V4C21: Escalation, Part 2

Their sudden intrusion gave Wei Yi no choice but to momentarily affect the 7th Legion’s remaining members with a God Burial Sea, even though it would not be as effective on them as it could have been had their stages been a little closer to her own. While the technique did mostly rely on exact power, it was slightly affected by stages, nonetheless.

With their threat temporarily subdued, she and the rest of her Arbiters could turn to the incoming wave of green and blue.

Out of the total number of the two groups, only around half were attacking them at the moment, so it was easy to presume that the other was currently either dealing with another perceived or true threat, or that they were preparing to surround them or attack them from two sides at once to increase their chances of victory. A brief look around performed by Wei Yi with her copious spiritual perception revealed none of their forces in the vicinity, so since she was unable to push far enough through the sandstorm, she could assume that they were not yet here, if they were coming for them at all.

Shi Bao Ya was not amongst this group, and since she was the only person that she had spoke to at all in those groups, Wei Yi was not concerned with the rest of them. If necessary, all of them could be killed as quickly as the 7th Legion.

“You have one chance to turn back! We are not with Primordial Cosmos!” she called out first.

If they were able to somehow turn back the tide of people, or otherwise stall them for a proper discussion, that would be the ideal scenario, and it was important to first give them a chance to either retreat or explain their full reason for attacking prior to trying to kill them all, even if their techniques had already turned the sand beneath their feet to wet mud filled with various plants growing from it.

“You lie, Hunters! This has already been predicted, and you will not get away with this!” the Flood King of Shi shouted back, turning to his forces, “Everyone, at them! Charge!”

That statement alone decided their fate, for the only person that would have been likely to predict such a thing, and that had obviously spoken to them prior to their departure from the district, was the now deceased Ping Wu. If they had listened to him readily, even though he was nowhere in sight now, they did not deserve to get away unharmed in her eyes.

As such, she put the Blistering Tome back into the House of Gold and removed a long twig with a spiralling yet straight body from it, aiming it at the approaching forces while channelling her Eclipse Ire energy into it as to not risk damaging it with her planar energy, same as with the rest of the items.

“Everyone, take one step back from me now, and then we shall fight!”

They had no need to question her orders or her intentions, and instead did exactly as they were told while dawn and moonlight gathered around the long wooden stick.

Once she was able to confirm that everyone was out of the range of the burst of energy that usually occurred at the release of the ire type of techniques, she reached out with it, pointed it precisely at some of the more dangerous foes in the Flood Kings and the Keepers of Groves, then gave one more moment for her energy to charge before releasing it.

She didn’t have the time to check all of these items when she had first gotten them, nor was she intent on risking some of their effects, but she did know with absolute certainty that the Spiralling Twig, as it was called when it was sold to her, did have the ability to take in the energy of a cultivator and then manifest it into a technique, but other than that, she hadn’t yet tested the exact effects that it would have on any one technique.

As such, she was very eager to test it out, using her full power on the Eclipse Ire technique before shooting it at a foe, restraining only the typical burst of energy that would erupt the moment that it was fired.

When the silver and orange beam shot out of the stick, it seemed to undergo no special changes, save for being more concentrated and thinner than usual. It reached out and almost instantly struck the abdomen of one of the stronger members of the Keepers of Groves, audibly tearing their flesh asunder and striking the core that protected their dantian.

It did not seem to immediately shatter it, but significant damage was most certainly done.

Only a moment after the first beam emerged, however, she felt the power within the twig suddenly reignite and return with even more force than before, instantly rebuilding the Eclipse Ire before it shot out as well, impacting the abdomen of a different target as she had shifted her hand slightly after the first attack had shot out and landed. Fortunately, she had made her troops distance themselves from her, or else the second burst of energy being more powerful than the first might have resulted in some rather unfortunate injuries on her side.

For a moment after that, she wasn’t sure whether this would be able to repeat again, but to be safe, she pointed the stick at one of the leaders of the Flood Kings of Shi. Sure enough, only a moment after the second strike, the energy within the twig returned and amplified again.

A larger explosion of energy erupted from her body, and shot out at the foe she had targeted, who had seen the first two fall around him and tried to evade only to be struck directly by the moonlight and dawn light without a chance to resist them. They struck his abdomen in the same way as the previous two beams had injured the other two, but this time the technique was more powerful than its first usage and first failure to inflict a killing blow on a fourth realm target’s cultivation.

