Fates Parallel Chapter 407 - Incursion (Patreon)

“Everyone stand in the circle and get ready to move through on my mark.”

Dae finished putting the last pieces of the support formation into place. Hwang Sung had given him a spell talisman that would get them through the shield, but without the additional support, it would only be good for one person.

Learning the formation had been quite the trial. Dae took pride in his exemplary skill in the arcane arts, but Magus Hwang’s work was a stark reminder that he still had a long way to go.

Once everyone was ready he placed the talisman against the invisible barrier before them and fed it just enough of his mana to get it started. Once the spell was cast, it fed on the barrier to function, allowing Dae to focus his efforts on coordinating between the spell and his formation.

It wasn’t an ideal solution, but Dae and Magus Hwang Sung had been pressed for time when creating it. The formation was essentially a kind of repeater—taking the output of one spell and duplicating it several times.

Dae thought of it as the reverse of a spell-scribed formation. Instead of a spell to draw a formation, the formation cast a spell.

Except it wasn’t so simple. Talismans and formations weren’t just characters and patterns drawn on paper and imbued with mana. That mana required knowledge and understanding. It needed to be infused with the intent of the caster.

There were tricks to get around it—most of them carrying various degrees of additional burden on the mage creating or casting the spells—but for this, Dae needed to carefully attune the spell for each of the people passing through the shield. There was no way to pack all of that into a single spell or formation without knowing in advance exactly who the targets would be.

Even then, it would take time they didn’t have to adjust and fine tune the formation.

So instead, Dae had to do it manually, in real time. That was the primary reason for the limitation on the number of people who could pass through. He could only handle so many.

Six was his limit, himself included. Even that was pushing things. He’d made optimizations that assumed he and his subordinates would be included, so practically speaking he only needed to focus on three spells at once.

Of course, if he’d said that to any of his peers in the colleges, they’d have spit blood. Focusing on even two spells at once was nearly unheard of, and Dae had been quite proud of his talent for multi-tasking until Yoshika came along.

That didn’t count, he reasoned—having multiple minds was cheating.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t an easy task, and by the time the spell was finished he barely had the presence of mind to actually give the mark to move.

“Now!”

The six of them charged through the formation, making it through just in time before a blinding flash of light resonated from the point of their entry and across the entire barrier.

Dae wiped a bit of sweat from his brow as he caught his breath—he’d been so focused he’d nearly forgotten to breathe.

“We made it. We’re going to be stuck on this side until we can repair the formation from within, though.”

Yuan Xing grunted irritably.

“That flash is going to have alerted every demon for miles to our location—and they’re trapped too. Where are we going?”

“The academy’s main lecture hall. It’s on the north side of the campus, but it’s the center point of the barrier. The main formation should be drawn there—beneath the foundation, I think.”

Harada Jun grimaced.

“Senior Dae, you never said we were going to have to dig up a building in the middle of enemy territory.”

“We won’t need to dig anything up—there will be an access point somewhere.”

Yue cast a glance back towards the academy.

“Perhaps we can help locate it. Yoshika will know where it is, and while we’re not able to communicate with her at the moment, we’re...connected.”

Dae couldn’t respond to her with Yuan Xing nearby, but he agreed with her reasoning. Yuan Xing scoffed.

“Whatever it is we need to do, we’re not going to get it done standing around. Let’s get moving before we’re swarmed.”

—-

Ja Yun was out of her depth. She was always out of her depth, but this was different. She felt like she was trapped at the bottom of an endless ocean, the pressure bearing down on her from every direction as she drowned helplessly.

She missed Rika and Eunae. Getting to see them briefly, even as part of Yoshika, had been a blessing she’d never expected, but it only served to highlight their absence even more. Even Iseul had run off to do her own important task—her little elemental daughter was rapidly surpassing her.

That left Ja Yun alone, running frantically from hilltop to hilltop and erecting fortifications with military precision. To protect from what? What were a few mud-brick walls going to do against xiantian invaders? It was busywork and Ja Yun knew it—if it was important, someone else would have been doing it.

A sudden change in the surrounding air snapped her out of her pathetic wallowing. Melati buzzed urgently nearby.

“Yun, did you feel that? Is it Yoshi?”

Ja Yun frowned, trying to get a sense of the mana in the air. It wasn’t not Yoshika, but something had definitely changed.

“I don’t know. What are the others saying?”

“Lingling thinks that the enemy is coming. Yue says that Yoshi is fighting, but we should be ready to run back to the town if anything else happens.”

Yun was glad of her military training—it was the only thing holding her together.

“Let’s get moving now—if a xiantian enemy breaks through it will be too late to retreat. We’ll—”

The air trembled as Ja Yun felt rather than saw the cracks forming in reality beyond her fortifications. A presence leaked through, clawing its way past the cracks and crashing against the walls.

Ja Yun snapped out of her reverie as it began probing her defenses, searching for a way through—it seemed they weren’t so useless after all.

“Mel, run! Warn the others!”

