65. No Pain, No Gain (Patreon)

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Shen rose more than twice as high as the others and attracted extra  attention. That was part of the plan. More spells, arrows, and bolts  came at him than any of the other two hundred—though they still weren't  left alone. A few were even overwhelmed and turned into light.

The regulars had around ten thousand long-ranged attackers. One-third  had enough range to attack him. About half did just that when their  leader shouted orders. Shen was glad to see his target was still calm,  in the same place where Mark had previously been.

He got even gladder when, as he had expected, the two thousand people aiming at him showed why they weren't elites.

Over half the projectiles missed him simply because the attackers miscalculated his speed and couldn't move their spells at will.

Shen couldn't fly, but he found he could move on the skies much  better than a mortal thanks to the synergy of Zephyr and Boundlessness.  He could twist and rotate at will, which let him avoid many spells.  That, plus his agile body, was enough to dodge a sixth of all attacks.

That left a third of them.

Shen cut most of them midair, thanks to the maneuverability given by his Concepts and stats.

And despite his efforts, at least two hundred spells hit his body.

Shen was prepared to feel terrible. The willpower of so many people  against him would undoubtedly be enough to make things hard for him  despite his soul defenses, if not outright knock him unconscious. The  only reason he had risked it was because Scott hadn't had such issues.  It suggested the regulars were doing something stupid.

His theory was proven right when the fire and lightning barely hit  him before exploding or dissipating. His E- resistance was enough for  him to take less than twenty points of damage. He had no idea why they  were conserving willpower, but he was glad for that.

All that happened fast. Shen had been running when he jumped  with all his advantages. Yet, he was still human, and there was a limit  to how far he could go. About five seconds after taking to the skies,  he hit the ground, rolling to keep moving even as he landed.

The first part of the plan was complete.

Now, he found himself right about the very middle of the enemy army.  The people nearby approached even before he stopped running. Spells were  coming his way.

Shen stood up and ran.

E- agility, Boundless Qi pushing his body's speed further beyond his  stats, Zephyr Qi improving his movements, D+ footwork making him move  better than any mortal, and more battle experience than every regular in  there. Those were enough to let him crush elites and almost  effortlessly kill group after group of regulars.

They were also enough for him to turn into a blur going straight for the army's leadership.

The leader shouted orders to stop Shen, but when people heard them,  Shen was already far from where he had been, and new orders were  required. When the new orders came, they clashed with the previous ones.  Chaos ensued.

People put themselves in front of him. He killed or sidestepped those. His advantages made him untouchable.

Projectiles came his way. Very few were good enough to hit someone moving so fast.

The subtler attempts to stop him were the worst part of it. Earth  magic turned the ground uneven, wood magic moved the very grass to grab  his ankles, wind magic pushed him in random directions, and people put  their feet on his way.

The big moves were easier to see and avoid. The subtler ones required  all the awareness War, Combat, and Zephyr could give him. His  Whispering Transformation technique was used the entire time.

He refrained from killing freely as he charged at the army's leader, using his spear exclusively for defense.

Shen kept running, kept going. Everything he had experienced in the  tutorial until this very moment, all his fights, all his hard times, all  his triumphs converged to give him one thing:

Victory.

Shen reached the bleachers. Two non-consecutive rows had defenders in  plate armor and shields. He jumped, twisting his body, and got over the  first defensive row. When he reached the second, he grabbed one  defender by the legs and threw him effortlessly to the side. No one had  expected his E- strength. They didn't replace the man quick enough.

The mages and archers on the way to the leaders gave way and let them  live—for now. The leader and three others waited in the topmost row,  clad in plate armor.

Shen reached them in time for the three to block his ascent. Only the  invisible wall was behind the leader, so he couldn't Backstep. Shen had  no choice but to deal with the guards first.

Each second he wasted was one extra second he would get attacked from all sides; he couldn't stay there and fight.

Shen glanced around. Nineteen thousand people was a lot of AP. If he  killed the leadership fast enough and survived, he could keep running  and killing, especially up here, on the bleachers, where mostly poorly  clad regulars stood. That should be enough to make up for what he did  next.

"Buy E- spear," he said while letting go of his G tier one. As had  become the norm with his G weapons, it shattered when qi stopped running  through it.

| Purchased: Any Weapon (E-) | -20,000 AP

| Remaining AP: 201,194

The new spear's dark red shaft had golden details running throughout  its length. They looked like a mix of growing vines and mystical runes.  The spearhead was golden too, almost looking ornamental, except that  Shen could feel how sharp it was thanks to his Concept of Sharpness. The tassel was white and long and fluttered on the wind.

Shen was already mid-movement when the spear materialized in his  hands. He let go of the Zephyr Qi in his body, leaving only Boundless,  and pushed Sharpness onto the spearhead. The last bit of qi filled the  final millimeter of the blade when it was a hair's breadth away from his  enemy's armor.

The golden metal met grey plate armor. It slowed down. Barely.

Shen's spear cut through his target's helmet almost as if nothing was  there. While the regular turned into light, Shen went through the motes  to bisect the army leader from bottom to top. His armor resisted a  little better, enough that Shen's spear couldn't continue after hitting  his rib cage. However, Shen had already cut the man from the waist to the  chest by then. He, too, turned into light.

Shen followed by rotating his body and spear. He cut the two armored  men's legs off. They screamed in pain, but he swiftly finished both with  two short thrusts through the helmet each.

