than fine with me. Just stay out of our way.”

While they didn’t say anything, Matt could see them all give up on their position as their rigid postures slipped.

William, the representative of the Corporations, played peacemaker. “What is your plan? Have you ever led an army or, more practically, a siege?”

Matt rolled his eyes at that. The question was anything but simple. William was fishing for information about who Matt was, and to see if anyone in his databases matched what he said.

So he ignored the comment and asked everyone, “The plan is still to turn on Fall after this, right?”

At the eight representatives’ nods, he cracked his neck. “Then we can’t have this siege take long.” Matt repeated himself as he thought out loud. “We need to take the city quickly. General Primus, how long will it take your men to surround the city?”

The Fae didn’t even blink as he answered, “Two hours for a rudimentary fortification. A day and a half for something more defensible.”

Matt looked to the representatives, who all saw the immediate problem. That was going to take far, far too long.

Hearing that, Matt had a better understanding of why this floor usually took so long to have a decisive victor.

The delvers wouldn’t be so willing to throw their lives into the breaches, and would let the Fae do the heavy lifting.

It was the safe option, but not the right play in this situation.

Matt looked back to the eight. “I suggest we start bombarding the walls in two hours when the first defensive line is up. Let's also get the crafters to start work on our own cannons.”

He was about to say something else when a star came thundering down onto them.

***

Ronald stood with the other delvers and watched in horror as the army of Winter stood outside their gates.

It had been less than a month inside this floor, and they were already on the offensive.

That would have normally indicated that they were both bold and blind to the greater situation, but all of them could feel the monster standing outside their gates.

The whispers of the Fae around them told them the nature of the monstrous pressure standing outside the gates, spewing out ice elementals like a broken sink.

A General.

How Winter created a general, they had no idea, but everyone agreed that they needed to kill it immediately.

Thankfully, they had the perfect answer.

Tobias wasn’t on any of the Path of Ascension’s equivalents, but the Monster Collective man was a mage of noted renown despite that.

His signature attack was summoning a handful of plasma and throwing it at someone, like a souped-up [Fireball].

It was a cracked skill, not that anyone knew which skill it had originally been. But that hardly mattered. It was incredibly dangerous, even if it came with a multi-day cooldown.

They had intended to save the man as a surprise to take down one of the other cities, but now, they needed to kill the general no matter the cost.

His nascent Intent was like a wet blanket covering their mouths, slowly smothering them.

As Tobias charged up his attack, Ronald was forced to cover his face with a hand, as closing his eyes wasn’t enough to block out the piercing light.

The attack flew out, and Ronald watched its flight with his spiritual sense.

Tobias' aim was true, and as the general stood there unmoving, Ronald’s hopes grew.

As the attack landed, he clenched his fist in celebration, but it was too soon.

The Winter general raised his hand, and an enormous icy barrier appeared to completely bock the attack. Even as the plasma lingered on the shield like glue, it didn’t seem to melt the shield at all.

As Tobias dropped to the ground, panting, everyone else looked on in horror as the scorched ground was slowly covered in snow and more ice elementals started to spawn.

They were so screwed.

***

Matt cursed as the fire spell burnt along his shielding. He had been forced to use two [Mana Barrier] talismans to block enough of the initial attack for [Bulwark] to survive it.

He would have rather run, like the other representatives had, but Primus had stayed right where he had been standing the whole time, which forced Matt’s hand. He could only hope that the representatives running had put enough distance between them that they didn’t feel him pull out and use his talismans. While that didn’t instantly reveal that he was Quill, he hadn’t decided if he wanted to draw attention to his ‘real’ identity quite yet.

That first attack provoked an immediate reaction from their side, and spell after spell lashed out.

Unlike the last time he was in a siege, even the basic [Fireball]s covered the mile plus distance between the attackers and the defenders’ walls.

But that was where the differences ended.

Waves of spells lanced out, immediately turning the ground between the factions into a cratered wasteland. The value in prepared defenses immediately showed itself, as the Winter delvers often had to hide behind their Fae when the hastily built barricades were breached.

On the other hand, Spring’s walls held firm, though a few particularly strong spells managed to leave marks on the weathered stone. When anyone attempted to aim above the walls and hit the people in the city, Matt saw flashes of mana as a formation unwove the spells mid-flight, and physical projectiles were sniped out of the air at a terrifying speed or the attacks were just blocked by a city wide shield.

Matt had expected that, but it was still annoying, as it meant they would have to drain or break through the defensive formations.

Unlike when he was Tier 6, he had a much better understanding of formations, enchanting, and using both sciences to build fortifications.

