Sexy Sect Babes Two: Chapter Twenty (Patreon)

Jack watched on a drone’s camera feed as the shot from the nearby newly built ‘bigger’ gonne arced high into the distance and toward the hill where the ritual was taking place.

He also watched as a distant figure switched direction, away from its intended intercept course with the drone and instead shot towards the incoming shell with the kind of speed a jet fighter might well have been proud to call its own.

The Rooster-kin held a shield in each arm, and as he observed, they threw one like a frisbee. The impromptu discus flew true, colliding with the shell and knocking both objects off course.

The round fell short of its destination. Plummeting down into the mud nearly a half a kilometer short of its intended target, where it exploded harmlessly, doing little more than churn up the muddy fields outside the city.

“Huh, that’s annoying.” Jack muttered as the drone’s aerial view gradually peeled away – Ren having decided that they’d gotten all they were going to get from direct observation.

Again, he had to remind himself that the locals were primitive, not stupid. They adapted to new things frighteningly fast. He’d say it was almost too fast, before he reminded himself that he now lived in a world where women flew around on bolts of lightning. Being able to adapt to new and unexpected forms of attack was likely a much needed survival trait around here.

It would be admirable if it wasn’t so annoying.

“Keep firing,” he instructed the gonne crew. “Eventually we’ll either get lucky or they’ll run out of flyers and shields to throw.”

Behind him, the gonne crew that was currently being overseen by a stern-faced Gao hurried to follow his orders. Fortunately for them, the new gonne wasn’t any more complicated than the older variants, it was just bigger. Which certainly simplified the rather rushed prototyping phase it had gone through.

Which was part of why he was standing a little back from the massive metal structure.

He wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t going to explode.

Which would be bad, because he only had the one. The rest of his industrial capacity was currently occupied with repairing the other gonnes damaged in the attack three days ago.

Because while stopping the ritual was certainly important, that was because it was an important but unknown threat. Elwin had yet to decipher its purpose and neither had any of the Imperials within the city. Likely because it was magic and not ki the gorilla-dragon was using, but both Shui and the Magistrate had been dubious of that claim.

Even they knew that magic and ki didn’t mix. And Shui had felt the woman’s ‘ki’ firsthand. Her word carried a lot more weight than some foreign mage. To that end, given that they couldn’t ‘feel’ any power from the ritual, he had the feeling they were struggling to see it as a threat and not as some… bizarre religious ritual without any real significance.

Which was why he’d been told that the big gonnes were the priority and that the production of bigger gonnes could wait.

Bigger gonnes, he shook his head. I really need a better name for them.

Fortunately, most of the big gonnes were already repaired and the last batch would be getting deployed to the park via crawler-operated-cart in about an hour. At which point he’d switch over fabricators to making parts for the new… bigger gonne.

He watched on the screen as shell after shell was intercepted by the Instinctive’s flying Captain America impersonators. It was a little surreal to see in action, like he was watching something straight out of the Avenger’s eighth remake.

“Do we have a plan to counter that?” Ren asked from his side.

Normally the woman, along with every other cultivator in the city bar the cavalry liaison – who was an odd duck by cultivator standards – avoided his artillery park entirely. Hell, he was pretty sure even the spies from the sects and the Magistrate had been swapped out for mortals.

Even as he watched, the woman flinched each time the massive gonne went off.

“Not right at this minute,” Jack responded as he glanced over to where a crate of new munitions had been gathered.

Unfortunately, his new wonder weapon was designed for the smaller artillery pieces. The shell was too small to fit snugly in the barrel of the bigger gonne.

Hell, even if I could launch it that far, it still might not trigger within shield throwing distance, he thought.

He shrugged as he turned toward the cultivator. “Which is why I’m going to spend the rest of today building more of the bigger gonnes than they have flyers.”

Her nose twitched. “Drown them in numbers? It’s not very elegant.”

As if in response, the nearby bigger gonne went off again, making her flinch.

Jack just laughed. “Few things I do are.”