The regulars' leadership had fallen.

Shen didn't waste time. Already magic and steel came for him. He ran, keeping to the topmost bleachers.

Soon, he was surrounded by screams of pain. He had achieved his  primary goal, dealing with the leaders. He no longer needed to focus on  survivability.

He left a trail of light wherever he went through.

People started running away from him soon enough.

= - = - =

Alicia managed to sneak her way back to the top of the bleachers. That was the best position.

It should be at last.

Shen was coming her way. He moved so fast that people gave up landing  a hit on him. He cut so strong that it shattered shields. Most had  given up on stopping him and just accepted death as he approached.

She smiled as he finally reached her... and she felt a gust of wind as he passed by.

He continued killing, and so she turned to do the same.

With Dakota and his two yes-men dead, people were doing what they had  been told to. A couple hundred elites had jumped over the front line,  and now only fifty remained. Unfortunately, it was much slower than it  had been with the previous group because these elites didn't stay in  place. They had started running as soon as they hit the floor, never  stopping for more than the time needed to untangle themselves from a  tricky situation.

They would die eventually, but the front line had little to no magic support until then, and it had become a big problem.

The elites were pushing the regulars back. The regulars switched  places to take advantage of the higher HP regen, but even ten seconds to  heal 100 HP was starting to feel like too long. The elites were elites  for a reason, and it showed.

If it wasn't for Shen, there would be tension. Would the regulars  finish the fifty elites and support the front line in time? Or would the  elites kill too much for any help to matter when it finally arrived?

But Shen was there. The battle was long.

It was still an excellent opportunity to train though. Alicia was  almost able to control the movements of four fireballs at once, and she  might just accomplish that if she had enough time.

She summoned seven fireballs and rained fire upon her enemies.

= - = - =

"No!" the guy yelled." You can't kill me! I demand—"

Elam killed the deposed leader of the regulars with three thrusts to  his eye. Why the hell would that idiot keep his helmet open? It didn't  even make things fun for Elam!

Well, his job was done. Killing the former leader had been Elam's  main goal because the guy might find a way to take control of the army  and turn back the tides. A long shot if he ever heard any, but the  Chinese guy had insisted.

Now he could finally take part in the main battle.

He turned and ran to the army.

= - = - =

Evelyn spread tendrils of gravity over the front lines and controlled the flow of battle like a puppet master.

When an enemy's sword was about to hit an ally, she pulled it  sideways. When an ally's halberd was about to miss an enemy, she pulled  it faster and caused it to strike true.

When enemies tried to run, they found gravity didn't agree with them.  When an ally needed to get elsewhere faster, they found the opposite.

That took all her concentration and control, but it was also a great exercise on top of being useful. Not that it had made any  difference against Shen, neither in the Arena nor in their spar before  this battle.

She looked at the white, red, and golden blur that had killed until  everyone around panicked and ran. The bleachers were empty, and the blur  now reached the ground.

Feng Shen was a monster, there was no other way to put it.

Evelyn really hoped he joined the good guys back on Earth.

= - = - =

Sandra had learned from Scott. She had bought the nanobots but had  previously been using magic only to make herself harder to kill. Now,  she used it to make her punches explode upon contact with her enemies.

It was delightful.

Her gauntlets had turned into smithereens after repeated explosions,  but her hand fared much better. She still took damage, but it healed  fast, and Sandra wasn't a stranger to pain.

No pain, no gain; such was the wisdom that governed a lot of her life.

She punched a guy's head into bloody bits— well, into motes of light, but a lady could pretend the world wasn't so dull.

One less regular alive, almost nineteen thousand to go.

= - = - =

Bob concluded he had made a sagacious decision by staying away from  the Shen guy. That dude was too strong, and strength always attracted  trouble. Back on Earth, it was always like that with money and status.  It would be like that with superpowers too.

Nothing good would come associating with Feng Shen.

It had felt bad to see the look of sheer disappointment and  pain in the guy's eyes when Bob had rejected him. Bob had even  considered going back on his words. But now, it was evident he had made  the best decision of his life.

He shot arrow after arrow and waited for the massacre to finish.

= - = - =

Shen lost himself in the fight.

He killed and killed, one after the other. Nonstop, mercilessly, effectively. They were the enemy, and he was a living spear.

Shen realized for the first time that the Path of the Spear he trod would be paved with blood.

And he found he was okay with that.

How much of that was his past self? The Eternal Empire was no  stranger to war. Cultivators learned martial arts for more than just  centering themselves; it was the most effective way of weaponizing their  qi.

But how much of that was the influence of his three foundation  Concepts instead? Boundlessness had influenced him before he took it  away from the foundations, after all.

He had no answers, but to walk a Path was to accept walker and Path would change the other.

His was the Path of the Spear, and he would walk it to the end. The  critical part was making sure his enemies were deserving of the  punishment he inflicted upon them.

Shen thrust his spear, and it pierced another skull. He turned to look for the next target.

He found none. The regulars were gone.

The remaining five hundred elites—including the last stragglers who  had come to help at last—had been waiting for him to kill the last  regular. They raised their hands to the air and cheered in sheer joy.

Shen rested his spear on his shoulder and cracked a smile.

That had been fun.

[A/N: We got ourselves a fancy new weapon at last! \o/]

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