Chapter 145 (Patreon)

Sorry for the delay yet again. Big action scenes aren't really my strong suit and this chapter was my attempt at such. It is also coincidentally the longest chapter I've written for the story so far. Thank you once again for your patience. Cheers!

---------

Among the injuries any military force could suffer, a strike against morale was a most lethal blow. Learning that you were sold out by some high-ranking official and led into a trap for the express purpose of killing you all would leave even the most cynical soldier feeling rattled. Sure, perhaps power-wise, every single Liquid Meridian here could be replaced with a few Crystal Transformations, but the middle officers were what kept things moving. Losing so many of them at once would be a grievous blow to the Garrison and Reservoir Town.

The fact that someone had led the officer class of the Garrison into a killing field wasn’t the worst part to Chen Haoran. The real dread for him came from thinking about what would follow it. Or rather, what might be happening right now. This was too big an action not to follow up on. What sort of world would he be going back into once he escaped from the secret realm? He’d severely underestimated just how far along Xi Wangmu was in her plans.

Pan Gong clapped his hands. The sound was like a gunshot going off. “Look on the bright side, at least we’re not Navy.” His joke was met with laughter that proved yet again that two things were truly certain in life: Taxes and Interservice rivalry. “I don’t know about you all, but personally, I’m looking forward to how good this is going to look on my annual evaluations. We might even get a raise.”

There were a few groans and low chuckles from the assembled soldiers. Even Chen Haoran huffed a small laugh. Hating yearly evals and performance assessments was truly multiversal, it seemed.

Pan Gong allowed the chuckling to go on for a few more seconds before clapping again. “Alright, let’s get a move on. Our priority is to break through the barrier and rush for the Center Ring as quickly as possible.”

“Do we have a means to break through it?” The Eighth-Layer asked.

Pan Gong clenched his fist. “We have our means right here. My knowledge in formations isn’t as extensive as a specialist but it will suffice. We’ll target the emission node. Those are more prone to failure, especially once enough pressure is applied.” He turned to Chen Haoran. “How far can your technique see.”

“As far as the eye can see,” Chen Haoran answered. “But these jungle blocks it for the most part. These trees are all filled with qi. The enemy’s vine armor blends in too well for me to spot them. I only caught them before because they were literally right in front of us.”

“Any other limitations that will hinder us?” Pan Gong asked.

Chen Haoran took a moment to consider. “It can be disorienting to use it for a while and stop. I can’t fight effectively while using it either.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, but it wasn’t quite the truth either.

Pan Gong nodded. “We can work with that. Pack it up. We’re moving out.”

The soldiers stood up, their anxieties and frowns peeled off and replaced with masks of professionalism and stern lips. They arrayed themselves behind Pan Gong and under his lead, entered the jungle. Say what he will about the quality of character someone like Li Mou had, but the Garrison soldiers weren’t a slack force by any means.

Chen Haoran had been placed in the center of the group. Ostensibly being one of the weakest here, just looking at his cultivation level. Patriarch Qi, the actual weakest person here, was relegated to the flank. Not quite outside the group but clearly far too open to danger than the good Patriarch would have preferred. Such was the reality of being weak; however, the people with power didn’t care for you or for what you wanted.

They were silent but quick as they traversed the jungle. It was impossible for them to be truly stealthy. The knife trees were too sensitive and quick to drop their dagger canopies for that to be the case, so they dispensed with the pretense altogether. Plus the enemy had obviously been here long enough to know the terrain better than them. It was only a matter of when they were discovered, not if. Chen Haoran regularly scanned the trees, or rather the Yellow Dragon did. It grumbled a fair bit at the constant work interrupting its cultivation, but even it knew the seriousness of the situation. Phelps hung off his shoulders, stiller than a statue. Chen Haoran could feel his qi thrum like a coursing river, however, and he knew that Phelps was using all his newly enhanced senses to watch his back. It was a comforting reassurance.

They still weren’t prepared when the trees exploded.

Three blew up in front of Pan Gong, and he disappeared in a storm of fire, and knife leaves turned shrapnel. Two more exploded on either side of the group, the force strong enough to throw the Liquid Meridians to the ground. Chen Haoran dropped, pulling Phelps underneath him and covering him with his body. Knife leaves and wood shards zipped overhead, one scoring a line through his robes across his back. It didn’t break his skin, but it did break his heart. These were nice clothes.

Liquid qi surged up from multiple soldiers and covered the group in a hasty swirling shield as the different qis collided.. They stayed low, weapons clutched and techniques building, but there were no follow-up explosions. Chen Haoran craned his neck in every direction and saw nothing but trees.