Thus, as it landed upon the core within his body, it splintered the surface with far more than enough sound for all those on the battlefield to hear. It was akin to glass shattering after being struck by a hammer, but this sound – and the force that the shattering produced – was amplified immensely, going from merely something that drew attention to a great eruption of force that tore through the man’s body. Countless stray shards of his planar energy that had once protected his cultivation now pierced both the dantian and the flesh that stood between it and the outside world, turning into bursts of unbound energy after it left the prison of his mortal form.

In an instant, one man in the third realm and one man in the fourth perished, while another in the fourth endured significant damage to his core. One strike dealt three heavy injuries.

The charging Flood Kings and Keepers of Groves halted for a moment, while the Arbiters were only invigorated by the damage dealt to their foes and rushed in to capitalise on the brief distraction and chaos.

Had Wei Yi been able to use this Spiralling Twig several times in a row, she might have been able to overwhelm the enemy forces in one go, but just as with the Blistering Tome and the Abyssal Eye, there was an unfortunate cost for the greater power of these artefacts. They could be used with the same amount of energy as most items of the same grade, but they had a certain time in which they needed to cool down, effectively, so that they wouldn’t explode, shatter, or cause some terrible consequence that couldn’t be resolved by the cultivator.

For example, if she had tried to overtax that Abyssal Eye and managed to get it to work, it might overproduce the pits in the ground, the monsters within them, and do so without binding them to her extremely limited control over them. Then, there would effectively be a third army on the field that needed to be contended with, which would hardly be ideal in most circumstances.

Even now, the abyssal entities had to be dispelled so that they wouldn’t prematurely kill the 7th Legion members buried in the ground, so making use of them in battle wouldn’t be possible without risking that, or the simple destruction of a highly powerful artefact that she had needed to pay for, even if the money she had made at the auction far overwhelmed the cost. Instead, she had one of three other items to choose from, and she was only sure regarding two of them.

The Monstrous Glove and Piercing Needle appeared to have simple enough effects, with the former being able to hinder or affect the mind, perhaps the soul, through physical contact, while the latter made piercing through defences a vastly easier task. The last item was one that she had not fully understood even after looking over it for quite some time, and so she hadn’t attempted to use it within the Kong Prison Realm just yet in the extremely unlikely case that whatever it was capable of could obliterate the spatial realm and everyone inside as easily as the collapse of it would do. Testing that wasn’t worthwhile there, and it wasn’t reasonable to experiment with it here, not when she hardly needed to.

All of the forces on the side of the Flood Kings of Shi and the Keepers of Groves were only in the fourth realm, same as she was, so she could defeat any one of them on her own, not to mention the fact that she had wanted to hit them directly for some time now.

She decided to draw the Monstrous Glove out of the House of Gold, deciding that the Piercing Needle was neither needed nor suitable for her preferred combat style of striking things directly in the face.

As such, she decided that the best thing to do was join the fray, leaping into the air, nudging her position forward using the World’s Echo physique, then allowed herself to fall as she prepared her next attack for just a little moment. It was her intention to be free to act for just a little while, and that would be easiest to achieve with a steady pool of energy being built up within her meridians so that she could unleash it continuously without worry.

The moment that she landed amidst a group of the Keepers of Groves, they attempted to welcome her with their wood-type attacks, countless things sprouting suddenly from the ground while a series of planar constructs that ranged from resembling simple vines to complex monstrosities attempting to devour her were sent at her.

However, wood fuelled fire, and although Wei Yi had quelled the flames of the Vibrant Phoenix, the power of the Phoenix Transformation and therefore the Draconic Punch remained within her grasp, and at her beck and call. With her right hand, the one that she had reequipped with her gauntlet while placing the Monstrous Glove onto her left hand, she manifested the powerful flame of a phoenix around her fist and claws, the powerful image of the dragon being subverted into the flaming immortal avian of the heavens.

The claws of the phoenix tore through the planar constructs and struck at one of the ones that created it, tearing into his flesh, and clasping down on the core within his abdomen, forcefully pressing down upon it and piercing the surface with the claws.

For a moment, the man whose core was being held could do nothing, for any slight movement felt both impossible and like it would be the thing that breaks the momentary pause not by freeing him, but by shattering the core. He didn’t want to believe it, but it was clearly struggling to endure the grip of the planar construction, even though the woman in front of him was several stages beneath him.

