Chapter [B4] 19 — Push Back

Chapter [B4] 19 — Push Back

Hao Gang patrolled the external border around the seventh peak. He’d been a farmer just a few months ago, in one of the many villages scattered around the seventh peak. But things had changed this winter. Hao Gang had been one of the first to feel it, the ominous feeling that had permeated things. The spirits in the forests were acting differently, uneasy, and afraid. So when a man from the new Divine Tree sect had arrived at their village, he’d been one of the first to volunteer.

Now he walked a rifle on his back, and exploding alchemical pills in his pouch, with two new recruits trailing behind him. It had been rapid, everything that had been happening and the changes being made. The people of the sect kept bringing out terrifying new inventions and handing them out to people like nothing. They built a wall securing the village. To do that, they used liquid stone like glue to piece it all together. They built roads and gates, and now others from the sect much like him all patrolled the area as well.

It always made him wonder, if this was all stuff they were willing to give out freely, then what kind of things would they have that they weren’t so open with?

The thought was terrifying, and reassuring to him. If someone had told him he’d be standing up and fighting demonic beasts just a few months ago he’d have laughed in their face.

Now? It was simply a daily fact of life for him.

Hao Gang paused, his rumination coming to an end as he felt something. The two men behind him, walking aimlessly and almost in a daze nearly bumped into his back. He would have time to chide them later, but right now... he focused towards the forest. Something was there.

“Do you hear that?” He asked, glancing behind him.

“Please don’t do that again leader,” one of the men said, wiping their eyes.

“The sun hasn’t even fully come out yet,” the other agreed, yawning.

Hao Gang clicked his tongue, and then returned his focus on the direction he’d felt something come from. Had it been his imagination?

He did feel a bit too paranoid sometimes, was it getting the better of him now?

Ready to dismiss it, Hao Gang turned to move when a strong sensation ran up his spine making his hair stand on edge.

“DOWN!” He screamed, leaping to take cover. The two men behind him stumbled as well, but their half-asleep minds were not awake enough to wonder if this was him testing them or not, and so they simply followed.

The next moment, fire exploded above them in a swirling storm and distinct splash of miasma.

Hao Gang pulled out his rifle, rising from above as he looked over at the forest, and now he could hear what he had felt in that moment. A rumble passed through the world around him, traversing the ground and into his bones, the kind that he had felt before when herds of animals or spirit beasts would stampede. Of many steps hitting the ground in sync.

And he saw it, in the distance, still as specs, but steadily heading towards them.

Hao Gang gulped at the sight. More blasts exploded across the walls as the men began to be alerted to what was heading their way.

Was this real? He was struggling to believe his eyes. But now wasn’t the time for hesitation.

“Weapons out! Take cover and aim!” He shouted, his voice snapping his two trainees out of their daze as well, as they took their weapons, and began to take aim. It wasn’t just them either, the others had been caught off-guard as well, and not everyone had managed to dodge the strike, but his voice had cut through the surging pulse of panic and cut it short.

That’s right. This wasn’t the time to panic. This was why they were here. This was why they had been working so hard.

It was all for this moment. To defend their homes. To fight for their lives.

Hao Gang aimed his rifle, finger feeling the trigger against his fingers, and then pressed.

Bang!

The weapon shot with a loud explosion, striking at one of the demons. Others fired beside him, their weapons exploding with fire as they shot bullets as well.

Bang bang bang!

The silence was broken within minutes, the world now covered in crackling explosions. The demons roared in response, beginning to charge. The trees in their path fell as they moved, a rushing tide and more and more guns began being shot.

When the first demon rushed through the trees, Hao Gang froze for a moment. It was a twisted creature, like someone had taken a man and twisted his limbs and bloated them. Its arms dangled all the way down to its ankles and its hair was long and messy, with dark red skin glistening with swirling miasma, it charged like a mindless beast.

Hao Gang did not hesitate any further, pulling the lever as the empty bullet chambers clinked as they fell out of the weapon, and he took aim and fired again.

This time, he saw his mark hit a demon in the chest, taking it down. He didn’t even have to deliver a final blow, the creature trampled to death by the demons running behind him.

A rushing tide of them were charging in.

Charging right into the first wave of traps.

The ground began to explode underneath the demons, dirt splashing high into the sky.

More and more explosions rocketed the front lines of the demons, giving the soldiers enough time to secure the doors and close them firmly.

The demons screamed and roared, but the assault did not stop, as Hao Gang and all the men continued to pour down bullets onto the creatures.

The demons did not simply stand around, some groups were working together, conjuring balls of flames to launch at the walls. Others were sinking into the earth, trying to find a way through the earth and strike on the inside, but they would all realize that this battle wasn’t going to be that easy.

Pits opened in the path of any demon trying to move underground, sinking the land above them. Explosives were scattered along their path, which would go off if they got too close. Those pits were lined with spikes, pulling the demons up above into the pits and skewering them alive.

Hao Gang watched the chaos, the explosions, the noises, the crackling, but most of all... the fact that they were standing their ground.

An army of demons had arrived at their gates and they were holding them back. A surging flame rose in his chest at that. They were not powerless, they were no longer at the mercy of these creatures, or would have to beg the cultivators to keep them safe.

He roared to the skies. “We fight ‘til the end!”

Others joined his cry, others crying out on their own and holding back. And then he ducked again as a massive fireball headed right towards him.

“L-leader,” one of his men croaked.

“What?” Hao Gang asked, glancing above the edge of the wall to take a peek before ducking back down.

“What... is that thing?” The man pointed.