“Clear,” Chen Haoran said, slowly rising with Phelps clutched to his chest. “No enemies.”

They slowly rose, the qi shield stabilized as the soldiers balanced their qi out. They looked toward the front, still obscured with black smoke. The explosion there had been strong enough that the Eighth-Layers following Pan Gong were thrown back and freely bleeding. One glowed green with Wood qi and their wounds disappeared. Another soldier ran up to the other and performed a Wood element healing technique.

“Captain Pan,” the Third-Layer Peachblood called, crawling back to his feet. He wasn’t much further behind the Eighth-Layers. “Are you alright?”

The smoke shifted and was blown away from within, revealing an unscathed Pan Gong save for a few scratches in his uniform. “I’m alright. Status?”

“We’re alright,” the Eighth-Layers said. There were other sound-offs as injuries were reported. Overall, however, there was nothing serious. Liquid Meridians were a hardy lot. What would have crippled a normal unit back on Earth just caused minor injuries here.

Pan Gong brushed soot off his shoulders. “Lan Junjie, was there anything different about those trees?”

Chen Haoran shook his head. “They were normal when I looked at them.”

Pan Gong sneered. “These bastards have prepared for a long time. We’ll have to assume all the trees are compromised.” Liquid qi burst out from him and swept all the nearby trees away. Two more trees exploded, their force absorbed by Pan Gong’s flood before they could harm the group. “Clear out all the trees. I don’t want any within a hundred feet of us.”

Pan Gong pulled his qi back and directed it in front of him, barreling into the forest like a human bulldozer. Liquid qi in all five colors erupted one after another, and they became akin to a walking multi-colored tsunami flooding across the jungle. Trees were felled by the hundreds, knife leaves and chemical gas durians fell uselessly across the wave. Chen Haoran kept his focus on the trees and really couldn’t see what had been done to them to cause them to blow up. One moment they were normal; the next moment, they were bombs. For the sake of conserving energy, there was no liquid qi covering their heads, and so detritus and shrapnel was flying overhead. High enough to not put them in harm’s way, low enough that Chen Haoran and Patriarch Qi instinctively ducked regardless.

Chen Haoran was thankful he’d connected his vision with the Yellow Dragon, seeing things in qi was easier on the eyes than the flurry of carnage everyone else was squinting through. He kept Phelps tight to his chest and focused his attention in the other directions. Pan Gong was more than capable of responding to anything they might run into. The Yellow Dragon swirled around in his core. It seemed not being able to see the traps had bruised its pride because now it diligently scanned the jungle without a fuss.

The Yellow narrowed its eyes.

Chen Haoran looked behind him and did the same.

There. On the track, they’d cleared out. Green figures flitted out from the trees, one group ran along the cleared path. The others Chen Haoran, could only scarcely make out as green on green movement in the jungle.

“Enemies coming in behind,” Chen Haoran called. “At least twenty.”

“Speed up,” Pan Gong ordered. “Lan Junjie, warn us if they catch up.”

“There’s a pyramid ahead,” Chen Haoran said.

Pan Gong grunted in acknowledgment.

Their pursuers kept a steady pace, not approaching too close, but not falling too far behind. They were sitting in the Goldilocks zone of pressure, always near enough for them to feel their presence but never close enough for them to do anything about it. It was the type of action that had a purpose behind it. Chen Haoran wasn’t looking forward to finding out what the purpose was.

When they broke into the pyramid clearing the Wood Element Eighth-Layer looked at Pan Gong. “Do we ambush them?”

The Yellow Dragon glared up at the green qi that emerged from within the pyramid.

“Ambush!” Chen Haoran shouted.

“Talisman!” Roared keen-eyed Pan Gong. His liquid qi flew into the air and doubled in size. The other Eighth-Layer covered himself in yellow Earth qi and took out a small shield from his storage bag that expanded and chased after Pan Gong’s liquid qi.

Bright red qi bloomed atop the pyramid like a small sun before falling down atop their heads. Pan Gong’s liquid qi boiled and evaporated. The shield glowed brightly and caught the flames on its face. The world went painfully bright, then terrifyingly dark, as Chen Haoran was thrown off his feet by the explosion that followed. He blinked open dizzy eyes, normal colors restored to him. The Yellow Dragon released an invigorating roar that saw him back to his feet in time to receive the first volley of arrows from above. He flooded liquid qi to raise a cover over himself. The soldier next to him flooded metal white liquid qi at the same time that collided with his and rose higher. Chen Haoran followed the flow. Water and metal qi rose and exchanged energy, stretching to cover the entire group and blocking the arrows.