Ren hummed in not-so-subtle agreement as nearby members of the militia continued setting up their newly created tripod mounted anti-air swivel guns around the park, all while being bellowed at by grim faced sergeants. Amidst it all, two of the three Kang crawlers sat as silent sentinels over the field, their flamethrower mounted turrets aimed toward the skies. Beyond even them, crates full of brand-new specialist ammunition were piled high next to their more conventional kin, each ready to be accessed and swapped out at a moment’s notice should they be needed.

The miner watched it all with muted anticipation.

The locals weren’t the only ones that knew how to adapt – and he had no intention of being taken off-guard by an air attack again.

Just try it, the Overseer of Jiangshi thought grimly. It’ll be the last thing you do.

And hopefully, the fate of whichever Instinctives dared to test him twice from the air would serve as an object lesson to the Magistrate.

Whatever punitive action she had in mind for his own, it wasn’t worth the headache.

The bigger gonne fired again, sending a shell screaming through the air.

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She heard it coming long before it landed. For hours the shrill shrieking had always been interrupted by the comforting clang of metal hitting metal, followed by the thump of a distant explosion.

This time though, there was no clang.

For their had been a clang mere moments prior.

A second catapult. Her ears did not deceive her. She’d heard two thumps from the direction of the city.

Either the hidden master had repaired one of the devices destroyed in the earlier assault or he had others secretly hidden somewhere.

Zu was inclined to believe the latter. It would make the most sense when explaining the nearly day long interval between the first catapult being employed and the second being brought into service.

Growling audibly, she finally turned her gaze away from the bloody ritual she had been conducting and gazed up toward the sky.

Sure enough, a distant speck was growing in size at a speed a mortal might have found hard to perceive.

It was headed right for her. And the Rooster-kin on overwatch was not in position to receive it.

Which was not unexpected. Flight was a taxing technique at the best of times and the attacks had been constant. Even with her cycling the flyers on overwatch regularly, none of them were getting enough rest to truly recover their stamina between shifts.

There just weren’t enough of them. Not after their last attack on the catapults.

And because of it, the ritual would be disrupted before it had completed.

Watching the distant pinprick in the sky grow, Zu growled lowly before finally flinging herself into the air, letting the metal block strike the ground mere meters from where she had been standing.

It exploded violently, throwing prisoners, corpses and guards alike high into the air as the very ground erupted near them.

Zu paid it no heed. Her focus was entirely on containing the roaring elemental forces within her. The ritual was not designed to be interrupted. Mana roiled within her body and sparks of energy rippled along her form as her muscles clenched and bulged agonizingly within her skin.

Trying to contain it all was killing her. Nothing of this earthly plane was meant to contain so much power. In some regards, the fact that the ritual carried but three-sevenths of it’s total power was a blessing.

That was likely the only reason she hadn’t died instantly when she chose to abandon her runes and take the entirety of it into herself. Still, just because she wasn’t dying instantly didn’t mean she wasn’t dying.

Yet, she dared not release it.

Not yet, she thought through squinted eyes.

A sensation to her right told her the Rooster-kin that had failed to intercept both shots was floating near her. “My herald-”

A single errant thought, a tiny slip of her iron focus, and the woman was obliterated. She exploded bloodily as her very bones and blood grinded violently inside of her.

Zu dared not waste a moment on silent recrimination at the waste of another flyer at a time when she would need everyone that she could get her hands on.

“Jiguuer,” she sent, her intent reaching towards the city. “Now.”

The Herald’s wings flapped as she propelled herself toward the city, struggling to both fly, send orders and contain the power that threatened to tear her apart.

“My Herald?” Her friend’s sibilant tone returned from wherever the snake-kin had secreted her and her people within the city. “This is-”

For the second time in as many minutes, Zu cut someone off – though this time without killing the speaker.

“Now!” She sent through gritted teeth. “Either we launch the spell now or this is all for naught.”

Between the catapults and the walls, the siege of the city would last for years if the ritual failed. The ritual could not be cast again. Not so soon after the last attempt. The spirits of the land would rebel against it.