After a moment of wariness, he looked up at the woman holding him, only to find a smirk appearing on her face almost immediately.

The next instant, his core collapsed inwards, the claws piercing through and crushing the dantian and anchor within with far greater ease, making it seem as if this had all been a game from the very beginning.

Whether it would have made him feel better or worse, it was no game, but instead a ploy to get his allies to approach her in a mistaken belief of temporary safety, for she had broken his core not when he looked up, but rather when they were at the right place for her to act, which she did almost immediately. With her left hand, she grabbed onto the strongest person approaching her, activating the ability of the middle-grade artefact right away.

The appearance of the glove instantly turned significantly more monstrous than before, with mouths, teeth and eyes forming all over its surface, and one mouth in particular bit down on the female attacker’s body, touching her skin through her clothing but failing to actually penetrate it. Despite that, despite being entirely certain that there was not a single clear wound or puncture mark on her skin, the woman suddenly felt a terrible pain pass through her body, clearly feeling as if teeth had pierced and bit down on her flesh.

That pain rapidly spread, and before she knew it, she was barely aware of anything. Sure, the pain had faded, but her vision seemed to as well, as did her hearing, and her thoughts…

All of a sudden, it was just so hard to think…

Meanwhile, her body lost the support of her waking mind, and would have fallen if Wei Yi had not easily lifted her up and thrown her body into the nearest group of Ascendant’s Arbiters to manage, whether that was by killing her or capturing her, depending on what they had the most opportunity to do, or what they wanted to do.

For a brief moment, she looked at the glove on her hand, and the bright white mote of light that surged atop one of her knuckles, or, more precisely, at the knuckle of the glove. Rather than simply affecting the soul, as she had initially presumed, and as the item had been advertised to her at the auction, it was actually able to capture the very soul from a body, albeit for a very limited time. It would remain within her grasp for no more than a minute, depending on how powerful someone’s soul was, presumably, and once that time was up it would certainly emerge and return to its own body.

If it perished, then she couldn’t quite be sure of what the result would be, but something told her that it wouldn’t be pleasant for the soul while also being unlikely to actually splinter or damage the soul to any significant degree. Most likely, it would simply result in the soul being lost for a little while before finding its way to wherever souls usually went after one’s demise, at which point it would return to the usual cycle of life.

She was forced to quickly end her contemplation and observation as the rest of the people around her all chose that moment to attack, forcing her to leap into the air once again and gather some more of her energy into her hands, which she focused into her palms that she then pressed together, stepping on an Aerial Foothold for a brief moment before deciding which point to strike.

The moment that she did decide, she leapt down and waited for just the moment prior to her landing. At that moment, she brought her hands up to her face, and smiled.

“Black Sun…” she muttered, parting her hands to unveil a small black spot, a sphere that floated freely in between her hands. It was barely the size of a sesame seed, and it was cold, barely containing any semblance of power or energy, but every one of the Flood Kings and Keepers of Groves immediately felt their senses warning them of this small, strange particle that seemed to float meaninglessly in the air, harming none, especially not the person standing right next to it.

However, the moment that Wei Yi touched the ground and suddenly sank inside, being devoured by one of the abyssal pits that she had placed here while falling, as the transporting pits took far less energy from the Abyssal Eye to create than the full-blow abysses, they realised that something was wrong.

A strong force suddenly acted upon them, pushing them towards the small black grain, but what was more concerning was the way in which light around it seemed to be drawn into it, filling it without any clear limit as the grain slowly expanded more and more, a larger and larger area around it becoming dark and devoid of light. Those closest to it, those that had attempted to strike Wei Yi as she was coming down, felt an immense radiating wave of a strange semblance of, or perhaps combination of, absolute frost and boundless heat, like they were being burnt by ice or frozen by flame, but instead both occurred at once.

In an attempt to quell the black sphere, which now grew all the way to the size of a man’s hand, one such nearby Flood King of Shi attempted to cut it down, to split it in half with a blade, perhaps assuming that it was not as formless as the entity appeared and that it would still suffer if a blade, coursing with the energy of someone in the fourth realm hit it. He may have only been in the first stage, but in his eyes, that had to be the same as Wei Yi was, so what would be the problem?