The soldier nodded to him. “Good jo—”

A six-foot-long arrow shot out of the jungle behind them and pierced through the back of the soldier’s head and out his front, splattering Chen Haoran with blood. He only had an instant of horrified reaction to turn his back and jump away as the corpse exploded in a deluge of white liquid qi.

Chen Haoran was sent tumbling as the edge of the flood clipped his back. Phelps’s qi swept out and covered them, halting his roll. When Chen Haoran stood up again, he found their entire formation had been thrown into disarray from the Final Flood. The archers in the jungle were vicious, their arrows targeting those whose deaths would cause the most chaos and scatter the soldiers further. The other Metal Root soldier roared and sent a long blade of metal energy careening into the jungle. His response was a bright green arrow that punched a hole through his shield of liquid qi and took off his arm at the shoulder. As he fell, two more lodged themselves in his chest.  Another man took an arrow to the neck. The woman next to him flooded her qi and threw him to where the arrow came from. Another soldier threw a wave of liquid qi and erected a rock wall between them and the jungle while the man exploded.

In front, the Wood Root Eighth-Layer opened his palm and tossed a whole tornado of crushing wind up the pyramid, forcing the archers atop it back. A dusty Pan Gong flooded out more qi and charged toward the jungle.

“With me!” he thundered.

The other soldiers sprinted after him, casting long walls of rock and wood to block the archers’ line of sight. Patriarch Qi scrambled past him.

Chen Haoran gripped his sword and cast his eyes in other potential directions. He wasn’t dead set on helping the Garrison. He was nominally on the Rattan Vine Soldiers’ side, given who was leading them. Technically it was them he should be helping. Assuming they knew that and believed him, that is.

Chen Haoran let go of his sword and ran after Pan Gong. He only took a few steps before an arrow broke against his back with the force of a cannonball and sent him sprawling. The fleeing Patriarch Qi was immediately by his side. One hand went to his back and brushed over where the arrow hit him. The other went to Chen Haoran's storage bag and froze.

“You’re alright?” He blurted out.

Chen Haoran rose and pushed him away. “Move.”

He sprinted into the jungle. Another arrow was sent his way, but this time the Yellow Dragon was ready and deflected it with a rush of liquid qi. A pillar of yellow liquid qi rose into the air before disappearing, and Chen Haoran reoriented and ran toward it, Patriarch Qi hot on his heels. When they caught up to Pan Gong, there was an obvious difference in their number. They lost five people in less than the same number of minutes.

“Set a fire,” Pan Gong ordered.

The Fire Root soldiers bloomed with burning qi and set the trees behind them ablaze. They continued doing so for the better part of three miles before stopping to conserve qi.

“Lan Junjie, where’s the next pyramid?” Pan Gong asked as he cleared a path.

“Directly ahead of us.”

“We’ll go around it.”

Chen Haoran scanned the pictures the Yellow Dragon sent to him carefully for even a hint of movement from the Rattan Vine Soldiers. It made the colorful and not green qi that suddenly came into view all the more stark against the jungle’s background—particularly a red qi just as large as Pan Gong’s.

“People on our right. At least ten. They don’t look like Rattan Armor.”

“Are they approaching us?”

“No, but our paths are going to merge.”

Everyone tensed, weapons held tightly in white knuckle grips. Pan Gong frowned and peered into the distance. Chen Haoran mentally counted down the seconds as both groups drew nearer to each other. Crashing sounds of trees being pushed away and traps being triggered came closer and closer.

Pan Gong relaxed and raised his hand. “Hold. They’re one of us.”

A palpable sense of relief could be felt throughout the group. Soon enough, ten worn down Garrison soldiers led by a bedraggled Ninth-Layer appeared.

“Captain Pan,” greeted the Ninth-Layer. “For once, I’m glad to see your ugly mug.”

Pan Gong nodded in return. “Captain Liu. I’ll be blunt. Do you have any Metal Roots?”

Captain Liu scowled. “Look at me. Does it look like I have any? The bastards are targeting them. I’ve been chased from damn near one end of this place to the other.

Pan Pong frowned. “We’re being funneled.” He snapped to Chen Haoran. “Lan Junjie, can you see the end of the barrier from here?”

Chen Haoran could, in fact, see another barrier wall directly in front of them and informed Pan Gong of such. Pan Gong made the immediate decision to begin veering left, straight to the corner of the barrier and where he’d estimated the emission node to be. Along the way, they met up with more fleeing Garrison soldiers, each with their own harrowing tales of ambushes and relentless pursuit. They numbered up to fifty now. Who knew how many had been lost before this point, however? The lack of any independent cultivators was also telling, a fact that had Patriarch Qi much more grateful that he’d chosen to throw his lot in with the Garrison.