And without the ritual Zu had no means of reliably bringing down the walls. Her army would be stuck here for years, attempting to starve the city out.

She couldn’t afford that. She couldn’t allow herself to be outshined by her siblings.

“Understood.”

With those simple words, Jiguuer cut the connection.

It was strange to think that this might be the last time she heard her friend and bodyguard’s voice. After all, the woman was likely going to her death. The plan had originally called for her to attack the palace with her fellow saboteurs at the same time as the horde attacked the walls.

Now she and her fellows were attacking alone, with no others to help draw the Domestic’s wrath. Still, support or no support, Zu knew her companion would lead the Magistrate on a merry chase before she drew her last breath.

All in the name of buying Zu time.

“Flyers, to me!” Distracted as she was, she couldn’t afford to be selective with her sending.

Indeed she’d likely just woken half the camp. Certainly all the cultivators – and it was possible that even some of the mortals might have felt some kind of disturbance.

She didn’t care though. She needed what remained of the horde’s flyers and she needed them now.

And in response she heard and saw through struggling senses as the Rooster-kin responded. Rushing out into the night, sometimes only half-clothed, they nonetheless responded to her call by taking to the air and following her.

None dared not to.

Zu grinned painfully as she continued her flight towards the wall, an honor guard of Rooster-kin around her. She could already feel the telltale flaring of ki within the walls, on the opposite side of the city, where Jiguuuer’s people had begun the fight.

She could only hope that they had also drawn the Magistrate’s attention.

Then she could give it no more thought as she stretched her hands out and invisible tendrils of power lashed from them to grip at the base of the wall across from her. Mortals and cultivators alike scurried across it like ants, but she paid them no heed as they pointed at her distant form.

They were inconsequential though.

All that mattered was the stone beneath her ‘fingers’. No wards leapt out to stop her. No ancient talismans blocked her power’s path. The mana slipped through those ancient defenses as easily as Jiguuer’s people had slipped over the wall.

It was a heady feeling, and Zu felt almost ecstatic as the conduit between her and the stone edifice solidified, giving an outlet forthe to the awesome power raging around inside her. It was like attempting to redirect the flow of a raging river with but a thin wooden board – but she could do it.

She was the daughter of the One True Divine and the Red Death both.

Yet even still, there was not enough of that power to bring the entire wall down as she had originally planned.

A breach, she thought. A breach is possible though.

That she could do.

She did not need to open her eyes to feel the awe on her flying attendent’s faces as even from beyond bowshot, the sound of stone grinding on stone became audible. She could feel the panic in the wall’s defenders as the very stone bricks beneath them began to shift.

They were small vibrations at first but they would grow. Until the whole rotten structure collapsed.

Just a few more minutes, Zu thought. So long as Jiguuer keeps my wayward cousin distracted I can do this.

Almost as soon as she’d had the thought, a most unwelcome sound intruded on her senses. Audible even over the sound of a section of the wall shaking on its foundations, a familiar whistling made itself known.

A metal block whizzed past her. Close enough that it could only have been aimed at her. Even if it was off by many dozens of feet.

Nonetheless, the dozen or so flyers about her shifted uncomfortably as more and more screaming blocks shot past their group.

The catapults were firing again, somehow. In greater numbers than anticipated. It wasn’t just two blasting below her. She could count dozens of pops going off in the distance, each one heralding another screaming block.

Each one aimed at their flying formation.

“Ignore it,” she instructed through gritted teeth. “The catapults are frightening for the ground dwellers, yes, but we are not on the ground. Even if you do not move, none shall hit you.”

As if to punctuate her point, she allowed herself to lazily drift to the side, letting a single errant block shoot past where she had been moments before. Even as focused as she was on the spell, tracking and dodging the clumsy projectiles was easy.

If this was some last desperate attempt to keep her from completing her spell, then it was doomed to failure.

She grinned as a crack formed in the wall. Spreading across it like the outline of a great lightning bolt. Soon. Soon it would crumble.