“What about you?!”

“I’m running too, but I’m slower than you are. Don’t wait for my sake.”

Melati giggled of all things and shook her head, hovering close and patting Ja Yun on the shoulder.

“Melati is just a drone, silly. You run, this drone will stay to distract whoever comes through.”

Ja Yun grimaced—she felt like such an idiot. Both for forgetting that Melati had expendable bodies so soon after they’d had to cull a bunch of them, and for feeling guilty about abandoning her anyway.

“Just be careful! Xiantian cultivators do much worse to you than just physical harm.”

Melati nodded.

“You too! We’ll meet again soon!”

Ja Yun fled back towards the town, praying that whatever Yoshika was doing would work in time to save them. She felt selfish for thinking it, but Yun just wanted to see her girlfriends again...

—-

Yang Qiu shuddered—a feeling of utter dread sinking deep into her soul.

“Oh shit—he’s here.”

Yan Yue’s gaze snapped onto her urgently.

“Who? Where?”

“My old master—the demon lord is here. I don’t know where, but I can feel him.”

It was a distant feeling, but unmistakable, and not even the pervasive cloying aura of Yoshika could mask it. Sovereign Longyan had entered the realm.

Yan Yue scowled.

“Then we’d best hurry. Magus Hyeong, I suggest you pick up the pace.”

The dog-boy just scowled, unable to respond without looking like a crazy person in front of Yuan Xing. They’d been fighting their way through the streets of the academy, but it was as packed with demons as Yang Qiu remembered.

They weren’t all from the pits. They’d run dozens of those and only managed to produce Yang Qiu and the two rejects they’d send along with her. Most of the demons were recruited locally—Yu Meiren had a unique talent for finding people and twisting them to her will.

Yang Qiu didn’t harbor any feelings for her former ‘comrades.’ There had never been anything holding the demons together except the oppressive influences of Longyan and Yu Meiren, and in their absence, those bonds had been quick to dissolve.

So were the demons, for that matter. Despite his unassuming demeanor, the bookish scholar turned out to be one of the most fearsome cultivators she’d ever seen, launching powerful spells in every direction and controlling the battlefield with practiced ease.

The ones with him weren’t slouches either. The average-looking Yamato boy sunk foes into quagmires of molten stone, and left nothing but glassy slag in his wake. Brutal and uncontrolled, but undeniably powerful—Yang Qiu respected it.

His partner—a man so pretty that Qiu had initially mistaken him for a woman—was more subtle. His foes seemed to just collapse whenever they got close, while those further away would get distracted by invisible phantoms. He hummed a quiet, haunting melody as he walked, as if the carnage around him wasn’t even happening.

Yang Qiu spared Yan Yue an uneasy glance, noting the look of pride on her face. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that their techniques were so similar.

Ultimately, however, the one that caught Yang Qiu’s eye was none other than Yuan Xing. She knew him, and not just by name or reputation. She’d met the man herself, not a month before her sect had fallen. The leader of the Silver Orchard’s vaunted demon hunter corps.

He’d promised them that their sect was safe under the Silver Orchard’s aegis, the liar.

“Magus Hyeong, we’re not making any progress like this. I suggest you take whoever you need and press on while the rest of us cover your back.”

The mage hesitated for a moment before turning to his two subordinates.

“Jun, Nao, stay behind with the commander to hold off the demons. Princess Seong, Young Master Xin Wei, I’ll need your help with the formation so please come with me.”

Yang Qiu was tempted to hold her tongue. It was none of her business, and as Yan Yue had said, she was only here because she couldn’t get too far from her core. She had a wistful memory of Tan Zhong—the nosey boy who couldn’t mind his own business—and decided that discretion was overrated.

“If you leave your back to that man, he'll stab it in a heartbeat.”

Hyeong Daesung gave her a questioning look, but it was Zheng Long who responded.

“I’ve been willing to tolerate your presence as long as I can ignore it, but I won’t allow you to casually besmirch a man’s honor like that.”

Yang Qiu scoffed.

“He said he’d protect my sect, and you can see for yourself how that turned out. If you value those friends of yours, you shouldn’t leave them under his command.”

The mage hesitated briefly. It was his decision to make, and he didn’t have much time.

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind. Princess Seong, you’re more familiar with Harada and Ishihara—can you stay to lead them while Commander Yuan provides us escort?”

Seong Eunae smiled thinly and nodded.

“Leave it to me.”

It still boggled Yang Qiu’s mind just how grand a scale the things happening around her were on. She’d known that Yoshika was powerful, and her association with figures like Zheng Long had been a hint that she was important, despite being an apparent nobody.

But now, Yang Qiu was starting to realize just how important Yoshika was. A princess of Goryeo, the heir to Yamato’s shogunate, multiple young masters from some of the most powerful sects in the empire—all of them looked up to her. Rallied around her.

Her new master was the kind of person who moved entire worlds. Perhaps, as they made their way towards the center of the enclave, that would soon be more than just a turn of phrase.