Mana 4 Chapter 30 (Patreon)

The single speck of light formed a thin coil of lightning, which spooled out, filling the swirls of the tribulation cloud.

The small bolt of lightning was far smaller than anything I’d experienced, yet it glowed with such power that it could light the world as if it were noon.

A bright pillar of light surrounded my four mana beasts and I as they sat cross-legged around me like the points of a compass.

“Uh… Master?” Aurora looked ragged. Her wings were worn, missing a number of feathers, and her dress was tattered. But her face still held hope, although the hope was shrouded in a bit of fear as she stared up at the sky. “What did you do?”

“I think I pissed the world off. More than I was supposed to.”

“Master, I love you.” Aurora said quickly.

“We aren’t going to die. This is the last hit. We can do this if we focus. The enchantment is otherwise drained; we only need to survive this.”

Even as I said it, the tiny bright lightning bolt uncoiled from the cloud and defied all expectations as it floated down slowly. It was very different from a typical bolt blast, which zig zagged quickly to strike its mark. This bolt moved methodically, almost like a snake preparing to strike.

“Together. Once more!” I shouted and closed my eyes as the bolt hit.

Pain blossomed in every fiber of my being, and all I saw was white as the tiny bright bolt filled me. I didn’t need to cycle through my meridians; it was full of so much raw power that it flooded everything and poured out into my mana beasts until they overflowed and backflowed back into me.

It was such intense pain that it all washed out and I nearly became numb. Yet I continued to take it piece by piece, refining the bright bolt of lightning along with everything else I’d gained in the tribulation and feeding it to the growing power in my soul and soul palace that was slowly but surely taking more than a small piece of heaven’s power.

The power that produced this lightning bolt was so vast that I started to wonder what the limits of cultivation truly were.

My body was reaching its limits, but what kept me fighting was knowing my mana beasts were beside me, fighting the same fight. If I failed, they would fail too. The onslaught of pain continued as the lightning wove its way through us until it suddenly stopped as suddenly as it had started. My body slunk forward.

I cracked my eyes open and my four mana beasts darted into their rings, utterly exhausted.

I looked around at my surroundings. My robes had blown apart from the waist up, and I was sitting in a crater where the foothill had previously stood. With my chest; laid bare, hundreds of cultivators came around the edge of the crater to peer inside.

Even now, there was a vast babble of voices as they speculated just who could have broken through to the fifth rank and essentially made themselves the newest power within the city.

Two figures slid down the crater wall as I stumbled to my feet and dusted loose shreds of cloth off my body. I didn’t care much about the robes, but I felt on display and vulnerable. I needed to get myself out of there.

The first figure was a middle-aged man who excitedly greeted me. “Welcome. I don’t recognize you. Do you have any affiliation with a family in town?”

A second man slid down the slope. “We didn’t know there was an expert in town that was ready to break through. The Ying Family—” He cut off suddenly, looking down at my chest.

With my robes blown off, Guo Ying’s spatial ring was clearly on display, still dangling from the cord of mana beast leather around my neck.

I wasn’t sure whether to be happy it survived or angry at being found out before I was ready. The Ying Family man clearly recognized it.

He turned and bolted just as Kat was coming down the slope, shaking her head. I wasn’t ready for my secret to be out yet. Locking eyes with Kat, she nodded her agreement, and I cringed a bit as I gathered my newfound power.

Forming a bolt of Lumi’s lightning first in my soul palace, I transferred it out and threw it at the man who was running to tell the Ying family about me.

The world lit up in a flash of light as the bolt of lightning burnt the air and slammed into the man.

His back exploded, and he fell, skidding to a stop partway out of the crater. As he fell, four more men jumped in. Two grabbed him and two more came at me.

This time, I formed my oldest and favorite spell, summoning Aurora’s Kunpeng claw. But instead of a mana filled image that spooled out and took a moment to gather mana from the world, it was an instant, massive spell as it slammed into them.

The spell was several times the force I had expected, and when the spell reached them, they crashed into the side wall of the crater. There was a spray of blood followed by an explosive impact into the wall that collapsed that side of the crater.

I covered myself from the falling rocks and pulled Kat behind me to shelter her as well.

The other man, who had clearly been interested in recruiting me, looked at me with sweat beading down his face. “Please, I have kids. Don’t kill me.”

“Why would I? You aren’t part of the Ying family, are you?” I watched a few other Ying family men escape from the crater.

After breaking through to the fifth ring, I was a mix of feeling full of potential and also at the end of my strength. And while my body was filled with power, my mind and body were on their last dregs of strength.

Kat wrapped her arms around me and kissed my neck. “I’m so proud of you. Do we get to go kill people now?”

My body starting to shake from exhaustion. “I need to rest for maybe an hour or so and check on Aurora and the others. But I would like to make the first move, and that’s going to be hard with word about to get out.” I scooped Kat up and, like I’d seen Lumi do in the past, I imagined myself transforming into lightning and zipping deeper into the mountain range to a familiar cave we’d spent time at before.

