With the ability to focus entirely on combat for a few moments, John found it trivial to remove the majority of the people pestering him. He bore them no personal grudge, but he doubted they would have accomplished much more in their lives with their level of self preservation instincts. The few people who had backed up to a safer distance clearly had a better idea of their own mortality. If they weren’t being watched, John imagined they would have directly retreated.
Aldara similarly had no trouble dealing with her portion. Even Exalted Soul Phase cultivators didn’t have boundless energy… but there simply weren’t enough Ascending Soul Phase cultivators to properly threaten them.
Now that the walls had fallen, it was time for the great towers of Luminous Beacon to fall. John wondered if any of the cultivators realized the city as a whole was one step away from great enlightenment. It would have been fascinating to see a whole city that managed a balance of darkness and light. Sadly, they were part of the Sovereign Primacy and so the city had to go.
The towers were protected with all sorts of wards, more concentrated than the barrier that had covered the whole city. It would take John some time to unravel it, and far too much power to overwhelm them.
They were wise enough to similarly enchant the ground beneath the towers, otherwise it would have been trivial to sink them. Unfortunately for them, there were limits to everything. Fifty meters underground, a hundred… John discovered those limits, angling down through the city streets around the central towers.
Aldara followed his energy from the other side, going with the flow of his actions. As he began to draw away earth and stone, she did the same. Material spilled out onto the streets, but the ground remained steady. Even when they diverted underground lakes to fill the area, the towers still stood.
If they had fully excavated the area underneath the city and left nothing to hold it up, it would have no choice but to fall. But that would take easily ten times as much spiritual energy to manage. Besides, what they had already done was sufficient. John could feel the formations straining to hold the ground above in place, the spiritual energy draining as it fought against gravity. The wards protecting the ground had provided an easy mark for the end of their excavations as they dug a wide tunnel beneath. Now it was closer to a lake, the soil around it weakening even as the spiritual energy threatened to drop the structures above.
“Let’s go,” John said. It wasn’t an order, but Aldara naturally agreed.
She flew backwards- not that it really made any difference. “You’re far more dramatic than I thought. Not even going to watch it?”
John shook his head. “I’d rather not.”
He heard the crash, even from numerous kilometers away. Once the first tower fell, there was nothing holding up the rest. The local cultivators were mostly darkness element, which provided them very limited options for repairing the damage the two had caused, even without their interference.
The Evernight province appeared as constant night, but John thought the stars above dimmed slightly after the fall of the towers. It could have been his imagination, though.
-----
Six elements swirled around a sailing vessel. Cultivators siphoned off what they needed as the two most powerful individuals built up their own stores of energy. The other attacks had been similarly successful to John and Aldara’s, though somewhat less dramatic in their effects. Even with several times as many members, the total power of the secondary group had been limited.
The defenders had managed to keep the ship in good condition, even after experiencing some predictable attacks. It was expected that they would send stronger forces in the near future, now that the continental forces had lingered in the area for a short time.
John was tired. Even when he was full of spiritual energy, even when he ate sufficient quantities of food and slept as much as he could… he was still tired. He hadn’t been able to properly relax for weeks, and it would be a while yet before he could do so. Though Aldara didn’t show it openly, he imagined it was the same for her. Exalted Soul Phase cultivators were still human, even if they happened to be particularly powerful.
Once everyone recovered to the best state they could, discussions of their next move were started. It had already become clear that going deeper inland was too risky- they likely needed to leave sooner rather than later. Some things had taken longer than expected, and it was likely that their true foes had already received word. They might even be on their way.
“We should make one final strike,” John suggested after some consideration. “Or rather, the lot of you should do so. We’ll deal with the incoming fleets. We merely need the same two who managed the ship before to support us.”
Even if they controlled a significant portion of the planet, the Sovereign Primacy didn’t have endless resources. Nor did they have endless cultivators. Even so, they couldn’t simply sit by and do nothing when their territory was threatened. The incoming fleet was sizable, a growing mass of spiritual energy that anyone could feel. As for the particulars, John was certain there were over ten Ascending Soul Phase cultivators within the fleet. Likely a hundred Consolidated Soul Phase cultivators as well, and thousands of total people. It was the sort of force that even a major sect would find difficult to produce alone.
It was going to be a harsh blow for the Sovereign Primacy when they all died. Unfortunately it was unlikely anything would manage the end of the war without the defeat of the Triptych. At the very least one of them had to be crippled or killed- though unless John and Aldara survived they needed to do a bit better than that.
-----
Despite the numerous incidents with the Triptych, detailed information on their fighting style was difficult to come by. They would go in and blow up a city with massive destructive force, but they rarely engaged in individual combat. Rarer still was anyone surviving that. So the main reports they had were those at the periphery who witnessed such clashes.
Enniaun used spears and javelins. A cultivator could throw pretty much any weapon, but properly balanced ones were more effective if they ever made ranged attacks. He wasn’t weak up close, with his combat style being somewhat similar to John’s in that regard. He could use a melee oriented spear in one or two hands and throw a javelin whenever it made sense. Though it might not seem that larger weapons of that sort could be used stealthily, it seemed to mesh well with his darkness allied cycle.
Caelnon had the weakness of unbalanced elements, though it was likely more relevant for how it affected the trio as a whole. That alone wasn’t sufficient. His weapons tended to be various sorts of flails or chain weapons. It was unclear if he had a particular one that he favored. While they were somewhat risky for a non-cultivator to use, proper control of spiritual energy negated most of the downside of such weapons. Head control independent of the grip could be quite valuable, and it was possible to reinforce the weapon. John could say that such weapons grew slightly weaker towards the ends that were further from their wielders, but for an Exalted Soul Phase cultivator it probably wouldn’t mean much unless he used a chain greater than ten meters.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Folasade seemed to prefer heavy weapons. She had been seen using relatively compact war hammers but also a lengthier glaive. There wasn’t enough information to determine her primary weapon, if that was even relevant. The dangerous traits of these cultivators were not their weapons but their spiritual energy. Even though she wielded precisely the same three elements as the Bright Trinity it was unlikely she would be terribly similar to them. Even so, it wouldn’t be impossible to counter her fighting style.