If this was a simple city, they might have a small reserve of mana stones to feed the enchantments, or a rechargeable mana battery that they could draw on if the city was expected to handle a siege.

Or at least, that was how it worked outside Minkalla.

He suspected that the wall was directly tied to Spring and the people inside defending its walls, which meant that they needed to take or breach said walls before they would be able to disrupt the barrier over the city.

As the eight representatives came back over, Matt let his mask smile. “I guess the siege is starting now. I suggest we pick four places, two Great Powers to each, and then start attacking the city walls on rotation. We need to take down the walls before we can disrupt the city's defensive barrier. If we concentrate on one location, the Fae can start their own bombardment on the areas we aren't attacking, forcing the defenders to spread themselves out.”

None of them had any issue with the plan; it was simple, and kept any of the Great Powers that had issues working together out of each other's hair.

Matt had more planning in the idea than he let on, as it would indirectly force each of the teams to give it their all. If another side got inside the city first, they would undoubtedly reap the largest harvest of Fae and delvers.

That directly translated to Genesis Energy and Favor, the only two things that mattered beyond their lives.

As soon as the Great Powers representatives agreed to the plan, they split off into their respective groups, with Primus directing his lieutenants to prepare four holes in the formation for the delvers to set up in.

While they hadn’t been on the floor long, there were already a million cultivators in Winter's faction, so they needed a decent bit of room.

Bradley and Tiffany split off without even looking at the others, and Matt joined them, but he kept his spiritual perception on the other representatives to see how they moved.

Matt was surprised at the breakdown at first glance. The Clans and Corporations kept together, while the Republic and Federation teamed up. Finally, the Sects and Monsters Collective teamed, leaving the Empire paired with the Guilds.

He had expected the Corporations and Monsters Collective to team up, as they were pretty close, but when he thought about it, it made sense. The representatives had to balance the animosity between Great Powers. Like the Empire and the Sects, relations between the Federation and Monster Collective were irreconcilable, and they would sooner fight each other to the death before they fought next to each other.

While the total number of people who entered Minkalla was different for each Great Power, at this point, everyone had roughly even numbers, and the amount of elites for each was relatively stable.

When they got to their position, Matt let Bradley and Tiffany do the leading. They both seemed leery of him after he took the hit from whatever was shot at them earlier.

He suspected that they were afraid he was going to try and take direct command, and therefore take the small but steady supply of Favor that they were earning for himself.

Matt had no intention to do that to Bradley, and wasn’t even a little positive that the Guilder’s would let him supplant their own leader, even with the two Great Powers’ positive relationship.

Either way, they tried to keep their distance, and Matt let them.

He was more busy trying to find his bond, who had disappeared and wouldn't tell him where she was. Oh, she responded to his messages, but she was playing a game of hide and seek with him unable to follow her.

Whatever her boon had done had made her invisible and undetectable through their link.

When they were about to get ready for their first attack, Susanne and Liz came back and joined him.

Together, the two hundred and fifty thousand members of the Empire and Guild rushed the walls of the city.

Earth mages started raising ramps while the defenders tried to crumble those very structures. With their range advantage, they were able to keep the ramps growing, but more than a few people ended up running off the edge of a suddenly halted ramp.

Matt didn’t have that issue, as he was the one casting [Earth Manipulation] to pull the earth up for his group. He might not have the finesse of a true earth mage, but he more than made up for that in pure power.

Still, as they moved forward, it started to get harder and harder to advance. As they neared the wall, the defending earth mages had the distance closed, which made it easier to grapple for control of the ground that he was working with, but that was ok.

They were also being peppered by attacks both magical and mundane.

Still, they were fine. His group was just the distraction.

From right behind the front line of attackers, Bradley launched himself forward, and molten metal started flowing from his body…

And kept growing.

Before he landed on the magically reinforced wall, he was a thirty foot tall golem of metallic magma that slammed its red-hot iron fist into the stone walls.

Spells and magic peppered the back and head of his golem form, but they had little effect against the golem's size and heat.

Still, the defenders morale held, and they wisely began casting [Create Water] over Bradley’s head. Under the onslaught of dozens of delvers casting the same spell, the golem quickly turned dark.

Exactly as they expected.

Before he was completely encased in the cooled metal, Bradley slumped onto the stone wall and created a ramp. It wasn’t much, but it covered half the distance of the fifty foot walls.

More than high enough for the rest of them to be able to jump the distance.

At least, for most the melee fighters amongst them and the Tier 13 mages.

