[MA] 144. Devastation Quota (Patreon)

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[A/N: 3/3 chapters from last week. Next one in a few minutes]

Liya was slightly surprised at being detected by Feng Shen, but she should've seen that coming. His aura wasn't typical.

She took a few moments to understand how he could naturally use his body to double his aura's power, then it dawned on her: his dragon genes.

She had never seen a dragon in person before today, and the Abyssal Dragon had not revealed his domain. However, she recalled something about dragon bodies being special and affecting everything they did. That was how Shen managed to use his Concepts through his body to improve his aura.

Liya would have to research the subject, but in theory, everyone with the same stat tier should be able to accomplish the same deeds. She was past the aura stage of her Path, but she wondered if her domain couldn't benefit from something like that.

Her charge had also been bold in dominating the Concepts as they went through him. The best way she could explain it was as him tricking Reality into believing he was harmonized with it and then pulling more from the connection. Bold, considering the backlash could be lethal.

She would also research that and try to apply it to her domain. If she succeeded, she would inform the autarchs.

Liya knew of some drow with a stronger aura than usual and guessed that maybe it was already a known, albeit not freely disseminated technique. Still, she would do her duty and let her leaders decide what to tell her people. If even one drow benefited from it, she would be glad.

Speaking of benefiting, a tutor and a charge's relationship was complex. She wasn't expected to put her life at risk by going against some uber-powerful being for Feng Shen, so she had gone beyond the call of duty. That would've made him owe her big time.

However, the secrets of aura she had learned here could give her greater power, and such secrets were the best coin in the Alliance. Everyone wanted greater personal power.

So, they were even.

Anyway, her charge had been saved from the thing affecting his brain. She had fulfilled her purpose here. Now, it was up to him to survive until the day she could properly train him.

From what she had seen, he had some above-average techniques and battle sense, but he still had a lot to learn.

Liya stepped away and reached the place where the portal had been. There was nothing there right now, but she would wait there to ensure she went through it as soon as possible.

She would rather not risk her Observer status any longer than necessary.

= - = - =

Shen Flowed through the battlefield.

He could use his aura in an area around him, including himself. His body was greatly improved by Flow and Zephyr. He was unsure if that was a stupid oversight from the gnolls or if they also didn't expect an aura to be at Valentina's level of excellence. Either way, it was great for him.

Thirty percent of the mastered Concepts left Shen at the midway point between what he could passively use and what he could use with qi. The comparison, of course, was based on the non-mastered Concepts because he wasn't sure what he could do with them now.

That alone gave him a lot of room to dodge projectiles and attacks. With his footwork and the aura also pushing the projectiles away, Shen became untouchable.

The effects of any spells slowing Shen were also significantly diminished—by over half their power, maybe close to two-thirds. Shen was D-rank, and he was using mastered Concepts to go against the spells' influence. Thirty percent of his max power was much more than the E-ranks', hence the substantial reduction.

With all those advantages, Shen reached the front line without getting struck even once and, almost as importantly, with a qi expenditure that broke even with his passive absorption. Unless the battlefield changed or he made a mistake, Shen could keep fighting until he was out of AP to buy stamina crystals.

But that wouldn't teach the gnolls the lesson he intended to impart upon them.

When faced with the gnoll with a tower shield, Shen's first reaction was to become Zephyr. A soft wind didn't destroy anything, but it had no issue going around it almost unnoticed.

Yet, gnoll after gnoll stood side by side, creating a long metal wall that Shen couldn't simply go through. He had a fuzzy memory of jumping over it being a bad idea, and his instincts told him the same. It seemed impossible to avoid the shield-bearing gnolls to get to the less-protected troops.

Now that Shen could fully utilize the knowledge given to him by his footwork level up, he knew the issue was his over-dependence on Zephyr. The Zephyr-Gale Footwork also had the original Gale part. He mostly ignored some of its applications, but no longer.

Zephyr would've avoided the gnolls.

Gale would blow them away.

Shen often used that characteristic of his footwork to improve his spear's power. This time, he, himself, became a Gale-assisted Zephyr. He crushed his D+ resistant body against two shields at the point they met with enormous speed. They gave way. Shen went through, Gale crushing opposition and Zephyr avoiding most of the obstacles; his footwork used to the utmost.

Once on the other side, Shen didn't find easy targets. The gnolls had a second row of shield-bearers, who waited in reserve.

Shen used the same tactic to go through them. The two gnolls holding the shields used Skills to try to stop him this time. So he had put his spear before him in a thrust.

Shen's spear had the extra effectiveness of his spear art behind him. He willed his aura to weaken the point of contact but didn't use his Sharpness the usual way. He didn't want to pierce the shields but push them away, so he turned his blade blunt instead. He also added some qi to his body for extra power.

It worked wonders.

His weapon created a small opening as the two shields edged a little, the gnolls incapable of holding them still even with their skills, and when Shen's body hit them, he went through.

From the third row onward, Shen found enemies with plate armor.

That's where he started his lesson.

He had previously established the gnolls couldn't survive without their heads. Piercing their heart was as likely to kill them as not. The path of least resistance was obvious.

Yet, Shen started by dismembering them.

The rows of gnolls were about seven feet apart from each other. Shen used a bit extra qi to cut two legs off at the knee and advanced to the next row. There, he cut off another set of legs.