The moment his blade so much as touched the surface of the black sun, it was suddenly frozen in place, the surface of the metal melting away and into the infinite darkness as easily as if it had been water in a stream. It looked slow, as if it would take the rest of their lives, and yet as the one holding the weapon which was rapidly being devoured, the Flood King knew that it was everything but. It pulled on his hand with more force than even he thought he could ever muster in his entire life, forcing him to release his grip of the hilt and then execute a movement technique to flee without caring for his hand, which was still drawn to the weapon and the black star. As he managed to make a feeble step away, bones cracked and muscle tore, but he did manage to escape from it… for now.

Alongside the rapid growth of this entity, and the fact that many of the supposed Hunters of the Cosmos promptly retreated from it, they understood that this was going to be a threat to them.

Even Wei Yi was a little impressed at how effective it turned out to be, despite being created moments prior, and a little disappointed that it forces her to stay away from the battle until the duration of the technique’s planar construct, if it could even be called that at this point, expired.

Together, a number of the Flood Kings of Shi and the Keepers of Groves surrounded it in a circle, ensuring that there was plenty of space between them and the black sun, as well as that there was still sufficient room between it and the sand below for it to not become another food source for the growing sphere. The water-type cultivators drew upon the plentiful water that they had created previously to flood the area and raised it into the air, forming a bubble around the darkness that barely resisted the immense pull upon it.

After them, the wood-type cultivators of the Keepers of Groves willed roots reinforced by their cultivation to rise from the ground, surrounding and weaving into the defensive sphere to reinforce it as much as they possibly could.

While their allies guaranteed their security, or did their best to do so, one of the Keepers that looked onto the Arbiters that surrounded them suddenly exclaimed, “They’re returning!”

The Ascendant’s Arbiters did not turn to look, as that would be foolish and extremely dangerous for them while they were at their current risky position, but Wei Yi did so for them, finding that the other half of the forces of both groups were approaching from the other side, from the direction of the Perpetuals of the Worm camp. No injuries marked their bodies, nor was there any blood on their weapons, so they must not have fought with them as they were currently confronting the Arbiters.

Especially due to that, the sudden addition of another side to the conflict was hardly beneficial to her or her soldiers. She was also able to see Shi Bao Ya amongst that group, who had the barest trace of hesitation upon her nearly perfect features.

“The guess is confirmed!” one of the Flood Kings shouted to them, using a voice technique that was highly similar to the Lion’s Roar to transmit his voice, “The Hunters of the Cosmos are against us!”

Their conflict was likely highly visible even from afar, but with their confirmation, the other half of their forces accelerated to meet them, resulting in them running straight into a series of bodies that turned out to be lying on the sand, covered partly by it in such a fashion that it was hard to see them while rushing past but easy to trip on them when they were not observed.

“What the-”

“We are the HAMMERS! SMASH!” a battle cry suddenly emerged from the sand, a dozen figures following it and all flying at the Flood Kings and Keepers that had run into them.

Naturally, Wei Yi immediately gave the order to attack before the forces they were already fighting with could recover from the whiplash of expecting a pleasant entrance from their allies only to be interrupted by some people that they had likely forgotten about entirely, then disappeared from the spot again to arrive at the other side of the battlefield without being noticed. She had hardly formed any kind of tight bond with anyone in either one of those groups, but Shi Bao Ya did not appear to be too bad, and so she wanted to prevent her from being randomly attacked by some overly muscular men.

She had few suitable methods of imprisonment, but all that she really needed to do to capture anyone was to give herself the chance to seize them, and the Abyssal Eye provided exactly that. The moment that the ground beneath Shi Bao Ya suddenly gave way, Wei Yi grabbed her with ease.

Relying on the suddenness of the moment, she asked, “What happened with the Perpetuals?”

“They ran off before we even got to them- Wait, what-”

Before she had the chance to mutter another word, Wei Yi tapped her forehead and momentarily wrapped her mind in spiritual will threads, forcing it to rest and sleep so that she didn’t need to be bothered by this woman for the rest of the fight, whether Shi Bao Ya intended to simply talk or to fight back, going along with whatever the Great Family member must have told them. She left her on the ground in the abyssal tunnel for now, since they would close only after five minutes of being open, thus giving her enough time to resolve matters on the surface before picking her up.