Their change of direction allowed them to avoid any more ambushes from the front, but the hounding from the rear only intensified. As the Garrison soldiers gathered, so too did the hunters chasing them. Arrows whizzed past their heads even as they blindly and futilely returned fire with techniques that had no target but direction. Phelps wreathed Chen Haoran and himself in blue liquid qi. The floating energy attached to it greatly negated the force of the three arrows that struck Chen Haoran and rendered them harmless. They continued this back-and-forth exchange for a while, fortunately avoiding casualties but inevitably being forced into a literal corner.

The emission node of the barrier was a giant pillar of swirling white energy. White energy left it in a constant flow, the currents and ripple visible at the places closest to the pillar before evening out further away. Pan Gong and the strongest officers laid into the pillar with a combined force greater than any artillery barrage. Meanwhile, Fire Spirit Roots were setting the jungle alight, and Earth Spirit Roots were opening deep trenches in the earth, all in an effort to delay the Rattan Vine Army for even a second more. They did not get those seconds they wanted.

From the burning jungle appeared rows upon rows of Ratter Armor Soldiers as if from thin air—200 strong to their 50. The flames licked their calves but crawled no further. Vines sprouted across the trench and created a living bridge for them to cross. As one, they locked their shields together, and a vine wall grew and absorbed the fire, water, wood, and earth the soldiers threw at it. Glinting spearheads stuck out through the vine wall like nails in a board. They marched, a solid wall of spears and vines, while volleys of arrows harried the defending Garrison.

The Garrison soldiers gritted their teeth and flared their qi. Patriarch Qi clutched his little bone charm bracelet and muttered hushed prayers. Captain Liu pulled away and stood in front of the troops, fire climbing across his arms. Pan Gong kept hammering the emission node.

Chen Haoran clutched his sword. His options were few. Run and hide? So long as the barrier remained a problem, that was impossible. An arrow clipped his shoulder and bounced off of Phelps’s qi. Either the Garrison had to break it, or the rebels had to take him through it. Two choices: the Garrison who were hunting him or the rebels the Chen Family was bankrolling. He flexed his qi and slapped another arrow aiming for his chest to pieces. The rebels were clearly winning now, but that was only in the secret realm. The world outside belonged to the Empire. If Chen Haoran left this place, would an Empire army greet him? There were still two potentially very angry Crystal Transformation Realms to consider. Did the rebels have a plan to deal with that? An escape route? Were they sacrificial pawns? He also had to consider Xie Jin and Bao Si’s safety. His decisions would undoubtedly affect them even more. A too-fast arrow bounced off his chest.

Should he take the risk and put on his armor now? His decision on who to choose would be a lot easier to make if it weren’t for these annoying arrows—

It was a green blur. Blisteringly bright. It displaced air as it flew, and Chen Haoran heard the sound of it before it actually hit him. Phelps’s liquid qi was pierced through like a hot knife through butter. Chen Haoran’s vision was filled with green light and intense pain. He could feel his neck wrench so far back there was a cracking sound. Phelps fell out of his arms with a heartrending squeal as his feet left the ground, and he was tossed through the air and into the pillar hard enough that ripples spread out from his impact in the hundreds. He slid down the pillar into a heap on the ground.

Pan Gong rushed to his side and quickly sat him up. “Lan Junjie? Lan Junjie!”

Chen Haoran dazedly gazed at Pan Gong’s concerned face. Despite the fact his eyes were working, it felt like what he was looking at wasn’t real at all, as if he were looking through a screen. Pan Gong, leaned him against the pillar, one arm steadying his shoulder because Chen Haoran scarcely had the strength even to sit right, let alone move. Something was sticking out just in front of his nose. It was a bit hard to figure out what it was given the awkward angle it was set at, but he could just barely make out…. feathers? The Yellow Dragon roared. Chen Haoran’s arms found strength again, and he grabbed the feathers.

Pan Gong grabbed his wrist. “Wait. Don’t try pulling it out.” He looked behind. “Healer!”

The Yellow Dragon roared.

Pan Gong let go of Chen Haoran’s wrist like he’d been electrocuted.

Chen Haoran pulled the arrow out of his head.

Blood ran down his face. He cast his sense to the wound and found that the tip of the arrow had just barely cracked open a gap in his skull. His qi set to work at once, closing the skin and filling the bone until it grew over smoothly. Chen Haoran watched the process in silence. If he didn’t have the Stygian Lotus. If he didn’t eat the Banquet Peach. If Phelps’s qi hadn’t absorbed some of the force.

Chen Haoran grabbed his hilt.

For the second time since becoming a Liquid Meridian, he drew his sword.