“That was new.” She said, surprised at the sudden change in location. “Not bad. How far can you go?”

“This was my limit. Still, it’s a solid distance.”

Focusing inwardly, I pulled at my rings. That was when I noticed that in addition to my four interlocking rings, another plain silver one had appeared. I grinned, wondering what mana beast would eventually fill that ring.

“Come on out.” I called, pushing my mana beasts out.

Aurora, Mei, Quinn and Lumi came out looking a little dazed at the sudden relocation.

“WAH!” Mei jumped to her feet and looked at the fifth ring on my chest. “Yes! We did it!” She danced around me, but I noticed something had changed about Mei as well.

A fifth tail danced behind her.

I quickly inspected Aurora and Quinn to find both of them had made a large leap in power. “All of you are fifth rank now?” Even Lumi’s aura was noticeably more powerful.

“Yes. I wouldn’t have expected that, but between what you did and our souls being connected, we were able to experience a part of the tribulation with you.” Lumi answered.

Quinn brushed her hair out of the way. “It was Lumi that noticed the possibility. Without her, I doubt we would have realized the opportunity it presented.”

“Not to mention, you all helped me push the tribulation as far as I did.” I shook my head in awe of that last lightning bolt.

“What was that at the end?” Kat asked. “It was too bright for us to see.”

“The smallest, slowest lightning bolt I’ve ever seen. It was like I angered a god and he sent just a small morsel of his attention into that attack.” I shuddered at just how powerful the final moments before that attack had been. There was something up there, something unbelievably powerful.

“Well. I don’t think I’m going to try that.” Kat laughed. “Just the plain old genius level black lightning will do for me.”

I laughed. ‘Just the black lightning’ was enough to give an ancient family a celebration of a genius. Kat and the rest of my wives, no doubt, wouldn’t want to be too outdone.

“Good. Now, we all need to rest. Come here and cuddle in. I want to give my body a chance to recover before the big fight. Lumi, we are about to get your revenge.”

The raiju looked at me with a shocked expression, like she’d forgotten about it. But that quickly shifted into a feral grin as she remembered the man that killed her. “I look forward to it.”

I stopped talking, letting my body relax and focusing then on recovery. Drawing on Aurora’s life mana and my newfound ability to manipulate the world, I imagined my soul in the same state as my body.

In many ways, merging the two allowed me to use Aurora’s mana directly in my soul palace, where I had far more control. And sure enough, my body began recovering at a much faster rate.

I felt hands tighten around my head as Mei pulled me into her chest. I let myself relax against her, working to get my body ready for the battle ahead.

***

I felt recovered far beyond what I’d expected a little less than an hour later. My soul was harmonized with my physical body, and I felt absolutely superb.

Leaping to my feet, I startled my mana beasts that had been piled on me, and Kat, who had been keeping a lookout.

I was ready to bring the fight to the Ying family.

“Are we going?” Quinn asked.

“Yes, but let’s hide you all for now.”

“I don’t know.” Kats said, looking at the four mana beasts who all pulsed with the strength of fifth rank. “You show up with five immortals of the fifth rank and they might just shit themselves.”

I paused, only then realizing just how powerful I’d become with all four of my mana beasts.

Lumi popped that bubble, though. “Strength at this stage is a massive ocean. You are just at the beginning and he could be on the other side.”

I considered what Kat had said and the potential ramifications of revealing my mana beasts too early. “They will come out to fight later, but I’d like to be able to use the surprise.”

“Agreed, I’d love nothing more than surprising him with death.” Lumi grinned, showing off her large canines.

Aurora gave me a kiss on the cheek before disappearing into her ring, followed by the others.

“Let’s go Kat. We have an ancient family to end.”

“You say the sweetest things.” She blushed and nudged me.

I swear, Kat sometimes has a few too many screws loose. Grabbing her, I bolted out of the cave and the ground flew by beneath me.

A shudder ran through me as I passed the site of my tribulation and saw the massive crater. It was almost as if someone had inverted the foothill. All of that from one small lightning bolt.

Pushing aside thoughts of the intense bolt, I focused on my goal as I zipped across the landscape and leapt the town’s wall in a single bound before jumping from roof to roof and landing at the gates to the Ying family estate.

All around the estate, people were gathered, watching and waiting for a show.

When I landed with Kat in my arms, she fussed, brushing the hair out of her face. “Give a girl a little warning.” But as she tucked her hair away, she looked around, taking an interest in the gathered crowd. “News travels fast.”

People were already pointing and gawking at us and then at the Ying family estate.

Immortals were lined up in square blocks just inside the open gates, like they were preparing for war. Five hundred immortals filled the ranks of the Ying Family’s personal army.