If necessary, Yi Shi Ming’s spatial spirit capability could be employed to bring her into the prison realm and thus into Paragon, but that would risk having any of the Greats nearby that might have accompanied Ping Wu discovering her connection to the Kong Prison Realm, which would hardly be ideal given how much effort she had put into attempting to hide it from them so far.

She emerged once more and was able to find the battle in a similar state as when she left, the black sun still restrained by the bubble of wooden roots and forcefully stilled water. Some of the Flood Kings and the Keepers of Groves had been injured, some suffering in the remnant spaces of concentrated unbound energy from the earlier explosion of one of their leader’s core, others falling to the attacks of her Arbiters, while most of her forces both endured and recovered further from the earlier fight with the 7th Legion due to the aid of her lifeforce. The two sides were hardly equally matched at this point, and as the Hammers displayed a mysterious degree of strength in easily smashing some of the weaker members of the offensive from the other side, the looks on their faces were clearly dark.

Unlike the 7th Legion, Wei Yi would not assume her victory from just this. People had trump cards, tricks and skills that they left up until the last moment that they needed them as they would either inflict heavy damage to themselves or their allies, or due to the limited quantity of that card, as it were.

Thus, when the eyes of some of the leaders of the Flood Kings of Shi and the Keepers of Groves met, she did not take this as a sign of their inability to conclude a plan and thus a sign of their imminent surrender, but rather they had decided that it was the time to make use of one of the aforementioned trump cards, one of the last things they wished to commit to.

“Everyone, we shall slay the Hunters of the Cosmos!” one of the leaders cried out.

What he did not know, or perhaps did not dare to assume, was that there would be a mind other than the one present at the battle already that could hear their cry. And yet, not far away, an approaching legion, comprised of several powerful squads, was heading right towards them, their abyss blades and armour at the ready for conflict, but not one that they had expected to come as soon as it did, before the location of the worshiper could even be found.

They couldn’t understand the exact context, but what they did see was one of their blades in the distance, as well as a conflict amongst several groups. It might have been an offensive launched by their side, or perhaps a defensive effort from them against a tide of unforeseen opponents. Something that could be seen visibly and clearly was that they were besieged by a force in greater numbers, with two more fighting at the side with an uncertain connection, and that the attackers had a strange orb of wood and water that they were clearly collaborating on. This was clearly threatening the Hunters.

In that case, they, especially when one of the generals of the Hunters of the Cosmos was present with them, had no choice but to join in first, and ask questions later.

“Hunters of the Cosmos, we must protect our own! Everyone, charge!”

Wei Yi hadn’t been there to see just how the explosions of planar energy had lit the horizon from the Ascendant’s Arbiters’ camp, but she suspected that what she had seen now was much akin to what her troops had experienced only shortly before.

It was naturally not the same, not in any way, but the rough degree of visual flair certainly had to match.

The army that approached suddenly raised their blades and an incredible quantity of dark energy gathered above them, momentarily blotting out the sky and equating the dark sun that Wei Yi had been able to produce, although a quick comparison of the force and energy within did allow her to conclude that it was hardly equivalent in terms of the ultimate potential that the Black Sun technique possessed. What was more impressive was the speed with which it appeared, countless smaller bolts shooting out all over the battlefield.

At least, that was what it appeared to be until she and her enemies both realised that the Flood Kings and the Keepers of Groves in direct combat with them were the only ones being targeted, and that the technique has insufficient individual accuracy but wouldn’t hit an ally. The battle cry was also heard a moment later, as delayed as sound was, and the reason became clear.

“More of the Hunters… stall them! We shall do it!” one of the leaders of the Flood Kings announced.

Wei Yi did not immediately hasten to stop them, but instead looked back to the approaching charging line of the Hunters of the Cosmos, the true ones, then to the only Hunter amongst their group, and decided that it would be risky to trick such a large legion as well.

If, in the middle of battle, it was decided that their false identity was a problem and that, for tricking the Hunters, the Arbiters deserved to be punished if not even killed, then it would force things to become far less pleasant than they were, and that would be far more dangerous than whatever trump card their foes possessed, especially while Great Dark was still present and given the time and space needed to work on something for himself. He could handle one attack with sufficient preparation.

As such, she immediately ducked into another abyssal tunnel and willed it to open up an entrance near to the charging tide, opening it in front of someone that had the most armour on and seemed to be the most powerful, with his cultivation being in the fifth realm. He was fortunately charging in the middle of the group and on his lonesome, the others separated to either side of him, and so she had no chance of dooming random people to a sudden fall, not unless they failed to pay attention to the pits that still remained in the ground.