Hao Gang turned and froze. A giant creature walked through the forest. It was massive, taller than the trees around it, and it took a moment for him to realize what the creature was.

These crafts could not function without him, and they played an important role in this war, he could not let himself slack off.

He’d have the time to rest when every demon out there was dead.

***

I sat in the lord’s manor, meditating. To an outsider, it may look like I was conserving my energy for the battle to come. In some ways... that was true. But I was doing a lot more than just that.

My consciousness was spread throughout my domain. All of the seventh peak expanded outwards in front of me, as I watched the battle take place. The demons had targeted eight villages at once, aiming to sweep through the area. Many had tried to move through underground veins and tunnels as well, but all of them had quickly found out that those passageways were not nearly as safe as they might’ve hoped.

The villagers were fighting really well. They’d had some time to train and get used to their weapons, and discipline was starting to kick in. It was not perfect, there were already people who had been injured quite severely in the attacks, and there would be more.

There would be deaths too. Deaths I would not be able to prevent.

But that was what war was. This was what Yang Shen was willing to do, for his own selfish purposes. The extent he was willing to go.

And it’s why we had to fight back.

The aircrafts deployment had been a huge success, none of them had been damaged, and if anything, some had been too effective, causing a bit of splash damage onto the areas and causing the demons to actually turn and flee in fear.

As nice as that had been, it’d be more annoying for them to make an escape and then regroup and attack, and so I’d sent men after them immediately. The jade slips had also been immensely useful, and were helping facilitate conversations, especially for cultivators who could just use Sending to transmit messages at the speed of thought.

For mortals, they had to carve the words out with little special pens made for them, but it was a working system far better than anything else that was there, and it was already doing wonders.

I was also taking note of the battlefield and making plans and strategies, and assessing. The biggest weakness of the air-crafts right now was unfortunately the fact that they had to be protected, and without Zhang, it’d be a lot more difficult to use them and keep them flying without just sending the pilots to their deaths.

I knew that some of them would volunteer even knowing that was the case, but I was not that heartless yet. I knew the stakes of the war, but I could not just send men to their deaths just because things were difficult.

So for now, Zhang was the lynchpin of the air formation and our strongest traditional method of attack.

Traditional, because... my vision shifted as I saw Sheldon create a swirl of water forming a tornado that sucked any demons in and smashed them against one another, breaking their bodies and drowning them. The turtle was a terror and was helping out with the fight, but mostly to keep the spirit beasts who now resided on the seventh peak and helped the farms stay safe.

That was crucial, as without the spirit beasts, the food supply we had would get cut short and people would start starving to death.

As I did all this work, I was also helping directly too. The divine tree surged within my soul, manifesting as I felt myself connecting to this land, this domain I had claimed as mine, and the roots of the tree sunk in the ground, moving through the earth. They moved in all directions, touching on those who were injured and healing them, giving strength to those faltering, and grabbing demons.

As the demons continued to attack, I felt a stronger presence somewhere further east, out in the forest and I recognized it quickly. A deathless.

My consciousness expanded forward until I was watching as if I was there, and I listened to the demons talk.

***

“What is taking so long?” The deathless asked in a raspy demonic voice. He had two horns jutting from his forehead and had a necklace made of bones on his chest alongside a small skull, a human skull, and a child’s at that.

His entire attire screamed demon, almost excessively so.

“They... they are facing resistance. The ground is exploding when they step on it, they’ve got these... exploding weapons that shoot holes in the people who’re approaching and those wooden birds that drop these explosions... they’re calling it the wrath of the heavens and the lines are breaking. Some of the demons have even started abandoning the wave and running away.”

“Damn these cowards! I was sent here by Yang Shen himself, I’m not going to return to him in failure. Let them know that if any of them take so much as a single step backwards I will personally break every bone in their body and then have them be fed to the beasts,” the deathless shouted.

The little demon yelped at the outburst, before hesitantly continuing. “What... what about the attacks? We’re being pushed back.”

“How many cultivators are there? Have they sent all their warriors out to the fields already?” The deathless asked.

The little demon hesitated.

“There... are not many. It’s... it’s mortals.”

Silence reigned as the deathless looked down.

“You are telling me that we are losing to mortals?”

The little demon shivered, not speaking a word more. Miasma roiled around the deathless, claws coming out from his hands, fangs poking from his mouth as his muscles tensed.

“This place needs to be taken care of. The lord wished for that boy to be taken alive, but even the lord can make some oversight. He is far too dangerous, I’ll personally make sure he is dead.”

The deathless said, and then roared, as wings burst from behind his back.

“WE CHARGE!” He shouted, as the demons all roared, ready to follow his lead.

And that was when I stopped watching, and acted. Roots rose from the ground, wrapping around him. He slashed his claws even in that one moment of surprise, but I simply sent more, ready for the resistance, as the roots tied his legs, stopping him from flying away.

I let the tree grab him, and then I began to pull on the Qi from all of seventh peak and sent it to this one place.

The world flashed bright as the demon roared and then burst into flames before turning to ash.

The roots reached out and grabbed the soul gem, crushing it to stop the creature from reforming itself, and I absorbed his soul into the tree.

It didn’t even take a second.

The demons simply stared, their leader now dead. I pulled my consciousness back, focusing back on the wider battlefield, as I did my best to make sure to reduce the number of injuries we had.

The group of demons around the deathless would already be taken care of, as one of the aircrafts was on the way with void bombs in tow. I would not need to worry about them.

As I focused on the battle, briefly I thought of Lord Zhou, who should have arrived on the Fourth Peak by now.

I hoped things were doing alright over there.