[MA] 153. Again? (Patreon)

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[A/N: 1/3 chapters this week. Next one in a few minutes.]

Sai's relief was quickly replaced with something his senses were screaming at him from the moment he had noticed the blur approaching. He had ignored it simply because Shen had approached so fast, and his mind had been overwhelmed with the reencounter. He immediately regretted it.

Shen's words might've been light, and his smile might've been kind, but everything else around him screamed of danger.

The very air Sai breathed felt heavy and dangerous. It was like his very surroundings could turn against him at any moment. It was uncomfortable and oppressive, and somehow, he could tell it came from Shen.

The cultivator was subjecting Sai to that terrible feeling. What if—

"Ahhhhhhh!" His sister screamed from inside the hovercar.

Sai finally reacted. Shen was attacking, and he'd be damned if he would die without a fight. "Run, mother!" he screamed. "Take Sanaya with you!"

He pulled his two daggers from their sheaths and rushed at Shen.

The cultivator raised his hands in mock surrender, but Sai wouldn't fall for the same trick of acting one way while doing another. Sai released his mana, and everything in a fifty-yard radius turned into darkness. Only the area immediately around his family and a way for them to escape was left free of darkness while Sai rushed at the D-rank.

His spell simply blinked out of existence in an instant.

"You're too deep in my aura," Shen said calmly when he noticed Sai's surprise, but the assassin didn't stop to listen. His daggers went straight toward Shen's neck.

The impending successful attack made some of the panic fade, and Sai let himself smile triumphantly.

He had a lot of respect for the cultivator's strength, and the way Shen had dispelled his spell without going through a battle of willpower showed he had improved even further. But Sai had improved too. Unlike his Concept of Stealth, Sai had mastered Penetration, and no one had ever resisted his blades when he added the Concept to them.

Yet, he also knew Shen wasn't such a fool. The man was too still, so there was a trap somewhere. Sai quickly changed his right dagger's direction for it to miss Shen's neck and pushed his left dagger toward the cultivator's eye instead. He also used his recently acquired Concept of Burst Speed to the max, turning his arm into a blur even to his own eyes.

Shen still didn't react.

Sai's smile turned into a frown, but he wouldn't let go of the opportunity.

The tip of his dagger met the cultivator's eye...

...and cracked.

Sai was overcome with surprise and took too long to react. His weapon kept going and would probably have shattered if Shen himself didn't move out of the way at a speed Sai couldn't follow. The cultivator simply disappeared from where he had been standing and reappeared a foot away.

"You're feeling my aura," Shen said quickly. "It's not an attack."

Sai was so stunned by his broken dagger that he just stood there, listening while staring at his weapon.

The cultivator kept talking fast, afraid Sai would stop listening. "I can't turn it off. Sorry, I didn't know you had mortals with you. I'll stay far enough so they won't be inside my aura, and you can come to meet me after you calm them down. Actually, I'll see if Alicia can help. She's training people somewhere."

He turned and disappeared.

Sai kept staring at his dagger, incapable of understanding what had just happened.

= - = - =

Shen found Alicia lecturing the five Pioneers who had arrived together a few hours ago and stopped—far enough so they wouldn't feel his aura—to wait for her to finish. Despite what he had told Sai, she wasn't training them as much as she was sharing Shen's findings both inside the rift and in their tests.

The Pioneers sat on the ground in the Staging Area, where at least the first battles—hopefully all of them—would occur. It was a circle with a six miles radius around the rift portal where troops would be fielded according to his instructions. It was currently mostly empty, except for some mortal military equipment that would be employed when the Rift War started.

Rift War.

Shen dreaded that name as much as he relished it. On the one hand, people would die. On the other hand, it was for a worthy cause, protecting their world, and it would let him use part of his Path that had been only touched upon until now.

That would be the very first actual war he participated in, and he would be its main general.

He was looking forward to how his mixed Foundational Concepts—which included War—would behave when the battle started. Already, it had allowed him to organize the entire encampment primarily by himself, logistics included—though he had to admit he had received mortal assistance to understand recent advances and modern mentality.

That had been an enormous surprise. Shen had underestimated modern humans on many things and overestimated on others.

For instance, he had underestimated their drive and creativity.

It had been enlightening to see how mortal technology and mana were mixing. Someone, somewhere, had bought a mana-to-electricity converter from the Guardian System, reverse-engineered it, and shared the knowledge on the internet.

The Guardian System didn't seem to care, which led to a plethora of questions that Shen hadn't spent time considering because of the incoming war.

Anyway, the system had said mana didn't run out unless the Void was invading or Guardians were fighting on the front lines. That meant humankind had just "discovered" an unlimited supply of energy, which enabled many technologies that the mortals had been having trouble with due to their usual fuel sources' weight, especially portable ones. Moreover, having access to Concepts let them understand some laws of physics differently and advanced their technology even further.