She just needed to-

“Aaaagh!” A Rooster-kin screamed as a block exploded near her, sending a hot shard of metal straight through her side.

She dropped like a stone as her concentration broke.

The sudden and unexpected death of one of their comrades broke the formation of the flyers instantly. Yet they were scattered even further still as another explosion occurred in the air around them.

How!? The block had not even struck any of them!?

Another explosion rang out, making Zu flinch at its proximity as it threatened to break her tenuous hold on the power within her. Another of her flying bodyguards dropped from the sky, her smoking corpse plummeting to the floor.

And yet more explosions rang out.

“To me!” Zu roared through gritted teeth. “Do not let the spell be disrupted.”

She needed more time!

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“Keep firing on that heading.” Jack grinned as the gonne crews around him worked like a well-oiled machine.

He’d disrupted the ritual with the second bigger gonne, and whatever the Herald was doing to the wall, it required she be close enough to the wall that the smaller gonne’s were now in range.

The smaller gonnes that had been designed to fit his new ammunition.

“How?” Ren asked, struggling not to flinch from the deluge of noise around her.

In response, Jack pulled out an all-too-familiar object.

“The toy?” Ren asked as she beheld the ball he’d been waving around her yesterday.

“The sensor.” He corrected. “A sensor that is now attached to my new airburst proximity detonated anti-cultivator flak shells.”

He’d need an acronym for that. For now though, flak sounded good enough.

“Flak?” Ren echoed.

“Yep.” Jack’s grin only grew wider. “An explosive triggered by close proximity with cultivators.”

Sure, he’d not been able to figure out what ki was with the sensors he had. But he had been able to sense it with what he had.

And if the sensors in his lab could detect when that strange foreign energy was near, so could an artillery shell.

“Bring that bitch down,” he bellowed “Before she finishes whatever she’s doing to the wall.”

In response to his words, the efforts of the crew’s near him redoubled. It was almost enough to distract him from the appearance of a very familiar figure on the camera feed from the wall. The image was filled with static from whatever the Herald was doing, but the person on the screen came through all-too clearly as she strode through the chaos of the defenders.

And there was no missing the sparks that seemed to dance across her body as she gazed up at the sky.

“What the fuck is Elwin doing on the wall?” he asked.

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Zu was in a world of pain. What she was attempting would be difficult enough under ideal circumstances.

And these were far from ideal circumstances.

“Gah!” Another Rooster-kin cried out as an explosion went off near her, spraying her with shards of shrapnel.

Yet she remained in place. All of them did. None of them dared to run. Not with Zu’s eye upon them – the one that wasn’t currently weeping blood. To do so would label them prey. And that would mean consequences of the worst kind of their friends and loved ones.

Still, there were only four of them left, her bodyguards having formed a tight ball and shield around her. Both to act as a shield and a way to hopefully keep more of the blocks from exploding near their leader.

The blasted things seemed to have some way of sensing when a person was near – and exploded accordingly.

Zu ignored it all.

She focused entirely on bringing down the hated wall. Already it vibrated and shook like a drunk, parts of it falling off and crumbling to the floor.

Just a few more moments, she hissed.

The breach was forming. The wall was crumbling. And through the gap her horde would finally pour into the city, drowning the defenders in the bodies of the faithful.

She just needed to-

Suddenly, her awareness lit up as a familiar sensation began to emanate from the wall. One she hadn’t felt since leaving the homeland. One that filled her with joy and bone-crushing dread.

“Father?” she whispered as the familiar energy reached a crescendo.

So great was her confusion that she didn’t even think to try to dodge as a great bolt of lightning ripped forth from the wall to strike her in the chest.

The spell collapsed instantly and she began to tumble from the sky. Yet even as her consciousness faded and the energies of the ritual slipped from her grasping will, she watched as a section of the wall collapsed inwards.

The breach was formed.

She had won. Despite it all, she had won.

That thought filled her thoughts as strong arms grabbed her own and she felt herself being carried back toward the camp.

The city is doomed.