“Teacher.” Rachel ran up to me in thicker robes than I’d seen on her before and her sword openly belted to her hip. “What are we doing?”

“Giving a lesson on how to survive as an immortal.” I answered back. “Be careful of who you offend, act with a good heart, but a swift blade. The Ying family caused this by raising their son without morals. I had no desire to end the line of an ancient family, but Guo Ying wouldn’t stop pressing and caused this.”

This was a gruesome necessity. Both in the previous world and this one, cultivation was hard to gain but easily lost. Guo Ying had been born with an advantage, only to waste it with his poor attitude. If it had been anyone other than me, he might have succeeded, but that wasn’t the case.

I even understood that as a weakened family they were like an injured beast putting on a big violent front to hold on to their prestige, to protect themselves by trying to wrap their name with fear. Unfortunately, they had picked on the wrong person to build that fear.

My voice boomed, drowning out all the gossip. “Today the Ying family ends. If you throw down your robes, burn them and never take the Ying name again, I’ll let you walk out of here with your lives.”

Murmurs sprouted up around as all the onlookers considered what I had said. Even a few spouses of those beyond the gate shouted for them not to waste their lives.

But others thought I was a fool, cocky from just breaking through, and I was doomed against the more veteran Ying family patriarch with an ancient bloodline.

I drew the bonesword from my core and pointed it through the gate in one final warning, but they didn’t back down. They’d made their choice, and it was time to finish it.

With the strength of my new fifth rank, I didn’t hold back. I couldn’t afford to show further mercy as I worked to establish a safe space for my family.

Metal mana spooled out, extending my blade. The bonesword became a scythe and the men chaff of the wheat as I reaped their lives like a bountiful harvest. It was gruesome, bloody work, but it would serve as a display for those who stood beyond the Ying family walls watching.

If any of them hated me for this, I could only blame the Ying Family patriarch for throwing these men before himself in a paltry attempt to wear me down before he fought me.

But they were little challenge, and soon I’d swept through the third rank immortals.

As they fell, the fourth rank immortals sprang up from among the ranks and blocked my wide sweeping attack with a concerted effort.

My blade swung out and away from them as I blurred forward and I punched through all of their defenses. The fully realized spells were flying out of my soul palace, shattering their own techniques and blasting open skulls and chests.

Swinging my sword in lazy circles, I spun in place, watching the ranks of the Ying Family’s men hesitate to move forward. I wondered if any of them had experienced the difference between the fourth and fifth rank before. If they had, I wondered if they would have made a different decision.

Tiring of this mundane slaughter, I leapt up into the air, summoning a pair of massive Kunpeng wings behind me. With a single flap, they ejected thousands of feathers.

Like an army’s arrow fire, the powerful feathers crashed through the ranks, tearing apart men by the dozens.

Landing, I spun out in a circle and let loose a powerful roar, tapping something I’d seen Quinn do before. I imbued the roar with metal mana, filling the space before me with small sharp blades that tore through the army in a massive cone.

At this point, some backed away. Others even dropped their weapons and tried to flee. But some remained, so I wasn’t done yet.

I summoned a field littered with shards of void for the few that still were brave enough to charge forward. In the process, they tore themselves apart. Their armor and bodies were no match for the small pockets of void.

By that point, the field at the front of the Ying family estate was a mess of carnage. Hundreds of immortals lay dead, their bodies blanketing the field with their bodies and aerating it with their blood.

Those that fled cowered to the side as I turned, pinning them between the wall of the Ying Family estate and myself.

Yet, still, the Patriarch hadn’t come out to save them.

“You are all completely and utterly outmatched. And the man you stand to protect has left you here.” I tried one last time. “Throw down your robes and burn them, along with the Ying family name..”

This time, they stripped. The soldiers were tearing off their robes and throwing them on the ground. Apparently, them losing their lives wasn’t worth the Ying Family patriarch showing up, but tarnishing his name was.

“Stop!” an older man yelled, his hair line pulling back halfway across his head as he stood straight on top of the Ying Family manor. “You dare leave the Ying family after all that I’ve done for you?”

Overwhelming power cascaded off of the patriarch as he slammed a palm forward and a massive tidal wave rose up behind him.

It crashed forward, large enough to swallow several houses.

I could have stepped aside and let him crush all of those behind me, but I wanted to come out of this fight as the better man. They had surrendered, and I wouldn’t let him harm them.

I slammed forward a plow of metal mana, breaking the wave and protecting those behind me even as his spell obliterated the wall around his estate. “Burn those robes and get out of here.” I shouted over my shoulder. I heard movement indicating they were all doing it as quickly as possible.

Licking my lips, I kept my eyes on the patriarch, ready for the real fight to begin.

Just the small taste I’d gotten of my new rank’s power was enough to have me looking forward to seeing just what I was capable of doing. I stepped forward, readying for the next attack.