One such thing was the flying shoes that were being almost freely distributed.

Shen wasn't sure where the line on unlimited energy and new technology lay on those pieces of equipment, but they were fascinating. They had to be tight-fitted to each person because they were controlled by toe movement. They also only worked if metal was on the ground because they used mana-powered super reverse magnets or something of the kind. That led the users to always carry small metal pieces with them, just in case they needed to fly in a less than ideal terrain.

As if that wasn't amazing enough—even F-ranks could fly easily!—Shen had heard people were already seeing how they could adapt it to work based on Earth's natural magnetism!

Not everything was great though.

Shen had, for instance, overestimated the modern work ethic.

He had thought that the impending doom would make them all work much harder, yet most Guardians liked to sleep at least a couple hours every day, even if they didn't need to anymore. Those who stayed awake still demanded time off. Considering the crisis they faced, things were even more different from the Eternal Empire than he had expected.

Anyway, regardless of his previous misconceptions, things were progressing well.

Alicia finally made a pause and turned to him. He nodded and approached. She clenched her jaw when she felt his aura again, but she was getting used to it.

The Pioneers fared worse. One of them, who hadn't seen Shen, jumped and turned around, ready to fight or flight. The others pushed a little mana outside their bodies to feel safer, a small technique Alicia had developed and taught them.

Shen also noticed something else on them, but he hoped they would be more intelligent than that.

"Sai is here," Shen said as he walked closer, limiting his speed despite the desire to expedite things. "Can you help him go through the bureaucracy and find me? He improved so much that I want to spar ASAP." He used the acronym the military loved.

Alicia raised an eyebrow. "How do you know he improved? Wait, weren't you supposed to be in a meeting with the Generals?"

"I adjourned it when I heard he arrived," he replied, brushing off her concern with a wave of his hand. "You have to see him, Alicia. He can accelerate so fast! That gotta be a new Concept. And I had to reinforce my eye with qi to stop his blade from hurting me!"

"Wait, wait, wait. What?! He attacked you?"

"He didn't react well to my aura," he explained.

Alicia only replied with an "Oh" to that.

It was only expected that warriors who had never heard of auras before or experienced them would feel threatened by his. Sai hadn't been the first to attack, and he wouldn't be the last. Most fled at once, and while almost everyone returned, some enlisted but were still missing after running away from Shen's aura.

Alicia opened her mouth to say something, but the four Pioneers who had enveloped themselves with mana suddenly acted.

One of them, wearing plate armor, started to stand up and pull his sword while the other three cast spells at Shen.

Shen had felt their intentions from the moment they entered his aura range. The way they looked at him and each other, their increased sweating, their posture, even their smell, everything told him they would attack him.

The cultivator purposefully let both the spells approach and the armored guy point his sword at him. It was essential to have people witness he had been attacked first. When he had had enough, he spent some qi to empower his aura.

The spells and mana "cocoon" dissipated, and Shen stopped using his qi. He used their momentary dizziness from having their willpower overwhelmed to use only his aura to separate their arms and legs from their bodies. If he had used his qi, he would've met resistance at the soul level, but without it or active defense, he found none.

Really, auras were way too overpowered, which was good for him and terrible for everyone else on Earth's side in the incoming war.

The remaining Pioneer, an old man, widened his eyes and started running. Alicia just rolled her eyes and asked, "Again?"

The Pioneers had been so overwhelmed by everything that one of them fainted and the others only started screaming out of pain after she spoke.

Shen shrugged. As with many things these days, they weren't the first to try their luck and wouldn't be the last. Most spat righteous words about ridding the world of the evil Shen represented—right up to the point he maimed them. Then, when questioned, they admitted they just wanted the glory or have a new Rising Star be chosen or something of the kind.

Only their usefulness in the incoming war prevented Shen from killing them. Once they stopped screaming, someone would come, interrogate them, then offer the chance to legitimately help with the war effort in exchange for Shen's pardon. If they accepted, they would be returned to training—under heavy scrutiny. If not, they would be let go because public executing deserters on the eve of battle—or individuals mysteriously disappearing—was terrible for morale.

Not that they would live for much longer, of course.

Shen already had a lot of things to do once the Rift War was over, and adding a few names to the to-do list wasn't a big deal. Forgiving whoever left wasn't an option. Not only was it personal for Shen, but they had also tried to kill Earth's strongest warrior when the planet was about to be invaded. They deserved death.

"Well, what are you waiting for?!" Alicia yelled over their pained screams. "Lead the way!"

Shen smiled and complied.

[A/N: I wanted the time skip not to waste time with what would've felt like filler chapters. Only a few days passed, but a lot changed. I'll try to show the camp and the plans more organic throughout the following chapters instead of using info dumps.]

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