Matt cast [Bulwark] as he ran up Bradley’s iron ramp, providing cover for the rest of the Empire and Guild frontline fighters that had joined him on the first charge.

The defenders cast spell after spell, but with [Mage’s Retreat], Liz’s strength potions, and Aster’s buffs all empowering him, Matt was able to make the jump to the top of the wall along with the other melee fighters.

As soon as he landed, he was beset by a dozen spells that slipped around his [Bulwark], but they crashed on [Cracked Phantom Armor] to minimal effect.

The lower ranked Fae weren’t exactly the strongest fighters he had encountered in Minkalla, and it was reflected in the quality of their spells.

However, the spells from the Spring cultivators were different. They stressed or even broke through [Cracked Phantom Armor] and landed on his physical armor.

As more and more people made the jump, Matt turned to the right and used [Bulwark]'s massive size to block most of the defenders from pushing them back off the walls.

It worked for the Fae, but not the cultivators, who simply jumped over or flew around his barrier.

The first attacker Matt had to deal with was a woman armed with sword and shield, but he had the perfect answer for that. A halberd appeared in his hands from his spatial ring, and he swung the weapon to meet the woman mid-stride. Her shield glowed and her body flickered with skill usage, but that didn’t matter to Matt. He activated the halberd and the axe blade grew to a massive size, knocking the woman off the wall in a single [Mana Charge].

Halberds weren’t his favorite weapon, or even his second or third, but two main factors contributed to him using one now. The first was that the weapon was in no way associated with Matt, unlike his bonded growth sword, and the second was that this particular halberd was fantastic. He’d pulled it off one of the safe room hunters, and between the natural treasures that it was made of, and the enchanting work done by at least a Tier 35, it was the nicest item Matt had ever been able to examine, let alone use.

A [Mana Bolt] hit Matt in the chest, breaking his armors and introspection alike, but Matt ignored the pain as he prepared to hold his ground.

All around him was a swarm of enemies as the left side flank was driven back, due to a concentrated push by the Fae and cultivators in conjunction. Seeing that they were being pushed back, Matt made the call to retreat.

He still had two last gifts for the defenders.

Throwing out one of Liz’s potions, he momentarily swapped his halberd for his club, charged it to a full thousand mana, and slammed it into the stone walls' parapets as its weight skyrocketed.

The wall that took a hit from Bradley without cracking now fractured under the force of his blow. Visually, little changed, but from the way that mana was now leaking into the air, he could tell that he had broken some of the enchantments used to fortify the wall and block ranged skills.

It would make their next attack even easier.

Matt threw himself off the wall just in time to see Bradley’s iron golem being absorbed into the ground, as his final present exploded in a ball of fire that sent even more stone flying.

This time, Matt even felt three identical rushes of Genesis Energy and Favor hit him. His stunt had killed three Fae, it seemed.

When they got back, they did a head count of his assault group and found that no one had died. Only one Empire delver had taken a spear through the chest; he would need extensive healing before he would be combat capable again.

As the Fae started their own bombardment of the walls, Matt listened as reports came in.

They had done well, but not as well as the Clans and Corporations had.

That group had also managed to take the wall, but held their position for nearly fifteen minutes before being pushed off, which was a much better showing than their own whopping two minutes.

***

It was three full days before they finally took Spring’s wall, with a concentrated push finally establishing a solid hold despite all the efforts of the defenders.

Normally, that would have meant a slow and steady bombardment of the inner city to weaken the defenders, which was the original plan, but someone from the Clan and Corporation group threw themselves off the wall and into the city in a stream of fire.

That set everyone off, and there was a rush to start hunting down the survivors.

In the last three days, Matt and his group had earned their fair share of Genesis Energy and Favor by attacking the walls, but everyone knew that this was the true harvest.

Matt, Liz, Susanne, and a recently-returned Aster took to the hunt with fervor.

Aster indicated to the left where a number of Fae were retreating under the protection of a lieutenant.

Matt threw himself forward, but was slower than Liz’s whips of fire and Susanne’s [Mana Blade]. Fortunately, those attacks only cleared the path for him to attack the lieutenant, who tried to meet his charge with their shield raised.

Like so many others in the last few days, the Fae didn’t survive the strike.

Bone and blood flew as the Spring lieutenant was crushed into the nearest building.

In seconds, the squad was down, and the four of them pushed forward as they started hunting down any combatants they could find.

As they raced forward, Matt found it interesting how even the city that had been a bastion of Spring was slowly gathering snow as the Winter Court’s influence started to take hold.

Snow golems started lumbering around and attacking Fae privates and sergeants, but the delvers were hunting bigger game.