None of them were an individual threat. Perhaps that was John being arrogant, but he imagined he could defeat any of them alone. Aldara too. With two against three, they had to take one out quickly… and thus they had to predict the weak link.
“Still going over that?”
John started. Aldara seemed to appear out of nowhere, but that was because he was generally sensing for an imbalance of elements. Things that didn’t belong. “We haven’t really found a definitive weakness yet.”
“Then we just pick one. Or make one.”
John thought for a few moments. “How do we make one of them a weakness? I doubt we will have the luxury of time to confuse them into some sort of cultivation deviation.”
Aldara shrugged. “We could just call Folasade an ugly old crone.”
“... is she?” John asked. According to the reports, she had generally managed to maintain her youth.
“You know that it doesn’t matter. I’d give it a seventy-five percent chance of successfully provoking her.”
John frowned. “Do you think Exalted Soul Phase cultivators would easily fall for such blatant provocation?”
“I gave you my odds.”
“... Are people really so thin-skinned?” John muttered to himself. “And the others? Do we call Caelnon a tiny little baby?”
Aldara seriously considered it. “Even odds, at best.”
“I was joking. He’s probably older than me, or at least near my age. He’s certainly older than you. Maybe we should just call him mud. He’s got extra water and earth, after all.”
“I doubt we will achieve a proper taunt for Caelnon without being able to investigate his early history. I imagine any relationship with his parents has been scrubbed from history, so we’d be taking stabs in the dark. Instead of a verbal taunt… I’d just ignore him.”
John blinked. “I think that’s a bit difficult. He’s still an Exalted Soul Phase cultivator.”
“We just have to make it seem like we’re paying him no attention. Surely you can deceive him at least that much. You’re a terrible liar, but excellent at hiding your combat intentions.”
“Perhaps I need to practice casually dodging chain weapons. When I get spare time. As for Enniaun… maybe we just kill him.”
Aldara tilted her head. “I do believe we want to kill all of them.”
“We just focus on him first. If Folasade is properly enraged, she’ll be easier to block. If we have an opportunity to simultaneously attack him, he might not be prepared to engage two foes of similar strength. No shield.”
“You don’t use a shield.”
“My free hand is a shield. He seems to focus on offense. But of course, we’ll have to adapt to real situations on the fly. But before that…”
The incoming fleets were getting awfully close. John simply hadn’t been willing to waste even a single moment now that they were approaching a critical time.
-----
Steve snorted blue flames out of his nose. “Can you believe that guy? He meets a nice woman and just tosses his best buddies aside like trash.”
Yustina leaned in. “Are we pretending I’m not also one of John’s friends?”
“Yes.”
Steve had far more control over his overheating than he’d once had in the past. It wasn’t an endless loop of power, but he could squeeze quite a bit more heat out of fire elemental spiritual energy than most. He was using that power to ignite cultivators pouring out of the walls of a nearby city.
“It’s a real shame,” Renato agreed, swinging his heavy stone wall to rearrange those same walls and whichever part of the city he desired. “Sending us off so he can flirt with his new girlfriend with nobody around but two old folks.”
The twins gave them a strange look. Amalric couldn’t help but interrupt. “Isn’t he… somewhat hostile towards the empress?”
The twins had enough information to share more than what most people should know.
“They’re star crossed lovers.” “They’re fated enemies.”
The twins switched which line of thought they were following.
“She slew his new love.” “She reincarnated just to see him again.”
Of the various individuals on the journey, Amalric was probably the only one out of the loop in that regard. He wasn’t terribly deep into the politics of the empire, nor was he a frequent consumer of gossip. He was, however, very good at making volcanoes.
Beneath the most fortified location of the sect they were attacking, he had been building up fire and earth element. It didn’t matter whether it was their prisons, a vault, a secret training ground, or some sort of project of the sect head. Simply because it was fortified, he had chosen it as the best target.
“Sounds like nobody really knows anything,” Amalric grunted. Then he gestured to Renato. “Swing over that way, would ya?”
“Sure thing.” Renato’s club cracked the ground for dozens of meters. At the far end, the ground began to rumble. Lava sprayed out all around a fortified building. The foundations cracked.
“Didn’t you grow up with him?” Amalric asked. “Close friends?”
“Of similar talent, too,” Renato nodded. “Or at least, it seemed so. Perhaps we lack something critical to reach the Exalted Soul Phase… but it’s not a perfectly complementary partner.” He nodded his head towards Steve and Yustina. Fire spun around them as they seemingly danced among their enemies. “Maybe single element was a dead end this whole time.”
Amalric shook his head. “Dual element isn’t better either. And no others in the Bright Trinity are any closer. It seems to be cosmic luck. But if you’re going to give up, I don’t mind being the third Exalted Soul Phase cultivator.”
“You mean the sixth?” Steve asked.
“I believe in the Empress. Do you have so little confidence in your part of that?”
Steve shrugged. “They might still count when those three are dead. The trippers or whatever.”
If the Triptych had been present, they might have split blood. Unfortunately, asking him to replicate the delivery with perfect sincerity in a combat situation would be impossible. But that didn’t mean none of the others were considering how they would aid against the Triptych. It might just be fighting off any support they had, but they would prefer to take out any extra forces and participate in the battle as much as they could.
They were aware of their relative weakness, but each had reason enough to support their leaders- whether that devotion came from old friendship or a more distant respect.