The moment that she appeared out of the ground before the man, who was covered in head to toe in black armour that absorbed the very light around it, also clearly radiating cold from some cooling inscription within the thick abyss metal plate, he stopped and frowned at her appearance.

‘Whether he’s just confused or suspicious, the sooner he knows what is happening, the sooner I can either trust in his cooperation or otherwise deal with him before he can cause any trouble,’ Wei Yi understood, taking two long steps to close the gap between them before saying, “Are you the leader of the legion?”

“Indeed, my name-”

“Just a moment, general. I wish to explain everything to you before you think that we are trying to trick you and your forces into cooperating. First of all, only one person there is actually a member of the Hunters of the Cosmos. We will not pretend to be you any longer.”

“You… what is your purpose in tricking anyone other than us? Have you done something to earn their ire?” he pointed his greatsword, which he held in a single hand, at the Flood Kings and Keepers.

“That is because we, or, more precisely, I, am the person that you think you have come here to kill.”

The man’s grip on his weapon tightened as he moved the point to aim towards her neck, “If you are a worshiper of the Primordial Deity known as Primordial Cosmos, you must have some balls of immortal gold to come and speak to me!”

He had been speaking rather loudly, so to ensure that his troops didn’t change their current charge or intentions she quietly prevented the sound from passing any further past her, meaning that if any of the true Hunters of the Cosmos were to look back, they would assume that he was just moving his lips. If he was not agreeable, she could kill him and let the others get on with things while they were in the heat of the moment, and if he was, then there would be no need to confuse the troops while they are in the middle of a charge.

“That is the problem, general. You and your forces had been sent here to fight a foe that did not exist as she was described to you, then slaughtered on the way so that your early forces wouldn’t correct the misconception of the others once I was found. We made sure to keep the only one of the group that made it safe within our camp, and you can still see him at the back of the battlefield!”

For a brief moment, he lowered the tip of his black blade, only to raise it at her again with even more ferocity.

He had not worn a helmet into the battle, with it still hanging by his side, and so the intense glare with which he was looking at her was more than obvious upon his similarly blackened eyes. After another breath, he also moved his greatshield to guard himself from her before proceeding.

“Then describe yourself as you would, heretic.”

“I wish to better Yi City, but that has made me enemies with a certain group that has been putting it down for years. After I had succeeded in beating two of them, injuring another two and now having killed another, they wanted me gone, and figured out where I was heading,” she said, but she noticed the stoic and fierce expression on the man’s face dampen somewhat, “I think you have encountered Them as well, judging by that look. That group has been actively attempting to push Yi City into the ground, and they are the very ones that had attacked your other forces!”

“And this? Are the people of the Shi District and the Chu District also part of this group?”

“They listened to one of the men responsible, and concluded me to be the heretic, and my group there to have sided with me. Although they were victims of circumstance, they showed no hesitation in going along with Their will, and if you do attempt to explain the situation to them, they will think it a mere ploy, I suspect.”

“Have you realised that persuading me is impossible?”

“No, not in the slightest. I just know that battles can end in moments, and each one we waste right now and here, doing nothing, is to the detriment of Yi City as a whole in the future, and to your men at this very moment! Choose, general!”

He looked at her with undisguised anger, spitting on the ground, but he lowered his weapon nonetheless.

“The Hunters had stumbled across something that we had not been intended to see, and it has brought us great pain. Thing have been going strangely around us since then, and more and more of us failed to return with each simple scouting mission. Something is happening in this city, and we shall learn of it, and the Primordial Deity it relates to!” he announced, “For now, I side with you!”

‘You are too narrow-minded, general. In this world, you hardly need an outside influence to cause great devastation to the mind and body. All you need is a few humans whose desires disagree with your own,’ she thought, for the Great Families were ultimately still as human as any other, but their long ancestry and inherited ideas had long driven them beyond anything that she considered reason. However, she would naturally not say this to him, for it would do her no good in persuading him to fight alongside her now and in the future.

Instead, she proclaimed, “Then let us end the threats to us, find safety, and talk for as long as necessary. Is that a deal, ge-”

“Wu Yi Tai! I, General Wu, agree to that deal!”