That was guerilla tactics. The gnolls would try to surround him, but they valued their lives. Shen knew from experience that they took their injured from the fight to replace them with another. So, Shen exploited their care for each other.

If he killed a gnoll, another took their place. However, by cutting their legs, either they became a non-factor, occupying the position that another gnoll couldn't, or they left, usually with another's help. Their troops had excellent logistics capabilities, but too many injured gnolls being moved out while others replaced them still affected the flow of things—which mastering Flow had helped him notice.

It was even better if they had some sort of hybrid offensive mage/healer somewhere; that way, they would focus on healing instead of attacking, thus wasting their time and willpower.

Shen kept moving, cutting legs and creating logistic chaos. The gnolls tried to reposition and get their defenders closer to him, but he never stopped. The speed boost of his aura and fully working mind on top of D+ agility made it impossible for the gnolls to react fast enough to his strikes.

It was one thing for them to activate a Skill barely in time like the shield-bearers did, but they did so by instinct and didn't need to move their bodies even an inch to accomplish anything. Fighting against Shen was impossible for anyone there.

Blood flowed on the gnolls lines. With his aura nullifying—or at least greatly diminishing—many of their advantages, things became a walk in the park.

After Shen felt with his Battle Sense that their ability to move around was property crippled, he started killing.

All his kills used only one swing of his spear with enough qi to go through any armor and Skill. It was a bit wasteful but less so than being denied a kill or wasting time.

Legs fell, heads flew, and blood Flowed.

The Flow of this War became a work of art.

Shen created obstructions to the enemy Flow and killed. The rivers of their tactics and the streams of their logistics were interrupted with instantly-created blocks. He took advantage of brief moments between each attack to decrease or even completely stop his qi usage, maximizing its usage.

And in the secrets of the Concept of the Flow of the Laws of Water, he found a way to cultivate while fighting.

He finally understood that the Hurricane Martial Arts of his clan wasn't just the union of the Water-based Rainfall Cultivation Method with his abilities. There was more to it. Water was also part of the attacks, increasing their power output by providing extra energy.

The Concept of Rainfall, Shen could tell, had a beginning and end. It followed a Flow of its own, Water changing states in an eternal cycle. That's what the cultivation method brought in battle.

Shen expended his qi, so it was thrown into the world. Meanwhile, his dantian absorbed qi and pushed it into his body, soul, and whenever else he willed it to. Shen didn't know much about Rainfall, but he understood the mastered Concept of Flow.

He used his aura to improve the flux of his passive cultivation, turning it into a strange state of near-active-cultivation-yet-not-exactly. He wasn't really paying attention to it, just generally willing his aura to affect his body in that direction while he fought.

That alone almost doubled his qi input.

Shen then perfected his Flow of movements, pushed the precision of the "soft" part of what he did to the max with Zephyr, and used his entire body as effectively as possible with Combat.

He found the perfect spot where his qi usage and intake broke even in a few minutes.

He became a terrifyingly efficient Spear.

Arrows and thin spikes, spells and metal nets, laser-like lights and plasma balls thrown at him were easily dodged or even redirected at his enemies with his aura. He avoided the armored vehicles and made quick work of the gnolls. They could never get to him.

Stamina was still an issue, and he would have to crush stamina crystals every now and then. But unless something changed, that battle was as good as won.

This time, however, instead of waiting for the gnolls' next move, he changed things himself.

Shen suddenly beelined at a barely protected monolith far away from him. With his speed, the gnolls never had any chance to react in strength.

When he approached the monolith, he felt a mana barrier protecting it. He met it the same way he had met the shields, except he used his aura to increase his spear piercingness this time.

He struck the invisible barrier at max speed. It popped like a balloon. Shen didn't slow down, but he did use his qi to bring forth all his power, creating a superimposed qi blade on his spear and turning his thrust into a vertical swing from below.

Shen also pushed his Foundational Qi against the monolith, as he had done against the white cubes. The obsidian object resisted similarly, but with his aura, he was stronger.

He swung his spear, jumping to make sure he cut it thoroughly.

The thing was still being cut when a mana blast came from it, throwing shrapnel and destruction all around.

Shen's Foundational Sphere easily protected him. The gnolls in a fifty-yard range fared much worse. The closest ones were disintegrated instantly by the invisible mana blast. The ones further away became charcoal or were shredded by the broken obsidian.

His qi reserves fell to half, just as he had previously fared against the white cubes. Considering how much more efficient and powerful he currently was, it told a lot about the monolith and its mana blast.

Shen didn't mind. He was sure that with some effort, he could improve his qi input and decrease the overall output—and maybe even become more efficient in maiming and killing the gnolls—

| 100% devastation quota reached.

| Rifts are meant as training opportunities, not as an easy way of gaining AP. This rift's population will be given 3 Earth days to regroup and prepare for Earth's next assault. Every human inside will be forcibly teleported out.

| ERROR: RIFT PORTAL CLOSED. TELEPORTATION COSTS ABOVE MAXIMUM THRESHOLD.

| Teleportation delayed until portals are reopened.

Shen slowed down slightly when he got the first notification, but after the last one, he focused harder on becoming a better killing machine.

He wasn't sure how he felt about all he had gone through or what he would do about it, but he was in the zone right now.

He would improve as much as possible, kill as many as he could, and get as many AP as the Alliance allowed him.

And later...

Well, he would rather not think about later.

Now, he would keep teaching the gnolls the error of their ways.

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