And an explosion off to the side told them exactly where their prey was holed up.

They turned the corner to find at least two dozen cultivators fighting five or six Winter delvers. Despite the fact that Winter had taken the city, there were still more defenders than attackers. At least, when only the number of delvers was taken into account. As the Queen of Winter had said, the other Courts had started offering larger initial boons to counter Winter's advantage.

Matt ran forward and brought his club down, but was blocked by a wall of air hardened in the middle of his swing, and with no mana in his weapon, it had no extra weight for him to throw around.

At the same time, a woman with daggers flickered into existence on his flank, trying to stab glowing knives into his side, but a stream of ice punched her in the side.

Aster, who had taken to the Winter boons, appeared out of the ever growing snow banks and attacked the woman.

She tried to get away using the same spell or Talent she had used to appear, but Susanne’s [Wind Cutter] was faster, and took her head off.

Liz brought a blue stream of blood down on the back of their attackers. [Disguise Blood] made blood skills harder to control, and effectively limited the amount of blood she could use at any one time, but did allow her to change it from a deep red to a light blue. It obviously wasn’t normal water, which would have been clear, but it kept people from figuring out that she was using blood with just a casual glance.

Matt threw himself forward as Aster yipped repeatedly.

At first, it appeared as if it was coming from a different direction every time, but with each yip, the sound seemed to distort and change in both direction and pitch, causing confusion amongst the defenders.

At the same time as they started to lose themselves, Aster ran around and started casting [Ice Spear] at the people most affected.

As the Princess of Frozen Stars, Aster’s ice had not only gotten much colder from her boon, but she had also gotten a healthy dose of illusion magic at her disposal. It wasn’t all-powerful of course, and anyone with a strong enough spirit or strong Concept could resist it.

But those were the ones who Matt focused on.

Matt’s halberd carried with it some of the strongest armor penetration he’d ever seen, strong enough to break [Cracked Phantom Armor] with a tap, but that didn’t help him against someone who dodged it. His current opponent was surprisingly nimble for one in such restrictive-looking robes, but then again, he’d never understand Sect fashion.

Still, the man made the mistake of trying to grab the halberd, and Matt was happy to give the man a lesson as to why that was a bad idea. A pulse of mana activated the weapon’s second enchantment, and pitch-dark flames black enough to look two-dimensional quickly spread across the weapon’s head, along with the man’s body.

Even before the void-infused flames could finish immolating the first man, Matt felt a line of fire pierce his chest and come out the other side. Reactivating [Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Flamethrower], he trapped the rapier that was inside him and twisted, disarming his attacker and sending a torrent of mundane flames at the responsible party.

The man dropped his weapon and rolled out of the initial wave of fire, but Matt used [Fire Manipulation] to redirect the stream of energy at the man.

His screams were little comfort as Matt pulled the weapon out his chest. It had only hit a lung, but that was still a dangerous wound in the middle of a fight.

His breaths were coming in short, but he flared [Lesser Regeneration], allowing the wound to begin repairing itself.

Still, he was in the middle of a large scale battle, and was hardly able to give the wounds the true attention they deserved.

He dodged a hail of fist-sized rocks, but took an arrow in the head, with the projectile bouncing off his reinforced [Cracked Phantom Armor].

Flaring his Concept internally, Matt threw his AI at the question of where the archer was.

It went through all the information that his overloaded spiritual sense was taking in, and parsed it into nice and readable bits of information.

As it worked on that, Matt cast a rapid series of [Fireball]s at the man who was charging Aster while she finished the last of the weaker cultivators.

Some surrendered and crawled out of the direct fighting, so they were ignored by both sides.

The human cultivators had already come to an agreement to allow anyone to surrender and keep their lives.

Having garnered the man's attention, Matt watched out for the mage archer as he marveled at fighting someone who didn’t have a working AI with a working one of his own.

Normally, the AI’s countered each other, but with Minkalla’s interference, that wasn’t the case.

His AI was able to judge and counter each and every one of the man's moves, as it didn’t have to second guess what his enemy’s AI would be telling him to do.

In three moves, Matt blocked the sword thrust, flared his gravity gauntlets, and then drove a spiked fist into and through his opponent’s armored chest as he was pulled into the blow.

In the meantime, the archer decided to go after Susanne, who sensed the incoming arrow and sliced the projectile in half, even as she tried to make it past the guard of a glaive-wielder.

Fortunately, that loosed arrow was more than enough for Matt to locate the archer.

Throwing himself onto the roofs, Matt broke stone tiles as he pushed off the building and landed on another four houses away.

A cloak dropping into an alley was all that Matt saw of their attacker as he jumped once again.

This time, the roof wasn’t strong enough to take his weight and it crumbled, cutting most of his power and giving the archer time to get away.

Dropping his spells, Matt threw most of his mana into his AI to try and figure out where the archer would have gone, but in the end, there were too many possibilities, and he didn’t have time to play hide and seek with a rogue.

He simply sent a message to Bradley's wife, Jill. The woman was an archer rogue in her own right, and was very, very good at what she did. Rogues were best fought by other rogues, after all, and marking her general location was more than enough for the other half of their team to start their hunt.

Knowing that the woman would soon be too busy to pester his team, Matt threw himself back into the fight.

His AI was telling him that another group of Spring cultivators had joined their brethren against his team.

***

Susanne cut down and sidestepped the [Mana Bolt] flying at her face, using her second copy of her manifestation to block a thrust that was aimed at her back.

Spinning, she flexed her Concept to twist space and extended her blade out a little further than normal, feeling it impact metal and then cut through both armor and flesh.

A spray of red covered the snow spattered streets, only to be trampled by the combatants’ shuffling feet.

Aster sent a blast of cold, slowing the Spring defenders, and Susanne took advantage of the opening it gave her.

Using [Dash], she slipped through the encirclement she had been forced into and started cutting as she focused her Concept inside her.

Power flooded her body for three seconds, but that was more than enough time for a half dozen critical strikes with her two blades.

She only aimed to kill one man who had already tried to backstab Liz, and instead went for debilitating blows for everyone else.

Favor and Genesis Energy rushed into her from the man who she took in the chest. Even a cultivator couldn't survive without a heart. At least not before Tier 15.

The others all lost a limb, or in one woman's case, two. She would live though. Probably.

Part of their attack was to take as many people alive as possible.

Someone in the Sects had had the idea, and once voiced, it had spread.

Killing the enemies only netted them half the Genesis Energy they had if they were taken alive, and the winners could, on pain of death, force the loser to give up all of their Genesis Energy. Thanks to the pressure gauge rings Minkalla gave out, sparing their enemies’ lives was the more prudent thing to do.

The idea had even been shouted to and agreed upon by the defenders of Spring.

It was, at least in theory, a way to keep deaths down, but only time would tell if anyone actually kept their word.

Susanne knew that her side had, at least officially, decided to honor the agreement. Not because they were nice, but because it would allow them to avoid desperate enemies fighting to the death if surrender was an option.

Their advantage would only last as long as they were able to quickly push the enemies, and opposing delvers surrendering and living through the ordeal would ensure that they got to advance faster.

Besides, if those who surrendered broke free after they left, who cared? It was a good thing, in some ways. If they retook one of their cities, they would close the gate behind the first wave of people.

As she finished off the final remaining woman, Liz did the same with her [Disguised Blood], while Matt finished braining two mages who had tried to run.

They were about to move on when a message came through their AI, “Enemy broke through our lines in the east.”

Susanne cursed.

Their prey was getting away.

She was going to run over there, but Aster yipped out, “There is enough winter. Get close to me.”

Trusting her teammate, Susanne moved to the fox’s side and watched as the snow around them started to rush into their group before encasing them in a snowstorm.

It passed just seconds later, but they were outside the city, and she saw what had happened with her own eyes.

At least half a million cultivators had rushed out the east gate, and were in the process of overrunning the defensive lines the Winter Fae had created.

The Fae were fighting valiantly to hold the line, but with that many cultivators who could fight up at least one Tier, they didn’t last a heartbeat.

That was, except for the general.

Primus rushed the flank of the mass like a shark sensing blood.

His short sword cut three dozen cultivators in half with the first mundane swing, and his shield exploded another two who tried to attack his offside.

Susanne and the others ran forward, but Aster was clearly exhausted from her transportation, and got in Matt’s backpack.

With her off the ground, they sped up and cut into the side of the fleeing mass.

Susanne was attacking as much as she could, but before she could get more than a few limbs added to her harvest, she saw Liz explode in a flood of blue ‘blood’.

In seconds, she had hundreds of cultivators trapped and was gathering more by the second.

Still, it was a drop in the bucket, with at least half the Spring cultivators fleeing into the forest, after escaping through the gap they created.

Reports of more cultivators escaping through other exits, as well as the wall breaches created during their assault on the city, caused Susanne to curse slightly at the lost Genesis Energy. But seeing the struggling mass of people that Liz brought forward, she smiled.

Their harvest wasn't bad.

Not bad at all.